“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?”