The Shadow Sorceress: The Fourth Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by Modesitt. Jr. , L. E.

  “You look worried,” ventured Alcaren.

  “I am,” the sorceress admitted. “We have a respite, but the Sturinnese are still in Dumar.” She decided against saying more for the moment.

  Alcaren frowned slightly, then shifted his weight in the saddle. “Up there, to the left, you can see the walls for the quarters of the Free City’s lancers. Just this side—the building with the pale green shutters—that’s the Boiled Pot.”

  “Boiled pot?” asked Secca.

  “It is an odd name for a tavern—it’s not really an inn—but it’s because the old proprietress said she boiled every pot before cooking anything in it. She claimed that kept food from spoiling.”

  “Did it…” Secca shook her head. Anna had insisted on the same thing for water used in childbirth. “It should work.”

  Alcaren shrugged. “I wasn’t here that long before you arrived, but the local lancers claimed no one ever got the flux from eating there.”

  “Maybe more innkeepers should boil their pots,” interjected Wilten with a laugh.

  “Especially in Ebra,” added Alcaren wryly.

  “I didn’t know…” Secca grinned at the Ranuan overcaptain.

  “I’m fine…now. The ride from Hanlis was…shall we say I have had more comfortable journeys.”

  Secca couldn’t help a gentle laugh at the wry and self-deprecating tone of Alcaren’s response. “I’m glad you’re fine now.”

  As the column turned left at the unmarked squarish building, Wilten pointed to the green across the green. “Don’t see anyone there today.”

  “We wouldn’t be out in this if we lived here,” Secca replied. “I’d just as soon it didn’t turn to snow.”

  “It seldom does along the coast,” Alcaren said.

  Anna would have had an explanation for that, Secca reflected, realizing that there was much she could have learned—and hadn’t. And now she never would. The redhead reined up the gray mare on the side of the steps leading up to the square columns at the front of the Council building, opposite the bronze hitching rings set into the blue marble wall that comprised the side facing of the steps. She dismounted quickly, and tied the gray to the end ring.

  Wilten nodded at the sorceress. “We’ll be here till you return, lady.”

  “I don’t know how long it will be.”

  “We’ll be here.”

  Alcaren dismounted, but did not leave his mount, nodding as Secca turned to walk back to the front of the half-score marble steps. Between the darkness of the clouds overhead and the dampness left by the fine rain on the stone, the pale blue marble steps appeared a darkish gray.

  Dyvan and Easlon followed Secca up the steps.

  A single woman guard in a crimson short cloak, wearing a brace of shortswords, stepped forward as Secca walked through the square archway and then through the right hand door of the double oak doors.

  “Lady Sorceress, Counselor Veria is in the third chamber on the left.”

  “Thank you.” Secca offered a smile.

  “My pleasure, lady.” The smile presented in return was more than mere politeness.

  Secca’s boots clicked on the blue marble floor, as she walked toward the doorway indicated by the guard. Her steps echoed loudly enough that the sorceress suspected her heels were worn down and the boot nails were striking the stone. She slipped off the hat, folded it, and slipped it through her belt. She tried to smooth her hair somewhat, knowing that it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d used a brush or comb.

  The door to the chamber was unguarded, and Secca almost felt foolish as she looked in to see the counselor seated behind a wide table-desk, alone except for a stack of scrolls.

  “Lady Sorceress, do come in.”

  “Thank you.” Secca looked to Dyvan and Easlon. “If you would guard the door…?”

  “Yes, lady.”

  Secca eased the polished golden oak door closed and stepped into the chamber, a room roughly four yards wide and three deep, containing a table-desk with a chair behind it, three chairs before it, and a series of footchests lined up against the wall to the left. The table-desk was set before the single tall and narrow window, with two oil lamps upon it—one on each side. Each side of the chamber also had an oil lamp in a sconce. Although all four were lit, the room was still dim.

  Veria gestured toward the chairs. “I must apologize, but luxury is yet frowned on in Elahwa.”

