Darksong Rising: The Third Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Anna sank onto the hot ground, barely sitting up, and only marginally conscious of the rising wind and the lightning and thunder to the east. Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed. She looked up dully as Jecks eased his mount beside her and handed down a water bottle.

  “You must drink,” he insisted.

  She took the bottle … and a long swallow … before speaking. “Did we get any gold?”

  “Look there.” Jecks laughed and gestured beyond the players, most of whom were sitting in positions similar to Anna’s. “More than enough. You have mayhap a hundred bars or so.”

  “A hundred,” Anna said, half-wondering. “Would you go see … if they’re gold.”

  Nodding, Jecks eased his mount away from Anna. She took another long swallow from the water bottle, and the worst of the headache faded ever so slightly. Not only does spellsinging drain you, but it dehydrates you as well.

  She found she had almost drained the water bottle by the time Jecks again reined up beside her.

  “There are indeed a hundred,” he announced quietly, bending down from the saddle. “Each of the bars weighs more than a stone, and yet they are barely two spans long. It will take all six wagons to carry them.”

  Gold was heavy, Anna recalled, but how heavy had eluded her. She wanted to shake her head, but tried to keep her mind on the necessary. “If you would have them start loading the wagons … ?”

  “I have already. I have young Skent watching the loading and counting. We should make prudent haste for Loiseau.” Jecks frowned. “You will need a strongroom there.”

  “There is one, I think.” Anna slowly stood and walked toward Liende.

  The chief player, cleaning her horn, glanced up. “Regent?”

  “Good work. There will be a special bonus of two golds for each of them, and five for you.”

  “Ah … two golds?” Liende swallowed.

  Doesn’t anyone reward anyone around here? “Isn’t that fair?” asked Anna, adding guilelessly, she hoped, “A lot of this will have to pay for roads and armsmen, but the players should have some.”

  “Never have any players received golds such as that,” Liende pointed out.

  “Good. If you would tell them … but they won’t get them until after we get back to Loiseau.”

  Liende smiled. “I would be most happy to tell them.”

  Anna took Farinelli’s reins from Kerhor and slowly mounted the gelding, her legs so wobbly that she had to pull herself up as much as use her legs. Once mounted, she eased the gelding up beside Jecks.

  “Never would I have suspected such use of sorcery … .” Jecks frowned. “Yet … one cannot pay in bars of gold.”

  “No … but if I can drag gold out of the ground, I can turn bars of gold into coins.” After a moment, she added, “I hope.” Always hoping … but someday that hope won’t work out. Just trust that it won’t be too soon.

  Would the hundred bars or ingots be enough? Sitting limply in the saddle as the ten lancers loaded the bars into the wagons, Anna hoped so … and that she could indeed turn bars into coins. More hope …

  36

  Anna forced herself to finish the loaf of bread and the last wedge of cheese set on the wooden platter beside her in what once had been Brill’s scrying room. That left one loaf of bread. The spell to mine and refine the gold had cost her weight—and strength—that she couldn’t afford to lose.

  Feeling the pressure of the food she needed and didn’t want, she burped quietly, instinctively looking around. She had to smile at her foolishness, but she’d been brought up to believe that ladies never burped. Even when they’re stuffing themselves with heavy food to survive.

  She took another swallow of cool water, welcome in the warmth of the scrying room, then set the mug down on the table.

  Her eyes went to the scroll that had just arrived by messenger from Lord Dannel of Mossbach. She picked it up again, her eyes going over the words.

  “ … understand you have done much for Defalk … but you must understand that you have treated my son less kindly than I would treat a serving maid. You have dismissed him because he cannot master numbers he will never employ and because he would not defer to those of lower birth. You have denied him the right to an honorable consort … . Such actions may hold beyond the mist worlds, but no lord of Defalk would gainsay my right to withhold liedgeld for such unacceptable behavior. I will not do so, in recognition of your efforts on behalf of the Thirty-three, but I would like the honored customs of Defalk restored and respected … .”

  Lord Dannel was angry—but angry enough to suggest withholding liedgeld—because of a spoiled and thickheaded idiot who was his son? Anna shook her head. Almost all parents were protective, but Dannel’s actions reminded her of the worst of those she had encountered as a teacher. The chauvinistic worst.

  She’d have to draft some sort of placating response that suggested that Hoede was the honorable son of an honorable father whose talents did indeed lie elsewhere, but that honor on the part of Mossbach and honor on the part of Abenfel did not necessitate drawing two youngsters into a consortship both would regret … .

  She sighed. “Or something like that,” she murmured, looking down at the ten bars of gold stacked beside the table, and she studied the blocks of gold—or bars—or ingots. Then she bent and lifted the topmost. That took two hands, even though the bar was only two spans long. After holding it briefly, she eased it back onto the small pile.

  With a deep breath, she looked at the two sketches on the table. The circular designs were simple—the crossed spears with the R beneath on the drawing that represented one side of a coin, and the simple word “Defalk” imposed on simple outlines of the liedburg at Falcor. Anna then picked up the Neserean gold coin and compared it to the second gold, one minted in Wei. From what she could tell, both weighed the same. In a strange way, it made sense. Underlying Liedwahr was the idea of harmony, and it would have been unnecessarily disharmonious to have coins of different weights. Dissonance was reserved for weightier matters.

