Shadowsinger (44 page)

It was just past noon, and the two sorceresses and the sorcerer sat around the captain's circular table. Frowning, and trying to ignore her all-too-frequent cramping, as well as the increasing pitching of the
Silberwelle
, Secca looked up from the rough figures she had scrawled on the corners of the paper.

“We have little choice,” she finally said. “Lundholn it must be.”

“Lady…” ventured Richina, almost delicately, “how will you know if we dare to land at Lundholn?”

“We ask,” Secca replied with a laugh. “Very politely, and we send the request in a message tube.”

“That will convey both courtesy and power, all in one,” Alcaren pointed out. After a moment, he fingered his chin. “To whom can you send it?”

“They have a Council,” Secca replied. “Let us see if the glass will recognize such.” She stood and stretched, then reclaimed the lutar. After checking the tuning, she pulled on the playing gloves, and launched into the scrying spellsong.

The glass immediately showed a silver-haired woman seated before an ebony table desk, one hand resting on a polished oval dark agate, the other clutching a cloth. Even through the glass, the Council Leader seemed to shimmer with an inner force.

Secca studied the woman for a moment, then sang the release spell. “After I send the scroll, Alcaren can use the glass to make sure she is the one who receives it.” After setting aside the lutar, Secca glanced at Richina, taking in her still-drawn face and the dark circles that persisted under the eyes of the younger sorceress. “You need to get something more to eat and then to rest.”

“I'm feeling better,” Richina protested.

“You need to feel much better,” Secca replied.

“I feel so useless. You and Alcaren do everything.”

Secca shook her head. “We do everything only because you keep us safe from sorcery sent against us from a distance. How many times have you sensed someone probing at you and the wards?”

“Every day…sometimes more often,” admitted the younger woman.

“Could we do anything were you not holding the wards?” Secca fixed her amber eyes on Richina.

A wan smile crossed the blonde's lips. “I would wager not. But still…”

“Enough,” said Secca firmly. “Find something to eat and then get some sleep. Go!” She motioned for Richina to depart.

Richina smiled mischievously as she eased out of the chair.

“What?” asked Secca.

“It's just…” Richina stopped.

Secca raised her eyebrows.

“You could have been Lady Anna the way you said all that.” Richina bowed. “Sometimes, you are so like her, Lady Secca.”

For a moment, Secca could say nothing. Finally, she replied, “You credit me too much, Richina. Now, off with you.”

“Yes, lady.” Richina smiled warmly, and then turned and slipped out of the cabin.

Secca shook her head as she began to rummage through the stack of materials.

“You do not think you resemble her?” asked Alcaren.

“Me? Hardly. She was tall; I'm small. She was blonde and beautiful; I'm plain and petite. She was strong and forceful; I still do not know
what I do half the time—” She stopped as Alcaren held up his hand.

“You are most beautiful, and others have said so besides me. You are indeed strong and forceful, and size has nothing to do with that. And I imagine that the lady Anna often felt that she did not know what she was doing or where it would lead when she was faced with rebellions and invasions. You saw her from the view of a child looking at her mother. How could she not have been wonderful?” He laughed warmly. “You are all the things you say you are not, and in time, Richina…or…others…they will look at you in the way you looked at Lady Anna.”

Secca shook her head once more. “I need to find some parchment or vellum.” She leafed through the papers on the table another time, then looked into the covered bin.

“You have no more parchment left?” asked Alcaren.

The redheaded sorceress shook her head. “We are short on much.”

“Find one of those scrolls sent to you that you can do without. We will have to make a palimpsest. I can do that while you put down your thoughts.”

Secca turned to one of the saddlebags, opening it, and checking the scrolls one by one, then stopping and handing one to Alcaren.

He looked at it and then smiled. “Perhaps it is best that these words of Jolyn be erased.”

“I thought so.” Secca reseated herself at the table.

Alcaren began to sharpen his belt knife.

“You don't mind doing that?” Secca asked as she leaned forward, looking for a section of paper on which to draft her thoughts.

“It's simple work,” he replied. “Much easier than scrying or composing a scroll to the Council Leader. It also keeps me from recalling that I am upon a ship.”

“You're doing better, I think.”

“No. We have been fortunate that the weather has not been too bad, except at times.”

“The times when I created storms.”

Alcaren shrugged. “Better to feel uneasy than to have been sunk by the Sea-Priests.”

Secca laughed gently. “I'd better get to writing this. I want a few days of rest after sending it.”

Alcaren nodded, then bent forward, using the new-sharpened edge of the knife to scrape away the dark ink, letter by letter, line by line, until the parchment appeared to have been used not at all. He studied
the apparently clean surface, then took the knife and went back over several sections.

