Shadowsinger (30 page)

Southwest of Nesalia, Neserea

The Maitre stands before a large map laid upon a dining table in a long walnut-paneled room. The only illumination is provided by a three-branched candelabra set to one side of the map. He does not look down as he listens to the two men who stand across the table from him.

Neither of the younger Sea-Priests meets his eyes, as the taller one continues to speak.

“Maitre, we have followed the Sorceress Protector, as you requested. She is continuing southward. She has left Dumaria, and is nearing Narial. We have no vessels there or nearby.”

“Narial?” For a moment, the Maitre frowns. Then he nods. “She is not to be underestimated, jerEstafen. She knows that we have no vessels in the south, and she also knows that she cannot reach anywhere quickly by land. This is most true in late winter, and in early spring when the mud is everywhere. She will take to the waters. There are no ships from
other lands in Narial now. So she must expect a vessel from somewhere.” He smiles, and the expression is less than friendly. “Doubtless from the bitch Matriarch.”

“We have been able to find none.”

“You have not the ability…” He shakes his head. “Even had you such, that would be a waste of sorcery.”

The younger Sea-Priests wait.

“Have you and jerHalin perfected the spell to cast a sorcerous javelin through the mists at her—the way in which she struck at Lord Belmar?”

“Yes, ser. We have the spell, and the players have practiced it for the past two days. We gave you—”

“I have it.”

“That we can do, if we can use a half complement of players and drummers.”

The Maitre nods. “Do it quickly, before she erects wards. Take all necessary precautions. She may be a woman, but she has strength you might well envy.”

“We will accord her the respect she deserves.” JerEstafen bows.

“Indeed, Maitre,” adds jerHalin. “Though…if we find no wards…?”

“Without wards…still she…” The Maitre breaks off his words with a smile. “I leave the matter to you two. How you handle it will determine…much.”

“We will handle the matter, ser.”

“I am most certain you will.”

The Maitre does not look at the map on the table until he is once more alone.

Secca shifted her weight on the stool set before the table, then began to write again, using the grease marker to complete the draft of the scroll. She and Alcaren had taken the largest room in the inn in the town of Stafaal, not that the chamber was especially spacious, measuring
as it did all of four yards square. The room held but a narrow double-width bed, a wash table, and the narrow writing table where she sat beside the window. The sole lamp was set in a tarnished bronze bracket-sconce on the wall beside the bed.

Behind her, Alcaren sat on the end of the sagging bed and studied a much-used map of the Western Sea that he had found in the local chandler's shop.

In time, as the sun was nearing the western horizon, Secca finished the last lines of the scroll and stood, leaving the grease ink to dry on the rough brown paper. After stretching, she walked to the second-floor window, where she looked out on the dusty street below. The only figures visible were the lancers posted as patrols and sentries, and most of the windows in the shops and dwellings were dark, as if those inhabitants who had remained did not wish to call any attention to themselves.

Secca could understand that. Stafaal was less than a full day's ride from the port of Narial, near where the Sturinnese had stormed ashore behind their great wave of destruction.

Finally, she turned. “Will you read it?”

“I will. I'm sure it's fine.” Alcaren set down the map and stood, also stretching before stepping toward the table beside the unshuttered window. He picked up the two sheets of rough brown paper.

Secca eased herself around behind her consort so that she could look over Alcaren's shoulder as he read the scroll.

“You write of the mighty sorcery of the Sea-Priests?” asked Alcaren, looking up from the scroll. “This is obviously for her to give to Lord Robero.”

“Of course,” Secca agreed. “But it will be more convincing as a personal note from me to her. There will be a small scrap of parchment inside which will suggest that if Lord Robero is uncertain of my meaning
or actions that Jolyn should feel free to share the scroll with our dear lord.”

Alcaren nodded, and his eyes dropped back to the scroll, before he looked up. “You didn't say who killed Lord Belmar.”

“I do not wish Robero to know that.” Secca shrugged. “I cannot say why, but it is best that he not know.”

“He or Jolyn may guess.”

“I doubt it. Has anyone ever used sorcery to kill over that distance? Why would either Jolyn or Robero even consider it?” Secca's voice was cold, almost bleak.

The trace of a frown crossed Alcaren's forehead as he lifted the sheets of brown paper and resumed his perusal of her draft message.

“Somewhere to the northwest?” Alcaren rolled his eyes and laughed. “By now, they must be well into the Bitter Sea, if not almost to Esaria.”

