The Spell of the Black Dagger

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Around her, she realized as she pressed her power upward, were people, dozens of people, the people of Wall Street Field—the poor and dispossessed, the downtrodden, the homeless, the outlawed.

  “Help me!” she called.

  No one answered, and she could hear soldiers coming, she could smell leather and steel and sweat. Someone tossed a rock in the general direction of the flying figure, but it never even came close.

  It gave her an idea, though.

  She could not fight him with warlockry, she was outmatched that way, but warlockry was not all she had. She knelt and snatched up a chunk of brick, still warm from a cookfire, and flung it upward—not with magic, but with the strength of her arm, the strength she had stolen from Inza and Deru and the rest.

  The warlock shied away, and the light dimmed somewhat.

  The soldiers were coming; Tabaea snatched out her belt-knife, intent on giving them a fight.

  The knife was like a sliver of darkness in the warlock’s glow; Tabaea held the Black Dagger ready in her hand.

  Above her, the warlock still hovered, glowing, but she had his measure now; he could hold himself up, suppress her own warlockry, and provide light, but that left him no magic to spare for anything else.

  Someone else shied a stone at the warlock; he turned it away, but Tabaea could sense that it distracted him slightly.

  Further, he was beginning to worry, she knew—probably about the Calling. How close was he to the threshold, to the first nightmares? He could draw upon all the power he wanted, and because he had started with more than she Tabaea could never match him, but if he drew too much...

  She decided the warlock was not really the major threat.

  The first soldier paused a few feet away, watching the knife.

  “Tabaea the Thief,” he called, “in the name of Ederd the Fourth, overlord of Ethshar of the Sands, I order you to surrender!”

  “Go to Hell, bloody-skirt!” she shouted back.

  Other soldiers were surrounding her, forming a fifteen-foot circle with her at the center; the Field’s usual inhabitants had fallen back into the darkness. Tabaea tried to pick up something with warlockry, but the magician in the air above her wouldn’t allow it.

  There were a dozen guardsmen encircling her; at a cautious signal from the one in front of her, they all began closing in slowly.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Tabaea said. She lunged forward, with inhuman speed, and thrust the Black Dagger’s blade under the ribs of the man before her.

  His eyes widened, and he slashed belatedly with his sword, cutting her arm. Blood spilled, black in the orange light, black across her black sleeve.

  It really didn’t hurt very much at all, to Tabaea’s surprise, and what pain there was was lost in the hot surge of strength she was receiving from the man she had stabbed. Then one of the other soldiers, one of the men behind her, struck.

  That hurt, and the wave of strength she had just felt vanished; the blow to her back was a shock, a burst of pain, and her head jerked backward. Then it snapped forward again, involuntarily, and she found herself looking down at her own chest.

  Something projected from her tunic, something dark that had cut its way out through the fabric, stretching it out and then cutting through, something dark and hard and smeared with thick liquid.

  Then she realized what it was. She was looking at the point of a sword that had been thrust right through her, a sword covered with her heart’s blood.

  She was dead. She had to be.

  But she didn’t feel dead. Shouldn’t she already be losing consciousness, be falling lifeless to the ground?

  She pulled her own blade from the soldier’s body; dark blood spilled down his pale tunic, and he crumpled to the earth. He was dead, no doubt about that.

  But she wasn’t. She reached down, grabbed the blade that protruded from her chest, and shoved it back, hard. She felt it slide through her, back out, and she whirled swiftly, before whoever held it could strike again.

  She could feel a prickling, a tingling, and she suddenly realized that she probably had a gaping wound in her, that she might yet bleed to death. She felt no blood, though.

  Tabaea looked quickly down at her chest, and sensed that the wound was closing of its own accord. That was magic—it had to be. It wasn’t anything she was doing consciously, though, and she didn’t think it was witchcraft or warlockry. It didn’t feel like those.

