The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The Ebrans would be inside the fort long before Daffyd and Palian could get Liende down the steps—and Liende should have gotten Brill’s bequest, not Anna.

  The sorceress moistened her lips and picked up the mandolin from beside the watchtower wall, humming slightly. Then she stood beside the wall, shielded from the arrows from the north. As the first Ebrans began to dash through the gaps in Brill’s once clean and well-formed brick walls, Anna began to sing.

  “Armsman one, armsmen all,

  from flame to ashes shall you fall …

  from the strings, from the sky,

  fire flay you till you die!”

  A crackling bolt flared like a snapping harp string from the still-dark clouds, whipping across the Ebran soldiers. A second followed the first, and then a third, and fourth … until the sky seemed hatched with lines of fire.

  Anna winced at the screams that seemed to go on and on, covering her ears and crouching down by the base of the watchtower., trying not to watch what she had unleashed.

  Her head ached, and her stomach turned, but she could see that Daffyd and Palian had gotten Liende almost down to the main level. A ray of light flickered through the clouds, and the air was silent, except for the moaning of wounded. Anna slowly fumbled open the water bottle and drank, and drank.

  A dull thudding sound echoed through the broken stones, and Anna lifted her head and looked toward the Ostfels where distant dark clouds still swirled across the eastern sky. The ground rumbled, and more bricks toppled into the courtyard.

  She peered over the crenelated section beside the watchtower, the only tower intact, from what she could see. Like ants, more columns of dark-clad armsmen wound their way down the road, past the burned bodies that lay everywhere, toward the dry and cracked moat, and toward the fort—and Anna.

  Her battle hymn had worked on the monks, but not the regular soldiers. Her burning song had almost floored her, and left hundreds dead, or more, and that didn’t count the thousands swept away in Brill’s one-time torrent. Yet here there were thousands of the Ebrans left, all marching out of the Sand Pass and down toward the shattered remnants of the fort.

  What could she do? She wasn’t quick, and she couldn’t think. Her head was already splitting.

  Maybe, if she stood close to the edge of the tower, and projected—used everything with the same spell she burned the armsmen—maybe …

  She shut away the sounds of the screams that still echoed in her ears, and eased herself toward the open space that had been the front rampart. There weren’t any Ebran archers close by, not that she could see, but some of the dark-clad soldiers were almost at the base of the walls, winding around the scattered puddles and getting ready to swarm up into the stronghold. Their blades gleamed in the intermittent sunlight.

  A dull thunder sounded, and Anna looked north toward the empty reservoir. Under the black banners were horsemen—far too many to count, and they were on the safe side of the disasters Brill had wrought.

  “Lady Anna!” called Daffyd, scrambling up the steps and across the brick-strewn rampart. “We’ve got to leave. The levies have all deserted, except for those under Lord Jecks, and they are forming up to fight outside the fort.”

  Anna turned to the youth, pointing to the north. “Look. We won’t get a mile.” She took a deep breath. “Get the others ready, and get Farinelli saddled. I’ll be there. One more spell.” Just one more—that’s all I’ve got time or energy for—just one.

  Daffyd opened his mouth, then backed away as Anna threw everything she had left into the spell.

  “Armsman one, armsmen all,

  from flame to ashes shall you fall … .”

  As she sang, sending her voice across the openness, trying to stay free while projecting everything she could, trying to visualize lines of fire striking mounted Ebrans and Ebrans on foot, it seemed as though that behind the blue-green sky, behind the nearer hazy clouds that were disintegrating, giant strings thrummed and cascaded.

  Fire—lines of fire—slashed again from the sky, and screams, screams that went through her like a knife, flayed Ebrans—and her soul.

  Without really looking, just visualizing lines of fire, she began to repeat the awful words and melody, but her knees began to buckle, and the crescendo that descended carried blackness … and silence, a silence behind which echoed screams … endless screams.

  37

  SAND PASS, EBRA

  Eladdrin staggers to his feet, putting a hand to his forehead. It comes away not only bloody, but with flakes of skin, as though his face had been scorched by the sun.

