The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle (43 page)

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Authors: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

BOOK: The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle
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L
ooking ahead to the bridge across the river, Anna reflected that the Chean River wasn’t even a river, but more like the Platte in August—a thin stream lost in wide banks cloaked in browning vegetation. Because of all the irrigation in the river valley, the Chean carried less water than it had at Sorprat.
The sorceress had not slept well the night before, perhaps because they had stopped short of Pamr and bedded down in an abandoned barn, perhaps because her digestive system was having trouble coping with all the food her sorcery demanded, or perhaps because she continued to worry about her sorcery itself. She was relying on what she
felt
, and after her failure to scry Mario in the mirror, she’d begun to wonder. Was sorcery as reliable as it had seemed? Had she accomplished what she had tried with the river bluffs—or was she deceiving herself? Had her earlier successes been based on her ability? Or had she been lucky? Or was sorcery just unreliable in trying to view an earth based on technology? That didn’t even deal with what she
knew
about people. Too many in authority—like Avery or Behlem—demanded proof for others to justify their actions, while conveniently ignoring it for their own. Proof
that Virkan was abusing people, proof that Delor would have kept trying to kill her—and the only proof of that would have been her death.
There remained so much she did not know. She took a long, slow breath, and let it out equally slowly, trying to settle her churning stomach. Her eyes drifted northward, drawn by … something. She squinted as the morning sun caught the corner of her eye, but despite the glare she could see a line of armed horsemen waiting silently on the low hill above the green fields of some sort of beans.
“Lady …” said Spirda softly. “To our right …”
“I see them. Let’s keep riding.” The bridge wasn’t that far ahead.
Anna glanced to the bridge, then back to the hill. A single rider rode slowly downhill at an angle, so that he would cross the meadow ahead to Anna’s right and meet them on the road.
“One rider,” said Daffyd.
“They want something,” affirmed Spirda.
Again, Anna wanted to strangle them both for stating the obvious as though she had no brains at all. Instead, she contented herself with a single word. “Obviously.”
A low guffaw came from one of the armsmen riding behind. Fhurgen? Or one of the others—Hirreno, perhaps? She couldn’t tell without looking, and she didn’t need to, since whoever it was happened to be laughing at the self-officiousness of Daffyd and Spirda.
She checked the larger body of riders motionless on the hill beyond the irrigated bean field. They had not moved. By now, Anna, Daffyd, and the squad of armsmen were closer to the stone bridge across the Chean than to the armed riders. As they neared the mown meadow, the single rider, wearing a blue sash and bearing a white banner, trotted toward the squad.
“What is your pleasure, lady?” asked Spirda.
Anna studied the weathered but thin face of the man who rode ever closer. Except for reins and banner staff, his hands were empty.
“Let him close enough to speak.”
The rider, clearly unsure of his reception, reined up a good twenty yards from Anna and her group.
“I bear a message for the lady Anna.”
Anna eased Farinelli away from the others only slightly. “I’m Anna.”
“The lord Jecks begs your indulgence and would like a word with you.” The rider bowed.
“Should you?” asked Spirda. “He hasn’t declared his allegiance to the Prophet.”
“That might be a good reason to meet him. I talked with him before, briefly, and he seemed honest.”
“Seemings are not always truths.”
“I’ll risk it.” Anna turned to the messenger. “I’ll meet him on the open meadow there. Alone. Everyone else must stay well away from us.”
“No arms,” hissed Spirda, behind Anna.
“I will bear no arms, except my knife, and I trust that Lord Jecks will also bear no arms.”
“He will be alone.” The messenger nodded. “Without his blade or bow.”
“He is keeping his armsmen well beyond bow range,” said Spirda. “He must want to speak with you badly.”
“Very badly,” added Daffyd.
Anna watched as the messenger urged his mount up the low hill and as a single rider eased away from the mounted armsmen there. As Jecks rode downhill, Anna eased Farinelli into the middle of the meadow and reined up.
