Shadowsinger

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

JerClayne bows, then massages his forehead. He sits down heavily on the tiled edge of the reflecting pool and closes his eyes.

  85

  In the cool damp midmorning air, Secca stood at the poop deck railing of the Silberwelle beside Alcaren, looking out over the main deck where the players were assembling. In whatever direction she turned, she could only see water and more water, except for the other ships and the high hazy clouds that covered most of the sky, especially to the west. From the position of the sun, Secca thought the Silberwelle was headed in a slightly more northerly direction than on the day before, and moving somewhat more slowly, understandably so since the wind was not so brisk as it had been.

  Richina stood more toward the port side of the ship, to Secca’s left.

  Relieved that the younger sorceress did not look quite so tired as she had previously, Secca slipped toward her. “You’re looking more rested.”

  Alcaren followed.

  “That I should, lady,” Richina laughed. “All I have done is sleep and eat, and sleep and eat, and occasionally practice a vocalise.”

  “Can you feel the wards?”

  “I can feel them. By evening I am as tired as if I had ridden all day.” Richina frowned. “There are times when I can sense chords…or discords. They last but a few moments.”

  “Someone is using a pool or glass to try to see us?” asked Alcaren.

  “I would wager so,” Secca said, “although we have little experience with this kind of sorcery. Some of the Sea-Priests, I would think.”

  Both Richina and Alcaren nodded.

  “You may feel more as we near Stura. If you feel greatly disturbed, please let us know.”

  “I will, lady.” Richina inclined her head.

  All three turned as Palian and Delvor climbed up the ladder and stepped onto the upper deck.

  “Good morning,” Secca said cheerfully.

  “Good morning,” replied the chief players, almost in unison.

  “You had requested that we practice.” Palian smiled as she added, “We would have practiced today even had you not requested it. Players do not play well when they do not play often.”

  “You must play well this time,” Secca replied. She wanted to shake her head at the stupidity of her words. Has there ever been a time in the past year when you did not need them to play well?

  “The Sturinnese would wish otherwise. We will not grant that wish.” The faintest twinkle appeared in the eyes of the gray-haired chief player.

  “I’d like you and the players to keep working on the fifth building spell.” Secca managed to stop herself from stupidly saying something about the spell being as perfect as possible.

  “You are not doing a building spell, not for the Sea-Priests,” Palian half said, half asked.

  “No. It is a spell of Lady Anna’s.” Secca added, “Mostly.”

  Palian nodded slowly. “Will the tempo be the same?”

  “It should be, but I need to make sure. That is one reason why I want the run-throughs. We’ll need to practice this every day until we reach the isles of Sturinn. I have not used this spell before.” She inclined her head to her consort. “So must Alcaren.”

  “You will both be singing it?”

  “The same words, but Alcaren will sing a harmony to mine.”

  A brief smile flitted across Palian’s lips, and Secca recalled Anna telling her that Palian had been present when Anna and Brill had argued over the use of multiple voices singing the same words with different notes. Lord Brill had been adamant against it. He’d also died in that battle, Secca reflected, hoping she would prove to be adaptable as Anna had been.

  “We will wait your signal after each run-through before we start the next,” Palian said.

  “Thank you.”

  As the two chief players returned to the main deck, where the players were still tuning, Alcaren took out the small sheet of paper with the words and notations of the “terrible” spell. Secca had a copy tucked inside her tunic, but she hoped she would not need it.

  Richina looked from Alcaren and his sheet of paper to Secca, inquiringly.

  “You may see it later,” Secca said. “I don’t wish you to be thinking about this spell while you are holding the wards.”

  “But if you should need me…” suggested Richina.

  “That is a river we will ford when the time comes. What you do now is more important.”

  “Yes, lady.” Richina did not quite meet Secca’s eyes.

  “Richina.” Secca’s voice was firm.

  The younger sorceress looked up, almost startled.

