The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Secca looked back, but Palian and Delvor led the players behind Secca and her four guards. As the entire column began to move, a single figure cantered along the shoulder of the road. Richina slowed her mount and eased into the column behind Secca and Stepan.

  The combined forces of the players, Secca’s lancers, and those of Stepan were formed up in an arc on the rise to the south of the main road in less than half a glass from the trumpet alert. In the center of the arc were Secca, Richina, and the players.

  Palian and Delvor had the players running through warm-up melodies, while Secca and Richina worked on vocalises. After finishing a vocalise, Secca paused and cleared her throat, then took a swallow from her water bottle.

  Stepan rode across the low crest of the hill and reined up. “They are less than a quarter of a dek to the east, just beyond the curve in the road.”

  “Will they attack immediately?”

  The older arms commander shrugged. “I would not. What this officer will do, I could not say.”

  “I will try to use the spells before your men must use their blades...”

  “I understand, lady, but they cannot stand and wait, not against a full charge.”

  “How far...?”

  “No less then a hundred yards.”

  “I will do what I can,” Secca promised. She turned. “Chief players!"

  “Yes, lady?"

  “Have your players stead ready. The flame song.”

  “The flame song,” Palian acknowledged, her voice strong but flat.

  Secca watched as the burgundy-clad lancers appeared, then rode forward and wheeled off the road, smartly mov­ing into three masses—one opposite the right side of the rise where waited Secca’s forces, one mass for the center, directly downhill from Secca and the players, and one for the left.

  “Stand ready!” Secca called.

  “Steed ready” echoed Stepan and Wilten, Stepan on the left, Wilten and Secca's lancers on the right.

  “A direct assault up the hill and against the wind,” mannered Richina, “Stupid... against sorcery.”

  Only if such an attack failed, thought Secca. “The flame spell!”

  Palian swallowed, then repeated the command. So did Delvor,

  “At my mark!” Secca watched, then, as a trumpet call bugled across the orange-lit dawn, the burgundy lancers charged, three masses moving together. Secca dropped her arm and waited for the notes to rise through the cool crisp air, air that would carry her words over the advancing lanc­ers.

  “Mark!” echoed Palian.

  Compared to the efforts in the rain and of the night before, the flame song seemed almost effortless, the wind at her back, the rising sun to her right.

  “Turn to fire, turn to flame

  all those who stand against our name,

  turn to ashes, turn to dust.. .“

  Even halfway through the words, lightnings began to flare across Secca’ s vision, line after line of flame and fire. Thin streaks of black greasy smoke stretched north­west, almost in straight angled lines.

  As the music of the players and Secca’ s words died away, the hillside ground rumbled once, then again, and Secca had to shift her weight to keep her balance. A single chime, harmonic but harsh, reverberated through her, a chorded chime that only she and Richina and perhaps a handful of players might have heard.

  Not a figure stirred on the browned and blackened grass and damp clay below the rise. The thin lines of black smoke continued to rise from the heaped and blackened figures that lay strewn everywhere Secca’s eyes looked. Her stomach twisted upon itself with just the hint of the stench of burned flesh—only a hint be­cause the wind remained at her back, the wind that had carried her words and the accompaniment of both first and second players.

  Then... why did she smell anything? She swallowed again.

  The dark cloud that had momentarily shrouded the sky above the battle already had begun to dissipate, torn apart by the brisk dry wind out of the southwest.

  Secca turned toward the players. “You may stand down.” Her voice was suddenly hoarse, suddenly rough, but not because of overuse. This. . . this was not like the first battle, where the deaths had fallen on both sides, and been concealed by rain and thunder-drums and brush and trees. Nor like her stealthy efforts of the night before, where she had seen naught of what she had wrought.

  Her eyes went back to the blackened corpses of men and mounts. A few moments ago, all had been alive, and vital. Now… they were dead. Yet, two days pre­vious, they and their Sea-Priest drummers had attempted to do the same to her and her forces.

  She shook her head, swallowing back bile.

  Alter a last look at the sudden carnage, Secca walked slowly back toward her mount. Rchina, pale and almost green-looking, handed back the reins to the older sor­ceress wordlessly. Just as silently, Secca took them and slowly mounted the gray.

  Both Stepan and Wilten rode from the flanks of the lancers who had never even needed to charge.

  “None survived, lady,” Wilten said slowly.

  Stepen rode up, nearing and reining up to the left of Secca somewhat later then Wilten. “I must also ask... what spell did you use, Lady Secca?”

  “A spell that flamed all disloyal to Lord Hadrenn and Defalk,” Secca admitted.

  Stepan took a deep breath. “Your spell flamed a score of my lancers, lady.”

  Secca bowed her head. “For that I am sorry, arms commander, but last night, I tried to spare those who were not to blame. This morning, I could not risk spar­ing any who might prove disloyal.”

  “More than sixteen score lancers and officers lie dead on the hillside,” Wilten said. “Surely... some... might have..."

