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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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W
ith a groan Anna rolled onto her side. Her whole body ached. The thin bedroll hadn’t even softened the ground. Her eyes were gummy, and her head pounded. Her shoulder didn’t seem to ache as much, but that might have been because everything else ached more.

After prying open one eye, seemingly glued shut with gunk and dust, she tried the other. In the grayness before dawn, most of the camp still slept, except for the guards. On the bedroll beside her, Liende snored softly. Beyond, Brill and Daffyd slumbered. Anna shook her head. How could anyone sleep? How had she slept at all?

She looked at the saddlebags beside her, and the water bottles. She’d refilled them the night before, carefully orderspelling the water, since she didn’t trust the look of the barrels. Her mouth was dry, almost cracked, and she half lurched, half crawled into a sitting position, then reached for the nearest water bottle.

She sipped slowly. Even more slowly, the throbbing in her head eased. Defalk was so dry she got dehydrated sleeping, and that was saying something.

As she shifted the thin blanket that she didn’t need, fine reddish dust rose, and her nose twitched. By gently squeezing it, she managed to keep from sneezing.

Here and there, across the camp, figures were rising, and Anna thought she saw movement inside the thin silken tent that housed Barjim and Alasia. Anna could have cared less about the tent, but she did envy the two for the cots that
went with the tent. Bedrolls and hard ground just didn’t cut it.

“Good morning,” offered Liende, her voice low as she sat up.

“It is morning,” Anna agreed. She missed coffee, especially on mornings like this where everything ached, and her stomach turned.

“Do all sorcerers and sorceresses dislike mornings?” asked the red-haired woman.

“Yes,” grumbled Brill without even lifting his head. “They also hate travel.”

Anna looked at the boots. After days of wearing them, they seemed to fit better, especially around the calves, which didn’t bind anymore. She seemed to be losing weight still, that or her trousers were stretching, and she couldn’t imagine plain cotton stretching.

Anna took another long slow swallow from the water bottle. She felt sweaty and dirty all over, and they had another long day on the road, according to both Brill and Barjim. Already, she missed the luxury of the tub and hot water at Loiseau, and this adventure had barely started.

Given how she felt, she didn’t even want to think about how she looked.

A
nna shifted her weight in the saddle again, trying to relieve the soreness that ran from her knees through her lower back. Although the sun had just set, the air remained still, hot—and dusty.

The ride from Mencha had given Anna a new appreciation of the term “eat dust.” Even near the head of the column the dust was everywhere. She felt like she had been eating, breathing, and even drinking dust.

“The fort isn’t that far.” Brill’s voice was uneven and raspy.

“How far?” Anna hoped she didn’t have to sing or cast spells. The way her own voice sounded, who knew what the results might be, not that she had that many spells to cast.

“Another five deks, less than a league. It’s right at the base of the hills that guard the access to the pass. You can see the low spot up ahead there.”

Anna nodded, looking to the gentle rolling plains to the north of the road, half covered with browned grass, a few tumbleweeds, and sharp-leaved clumpy plants that reminded her of cactus. There was no sagebrush, although the scene could have come from western Kansas, if not for the mountains ahead.

“No … we’re not in Kansas, Toto,” she murmured to herself. Not even in western Iowa—or anywhere close.

“Lady Anna?”

Anna turned and guided Farinelli back toward Alasia. “Yes?”

“How is your shoulder?”

“It’s feeling better than my legs right now,” Anna admitted.

“My legs get sore still, after all these years of ridmg,” said the brown-haired woman.

“Don’t let her deceive you, lady,” grumbled Barjim. “She was born on a horse. She’ll ride us all into the ground.”

“My legs still hurt,” said Alasia. “Yours do, too. You won’t admit it.”

Anna reached for her water bottle again, drinking the last from the one fastened in front of the saddle, but carefully recorking and replacing it.

For a time, in the reddish purple of twilight, the mountains seemed no closer, and they were mountains, Anna realized, mountains as high as, and drier than, the Rocky Mountains, mountains of hard red rock and gray cliffs.

As the twilight deepened, and the column came to a hill
crest that dropped gently away, suddenly, a red-brick structure loomed ahead, filling the entire expanse between the two hills that seemed to merge on each side of the fort with the ridges that guarded the approach to the higher mountains. Watchfires lit the regularly spaced towers.

“The Sand Pass fort,” Brill said.

“You built it?”

