The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (7 page)

Anna paused outside the receiving room and looked to Barat, the one page not in lessons.

“Yes, lady?”

“I’ll need some bread and cheese. And a piece of fruit, if there is any.”

Leaving Giellum outside with Blaz, who had hurried back from the large hall, she entered the receiving room, glancing to the rear window, and the hint of sunlight after the days of mixed rain and snow.

With a sigh, she slumped into her chair at the table.

One player, no weapons smith, no messengers getting anywhere fast, and enemies on just about all sides.

She had to do
something!

First, she shuffled through all the papers she’d reclaimed from Loiseau, Brill’s hall in Mencha, until she found those dealing with building. There were no spells of bridges—just for a barn and a fort. For a moment, she studied Brill’s spell for the fort, probably the one he had built at the Sand Pass, murmuring the words as she read, trying to get a feel for the rhythm.

“. . . replicate the bricks and stones.
Place them in their proper zones . . .
Set the blocks, and set them square
set them to their pattern there . . .”

The spell melody notes were a cross between chord symbols and medieval tablature—and hard enough to decipher, let alone turn into music.

“Lady?” Barat stood in the door with a platter in hand.

“Thank you.” The growling of her stomach reminded her—again—how. she couldn’t put off eating, especially with what she had in mind for the afternoon.

After she finished everything on the platter, a feat that would have turned her into a butterball once upon a time, she began to scrawl out possible spells on the brown paper.

Then she took out the lutar, tuned it, and tried the words—only in her head—with the chords.

Finally, she lifted the bell and rang it. This time Resor opened the door.

“Resor, would you tell Fhurgen that I am going riding in a bit, and that I’ll need two squads of guards, or whatever he and Alvar think is right.”

“Yes, Lady Anna.” Resor did not close the door, then asked, “What should I tell them if they ask me your destination?”

“Somewhere around Falcor.”

“Yes, lady.”

Anna replaced the lutar in its case, and picked up both the case and her jacket and hat.

Blaz and Giellum flanked her on the walk from the main building to the stables.

Tirsik met her before she had taken a pace inside. “Lady Anna.” The white-haired and wiry stablemaster nodded, glancing at Anna’s riding gear and the lutar case. “The roads are foul.”

“I’m not going far. Just to the other side of Falcor up by where the bridge was.”

“Even the roads in Falcor are slippery.”

“Then few will be out.”

A wry and wintry smile crossed the white-haired stablemaster’s face. “As you wish, and it usually is, my lady.”

“I know, Tirsik. I’m being difficult. So is most of Liedwahr at the moment.” She added, “I hope I didn’t ask too much of you when I sent Menares over to have you instruct some of the riders and messengers on foul-weather traveling.”

“It be my pleasure, lady, and glad to put what these gray hairs have learned to service.”

“You are a learned rascal.”

“Once, lady. No longer.”

Anna grinned and headed for Farinelli’s stall. The palomino gelding greeted her with a loud
whuff
.

“I know. I’m late, and you want to be groomed on schedule.” By the time she had Farinelli brushed and saddled, Fhurgen and her guards had formed up in the liedburg courtyard.

Anna pulled on the leather riding jacket and the floppy-brimmed hat of the type that had seen her through her time in Defalk, then strapped the lutar in the case behind the saddle. She led Farinelli out, mounted and nodded to Fhurgen. “Let’s go.”

She let Farinelli pick his way across the wet stones of the courtyard and out through the main gate. Fhurgen and the guards followed.

The north breeze was chilly, even for Anna, but the leather jacket kept her comfortable. She could sense the shivers of the guards, and catch a few phrases.

“. . . know she comes from the mist worlds . . . day like this . . .”

“. . . doesn’t even
look
cold . . .”

“. . . went through the Ostfels in six feet of snow . . .” “Tyres said . . .”

Anna wanted to snort. The expedition against the Evult had been in late fall, and there hadn’t been any snow to speak of. Some cold rain, but no snow.

As she rode across the flat outside the liedburg and toward the road that led through the part of Falcor north of the keep, Anna studied the buildings. A few more bore signs of life, like smoke from chimneys, or new shutters or even windows. There were still too many empty structures.

