Sarai looked at the knife, then nodded and tucked it into the sheath on her belt.
"All right," she said, "how do we get out of here, and back to Ethshar?"
Karanissa considered that. "Well, we have to walk to the edge of the dead area, of course," she said. "Usually, we have a flying carpet to take us from there, but I'm afraid we don't have it with us-after shuffling the tapestries about I'm not sure whether it's in Dwomor or Ethshar or somewhere else entirely, but it's not here." She sighed. "So unless Tobas or one of the other wizards has arranged something special, I think we'll have to walk the entire distance to Dwomor Keep."
"Not all the way to Ethshar of the Sands?"
"Oh, no!" Karanissa replied, startled. "Of course not! We have another tapestry down in Dwomor, even if the carpet isn't there. Once we get to Dwomor Keep, we can be back in Ethshar in no more than a day, probably no more than an hour."
"Oh, good," Sarai said, relieved. "And how far is it to Dwomor Keep?"
"Three days," Karanissa said. "Two, if we really hurry."
"Three days," Sarai repeated, thinking of Tabaea roaming freely about the city, of the Seething Death spreading in the throne-room floor. She wondered what the Wizards' Guild would do with those three days. Would anyone tell the exiled nobility that the Black Dagger was gone and Tabaea's power lessened? Would Tabaea cling to her title of empress right up until someone killed her, or would she flee?
What would Ethshar be like when she got back to it?
Well, there was no use in wondering; she would see for herself soon enough.
"Let's get going, then," she said.
CHAPTER 41
Tobas watched intently as the dozen volunteer warlocks went about their work, cutting deep grooves in the marble floor in a circle around the Seething Death. The lamps set on every side did not burn well, but smoked and flared-Teneria thought the fumes from the pool were responsible. Whatever the reason, the magicians worked in a dim and smoky light, surrounded by gigantic shadows, adding to the strangeness of the task at hand.
Telurinon was still trying counterspells; he had brought three cartloads of raw materials from the Guildhouse and set up shop in the meeting room directly below, where a roiling bubble of the Seething Death now hung from the ceiling, hissing and smoking and dripping corrosive slime on the floor beneath-but not spilling through. The stuff remained a perfect hemisphere, demonstrating irrefutably that despite appearances, it was not a liquid in any normal sense of the word.
It wasn't a solid or a gas, either; it was magic.
And it was, Tobas thought, damnably powerful and stubborn magic. It had already dissolved a bottomless bag when Mereth had attempted to scoop the goo into it, on the theory that Hallin's Bottomless Bag could hold anything. It had been utterly unaffected by Thrindle's Combustion, Javan's Restorative, the Greater Spell of Temporal Stasis, Tranai's Stasis Spell, the Spell of Intolerable Heat, the Spell of Intense Cold, Fendel's Accelerated Corruption, and Javan's Contraction. It had expanded unhindered through Verlian's Spell of Protection, Fendel's Invisible Cage, Cauthen's Protective Cantrip, Fendel's Elementary Protection, and the Rune of Holding. If Tobas had interpreted Telurinon's latest efforts correctly, the Guildmaster was currently attempting the Spell of Reversal, but Tobas did not expect that to work, either-and even if it did, it would only shrink the Seething Death back to where it had been perhaps an hour before. The prospect of wizards endlessly working the Spell of Reversal to keep the Seething Death contained for the rest of time was not appealing.
There were still more spells to be attempted, and Tobas expected Telurinon to attempt them-if his own scheme didn't work.
Marble dust sprayed up as the warlocks used their mysterious powers to slice through the stone of the floor, cutting out the chunk that held the Seething Death. It was perhaps twenty hours since that one fateful drop had been spilled, and the bubbling, boiling, smoking pool was more than a yard across, the outer edge expanding fast enough that if a person watched for a moment he could see the surrounding stone melting away.
Tobas felt he had to work fast if his plan was to have any chance at all. Once the Seething Death was wider than the tapestry, it might not fit.
He had hoped that the warlocks would be able to simply scoop the stuff up, out of its hole, but they reported that there wasn't anything there that warlockry could touch. Whatever the stuff was, though, the floor could hold it, and the warlocks could touch the floor, so they were cutting a chunk free, intending to lift it up to the Transporting Tapestry. It meant doing serious and permanent damage to the overlord's Great Hall, but the Seething Death would do that anyway-had already done that. The rest of the mess Tabaea had made could be cleaned up fairly easily, Tobas thought, but this might be difficult. He supposed a good stonemason could handle it, somehow.
At the thought of Tabaea he glanced around nervously. The would-be empress had vanished without a trace that morning, after announcing her abdication-which meant she was still around someplace, and could spring out at them at any time, complicating matters.
Once the Seething Death was dealt with, the Guild really would have to track down Tabaea and kill her. Maybe they should go ahead and throw a death-spell after her right now-but Tobas didn't want to take the time and was reluctant to act on his own in any case. The Guild might want to use something especially horrible.
"We almost have it, wizard," one of the warlocks said-a tall, black-clad man whose name Tobas did not know.
"Good," Tobas said. He bent down and picked up the tapestry that lay at his feet. He hoped that Sarai and Karanissa were well clear; in theory the stuff would be completely harmless the instant it passed into the dead area around the fallen castle, but Tobas had his doubts about just how fast it would lose its virulence. The Seething Death was not just another spell.
Teneria helped him unroll the tapestry, lift it, and smooth it.
"It's free," another warlock announced.
"All right, then," the black-clad man said. "Lift!"
The marble circle, four feet in diameter, shuddered, and then began to rise, up out of the surrounding floor.
Unfortunately, the Seething Death did not rise with it; instead, Tobas stared in horror as the steady hiss of dissolving marble suddenly became a roar, and dust and smoke boiled up from the circular hole in the center of the ascending marble cylinder.
A warlock coughed; then another.
"Stop! Stop!" Telurinon shrieked from below.
The steady ascent slowed; the stone cylinder wobbled, and still more smoke and powder spilled out of the central hole.
"You might as well keep going," Tobas said. "It's too late now."
A warlock doubled over, coughing, as more of the reeking cloud of smoke rolled over the magicians.
The marble cylinder, four feet across and fifteen inches high, was clear of the floor now-and clear of the Seething Death. Still following the original plan, the warlocks started to move it toward the tapestry.
"No!" Tobas shouted, suddenly realizing what they were doing. If they sent the chunk of stone through the tapestry, the tapestry would no longer function-not until somebody hiked out to the fallen castle, in the mountains between Dwomor and Aigoa, and removed the cylinder from that hidden chamber.
The warlocks paid no attention, and in desperation Tobas simply dropped his end of the tapestry's hanging rod; Teneria, not entirely sure why but following the wizard's lead, dropped hers as well. A moment later the marble cylinder hung suspended in the air, touching nothing, above the tapestry.