Darksong Rising (73 page)

the deliberately guileless-appearing Falar. “How long did it take you from Sudborte?”

“We left two glasses before dawn.” Falar yawned, if almost dramatically. “We also could enjoy a

brief rest."

Himar nodded. “Let us get your men settled.”

“Regent.” Falar bowed once more, with yet another roguish smile, then turned his mount to

follow Himar.

Anna stepped back.

Besides scrying, what else could she do? For one thing, you can make sure you’ve got bread and

hard crackers handy in your pouch... and that you eat it before any battle so that your blood

sugar doesn’t totally crash... and remember to drink lots of water before you do sorcery... and

keep checking the spelled shield.

She also needed to see if she could determine exactly how the young Prophet was creating his

Darksong—and see if she could find or compose a counterspell of some sort.

MANSUUS, MANSUUR

80

 
Konsstin listens quietly, from behind the desk in his private study, as Bassil finishes his report.

 
"...and the seers have found that he has set up an encampment well within Defalk, on the main

road to Falcor. The sorceress has but a fraction of the armsmen as Rabyn does, and no lancers to

compare to those you have furnished. Other small groups may join hers, but even should they do

so, she will still have fewer than fifteenscore lancers.”

"So... my grandson the viper has slithered into Defalk. And Nubara has allowed this? I had

hoped better of him.” The Liedfuhr leans forward, his eyes fixing more intently upon the black-

haired Mansuuran officer.

“Nubara looks most unwell, sire,” offers Bassil. “He has a heavy winter cloak wrapped around

him while the others wear but tunics. He stays close by the young Prophet, but yet remains the

one to offer orders to the armsmen.”

“Poison—alamarite. One cannot taste it.” Konsstin shakes his head. “That was one of Cyndyth’s

favorites. The lizard is being destroyed by the viper…and a half-grown viper at that. He will not

reach full growth, that one.”

“Then you can make Neserea part of Mansuur.”

Konsstin raises his bushy eyebrows. “You assume much, Bassil. What if the sorceress should

defeat him?”

“She has won every battle she has undertaken, but yet she has fewer lancers and arrnsmen than

she did a year ago. Even with the small numbers of lancers required to protect her while she

performs her sorcery, she cannot take a land as vast as Neserea. If she does, she will not hold

Defalk. Four lords have revolted in the last year. Those we know about. There may have been

others.” Bassil clears his throat; then continues. “If Lord Rabyn defeats the sorceress, you can

wait."

‘That much is true.” Konsstin fingers his beard. “But if she defeats my grandson the snake...?”

“Then you propose a partition of Neserea, so that order may be maintained.”

Konsstin stands. “We will not dwell on what might be. I cannot send more armsmen and lancers

in time to change what will be. So we wait."

Bassil nods.

“You may go, Bassil.”

“Yes, sire.”

After the door of the private study closes, the Liedfuhr of Mansuur turns and walks to the wide

window behind the table-desk and looks into the distance where the mighty Toksul River flows

eastward from Mansuus. “An Empire of Music, but who would have thought it might be wrought

by a sorceress? By a woman older than you who looks young enough to entice your grandson?”

There is a knock on the door, and he turns, letting the official smile return to his visage before he

acknowledges the summons that will be to the afternoon audiences.

81

In the sunlight of an early afternoon warmer than that of the past few days, Anna, Liende,

Jimbob, and Kinor stood under the yellowing leaves of a tree that Anna didn’t recognize, waiting

for Himar to join them. Anna’s tent was another ten yards westward, guarded by Fielmir, while

Blaz and Bersan stood directly behind the Regent.

Perhaps thirty yards south, Himar, with his sketch board in hand, was sitting on a fallen log,

sketching and listening to a scout who had just returned to the encampment. The redheaded Falar

stood at his elbow.

“If you had more sorcerers or sorceresses, you wouldn’t need scouts, would you?" asked Jimbob.

“You’d still need scouts,” offered Liende. “Sorcery... you need names, that sort of thing."

Jimbob looked at the Regent.

