Night of Madness (2 page)

“Mavi's here?” Hanner tried not to sound too pleased. While he generally didn't think much of his sisters' friends, Mavi of Newmarket was an exception. Nerra had met her while shopping for fabrics in the Old Merchants' Quarter, and the two had quickly become close; Hanner admired Mavi's generosity of spirit and lively interest in almost everything. And her fine features, charming smile, shapely figure, and long lustrous hair didn't lower Hanner's opinion a bit.

Alris nodded. “She's boring,” she said. “Like Nerra.”

Hanner grimaced. Alris was thirteen and thought everything was boring.

Or almost everything; like Uncle Faran, she was fascinated with magic. She had tried for months to convince Faran to apprentice her to a magician, but he had refused, on the grounds that she might well inherit or marry into an important position in the government of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars—but that she could not take such a position if she were a magician.

Hanner suspected that Uncle Faran might well intend to marry Alris off to some important politician, as much for his own advancement as hers; as Alris said, she and Nerra were often taken along on Faran's travels, while Hanner never was.

Any such intention got no support from Alris herself. She had argued that she didn't
want
a government position or a prestigious marriage, but as usual their uncle had prevailed, and now that she was six weeks past her thirteenth birthday she was too old to be properly apprenticed to anyone, magician or otherwise.

So now she spent her time moping around the Palace, being bored and disagreeable.

“You were talking to magicians all day, weren't you?” Alris demanded.

“Most of it, yes,” Hanner agreed. “Three witches, a theurgist, two sorcerers, and four different wizards.”

“Did any of them show you any magic?”

“Not really,” Hanner lied. One sorcerer and two of the wizards had shown him a number of spells and talismans, and one of the witches had read his mind and offered to heal some of the discomfort in his soul.

Hanner did not have any discomfort he wanted cured, so he had refused the offer. He suspected that whatever he might have cluttering up his soul was the result of his dissatisfaction with his own actions, and he wanted that left intact, to give him incentive to do better in the future.

“I'll bet they did,” Alris said enviously. “You just aren't admitting it.”

Before Hanner could reply he heard footsteps; he turned to see Nerra and Mavi emerging from Nerra's bedchamber.

Nerra was five years younger than Hanner's twenty-three years, five years older than Alris, and like her siblings a little shorter than average. While not as stocky as Hanner, she was definitely heavier than Alris.

Mavi, on the other hand, was an inch or so taller than Hanner, and shaped very nicely indeed, in Hanner's opinion—though of course he would never dare tell her so.

“I thought I heard your voice,” Nerra said. “Has Uncle Faran gone?”

“He just left,” Hanner replied.

“Does he still think the Wizards' Guild is plotting to take over the World?”

Hanner sighed. “Something like that,” he admitted.

“
Are
they plotting to take over the World?” Mavi asked with a sly smile. “Have you found any evidence of their dire schemes?”

“They're enforcing their rules, just as they always have,” Hanner said wearily. “No mixing different sorts of magic. No mixing magic and government.”

“It's stupid,” Alris said from the window. “Why should they care?”

“They don't want anyone getting too powerful,” Hanner explained, as he had several times before—but never in Mavi's hearing, which was why he continued. “After all, some wizards live for centuries—if the overlord were to live that long, who knows what he might do?”

Mavi and Nerra looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Hanner blushed. “Not
our
overlord,” he said. “I don't think Lord Azrad the Sedentary would ever get much done no matter
how
long he lived. But imagine if the
first
Lord Azrad were still alive, and had had two hundred years…”

“What if he had?” Alris demanded. “What business is it of the Guild's?
I
wouldn't mind if old Azrad the Great were still running things!”

“Uncle Faran would mind,” Nerra said. “He couldn't order everyone around the way he does if Azrad the Great were the overlord.”

“Who cares?” Alris said. “The overlord is sixty-seven. Someday he's going to choke to death on a fishbone or something, and then Azrad the Younger will be Azrad VII, and he'll probably throw Uncle Faran out anyway. They don't like each other very much.”

