The Saprano Sorceress

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Brill touched her arm, interrupting her study of the map. "The practice room is through this door."

  She bit back a comment about being hurried and followed the sorcerer.

  The next space was a large room empty except for an array of stools and a large wooden stand that could have held music, except that Anna had seen nothing resembling music.

  Brill explained, "This is where the players practice new spellsongs. Confinement helps reduce untoward effects."

  Anna cleared her throat. "I thought there weren't any effects if people weren't singing."

  "Unaccompanied music cannot cast a spell, but it can disarray the emotions," Brill answered smoothly, with an air of superiority that momentarily reminded Anna of Avery again—or Antonio, as he now called himself, the king of the comprimarios.

  She repressed a snort, and managed a nod, as they entered another room, with two wide windows to the east, a flat desklike table, two chairs, and a small book case.

  "This is the eastern workroom, and it might be most suitable for your use," suggested the sorcerer.

  "That is thoughtful of you," she said slowly.

  "You are still not convinced that Erde is real," he said

  "At some moments I am, and at others I'm not. It's getting more real the longer I'm here," she added after a pause.

  "It is very real, lady, and you could be here for a very long time." He laughed harshly. "Or a very short time, if you do not believe it is real."

  Anna understood that threat and found herself flushing, half in anger. "You would have some of the same problems in my world."

  The sorcerer nodded. "I well might, but you are here." Next he guided her back to the center atrium and pointed to the doors for a washroom and attached jakes, and to a storeroom which contained supplies for her work.

  "Such as?"

  "A key-harp, a set of bells, some paper…"

  Anna had seen nothing resembling a piano, a harpsichord, or an organ, but went with her gut feelings—not to comment on that deficiency.

  Brill's own workroom contained two desks and several spoked wooden chairs, a northern exposure with a view of both the hall and Mencha, a small instrument that looked like a zither with a short keyboard, presumably one of the so-called key-harps, and a book case. A rack of handbells was mounted on a side wall, and sconces held three wall lamps.

  The third workroom was similar to the first—stark, but spacious, except that it seemed much warmer, perhaps because of the southern exposure that showed browning fields and groves of gnarled trees climbing halfway up the hill to the dome building.

  "Apple trees?" Anna asked.

  "Apple and some apricots. The apricots take the heat better, if they get water."

  Anna studied the southern view, the scattered houses and the brown line that seemed to be a highway heading south.

  "Do you prefer this or the east room?"

  "The east," she answered.

  "I thought as much." Brill turned back toward the small entry hall without another word.

  Were all sorcerers like that? Did they flick from solicitous to indifferent from moment to moment?

  She followed the balding sorcerer from the dome building, and the late-morning heat struck Anna like a furnace, but the dryness made it bearable—just. She untied the gelding and mounted.

  Brill gestured toward the other-trail, the one leading down to the groves. "I had thought to show you what we face from the dark ones."

  Anna eased Farinelli up beside Brill's mare. "The effects of the weather?'' she asked.

  "Not five years ago, all these fields, all the way to the south, as far as the eye could see, were green." As the horses carried them farther down the trail toward the groves, he continued. "The leaves of the apple trees were so thick you could not see the ground under them from here."

  Anna glanced out to the south, her eyes reaffirming the brown dryness, broken only with intermittent stretches of green.

  "The roads were filled with wagons and carriages."

  "Kkkkchew!" Anna rubbed her nose. The dust was getting to her. "Sorry. It is dusty." She was glad for the floppy hat, but she wished she'd brought sunglasses as she squinted against the constant glare. "It looks pretty barren."

  "That's the work of the dark ones." Brill laughed harshly. "The Ranuans refuse to see the danger, and the Norweians play off everyone else, and each year Defalk dies a little more."

  On the right side of the trail, perhaps fifty feet from where the apple orchard began, was an empty pond, one with slightly darker dirt that indicated recent water," formed on three sides with the elaborate and precise brickwork that Anna was associating with sorcery.

