The ShadowSinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Secca glanced at the two mounted overcaptains.

  “What?” asked Wilten.

  “Something . . . happened . . . distant . . . dissonant.” Secca forced the words out, even as she turned toward the gray and began to unstrap her lutar.

  Alcaren hurried over beside her and untied the leather-wrapped scrying glass.

  Both Secca and Alcaren ignored the looks that passed between Wilten and Delcetta as Secca tuned the lutar. Ri­china laid the leather wrappings on the grass, and Alcaren set the glass on top of those wrappings on the grass. As Secca finished tuning, Palian and Delvor appeared, walking their mounts toward the group.

  “Lady . . .“ offered Palian.

  “We heard,” Secca said tightly. “You may watch the glass.”

  Secca glanced down at the glass, then touched the strings of the lutar.

  “Show us now and bring to sight

  what caused the dissonance to take flight..."

  The spell was rough, Secca knew, as she watched the mirmr blank into silver and then slowly bring forth an image . . .an image that showed a line of blackened figures within a square of snow. A square of canvas, barely attached to two rough branches, burned brightly.

  Secca swallowed as her amber eyes traced out the rough outline of a charred lutar.

  “I will sing the release,” Alcaren said.

  Secca nodded, swallowing again. As Alcaren’s voice died away, she looked to her consort. “I must be sure.”

  “I will---"

  “I can, lady,” offered Richina.

  “No. I must.” Secca lifted her lutar and sang.

  “Show me now and in the mirror’s light

  the lady Clayre well within my sight . . ."

  The mirror blanked, and then showed almost the same scene, centering on one figure, but . . . even as all gathered around the glass watched, the surface silvered and turned blank.

  “Clayre . . . she’s gone,” Secca confirmed, looking up from the glass. “She’s gone.”

  “So are many of Belmar’s armsmen,” Alcaren said slowly.

  “Would you . . .?"

  Alcaren took the lutar and sang.

  “Of Belmar’s lancers, show in clear light

  all those struck down by sorcery’s blight...”

  The mirror showed a road, in the same snow-studded landscape, along which were strewn the bodies of lancers and mounts, also blackened. The column stretched almost half a dek.

  “Not all . . . . . but many,” opined Alcaren. He sang the re­lease couplet, then lowered the lutar.

  “What about Belmar?” asked Richina.

  Alcaren looked to Secca, who nodded. At Secca’s nod, Alcaren handed the lutar to Richina. The younger sorceress ran her fingers over the strings, then cocked her head side­ways in thought before singing the viewing spell for Belmar.

  The mirror image was clear and sharp, showing Belmar except that he wore not the garments of a lord, but the uniform of a captain. Beside him rode a man in gray, and behind him at least several players.

  For a time, the seven looked at the glass, silently, before Richina sang the release couplet

  “Belmar and his players remain, with nothing between them and Esaria,” suggested Palian.

  Secca shuddered, silently, numbly, thinking of Clayre, of the dark-haired sorceress who had gone to Neserea with few lancers and less support from the Nesereans. She could still recall first meeting Clayre, when Clayre had been sixteen, and Secca barely nine, and looking up to the tall young woman who had come to Falcor at Anna’s behest, to avoid an arranged consorting. Now . . . Clayre was dead, never having known consort or love.

  Secca shivered again, then squared her shoulders.

  Alcaren put his hand around hers, gently, and squeezed.

  “Can you do nothing, my lady?” asked Wilten.

  Secca hesitated, then shook her head. “Not beyond what we plan. I dare not. Not until we have dealt with the Stu­rinnese here in Dumar. We could not, reach Esaria within weeks, and if we tried, we would turn Dumar over to those Sturinnese here.”

  "We could lose both lands, then,” suggested Alcaren.

  No one mentioned that they could anyway.

  Secca took her lutar back from Richina and slipped it into its case, while Alcaren and the younger sorceress rewrapped the all-too-warm scrying mirror and fastened it in place be­hind the saddle of Secca’s gray mare. Then Secca tied the lutar in place. She looked at Wilten. “We had best be riding. I do not intend that the Sturinnese succeed in Dumar.” Al­though she had not intended it, her words fell like ice into the silence infinitely cold and yet as edged as a freshly sharpened sabre.

  Wilten lowered his eyes. "We stand ready, Lady Secca.” Secca forced a smile. “I am not angry with any here, Overcaptains. I am angry, and those with whom I am angry will know it. In time, and in my own way.”

  Wilten swallowed. Mounted beside him, Delcetta showed a cold, and grim smile that bore a hint of satisfaction.

  Secca smiled, a hard smile that was becoming too familiar. “Our scouts have said that the ride is less than six deks across the hills. We can make it by midday, and rest for several glasses before the Sturinnese appear.”

  “If they don’t see us coming in their glasses,” Wilten said worriedly.

  “If they do, how are we worse off? They can hurry, or they can retreat westward. Either way we’re in a better po­sition.” Secca smiled again. “Besides, I think that their lanc­ers and overcaptains will want to fight. This will give them an excuse.”

  Alcaren frowned. So did the overcaptains.

