The Shadow Sorceress: The Fourth Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by Modesitt. Jr. , L. E.

  Turning, she climbed the ladder to the poop deck, and crossed to the railing around the helm platform where Denyst stood.

  “Quite a ride there, if I do say so,” said the captain. “Nothing we couldn’t handle, though. Been through worse in the fall storms in the Bitter Sea. Lookout has sighted sails to the southeast. They’re faster, but the wind’s with us. I thought we should let them catch us. Otherwise, they might get suspicious.” She looked at Secca.

  “How long will it take?”

  “A glass, I’d wager.”

  “That would be good. Can you let us know about a quarter-glass before they get in range for their fireshafts?”

  “You want all of them close?”

  “At least a handful,” Secca said. “We can’t do spell after spell.”

  “The Matriarch said we might be able to pick up a few ships…”

  “That’s possible—if the spells go right.”

  Denyst nodded, “Spare crews are on the Schaumenflucht.”

  Secca glanced forward, noting that the swells remained constant, and still almost two yards from crest to trough. About every third swell, a thin spray rose over the bow, but only a little water struck the fo’c’sle, and only within a yard or so of the base of the bowsprit.

  “More sails to the southwest, captain! Looks like a half-score!” came the call from the lookout above.

  “Starboard ten,” ordered Denyst.

  “Aye. Coming starboard ten.”

  “Alcaren…” Secca began, then shook her head.

  “You want the players on deck?” Alcaren swallowed as he finished the question.

  “They don’t have to run, but better now than later.”

  “I’ll tell Palian.” The Ranuan overcaptain turned and climbed down the ladder to the main deck, crossing the deck beside the mainmast.

  Secca looked down at the lutar and saddlebags.

  Richina took both with a smile.

  Secca began another vocalise. “Holly-lolly-pop…” For some reason, she had to stop and cough up mucus, but after the second run-through, her cords felt clear.

  “They’re running under full sail, captain, even the ones coming into the teeth of the wind,” reported the lookout.

  “Sorcery?” asked Denyst.

  “Wind sorcery,” Secca confirmed. She frowned as she realized the implications. The Sturinnese had raised two mighty waves, and each took a sorcerous effort that was similar to fighting an entire battle, at least from the way the Harmonies protested, and yet there were some Sturinnese strong enough to call up winds to speed their vessels. Just how much sorcery could they do?

  Shortly, Alcaren returned. He glanced at Richina, carrying Secca’s lutar. “It might be better if I held this.”

  Secca nodded.

  “Thank you,” said Richina as Alcaren took the lutar.

  Secca glanced out upon the fleet bearing down upon her three vessels. She could not even count how many, so numerous the sails appeared, but she saw no point in using sorcery just to discover numbers.

  “A third of a glass or less before the lead frigate closes, sorceresses.”

  Secca walked to the railing at the edge of the poop deck that overlooked the main deck and called down, “Players! First spell-song will be the third building spell. The third building spell. Less than a quarter-glass.”

  “Run through on the third building spell!” ordered Palian. “At my mark…Mark.”

  Although she managed to keep smiling, within herself Secca winced at the first few bars. The pitching of the Silberwelle had definitely affected their playing. But by the fourth or fifth bar, the raggedness smoothed out, and she let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding.

  She looked up and out off the port side of the ship. Three of the white-hulled Sturinnese frigates were less than a dek away. Another three were closing on the Schaumenflucht.

  She glanced toward Alcaren. His face was composed, but pale and greenish. Richina’s eyes were still fixed on the nearing Sturinnese vessels.

  Secca closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating on the first spell she would use, trying not to think too deeply about it. According to Anna’s notes, it wasn’t Darksong because it referred only to water as a substance, and not to any living aspect, but Secca wondered how close she would be coming to Darksong with it. Still…she had promised the Matriarch she would try.

  She stepped back to the railing overlooking the main deck, where the players faced southward, to the port side of the Silberwelle. “Chief players!”