  “That would have been Darksong. What would you have me do?" she replied tiredly. “Have the rest of our lancers slaughtered in the next rain or snowstorm? Or lose more lancers when we must still take Dolov?"

  “Dolov?" Stepan’s eyebrows rose.

  So did Wilten's.

  “He has a younger brother, has he not? If we do not finish this business, what is to keep the Sturinnese from doing the same a season or a year from now? Secca laughed, without mirth. "We can spend a day or two making ready for the trip, but we cannot tarry longer.” She looked at Stepan. “Lord Hadrenn always wanted to be uncontested lord of Ebra. If we take Dolov, that he will be.

  “He did not wish that so much as he wished no other to be lord above him,” Stepan suggested.

  “What of Haddev?”

  “He will be a stronger lord.”

  Secca wasn't certain whether that would be good or bad. Then, there was little about which she was certain, save that any sorcery that would allow her to prevail would create more deaths—or that any Sturinnese foot­hold in Liedwahr boded great ill and dissonance.

  46

  Wei, Nordwei

  Snow has fallen across Wei, but the sun is out, and be­yond the window, the light is corruscatingly brilliant. Ashtaar must squint as she looks down the hill toward the river and the harbor piers she cannot actually see. After a moment, she draws the shutters to reduce the glare, but leaves them positioned so that the remaining light falls across the straight-backed chair facing her and the desk. Then she reseats herself at the desk, picking up the first scroll from the pile on the left side.

  She has read four scrolls when there is a knock on the study door. “Yes?’

  “Escadra, Leader Ashtaar.”

  “Came in.”

  Escadra steps inside the door and immediately bows. “You asked for reports. . . some matters of interest.”

  Ashtaar gestures toward the chair across the table desk from her, set at a slight angle.

  The chunky seer eases herself down into the chair and into the line of sunlight that strikes her face. The seer squints against the glare.

  “Go ahead," prompts the older woman.

  “You may recall that Lord High Counselor Clehar was killed in the battle east of Narial...?"

  “That was last week. Is there som
ething new?’ Swal­lowing as if to stifle a cough, Ashtaar picks up the large square of green cloth from the desk, holding it in her left hand. “Something that affects us?"

  “His brother Fehern has assumed the title and position of Lord High Counselor,” Escadra announces. “Without even notifying Lord Robero, from what we can scry.”

  "In a time of invasion and trouble, that is understand-able,” Ashtaar replies dryly.

  ‘We do not believe that the Sturinnese killed Lord Cle­har. There is a partly trained sorcerer who remains close to Fehern all the time.” Eacadra moistens her lips ner­vously. “His demeanor is like unto that of the Sea-Priests. Fehern consults him often. Since the death of his brother, Feharn avoids battle, and towns in Dumar are falling quickly to the Sea-Priest”

  Ashtaar nods. ‘What else?"

  “Yesterday, the Sorceress-Protector of the East de­stroyed Mynntar and his forces, and close to ten companies of Sturinnese lancers. They were marching toward Synek. She also used a smaller sorcery the night before?"

  “Do you know what that was?”

  “No, your Mightiness.”

  Ashtaar frowns.

  Escadra shifts her weight uneasily in the hard straight-backed chair.

  "I have yet another charge for you, Escadra.”

  ‘Yes, Leader?” The seer’s voice is somehow subservient yet wary.

  Ashtaar laughs but once before she speaks. “I am not that unobservant, even approaching my dotage.”

  Escadra waits.

  “As you can, watch the Lady of the Shadows and her followers.”

  The seer’s eyebrows lift.

  Ashtaar coughs, harshly, then covers her mouth with the dark green cloth. After several more violent coughs, she sets the cloth by the black agate oval and takes a slow deep breath. Finally, she speaks. “We have a Sea-Priest sorcerer in Neserea, aiding or teaching a Neserean holder who claims descent from the Prophet of Music. There is another Sturinnese sorcerer in Dumar. There are thunder-drums in Ebra, and two Sturinnese fleets. There are three powerful sorceresses in Defallk, and they have at least two strong assistants.” She pauses. “And Lord Robero cannot best the Sea-Priests without those sorceresses.”

  “That is most likely so, your Mightiness.” Escadn shifts her weight in the chair, as if trying to escape the glare without seeming to do so.

  “What do the Ladies of the Shadows most oppose? Is our Lady of the Shadows any different?”

  “I understand, Leader.”

  “Good. I need not tell you more. But do not neglect the Sorceresses.”

  “No, Leader Ashtaar.”

  “You have done well.” Ashtaar smiles, then nods as she picks up the scroll she had been reading. “You may go.”

  Escadra stands and bows, then turns and slips from the study.

  Once the door is closed, Ashtaar turns and closes the study shatters all the way, cutting off the glare from sun and snow.

  47

  Secca took another bite of the hard white cheese as she sat on one side of the table in the dining hall of Had­renn’s palace and listened to Palian. A single set of candles in a double sconce offered the only illumination in a room seemingly as chill as the cold and clear day beyond the dark wood-paneled walls.

