The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

“Birke was very fortunate, but then, father let him wait for a suitable consort. It irked Fylena greatly.”

  “She never had to worry. Your father was very tra­ditional.” Secca understood that. As Clayre’s father’s second consort, Fylena had pushed to make sure that both Clayre and Lysara had been consorted quickly and in a fashion that would not threaten her sons’ inheri­tance of Abenfel. Fylena still worried about the uncon­sorted Clayre and the power she held in Falcor as the Lord’s Sorceress.

  “Anna wasn’t.” Clayre began to replace her lutar in the case.

  Both sorceresses laughed.

  Secca knew they had more scrying ahead, but trying it immediately would offer nothing new and tire them both. She lowered her own lutar into its case.

  24

  Although the noonday sun beamed through a cloudless sky, its weak light was not enough to offset the chill wind that blew out of the east and into Secca’s face as she rode past the dekstone on the east side of the road town of Zechis. Hoping it would not be too dark before they reached Pamr, Secca glanced up as Richina cleared her throat.

  “Is Lythner as handsome as they say?” asked the younger sorceress.

  Secca shook her head, wondering what Clayre had planted in Richina’s thoughts. Or had it been Alyssa?

  “He is not?"

  “No. He is very handsome, and very charming. Some say that he is intelligent, loving, and kind—and no, I am not considering consorting to him. That is a decision that must wait until after our trip to Synek."

  “Our trip? I can come?"

  “You had best come. You trust too much in the words of others, even mine.” Secca laughed.

  “I could not help but overhear your words with the Lady Clayre, before you went to see Lord Robero.” Richina eased her mount closer to Secca’s.

  “I am most grateful for your discretion.” Secca paused, then asked, “What do you think of Falcor?”

  “I would rather live in Loiseau or even Suhl.” Richina frowned.

  “Why?’

  “I could not say, save I feel all watch in Falcor, and none would care should any slip upon a stone step or tum­ble from a parapet.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Secca said with a slight laugh. “You must recall that those in Falcor must balance the wishes and the needs of all of the Thirty-three, and never can a ruler satisfy all. Many who walk the corridors there, while not wishing ill directly upon others, may not be all that displeased at misfortunes falling on others.”

  “And the Lady Clayre contends with such daily.”

  Secca nodded. “So does Jolyn. That is why she is will­ing to undertake road-building and arduous sorcery anywhere away from the liedstadt.”

  “You did not tell Lady Clayre, yet she is also a sorcer­ess, Richina pressed

  “Nor did Anna, and, as you will come to see, nor should any sorceress who holds Loiseau.”

  “There is that much difference in how a sorceress in Falcor and one in Loiseau views Defalk?”

  “No. There is much difference in how each would use the knowledge of Loiseau. You will see, I promise you.”

  Another long silence followed, a stillness broken only by the low moan of the fall wind. Secca adjusted her jacket again.

  “Lady, why did she stay so much in the shadows?” asked Richina abruptly. ‘The Lady Anna, I mean.”

  Secca leaned forward slightly in the saddle and raised her voice. “If you would allow us a few moments in the van and some space, Quebar...?”

  “Yes, lady.” With a knowing smile, Quebar reined his mount to the left edge of the dusty stone road, and Savyn eased his mount to the right.

  The red-haired sorceress waited until a good ten yards had opened between her mount and Quebar’s before she gestured, and then turned her face to Richina. “Why did she stay in the shadows, you mean, when she could have ruled far better than Robero?”

  Richina nodded.

  “One must not only rule, but prepare for those who will follow you. Anna had no children here in Liedwahr, nor could she summon them from the Mist Worlds without risking their death, and she could have no more children here. Robero was the heir. Could she have done aught otherwise?’

  “But why... did she not...?” Richina broke off, ges­turing almost helplessly.

  Ignoring the implied direct question, Secca pondered for a moment before answering. “She kept Defalk and most of eastern Liedwahr safe, and she found a lord she could love, and a holding she appreciated. Would that all of us were so fortunate.”

  “Lady, please do not avoid my question.”

  Secca fumbled with the topmost button on her jacket. “When she was first regent...how did she rule?”

  “She ruled well.”

  Secca shook her head, shifting her weight in the saddle. She feared the afternoon would be long.

  “How?"

  “By sorcery. She destroyed the Black Monks, and killed the evil Prophet of Music, and cast down the rebellious Lord of Dumar, and—”

  “With each action, she created the need for more action, did she not? Until she had to use her sorcery to replace almost half the Thirty-three and destroy armsmen across all of Liedwahr?"

  Richina’s brows furrowed in puzzlement. “We have had no wars and little fighting since.

  “Do you think that all the men and women in Defalk suddenly changed, that they would so quickly stop their plotting and fighting?"

  “But they did,” Richina protested.

  "The fighting stopped. Lady Anna saw to that, but long before Robero became Lord of Death. Do you remember the story of the broken bridge?”

  “When the bridge over the Mittfal collapsed, and flung Lord Klestayr and his eldest into the river?’ Richina nod­ded. ‘That was how young Dostal became Lord of Arock.”

  “And what happened? Or did not happen?’

  “His armsmen cast down their arms and did not proceed against Lord Kinor.”

  “Would Lord Kinor have lost?’ Secca pressed.

  “He had more armsmen, and armsmen better trained. He should not have had difficulty.”

  “But he would have lost armsmen, would he not?”

  Richina nodded.

  “Now ... had I been there, or Clayre, or Anna, and called forth the flame arrows, could Kinor have lost?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How many of the armsmen of Aroch would have died? And then, when he became Lord of Aroch, how would Dostal have raised 1evies?”

  “Seldom have the levies been raised.”

  “True enough. But the armsmen are there to command the levies. Often they were not, not when Anna came to Defalk. Far too many died in skirmishes between lords, If Defalk is to remain strong, lords must not fight against each other.”

  “The bridge collapse wasn’t an accident?” Richina said slowly.

  “There is more than one way to use socrery, child.” Secca paused. “Folk forget that because of the first years of the Regency.” She laughed without mirth. “That is all for the best. Anna had no choices when first she came to Defalk. She had power, and little knowledge of the people and the land, and no time to learn either. Nor were women or sorceresses respected. For many years, all that those in Liedwahr respected was the power that they could see. Many rebellious lords had heard of the destruction of oth­ers, yet would not believe until it befell them. It took many years before Anna could be assured that she could leave Falcor, and all believed that she would again raise the fire arrows or the floods, or cause the land to sink under those who would not support Lord Robero,”

  “That is why you fear the days ahead?”

  Secca nodded. “All of us are considered pale shadows of Lady Anna.”

  “You? With all you have done?”

  “Me, most of all, for I have indeed stood in the shad­ows.” And I fear the glare of an unforgiving sun, and what may need to be done.

  25

  Narial, Dumar

  Darksong stands high in the clear night sky, and Clear­song has set more than tw
o 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 tlunder-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.

  26

  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.

  27

  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 rep­ilcating 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.

  Delver 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 be 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. Far 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 strongboxes 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.

  “Show me now and in great detail

  the source of that night’s deadly wail...”

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

  “Show Narail and in great detail

  the results of last night’s deadly wail...”

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