It didn’t seem to bother the witch at all; she prattled on cheerfully as she led the way through a maze of chambers and passages until at last they arrived at a door, several stories up from the entrance. “We need to go through together,” she warned Sarai, as she opened the door.
Cautiously, Sarai stepped into the room beyond, and looked around. Karanissa stepped in behind her and reached up to set her torch in an empty bracket.
The room was small and simple—no gargoyles or black iron here, just plain gray walls, on one of which hung a tapestry. There were no other furnishings.
“Maybe we should move this downstairs, nearer the entrance,” Karanissa said, considering the tapestry carefully. “That would save time when we’re just passing through like this.”
Sarai gazed at the hanging, too, but with relief, ratiier dian consideration. The room it depicted was so utterly normal and ordinary! A simple room, with off-white walls, an iron-bound wooden door, and one of the standard-issue wooden tables the Ethsharitic city guard used. “Come on,” she said. This time, she was the one who grabbed and pulled, and an instant later she and Karanissa stepped out in Ethshar.
The light was brighter here and the color of normal daylight, rather than the orange of a torch or that weird reddish purple; Lady Sarai blinked and looked around.
The tapestry was gone; from this side it simply wasn’t there. Instead she saw the other half of a nondescript and unused little room, with a single narrow window providing illumination.
“North light,” Karanissa remarked. “It’s steadier, doesn’t change much over time, so it doesn’t matter where the sun is, or whether it’s cloudy.” She frowned. “I’ll wager the tapestry doesn’t work at night, though; I hadn’t thought of that before, and that could be inconvenient.” She stared for a moment, then turned back to the door. “Oh, well,” she said, “there isn’t much we can do about it now.” She lifted the latch and opened the door.
Before she could get a glimpse of what lay beyond, Lady Sarai heard the thump of a chair’s front legs hitting the stone floor and a soldier getting hurriedly to his feet, kilt rustling and sword belt rattling. She followed Karanissa through the door into a wide hall, where various military equipment was strewn about or leaning against walls and pillars. Hazy sunlight poured in through skylights; voices and footsteps were audible in the distance. Close at hand stood a soldier and a chair; the soldier saluted, hand on his chest, and announced, “I’m Deran Wuller’s son, ladies; if you’d come with me, please, Captain Tikri wishes to see you.”
“Tikri?” Sarai was astonished and delighted; she hadn’t seen Tikri since the day Tabaea first marched on the palace, when he had gone off to defend the overlord. She had feared he was dead, or at best driven into exile, yet here he was, apparently back at work.
“Yes, my lady,” Deran answered. “This way.”
Sarai and Karanissa followed him across the room, toward a stairway leading down. “Where are we?” Sarai asked.
“Officers’ training area, my lady,” Deran answered. “Top floor of the North Barracks, in Grandgate.”
“So the city guard is back here? Everything’s back to normal?”
Deran kept walking, but hesitated before answering, “Not everything, my lady. The guard’s back, all right—Lord Torrut saw to that as soon as he heard that Tabaea had given up her claim to be empress—but I wouldn’t say everything’s back to normal. The overlord is still aboard his ship down in Seagate— there’s something wrong with the palace, something to do with the Wizards’ Guild. Nobody goes in there without the Guild’s permission. And Lord Kalthon...”He broke off.
“What about my father?” Sarai demanded. “They say he’s dying, my lady,” Deran reluctantly admitted. “The sea journey was bad for him; they say he has a sixnight at most, even with that witch Theas tending him. But the overlord won’t appoint a replacement, and we need a Minister of Justice right now, to sort out the mess. Lord Torrut’s doing what he can, but... well, I wouldn’t say everything’s normal.” He stopped in front of a door and knocked.
The door opened, and Captain Tikri glared out angrily. When he saw Sarai, though, the anger evaporated; he smiled.
“Lady Sarai!” he said. “You’re back!” Belatedly, he added, “and you, Karanissa!”
The two women smiled and made polite noises, but then Tikri held up a hand. “We don’t have any time to waste,” he said. “We need to get you to the palace immediately; the wizards have been very emphatic about that. We can talk on the way; just let me get my sword.” A few minutes later, a party of four—Deran, Tikri, Sarai, and Karanissa—emerged from the barracks into the inner bailey of Grandgate, walking briskly; they passed through the immense inner gate into Grandgate Market, headed for the palace.
And atop the south inner tower Tabaea leaned over the battlement, glaring furiously. She could not see faces clearly from that distance, could not be sure of the scents, but two women in aristocratic garb, accompanied by two soldiers—that had to be Sarai! She had missed them! After all this time spent searching through the absurd complexities of Grandgate’s many towers, she had missed them!
She ran for the stairs, berating herself for being overcautious. She had searched all six of the gate towers, and most of the South Barracks, but had left the North Barracks, with its hundreds of soldiers, for last.
But of course it would be the North Barracks—that was where everything important was. She should have checked there first, despite the soldiers.
Furious, she plunged down the stairs, in hot pursuit of the Black Dagger.
CHAPTER 43
Lady Sarai stared in shock and dismay through the stinking, unnatural white mist at the bubbling, steaming, swirling mass of greenish slime before her. It blocked the entire corridor, wall to wall and floor to ceiling, at an oblique angle.
“It’s slightly over a hundred feet in diameter now,” Tobas told her. “It’s down into the lower dungeons, and as you can see, it’s consumed the rear half of the throne room, including the entire rear staircase and the corridor below. It’s also eaten its way through into the passageway above, there, but hasn’t reached the overlord’s apartments yet.”
“And you expect the Black Dagger to stop thaf!” Sarai demanded, turning to face the party of magicians and soldiers jamming the corridor behind her, and holding up the knife so that everyone could see just how small and harmless the enchanted weapon looked when compared with that gigantic mass of corrosive, all-consuming wizardry.
For a moment, no one answered; Sarai could see them judging, comparing, contrasting, considering.
Then one of the warlocks giggled nervously.
The giggle caught and spread, and in seconds several magicians—witches, warlocks, and even a wizard or two—were laughing hysterically. The soldiers were grinning, but not openly laughing.
Angrily, Telurinon shushed them all; after a few moments, with the soldiers’ assistance, order was restored. Then the Guildmaster turned angrily on Lady Sarai.
“What do you know about wizardry?” he shouted. “Size is irrelevant! What matters is the strength and nature of the enchantment, nothing else!”
“And you think a dagger enchanted by accident, by a girl who knew almost nothing of wizardry, is going to stop a spell you say can destroy the entire World, Guildmaster?” Sarai shouted back. “It might!” Telurinon answered, not as certainly as he would have liked.