Shadowsinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  A puzzled look passed across Richina’s face.

  The faintest of sad smiles crossed the lips of the gray-haired Palian.

  53

  Secca stood just outside the plank door of the cottage in the chill evening breeze, looking up to the east at the white disk of Clearsong. In the twilight, hanging over the bare-limbed trees of the woodlot adjoining the hamlet where they sheltered, the moon looked far larger than when it was higher in the sky. In the west, barely visible against the lighter horizon that had not totally faded from the recently set sun, was the red point of Darksong.

  Hoping that the rising of Clearsong and the setting of Darksong was a favorable omen, even knowing that it was not, Secca smiled briefly. What would happen depended on what she could do, not upon the moons. Or what you will do.

  The door of the cottage opened, and Alcaren eased outside into cold and slipped along the wall until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with his consort. For a time, they both looked at the swiftly darkening sky, and neither spoke.

  “You have fretted all afternoon, yet you have said nothing,” finally offered Alcaren.

  “I cannot explain, even to myself,” Secca said. “I have read through Lady Anna’s terrible spells. I have thought about what needs to be done, and no matter what course I choose, the results look to be equally terrible.”

  “What about shadow sorcery?” asked Alcaren. “Is there some smaller, if terrible, sorcery that will foreclose the worst of what you foresee?”

  “There is one possibility.” Secca shook her head. “For that, I will need a brass or bronze tube perhaps two spans long. If we cannot find brass or bronze, iron may suffice.”

  “Oh?”

  “Do not ask me why. Not now.”

  Alcaren looked at her, but did not speak.

  Finally, Secca murmured. “I must deal with Belmar, I fear. He can use his sorcery to destroy the Liedfuhr’s lancers and armsmen.”

  “Will he?”

  “After what he did to Clayre? Is there any question?” Secca’s voice was flat in the momentary calm chill that settled around them as the wind subsided.

  “And if you use this sorcery, you still fear?”

  “I would rather not use it. We will wait…to see if Belmar does indeed intend to attack them.” She shook her head. “But we will not wait here.”

  “What do you plan, then? To head back to the trade pass?”

  “No. There is a long and narrow road along the western edge of the Great Chasm,” Secca said slowly.

  “Would it not be wiser to try sorcery to undo what the Sturinnese have done to the trade pass?” asked Alcaren. “Rather than travel days out of our way?”

  “Going through the trade pass doesn’t feel right,” Secca replied.

  Alcaren did not reply, letting his eyes rise to rest upon the white orb of Clearsong.

  “You think I’m wrong, don’t you?” asked Secca.

  “You have the power to unblock the pass, if you choose to do so.”

  “How much water do you think lies trapped behind that wall?” asked Secca.

  “It’s not that big a stream,” reflected Alcaren.

  “They had to have used sorcery to melt the snows to go through the pass,” Secca countered. “All that snow couldn’t have melted in a week.”

  “We could avoid that sort of trap.”

  “But could all those along it or along the Envar River? Or would we have to try even greater sorcery to protect them? Or risk another occurrence of disaster? You saw Envaryl. The people here suffered more than did the Sea-Priests or Lord Ehara when Lady Anna fought here a score of years ago, and Dumar never fully recovered. I should do the same?”

  “If you do not do something…”

  “I know,” Secca replied tiredly. “I know. But…we’re missing something.” She shivered as the evening wind rose once more and whipped through her loosely fastened riding jacket. What you’re missing you don’t know…but you fear that it is more terrible than what you can foresee, and yet you can explain neither. Or do you fear both so much that you will not look more deeply?

  She shivered again, and not from the cold and the wind. Her eyes went back to the white orb of the rising moon.

  54

  What can I do? What should I do? Those awful spells…Is it right to use them when so many…when such power…? Sweating in spite of the chill in the cottage, Secca bolted upright. She glanced to her left. Alcaren was still sleeping, but Secca had to wonder how he could have slept through all her tossing and turning. She had not slept a stitch, but only fretted and turned in her bedroll, with phrases of terrible spells running through her mind, and visions of lands filled with brimstone swamps and figures that had been turned into shimmering black rock.

