The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Richina turned slightly in the saddle of her mount and glanced back toward the rear of the column, her eyes seek­ing the black pennant that served as the standard for the lancers from Silberfels.

  Secca caught the quick search, but refrained from saying anything, though she wanted to offer consolation. Instead, she reached for her water bottle and took a long swallow. Even in early winter, with the constant light but chill wind, riding was a thirsty business.

  After they had ridden another dek, Richina eased her mount closer to Secca. “Was it just because he saw me do sorcery, lady?"

  “I would think not,” the older sorceress replied, asking quietly, “What do you feel?”

  “He used to find ways to talk to me, if briefly. He used to smile more at me. Now be smiles at me in the way he smiles at you.”

  “He does seem a bit more removed,” Secca said. Richina snorted. “He saw me sing two spells, and protect myself with a sabre, and I am different?”

  "No. What he saw before was what he wished to see,” Secca suggested. “Then he saw you as you are.”

  Richina glanced sideways at the red-headed sorceress. "Was that why you never consorted?” She lowered her eyes. “I am sorry, lady. I should not have asked such.”

  Secca smiled gently. “It is difficult for any sorceress to find a consort.”

  “Because we are different?”

  Because we have power, Secca wanted to answer. She did not, instead pausing before replying deliberately, “All folk differ, even those in the same family. Is that not true in your family?”

  Richina tilted her head before replying. “I had never thought it otherwise, but...“ Her words trailed off into the slight whistle of the cold breeze.

  “The Lady Anna once said,” Secca said slowly, “that a lady in Defalk had to choose between being an accepted possession or being unaccepted and respected.”

  “I don’t think it’s like that at all,” Richina replied."

  “We are riding to Dolov. The father of the present lord could not accept the idea of the free city of Elahwa. He sacrificed himself and scores of lancers and armsmen to keep women from being respected."

  “But... my mother is a lady, and she is respected.”

  Secca nodded politely.

  “You’re saying she’s not accepted?”

  “I did not say anything,” Secca pointed out ... “except what Lady Anna said.”

  “Do you think that was because Lady Anna was an outsider?”

  "That she felt that way? Perhaps?’ Secca wasn’t so sure about that. She wondered if Anna had been an outsider in the Mist Worlds as well. “I don’t see as we’ll ever know.”

  “No, I suppose we won’t”

  Secca took out the water bottle again.

  After another long silence, Richina spoke once more. “Alcaren is handsome, don’t you think, Lady Secca?’

  "I hadn’t noticed,” Except Secca had noticed the Ranuan.

  She wouldn’t have called him handsome, but striking. He was exceptionally broad-shouldered, with penetrating gray-blue eyes, and fine brown hair, cut short, but lustrous, almost silky. He spoke little, except when addressed, and rode so gracefully that young Haddev looked gawky by comparison.

  Secca still worried about the way the overcaptain watched her and Richina perform sorcery. Alcaren had not had the appearance of trying to memorize the spells or melody, nor had he pried or asked questions. He had not appeared anything but interested He had not tried to ingratiate himself; nor to distance himself.

  Secca shook her head. Not for the first time—nor the last, she suspected--- she had to wonder just why Alcaren had wanted to accompany her. She wondered if she could find out while she still had time to decide what to do about the Ranuan--- if indeed she would even have a choice. What seemed to be choices, she was discovering, were often illusions. Had she really had any choice about going first to Elahwa? Or pushing Richina into sorcery possibly dangerous to the young woman?

  “Lady?”

  “It is nothing. I was just thinking.”

  Had it been any different for Anna? Secca wished now that she had asked more. . . and listened much more— much, much more.

  75

  For once, the day, although cold, was without wind and felt far more temperate than it actually was. Riding the gray mare northward on the river road that led to Dolov, Secca felt warmer than she had since she had left Synek weeks earlier. She turned in the saddle and looked at Ri­china, who was studying the words on the paper before her, and humming the note values to match them. “How are you coming with that?”

  “It’s not too hard.”

  “You’ll have to know it well,” Secca said. “We’ll sing it together, and we need to match exactly.”

  “Together?” Richina’s mouth opened. “Is that not Dark-song?”

  Secea shook her head. “The Evult used massed voices, but it was their use that was Darksong, not the massing of voices. The Lady Anna studied this much in the last years, and we did some building spells together. It is tricky, but much easier that way.”

  Richina gave Secca an off-center smile. “This spell is not for building.”

  “No, but it will be necessary, I fear.”

  “You are doubtless right, lady.”

  “It is part of being a sorceress.”

  Richina nodded slowly, as if to indicate that there were more than a few aspects of being a sorceress that were not totally to her liking.

  Secca concealed a snort. Why did the young always think that a chosen calling meant that all parts of it would be to their liking?

