Shadowsinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Abruptly, she felt herself lifted by Alcaren’s strong arms.

  “We need to get to lower ground,” he shouted above the roaring of the wind that had only strengthened. “We are too exposed here.”

  “Order it!” Secca turned out of Alcaren’s grip and, fighting her way into the wind and ice, struggled uphill toward the gray mare that stood stolidly against the sorcery-called storm.

  “Down into the trees to the west! Down to the trees!” Alcaren called out.

  “To the west…” Delcetta’s voice rose above the whistle of the wind as well, carrying the same orders.

  Wishing she had worn the battered green felt hat, instead of leaving it in her saddlebags, Secca bent farther forward against the wind until she reached her mount. In one moment, when the snow and ice pellets abated for a mere instant, to the south she could see the players lashing instruments to their horses. Secca levered herself up into the saddle with tired legs and arms.

  “Here!” called Alcaren, his mount practically beside hers. “This way.”

  Secca squinted through the whiteness to see Richina on the other side of Alcaren.

  “This way,” Alcaren repeated, guiding them downhill.

  Secca followed, wordlessly, noting that three of her lancers—Gorkon, Rukor, and Achar—had joined them to re-form as a guard. The group had gone less than a quarter of a dek, when Alcaren spoke again. “I need to go back and make sure all the players and lancers are getting clear.” He pointed downhill. “Beyond the trees you can take shelter. We will rejoin you shortly.”

  “Be careful!” Secca called out, as her consort turned his mount back uphill. Once again, she wished she were larger and stronger, but for her to follow Alcaren, as she felt, barely able to stay in the saddle, would have served no one well.

  “I dare not be otherwise,” he replied before vanishing into the flurry of white snow and ice pellets.

  Secca kept looking over her shoulder as she and Richina rode northward and downhill. At first, she could see nothing; but Alcaren had been right for the farther downhill she rode, the easier it became to see. Before long, looking back, she could see the players emerging from the worst of the storm, and then a company of SouthWomen, and more lancers. She just hoped that Alcaren would return before long.

  “The storm is clearing,” Richina suggested to Secca.

  Secca gestured for the younger sorceress to turn in the saddle and look back over her shoulder. A sheet of white rose from the ridge behind them, a whiteness that seemed like a wall that climbed from the ridge crest as far skyward as Secca could make out, a wall behind which lay a great darkness.

  Richina followed Secca’s gesture. “Dissonance…” The younger sorceress’s voice died away.

  “Let us hope it was as effective as it appears,” Secca said, turning from the view behind toward the trail road ahead, toward the trees ahead that looked to form a windbreak.

  46

  In the glow that the early-morning sun sent through the weathered and stained silk of the small tent, Secca glanced from the closed door panel to Alcaren. The tent was cramped in holding Alcaren, Richina, both overcaptains, both chief players, and Secca, and the air was barely warmer than that outside the tent.

  Secca’s consort stood over the scrying glass laid on the end of the one cot. In spite of the redheaded sorceress’s exhaustion, headache, the daystars that flashed across her eyes, and the intermittently blurring vision, even a day after the massive spellsinging against the Sturinnese, she felt guilty that she had a tent when everyone else had been forced to sleep in lean-tos and other makeshift shelters in and behind the firs that had served as a windbreak.

  The overcaptains and chief players had reported some mild cases of frostbite, but nothing worse, and the firs of the windbreak had provided enough wood for cookfires—around which many of the lancers had warmed themselves. There was no fire in the small tent, and the breath of those gathered within steamed in the cold.

  “Lady?” asked Alcaren.

  Secca nodded at her consort.

  He began the scrying song without comment.

  “Show us where upon a map of this land…”

  When Alcaren finished, the mirror displayed but one white star—and that was near the trade pass. Secca looked once more to Alcaren, who lifted his lumand and offered the more conventional spellsong that brought up an image of the Sturinnese force gathered in a small hamlet, with a patrol about the size of a squad mounting up and preparing to ride somewhere. There was no sign of snow or of dampness in the clay of the road, and the Sturinnese lancers had their white riding jackets but loosely fastened.

