Sarai blinked. "I'm not sure I… oh. You mean they had somewhere better to go?"
"Well, they thought so, anyway. I didn't agree, and that's why I'm still here."
"Where did they go, then? What's this better place?"
"What's the best place in Ethshar, to most ways of thinking?"
"I don't know, I… oh." Sarai finally saw the connection. "The palace, you mean. They've all gone to the palace."
"You have a little wit to you, I see." Mama Kilina's tone was one of mild satisfaction.
"But they can't all live there!" Sarai said. "It's not big enough! I mean, the palace is… well, it's huge, but…"
Mama Kilina nodded. "Now, you think that's a better place?" she asked. "I don't, not with all that riffraff bedding down in the corridors, as I suppose they'll be doing."
"Oh, but that's… I mean…" Sarai groped for words, and finally asked, "Is this Tabaea's idea?"
Mama Kilina nodded. "That young woman's got no sense at all, if you ask me," she said. "What she wants to be empress for in the first place I don't know, and how she can call herself an empress when all she rules is one city, and everyone knows an empress rules more than one people…" She shook her head. "I suppose she heard about that Vond calling himself an emperor, out in the Small Kingdoms, and she liked the sound of it, but Vond conquered half a dozen kingdoms before he called it an empire."
"What exactly did she say? Did she come out here herself to invite everybody?"
"She sent messengers," Mama Kilina explained. "A bunch of prissy fools got up in clothes that wouldn't look decent even on someone who knew how to wear them came out here and told us all that from now on, the palace belonged to all the people of Ethshar of the Sands, and we were all free to come and go as we pleased, and to live there if we wanted to until we could find homes of our own. And all those eager young idiots went galloping off down Wall Street to take her up on it and get a roof over their empty heads." She shook her head and spat in disgust, into the fire, where the gob of expectorate sizzled loudly. "That whole mob living in the palace…" Sarai said. The idea was horrifying-all those stone corridors jammed with people, with ragged beggars and belligerent thieves, strangers crowding into the rooms, into her office, into the family apartment-somehow the idea of Tabaea invading was nowhere near as upsetting as the notion of that entire indiscriminate mob. She wanted to get up and run back down there to save her family's possessions, to chase the squatters out of her old room, but of course she couldn't, she didn't dare show her face in the palace…
Or did she?
With all those strangers wandering in and out, who would recognize her? Who would stop her? She could just walk right in and see what Tabaea was up to, she could search out Tabaea's weaknesses-if she had any.
Of course, some people might recognize her, people who had seen her at her father's side. If she wore a disguise of some sort, though, no one would ask her who she was or what business she had in the palace.
This was just too good an opportunity to miss. She had been wondering where she could live, and here, it seemed, was the answer.
She could live in the palace, just as she always had!
CHAPTER 32
Tobas had been idly turning a cat's skull over in his hands; now he flung it down on the table in disgust, cracking the jaw and loosening a fang.
"You're mad," he said.
Telurinon drew himself up, obviously seriously affronted. "I do not think," he began, "that there is any call for insults…"
"And that's just more evidence that you're mad," Tobas said, a little surprised at his own daring even as he said it. He had never before spoken to any other wizard, let alone a Guildmaster, so bluntly.
"Might I remind you…" Telurinon began.
Tobas interrupted again. "Might I remind you," he said, "that this Black Dagger is the cause of all the trouble we've seen in this city, trouble enough to bring me here all the way from Dwomor and to drag all of the rest of you away from your own affairs to attend these meetings. It's prevented us from killing someone that Guild law says must die. And you want to make another one?"
"I think we should at least consider the possibility," Telurinon said. "After all, this artifact is, by its very nature, utterly immune to all other wizardry, and protects its wielder from wizardry as well. Our spells, as we have demonstrated repeatedly over these past few days, cannot touch its bearer. That being so, how else are we to defeat this Tabaea and destroy her utterly, as we must, except by creating another Black Dagger to counter the first?"
"If the esteemed Guildmaster will permit me," Tobas said, with thinly veiled sarcasm, "how are we to defeat whoever wields this second Black Dagger you propose to create?"
"Why, we'll have no need to defeat him," Telurinon said, honestly startled. "That's the entire point. We'll choose someone we can trust."
" Will we," Tobas replied. "Need I point out to the esteemed Guildmaster that whoever creates this dagger cannot be a wizard? The Spell of the Black Dagger is a perversion of the Spell of Athamezation and cannot be performed by anyone who has ever owned an athame-and therefore, since the athame is the mark of the true wizard and the sole token of membership in our Guild, whoever creates the new dagger must be an outsider. Has the Wizards' Guild ever trusted an outsider in anything, let alone something as important as this? How are we to explain to this outsider why he must perform this spell, rather than one of us? How are we to explain how this spell was ever discovered in the first place, if no wizard can perform it? And how can we trust anyone with a weapon like this, when by creating it in the first place we're admitting that we can't defeat it? Even if our hypothetical hero doesn't decide to make himself emperor in Tabaea's stead and doesn't go about murdering magicians, do we really want someone wandering the World with such a weapon? Even supposing we find some noble and innocent soul to serve as our warrior, and this trusting fellow builds himself up to be Tabaea's equal or superior and slays her, leaving himself in possession of two Black Daggers and the knowledge of how to make more, yet is so good and pure and wholesome that he never even thinks of turning those daggers against his sponsors in the Guild-even supposing all that, what happens when our original recruit dies, and passes the daggers on to his heirs, who might not be quite so cooperative?"
"We won't allow that," Telurinon said, rather huffily. "When Tabaea is defeated, both daggers will become the property of the Guild."
"Says who?"
" We say it, damn your insolence!" Telurinon shouted. "And who are we, that the bearer of a Black Dagger need listen to us?"
Telurinon glared at Tobas, mustache thrust out angrily. Before he could argue further, Mereth spoke up.
"And how would we build up our man?" she asked. "Tabaea killed people, half a dozen of them. She killed a warlock and a witch. For our dagger-wielder to match her, he would have to kill a warlock and a witch. I don't think that's a good idea at all."
"Of course not!" Telurinon yelled. Then he repeated, more quietly, "Of course not." He frowned. Reluctantly, he admitted, "I see that there are difficulties with the scheme. While I am not convinced that these difficulties are insuperable, they are, I fear, undeniable. In which case I must ask if, bluntly, anyone has a better idea."
It was at that moment that Lirrin, who was acting as doorkeeper, appeared at the railing above the chamber and made the sign of requesting recognition. "What is it?" Telurinon demanded. "It's Lady Sarai," Lirrin replied. "She's at the front door and says she wants to talk to Mereth, or whoever's available."