  After perhaps another dek of riding, Richina looked toward Secca “How much longer? Another two days?"

  “Three, probably, from what the maps show,” Secca an­swered, squinting at the oblong object rising out of the winter-browned grass on the left side of the roads

  “That’s the first dekstone in days,” said Richina, her eyes following Secca’s.

  “It’s an old one, probably from well before the Evult.” As the gray mare carried Secca toward the stone marker, the sorceress could finally make out the worn and simple inscription: “Rielte—4 d.”

  Secca turned to Melcar, who rode on her left. “Do you know anything about this town?”

  “No, lady,” Melcar replied. “I was born in Vuyoal.” When Secca did not reply, he added, “That is south of Vult and north of Synek. The town was mostly destroyed by the sorceress’s flood.”

  “I am sorry.” As she spoke, Secca wondered why she happened to be sorry. That had been more than twenty years before, and she’d been less than ten years old at the time. Was it because sorcery always created hardships? ‘What have the scouts reported?”

  “The town is quiet, and most have shuttered their houses.”

  “Do you know if anyone might know something about the town?” Secca pursued. “We do have some golds left, and it might be a better place to obtain some supplies.”

  “I will have a messenger inquire.” Melcar inclined his head stiffly and swung his mount away from the column, and began to ride down the column.

  Secca wondered why a simple question had offended the overcaptain, or was it that she had put him in a position of having to ask something of one of his lancers? If so, that was his problem, and if it had been his touchiness about the destruction of Vuyoal by Anna. . . well, that was his problem as well. Anna had been doing her best to save Defalk from the Evult, and, unhappily, in war the less guilty often suffered with the more gui1ty---and that was another reason why shadow sorcery, cold-blooded as it might seem to some, was often to be preferred over hot-blooded war that could be justified by cruelties that could have been prevented by cold-blooded shadow sorcery.

  Richina half-giggled.

  Secca raised her eyebrows.

  “He is like all men. He dislikes not knowing something, and dislikes it even more if he must ask.”

  With that, Secca nodded and smiled ruefully. Perhaps Richina was right, that it was merely a man�
�s discomfort with having to ask for information.

  So far, most of the towns through which Secca and her force had passed had been little more than hamlets--groupings of houses seemingly scattered along the road, with perhaps a few craftshops or an occasional chandlery that had seen better times. But then, all of Ebra seemed to have seen better times, save perhaps for the sections of the far west where Anna had built some roads and bridges, and where Hadrenn had made some limited efforts to im­prove a few towns and buildings.

  The ruts proliferated and deepened as they rode closer to the town, but many and deep as the ruts were, Secca had seen no sign of any riders, or of carts or wagons, or even souls on foot. Was that because word had spread that the Sorceress-Protector marched northward? She shook her head. What other reason could there have been?

  The road wound between two hills, mostly covered in bare-limbed trees. Those on the upper reaches were white-barked birches, those lower on the slopes arranged in deliberate orchard-like patterns, although Secca did not recognize the type of orchard from the road.

  Beyond the hills, the road passed through lower or chards--- the apple trees Secca did recognize. Just past the small orchards there was a set of ancient stone columns, one on each side of the road. Beyond the columns, the road widened, and there were dwellings, but only on the eastern upslope side of the road.

  "Ah..."

  Secca turned in the saddle.

  Alcaren had ridden his mount along the shoulder of the road and eased in beside the older sorceress. “You were asking about the town, Lady Secca?”

  "I was."

  “Rielte is the river port for the noctheast of Ebra. I was once here with my mother. In years past, the trappers would bring in pelts from the mountain woods, and they would sell them to factors here. These factors would save the best for the traders from beyond Ebra. A good golden cougar hide might fetch three silvers.”

  As they rode past the pillared gates, which bore no in­scription, Secca could see more clearly to the right of Al­caren a row of larger dweIIings, running perhaps a half a dek. All but one were finished in red-stained board siding, the exception being a larger three-story dwelling near the middle whose walls were of a faded golden-brown brick. Most of the roofs were of split-wood shingles, and each window had both glass and shutters. The shutters on the ground floor windows had all been closed and fastened.

  On the downhill and western side of the road was a long expanse of brown grass—surrounded by a neat stone-wall, slightly more than a yard high. Within the wall Secca could see several circular briar-rose gardens, and low and trimmed yews and pfitzers. On the far side of the green were smaller dwellings, cottages, but they too were neat.

  Beyond the smaller dwellings on the downhill side of the road were several large wooden buildings.

  “Those are the warehouses,” Alcaren said.

  Secca could make out one long wharf by the river, and at least one barge with a deckhouse was tied up to the northernmost section. She gestured to the larger dwellings. "Those belong to factors?"