  It felt like the sensation she got when the Black Dagger cut flesh. Whatever was happening, she was sure it was the Black Dagger’s spell at work. Whether it would truly heal her, or at least keep her going until she could do it by other means, she didn’t know. It had to be the dagger that was keeping her alive, and she didn’t understand how or why, but she had no time to worry about that now. She looked up.

  The soldiers were staring at her, eyes wide; no one was moving against her. One man held a bloody sword, its tip just an inch or two from her chin.

  Tabaea realized, with astonishment, that they were afraid of her.

  And then she further realized, with a deep sense of surprised satisfaction, that they had very good reasons to be afraid of her.

  She knocked the sword aside, held up the Black Dagger and smiled a very unpleasant smile.

  “It’s not going to be that easy,” she announced, grinning. “If I were you, I would throw down my weapons and run.”

  “Elner, call the magicians,” a guardsman said. Tabaea turned and smiled at him.

  “I am a magician,” she said. Then, moving faster than any human being could without magical assistance, she slashed the soldier across the chest—not fatally, just a nasty gash that would weaken him, and in so doing would strengthen her. He gasped, and stepped back, his hands flying up to stop the blood, his sword falling to the dirt at his feet.

  She thought she understood, now, what had happened. That sword-thrust should have killed her, obviously, but it hadn’t—or rather, not completely. She was fairly sure she had lost one life.

  But the Black Dagger had stolen a dozen for her—including dogs, cats, magicians, and the life of the man who had led this party to capture her.

  She didn’t know whether dogs and cats carried as much life as people, and she did not particularly want to find out; she wasn’t going to throw her lives away recklessly. Still, she was stronger and faster than anyone else in the World, and as long as she took a life for every one she lost, she could not die.

  She liked that idea very much.

  “I am the magician,” she said. “Not just a witch or a warlock or a wizard, but all of them!” She suddenly remembered what she had heard, listening to the Guildmasters at the Cap and Dagger; she laughed, and said, “Bow, you fools! Bow before Tabaea the First, Empress of Ethshar!”

  “She’s crazy,” someone said.

  The Black Dagger moved again, faster than any other human hand could move it, fast as a striking cat, and the guardsman who had impaled her fell back, bleeding. The bloody sword fell from his grasp.

  “You think I’m crazy?” she shouted. “Then just try to stop me! Didn’t you see? He put a sword right through me, and it didn’t hurt me!”

  “Call the magicians, Elner,” someone called mockingly from the crowd of civilians.

  More guardsmen were arriving, pushing through the crowd; behind them came the robed figures of magicians.

  “Magicians?” Tabaea stooped and snatched up the sword, left-handed, and flung it upward with all the speed and strength and skill of her dozen stolen lives.

  The warlock shrieked, and the light went out; the orange glow vanished like the flame of a snuffed candle, plunging the Field into darkness.

  When the shriek ended, silence as sudden as the darkness fell. Cloth rustled as the warlock fell out of the sky, and then he landed with a sodden thud, off to one side, upon a mixed group of soldiers and bystanders.

  “You think I’m afraid of magicians?” Tabaea screamed over the sudden tumult.

  In fact, magicians were
about the only thing she was still afraid of—she had no idea whether she could defend herself against all the different kinds of magic. Warlockry, yes—she could hold off another warlock indefinitely. Witchcraft, absolutely—she had greater vitality, and therefore more power, than any other witch that had ever lived.

  Gods and demons and wizards, though—who knew? Sorcery, any of the subtler arts, she could not be sure of. She was bluffing—but she didn’t think anyone would dare to test her. She stood, dagger ready.

  Something came sweeping toward her out of the darkness, something Tabaea could not describe, with a shape and a color she couldn’t name; reflexively, she raised her knife, and the black blade flared blue for an instant.

  Then whatever it was was gone.

  Magic—it had been magic, certainly. Wizardry, probably. And the knife had stopped it. She was safe from magic other than witchcraft and warlockry—at least some of it.

  She could do anything—and she knew what she wanted. She had already said it.

  Tabaea the First, Empress of Ethshar!

  “Listen, you people!” Tabaea shouted. “You people who live here in the Wall Street Field, listen to me! Why are you here?”

