Darksong Rising

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The scroll concluded with more praise and formality, and was signed:

  "Konsatin, Liedfuhr of Mansuur."

  As she looked up from the scroll, Anna did not look at the chest, but she could see from its size that it had to contain more than a thousand golds. A thousand... and he's sending another fiftyscore lancers to Neserea?

  "We thank you, Overcaptain. .

  "Captain Gislhem, Regent." Gisihem bowed.

  "...and we thank the Liedfuhr for his wisdom and his warm gestures. I will have a response for you to take back tomorrow, and we look forward to seeing you at dinner. I hope you will be able to tell us about your journey."

  "You are most kind."

  Anna glanced at Dythya. 'If you would ensure that the captain is conveyed to Arms Commander Hanfor and that arrangements are made for him and his men...?"

  "Yes, Regent." Dythya bowed.

  "And then you'd better come back. We've a lot more to do." Anna smiled crookedly. "And send in Skent, if you would."

  Once the door closed, Anna looked at Jecks, then started toward the chest.

  "Regent..." Lejun coughed.

  Anna nodded and stepped back.

  Lejun opened the chest lid, gingerly. His swallow was more than audible in the silence of the receiving room. A single gold coin slipped from those heaped in the chest and clanked on the stone floor.

  Anna swallowed as well. There have to be thousands of them... "You can close it for now, Lejun."

  The guard replaced the single missing coin and closed the chest's lid.

  Anna looked at the four guards and smiled. "It looks like everyone will get paid."

  The faintest trace of a smile appeared on Rickel's face. Giellum looked puzzled. Lejun and Blaz nodded, if barely.

  Anna stepped off the dais and lifted the bell off the conference table, ringing it once.

  "Lady Anna?" The dark-haired Skent peered into the receiving room.

  "Would you find Arms Commander Hanfor and tell him that I would like to see him once he has settled his business with the Mansuuran lancers?"

  "Yes, Lady Anna." Skent flashed a smile before departing and closing the door.

  Anna looked at the guards, each in turn. "Thank you all. Lord Jecks and I have some things to discuss." She handed Jecks the Liedfuhr's scroll as the guards walked from the receiving room.

  Jecks read the scroll, slowly.

  "What do you think?" Anna asked when he had finished.

  "I think that the Liedfuhr is most sincere." Jecks laughed. "Or he is most willing to spend coins on allaying your concerns."

  "We'll have to use the scrying pool to see what we can over the next few days."

  "That would be wise."

  Anna wasn't certain what the pool would show, or if it would show anything. She'd already discovered that the Mansuuran lancers in Neserea were somewhere in eastern Neserea, but how close they were to Elioch-and Defalk-was another question. Even with the scrying pool, hard information was difficult to come by. But if they had in fact finally reached Elioch, as reported, were they there to help with an attack on Defalk- or to prevent it?

  "Arms Commander Hanfor," announced Skent, his words spaced with heavy breathing.

  "That was quick," said the Regent, as Hanfor entered the chamber.

  "I had Undercaptain Jirsit settle Captain Gisihem and his men." Hanfor bowed, then nodded. His q uick eyes ffitted from Anna to Jecks to the chest.

  "A gesture from the Liedfuhr," Anna explained. "Several thousand golds, it appears."

  Hanfor's eyes narrowed.

  The Regent glanced at Jecks. "He should read the scroll."

  Jecks extended the message to the weathered senior officer.

  Hanfor took longer to read the message, but finally he looked up. "I cannot say. The Liedfuhr may mean what he says, or he may wish to deceive you. Yet he could deceive with far less than such." Hanfor pointed to the brass-bound chest.

  Anna cleared her throat. "But what if...if he says what he means? Why would he go to such lengths?"

  "He has no great fleet, as does Sturinn, or Nordwei," mused Jecks.

  "If he must fight you, lady, he would have to move his forces far from Mansuus," pointed out Hanfor. "It would take him weeks to return them, more time than it would take the Sturinnese to send a fleet to invade Mansuur."