“And suppose that the overlord had some sort of magic that would let him live for hundreds of years—what would Azrad the Younger do?” Hanner asked. “Just
wait?
”

“He might just find another job,” Mavi suggested.

“Or he might hire a wizard or a demonologist to assassinate his father.”

“Lord Azrad wouldn't do that,” Nerra protested.

“He can't,” Alris said. “The Wizards' Guild would kill any magician who agreed to assassinate a government official.”

“But we're assuming the Guild isn't enforcing their rules anymore,” Hanner said.

“It's stupid,” Alris said. “It's a stupid assumption, because they
are
enforcing their stupid rules, and Uncle Faran can't make them change that.”

“And this is a stupid argument,” Nerra said. “I'm hungry—is the overlord dining in state tonight?”

“I don't think so,” Hanner said.

“Then let's go down to the kitchens and get ourselves some supper. I don't want to eat here, and besides, Uncle Faran would probably rather we aren't here when he brings his current woman in.”

“True enough,” Hanner agreed. He looked longingly at the couch by the wall—his feet hurt, and he would have liked to rest them briefly—but turned and led the way to the door. He was as hungry as Nerra, and he could rest his feet when they got to the kitchens—three flights down and a hundred yards to the west, beneath the great hall.

The vast and cavernous kitchens were swarming with servants and courtiers, preparing, transporting, and consuming a variety of fine foods. One table was roped off, with a guard standing nearby—that was where the master chef was making the overlord's dinner.

The overlord was traditionally expected to dine in the great audience hall, with his family and courtiers gathered about him, but Azrad VI had never wanted to put that much effort into his meals; he preferred to eat in his apartments with a few close advisors—usually his brothers and Lord Faran, if Faran was around. That left the other occupants of the Palace free to make their own arrangements.

Lord Faran often dined elsewhere, in the mansions of various important figures or the homes of various women, but Hanner's sisters were only rarely invited, and Hanner himself even less often. Helping themselves from the stocks of food in the kitchens had become commonplace.

The party of four collected a roasted hen, a bottle of Aldagmor wine, and a plateful of vegetables and sweet rolls, then found themselves a quiet corner and settled cross-legged on the floor. There they ate, chatted, and watched the bustle around them. Hanner noticed buckets of offal being dumped out a window into the canal and remarked, “There's one reason the water stinks.”

“It certainly does stink, doesn't it?” Mavi said. “I think the last cleaning spell didn't work properly.”

“You can't trust magic,” Nerra said. “It's unreliable. At least, Uncle Faran says it is.”

Alris snorted derisively.

“Maybe that's another reason the Wizards' Guild wants to keep magic and government separate,” Mavi said.

Hanner shook his head. “I don't think that's it,” he said. “Wizardry isn't any less reliable than anything else, really.”

“That's wizardry,” Nerra said. “What about the other magicks? Uncle Faran is obsessed with
all
of them, even if it's the wizards who particularly annoy him.”

“The Guild doesn't want
any
magicks combined,” Alris said.

“But
is
wizardry less reliable?” Mavi asked. “I hadn't heard that.”

Hanner turned up a palm. “I think it depends what you want to do,” he said. “The theurgists certainly don't claim to be infallible, and plenty of prayers go unanswered, but they always seem to be able to get certain things done. I never saw anyone die of a fever in a theurgist's care.”

A sudden brief silence fell, and Hanner realized what he had just said. Nerra and Alris stared at him in silent shock, but Mavi asked, “How many people have you seen die of fevers anywhere?”

“Our
mother,
” Nerra said angrily, shoving her plate aside. “He saw our mother waste away with a fever. And the magicians wouldn't help because she was Lady Illira, Lord Faran's sister. They would have used their spells for a shopkeeper or a sailor or even some stinking beggar from the Hundred-Foot Field, but anyone with a hereditary title or ties to the overlord, no—the wizards wouldn't allow it.” She glanced at Alris, who looked down at her own supper and picked at a chicken bone.

“That's another reason Uncle Faran's obsessed with magic,” Hanner said quietly.

“I'm done eating,” Nerra said, getting to her feet. “I'm going.”

“I'll come with you,” Alris said, putting her own plate on the floor.

