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 on 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, and 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 sti&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 downward.
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 40
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.