The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Anna could feel the words contained double connotations, but had no ready answer. “The time for finery has passed,” she finally said.

  “Ah, you are announcing that you are a warrior … with real weapons.” Delor’s eyes glittered.

  “I’m not one for announcements, overcaptain.”

  “But I am,” declared Behlem, striding in to stand by the head of the table. “It is past time to dine!” The Prophet gestured to the place at his right. “Lady Anna.” Then he gestured to the seat to his right. “Lord Vyarl.”

  Even as they sat, servers were appearing around the Prophet, with platters containing slabs of meat smothered in a cream sauce and baskets of bread.

  Vyarl looked from Behlem to Anna, then pulled on his chin. He said nothing, but broke off a chunk of bread and served himself two large slices of meat. Anna followed his example, except she didn’t bother with politeness, and took three, then watched as Hanfor, to her right, filled her pewter goblet.

  “Thank you, overcaptain.”

  “My pleasure, Lady Anna.” The faintest twinkle appeared in the green eyes, although Hanfor’s weathered face bore no smile.

  “Lord Vyarl,” the sorceress began, “as I am sure you know, I am new to Liedwahr. What can you tell me about your lands?”

  Vyarl’s lips curled into a smile; then he laughed. “You know not what you ask when you offer a rider that much of a chance to boast. Still … you did ask.” He moistened his lips with the dark red wine in his goblet. “The grasses in Heinene are the deepest in all of Liedwahr—or they were until the dark ones began to meddle with the weather, but they remain tall, and they stretch from just north of Dubaria to the Nordbergs. A sea of grass, designed for long-legged mounts and their riders. The gazelles slip through the grass so silently and so swiftly that only the sharpest of ear and the fleetest of horses can seek them.”

  “What about the grass snakes?” asked Menares.

  “They are large, also, but they avoid riders, unless one is stupid enough to ride over one.”

  “How large?” asked Anna.

  “I have one skin that is five yards long, but Fiesar swears that he has seen a snake twice as large.” Vyarl offered a wry grin. “If he had, we would have few gazelles, and less of all game.”

  “Has fire become a problem?” mused Anna.

  “In the south, near Dubaria, but the taller grass does not burn easily. The weeds do. So fire is our friend. So far.”

  Anna understood. Even the toughest grasses needed some rain.

  “How is your research faring, lady?” asked Menares.

  “I’d like to see you tomorrow after my ride.”

  “Good,” said Behlem. “The last of the Ebran reinforcements are gathering in Synek.”

  “Now that the Ebrans are moving … you had said the time had passed for finery, Lady Anna,” interjected Delor, his fingers toying with the base of the pewter goblet. “Yet women have so many weapons … and even finery can be a weapon.”

  Anna eased the smallest of sips of the wine past her lips. “I rather doubt that the cut of your uniform, Captain Delor, or whether I might wear a gown, would impress the dark ones—or slow their advance an instant.”

  A guffaw came from the foot of the table, and Delor’s face darkened for an instant before he answered. “Finery has doubtless created many delays.”

  “It probably has,” Anna admitted, “but not for the winning side.”

  The guffaw was louder, followed by a hissed, “Best you cease while you can, Delor.”

  Anna took another sip of the dark red wine, ensuring that it was small, much as she felt like gulping it. The idea of riding to Pamr didn’t sound that bad at all, not at all.

  68

  MENCHA, DEFALK

  The harp strums from the middle of the pool, and Eladdrin nods to himself.

  “Songmaster? I see you have made the sorcerer’s work yours.” The pool shows a hooded and shadowed figure in a dark room, seated behind a small table beside a pool larger than the one Eladdrin has turned to his own use.

  “Not exactly.”

  “What of the sorceress?”

  “She is in Falcor, under Behlem’s protection in the liedburg,” admits the Songmaster. “She intended to return here, for she left her gown.”

  “A gown? Why does that concern us?”

  “It is unlike anything I have seen. Even the material is otherworldly.”

  “You have no doubts she is from the mist worlds?”

  “None. That concerns me.”

