The Shadow Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Secca hoped so, but sea travel was out of her experience. “Do you know where the Sturinnese ships are?” asked Alcaren.

  “I thought I would try to call their images in the glass, so all could see.” Secca eased from her chair and reclaimed the lutar, checking the tuning before beginning the scrying spellsong.

  “Show us now and upon the sea

  those ships near where we may be...”

  Even after the end of the spellsong, the mirror re­mained blank. Was that because the spell was faulty, or because there were no ships on the inner gulf between Elahwa and the southern end of the Sand Hills? Secca didn't know. She tried a second version.

  “Show us now and in the light of day

  any ships that may oppose us on our way...”

  This time the mirror split into more then a dozen fragmentary images, each fragment showing a different ship, and all but two were white-hulled. Even before the others could really look at the images, Secca sang the release couplet.

  “What---" began Alcaren.

  “It showed every ship that could sail to the inner gulf,” Secca said. “The spell wasn’t right.” She lifted the lutar and tried a variation on the spell.

  “Show us now and upon the sea,

  vessels in the inner gulf that be...

  Again the mirror came up blank.

  The fourth spell—the one that asked for vessels south of the inner gulf; showed five large Sturinnese warships and three smaller vessels, rigged as schooners.

  After letting everyone see the images, Secca sang the release couplet

  "There are no Sturinnese ships in the inner gulf now... is that what the glass shows, lady?’ asked Wilten,

  “It is.”

  Wilten turned to Alcaren. “How long will it take them to sail northward?’

  “Into the inner gulf? Several days.” The Ranuan paused momentarily before adding, “But the last part of the voyage will take us out of the shallows of the inner gulf.”

  “I would say that we take as many as we can on the first voyage, lady,” Wilten suggested. “Even have they scrying glasses, they will have to see us depart in such and then find us."

  There were nods around the table.

  Secca was forced to agree that his suggestion made the most sense—and it agreed with the suggestion of Counselor Veria. "Then, that is what we will tell the counselor.”

  She still wondered about the South Women--- they seemed better disciplined than most lancers, and sup­posedly they fought well, but no one seemed to want them around, and that bothered her.

  96

  Secca glanced from the piers out into the harbor, empty, except for the vessels tied at the heavy wooden piers. The morning was chill, made more so by the wind blowing off the dark gray water. There were five vessels of varying lengths at the piers---but the largest was perhaps sixty yards in length, the smallest little more than thirty. A line of mounts stretched along the pier. Secca watched as one was led up a gangway and onto the deck of the Foam-sprite, the nearest vessel.

  “We’ll do what we can, Lady Sorceress,” offered Weyla, captain of the largest schooner, the Alycet. The captain was a wiry woman almost as tall as Drysel, and a good fifteen years older, but Secca would have wagered her golds on Weyla in any contest between the two. "Luck and Har­monies with us, and we’ll get well south of the Sand Hills. If not . . .” She shrugged. “We land you where we can.” Her eyebrows lifted. “Unless your sorcery can help.”

  “It’s possible. I’ll certainly try if we need it, but I’ve never tried it on a ship.”

  “Like you," the captain continued, “I’d be wishing we could carry all on one crossing. The problem was not the lancers, but the mounts. Easy for a company or two, but six be a problem. Safer to make one crossing with five vessels than five with one.”

  “That’s what Counselor Veria told us,” Secca replied.

  “Take the morning to load, and then we’ll sail. Usually get a southwesterly by afternoon. Sweeps inland to the Sand Hills, especially this time of year. Small pier at Ily­got. We can’t get that far, and you’ll have to swim them ashore . . .won’t be bad . . . we don’t draft that deep...and the water here’s not that cold, not like up near Os­twye.”

  “Why couldn’t we get that far? The Sturinnese?"

  The weathered captain nodded. ‘We can go shallow along the Sand Hills. Know the waters and the shoals. South of that, the shallows narrow, and they can get to us unless we hole up in one of the shallow bights. There we’d have to hoist the mounts clear, and you’d swim ‘em in. Probably not more than a hundred yards fifty in some places.”

  "Let's hope we can get to a place with a pier,” Secca said. ‘Maybe sorcery can help.

  “We’d prefer such, lady,” replied the captain. “Faster for us, and it will let us make a second run without the Sea-Priests havin’ time to bring in one of those patrol schooners that can go where we do. ‘Course, better here than in their lands. They got slave galleys there, and with thunder-drums and oars, and shallow draft, best you not be anywhere close.”

  “They don’t have anything like that here, do they?’ asked the sorceress.

  “Only the smaller schooners, but they take Dumar, and it won’t be long before Dumuran captives’ll be rowing galleys.” Weyla inclined her heat “Be seeing you on board.”

