Shadowsinger (43 page)

Mansuus, Mansuur

The Liedfuhr of Mansuur stands in his undertunic before the desk of his private study. His sky-blue tunic is laid across the back of the desk chair. He holds a lancer's sabre and begins a series of exercises, then proceeds to fence, as if against an imaginary opponent. When he finally pauses, to wipe the sweat from his brow, there is a discreet knock on the study door.

“Yes?”

“Overcaptain Bassil, sire.”

“Have him enter.” Kestrin replaces the sabre in the scabbard at his belt. Then, he shrugs and takes off the sword belt, laying belt, scabbard, and sword in one of the chairs set at an angle to the desk. He does not redon the tunic, but blots his still-damp forehead once more before turning to address the lancer officer. “Yes, Bassil?”

“You said you wished me to let you know about the reports of great waves crashing over the piers at Wharsus and Landungerste…?”

“Is it good news or bad? We could use a little of the former these days, if you could manage to supply it. That is, if it is at all possible in these troubled times.” Kestrin offers a rueful smile, one that vanishes as quickly as it appeared.

“Yes, sire.” Bassil bows, showing hair far more silver than it had been even weeks earlier. “It might be considered good news, of a sort.”

“Of a sort?” questions Kestrin.

“Stura is no more. That is, it still stands in the middle of the isles, but nothing lives there. It is a seething, smoking expanse of molten rock and noxious gases.”

“The volcanoes? You mean the harmonies acted for once?”

“No, sire. The harmonies had great assistance from the shadowsinger. Very great assistance.”

“So she has destroyed their home defense fleet, and killed all who
live on Stura, and poisoned their home isle so that none can live there?” The Liedfuhr raises his eyebrows. “Exactly how would this be considered good news?”

“Of a sort, sire. I recall that I said, of a sort.” Bassil smiles blandly. “Her ships remain mostly intact, although the seers say she has lost one somewhere, and it appears as if she may be sailing to Neserea.”

“Revenge will not bring back my sister and my niece, Bassil.”

“No, sire. But your other niece lives, and if the sorceress can succeed in defeating the last remnants of the Sturinnese…it
may
be possible that she will survive and prosper.”

“May? What will stop the shadowsinger after what she has done?”

“The largest of the Sturinnese fleets remains in the Bitter Sea, and it
appears
as though the Maitre himself is with the Sturinnese forces in Neserea.”

“Appears?” Kestrin snorts. “Stop making me ask questions and just tell me.”

“He and his sorcerers have flooded Esaria and ravaged it with firebolts. They ride eastward and have fired every town and hamlet through which they have passed, and the whole time he has maintained wards which keep a glass from seeing him and where he personally may be. I would judge that he will attack Defalk, or try to, before the Shadow Sorceress can return.”

“So that he will turn as much of Liedwahr into burning ruins as he can? I cannot say that all this surprises me that much.” Kestrin sighs. “We have sorceresses to our east who wish all women to have the powers of sorcerers and men, and we have Sea-Priests to our west who wish to put all women in chains, and we have the misfortune to be caught between them at a time when great and evil new sorceries are being discovered and used day by day.”

“That is true, sire.”

“What is worse is that the
best
that can happen is for the sorceresses to triumph.”

Bassil nods sympathetically.

“My father had little to fret over, compared to this.” Kestrin shakes his head. “What of our plans with the catapults and flaming oil?”

“Marshal Turek has been testing two types. They look most promising.” Bassil raises his eyebrows in inquiry.

“We will still need them, even if the Shadow Sorceress is successful with the last of the Sturinnese. The world will not change back to the way it was. We will need all manner of weapons that a man or small groups of men may use.”

“I fear the world is changing faster than I can run, sire.”

“That may be true for all of us, Bassil, and even more for the shadowsinger, but we must try.” Kestrin shakes his head. “Why? Why could not the Maitre have let dozing dogs lie? Had he left Defalk alone, the sorceresses would have had less power over time.”

“You think so? Or merely hope that it would have been so?”

