“If anyone’s gone mad around here, it’s Lord Azrad,” Hanner replied. “I knew he could be reluctant to face reality, but this is absurd!”
Naral’s rigid expression softened slightly.
“I think your uncle’s betrayal and death struck him hard, my lord.”
“I am not your lord!” Hanner said. “I know you mean well, Captain, but I cannot allow you to call me by that title. The Wizards’ Guild does not allow magicians to hold high office, and that includes warlocks.”
“The Wizards’ Guild has been notably silent on the subject of warlocks,” Naral replied. “The overlord has been trying to communicate with the Guild since the Night of Madness, and has received nothing but silence and vague promises of a later agreement. It hasn’t helped his temper, my... sir.”
“It hasn’t helped mine, either,” Hanner said. “I am trying to control it, Captain, but this is the third time Lord Azrad has sent troops to remove loyal citizens of Ethshar from this house. I would think he would have learned better by now.”
“Lor... um, Hanner...”
“Address me as Chairman, if you need a title,” Hanner said. He had not been using a title, but clearly Captain Naral would be happier with one.
“Chairman, then,” Naral said. “Lord Azrad is not the fool you seem to think him. We know that Lord Faran is dead, and that your most powerful magicians have flown off northward-though we don’t know why. We know that most of the others have scattered through the city, trying to recruit more people into your outlaw band.”
“Outlaw?” Naral refused to be interrupted; he continued, “You have only a handful of people here at present. I have three hundred men and a dozen assorted magicians with me. I believe that we can take you by force, if necessary. My orders are to destroy this center of insurrection once and for all, burn the house and smash the walls — the overlord sees it as a center of rebellion and demands that it be removed.”
“Rebellion?” Hanner said. “You clearly have people watching us-magicians, presumably. You know we’ve been recruiting warlocks to join us. Has anyone told you what terms we’ve been offering those recruits?”
He waited a second or two, but Naral plainly did not intend to answer.
“We’re requiring them to swear to obey the overlord’s laws, Captain! What sort of rebellion is that?”
“I have my orders, Chairman Hanner,” Naral said. “I am to remove you if possible, kill you if not, and then destroy this house.”
Hanner’s temper got the better of him; he reached for the captain’s throat, not with his hands, but with warlockry, and squeezed gently.
Naral’s breath stopped, and his eyes widened. His hands flew to his throat. Behind him, a dozen soldiers raised their weapons.
“I could kill you before you could touch me, Captain,” Hanner said. Then he released his hold.
Naral gasped, swallowed, then said, “And this is how you obey the law, Chairman?”
Hanner started to respond, then stopped.
Naral was right. Hanner had said that warlocks would obey the city’s laws, and the overlord made those laws. The whole point of his Council of Warlocks was to convince everyone that warlocks would be law-abiding citizens.
But if they were to be exiled anyway, what was the use of it all?
Still, he saw no ethical way out. He had said they would obey the law, and obey it they would.
Perhaps, if they were obedient enough, even Azrad would be ashamed and revoke his sentence of exile.
“Captain,” Hanner said, “you’re right. We will accept the overlord’s judgment. However, I want to make a few things clear first.” He raised his voice, putting his magic behind it.
“If we chose to fight,” Hanner said, “you might defeat us, but many of you would die in the process. We have the same right to defend ourselves and our home as any other citizens of Ethshar. Be grateful that we donot choose to fight-and tell the overlord so. We have sworn to behave as peaceful citizens, and we will abide by that oath-tell the overlordthat, as well. We will accept the overlord’s commands-but we ask him to reconsider. And we ask for a few moments to gather our belongings from our home before you destroy it. I would point out that my uncle spent much of his fortune in furnishing this house, and the overlord now proposes to simply throw away this wealth in his foolish fear of warlocks. Furthermore, he is acting against his own best interests-with the Council driven from the city, the warlocks who remain in hiding will be free to kill and steal, unhindered by any oaths or the oversight of their fellow warlocks. May he enjoy this unjust and wholly avoidable disaster he has brought on himself!”
Captain Naral hesitated. Then he said, “You’ll come peacefully?”
“We will,” Hanner said-though he could feel a mental pressure that he knew was the other warlocks, watching him and disagreeing. “May we fetch our belongings?”
“You have a quarter of an hour,” Naral said.
“Thank you.” Hanner bowed slightly, then turned and marched back into the house.
The others met him in the hallway.
“Hanner, have you gone mad?” Desset demanded.
“We swore to obey the law,” Hanner said. “This is the ultimate test of that oath. If we fail the test, then they’llnever trust us. If we yield, Lord Azrad may reconsider-or some warlock who never agreed to the Council’s terms in the first place may stop his heart one night, and his son may think better of driving us away.”
“I could send them all running back to the Palace!” Desset said.
“And you’d be flying northward to Aldagmor ten minutes later,” Hanner retorted. “Now, we need to grab whatever we want to take with us. Someone tell Bern to bring the household funds, if there are any left. Everyone get your own belongings ready by the door, then come upstairs-we’re warlocks, so we should be able to carry a goodly portion of Uncle Faran’s collection of magic, and I expect we’ll be able to sell that anywhere.”
“I don’t like this,” Hinda said.
“None of us do,” Hanner told her. “Now, go on-we only have a few minutes!”
They were hauling their bundles out into the dooryard, ignoring the taunts of the watching civilians, when Hinda burst into tears. Sheila hurried to comfort her.
“I’ve never been out of the city!” Hinda wailed. “I don’t want to go!”*
“None of us do,” Sheila told her as she wrapped her arms around the younger girl. Ulpen and Desset watched the two girls silently. The scene reminded Hanner of something; he turned to Captain Naral.
“I still have family in the Palace,” he said. “My two sisters are there. Could someone take them word of what’s happened?”
“I think...” Naral began.
He didn’t finish the sentence; as he spoke the earth suddenly shook, and a tremendous roaring rilled the air. Soldiers tumbled to the ground. Hanner watched in astonishment as the surface of the street rose up into a mound, sending guardsmen rolling away to every side.
The disturbance was contained in a small area, though-Hanner could see that while Warlock House and its immediate neighbor to the east were shaking, as was the house directly across High Street, the buildings on the far side of Coronet Street or farther along High Street were still and solid.
This was not, then, a natural earthquake.
The mound rose higher and grew wider until it stood perhaps eight feet high and twenty feet across, filling the street from the iron fence in front of the dooryard of Warlock House almost to the front of the house across the street; then it split open. A fissure began near the top on the side facing Hanner, quickly stretched vertically, and then widened. The two halves of the mound fell away, crumbling to dust and sinking back into the street.