  “The quarters for us are luxury enough in this season and so far from Mencha, and we are most grateful.” Secca sat down in the chair to the right.

  “We are even more grateful for your presence and your decision to rescue Elahwa before dealing with the keep at Dolov.” The counselor studied Secca before speaking again. “Alcaren’s message was brief. He only wrote that you had destroyed the keep and left young Haddev there to rebuild and restore the holding. I assume you used sorcery.”

  “We did. I asked for those within to surrender. They refused. They even tried to kill the lancer delivering the message.”

  “You decided to destroy the keep, then?”

  “The clouds were gathering to the north for another storm. We couldn’t stay. We had no siege engines, and not that many lancers.” Secca shrugged. “I was tired and angry. Lady Anna pardoned Bertmynn’s heirs and gave the keep and lands to them if they were loyal to Hadrenn and Lord Robero. Mynntar rebelled, and his heirs refused to accept Lord Hadrenn’s or Lord Robero’s rule.” The sorceress paused. “I’ve thought about it since. It might have been better if I had used sorcery to slay all within and left the keep intact.”

  “I think not,” replied Veria. “I say that not because I despise Bertmynn and his heirs. I do despise them, but that is not why.”

  “Oh?” Secca raised her eyebrows.

  “Any who rebuild it will know the effort and golds required. Young Haddev will first call dissonance upon you. In time, he will respect you, for he will learn what it takes to build…If you had emptied it and bestowed it upon him…then he would have taken it as his due. Even if it goes to the younger brother, the older will not forget.” Veria offered a crooked smile. “They will not like you much, but they also will not cross you.”

  “I can’t say I thought of that,” Secca admitted.

  “You followed what you felt, and that is oft right more than fine words.”

  “Others have said that.” Secca recalled Anna.

  “Remember this. Long after you and I are moldering dust in a fine tomb, for you will have that, men will read of your deeds, and they will call you worse than a rutting bitch because you employed sorcery to slay fine lancers and armsmen. They will praise a masterful battle in which more died and suffered because of the skill at arms of the marshal who won. Yet, in the end, all are dead. Most men, especially lords and holders, wish to be known for their valor and strength.”

  “And women?” asked Secca. “Are we that different?”

  “Some women are like men, and some men think like women, but I would say that most women often care more about what results than how the results were obtained, save they also realize that some means will never achieve the results wished.”

  Secca nodded, although she was less sure of that than Veria seemed to be.

  “If I might ask,” Veria asked cautiously, “why did you determine to return to Elahwa?”

  Secca smiled, trying to compose a truthful answer that didn’t make her seem too simplistic or too calculating. “I suppose because I could see no point in trying to return to Mencha with the Sand Pass drifted deep in snow. The lancers and players need a respite before we try such, and I thought there was the chance that we might be needed to go to Dumar.”

  “Needed?” Veria shook her head. “Lord Robero should have dispatched one of the other sorceresses the moment he discovered the Sea-Pigs had used the thunder-drums to raise the sea against Narial.”

  Secca wondered if she should have suggested such, or gone herself—except then Ebra would have fallen.

  “You wonder that you shou
ld have gone?” asked the counselor. “That would have been no better, for Elahwa would have fallen—and Ebra. Sending a sorceress to Neserea was unwise. A rebellion without Sea-Priests is far less to be feared than ships and lancers in white in Dumar.”

  “Perhaps not,” Secca said slowly. “There is a sorcerer in Neserea. He brought down a walled keep somewhere there last evening. The disruptions were enough to wake me.”

  Veria leaned forward in the chair behind the table-desk. “You could sense that all these many deks away?”

  “Unhappily.”

  “Can the other sorceress sense such?”

  “I don’t know about them all,” Secca replied. “Some can, and some cannot.”

  “From that far away?”

  Secca offered a laugh. “We’ve never had this happen before, and I’ve not been able to talk to them.”

