J. o all appearances, Lady Sarai of Ethshar was no more.
In her place, a young woman with a face broader, darker, and less distinctive than Sarai's, wearing as nondescript an outfit as Mereth could provide, had wandered into the palace, where she roamed the wide marble passageways, gaping-or pretending to do so-at the splendors of the place.
No one who encountered this slack-jawed young woman would be likely to connect her with the ousted aristocrats, or to suspect her of spying; and in fact, none of the dozens of vagabonds and scoundrels who did encounter her even noticed her. She was just another refugee from the Wall Street Field, come to live in the corridors of the palace.
Sarai was pleased. The disguise worked very well indeed; she owed Algarin of Longwall a debt for this-or at the very least, she would forgive him his earlier offenses.
She had first asked Mereth to help, but Mereth had been unable to oblige; she simply didn't know a suitable spell. It had been a surprise when Algarin, hearing what Sarai wanted, had volunteered his services.
But then, the alteration of her features was probably not the most valuable thing she had received from the wizards, and it had been Mereth, rather than Algarin, who told Sarai a good deal of what the wizards had discussed after sending Sarai and the others out of the Guildhouse.
She had not revealed any Guild secrets, of course, nor had Sarai asked her to. She had, however, confirmed what Sarai had already suspected from her inadvertent eavesdropping-Tabaea's power derived originally from a single wizardry artifact: a black dagger. She appeared to have no true command of wizardry, as she had not been seen to use any other spells, but she had used the dagger somehow to steal other sorts of magic.
Tabaea might not have really mastered those other magicks, though.
Mereth had also spoken, with some scorn, of the various plans the wizards had suggested for dealing with Tabaea. Sarai knew that they did not have any simple counterspell for the Black Dagger, nor any simple means of killing or disarming Tabaea. The Guild might yet devise something, but as yet, Mereth told her, they had not.
That somehow didn't surprise Sarai much. The Wizards' Guild was very, very good at some things, but in this case they seemed to be completely out of their depth.
But then, so was everybody else, Sarai herself included. As she roamed the sadly transformed halls of the palace, Sarai could see that plainly. Even the conquerors, the city's outcasts, didn't seem comfortable with the new situation. They had not moved into the palace as if they were the new aristocracy, but rather as if it were a temporary shelter, a substitute for the Wall Street Field; it was with a curious mixture of annoyance and amazed relief that Sarai discovered that for the most part, the invaders had not dared to intrude on any of the private apartments or bedrooms. Her own family's rooms were untouched, as were most of the others that had been abandoned, and those courtiers and officials who had remained behind were, for the most part, undisturbed.
Instead the newcomers were camped in the corridors, the stairways, the audience chambers, and the meeting rooms. They had no beds, but slept on carpets, blankets, stolen draperies', or tapestries taken from the walls; they did not take their meals in the dining halls, but wherever they could scrounge food, eating it on the spot. The palace servants sometimes brought trays through the passages, handing out tidbits.
There was no organization at all; the people simply sat wherever they chose and moved when the urge struck them. They chatted with one another, played at dice and finger games, and, Sarai saw with disgust, stole one another's belongings whenever someone's back was turned. These were the new rulers of the city? After a tour of the palace that took her slightly more than two hours, however, Sarai found herself in the Great Hall, watching Tabaea at work, and realized that here were the real rulers of the city. The people in the corridors below were parasites, hangers-on, like the lesser nobility of old.
Still, she was not particularly impressed with what she saw. Tabaea held court as if she were settling arguments between unruly children-which was often appropriate, Sarai had to admit, but not always. And she didn't have the sense to delegate anything; no one seemed to be screening out the frivolous cases. Tabaea was serving as overlord, and as her own Minister of Justice, and half a dozen other roles as well.
Sarai watched as Tabaea heard a dispute between an old woman and the drunkard she claimed had stolen her blanket; as she received a representative of the Council of Warlocks who wanted to know her intentions, and whether she acknowledged killing Inza the Apprentice, and if so whether she intended to make reparations; and as she listened to a delegation of merchants from Grandgate Market who were upset about the absence of the city guard.
Tabaea gave the drunkard to the count of three to return the blanket; his failure to meet this deadline got him a broken hand as the empress forcibly removed the blanket.
She freely admitting killing Inza, but claimed that it was a matter of state and no reparations or apologies would be forthcoming; furthermore, she saw no need to tell anyone of her plans, especially not a bunch of warlocks. They could wait and see, like everyone else, or consult fortune-telling wizards or theurgists-but no, she wasn't holding any particular grudge, and they were free to stay in Ethshar of the Sands and operate as they always had, so long as they didn't annoy her. The warlocks' representative was not especially pleased by this, but he had little choice; he had to accept it. When she dismissed him, he bowed and departed without further argument.
As for the merchants, she asked if there had been any increase in theft or vandalism in the guards' absence.
"I don't know," the spokesman admitted, as his companions eyed one another uneasily.
"Not yet," one of the others muttered; Tabaea clearly heard him, however.
