“I’m hurrying,” Teneria said quietly, in an odd, distracted tone; an ordinary woman wouldn’t have heard her, but Tabaea, Empress of Ethshar, did. She heard everything, saw everything, smelled everything; she had the strength of a dozen men and the speed of a cat. She was a witch and a warlock both.
But she wasn’t a wizard anymore, with the Black Dagger gone, and her enemies were working together.
And this Teneria was one of them, wasn’t she? She was working with a warlock, and the warlocks had sent the assassin. When the man was healed, what was to keep him and the other warlock and the two witches from turning all their power on her, their common foe?
Tabaea could counter a warlock and fight off a witch, but she wasn’t sure about the combination, and two of each; the dagger had always helped her, had blocked part of any magic. And witches were subtle.
She took a step backward, away from Teneria, and then caught a whiff of the fumes from the wizard-stuff. Without thinking, she took a sniff and almost choked; the stuff was unbelievably foul. It covered other scents, as well—but not completely; Tabaea realized that she could still smell the blood from the assassin’s wound, the nervous sweat on Teneria’s skin, the distinct odors of the people on the stairs, some familiar, some strange.
There was another odor there as well, a very faint trace, that somehow seemed important. The fumes were making her dizzy, and she had too much to think about, with the assassin and all the magicians working together; if she still had the Black Dagger...
When had it disappeared, anyway? How had they taken it? Magic wouldn’t work on it, so it couldn’t have been taken magically; someone must have slipped it away while Tabaea was asleep—but she had always kept the knife close at hand, even when she slept, she only took it off to bathe. It must have been one of the servants. It was not Lethe or Ista. She could trust them; she knew by the smell. And they had still been here when she came down to the throne room.
Pharea.
That woman who had only been there once, who had helped her clean off the blood, then disappeared. She must have taken it.
And that’s who that was on the stairs, Tabaea realized, the woman with the familiar scent. That smell was the peculiar odor the woman had had that Tabaea had thought was just some odd sort of perfume—but it was too faint for perfume, an ordinary human probably couldn’t smell it at all.
Her face was different, but that must have just been a disguise of some sort, probably magical. There was no mistaking the scent. That was Pharea, and she was in it, too—in the plot against Tabaea, against the empress.
Tabaea whirled and stared at the group on the stairs. “Arl,” she said, “bring those people in here.”
Arl blinked; he had been staring at that horrible puddle. “What people, Your Majesty?” he asked.
“Those people on the stairs. You, all of you—come closer.” Tabaea beckoned. With varying degrees of reluctance and much glancing at one another, the little group stepped up into the throne room. Arl stepped in behind them, herding them forward.
“Line up,” Tabaea ordered. Something drew her attention; she turned to see Teneria looking up. “Go on healing him!” Tabaea snapped.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the witch said, turning back to her work.
The people formed a ragged line, and Tabaea looked them over. “You,” she said, pointing at the tall witch, “get over there.” She gestured toward the dais.
The woman glanced at the others, then obeyed.
“You, too,” Tabaea ordered the warlock. He hesitated, then went.
“And you, Pharea.”
“I don’t think so,” the woman replied; her hand dropped to the hilt of the knife she carried on her belt, concealed by a fold of her skirt. She never questioned how Tabaea had recognized her, never tried to deny her identity; the empress thought she knew what that meant. “The rest of you, get out of here,” Pharea said. She waved at the others still in the line.
The three of them looked at Tabaea.
“She’s right,” the empress said. “Get out of here. Now.”
“Your Majesty...” Arl began.
“Shut up,” Tabaea commanded. She was watching Pharea’s hand closely, the hand that was on the hilt of a knife.
Tabaea knew that knife well. She had carried it herself for four years. Witchcraft couldn’t sense it; warlockry couldn’t touch it; although she had no spells to test it with, Tabaea knew that wizardry would not work on the person who held it.
That meant that it would have dispelled a magical disguise, didn’t it? So this was Pharea’s real face, and the other had been an illusion.
The bystanders departed, and now the sides were clear, the stage set, Tabaea thought; she and Arl on one side, Pharea and the four magicians on the other. When the footsteps had reached the bottom of the stairs, and her enhanced senses assured the empress that there were no other intruders around, Tabaea demanded, “Do you know what you’ve got there, Pharea?”
“I think so,” Pharea said warily; something about the way she stood, the way her eyes moved, told Tabaea that she had already used the Black Dagger herself, had killed at least one cat, and perhaps other animals.
A movement on the dais attracted Tabaea’s attention for an instant; the older witch had moved, had taken a step toward Pharea, and was staring at her.
“I don’t think your friends know,” Tabaea said. “You are working with the magicians, aren’t you? They’re all working together, now.”
Pharea smiled crookedly. “We haven’t always been as coordinated as we might be,” she said. “But yes, we’re all on the same side.”
Behind Pharea, Arl was moving up slowly and quietly, clearly planning to grab her from behind; the tall witch was about to say something, and Tabaea did not want Pharea warned. She turned to the witch and demanded, “And who are you, anyway? I can see that you’re a witch, but you didn’t volunteer to help heal this killer you people sent. Who are you?”
Startled, the woman answered, “My name is Karanissa of the Mountains,” she said.
“And you aren’t helping Teneria; why not?”
“Because she doesn’t need help,” Karanissa said. “I would if she wanted me to; I was going to try it myself, but Teneria thought...”
She was interrupted by Arl’s lunge—and his falling headlong on the marble floor, as Pharea dodged neatly and drew the Black Dagger. Before anyone else could react, the false servant grabbed Arl by the hair and stood over him with the knife to his throat.
“It’s not that easy,” Pharea said to Tabaea. “I’ve got the dagger, and I’m keeping it. And I’ll use it to defend myself if I need to.”
Tabaea frowned. “You think you can handle all my followers so easily?”
Pharea smiled grimly. “Why not?” she asked. “You handled the city guard. And they’re on our side, too, by the way—Lord Torrut is still in command, and only a few dozen men deserted or went over to you.”
Tabaea stared at Pharea, trying to decide if that was a bluff. Hadn’t Lord Torrut fled with the others, sailed off to wherever they all went? “Who are you, anyway?” she demanded, stalling for time to think. “You’re no magician, so far as I can see, and you don’t look like a soldier.”
The woman Tabaea called Pharea smiled an unpleasant smile. “I’m Lady Sarai,” she said. “Minister of Investigation and Acting Minister of Justice to Ederd the Fourth, overlord of Eth-shar.”
“Ederd’s not the overlord anymore,” Tabaea replied angrily. “I’m empressl” She tried to hide how much she was shaken by the discovery that she was facing Lord Kalthon’s daughter; for all her life until the last few sixnights, Tabaea had lived in terror of the Minister of Justice, and for the last few months of that time Lady Sarai had been feared, as well. Tabaea had tried to dismiss her as a harmless girl, but here was that harmless girl, in her own throne room, holding the Black Dagger.
“You’re Tabaea the Thief,” Sarai said. “Four years ago you stole a spell from Serem the Wise, but it came out wrong and made this dagger I’m holding. For a long time you didn’t do anything with it—maybe you didn’t know
