Shadowsinger (27 page)

North of Nesalia, Neserea

The Sea-Priest once known as jerGlien, still in traveler's gray, looks down upon the body sprawled on the floor of the study, a figure blackened and charred, except below the knees, and convulsed in the agony of sudden and excruciating death.

“Who would have thought it?” The Sea-Priest smiles coldly as he looks up. “Yet…if she can do such, then so can we—”

He breaks off as the study door opens. Through it steps a tall and lean younger man in the white of a Sturinnese sorcerer.

“Maitre! I felt the harmonies. As you requested, I immediately used the glass to find the Sorceress Protector. She had done some great sorcery, but I could not see—” His eyes drop to the lifeless figure of Belmar on the floor.

“The young sorceress has learned a new trick.” The Maitre laughs. “We shall have to learn to master it as well.”

“She did that from so far?”

“She did indeed.” The older man fixes his eyes on the younger sorcerer. “Have you sent the scrolls?”

“Yes, Maitre. The fleet is already entering the Bitter Sea and beginning to fire a channel. The southern waters around Esaria have already begun to melt, and the fleet will be in position in close to two weeks—no more than three.”

“Unless we hurry and join up with the others, we may not be back to Esaria by then.”

“Will removing the Liedfuhr's lancers and armsmen take that long?”

The Maitre laughs. “Removing them will not be the most difficult task. Getting into position to do so will be. Liedfuhr Kestrin has few illusions. He has ordered them to avoid Lord Belmar and any sorcerers. Possibly, he has even ordered them to avoid us.”

“Does he know that we have forces throughout Neserea?”

“It does not appear so. His seers will discover such, but it will take time for him to get word to them.”

“What about the Sorceress Protector of the East?” asks the younger man. “If she has done this…”

The Maitre inclines his head toward the dead Belmar. “You can see. She is stronger, far stronger, than the Sorceress of Defalk, but strength is not everything. Even if she tears through mountains, she will be too late.”

“If she does not?”

The Maitre smiles. “Where can she go, and what can she do? Dumar has no ruler and is in chaos. She is unwelcome in Ranuak, and by the time she returns to Defalk, Neserea will be ours, and Lord Robero will be more than pleased to accept our terms. Our agent there has been slowly suggesting that we offer much. Besides, what choice has he? His power rests on a handful of sorceresses, and he has already lost one of the more powerful ones. It is most unlikely that he will hazard the others to save lands that have proven rebellious and ungrateful.”

“But the Sorceress Protector?”

The Maitre shakes his head. “I would not have thought that she could have struck so hard from so far, but what she has done, we will do…when the time is right.”

“Why should we not strike in return? Now?”

The Maitre offers a lopsided smile. “I have no such spell. Do you? Do you have the accompaniment for the players and drummers?”

“No, ser.”

“That is why you maintain the wards. They were designed for those closer, but they should work against more distant sorceries.” The Maitre frowns, albeit briefly. “Yet you raise a good point.” He smiles, again coldly. “I give you leave to craft such a spell and its accompaniment. Then bring it to me, and we will consider its use when the time is right.”

“Ah…as you wish, Maitre.”

“Where is the Sorceress Protector now?”

“In a hamlet along the Envar River. She is prostrate.”

“She is doubtless recovering from the sorcery that killed Lord Belmar. Nasty and difficult spell,” muses the older sorcerer. “He erupted in flame, and then died of poisoning.”

The younger Sea-Priest shudders.

“She is not to be taken lightly. Not as a sorceress. But even great sorcery has its limits, as she is discovering. Our departed ally here”—the Maitre looks down at the dead Belmar—“he never did understand that treachery and good planning can outflank mere sorcery. Even great sorcery.” He smiles, half-sadly. “Poor fellow. I could not have set it up better myself.” Then he glances back at the other man in white. “You will continue to make sure the wards are held?”

“Yes, Maitre.”

“She may not try again soon, for none can repeat such sorcery easily or quickly, but…it is far better to be prepared.”

