The Saprano Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  In front and to her right, Fhurgen slashed at the Ebran lancer, who had not even seen the second armsman. The Ebran's blade dropped, and he stood for a moment, then wavered, before crumpling into the waist-high grass.

  The sorceress forced herself to walk toward the edge of the bluffs and to study the mess. She swayed as she looked down and out across the churning, bubbling mass of mud and chunks of grassland that bobbed in the mud. On the intact sections of land below, especially near the eastern side of the depression, armsmen on foot scrambled away from the gooey mass, only to find themselves facing sheer, if crumbling, dirt walls. Perhaps a thousand troops, or more, seemed to have survived the drop of her undermined sinkhole.

  On the far side of the depression, a fewscore armsmen, mostly on foot, scrambled eastward through the grasslands and along the highway, back toward Mencha.

  Slowly, she glanced down at the lutar she had not even been aware that she carried, then, despite her headache, lifted it and touched the strings. "The river song, Daffyd."

  There was no answer, and Anna turned. The player stood a dozen steps behind her, his mouth open, his eyes wide.

  "We need the river song," she repeated.

  "But…"

  "The river song!" Again, her feelings drove her. While the men below were pawns, Eladdrin might be among them, and she could not chance his escape.

  After a moment, Daffyd, his eyes not meeting hers, lifted the viola and began to play, raggedly.

  "We have to do better than that. Start again!" Anna hated herself for the hardness in her voice, but she didn't have that many reserves left, and she didn't want to fight yet another battle with the Ebrans.

  As Daffyd started the melody over again, Anna's fingers touched the lutar strings, and she began to sing, letting her voice fill the troubled air.

  "Ol' man river…"

  She tried to visualize the mighty power of the Mississippi, a brown torrent filling the banks of the Chean, sweeping into the vast circular sinkhole that lay before her, swirling and covering all that lay there.

  The ground trembled yet again, and shivered, and shivered. With that second shiver, her feet slipped, but she kept chording, kept singing, her thoughts firmly on that image of a brown torrent.

  Almost… almost, she could sense the waters rising and plunging toward the circular sinkhole that adjoined the river where the ford had been.

  Screams rose from the sinkhole, but Anna shut them out, singing…

  "… he just keeps roiling along…"

  Her voice and chording were alone. Daffyd had stopped playing midway through, but she had to finish, had to get to the end of the section. She gave the lutar a last strum, and tried to swallow. She couldn't, so dry were her mouth and throat. She licked her lips, but even her tongue was woolly and dry.

  Swwwussssssl

  A thin sheet of spray, almost like fine rain, cascaded across her, and the screaming ended, as if choked off. A second, heavier, sheet of water slammed across her, half spinning her around, and she staggered backward three or four steps before she could catch her balance, standing, gasping, thrusting the lutar out like a balance pole for a moment to steady herself.

  A last, finer spray flared from the crumbling cliff edge less than twenty yards in front of Anna, then subsided.

  The sorceress forced herself back toward the muddy caldron, where she gazed into her own hell—or discord, or dissonance. Already, the waters were draining from the oval sinkhole, pouring back into the Chean, carrying timbers, dead horses, and unmoving uniformed figures. Anna could feel the odor of death building, though she knew it had to

  be her own imagination. Her eyes narrowed against the burning and the knives that jabbed into her skull, and she turned, putting one foot before the other as she trudged, slow step after slow step, toward Farinelli.

  She automatically stepped around the dead Ebran lancer, who lay sprawled face-up, and past Spirda.

  The blond officer staggered up and away from the spot in the grass where he had been bent double, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and tottered back toward the trench and the mounts, slightly behind Anna. His complexion was pale underneath his tan.

  Mysar stood, unmoving, where he had since the first spell, his face blank, his mouth unmoving. Anna stopped and let Spirda catch up. "We need to mount up, I think," Anna suggested to the blond subofficer. Her stomach was twisted inside out, and half the time she kept her eyes closed because, everywhere she looked, they hurt. Several large hammers pounded at her skull, and her cords felt trashed, though she had not, in terms of concerts and recitals, sung that much—not at all. "Mount up… Oh, yes, lady." Spirda turned toward the immobile Mysar. "Mount up, Mysar."