  “You are in control. Do what you must.” There is a pause. “What of the travel-sorceress?”

  “She is dead, but …”

  “What?” The words are chill, yet sing.

  “She was killed before we reached her—it had to be the Norweians.” Eladdrin looks down at the dusty tile floor of the domed building.

  “Who killed her matters not, not this time. The other sorcerers and sorceresses in Defalk would not try such a spell, if they knew it, and the strange sorceress will not try to bring another.”

  “You think not, honored Evult?”

  “If she has ethics, she cannot bring another until she knows more. If she has no ethics, she will not bring another to share her power, not until she is secure in it.” The harp offers a discordant whisper of tones, a parody of a stringed laugh.

  “She meets with the Prophet, and she has the freedom of Falcor.”

  “She has freedom until she defeats us or falls to us. You will ensure the latter. While you finish your preparations for the attack on Falcor, send a detachment of archers and horse to shadow her, to kill her if they can. Perhaps they will succeed. If not, they will worry her—and that arrogant Prophet.”

  “What of the Norweians?”

  “I will send a flood down their River Ost as a warning. That will occupy them for a time. Do not worry about that. Worry about destroying the Prophet and adding Defalk to our domains.”

  “Yes, Evult.”

  After the strings have ceased their whispers and the images have left the waters of the pool, Eladdrin walks from the dusty workroom out into the twilight. For a time, he studies the lifeless hall that had once belonged to a sorcerer, a hall Eladdrin has yet to fully fathom or to return to functioning as it once had.

  69

  Whhhnnnn!

  Anna paused, short of Farinelli’s stall, then jumped back as she saw a shadowy figure, and a hand slammed across her mouth.

  She staggered back, dropping the lutar case as her own right hand grabbed for the dagger, her left pushing the arm and hand back away from her. She swallowed, trying to sing the repulsion spell, but she couldn’t. As the knife finally cleared the sheathe, she kept backing up, swallowing and trying to get enough saliva to sing.

  The bigger figure lunged again.

  Anna choked out the words of the spell, and the armsman staggered, but kept moving toward her, thrusting a hand toward her mouth again.

  Whhhnnnnn!

  As she vaguely remembered, she brought the dagger up and toward the biggest target she knew—the diaphragm, right under the ribs—and thrust as hard as she could.

  “Ooofff …” Even with the deep thrust and the knife in his guts, the armsman’s right hand pinned her left, and his hot acrid breath cascaded across her face.

  She twisted and yanked the knife more, and managed to bring up one knee into the man’s groin. With a stunned look, the attacker staggered back.

  Instinctively, Anna held tight to the knife, watching as the unfamiliar blond and bearded armsman clutched at his guts, before crumpling, his hand grasping toward the stall wall as his feet slid out from under him. After a moment, he lay face-up, his mouth moving with a low series of moans, his feet twitching.

  “Get her!”

  Anna cleared her throat, and turned, keeping her back to Farinelli, and this time, she sang the burning song, on tune. Both soldiers went up in flame. She slashed the forearm of the one in front, the dark-haired one, to keep him from clutch
ing her even as he burned. Then she danced back, her stomach turning.

  The straw on the floor began to smolder under the burning bodies, and she tried the water song, visualizing water spilling across the corpses and straw.

  The words were enough to stop the flames and convert the straw into a sodden mess—and the odor of manure, charred meat, and burned straw was enough to turn Anna’s legs nearly to jelly. For several moments she just stood, one hand holding the stall wall.

  “What …?” Tirsik came trotting from the far end of the stable. He looked at Anna, then at the three bodies—two charcoaled bundles, and one lying face-up, still moaning. Tirsik’s eyes went to Anna and the bloody knife. His mouth opened and closed.

  Whhhnnnnnn! offered the gelding, from behind her. Anna thought that horses didn’t whinny except to other horses, but it sounded like one. She wondered why she was thinking that, even as she half turned, looking down at the bloody knife almost as though she had not seen it before.

  “Mmmmm!” A muffled sound stopped both the stable-master and the sorceress.