“Maitre…I must ask again if we should not strike her in the same fashion, before she can discover you are here?”

“We must have the right spell, and it will take time to craft it. I will set jerEstafen on it immediately. For now, until we can strike, I am protected. She cannot attack all of us from that distance, and I would rather save our strength to take Neserea. Also, she can do nothing for the moment.” The Maitre gestures for the other to leave him. “I will join you presently.”

Once the study door closes, the Maitre walks to the window, where he eases open the shutter and gazes out into the gray day, frowning.

On the pallet in the corner of the dwelling's main room, Secca lay in her bedroll, the top blanket rolled back to her waist. Sweat still beaded on her forehead, and her undertunic was soaked with perspiration. She could feel the heat pouring from her, despite the coolness of the air inside the cottage. Outside, the day was gray and windy. A light rain had fallen earlier, Alcaren had said, but not enough to do more than dampen the dust on the roads.

“Here.” Alcaren tendered her a chipped mug filled with songspelled and cleaned water. “You need to keep drinking.”

“All…I…do…is drink,” she murmured.

“It's only been a night and a morning.”

“It seems like forever.”

“The fever is breaking,” he said. “It won't be long.”

Secca's fingers still trembled as she drank, and some of the water spilled across her cheek. “Harmonies save me….”

“You'll be fine,” Alcaren promised. “The worst is over.”

Secca managed to raise her eyebrows in inquiry. “You think so?”

“Belmar is dead,” Alcaren said. “Richina used the glass to check. He deserved no better after all those he killed.”

“That may be.” Secca took a slow breath. Alcaren had been right. She was feeling steadier. Not that much, but clearly she was starting to get her strength back. “How soon will it be before I must do something like it once more? Or before some other sorcerer or sorceress learns what I have done and replicates it?”

“Who else would know?”

“What about the Sea-Priest sorcerer with Belmar?”

Alcaren did not quite meet her eyes, close as he was.

“How soon before I must do more, if we are to survive? And then more, as the Sea-Priests retaliate?”

Alcaren offered a shrug and a rueful expression.

“Or, the harmonies forbid, find some protective spell that takes more strength so that some sorcerer does not do the same to us?”

Both looked up as the door squeaked, and edged open, letting more grayish light into the cottage. With the light came Richina, slipping inside, and closing the door, and shutting off the light. The younger sorceress tiptoed away from the door, awkwardly in her riding boots, and glanced toward the corner.

“She's awake,” Alcaren confirmed. “You can come over.”

“You frightened us, Lady Secca.” Richina pulled over one of the stools and sat down facing the two.

“Again.” Secca coughed.

Alcaren offered the mug once more. Secca took another swallow, then handed it back.

Richina glanced toward the warped table, still set against the wall where Alcaren had pushed it the day before, and the scrying glass yet lying upon the uneven wood.

Alcaren lifted the mug, silently urging Secca to drink yet more.

Secca took another sip, noting that Richina shifted her weight on the stool, although she had just seated herself.

The eyes of the younger sorceress drifted to her right, back toward the table again, before she looked straight at Secca. “Your sorcery…it was most effective, lady.”

“It was effective at prostrating me as well,” Secca said dryly, stifling another cough.

“But more effective on Belmar,” Alcaren replied quickly.

Secca looked directly at Richina. “Something is fretting you.”

“It is nothing. Nothing, lady.”

“It is more than nothing. You've looked toward the scrying glass three times since you entered. What is it?”

Richina looked to Alcaren. He nodded.

Stop babying me
, Secca wanted to yell, but that would have just made her cough more.

“That Sturinnese fleet…it's left Defuhr Bay, and it's sailing northward, Lady Secca,” Richina said.

“Northward?” Secca coughed twice before glancing at Alcaren.

“There is more, lady,” Richina added apologetically. “The Sturinnese destroyed two port cities in northern Mansuur, and they are using sorcery to melt a channel through the Bitter Sea.”

“Toward Esaria, I would wager,” Secca croaked.