  Slowly, she eased out of the blankets and passed toward the shuttered windows of the cottage, standing before them, wondering whether to open them, whether looking out at Clearsong would help clear her thoughts and cool her feverish body. She shook her head. Opening the shutters would only chill the small cottage and wake the others.

  As she stood in the cold, her breath steaming, still uncertain of whether to reach out or climb back into her bedroll beside Alcaren, beside the window a golden haze appeared.

  Secca watched as the haze grew into a tall and familiar woman—a girlish-figured, blonde-haired, and commanding presence with penetrating blue eyes both hard as diamond and as warm as a mother’s love.

  “Anna…” breathed the red-haired sorceress as she looked at her mentor and foster mother. “You can’t be…”

  “Don’t tell me what I can’t be. Or what I can’t do.” Anna smiled, the warm expression taking the edge off her words. “Don’t let anyone tell you, either.”

  Secca swallowed. “I never realized…”

  “You don’t, not until you have to decide, and your children won’t, either,” replied the elder sorceress cryptically. “That’s the way the world is.”

  There was so much Secca wanted to say…and to ask. But she said nothing, just stood and looked at Anna.

  “You have the spellsongs that may allow you to defeat Belmar and the Sea-Priests,” Anna went on. “You don’t want to use them.”

  “How could anyone? They’re…terrible,” Secca said.

  “So?” asked Anna in the dry tone that Secca recalled all too well. “All effective sorcery is terrible. So are all effective ways to fight any battle. Do you recall all the names I was called? All those who wanted me dead? Do you remember how many people tried to kill me? Or you, because you were a little girl who might inherit power?”

  “I don’t want to become like them,” Secca protested.

  “Do you want to die for nothing? Do you want all girl children in Liedwahr chained? Do you want Richina’s tongue torn out? Or your brother’s daughters turned into broodmares?” Anna’s tone turned gentler. “Secca…in life we never get the easy choices. Power requires hard choices. Great power requires even harder choices.”

  “I don’t want to unleash another Spell-Fire War. Or another Pelaran Devastation. I don’t want people to think of me like that.”

  “That’s not your choice. Someone is going to use great sorceries in the days ahead. You can only choose to see whether Liedwahr becomes the land I hoped for or becomes one like Sturinn.”

  “Isn’t there another way?” Secca asked plaintively. “There must be. There has to be. I shouldn’t have to be the one…”

  Anna offered a sad and almost-pitying look. “Did I have another choice when the chandler raised his bow? Or when Lord Dannel attacked Falcor? Or when Lord Ehara held an entire city hostage? Or when your uncle poisoned your mother and brothers?”

  Secca did not answer.

  “We all feel better when we can defend ourselves. When we can tell ourselves and everyone else that we did what was necessary and no more. That’s easy. What’s so much harder is doing what is necessary before others see it and when the actions are harsh and unpopular.”

  Secca recalled Anna
saying those same words once before, years before, and she blinked at that recollection. Then the words had seemed right—and very distant. Now…now…she was not so certain.

  She looked down at the shadowed and rough wooden floor.

  When she looked up, Anna was gone. Secca shivered, realizing that her feet were like ice, and she wondered how long she had been standing before the shuttered window.

  She shivered again as Alcaren eased out of his bedroll and slipped behind her, wrapping his warm arms around her shuddering figure.

  “What were you doing?” he whispered. “You were standing in front of the shutters, murmuring things to yourself. Was it a bad dream?”

  “It helped,” Secca whispered back, unwilling at that moment to tell Alcaren what she had experienced and felt. “It helped.”

  She glanced back at the window for a moment, before turning and hugging her consort—hugging him tightly, for warmth and comfort.