The Liedfuhr laughs, ruefully. “Like all men, I hope for things that might have been. That, I admit. Do not we all so hope?”

In the midmorning, Palian, Denyst, Alcaren, Richina, and Secca sat around the table in the captain's quarters of the
Silberwelle
. The air had become decidedly cooler since the day before, for which Secca was grateful, since her face still burned at times. She was also trying to ignore the cramping and the nausea that plagued her—it seemed that she was reminded that she was indeed a woman when it was either dangerous or uncomfortable, if not both. She counted herself fortunate that she was merely uncomfortable.

Denyst stood, bathed in the grayish green light from the overhead skylenses. She looked down on the large chart. “The traders of Wei have always been fearful of being held hostage to but a single port. So they have maintained certain roads and wharfs in other cities. Seldom do they use them. It has cost them dearly to maintain the road from Wei to Ostwye, but the waters off Ostwye are never frozen, and they value that. Likewise, the port at Sendrye affords not too difficult a trip to Wei, should there be a problem with the River Nord. Lundholn is something else. It was a trading port in the days of the Mynynans, and they say that the stone pier there dates back to the Spell-Fire Wars. Something else, too, about Lundholn. Used to be a trading outlet for the Corians when they held what's now the west of Nordwei. Was their only port, and when the traders forced them out…well, that was the beginning of their fall. There's still a good stone road that runs all the way to
Morgen, and along the river to Vyel, and then down to Wei. The part that runs east from Morgen goes almost halfway to Nordfels…”

“What?” asked Secca, involuntarily.

Palian nodded as Secca spoke.

Secca looked to the older chief player. “Do you know how long the unpaved road is between the old stone road and Nordfels?”

“I do not,” Palian replied, “but from what I have heard I would judge it to be fifty deks, no more than sixty. Still, that is a fair distance in the spring on unpaved roads. It might be faster to port at Wei.”

“You might consider such, lady,” added Wilten.

Secca turned to the captain. “Does your chart show that road?”

Denyst shook her head. “Could make a rough gauge.” She took out a pair of calipers from somewhere and spread them, then eased one tip to a point east of Morgen. “If half the distance is on the river road and the road follows the river…then the whole distance is ninety deks, and no road runs truly straight. So I'd guess your chief player's thought is close.” She frowned. “You still thinking of landing in Lundholn? With unpaved roads in spring?”

“We'll have to look at the old stone road to see what it looks like,” Secca temporized. “But ships travel faster than horses, and we can't get provisions from towns flooded and burned out. We can also travel faster on paved roads at this time of year than the Sturinnese can on the muddy roads in eastern Neserea.” As she finished speaking, Secca began to look for yet another clear space or yet another corner of her brown paper scraps where she could find a space to craft one more spellsong.

“You certain they'll keep heading east?” asked Denyst.

“About as certain as I am that the sun will keep rising. Vipers don't stop using their fangs.” Secca found the grease marker and began to write.

The cabin turned silent, and Secca forced herself to concentrate on the spellsong.

Alcaren beckoned to the captain, then asked Denyst in a low voice, “How long from Esaria to Lundholn?”

“Anywhere from three days to a week or longer, depending on the wind and the seas. Could be longer, if there are too many ice floes.”

“Thank you,” he murmured in response.

Secca looked at the hasty spell, then stood and reclaimed the lutar from the net-covered bin beside the double-width bunk. After tuning the lutar, she pulled on the supple leather gloves with the copper-tipped fingers, cleared her throat, and offered the short scrying spellsong.

The glass showed a narrow stone road flanking a hillside, half covered in snow, half in browned grass and grayish shrubs. The road was clear, and somehow reminded Secca of the road that had taken her the last fifty deks into Encora.

She glanced to Alcaren.

“Mynyan sorcery,” he affirmed.

Secca repeated the spellsong, except with wording designed to find the worst section of the road. The image was not that different, except that the paving stones were cracked, and in one place several paving blocks were missing and the space had been filled in with smaller and far more roughly cut stones.