“Liende’s right,” Anna said. “Sorcery will let you display a map of something—if you know

who or what you’re looking for. The more you know before you start, the less sorcery it takes. I

knew that there was a darksinger somewhere in Defalk, but all the trouble we had was because

we didn’t know enough soon enough..." She let the words die away as she saw Himar walking

past the cookfires toward them, trailed by Falar. Their dusty riding boots swirled the few

handfuls of leaves that had already fallen from the trees on the gentle downslope to the west of

the campsite.

“What have your scouts discovered?” Anna asked the over-captain.

“The Nesereans have begun to build defenses. They have set a firm perimeter line,” Himar said.

“There are even small trenchworks for sentries.”

Standing at Himar’s shoulder, Falar nodded in affirmation.

“In the middle of nowhere?” If Rabyn—or Nubara—had decided not to move his forces, but was

apparently waiting for Anna to come to him, Anna wanted to know why.

“It would appear so,” responded Himar cautiously. “We’d better try the mirror.” Anna ignored

the nudge that Jimbob gave Kinor as she stood and returned to her tent to retrieve the lutar and

the traveling mirror. Once inside, she paused, then ran through a set of vocalises. Sometimes—

most times—they were easier without other people standing by and listening.

Then, she reflected, she’d gone from a singer struggling to get an audience on Earth to a

sorceress and Regent everybody watched, seemingly all the time. She wondered how many

watched to see if she would fail.

Anna brought the lutar and mirror out from the tent and set the mirror in a shaded spot not quite

under the tree. Then, the sorceress began the spell, trying to ignore the all-too-many people

watching the mirror. Among them was Falar, who stood almost behind the taller Kinor, as if the

would-be lord were trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

Mirror, mirror on the ground,

 
show the earthworks scouts have found

 
those of Rabyn and his men....

While the mirror displayed eight different small images, of sentry posts with piles of dirt and

deadfall logs, all those images did was confirm what Himar’s scouts had already reported.

“You see?" Himar nodded sagely.

“I see.” Anna let him nod, releasing the image almost immediately while she considered how to

reword the spell to get a better view of the Neserean camp as a whole. “They’re definitely dug in

and waiting.”

“What if we do not come to him?” asked Falar.

“Then we wait, and Defalk falls apart. He knows that,” Anna responded. In fact, Rabyn seemed

to know far too much.

“Defalk is strong,” protested Jimbob.

“Not strong enough to allow two hundred—score armsmen to fortify a camp in its Western

Marches,” Anna answered, her tone of voice dry.

“And how long will those in Dumar and Ebra heed her if she allows such to remain?” asked

Liende.

Kinor nodded, barely, at his mother’s observation.

“Let’s see if we can get a better view." Anna thought for a time, a time long enough that those

around her were shifting their weight from foot to foot and clearing their throats before she lifted

the lutar once more.

Mirror, mirror on the ground...

A second image filled the oblong of the mirror’s surface, this one a half-aerial view of an

encampment set to the east of a hill that commanded the main road.

“You see?” Himar pointed. “These are the highest hills for deks along the road.” He frowned.

“But I would not have set my men with their back to that bluff there.”

Anna followed his finger, trying to see what he was pointing out while concentrating on

maintaining the image in the mirror. A large tent with a peaked roof and alternating blue and

cream panels stood before a rust-colored cliff or bluff. Anna studied the area. The tent seemed to

be on the easternmost edge of a broad shelf of grassy land, almost stagelike, below the cliff,

which curved slightly so that the top projected more than the base.

Raw boulders sat near the base of the bluff. Anna squinted. The first fifty yards from the base of

the cliff was smooth and bare rock. Then within a yard of the clear rock, nearly immediately. the

grass began.

“Darksong’ She nodded. “It’s like a shell there." That barely grown boy did that? He had to have

shaved away the hillside.

Himar’s eyebrows lifted in puzzlement.

“That’s a curved hard surface that throws the sound farther.”

“It is a pity that you have nothing that will do the same.”

Nothing that will do the same... the words echoed in her mind... nothing that will do the same.

Something nagged at her, but she couldn’t pin it down, and the more she tried to concentrate on

the idea, the more elusive whatever her thought was. That would have to wait; it would come to

her. You hope.