  “We stand ready.”

  “Third building song. Now,” ordered Secca.

  “At my mark!” called Palian. “Mark!”

  The opening bars were far smoother than with the run-through, and Secca concentrated on a smooth and free production, not worrying about actual projection, as she launched into the spellsong.

  “Infuse with heat, and turn to steam,

  the water within the veins and bloodstream

  of each Sea-Priest and all whom they command;

  Boil within their blood right where they stand…”

  An off-key note chimed through the gray skies, followed by the sound of crystal shattering. Secca blinked, staggered, then went to her knees on the hardwood of the deck, one hand thrust out to keep from falling totally on her face.

  Alcaren had an arm around Secca, and was helping her to her feet almost immediately. Waves of light and dark washed across her vision, and it took all her effort to stand, even with Alcaren’s support. For a time, she just stood on the deck, unseeing.

  Alcaren and Richina exchanged words. Secca had no idea what the two had said, but Richina moved away and then disappeared.

  Secca tried to make out what was happening around her. Her head was throbbing, and double images flashed before her eyes. Alcaren seemed to be two separate men, one looking at her with kindness and concern, the second leering and sneering simultaneously. She closed her eyes.

  “Lady Secca! Drink this. You must.”

  Even Richina spoke in two voices, and Secca had to struggle to make out the words. She swallowed whatever Richina tendered, feeling the liquid splash across her cheeks and chin.

  Some of the headache began to subside, and the double images of those around her seemed to fade slightly, so that each person carried a silvered shadow, rather than a double of their entire self. She blinked again, her eyes watering in light that seemed far too bright, even though the sky was filled with high gray clouds.

  “You need to drink more, my lady,” said Alcaren gently.

  His breath and words seemed close enough to caress her neck, and she wanted to lean back into his arms. Instead, she forced herself to take a longer swallow from the mug Richina held.

  “Dissonance! Lead frigate swept starboard right into the other one!” The words came from the lookout above, sounding very far away. “Looks like none at the helm, captain.”

  Secca shook her head. At least the first spell had worked on one of the Sturinnese vessels.

  “Two of em, like as in irons,” reported the lookout after several moments.

  After taking a biscuit from Alcaren, who was still pale and greenish, Secca slowly ate it, interspersing the biscuit with sips of water to get it down her suddenly dry throat. She looked up as a shadow fell across her, squinting to make out the figure of the captain.

  “Whatever you did, Lady Secca, there are five, maybe seven, of their vessels unhelmed,” said Denyst. “The others are regrouping and starting to close on us once more.”

  “How long?”

  “Another half-glass.”

  “I’ll be ready.” Secca began to eat the second biscuit offered by Alcaren.

  “Lady, you cannot do more sorcery. I can use the flame spell against them,” Richina offered. “I can.”

  “Not yet.” Stepping slightly away from Alcaren, Secca took another swallow of water, reaching for another biscuit. “I can do one more spell. If that is not enough, then you will have to use the flame
spell. Tell Palian to be ready with the first building spell. The first building spell.”

  “As you wish, lady.” Richina did not turn toward the players, but remained looking at Secca.

  “Let her do the flame spell, my lady,” Alcaren whispered. “She must try herself, and whatever she does will leave less for you.”

  Secca opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she spoke. “Richina…perhaps you should try the flame spell on the nearer vessels.”

  “Yes, lady.” A trace of a smile flitted across Richina’s face, then vanished.

  A glance passed between Richina and Alcaren, but Secca ignored it. She would still have to handle the storm spell…somehow. The flame spell wouldn’t reach far enough. Nor would the wind spell she had used against the Sturinnese before. And Richina had not the feel for the storm spell.

  The Sturinnese recovered quickly. Before long, unless Richina could destroy the Sturinnese ships, both she and Secca would have to fight off the effects of the thunder-drums, as the Sea-Priests neared the Silberivelle.

