The ShadowSinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  any ships of Sturinn near Liedwahr’s shore...”

  Even after Secca had finished the spell and lowered the lutar, the mirror remained blank silver, showing only the white plaster of the ceiling.

  Secca frowned, then handed the lutar to Alcaren. As he strummed it and hummed the spell-melody, Secca dipped the quill in the inkwell and then jotted down the words she held in her mind. Careful not to tilt the paper or brush the wet ink, she set the sheet on the table between Alcaren and the scrying glass.

  He studied the words and ran own chords, not quite like hers, mouthing the words silently. Finally, he sang the spell in his true and. light baritone voice.

  “Show me now, most clear and as must be,

  ships of Sturinn near our southern sea. . .”

  The glass remained blank.

  Secca jotted a third spell—one asking to see Sturinnese ships in the Western Sea near Mansuur. Even after Alcaren sang it in his true baritone, the glass came up equally blank. "My singing?” he asked.

  “I think not. Try this one.” She slipped a fourth spell before him.

  “If this doesn’t work, you get to try it again,” he said.

  “It will work.”

  He raised his eyebrows for a moment, then concentrated on the spell.

  “Show us clear and show us bright

  ships of Sturinn that share Ostisles’ light...”

  The glass displayed a bird’s eye view of a wide harbor filled with vessels.

  Secca swallowed. Never had she seen so many ships in one place—even through a scrying glass. “You see. You can do it as well as I."

  “I can do it, but not so well,” he countered."

  After trying to count the vessels in the glass, she lifted her eyes. “Can you do a release spell?”

  “It will fade without it,” he pointed out.

  “But it takes energy from you. The release spell ends the drain immediately.”

  He frowned, then sang, chording the lutar.

  “Release this vision of what we see,

  and let the glass a plain mirror be.”

  Secca laughed. “I haven’t heard that one.”

  “I couldn’t remember yours,” Alcaren confessed. “So I made that one up.”

  “That just shows you are a sorcerer, no matter what you say.”

  “Don’t tell the Ladies of the Shadows, thank you.”

  “I won’t.” Secca frowned. “I lost count at threescore ships.”

  “The spells showed that all those ships are still being readied in the Ostisles,” Alcaren pointed out.

  “Right now.”

  A solid thrap on the door interrupted their, conversation. “The lady Richina is here, Lady Secca,” called Easlon, the lancer stationed outside her door.

  “Have her enter.”

  The tall blonde sorceress--- the youngest of all of the full sorceresses of Defalk and not even a year beyond being more than an apprentice--- stepped into the main room of the guest chamber, inclining her head to Secca, and then to Al­caren. Her green eyes smiled with her mouth. “Wilten and the chief players will be here shortly.”

  “Has your glass . . .?“ Secca shook her head. “You can tell us all at once when they arrive.”

  Richina, more than fifteen years younger than Secca and nearly a head taller, moved toward the conference table with the kind of tall grace that the all-too-petite Secca had often envied in others. “It’s most pleasant outside, if with a chill breeze.”

  “It looks to be,” Secca admitted.

  “You should get out more often, lady,” suggested the younger sorceress.

  “The chief players,” announced Easlon.

  Spared the need for a response, Secca replied, “Have them enter.”

  The gray-haired Palian stepped through the door, her light gray eyes offering a smile as they passed over Secca and Alcaren. Delvor followed, his lank brown hair flopping over his forehead. Both inclined their heads to Secca, and to Al­caren and Richina, if slightly less deferentially. Two steps behind came Wilten, the overcaptain of Secca’s underman­ned four companies of lancers. The overcaptain nodded rev­erently, if stiffly, to Secca.

  Secca waited for Richina and the other three to seat them­selves before she began, slowly. “The Matriarch has gath­ered crews for some of the Sturinnese ships.” As she spoke, she found herself thinking again how dearly the spell that had destroyed the Sturinnese sailors and armsmen had cost her. Yet, had Alcaren not offered his own life with Darksong to save hers, she never would have known the depth of his love. Still . . . remembering how she had felt sprawled on the ship’s deck dying, she almost shivered, and she had to swallow before continuing. “And there are also another half-score of Ranuan ships that will accompany us when we leave for Dumar.”

  “Are there other Sturinnese warships near?" asked Wilten.

  Secca nodded to Alcaren.

  “There are none near Liedwahr,” explained the Ranuan overcaptain. “The glass shows that the Maitre gathers ships in the main harbor of the Ostisles. That is a voyage of two weeks with the most favorable of winds.”

  “The seas are clear,” pointed out Wilten, “but the Sea-Priests hold Narial and the coast all the way east to the Ancient Cliffs, do they not?’

  Secca nodded. ‘We will have to use the glass to find a landing where we will not have to fight our way ashore. There are few Sturinnese lancers on the lowland coasts west of Narial. It’s a longer voyage, but there are roads north to Envaryl.”