  At Secca’s nod, Alcaren sang the release couplet.

  “The Sturinnese that were on the road yesterday. They’re gone,” murmured Delcetta. “As if they had never been.”

  Wilten looked up from the blank scrying glass to Secca, almost reproachfully.

  Secca understood the look. “It is hard to believe,” she said quietly, “and some of you may wonder why I did not use such spells earlier.” She offered a bitter smile. “There is but a single reason.” That you want to tell them. “First, I am not experienced in warfare, and there were no such spells in the books that Lady Anna left to me.” Others far more terrible than the ones you used, but not the ones you created. “So I had to learn what I and Alcaren and Richina could do. There may yet be more that we can do, but we can only learn by doing.”

  Palian, who had caught Wilten’s expression, added, “Already, what Lady Secca has tried has near-on slain her at least once, and left her weak and helpless other times. If she and the others perish in trying too much too soon, we all will perish soon after, as did those with Lady Clayre. Do you wish that?”

  “Ah…no, chief player. No,” said Wilten quickly, flinching as much from the fire in Palian’s gray eyes as the hard chill in her voice. “I did not mean such.”

  “I am most certain you did not,” Palian replied warmly. “You have always been most solicitous of the lady Secca, and your devotion to her and your duty is well-known. Most well-known.”

  Wilten smiled wryly, as if to note that he understood he was being offered a graceful way out. “As is yours, chief player.”

  Alcaren coughed, loudly.

  All eyes but those of Secca turned to the broad-shouldered sorcerer.

  “Ah…a chill. Please excuse me.”

  Richina smothered a smile.

  In the silence, Secca spoke. “Now…we need to move northward, against the remaining Sturinnese here in Dumar.”

  “Lady Clayre?” asked Delvor, almost apologetically.

  “I…we cannot return her from the dead,” Secca answered, her voice heavy. If…if she had moved more quickly, could she have reached Neserea in time? She wanted to shake her head. The passes that led north and west had been blocked even before Secca had completed dealing with the Sturinnese in Ebra. “It may be that once we deal with the remaining Sea-Priests it will be warm enough that we can venture through the trade pass and into Neserea. We can but stop this Belmar and make Neserea safe for the Lady Counselor and heir.”

  “The lancers are almost ready to ride,” offered Delcetta.

  “And they would be far happier to spend tonight in a warmer and drier place?” asked Secca with an inquiring smile.

  “Indeed,” replied Delcetta.

  “Then we should ride back the way we came, for that is warmer and drier than the route the Sturinnese took.” Secca looked to Wilten.

  “Our lancers are also ready.”

  “In a half-glass?” asked Secca.

  “No more than a glass,” replied Wilten.

  Secca nodded, and Alcaren stepped back to open the tent panel. Secca could feel with the light breeze entering the tent that the air remained chill.

  Palian waited until the overcaptains and Delvor had left the tent. She inclined her head. “I trust my harsh words to Wilten did not offend you too greatly?”

  Secca shook her head and smiled, sadly. “No. They were wo
rds that needed to be said, yet not ones that I could say. I thank you.”

  The chief player smiled, almost wistfully. “You cannot say all that needs to be said. Nor can your consort nor your assistant.”

  “That may be, but your words were welcome,” Secca replied.

  “And wise,” added Alcaren.

  “Wise?” Palian arched her eyebrows. “What we do must be done, but wise? Only if we succeed.”

  “That is true of all ventures,” countered Alcaren. “Success renders the foolish wise, and failure makes the wise foolish.”

  With a last smile, Palian nodded and slipped out into the cold and clear morning.

  “While the lancers strike the tent,” Alcaren suggested, “you should ride up to the top of the ridge and see what lies to the south.”

  “You know. You’ve seen it, or you wouldn’t be suggesting that,” Secca replied. “Just tell me.”

  “My telling you is not the same as your seeing it,” he said, smiling.

  “I defer to your wisdom.” Secca fastened her jacket more tightly and pulled on her riding gloves, then went to saddle the gray mare.