“I'm not about to let Robero know that I know that.”

“I can see why, but he's shrewd enough to think that you know that.”

“Is he?” Secca raised her eyebrows. “Two seasons ago, he was trying to find me a consort so that I'd be happy. He still half thinks of me as naive little Secca.”

“Do you think so? Or is that a pose to minimize your influence?”

Secca laughed mirthlessly. “Does it matter? If it's truly a pose, he is trapped with it. How can he suddenly say that the naive little sorceress is devious and deceiving him? Who will believe him?”

“Everyone,” replied Alcaren. “They'll believe him because they'll believe anything bad about a woman and a sorceress, even if it contradicts what they thought yesterday. Robero is also cunning enough to blame me. You were just fine until you married the creature of the Matriarch. Now you've been corrupted, and can't be trusted.”

Secca sighed. “You're probably right. It doesn't say much for people, but I'd not wager against you.” She motioned for him to keep reading.

He lifted the papers once more.

At the end, Alcaren looked up. A sad smile crossed his lips.

“Have I left anything out?” Secca asked.

“Not for what you intend.”

“Would you mind finding Richina?”

Alcaren shook his head and slipped out of the room.

Secca turned back to the window, looking out at the near-deserted street in the twilight. Alcaren was doubtless right in his skepticism about Robero. The Lord of Defalk might have taken a new name when he had come to power, but not much else had changed about the boy with whom she had grown up.

Was she wagering too much on untested sorcery?

She laughed again, a low sound more for herself. Not to try what she planned would doom Defalk and Liedwahr to eternal rule by Sturinn. And it would mean her death, if not worse.

She took a long and deep breath, feeling once more the tiredness, the exhaustion created by the energy drain of the protective spells. Not for the first time since she had cast them, she wondered if they would work, and even if they were necessary.

At the sound of the door opening behind her, she turned as Alcaren ushered Richina into the cramped room.

The younger sorceress bowed. “You wished something of me, lady?”

“We need to send a scroll to Jolyn.” Secca looked to Richina. “Can you do such?”

“Is there any reason it would be harder than usual?” Richina frowned.

Secca studied the younger sorceress. “How tired are you?”

“A little,” confessed the blonde sorceress, “but I would rather do it tonight, for then I could be rested in the morning for whatever might be needed.”

“I hope nothing will be needed, and that there are Ranuan vessels awaiting us.”

“The glass shows that a half-score of vessels are somewhere on the Southern Ocean.”

“Let us hope that they are heading for Narial.” Secca paused. “I have written a draft of the scroll. The one on parchment should be ready in less than a glass.” She extended the draft to Richina. “Here is what I've written.”

Richina took the sheets and began to read. When she had finished, she looked up, waiting.

Secca moistened her lips. “Is there anything else you think that we should tell Jolyn—or Lord Robero?”

Richina tilted her head to the side, then wrinkled her forehead in thought. “I cannot think of anything that I would add.” After a moment, she went on. “Do you wish to send the message before we know that we will actually be sailing?”

Secca shook her head. “No. I would rather wait, but I dare not. If there are any Sturinnese ships to the west, and they choose to sail into the harbor at Narial to bring armsmen or sorcerers against us, you must be rested and able to work sorcery. Likewise, if there are other Sturinnese forces, you must be strong. We dare not send such a message once we are at sea, for it may not arrive—and there is always the possibility of an attack.”

“Even if we see none in the glass?”

“What if they have warded ships in the manner as the Sea-Priest in Neserea is warded?”

Richina nodded slowly.

“So, if you would send it tonight? I will call you when it is ready.”

“Yes, lady.” Richina bowed. “By your leave?”

“You may go.”

Once the door closed, Secca and Alcaren exchanged glances.

“It would be better to wait,” Alcaren finally ventured.

“It would be,” Secca admitted, “if we were not carrying the weight of wards. But we are, and we do not live in a perfect world where all can be done in the manner that is best.” She hoped that the manner she chose was just not the worst. After a moment, she added, “We both need sleep, and we will not get it soon until I write the final message on parchment. Could you perhaps find some cheese, or biscuits, or something?”

“That…that I can do, my lady.” Alcaren smiled.

Secca turned back toward the writing table. The light was dim and getting dimmer, but she could always pull the writing table under the wall lamp, if necessary.

