The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Don’t think about it, she ordered herself. Not now. Angrily, she scrawled out the words. She looked at the rough verse on the rumpled envelope. It was terrible, but not much worse than the couplets Brill had sung to cool the carriage.

  She cleared her throat, and tried a vocalise.

  “Holly, lolly, polly … pop … .”

  Finally, she looked down at the verse.

  “Ready or not …” She cleared her throat, then tried the words, with as much inflection as she could, emphasizing “cold” and “clean.”

  “All day I faced this barren waste

  without a taste

  of cold, clean water.

  Give now my glass in lovely place

  a healthful taste

  of cold, clean water.”

  Anna could feel something, and she looked at the goblet, where frost appeared around the rim. Then virtually instantly, the water froze, and the goblet shattered, and Anna looked down dumbly at shards of crystal and a lump of clear and solid ice.

  She shook her head, as cold inside as the ice before her. As the saying went, she wasn’t in Kansas anymore, nor in Iowa. She certainly wasn’t.

  Her eyes burned, even as a sense of subdued excitement held her. It was good news and bad news again. Like the good news had been that Avery had left; and that had been the bad news, since he’d left nothing for her or the children. Here, the good news was that she could cast spells; the bad news was that she was really in a different world where she could cast spells.

  She looked down at the mess again. There didn’t seem to be anything for waste disposal, so she used a crust of bread to sweep the crystal into a small pile, and then she carried the chunk of ice, free of glass, to the sink to let it melt.

  After that, she took a sip of the vinegar wine, rather than repeat the water spell. Who knew what she’d get the next time? She also tried the cheese, but the slightest taste gave her the hint of mold, and she set the wedge down. The apple slices weren’t bad, if slightly like rubber.

  In the end, she ate most of the bread and half the apples, leaving the cheese. Feeling better, she realized the room remained cool, as if a breeze blew from the windows. She walked to the windows again. While they were hinged, they were closed. Underneath each was a louver, and cool air came through the louvers. She extended her hand toward the metal louvers, but stopped short as she felt the chill. Sorcery? The louvers opened to the outside air, but somehow changed the hot air to cold air.

  She was supposed to have dinner with the sorcerer, and she felt like a mess, even if she hadn’t done that much. But she’d changed worlds, and she’d sweated, and been shocked and surprised.

  Anna glanced around the palatial bedchamber, then headed into the robing room, where she found a set of towels—small, clean, and tending toward the frayed. She looked at her watch. The hands still showed five-forty. Didn’t Erde have time, or had the transition destroyed the watch or what? Or had the battery run out? More questions for which she had no answers.

  She reclaimed her purse and brought it into the robing room where she found a bottle of what appeared to be liquid soap, strong smelling. She used the smallest dab with lots of lukewarm water from the tap to remove the grime she hadn’t even realized had built up on her hands. Then, with the smallest towel as a washcloth, using mostly water, she dabbed and blotted her face clean before reapplying her makeup.

  That done, she went back into the bedroom and looked from the two hard chairs to the bed. She didn’t want to lie down and wrinkle the gown, but the chairs were small and hard.

  She walked to the window and looked out, but the scene remained unchanged, although she did see a man in armor walking along the ramparts of the hold, with a bow and quiver slung across his back and some sort of sword in a scabbard.

  What was Erde? A place where people could be transported by magic, but used horses and carriages? Where sorcerers turned people into dust, but the weapons were bows and blades? Where castles were elaborate and ornate and finely built, but where cloth was rough and where the hangings and embroidery were equally crude? The contradictions didn’t make sense. Was that why she still had a feeling of unreality?

  Finally, she sat down on the hard chair, letting her thoughts go where they would.

  A gentle knocking roused her, and she realized she had been half dozing as she had been sitting before the table, half propped up with arms and elbows.

  “Yes?”

  The knocking persisted, and Anna remembered she had bolted the door. She stood, walked over to it, and answered again. “Yes?”

  “Lady Anna? It is about time for dinner.” Florenda’s voice was muffled, but clear enough.

