The Spell of the Black Dagger loe-6

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Telurinon turned and looked.

  Tobas and Mereth and Heremon were standing there, unmoving; Heremon at least had the grace to look somewhat abashed, and Algarin had turned away rather than watch. Further back, the other magicians were watching, but showed no signs of helping the Guildmaster. The soldiers were obviously ready to cheer Lady Sarai on.

  “I don’t know what spells you people are talking about,” a soldier called, “but I’ve about had my fill of the Wizards’ Guild here. If anyone harms Lady Sarai, he’ll answer to me!”

  Several growls of agreement, not all from soldiers, were enough to convince Telurinon.

  “Very well,” he said, “very well. We’ll try the Spell of Omniscient Vision, as Mereth said, and if we can find Ellran’s forbidden spell we’ll try that. But if it doesn’t work, Lady Sarai, then we’ll try the Black Dagger!”

  “Agreed,” Sarai said, stepping back and releasing the Guild-master’s robe.

  “I need my scrying stone for the Spell of Omniscient Vision,” Mereth said, “and I left the stone at home. Besides, I need a totally dark room, and I don’t know of any in the palace.”

  “Then go home and do it there,” Sarai said. “I’ll come with you,” Tobas ofiered, “to write down Ellran’s spell. Besides, I want to see this.”

  Telurinon started to say something, but before he could speak, Sarai said, “And I think it would be best if Guildmaster Telurinon returned to the Guildhouse, wouldn’t it, to see how things stand there?”

  He glared at her, then looked over the crowd of magicians and decided not to argue. Sarai knew she had made an enemy for life of Telurinon, but just now she really didn’t care. As Mereth and Tobas headed down one corridor, circling around toward the northwest gate, while Telurinon and Heremon headed out toward the northeast and the others scattered in various directions, she just wanted to find somewhere to rest. She wondered whether her old room was safe; the Seething Death was nowhere near the southeast wing yet, where her family’s apartments were, but it seemed to be spreading quickly.

  Someplace nearer a door would be better. She stopped into one of the little waiting rooms along the northeast corridor, where petitioners could prepare for their audience before the overlord.

  The place was a mess; she stared around in dismay, unable to decide whether someone had lived here during Tabaea’s brief reign, or whether it had been used as a garbage dump.

  Karanissa appeared behind her. “What are you doing, Lady Sarai?” she asked.

  “I wanted to... oh, just look at this place, Karanissa!” She waved a hand at the disaster. The two little silk-upholstered benches had lost their legs and become crude beds; the pink silk itself was slashed and stained several places. The gilded tea table was on its side. Three rotting blankets were heaped on the floor, amid orange peels, eggshells, chicken bones, and other detritus.

  Karanissa looked and found nothing to say.

  Sarai picked up one of the blankets, holding it between two fingers, then used it to sweep a pile of trash out into the corridor.

  “You shouldn’t bother with that, Sarai,” Karanissa said. “For one thing, the Seething Death may eat this room before we stop it.”

  “Before the wizards stop it,” Sarai snapped, flinging the blanket aside. “Those idiots who started it in the first place! Wizards who showed Tabaea how to make the Black Dagger, wizards who started the Seething Death, wizards who wouldn’t help my father...”

  “Wizards like my husband,” Karanissa replied gently. “And your friend Mereth.”

  “Oh, I know,” Sarai said, peevishly. “Most of the wizards I’ve known have been good people, really. But sometimes they don’t know what they’re doing, and it can be so dangerous! And they talk about these stupid rules about not meddling in politics, and then that old fool Telurinon practically admitted they spy on the overlord...” She sat down abruptly, on the floor of the passage.

  Karanissa settled down beside her, and for a time the two women simply sat, side by side. In the distance Sarai could hear footsteps and voices—and the hissing of the Seething Death. She looked down at the Black Dagger, which was still in her hand, and noticed a tiny drop of Telurinon’s blood on the point. She shuddered.

  “I think I really would have killed him,” she said.

  “Probably,” Karanissa said. “Something we all knew during the Great War was that anybody can kill, under the right circumstances. Anybody can be dangerous.”