  Anna turned back toward Farinelli, but Tirsik found Birke, bound and gagged, just inside the empty stall adjoining Farinelli’s.

  The stablemaster lifted the youth to his feet, ripped off the gag, and slashed the cording. “Now … what happened, young fellow?”

  Birke’s eyes widened as they took in the destruction and death, fixing on the bloody dagger Anna still held.

  She glanced down at the blade.

  Tirsik handed her a rag, and the sorceress wiped the blade clean, slowly, looking back at the wide-eyed dying armsman, whose moans grew louder. How had she managed it?

  Tirsik let go of Birke and knelt by the bearded man. “Who sent you?”

  “Hurts … so much …” gasped the young armsman. “Didn’t tell me …”

  “Who sent you?”

  “—’Elmat … said … he did …” The eyes widened, and the body slumped.

  Tirsik stood, shaking his head, before turning to Birke. “What happened?”

  “I came down to saddle the bay. They were by the stall, and the big one grabbed me.”

  Tirsik nodded. “Subofficer came in to ask me about reshoeing a horse. Asked me to look. So’s I wouldn’t be around, I’d guess.”

  “I came in to saddle Farinelli.” Anna took a deep breath and pointed to the dead man. She supposed she should do something, but she didn’t know what, and she didn’t feel all that charitable. “He was waiting behind the empty stall door there. Farinelli warned me enough, but I couldn’t get a spell off quickly enough for him. Those two were slower.” She looked at Birke.

  Birke put his hand to his head, then winced.

  “Got a stiff lump there.” Tirsik peered at the boy’s skull. “Don’t like these things happening in my stable.”

  “Neither do I.” Anna looked up as Spirda and his men approached. The young subofficer’s mouth opened soundlessly.

  “You aren’t going to ride now, are you?” asked the stablemaster.

  “I need fresh air,” Anna said. I’m not going to be intimidated. I won’t be. “Especially now.”

  “What … ?” began Spirda, turning toward the dead figure in Neserean colors.

  “Looks as though someone doesn’t want the sorceress to be successful,” Tirsik said dryly.

  Birke massaged his neck gingerly.

  Anna sheathed her dagger and went to reclaim the lutar case, and to saddle Farinelli. Was she being a fool to ride? Probably. But she’d be a bigger fool to show fear—or the terror that she’d pushed to the back of her mind. Even the nastiest of university politicians hadn’t tried to murder her, except occupationally.

  “Them’s think she’s a normal weak woman … they’ll be sorry … .” muttered Tirsik.

  Anna hoped so. She picked up the lutar case, trying to ignore the mixed stenches of blood, death, charred meat, and sodden straw. She swallowed the bile in her throat and straightened, her fingertips brushing the dagger hilt. Her head ached, and she wanted to rub it, but didn’t.

  70

  After unsaddling and grooming Farinelli, Anna marched across the courtyard to the tower, the sound of her boots echoing from the stones with each determined step. Her tunic and hair were plastered to her, and she smelled worse than the stable.

  After the attack in the stable and before her ride, she’d been startled, afraid, and angry. Now, she was just angry. As she had ridden down the Falche River with her escort, she’d been thinking. The whole attempted murder in the stable had had nothing to do with the Ebrans. It reeked of someone like Delor, of jealous male egos, or jealous females—but so far she didn’t know of any females, except Hryding’s bitchy consort, who’d be that jealous.

  Back in her room, she stripped off her sodden riding clothes, and splashed herself as clean as she could, before drying and donning the other clean riding clothes. Then she yanked the bellpull and waited for a page by the door.

  When she heard steps, she opened the door. A dark-haired youth trotted up the stone steps.

  “Take me to Menares,” Anna told Skent before he had even reached the landing.

  The dark-haired page gulped.

  “Now. He knows I’m coming.” He just doesn’t know why. Anna closed the tower door behind her.

  “Did you really kill that armsman with a dagger?” Skent asked as they went up the broad red stone staircase.

  “I didn’t have much choice.” And I was lucky, because he wanted some fun, I think, first. She repressed a shiver. Lucky, because her attacker had thought of her as a sex object? Or wanted to terrify her? Would the next time be a straight murder attempt? Could she afford a next time?