  "You made the pond?"

  "What else could I do? You see…" explained the sor-cerer, his hand pointing to the nearest of the gnarled trees, and the damp and narrow ditch that ran from a sluice gate at the bottom of the brick dam down to the orchard.

  Anna studied the irrigation system as Farinelli carried her down into the orchard itself.

  "Where do you get the water?"

  Brill smiled wryly.

  "Is that what you were doing last night?" Anna guessed.

  "I claim I have a spring that flows at night."

  Anna nodded. With water so scarce, Brill would not wish to broadcast his sources, especially if he were drawing from the same aquifer as others' wells.

  "Even so, see how small and few the apples are?" The sorcerer lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "And I cannot bring water more than a few times a week, and the waters barely feed the orchard."

  "How far do your lands extend?" Anna asked.

  "Not even a dek beyond the base of the hills. My grandfather obtained the hills, and my father added the groves and fields beyond the base. Not that the fields have offered much in the past few years." He turned the mare back uphill without another word.

  Her knees were shaking by the time she dismounted at the hall stables. Her head was spinning, and sparkles flashed in front of her eyes. She staggered as her feet touched the courtyard stones outside the stable.

  "Are you all right, Lady Anna?" Brill took her arm.

  "I need some water," Anna rasped. She wasn't that good with heat, and the dryness had kept her from realizing just how dehydrated she had gotten. She'd been used to the wet heat of Iowa, where she would have been drenched in sweat.

  "The mist worlds are cooler. I should have known," Brill took her arm and helped her back to the hall and to the salon where Anna slumped into a chair at the table.

  The sorcerer watched as Anna sipped her way through nearly a pitcher of water.

  "I'm not used to this much heat," she finally said as the worst of the dizziness and disorientation passed.

  "Will you be ready to hear the players this afternoon?"

  "How long?" she asked.

  "That won't be until the ninth glass."

  "I'm not used to your timekeeping. How many glasses in a day?''

  "At the beginning of spring or fall, the day is ten glasses long, and, of course, so is the night."

  Anna thought for a moment. So a glass was somewhat longer than an hour, say, maybe ten minutes or so, and it was near noontime. "It's what, about the fifth glass of the day now?"

  "Actually, midday in summer is the sixth glass."

  "I should be fine by the ninth glass, especially after I eat." She paused. "If we ride in this heat anymore, I'll need a water bottle of some sort. That should do it."

  "You are different, Lady Anna." Brill shook his head slightly. "Very practical."

  Anna wondered. Avery and even Mario had thought her often very impractical. Or was a problem-solving attitude just considered unfeminine on Erde? Or was Brill flattering her?

  He rang the bellpull, and the white-haired server ap-. peared.

  "Serna… we will eat… and the lady Anna will need a pair of water bottles for our afternoon ride—around the eighth glass."

  "Yes, ser." The dark eyes looked from Brill to Anna and then at the f
loor.

  Anna supposed she looked bedraggled, but, for the moment, she didn't care. She probably would later, but her stomach was empty, and she still felt dehydrated. She refilled the goblet and took another sip of the cool water. The last of the light-headedness was beginning to disappear.

  In less than two sips, Serna returned, with two platters and an array of food—more of the dark bread, two more half melons, some cold slices of meat, yellow cheese wedges, and dried apple slices.

  Anna tried a small nibble of the yellow cheese—hard, but without the moldiness that the softer and whiter cheese possessed.

  The melons were the same as always, but welcome nonetheless, as was the tasty bread. Again, Anna found that she ate more, far more, than she should have.

  "I'd like to rest for a while," she said, after glancing again at the empty platter before her.

  "Of course." Brill's smile was understanding, but not cryptic, and she made her way up to the bedchamber, accompanied by Florenda.

  11

  North of the Whispering Sands, Ebra

  Ten rows of dark-hooded figures stand silently as the drums begin to roll. Then come the horns, the low falk horns and muted brazen trumpets.

