wasn’t sure whether it was his words or the physical barriers that were responsible. He frowned at Hanner.
“Uncle, that could happen toyou, if you go through with this. You saw her today and yesterday-distracted, confused, and finally unable to stop herself. She flew off. We couldn’t stop her. And I don’t think she’s coming back.” Faran waved to Varrin. “Open the door,” he said. “Try not to smash it.”
“Uncle, I think that’s what happened to all those people who disappeared on the Night of Madness,” Hanner said desperately. “I think they were the reallypowerful warlocks, the people who were more naturally attuned to it than you were.” He gestured at the little crowd that had followed Faran onto the bridge. “You people are just the leftovers, the ones who only got a little bit of whatever it was. Whatever it was that did this, it was trying to summon people north, and some of you only got part of the message. But the more you listen, the more you’ll hear, and sooner or later it will get through, and you’ll fly off to the north.”
“You’re guessing,” Faran said.
“Yes, Iam guessing,” Hanner admitted. “But do you want to risk it?”
Faran started to say something, then stopped. He turned slowly to look at the doors.
They were still closed.
He turned to look at Varrin, and found Varrin standing motionless, staring straight ahead-straight north.
“Varrin!” Faran barked. “The doors!”
“I’ll do it,” Kirsha said, and the doors sprang open.
Varrin was still staring blankly ahead; Hanner grabbed his sleeve. “Varrin,” he said, “listen to me!”
“It’s calling,” Varrin said without looking at Hanner.
Hanner threw an angry glance at Faran, then turned his attention back to Varrin. “Varrin,listen! Turn away! And don’t use any more magic, no matter what you do. Don’t listen to it, listen tome!”
Varrin took a step forward, then stopped when Hanner’s pull on his sleeve held him back. He paused, blinked, then looked at Hanner.
His eyes were haunted, almost glazed.
“Varrin, come on,” Faran said. “We need to get to the audience chamber and talk to Azrad, get him to call off his war against warlocks. Then we can see whether a healer can do something about these dreams.”
“A healer?” Hanner turned to stare at his uncle, but Faran paid no attention; he was waving his arm in a beckoning gesture.
“Come inside, all of you!” he called. Then he turned to Hanner. “If Varrin’s inside he can’t fly off the way Rudhira did, can he?”
“I hope not,” Hanner said, unconvinced, as he followed Faran into the Palace.
What sort of a healer did his uncle have in mind? He knew that Alladia had said the gods wouldn’t heal warlocks, and Sheila had said witches couldn’t touch the part of a warlock’s brain that was presumably where the nightmares originated. Faran wasn’t thinking clearly, Hanner was sure of it; he was so caught up in the anger and exhilaration of using his magic to confront Azrad that he almost wasn’t thinking at all.
Hanner wished he could think of the right thing to say, the words that would dissuade his uncle from a course Hanner was sure would end badly-but the words weren’t there.
In the hallway beyond the doors the party of warlocks found Captain Vengar standing with raised spear. “I’m sorry, my lords,” he began.
That was as far as he got before the spear splintered and fell to the floor in a dozen pieces; the steel spearhead bounced ring-ingly on the marble floor while the shattered fragments of the wooden shaft tumbled and rolled in various directions. Hanner had no idea which warlock had destroyed the weapon; it might have been a joint effort.
“Stand back, Captain,” Faran said. “We’re here to talk to the overlord.”
Whether Vengar would have stood back voluntarily Hanner never found out; before the soldier could begin to respond he was picked up by invisible forces and slammed back against the tapestried wall, his helmet hitting the fabric with a loud, ugly thump. Hanner winced at the sound.
Vengar was a decent man, trying to do his job, Hanner thought; he didn’t deserve such treatment. He glanced around, wondering which of the warlocks had done this.
There was no sign, no indication of whether it had been Varrin, or Kirsha, or Faran himself, or someone else in the group now straggling in.
Faran paid no more attention to Vengar, but marched down the grand hallway toward the golden doors of the main audience chamber with Varrin at his side and Kirsha on his heels. Hanner paused long enough to be sure Vengar was still breathing, then hurried after his uncle.
The other warlocks trailed into the Palace behind him, and Hanner heard someone say, “Wow,” at his first sight of the interior. He thought the voice might have been Othisen’s, but he didn’t take the time to look back and see.
He was too worried about what was about to happen. Uncle Faran was being overconfident, he was sure, and far too confrontational. The overlord might not be able to stop a gang of warlocks, but this sort of behavior was certain to eventually bring down the wrath of the Wizards’ Guild, and despite what Uncle Faran said, Hanner did not think the warlocks were a match for the Guild.
Especially not when their most powerful members might vanish at any moment-Hanner noticed with dread that Varrin’s sandals were a foot off the floor.
And before Faran could say a word to anyone Varrin spread his arms, and the golden doors did not merely open, but were smashed down, torn off their hinges, and then sent flying inward. Hanner winced at the sound of crashing metal; he had never heard anything quite like it. It was the sound of rattling pots and pans multiplied a thousandfold. He ran forward to grab Varrin, to try to calm him down.
It was too late; the weaver was flying now, ten feet up, soaring the length of the immense audience chamber in a matter of seconds, and smashing out through the great window above the overlord’s vacant throne. Faran and Hanner had both run forward into the audience chamber, hoping to catch Varrin; now, as the last shards of tumbling glass shattered on the stone, they both stopped and stood side by side on the long red carpet that ran from the door to the foot of the throne.
“May a thousand demons dance!” Faran said through gritted teeth.
Hanner managed to avoid saying “I told you so” only by clenching his own teeth hard.
Then he looked around, and realized that although the throne was empty and Lord Azrad not present, although the customary entourage of guards and servants was absent, the room was not totally deserted. Two figures stood to one side, cowering against the east wall below a tapestry showing someone directing the construction of a city wall.
One was Lord Clurim, one of Azrad’s younger brothers.
The other was Lady Nerra-Hanner’s sister.
Chapter Thirty-six
Lord Faran waited impatiently until the entire party of warlocks had gathered in the center of the audience chamber, glancing now at his followers, now at his niece and Lord Clu-rim, now at the empty throne and the shattered window where Varrin had soared off into the northern sky. He made no attempt to address Clurim and Nerra-or for that matter anyone else. He simply waited.
Hanner watched the warlocks and estimated the crowd at about twenty; he studied their faces, trying to judge their mood. He looked especially closely at Desset, clearly the most powerful of them now that both Rudhira and Varrin were gone, to see whether she was yet acquiring that haunted look that meant the Calling was affecting her.
She seemed her usual self, so far. She, like most of the others, was looking around the room with awed curiosity.
None of them had ever seen the place before, and even Hanner, who had grown up in the Palace and been in the audience chamber at least a dozen times before, had to admit it was impressive. The coffered and gilded ceiling was almost thirty feet above the polished stone floor-a floor that had been magically hardened to prevent