  After she had struggled through saddling her mount and refusing aid from Gorkon, knowing she was being foolish, Secca fastened her saddlebags, scrying mirror, and lutar in place.

  Then the gray mare carried Secca uphill from the campsite, through snow that would have been nearly knee high had she not been following the track broken by the scouts. Alcaren rode beside her, his breath white against the brilliant blue sky. Richina, wearing both her blue hat and scarf to bundle herself against the cold, followed, as did Palian.

  At the crest of the hill, not all that far from where she had sung the storm spell the day before, Secca looked out to the south and east. Despite the warmth of the morning sunlight, everything beyond the hilltop was covered with white, covered deeply enough that not even grass or bushes showed through. Even the valley beyond the road where the Sturinnese had ridden the afternoon before was blanketed in sun-glistening white.

  “It is a terrible sight,” murmured Palian.

  Within herself, Secca had to agree. But how many more terrible sights will you need to behold before the struggle against the Maitre of Sturinn ends?

  47

  Wei, Norawei

  Setting aside the polished agate oval that she had been stroking with her fingers, Ashtaar covers her mouth with the dark green cloth and muffles the coughs that rack her body. After a time, she straightens and sits erect behind the desk, facing one of the empty straight-backed chair across the table-desk from her, her dark eyes abstracted, as though her thoughts are a continent away.

  As the bells that mark the turning of the glass strike, echoing across Wei from the tower to the north of the Council building, there is a single thrap on the wooden door.

  “You may enter, Escadra.” Ashtaar’s voice is firm, almost hard.

  The dark-haired and stocky seer bows twice before stepping toward the desk, and the Council Leader who sits behind its polished and shimmering surface. Escadra sits on the front part of the chair, her eyes slightly downcast, so that she appears to be looking at Ashtaar, but so that she is not meeting the intensity of Ashtaar’s scrutiny.

  “Go ahead,” prompts the silver-haired Council Leader.

  “The Shadow Sorceress has found yet another way to use the harmonies for destruction,” begins the seer, letting her words drift into silence, and looking to Ashtaar for a reaction.

  “Spare me the opinions, Escadra, and tell me what happened.”

  Escadra flushes, then replies. “She created a cyclone wide enough to destroy more than fortyscore Sturinnese lancers, and their Sea-Priest sorcerers and drummers, from more than ten deks distant, even across a range of hills. So violent was the spell that all the seers here in Wei could feel the harmonies chime.”

  “Harmonically?” asks Ashtaar.

  “Ah…yes, your mightiness. It was pure Clearsong, but strong and most violent.”

  “Did it prostrate the sorceress or her assistant?”

  “No, Leader Ashtaar. Or not for long. The recoil from the spell created a snowstorm that dropped a half a yard of snow across the land. Even so, they are riding northwest, back toward the trade pass into Neserea and the remaining Sturinnese forces.”

  “I see.” Ashtaar grips the green cloth in her left hand and takes a sip of the water in the goblet on the side of the desk. She swallows before asking, “What about the Sturinnese? Are they retreating?”

  “They appear to be drawing up onto a hilltop near the base of the trade pass.”

  “A hilltop with a sheer rock cliff behind it, perchance?”

  Escadra frowns, tilting her head and closing her eyes, as if trying to call up the image she had seen in the scrying pool. Finally, she opens her eyes. “I believe so, your mightiness.”

  “And would there be more drums and sorcerers in the remaining Sturinnese force?”

  “Yes. It would appear so.”

  “What does that tell us?” Ashtaar’s voice carries a forced patience.

  Again, the seer frowns before responding. “That the Sturinnese wish to lure the sorceress into a trap, and that they are more concerned about her traveling into Neserea than in what she may do in Dumar?”

  “Is there any other reasonable conclusion?”

  “I cannot think of one.”

  “This time…this time…you would appear correct. What does that imply for us in Wei?”