  “They once did. I have not been here in a half-score of years or more,” the Ranuan overcaptain offered apologetically.

  Rielte was perhaps the size Mencha had been when Secca had first come there after Anna had left Falcor, al­though Mencha had almost doubled in size in the last half-score years.

  Secca studied the brick dwelling as the gray carried her past it. Unlike the other dwellings on the east side of the road, which were all of two stories, the golden brick structure was of three stories and had a split-slate roof. It also had a circular carriage drive, paved in the same faded golden brick, which passed under a roofed receiving area. A brick wall nearly three yards high hid the rear grounds of the tall dwelling from view.

  “Do you know...?” Secca ventured.

  Alcaren shook his head.

  Secca thought she saw a silver-haired woman at one of the windows on the second level, but as she looked up­ward, the figure drew a hanging across the window.

  “Lady?” called Melcar.

  Secca turned and offered a smile to the Ebran over­captain. “Yes, Melcar?”

  “Captain Islanar is riding ahead to the large chandlery to see what they have.”

  “Good. Thank you,” she added. While she could req­uisition food for the lancers in the name of Lord Robero, she preferred not to... unless it were necessary, and well it might become, she knew, before she saw Loiseau once more.

  The rest of the dwellings were equally silent as Secca’s force rode downhill toward the center of the town and the chandler’s warehouse. Although Secca did not look to her right, she was still conscious of how closely Alcaren rode beside her.

  76

  The farther north Secca had ridden, the more briskly the wind had blown, though not necessarily any colder, and the road had gotten narrower, with the ruts frozen into stiff ridges that jarred riders and slowed mounts. The white birches had slowly given way to firs and pines, and to smaller peasant fields hedged in woodlots that were more like tended forests.

  “A fool’s errand,” she murmured under her breath, shift­ing her weight in the hard and cold saddle. The glass had shown Dolov with but a handful of lancers, certainly no more than two companies. If it were not for the high and thick walls, Hadrenn would have had lancers enough to subdue the holding.

  But the walls were there, and the gates were shut, and there was no help but for having to ensure Dolov did not revolt again, nor become a staging point for the forces of the Maitre of Sturinn. Secca took a deep breath, Sorceress­-Protector of the East?

  At the sound of humming, Secca glanced sideways at Richina. “Do you have it?”

  “‘Yes,”

  “Sing it far me, using blank syllables.”

  “Now?”

  “It will only be a glass—more or less—before we reach the hillside south of the hold. That is what the scouts have reported.”

  Richina nodded, then cleared her throat before beginning with the first “la.”

  Secca listened.

  When Richina had finished, the younger sorceress looked to Secca.

  “You have the melody, but you’re swallowing the sound some,” Secca said, “and you’re not putting the stresses where they will fall when you use the words. Try it again.”

  The second time, Secca nodded. “Better. Stronger stresses would help.”

  “Do you wish…”

  No,” Secca said gently, stopping as she spoke. A pair of riders had appeared over the low crest in the road ahead.

  The pair of scouts---in Ebran green--- rode southward on the road, toward Secca and the blue and gold standard that preceded her. Melcar and Wilten rode forward of the van to meet the scouts. The four talked briefly, and the scouts headed back northward.

  The two overcaptains turned their mounts toward Secca, then swung them around to ride alongside the two sorcer­esses.

  “The keep is but four or five deks farther. You can see it from that second rise in the road ahead,” Melcar explained. "The scouts say that the peasant cots are deserted, and that the keep is secured, as if for a siege. All the livestock is gone, and the granaries emptied.”

  “Did they see any sign of armsmen or lancers? And recent tracks in the road?”

  “No, lady.”

  Secca liked none of it, and she half-wondered exactly the reason for such defiance. Was it greed for power that ran through Bertmynn’s family, down unto his sons? Or was the yoke of Defalk and Synek perceived as too heavy?

  She frowned. Hadrenn’s small palace in Synek was cer­tainly not the height of luxury, and from the vantage point of Loiseau, Secca and Anna surely would have seen golds or vast amounts of goods coming from Dolov or anywhere in Ebra to Falcor. That hadn’t happened, and Robero, while far better off than Hadrenn, was definitely not loot­ing the lands.

  “Lady?” asked Melcar.

  “Why would they do that? They have few lancers re­maining, and Lord Robero’s liedgeld is far from heavy. Nor are Ha
drenn’s tariffs.”

  Melcar glanced at Wilten. The Defalkan officer looked back at the Ebran. Neither spoke.

  “There’s no help for it We’ll press on to see the keep." Again, the two overcaptains exchanged glances.

  “Yes, Lady Secca.”

  Secca offered a smile. “Is there something I should know?’