  The Songmaster raises his left hand, then drops it into a slow rhythm, while the drums and horns meld into a sound like the incoming tide rushing across the Shoals of Elahwa. The black baton in the Songmaster's right hand falls, and the massed voices take up the spell.

  "Blessed be" the land that receives the damp, Strike the watered clouds with heaven's lamp. Blessed be the land that receives the damp, Strike the watered clouds with heaven's lamp."

  Shortly, a bolt of lightning flashes through the black clouds that roll southward and pile up in the skies over the newly uncovered soil just north of the Sand Hills.

  "Blessed be the land that receives the damp, Strike the watered clouds with heaven's lamp. Blessed be the land that receives the damp, Strike the watered clouds with heaven's lamp."

  More lightning bolts cleave the clouds that have turned nearly night-black. The Songmaster's left hand gestures once more, and the timbre of the accompaniment deepens. The baton flicks, and the chant shifts.

  "Blessed be the land that receives the rain. Open the clouds onto the thirsty plain. Blessed be the land that receives the rain. Open the clouds onto the thirsty plain."

  Droplets begin to fall on the newly uncovered soil, on the fragments of dried wood that had once been shaped, and upon the sand-polished, white fragments that had, centuries earlier, belonged to some living creature.

  12

  The ninth glass found Anna in the dome building, standing beside Brill as she watched the players tune their instruments. Gero sat on a stool in the corner, his eyes on Brill. While she hadn't been able to sleep, with all too many questions swirling inside her head, the combination of the midday meal, lots of water, washing up, and several hours' rest had left her feeling surprisingly good, surprising for someone thrown from one world to another. She just hoped Elizabetta would be all right. Mario was on his own, anyway, except that she still worried.

  "After they practice," Brill suggested, "you might have a word with young Daffyd."

  "About what?" Anna asked innocently.

  "Whatever you choose," the sorcerer answered. "He's like a skittish colt, and if he bolts, he's going to get in trouble."

  Anna held in a frown. In trouble with whom?—Brill? Lord Barjim? the dark ones?

  "The dark ones would see him as your summoner, and…" Brill shrugged.

  Lovely, reflected the singer. If I don't keep the young man here, and anything happens to him, it's my fault! It was so convenient for Brill to forget about what he did to Daffyd's father, but not unexpected. That sort of rationalization was typical for tenors, conductors, and directors—and, apparently, for sorcerers. Her eyes went back to the group assembling around the stools in the dome building's practice room.

  There were twelve players, and eight were strings—four violinists, with instruments like the early Italian violinos, two violas, and two cellos. Then there were the horns—two instruments resembling clarinets, one wooden flute, except it was played from the end like an American Indian flute, a last woodwind that resembled a cross between a bass clarinet and an English horn, and one brass horn halfway between a French horn and a tuba, except the brass tubing seemed thicker and shorter.

  Daffyd, carrying his viola, looked sideways at Brill, then at Anna. Anna offered a smile to the young man, but he looked away quickly, and took his seat on a stool.

  "Are they ready, Kaseth?"

  "We are almost ready, lord."

  "We will begin with the building song," Brill announced. After a minimal number of tunings, the sorcerer raised his hands, and with tight but fluid gestures, directed the group through the very short song.

  Anna listened. Although she was no musicologist and she couldn't have provided an explanation of Schenkerian analysis, let alone provided such an analysis—the music seemed similar to early Western music, mostly polyphonic and modal in nature. Then, did they have either the mathematics or the instrumentation to develop equal-tempered tuning? There was so much she didn't know, didn't even know how to ask without creating more problems.

  Each instrument seemed to carry its own melody, although the predominant melody seemed to rest mostly on the high strings, the violinos. Occasionally the predominant theme was carried by both the woodwinds and the strings. The cello seemed totally used for a simplified bass version of the melody, rather than for true harmony, as was the deep sound of the bass clarinet/English horn. The brass horn—Brill had called it a falk horn—followed the violas, or so it seemed to Anna.