  “Even a harmless little nobody like Tabaea the Thief,” Sarai said. “With this knife in her hand, she was empress of Eth-shar.” She shuddered. “Maybe I should have tried it on the Seething Death—at least then we’d be rid of it.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Karanissa asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Sarai replied. “It just seemed like such a waste. You have no idea what it’s like, Karanissa—being able to smell everything, to practically see with your nose. And seeing in the dark, like a cat, or hearing all those sounds we can’t hear; being strong and fest...”

  “Are you going to do it again, then? Kill more animals?”

  Sarai hesitated.

  “No,” she said at last. “I don’t need to, with Tabaea gone, and I don’t like killing anything. I don’t want to like killing.”

  “Then what will you do with it?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarai replied slowly. “I’ll have to think about it.” She stared at the dagger for a moment longer, men looked up at Karanissa and asked, “What’s it like, being a witch?”

  Karanissa tried to explain, without much success; from there, the conversation turned to what it was like to be married to a wizard, then what it was like to share a husband, and how she had come to marry Tobas, and how Alorria had come to marry him, as well. Some of this Sarai already knew, of course; me two women had talked during the long walk down the mountains, but only now did Sarai feel able to ask the questions that really interested her.

  At last, though, the conversation ran down. The daylight was starting to fade, and the hissing of the Seething Death seemed significantly closer.

  “I’m hungry, and you look tired,” Karanissa said. “Would you like to come back to the inn with me for dinner and then borrow a bed?”

  “That would be wonderful,” Sarai admitted gratefully. She got to her feet; the Black Dagger tumbled from her lap to the floor, and she picked it up.

  She did not sheathe it immediately, but carried it loose—not for any particular reason, but on a whim. The hilt felt curiously reassuring in her hand.

  Together, the two women strolled down the northeast corridor and out onto the plaza.

  CHAPTER 44

  Tabaea had been waiting. She had not caught up to Lady Sarai and her escort on Gate Street, Harbor Street had been crowded, and Quarter Street had soldiers patrolling it; Tabaea had not dared to jump Lady Sarai anywhere on the way. She had not dared to enter the palace, either, with all those guards and magicians about, not without the Black Dagger in her hand. Sooner or later, though, Lady Sarai would come out again; surely she wouldn’t sleep in the palace with the Seething Death still there. She would go out to Serem’s house, or to the barracks in Grandgate, or somewhere. Sooner or later she would be careless, would travel with a small enough escort that Tabaea would have her chance.

  There was an abandoned wagon on the plaza, and Tabaea had seized her opportunity; she had lain down in the wagon, out of sight, and watched the door through a crack in the side.

  Soon, soldiers and magicians came pouring out the door and marched or ambled away without seeing her; Lady Sarai was not among them, however.

  At last, though, as evening approached, Tabaea’s patience was rewarded—out the door, all by themselves, came Lady Sarai and that tall black-haired witch.

  And Lady Sarai was holding the Black Dagger in her hand.

  Using all her speed, all her agility, Tabaea leaped from the wagon and threw herself at Lady Sarai’s arm.

  Sarai didn’t even see her coming; she was still
blinking, letting her eyes adjust to the fading sunlight, when something smashed into her arm, spinning her around, knocking the Black Dagger from her hand. She staggered and fell as pain shot through her hand.

  “Tabaea!” Karanissa shouted.

  The self-proclaimed empress was already past them, and inside the palace, running down the corridor with the Black Dagger in her hand.

  “I think I sprained my wrist,” Sarai said, sitting dazed on the pavement. “What happened?”

  “It’s Tabaea!” Karanissa told her, reaching down to help her up. “She took the dagger!”

  Sarai blinked, then got to her feet as quickly as she could. “I thought you said she was gone,” she said.

  “She’s back,” Karanissa answered.

  “Why haven’t the wizards killed her?” Sarai asked, still slightly dazed. “They were so hot for vengeance...”

  “They hadn’t got around to it yet,” Karanissa answered. “They were too busy worrying about the Seething Death. And what difference does it make why? They didn ’t kill her, and she’s back. Come on!” As Sarai moved uncertainly toward the palace door, Karanissa cupped her hands around her mouth and called to a pair of guards nearby, “Tabaea! Tabaea’s back! Get help! Bring torches!”