  "Is he that worried about Sturinn?" Anna wondered. "And why would the lancers he sent earlier be in Elioch if he is so worried about the Sturinnese?"

  "Perhaps he tells the truth, but wishes that you act otherwise in a manner that will benefit him?" suggested Jecks. "The lancers, they are not under his command, but under his regent's command."

  "That's still Nubara, and I trust him less than the Liedfuhr." Anna shook her head, then pulled out her chair at the conference table and sank into it.

  "Mayhap..." began Hanfor slowly, "... you should decide what is best for Defalk first"

  Far easier said than done. What will benefit Defalk? More war? She snorted. More sorcery? "Best?"

  "Each of the Thirty-three would have an answer different from his peers..." suggested Jecks.

  His peers? What about "her peers"? "What if I take a few companies-tenscore---and the players, and lead Hadrenn's forces in support of the freewomen?" asked Anna, her tone almost idle.

  "That would be most dangerous, my lady Anna," offered Jecks.

  "More dangerous than doing nothing?"

  Hanfor offered an apologetic shrug. "Perhaps not, but you have said that young lord Rabyn has placed fiftyscore lancers in Elioch. If he and the Liedfuhr know that you are m Ebra-or making your way there-then they also know that nothing will stand between them and Falcor."

  "And if they take Falcor, and I return... then what?"

  Jecks smiled wryly. "No one doubts your ability to defeat them, my lady." Jecks smiled wryly. "Many of the Thirty-three might feel that you had sacrificed their lands and crops on behalf of Ebra."

  "So if I neutralize Ebra-"

  "A year ago, you destroyed the Evult," Jecks replied. "Many thought that would end the threat from the east."

  Does each fight lead to another? How do you stop that? "How many levies can we call up after harvest?" Anna turned to Jecks.

  "If you call them all, perhaps one hundred fifty-score."

  "And what if they all were assembled in Deguic? Would Rabyn attack them?"

  "He can muster twice that," ventured Hanfor.

  "But would he?"

  "You have something in mind, my lady?"

  "Well... I really should go tend to my own lands, in Mencha." Anna smiled. And try something else along the way. "Perhaps I should do that, soon, before the Mansuuran lancers reach Elioch."

  Hanfor and Jecks exchanged glances, but Anna decided against explaining. Yet... until you decide for certain.

  25

  Anna served herself her usual heaping platter of food-three slabs of meat, plus early potatoes, as well as bread and cheese-then waited for Jecks and her guest as Dalila carried the meat platter to them.

  "Are you from Mansuus, Captain Gislhem?" Anna asked.

  "Ah... Regent...no. I'm from Aleatur, at the foot of the Westfels." The balding Gislhem limited himself to two slabs of the lamb.

  "As you must have heard," Anna continued, "I'm not from Liedwahr, and I don't know a great deal about Mansuur. What is Aleatur like? Is it dry or hot? Or wet?"

  "It's high, Regent, and it rains but infrequently. Most folk are herders, and Aleatur is the market town where they sell their sheep and goats, and they're shipped downriver from there. I couldn't see being a herder...." Gisihem shrugged. "So I learned something about arms from the trade guards, and then made my way to Robur and joined the lancers there. Must have been ten years ago."

  "Dry..." Anna nodded. "'Those are like my lands." She took a sip of the amber wine sent to Falcor by Lord Gylaron of Lerona and nodded. It was much better. than anything else in the cellars of Falcor, not that there was that much of anything.

  "Defalk i
s green once more," ventured Gislhem.

  "Most of Defalk is," Anna agreed pleasantly, "but I was talking about Loiseau. Those are the lands I inherited from Lord Brill."

  "The Lady Anna," Jecks added, "is not only Regent, but one of the Thirty-three in her own right."

  "I see." Gislhem looked puzzled.

  "It's all very confusing, but a Regent-or a lord-of Defalk rules with the consent of the lords and ladies of Defalk, and there are thirty-three of them. So I only have to get agreement from the other thirty-two." Anna laughed, then asked, "Do you get back to Aleatur often?"

  "No, lady. I have not been back since I left."