  "… the section where the falk horn and the bass wind join—you're not together there…"

  The two hornists exchanged glances, and the woman clarinet player with the white-streaked red hair followed the interchange. Daffyd looked stolidly at Brill.

  "Again," the sorcerer ordered.

  "Now the paving song…"

  "… the forging song…"

  Through the rehearsal, if that were what it was, Anna wasn't impressed, but she kept her face impassive, or she hoped she did.

  "That will be all for this afternoon, Kaseth." The sorcerer nodded to the man with the wispy white hair, the concertmaster, of sorts, then at Anna.

  Anna slipped from the side of the practice room to the stool where Daffyd was easing his viola into the brown case. Brill followed Kaseth out into the small entry hall. Gero followed the sorcerer.

  "I'm sorry about your father," Anna said.

  "You are with Lord Brill, most high sorceress," Daffyd said stiffly, closing the instrument case.

  "Yes, I am staying in his hall. That's all. I'm a stranger here. I have no clothes, no money, and very little knowledge of Erde. What would you suggest?"

  "You are a sorceress. Lord Brill says so."

  "That may be." Anna took a deep breath. "But I don't know who to trust, and how much. I don't know the politics or even much about the geography. Don't you understand, Daffyd? Even if my language is much like yours, I'm a total stranger here. I'm not a composer. I'm not even an arranger. I'm a singer, and the songs I know won't do much here."

  Daffyd looked over his shoulder. Only the woodwind player with the white-streaked red hair remained in the practice room, and she looked directly at them. Anna caught her eyes, and the woman turned quickly and hurried out into the entry foyer.

  Daffyd still did not reply.

  "What is it? Is 'singer' a dirty word here?" The look on the youth's face gave her the answer. "Some people act as though it's a dirty word where I come from, too. Especially when it's time to pay you. They want it for free, or cut-rate."

  "They don't pay sorceresses?"

  "If you mean singers… no, not very much."

  Daffyd looked bewildered, and his eyes flicked toward the empty doorway. "But you are a sorceress," he protested.

  "Right now, I'm a sorceress with a few spells, just enou
gh to keep Lord Brill off balance."

  Daffyd paled slightly. "They must be powerful."

  "Enough," Anna temporized. "But not enough to go wandering all through Defalk, not without getting into even more trouble." She could tell that Brill remained outside the practice room, and that bothered her. What was he expecting from her?

  "But you were powerful in your world…"

  "Song magic isn't as strong as technology magic on my world." Anna thought of her stopped watch. "Here, it seems like some forms of technology don't work at all, and song magic is stronger, much stronger. It takes some getting used to."

  "Why are you talking to me," Daffyd asked, "if Lord Brill has all the answers?"

  "Because no one has all the answers, and because I trust you," she answered bluntly, but quietly enough that her words would not carry. "I couldn't explain why, but I do."

  Daffyd opened his mouth, then shut it. Finally, he asked in a whisper. "And what about Lord Brill? Do you trust him?"

  "About some things."

  Daffyd gave a small nod. "I have to think."

  "Do that." Anna watched the young string player as he left the practice room.

  Brill returned shortly, even before Anna reached the door. "He seems more settled. What did you tell him?"

  "I told him that I had to learn more about your world, and that I trusted him."

  "That was dangerous."

  "His heart is good," Anna said.

  "But not his judgment."

  "He's young," Anna said, reflecting to herself that some judgment could be learned, but not trustworthiness. "We've all had to learn."

  "You're more charitable than I," Brill continued as he closed the doors to the building.

  "That may be because you are more experienced in the ways of your world," Anna answered, hating herself momentarily for trying to placate the sorcerer.

  Despite the sun's low position over the western plains, the air was still and penetrating as though Anna stood in a massive oven. She patted Farinelli and took several deep swallows from the water bottle before mounting.