It had probably happened then, and he just hadn’t known it until now.
How many other people, he wondered, were in the same situation?
Bernand Alris were speaking in the entryway, and Alris’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Hanner? Are you here?”
He tore his attention away from the glassware and his newly discovered abilities and called back, “I’ll be right there.” He gave the cruet one final glance, then turned and left the room.
He met his sister in the front parlor, and saw immediately that she was both excited and worried-which worriedhim, since Alris’s usual mood was irritated boredom.
“Did you speak to Uncle Faran?” Hanner asked.
“No,” Alris said. “He was too busy to come to the door, and I wasn’t allowed inside.”
Hanner blinked in surprise. “Inside? You mean you weren’t allowed inside the Palace?”
“That’s right,” Alris said. “They still aren’t letting anyone in, for any reason. The overlord hasn’t rescinded the order, and it doesn’t look as if he intends to. And Uncle Faran hasn’t done anything about it, either-the guard said he thought Faranagreed with the overlord!”
“He does sometimes,” Hanner said dryly. “So who did you talk to?”
“The guards, mostly,” Alris said. “Hanner, it’s bad, really bad.”
“What is?”
“Everything. The whole city. What happened last night.”
Hanner sank into a nearby armchair and gestured for his sister to take another. “Tell me about it,” he said. “What happened last night? Was there something besides the looting and fighting?” Alris nodded.
“People disappeared,” she said.“Hundreds of them!” Hanner frowned. “Disappeared how?” he asked. “Just vanished? Was there a flash or a bang or smoke or anything? I didn’t see or hear anything like that.”
“Notvanished vanished,” Alris said. “Or at least, not necessarily. Maybe some of them disappeared that way, but most of them are just gone. They weren’t there in the morning when their families or neighbors went to find them. And there are stories about seeing dozens of them flying away, and the guards who were on duty at Westgate supposedly reported dozens of people marching out the gate in the middle of the night without saying anything, without any baggage-some of them weren’t even dressed!”
Hanner felt a cold knot forming in his stomach. He remembered seeing the flying figures overhead the night before, and wondered how many of them had never returned. “Magic,” he said. “A compulsion, maybe.” Alris nodded. “Probably,” she said. “That’s what most of the people think, anyway. There’s a big crowd of their friends and relatives in the square, waiting for the overlord to do something, and they just about all think it was magic-after all, whatelse could make people just leave in the middle of the night and not come back?”
Hanner made a wordless noise of agreement. “What nobody agrees on is whatkind of magic,” Alris said. “Most of them think it was the warlocks who did it.”
“That’s silly,” Hanner said. “There weren’t any warlocks until last night; the warlocks didn’t have time to plan anything like that!” Alris turned up a palm. “Well, just about everyone thinks there’ssome connection. Some people think it was the Wizards’ Guild behind it all, for some secret reason of their own, and some think it was a coven of demonologists paying for some huge spell, and I heard someone saying it was Northern sorcerers left over from the Great War, out for revenge.”
“I don’t think sorcery could do that,” Hanner said. “But Northern sorcery...”
“... is a lost art, yes. Partly. It’s not as lost as some people would like to think, though-most of our sorcerers are using Northern relics. Anyway, where would these Northerners have hidden all this time? It’s been two hundred years since the war ended!”
“Somewhere in the northern wilderness, I suppose,” Alris said. “Tazmor or Srigmor, maybe.”
“It seems pretty unlikely.”
“I thought so, too-but a lot of the people who disappeared were last seen going north.”
“That doesn’t mean there are any Northerners involved,” Han-ner pointed out. “It could just as easily be some wizard somewhere in Sardiron. Maybe someone’s spell went wrong-I know that happens sometimes.”
“I guess you’re right,” Alris said. “So maybe it was the Wizards’ Guild or the demonologists. But whatever it is,something big happened!”
“Obviously,” Hanner agreed dryly.
“Anyway, Uncle Faran and old Azrad have been conferring all morning, listening to reports and everything, trying to figure it out. And anyone in the Palace who can do this warlock stuff is ordered out-they threw little Hinda from the kitchens out on the street, and youknow she doesn’t have any family. She’s just sitting in the square, crying. One of the guards gave her some bread, so at least she won’t starve right away, but if something doesn’t happen she might have to go to the Hundred-Foot Field tonight, and who knows what will happen to her there?”
Hanner felt his shoulders tense, and his skin suddenly felt cold despite the summer warmth.
He had seen the cruet slow to a stop in midair because he wanted it to, and knew that he, too, was a warlock. Did that mean he could never go home to the Palace?
But surely the overlord would rescind his decree eventually and let Hanner and Hinda back in. When Uncle Faran learned that his only nephew was a warlock...
Well, howwould Faran react? Hanner had to admit he didn’t know. Despite years of living in his uncle’s apartments, Hanner still couldn’t always predict Faran’s actions-especially where magic was concerned. Warlockry was unquestionably a kind of magic, and Faran’s attitude toward magic was a complicated stew of jealousy, desire, and distrust.
“If you see Hinda again, tell her she can come here,” Hanner said. “Were there any other warlocks in the Palace?”
“Not that I’ve heard of,” Alris said. “There might be some who had the sense not to tell anyone,” Hanner said.
Alris shivered. “I suppose so,” she said, glancing across toward the dining hall. The significance was unmistakable-she was remembering all the warlocks who had been here earlier, and who were now scattered across the city.
“They’re just people,” Hanner said. “Some of them got a little carried away at first, that’s all.”
“I don’t know,” Alris said. “All those missing people-what if itwas the warlocks who took them all, or killed them?”
“Why would they do that? How could they plan it? Besides, if a lot of the people who disappearedflew away, weren’t they warlocks themselves? I’d guess that some of them just flew off somewhere and got lost, and they’ll be back as soon as they find their way home.”
“You think so?”
Hanner nodded. “And you know, I’d wager there are people out there who are warlocks and don’t even know it yet. After all, they don’thave to use the magic.”
Alris shuddered more visibly. “That’s creepy,” she said. “I knowI’m not a warlock!”
“Howdo you know?” Hanner asked.
Startled, she looked him in the eye, then turned away. “Shut up, Hanner,” she said. “You’re scaring me.”
“Well, have youtried moving things without touching them?” Hanner asked. “That seems to be the basic thing that warlocks can do.”
“Of course not!” Alris snapped. “Haveyou?”
“No,” Hanner said-he hadn’t, after all. He had made somethingstop without touching it. “But I’m not the one saying I know I’m not a warlock.”
Because he knew hewas a warlock-but he wasn’t ready to tell Alris that.
He was a warlock-but he was also a noble in the city’s government, and if warlocks were magicians then he was violating the Wizards’ Guild’s rules simply by existing. Hereditary nobles could not be magicians.
“Well, I’mnot a warlock,” Alris said. She turned and glowered at the doily on a nearby table. “See? It doesn’t move.”
“I’ll take your word that you were trying,” Hanner said. That was another item to add to the information he was accumulating— presumably some people reallyweren’t warlocks. He wondered what percentage of the population had been affected.
