Night of Madness (30 page)

“But he can't do that!” Hanner said. “A master is responsible for his apprentice!”

Shella snuffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve, then dabbed at one eye. “He did, though,” she said. “He said I wasn't a witch anymore, and never could be.”

“Because you're a warlock?”

She nodded silently.

A thought struck Hanner.

Warlocks could move things without touching them; most warlocks, himself included, discovered what they were by finding themselves able to do this.

But
witches
could move things without touching them, too. After all, the name “warlock” came from the resemblance to warlocked witches in the first place. Witches only levitated fairly small things, but still, what could this girl have moved that a witch couldn't?

“How does he
know
you're a warlock?” he asked.

“Because of what I did,” Shella said, so softly Hanner could barely hear her.

“Hanner, my boy,” Faran called, “could you and your young friend pay attention? We're ready to begin.”

Hanner looked up. “In a moment, Uncle,” he said. Then he turned back to Shella. “What did you do?”

“I turned Thellesh the Butcher into a warlock.”

Hanner blinked.

“Hanner,” Faran said warningly.

Hanner held up a hand. “You did
what?
” he said.

“I was trying to
heal
him!” Shella said loudly. Then her voice dropped back to its usual near inaudibility and the words spilled out in a rush, so fast Hanner had trouble keeping up. “He'd cut himself, and then slipped on the blood and hit his head on the wall, and Master Kelder said it was time I started to learn healing, so we fixed up Thellesh's hand together, and then Master told me to study his head and see whether we could do anything there, so I tried to, but my witch sight wasn't … I couldn't
see
properly, and then I did something, I don't know what, and I
could
see, but it was all different, and I could see inside Thellesh's head, and I looked at how it was different from mine, because I thought mine would be working right, and I … I did something, I don't know how to explain it, but it was like opening a tap, sort of, except I couldn't close it again. And then Thellesh sat up, and he was better, but he felt funny, and he said he heard voices, and then he reached for his purse, and it jumped into his hand, and Master Kelder looked at us both and…”

At that point she finally lost control and began crying, quick soft little sobs and gasps.

“Hanner!” Faran barked.

Hanner looked up. “I'm sorry, Uncle,” he said. “I'll take her to the parlor to calm down. We'll be back.”

Faran glared at him. “Go on, then,” he said.

Hanner put an arm around Shella's shoulders and led her out of the dining room, across the hallway to the front parlor. He closed the dining-hall door on his way out.

If Shella was telling the truth, then this might have huge significance. Up until now Hanner—and probably everyone else—had assumed that the people who had become warlocks on the Night of Madness were all the warlocks there would ever be, at least unless that same mysterious phenomenon happened again and created a whole new batch.

But if warlocks could
make
new warlocks, the way witches could train apprentice witches and wizards could help their apprentices make the ritual daggers they needed to become wizards, then … well, exterminating warlocks might not be as easy as Lord Azrad thought, and perhaps warlocks really
were
true magicians.

Hanner saw that Mavi had come downstairs, but still not gone home again—he wondered whether she might be waiting for him to accompany her. She and Alris were sitting in the front parlor, talking; they fell silent as Hanner and Shella entered.

“Did Uncle throw you out with the rest of us nonwarlocks, then?” Alris asked.

Mavi got to her feet and stepped toward Shella, apparently seeing the signs that she had been crying and seeking to comfort her, but the girl shied away, and Mavi stopped.

“I brought Shella in here to calm down,” Hanner explained. “She's had a very hard day. Her master threw her out.”

“She's a warlock?” Alris asked Hanner.

“Are you all right?” Mavi asked Shella.

“She's a warlock,” Hanner said as Mavi took Shella's hand.

“Then shouldn't she be in there with the others?” Alris demanded.

“Maybe when she's feeling better,” Hanner said. He had had some thought that maybe Alris would like having Shella around, since they were roughly the same age, but it didn't appear that was going to work.