Two blocks up, she saw a new sign—a picture board depicting a golden lutar outside a refurbished, inn. Anna laughed. The Golden Lutar—clearly an attempt at flattery, since the instrument had been made by Daffyd specially for her and was, so far as she knew, the only one in Liedwahr.

Still, the rebuilt inn was one good signal at a time when there were few enough.

Her smile faded when they reached the north end of
Falcor and the Falche River. Anna reined up and studied the ruined bridge buttresses, the remnants from the flood unleashed by the Evult of Ebra, and the riverbed, through which ran a muddy and winding track.

Originally, the old bridge had consisted of three spans, the ends of each outer span anchored in the rock on each side of the river. The center span had been anchored on the western side to a pier sunk into the rock beneath the riverbed and to a second pier on the eastern side which had rested on a rocky islet in the river. Parts of the two piers remained, and muddy water swirled around the disarrayed stones, covering the lower section of the rude trail that travelers had used after the bridge had been swept away.

Anna finally turned in the saddle and fumbled with the lutar case, easing the instrument out, and then easing Farinelli forward.

“Fhurgen, please move the armsmen back.”

“Yes, lady.” The dark-bearded squad leader raised his arm. “Back. Back to the pedestal there.”

As her guards guided their mounts back toward the pediment that might once have held a statue, Anna ran her fingers over the strings and checked the lutar’s tuning. Then she ran through the spell melody once, thinking the words.

She cleared her throat and began the spell, not belting, but using full concert voice.

“. . . replicate the blocks and stones.
Place them in their proper zones . . .
Set them firm, and set them square
weld them to their pattern there . . .

“Bring the rock and make it stone . . .”

The stone under the bluff seemed to shift even before she finished the first verse.
Strophic spell
, her thoughts corrected automatically.

A shiver in the harmonies underlying all Liedwahr followed the last chord, except Anna knew only she heard that shiver, she and any other sorcerer or sorceress. The lightning that flashed across the half-clear sky was visible to all, and murmurs swept across the armsmen as the white-and-gray clouds began to darken into black.

Anna, holding the lutar one-handed, used the other on the reins to urge Farinelli away from the edge of a bluff that suddenly felt all too insecure.

The ground rumbled, and dust puffed from beneath the sodden upper soil that overlay the rocks beneath. Another flash of light seared across a sky that had become dark gray.

The edge of the bluff from where Anna had begun the spell shivered, then peeled away in a brown-and-gray cascade, even as a shimmering mist of silver, sheathed in the faintest of rainbows, began to arch across the river.

The sorceress, feeling lightheadedness slashing across her consciousness, struggled to get the lutar back in its case.

How would you replace it now?

The ground shifted again, and Anna struggled to stay balanced in the saddle as Farinelli sidestepped and she tried to close the lutar case.

A line of fire seared across her eyes, and again that gigantic harp that affected only her strummed somewhere she could not see, but only sense.

More dust rose around her with the grinding of rocks below, and the river began to boil, sending steam up to mix with dust and rock powder, until the entire area from one edge of the Falche to the other was cloaked in a gray mist.

Anna’s eyes burned, and her head swam, and she grabbed for Farinelli’s mane, as the entire world turned black.

T
he dark-haired youth shivers and draws his green cloak more tightly around him. He sits on a green cushion in the gilt throne chair that comprises the official seat of the Lord of Neserea, and the Protector of the Faith of the Eternal Melody.

A cold breeze seeps into the receiving room that adjoins the empty, columned, hilltop chamber used in the summer. Through the single window, the youth who is neither boy nor man can see the fluted marble pillars, and beyond them, the whitecaps of the Bitter Sea.

“Am I not the Prophet of Music, Nubara?”

“Young Lord Rabyn, you are indeed the heir of the Prophet of Music and will rule Neserea—” The officer in the maroon uniform of a lancer of Mansuur breaks off his words as the youth’s eyes flash.

“Grandsire’s message said I was Lord now.”

“He also confirmed me as acting regent for him in your name.” Nubara smiles politely.

“But you should serve me.” The hint of a pout frames the full red lips.