  “What of the younger sorceress with you?”

  “She is still learning,” Secca said. “She is the youngest who is beyond an apprentice.”

  “You were wise to bring her.”

  Before Veria could pursue more about sorcery, the redheaded sorceress smiled again and asked, “What can you tell me about Alcaren?”

  “Possibly less than you already know.” Veria smiled in turn. “He was not even yet born when I left Encora. He comes from an old trading family, but not one of the wealthiest. He is trusted by the Matriarch not to harm Ranuak, or she would not have sent him, and he is skilled enough to listen to his captains, but strong enough that they will not overtly disobey him. There is more to him than meets the eye, but he is skilled enough to hide what that may be, but not skilled enough to hide that such exists.”

  Secca laughed gently. “Much of that—”

  “You have already discerned,” Veria completed Secca’s sentence.

  “What is there that is not to be seen?”

  Veria smiled. “Besides his interest in you, you mean?”

  “Me? He is but interested in me because I am a sorceress.”

  “I have no doubts that he follows what you do, but he follows more than that.”

  Secca managed to keep from flushing.

  “Do not worry. He will never press, and if he is not to your inclination, then you need not worry.”

  Secca was not sure what to say.

  “That is but a guess on my part, but I have some years more experience in dealing with men.” Veria shrugged. “As for the other, he reminds me of my father, although I could not say why in all respects. He was not here long before you came, but he considers matters carefully, and seems to judge wisely.”

  “Do you know why he was chosen to come to your assistance?” Secca wondered what Veria had seen that she had not.

  “There was no one else the Matriarch could have sent. It would have been ill-regarded had the SouthWomen come under their own overcaptain.”

  “Even when things were so…”

  “Desperate?” asked Veria. “We would have accepted any aid. That you must know. But the Matriarch must also answer to the men of Ranuak, and they would have been far less pleased. Nor would those in Defalk or Dumar or Mansuur have been pleased with SouthWomen under their own overcaptain. The SouthWomen could not protest, not when they had requested for so long to be sent.” The counselor lifted her shoulders expressively.

  “Why Alcaren?”

  “She trusts him. That is most clear. Why she trusts him—that I do not know, although what I have seen and heard would confirm that he is trustworthy.”

  “He seems so,” Secca agreed.

  “What do you plan, Lady Sorceress?” Veria’s eyes seemed to twinkle as she waited.

  “I do not know yet. What I learn in the days ahead will tell me what courses may be open to us.”

  “Your only course is one that brings you to defeat the Sea-Priests as soon as you can. Each season that you delay brings more lancers and more thunder-drums into Liedwahr.” Veria’s voice was calm, but almost chill.

  “That may be, but even getting to Dumar would seem impossible at this moment,” Secca pointed out. “The passes from Ebra to Defalk are blocked. The ports at Encora and Narial are blockaded. We have no ships, and we are not equipped to cross the Sand Hills into Ranuak—even were we to be welcome.” Secca paused. “Have you ships that would carry us?”

  “None that can easily reach us past the Sturinnese to take you to Dumar,” admitted Veria. “We may yet find a way to reach Ranuak, and there the Matriarch could assist you, should you choose to go to Encora.”

  “How could we be certain that we would not face opposition from the Matriarch?”

  “I cannot be most certain,” admitted Veria. “I doubt that the Matriarch would make you unwelcome in Ranuak. I do not know that I would be welcome, but most of Ranuak would welcome a sorceress who was devoted to repelling the Sea-Priests from Liedwahr.”

  “Most?” Secca lifted her eyebrows.

  “Most. The Ladies of the Shadows fear sorcery in any form and for any reason, although they will accept that which is but used to watch or gather information.”

  “There are Ladies of the Shadows everywhere,” Secca said.

  “But not so many nor so powerful as those in Ranuak,” Veria replied. “The Matriarch watches them most closely, and they her.”

  “They would oppose sorcery to stop the Sturinnese?” asked Secca.

