There was no magic. The Black Dagger was gone.
She threw the assassin aside, unconcerned whether he was dead or alive, and turned to face the stairway she had just ascended.
Where could the Black Dagger have gone?
She had some vague idea of retracing her steps, but when she turned, she found herself face-to-face with that stinking smoke. It was still rising, still spreading. She looked down.
The contents of the thimble had spread, and now completely covered an area the width of her hand, perfectly circular in shape-and Tabaea knew that that perfect a circle was unnatural. The stuff should have sprayed unevenly across the stone in a fan shape.
What was more, within that circle the floor was completely invisible, hidden by a layer of… of something. Tabaea had no name for it, either for the substance or even for its color. It wasn't exactly green, wasn't exactly gray or brown or yellow, but it was closer to those colors than to anything else. It was liquid, but she couldn't say what kind; it was shiny and looked somehow slimy, but it wasn't quite like anything she had ever seen before.
And it wasn't still; it roiled and rippled and bubbled and steamed, though Tabaea could feel no heat from it. It moved almost as if it were somehow alive.
She had assumed at first that the drop was some sort of concentrated acid, or virulent poison, but this stuff was obviously magic.
What's more, it was spreading.
And, she realized with a twinge of horror, it wasn't spreading on top of the marble floor; it was eating into the stone.
And someone had wanted to put that stuff on her, and she didn't even have the Black Dagger to protect her, it would have eaten away at her, just as it was eating at the floor. She shuddered.
Who was responsible for this? She looked up and around at the throne room. Most of the crowd had fled, but some were still there, staying well away from her and from the little pool of whatever-it-was. No one was smiling; no one seemed to stand out as reacting oddly, unless she counted the assassin, who was still breathing, still alive.
Had the assassin known that her dagger was gone, that she was no longer protected against wizardry? Had he taken the dagger himself?
She strode over to him and used one toe to roll him over onto his back. He lay there, gasping and bleeding. The knife on his belt was obviously not the Black Dagger; Tabaea could see that at a glance.
"Who sent you?" she demanded.
He made a strangled choking noise. He clearly was in no condition to answer, even if he had wanted to. Tabaea frowned.
She reached out, warlock-fashion, and tried to sense the damage her knife blow had done.
The wound was pretty bad, but she thought it could be healed if someone, a powerful witch or a warlock who had been trained properly, got to it before the man finished bleeding to death, or if a theurgist managed to get the right prayer through in time. Unfortunately, Tabaea could not do it herself; she had never learned to heal, with either warlockry or witchcraft.
She turned and spotted Arl, standing by the dais. "You, Art," she said. "Find a witch or a priest or someone; I want this man healed, so he can tell me who sent him. And be careful, he's a warlock. "
"Uh…"
"Hurry! And I won't be holding court today, so the rest of you can all… no, wait a minute. You, and you – find something to cover over that stuff, I don't want anyone stepping in it. It looks nasty. And then get out of here, all of you. Get going, Arl."
"Yes, Your Majesty. "
A moment later the throne room was empty, save for Tabaea and the wounded assassin. The empress glanced around and noticed that even here, in the imperial audience chamber, trash had piled up in the corners.
And over by the stair, the little pool of magical gunk was still bubbling and smoking. Tabaea didn't worry about it; she was far more concerned just now with the whereabouts of the Black Dagger.
After all, whatever that stuff was, it would surely dry up and die soon enough.
CHAPTER 37
A fanner's wagon was sitting by the palace door in plain sight in the morning sun, Sarai noticed. It looked incongruous; when the overlord was in power, deliveries had been made as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, over at the southeast entrance.
People were milling about, some in rags, some in commonplace attire, some in finery-though most of the last seemed uncomfortable in their obviously stolen clothes, and sometimes combined their finery with familiar rags. Those who were just emerging from the dim interior of the palace blinked in the bright sunlight; hands shading eyes were common. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the wagon or its driver.
The mix of clothing was familiar to Sarai from her stay in Tabaea's palace, but she had never noticed wagons at the northeast entry before. She took a good look at it as she approached- and then stopped dead in her tracks.
The wagon's driver was Tobas, the wizard. He was dressed in rough brown wool instead of his usual wizard's robe, but it was unmistakably him. He was leaning down from his seat talking to someone, and Sarai recognized the young woman in the black dress as Teneria, the witch.
Sarai took a second to gather her wits, then hurried forward again; a moment later she hailed Tobas. She had to shout twice before he looked up, startled. Even then, he didn't answer at first; he stared blankly at Lady Sarai until Teneria said, "Oh, it's Sarai!"
Two or three passersby looked up at that and glanced curiously at Sarai. Sarai hurried up to the wagon, not at all pleased by this attention; she didn't want to be recognized, and with her disguise gone, it was entirely possible that someone would know her face.
Well, it was her own fault for calling out. "Pharea," Sarai said. "I'm called Pharea. What's happening?"
"Well, right at the moment, there's a warlock in the throne room, waiting for Tabaea to make her entrance, and when she does, he's going to try a spell of Telurinon's on her," Tobas explained. "Karanissa is in there, too, keeping an eye on everything."
"That's the Seething Death?" Sarai asked. "Now, how…" Tobas began.
Teneria said, "She talked to Alorria. Excuse me, Sar… Pharea, but Tabaea's coming up the steps right now, she's at the top."
"So you know about this?" Tobas asked.
Sarai nodded.
"And you know about the Black Dagger."
"Yes," Sarai said.
Tobas sighed uneasily and said, "Well, in a moment we should find out if the Black Dagger can stop the Seething Death. And if…"
"No," Sarai interrupted. "We aren't going to find out anything about the Black Dagger."
"We aren't?" Tobas stared down at her. "Why not?"
Sarai hesitated, and before she could say anything, Teneria cried out, "Oh, no!"
Tobas whirled back to the witch. "What happened?" he demanded.
"She spilled it! She knocked it aside and spilled it on the floor, and now she's grabbed Thurin and…" Teneria winced. "… and she's stabbed him, and it hurts really bad…" She closed her eyes and leaned against the wagon.
Sarai bit her lip and watched as the witch tried to continue. She had worried that something might go wrong, ever since she had used the Black Dagger herself and discovered how Tabaea saw the World-or rather, how she sensed it. She could smell danger. She could move inhumanly fast. The slightest movement could alert her. She could hear a whisper from across a room. None of the magicians would realize that-at least, Sarai didn't see how they could. The witches might have sensed something, but would even they have really appreciated just how fast and how sensitive Tabaea was?
Well, either they hadn't, or they hadn't been consulted in setting this up.
"Now what?" Sarai asked.
"Now she's trying to get Thurin to talk, but he can't; he's dying, he's bleeding to death, and she doesn't know how to heal him. She's sent her chancellor for a healer, and Karanissa wants to know whether we should send a volunteer-she'll try it herself, if you want, but she isn't sure she can heal a wound that bad; a warlock would be better-Tobas, warlocks have trouble at healing, they don't have the subtlety of touch, but if I did it, with a warlock helping, I know how to draw on a warlock's strength…" She looked up. "Who's the Council got nearby?" Tobas asked. "Vengar is in the antechamber…"