Night of Madness by Lawrence Watt-Evans Read Free Book Online

get a decent meal out of it, anyway. Maybe some curious wizard would pay him for a report on what had happened.
    In fact, he thought, maybe he shouldn’t wait until morning. That woman was still screaming, and he wasn’t going to get back to sleep right away, and if he waited someone else might collect whatever payment the magicians might be willing to make. He kicked aside his blanket and got to his feet.
    A moment later the woman finally stopped screaming, but Zarek had already headed eastward into the city streets.
    Throughout the city, dozens of others tried to figure out what had happened, or rolled over and went back to sleep, or panicked and ran or flew out into the streets. Hundreds walked or ran or flew northward.
    And in Ethshar of the Sands, forty leagues to the west, the same scenes were repeated, on the same scale.
    In Ethshar of the Rocks, far to the northwest, again the same events played out, though fewer people were affected there than in the more southerly cities.
    In farms and villages beyond the walls of the cities, throughout the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars, people awoke choking or screaming, and a few of those who had been awake all along felt the touch of a strange new power. In the Baronies of Sardiron, in the war-torn land of Tintallion, in the many tiny nations of the Small Kingdoms, magic flashed across the World and drove unsuspecting people from their beds.
    Everywhere, those touched by the magic and those who saw them wondered what had happened, what this unfamiliar magic was, what would happen next.
    And nowhere were there immediate answers to any of these questions.

Chapter Five
    Lord Hanner ducked down in the doorway of a potter’s shop, hands over his head, as a nightgowned woman flew past shrieking at the top of her lungs, surrounded by a cloud of kitchen knives, broken glass, and miscellaneous debris. When she had passed he straightened up and looked after her.
    Despite her screams, he could see no sign that she was injured or in pain; presumably she had simply panicked when … when whatever it was that happened had happened. She appeared unhurt and seemed to be controlling her magically propelled movements and the movements of her accompanying objects.
    Anyone who wasn’t quick enough getting out of her way was likely to be hurt, though.
    As the wind of her passage died away Hanner wondered what he should do. He was a lord, one of the overlord’s servants, responsible for keeping order in Ethshar, and whatever wild magic had broken loose moments earlier, it was definitely not orderly. That flying woman hadn’t been the first manifestation of out-of-control magic he had encountered in the quarter hour since the screaming and other commotion started—nor the second, nor the fifth. Something magical was definitely loose in the city, and definitely causing trouble.
    So far he had been unable to make sense of it; the people he had encountered who were caught up in the magic, whatever it was, had shown no interest in talking to him. They didn’t seem to want any help, either, not even the ones who were still screaming. Instead they tended to fly about wildly, and some of them seemed willing to smash anything that got in their way.
    â€œIs she gone?” a voice behind him asked. Hanner started.
    â€œI think so,” he said, turning to find that a plain woman of uncertain age had opened the door of the shop. She peered about cautiously, then stepped out beside Hanner.
    â€œWhy was she screaming?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Hanner said.
    â€œIs she a wizard? She was flying, wasn’t she?”
    â€œShe was flying,” Hanner agreed, “but I don’t think she’s a wizard. There’s some kind of magic causing trouble. She might be hurt—maybe we should follow her, see if we can help…”
    The woman snorted. “ I’m not going after anyone who can fly! If you want to deal with magic, find a magician.