  The lancer shuddered, then slowly closed his mouth, turned, and walked toward the trench and his mount.

  The hot sun, oblivious to the deaths and destruction, had already begun to dry the muddy splotches that dotted Anna's clothes, and the dampness created by the sprays from surges of water into and out of the sinkhole.

  Daffyd was mechanically easing his viola into the case, but his fingers trembled as he did. Anna led Farinelli into the grass west of the trench and looked across the grasslands to the south and west. They seemed unchanged—hot and dry and dusty. She turned back to Farinelli and rested against the big gelding's shoulder for several moments. Farinelli whuffed, but did not move. Then Anna straightened and lifted the lutar to pack it into its case.

  "Anything I can do, Lady Anna?" Fhurgen practically groveled toward her as Anna fastened the lutar case on Farinelli's back.

  "No. Not now. Not now. We need to tell Alvar—and the Prophet—of their great victory." And mine—all the destruction was mine.

  "Great victory, lady, a great victory." Fhurgen marched back toward his horse.

  It took Anna two attempts to mount, her legs were so wobbly and her balance so uncertain. Why? Because of the magnitude of her sorcery?

  Her mass murders was more like it, yet, once again, what could she do? Like Hitler, like so many others, the Ebrans were determined to force others to their will. She had the means to stop them. How could she refuse?

  As Farinelli carried her westward, her eyes drifted northward from the trail, to her right where the Chean, swollen to twice its former size by the muddy outflow from Anna's devastation, carried dark splotches that could have been everything from houses shattered in Sorprat to dead arms-men and their mounts.

  Anna swallowed. She hadn't meant to hurt the people of Sorprat, and the sinkhole hadn't reached them, but the backlash of her raised torrent had, smashing houses like a giant sledge and spreading mud out into the river valley. Her mouth filled with bile, but she swallowed again.

  Then she steadied herself in the saddle and urged Farinelli westward, closing her eyes to shut out the pain of seeing, ignoring the pounding in her skull, trying to shut out the memory of the screams and the vision of mud-flattened Sorprat.

  The five rode westward in silence.

  91

  Alvar and a squad of lancers met Anna halfway back to the camp. Anna reined up Farinelli. The gelding dropped his head and began to graze. Anna let him.

  "What happened?" The captain's eyes traversed the group. "Are you all right, Lady Anna?"

  No. My head is splitting. I'm hot and sick inside, and I don't want to be here, and I'm tired of the killing, and see no way out. "I'm tired. The Prophet has his victory." She could feel herself slump in the saddle, and she was afraid almost to move, for fear she would topple out of the saddle.

  "I saw the river rise and fill with bodies." Alvar fixed on Spirda.

  "The Ebrans are dead, all but a score. Those are running toward the east. They will never fight again." Spirda's voice was flat, dead.

  Anna could feel the perspiration dripping down her face, oozing into her hair, but she didn't care.

  "Never," echoed Fhurgen.

  Mysar said nothing, and Daffyd kept his eyes on his mare's mane.

  "There are none left?" Alvar asked.
<
br />   Of the six armsmen behind him, a young redhead smirked.

  "Do not laugh," said Fhurgen, his voice on the edge of cracking. "Ride east. Ride until you see a huge hole filled with mud. There lie the Ebrans. Ride back, and then laugh.

  Then laugh."

  "Terrible… terrible…" muttered Mysar. "She is terrible."

  "Is it as they say, Subofficer Spirda?" asked Alvar.

  "No. It is worse." Spirda shook his head slowly. "Best you see for yourself."

  "You are sure there are no Ebrans?"

  "Not alive. Not west of the ford."

  "You come with me, Spirda," Alvar insisted. "Lady Anna, please ride to the camp with the player and your two armsmen. The rest of us will rejoin you before long."

  Anna nodded. She did not have to go east to the ford. She knew what was there. Yes, she knew.

  She watched blankly as the captain, his escort, and Spirda headed eastward again, back along the grass-bordered river trail, back along the trail above the death-swollen Chean.