  55

  Mansuus, Mansuur

  The Liedfuhr of Mansuur paces back and forth between the tall windows and the side of the desk in his private study. His boots are heavy on the polished floor, and he does not look at Bassil. Finally, he stops and glares.

  The older man meets the glare without flinching, but without speaking.

  Kestrin clears his throat, and says, “The Sea-Priests have escaped the Sorceress Protector and sealed the trade pass with Darksong?”

  “Clearsong, sire.”

  “The method of sorcery matters not. What matters is that she must tear down mountains to pursue.”

  “The Sea-Priests may wish her to pursue in another fashion.” Bassil pauses. “Or they wish to delay her so that they may undertake yet another scheme.”

  Kestrin raises his eyebrows. “You are being obscure, Bassil.”

  “You seers say that she is riding eastward, away from Envaryl. These developments mean that your lancers are greatly at risk, sire.”

  “Now…they’re my lancers, Bassil?” asks Kestrin gently, ironically.

  “They always have been, sire.”

  “Why will she not pursue them?” ponders Kestrin. “Surely, she cannot wish to hand Neserea over to them.”

  “Lord Robero may not wish her to hazard Dumar—or herself,” suggests Bassil. “He has always been reluctant to hazard his lancers or his sorceresses, and with one of them slain by this Lord Belmar, he may not wish the Sorceress Protector of the East to confront both Lord Belmar and the Sturinnese.”

  “He would not send enough lancers to protect the first, and now, when it is too late to be cautious, he would protect the second?” Kestrin laughs. “Then…I am no better. I must send armsmen to a burned-out port to reassure my people, and let others sit in Wharsus until at least the Sea-Priest fleet is in the Bitter Sea and about to attack my sister’s land—and then it will be too late to aid her.”

  “That is why the Sturinnese have left a half-score of ships patrolling in Defuhr Bay,” Bassil points out.

  “I would that I could ride into the fray and impress all with my valor.” Kestrin snorts. “Better that than sit here on the hillside and wait for their armies, after they have taken Liedwahr piece by piece. Tell me again why I cannot send another five thousand lancers into Neserea?”

  “Because you will lose them all,” Bassil says reasonably. “You will likely lose those already there. Lord Belmar is trying to reach them, and, if he does not, the Sturinnese and their sorcerers coming from Dumar likely will.”

  “It would be so much easier if I could just charge into battle and be done with it.” Kestrin sighs.

  “Sire…many a ruler has said such, and some have done so, and a handful have been remembered for their gallant and futile efforts. The others, those who were remembered at all, were written down in the scrolls of history as fools.”

  “Now I am a fool?”

  “Only if you attempt to fight in a way that favors your enemies.”

  “By not fighting?”

  “By letting others fight until you must. So long as you have large numbers of lancers and armsmen, even the Sturinnese must tread with care. If you cast them out into lands where sorcery is rife, then they will fall, not to blades, but to spells.”

  “Is not sorcery rife everywhere?”

  “Not yet, and never has it remained such, for the temptation to use it often means those who employ it must destroy each other—or at the very least all those who oppose them.”

  “So you think the Sturinnese and the Defalkans will destroy each other? Or that one will destroy the other?”

  “Either way, you can make the best peace possible with the winner.”

  “And let my sister fall to the wolves? Doing nothing?”

  “Sire. At this moment, you can do nothing except lose lancers and armsmen. Best you lose as few as you can.”

  Kestrin winces. “We should have found a way to train sorcerers and players.”

  “Perhaps you should, but that takes years, and you do not have years.”

  “Look into it. If we survive this mess, I would not wish to repeat the error.” He laughs again. “But in not repeating the present error, doubtless I shall commit another.”

  “That is the way of ruling, sire.” Bassil bows.

  Kestrin shakes his head, then looks at the scrolls upon his desk. “See to it, then, and I will content myself with doing what little I can…and waiting.”