  The hot outside air had seeped into the hall itself, despite the thick stone walls, and outside of Anna’s room, the rooms and corridors were scarcely cooler than the oven outside. She wondered why she’d even tried to clean up, as perspiration oozed from every pore. She’d never been one for medieval romances or fantasies, and the heat and lack of modern bathroom facilities reinforced her predisposition—except she was stuck in the real-life equivalent, with no apparent way out.

  A squat blond youth in Defalk purple sat on a stool by the closed two-panel wooden door, blotting his forehead with a ragged square of cloth. He jumped up as he saw Anna and Skent.

  “Cens,” began Skent. “The lady Anna … She … is here … ah … to see …”

  Cens’s eyes darted from Skent to Anna. He swallowed before finally saying, “I’ll have to ask—it might be a moment—he is meeting with Overcaptain Hanfor … .”

  “What I have to discuss should not take long.”

  “I will have to ask, lady.”

  Anna nodded. “I’ll wait.”

  Cens slipped behind the door, and Anna thought she heard voices, although they were cut off as soon as the page closed the door behind himself.

  In moments, Cens reappeared, sweat beaded up all across his forehead. “He will be but a moment, Lady Anna.” The blond page’s eyes darted to Anna’s belt dagger, then to the floor.

  Scarcely had the page finished speaking than the door opened behind him, and he eased to the side.

  Hanfor’s weathered face and graying dark hair appeared in the doorway. The overcaptain bowed. “Lady Anna. I am pleased to see you.” His mouth crinkled, and his eyes sparkled. “Although it was certainly distressing, I have taken the liberty of informing my captains and officers about this morning’s incident. I have also suggested that I would not be so swift and kind as you—were there to be any further such incidents.”

  “Thank you, Overcaptain Hanfor. I will do my best to ensure such incidents also do not recur. The Prophet will need all his armsmen.”

  “My thoughts as well, Lady Anna.” He nodded, then turned and strode down the dim corridor.

  “My lady …” Cens gestured to the still-open door.

  Anna stepped through, letting the page close it behind her. The room was long and narrow, with closed doors at each end. Five narrow and
high windows dotted the long outside wall, their shutters open, but the air in the room remained still, with the faint odor of perspiration.

  Menares stood behind a small circular table on which rested a pitcher and three goblets. There were three straight-backed chairs drawn up around the table.

  The sorceress wondered who the third man had been, and why he had not exited with Hanfor.

  “Please … If you would …” The graying counselor gestured to the chairs across from him.

  “I won’t be long.” Anna sat.

  “Lady Anna … I heard about the incident in the stable … The Prophet was most distressed … .” Menares eased himself back into his chair.

  Menares was playing both sides against the middle, Anna felt, but she had no real proof, only her feelings. How far should she push it?

  “I am certain he was distressed,” Anna said sweetly. “And others were probably distressed by its failure.”

  The counselor’s face froze. “Lady Anna …”

  “Menares,” Anna cautioned. “I am well aware that there are some within the Prophet’s circle that would feel no grief at my death or disappearance. Such as Delor.”

  The faint widening of Menares’ eyes, and his look away told her all she needed to know.

  “But,” she emphasized, “that is not why I am here. I have been studying the maps and thinking, and I need to go back to Pamr to study the area.”

  “The maps are not enough?”

  “Sorcery doesn’t work on maps. It works on people or land or the sky, but not on the maps. As Lord Behlem pointed out last night, it won’t be long before the dark ones march on Falcor. If we fight here, we’ll lose.” Anna had no logical reason for her conclusion, but it felt right, and she had to go with her feelings.

  “Lose?”

  “Lose. That’s why I need to go back to Pamr. That’s where all the roads from the east meet.” Anna waited.

  “You would need an escort …” mused the counselor. “I do not know.”

  “I am here to help the Prophet defeat the dark ones. I cannot defeat them without knowing the land where we may fight—or finding the best place for a battle. You pointed that out already.”