  "Lady?" offered Daffyd. "You must ride to the camp."

  Ride to the camp? Of course, she must ride to the camp. Anna barely lifted the reins, and Farinelli raised his head and began to walk westward again, along the narrow trail toward the vanguard's camp. Her ears still rang with the chords she had struck from within Erde, and all that she heard was muffled and distorted by that ringing.

  Daffyd rode silently beside her. Occasionally, he massaged his temples or his neck with his free hand. Anna could not have lifted either hand. Farinelli walked steadily, and she just rode.

  As they neared the hills that should be familiar, Daffyd looked up and said something that Anna missed—or couldn't hear, but since he kept riding, so did she. She had to ride to camp.

  Daffyd glanced at Anna, beyond her to her left. She turned her head, and it was an effort.

  There, Alvar drew his horse abreast of Farinelli. His swarthy face was immobile, and the two rode for nearly half a dek, to the lower slopes of the gentle hills, before the captain spoke. "I apologize, Lady Anna. I did not know."

  "You don't have to apologize, Alvar," Anna said slowly, trying to force each word out against the overpowering fatigue that tugged at her. "You did what you thought best. So did I."

  "I cannot believe… I cannot believe… but it is there, where there were only grasslands this morning at dawn." Alvar kept looking over his shoulder and then ahead to the grassy hilltop. "Now… now there is but mud and death, a new lake rilled with death… cannot believe…"

  Anna could believe. She was getting good with death. Then she saw the tents. They looked familiar.

  At some point as they neared the vanguard's camp, she could no longer hold off the darkness.

  92

  Lady Anna, Lady Anna…"

  Anna swam up through the darkness, trying to recognize the voice. Mario? But she wasn't a lady. No, she hadn't been lucky like Kiri.

  "Lady Anna… please wake up. You need to drink." A drink was the last thing she needed, the very last thing. Her head throbbed, and her mouth was dry. What had she done?

  White needles stabbed through her eyes as she opened them, and her stomach wanted to turn over, or inside out, or something—and probably would have, had there been anything in it. She was lying on a narrow cot of some sort in a small tent, but she closed her eyes before she saw more. Seeing hurt too much.

  "Please drink." The voice of a young man wavered in and out of her hearing.

  Water slopped across her mouth and she licked it, realizing that despite the tightness in her stomach, she was thirsty.

  "Here." Something was placed in her hands.

  Her fingers recognized the water bottle, and she struggled into a half-sitting position, her eyes still closed. Someone helped her. Then Anna took a long sip from the water bottle, then another. She said nothing, but slowly sipped her way through the water.

  Memories flicked into place: Irenia's death, the fundraiser she'd never made, Daffyd and Jenny, Brill, the Sand Pass fort, Farinelli, Behlem, and all the sorcery. All of it.

  "Be you better?" asked the voice she recognized as Daffyd's.

  "A little," she croaked.

  "You've slept almost a day and a night," Daffyd explained. "But you must wake up. The Prophet is no more than a glass away."

  "A glass?" Anna said, her voice still rasping. "Shit… I feel like shit."

  "You destroyed all the Ebrans—almost all, anyway, and the Prophet is moving his forces to Mencha. That is what Alvar says."

  When she finally set aside the bottle, Anna squinted through slitted eyes. Seeing still hurt, but she could see, sort of.

  "We did manage to get a bucket and some water for you to wash in." Daffyd pointed.

  Anna nodded, then said, "I need to pull myself together."

  "I told you that."

  If she hadn't been still so exhausted, she would have… done something, preferably naggingly annoying, if she could have thought of it. Instead, she waited for him to leave.

  Alone in the tent, she used the water to remove the worst of the grime, especially from her face and hair. Heaven, what she wouldn't have given for a hot bath, even in the heat of the tent.

  She pulled on the second set of riding clothes, thankful she had used sorcery to clean them before she had gone to die ford, and then her boots. She couldn't have sung "Come to Jesus" in whole notes, or any other way.