By then, Secca was straightening. “Would you read this?”

“I'd be happy to.” He wiped the knife blade before sheathing it, then took the rough brown paper sheets from his consort.

As Alcaren read, Secca stood behind him and reread the lines.

When he finished, Alcaren looked up. “It is good. Perhaps…you might consider a few words about how Wei and Defalk have been such good neighbors in recent years, and how you look forward to that continuing once the Sturinnese are vanquished.”

“Implying that if they don't let us use their roads, they'll have far worse neighbors?”

“I had thought that,” he admitted. “So should they.”

“So they should,” Secca agreed. “Is there aught else?”

He shook his head. “Not so far as scrolls might go…” His eyes flicked past her toward the double bunk.

“We will see, dearest consort,
after
the scroll is written and dispatched.” Despite the sternness of her words, she could not help flushing, and hoped that the lingering redness of her face covered it, even as she tried to hide a smile.

Wei, Nordwei

Ashtaar looks neither surprised nor even puzzled when the bronze tube appears upon her table-desk, although she has to fumble with the green cloth and another she takes from the single drawer in the table in order to pry off the cap of the tube of blistering metal.

She ignores the burns on the wood and the slight reddening on one aged hand as she reads the brief scroll. After she finishes reading, she begins once more until she comes to a line, which she murmurs aloud, if but to herself, “we are requesting your permission to land at Lundholn…” After a single barklike laugh, she says, “At least, she is requesting.”

After rerolling the scroll, she takes the small bell from the drawer and rings it—twice. She does not have to wait long before the door opens, and Escadra appears.

“You rang, Leader Ashtaar?”

“I am calling an immediate meeting of the Council. At the sixth glass.”

“Leader…this is six-day. Many will not be—”

“Then they will not be there. This cannot wait.”

Escadra bobs her head up and down.

“You may tell those who are in Wei that I am not losing my mind or my temper, but that it concerns the threat of invasion of Nordwei by the Maitre. If they wish no part of the decision, why then, I will act in the Council's name.”

The chunky seer's eyes widen.

Ashtaar stands. “Since it takes me longer than once it did to walk to the other end of the building, I will begin now.” She smiles politely, but her dark eyes are cold.

Escadra bows quickly. “Yes, Leader. I will find all those that I can and send messengers for the others.”

“Only if they are in Wei.”

The seer nods once more and scurries out.

Ashtaar, for all her words about age, leaves her small audience chamber and study briskly. She walks quickly along the dark-paneled corridor until she comes to the steps. Her sole concession to age is her use of the handrail as she descends.

She is the first counselor to reach the Council chamber, but Escadra has sent word to someone, because the oil lamps in the bronze wall sconces are all lit. With a nod, Ashtaar takes the center place at the long dark table and sits down to wait.

The Lady of the Shadows is the next to arrive in the Council chamber, and she bows to Ashtaar. “Did I not tell you that the Sorceress Protector of Defalk would cause great difficulty?”

“You did, but I believe she is going to cause great difficulty for the Maitre, as I will explain when all are here who choose to come.”

“It should be most interesting, especially on how you plan to keep us out of the problem after our fleet has acted as a decoy for the sorceress.”

Ashtaar but nods as a second member of the Council appears—Marshal Zeltaar, wearing a black informal uniform. The marshal seats herself to the left of Ashtaar without speaking.

Next is High Trader Fuhlar, who swirls off a hooded golden cloak to reveal his customary apparel—brown trousers with gold piping, and a rich brown tunic also trimmed with gold. He hangs the cloak on one of the ancient wooden pegs set beside the door for such a purpose, and surveys the table, then takes a position directly across from the marshal.

Three others ease in, but only the third—a hard-faced blonde woman wearing dark green and silver—turns and speaks. “I trust this will be well worth our time, Ashtaar.”

“Oh, it will, Adgan. Even you, I think, will find it so.” Ashtaar surveys the chamber. “There are enough for us to proceed.”

“This is most irregular,” offers the brown-clad Fuhlar. “On a six-day, late on a six-day, no less.”

Ashtaar holds up a heat-tarnished bronze tube. “So is this. Do any of you recognize what this might be?”

Fuhlar shakes his head. The hint of a smile plays across Marshal Zeltaar's mouth, but she does not speak.

The Lady of the Shadows is the one to break the silence. “I would gather it is a message tube, one that a sorceress could employ to send a message a great distance. That you have it means that the Shadow Sorceress has sent it to you, and that greater mischief is brewing.”