  "It is hard to get to places when you're required to be elsewhere. I'm hoping to go to Loiseau in a few days, and that will be the first time in more than a year. I won't be able to stay long." She offered a crooked smile. "It's hard to be a Regent and a lady at the same time."

  "I wouldn't know... Lady Anna. I'm happy enough being a lancer."

  "Better than being a herder in Aleatur?"

  "Much better," affirmed the captain.

  "I don't know," mused Anna. "There are times I wish I could stay in Loiseau, but we can't always do what we like. Still, I will get to see it for a few days." She hoped she wasn't being too transparent, but she needed the captain to carry back the message that she was going to Loiseau to look after her lands, not because it was on the way to Ebra. She turned to Jecks. "Do you miss Elheld?"

  Jecks laughed, and it was clear he understood. "Lady Anna, I often miss Elheld. But someone made me Lord High Counselor. and that means I must stay in Falcor more than I might wish were matters otherwise."

  Anna laughed in return, then glanced at Hanfor, sitting beside Jecks. "Arms Commander, was not your story similar to Captain Gislhem's?"

  "Much the same," affirmed the grizzle-bearded arms commander. "My father wished that I follow him...."

  Anna took another sip of wine and listened.

  26

  The single scene in the scrying pool wavered, then split into two distinct images, each half-superimposed on the other, although each clearly depicted the front of the chandlery in Pamr. One image was darker, almost sinister, the other brighter, more sunny.

  Anna released the spell-image immediately, then walked to the door. "Blaz?" She peered out of the scrying-room door into the corridor.

  The guard jumped, and so did Cens, the duty page.

  The sorceress repressed a brief smile. She continued to forget that while she was in the room, it seemed empty to anyone looking in. So when she looked out, it appeared to the guards as though she had appeared from nowhere.

  "Yes, Regent Anna?" asked Blaz.

  "Actually, Cens is the one I need." Anna turned to the youngster. "Would you find Lord Jecks and ask him to join me as quickly as he can?"

  Anna left the door open and walked back to the table against the wall, where she stood and lifted a goblet of water, drinking deeply before taking a solid bite out of the chunk of crusty bread that sat in the basket. She had finished the bread before Jecks appeared, following Cens.

  Jecks paused outside the open door, his eyes squinting as he peered into the room.

  Anna almost laughed at the quizzical expression on the face of the white-haired lord, but walked to the door and stepped into the hall. "I somehow spelled the room when I created it," she explained. "When I'm inside, no one can see anything except the room itself."

  Jecks offered a wry smile. "Never will I cease to be amazed, even at the smallest of matters involving you, my lady. You summoned me?"

  "Yes." Anna inclined her head toward the pool, and stepped into the room.

  Jecks followed. "I can see you."

  "That's because you're here with me' Anna explained. "Ever since I got the message from Lady Gatrune, I've been trying to scry the chandlery as often as I can. This is the first time when something was happening."

  She picked up the lutar, checked the tuning, then chorded her own accompaniment as she sang the spell.

  Mirror, mirror, in your frame, Show me the chandler in his fame, Where'er he may stand or be, Show him now to me.

  The pool silvered, then shivered and turned a deep black. before an image swam into place. The view of a single room in the chandlery wavered, almost to curling in on itself, except it didn't. Darksong?

  "It looks... wrong," Jecks said slowly.

  "Wait." As Anna watched, the view split again into two images of the interior room that contained the drummer and the chandler and two other men. The darker and more sinister image also showed the statue of a naked blonde woman, extraordinarily beautiful and lifelike. The brighter image depicted the same scene except with a crude clay figure.

  Jecks swallowed. "Drums... the obscenity..."

  "Darksong, I think," Anna said. Or worse. She sang a release couplet, and the pool returned to its blank silver state.

  "Never has good come from drums," Jecks murmured.

  "I think we should stop in Pamr."

  "How would you deal with this chandler?" asked Jecks. "Turn him to flame like his sire?"

  "You don't think that would be a good idea? Why not?"

