"There's a woman named Tabaea who has just declared herself Empress of Ethshar, and she's raised an army of the poor and discontented from the Wall Street Field. They're marching here to take the palace and kill the overlord."

Alorria stepped back, to give the commander of the city guard room to stand.

"From the Field?" Lord Torrut said, astonished; he stopped with one arm in its sleeve and the other bare. "You don't need me for that! A hundred men and a magician or two should be able to handle it."

Alorria shook her head. "Tabaea's a magician-a very powerful one, the one that Lady Sarai's been looking for for months, the one who's been murdering other magicians."

"Well, but surely ..."

"The magicians are trying to stop her, and Captain Tikri's getting the palace guard ready to defend against her, but so far nothing's working. She's already walked right through a squadron of guards, out on Wall Street; she crippled a warlock and brushed aside the wizards' spells as if they were mere illusions."

Torrut stared at her for a moment, then turned to his door guard. "Is this true?" he demanded.

The guard turned up an empty palm."I don't know, my lord," he said. "This woman was sent by Lady Sarai and Captain Tikri, but that's all I know."

"Damn." Torrut slid his arm into the empty sleeve and then reached for his kilt. "Who are you, young woman? Why wasn't one of the regular messengers sent?"

"My husband's a wizard," Alorria explained. "Everyone else was busy, and I wanted to help, so they sent me to fetch you."

Torrut nodded. "Good of you. Listen, I want you to take this soldier to vouch for you and go wake the overlord. I don't know what's going on here, or how much danger there really is, but I'm not about to let anyone say I didn't do my best to protect Ederd. While you do that, I'll go down and see what's happening for myself."

"Wake the overlord?" Alorria squeaked. Even though she was the daughter of a king herself, she lived in awe of the three Ethsharitic overlords. Beside her the guardsman looked very unhappy indeed.

"That's right," Torrut said, standing up and pulling his kilt into position.

"Somebody better." He smiled, "Don't worry, Ederd's a gentle old man; he won't have your heads lopped off for disturbing him. For that matter, despite his age, he doesn't mind looking at a lovely young woman any more than I do. All this fuss may be nothing, but I think Ederd would want to know." He reached for his sword belt. "Now, go on, both of you!"

They went.

When Alorria had come up to the level where most of the higher nobility had their apartments, the stairways and passages had been quiet and dim; now, though, she could hear voices and running footsteps and could see lights behind a dozen doors. "Which way?" she asked.The guard pointed.

Officials were hurrying about; Alorria knew that the magicians were gathering two flights below, to prepare a defense against Tabaea's advance, and to find a way to kill the mysterious self-proclaimed "empress."

And out in the streets, Tabaea was marching steadily closer. Once Tabaea was out of the Wall Street Field, she got as far as the intersection of Gate Street and Wizard Street before she encountered any further organized resistance. There, though, she found herself facing a living barricade of soldiers, swords drawn, formed up in a line three deep that stretched from one side of the avenue to the other.

"Are you trying to keep me from the palace? From my palace?" she shouted.

The lieutenant in charge of the formation called back,"Drop your weapons, all of you! I call on you in the name of Ederd the Fourth, Overlord of Ethshar, to surrender!"

Tabaea laughed. "I could just go around the block," she called, "but I think I'll teach you all a lesson." With the Black Dagger ready in her hand, she marched forward. The line of soldiery braced to meet her. When she came within striking distance, the soldier directly in front of her called out, "Stop, or I '11 kill you!" He raised his sword high.

"Go ahead and try!" Tabaea called back, without stopping. The man stabbed at her; catlike, she dodged the thrust. Her hand flicked out, like a cat's paw at a mouse, and closed around the sword's blade.

Startled, the soldier tried to snatch it back, but Tabaea tore the weapon out of his hand and flung it aside.

The soldiers to either side were striking at her, as well, now; she ducked and wove, dodging their blows. She snatched the swords away from two more soldiers. The line formation had broken, now; they were all coming to get at her, forming a tight little knot around her.