  “Chief players!” called Richina. “The short flame spell.”

  “Standing ready with the short flame spell.”

  Richina watched as the white hulls of the Sturinnese closed. “On your mark, chief player!”

  “The short flame spell. Mark!” called Palian.

  When the second bar of the accompaniment began, so did Richina’s spell.

  “Turn to fire, turn to flame

  All ships here with Sturinn’s name…

  Turn to ashes, on this sea…”

  As the younger sorceress’s words finished, a curtain of flame flared southward, wrapping itself around the nearest two vessels, and the bow of a third. In moments, the three were blackened hulks.

  Secca’s eyes went from Richina, now holding the rail for support, to the remainder of the seemingly endless white-hulled vessels, watching as those untouched by the first two sets of spells, once more turned toward the Silberwelle.

  Secca nodded to Alcaren, squinting to make the two images she saw of him into one. “Tell Palian I will need the first building spell.”

  “Can you do this?” whispered Alcaren, leaning toward Secca.

  “I must…All is lost if I cannot.”

  Alcaren looked directly at Secca. Even through the silvered, half-double images that were those of but one man, she could see the concern on both his faces. Then he turned and called out loudly, “The Lady Secca will be using the first building spell. The first building spell.”

  “We stand ready with the first building spell,” came back Palian’s reply.

  A flaming quarrel flew toward the Silberwelle, falling short, and plunging into the blue-gray waters fifty yards off the ship’s quarter. A heavy vibration filled the air, and then died away.

  The dissonant drums! In moments, they would begin to support the Sea-Priests. She had so little time.

  “Be but a few moments before they’re in range, sorceresses!” called Denyst.

  Secca took a deep breath and stepped up to the railing above the main deck. “The first building song. Now!”

  “The first building song,” repeated Palian. “At my mark. Mark!”

  Secca pushed the headache, the wavering vision, the double images, even that of Alcaren holding the lutar case and watching her, all out of her mind and concentrated on the spell, on the words, on meshing with the melody that rose from the players below.

  She began to sing, and she was the spell that rose from the Silberwelle.

  “Water boil and water bubble,

  like a caldron of sorcerers’ trouble…

  build a storm with winds swirling through

  in spouts that break all ships in two…”

  Secca managed another breath between the stanzas, knowing that she needed at least two complete stanzas to build the spell fully.

  “Ocean boil and ocean bubble,

  crush to broken sticks of floating rubble

  ships crewed by those in Sea-Priest white

  and let none escape the water’s might…”

  As the last notes died away, a silence seemed to creep across the afternoon. The swells around the Silberwelle flattened, and the gray light filtering through the hazy clouds dimmed even more, until the sky was almost black—and silent.

  From somewhere in the distance came a low and growling rumble, followed by a high-pitched whistling whine, before the two sounds merged into a rushing and roaring torrent.

  Secca tottered, her hands on the railing, trying to hold herself erect as a series of black columns reared out of the suddenly flat waters of the Southern Ocean. Each waterspout column split into two, one silver and one black, just as each player on the deck seemed to have doubled, and each sail and white hull.

  The spouts moved slowly, inexorably, toward the white hulls, touching one, then another, and as each dark spout touched a Sturinnese vessel, that ship disintegrated into splinters flying in all directions. With each disintegration, the screams unheard by few others—that Secca understood—reverberated inside her skull, until she wanted to lift her hands to her ears to block out the sounds of death and destruction.

  Richina’s hands went to her ears, and Alcaren staggered as if struck, but straightened.

  Scattered drumming rose—and then vanished.

  Both the roaring and the screams continued to rise, until their combined din was all that Secca could hear, a roaring shriek that began to drive her to her knees, a roaring so powerful that she could not even lift her hands to block the sounds that prostrated her. Her fingers, trying to hold to the railing, failed, and she could feel her body crumpling, sliding down beside the railing, until she was sprawled on the deck of the Silberwelle.

