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Authors: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

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BOOK: The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle

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“I didn’t say I had no spells,” Anna said slowly. “I think I could come up with several dozen love spells, but love spells aren’t really what I need.”

“Several dozen?” Brill’s voice sharpened.

“Maybe more,” Anna admitted. “You might say that those songs are the ones most in demand in my world.” There! She’d told the truth, but not in a way that revealed anything new. “I was working on a different spell this morning, and I think I have it right, but I need to make sure I have the support correct.” She hoped Delibes’ ghost weren’t whirling too much in his grave.

“I thought you burned the paper?” Brill looked confused.

“Oh, I did that, all right. That was just an adaptation of the candle spell. And I figured out how to really chill water without smashing your crystal. This was something else.” She smiled brightly, and took another mouthful of the bread.

“And you said you hadn’t been working that hard?”

“At a recital, I’d have to perform for at least an hour. A glass, roughly,” she explained. “Perhaps two.”

The sorcerer shook his head. “Glasses’ worth of love spells, performed one upon the other. Yet you have few other spells? What a strange world must yours be.”

“It is,” Anna agreed. Put that way, earth did sound strange. “It is.”

SOUTH OF SYNEK, EBRA

“E
laddrin?” the voice song-whispers from the harp that stands on the pedestal in the small pond, above the image of the hooded figure in a brown robe so dark it is almost black.

“Yes, Evult?” The Songmaster bows slightly, his golden hair a pale blur in the darkness of the closed tent.

“I can still sense the ripples in the music of Liedwahr. Those ripples have already reached Sturinn. What have you done about the mist-world sorceress?”

“I have taken steps, Evult. The ripples will be removed.”

“It may not be easy, Eladdrin.”

“I have made ready a second effort, Evult.” The Songmaster bows again to the image in the luminescent pool. “If necessary, there will be a third.”

“Good. It would be better were she removed before the faithful combat against the infidels of Defalk.”

“It would be better, Evult, but one who ripples the weave of the music is strong, and we must march soon.”

“I understand, Songmaster, but bear my words in mind.”

“I hear the melody of your music, Evult.” Eladdrin offers a last bow, but the image in the pool has vanished, and the harp is silent above the water.

After wiping his forehead, then easing the soft cloth into the left waist-pocket of his robe, Eladdrin steps into the cool outside the tent, breathing deeply of the damp air that has followed the rains to the east, taking in the scents of the orchards and the fertile fields.

As he steps toward the campfire, the two armed monks slip from the shadows and follow.

A
nna sat at the desk in the eastern workroom, her eyes blank. Why was every song she could recall a love song? Or a lullaby? Or useless? She refilled the goblet, and took a sip.

With each day, she felt more and more useless. Yes, she could burn wood objects, and paper, and freeze water or chill it. She could light and snuff candles, and she had two or three spells that
might
, just might, do something in a battle. She’d pried some more information out of Brill, but each syllable that meant anything was an effort.

She’d terrorized a poor servant girl into not following
her every step—just every other step—and she had another riding outfit, and a casual gown, and a pair of soft leather shoes for wearing around the hall. But the sheets were still scratchy, the mattress lumpy, and each day, she owed more of that intangible debt to Brill—one he clearly didn’t want paid with her body, but with the skills he pressed her to keep developing.

The indirectness was driving her crazy.

She jerked upright at the rap on the workroom door.

“Are you ready—?”

“Not yet.” Anna forced a smile. “Would you sit down?” She gestured toward the chair across the desk.

Brill sat gingerly, his eyes flicking to the window, and then back to Anna.

“Customs are somewhat different in the mist worlds, or mine, anyway,” Anna began. “And I’ve tried to discuss certain matters with you, but you are so charming that they never get discussed. So I have a few questions, and I’d be even more deeply in your debt if you could bear with me and answer them.”

“I have tried to be most forthcoming.”

“As I know you have,” Anna said flatly. “First, in simple terms, if Daffyd and Jenny, who have far less skill than you, could summon me, why can’t you send me back to my world?”

