The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Ehara may respond to no other force.” The muscular lord shrugged fluidly.

  “Do you wish to use sorcery?” asked Hanfor.

  “The only kind of sorcery that I can think of that would be effective is the kind that kills people,” Anna said. Are you sure?

  Jecks shrugged.

  “In other words, I have to find a way to slaughter most of the able-bodied armsmen in Dumar, or risk having this tradition-bound idiot continually stirring up trouble in southern Defalk.”

  “I know of no other way. Even had you the golds he demands, to pay them would only encourage him to demand more.”

  Anna repressed a glare at Jecks. She’d already figured that out. She stood. “I need a few moments to think before dinner.” And to cool off . . . if you can.

  “As you wish, my lady. I would that it were otherwise,” said Jecks, rising and bowing.

  Hanfor just bowed. “Lady Anna.”

  She waited until the door closed.

  Why? Why did it come down to how many people she could kill?

  There had to be another way . . . there just had to be—some way to show Ehara that she was powerful and was withholding that power. Some way that didn’t involve mass slaughter.

  She started to look for her green slipper shoes, her thoughts skittering every which way, but always coming back to the issue of force.

  As she slipped on the second shoe and straightened, her eyes went toward the Great Chasm. She frowned. The Chasm was big; it had rock walls that looked sturdy, and it could hold a lot of water, maybe even as much as Lake Mead or Lake Powell, and they’d taken years to fill.

  How would Dumar do without water?

  She smiled. It’s only an idea . . . but . . .

  With a brisk nod to herself, she headed toward the door and dinner

  75

  Anna glanced toward the window and the bright morning light—much brighter than she felt as she glanced over Lord Ehara’s scroll again. Hanfor glanced at Jecks, and the older lord glanced back. Both watched Anna.

  “Before I do anything, I’d like to see how Lord Birfels reacts. That’s why I summoned you. He should be here any moment.”

  “Yes, Regent.” Hanfor nodded.

  “He knew a messenger arrived yesterday,” Jecks pointed out. “He may be unhappy he was not told sooner.”

  “He’ll be the first to know, besides you two. That will have to do.”

  Both men fell silent, either deciding to see what happened or because of the chill in Anna’s voice.

  “Lord Birfels,” announced Rickel.

  “Have him join us.”

  “You had asked to see me, Lady Anna?” Birfels bowed as he entered the sorceress’s work chamber, first to Anna, and then to Jecks and Hanfor. Hanfor and Jecks stood as he entered.

  “Please sit down.” Anna remained seated at the table, waiting until the ruddy-faced lord slipped into the chair opposite her.

  “Thank you.”

  “You are a lord of the Thirty-three, Lord Birfels.” Anna smiled. “How do you feel about Lord Ehara of Dumar?”

  “Lord Ehara?” Birfels frowned. “You have told how he sent lancers into Defalk. Before that . . . none scarce heard of him.”

  “Would you say that most lords of the Thirty-three would feel that way?” Anna’s tone was almost idle.

  “We have heard little of Dumar nor had to worry little in previous years.” Birfels shrugged.

  “Lord Ehara is beginning to give you good reason to worry.” Anna extended the scroll with the crimson-and-gold ribbons across the table. “If you would read this.”

  Birfels began to read. By the time his eyes were halfway down the sheet, his normally mobile face was set in stone. Finally, he lowered the scroll. “He is most offended.”

  “Yes, he is.” Anna forced a smile. “I’m a little confused. As I pointed out earlier to Lord Jecks, Lord Ehara has sent golds to support rebel lords in Defalk. He has sent lancers directly against the Regency, and against Defalk. I suggested to him that such was neither honorable nor proper and requested that he redeem his honor in gold. This was his response.”

  “It does appear . . . unusual.” Birfels paused. “Many have seen the Dumaran lancers? The ones in Defalk?”

  “Those in Dencer’s keep and Gylaron’s.” Hanfor’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “Those who were close to them at Suhl . . . perished with them.”

  Anna forced herself to remain calm, even as she could sense Birfels trying to rationalize how any lord of Dumar could be dishonorable.

