The Shadow Sorceress (11 page)

Darksong stands high in the clear night sky, and Clearsong has set more than two glasses earlier. Several trading vessels are moored in the deeper part of the harbor, but two tall-masted schooners are tied up at the deep-water piers on the western side, just south of the main part of the city of Narial. The night is still, with not even a whisper of wind.

The only sounds in the harbor are the gentle lapping of night-dark water against the piers and the hulls of the vessels, and the occasional reports of the Harbor Watch, words vanishing into the night, unheard except for those standing duty on the vessels in port.

Beyond the harbor, beyond the horizon, well out of earshot from the fleet of warships there rises the sound of thunder-drums. The skies darken, near instantly, clouding over the bright points of the stars and of Darksong, and there is a rumbling from deep beneath the sea.

A swell of water rises to the north of the warships, a hillock perhaps three yards high that disappears into the darkness as it races northward. The hillock swells with each furl it moves toward the shore, yet, before it, with a sucking, hissing sound, the sea recedes out of the harbor, seemingly before the rising water can reach the land.

The half-dozen vessels drop onto the harbor mud, their masts tilting at various angles. Yells and curses in a handful of languages fill the night air, but only for a handful of moments before a darkness looms out of the south, a darkness that rises swiftly into a wall of water more than thirty yards high. The wall of black water races northward across the exposed mud and sand, far faster than the swiftest of horses, engulfing the beached vessels, then the piers, before crashing nearly a dek inland.

Among the structures flattened are the barracks of both the Harbor Watch and the coastal guards.

When the waters recede, the only structure left intact within a dek of the harbor is the single stone bridge across the Falche, a structure dating back nearly three decades.

With the dull anguished chord that seemed to echo through the night, Secca sat bolt upright in the bed of the guest chamber at Pamr. Her eyes were gummy, and every muscle in her body protested, but the anguished chord seemed to reverberate on and on, intensifying the aches and the muscle strains caused by the riding she had done, riding whose extent was more than she had been used to doing recently.

Her first thought was that she was suffering a nightmare, but she could smell the scent of the perfumed oil she had rubbed into those muscles, and in the dimness of the room she could see the lutar case on the table, and her belt wallet beside it. And her muscles hurt.

Slowly, she slid from under the heavy covers, her feet touching first the woven rug beside the bed, and then the cold smooth
stone of the floor beyond. Her right hand grasped the dagger on the table by the bed, slipping it from its sheath.

She cocked her head to one side, listening, but the hold at Pamr was silent, the stone cold and reassuringly solid beneath her feet.

One-handed, she used the striker to light the bedside lamp. As the glow grew, she looked around the room. Nothing looked different.

But what had been that awful anguished chord?

She glanced around the room again.

Something had disturbed the Harmonies mightily, but where?

Secca took a deep breath. There was little she could do. The ride to Pamr had been long, so long it had been well past sunset, into the second glass of the night, when she had slowly dismounted in the courtyard, and well into the fourth glass before she had pulled the covers in this strange guest chamber over her.

Even trying to search out the cause of that disruption would not be wise, not until she had more rest, and more food. In any case, there was little enough that she could do. Perhaps when she returned to Loiseau…

Still, she checked every corner of her chamber, and the latch bolt to the room, before she returned to her bed and blew out the lamp.

And…tired as she was, she found sleep was a long time returning.

Standing just back from the archway to the large practice room of the domed building that lay almost half a dek to the south of the walls of Loiseau, Secca listened as the second players worked through the spellsong.

Their copper-tipped finger guards struck the metal strings of the lutars with a precision that it had taken Anna—and Secca—years to develop. Then the three sizes of lutars had also taken years of effort to design and make. Finding a way to draw the wire strings had been the hardest, since spellsinging didn't work nearly so well in replicating tempered or highly forged objects, such as master blades or wire.

Although Delvor and the second players had accompanied Secca to Falcor, neither Secca nor Anna had employed the second players beyond the lands of Mencha, except for road- and bridge building. Mainly, they had been used in wresting metals from the hills west of the Ostfels, but always on the lands held by Loiseau. So far they had not been needed elsewhere and for other uses, although Anna had insisted that the time for their use would come.

Delvor nodded in time to the simple harmony, the hard, almost drumlike rhythms of the lutars shaking the windows in their casements. The lead player's lank brown hair flopped across his forehead. While his hair was far thinner than in years previous, it was still as long and brown and unkempt.

Secca smiled. Delvor was a far better lutarist and lutar leader than he had ever been a violino player. She slipped away, down the corridor to the smaller workroom where Richina was drilling Jeagyn and Kerisel in the simpler vocalises. For a time she stood
in the door and listened. At the end of the first exercise, Richina glanced toward Secca.