“That is a wager none of us would take,” Alcaren replied.

“I cannot say that I am astounded,” Secca finally said. “I had wondered, but it is clear that Belmar was a tool of the Sea-Priests. Perhaps an unwitting tool, but a tool.” She took the mug from her consort and took another long swallow.

Richina offered a sound between a cough and a swallow.

“More bad news?” asked Secca dryly.

“I have tried to use the glass to find the Sea-Priest who was with Belmar…” Richina's voice trailed off.

“And?”

“The glass shows nothing.”

Secca nodded, almost to herself.

“Lady?”

“I must think about that,” replied the older sorceress, as she pulled the blanket up to her shoulders, after realizing that she was getting chilled.

“I told you that you were getting better,” Alcaren said. “The backlash from sorcery does not last that long.”

“If one survives it to begin with,” Secca replied, yawning.

“I should go.” Richina stood and slid the stool back toward the table.

After Richina slipped out, Secca lay back. “Dissonance, I'm tired. One spell…one spell, and it's as bad as…well, almost as bad as fighting that Sturinnese fleet.”

“I wonder why,” mused Alcaren.

“I don't know, but it is.” She held back another yawn.

Alcaren stiffened. “It could be the visualization. For the most effective sorcery, you have to visualize the results. Did you visualize what happened to Belmar?”

Secca frowned. “How could I not?” She shivered.

“It could be that creates the effect of Darksong,” suggested her consort.

“Because I'm visualizing the effect on something living?” questioned Secca.

“I'm just suggesting. But…doesn't the idea fit? I looked over that spell you used against the crews of the Sturinnese ships. If you take the words by themselves, they're pure Clearsong. The effect back on you was more like Darksong.”

Secca's mouth opened, then closed.

“When you spellsing, you know that you're affecting something that is living,” Alcaren went on. “Did you not tell me that the lady Anna
did a great deal of Darksong when she first came to Liedwahr, but that the backlash did not affect her for seasons, if not longer.”

Secca nodded. “I never thought about that. She was only affected by what one would call true Darksong, because she was not raised in Liedwahr and had no idea…”

“I wonder if that was why Belmar was so effective,” mused Alcaren.

“Lady Anna said we were stronger than we thought…” Secca let her words trail off. “Strong? I feel like a baby. Or an old woman.”

“You'll be fine by tomorrow,” Alcaren promised.

“I'm tired. I'm tired of always using force and more force. I'm tired of having to use sorcery to destroy ships and those upon them. I'm tired of shadow sorcery.”

“What would you do?” asked Alcaren slowly. “Raise the oceans like the Sea-Priests did? Level entire cities the way Lady Anna did?”

“I'd like to lay a spell on the Sea-Priests. They're the ones causing all the problems for Liedwahr. I can't. That's Darksong, any way you sing it.”

“But they raised two great waves against Encora, and that was Clearsong,” he countered. “We just need to find a way to use a great mass of something that isn't living and never lived against them. That would be harmonic justice, wouldn't it?” He laughed.

Secca frowned. “From what Richina said, I have to wonder if the Sea-Priests aren't using spells to protect themselves from spells from us.”

“They didn't protect Belmar,” he pointed out.

“No, and that is most troubling. Most troubling.” She tried to stifle yet another yawn, hoping that Alcaren was right and that she would be stronger by the morrow.

“Everything is that way. Troubling, that is.”

“We need to…” Secca let her words drift to a halt. She smiled…for a moment.

Alcaren studied her for a time. “You have an idea, do you not?”

“I do. But it may not be a good idea.” Secca yawned. “I'm too tired to know.”

“You can tell me,” he suggested.

She yawned again and shook her head. “I need to sleep and think about it. Then, we can talk about it.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“I promise,” she affirmed, yawning again and trying not to, trying to fix that one idea in her mind. “But…have to sleep.”

She could feel her eyes closing even with her last words.