  Lying on the deck, her life being wrung out from within and without…she shuddered as the darkness fell across her, sensing that her chest was frozen, that she could neither speak nor breathe.

  “No!” screamed Richina. “No!”

  Someone was singing, but she could not hear the words.

  A voice from far away—far, far away—announced gravely, “The sorceress has left the shadows.”

  No! she wanted to scream. I’ll always be in the shadows now. I’ll never live, never love. For she could feel the cold darkness, and the blackness, and the dissonance, all gathered above her, descending….

  116

  Southern Ocean, South of Ranuak

  The Silberwelle’s sails flap once and then hang from their yards, limp, in the sudden stillness that surrounds the Ranuan trading vessel, a stillness at variance with the roaring and rushing sounds that rumble toward those standing on the deck.

  Alcaren’s eyes dart from the massive water spouts that have begun to shred the Sturinnese fleet to the slender, almost-fragile redheaded figure who grasps the railing overlooking the main deck of the Silberwelle. He swallows as he watches her fingers spasm and her body shudder, as if pummeled by forces no one else can see or hear.

  As she grasps the railing to steady herself, Richina’s eyes are fixed on the white-hulled ships being shattered by the dark spouts, as are those of the ship-mistress of the Silberwelle.

  Only the gray-blue eyes of the Ranuan overcaptain see Secca crumple, see her slide down beside the railing, her fingers limp, her eyes closed. Lutar case in hand, Alcaren takes two steps, then rushes toward the forward railing and the fallen sorceress.

  At the sight of Secca collapsing, Palian turns from the players and the destruction on the sea to the south and begins to scramble up the ladder.

  Richina turns, slowly, her mouth opening into a soundless cry.

  The redheaded sorceress lying on the deck on her back opens her eyes, then her mouth, as if to speak, then shudders, her eyes wide, seemingly sightless.

  Alcaren fumbles open the lutar case, snatches Secca’s lutar from within, and stands over her. He clears his throat and begins to sing, his voice true, but carrying an edge that threatens to overwhelm training and past discipline.

  “With my voic
e and with my song,

  Keep her safe and make her strong.

  Still within her that darker spell,

  so all within her is mended fair and well.

  With my voice and with my song…”

  Palian stops at the top of the ladder and shudders, her eyes flicking back and forth between the sorcerer and the dying sorceress.

  Richina moves step-wise toward the pair by the railing, as if uncertain as to what she could or should do even as Alcaren’s voice completes the spell.

  A single long note—somehow half-harmonic, half-Clearsong, and half-dissonant, half-Darksong—vibrates through the air, and the entire ship shivers. Crystalline shard notes slash at those who can hear the Harmonies. Richina and Palian shiver again, as if slashed by unseen knives.

  The strings on Secca’s lutar snap, and the metal ends flay Alcaren’s hands and jaw, leaving long red lines. His legs fold under him. He topples forward, like a tree cut with a single swing of an axe, and the lutar drops from his limp fingers and strikes the deck with a single half-melodic thunk that echoes far more loudly than it should.

  Richina and Palian stare for a long moment before rushing toward the fallen couple.

  “Darksong,” murmurs the chief of players. “Twice.”

  Tears stream down Richina’s cheeks as she looks helplessly down at both figures on the deck before her.

  Palian drops to her knees, her fingers searching for signs of life.

  117

  In the time just before midmorning, sunlight flowed through the windows of the main chamber of the Matriarch’s guest quarters, the first sunlight Secca had seen in days, if not in weeks. A warm and light breeze flowed through the partly open end window, bringing in the smells of an early spring.

  Secca looked down at the scroll before her on the conference table, her eyes skipping over the lines she had struggled to write, struggled because with each word, she fought another battle, one having little to do with the words before her.

  …were most successful in destroying all but a handful of the Sturinnese ships in the Southern Ocean. According to the scrying glass, there are less than a half-score such vessels remaining, and four have turned their sails toward the Ostisles…