  She snorted and stood, easing the lutar from its case and beginning to tune it, as she went through another vocalise.

  After several more vocalises, she straightened and concentrated on the first spell, and on the set of designs on the table.

  Coin, coin, by this my own design,

  a coin figured round and fine,

  weighted like all others here of gold,

  signifying the Regency as strong and bold.

  Clink! As the last note died away, a single coin rested on the table, next to the drawing. Anna reached for it, then stopped. Her fingers could feel the heat radiating from the metal. She bent down and looked. The coin, not even quite the size of an American nickel, bore on the upper side the emblem of crossed spears.

  “Now all you need is a few thousand more,” she murmured, setting aside the lutar and reseating herself at the small worktable. She refilled the mug from the pitcher and took another healthy swallow.

  She brushed her index finger over the surface of the small coin, but it was merely warm. She picked it up and studied it, noting that the inscriptions and design matched those she had drawn. With that, a smile crossed her lips, then faded. You only need a few thousand more like this one.

  Shouldn’t you bring in the players? Anna shook her head. Some things were better not seen … if she could make the spell work at all for larger numbers of coins, then she should do it with the lutar.

  She stood once more, checking the lutar’s tuning and clearing her throat before beginning the revised spell.

  Coin, coin, by this my own design,

  a thousand coins both round and fine,

  weighted like all others made of gold,

  signifying the Regency as strong and bold.

  This time, a wave of heat, steamy and metallic, filled the workroom, and Anna backed out into the hallway. As she retreated, awkwardly closing the door, the clink of metal striking the floor sounded almost like heavy rain.

  With
her right hand still holding the lutar, she blotted her steaming forehead with her left sleeve, listening. The pattering clinking had stopped. After what seemed forever, she eased open the door, stepping back as warm metallic air puffed from the scrying room. Finally, she stepped inside. Gold coins lay strewn across the polished stones of the floor, hundreds of them. Probably a thousand.

  Anna slipped into the room and closed the door. After she set the lutar on the table, she began to stack the warm coins on the table in stacks of ten. In time, she had exactly one hundred stacks. Her eyes dropped to the stack of bars on the floor. She swallowed. Exactly one bar was missing. She looked again … less than one bar, since a small oblong of gold lay in the right-hand upper corner of the stack of gold bars.

  She tried to figure it out—with more than a thousand coins a bar, and one hundred bars stored below Loiseau—ninety below the hold and nine before her … The Regent shook her head slowly. What dared she do with all that gold? She had the equivalent of more than ten years’ liedgeld. If she spent it too quickly … she’d generate the local equivalent of inflation … and if anyone knew exactly how much there was … she’d have thieves and who knew what else prowling through Mencha and Loiseau.

  She needed a concealment spell—or something—after she converted another bar or two to coins to pay for her coming campaign. Then she laughed. Once she had all the gold in the storeroom, she could weld it into a stack with sorcery and then conceal it. No one had the technology to move that mass—not quickly—and that would be if they could find it.

  She went to the door of the domed building and peered out.

  Frideric, Blaz, and Lejun all stiffened.

  “If one of you could find Lord Jecks and ask him to join me … if you would?” She smiled as pleasantly as possible.

  “Ah … I will, Lady Anna,” offered Blaz.

  “Thank you. Tell him I’ll be in the room with the pool, please.” She slipped out of the early-fall heat and into the somewhat cooler hallway, walking slowly back to the scrying room. Then she sat down and forced another swallow of water and more of the bread before she got back to work.

  Anna was making a list—of everything that needed to be handled in one way or another before she left Loiseau—when Jecks knocked on the door.

  “Come on in.”

  Jecks’ eyes widened as he looked at the stacks of coins on the worktable.

  “What do you think?” asked Anna. “There are a thousand there.”

  The older lord picked up one of the golds, then turned it over, noting the milled edges, and the emblems. “It should bear your image.”

  “No. The crossed spears and crown with the R are enough. If I mint coins with my image, just how long will your beloved lords of the Thirty-three keep believing in a Regency? Or how long before one of them gets to Jimbob?”

  “These are yours,” Jecks said slowly. “The gold came from your lands by your sorcery. They do not belong to the Regency or to Jimbob.”

  “We need them, though,” Anna pointed out.

  “Then use them to add to the liedgeld fees collected by the Regency, but do not allow the Thirty-three to think that they will always be there.”

  “As a Lord of Defalk might use coins from his own lands to help support the realm?” she asked.

  “As such,” Jecks answered. “I would also transfer some of the armsmen and perhaps Himar into your personal force, and pay them yourself, now that you can.”

  Anna nodded. That definitely made sense, because it established her as a power independent of being Regent—and as a power without having to use sorcery. “Won’t that upset some of them?”

  “They need not know exactly how you obtained the gold.”

  “I could keep it secret?” Anna snorted.