  She paused dramatically, and sensed half a hundred faces turned attentively toward her—soldiers and magicians and beggars and thieves.

  “You’re here because the fat old overlord of this stinking city, the man who claims to protect you, has sent you here!” Tabaea proclaimed. “He’s taken your homes with his taxes, stolen your food to feed his soldiers, and given you nothing in return but dungeons and slavery!” She pushed aside a soldier and stepped up atop a makeshift wooden shelter. “Haven’t you had enough of this? Haven’t you had enough of seeing the rich get richer, seeing them buy your friends, your neighbors, your sons and daughters from the slavers, when they’ve stolen a few coins in order to eat? Haven’t you heard enough of girls and boys tortured in the Nightside brothels to please the perverted tastes of some wealthy degenerate?” The words seemed to be coming from somewhere deep within her, of their own accord; one of her victims, she realized, someone she had killed, must have been skilled in oratory. And she could augment that, now that she had seen how; she warmed the air about her, and then let a faint orange glow seep out.

  A warlock and an orator both; she suppressed a smile. Self-delight would win no converts; only anger would do that. “Haven’t you had enough?” she screamed at the people of the Field.

  Some of the soldiers were backing away; some of the civilians were muttering.

  “I say that Ederd has had his chance!” Tabaea shouted. “I say his time is over! Let the old man step aside, and let a woman of the people see justice done in this city! Not the justice of slaver and swordsman, but true justice! Not Lord Kalthon’s justice, but my justice! The justice of one who has no need to fear nor favor, because I cannot be harmed! Beholden to no one save those who aid me now, I am the Empress of Ethshar! Who’s with me?”

  A dozen voices shouted.

  “I said, who’s with me?”

  This time, a hundred chorused in reply.

  “Then let’s show old Ederd who’s in charge here! Come with me to the Palace! We’ll throw Ederd and his lackeys out in the Wall Street Field, and take the Palace for our own! Come on!” She turned and stepped off the shelter, but not down to the ground; instead she caught herself in the air, warlock fashion, and propelled herself forward, above the crowd.

  Using too much warlockry wasn’t safe, of course; she doubted she was any more immune to the Calling than anyone else was. But warlockry was showy, and that was what she needed right now.

  The soldiers had mostly faded away, falling back into the darkness, out of sight of the angry crowd; Tabaea and her followers marched unimpeded out of the Field onto Wall Street and down Wall Street to Grandgate Market. Many of the people behind her had torches or makeshift clubs, she saw with pleasure; one had picked up a soldier’s fallen sword. She was at the head of an army.

  The Empress Tabaea, at the head of her army. She smiled broadly.

  “Come on!” she called. “Come on!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was Alorria of Dwomor who rousted Lord Torrut out of his bed; the soldier who had guarded the bedchamber door stood nervously beside her, holding a lamp.

  “She said it was an emergency, sir...”

  “It is an emergency,” Alorria said, tugging at the bedclothes. “There’s an uprising!”

  Lord Torrut was not a young man any more, and did not wake as quickly as he once had; he looked up blearily at the unfamiliar but unmistakably attractive face and smiled. “Ah, young lady...” he began. Then his head sank a little, and he saw the rest of her. His eyes widened. “Is it the baby?” he said. “Soldier, go fetch a midwife!”

  “No, it’s not the baby,” Alorria snapped. “The baby’s fine and not due for sixnights. There’s an uprising! They’re marching on the Palace!”

  Torrut sat up and shook his head to clear it; then, speaking as he reached for his tunic, he asked, “Who’s marching? What’s going on?”

  “There’s a woman named Tabaea who has just declared herself Empress of Ethshar, and she’s raised an army of the poor and discontented from the Wall Street Field. They’re marching here to take the Palace and kill the overlord.” Alorria stepped back, to give the commander of the city guard room to stand.

  “From the Field?” Lord Torrut said, astonished; he stopped with one arm in its sleeve and the other bare. “You don’t need me for that! A hundred men and a magician or two should be able to handle it.”