  “They could take Envaryl any day, could they not?" pressed the overcaptain.

  “Not with the lancers they have within fifty deks of that. city,” replied Alcaren. “They have sent companies of lancers throughout Dumar to root out those who oppose them. Even if they tried to regroup the very day we set sail for Dumar, they could not gather more than twenty companies and send them to the coast by the time we land.”

  “This you are sure of?”

  “It might be fifteen; it might be twenty-five,” Alcaren cnceded.

  “That is why we need to sail as soon as we can,” Secca said. “We cannot count on the Sturinnese to keep their forces spread, and we do not wish to wait until another fleet is gathered and filled with armsmen and lancers." And drum­mers and sorcerers, she added to herself.

  “How long will that be?” asked Palian.

  “I hope not long,” Secca replied. “I meet with the Matri­arch tomorrow, and we will see.” She turned her eyes back to Wilten. “Can all be ready within the week?"

  ‘We can be ready,” the Defalkan overcaptain responded.

  Secca looked to Alcaren. “And the SouthWomen?”

  “They have been ready for several days. A few more days will help in training the new recruits.”

  “Recruits?” asked Wilten.

  “Among the younger South Women there has been no dearth of volunteers to go fight the Sturinnese. Captain Del­cetta and Captain Peraghn have been able to be most selec­tive in those they accepted.”

  Wilten nodded slowly, almost stolidly. To his left, Palian offered a knowing smile, while Delvor bobbed his head, and then pushed back the lock of brown hair that always fell across his forehead, and always had in the score of years Secca had known him.

  Secca stood. “We’ll meet after I’ve talked to the Matri­arch. Then we should be able to finish planning how we can retake Dumar.”

  As the chief players, Wilten, and Richina stood, and then slipped out, Secca kept a smile on her face, despite the near absurdity of what she had so blithely, proposed. With per­haps a half-score of ships, six companies of lancers, two groups of players, and three sorcerers, she was talking about re-conquering a land held by more than a hundred companies of Sturinnese lancers, supported by dozens of Darksong drum sorcerers. While she might expect two companies of South Women, her own four companies of lancers were already well under-strength, and she could expect few if any reinforcements, while her enemy gathered a fleet of between two- and fourscore warships and transports and sc
ores more companies of armsmen and lancers. To the north of Dumar, in Neserea, a rebellion raged, and if that turned out badly, she might find another sorcerer arrayed against her—one who had powers similar to her own, and interests far closer to those of the Maitre of Sturinn.

  The smile remained, and she said nothing until the door closed. Then she sighed as she turned to the window and looked toward the harbor, although she could see only the masts of the ships tied at the piers.

  “Everyone thinks we can do this,” she said slowly.

  “If we cannot, the Liedwahr we know is doomed,” Al­caren said, stepping up behind her and slipping his arms around her waist, if loosely.

  “If we can, it is also doomed,” she replied softly.

  “I know.”

  For a long moment, they stood together, enjoying the mo­ment, before Secca turned in Alcaren’s arms, hugged him, and kissed his cheek. Then she slipped from his loose grasp and stepped back toward the conference table, looking down at the papers and scrolls. “With the new recruits, the SouthWomen will be nearly as strong as my lancers.”

  Alcaren shook his head. “You still have nearly three com­panies worth.”

  “And a very cautious overcaptain.”

  “Wilten does not care that much for me,” Alcaren ob­served.

  “We have talked about that before. He does not dislike you. He dislikes anything that is unknown or offers a risk. You are both.” Secca tilted her head, thinking, realizing that, even af­ter all the years of seeing Wilten, she would be hard-pressed to describe the overcaptain, except in a general way. He af­fected neither beard nor mustache, and he was neither tall nor short, neither ample nor excessively slender. His eyes seemed to take on whatever color surrounded him, and his face was not oval or square or round or thin.

  “He is like too many in Encora these days, then.” Alcaren snorted. “They would have someone else bear the risk, essay the song-sorcery, and then complain that the way in which their liberty was preserved was not to their liking.”

  “That is true in all lands, perhaps in all worlds.” Secca pulled out a sheet of parchment, then shook her head and took one of the crude sheets of brown paper. “We still need to send a request to the Matriarch.”

  “We?”

  “It takes a man and a woman to be consorted. We both should sign the, request.”

  Alcaren laughed. “That way, neither those in Defalk nor those in Ranuak will be pleased.”

  “Are they ever?’ Secca raised her eyebrows.

  They both laughed.

  3

  Wei, Nordwei

  Outside the window of the study, the light from the late-winter sun reflects in all directions from the glaze ice coating the two-yard-deep snow that covers the city and the ice on both the River Nord and Vereisen Bay. Because of the glare, the dark window shutters are almost entirely closed, except for a slit where they meet.

  The woman who sits at the desk of polished ebon wood, her back to the window and the thin line of bright light, has fine silver hair and dark black eyes. Once her hair was as dark as her eyes, but those eyes, set as they are in a finely wrinkled skin, still are clear and miss little.