  “There are so many tales about you,” Jecks pointed out, “that it becomes difficult for those who know you not to determine which may be true and which false. If you do not speak … who will know for certain. Your players will not speak, nor will most armsmen. That is why young Skent’s company has guarded the gold most closely.” Jecks laughed. “And if some armsmen speak … well, who will believe such?”

  Anna nodded. Her players understood well enough that any alternative to playing for her was probably worse. You hope they do. She took a deep breath. She’d have to watch them, if only because she’d learned that most people didn’t know when they were well off.

  Jecks fingered the coin he held. “It is softer, I think.”

  “How could you tell?”

  The white-haired lord smiled, almost sheepishly. “I cannot. But I know that pure gold is softer than coin gold, and the gold you created—”

  “I gathered it. I didn’t create it.”

  “That gold must be pure,” Jecks finished.

  “It’s pure. Will people take it? As golds, I mean?”

  Jecks smiled again. “They will take it, and they will save those of your coins they can, and spend the coins of others. Yours are worth more, especially to merchants. If you had paid the Ranuans with such, you would have had even less difficulty.”

  “I don’t know …” answered Anna musingly. Then she looked up. “Now … we can see about going to Ebra.” Anna handed the list to Jecks. “If you would read this … see if there’s anything on it we shouldn’t do … and what I might have forgotten.” She paused, then added, “and please sit down. We also need to talk about Lord Dannel.”

  “I feared he would be less than pleased.”

  “He is less than pleased. I’ll try to draft some sort of response to say he’s honorable, but Lysara’s not going to be his consort.”

  “You will not reconsider? Many of the northern lords …”

  Anna met Jecks’ eyes. “If I give in to him, then where do I stop?”

  “That may be, my lady, but he is a man who never relinquishes a grudge.”

  The Regent nodded. “I understand, but even if Nelmor agrees to a match between Tiersen and Lysara, Dannel would never accept it. Besides, he has to know that Defalk won’t survive if things don’t change.” She looked at the rest of the scrolls. “Even here, things keep piling up.”

  Jecks laughed ruefully. “So said my daughter.”

  Anna picked up the second scroll. “The rivermen … again …”

  37

  Anna, Himar, and Jecks stood beside the scrying pool in the domed sorcery work building outside the hold at Loiseau. At midday, even despite the thick stone walls, the room was hot and still, and a trace steamy. The two men watched as Anna finished tuning the lutar.

  “First,” she said, “we need to find out where Bertmynn’s forces are.” She glanced at Himar, then at Jecks. “And what they’re doing.”

  “They must be nearing Elahwa,” hazarded Jecks, “if they are not already there and attacking the city. They were loading the barges weeks ago.”

  “Not all leaders move so quickly as the Regent,” countered Himar. “The roads may not be so good, either.”

  “We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Anna took a moment to clear her throat, then hummed, trying to ensure she was ready, before beginning the spell and concentrating on the idea of Bertmynn’s forces.

  Bertmynn, Bertmynn, Lord I’d see,

  show his forces now to me … .

  Upon the silvered waters of the scrying pool shimmered an image. Lancers rode along a muddy road through what appeared to be a drizzle. On the right side was a levee or a riverbank, Anna thought, and low field to the left. Behind the group of lancers in the image slogged several score of armsmen, and behind them was another dark mass that might have been more lancers. The rain was heavy, because large puddles had formed on the road, and the horses’ hoofs were churning up large globules of mud.

  Anna glanced at Jecks and Himar. Jecks was frowning, pulling at his clean-shaven chin, while Himar continued to study the image, his mustache drooping as he also fingered his chin and watched the image in the pool.

  Anna could feel the perspiration building on her forehead,
and, rather than hold the image longer, sang the release couplet. The water of the pool rippled slightly, then returned to its transparent state.

  “They have not reached Elahwa,” said Himar slowly.

  “They have to be close with that rain,” replied Anna.

  Both men frowned.

  “Most of Ebra is higher ground, except the plains near Elahwa or the Sand Hills, and they’re south and west of Elahwa. So there’s going to be more rain near the coast or at the piedmont.” She still remembered Sandy’s lectures on the effect of orographic factors on rainfall distribution.

  That got another set of blank looks.

  “Never mind. They’re not at Elahwa, but they’re close. So it will take us … what? Ten days, two weeks, to reach Elahwa? Or three weeks?”

  “I do not see how it could be done in less than two weeks,” offered Himar.

  “You do not wish to be tired when you reach Bertmynn’s forces,” Jecks pointed out.

  Anna nodded slowly. We’ll see about who’s tired. “We also have to see what young Rabyn is doing.”

  She lifted the lutar again.

  Rabyn, Rabyn, Lord who’d be,

  show his grandsire’s second lancers now to me

  and his own lancers and armsmen strong … .

  This time the image split, the first showing Mansuuran lancers riding along a road that could have been anywhere, with golden fields to one side, and what looked to be vineyards on the other, bounded with stone walls. The second image was that of a parade ground overlooking a city … with what looked to be the ocean in the background.

  “I would guess that to be Esaria,” suggested Jecks. “No other city in Neserea is close to an ocean or even a large lake.”

  “It is Esaria,” confirmed Himar. “There is the Prophet’s Palace, the west wing … there.” The overcaptain gestured.