The Spell of the Black Dagger

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  It was all lies and tricks.

  Except, perhaps, the part about using wizardry to kill her.

  Tabaea was between Sarai and the nearest staircase; the other exits were far across the throne room. Sarai was fast, but Tabaea thought she was faster. Sarai had the Black Dagger—and Tabaea needed it. Only the dagger could guard her against wizards.

  She had killed a Guildmaster; even if Lord Kalthon gave her mercy, the Wizards’ Guild never would. She knew that. They hadn’t killed her yet—but Tabaea remembered when Sarai had first shown the dagger. The other magicians had been surprised. The Wizards’ Guild must not have known about the theft, either.

  And only the fact that they didn’t know Lady Sarai had gotten the Black Dagger away from her had kept Tabaea alive this long, she was suddenly certain.

  She might lose a fight with Lady Sarai, but at least she’d have a chance; if she didn’t get the dagger back, she was as good as dead.

  She lunged.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Sarai had watched from the stairs as Teneria worked at her healing, had watched as the Seething Death dissolved the bowl Tabaea had used to cover it, had seen and smelled that Tabaea was on the ragged edge of panic, and had realized that the situation was critical.

  Tabaea had to be removed, and the Seething Death had to be stopped.

  The wizards could handle Tabaea now, once they knew the dagger was gone; all Sarai had to do was to tell Tobas, or even just Karanissa or Teneria, that she had stolen the Black Dagger.

  Stopping the Seething Death wouldn’t be so easy.

  Or would it? The Black Dagger negated most wizardry; would it be able to stop the Seething Death?

  That was something to think about, maybe something to try if Tabaea ever left the room—but at that thought, something occurred to Sarai that she should, she told herself, have considered sooner: Bringing the Black Dagger so close to Tabaea might have been a foolish risk to take. If the self-proclaimed empress were to realize that the knife was there...

  Just then, Tabaea demanded, “Arl, bring those people in here.”

  The funny little man who was acting as Tabaea’s major domo looked up. “What people, your Majesty?” he asked.

  “Those people on the stairs.” Tabaea waved for them to come forward, and said, “You, all of you—come closer.”

  Sarai cursed herself for getting into this dangerous a position. She should have slipped away while she had the chance, gone to the Guildhouse, told them everything.

  “Line up,” Tabaea ordered. Then she turned and shouted at Teneria, “Go on healing him!”

  “Yes, your Majesty,” Teneria replied.

  Tabaea pointed at Karanissa. “You,” she said, “get over there.” She ordered Vengar to the dais, as well.

  And then she turned back and pointed directly at Sarai and said, “And you, Pharea.”

  For an instant, Sarai froze; how had Tabaea recognized her? “Pharea” had had a different face.

  But then she realized what had given it away, what must have given it away: Her scent.

  She should have known; after all, she could now recognize the odor of anyone she had been near herself, and Tabaea had killed not just one dog, but several.

  The method didn’t really matter, though; all that mattered was that Sarai had been spotted.

  But of course, Tabaea didn’t know everything; she didn’t know who “Pharea” was, didn’t know everything that was going on. She couldn’t. She had magic, she had superhuman senses, but she wasn’t omniscient. If Sarai let Tabaea control events now, that might ruin everything. Tabaea might take the dagger back, she might kill Thurin and Teneria and Karanissa and Vengar, she might let the Seething Death spread unchecked; Sarai hoped that if it was dealt with while it was still small the spell could be stopped.

  She didn’t dare let Tabaea tell her what to do—but what choice did she have?

  She had to bluff. She had had four years of practice in talking information out of people; maybe she could talk Tabaea into giving herself up.

  And what choice did she have?

  “I don’t think so,” Sarai said, as confidently as she could. She let her hand fall to the hilt of the Black Dagger.

  It seemed to go well at first; she dodged Tabaea’s first attack, removed whatever threat Arl might pose. A moment later, the distracted would-be empress let the four magicians escape.

  And it all seemed to be working, right up until Tabaea dove at her.