  There is another pause. “The Lord Belmar has destroyed the Sorceress of Defalk, though she slaughtered more than half his lancers, and the Sturinnese fleet is headed to Esaria. When they reach the last ice of the Bitter Sea, there they will use drum sorcery to break the ice.”

  “So…there are no forces left in Neserea to stop Lord Belmar?”

  “The Liedfuhr’s lancers are almost through the Mittpass and near the western edge of the Great Western Forest.”

  “Do they have any sorcerers?”

  “No, Leader Ashtaar.”

  “The younger sister of Annayal is now in Nordwei, is she not? And she is consorted to Eryhal, who is the presumptive heir to Fehern?”

  “They are near Morgen, riding along the south branch of the River Nord.”

  “No one else of import has escaped Belmar, have they?”

  Escadra’s hand goes to her mouth. “That would give the Sturinnese a reason to…”

  “It would give them many reasons.” Ashtaar clears her throat, and swallows, then takes another sip of water. “Have you discerned who the Sea-Priest sorcerer is who travels upon occasion with Belmar?”

  “No, Leader Ashtaar, save that often he is shielded in some fashion or another, and that he must have great power, and that there are others nearby, also shielded. Lord Belmar does not know they are present, from what we can discern.” Escadra pauses. “Are you going to send a scroll to Lord Robero…” Her words trail away as Ashtaar’s eyes seem to flash, and then she stumbles over her next words. “I beg your pardon, your mightiness, I do. I am most sorry…”

  “I may pardon you, or I may not. That is not for you to know or decide. Knowing that Lord Robero shies from his own shadow, and that his failure to send another sorceress and more lancers with the Sorceress of Defalk, would you think that such a scroll would prompt him to send greater aid to Neserea? With a Sturinnese fleet and the Liedfuhr’s lancers both ready to invade?”

  Escadra winces.

  “You are correct there, at least. Lord Robero will not learn any of this from us. Do you see why?”

  “Yes, your mightiness.”

  “Good.” Ashtaar covers her mouth with the heavy green cloth and coughs once, before taking another sip from her goblet. “You may go. Watch both Lord Belmar and the Shadow Sorceress…” Ashtaar gestures, wordlessly, for the seer to leave the study.

  Escadra, her dark eyes lingering on the older woman, rises and bows.

  Once the door closes, Ashtaar collapses into a long fit of coughing, the paroxysm muffled
by the green cloth. Some considerable time passes before she straightens and takes another sip from her goblet.

  48

  “Lady Secca…”

  At the sound of Richina’s voice, low and urgent-sounding, Secca forced open gummy eyes, trying to ignore the faint throbbing in her head. Her hand touched the canvas, by her cheek, and she frowned. Canvas? Where…?

  As she looked up from the travel cot and around the silken tent, a tent whose side panels bore all too many stains and patches, the scattered fragments of memory swirling inside her head snapped into place. She was on the road back to Hasjyl, to deal with the last of the Sturinnese forces in Dumar. Slowly, she eased herself upright, looking down toward the closed front tent panel, trying to ignore the daystars that flashed across her vision, if infrequently.

  Alcaren had taken to sleeping on a mat laid crosswise at the foot of Secca’s cot, claiming that was the best alternative, since he wished to be near his consort, but also wished not to displace Richina. Neither Alcaren nor Richina was anywhere to be seen.

  “Lady Secca…?”

  “You can come in, Richina,” Secca said, her voice cracking, as she turned and sat up sideways on the canvas cot. Even with her feet on the narrow mat, she could feel the chill of the ground below. She fumbled for the water bottle, prying out the cork with stiff fingers and taking a slow swallow.

  Richina slipped inside the small tent and stood waiting at the foot of the cot.

  Secca looked at the younger woman.

  “Lady…there is a lord on his way here.”

  “A lord?”

  “He has retainers, and a squad of lancers, and they ride under twin banners—one white and the other a blue banner of harmony.”

  “He doesn’t want trouble, then. No players?”

  “None.”

  Secca took another swallow from the water bottle before speaking. “How far away is he?”

  “Lord Alcaren judges that the lord is still two deks to the west. He asked me to wake you.”