The stocky white-haired rider drew up a few yards from Anna, keeping his bare hands in plain view.
Farinelli whuffled, then sidestepped.
“Easy … easy …” Anna patted his shoulder.
“Lady Anna.” The white-haired man inclined his head. “I took this risk in the hopes that you would not employ your sorcery to destroy me. It is a risk, from what I hear, but at my age, you discover that everything is a risk.”
“What you do want?” Anna asked. “I’m sorry if I’m too blunt, but I know little about you, except that we spoke
briefly before the battle of the Sand Pass, and that you seemed honest. The few common people who knew you thought you kept your word.”
Jecks smiled briefly, an open smile that Anna liked, although she kept her distance, her eyes occasionally checking the horsemen on the ridge. Spirda had said they were well out of bow-shot, and she hoped he was correct.
“I have heard the same about you, and also that you are a sorceress who has great power, and dislikes using that power.”
He wouldn’t have said that if he’d been around Falcor lately
, thought Anna. “The situation here seems designed to force me to employ everything that I know,” she admitted aloud.
And much that I don’t,
she added to herself.
It isn’t Kansas, Dorothy, or even Ames, Iowa.
After a puzzled look, Jecks added, “You, and Lord Brill, served Lord Barjim in trying to stop the dark ones. You may recall that my daughter was his consort.”
“I recall.” Anna had liked Alasia, certainly a point in Jecks’ favor.
Jecks nodded. “I managed to recover half my forces from the battle. The dark ones were reluctant to pursue after your efforts. Instead of returning directly to Elhi, I rode to Falcor and escorted my grandson from the liedstadt to his ancestral home—where he now remains.”
Anna could feel her forehead knitting in puzzlement. “What do you want from. me?”
“Might I ask why you have chosen to serve the Prophet Behlem? If you would not mind telling me?” Jecks offered another wry smile, looking much younger than the silverwhite hair initially had indicated.
The sorceress pursed her lips for a moment, scanning the horizon again, but neither her squad nor Jecks’ horsemen had moved. “I didn’t see anyone else trying to stop the dark ones. After that battle, I felt someone had to. Those people are … They’re evil,” she concluded, much as she hated to pin that label on anyone.
“Why do you feel you must fight them?” Jecks asked.
“Humor me, please, with these questions. I am an old man, trying to protect his only grandson.”
Jecks, for all the white hair, didn’t look that old, probably not any older than Anna was, and he was stocky, muscular, and doubtless quite a fighter. In fact, Anna concluded to herself, he was a lot more attractive than any of the men she’d seen so far—clean-shaven, honorable, and willing to stand up for what he believed in. Plus … he seemed to have a wry sense of humor, or something like it.
“I saw terrible things in my world, and they only got worse because no one would stand up to stop them. There, because magic was different, I could do nothing. Here I can.” She laughed, not quite harshly. “You might say that life has called my bluff.”
“Thank you, Lady Anna.” Jecks bowed his head. “I would beg your leave to talk with you again. The Prophet sent a messenger, but I would reply first through you. You may tell the lord Behlem that while I will not join his forces, I will not fight him, and I will do all that I can to hold back the dark ones.” The older lord offered a more wintry, but still open smile. “Florenda, the player Liende, and Albero wish to be remembered to you. It was their idea that I speak with you, and I am glad I heeded it. A good trip back to Falcor to you, Lady Anna.”
“I will tell the Prophet, and I will do my best to persuade him of your goodwill.”
“I would not deceive you, lady. I bear neither goodwill nor evil will for Lord Behlem. I wish to save Defalk.” Jecks inclined his head, then turned his mount toward the east.
What was that last bit all about?
wondered Anna. She shook her head as she eased Farinelli back toward her squad.
“Will you destroy them?” asked Spirda as Anna reined up Farinelli.