  “It is a terrible spell. It will do your mind and spirit no good. I wish I did not have to call upon it. I have already asked far more of you than I should. Do not ask even more of yourself.” Secca’s last words were softer, and warmer.

  “I am sorry…I did not mean…”

  “You’re curious. So was I when I was your age. So is every good sorceress. But I am still your teacher, and I would rather you not learn what you need not know until you are older—unless it would save your life. Now it would not. Later,” Secca promised.

  Richina finally smiled.

  “We stand ready, Lady Secca!” called Palian.

  Secca looked to Alcaren, who nodded.

  After a moment, Secca replied, “On your mark, chief player.”

  “The fifth building song! On my mark…Mark!”

  On the first run-through, mentally Secca just matched the words of the spell with the notes, trying to make sure that the note values were as Anna had said they were. Unsurprisingly, words and note values matched, but then, Anna had been a greater musician than Liedwahr had seen in generations—if ever.

  Secca found her eyes watering, and she had to swallow at the gaping emptiness within her that had reappeared so suddenly and unexpectedly, an emptiness that hurt just as much as the morning Anna had died, if not more.

  “Are you all right?” murmured Alcaren.

  “I was thinking about Anna,” answered Secca in a low voice. She shook her head. “Sometimes…sometimes, it still hurts that she’s gone, that I can never talk to her. She was so good to me. I can still remember the time, when she was Regent, that she carried me all the way up to my tower room and my bed. Or the times that we played Vorkoffe. She was always so patient. She promised me that she’d always take care of me.”

  “She did, didn’t she?”

  Secca nodded and blotted her eyes.

  Palian’s voice rose from the main deck. “Bretnay! You are holding back the other violinos. Do you want to be cast to the bottom of the Western Sea because the spell accompaniment is not properly played? This is a mighty spell, and if it is not played right, most unfortunate things happen. There once was a violino player who was turned into red dust…”

  Secca found a wry smile on her face. Palian was embroidering the truth slightly, since the unfortunate player had been turned into dust by Lord Brill for not following instructions, and botching a spellsong accompaniment that had required much additional spellsinging to undo the damage. Still, Bretnay did not have to know the entire story.

  Secca closed her eyes for a moment, trying to call up the images she would use. Then she swallowed, realizing something so obvious that she had never thought of it. Anna had taught her the fifth building song with its complicated wording for building…but never had Secca ever used that spellsong, because the first three were far easier and covered bridges, roads, walls…and most everything else. Most of the spells in the “Armageddon” folder used the fourth, fifth, and sixth building songs.

  Secca shook her head, marveling at how many years ahead Anna had thought, giving Secca the tools to use the deadly spells, without burdening her with the knowledge directly.

  “Lady Secca?”

  The redheaded sorceress opened her eyes and answered Palian. “On your mark.”

  The accompaniment rose into the morning air and over the waters of the Western Sea. Secca concentrated on words, note values, and the image
s Anna had suggested in the explanatory words written so many years before, realizing, as she lost the images to the words, that she had as much practicing to do as did the players, or more.

  86

  Mansuus, Mansuur

  Kestrin is leaning back in the armchair behind the desk in his private study, reading through a series of requests from the town councils of Landungerste and Hafen. He offers a low and sardonic laugh containing sadness rather than mirth and sets the requests aside, glancing toward the windows and the afternoon clouds beyond that promise rain, though none has yet fallen.

  At the thrap on the door, he straightens. “Yes?”

  “Overcaptain Bassil, sire.”

  “Have him come in.”

  Bassil’s face is grim as he steps quickly, but firmly, toward the Liedfuhr. He stops and waits a yard short of the desk.

  “Just how bad is the news this time, Bassil?”

  “As bad as I have ever delivered, sire.”

  Kestrin gestures for the lancer officer to continue.

  “The Sturinnese have used sorcery to slaughter more than three thousand of the lancers and armsmen you dispatched through the Mittpass to Neserea. Perhaps a thousand more are scattered in the Great Western Forest. Many of those will not survive the snows and cold to return.”