She smacked away swords, dodged their thrusts, grabbed one in her fist, and bent it until it broke; behind her she could hear her ragtag army muttering, brushing up against the soldiers, but not really fighting.

It didn't matter. She didn't need them.

A sword hit her squarely in the side, and she felt an instant of incredible pain, but then it was gone; she had lost another life.

Angry, she lashed out with the Black Dagger and sliced open a soldier's throat. As he started to fall back she finished him with a thrust to the heart; she wanted a life to replace the one she had lost.

She picked up another guardsman and threw him against his companions; then another, and another. She used her hands and her warlockry both.

"You can't stop me!" she shrieked. "No one can stop me!"

The Black Dagger flared blue, and something crackled like dead leaves in a hot fire. Someone was trying to use magic against her."No one!" she repeated, "not even wizards!"

The dagger flared again, greenish this time. Tabaea jabbed it into a soldier's belly.

A moment later the guard broke; several men fell back under the lieutenant's orders, but others ran off down side streets, either Wizard Street or Arena Street, and a few ducked into the Cap and Dagger.

And of course, half a dozen or so lay unmoving on the ground.

"All right, men," the lieutenant shouted. "She won't make it easy, we'll leave this one to the wizards!"

"Run away!" Tabaea called. "Look at them, you people, look at them run! Send your wizards, I don't care! They can't stop me!" She waved the dagger in the air, and a cheer went up from her "army." "Come on!" she called, and again she marched toward the palace.

At the palace, the more ordinary officials and workers listened closely as the magicians reported on the encounter.

"Bad," Karanissa said, "very bad. Three dead, at least. All on our side."

"She's still coming?" Lady Sarai asked.

"Oh, yes; the fight hardly even slowed her down."

"What if we let her pass, but stopped her army?" The question was directed at the entire room, rather than at Karanissa.

"We could," Okko agreed, "but what would that accomplish, if we can't stop heft"

"Well, she couldn't very well rule the city all by herself, could she?"

"No," Okko agreed, "but I think she could kill everyone here, one by one, starting with the overlord himself, until the survivors started obeying her."

"Would she do that?" one of the overlord's scriveners asked, horrified.

"Yes," Teneria said flatly. "She would."

Sarai turned to the wizards. "What spells have you tried against her?"

"Several," Tobas said. "From simple curses to the White Death. Whatever is protecting her blocks them all instantly." "Is there any way to stop her?"

Lady Sarai asked.

"Probably," Tbbas replied, "and we'll keep trying spells. But most of them would take more time than we have to prepare. And some of them would take out large parts of the city with her."

"And we don't really know which to use," Karanissa pointed out. "Since we haven't yet figured out what keeps her alive, we can't be sure of how to kill her."

Lord Torrut stepped into the room at that point and demanded loudly, "What's happening?"Several people rushed to tell him; he quickly chose one to serve as his spokesman and began quietly absorbing information.

"I wonder where the other conspirators are?" Tbbas asked.

Karanissa shook her head, but before she could say anything, Kelder of Tazmor answered quietly, "I don't think there is any conspiracy. I think there's just Tabaea."

"You never found traces of anyone else, did you?" Lady Sarai asked, startled.

"She's small enough, and strong enough, and seems to have several different magicks available-how can she do that?"

"There's just Tabaea," Karanissa agreed. "At least, there's just Tabaea and the rabble from the Field."

"It's all just her. . ." Lady Sarai's voice trailed off; then she asked, "What happens if we can't stop her?"

No one had an answer for that, until Karanissa suggested, "We die, probably."

"There's no need for that," Lord Torrut said, startling the others. "We don't die; we retreat, we regroup, we reconsider our situation, and when we're ready, we retaliate."

"But how ..." Sarai began.

"Listen, little Sarai," Torrut said, cutting her off, "you and your father have made fun of me for years for being a warrior with no wars to fight. Well, now I have a war-and by the gods I swear that I'm going to fight it, and I'm going to win it. It's not who wins the first battle that matters, it's who wins the last battle. This Tabaea is going to win the first one, but I intend to make sure it's not the last."