  Then she and Sarai stepped cautiously into the palace.

  Tabaea ran into the dark corridors, dagger held out before her, hurrying toward the throne room. Had Sarai already stopped the Seething Death? That would ruin her plan to become the city’s savior—but on the other hand, she could still resume her role as empress, now that she had the dagger back.

  She wondered how big the Seething Death was now—had it kept spreading? Was it still sixty feet across, as Heremon had reported, or had it grown even larger?

  Then she heard the hissing and came skidding to a stop.

  Full night had fallen outside; the passageway ahead was utterly dark, even to Tabaea’s enhanced vision, but she could hear the Death hissing and bubbling, and she could smell its foul reek. She needed light; guided by smell, she groped on the floor and found a fragment of greasy cotton rag. She wrapped it around a broken table leg and knotted it; then she held this makeshift torch up over her head and felt for the whisper that gave a warlock power.

  She knew how to use warlockry to light fires, but she was too nervous to concentrate properly; she had no more than warmed her makeshift torch when a golden light sprang up behind her. She whirled and saw the tall witch holding up a glowing hand— witch-light, Tabaea realized. Lady Sarai was at the witch’s side.

  “Stay back!” Tabaea shrieked, brandishing the dagger and backing a few steps down a side-passage.

  The other two followed her. “What are you doing in here?” Sarai called. “I thought you had abdicated!”

  “That was conditional!” Tabaea shouted back. “That was if you people stopped the Seething Death, but you didn’t! I will, and then I’ll resume my rightful throne!”

  Sarai and Karanissa looked at each other.

  “You can’t,” Sarai said.

  “Yes I can!” Tabaea screamed. “I have the Black Dagger back, and it can cut any wizardry!”

  “Not that it can’t,” Sarai said. “Just look at it, Your Majesty!”

  Karanissa added, “If you just wait, we have a way to stop it— my husband should be here soon, with the spell.”

  “No!” Tabaea shouted. “I’ll stop it! Not you! I will!” She looked past the two women at the sound of approaching steps, heavy boots on marble—soldiers, not magicians.

  That was all right; she wanted witnesses, wanted all the soldiers to side with her this time. Torchlight gleamed from stone walls. She waited.

  A moment later, a band of torch-bearing guards trotted around the corner and stopped, startled, at the sight of their former empress, clad in black rags, holding off Lady Sarai with a knife.

  “Don’t get too close,” Karanissa warned, as she extinguished her witch-light. “She’s got her magic dagger back.”

  “That’s right,” Tabaea said, “I have my dagger back, the one I made with a piece of my own soul, and I’m going to use it to save the city from the evil magic these two, and their magician helpers, loosed on us.”

  “All right, then,” Sarai said, “if you’re going to do it, do it.”

  “I will,” Tabaea retorted. She turned and marched toward the center of the palace, toward the Great Hall, toward the Seething Death. Behind her came Lady Sarai, Karanissa, and half a dozen soldiers, Captain Tikri commanding, Deran Wuller’s son among them.

  Then Sarai stumbled and tugged at Deran’s sleeve; he stepped aside to steady her, while the others moved on past. Quickly, she stood on her toes and whispered in his ear, “Go find Tobas of Ifelven, the wizard; if he can work his spell while Tabaea’s still in the palace, she’ll lose all her magic, just be an ordinary girl with an ordinary dagger. Tell Tobas to hurry.” She spoke in as low a tone as she could manage; she well remembered, from her own experience, that dogs and cats would hear best in the higher registers. She would have preferred to have sent Captain Tikri, whom she knew better, but his absence would have been too noticeable; she at least knew Deran as a familiar face, and hoped he was up to the task.

  Tabaea whirled at the sound of whispering, but over the growling and hissing ahead she couldn’t make out the words. She saw Lady Sarai hanging back, though, and called, “Come on, Pharea, or Sarai, whichever it really is—come on and see why I deserve to rule Ethshar!”