  Anna undid the bolt and opened the door. “I’ll be there in just a moment.”

  Florenda bowed. “You look most beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Anna replied, taking the compliment more as a testimony to fear in her supposed powers than in her appearance. She gathered her handbag, not wanting to leave it behind, and followed Florenda back down the wide hallway and the grand staircase. They turned left at the bottom of the wide stone steps.

  The grand dining room contained a wide stone table nearly thirty yards long, dark under unlit chandeliers. A single gong or chime echoed through the lofty space, adding to the sense of desertion. Anna had the feeling that the room was seldom used as she followed Florenda to the open double doors at the end of the dining room.

  Warm light filled the salon, a space not much larger than her bedchamber.

  “Lady Anna, punctual as well as beautiful.” Lord Brill, still in the blue velvet jacket and trousers, rose from a carved wooden chair, upholstered in a blue needlepoint. The armchair was the first wooden chair Anna had seen.

  Florenda slipped back and closed the salon doors.

  “Lord Brill, you are most complimentary and hospitable.” Anna inclined her head.

  “These days we must be hospitable. Good company is most scarce. Please be seated. That should accommodate your gown.” Brill gestured to the wide blue velvet settee, also framed in dark-stained carved wood. “You’re from one of the mist worlds, and, despite your poise, it’s clear that Erde is strange.” He walked toward the small wooden bookcase set between the tall blue-tinted windows—a bookcase with four tall shelves that contained perhaps a hundred volumes. “Would you like some refreshments?”

  “Not for a moment, thank you. I did appreciate those you had placed in my room. Thank you.” Anna slipped onto the settee, aware that the upholstery was uneven. Was it stuffed with horsehair, like all the antiques collected by Avery’s Aunt Lorinda—beautiful, but uncomfortable?

  “It was the least I could do.” Brill offered the ingratiating smile. “Our dinner will be here shortly.” His left hand gestured toward the small table placed in an oversized bay window at the end of the salon. The setting was for two.

  Anna nodded politely and waited.

  “I’ve seen some of your worlds—with great metal birds that fly, metal warships of the kind where one would sink all the navies of Erde. Yet you are surprised by the form of sorcery here.”

  “Yes,” Anna said, admitting nothing the sorcerer clearly didn’t know already.

  “Sorcery does work differently here, and far fewer people employ it,” Brill said in an offhand manner.

  “Fewer?”

  “Everyone seems to be able to employ magic carriages in your world,” Brill said, “and other magical devices.” He looked quizzically at Anna, then smiled. “I seemed to have misunderstood what I have seen. Do tell me about your world.”

  The sorcerer’s pleasant smile set off alarm bells all the way through her, and she forced an equally pleasant smile back, her mind spinning. What could she say? What on earth could she possibly say?

  “You have seen my world,” she said slowly. “There is not too much I could add. But I have seen little of yours.” She offered another smile. “Perhaps, if you told me more about this world—is it called Erde? Then I could explain the differenc
es better.” That was true enough, since she didn’t have the faintest idea what such differences were.

  “Information for information.” Brill nodded. “I will tell you a bit, and then we will dine, and we will talk.” He cleared his throat. “Where should I begin?”

  “Explain about Erde. Daffyd mentioned something about dark ones and great dangers, but that was about all.” Anna smiled brightly. She felt as though she were pasting the smile in place.

  “Erde … . Erde is the world. She is governed by the laws of music, and by the influence of the moons—Darksong and Clearsong. She is also governed by iron, cold iron. That seems to be true to a degree in all worlds,” Brill added sardonically. “The Dark Monks are a new force in the world, new in the sense that their brotherhood dates back only a few decades, but already they have taken over Ebra and threaten both Defalk and Ranuak, although the Matriarch of the Ranuans insists that the dark ones are no danger.”

  “Why are they dangerous?” Anna asked.

  “Because they use massed voices to create darksong. They can sometimes change the weather, and there are those that claim the hot and dry years that have recently plagued Defalk are their doing.”