  Slowly, he steps through the black tatters of the tent, and gazes from the ridge toward the west, toward swirls of dust, and smoke, and seemingly endless death.

  A subcaptain lurches uphill toward him.

  The songmaster clears his throat, then waits.

  “We have the devils’ fort, songmaster. That’s about all.”

  “What happened?” asks Eladdrin.

  “You … ser … you must …”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  “The sorceress, the blonde soprano—her voice was like a giant harp in the sky and she called the lightnings on the forward darksingers and twisted them back onto them.” The subcaptain swallows.

  “And then?”

  “Then … twice she called forth something like whips of fire, and the whips touched everyone in the first army, and they all burned, and then when the second army attacked

  … she did it again.”

  “Where is she?”

  “We do not know, ser.” The subcaptain hung his head. “We didn’t find her body.”

  “What is left of the Defalkan forces?”

  “From the bodies we found, maybe half survived, but most scattered and ran. One group retreated to the north—a blue banner with a gold bear. Not many, say a dozen score. Scattered riders here and there.”

  “Our forces?” Eladdrin forces himself to ask.

  “It’s hard to tell, ser, what with all the rocks and the fallen walls.”

  “Guess, then.”

  “A third left, maybe less. None of them worth a dissonance.” The subcaptain spits on the rocks to his left. “Everywhere you look, burned bodies, bodies flayed with whips of fire. I’d flay that bitch sorceress, and then some.”

  “Why?” asks Eladdrin tiredly. “We would have killed her. We already tried once and failed. She has no reason to be kind.” He blotted the blood away from his eyes, looking at the spirals of dust and smoke that swirl over the end of the Sand Pass. “Still, part of me hopes she is in dissonance’s deepest discords.”

  “You lost all those darksingers, and … ?”

  “I’m excusing no one. We did what we had to do, and she did what she had to do. There’s no room for hatred in war, Gealas. It destroys your ability. But, if I could hate anyone, I’d hate her.” He pauses. “Marshal up the forces, and find a campsite north of the battle. We’ll need to regroup—and we’ll need a lot of reinforcements.” As the subcaptain leaves, Eladdrin adds under his breath, “A lot

  … and the luck not to run into more sorcerers like those two.”

  II

  WAHRWELTTRAUM

  38

  Anna’s eyes were gummy, and her head pounded, and someone was talking to her. She opened her eyes slowly, but could see nothing for a moment. Was she blind? What had happened? Then points of light wavered in the darkness—it was night.

  Daffyd was talking.

  “Are you all right? Lady Anna, are you all right?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna finally said. “I think I can see. It’s dark out, isn’t it?” She was lying on something, a bedroll, that didn’t soften the ground underneath very much.

  “It’s well after sunset, could be close to midnight.”

  “Midnight?” It had been around midday, or early afternoon, she thought, at the end of the battle, except it hadn’t been a battle—more like alternating slaughter. Her lips twisted. Had she really done it? Real
ly summoned whips of fire? She shuddered.

  “Are you all right?” Daffyd repeated.

  “What happened? Tell me what happened.”

  “But are you all right?”

  Anna slowly rolled on her side and struggled into a sitting position. Her head ached. In fact, her entire body ached. She felt like she even had bruises on her stomach. “No. Do we have any water? Where are we? What happened?”

  Daffyd fumbled and then extended a water bottle—her water bottle. It was only half full, and Anna drank nearly half of that. The throbbing in her skull subsided to a dull aching.

  “Where are we?” she asked again.

  “A little off the foothill road from the Sand Pass to Synope,” Daffyd answered. “A long time ago, before the pass sanded up, this was the main road between Synek and Sudwei. Now it’s not much more than a trail.”

  “Fine … . What happened?”

  “The weather changed. Lord Geansor got crippled—”

  “No. At the Sand Pass.”

  “You turned a whole lot of the Ebrans into cinders, and then you just fell down. I barely caught you before you almost rolled off into the courtyard.”