A dull ringing chime rolled through the darkness, and Secca bolted upright in the narrow double-width bed—one of the few true beds in which she had slept since leaving Encora so many long weeks before. Sweat poured off her face, and a wall of heat surrounded her and Alcaren, as if they had been placed suddenly within an oven. She found herself gasping for breath against the unbearable heat.

Then, as quickly as the heat had bathed her, with the dying away of the dull, half-harmonic chime it began to diminish. Secca found herself shaking, as if exhausted, as if she had sung a major spell.

“What…?” began Alcaren, also sitting up, then stopping and looking at his consort. “So hot…” He flung back the blanket.

“Something with the harmonies.” Even as the words left her lips, Secca felt stupid for saying the obvious.

“It had to be,” he replied gently, blotting his own sweating forehead with the back of his hand before easing himself out of the bed onto the rough wooden floor that creaked as he moved toward the wall lamp. After picking up the striker from the side of the wash table, he fumbled with it several times before the lamp wick caught.

Secca glanced toward the shuttered window, but outside was still dark, without a hint of an approaching dawn. As dim glow from the oil lamp swelled and illuminated the chamber, Secca studied her consort. While he was not shaking or shivering, he also looked pale, wan.

In the dimness of the inn chamber, the two exchanged glances.

Then both spoke.

“The wards…”

“Your wards…”

Alcaren smiled and gestured for Secca to continue. He sat down on the edge of the bed facing her.

“I think someone tried some sort of sorcery against us, and not from very close. I could almost feel the distance,” she said slowly. “The
wards…” She smiled, almost wryly, exhausted as she felt. “I guess they worked.”

“The Sea-Priests, you think?”

“Who else could it be?” She shook her head. “If there is someone else that powerful whom we don't know about…but why would anyone else attempt it? The Ladies of the Shadows? Do they have that ability?”

“The Matriarch never believed so.”

“They limited themselves to assassinations?” Secca took another long swallow from the water bottle.

“And other uses of coins to achieve their ends,” he agreed. “They've never used sorcery, and I can't believe they would now.” After a time, he added, “Do you think we should use the glass to see who it was?”

Secca frowned. “I'm still tired, but if I can do one spell, it might be a good idea. We'd know who it was. That would tell us what we need to do.”

“Then you need to eat. Now.” Alcaren rose and walked to the writing table, where he leaned down and lifted the small provisions bag that lay beside the saddlebags. After rummaging through it, he held up a small chunk of bread. “Hard and stale, but it will help.” He had to saw into the bread and split it with his belt knife before he could offer a piece to Secca.

The bread was so dry and tough that Secca had to alternate small bites with mouthfuls of water from her water bottle.

“We need to keep more biscuits or something in that,” Alcaren mumbled through his own mouthful of bread. “And cheese.”

“Where will we find them?”

Alcaren shrugged sheepishly.

“I feel badly about what we're taking from people as it is.” Secca held up her hand to keep Alcaren from interrupting. “I know. I can't help them if we don't eat, but it bothers me. I don't have that many golds left, even after taking what we did from Fehern.”

“We won't need golds at sea.”

Secca nodded, knowing that she would need all that she could gather later, but there was little point in worrying about that now. Still, she worried that she dared not tell anyone, even Alcaren. The risk was too great that someone might hear, through sorcery or simple eavesdropping.
Or are you afraid he won't approve? What are you risking by not telling him?

“Do you want me to try the scrying spell?” he asked.

“I'll try it. If we need a second, then you will have to do it.” Secca
eased out of bed and padded across a room that was now cold to get the lutar from its case. She thought for a long time as she tuned the instrument.

In the dim light of the single lamp, Alcaren unpacked the scrying glass from its leathers and set it on the narrow writing table, then stood, waiting as Secca finished tuning the instrument and thinking about the spellsong.

When Secca was ready she turned and stepped up to the table.

As she finished the last words of the spellsong, an invisible hammer seemed to strike her forehead, and she had to force herself to hang on to the lutar. Her eyes watered, and for several moments she could not see anything.

“Are you all right?” Alcaren's voice seemed distant.

Swaying unsteadily, she blinked, once, twice, before the image in the glass slowly filled her vision, if blurrily, and through the daystars that flashed across her field of vision.

Flames licked at what had been a tent. All was charred except for one half-upright side, still partly suspended by the only erect tent pole and two unburned ropes. That sole, and shrinking, section of white canvas diminished as Secca watched the fire flare—and the edge of the tent sink into blackness and orange flames. Around the smoke and fire was a ring of lancers in white riding jackets.