  “Ah . . . yes.” Birfels glanced at the scroll again. “You did not mention this last night.”

  “I wanted to think about it.” So the most honorable Lord Birfels was watching the messenger, too. “Outside of Lord Jecks . . . and myself”—Anna couldn’t resist the reference to her own status as one of the Thirty-three of Defalk—“you are the first of the Thirty-three to see it.”

  “He may have been offended that you suggested his honor was not enough to back any pledge of . . . friendship.” Birfels glanced to Jecks, as if looking for support.

  “He may have been,” Anna said mildly. “His actions have not been exactly friendly. He does not mention the Sturinnese officers who have apparently pledged great friendship to him and to Dumar.”

  “Sturinn is far across the ocean to the west.” Birfels smiled. “Dumar has ports and trade. Defalk does not.”

  “That’s true.” Anna nodded slowly, trying to keep from visibly seething. “Yet a Dumar under Sturinn would not be good for Defalk.”

  “Sturinn ruling Dumar. That is like worrying about sour cider before the apples have fruited, much less fallen from the trees.” Birfels smiled.

  “Perhaps.” Anna nodded, turning to Hanfor. “Do you know how the Prophet of Music felt about Sturinn?”

  Hanfor touched his gray beard, pursed his lips for a moment. “He spoke of the need to put Liedwahr under one ruler before Sturinn turned its ships eastward.”

  “Aye, and he wanted to be that ruler,” said Birfels. “Much good his efforts gained him.”

  Anna cleared her throat. She’d heard enough. “You can see, Lord Birfels. This places Defalk in a difficult position. Lord Ehara is denying any responsibility for the damages he has already caused. He’s actually asking for blackmail—tribute,” Anna added at the look of incomprehension on Birfels’ face, “before he will assure Defalk he will not cause further trouble.”

  “That is true,” conceded the red-haired lord of Abenfel. “Yet you cannot match his forces, not armsman to armsman, or anywhere close.” He frowned. “You are not proposing a levy of sorts on the Thirty-three, or an increase in liedgeld?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” Anna kept her tone sweet. “I’m looking into applying some form of sorcery to Lord Ehara—something that would remind him that armsmen are not the only form of force.”

  “Would that . . .” Birfels broke off, almost embarrassed-looking.

  “Be honorable?” Anna finished. “I’d say sorcery is as honorable as slaughter, and more honorable than lying.” She smiled sweetly. “Wouldn’t you, Lord Birfels?”

  “Lord Ehara would doubtless not see it that way.” Birfels laughed abruptly. “I wish you well in whatever you plan. I can spare you perhaps two score armsmen, should you need them, and guesting here for so long as needful.”

  “Thank you. I may well need them. If I do, I will pay them. That would be the least I could do.” Anna rose. “Thank you for being so forthcoming, Lord Birfels.”

  “I am glad I have supported you, Lady Anna.” Birfels shook his head as he rose from the conference table. “And I will continue to do so.” He bowed. “If I may be of any other service . . .”

  “You have been most kind, and most hospitable.” Anna smiled again.

  Once the door closed, Jecks turned to Anna. “You are dangerous, Lady Anna.”

  “Thank you.” Not bad for almost losing it.

  “You have a sorcerous plan in mind. Birfels fe
els you do.”

  “I have an idea. I’d like to see what’s going on in Dumar first, but I definitely have an idea.” Like shutting off their water . . . just like the Evult shut off Defalk’s? “Isn’t Dumar very dependent on the water in the Falche? All the cities are on the river, aren’t they?”

  “No sorcery could hold that river . . .” Jecks shook his head. “. . . not even yours.”

  “Not sorcery itself, but a product of sorcery.” Maybe. She stood and headed to pick up the lutar. “We might as well see what we’re really up against.” And whether your thoughts about somehow damming the river make any sense—or would do anything at all.

  After tuning the lutar, and spending more time scrawling out adaptations of mirror spells, Anna reclaimed the lutar, glanced in the reflecting pool, then began the spell.

  “Show in Dumar, high and true,

  what the Sea-Priests do.

  Show me now, and show me all,

  where their ships and forces fall . . .”