  Sarai just barely dodged; she had not been ready for it this time, as she had before. And the little empress looked so small and harmless—it was hard to remember that she had torn men apart with her bare hands.

  Tabaea whirled and struck again, and again Sarai dodged.

  She couldn’t keep this up, though, and she didn’t dare actually fight; Tabaea was much faster, vastly more powerful, and had her magic, as well. Sarai had to escape, to get away—and even that would be difficult. She remembered the assassins Tabaea had run down and butchered. She had to do something they hadn’t, something unexpected—but what?

  Lord Torrut had mentioned a trick once, when he and Captain Tikri had been joking with each other; Tabaea came at Sarai again, and she tried it, putting her hands on Tabaea’s shoulders and vaulting over her head.

  If the throne room had had a normal ceiling, it would never have worked, but there under the great dome, with cat-reflexes and her augmented strength, the move sent Sarai sailing a dozen feet through the air. She landed, catlike, on her feet, and immediately sprinted for the stairs most nearly straight ahead, which happened to be the right-hand set as seen from the dais.

  Tabaea needed a second or two to whirl on one toe and set out in pursuit, but she closed much faster than Sarai liked. At the very brink, Sarai dodged sideways, and ran along the throne room wall toward the rear stairs.

  Tabaea was unable to stop until she was four or five steps down; Sarai had gained at least a second this time.

  As she ran along the side of the throne room, Sarai’s feet stirred through the trash that had accumulated during Tabaea’s reign; she took a fraction of a second from her narrow lead to stoop and scoop up a handful of garbage. She flung it over her shoulder, in Tabaea’s face. The empress screamed with anger as a chicken bone hit her in the eye, but she hardly slowed at all.

  As she neared the corner, wondering why Tabaea had not cut diagonally across the room to head her off, Sarai scooped up more debris; this time she tossed it, not at Tabaea, but at the Seething Death.

  Trash rattled and skittered across the stone floor—and then some of it skidded into the Death, and dissolved with a loud hiss and a billow of stinking white vapor.

  Startled, Tabaea turned, and stumbled, then caught herself—but by then Sarai was on the stairs, descending in four-step leaps, constantly on the verge of tumbling headlong.

  At the foot of the stairs she turned left, ignoring the broad straightaway directly ahead; she wanted to get back to Tobas and his wagon, in hopes that he would be able to help. Besides, there were fewer people in the way by this route; that long southeast corridor had several dozen of Tabaea’s “guests” scattered along it, sprawled on the floor or seated against the wall, and any one of them might decide to trip her or try to grab her. Furthermore, Tabaea might not expect her to turn.

  But that last hope was dashed almost instantly; she heard Tabaea’s steps on the stairs and knew that the empress had seen her make the turn. Running with all her might, not daring to look back, Sarai ran on, leaping over the one startled, rag-clad figure in her path.

  Tabaea had stolen more strength and more speed, Sarai reminded herself, but her legs were still shorter, and her skirt longer; there was still a chance.

  She cut toward the inner side of the curving passageway at first, then back toward the outside as she neared the next turn. She skidded around the corner so fast, making her right turn, that she almost collided with the left-hand wall of the passageway, and with a frightened old woman who crouched o
n a ragged blanket there.

  Tabaea made the turn more neatly, Sarai could tell by the sound. Her own breath was beginning to come hard, while Tabaea still seemed fresh.

  Fifty yards ahead she could see the rectangle of sunlight that was the open door; she charged for it full tilt, trying to think of somewhere she could dodge aside, or some ruse she could use.

  Nothing came, and Tabaea was gaining, inch by inch, step by step—but Sarai judged she would reach the door first, and maybe if she dove aside...

  And then, when she was less than a dozen yards away, the sunlight vanished; a drapery of some kind had fallen across the door.

  Sarai’s heart sank, but she had no choice. She could only hope that Tabaea would become entangled in whatever the obstruction was. She dove forward, hoping to hit it low and crawl underneath.

  As she crossed the last few feet, as her eyes adjusted, catlike, to the dimness, she could see that it was a tapestry, one that showed a very odd design, an amazingly realistic depiction of an empty room. Who would want something like that on his wall?