“No. He had a message for the Prophet, and the Prophet should hear that message and make his own decision.” Anna reached for her water bottle. Suddenly, her throat was dry, and she was thirsty. Since Jecks had agreed to fight the
dark ones, she didn’t believe that Behlem had so many armsmen that he could afford to spurn the offer. Still, she wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t about to blurt it out.
“The Prophet may not be pleased.”
Anna finished drinking and eased the water bottle into the straps, then nudged Farinelli enough to start the gelding on their interrupted course toward the bridge. “The Prophet has requested allegiance, and Lord Jecks has asked me to deliver his reply. The Prophet should make his own judgment on Lord Jecks.”
And he’d be a fool to take on a fight he doesn’t need to right now.
Spirda rode silently beside Anna, frowning. The sorceress ignored his displeasure, wishing the subofficer would grow up. Then, she reminded herself, Spirda had not seen or felt that dark massed power of the Ebrans, and some people learned only from what they experienced personally. Was she like that? She hoped not, but self-delusion was the easiest of all deceptions.
ESARIA, NESEREA
T
he raven-haired woman leans forward, stopping short of where the top of the low-cut pale green gown would reveal too much to the officer in the maroon uniform of a lancer of Mansuur. “You have followed the dispatches from Falcor?”
“Yes, my lady Cyndyth.” The officer remains erect, his voice polite, formal.
“Is it true that this sorceress who has joined the Prophet killed many of the darksingers at the battle for the Sand Pass?” Cyndyth leans back in the dark polished wooden armchair that is not quite a throne, her green eyes the same shade as the brocade trim of the chair’s head-high upholstery.
“So it is said, my lady.”
“And she has joined the Prophet’s forces in Falcor?”
“Yes, my lady.”
Cyndyth lifts the crystal goblet, sips the pale red wine, then replaces it on the silver tray that sits upon the table to her right. Long slender fingers lift a candied almond from the silver dish on the tray. “Is she beautiful?”
“She is said to be young and blonde.” The lancer’s forehead crinkles ever so slightly as he adds, “Yet it is also said that she has children as old as you are, my lady.”
“Does she have scars, great gashes on her skin?” asks Cyndyth. “I heard the dark ones nearly killed her.”
“The dark ones seek her, or so says the counselor Menares, and she was thrown from the walls by their attack. Yet she lives.”
“You do serve the Liedfuhr, do you not?”
“As I must, Lady Cyndyth. As my family has ever.” A faint sheen of perspiration coats the officer’s forehead.
“And you know that my father is ever vigilant?”
“The vigilance of the Liedfuhr is legendary.”
Cyndyth laughs, softly, throatily, and lifts the goblet for another sip of the wine. “It is legendary. You are so comic, Nubara. So formal. So careful.”
“I understand my duties, lady, and do my best to fulfill them.”
“So you do.” Cyndyth’s voice turns lazy, slow, as she continues. “A sorceress who is young and blonde … a battle against the dark ones that must be won … and after that?” She shrugs and a smooth-skinned shoulder is momentarily uncovered. “Once the mighty Eladdrin is vanquished, will the Prophet need a sorceress? Will the Liedfuhr?” She straightens in the chair and reaches for another almond. “Oh, you might wish to inform my sire that we will be departing for Falcor.”
“‘We,’ my lady?” asks Nubara.
“You are the envoy of the Liedfuhr to the Prophet, and the Prophet—and the sorceress—are in Falcor. How could you possibly deal with the sorceress from here? Or serve
the Liedfuhr?” Even white teeth delicately crush the almond, and Cyndyth takes another sip of wine. “You will serve the Liedfuhr, will you not, by ensuring that the next battle of this sorceress is her last battle?”
“I serve the will of the Liedfuhr.” Nubara’s forehead is even brighter with sweat.
“I am so sure you do, Nubara.” Cyndyth smiles slowly, showing white teeth framed by reddened lips. “So very sure that you will not misunderstand his will in this. We leave tomorrow.”

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