A third spellsong followed, one with words about any part of the road being blocked, but the glass came up blank and silver. For that, Secca was glad, since she was getting a hint of dizziness, the kind that preceded daystars across her vision, doubtless because she hadn't eaten that much earlier. If she ate, at this time in her season, she felt nauseated. If she didn't, she couldn't do sorcery without being exhausted and feeling ready to faint.

“We may have to do some more scrying, but the road to Morgen looks better than any other way to get back to Defalk.”

“What about going to Wei? Like Palian, I worry about the unpaved roads,” said Richina. “It's closer to Defalk.”

“It is,” Secca admitted, “but it's actually east of Falcor, and that means that we'd have to travel farther to get there. Also, I'd hoped we could get to the western part of Defalk so that we could head off the Sturinnese before they do too much damage.”

“Could we obtain permission from the Council of Wei?” asked Palian.

“Would they be likely to try to stop you?” asked Denyst, her voice dripping with irony. “You only want to get back to Defalk to stop the Sturinnese before they try to take over all of Liedwahr. Last time I checked the chart…Nordwei was part of Liedwahr. Also, the Sea-Priests have never shown much love of the northern traders.”

At the dryness of the captain's tone, chuckles ran around the table.

Secca smiled. “I'll have to do some more scrying and thinking, and I'd like you all to think about it as well, at least until this afternoon. I'll
talk to each of you again before we decide. The unpaved roads bother me, but so do the extra deks from Wei.”

“Best get back topside,” said Denyst, nodding at Secca, then slipping out through the door and along the passageway.

After the others left, Alcaren looked to Secca. “I have been thinking. Most of the roads in Defalk are for trading or going from Falcor to the borders. Yet there is a paved road that goes from Nordfels to Denguic?”

Secca laughed. “Lady Anna called it Lord Kinor's road. He became Lord of Westfort when I was only nine. He kept begging Lady Anna for a road between Denguic and Dubaria so that Lord Nelmor could get to the West Pass. That was because Nelmor was then Lord of the Western Marches. Then, after that was done, he and Nelmor suggested that, if there were a good road to Heinene, the grasslands riders could get—”

“So…she built the road just for them?” Alcaren's voice was not quite incredulous.

Secca shook her head. “Anna saw much. She saw that Hanfor was ruling Neserea because he was respected, and because Anna was, but that matters were changing little. At first, Anna had few lancers to station in the west, and later, Lord Robero did not consider Neserea a problem, and he did not station lancers to the west. So Anna started the road, and Jolyn and Clayre finished it. Clayre didn't mind it that much, because her sister Lysara is Lord Tiersen's consort, and she could work on the road and stay with her sister.” Secca shrugged. “Most of that was done in the early years, and then Jolyn finished the section to Nordfels later, I think, just to get as far from Falcor as she could, and because she took Lord Ebraak's son Cassily as a lover for a time. But the road meant that the raiders could breed more horses, and that brought more golds, and Lord Ebraak could get more winterwine to Falcor…Anyway, the road is there, and it will take us south to the West Pass.”

“In time?”

Secca sighed. “I would judge not. But…unlike Neserea, Defalk has many holds and keeps, and the Maitre cannot destroy them all, or even most of those in the west, before we reach him.”

“What if he does not stop and travels straight to Falcor on your wonderful roads?”

“Then we will catch him there, and there will be far less destruction.”

“You would rather see Falcor fall?”

Secca nodded. “Rather than all those lords and ladies who have been faithful to Lady Anna and what she meant…yes, I would.” A crooked
and sad smile crossed her lips. “Believing so, I would judge that the Maitre would know such also, and would destroy as much as he can on the way to Falcor—or even to provoke us into undue haste to meet him. Also, Jolyn is possibly in the west, and he would wish to draw her into a conflict so that he could destroy her.” Secca paused. “We should send her a message once we know our way and offer advice.”

“Will she take it?”

Secca shrugged, her smile turning wistful. “At times she has, but she will do as she will please.”

This time Alcaren was the one to nod—slowly.