“I serve the will of the Liedfuhr.” Nubara smiles broadly. “Always in your interests, most assuredly.”

The music of low strings sifts through the morning stillness from the adjoining Temple of Music, providing a soothing background that neither Lancer nor youth acknowledges.

“What are you doing about that evil woman who killed my mother and my father the Prophet?” Rabyn’s eyes
narrow as he watches the older man who stands below the low dais.

“The sorceress Anna, Lord Rabyn?” Nubara’s smile narrows. “Your grandsire has indicated that he was most displeased, and that he will take such matters into his own hands. Fiftyscore lancers make their way here to Esaria.”

“That’s not what I asked. What are you doing?”

“Following the orders of the Liedfuhr. I am, after all, a Lancer of Mansuur.”

“You are a . . .” Rabyn frowns, then smiles. “I should be thankful to you.”

“It is hard to be patient when great wrongs have been done, Lord Rabyn. You must recall that the sorceress subverted fully a third of your sire’s forces, and murdered most of those officers who were loyal to him . . . and to you. We are working to rebuild your armsmen.”

“All of the Prophet’s Guard returned, except for their commander. You could command them.”

“I could indeed. Would you have me lead them against the evil sorceress and lose them as well? She has never lost a battle, and those who have opposed her have never lost less than the majority of their forces. There are no armsmen left in all of Ebra.” Nubara bows slightly, raising his eyebrows.

“She can be defeated. Anyone can be defeated.” The pout on Rabyn’s lips grows fuller.

“That is what your grandsire believes. That will take many armies. The sorceress can be in but one place at one time. She must be encircled so that her armies are reduced and destroyed.”

“That is why you are seeking more armsmen?”

“Exactly, Lord Rabyn. Exactly.” Nubara smiles and bows.

“Thank you, Nubara. You may go.” Rabyn’s eyes remain on the lancer until the older man leaves the chamber. Then the young Prophet of Music shivers and readjusts the heavy cloak.

Y
ou are so good with young voices, Anna dear. I really do not understand why you persist in this sorcery business.” Her eyes cold, Dieshr smiled across the too-neat desk at Anna.

Anna wanted to scream, but what was the use? Dieshr was Music Department Chair, and Anna didn’t have tenure. And what was this sorcery Dieshr was talking about? Anna certainly didn’t believe in witchcraft.

“Besides, you should devote your energies to obtaining a doctorate. That would make you far more marketable in today’s academic community.”

A doctorate? After all the years when Avery—the great Antonio—had offered reason after reason why it wasn’t the right time, or appropriate, or whatever? “The children are too young.” “We can’t afford it . . . perhaps next year.” “You wouldn’t take off now, not when I’ve just gotten this break with the New York City Opera?” “Teenagers really need their mother . . . it’s the most sensitive part of their life.”

Anna did scream, and Dieshr vanished into gray smoke, and the scream came out of her too-dry mouth more like a groan. The gray smoke turned into gray walls.

Her head ached—throbbed—and her mouth was dry. A blonde face swam into view.

“Lady . . . please drink. You must drink.”

She drank what tasted like vinegar, and the gray walls turned black again.

The next time she woke, Cataryzna was still waiting.

“Can you drink, lady?”

Anna nodded and sipped from the cup. Her eyes still
burned, and her head continued to throb, if less violently. She took a small swallow, then another.

The door opened, and a white-haired figure slipped into the chamber, and settled onto the chair beside the bed.

Anna wondered if she looked as terrible as she felt. She could tell she was dehydrated and started to reach for the cup. Cataryzna lifted it to her lips.

From the light, Anna thought it was morning.

“Morning?” she finally asked.

“It is morning, lady,” answered Cataryzna. “We were not sure you would see it.”

Anna tried to struggle into more of a sitting position, and her blonde fosterling—Lord Geansor’s daughter—adjusted the pillows behind her.

“More . . . wine.” Anna drank again, and could almost feel the worst of the headache subsiding. Lord, was she that dehydrated? She probably had no blood-sugar level at all, either.

“Some bread might help.”

“I will get it.” Cataryzna slipped toward the door and out into the second floor corridor, her shoulder-length hair flying out behind her.