  “Great … .” muttered Anna. Fainting just because she sang a spell?

  “Everyone was so surprised that I carried you down and … anyway, we got out of the fort. Palian and Liende headed back to Mencha. They said no one would bother plain old players. I didn’t know about that, but I didn’t think that was a good idea for you, not after … what happened.”

  Anna’s ribs were sore, too. “How did you get me here?”

  “I couldn’t carry you,” Daffyd said defensively.

  “You didn’t drag me, did you?”

  “No. I sort of tied you in your saddle. It wasn’t easy, and I had to go really slow. We’re not very far from the fort, really.”

  “Everything hurts,” Anna murmured, more to herself than to Daffyd, then asked, “Why aren’t we headed back to Mencha?”

  “I’d thought we’d be riding to Synope. We can’t be going back to Mencha.”

  “Why not?” snapped Anna.

  “All the darksingers saw you on the walls. Enough of them lived that they’d be killing you on sight, and, well, without Lord Brill or Lord Barjim …”

  “What happened to Barjim?”

  “He was heading out with his guards when one of those thunderbolts brought the south tower down on’em all.”

  Anna recalled the tower falling, but hadn’t realized Barjim had been beneath it—but she should have guessed. There had been too much chaos, and Barjim—or Alasia—had been too organized to allow that to happen. “Lady Alasia, too?”

  “I fear so. Lord Jecks managed to break through the dark horse, but you gave them some help.” The player’s face twisted into a smile. “That was something. I wish I could do sorcery like that.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Anna bleakly, thinking about all the screams that had echoed in her ears and soul. “You don’t.”

  “That’s what Lord Brill said. You sorcerers just don’t want anyone else to learn what you do.”

  Anna sighed, but that hurt, too. After uncorking the water she drank a little more. Brill certainly hadn’t wanted to share. Would some sort of harmonic spell have been better? But how could she have persuaded Brill with so little time when it had been all too clear how little she had really known?

  “Are you all right?” he asked again.

  “I’ll live.” She took another swallow. “Synope? That’s where your sister lives? Delia?”

  “Dalila,” corrected Daffyd.

  “What would happen if we went back to Brill’s hall?”

  “Even if the darksingers didn’t get there first, could you hold it?” asked Daffyd.

  “Hold it?”

  “It’s a lot of sorcery. He calls forth the water, and keeps it cool in summer, and warm in winter—”

  “He did that all with sorcery?”

  Daffyd nodded, a gesture Anna had to strain to see in the dark.

  “What will happen if we don’t go back?”

  “Nothing for a while. Nobody would want it, except another sorcerer, or sorceress. I guess it belongs to the Lord of Defalk—except we don’t have one right now, unless it’s Lord Jecks.”

  Anna rubbed her forehead, and tried not to breathe deeply. Her diaphragm was sore, and she wasn’t certain that Daffyd hadn’t just slung her across the saddle.

  Whhuuuffff.

  She smiled as she recognized Farinelli’s whuff in the darkness, but the smile faded quickly. “Why won’t people in Synope recognize me? Or ask questions about a stranger?”

  “You could be my other sister,” suggested Daffyd. “No one’s seen Reneil in years.”

  “I’m years older than your sister.”

  “Not anymore, Lady Anna, not anymore.”

  Anna shivered again, and her eyes burned. She was glad that Daffyd couldn’t see that closely. She was young again—because a dying sorcerer thought she was someone else. She was young again, in a strange place, where she might never see her children again. She was young again, in a world she barely understood.

  The tears flowed, silently, in the darkness.

  39

  WEST OF THE SAND PASS, DEFALK

  The harp strums in the darkness of the tent, then whispers.

  “Songmaster?”

  “Yes, Evult?” Eladdrin rises and faces the instrument centered in the small pool.

  “The sorceress must be destroyed.”

  “I know. Do you have any suggestions as to how?” asks Eladdrin.