  Sarai came, trotting to catch up—and Deran, moving as silently and quickly as he could, trotted in the other direction, to start a search for Tobas.

  A moment later the party reached the point where the Seething Death blocked the way, a wall of greenish boiling ooze across the corridor. At the sight of it Tabaea hesitated, but then she stepped resolutely closer.

  “Watch!” she called. She stepped up and slashed at the stuff with the Black Dagger.

  The Seething Death erupted in a gout of white steam and a roaring, boiling hiss, and for a moment the watchers were deafened, the vapor blocking their view.

  When they could see again, they saw the Seething Death still blocking the passage, unmarked by the dagger’s cut. Tabaea stood before it, holding up the Black Dagger’s hilt.

  The blade was gone, dissolved away down to an inch or so from the crossguard.

  Tabaea screamed, and Sarai remembered what she had said about putting a part of her soul into the knife. Sarai started forward to help, Karanissa beside her.

  “No!” Tabaea shrieked. “Stay back!” She whirled and waved the ruined stump of the Black Dagger at them, and Sarai and Karanissa stopped short. Then the empress of Ethshar turned back to the Seething Death and cried, “It must work,” and thrust her hand at it, stabbing into the ooze.

  Her hand went in clear to the wrist.

  She screamed again and drew back the stump of her arm, blood spraying. Clutching at it with her left hand, she staggered and toppled...

  Into the Seething Death.

  Her scream was abruptly cut short, but again, a roar of magical dissolution and a gout of stinking vapor erupted; the two women and the five soldiers backed away.

  When the scene quieted, all that remained of Tabaea the Thief was one bloody, severed bare foot, lying on the marble floor of the corridor, inches from the Seething Death.

  “Gods,” Captain Tikri muttered under his breath. For a long moment, they all simply stared. And then, abruptly, the hissing of the Death faded away, and the wall of magical chaos puffed outward and vanished like mist that blows in a doorway. The close confines of the corridor were suddenly at the edge of a great open space, a vast bowl-shaped hole in the palace, beneath the soaring central dome.

  The Seething Death was gone. Not so much as a single drop of corrosive slime remained; the cut edges of walls and floors shone clean and sharp. Sarai and her companions could see the fragment of wall that had once been one end of the throne room, could see into rooms and passageways on six levels, from the lower dun
geons to the overlord’s private apartments. Sarai imagined that the Arena might look like that, if all the seats and floors were removed.

  And standing in the open end of the corridor directly opposite their own was Tobas, holding a knife and a handful of brass shards. He waved.

  For several minutes no one did much of anything; they were all shocked into inactivity by the suddenness of it all.

  Then Deran came trotting up from behind. “I didn’t find him, but I saw that the Seething Death was gone,” he called. “Was it in time? Where’s Tabaea? Where’s the dagger?”

  Sarai looked down at the hideous fragment that was all that remained of Tabaea the First, Empress of Ethshar.

  “Nowhere,” she said. “Nowhere at all.”

  CHAPTER 45

  “What did you say the spell was called?” the overlord asked, leaning heavily on Lord Torrut and staring at the hollowed-out ruin of his home. “The one that stopped it?”

  “Ellran’s Dissipation,” Tobas answered. “The Wizards’ Guild outlawed it over four hundred years ago, but this was a special case.”

  “Telurinon didn’t like it,” Lady Sarai remarked.

  “I suspect the higher-ups in the Guild aren’t very happy about it, either,” Tobas said. “In fact, they’ll probably be very annoyed with Telurinon for making it necessary by using the Seething Death.”

  “Are there higher-ups in the Wizards’ Guild?” Lord Torrut asked, startled.

  “Oh, yes,” Tobas said. “But I don’t know much about them—and I shouldn’t even say as much as I have.” He smiled crookedly. “Fortunately, they can’t see or hear me here.”

  The overlord nodded thoughtfully. “That’s going to make rebuilding difficult,” he said. “This place was all built by magic originally, you know—my ancestor Anaran managed to get the largest share of the wizards when the war ended and the army disbanded, and the Guild was a good bit less troublesome about these things back then.” He sighed. “Of course, Azrad lured most of them away later.”