Lawrence Watt-Evans - The Spell of the Black Dagger

Sarai came, trotting to catch up-and Deran, moving as silently and quickly as he could, trotted in the other direction, to start a search for Tobas.

A moment later the party reached the point where the Seething Death blocked the way, a wall of greenish boiling ooze across the corridor. At the sight of it Tabaea hesitated, but then she stepped resolutely closer.

"Watch!" she called. She stepped up and slashed at the stuff with the Black Dagger.

The Seething Death erupted in a gout of white steam and a roaring, boiling hiss, and for a moment the watchers were deafened, the vapor blocking their view.

When they could see again, they saw the Seething Death still blocking the passage, unmarked by the dagger's cut. Tabaea stood before it, holding up the Black Dagger's hilt.

The blade was gone, dissolved away down to an inch or so from the crossguard.

Tabaea screamed, and Sarai remembered what she had said about putting a part of her soul into the knife. Sarai started forward to help, Karanissa beside her.

"No!" Tabaea shrieked. "Stay back!" She whirled and waved the ruined stump of the Black Dagger at them, and Sarai and Karanissa stopped short. Then the empress of Ethshar turned back to the Seething Death and cried, "It must work," and thrust her hand at it, stabbing into the ooze.

Her hand went in clear to the wrist.

She screamed again and drew back the stump of her arm, blood spraying. Clutching at it with her left hand, she staggered and toppled…

Into the Seething Death.

Her scream was abruptly cut short, but again, a roar of magical dissolution and a gout of stinking vapor erupted; the two women and the five soldiers backed away.

When the scene quieted, all that remained of Tabaea the Thief was one bloody, severed bare foot, lying on the marble floor of the corridor, inches from the Seething Death.

"Gods," Captain Tikri muttered under his breath. For a long moment, they all simply stared.

And then, abruptly, the hissing of the Death faded away, and the wall of magical chaos puffed outward and vanished like mist that blows in a doorway. The close confines of the corridor were suddenly at the edge of a great open space, a vast bowl-shaped hole in the palace, beneath the soaring central dome.

The Seething Death was gone. Not so much as a single drop of corrosive slime remained; the cut edges of walls and floors shone clean and sharp. Sarai and her companions could see the fragment of wall that had once been one end of the throne room, could see into rooms and passageways on six levels, from the lower dungeons to the overlord's private apartments. Sarai imagined that the Arena might look like that, if all the seats and floors were removed.

And standing in the open end of the corridor directly opposite their own was Tobas, holding a knife and a handful of brass shards. He waved.

For several minutes no one did much of anything; they were all shocked into inactivity by the suddenness of it all.

Then Deran came trotting up from behind. "I didn't find him, but I saw that the Seething Death was gone," he called. "Was it in time? Where's Tabaea? Where's the dagger?"

Sarai looked down at the hideous fragment that was all that remained of Tabaea the First, Empress of Ethshar.

"Nowhere," she said. "Nowhere at all."

What did you say the spell was called?" the overlord asked, leaning heavily on Lord Torrut and staring at the hollowed-out ruin of his home. "The one that stopped it?"

"Ellran's Dissipation," Tobas answered. "The Wizards' Guild outlawed it over four hundred years ago, but this was a special case."

"Telurinon didn't like it," Lady Sarai remarked.

"I suspect the higher-ups in the Guild aren't very happy about it, either," Tobas said. "In fact, they'll probably be very annoyed with Telurinon for making it necessary by using the Seething Death."

"Are there higher-ups in the Wizards' Guild?" Lord Torrut asked, startled.

"Oh, yes," Tobas said. "But I don't know much about them-and I shouldn't even say as much as I have." He smiled crookedly. "Fortunately, they can't see or hear me here."

The overlord nodded thoughtfully. "That's going to make rebuilding difficult," he said. "This place was all built by magic originally, you know-my ancestor Anaran managed to get the largest share of the wizards when the war ended and the army disbanded, and the Guild was a good bit less troublesome about these things back then." He sighed. "Of course, Azrad lured most of them away later."

"I'm sure that there are good stonemasons around," Lord Torrut said.

"Besides," Tobas pointed out, "it's only wizardry that won't work here; you could have warlocks, or witches, or even de-monologists do the repair work, if you wanted to."

"I might just leave most of it open," the overlord said, looking up into the dome. "As a sort of memorial." Then he turned to Lady Sarai and said, "It's going to make your job as Minister of Justice more difficult, too."

"My father usually relied on theurgy, my lord," Sarai replied. "That won't have changed." She thought, but did not mention, that just now she wasn't particularly inclined to trust wizards- or any other magicians, really.

Ederd nodded. "I suppose," he said. "And if I haven't said so before, let me say now that I share your loss; your father was a good man and a faithful servant. I truly regret that my own health would not permit me to attend the funeral." He coughed, as if to demonstrate that he was not yet fully recovered from the indisposition that had kept him in seclusion for a sixnight after Tabaea's death. Then he turned to Tobas. "You know, I used to have protective spells around this place," he said. "Wards and alarms and so forth. Not that they did much good against that poor girl and her magic dagger. Do you think you could put them back? They were on the outside of the building, I believe."

"No, my lord," Tobas said. "While I kept it as confined as I could, even to the point of risking failure, the dead area extends over the entire palace and the surrounding plaza and out onto Circle Street to the northwest-I wasn't at the center of the building when I performed the spell, of course, since the Seething Death was in the way. I'm afraid that the wards can never be restored."

"All the way to Circle Street? That will make the parades at Festival a bit difficult."

"It might be, my lord," Lord Torrut ventured, not looking at Ederd, "that we have, perhaps, used more wizardry around here than is entirely good for us."

Ederd snorted. "We often haven't used as much as I would like," he said. "The Wizards' Guild hasn't always been very cooperative. And they always seem to know what's going on- when I want something done, they'll insist I yield on some other point."

"That should change," Lady Sarai pointed out. "They can't see what happens in the palace anymore."

"Which might mean that they'll assume the worst," Ederd said. Then he shrugged. "Well, there's nothing to be done about it now." He turned away, forcing Lord Torrut to turn, as well.

"At least they can maintain their reputation for implacable vengeance," Lady Sarai pointed out. "It was Telurinon's spell that killed Tabaea."

"And don't doubt for a minute that they'll take every advantage of that," Lord Torrut said. "They'll boast of having saved Ethshar."

"But on the other hand," Tobas replied, addressing himself to Ederd, "it's going to be hard to hide the feet that we made some very bad mistakes, especially if your lordship does leave the interior of the palace open, as you suggested. I doubt that even the Guild will be able to stop the rumors of how Tabaea came by her abilities, or to hide how badly we bungled the use of the Seething Death."

"And that will probably turn most of them foul-tempered and reluctant to serve me," Ederd pointed out. "It's been my experience that most wizards are not so reasonable as yourself, Tobas."