  “You’re one of those who believes this,” Anna said flatly.

  Brill shrugged and offered the quick, warm smile. “I cannot prove that, but, yes, I do believe that they have meddled with the weather.” The smile vanished. “They will do worse in the seasons ahead.”

  “I’m not clear on the difference between darksong and clearsong … .” Anna didn’t even know what they were, except that they had something to do with the way sorcery was practiced on Erde, but there was no reason to confess to total ignorance.

  A ghost of a frown flitted across the sorcerer’s face before he spoke. “You have seen that the world can be recorded to some degree by manipulating the music that binds its components together. The stronger the aspects of the spell, the more effective it is.”

  Anna nodded. That made a strange sort of sense.

  “But there are two sets of bindings on Erde—those that bind the living, or once living, and those that bind the nonliving. It is dangerous to attempt to manipulate the living—and difficult.”

  “But those who do are the darksingers?” she asked.

  “Ah … yes …” Brill looked vaguely disconcerted.

  “Are the dark ones—”

  “They use some clearsong, too, in dealing with the weather. That’s because a single voice doesn’t have enough power, even with a large number of supporting players.” The sorcerer paused, then added, “Your gown would indicate that you are, in fact, one of the great … ones.”

  Anna wondered at the pause, as though Brill were having trouble finding the appropriate word. “I’m considered to have a moderately strong voice. In my world, it’s hard to make it, especially if you have children.”

  “You’re a sorceress, and you have children?” Brill’s voice was not quite unbelieving.

  “Three.” Anna swallowed. “They’re grown.” They certainly were by the standards of this world, and she didn’t want to try to explain. “One was killed in a car accident—a magic-carriage accident,” she added.

  “How old are they?” Brill asked, clearly confused.

  “Twenty-four and eighteen. The oldest was twenty-eight.” Anna enjoyed the look of total confusion on the sorcerer’s face.

  “Years? Or seasons? Do they grow up more quickly?”

  “Years. Probably we grow up more slowly, from what I’ve seen so far,” Anna said.

  Brill sat down slowly in his padded chair. “Daffyd … . I wouldn’t have …” The warm smile returned. “You do indeed present a welcome surprise, perhaps a greater surprise than many would expect.” He stood and gestured toward the table, extending a hand to Anna. “Let us dine.”

  She took his hand, a normal, warm male hand, and rose. She could smell the faint odor of sweaty male—deodorants didn’t go with magic, she gathered.

  Brill dropped her hand, without squeezing, and gestured toward the place on the right. The place setting included a folded, faded blue linen napkin, a blue china plate with the B, fired in place in the center, edged in a gold trim, a silver spoon more like a soup spoon, and a small sharp knife. There was no fork.

  The two chairs at the table were both finished in metallic blue lacquer with blue cushions. Brill pulled out her chair with both hands, and Anna almost nodded to herself. The chair was heavy.

  The outer walls of the keep or hall shaded the blue-tinted windows from the glare of the sun, low in the sky, Anna suspected, from the angle and depth of the shadows in the courtyard. The area she could see from the window was empty—no retainers, no guards. She looked back to the sorcerer.

  “I must apologize in advance, lady. Our fare here is limited.” The sorcerer lifted a crystal bell and rang it before seating himself.

  As the tones echoed through the salon, a white-haired woman in the faded blue that all Brill’s servitors and employees, if that was what they were, wore appeared with a small tray.

  Silently, the server placed a half melon in front of each of them. The melon had a bright orange interior and a yellow-green rind, like a cousin of a cantaloupe.

  “The melons are probably the best part of the meal,” Brill noted, reaching for a crystal carafe containing the same amber vinegar wine.

  “No, thank you,” Anna said quickly.

  “You do not like the wine?”

  Anna scarcely would have called it wine.

  “I’d prefer clean, cold water, if you don’t mind.”

  “Some sorcerers do, I’ve discovered. The blue pitcher has water in it.” He filled his own goblet with the amber wine.