Secca had awakened with a headache—the kind that came after too much sorcery and too little food—and had quickly washed in chill water, changing into her only other set of riding clothes, and then seated herself at the warped table that Alcaren had returned more to the center of the small cottage. She ate four hard and crumbly biscuits, a small section of a dried apple—all that was left—and two wedges of drying yellow cheese, all helped down with cold water, before she finally looked up at Alcaren and Richina.

“You need to concentrate on the mechanics of the spell, not on the impact,” he suggested.

“You told me that last night, and I remember.” She took another swallow of water.

“Even when ill, there is little you forget,” he said with a smile.

Richina nodded and offered a knowing smile.

“Do you have any maps of the great Western Sea?” asked Secca, between mouthfuls of the last of the dry biscuits.

“Why would I have…?” Alcaren shook his head. “Not here. All those I might lay hands upon are in Encora. I brought the maps I had of Liedwahr.” He grinned. “You know, my lady, how fond I am of sea voyages.”

Secca laughed. “I scarce can stay afloat in water myself. You know how I fretted about swimming the mounts ashore in Ranuak. I was most glad we did not have to.”

“I am glad you did not have to, either.” Alcaren lifted his eyebrows, as if he still had a question, but did not wish to ask it.

“Can you sketch a rough map?” asked Secca, ignoring the unspoken question.

“Very rough.” He laughed.

“If you would…please?” Secca opened her eyes wider in a mock-pleading look, and then began to laugh again. “I cannot do that. I cannot
counterfeit helplessness or mock-innocence. I would never be a traditional lady.”

“I like the way you are.”

“Not many have.”

“I'm not of the many, as you may have noticed, my lady.” Alcaren grinned. “I have better taste.”

“You are most rare, my dear.” Secca stood and walked to the corner, where she rummaged through the lutar case. She extracted several sheets of brown paper and a sheet of parchment. Returning to the table, she laid the parchment to the side, then looked at Alcaren. “While you sketch out your map, I need to draft a message.”

“A message?”

“You'll see.” She pointed to the paper. “There's some paper for your map.”

“As you command, my lady.” Alcaren grinned.

She snorted and picked up the grease marker.

Secca was still writing—and scratching out phrases, and rewriting them—when Alcaren cleared his throat.

“Yes?” she asked, looking up from the papers and the uneven surface of the table.

“I have a map, one most rough, but a map.”

Secca set down the grease marker she was using to draft her scroll. The final version would be in ink on parchment. Then she leaned forward as Alcaren set the two sheets before her.

“Here is Mansuur, and Defuhr Bay. Then here are the Ostisles…”

“How far from Landende?” asked Secca.

“Close to a thousand deks,” Alcaren replied. “And it is another six hundred deks farther west before the border isles of Sturinn—here.” He pointed.

“How fast can a ship sail, with the wind?”

“Some can reach twelve deks in an hour, but that is rare and seldom lasts. Nor can a ship mistress always count on following winds.”

“We could help with that,” Secca pointed out. She found a corner of the paper she had not used and began to figure.
Even at eight deks, that's but a week to reach the Ostisles…
She shook her head, understanding truly for the first time the advantage in travel possessed by those with ships. In a matter of a few glasses a ship could travel more than most riders could in a day.

“You are not…not thinking of sailing westward?”

“Where else?”

“We have no ships.”

“Not yet.” Secca extended two sheets of the brown paper, heavily marked and corrected. “Here is what I had thought of sending to the Matriarch.”

“Alya?”

“Read it. It explains itself.” Secca tilted her head. “I hope it does.”

Secca stood behind Alcaren and reread what she had written as her consort read it for the first time.

Alcaren looked up. “That's only three weeks from now.”

“We can get there in three weeks. Who is likely to stop us?”

“If you use sorcery, and if no one uses it against us,” he said, “but would that not exhaust you?”

“There
are
three of us, if one is not too seasick.”

“I can do spells, even when turned green.”

“Then we shall have a speedy trip—if we can obtain vessels.”

“You're not taking everyone? What can they do at sea?”