  Alorria shook her head. “Tabaea’s a magician—a very powerful one, the one that Lady Sarai’s been looking for for months, the one who’s been murdering other magicians.”

  “Well, but surely...”

  “The magicians are trying to stop her, and Captain Tikri’s getting the Palace Guard ready to defend against her, but so far nothing’s working. She’s already walked right through a squadron of guards, out on Wall Street; she crippled a warlock and brushed aside the wizards’ spells as if they were mere illusions.”

  Torrut stared at her for a moment, then turned to his door guard. “Is this true?” he demanded.

  The guard turned up an empty palm. “I don’t know, my lord,” he said. “This woman was sent by Lady Sarai and Captain Tikri, but that’s all I know.”

  “Damn.” Torrut slid his arm into the empty sleeve and then reached for his kilt. “Who are you, young woman? Why wasn’t one of the regular messengers sent?”

  “My husband’s a wizard,” Alorria explained. “Everyone else was busy, and I wanted to help, so they sent me to fetch you.”

  Torrut nodded. “Good of you. Listen, I want you to take this soldier to vouch for you, and go wake the overlord. I don’t know what’s going on here, or how much danger there really is, but I’m not about to let anyone say I didn’t do my best to protect Ederd. While you do that, I’ll go down and see what’s happening for myself.”

  “Wake the overlord?” Alorria squeaked. Even though she was the daughter of a king herself, she lived in awe of the three Ethsharitic overlords. Beside her the guardsman looked very unhappy indeed.

  “That’s right,” Torrut said, standing up and pulling his kilt into position. “Somebody better.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Ederd’s a gentle old man; he won’t have your heads lopped off for disturbing him. For that matter, despite his age, he doesn’t mind looking at a lovely young woman any more than I do. All this fuss may be nothing, but I think Ederd would want to know.” He reached for his sword-belt. “Now, go on, both of you!”

  They went.

  When Alorria had come up to the level where most of the higher nobility had their apartments, the stairways and passages had been quiet and dim; now, though, she could hear voices and running footsteps, and could see lights behind a dozen doors. “Which way?” she asked.

  The guard pointed.

  Officials were hurrying about; Alorria knew that the magic
ians were gathering two flights below, to prepare a defense against Tabaea’s advance, and to find a way to kill the mysterious self-proclaimed “empress.”

  And out in the streets, Tabaea was marching steadily closer.

  Once Tabaea was out of the Wall Street Field she got as far as the intersection of Gate Street and Wizard Street before she encountered any further organized resistance. There, though, she found herself facing a living barricade of soldiers, swords drawn, formed up in a line three deep that stretched from one side of the avenue to the other.

  “Are you trying to keep me from the Palace? From my Palace?” she shouted.

  The lieutenant in charge of the formation called back, “Drop your weapons, all of you! I call on you in the name of Ederd the Fourth, overlord of Ethshar, to surrender!”

  Tabaea laughed. “I could just go around the block,” she called, “but I think I’ll teach you all a lesson.” With the Black Dagger ready in her hand, she marched forward.

  The line of soldiery braced to meet her.

  When she came within striking distance, the soldier directly in front of her called out, “Stop, or I’ll kill you!” He raised his sword high.

  “Go ahead and try!” Tabaea called back, without stopping.

  The man stabbed at her; catlike, she dodged the thrust. Her hand flicked out, like a cat’s paw at a mouse, and closed around the sword’s blade.

  Startled, the soldier tried to snatch it back, but Tabaea tore the weapon out of his hand and flung it aside.

  The soldiers to either side were striking at her, as well, now; she ducked and wove, dodging their blows. She snatched the swords away from two more soldiers. The line formation had broken, now; they were all coming to get at her, forming a tight little knot around her.

  She smacked away swords, dodged their thrusts, grabbed one in her fist and bent it until it broke; behind her she could hear her ragtag army muttering, brushing up against the soldiers, but not really fighting.

  It didn’t matter. She didn’t need them.