  Secca looked at her consort. “You said that days ago. That the Sturinnese always liked to attack. How must they feel about retreating from a mere woman with but nine under­strength companies of lancers?’

  “They will not want to do that again,” suggested Delcetta. “So they will at least approach more closely to see what we might do,” Secca replied. “And if it is close enough, we will strike.” Her eyes traveled across each of those around her. “We should be riding once more.”

  “Yes, Lady Secca.” Wilten inclined his head.

  After a moment, so did Delcetta. Then the two over-captains turned their mounts eastward and rode back along the trail to where the vanguard had gathered.

  Palian mounted, then Delvor, followed by Richina. Al­caren waited until his consort was astride the gray, then mounted last.

  Secca’s thoughts kept flitting between the Sturinnese ahead, and Clayre and Neserea. How had Belmar destroyed her? Had she relied too much on her deceptive spell? Or was the Neserean even more cunning? And what about the man in gray who resembled all too clearly the man who had advised Fehern? Was he another Sea-Priest? Were they everywhere?

  As they rode slowly along the winding trail, following the vanguard, Alcaren turned to his consort. “Whatever you had thought about---for later, after you deal with the Du­marans . . . whatever it be . . . it frightens you.”

  “You have read Anna’s spells and notes. Are you not frightened at what we may unleash?”

  Alcaren nodded. “They are fearsome spells. Yet... against the fleets and endless forces of Sturinn . . . what else can we do?”

  “I think the first Matriarchs asked that same question when they faced the Mynyans,” Secca said wryly. “The Mynyans were defeated. Most of the Matriarchs died, and much of the northern and eastern lands of Ranuak remain poisoned to this day. The Ladies of the Shadows may indeed be right about sorcery. And so are you. If I do nothing, the land may survive, but not us and not a way of living I would wish. Yet, if I do something, there is no certainty that our ways of living will survive—or that we can live through the aftermath.”

  Alcarea laughed, roughly and ruefully. “It is too bad we cannot fight the Sturinnese in the isles of Sturinn, instead of in Liedwahr. Then we would not need to fret about the devastation so greatly.”

  “It is too bad. The Sturinnese deserve that—or worse.” Secca eased the gray forward, frowning as she considered Al
caren’s words for a time. Then she, returned to thinking about what spellsong to use when the three of them faced the Sturinnese . . . and how she would need to change the underlying melody for each singer to strengthen the har­monic effect

  As she considered what she was about to attempt, she wondered, not for the first time. Was she becoming as ruth­less as the Sturinnese? Was there any other way to deal with a land who wanted to put all women in chains---and cut out the tongues of any women who practiced sorcery?

  Secca had found no other answers, besides force in some form. It did not comfort her that Anna before her had failed to find an alternative to force backed by sorcery. There might be an answer, but what it might be eluded Secca. The Ladies of the Shadows had no answers, nor had the Matri­arch---and they had considered the problem for scores of generations, if not longer. Greater force seemed to be nec­essary in dealing with a land that had invaded Liedwahr time and time again without provocation.

  But still . . . that thought saddened her.

  43

  West of Itzel, Neserea

  Still wearing the uniform and insignia of a junior captain, Belmar rides slowly along the road, eastward toward Esaria. His eyes traverse the charred figures strewn beside the roadside, and the smaller number scattered across the snow-dotted meadow, and he swallows, almost convul­sively, whenever there is a lull in the chill northwest wind that numbs his sense of smell.

  Behind him, some of the lancers in the six companies that follow are less able to control their visceral reactions.

  As Belmar and jerGlien pass the last of the corpses, the Lord of Worlan turns in the saddle, although he does not look directly at the Sturinnese in gray. “I cannot believe she could destroy ten companies of lancers spread out across a dek.”

  “They are fearsome enemies, Lord Belmar,” replies jerGlien. “Had this one been granted even five companies of lancers, you would have had far greater difficulties. Even though she did not know you were on the far rise, or that you had the drums, she sang four spells for your one, and you had great difficulty.”

  “Such difficulties . . .” Belmar pauses, before his eyes nar­row, “You were riding behind them, and you were un­scathed. How did such occur?”

  With a shrug, jerGlien replies, “You can see the marks of sorcery fire on the vegetation and upon the road. It only carries so far. I was fortunate to have been somewhat farther away.”

  “You are always fortunate to be just far enough from adverse circumstances."

  “It is perchance my one talent.” The Sturinnese adds smoothly, “You are most fortunate as well. Were you fight­ing the Sorceress Protector of the East, who can muster far more lancers, and who has an assistant accompanying her, you might well still be fighting—or even retreating. That is far greater fortune than my small ability to avoid being too close to a distracted sorceress.”

  “You think so?"

  “You need only look to the south.” The voice of the man in gray bears a wry tone.

  “Oh . . . I do not yet hold my own land, and you would have me look southward?" Belmar shakes his head.

  “Once you have Neserea well in hand, the Sorceress Pro­tector of the East must be destroyed. That is, if you and

  your heirs wish to hold Neserea."

  “Not Lord Robero?"