  “When we heard little, I feared as much.” Kestrin shrugs sadly. “Yet what could I do? I am not a ruler to stand and do nothing, the way Lord Robero would, had he no sorceresses.”

  “We knew that risk, sire.” Bassil waits.

  “You warned me. That I grant, but your face says there is worse to come.”

  “For you, sire, yes. The seers have discovered that the Sturinnese have used sorcery to murder your sister Aerlya and your niece Annyal.”

  “Sorcery?” Kestrin leans forward in the chair, his eyes firmly on the older man.

  “Some sort of distance sorcery.” Bassil clears his throat gently. “So far, the sole survivors are Aerfor and her consort Eryhal. He also appears to be the only survivor in Lord Clehar’s family. They are somewhere in Nordwei.”

  “Can we do nothing?” Kestrin stands, pursing his lips, then goes on as if he had not asked a question. “No, there is nothing we can do that will not cost us even more dearly. We cannot fight sorcery with lancers, Bassil. We will lose all the lancers we have.”

  “No, sire. It appears not.”

  “I must do nothing, cowering in Mansuus, hoping that the Sturinnese will ride eastward rather than westward. Unless you have a better idea?”

  “Ah…you might inflict great damage by assembling small groups of archers to harass them. They cannot use spells every time an arrow flies into their midst.”

  “You can start working on that when you leave.”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “If we manage to hold Mansuur together, if we do, we must have sorcerers, and we must train them from among our own loyal peoples.”

  Bassil offers a single nod, as if dubious. “Whom would we trust to train them?”

  Kestrin laughs, bitterly. “Whom do we distrust least to train them? Who has proved that she can.”

  “The Shadow Sorceress?”

  “I would judge so. If…if she can defeat the Sturinnese, we will send an envoy with coin and anything else, beseeching her—and I will grovel and mean it—to select and train a sorcerer for us, or more, if she will—out of young Mansuurans we will send to her.”

  “Will she?” asks Bassil.

  “What have we to lose? I would not wish a Sturinnese presence anywhere in Mansuur, and I could hardly trust them to teach a sorcerer to act for us against them. We have seen what has occurred in Dumar and Neserea. The Ranuans abhor any sorcery beyond scrying, as do those of Nordwei. Where else can we turn?”

  “She might agree—especially if we plead that she does not wish to happen to Mansuur what happened to Dumar and Neserea.”

  “She might. If she can somehow get to Neserea and defeat the Sturinnese, if she can right matters in Defalk, and shore up that sagging and self-centered idiot Robero.” Kestrin paces toward the window, then turns on the heels of his polished boots, and stops. “It would not hurt to see if we have any sorcerers in Mansuur who have remained hidden. Cannot my seers use their pools for that?”

  “They can but try, sire.”

  “Then have them try.” Kestrin purses his lips. “Small catapults, with flaming oil—can we design some that can be carried by a single packhorse and set up and fired by one man?”

  Bassil frowns.

  “They cannot use a spell for each man. You just told me that. Not if each is alone and in a different place. Without sorcerers, we must develop tactics so that sorcery is less effective. We will meet with the marshals tomorrow morning.”

  “The Sturinnese have moved from our borders.”

  “If we do nothing now, what will we do when they return?” asks the Liedfuhr.

  Bassil bows his head.

  87

  In the warm afternoon, the captain’s cabin was crowded with the four around the table and the overcaptains and chief players standing behind Secca, Denyst, Alcaren, and Richina. Secca had edged the maps to one side, right in front of Richina. Green-tinged light from a brilliant day outside poured through the portholes and through the overhead skylenses, and the cabin was lighter than usual.

  “You have been practicing at great length with the players,” Wilten offered. “You have not mentioned what you may require of us.”

  “Or if there may be any way in which we can assist you,” added Delcetta.