  “They fear that Ranuak would again be laid waste, as it was in the Spell-Fire Wars.”

  “But…”

  “Exactly. The Wars gave them more freedom than any women in Liedwahr, or indeed in the world, yet they seem to have forgotten such.”

  “Has the Matriarch?” questioned Secca.

  “No. She would use any tool within her power to stop the Maitre. She is young for a Matriarch, and must move with great care. But she would use me—or you.”

  Secca wasn’t quite sure how to respond, or that she should reveal she knew the Matriarch was Veria’s sister. After a moment, she said, “You make her sound cold and most manipulative.”

  “She is not cold, but she is manipulative. Every Matriarch must be so, while seeming to be most caring and direct and honest.” Veria raised her eyebrows before asking, “Is that not so with any ruler? For none can be all things to all folk and thus must only appear such.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Is it any different in being the shadow sorceress?”

  “The shadow sorceress?” Secca’s question was involuntary.

  “By remaining in the shadows, you and the one before you let others draw your image as they wished, if with a touch of darkness and mystery.”

  “We…neither of us was or is all things to all folk.”

  “No, and that is why you chose the shadows, but at noon there are no shadows.”

  Secca shook her head at the cryptic words. “What do you want?”

  “You have already provided what we needed most. We can and will ask no more of you.” Veria stood. “You may remain as you wish, all winter if necessary, or until the passes are clear for your return to Defalk.”

  “You don’t think that will happen,” Secca replied, standing in turn.

  “No. Given you are the daughter in spirit of the great sorceress, given a weak lord in Defalk, and a weaker one in Ebra, and given what the Sturinnese plan…I think you will find acting is better than not acting. But that choice must be yours.”

  “There are many ways to act.”

  “And as many not to act,” Veria replied. “I trust that you will do what is right and necessary, as you have thus far. I doubt that you could do otherwise, however you choose.”

  “We will see.”

  “As I said, you are welcome so long as you wish, and I—all of us—sincerely mean that. Without you, we would already be dead or in chains. Nor do I wish to hasten any decision. Whatever you decide, you and your forces need rest first. I will be here when you are ready to decide, and it may be that I can assist you.”

  “Rest we do need, and we are thankful for you
r support.” Secca inclined her head.

  “And you will always have it.” While the emphasis on you was slight, it was definite.

  As Secca walked back down the corridor, followed by her guards, Veria’s words echoed in her thoughts. That choice must be yours. That choice must be yours…

  Would it be, really?

  88

  Encora, Ranuak

  In his small study off the balcony, Aetlen finishes the chord on the mandolin with a flourish, then grins at his daughter. “There!”

  “I liked that one,” Verlya says. “I haven’t heard it before.”

  “I learned it from your grandfather, Ulgar. He called it a tune to stir the blood. Your mother thinks it’s too strident.”

  Sitting on the stool across from her father, the blonde girl frowns.

  “Too loud and noisy,” Aetlen explains.

  “Sometimes loud feels good. Will you teach it to me?”

  “If you promise not to play it often around your mother. She needs quiet these days.”

  “If you listen,” promises Verlya.

  “I will.” Aetlen looks to his left as the study door opens, and the Matriarch steps into the room.

  “Mother!” Verlya leaps from the stool, takes two steps, and wraps her arms around Alya’s waist.

  The Matriarch returns the hug, the somberness leaving her features as she holds her youngest child. In time, she disengages herself gently and smiles. “Could you go downstairs and tell Cook and Ulya that we would like to eat shortly?”

  “You’re eating with us?”

  “I am,” Alya affirms.

  “I’ll tell them.” With a smile, the blonde girl bounces from the study.

  Aetlen rises and closes the door. “I heard…the shadow sorceress returned to Elahwa,” he says slowly. “With Alcaren and the SouthWomen.”

  “She did not bring Hadrenn’s lancers, nor the company from Silberfels.” Alya slips into the chair across from her consort. “Your study is warmer.”