“Your mouths aren't open wide enough,” Secca said. “For a spellsong to carry, you must use all that you have with as little effort as possible. If your mouths are closed, you have to work harder, and the spell will not carry so far. In a battle, that could mean you would die under the arrows of archers loosing shafts from beyond your voice. In working the mines, that could mean more spells…or less iron.”

“Yes, lady,” chorused the three.

Secca smiled and nodded. “You will learn.” Then she continued into the spell-shielded room that held the scrying pool. She closed the chamber door behind her. Her eyes slipped past the pool to the iron door of the safe room. Behind the door were the bookcase filled with notebooks and the rows of overlarge sealed jars on the shelves of the second bookcase, each containing a different substance, finely ground. There was also a second smaller strong room within the safe room that contained strong-boxes filled with gold bars, coins, and a few other items.

Secca's eyes dropped to the desk she and Anna had shared in recent years, when Anna had asked Secca to write down yet more of the scraps of knowledge Anna had remembered from the Mist Worlds. Secca shook her head, recalling the reason for all the notebooks, remembering the two times when she and Anna had tried to retrieve what Anna had called textbooks. Both times, the volumes had arrived as flaming masses, accompanied with ugly dissonant chords, and both times, Anna and Secca had been prostrated.

Dissonant chords—with that thought, Secca lifted the lutar case and opened it. She needed to find out exactly who had been manipulating the Harmonies two nights before. She should have checked earlier, but she had hesitated to push herself. She'd seen too often what that had done to Anna.

Still…both the power and the ugliness alarmed her, and she couldn't imagine that it had been Clayre's or Jolyn's doing. After tuning the lutar, she concentrated on the reflecting pool and the scrying spell.

As the image filled the silvered waters of the pool, Secca swallowed in spite of herself.

The harbor, for it had been a harbor, lay devastated—and she was seeing it after two days. The heavy timbers of the piers had been snapped as if they had been basket withies ground under enormous wagon wheels and then scattered carelessly. Ship timbers of various lengths and colors floated on the muddy water, as did other objects, including white specks that might have been bodies. The buildings around the harbor had been reduced to heaps of stone and bricks or snarled and twisted piles of wood. In the distance, she could see a single solid stone bridge—untouched except for the rubble heaped under and around it.

The bridge looked familiar, and she smiled wanly. The harbor had to be that of Narial.

She released the spell, singing a second version.

The scene was almost identical, except the silvered waters showed more of the shoreline, with a greater number of piles of shattered structures.

The third spell was to find who created the damage. That revealed a fleet of nearly two score ships—warships of Sturinnese design, sailing in formation, northward, from what Secca could tell from the lighting. With no land in sight, there was little way for her to determine just where that fleet was headed, except that it meant ill for some land.

“An invasion fleet…” She shook her head. Clayre was somewhere enroute to Neserea. Jolyn was traveling back to Falcor, if she hadn't deliberately mislaid or “misunderstood” the messages sent to her.

What about Hadrenn and Ebra? And the troublesome Mynntar? First, Mynntar.

The next image in the pool was that of a tall and broad-shouldered and clean-shaven blonde man, wearing a burgundy tunic, riding at the head of a very long column, a smile on his face.

Somehow, Mynntar's smile seemed even more dishonest than when Secca had studied him earlier. Was that because of the open honesty of Lythner's smile? Secca shook her head. Lythner might be honest and warm, but those qualities were not enough, and she hoped she would not find herself settling for such.

It took her several more attempts to scry enough of the column to determine that the lancers were riding westward along a river, and that at least five companies were clad in the white tunics of Sturinn. Almost as disturbing were the dozen wagons following the lancers.

After releasing the last scrying image, she poured the order-spelled water prepared by Richina into the goblet and took several long swallows. There was no way to reach Clayre, but she owed Robero a message with the news. It might arrive scorched on his conference table, but arrive it would.

She sat at the desk and began to write on the heavy parchment. When she was finished, she scanned the lines.

She reread the scroll, then rolled it and sealed it. Then she placed it in the copper traveling tube, the tube lined with the fuzzy mineral Anna had called asbestos.

With a long deep breath, she picked up the lutar.

After dispatching the scroll, she found her entire body shiv
ering. But then, that was expected. Parchment had once been living and even sending it was a form of Darksong, although it was encased in metal. A minor form, but Darksong, nonetheless—although many forms of sorcery bordered Darksong, and the line between Dearsong and Darksong was far less distinct than even most sorcerers or sorceresses would admit.

Secca sank onto the hard surface of the wooden desk chair.
You haven't done that much scrying in seasons
. Not in so short a time, at least, and the message scroll hadn't helped. Then, everything associated with sorcery had its costs—as Anna had so often emphasized.