  “Songmaster …”

  Eladdrin’s eyes are fierce as he faces the pool. “Never have I felt such power—that was more than a league away—and that power was supported only by a tiny stringed instrument. With a dozen voices like that, we could hold the world. She destroyed five hundred massed voices—and you order me to destroy her. I would do so gladly, if I knew but how.”

  “We may have to use others for that. And do not think of trying to enlist her. She will break you like an arrow snapped across my knees.” The distant voice recedes momentarily. “I will send another cohort of darksingers and more armsmen.”

  “I had planned to take the harvests to resupply.”

  “This time, until we discover where the sorceress is, you can move slowly.” The words that whisper from the harp stop, then resume. “There is a sorceress, a travel-sorceress, in Mencha who called the blonde one from the mist worlds. Ensure that she can call no others. That you can do, Songmaster.”

  With a discordant clinging, the harp falls silent.

  Eladdrin walks out into the twilight and stares at the distant stars as they begin to appear. “As if I could move other than slowly … .”

  40

  The next morning was worse. Anna could barely roll over because her stomach muscles were so sore. Her head felt like it had been used as the chimes in the 1812 Overture, and her eyes were so gummy that they felt glued shut. Unseen needles jabbed into her brain every time she moved her head.

  The sun had barely cleared the horizon, but she could feel the heat building, and she smelled like she’d run a marathon.

  And Daffyd was humming to himself, almost tunelessly, as she fumbled with the water bottle. The two swallows left in the bottle that had been at her belt weren’t really enough. She levered herself onto her knees and looked around.

  The rest of her gear, including the other water bottles, was sitting almost within reach, beyond the head of the bedroll. From the weight, she could tell the first two she tried were empty. The third was full, but why was it always the last place you looked that you found what you needed?

  “Are you awake, Lady Anna?”

  “No. I’m still sleeping,” she answered after taking a long swallow.

  Wisely, Daffyd did not reply.

  For a time, she just sat and sipped the water, looking around. Daffyd had set up camp under a rocky overhang that was several hundred yards uphill from t
he winding trail he had said once had been a main road. It didn’t look like it had ever been anything but a trail, but she wasn’t exactly the expert on Erdean roadworks.

  The air remained clear, and the sun pounded down. She was glad their crude campsite remained in the shade.

  To the south Farinelli and the mare grazed on the scattered clumps of mostly brown grass. To the north, Anna thought, there was a thin twisting plume of smoke—the fires of the Ebrans? Or the burning ruins of the fort?

  She looked at her boots, sitting by the bedroll. Finally, she corked the water bottle and pulled on one, then the other. She tried standing up, and every muscle in her body suggested that she was well over a century old. The faded green trousers sagged, and she had to retie the belt even tighter.

  “You should eat something,” Daffyd ventured. “There is travel bread and cheese in the cloth there. I left it out for you.”

  “Thank you.” Anna limped toward it, bending slowly to retrieve the food off the rock ledge.

  The cheese was hard, and the bread stale, but Anna had no trouble eating everything. Daffyd was packing his gear on the gray mare before Anna finished off her breakfast with more water.

  After beating the dust out of the floppy-brimmed hat that seemed to have followed her, she went through her saddle-bags, but everything was there. “Did you pack these?”

  “No. Palian threw everything in there while I was carrying you down the steps. I put the mandolin in, though.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Lady Anna.”

  Anna carried everything over to Farinelli. The gelding ignored her and kept trying to nibble on anything remotely green.

  “I can’t get you water unless we get you saddled.”

  Farinelli kept grazing.

  After looking at Farinelli, and wondering if she really wanted to ride however many leagues it was to Synope, Anna fumbled the blanket in place, and then the saddle.

  As she lifted the saddle, she frowned, realizing that her shoulder didn’t even twinge, that there wasn’t even a trace of soreness there. Once she fastened both cinches, she looked at her left hand—there was only the faintest thread of a white line there—if that. Hadn’t there always been a line there? She crooked her head and pulled her shirt and tunic forward. There wasn’t even a scab where the arrow wound had been, and she could tell her stomach was flatter than it had been in years.