to join them. “I think it’s time you went home and went back to bed. If this magic hasn’t gone away by morning come to the Palace and ask for Lord Hanner, and I’ll see if someone wants to teach you some tricks.”
“You’re Lord Hanner?”
“Yes, I am. Now, go home. On foot.”
“Yes, my lord.” The boy glanced at the motley collection of people staring at him, then turned and ran down Circus Street. At a corner he turned again and was out of sight.
That left Hanner standing at the front of his little mob of warlocks. “You didn’t ask him to join us,” the guardsman said. “He’s just a child,” Hanner said, “and it’s the middle of the night.” He glanced at the soldier. “What did you say your name is?”
“Yorn of Ethshar, my lord.”
“That’s right, Rudhira told me. Yorn, don’t you think we have enough warlocks already?” He gestured at the others.
“I suppose so, my lord,” Yorn admitted.
“Ithink so,” Hanner said. “If something happens to prove I’m wrong, you’re welcome to say you told me so.”
Yorn didn’t answer that.
“Come on,” Rudhira said, rising into the air. “Let’s get to the Palace.” She swooped overhead like an immense red bird, back toward Arena Street.
With a sigh, Hanner followed, the others trooping or gliding along-the other flyers were airborne again.
They had gone another dozen blocks when a woman came running out of Fish Street onto Arena, glancing about wildly. She stopped at the sight of Hanner’s group, hesitated, her attention clearly focused on Yorn’s uniform.
“What’s wrong?” Hanner called.
“You’re... you...” She stared about wildly, and then froze, speechless, when she saw Rudhira and the other two flyers.
“Yorn, tell her we won’t hurt her,” Hanner ordered.
“It’s all right, ma’am,” Yorn said. “These people are all under control. Now, tell Lord Hanner what’s wrong.”
“Down there,” the woman said, pointing back along Fish Street. “It’s horrible! Two of them, throwing everything around...”
“I think we’d better take a look...” Hanner began-but then he stopped. Rudhira was already swooping around the corner, flying down Fish Street. Hanner sighed again. “Come on,” he told the others, waving them forward as he ran after Rudhira.
The entire party broke into a run-or a glide, for those capable of flight-in pursuit of Rudhira. They were not evenly matched; the faster quickly left the slower behind.
They heard the confrontation before they saw it-people shouting, glass shattering, loud thumping. At last Hanner rounded a curve and stopped.
Rudhira was still airborne, but only a few feet off the ground, her waist roughly even with the top of Hanner’s head. Her hands were flung up defensively, guarding her face as a storm of hard and heavy objects flung themselves at her-bricks, stones, broken furniture. All turned aside before they reached her, to drop harmlessly to the hard-packed dirt. Fifty feet farther down Fish Street two men hung in the air, one scarcely out of his teens and dressed in a fine velvet tunic that was at least a size too small, the other middle-aged and wearing good brown homespun. The street beneath them was strewn with debris-and bodies. At least four people lay motionless amid the rubble, and Hanner could not tell whether they were alive or dead.
It was from this field of rubble that objects were rising and accelerating toward Rudhira.
The entire scene was eerily lit by the flames of burning buildings; several of the houses and shops here had been torn open, their doors, walls, and windows ripped out into the street, and spilled lamps or flung torches had set curtains, carpets, and other furnishings ablaze in the ruined interiors thus exposed. One thatched roof had caught as well; fortunately, Hanner noticed, the surrounding roofs were proper tile, so the flames might not spread-though burning wisps of straw might be carried on the hot winds...
“Gods!” someone behind Hanner said.
“Don’t just stand there,” Hanner snapped. “Stop them!”
The other two flyers in Hanner’s party had already come up alongside Rudhira; now the three of them formed a united front, and the hail of flying rubble slowed and stopped. Rudhira lowered her hands and glared at the two men.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said in a voice that carried unnaturally, echoing from the walls still standing on either side.
“Mind your own business, witch!” the young man bellowed back.
“Warlock,” Rudhira answered. “Not witch. I’m a warlock now, just as you are.”
“Oh, no,” the man replied. “Not likeme. I’m the most powerful of all!”
“You haven’t proved that tomy satisfaction,” the older man barked.
“I would have, if she hadn’t interrrupted!” He turned his attention from Rudhira to the older man. “I already knocked down three people who thought they could match me-”
“You’re forgetting something,” Rudhira interrupted. “It tookboth of you to stop me-and now I have help!” She raised her hands again-not in a defensive gesture, but spread wide in defiance.
The young man dropped heavily to the ground and fell back, lying supine across a smashed window frame.
“The rest of you keep the other one busy,” Rudhira ordered as she glided forward, toward her downed opponent.
The older man looked alarmed and started to turn away.
“Stop him!” Hanner ordered. “All of you but Rudhira-knock him down!”
It was as if a gigantic hand had swatted him from the sky; the older man smashed into the ground flat on his face and lay stunned. Hanner was somewhat stunned as well, though for only an instant. He had not realized how effectively his warlocks could work together.
“Just hold him,” Hanner said. “Don’t hurt him.” Then he turned to Rudhira.
She loomed over the young man, her red dress catching the firelight vividly, almost seeming to glow-in fact, Hanner thought it mightbe glowing. Given how little was known about this new magic, this so-called warlockry, that would hardly be surprising.
Rudhira hovered about five feet up, arms spread, glaring down at the young man struggling to rise-not to sit up, but to lift himself off the ground. He fluttered slightly, like a fallen leaf stirred by the wind, but could not levitate himself more than an inch or two against Rudhira’s resistance.
At last he let himself fall back. “You killedmore than three, then?” he asked.
Hanner gasped-but Rudhira snapped, “I didn’t kill anyone!”
“But then how can you be sostrong!”
Rudhira frowned more deeply. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“Isn’t that how it works?” the man asked. “I got stronger each time I fought and defeated another one of us... a warlock, you said?”
“That’s what the witches called us,” Rudhira said. “It’s as good a name as any.”
“And you didn’t kill other warlocks?”
“You’re a fool,” Rudhira said. “I didn’t kill anyone. We’re all different-some stronger than others. I was just lucky.”
“But I gotstronger” the man protested. “I know I did! I felt more powerful after each fight!”
Rudhira stared down at him for a moment.
“Yes, I’m sure you did,” she said, disgust plain in her voice. “Have you ever heardof practice? I don’t know what warlockry is, but I know it gets easier with practice-the more I use, the more I can feel it waiting to be used. You were stronger after each of your stupid fights because ofthat, you idiot, not because you were stealing your enemies’ power!”
“Is that really how it works?” Manner asked, but neither Ru-dhira nor her opponent heard him.