  “Leader Ashtaar, the Lady of the Shadows.” The voice comes from outside the closed study door.

  Before answering the announcement, Ashtaar covers her mouth with a dark green cloth, and coughs—once, twice--­-then sets the cloth aside.

  “Enter.” Her voice is firm and clear.

  The woman who enters is cloaked in black, with a black hood and a gauzelike black veil.

  The Council Leader of Wei nods to the polished wooden armchairs across the ebony desk from her and waits for the woman in the dark hood to seat herself. The Lady of the Shadows takes the seat farthest to Ashtaar’s left, well away from the thin line of glaring light

  “You wished to see me?”

  “Leader Ashtaar, you know well our concerns about sorcery

  As Ashtaar nods, her fingers find the polished black agate oval on the desk.

  “Defalk’s Sorceress Protector of the East has stretched the harmonies until all Erde vibrated, and then the illegitimate sorcerer of Ranuak used Darksong to save her from her folly.”

  "That is what the seers reported,” Ashtaar replies mildly.

  “Is that all you have to say?"

  “She destroyed all the Sturinnese warships in the ocean along the south coast of Lie dwahr. That was in our interest. Do you wish me to condemn that?” asks the Council Leader.

  “This time . . . this time it benefited us. Do you not think that the Mynyan lords thought the same when they first un­leashed song-sorcery?

  “That may be, but there is little I can do about this. What do you wish of me?”

  “At the very least, you could send a messenger to Lord Robero.”

  A crooked smile crosses Ashtaar’s lips. “What will I tell him? That he must forbid his sorceresses from the sorcery that is all that keeps his realm from falling to the Sea-Priests? Or that we will send the lancers we do not have to attack him?”

  “You made sure we had few lancers. That was your do­ing,” points out the hooded woman.

  “Indeed it was, and I would do the same again. With the sorcery of Defalk, and the strength of our fleet, we may yet survive and prosper. You would strip Liedwahr of all that would keep it from the chains of the Sturinnese for fear that sorcery you cannot describe might prostrate us in a fashion you cannot define.”

  "Words, honored Ashtaar. Elegant and well-spoken, but only words. The facts are thus. We do not have enough lancers to stop Defalk from using sorcery. We do not have enough ships to stop the Sea-Priests from bringing their sor­cery to Liedwahr.”

  “You sit on the Council, lady. You know as well as do I that we have spent all the coins we could on our fleet, and that fleet has protected our traders well enough that we yet prosper. Would we have prospered had we spent the golds on lancers? Had we any more golds to spend on ships?"

  “Yet you risk two of our fleets by sending them west­ward?"

  “As you know,” replied Ashtaar, letting a trace of tired­ness and exasperation show in her voice, “the Council agreed that it was far better to do that than to leave the fleets either caught in the ice or laid up at their piers and moorings. The presence of our vessels in the Western Sea will at least make the Sea-Priests more cautious.” She pauses for the briefest of moments before continuing. "Besides complaining about matters neither of us can change, what do you wish?"

  “What we always wish. Your word that you will not sup­port the sorcery of Defalk in the war between the Defalkans and the Sturinnese, and your word that you will not allow your seers to turn to sorcery.”

  Ashtaar’s eyes seemed to darken further. “That I cannot do. It would be most unwise."

  “You will regret not renouncing the sorcery of Defalk.”

  “I am most certain that I will,” replied the Council Leader. “I am also certain that I would regret acting as you wish far more. Neither of us would wish to survive under the rule of Sturinn, and if we did, even you would regret most bitterly condemning song-sorcery.”

  “You presume too much, Ashtaar.”

  “No. I do not presume at all. Sturinn has been planning to take Liedwahr for years. The Maitres built their fleets and trained their sorcerers and lancers and waited until the Great Sorceress and the old Liedfuhr died. In this time of change, they have acted. We are at a time when the whole future of all Erde will be fixed for generations, if not forever. I will not place Nordwei in the van of opposition to the Sea-Priests. That would be foolish for many reasons. But I will not do anything to harm the efforts of those who oppose them, and where we can help, we shall.”

  “You are old and mad. You will have sorcery destroy us all, worse than in the Spell-Fire Wars.”

  “I think not. The harmonies will prevent that,” Ashtaar asserted quietly.

  “Words. Vain words, especially from one who does not believe in the harmonies.”

  �
�I admit that I do not believe in your harmonies. Harmony is a force. So is dissonance. They will balance. We may not like the resulting balance, but it is better to strive for the harmony we wish, than to abdicate to those who would use dissonance because we fear the changes that struggle may bring.” Ashtaar’s fingers rest on the polished agate oval, unmoving.

  “We will see.” The Lady of the Shadows rises.

  ‘We will see, and I will also regret having to use a seer to ensure that your assassins are less than successful.”

  ‘We will see about that as well.”