“He built it,” confirmed Alasia her mount to the right of Farinelli. “In times other than these, it would be more than enough.”

As they rode closer, Anna studied the walls, as precise as those of Loiseau, if of brick rather than stone, and rising perhaps fifty feet above the base of the valley.

Cannon? She realized she had never seen any kind of firearms—yet the precision with which Brill formed things with magic, and the crafting of blades and other items would argue that they could be made—or was there something about gunpowder that didn’t work?

Erde was like that. She was so preoccupied trying to understand the place and to figure out what she could do with her talents that things she didn’t happen to be familiar with slipped by. Except they didn’t stay slipped.

She realized that her head was beginning to ache again, and she reached for the water bottle.

The pale purple banners bearing the crossed spears of Defalk hung limply in the growing gloom, lit intermittently by the watchfires. The road arrowed straight toward the middle of the wall. In the gloomy heat of twilight, Anna could barely tell where the red brick of the ramparts separated from the sunbaked dirt and the hard and dusty road.

Despite the broad-brimmed hat, her face was red and nearly raw. Defalk was no place for a fair-skinned singer.

A trumpet sounded, seemingly right behind Anna, and she twitched in surprise. Farinelli whuffled, and Anna patted his neck automatically, moistening her lips.

By the time the column reached the walls, the gates were swung open, and two squads of mounted troops, one on each side of the road, had formed up. The high brick walls
loomed reddish purple in the last glimmers of twilight.

A trumpet fanfare echoed across the twilight, then repeated.

“I suppose they want to announce to all the dark ones that our lord and master has arrived … .”

Anna held back an ironic smile at Daffyd’s hissed comment to Palian, the only other woman player besides Liende, then guided Farinelli to her right, easing him behind Barjim’s guards as the column narrowed to enter the gates.

The inside courtyard—or open space—of the fort was no more than twice that of Brill’s hall. At first, Anna thought that the structure was only a set of walls. Then she squinted through the darkness, broken in patches by the intermittent light cast from the watchfires and the torches mounted on brackets at regular intervals along the walls.

The quarters, stables, armories, whatever buildings there were, were extensions from the outer walls toward the center courtyard.

“Our quarters here are not large,” apologized Brill. “We have two rooms in the quarters section, but they are on the upper level. That should be quieter and afford more privacy. You and Liende and Palian will share the smaller one, and the other players and I will share the large one.”

Anna nodded, wondering how much privacy there was with so many people together. She also hoped her legs would bear her weight when she dismounted—and that there was something to sleep upon besides the floor—or hard ground. Her stomach growled, and her head ached.

Brill eased his mare around Barjim’s guards, and toward the low structure on the southwest side of the fort. “The stables are there.”

Anna followed numbly, her face burning, and her neck, shoulder, back, and legs all aching.

“Oh, ser sorcerer …” said a round-faced young man as they neared the low building.

Anna could tell from the odors they had reached the stable, and she reined up.

“This is the lady Anna,” Brill explained as he dismounted.
“She’s a sorceress from the mist worlds, come to help us.”

Anna didn’t feel like a sorceress, but like ground beef or the Erdean equivalent, and her legs shook after she dismounted. Slowly, she led Farinelli into the stable, where, surprisingly, the light was provided by candles with glass mantles.

Somehow, she did get the gelding unsaddled and rubbed down, before staggering up two flights of brick stairs after the sorcerer, carrying her gear—gear that felt like lead weights.

Liende and Palian followed her.

The end room was narrow and held six pallets, raised off the floor on brick pedestals no more than a foot high—or was that two spans? Anna wondered. However it was measured, the pallets were low, and narrow—and they looked wonderful. There were two small high windows, both unglazed and unshuttered, on the north wall.

“It’s not much,” Brill said, “but better than the barracks.”

“Is there anywhere to wash up?” she asked tiredly as she dumped the saddlebags and bedroll on the pallet under the back window. Then she stripped off the floppy hat, trying to ignore the dust that came with it.

“There’s a washhouse in the western corner,” Brill explained, leading her back to the doorway and pointing toward a pair of torches. “There.”

Anna took a deep breath and started back down the steps while Liende and Palian arranged their gear.

“So … what captain do you belong to?” leered the armsman by the door to the washhouse.

Anna looked at the youth. She needed spells to shut up idiots like the armsman. “I came with Lord Brill and Lord Barjim.” That was the best she could do, but it seemed to be enough as she stepped by him and into the room. For a washroom it wasn’t much, just two awkward-looking pumps, with spouts and tubs beneath. Each small tub had a lever device that was probably a drain.

