The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Some of the horses around the sorceress screamed, and yells of armsmen struggling with spooked mounts vied with the thunder and sizzling of the rain of power that hammered at the ancient town.

  Abruptly, the lightnings stopped. The thunder rumbled into dull and distant mutterings, and the intermittent sheets of rain subsided into a cold drizzle.

  From darkness emerged a gray dawn that slowly brightened.

  Anna looked up at the dark clouds that covered the entire sky, even as they lightened and began to turn back to mottled white-and-gray. With the misting rain that fell all around her, her hair was plastered against her skull, and her head ached, inside and out. Her eyes burned, burned with faint double images . . . as if to say that she had created Darksong through Clearsong.

  A last, long line of fire-lightning streaked across the late-afternoon sky, well to the north, and a single rumbling, like a distant timpani, faded away.

  Anna forced herself to view what had been Envaryl.

  The highest structures remaining were the heaps of blackened yellow bricks that had been the walls, bricks that steamed where the rain bathed them, creating a low ground fog that misted the details of destruction. Occasional tongues of flame leaped out of the fog, and the crackling of fires hissed across the wet grass between the Defalkan force and the fallen town.

  The ground rumbled and shook one last time, then shuddered into silence.

  Rickel and Lejun lowered their shields until the lower rims rested on the ground. Their eyes remained focused westward, as if they could not look away.

  Thin trails of smoke, light gray and dark gray and white and black, swirled out of the wreckage, weaving up and above the steam and fog through the lightening rain, twisting together.

  Anna turned back toward the players. Delvor sat in a heap. Yuarl stood, sobbing. Duralt, his black hair swirled in the wind, looked blankly westward. Of all the players, only Palian and Liende met Anna’s eyes.

  “What must be, must be,” said Palian.

  “It is done, Regent,” said the chief player.

  “No,” Anna said heavily. “It is done here. Only here.” Her eyes went westward again, where the clouds fragmented. Despite the knives stabbing from inside her eyes, despite the shivering within that felt like dissonant chords, she watched the clouds, their images doubled, and a few patches of blue sky, before her eyes dropped to what remained of Envaryl.

  The far hillside steamed, charred, sodden. The antlike figures of those few survivors who were not armsmen—and there were but a handful—staggered into the sudden light.

  Anna walked with leaden legs to Farinelli and climbed laboriously into the saddle. Her breathing was not quite gasping as she sat, gazing westward, yet looking at nothing.

  “No one will challenge you again in Dumar,” said Hanfor.

  “Not in Dumar.” But everywhere else where she had not used fire and sorcery . . . every leader in Liedwahr seemed to think he—or she—was different. Hanfor and Jecks were right. Only force worked. Only fucking force. At least in the short run . . . and she’d never been given enough time to do anything . . . Not on earth, not on Erde. . . .

  Anna turned Farinelli back toward the river road, and toward Hasjyl, where Jecks rested, and, with luck, had recovered enough for the trip back to Dumaria.

  Hanfor wheeled his mount alongside Anna’s, and they rode eastward through the continuing drizzle, the silent lines of armsmen following, turning away from the sodden steaming heap of yellow brick that had been Envaryl.

  Lord, she was tired.

  120

  ENCORA, RANUAK

  Vferia stands at the entrance to the sitting room. “Come in, and don’t look so pleased with yourself,” says the Matriarch. “You see the beginning of a new age in Ebra. I see slaughter and death and rape and pillage, and you and your SouthWomen have created it.”

  “I didn’t come to be insulted,” answers the dark-haired Veria. “I’d hoped we could talk as adults.” She steps into the room, and glances around, her eyes touching Alya, Ulgar, and the Matriarch.

  “What did you wish to discuss?” asks the round-faced Matriarch.

  “Why you talk and do nothing, and why you are so angered when I undertake to act?” Veria stands beside the empty straight-backed wooden chair, but makes no move to seat herself.

  “Veria, sometimes, had I not seen you emerge from my own body, I would say that you could not have been my daughter.” The Matriarch’s voice is nearly flat, empty of the cheer that usually fills it. Her round face is stern.