“I'm Mavi,” Mavi said.

Shella swallowed and managed to stop crying long enough to reply, “I'm Shella.”

“This is Lady Alris,” Mavi said. “She's Lord Hanner's sister.”

Shella glanced at Alris, then stared intently at Mavi for a moment.

Hanner felt suddenly uneasy; something was happening, he could sense it, but he didn't know what.

“You're not a warlock,” Shella said. It wasn't a question.

“No, I'm not,” Mavi said. “Neither is Lady Alris nor Lord Hanner, but they live in the Palace, and the overlord won't let them back in because he's scared of the warlocks, so they're staying here with their uncle. I'm just visiting, to keep them company; I live in Newmarket.”

“But…” Shella threw Hanner a sharp, puzzled glance, her tears apparently forgotten.

She knew, he realized. She knew he was a warlock.

“I'll explain later,” Hanner said quickly.

“Explain what?” Alris demanded.

“None of your business,” Hanner snapped.

Alris looked at Hanner, then at Mavi, then said, “I'll bet I know, though I don't know why you told
her
before you said anything to your own sister!”

Mavi started. “No, Alris, it's not—I mean, we haven't…” Her voice trailed off in confusion.

“Just shut up, Alris,” Hanner said wearily. He hadn't expected to find these two in the parlor, and much as he ordinarily enjoyed Mavi's presence, he wished they weren't there. He turned to Shella.

“You were telling me what happened after you healed Thellesh,” he said.

“Oh,” Shella said. “Well, Master Kelder tried to undo what I'd done, but he couldn't, and I couldn't see how I could, either, when he told me to try, so finally he sent Thellesh home, and we talked for a while, and then he told me to get my things and get out, that I wasn't a witch anymore and I was too dangerous to stay in his house. I think he thought it might be catching.”

“So you left?”

“I didn't even get my stuff,” Shella said. “I was too upset. I just ran out the door. And later I listened to people talking and asked some questions, and I heard about the Warlock House and came to see.”

“The Warlock House?” Alris asked.

“That's what they call it,” Shella said.

“This house, you mean,” Hanner said.

“That's right.”

“So much for keeping anything secret,” Alris said.

Hanner hoped those words weren't prophetic; he still had secrets he wanted to keep. The location of Uncle Faran's house, the refuge for warlocks, wasn't one of them, though. “We already knew the guards had found us,” he said. “And there were those people in the street.”

“
Are
you still a witch?” Mavi asked Shella.

“No,” Shella said. “At least, I don't think so. When I try to do witchcraft it all feels different, so I think I'm doing warlockry instead. I can't do some things at all, like reading moods. And I don't get tired—instead it makes me feel stronger.”

That certainly fit what Hanner knew of warlockry.

“When did it start?” he asked.

“I don't know,” Shella said. “I felt funny all day yesterday, but I wasn't sure anything was wrong until today.”

“Did you have any strange dreams last night?”

She looked up at him, startled, and her eyes grew wide. “What kind of dreams?” she asked.

“About falling and being buried alive,” Hanner said.

“You know about that?” Shella said breathlessly.

“Tell us about it,” Mavi said.

“It wasn't last night, but the night before I did! I dreamed about falling through the air burning, and then falling down under the ground until I was buried and couldn't breathe, and all the time I knew there was something I had to do, but I didn't know what it was.” She shuddered. “I knew it was a magical dream, but I didn't know what kind or where it came from.”

“It's the same dream,” Alris said. “I've heard everyone talking about it over and over. All the warlocks who were asleep when the Night of Madness started had it, and some of them have had it again since then.”

Hanner glanced at her. “Have
you
had it?”

“Me?”
Alris clapped a hand to her chest. “
I'm
not a warlock! Of course I haven't had any dreams like that.” She snorted. “Now I probably
will,
not because of any magic but just because you said that.”