  “He is a weakling. Without his sorceresses, you could make him your vassal, and he would thank you for letting him hold on to his lands and title. Now, he may be even easier to persuade to accept a change in rule in Neserea.”

  “He may, but there are three other sorceresses.”

  The man in gray laughs. “Still . . . you do not see. So I must tell you. There was the Sorceress of Defalk, and she was like unto the sorceresses of old. She was indeed pow­erful, as you have seen, but she would not surrender her power to have heirs of her body. Nor did she wish to work with others, and she would not ask others to work with her, and without asking, none would follow her. Even had she lived, few would have listened as she aged, and all will remember her but for a few score years, and she will have changed nothing.”

  “Except for those whom she killed,” replies Belmar sar­donically.

  Ignoring the interjection, jerGlien continues, “Then there is the assistant sorceress, and she uses men as men oft use women. Excepting for her gender, she and her use of sorcery are little different from our own sorcerers, save she has no honor, and as a woman prostituting the harmonies, that makes her an abomination and an aberration. In Sturinn, we would make sure she could do little but bear sons. As her own mistress in Defalk, she will have few children, if any, and those she may have will not follow her.

  Belmar nods, continuing to listen.

  “The third sorceress the one who assists the Sorceress Protector of the East--- she is powerful, but as yet unformed, and unable to stand against us by herself. That leaves the Sorceress Protector of the East. She has the knowledge of the great sorceress, and, if she lives, will take the over-captain from Ranuak as her consort, if she has not already done so, for he is a cousin or some such of the Matriarch. She will have heirs, and already many look to her and follow her. She will turn all Liedwahr in the direction of the Ran­uan bitches, and Lord Robero will let her do so, for he cannot stand against her. Indeed, no man in Liedwahr, save you, Lord Belmar, can stand against her.”

  Belmar fingers his chin with his right hand, the one that does not hold the reins. “This one here, that you say is not so powerful as the younger . . . she even destroyed my seal ring. That had been my grandsire’s. Now it is a lump of melted brass.”

  “You see why I suggested your lancers all see the destruc­tion and death that she wrought?’ asks jerGlien mildly.

  “That is obvious,” Belmar replies. “So that they can ob­serve how evil the sorceresses are, and how little regard they have for a man’s life.”

  “A man’s life,” says jerGlien with a laugh. “Well put.”

  “They would turn us all into children.”

  “As in Ranuak or that so-called Free City. Even in the Ostisles, Sturinn did not behave so terribly.”

  “That may be, master jerGlien,” Belmar replies, “but I would prefer Sturinn far better as ally than as master. I also prefer the Maitre to continue to remain in Sturinn and rule his demesnes and allow me to rule mine.”

  “The Maitre has never remained just in Sturinn, Lord Bel­mar. None know where he may appear. That is one of his strengths.” A laugh follows. “As for you and Neserea, have we done aught but supply you with golds, arms, and train­ing? Have you seen a single armsman or lancer in Neserea?”

  “That I have not, although I would not wager on that.” Belmar laughs. “There are no large forces from Sturinn within Neserea. I do know such.”

  After they have ridden a time, the Sturinnese adds, “You will have some desertions tonight, as well.”

  “And I should let them go?”

  “The lancers who remain will be fiercer in battle, should it come to that.”

  “It will come to that, will it not, master jerGlien?”

  The Sturinnese shrugs, easily. “You will not have to fight any others from Neserea.”

  “Just the lancers of the Liedfuhr and the other sorceresses of Defalk.” Belmar straightens in the saddle, looking west­ward along the road that leads to Esaria.

  “The Liedfuhr . . . one cannot tell. He will not hazard his lancers, much as he is fond of his sister, for a lost cause.”

  “So . . . if I can slay the Lady Counselor and her mother and her sister and the consort from Dumar, he will not in­vade Neserea.”

  “He may not, if you can act before the snows melt in the Mittpass.” Another shrug follows jerGlien’s words. “Then, he may. It matters not. He has no sorcerers. You have the power to destroy his lancers, and if you do, then none can contest you. Except, of course, the Sorceress Protector of the East.”

  “You do not care for this Sorceress Protector?"

  “It matters little what I care. You will do as you will
, and so will she. I merely offer you my advice.”

  “And golds and arms from the Maitre, when he sees fit.” Belmar laughs. “He should see fit now, for another sorceress is dead.”

  “Oh, I have no doubts you will be richly rewarded for this, Lord Belmar. No doubts at all, and that is how it should be.”

  “And so will you, for you have helped me, and that has aided Sturinn’s cause, else you would not be here.”

  “You are most perceptive, Lord Belmar. As always.”

  Belmar looks westward once more, toward Esaria.

  44

  Under the late-morning sun, Secca had unfastened her jacket, so warm had the day become. She was trying to work on harmonies with Richina and Alcaren as they rode up over the hills, and that was work as well, and contributed to her getting warmer and warmer, although some of the heat was from the sun, enough that she could smell the earth warming. The three rode close together, but the trail was so narrow that Richina and Secca were side by side, with Al­caren trailing close behind.