  “Mother . . .”

  “Do not ‘Mother’ me, child!”

  The sitting room grows silent, although Ulgar shakes his head minutely.

  “You think that, because I do not raise armsmen, I do not care. You think that, because I prefer to work with coins and trade, that I do not understand warfare. Child, you do not think at all.”

  Veria steps back, turning toward the door. “I did not come for this.”

  “Sit and listen, my dear one.

  Listen ‘til my tale is done!”

  The raw power of the Matriarch’s contralto voice, like a cascade unloosed after ages, thrusts Veria down into the waiting chair.

  Alya shrinks into her own seat. Ulgar’s smile is bitter.

  “You will listen. And then you will go to Elawha. If you survive what you have created, you may come home.” The Matriarch’s voice remains almost flat. “The sorceress and I are different, so different that you do not see how we are the same.”

  Veria’s eyes remain doubting.

  “The sorceress has ridden to war. Have you noted how she has achieved her success? She moves more quickly than her enemies, and with a force small enough that she can survive without huge supply trains and an endless outpouring of gold. She spends herself more recklessly than her coins. She subjects others to nothing she will not endure.

  “After less than a season, Dumar is hers. The Evult took two years and never moved more than a hundred leagues into Defalk. The late Prophet Behlem moved into Defalk in weeks, and could not hold it for much longer than that. The sorceress could hold Dumar for all her life, yet she will not keep it. On that you can wager golds . . . if you have any to wager. Why not, my child? Because possessions possess you. Dumar would end up possessing Defalk, and she feels that, if she does not know it.” The Matriarch pauses and sips the hot cider Ulgar has poured for her.

  “She is not liked, not all that well, and I doubt that she ever will be. She has gotten harder, and stronger, yet men will die for her.” The Matriarch’s eyes narrow as they survey Veria. “None will die for you, and yet many will die because of what you have done. You have sent blades and gold to others so that they might fight.”

  “So has the sorceress,” protests Veria, her voice small.

  “She risks all with every action she takes. You have risked little, or so you thought. Now, my daughter, you will risk what you ask others to hazard.” The Matriarch clears her throat.

  “Go now, go and fight

  for all you’ve said is right . . .”

  When the spellsong ends, the tears stream down Veria’s cheeks. “You . . . my own mother . . . using Dark-song . . .” She stumbles from the room and down the corridor.

  “Matriarchs pay prices as well,” Ulgar says quietly to Alya. “They must, you know?”

  The Matriarch’s face is blank, her eyes black behind their natural darkness. For a time, for a long time, she holds the cooling cider she cannot drink, the cider which she sees through pain and double images.

  121

  MANSUUS, MANSUUR

  So . . . besides destroying two fleets of Sturinnese ships and annihilating every one of their armsmen and Sea-Priests in Liedwahr, she has added Dumar to Defalk. Ha! Let the Maitre of Sturinn stew over that!” Konsstin smiles broadly, leaning forward in his chair, arms half-crossed over the flattened scrolls on his desk.

  “That is not all she has done,” cautions Bassil.

  “Oh?” Konsstin smiles b
rightly. “You sound displeased, or cautious, Bassil. What else has our dear sorceress done?”

  “Besides reducing Envaryl to lightning-scarred rubble? Or roasting Ehara within its walls?”

  “Nasty turn, she has,” muses the Liedfuhr, leaning back. “Is there more?”

  “She has destroyed every armsman who would oppose her throughout Dumar, and left reminders that failure to be loyal to Defalk is deadly.”

  “Ha! Everyone promises that, but when it comes to the fact—”

  “Have you seen the ruins of Envaryl, sire? Or that massive bridge that spans the Falche? Or felt the sorcery that touched the harmonies?”

  Konsstin paused. “Are you certain she is that strong?”

  “Your seers are, sire. They say her spells are bound with the lyric tone, with anger, and with fire. For a generation, Dumar will find itself bound to destroy any invader and any enemy to Defalk.”

  For a long moment, Konsstin gazes toward the orange-and-purple of twilight. Then he sighs. “It could be worse.”