Hanner watched his sister's face for a second, trying to decide whether perhaps she was being a little
too
emphatic, but then dismissed it. She was probably telling the truth, and any excess drama was just because she was thirteen.

He still found her attitude toward warlockry puzzling, though. She had been so insistent for so long that she wanted to be a magician, and she didn't seem to mind being in a house full of warlocks—she had friends she could stay with if she really wanted to—yet she seemed to be very determined to dislike the
idea
of warlockry.

Hanner couldn't figure it out and gave up trying. He turned his attention back to Shella.

“Well, I don't think you need to worry too much, Shella. You're a warlock now, that's all. All this—the dreams, the strange magic, trouble with your old magic—that's all the same sort of thing that the other warlocks have been through. All of it except what you did to Thellesh; no one else did that.”

“Were any of the others witches?”

“No,” Hanner admitted, “but two of them are wizards.”

Shella drew in her breath, her eyes widening again. “Oh,” she said. “
Wizards
can be warlocks?”

“Sort of. It interferes with their old magic, just as it did with your witchcraft. Or almost; they can still do a
few
spells.”

“That's so
strange!
”

Hanner sighed. “I suppose so. Now, if you can stand the crowd, I think we should go back to the other room, where my uncle, Lord Faran, is getting things organized.”

“All right,” she said.

She and Hanner were just turning around when someone knocked on the front door.

Alris hopped onto a chair by one of the front windows and pressed her cheek to the panes so that she could peer sideways for a look at their visitor.

“It's a guardsman,” she said. “Should I call Uncle Faran?”

“
One
guardsman?” Hanner asked. “Just one?”

“I just see one,” Alris confirmed.

Hanner frowned and crossed to the door. He opened it a crack.

The crowd in the street had fallen silent, presumably waiting to see what would happen—as Alris had said, a single guardsman stood just outside, inside the gate.

At first, distracted by the yellow tunic of a soldier, Hanner failed to recognize the man's face, but before the new arrival could speak the familiar features registered, and Hanner flung the door wide.

“Yorn!” he said. “Come in, come in!”

The soldier obeyed, closing the door gently behind himself. “Am I still welcome?” he asked.

“Of course!” Hanner said, clapping Yorn on the shoulder. “As long as you're not here to order us all into exile.”

“Uh … actually, I was … those orders … that's why I'm here,” Yorn said.

Hanner frowned. “We already chased away Captain Naral and an entire squad,” he said. “Why would they send just you?”

“Oh, that's not what I meant!” Yorn said hastily. “I mean, they told us to find any warlocks we knew of and order them out of the city, and that was when I realized I couldn't stay in the city guard anymore, not until the lords change their minds. And I didn't have anywhere to go but here.” He looked around. “Is everyone else gone?” He noticed the others and said, “I mean, besides these three.”

“No,” Hanner said, “they're still here. But first, this is Shella.” He told her, “This is Yorn of Ethshar. He's a warlock, too.”

“Not much of one, really,” Yorn said.

“This is Mavi of Newmarket,” Hanner said. “She's
not
a warlock, just a friend.”

Yorn bowed. “And I know Lady Alris,” he said.

“Shella and I were just about to join the others,” Hanner said. He beckoned for Yorn and Shella to follow, then opened the door to the dining hall.

The murmur of voices and the scent of crowded bodies spilled out.

“Gods, there are a
lot
of them!” Yorn said as he followed Hanner into the crowded room.

“Thirty-two,” Lord Faran announced. “And the apprentice witch is thirty-three, and you, sir—are you a warlock?”

“I am,” Yorn admitted.

“Thirty-four,” Faran said.

“Against a city of thousands,” Rudhira said.

“Most of them won't trouble us,” Faran said. “Just the guard.”

“How many is that?” Othisen asked.

“Eight thousand,” Yorn replied, speaking up loud and clear.

A horrified silence fell.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“Eight thousand soldiers?” someone squeaked at last.