“I'd rather not,” Secca admitted, “but we will need all the players and some lancers for protection. What we do depends on how many ships there are and what we can work out with the mistresses…if we get them. I'd thought about having the others wait at Narial for several weeks and then set sail to join us. If we succeed, we could send a message when we depart from Sturinn.”
Or what may be left of it
. She paused.
“But that way, they would have no protection, and if we did have to land somewhere, we wouldn't either.”

“You are most sanguine about this near-impossible venture.”

“What else can I be?”

Alcaren nodded slowly, finishing the scroll before looking up at her again. “Do you know whether the Council of Wei would offer you ships?” He smiled as he asked the question, as if he knew the answer.

“If I told them that it would reduce the power of the Sturinnese warships and their control of the Western Sea, I think they would be inclined to offer at least a few. For them, it would cost very little.”

“But you are asking the Matriarch.”

“Ranuak has far more to lose,” Secca pointed out.

“This is a most risky proposition. If you fail…”

“I know,” Secca admitted. “There is no one but Jolyn to stop the Maitre and his drummers and lancers, and even with Anandra's assistance, she is likely to fail.” She sighed. “I do not wish to spend the rest of my life repulsing the Sturinnese—or, like Anna, knowing that they will strike again once I am gone.”

“You see that as likely?”

“I see it as inevitable, if the Sturinnese are not destroyed in their own home isles. Nothing besides superior force deters the Sea-Priests. They care not for what any people wishes. They would impose—” Secca shook her head. “In a way, if I am successful, I will be imposing my wishes also.” She paused. “But what I wish is for all people to choose what they will in life, not just men, as in Sturinn, or women…as in…other places.”

“You did not say Ranuak,” Alcaren said with a laugh. “You thought it, but you did not say it.”

“How many years did it take you to become free to do as your talents would let you?” Secca countered.

“Too many, and it would not have happened, save for a beautiful sorceress.”

“At the moment, I don't feel beautiful. I'm still tired, and we have close to two weeks riding ahead, and that is without certainty that we will even get assistance from the Matriarch.”

“Denyst might volunteer even without encouragement.”

“She might want to, but could she afford it?” pressed Secca.

Alcaren shrugged.

“All we can do is ride to Narial and see,” Secca said.

“You gamble greatly,” he pointed out.

“I do indeed. We could find ourselves in Narial with no ships and
a long ride through Stromwer to Falcor—with the need to do mighty sorcery even to reach the borders of Defalk.” She offered a crooked smile. “Yet we cannot catch the Sturinnese by chasing them through the Mittfels. If we did, and if once more we destroyed another force, what would it gain us, save the need to ride northward farther to fight still another invasion force—and more sorcerers and drummers?”

“But if you succeeded…who else would you have to fight?”

“The Sturinnese in another handful of years.”
When you'd rather be raising children in a peaceful land
. “They have not stopped their conquests in a half-score of generations. Why would they stop now unless something stopped them? They fight until they wear down their enemies.”

Alcaren frowned. “There is something else.”

“There is. If we follow them, then we must fight more on their terms. If I go to Narial, what will they do?” Secca smiled. “The glass shows no more fleets in Sturinn or the Ostisles. So they must gather ships from somewhere, or send ships from that fleet against us—and they would be hard-pressed to catch us.”

“They will have a thousandscore lancers and armsmen waiting in Sturinn.”

“Let them wait.”

“What is to stop the Maitre from sending a spell against you in the fashion you did against Belmar?” asked Alcaren.

“That will happen, once it is clear where we head.” Secca smiled grimly. “So we must develop some spells to set wards before we ride tomorrow. I will have Richina send the message later today. That will give her some time to recover before we ride.”

Alcaren shook his head once more.

“Tell Wilten and Delcetta that we ride for Dumaria tomorrow. I'll tell the players.”

“We wager much…”

“No. We wager far more if we do the expected.”
If you can do all that you plan…if…
Secca didn't want to think too deeply about all that she planned beyond what she had told her consort. Some of it was too wild to put in words.
Far too wild
.