Brill looked at Anna. “Song magic isn’t just a sorcerer singing and players playing. The words have to be right, and the sorcerer has to be able to see what he wants. I have to be able to see the fort Lord Barjim wants, almost to feel it. I use the drawings and plans to help create the image in my mind.” He shrugged. “Daffyd could bring you here, because he was asking for any sorceress to be placed in a setting he could see. The problem with sending you back into the mist worlds is that you’re the only one who can see where you need to go, and you can’t send yourself.”

Anna half understood the visualization aspect, but it still bothered her. It had been almost a week, and Elizabetta had to be upset—a totally vanished mother, with no trace whatsoever.
“That’s almost saying that no one can send me back unless I can show them an image that they can hold to.”

“You must trust them, totally,” the sorcerer pointed out. He frowned, then added. “Perhaps you can see why sometimes the smallest of distractions can upset a sorcerer. They should not, but they do. And there is the problem of the burning. Too many attempts, and the fires turn on the sorcerer. That is why my glimpses of the mist worlds have been infrequent and seasons apart, fascinating as I find such glimpses.”

Anna nodded, trying not to swallow at the double impact, as she understood also what Brill was saying about Daffyd’s father. And the business of burning—was that why her key had been so hot?

But she had to get more answers while Brill was sitting still. “Second, what can song magic do to stop the dark ones, and what is it that you want me to do to help you?” Anna held up a hand to cut off Brill. “No more nice fancy statements. Plain and simple.”

“If all women of the mist worlds are like you, I see why the old books caution against summonings.” Brill added a slight laugh.

Anna presented a hard professional smile.

Brill’s laugh died away.

“I will have to use clearsong if they are near the hills, or darksong, if they are not, to bring destruction on the Ebran soldiers.” The sorcerer spread his hands. “Some of my players … darksong would destroy, and that weakens what I can do.”

“What would you like from me?”

“Any spell or magic that will stop the Ebrans or the dark ones.” Brill smiled ruefully.

Anna understood the smile. He found her attractive, but her possible power even more so. She stood. “Last question. Why do I need guards?”

“For the same reason as I do. These days people want to kill sorcerers … or sorceresses. And you don’t know how to use a blade, either.” Brill eased to his feet.

“There must be something I can carry,” Anna suggested. “You carry a sword.”

“Not willingly, and not well. It takes seasons, if not years, to really master a blade.”

Anna frowned. She’d used a sword once, when she’d played Clorinda. She’d been younger then, twenty years younger, and her arms had ached for weeks, and that had been a choreographed fight. “What about a knife?”

“That’s worse.”

“So … what do you suggest, lord and master of the hall Brill?” Anna’s eyes flashed.

The sorcerer looked away.

Anna waited.

“A truncheon or a short staff. You should have some personal-protection spells worked out before long, and you won’t ever master the blade enough to hold off trained armsmen.” Brill added hastily. “I can’t, either. So what you need is something to keep people off you enough to allow you to use your voice.”

Anna had to admit that the sorcerer made a sort of sense, even if he were suggesting that she get some personal-protection spells in a hurry. “How about one of each?”

“It couldn’t hurt, just so long as you remember that you really don’t know how to use a knife.”

Anna tried to repress the glare she felt at Brill’s condescending tone.

The sorcerer stepped back. “If you hold a knife and a truncheon, that might give you time to use a spell.”

Again, what he said made sense, but she still hated that air of condescension. “How do I get them?”

“Quies’ son Albero is the armorer, as close to one as we have. I believe we have some knives and truncheons. Those would be better.”

“I know. It’s been twenty years since I held a sword, and I didn’t do well with it then.” Anna forced a rueful smile.

“I had not realized blades were used in the mist worlds.”

“They’re not, not normally. I was in grad school, and I played a part that required using a sword. That was a long
time ago.” Anna’s stomach growled. “I’m hungry. We can go.”

“You have no more questions?”

“I have a lot more questions, more than you’ll want to answer, but I’m hungry.” Anna gestured toward the workroom door.