  And then she dove, and her hand touched the tapestry, but there was nothing there—she felt no fabric at all, nothing that would slow her headlong plunge onto the pavement of the plaza. Magic, obviously, she thought, an illusion of some kind. She closed her eyes, anticipating the impact.

  And sure enough, she struck hard stone—but not the warm, sun-drenched pavement of the plaza; instead, she sprawled on a sloping floor of cold smooth stone in chilly darkness.

  She still managed to scrape one cheek raw and give herself several bumps and bruises, as well as banging her head. Dazed, she scrambled up on all fours, eyes open again, and started forward, down the slope, sure that Tabaea was right behind her.

  Then she stopped, and stared.

  Tabaea was nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was nothing to be seen; she was in near-total darkness, a deeper and more complete darkness than any moonless midnight she had ever seen. The only place Sarai had ever before encountered anything so dark as this was in the deeper dungeons of the Palace.

  It was not perfect darkness, however; she could make out very faint differentiations around her, places that were tinged with the darkest of grays, rather than utter blackness.

  But her eyes were unable to adjust. Even a cat, she decided, couldn’t see here.

  She listened for Tabaea, but there was no sound of pursuit; in fact, there was no sound at all, of any description. Sarai had never before experienced such absolute silence, not even in the dungeons.

  And she couldn’t smell anything.

  That wasn’t right; at the very least, with her canine senses she should have smelled her own clothes, her own sweat, the stone of the floor she had landed on. But she couldn’t.

  Was she dead, then? Was this darkness part of an afterlife of some sort?

  What sort of afterlife was built on a slant?

  But no, she could still feel perfectly well; she could see, however faintly, and she could hear the sound of her own hand slapping on the stone. She wasn’t dead, she had just lost her sense of smell.

  Or rather, she had lost the sense of smell she had stolen; she realized that she could still detect odors, very slightly. She lifted her skirt and sniffed at the hem, and the familiar scent of wool was there, faint and muffled.

  Maybe a cat could see here, after all, and she had lost that, as well.

  Where was she, then? And why hadn’t Tabaea come after her, wherever it was? She crawled down the slope, feeling her way in the darkness.

  She came to a wall, and followed it along for several feet, still sloping downwards.

  And then she heard footsteps behind her—not approaching, just suddenly there, out of nowhere. She judged they were no more than a few feet away from where she had first fallen when she came through the magical tapestry.

  Sarai raised the Black Dagger, ready to defend herself.

  Then the newcomer said, “Sarai? Are you there? Damn it all, I forgot we’d need a light.”

  The voice was not Tabaea’s; it was a woman’s voice, and it sounded familiar, but Sarai couldn’t place it. She turned over into a sitting position, the knife still in her hand.

  “Are you in the passage? Did you find it?” the newcomer called, a bit louder. “Sarai, it’s me, Karanissa!”

  “I’m here,” Sarai said, lowering the knife; the voice was Karanissa’s.

  A faint orange witch-light appeared—but at first even that dim illumination seemed almost blinding in such deep gloom. By its glow, Sarai could see that she was in a stone corridor, just around a corner from a fair-sized room or chamber. The glow, and the voice, came from the room.

  She backed up far enough to see into the chamber, and found Karanissa standing in the center of an utterly bare stone room, a simple rectangular box with straight sides and square corners—but the entire place was on a slant. The witch’s upraised hand was glowing, casting an eerie light on her arm and face, as well as the stone walls.

  “Karanissa,” Sarai asked, “where are we?”

  Chapter Forty

  Tabaea saw the sunlight vanish ahead, plunging the corridor into gray dimness, and she slowed slightly; was this some new trick? Had Lady Sarai and her magician friends set a trap of some kind?

  And then Sarai dove toward the cloth and vanished, and Tabaea threw herself to the ground, rolling, to stop her forward motion.

  Wizardry! That had to be wizardry!

  It was a trap!

  Furious, growling, she got to her feet and stared at the fabric that blocked the door.