  “Yesterday...it was a blow to some of the players. Bretnay woke sobbing this morning, and Rowal would speak to none,” Palian said.

  Secca glanced at Delvor.

  The chief of the second players nodded. “More of mine are like stunned bullocks. It is one thing to see a pit open in a hillside, and another to see scores upon scores of men and mounts turned into charred flesh.”

  Behind Delvor’s shoulder, Richina winced at Delvor’s words, then took a long swallow of the light and bitter ale that Secca had trouble drinking, but was swallowing slowly because she didn’t wish to spend the effort to sing a spell to provide clean water. Although Secca did not voice it, the sights and smells of the carnage had indeed forced a relocation back to Hadrenn’s palace, both for a day or two of rest and re-supply, and for some better plan­ning for the campaign that lay ahead. All were clearly needed.

  After the battle—or slaughter-- Secca understood why Anna had preferred shadow sorcery. Fewer died, and usu­ally the guilty, while in a battle all too many died who were at most but guilty of following the wrong leader. Yet people thought she and Anna were cold-blooded? What was kind and humane—or honorable—about sending scores upon scores to certain death in massed battles?

  At a cough from the door, Palian turned, then stood as Hadrenn walked into the hall. So did Delvor and Richina. Out of form alone, so did Secca.

  “Frengal said that you might be here, Lady Sorceress.”

  “We are here,” Secca replied

  Hadrenn glanced at Palian, then Delvor.

  Secca nodded at the players, then at Richina, and the three slipped out of the hall, leaving the Lord High Coun­selor and the Sorceress-Protector of the East by themselves in the dimly lit hall.

  “Stepan informs me that your sorcery cost us a score of lancers.” Hadrenn’s voice was bland.

  “It did. That was the less than a battle would have.”

  “And ensured that none survived who would be hostile to Defalk?"

  “That was not the intent,” Secca pointed out, “although I doubt that Lord Robero would be greatly troubled by it, nor should you be.”

  Hadrenn frowned, fingering his chin, then, studied Secca for a long moment. “You are much like the Lady Anna.”

  Secca waited to see if Hadrenn would add more.

  "If my lancers do not accompany you, will you still travel to Dolov?" asked Hadrenn

  “I must, if only to assure Lord Robero that Dolov re­mains loyal.”

  “You do not believe it will. Nor do you believe I will do what is necessary to ensure that?" Hadrenn offered a single short bark of a laugh. “And you would he right. Synek, even after a score of years without wars, remains poor. In just Synek, I rule a demesne nearly a third the size of Defalk, and yet perhaps twelve companies of lanc­ers are what I can muster without prostrating the merchants end peasants.” Hadrenn tilted his head “What say you to that?"

  Sacca laughed gently. “That it behooves you even more to send your lancers with me, for you can display your power with far less cost than in any other fashion.”

  “You are so like her, though you look not in the slightest the same.”

  Like Anna? Secca strongly doubted that.

  “A strong north wind would seem to blow you into the next holding, yet the wind passes, and all is changed, and you remain.” The heavy-set and balding Lord High Coun­selor of Ebra fingered his chin again before speaking. “The new part of the road…it makes what was there before seem poor indeed. I had heard that you sorceresses had created stone roads all across Defalk and for but a short way into Ebra. Would it be possible...?" Hadrenn did not finish the question.

  “There are only so many sorceresses, Lord Hadrenn,” Secca said tiredly. “Richina replaced and paved a section of road that was perhaps a half a dek in length. It took all her effort, and she will not be able to do much sorcery for another day or so yet, perhaps longer. That was all she could do for a week, and she is a strong, young sorceress. There have been four full-fledged sorceresses in DefaIk, and we have been working on the roads there for more than a score of years. We now have perhaps one highway in each direction from Falcor to the borders of Defalk. You are more fortunate than other neighbors, for Lady Anna esteemed you,” Secca exaggerated, “and used her sorcery to pave the road through the Sand Pass and for another fifteen deks into Ebra.”

  “Your roads benefit you more than others, for now trad­ers flock to use your roads,” Hadrenn pointed out.

  “That is true, but however it benefits us, a sorceress can only do so much sorcery in a day or a week, and sorcer­esses are called upon to do more than build roads. Anna did also build you the bridge across the Syne to the west.” Secea smiled. “Once we have settled the current...situ­ation...p
erhaps, if there is another bridge..."

  “If there were one across the Syne, perhaps thirty deks to the east...that would save much travel, and make the folk on one side closer to those on the south.”

  “We will see, and I will not forget.”

  “Neither did she, for good or for evil.” Hadrena laughed. “And you are much like her.”

  Secca offered a smile she wasn’t certain she felt.

  48

  Encora, Ranuak

  The man and the woman sit across from each other, platters empty but still on the table. In a smaller and higher chair sits a daughter, with the blonde hair of her mother. The Matriarch sips a glass of an amber wine, while her consort glances at their child.