“But
I'm
not finished!” Mavi protested.

Nerra didn't answer; she stomped off, with Alris close behind, leaving Hanner and Mavi seated on the flagstones.

“I'm sorry,” Hanner said. “I wasn't thinking. I should have known better than to remind them about Mother.”

“Well, it didn't bother
me,
” Mavi said. “My mother's alive and well. But it
was
a bit…”

“Tactless?”

“Something like that…”

“Insensitive?”

“Maybe…”

“Unbelievably stupid?”

“I think that describes it, yes,” Mavi said, smiling.

“I'm good at that,” Hanner said. “I never know what to say, or when to keep my mouth shut. That's one reason I'm still my uncle's errand boy, instead of holding a post in my own right.”

“You could do worse than be an assistant to the overlord's chief advisor.”

Hanner grimaced. “And as that advisor's nearest surviving kin, I ought to be able to do better. Uncle Faran always knows what to say.”

“Your uncle's had twenty years of experience in government.”

Hanner had no good reply to that. He picked up his remaining piece of chicken.

The two of them finished their meal in companionable silence. When both had eaten their fill and wiped or licked away the last of the grease, Hanner frowned.

“I don't know whether Nerra would want to see you again yet,” he said.

“I should be getting home in any case,” Mavi said.

“I don't think Nerra will want to see me, either, and I'd enjoy a walk,” Hanner found himself saying, even though his feet were still slightly sore from the day's excursions. “May I escort you home?”

“I'd be honored,” Mavi said.

Chapter Two

Hanner and Mavi were in no hurry as they made their way out of the Palace, across the plaza, and up Arena Street into the New City. The torches and lanterns in the gateways and intersections provided plenty of light, but the daytime crowds had thinned to almost nothing; the dust of the streets had settled and the night breezes, blowing south from the sea, were salty and pleasantly cool—though the Grand Canal still stank. Once they had gone a few blocks that smell faded, and they slowed even more.

They paused in front of one of the larger mansions and admired the fountains and statuary visible through the wrought-iron fence. Hanner found himself holding Mavi's hand and seriously considering kissing her.

But then she pulled away to point out a particular piece of sculpture, the marble figure of a sleeping cat, and the opportunity had passed.

“Do you think that might have been a real cat once?” she asked.

“Why would anyone petrify a cat?” Hanner asked.

“For practice, maybe?” Mavi suggested. “Or for revenge against the cat's owner? If you're asking that, then why would anyone carve an image of a cat?”

“To put in his yard, like that,” Hanner said, gesturing at the little statue.

“
I
think some magician did it for practice before setting out to avenge some slight by turning a
human
to stone.”

“If it was just for practice, wouldn't the wizard have broken the spell afterward?” Hanner asked.

“Are petrifaction spells reversible?”

“Some are, some aren't,” Hanner admitted. “Wizards usually call the reversible spells ‘superior,' and the irreversible ones ‘irreversible,' so I think they prefer the ones that aren't necessarily permanent.”

“I suppose,” Mavi admitted, her head tilted thoughtfully as she studied the cat. “But maybe this particular wizard didn't know the superior ones. Or his vengeance failed and his enemy killed him before he could undo it.” She frowned. “Would the magician have to be a wizard?”

“I
think
so,” Hanner said. “A theurgist wouldn't do something like that, and I never heard of witches doing anything that unnatural. I suppose there might be some way for a sorcerer or demonologist to do it, but I never heard of such a thing.”

Mavi turned and looked at him curiously. “Why do you know so much about magic? I thought you said your family wasn't allowed to study it!”

“We aren't allowed to
use
it,” Hanner corrected her. “The lords of Ethshar are not permitted to learn magic, nor to use magic for our personal benefit—though of course we're free to hire magicians if it's for the
city's
benefit, or else the whole government would fall apart. But we can learn
about
magic all we please, and that's what I do, ever since my mother died—I talk to magicians for my uncle. He's obsessed with magic, and whenever he's not actively working on the overlord's business or chasing women, he's out trying to learn everything he can about it.” He sighed. “And when he
is
busy with his women or the overlord's business, I go out and try to learn about magic
for
him.”