“Let it go,” Alcaren said. “They're Sturinnese. Or they were.”

Despite the pounding in her head, and the pain and blurring in her eyes, Secca lifted the lutar and managed to sing the release couplet. Just singing the couplet reinforced the pounding in her head, so much that she lurched against the table.

Alcaren took the lutar from her shaking hands, setting it down gently on the floor and against the wall. He straightened and put an arm around his unsteady consort, helping her back to the bed, where she sat down heavily.

“My head…it's like being pounded on an anvil.” Secca squinted. “It's hard to see.” She took the water bottle Alcaren tendered—his, because she had finished hers earlier—and slowly drank. The coolness helped some, and she thought the pounding inside her skull was slightly less intense, but her eyes still hurt, and everything she looked at still blurred and flashed.

“You need to eat more. I'm going to see what I can find.” Before Secca could say anything, Alcaren was pulling on his trousers and boots and belting on his sabre. He took Secca's water bottle as well.

Stepping to the door, he slid the bolt.

“Ser?” asked Gorkon, sleepily, as though the lancer had been drowsing at his post outside the door.

“The lady Secca had to do some unforeseen sorcery, and she needs something to eat.”

Secca couldn't hear the rest of what Alcaren said, because he had closed the door. She looked toward the window, but no light slipped through the shutters, and the way she felt she doubted if it was much past midnight. She massaged her forehead with her left hand, then her right, but her head still ached, and she was so exhausted she had to give up the effort.

In the end, she just sat and looked blankly at the door until it opened, and Alcaren stepped back inside and slid the bolt.

He carried a loaf of dark bread, and a small wedge of cheese, and a pouch of some sort, as well as the water bottle. As if reading her thoughts, he answered, “Dried fruit. I persuaded the innkeeper to provide it.”

“Persuaded?” Her voice cracked even on the single word.

“I just asked,” Alcaren replied, innocently. “Oh, and there's ale in the water bottle. I wasn't sure either of us wanted to try a cleaning spellsong.” He handed her the water bottle and then set the cheese on the edge of the wash table, where he hacked off a section, quickly extending it to Secca. “Here.”

“I don't…my stomach is roiling around.”

“Please try it. You can't get better without eating something.”

“Can I try some of the bread first?”

The dark bread was surprisingly moist, and tasty. Although Secca took very small mouthfuls, it seemed that she had eaten very little, yet the first chunk was gone, and she was reaching for a second.

“You were hungry.” Alcaren managed through his own mouthful of bread. “Could I have a sip of the ale?”

“I thought it was for me.” Secca had to force the grin.

“It is, but would you miss a little?”

Secca handed him the bottle.

It seemed as though no time had passed when the two looked up at each other after finishing all the cheese, the entire loaf of bread, and the double handful of dried fruit. Secca licked a last crumb off her fingers.

“How is your head?” asked Alcaren.

“Better. It still hurts, but it's a dull hurt. I can see without it blurring, but there are still daystars, now and again.”

“I'm glad you're better.” Alcaren frowned. “I worry about the wards.”

“About what?”

“Won't there be others who will try? Won't we need to redo them?” Alcaren's question was almost hesitant.

“We should. I'd like to do it now, but I can't. We'd have to wake the players, anyway.”

Alcaren frowned. “Can we wait till morning? What if—”

“I can't do it now!” Secca snapped. “I just can't. I couldn't even see, except in blurs. My head hurt so much I couldn't think. It still hurts. How could I sing anything now?”

“I'm sorry,” Alcaren said gently. “I just worry about you.”

“I worry, too. I can only hope that they don't have that many strong sorcerers, and that they won't try anything.” Secca found tears streaming down her cheeks, and she turned her head toward the wall, hoping that Alcaren wouldn't see in the dim light.

“Are you all right, my lady?”

“My eyes…I told you they hurt,” Secca choked out.

“You said…” He left his words drift into silence as he slipped onto the bed beside her and put an arm around her. “I'm sorry. I just worry. I don't want anything to happen to you.”

After a moment, Secca let her head rest against his, but she didn't turn to face him. “I know. I know. We'll see in the morning. That's all I can do. That's all you can do. If you tried any sorcery now, you'd be worse than I am now, and then where would we be?”

Alcaren said nothing, just squeezed her gently.

“We'll be all right,” she murmured. In spite of Alcaren's closeness, she shivered.