  “Those dispatches?” asked Bassil.

  “We’ll have to rewrite them. We can’t send troops near Envaryl now that she’s removed the threat. And it wouldn’t do any good . . . now.” Konsstin fingers his beard. “Perhaps . . . with all the messages from Rabyn and Nubara . . . we should tell the sorceress that we are deeply concerned about our grandson’s patrimony.”

  “You’d mention those messages from them?”

  “Of course not. We’ll just say that the recent example of Sturinnese adventuring has created fears in many that Neserea will be the next target of Sea-Priest expansion. . . . No, make that—will be among the next targets of Sea-Priest expansion. Especially since Dumar is clearly now free of the threat of the Sea-Priests.” Konsstin smiles, and adds, “Oh, and make sure to send another five hundred golds to Bertmynn. And more plate iron. She’ll have to deal with Defalk for a time, I suspect, before she can address Ebra. She’s been gone from Falcor for two seasons—and more by the time she returns. That’s too long for someone who’s held power for such a short time.”

  “You sound certain of that, sire.”

  “There are always internal politics, everywhere, and usually they’re more deadly than outside enemies. Look at my dear grandson and Nubara. Or the sorceress and Behlem. Or the Council of Wei.” Konsstin stands and shrugs. “She will have much to occupy her. Much. With all her power, I would not stand in her boots.” He shakes his head and looks to the balcony door, then stands slowly. “Not I.”

  122

  In the study once used by Lord Ehara, Anna stood at the window and looked out to the south, at the stones of the second rebuilt bridge across the Falche, stones that shimmered in the bright midday light of full summer.

  Bridges . . . . You should be back in Falcor, rebuilding Defalk, building highways and bridges there.

  She shook her head. She’d been undoing some of the devastation she had created, and that had meant rebuilding the main bridge in Dumaria and the one in Narial—as well as singing the seeking spell over all of Narial—and publicly incinerating another half-dozen fanatics. She didn’t need disloyalty in the main port city of Dumar.

  Now . . . tomorrow, she would be leaving, perhaps in time to reach Falcor by the beginning of harvest season. She turned from the window, walking past the low bookshelves, and seated herself behind the dark wooden writing table. The mantel of the oil lamp was still sooty.

  At the rap on the door, she looked up.

  “Overcaptain Alvar, Lady Anna,” Rickel announced.

  Anna winced inside. Fhurgen should have been there. Lord, how many will die for you before it’s all over? Jecks should have been sitting with her, too.

  “Lady Anna, you requested my presence?”

  “I did.” Anna offered a smile to the swarthy and stocky officer and gestured to the chair across the writing table from her. “Have you thought about it? How do you feel about staying? I’d like an honest answer. You don’t have to stay here. I don’t want to force you.”

  Alvar smiled cautiously. “Chief armsman of Dumar, lady, and you think I would turn that down? Not many’s the armsman who gets to be an overcaptain and chief armsman of a land. I’d thought myself lucky to become a captain of lancers.” His smile turned to a grin. “Dumar is much like Nesalia, except warmer. I can’t say as I mind that.” The grin faded. “I worry about you, lady. You’ve been good to me, and I’d not wish you thinking I was abandoning you.”

  Anna shook her head. “I need . . . The Regency needs . . . a strong and honest man here. Both Lady Siobion and I have to be able to rely on you. I don’t need more worries about Dumar. You’re honest. You know people, and you’re fair.”

  “I will be doing my best for you.”

  “We need to tell Lady Siobion.” Anna smiled, then raised her voice. “Rickel?”

  The door opened.

  “The lady Siobion. I told her that I needed to speak to her.”

  “Yes, Lady Anna.” The study door closed.

  “I will obey you first, lady,” Alvar said quietly. “I am not from Defalk . . . but you are my liege, no matter the title here.”

  “Thank you.”

  After an awkward silence, the study door opened.

  “The lady Siobion,” announced Rickel.

  Anna and Alvar stood.

  “I have come at your request.” The slender brunette bowed. “What would you have of me?”

