Shadowsinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  After a silence, Secca added, “I need you, both for myself and for what we do. I would not have it said that our alliance was disharmonious or merely of bodily needs.”

  Alcaren raised his eyebrows.

  Secca found herself flushing again, wondering how she had been able to ignore the sheer magnetism of her consort-to-be for as long as she had. “I did not say…” She laughed once more, shaking her head as she did.

  Alcaren laughed as well.

  As the moment of shared joy passed, Secca cleared her throat gently, repeating, “We must have a consorting ceremony before we leave Encora.”

  “Because you’re a Lady of Defalk.”

  “And so that the Ladies of the Shadows know that I’m going to carry you off away from Ranuak.” Secca smiled mischievously for a moment. “Does the Matriarch perform such ceremonies?”

  “Seldom…but she can.”

  “Surely, she would do that for a beloved cousin.”

  “She would more likely do so to make sure her beloved cousin was leaving Encora forever,” replied Alcaren dryly as he rose from the chair and stepped back, stretching, before looking past Secca toward the windows and the harbor beyond.

  “I think she would like to see you happy,” Secca said.

  “Oh…that she would. Happy with a lovely woman and a beautiful sorceress…and happily gone from Encora and on our way to save Liedwahr from the scourge of the Sea-Priests. With song-sorceries used to great effect elsewhere.”

  Secca nodded agreement, even as she sensed the underlying bitterness. “But she would perform the consorting ceremony.”

  “I am most certain she would.”

  “I will send her a request by messenger,” replied the petite redhead, “after we meet with the others.”

  “Will you also send a message to Lord Robero?”

  “Yes, but not by sorcery, and not soon. Perhaps I will wait to tell him personally.” Secca grinned. “He did say that I needed to consider the matter of heirs.”

  Alcaren’s mouth opened.

  Secca laughed once more. “Not now, but with you able to do sorcery, I could have children without fearing all would be after me while I was weakened.”

  “I am not…” he replied slowly.

  “You can certainly sing a scrying spell already,” Secca pointed out. “That is not forbidden, even by the Ladies of the Shadows.”

  “The idea of greater sorcery—it feels strange,” Alcaren replied.

  “Best you get used to it if we are to contend with the Sea-Priests.” Secca eased to the working desk, bent over, and lifted the lutar from the case beside the left end of the desk. She began to check the tuning.

  “You want me to try a scrying spell now?” he asked.

  “Why not? We need to check on the Sturinnese ships before we meet with the others. I’ll do the first one, and then I’ll write the words for the second.”

  “You have high visions of my ability.”

  Secca shook her head. “I know what you can do.” She pulled on the copper-tipped leather gloves, then stepped to the conference table and looked down at the scrying glass in the middle before clearing her throat. She’d already run through a series of vocalises before Alcaren had arrived, and they should have been enough for scrying spells.

  Chording the lutar, she sang.

  “Mirror, mirror, show me clear and as before,

  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 his 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 shi
p’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 conceded.

  “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 SouthWomen 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 reconquering 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 SouthWomen, her own four companies of lancers were already well understrength, and she could expect few if any reinforcements, while her enemy gathered a fleet of between two- and fourscore warships and transports and scores 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 Liedwahr. 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 unleash
ed 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.”