She sat for a time before the small desk, drinking water from the pitcher and slowly eating the hard biscuits that Anna had always insisted be kept in the tin by the reflecting pool.

Finally, she rose and walked down the corridor, stopping at the door of the first players' practice room, empty except for the chief player.

Palian turned. “What's wrong?”

“Everything. The Sea-Priests have raised a giant wave that has destroyed Narial, all except for the bridge Anna built. They have an invasion fleet somewhere south of Liedwahr, and Mynntar has raised armsmen and is riding toward Synek. There's plotting and a possible uprising being planned in Neserea, and the old Liedfuhr of Mansuur died less than half a season ago, and there are probably plots against Kestrin as well.”

“And Wei?”

“The Council won't make trouble for Defalk, but I can't see them helping much either.”

“Do you still plan to go to Synek?”

“More than ever. We'll take all the players and all but one company of lancers. We can do something about Mynntar. I don't know that I can do anything about a Sturinnese fleet.”

“Where will they strike? The Sturinnese?”

Secca spread her hands. “Dumar is not so strong as it should be, and with Narial destroyed, Dumar would be easiest at first. But the Sturinnese have disliked the Matriarchs of Ranuak for generations, and they could also attack the Free City of Elahwa to support Mynntar.”

“Ranuak or Dumar,” Palian suggested. “They gain little from Elahwa.”

“We will see.”

“I will refresh the players with the battle spells when they return.”

“Thank you.” Secca offered a smile to the graying chief player before she turned.

Outside, in the blustery gray afternoon, she mounted the gray and rode back toward the open gates of Loiseau, followed as always by four lancers in green. Silently, she rode upon the stones of the side lane to the main road leading to the gates, then through the gates and the north courtyard to the stables. There, she dismounted.

“You'd be looking grim, lady,” offered Vyren as he took the gray mare's reins after Secca dismounted. “I'd be wagering it not be the weather.”

“You'd be right.” Realizing the grimness of her tone, she added quickly, “I'm sorry, Vyren. I hadn't planned on all that has happened. It will be a hard winter, and a harder spring.” She forced a smile. “We'll do what we can.”

Vyren nodded sagely. “One doesn't lose a great lady often.”

“No. Her loss is greater than any realized.” That was certainly turning out to be true.

From the stables, Secca walked through the open iron gate into the rear bailey—the one she and Anna had added with sorcery ten years earlier—and toward the large structure set before the westernmost wall.

The dull impact of a hammer against hot metal filled the chill air of late fall as Secca stepped into the smithy. She stood well back from the forge, watching as Belan turned hot iron on the anvil and, with deft hammer blows, fullered the circular shape into a thinner and broader form.

Only when he had taken the tongs and replaced the cooling iron in the furnace did she speak. “How goes it, master smith?”

Turning to the sorceress, Belan blotted his brow with the back of his forearm. “Would that I were a sorcerer, Lady Secca. Would that I were…”

“Sorcery does not work well for what you do. The Lady
Anna tried, and so have I.” She shrugged. “It takes hard work to forge what will change Defalk.”

“I'd be knowing that. The parts, they be straight enough, but the seals…fitting them so that the steam does not burst forth…”

The smith gestured to the model of the engine upon the rear work shelf—the one that lay in pieces. “Even from it came steam.”

“I know. We did tell you that you would be paid well—because the work would be hard.”

“That you did, Lady Secca. That you did.” Belan laughed. “I have had to learn casting, and casting iron such as this…” He shrugged. After a moment he added. “We will need more iron soon.”

Secca nodded. “We'll go to the Sand Pass mine on the way to Synek. You can bring back what we take from the hills. You may have to use some of it for the special arrows and some for blades.”

“Folk are talking about fighting. Not in a score of years…”

“There will be fighting,” Secca admitted. “We will try to keep it from becoming war.”

“You sorceresses will?”

She nodded.

Belan looked toward the iron in the forge, then back at the redhead, questioningly.

“Liedwahr will still need engines such as those, perhaps more than we thought.”

“Be seasons yet, lady.”

“I know.” Secca smiled gently.

When Belan turned to the forge once more, Secca slipped from the smithy.

As she walked back toward her room to ponder all that was happening, thoughts swirled through her head. She needed to review the spells to use against thunder-drums and Darksong, and all sorts of other spells Anna had developed, spells unused in years. She couldn't count on there not being a Sea-Priest with the Sturinnese lancers.

She also needed to think about how far she dared to go. Anna
had been regent when she had fought in Ebra, and Secca was far from a regent. Protector of the East, which allowed her to support and defend Hadrenn, but then what?

Would she have any choices? Would she recognize them?