“A message from the Shadow Sorceress?” questions Adgan. “A mere message—”

“As the lady has suggested,” Ashtaar states firmly, interrupting Adgan, “this message arrived by sorcery. We have known that the Sea-Priests will sometimes send messages engraved on brass by sorcery. I had not known that the sorceresses of Defalk also had found a way to do the same—”

“How can they without the paper—”

“They use parchment, which resists heat far better than paper, and they send it in this bronze tube lined with a gray substance that keeps the tube from getting hot enough to char the parchment. That is not the reason for the meeting. The message request is. The sorceress is requesting passage through Wei to return to Defalk. She is requesting the use of the stone road from Lundholn to Morgen, and thence to Nordfels. The Sea-Priests are using sorcery to destroy all of Neserea. Every span of land along the Saris River has been burned to ashes. The Sea-Priests are beginning to do the same as they follow the road along the River Saria toward Elioch.”

“Why does she want—”

“Insane…”

“Cannot let her…”

“Quiet!” snaps Ashtaar. “She knows of the old paved road from Lundholn to Morgen. She would take the pass to Nordfels, and then the metaled road created by the great sorceress down to Denguic. As I told you two days ago, the Shadow Sorceress has destroyed all the cities and half the land on the isle of Stura. This is a grave insult to any man of Sturinn”—Ashtaar laughs, a hard and ironic sound—“and the Sturinnese have gone mad. There is a great sorcerer, perhaps the Maitre himself, in Neserea. The sorceress would use our roads to get to hers to head off and attack the Sturinnese. She pledged to pay for provisions and not to forage off our people.”

“Even if we do agree to this…” asks Fuhlar, “how would we let her know we accept?

“She requests that we fly a plain blue banner on a tall staff at the end of the pier in Lundholn.”

“How—?”

“She will see it in her glass,” Ashtaar says tartly. “We need to decide.
Do we give the sorceress the means to stop this insanity on her lands before it gets farther out of hand, or do we refuse her passage and have both Defalk and Sturinn at our throats?”

“I do not believe—” begins Fuhlar.

“You're an ass, Fuhlar, if you think it stands any other way,” snaps Ashtaar.

“While I would not use such terms,” adds the lady in black, “I do believe that the Council Leader has stated this situation accurately.”

“You who oppose all sorcery would allow a sorceress to cross Nordwei?” asks Adgan.

“That is why,” replies the Lady of the Shadows. “These two will fight a terrible sorcerous battle. Nothing we can do will stop that. Therefore, the sooner this battle is fought, and the farther from Nordwei, the less we will suffer.”

“You have said little, marshal,” said Fuhlar, almost winningly.

“What else is there to say?” asks the officer in her black uniform. “We could not stop the sorceress if we wished, and we would lose all the lancers we could send against her. She has pledged not to harm our people and to pay for what she takes. She is desperate to reach Defalk before it is totally destroyed. Would
you
stand in her way?”

“Ah…no.” Fuhlar frowns, then adds, “but could we not refuse to grant her permission, but not actually oppose her. That way, if the Sturinnese do prevail…”

“We could claim we were invaded?” suggests Marshal Zeltaar.

“While that sounds most reasonable,” Ashtaar replies, “it is stupid and foolish. The Sturinnese hate us already, not because of our allies, but because we are ocean traders and rivals. Should they defeat the sorceress, they will destroy us whether we support her or not. We gain nothing by refusing permission, and should the sorceress win, we well may lose far more.”

Fuhlar had begun to open his mouth, but he does not finish whatever he might have said and closes it abruptly.

“Exactly,” the marshal concludes. “We might also be best served by sending messengers to Lundholn and Morgen to tell all those there, and to suggest that the merchants and chandlers offer a fair price. They should not give away goods, but at this time, it is not a good idea to charge in excess.”

“But…” protests Fuhlar, “we should not even profit from our generosity?”

“You will profit, Fuhlar,” Ashtaar says smoothly. “We will not have to fight on our lands, even if the worst occurs, until much later. If the
sorceress wins, we will control all the trade in the Western Sea, and that should be more than enough profit for any of your trading cronies.”

Fuhlar looks down at the table.

“There is one more matter—the heirs of Dumar and Neserea. Marshal Zeltaar had agreed to provide them transport, but we now have a quicker alternative that will send them farther from the Maitre, as well as upon the ocean while the conflict proceeds.”

“Why…?”

“Again, it cannot hurt,” Ashtaar says, “especially if the Shadow Sorceress does not know, and there should be no reason for her to learn.”

“You could turn them over to her,” suggests Fuhlar.

“I dislike having all coins in a single strongbox, and so should you.”

The trader nods reluctantly.

“I gather we are agreed,” Ashtaar says. “I will have messengers sent to Lundholn and Morgen.”

Not a single figure seated around the table objects.