Hmmm. This is going to be very very long. Stick with it if you like.
Ooops. Keep forgetting the disclaimers. Tamora Pierce has the characters. Not Emir Filariid, he's mine. The plot is also mine. Mine! Mine! Mine!
The lady in question was, at that moment, thinking just the same. Not only that, she was disappointed and upset. She had returned to her chamber and begun to scry, looking for any magic focussed on the dying Queen. The trouble was that every mage or healer in the palace, and even some healers, witches and sorcerers from the city, had a spell on her - whether for healing or for harm - and a mere scrying-spell couldn't distinguish between the two. There was another way...
Biting her lip, taking a deep breath and praying to all the gods she knew, the Lioness poured out all of herself - her mind, soul, Gift, her thoughts, awareness, her emotions, her essence, the stuff that made her Alanna - into the air of her chamber.
Alanna streamed through a thousand cracks and chinks in the walls, blown every which way. She was in every atom of air, every blood cell of every human or animal, every plant and pocket and jar...
"Oh, Goddess!" she cried, though her voice was just a whisper in the wind, "Keep me myself!"
Jon would be so much better at this, she thought. The Voice and the King and the wielder of the Dominion Jewel...he knows how to be One and Many...
She was thrust through doors and under windows, breathed by ten thousand mouths, disturbed by a hundred Gifts and a thousand thousand gusts of wind. But she could cope. She was still Alanna, with all that meant. Yet still it was the strangest thing she had ever done, in a lifetime filled with strange things. She could look from any molecule of her, or watch any on its journey. She could control them from the inside or the out; she could leave them, watch them or be them.
"Thank you, Great Lady." she murmured.
Molecules of the Lioness began to push the rest of the air aside, as if she were racing herself to get to the chamber where Thayet lay wasting away. As she turned sharply around a corner, she sensed another Gift doing the same - an ugly olive-green Gift, full of dark tones and whining screams. Alanna gathered all her own violet Gift together and probed the khaki magic. What she found there made her scream.
Every molecule of Alanna everywhere screamed and her scream echoed through the palace. Numair jumped to his feet, eyes searching for his friend, hand outstretched to blast whoever had made her scream like that. Daine, beside him, tried to soothe the clamour of a thousand palace animals screaming in sympathy inside her head. King Jonathan snatched a sword and began to wave it around his chamber - the Champion's job might be to defend the King, but he was ready to defend the Champion, with his life if necessary! Thayet too heard her friend's scream. She sat sharply up in bed, clawing at the air... and fell back. Her heart had stopped.
The Alanna in Thayet's chamber saw it happen, saw the Queen's serving women standing irresolutely around her friend's bed - her deathbed. She didn't know if what she needed to do could be done and she didn't really care; she just resolved to do it, whether or not it was possible. She began to chant the Call, summoning herself to the chamber.
Alanna felt herself streaming to Thayet's chamber. Atom by atom, violet by violet, bit by bit, she collected. At last she was all there, floating in the air, mind, Gift, soul, essence. Now for my body, then, she thought, and stretched her Gift, picturing her short, stocky body with the extraordinary violet eyes, the scars on her wrists and arms, hands, legs and face. Relics of battles fought bravely, she thought, and remembered Thayet saying it. She felt tears in her eyes and realised she had eyes. She was back in her body.
Ignoring the gasps and shrieks of the Queen's serving women, Alanna knelt at the side of Thayet's bed. She extended her Gift, straining it a little further to give her friend's heart a sharp jolt. Risky, yes, with Thayet's terribly weak state; but there was no other option to restore the Queen's life.
Alanna knew what she had to do next. In her terrible glimpse into the greenish Gift she had learnt all that she needed to know. When Thayet was breathing again she stumped out, cautioning the serving ladies to say nothing.
Alanna headed for the third floor, where the mages and academics had their rooms. As she passed that of Daine and Numair, the door opened and Numair came out.
"My dear, what's the matter? Why are you wearing your mail?"
"I'd better tell you."
They went into his room and sat down. Kitten climbed onto Alanna's lap as she began.
She told him everything, from the King's suspicion to her journey. "I'm looking for a Carthaki mage, trusted by the King and Queen, living in the palace. He has a nasty khaki sort of coloured Gift," she concluded, "and he's plotting to kill the Queen."
Numair went white. "That would be Emir Filariid. Emir Filariid! How did I not see that? I've been scrying night and day for who it is... and I miss Emir Filariid. He fits perfectly, he's an Adept of the Imperial University, he came over here to further his studies. Emperor Kaddar isn't too keen on him, so I've heard, but he's very charming and the King and Queen do like him.. But... did you find all that out just from probing his Gift?"
"No, of course not! I Saw, I thought, I probed. The probe was worst, but I got the least information from it!"
"Was that when you screamed?"
"Yes, it was terrifying. I was diffused all over the palace, so it must have been just as scary for you!"
Numair grinned. "What does that diffusion spell feel like?"
"It's hard to explain. When you start to do it, you're overwhelmed. Being in hundreds, thousands of places at once... it's scary. Awfully strange, but very exciting, and it takes lots of magic. That's my dilemma, you see. Because I've pretty well used up my Gift, what with that and restarting Thayet's heart, and if I use magic again it's touch and go whether I'll faint from overdoing things or totally finish my Gift off first. And whichever happens, I'll be in no fit state to tackle Emir Filariid."
"I'll do it, then! Forgive me, but my Gift's stronger anyway."
"Oh, I wasn't casting aspersions at your Gift. You are a black-robe mage, after all! But it's my destiny to do it. Maybe to die from it, but unless I'm totally out of luck to beat him and heal Thayet first. I told you what I Saw, didn't I?"
"Then wait awhile."
"I'd love to, but what will Emir Filariid be doing to Thayet while I'm resting?"
"Nothing you can't undo when you win. Lie down and get some sleep!"
Three hours later Alanna awoke, refreshed and ready to tackle the Carthaki mage. Her rest had restored her Gift almost to half strength and she was fairly confident about the coming battle 'with Gift and blood, with sword and spell'. But she couldn't shake off her visions in the fire.
"Ah, well," she sighed. "The sooner I start, the sooner I'll know if it's true."
"Are you going?" Daine asked as she came into the room.
"I'm going, for better or worse. Wish me luck!"
"Of course. You'll be all right, Alanna. Goddess bless!"
Alanna paused in front of the door that read 'Emir Filariid'. She breathed deeply and knocked twice, hard.