  “I will be asking much of you both,” Secca said, “but not before we reach Neserea. That is my hope, at least.” She smiled wryly.

  “You do not plan to attack Sturinn as the Sturinnese attacked Dumar and Neserea?” asked Wilten, adding hastily, “If I might ask.”

  “I hope to deal with the Sturinnese solely through sorcery,” Secca said. “I had not planned to land lancers and invade Sturinn. Even if we should be successful in destroying every armsman and lancer in the isles, most hands would still be against us, and there is no way that Lord Robero could ever govern a land more than fifteen hundred deks from Liedwahr. We have no ships and no ports, and far too few lancers and sorceresses for such.”

  A quick and knowing look passed between the two overcaptains.

  “Will…sorcery…suffice?” Wilten’s words were almost apologetic.

  “I trust so. We would not be traveling this far had I not thought so.” Secca shrugged. “As in many things, there is no way to make sure until the act. We will have to see.”

  Wilten’s face—a face that was so unremarkable—remained impassive, even as he nodded.

  “There is one other matter,” Delcetta offered after a moment of silence. “Whether it be in Sturinn or Neserea, we could not offer much assistance for a day or more.”

  “Your mounts?” asked Alcaren.

  “Sea travel does not help them. We have lost three already,” Wilten said. “That does not include those lost with the Wellereiterin.”

  Secca winced. The effect of a longer voyage on the lancers’ mounts was another thing she hadn’t thought about. How many others will there be? After a moment, she nodded to Alcaren.

  He stood and began the scrying spellsong, accompanying himself on his lumand.

  “Show us now and in this sun’s light

  any Sea-Priests near that we might fight…”

  Before he had finished, the glass in the middle of the table began to display images, and by the time the last note had died away, there were more than a dozen in the silvered glass.

  “Look quickly,” Secca prompted. She didn’t want Alcaren to have to hold the image long, not when she would need all the sorcerous support he could provide in the days ahead.

  The images all showed land-based forces, ranging from armsmen in formation to lancers waiting in loose ranks outside a barracks. There were some men in green-and-white uniforms in what looked to be harborside forts, and others drilling on an ope
n green field.

  “No ships,” offered Denyst. “Strange for the Sea-Priests, isn’t it?”

  Alcaren glanced to Secca. “That’s true. Let me try another one.” He pursed his lips and thought for a moment, before singing a second scrying spellsong:

  “Show us now and in this sun’s light

  any ships near that we might fight…”

  The mirror remained blank.

  “That doesn’t mean they don’t have some ships, but there aren’t any warships or ships with armsmen aboard,” Secca explained.

  “You have sent a few to the bottom,” Denyst acknowledged with a laugh.

  “There is still a large fleet in the Bitter Sea,” Richina added.

  Secca nodded to Alcaren. He sang the release couplet, then slipped the lumand onto the double bunk behind where Palian stood and reseated himself.

  Secca eased the map in front of Denyst, pointing. “How long before we can reach this end of Stura?”

  “Late tomorrow afternoon, if the wind holds.”

  “How close can we come to this point, off the mountain here?”

  “In these waters, hard to say.” The captain tilted her head slightly. “Don’t have good charts. Might be able to get within half a dek. If there’s a reef, could be as far as three deks.”

  Secca frowned. “We really need to be about a dek away.”

  “You need us to be dead in the water?” asked the captain.

  “No. It would be better if we were moving, because, if the spell works we’ll need to get away quickly. Also…we really don’t need any other ships close by us. They can’t help with the sorcery, and we don’t need to worry about them.”

  “You might create another storm?” Denyst raised her eyebrows.

  “It could be worse,” Secca admitted. “It might not be, but it could be. No one has ever sung this spell. The accompaniment has been played, but the words have not been sung.”

  “Could anyone else—” began the captain.

  “It’s a Mist World spell,” Secca said quickly.

  Most of the faces around the table, even Richina’s, expressed a degree of puzzlement.