  It was a tapestry, one of fine workmanship—she could hardly see the stitches, and the depiction of the empty room was flawless. It was extraordinarily ugly, however; it showed only bare stone, in black and shades of gray, with no bright color, no graceful curves, nothing of any interest to it at all.

  A tapestry, a magical tapestry—she almost reached out to touch it, and then stopped herself.

  A Transporting Tapestry! That was what it must be! Shuddering, she drew back. She had spied on wizards as they spoke of such things. A Transporting Tapestry—and one that, by the look of it, would deliver her directly into a prison cell somewhere. The room in the picture had no doors, no windows; in one of the rear corners was an opening that might have been a passageway, or might just have been a niche, perhaps where a cot or privy might be.

  They had wanted her to plunge right into it, after Lady Sarai—and she almost had!

  If she had, of course, they would have had some way to get Lady Sarai out, leaving Tabaea trapped there forever as her punishment for killing their Guildmaster Serem. That would be their revenge—not merely death, but perpetual imprisonment. Perhaps they had other plans for her, as well.

  Well, she wasn’t going to fall for their tricks. She turned, and marched away, back up the corridor.

  And then, as she remembered that Lady Sarai still had the Black Dagger, and that Lady Sarai had just dived headlong into a wizard’s tapestry and was therefore back in contact with the Wizards’ Guild, and that the Wizards’ Guild surely wanted to kill her for what she had done, she began to run.

  “I abdicate!” she called as she ran, hoping that someone was listening, “I abdicate! I give up!”

  Maybe, she thought, just maybe, if she escaped quickly enough by another door, she could still hide, could find somewhere even wizards couldn’t get her.

  But she doubted it.

  “I think they’re coming this way,” Karanissa shouted. “They’re still on the stairs, but Sarai wants to come here. And Tabaea’s gaining on her, she’s much faster. Quick, Tobas, do something!”

  “Do what?” the wizard asked. “I didn’t bring anything but the tapestry!” He looked around helplessly. Teneria and the warlocks were off to one side; Teneria and Vengar were once again working at repairing Thurin’s wound, but the situation was no longer desperate, and Thurin was conscious and watching.

  None of them were making any suggestions.

  “
Well, then do something with the tapestry!” Karanissa called. “Set it up somewhere Tabaea will run into it!”

  Tobas hesitated, then said, “All right, give me a hand with it, will you?” He hurried to the wagon.

  A moment later, carefully holding the tapestry by the supporting bar and not allowing themselves to touch any part of the fabric, Tobas and Karanissa had the hanging unrolled, and up against the wall beside the door.

  Passersby were staring, but no one interfered. This was clearly either the work of magicians or Tabaea’s followers, and no one wanted trouble with either group.

  “How do we get her into it?” Tobas asked.

  “Put it across the door,” Teneria called. “Then she’ll run right into it.”

  “But Sarai will run into it first,” Karanissa objected.

  Teneria pointed out, “Well, at least she’ll get away, then—and with the dagger.”

  Karanissa looked at Tobas, who shrugged.

  “All right,” the witch said, “let’s do it.” She swung her end around, and a few seconds later they draped the tapestry across the open doorway.

  Vengar, using warlockry, helped them to raise it until it hung perfectly smooth and unwrinkled—the spell might not work if the fabric wasn’t smooth.

  “Now what?” Tobas said. “Do you think we could lift it while Sarai dives underneath, and then drop it back before Tabaea could stop?”

  “I don’t...” Karanissa began. Then, as the sound of desperately-running footsteps suddenly became audible, drew near, and vanished, all in a few seconds, she said, “No.”

  “What happened?” Tobas asked.

  “Sarai hit the tapestry. She’s gone.”

  “What about Tabaea?”

  “Stopped in time.”

  “Then should we put it down?”

  “No!” Teneria called. “If we do, she might come out here and attack us!”

  Karanissa nodded confirmation, and for a long moment she and Tobas stood absolutely still, holding the tapestry up against the palace door.

  Then, at last, they heard retreating footsteps; cautiously, Tobas began to lower the rod, just in time to let them all hear Tabaea shrieking, “I abdicate! I abdicate! I give up! Just leave me alone!”