  The sorceress lowered the lutar. The silver-shaded waters misted, then glowed before two images filled the pool. More than twenty three-masted ships lay in the harbor—Narial—while the split image showed another score anchored in a wide river below a bluff—Dumaria?

  Hanfor and Jecks, each flanking Anna, studied the waters.

  “Twoscore ships,” mused Hanfor. “I’d wager two hundred lancers or armsmen a hull.”

  Four thousand trained troops, Anna thought. That’s what the Sea-Priests can spare. We’ve got all of four hundred armsmen, plus levies, and that’s everything.

  Hanfor jotted down some notes for a moment; Jecks surveyed the images, nodding every so often.

  Steam began to curl off the water, and Anna could feel the beginning of a headache when she chanted the release spell. While the image would fade sooner or later, the spell cut it off—and the drain on her.

  “Those ships would say that the Sea-Priests wish to add Dumar and, in time, all of Liedwahr, to their domains.” Jecks fingered his smooth chin.

  Anna wondered how he managed to be so clean-shaven when hot water and safety razors weren’t available. He never seemed to cut himself, either.

  “Now that they have consolidated their hold on the Ostisles . . .” murmured Hanfor.

  Anna nodded, thinking. The ships were the key. What could she do? “What would happen if they lost their ships?”

  “They would not wish to send others, not soon,” offered Hanfor. “Armsmen, lancers, they have often lost such. Ships are prized.”

  Anna nodded and stepped away from the pool and to the table where she had laid out her skimpy references. As they watched, Anna took out the leather folder and began to page through Brill’s notes and papers—the ones she’d retrieved from Loiseau. Some of them made little sense, but she knew that fussy old Brill had to have written something on how he’d created the artificial lake and water gates at the Sand Pass.

  She didn’t have thousands of soldiers. She didn’t have handfuls of sorcerers. She didn’t have hundreds of storerooms of grains and strongbox rooms filled with gold. What golds she had already belonged to others, or might as well.

  Then, abruptly, she closed the folder. Seeking out water spells could wait—but only until she had time to work one out in quiet.

  “You are silent, Lady Anna,” ventured Jecks.

  “I’m considering more disastrous sorcery to deal with Lord Ehara and the Sea-Priests. I’m going to have to think some, though.”

  “You should take advantage of Lord Birfels’ hospitality while you can,” suggested Jecks. “Do not bury yourself here in your rooms.”

  “I won’t.” Not too much, anyway. “I could use a ride.” She smiled. “I’d like to see the Falche, and Lord Birfels certainly might feel happier if I were out of the keep for a bit.” She stood. “I’ll be down at the stables in a bit. Would you like to join me?”

  Hanfor bowed. “I appreciate your kindness.”

  “But professional armsmen ride too much, and there are duties pressing?” She smiled gently.

  “You understand, I see, lady.”

  Anna laughed gently. “Go do whatever. I’m not upset.”

  Jecks frowned. “I think I will go with you, lady.” He grinned suddenly. “You do little without a purpose.”

  “I’m taking advantage of Lord Birfels’ hospitality,” the sorceress pointed out.

  “I shall also.” The white-haired lord bowed.

  When she had closed the door behind the two, Anna walked back to the reflecting pool and picked up the lutar from the chest against the wall, then stepped up to the shimmering water.

  “Show me now so clear to see

  where the Falche’s cliffs most narrow be,

  that site so near . . .”

  The pool showed an image of a narrow gorge with high gray cliffs. The Falche seemed far below, a narrow ribbon of silver. Anna shook her head. What else could she rely on? And what other options did she have?

  “Let this scene of scrying, mirror filled with light, vanish like the darkness when the sun is bright . . .”

  She replaced the lutar in its case, closed the leather folder, and walked back to the bedchamber.

  “Now . . . for a ride. Let’s see what that gorge really looks like. . . . if it’s like I remember . . .”

  She frowned. Could she dam the river? Well . . . Brill and everyone else had said spells either worked or they didn’t. She hoped she could find the right location . . . and the right spell. A dam was a lot bigger than a bridge. But not as big as turning a valley into a volcano. . . .