  Secca bowed, "I’ll be there shortly.” She watched as the weathered captain walked down the pier toward the sea­ward end where the Alycet was moored.

  As she watched, Alcaren and Wilten appeared from be­hind a group of sailors in pale blue trousers and jackets and walked up the pier from where they had been over­seeing the loading of the SouthWomen’s mounts on the Foamsprite.

  “How is everything going?”

  “It’s not the loading I’m worried about, lady . . .“ Wilten coughed, then fingered his chin. “The captain there. . . she said. . . we might have to swim the mounts to shore.”

  “So did the captain of the Alycet,” Secca replied. “I don’t know that many of our lancers can swim.” Secca wasn’t that sure she’d do well in the water, either.

  “That be true, lady,” admitted Wilten.

  “All they have to do is hang on to the mounts,” Alcaren offered. “The water isn’t that deep except in the center channel.”

  That was easy enough for Alcarem to say, Secca re­flected. "Can you both travel on the Alycet with me and the players? We need to have some time to talk over things.

  “My captains would not object, I do not think,” said Alacaren.

  “Nor mine.” Wilten shrugged. “They cannot go off somewhere on their own.”

  Secca nodded… “I’ll tell Captain Weyla.” She looked toward the Alycet, hoping again that she wouldn’t have to swim her mount from the ship to a strange shore.

  97

  With the sea spray misting around her, whipped by the brisk wind, Secca walked forward, along the right side of the Alycet, her hand not all that far from the heavy wooden railing, trying to adjust to moving on a surface that slowly pitched with the long rolling and following swells.

  To her right, to the west, she could just make out a long and low dark smudge that one of the crew had said was land--- swampy wetlands that were still a part of Elahwa. South of the swamps were higher and far drier bluffs, and south of the bluffs—well out of sight, were the Sand Hills.

  Stiff as the wind was, with the full late afternoon sun falling on the schooner, Secca felt warmer than she had at the piers in Elahwa that morning. She eased up to the railing where Alcaren leaned on the polished but worn wood, looking to the southwest.

  The Rarnuan did not turn as Secca joined him. “We might just get to see a hint of the Sand Hills before sunset.”

  The wood on which Alcaren’s hands, overlarge for his frame, rested was battered, but buffed smooth and var­nished. The Ranuan followed Secca’s probing eyes. “You have to keep the wood sealed. It splinters and rots, oth­erwise. Doesn’t matter so much on the rails here, except for you and
me, but anywhere the sails could touch, you don’t want splinters or sharp edges—put a rip in the can­vas, and then where would you be?”

  “In some sort of trouble. Why did you say the rails didn’t matter except to you and me?” Secea frowned.

  “Real sailors scarcely ever touch the rails.”

  As if to make that point, the Alycet pitched forward more steeply. Secca had to grab the railing. The ship then rode the following swell, still maintaining a southwest heading, or so it seemed from the position of the sun.

  “Do you always stay up here on the front?” asked Secca, loosening her grip on the varnished but salt-sticky railing.

  "The bow?" Alcaren grimaced. “I do indeed. Here, the air is cool and fresh.”

  Secca glanced southward. “This seems wide enough for a larger vessel,”

  “Here...it is, but before long, the deep part of the channel will narrow, and it would take less than a glass for the captain to have us in water where you could walk to shore. That’s why we pitch so much with so little wind.”

  “Because the water is shallow?” asked Secca. She thought any water over her head was too deep.

  Alcaren nodded “Where you see the waves break…” He pointed to the west, his arm almost in front of Secca’s nose. “That is where there are shallows and shoals.”

  Secca followed his gesture, seeing white spray less than a dek away. “It doesn’t look shallow.”

  “One of those big Sturinnese war brigs would get hung up there and break her back, just like that.” Alcaren smiled. “But they know that. We won’t see them until the channel widens.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “Late the day after tomorrow at the earliest” Secca glanced upward. As the mast seemed to move,

  she could see Clearsong, almost at its zenith. It would be high in the sky well into evening. She hoped that was a good sign.

  98

  A few scattered high white clouds scudded across the late morning sky, moving to the south with the wind that carried the Alycet southward. Somewhere to the west— just beyond the horizon, according to Alcaren—were the last traces of the Sand Hills. Secca stood on the raised rear deck of the Alycet, close to the railing around the wheel platform. To her left was Weyla, although the captain’s eyes were never still, and never turned toward the sorceress. Alcaren stood almost at the starboard rail, facing into the wind. Richina leaned on the railing as well, less than two yards from Alcaren, but farther forward.

  Perhaps a half-dek astern and to the north of the Alycet followed the Foamsprite. For a moment, Secca watched the smaller vessel, her bow cutting into the long swells, with spray and foam seemingly almost touching the base of the bowsprit. Then the sorceress looked forward again.

