The Spell of the Black Dagger (2nd Edition)

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  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 Telven, 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, abrupt
ly, 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 dungeons 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."

  "I'm sure that there are good stonemasons around," Lord Torrut said.

  "Besides," Tobas pointed out, "it's only wizardry that won't work here; you could have warlocks, or witches, or even de-monologists do the repair work, if you wanted to."

  "I might just leave most of it open," the overlord said, looking up into the dome. "As a sort of memorial." Then he turned to Lady Sarai and said, "It's going to make your job as Minister of Justice more difficult, too."

  "My father usually relied on theurgy, my lord," Sarai replied. "That won't have changed." She thought, but did not mention, that just now she wasn't particularly inclined to trust wizards— or any other magicians, really.

  Ederd nodded. "I suppose," he said. "And if I haven't said so before, let me say now that I share your loss; your father was a good man and a faithful servant. I truly regret that my own health would not permit me to attend the funeral." He coughed, as if to demonstrate that he was not yet fully recovered from the indisposition that had kept him in seclusion for a sixnight after Tabaea's death. Then he turned to Tobas. "You know, I used to have protective spells around this place," he said. "Wards and alarms and so forth. Not that they did much good against that poor girl and her magic dagger. Do you think you could put them back? They were on the outside of the building, I believe."

  "No, my lord," Tobas said. "While I kept it as confined as I could, even to the point of risking failure, the dead area extends over the entire palace and the surrounding plaza and out onto Circle Street to the northwest—I wasn't at the center of the building when I performed the spell, of course, since the Seething Death was in the way. I'm afraid that the wards can never be restored."

  "All the way to Circle Street? That will make the parades at Festival a bit difficult."

  "It might be, my lord," Lord Torrut ventured, not looking at Ederd, "that we have, perhaps, used more wizardry around here than is entirely good for us."

  Ederd snorted. "We often haven't used as much as I would like," he said. "The Wizards' Guild hasn't always been very cooperative. And they always seem to know what's going on— when I want something done, they'll insist I yield on some other point."

  "That should change," Lady Sarai pointed out. "They can't see what happens in the palace anymore."

  "Which might mean that they'll assume the worst," Ederd said. Then he shrugged. "Well, there's nothing to be done about it now." He turned away, forcing Lord Torrut to turn, as well.

  "At least they can maintain their reputation for implacable vengeance," Lady Sarai pointed out. "It was Telurinon's spell that killed Tabaea."

  "And don't doubt for a minute that they'll take every advantage of that," Lord Torrut said. "They'll boast of having saved Ethshar."

  "But on the other hand," Tobas replied, addressing himself to Ederd, "it's going to be hard to hide the feet that we made some very bad mistakes, especially if your lordship does leave the interior of the palace open, as you suggested. I doubt that even the Guild will be able to stop the rumors of how Tabaea came by her abilities, or to hide how badly we bungled the use of the Seething Death."

  "And that will probably turn most of them foul-tempered and reluctant to serve me," Ederd pointed out. "It's been my experience that most wizards are not so reasonable as yourself, Tobas."

  Tobas acknowledged this praise with a nod of his head.

  "It may be, my lord," Lady Sarai said, "that there will be gains elsewhere, to offset any loss of cooperation from the Wizards' Guild."

  The overlord glanced at her as he started down the corridor. "Oh?" he said.

  Sarai nodded. She looked quickly at Tobas, the only magician present, and decided that he could be trusted. Besides, it could hardly stay secret for long. "It would seem," she said, "that the Council of Warlocks is interested in leasing space here in the palace that would be used for their meetings and, perhaps, other activities. I was approached on the matter this morning."

  Ederd looked at her thoughtfully. "Go on," he said.

  "Well, naturally, I said that I would need to consult with you about it, but that I thought it might be done—and that perhaps arrangements could be made to pay part of the rent in services, rather than gold." She smiled. "Of course, we all know that they want to be sure their meetings can't be observed by wizards; despite their cooperation against Tabaea, they do see the Wizards' Guild as a rival."

  "You think allowing these warlocks in the palace would be wise?"

  "I think that if they meet here, wizards won't be able to observe them, but we will. And I think that having the Council of Warlocks in your debt can't hurt."

  Ederd nodded.

  Sarai cleared her throat, and added, "If you wish, my lord, I could send messages to the two witches' organizations, the Sisterhood and the Brotherhood…"

  "It bears thinking about," the overlord agreed. He glanced at Sarai again. "It interests me, Lady Sarai, that the warlocks came to you."

  "Well, my lord," Sarai said, "I've dealt with them before, in my duties as your investigator."

  "My investigator," Ederd echoed. "And my Minister of Justice, at least until your brother is old enough, and well enough, for the job—if he ever is. And it seems that your recent actions have made you my liaison to every magician in Ethshar, as well. You'll be a very busy young woman."

  "In your service, my lord." She bowed.

  "While we were in port, the rumors among the sailors aboard my ship mentioned you, you know," the overlord said.

  "Really, my lord?"

  He nodded.
"They scarcely mentioned the Wizards' Guild. It seems they credit you, Lady Sarai, with forcing Tabaea back into the palace and trapping her with the Seething Death while this counterspell of young Tobas' was performed. That you offered Tabaea her life, but without magic, and that she chose to perish instead. The tone of the accounts was frankly admiring." He smiled. "It's a good beginning for a Minister of Justice to have such a reputation."

  "It isn't…"

  The overlord held up a hand, silencing her. "The truth of the matter really isn't as important, you know, as what people believe."

  "But…"

  "There are also stories," Ederd continued, "about the meetings you held before Tabaea's identity was known. They say you have sorcerers who would do anything to please you, that a cult of assassins fears you. And it's said you can vanish and reappear at will, that you're a master of disguise."

  Sarai was too astonished to protest further.

  "You will understand, I am sure," the overlord said, "that at my age, I am no longer looked upon with awe or fear; that my son, while a good man, has utterly failed to distinguish himself in a lifetime of being my heir and nothing else, and furthermore managed to do nothing but flee when Tabaea threatened his inheritance; and that it's therefore very useful for me to have someone in my service who is looked upon as a hero, who is believed to have performed superhuman deeds in the interest of keeping me on my throne, or restoring me to it—and who had a chance to take that throne herself, as you are presumed to have had when Tabaea was dead and I not returned, yet who turned that chance down. The existence of such a hero will, I am sure, discourage attempts to emulate poor little Tabaea. I therefore order you, Lady Sarai, as your overlord, not to deny any rumors about your abilities, or about secret knowledge you may possess, no matter how absurd."