Sarai was sure she had not seen the man before and wondered where he had hidden himself when the wizards held their meeting in his establishment.
“I’m looking for a man named Tbbas of Telven,” she said. “Or if he’s not here, one of his wives.”
The innkeeper frowned, then directed her to a room upstairs. Sarai thanked him, and was about to head up, when the man reconsidered. “Maybe I’d better come with you,” he said. “I don’t know you, and I don’t want any trouble.”
“There won’t be any trouble,” Sarai said, but the innkeeper insisted. Together, they ascended the stairs and found the door of the room Tobas, Karanissa, and Alorria shared. The innkeeper knocked.
“Yes?” a woman’s voice called. Sarai had not entirely adjusted to her new hearing, so much more sensitive to high-pitched sounds, so at first she didn’t recognize it.
“There’s a woman here to see your husband,” the innkeeper called.
Sarai heard footsteps, and then the door opened; Alorria leaned out. “Tobas isn’t here,” she said. She spotted Sarai, and said, “Oh, it’s you, La... it’s you, Sarai. Is there anything I can do?”
“I hope so,” Sarai said. “May I come in?” “Oh. All right, come in.” She swung the door wide. Sarai stepped in, and Alorria closed it gently in the innkeeper’s face.
“Thank you,” she called to him as the door shut.
Then, for a moment, the two women stared at each other, Sarai unsure how to begin, Alorria unsure she had done the right thing admitting anyone when she was alone and so clumsy and helpless with her swollen belly.
But after all, Lady Sarai was a friend and a fellow noblewoman.
Sarai looked around the room, at the three beds, the table that held basin and pitcher, and the two large trunks, while Alorria studied her guest’s face. “Why do you want to see Tobas?” the princess asked.
“Well, I probably don’t need to,” Sarai said. “I really just need to borrow some money. I’ll pay it back as soon as tilings are back to normal.”
Alorria blinked, slightly startled. “Why do you need to borrow money?” she asked. “To buy an ox.”
Alorria stared at Sarai. “Why do you want an ox?”
“To kill,” Sarai explained. “As part of a spell.”
Alorria frowned. “You’re doing magic now? Isn’t there enough of that already?”
Sarai shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Is there?”
“Well, I certainly thought so,” Alorria said, settling awkwardly onto the edge of the nearest bed. “That’s where Tobas and Kara are—the Wizards’ Guild is trying some horrible spell on Tabaea, with the help of the warlocks, and Karanissa and the other witches are all standing by to help, at the palace or the Guildhouse or places in between.”
“What kind of a spell?” Sarai asked, seating herself on the next bed over. She berated herself for not realizing that the wizards would still be trying their spells on Tabaea, even without knowing the Black Dagger had been removed, and she suddenly wished that she had gone straight to the Guildhouse when she had first stolen the dagger. She didn’t like it when things went on that she didn’t know about, particularly anything as bizarre as wizards and warlocks working together.
And how could warlocks help with anything, when Tabaea was a warlock herself? Warlockry didn’t work on warlocks.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Alorria said, flustered. “I leave all the magic up to Tobas and Kara, and I take care of the rest of it.”
“Oh, but...” Sarai began.
Alorria interrupted, “It’s called the Seething Death; Tobas got it from that horrible old book of Derithon’s, and nobody’s used it in about five hundred years.”
Sarai’s mouth twitched. “I thought you didn’t know anything about magic.”
“I don’t,” Alorria insisted, “not really. But I do know about my husband.” She smiled weakly.
Sarai smiled back, but it was not a terribly sincere smile. “The Seething Death” sounded dangerous, and she had never heard of it before. Maybe building up her strength with an ox could wait; watching this spell might be more important. And some high official of the overlord’s government ought to be there when Tabaea died. The overlord himself had sailed off to Eth-shar of the Spices with Lord Tbllern and Sarai’s own father and the rest, and Lord Torrut was in hiding; Sarai knew she was probably the highest-ranking official available.
That assumed that the spell would work on Tabaea, but with the Black Dagger gone Sarai thought that was a reasonable assumption. And if it didn ’t kill her, Sarai wanted to see that, too, to see how Tabaea defended herself without the knife.
“The Seething Death,” the spell was called. Where had it come from, anyway?
“Who’s Derithon?” she asked, “Derithon the Mage,” Alorria said. “Karanissa’s first husband—or lover, anyway. He’s been dead for centuries. She had his book of spells when she first met Tobas, and she couldn’t use it, since she’s a witch instead of a wizard, so she gave it to Tobas, and that’s where he got most of his magic.”
“Centuries?” There was obviously even more of a story to this threesome than she had realized.
“Derithon put a youth spell on her. How much does an ox cost, anyway?”
“About three rounds of silver, I think. So Tobas is working this Seething Death spell?”
“Oh, no!” Alorria said. “He thinks it’s much too dangerous, that it’s really stupid. Telurinon did it before Tobas could stop him.”
The last remnants of Sarai’s smile vanished. She stood up. “I think I better go,” she said. “Forget about the ox; I need to see what’s going on at the palace.” Alorria smiled up at her. “Be careful,” she said. Sarai didn’t answer; she was already on her way out the door. Tobas was a sensible person, despite his peculiar domestic arrangements, but Telurinon—Telurinon was an overeducated idiot who wanted to prove to the Inner Circle how powerful he was. What’s more, he was an overeducated idiot who still thought Tabaea had the Black Dagger protecting her.
Whatever this spell was, Telurinon expected it to overpower the Black Dagger. Sarai was sure of that; Tobas or Heremon or Algarin might have found some way around the dagger’s magic, but Telurinon would have just thrown more and more magic back at it. Unchecked wizardry could do an amazing amount of damage, and there was no Black Dagger in the palace to blunt this Seething Death.
Sarai had to force herself not to draw attention by running as she headed for the palace.
CHAPTER 36
Everyone knew that there were things in life that stayed interesting, and things that got dull fairly quickly; this was no revelation to the Empress Tabaea, who considered herself to be an intelligent person, and who thought she had a pretty good idea of how the World worked.
All the same, she was rather surprised to find that ruling a city was one of the things that got dull quickly.
In fact, by the end of her first sixnight as empress, she was bored with the whole business and had begun trying to find ways to make it more enjoyable.
An obvious one would be to appoint someone else to handle the tedious parts of the job, but that would require finding someone she trusted to do it properly, and as yet she hadn’t found such a person. Sometimes it seemed as if there wasn’t anyone in her entire court with the wit of a spriggan.
There were times she wasn’t sure she was much better than the others, at that.
And then there was the loneliness. She had never exactly been popular company, but at least she had usually had friends to talk to, just about everyday matters. She could discuss the fine points of housebreaking with other burglars, gripe about the city guard to anyone in the Wall Street Field—but all her old friends were scared of her now. Not only was she the empress, but she was a magician, with her superhuman strength and all the rest of her abilities. And she had beaten Jandin and thrown that stupid old woman around.