"You think the thieves will be bolder in the future, perhaps?" Tabaea asked, her tone challenging.
For a moment, no one replied, and a hush fell on the room. The delegates shifted their feet uneasily, looking at one another and stealing glances at the empress. At last, one spoke up, far more courageously than Sarai would ever have expected.
"I think that at the moment, all the thieves in the city are here in the palace," he said. "And when they either finish looting the place, or they realize they aren't going to get a chance to loot it, they'll be back out in the market."
"And what if they find they don't have to loot it?" Tabaea shot back. "What if they find that the new government here is more generous than the old, and that anyone can have a decent living without being forced to steal?"
"I don't know anything about that," the brave merchant answered. "I think there'll always be thieves, and I want someone to protect us from them."
"You have me," Tabaea said. "That's all you need."
The merchant's expression made it quite plain that he did not consider his new empress, whatever her abilities, to be an adequate replacement for several thousand soldiers, but his nerve had apparently run out; he said nothing more, and the scruffy little man who seemed to be serving as Tabaea's chamberlain herded the group down the stairs.
Next up was a woman who claimed she had been unfairly forced from her home; as she gathered herself together and inched up to the dais, Sarai, standing at the head of the left-hand stairway, considered what she had just heard.
Tabaea was no diplomat; her treatment of the warlock and the merchants had made that plain. The case of the stolen blanket was interesting, though; she had not hesitated in the slightest before ordering the man to give the woman the blanket. Had Tabaea really known who was lying, as quickly as that?
It could be, of course; if Tabaea had acquired the right magical skills, she might be able to instantly tell falsehoods from truth. She hadn't had to consult any magicians other than herself, certainly.
Or maybe she had just guessed. Maybe she assumed that the accused were always guilty. Maybe she would always prefer women to men, or the sober to the intoxicated. From one case, Sarai really couldn't say…
She had reached that point in her thoughts when the arrow whistled past. Her eyes widened, and she saw the impact very clearly as the missile struck Tabaea, Empress of Ethshar, in the throat.
Sarai stared as blood dribbled down the pale skin and onto the front of Tabaea's absurdly gaudy dress; the sight of the woman standing there gasping, with the arrow projecting from her neck, was horribly unnatural. Sarai was vaguely aware of clattering footsteps behind her as someone descended the stairs so fast that it was almost as much a fall as a climb, and then the fading sound of running feet as the archer fled down the corridor below. The sound was very loud and distinct in the shocked silence following the shot.
Then Tabaea reached up and ripped the arrow free; blood gushed forth, spattering the dais and drenching her dress. Someone screamed-a single voice at first, then a chorus of shrieks and shouts.
The empress took a single step, staggered-and then straightened up.
As Sarai watched, the gaping red hole in Tabaea's throat closed, the skin smoothed itself out, and the wound was gone as if it had never been.
"Where did that come from?" Tabaea demanded, in a voice as strong as ever.
Several fingers pointed, and Tabaea strode through the room, imposing in her anger despite her small size, with the bloody arrow still clutched in her hand. She headed for the stairs where the assassin had lurked. All present, regardless of who they might be, hastened to get out of her way-Sarai among them.
She had to admit, as she watched Tabaea pass, that was a very impressive bit of magic, the way that wound had healed-if it had all been real, and not some sort of illusion. She turned back to the throne room.
The dais was soaked with blood; if it was an illusion, it was a durable one. And, Sarai saw, a line of bloody drops and smears on the stone floor marked Tabaea's path from the dais to the stairs.
Sarai did not really think it was an illusion at all.
She wondered who the assassin was, and why he had made his attempt. Had Lord Torrut sent him, perhaps? And would he get away, or would Tabaea catch him?
If she caught him, Sarai was sure the man would die. She hoped it wouldn't be too slow or painful a death.
She looked around again, at the remnants of the crowd, at Tabaea's chamberlain standing by the dais looking bewildered, at the rapidly drying blood the empress had lost. She thought of the warlock, and the merchants, and the drunk with the broken hand, of Grandgate Market and the gate itself left unguarded, and of the palace corridors jammed with beggars and thieves. She thought of the empress of Ethshar abandoning everything else to chase her own would-be assassin, because she had no guards to do it for her, no magicians to track down and slay the attacker.
This was no way to run a city.
Quite aside from any question of Tabaea's right to rule, it was clear to Sarai that the murderous young woman didn't know how to rule properly.
She would have to be removed-but as the scene with the arrow had demonstrated, as Mereth's report of the Wizards' Guild's repeated failures, removing her wasn't as simple as it might seem, with the Black Dagger protecting her.
Sarai paused, looking after the departed empress. At least, she thought, there was an obvious place to start. If the Black Dagger protected Tabaea, then the Black Dagger had to be eliminated.
Of course, Tabaea knew that. It wasn't going to be easy to get the enchanted knife away from her.
Easy or not, a way would have to be found. And since no one else seemed to be doing it, Sarai would have to do it herself.
She sighed; it was easy to say she should do it. The hard part, Sarai told herself, was figuring out how.