in distant places like Tintallion and Meroa.
Her occupation was obvious, and Hanner was not sufficiently worldly to avoid reacting to it. He was not accustomed to encountering streetwalkers in the Wizards’ Quarter, or anywhere else he went regularly, for that matter. They tended to stay near the gates or docks or in Camptown, none of which he generally frequented.
“More or less,” he said hastily, trying to cover his embarrassment. “I was in Newmarket, actually, when the trouble started, and I came directly here.”
“It’s happening in Newmarket, too?” asked a man in gray homespun.
“In Newmarket and the Old City and Arena-everywhere I’ve looked,” Hanner replied.
“But you don’t know what’s happening at the Palace?” the streetwalker persisted.
“Not firsthand, no,” Hanner admitted.
“We thought it was just Camptown at first,” the man in homespun said. “But then we discovered it was here, too.”
“We thought it might be some sort of attack on the soldiers,” the redhead added. “Several of them apparently vanished right out of the camp, flying away, and it didn’t seem as if theywanted to. I wondered whether anything had happened to the overlord.”
That possibility had not occurred to Hanner. “I don’t know,” he said unhappily. “People were breaking into houses and shops in Newmarket, flying about screaming, and I thought that... well, someone said to deal with magic, find a magician, which made good sense, so I came here.”
“So did we,” the streetwalker said.
“Rudhira is a regular customer of mine,” Perrea added.
“She suggested we ask Mother Perrea what we should do,” the man in homespun said. “So about half a dozen of us came here together.”
Hanner did not see the half dozen described in this particular group; the conversation included only himself, Mother Perrea, the woman in red, the man in homespun, and two young men who had not yet spoken. Perrea, apparently reading his face, said, “When I couldn’t help, the others moved on.”
“Yorn came with me,” Rudhira said, pointing to the guardsman who was now standing by himself, looking lost. “And that man there; he said his name was Elken.” She pointed at a person in ill-fitting rags who was sitting against the wall of a shop, looking dazed; his hair and beard were so tangled and matted that they obscured most of his face, making it hard for Hanner to judge his age.
Hanner frowned, trying to think what he should do, what questions he should ask. The soldier’s yellow tunic caught his eye. “That guardsman,” Hanner said. “He’s in uniform. He was on duty when it began? Did he desert his post to come here or was he sent?” “I think he came on his own,” Rudhira said.
“He should have waited for orders from his captain. The guard should be trying to restore order.”
“I guess he panicked,” the man in homespun said.
“Guards aren’t supposed to panic,” Hanner replied.
“Guards aren’t supposed to be able to fly, either,” Rudhira retorted.
Hanner turned, startled. “He... what?”
“Well, not literally fly, in his case,” Perrea said. “At least, I haven’t seen him do it.”
“All right, not Yorn,” Rudhira said. “But some of the soldiersdid fly; most of the ones who could flew off and didn’t come back. That didn’t happen to Yorn, but that’s why he came here with me-he has the magic, too, but not very strong. He thought it might be a curse or a trap, so he came here for advice.”
“But he didn’t go mad?”
Rudhira put her hands on her hips. “Neither did I,” she said.
Hanner’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.
“Look,” Rudhira said. She raised her arms and floated gently upward, a foot or so into the air, then sank back to the ground. “Why did youthink I came?”
“Uh... to find out what was happening,” Hanner said, confused.
“Yes, exactly,” Rudhira agreed. “But why would I care, if it wasn’t happening tomet”
Hanner said, “I thought maybe you were robbed or attacked by one of these madmen.”
“I’d probably be dead if that had happened,” Rudhira said. “I passed at least two corpses on the way here.”
Hanner closed his eyes and swallowed. He suspected that he had passed at least one himself, but had refused to look closely enough to be sure.
Then Rudhira’s words registered.“Can you fight back?” he asked.
“Of course,” she answered. “I can... well, feel it, and make it stop...” She frowned. “I don’t have a good way to describe it.”
“Of course,” Hanner said. “You never did it before. You aren’t a magician.”
“Well, she wasn’t one until tonight,” Perrea said. “Now I’m not so sure.”
“You think this might bepermanent}” Hanner asked. That thought was just as astonishing as the discovery that not all the people affected had turned into rampaging monsters. “It might be,” Perrea said. “I told you we don’t know much about it. We’re just guessing. It seems a little bit like descriptions I’ve heard of something witches used to do sometimes for emergencies during the Great War, where several witches would lock their magic into a single person for some special job-that sort of magic did eventually get used up, and some of the contributing witches could die of exhaustion without ever getting out of their chairs if the war-locked person burned away too much of it, but the personusing the magic could keep on going without getting tired or feeling any strain right up until the last contributing witch died.”
“So do you think someone somewhere is supplying the magical power forthis war-locking?” Hanner asked. “Will it end when that source dies?”
Perrea turned up an empty palm. “Who knows? I told you, I’m guessing.”
“And while we’re guessing, people are dying,” Hanner said. “Things are being smashed and stolen and burned all over the city. We need todo something.” He looked at Rudhira. “Get Yorn, and anyone else who came with you who can use this magic. To deal with magic, find a magician, she said; well, it would seem the ordinary magicians can’t deal with this, but maybeyou can.” He took a deep breath, then said, “As a representative of Azrad, overlord of Ethshar of the Spices, I hereby require you to accompany me and obey me, and I pledge that service will be rewarded.”
Even as he spoke, Hanner had second thoughts. He always said the wrong thing, he had told Mavi as much a few hours ago. Had he just done it again?
But somebody did have to do something!
Rudhira looked at the embroidered silk on Hanner’s shoulders and the bay-leaf sigil on his breast. “He can do that?” she asked Perrea.
“He’s a lord of the city, so he has the authority, yes,” Perrea said, looking somewhat bemused. “I’d never have expected this of Lord Hanner, though. He’s taking a risk. If he misuses this power he can be beheaded for it- but that’s up to the overlord to decide, not you. For now, the law says you have to obey him.”
Hanner shuddered at the reminder of the possible consequences-but he was sure now he was doing the right thing, and that his uncle and old Azrad would approve. “Get Yorn and the others,” he told Rudhira. Then he raised his voice and announced to the entire street, “Any of you who can use this new magic, I hereby require you to accompany me and obey me, in the overlord’s name!”
The hum of conversation stopped, and half a hundred faces turned to look at him.
“Your services will be rewarded,” he said. “And disobedience will be punished.”
Though just how he would enforce that if these people could fly and throw things around without touching them, he had no idea.
Chapter Six
Throughout the World, as people discovered their new talents, sudden dramas played themselves out. Most of these were quick and ended badly.
In the Small Kingdoms His Majesty Agravan III, King of Tir-issa, was very drunk as he made his way up the