  She stuffed her dirty clothes into the empty saddlebag and fastened it. Her stained and battered hat lay on her gear. She bent and picked it up, then folded it into her belt. She felt like gritting her teeth every time she bent over, because the headache intensified and her stomach cramped. Her trousers were even looser. Shit! She was going to die of anorexia even while she was stuffing herself.

  The lutar seemed fine, but she left it in its case by her saddlebags.

  "Lady Anna?" called Daffyd from outside the tent.

  "Yes?"

  "I brought you some cheese and bread."

  "Come in."

  Anna sat on the cot and ate slowly, deliberately, drinking more water. The food helped, reducing the pounding inside her skull to something less, but more than a dull ache. She still had to close her eyes periodically to relieve the pain associated with seeing, and she had to force herself to eat every scrap of enough food for two people, telling herself that she didn't want to die of starvation, and wanting to laugh at the terrible irony of it all.

  A horn call echoed across the camp. Anna struggled to her feet.

  By the time the blue-and-cream banners reached the center of the camp, Anna was waiting.

  "Lady Anna;'' offered Behlem from the gilded saddle on the palomino stallion, a mount nearly as big as Farinelli. "We understand that you have delivered the Ebrans to us."

  "Most are dead, Lord Behlem. A handful may have escaped."

  "How large a 'handful' might that be?"

  "Less than twoscore." Anna waited.

  "We are grateful." The Prophet nodded. "Would you join us? We ride east to Mencha to remove the yoke of Ebra from all of Defalk."

  Anna wouldn't have phrased it quite that way, but she nodded. "It will take a moment to get my mount."

  Behlem frowned.

  "She collapsed after vanquishing the Ebrans," volunteered Alvar.

  Beside and slightly behind Behlem was Hanfor—weathered face and graying hair. The tall overcaptain nodded for Alvar to continue.

  "It was a great sorcery, Lord Prophet. You will see," asserted the wiry and dark-bearded captain.

  "I will see, and I do hope it was great."

  Anna looked around. She had no idea where Farinelli was. Daffyd, standing by the tent where she had lain, pointed to the right.

  Anna walked over to where he was tethered. Someone had gotten the gelding's saddle off, but that was all. While Daffyd gathered her gear and lutar, Anna gave Farinelli a quick grooming.

  "I'm sorry, but I'm not at full voice, fellow." Even talking to her mount created a throbbing in h
er skull.

  The gelding whuffled.

  While it seemed like it took forever, Anna was saddled and mounted beside Behlem before long.

  "It would have been better had you been ready," the Prophet said mildly.

  "I was not made aware of your desires, Lord Behlem," Anna countered. "But I am here."

  Behlem snorted. Beyond and behind him, several horses back, Anna caught sight of Daffyd's quickly suppressed smile. She hoped the player was laughing at Behlem and not at her.

  Behlem nodded, and the entourage resumed, while behind them Alvar supervised the packing of the camp. Anna wondered if she should have pleaded illness. No—without visible signs, that would have been regarded as a womanly weakness, and she couldn't afford that.

  After they had covered several deks in relative silence, Behlem looked toward Anna. "So we will see this evidence of destruction?"

  "It's right ahead." Anna pointed toward the depression.

  The Prophet stood in his stirrups as they rode closer to the ragged edge of the sinkhole.

  "That? That hole? Or is it a muddy lake?"

  Anna repressed a sigh.

  From his mount on the other side of the Prophet, Hanfor said smoothly, "You can see where the road was sheared off up there. And the river has filled the pit, but you can see all the bodies." He paused. "And smell them."

  Anna tried to ignore the sour stench, faint as yet, but certainly the result of mud, water, death, and the unending heat of Defalk.

  "There are quite a few bodies," Behlem finally admitted. "It is a pity that the road and the ford were destroyed."

  Despite her headache, Anna wanted to throw sorcery at the spoiled brat. What did he expect? Then she pursed her lips and looked at him, catching the half-smile. She understood. He was beginning the political effort to discredit her. She'd seen it before, at the university, where other professors who felt threatened always found little faults with what she had done, generally right after she'd accomplished the impossible.

  "Once the ground settles," she said, forcing a smile, "we can rebuild the road and the ford."

  " 'We'?" asked Behlem pointedly.