Shadowsinger (2 page)

The late-morning sunlight poured over the two-story structure that held the Matriarch's guest quarters, but the wide second-story windows that faced west were still in shadow. The air in the main chamber was hot and still, foreshadowing summer in Encora, although by the turn of the seasons, spring had even yet to arrive.

Rather than using the small working desk that faced away from the leftmost of the three windows, Secca had seated herself at the circular golden oak conference table, her back to the windows. Alcaren sat on the opposite side of the table, leaving four chairs vacant. The tiled hearth on the south wall held several logs set on a pair of heavy iron andirons, but it had been weeks since Secca had needed a fire.

The petite and redheaded sorceress looked at the rose that lay on top of the papers before her on the conference table—a perfect white rose, appearing so delicate that the slightest breeze would rip off the petals. But like so much in Liedwahr, the rose was not what it seemed, for the petals were of white bronze and the stem of a greenish iron—and it had been Alcaren's love gift to her, one she had never expected.

Her amber eyes went from the rose to Alcaren—narrow-waisted and broad-shouldered, almost too short for his breadth to be handsome, yet not stocky, with short-cut brown hair and gray-blue eyes. He wore the pale blue Ranuan uniform and the collar insignia of an overcaptain. As he felt Secca's eyes upon him, he looked up from the map he had been studying and smiled warmly.

In spite of herself, Secca flushed.

“I do the same thing,” he said with a slight laugh, adding, “when you look at me.”

She shook her head. “It is hard to get used to.”

“I know. No one ever looked at me that way.”

Secca wondered about that, and yet, she didn't. Alcaren was barely a head taller than she was, and he was striking, but not necessarily handsome. He was a largely untrained sorcerer in a land that feared sorcery, and a strong man in a land ruled by women. “We still need a consorting ceremony,” she said slowly.

“You sound dubious, my lady. Am I that much of a burden to bear?”

At the mock-woeful tone of his voice and the twinkle in his eyes, Secca laughed. “You are no burden. Far from that! Still, it is strange.”

Alcaren waited, his smile encouraging her to speak.

“It is strange, and it is not. After these years, I had not thought to find love.”

“Though I have not traveled as you have, my lady,” he replied gently, “neither had I.”

“I had thought, were I ever to be consorted, it would be in Falcor, or Flossbend, or even Loiseau…not in a strange land.”

“We could wait,” he suggested. “I would not wish to rush you into such.”

Secca shook her head. “Lady Anna waited even to acknowledge her love for Lord Jecks, and I fear she lost years of happiness because she delayed.” A sad smile crossed Secca's lips as she thought of the woman who had been more than a mentor, more than a teacher—a mother as well, in fact, if not in name. Secca doubted that she would ever recall Anna without love, emptiness, and a sense of regret that she had not told Anna how much the older woman had meant to her.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ship'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.