  On the lower mid-deck, Palian was rehearsing the first players, and the sound of strings and horns drifted aft to Secca. The second players stood on the raised forward deck, as if waiting for the first players to finish rehearsing.

  “A good half-day out of the channel... another few glasses, and we can run for Ilygot,” said the tall and wiry captain.

  “How far are we from there?”

  “Half a day, if the wind holds.”

  “Sail to the east!” came a call from the lookout above.

  The captain turned away from Secca, peering to her left and back toward the east “Can’t see yet; but can't be other than the dissonant Sea-Pigs.” She glanced eastward, then looked toward the helmsman. “Bring her ten starboard.”

  "Ten starboard, aye. Coming starboard.”

  As the Alycet swung to the west, with the wind coming into the sails more directly, Richina climbed up the ladder from the lower deck. "We’re turning..."

  Secca gestured toward the east “There are ships there.”

  Behind Richina, Wilten appeared, his face slightly pale. “Sorceress?"

  “The Sea-Priests may have found us.”

  Weyla glanced upward, toward the lookout “How many?”

  “Four, mayhap five!” came back the call.

  Five vessels had to be Sturinnese, Secca reflected. She stepped forward until she looked down on the mid-deck. "Players, stand by. The lookout has sighted the Sturin­nese.”

  “Stand by,” called Palian.

  “Second players to position,” ordered Delvor.

  The second players began to climb down the ladders to the main deck.

  Seeca walked back toward the captain, who pointed eastward. “Just out there.”

  Secca could see but specks of white above the dark blue water.

  “They’re running with the wind, and they carry far more sail than do we.”

  “Can we make it to Ilygot?" asked the sorceress.

  “I’d wager against it” Weyla looked westward, then walked toward the raised platform, that held the helm, where she studied the map fastened on an inclined plot. Secca eased behind the captain, leaving Richina, Wilten, and Alcaren by the railing, all three now peering out to the east.

  “We are here . . . most exposed.” Weyla pointed to the map, at a series of dotted lines in the green space that seemed to represent water. “The shallows to the west of us are narrow. Don’t offer much protection. Another five deks south, there is a reef, and we could almost reach Ilygot behind it.”

  “That’s where we’re headed?”

  The captain nodded, “For now. Need to watch, see how fast they’re closing.”

  Secca frowned, catching the concern in the older woman’s voice. “You think they’re faster than we are?"

  “The wind favors them, and there was but a short time between when the lookout sighted them and when we could see sail from the deck.”

  For a time, all watched the dark blue waters to the east, and the specks of white on the horizon that quickly grew into sails above white hulls. Secca began a vocalise, trying to warm up slowly, sensing she would need sorcery, and wondering how singing on the sea would affect the results of the spell.

  “Five vessels---two brigs and three of the shallow-draft schooners—all full-rigged,” Weyla pointed out.

  Secca frowned. “I thought there were only three of those schooners. That’s what the glass showed.”

  ‘They had to be using their own glasses,” suggested Alcaren from behind Secca. His face was pale.

  “They use scrying glasses often,” Secca said, “and they were following us all the time in Ebra” She paused. “I worry about the drums on the water.”

  “You think the thunder-drums work better at sea?” ques­tioned Richina.

  “Why else would they have developed them?”

  The captain inclined her head, and Secca slipped away from the railing toward Weyla.

  “Sorceress,” Weyla said slowly, her voice pitched low, “Never have I seen a ship that size move with that quick­ness. On this course we cannot reach the reef before they reach us.” She gestured again. “The three small war schoo­ners can follow us into the shallows.”

  Secca glanced at the oncoming vessels, white sails bil­lowing in the midday sun. The Sturinnese were not within normal spell range, but . . . could she speed the five Elah­wan ships with a wind spell? “I will see what I can do.” She stepped forward, looking down on the main deck, and called to Palian, ‘Players! The fourth building song!”

  “Form up! The fourth building song!”

  Secca’s command was echoed by both Delvor and Palian, and both sets of players formed up on the mid-deck, the second players forming an arc around the first, both facing eastward. As the scrambling for position died away, and renewed tuning echoed upward, Palian glanced to Secca.

  ‘When you’re ready,” called Secca.

  “The fourth building song. On my mark . . . Mark!”

  The gentle pitching of the deck had little effect on the players as the first bars poured forth from the strings and horns and from the lutars of the second players. Secca faced forward and sang.

  “Turn the wind from them to our sails,

  and let us fly before the gales.. .
“

  The sails billowed and the Alycet seemed to lurch forward, spray cascading in sheets almost to the forward rails, with a salty mist drifting aft toward Secca. Several players lurched sideways with the ship’s motion.

  Secca, took a deep breath, then looked at the wiry captain. Weyla glanced from Secca to the helmsman, and then to the pursuing Sturinnese.