The whispered side conversations had died away as Lord Torrut spoke; now everyone was listening to him.

"This Tabaea doesn't like the overlord-that means we need to get him out of the palace before she gets here, and while we're at it, I think we had better get his entire family out, with him: Ederd the Heir and Zarrea and Edarth and Kinthera and Annara, all of them. If she's lived in the Wall Street Field then she probably doesn't like the guard, and she doesn't like me, and Sarai, she probably doesn't like your father, Lord Kalthon-you'd better get him and your brother out of here, too. And magicians-she doesn't like magicians."

"But where do we go?" Lady Sarai asked, dismayed.

"She's coming from Grandgate, is she? Then we go to Seagate. We put the overlord and his family and anyone who's too old or too sick to fight on a ship, and we sail it out of here, out of her reach."

"How do you know when it's out of her reach?" Tobas asked.

That stopped Lord Torrut for a moment; then he smiled, showing well-kept teeth. "I don't," he said. "I'm guessing. But if she could stop a ship at sea ... well, has she shown any sign of being able to affect what she can't see?"

"No," Karanissa said, "not yet."

"How can we fight back from a ship, though?" Lady Sarai protested."Until we know how to fight back," Lord Torrut pointed out, "what does it matter where we are?"

Lady Sarai was not entirely satisfied with this, but she could think of no good answer. "I would never have thought a murder case could turn into something like this," she muttered to herself.

No one heard her, as Lord Torrut continued, "I sent that woman Alorria to rouse the overlord. And I'll leave it to this group here to get old Ederd and anyone else who Tabaea might want to kill out of the palace and down to Seagate before she gets here; and while you're doing that, I'll be doing what I can to slow her arrival."

"Then you're not going to flee yourself, Lord Torrut?" someone asked.

"Of course not!" Lord Torrut grinned outright. "At long last, I have a war to fight!"

PART THREE.

Empress.

CHAPTER 25.

Lady Sarai could hear distant shouting as she tucked the blanket around her father; Tabaea and her army must have gotten as far as Quarter Street, at the very least. Kalthon the Younger sat upright at the back of the wagon, looking slightly dazed; Lady Sarai could see his expression clearly in the light of the torch the wagon's driver held.

"Sarai, I don't understand," her brother said again.

"You don't have to," Sarai said. "You just do what I told you."

"But aren't you coming?"

Sarai hesitated. She looked down at her father. He had appeared to be more or less awake when they left the palace, and had moved partly under his own power, but now he gave no sign of consciousness; he probably couldn't hear anything, might well have no idea what was going on around him. "No," she said, "I'm not."

"But why not?" young Kalthon protested. "If this crazy magician would kill us all, won't she kill you, too?"

"Oh, I suppose she will if she catches me and finds out who I am, yes." Sarai attempted a mocking smile, but it didn't work very well-or perhaps her brother couldn't see it in the dark; her face was probably in shadow from where he sat.

"Then shouldn't you come with us?"

"No. " She gave the blanket a final tug, then let herself slide back over the side of the wagon.

"Why nor?" Kalthon's wail was heartbreaking. "How am I going to manage Daddy without you?"

"You won't be alone; there will be people to help. The overlord's going, too,and all his family. His granddaughter An-nara will help. And Ederd the Heir."

She hoped Ederd the Heir would, at any rate; he was a healthy man, not yet fifty, but prone to turn morose and useless at times. His daughter Annara was just a year older than Sarai, though, and still cheerful and energetic.

"But what will you do? Are you staying in the palace? Is this horrible woman going to kill you?"

"No," Sarai said. "No, she won't kill me. I won't stay in the palace. I'll hide somewhere in the city."

"But if you're hiding, why can't you come with us?"

Sarai sighed. "Kallie," she said, "I'm sending you and Dad and the others away so you'll be safe, but someone has to stay here to fight Tabaea, and I 'm going to be the one from our family who does that."

"What about Ederd the Heir, then? Shouldn't he be staying?"

"No, because he's too valuable. He's the overlord's heir."

Kalthon couldn't argue with that, but he still didn't like it.