Even so, even after she had seen Serem march out into the street, glare in all directions, and then go back inside, it was hours before she felt at all safe. It was two days before she dared go home, and two sixnights before she dared pass within a block of Serem’s house.
CHAPTER 6
During the days following Lirrin’s athamezation, Tabaea reviewed the ritual repeatedly, both silently and aloud. Tessa and Thennis heard her mumbling the incantations and mocked her when she refused to explain—but that was normal enough.
The whole question of how to use what she had learned was a baffling one. The secret of the athame was clearly one of the most important mysteries of the Wizards’ Guild, and therefore tremendously valuable—but how could she cash in on it? There was a word that described people who crossed the Wizards’ Guild, by stealing from them, or attempting to blackmail them— the word was “dead.”
So she couldn’t do anything at all that would bring her to the attention of the Guild. That left two other options: sell the secret elsewhere, or use it herself.
And where else could she sell it?
Wizards and sorcerers were traditional enemies, so one afternoon in Summerheat she strolled over to Magician Street, in Northside, and wandered into a sorcerer’s shop. The proprietor didn’t notice her for several minutes, which gave her a chance to look around.
The place didn’t look very magical; there were no animated plants, no strange skulls or glowing tapestries or peculiar bottles. There were some tools, but they looked as appropriate for a tinker or a jeweler as for a magician—pliers and hammers and so forth. Assorted colored wires hung on one wall, and crystals were displayed on another, but Tabaea, who had a competent thief’s working knowledge of precious stones and metals, quickly concluded that none of these were particularly valuable.
The sorcerer finally realized she was there; he took in her youth and ragged appearance in an instant, and said, “I’m not looking for an apprentice just now, young lady.” “I’m fifteen,” Tabaea replied, annoyed. “My apologies, then. What can I do for you?” Tabaea hesitated; she had thought over a dozen possible openings without definitely choosing one, but now she could put it off no longer.
Might as well be direct, she thought. “I think I might have something to sell you,” she said. “Oh?” The sorcerer was a black-haired man in his thirties, with thick, bushy eyebrows that looked out of place on his rather pale and narrow face. Those eyebrows now rose questioningly. “What might that be? Have you found an interesting artifact, perhaps? Some relic of the Northern Empire?” “No,” Tabaea said, startled. “There were never any Northerners around here.”
“True enough. Then it was around here that you found whatever it is? ”
“Yes. It’s not an artifact—it’s a piece of information.” The sorcerer frowned, his eyebrows descending. “I am not usually in the business of buying information,” he said.
“It’s about wizards,” Tabaea said, a note of desperation creeping into her voice.
The sorcerer blinked. “I am a sorcerer, young lady, not a wizard. You do know the difference, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course, I do!” Tabaea replied angrily. Then, calming, she corrected herself. “Or at least, I know there is a difference. And I know that you people don’t like wizards, so I thought maybe... well, I found out a secret about wizards.” “And you thought that it might be of interest to sorcerers?” Tabaea nodded. “That’s right,” she said.
The sorcerer studied her for a moment, then asked, “And what price were you asking for this secret?”
Tabaea had given that some thought and had decided that a hundred pounds of gold would be about right—a thousand rounds, that would be, equal to eight hundred thousand copper bits. That was most of a million. She would be rich, she wouldn’t need to ever steal again. Magicians were all rich—well, the good ones, anyway, most of them; surely, they could afford to pay her even so fabulous a sum as that.
But now she found she couldn’t bring herself to speak the numbers aloud. Eight hundred thousand bits—it was just too fantastic.
“I hadn’t decided,” she lied.
The sorcerer clicked his tongue sympathetically and shook his head in dismay. “Really, child,” he said, “you need to learn more about business. Let me ask, then—would this secret help me in my own business? Would it let me take customers away from the wizards?”
Tabaea hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know,” she admitted. Attempting a recovery, she added, “But the wizards really don’t want anyone to know about it!”
The sorcerer frowned again. “In that case, isn’t this a dangerous bit of knowledge to have? How did you come by it?” “I can’t say,” Tabaea said, a trifle desperately. “Well, all right, then,” the sorcerer said. “I’m not usually one to buy a closed casket, but you’ve caught my interest.” Tabaea caught her breath.
“I’ll pay you four bits in silver for your secret,” the sorcerer said.
Tabaea blinked. “Four bits?” she squeaked. “Half a round of silver,” the sorcerer confirmed. Tabaea stared for a moment, then turned and ran out of the shop without another word.
Later, when she could think about it clearly, she realized that the sorcerer had really been making a generous oifer. Tabaea had given him no hint of what her secret was, no reason to think it would be profitable for him to know it—and in fact, she saw now that it would probably not be profitable.
Wizards and sorcerers were traditional rivals, but they weren’t blood enemies. Sorcerers weren’t about to wage a full-scale war against wizards—for one thing, there were far more wizards in the World than sorcerers. And what possible use would knowledge of athamezation be to any magician who was not prepared to use it against wizards?
Selling her information, she saw, simply wasn’t going to work. That left using it herself as the only way to exploit it. And the only way to use it was to make herself an athame. That certainly had its appeal; she would be a true wizard, then, according to what Serem the Wise had said, even if she didn’t know any spells. And if she ever did learn any spells, the athame would make them easier to use, if she had understood correctly. The knife would be able to free her from any bonds, if she could touch it. It would mark her as a wizard to other wizards, but not to anyone else—and yet she would not be a member of the Guild.
And she had the impression that there was far more to it than she knew. She hadn’t heard all of Serem’s teachings to Lirrin. She had learned the entire twenty-four-hour ceremony, but had missed a fair amount of the other discussion about the athame. So, one bright day early in Summersend, two months after Lirrin completed her own athame, Tabaea slipped out of a shop on Armorer Street with a fine dagger tucked under her tunic, one that she had not paid for.
The next problem, now that she had the knife, was to find a place where she could perform the spell. Her home was out of the question, with her sisters and her mother and her stepfather around—if her stepfather had turned up again, that is.
The people of the Wall Street Field had a reputation for minding their own business, but there were surely limits, and the all-day ritual with its blood and chanting and so forth would draw attention anywhere. And what if it rained? Right now the summer sun was pouring down like hot yellow honey, but the summer rains could come up suddenly.
She needed someplace indoors and private, where she could be sure of an entire day undisturbed, and such places were not easy for a poor young woman to find in the crowded streets and squares of Ethshar of the Sands. Maybe, she thought, if she left the city... But no, that was crazy. She wasn’t going to leave the city. There wasn’t anything out there but peasants and barbarians and wilderness, except maybe in the other two Ethshars, and those would be just as unhelpful as Ethshar of the Sands. There were places that most people never went, such as the gate towers and the Great Lighthouse and all the towers that guarded the harbor, but those were manned by the overlord’s soldiers.
She wandered along Armorer Street, vaguely thinking of the South Beaches, but with no very clear plan in mind; she squinted against the sun and dust as she walked, not really looking where she was going.