  Anna gestured to the chairs, waiting until everyone was seated. “The same as before, Siobion. This is Overcaptain Alvar. He will be chief armsman of Dumar.”

  Siobion studied the swarthy armsman, then looked at Anna. “You offer one of your own trusted officers. You rebuild our bridges. Yet you slaughtered all in Envaryl . . . my son and my consort.”

  “I had no choice,” Anna said. “You should understand that.”

  A bitter smile crossed Siobion’s lips. “I understand, and I must be loyal. I do not have to like what has happened. I never will like that. You, lady, must understand such.”

  “I understand and wish I’d never had to come to Dumar,” Anna said bluntly.

  “I believe you, lady and my regent. I would that my lord understood that.” Siobion shook her head. “For what has happened, you have been more merciful than could have been expected.” Her eyes went to Alvar. “Your overcaptain will serve us both well, and, I hope, the people of Dumar.”

  “I will, Lady Siobion,” Alvar said.

  “He will,” echoed Anna.

  Siobion offered a half-shrug. “Is there aught else you require of me?”

  “No. We’ve gone over everything else. You know when the golds for repayment are due.”

  “I do. They will arrive. We have no choice, and that may make it easier upon us all.” Siobion bowed.

  “You may go.” Anna rose.

  After Siobion had left the study, the regent turned to Alvar. “Make sure your reports to me are honest. Don’t try to make me happy. If I know how good or how bad a problem really is, I can work out something.”

  “Only from you, Lady Anna, would I trust such words. Every word will be. the truth as I know it.”

  “That’s all I can ask.” Anna nodded. “I’ll talk to you later, before we leave.”

  Anna followed Alvar out, but turned left and walked quickly to the guest suite adjoining hers.

  The bandaged Jecks smiled at her from his chair, then stood slowly.

  “Sit down. You’re still a mess, and you don’t need to reinjure yourself out of courtesy.” Anna waved the white-haired lord back into his seat.

  “Courtesy, my lady, that is much of what remains to me.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll be back in the saddle before long.”

  “Tomorrow,” Jecks promised.

  “We’ll see. There’s a padded seat on one of the wagons, just in case. Or a litter.”

  “A wagon? I must ride a wagon?”

  “We’ll see,” Anna repeated.

  “You are troubled,
still.” Jecks frowned. “Yet you have won great victories.”

  “Oh, I’ve won great victories. I’m the warrior sorceress.” Anna walked to the window.

  From his chair, Jecks nodded. “A mighty one.”

  “I hate it, you know.” Anna’s voice thickened. She couldn’t help that, and she turned from Jecks, eyes blank as they saw nothing beyond the open shutters. “At first, it wasn’t too bad. It was good to have power, not to always be ordered around by men. To have some say. I still don’t want to be ordered around. Or judged.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “No one listens to what I say. No one listens to the words. They only do as I say because I have power, not because I’m right.”

  “You are not the first ruler to discover that.” Jecks’ voice was warm, if slightly raspy.

  “And I won’t be the last. I know that. It doesn’t help.”

  Her children hadn’t listened, not that much. Avery certainly hadn’t listened. Brill hadn’t listened when she’d wanted him to try harmony, and it might have saved his life. Daffyd hadn’t listened to either her or Brill, and he was dead. Behlem hadn’t listened. Ehara hadn’t listened. Did she leave or kill all those who didn’t listen? Was she that pig-headed?

  “I hate it. Why don’t men listen?” She shook her head. Women didn’t listen, either. “Why don’t people listen?”

  “Anna . . .” Jecks coughed. “I have done my best to listen. I am old, and I have not always listened. . . .”

  “You’re not old,” she said, turning back into the room. “Not in any way.”

  He laughed once, and she could tell the laugh hurt, and that hurt her, too. But he was right about one thing. A handful had listened—Liende, Hanfor, Alvar, Dythya, Secca, Skent . . . and Jecks. Jecks . . . always there.

  She stepped up beside his chair and took his hand, glancing back toward the window and the gardens—and the late-afternoon sun. Late afternoon—was that what they had?