Outside the dome building, the midday sun beat through the clear air, as it had every day without fail. Even in the shade of the portico, the air seemed hotter than the day before—as if the atmospheric oven had been eased up a few more degrees. Anna looked down at the empty water buckets for the horses.

“We refilled’em twice, lady,” said Frideric apologetically. “Gero’s gone to get some more.”

Brill glanced to Wiltur. “Any visitors?”

“No, ser. The roads are clear, mostly, except for a messenger of Lord Barjim’s. He was riding toward the Sand Pass.”

“We’ll be seeing more of that.” Brill untied the mare and mounted.

“A-feared so, ser.”

As Anna bounced toward the hall, she realized, not for the first time, that she needed more practice riding. Then, again, she needed more practice at everything.

ENCORA, RANUAK

“W
hat was that awful disharmony in the chords, Veria?“The round-faced and gray-haired woman offers a cheerful smile as she lifts with both hands the steaming cup that has no handles.”Did you ever manage to find out?”

“Which discord, Matriarch?” The black-haired woman at the other long end of the oval ebony table pours her own
mulled cider. “Between the Evult, his Songmaster, Lord Brill, and the constant scrying of the Norweians, there have been more than a few incidences of discord.”

“You could say that,” adds the silver-haired man on the short side of the table. “I’d even call it dissonance.” He adds another pinch of cinnamon to his cup, then twists the end of his silvered handlebar mustache. “Then, there has been more discord since the effects of ill harmony were discovered. Too bad that we could not have the Prophet and the Evult sing together.”

“Father …” protests Veria.

“Do not be vulgar, Ulgar,” suggests the Matriarch.

“Accuracy, my dear, accuracy. Not a silver for vulgarity, but golds for accuracy. Isn’t that what the counting houses say?” He lifts the cup and slurps his cider. “Too hot. Like Defalk.”

“You make no sense, Father. It is warmer here,” says Veria.

“The warm damp is good for the bones. The dry heat of Defalk turns you into a mummy.”

Mother and daughter exchange glances.

“Counting houses, dissonance, Lord Barjim—it all be linked with the silver chains of harmony,” continues Ulgar.

“You do not have to be obscure, dear.” The Matriarch adjusts one of the wooden clips that keeps her iron-gray hair neatly in its bun. “We all know the links.”

“I don’t,” protests Veria.

Ulgar lifts one silvered eyebrow and looks to his consort.

“We lent Lord Barjim the golds he requested so that he could buy enough supplies from us to move his forces from Denguic and Falcor to the Sand Pass. He will use his sole sorcerer—”

“That was it, Mother—Matriarch,” Veria corrects herself and continues. “He has two sorcerers. Or rather, Lord Brill has a sorceress. That was the disharmony. Someone opened a weltsperre—”

“Call it a ‘worldgate,’ daughter. Pretention does not become you,” suggests Ulgar, putting yet another pinch of spice into his cup.

“Yes, Father.” The slightest edge tinges her words.

“Someone opened a worldgate and brought her through. She is blonde, a soprano sorceress, I think.”

“You think?”

“Ulgar … let her finish.”

Veria drops her head, then continues. “The dark ones have set their assassins on her, but they have not reached Mencha.”

“I said it was all linked,” points out Ulgar.

The Matriarch smiles, still cherubic. “She must be a strong sorceress to have created such discord.”

“The scriers do not know her strength, but Eladdrin, the spymistress of the north, and Lord Behlem all use their mirrored waters to watch her.”

“The better to keep them occupied.”

“Matriarch?” asks Veria. “What will you tell the others about the shifting of the sands?”

“What I have said before. Matters balance, and they will again. The Evult has strained the chords of Liedwahr, and they will redress the harmonies, and before too long.”

“Then why did you agree to lend Barjim two thousand golds? He cannot repay them.”

Ulgar slurps his tea, and both women wince.

“Sometimes, one must buy time while the harmonies regroup.” The Matriarch smiles and stands.

BOOK: The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle

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