Anna stepped to the far tub and began to pump. A reddish stream of water poured out. “Damn …” she muttered.

At least, she had the water spell. As she pumped she sang, and the cold clear water flowed.

There was a gulp from the door that she ignored as she splashed away the dust and grime from her face and arms as well as she could. She had to repeat the spell once before she felt halfway refreshed, and she felt like she’d drunk as much as she’d washed with.

“Lady Anna?”

She looked up to see Brill standing there. Behind him stood Liende, Palian, and Daffyd. She thought she could see the shadows of the others out in the courtyard.

“Yes?”

“The water’s not that …”

“I took care of it.” She lowered the handle again and a stream of clear icy water gushed out.

Brill moistened his lips, then added, “We’re to join Lord Barjim for dinner. As soon as we can.”

She looked down at herself. “Like this?”

“You look better than most of us.”

She waited while Brill splashed the worst of the road grime off himself, and then they walked toward the center section of the eastern wall.

Two guards stood by the closed wooden door.

“Lord Brill and Lady Anna,” said Brill.

The older guard nodded and opened the door.

As they stepped through the door, Anna’s mouth watered at the smell of bread, and some form of cooked food, a stew, she thought, and she swallowed.

The low-ceilinged room held a trestle table and benches. The only light came from four individual candles spaced down the table. Barjim sat at the only chair at the head of the table. Alasia, dusty and as hard-looking as any soldier, sat on his left. Seven men sat at the benches. Anna recognized Sepko and Dekas. There were two empty places across from Alasia.

“Sit down, sorcerer, lady sorceress.” The Lord of Defalk gestured but did not rise.

“Thank you,” Brill said.

Anna forced a smile, and she tried not to slump onto the bench.

“ … sorcerers … useless … better cold iron …”

Anna turned to the man with the salt-and-pepper beard at the end of the table, catching his eyes. She held them, saying nothing, until the man looked down. She hadn’t realized just how angry she was until that moment.

“One moment, Lady Anna,” said Alasia, turning her head toward the foot of the table. “Captain Firis, apologize to Lady Anna. I won’t bother to explain. I would suggest you talk to Captain Sepko after you leave tonight, and I suggest you offer thanks to the harmonies for my intervention.”

Firis opened his mouth, then looked at Barjim’s hooded eyes, then back at Anna.

Anna saw the contempt there, and began to think about spells. She could substitute the word “captain” for “armsman” in the variation on the candle spell. She hummed slightly, trying to get the pitch right.

Dekas looked at Firis and shook his head sadly. Sepko opened his mouth.

At the sound of the humming, Firis paled. “I apologize, Lady Anna. I apologize.”

“Very wise, Firis.” Barjim turned to Anna and Brill. “The stew’s rather good.”

Firis looked down, but Anna could sense his anger. At the moment she didn’t care, not after having spent two days riding in dust out of obligation to Brill … and then to have some … medieval … idiot … insult her almost before she’d seated herself.

“You might try the wine,” Alasia suggested. “It’s not quite vinegar.” Barjim’s consort smiled.

Brill took the flagon and poured some for Anna and then himself, while Anna broke off a chunk of bread and ladled the stew across it.

She looked back at Firis. He was still seething, and he glared at her, his dark eyes burning. She thought she caught the word “Bitch …”

Anna looked at his goblet which was wooden, like hers and the others, and concentrated on holding image, words, and melody.

“Goblet there, goblet fair,
flame bright in this air.”

The goblet blazed into a pillar of fire, illuminating the entire room.

Firis fell backward over the bench, carrying Dekas and Sepko with him.

“Lady Anna … was that not a bit … much?” asked Barjim, standing.

“No.” Anna almost didn’t care. “This isn’t my world. I’ve ridden across a damned desert for two days because—” She broke off. No sense in admitting her obligations. “I’ve been shot because I support you, and I don’t have to take insults from half-educated idiots who don’t even know me.” She glared at Firis. “You have no right to be angry at me, and you have no right to insult me or Lord Brill.”

“If you were a man, I’d challenge you,” hissed Firis, scrambling off the floor as the light from the burning goblet died down into a low flame, his hand on the hilt of his blade.

“Well … Lady Anna?” asked Barjim.

Anna rose. “Perhaps I should go. By your leave?”

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

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