  “Do you have to spell all the water here?” Anna asked, pouring the water into the empty goblet.

  “I do. All the water used in the hall is clean, even the bathing water.”

  “I see why people call your hall a place of wonders.” Anna wasn’t so sure she was happy about a world where it was considered excessively cautious to purify the bathing water.

  “Jenny said that? Generous of her. It couldn’t have been Daffyd. He wouldn’t offer me a kind word.”

  “You don’t seem bothered by his dislike of you.” Anna used the small sharp knife to cut away a bite-sized slice of the melon, slipping it into her mouth. It was warmer than she liked melon, half honeydew, half cantaloupe, but sweet and refreshing. She cut another slice.

  “I’d dislike me were I in his boots.” Brill took a sip of the wine. “Not too bad.”

  “Why would you dislike yourself if you were Daffyd?”

  “I killed his father. It was necessary, because Culain’s humming was getting worse, and he wouldn’t listen.” Brill set down the fluted goblet. “Lady Anna … using spellsong is always dangerous. You said your daughter died in a magic-carriage accident. It is much the same way here on Erde. My father tried to use spellsong too long. There was less of him left than of Culain.” Brill laughed, a sound with bitter overtones. “Of course, it didn’t help that he tried to turn a thunderstorm on Lord Barjim’s grandfather.”

  Anna shook her head. “Your father was—”

  “Politics. They’re always complicated. Barjim was raised by his uncle. Donjim was the older son, but none of his children lived. Barjim and I don’t care much for each other personally, but he needs a sorcerer, and I, obviously, need silver.”

  “Just as you need Daffyd?” Anna guessed.

  “Precisely. I thought you might understand. Daffyd is a good player, and I would certainly not take askance if you remained friendly with him. Do keep in mind that, like all players, he has a tendency to … react … rather than consider the effects of his efforts.”

  Anna cut another slice of melon and chewed slowly, trying to gather her thoughts together.

  Brill cut himself a wedge of melon larger than Anna’s and popped it into his mouth with relish.

  “It’s often hard to consider the future when you are struggling
with the present,” Anna temporized.

  “If you don’t, you often have no future.”

  “If you don’t eat today,” countered Anna, “you may not live long enough to worry about a future.” Even on Erde, it appeared, there were the elitists who preached about preparing for tomorrow while conveniently forgetting that too many people had trouble getting through today. Elitists like Avery, who used his money on vacation homes while insisting that she share in the children’s college tuition costs, while preaching that she hadn’t saved enough after she’d followed him everywhere and given up her chances at tenure to try to let him have his big chance.

  “If I were to allow people to use seed grain for flour, we’d all have starved,” Brill said coolly.

  Anna swallowed her retort, realizing that she couldn’t afford to make the sorcerer angry, just like she couldn’t afford to make her department chair angry, her thesis advisor angry, Avery angry … . Instead, she took a last slice of melon and chewed it slowly, looking out the window into the still-empty courtyard.

  “It can be a hard choice,” she finally said.

  “Hard indeed, and I am often called cruel for it.” Brill refilled his goblet with the amber wine. “All prudent lords are in this time of trouble.”

  The white-haired server removed the melons, leaving the plates, then used a crude spatula to lever a brown-covered slab of meat onto Anna’s plate. Next came a whitish green heap of something. Finally, she set a steaming loaf of the brown bread in the center of the table.

  Brill nodded at the server, who departed as silently as she had slipped into the salon.

  Anna looked at the brown sauce that covered the hefty slice of meat. The sauce reminded her of all the mystery meats she hadn’t eaten when she’d been studying in England. She tried to sniff the meat without being too obvious.

  “It’s not the best beef,” the sorcerer admitted, “but the sauce is good. Only the tougher animals have been able to weather the drought.”

  “How long has the drought continued?” asked Anna, using the knife to slice a sliver of beef.

  “This is the fourth year.” Brill cut a large chunk of meat and eased the entire portion into his mouth.