  “Yes, sire.” Bassil bows before turning.

  56

  Over the reddish coals in the kitchen hearth of the cottage hung a heavy iron pot, and in it were the melted remains of candles and candle stubs garnered from throughout the hamlet—barely enough for what Secca needed.

  She glanced at the grayish mass of molten wax, swinging the iron arm away from the center of the coals. “We can’t let it get too hot, or it will catch fire. I wouldn’t want to have to try to find more wax here.”

  Richina looked from Secca to the small brass tube and matching cap that lay shimmering on the warped and uneven boards of the table. “The tube is beautiful. It’s a shame…”

  “Alcaren did a wonderful job,” Secca said, glancing toward her consort.

  “It’s small, and it’s brass,” he replied, with a self-deprecating smile. “Very simple Clearsong. Small amounts of metals are easy.”

  “For you,” suggested Richina.

  “We’re about ready,” Secca said. “Please use the dipper to keep stirring the wax, Richina.”

  The blonde sorceress took the wooden dipper from Secca and gently swirled the molten wax.

  Secca moved to the corner of the main room of the cottage, next to the pallet she and Alcaren shared, bent down, and lifted the saddlebags, carrying them across the room and setting them on one end of the table. She unfastened the left saddlebag and began to take out the small jars she had carried all the way from Loiseau, setting them on the table one by one, until she had the one she wanted.

  Most carefully, she unstoppered it, then set it back on the table. She lifted the tube with her left hand, and the open jar with her right, and began to pour the gray-green granules into the tube until it was filled to within a fingertip of the smooth brass edge.

  Alcaren stepped forward and took the tube from Secca, slipping a cork into the opening, one he had whittled down enough so that it fit flush with the brass edging. Then he eased the brass cap over the top of the tube.

  Secca carefully recorked the jar and replaced the jars she had set out back inside her saddlebag. After setting the saddlebags carefully in the corner, she pulled on her riding gloves, took the tube from Alcaren, and nodded to Richina. “I’ll be using the wax now.”

  Richina stepped aside from gently stirring the grayish mixture.

  Holding the tube in her gloved right hand, Secca eased it over the pot. She took the wooden dipper to lift molten wax and pour it over the sides and bottom of the tube, slowly coating it. Each time she poured wax, she waited for the hot wax to harden before adding more wax. She was careful to keep the
tube over the pot, so that the wax that dripped off fell back into the pot and remelted.

  Then, tilting the tube at a slight angle, she began to pour the wax over the capped top of the tube, repeating the dipping, waiting, and cooling process until the entire tube was so thickly coated that no sign of the brass could be seen, and the tube resembled an irregular grayish candle, except without a wick.

  Once the last coat had hardened, she set the tube on the table and turned to Richina. “If you would tell Palian that I am ready for the players.”

  “Yes, Lady Secca.” With a nod, the younger sorceress fastened her riding jacket and stepped out of the cottage. Although Richina closed the door behind her, a wave of cold air swept into the small dwelling, and the coals in the hearth flared brighter with the influx of air.

  Secca stared at the candlelike tube, then turned toward the closed shutters.

  “This bothers you, does it not?” asked Alcaren gently.

  “What else can I do? There is no way to reach Belmar before he meets with the Liedfuhr’s lancers, and his sorcery is powerful enough to destroy them. I can do nothing to stop the Sturinnese who blocked the trade pass—not in time.” She smiled sadly. “I know you think that I might be able to unblock the pass, but that would twist the harmonies, and exhaust the three of us…we can only do that so often.”

  “I would not go against what you feel.” Alcaren stepped toward the table, grasping the end closest to the hearth, then lifting it, and swinging it toward the wall. “You’ll need more space for the players.” He did the same to the other end, then repeated the effort all over again, until the table was flush against the wall and the shuttered window. “That will provide more room for the players.”

  “Thank you.”

  At the knock on the door, Gorkon called, “The players, lady.”