  Somehow that didn’t comfort her a lot. She paused.

  What could happen? The Falche could just grow behind the dam she wasn’t sure she could create and fill up all the low canyons feeding into the Chasm behind the dam, maybe flood a few of the lowest fields in a year or two. Some day, it would flow over the spillway, and return to being the water source for Dumar. In the meantime, the Sturinnese might take over Dumar, and she and Jecks would have to decide whether a war in Dumar was worth it.

  On the other hand, after a few weeks of dryness, Ehara might reconsider.

  She shook her head. If Ehara were like all the other lords she’d run across . . . Yet . . . what else could she do? If she invaded Dumar and blasted everyone with sorcery, without trying other alternatives, then her own lords, and lords or rulers elsewhere, would all be laying for her. They would anyway, but she had to make it harder on them . . . and give the innocents in Dumar a chance, long shot though it might be.

  In the end, she reminded herself, she still might have to rely on force and emotion to devastate Dumar and prevent a worse mess later, or be reasonable and wait for an invasion or worse in a year or two, when Ehara was in the midst of a worse civil war and Konsstin was bringing sorcerers and armies into Neserea.

  Wonderful options . . . but she knew she had to try the dam. A long shot . . . yes . . . but she had to live with herself as well as with the lords of the Thirty-three.

  76

  Farinelli’s hoofs raised puffs of dust from the gray dirt of the trail. Anna glanced to her right, downhill through a gap in the mixed broadleaf trees and evergreens. The gap had been created, it appeared, when a section of the granite-like rock had peeled away and carried the trees at the edge with it. Beyond the gap was the gorge or the Great Chasm, and she could make out the steep gray cliffs of the far side for a moment. They seemed as solid as she recalled.

  Ahead rode Birke and Rickel, while Birfels rode beside Anna to her right, with leeks and Fhurgen behind. A full squad of armsmen trailed, back twenty yards or so, there at Hanfor’s insistence.

  The lutar was strapped over near-empty saddlebags, also at Hanfor’s suggestion. Anna couldn’t really fault her arms commander’s caution, not after the ambush by Sargol and the earlier attempt by the Dark Monks.

  “Here!” Birke reined up his chestnut on a raised hillock that slanted downward to the west, one where the trees and brush had been cut back
to afford a view. The clearing had not been recent, since there were waist-high saplings and bushy evergreens.

  Farinelli whuffed as Anna reined the gelding in beside Birke—well short of the overlook’s drop-off.

  “This is the place where the Chasm is the narrowest,” Birke announced. “To the south, the cliffs are higher, but the Chasm is much wider, always over a dek, sometimes as much as five.”

  “At least several,” murmured Birfels.

  Anna smiled. Mario had been like Birke, always overstating in his enthusiasm. She pushed away the thoughts of her son, knowing she couldn’t afford to dwell on them. Hoping as always that Mario was well, she turned in the saddle to take in the view.

  The scene resembled the one that the reflecting pool had revealed, if from a lower vantage point. The river was constrained by gray cliffs which rose at least two hundred yards from the floor of the gorge. Unlike the comparatively narrow stream that flowed past Falcor, between the rains and the drainage from the Synor and tributary streams, the Falche was on its way to becoming a mighty river. Below the cliffs, the river was fifty yards wide, but still filled less than half the riverbed.

  Anna half nodded to herself. It would take years to fill a dam even halfway up those cliffs, considering how many deks to the north the valley stretched.

  “That is the most water we have seen in many years,” offered Birfels. “Once when I was young Birke’s age, the water filled the gorge from side to side, so deep there was not even a ripple.”

  Anna could sense Birke’s doubt, but the young man kept a pleasant smile on his face.

  “In time,” suggested Jecks, “that will again happen. The rains have returned.”

  “And not a season too early,” answered Birfels.

  Birke nodded, but his eyes rested speculatively on Anna.

  Anna glanced northward, upstream. They had ridden for more than two glasses, a good six to eight deks, almost due south from Abenfel, and the river had flowed through cliffs the entire distance, though the cliffs west of Abenfel had been lower, perhaps only fifty yards high.