  "Did not Lady Gatrune tell you what difficulty she and Captain Firis had in obtaining any information?"

  Anna nodded. "You think that this Farseun has used Darksong like the Evult... to turn the town against me?"

  "The men, I would guess." Jecks gestured at the pool. "Would women be ensnared by the statue of a woman?"

  "I'd doubt it."

  "And if this Farsenn discovers you are coming to Pamr? Would he use Darksong to raise the men of the town against your armsmen? Will you then destroy Pamr-or the men in it? Will you leave the lady Gatrune without the means to pay her liedgeld?"

  Anna winced. "That wouldn't make me any better than the Evult, would it? Or Behlem? Or Sargol? But if I sent a force to bring him back to Falcor, wouldn't he just use Darksong on them?"

  "I would think so. Anyone who would use drums..." Jecks shook his head.

  Another impossible situation. If Farsenn has spelled all the men, or even most of them, and you use sorcery against Farsenn, then you destroy Lady Gatrune. If you don't sooner or later, you'll have bigger problems.

  "You do not have to decide now," Jecks pointed out. "You can do nothing until you reach Pamr. If you insist on going to Mencha... and onward."

  "We're going. If I let others decide what happens, then I know things will be worse." Long experience had already taught her that, well before she had come to Liedwahr. Anna tried to ignore the bleakness in her own voice.

  27

  The sun had barely cleared the horizon when Anna entered the receiving room and sat down at the conference table and began to write. She'd awakened early, unable to sleep with all the thoughts and ideas for what she had to do running through her mind.

  First, she had to finish her newsletter so that the fosterlings and pages could start making versions for each of the Thirty-three. And she needed to get Hanfor to make plans for lancers to act as couriers. She picked up the quill, then looked for the penknife to scrape the nib and sharpen it. Then she had to stir the ink, and then clean the quill again when the first attempt deposited a black blob on the brown paper. Finally, she began to write.

  After a time, Anna glanced down at the rough paper that tended to soak the ink and turn her letters into fat blobs... but she didn't want to use parchment or the good paper for drafting the first of her scrolls to the Thirty-three. She scanned the words remaining from what she had crossed out and rewritten.

  ... Fighting may soon take place in Ebra. As you may have heard, the Lord Bertmynn of Dolov is sending arms-men against the freewomen of the city of Elahwa.... Lord Hadrenn of Synek has pledged fealty to the Regency, placing himself and his lands between Defalk and Lord Bertmynn. Bertmynn is receiving golds front the Maitre of Stirinn....

  She slashed out part of the line and changed the wording to read "appears to be receiving."

  "A newsletter sent as
a scroll and written for bureaucrats," she muttered as she continued. "Don't forget the fosterlings, either."

  ... the liedburg of Falcor is now home to more than a dozen fosterlings and pages from across Defalk, who are receiving tutoring in a wide range of subjects. Some fosterlings come from as far as Abenfel, Sudwei, and Dubaria....

  She set down the quill. What else? After a moment, she began to write again.

  ... the Regency continues to receive information from the Council of Wei... the Liedfuhr of Mansuur has pledged that he will respect the lands of Defalk and has backed that pledge with a token gift to the Regency... has also indicated that he will support his grandson as the new Prophet of Music of Neserea....

  How long it had taken her, she wasn't certain, but the room had warmed considerably by the time Jecks eased through the door.

  "Lord Jecks."

  "My lady." Jecks bowed. He wore a padded brown doublet, stained in several places, and rudely mended in others. "Lejun says that you have been here since dawn. Have you eaten?"

  "I had some cheese and bread." Anna thrust the ink-spattered and much-corrected missive text at the hazel-eyed and handsome Jecks. "If you would read this..."

  Jecks took the heavy brown paper and began to read, then looked up. "This... this is what you would have the fosterlings and pages copy and send to all of the Thirty-three?"

  "Sort of. Each one will start off with a personal note to each lord or lady, then this part will be in the middle, and then the closing will be personal."

  Jecks nodded and went back to reading. After a time, he looked up. "Perhaps... I would not suggest..."