Darksong Rising

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  "Shit..." Then, as she continued to study the object, she smiled, realizing that the black was a heavy black fabric. Once the steaming subsided, she set aside the lutar, laying it on the small worktable behind her, and bent down.

  Her fingers brushed the heavy cloth-almost like a stage curtain.

  Within the crude bag was an envelope of some sort of synthetic material, and within that were two envelopes. The first contained a small pencil sketch of Elizabetta, and the second a thick letter. Anna looked at the sketch for a long time before she opened the letter and began to read.

  Mom-

  Your letter arrived. It just popped into the passenger seat of my car. The outer envelope was pretty charred, and there's a brown spot on the upholstery now, and it reminds me of you. I'm leaving this under the stairs like you said, but I found pieces of an old stage curtain, lined with asbestos or something, in the back rooms at PSC. One of my friends goes there, and I made a pouch out of it for this. I hope it works.

  The sketch is because I don't know if a modem picture would get there. The sketch of you got here, so I was pretty sure this would. Cortland was happy to do it, and I didn't tell him why.

  Anna took a deep breath, looking at the black blot of soot on the stone floor. She turned to the careful script and kept reading.

  I decided not to show Dad the coins. Mr. Asteni paid me by their weight, cause he says there isn't any speculative market for private mint coins. He thinks they were minted by those creative anachronism folks, and I'll bet he's keeping a few for himself. I told Mario you'd left money hidden in the jewelry case I brought back from Ames, and I just found it. I tried to give him half that way, but he wouldn't take it. He said he had a job, and I'd need the money more.

  I'm headed back to school. Because you're "missing"-and Dad thinks you're dead because even he admits you would stay in touch, that means you're presumed to be dead. The insurance people said it could be years, but the school gave me full tuition and room and board. So don't worry about that.

  You can't be dead. Ghosts don't send messages on real parchment or whatever it is, and funny gold coins. Especially not coins worth that much. I worry about you, and I was really glad to get your last letter. When I come back to the lake house for Christmas, if this one is gone, I'll leave another letter there, and I hope you can use your sorcery or whatever to pick it up. It sure is weird to write each other this way, but it helps to know you're all right somewhere. It'd be really hard if you had just vanished into nowhere. I don't know how people stand that.

  By the way, my grades did go up second semester, and I made the honors list. German was easier than I'd thought it would be, but I barely scraped out a B+ in theory. You said it would be hard, and it was. My voice teacher sounds like you, always talking about keeping the sound free....

  The police in Iowa haven't closed the case, but they're not actively investigating anymore. I think they think you just adopted a new identity. You did, but not the way they think...

  Anna blotted her eyes, and cleared her throat, then blotted once more. She had trouble swallowing, but she looked back at the letter, reading quickly, almost as if she were afraid it would turn to dust in her hands... or disappear.

  ...still hard to think of a world or a place like you describe. Somehow, I can see you running things, though. You neyer got a chance here, not taking care of us, and always being there and picking up all the messes...

  Anna had to set the letter down...letting the sobs come.

  After another interval, she sniffed, blotted her eyes once more, and continued reading the rest of the long and chatty letter, collapsing into sobs with the closing lines.

  ...Wherever you are, even if you can't ever write again, I love you.

  A good half-glass or more passed before Anna was ready to tackle scrying again. She'd also finished off most of the water in the bottle she'd brought out to the domed building.

  Finally, she stood before the pool, lutar in hand, and began the next spell.

  Silver pool, show me now and as you can where near Mencha sorcery by this woman will find gold to mine and gold to coin....

  The pool showed three images. Anna took a deep breath and studied them.

  One depicted a low hill covered with scattered pines with mostly bare ground around each short tree. The second showed a narrow gorge that appeared almost impassable, so steep that only a few straggly junipers sprouted out of the reddish rock. The third site was a river flat under a bluff with evergreens in the background.

  None was familiar, but Anna had expected that. That there were sites was encouraging. Now all you have to do is find them. Her head was throbbing, and every muscle in her body felt tight. After you eat... . and try to relax a little.

  35

  Anna turned in the saddle, looking out against the early midmorning sun across the river flat toward the hills that led eastward to the Ostfels, past the lancers and the six heavy wagons that she had optimistically rented from various crafters and farmers around Mencha. She and Jecks had finally decided against driving wagons all the way from Falcor. On the south side of the small river whose name she did not know, but which flowed westward toward the Chean, were grasslands and scattered herds of sheep. She suspected that the herders owed her rents, but that was something Halde would have to look into, once he arrived. Once that's been worked out with Herstat....

  According to the scrying pool at Loiseau, the site was a good thirty deks northeast of Mencha, a bit less than halfway to Silberfels, and according to the maps in Brill's study at Loiseau, definitely on Anna's lands.

  Anna dismounted on a knoll a good thirty yards east of the river, and the players followed her example. Jecks, Himar, and the lancers remained mounted.

  The white-haired lord stood in his stirrups, then settled down. "There is no one else in sight."

  "Worried?" asked Anna.

  "If you succeed... yes, I will be worried. Gold-bearing wagons far from a hold are scarce little to sneeze at."

  "There aren't any armsmen near," she pointed out as she handed Farinelli's reins to Kerhor, who had remained mounted. "I checked that before we left Loiseau."

  "For that I am glad."

  "So am I." Anna offered a crooked smile as she turned and began a last series of vocalises as the players tuned.

  When the tuning died away, Liende glanced toward the Regent.

  "The searching song," Anna nodded to Liende.

  "The searching song. On my mark... Mark!"

  Anna stood on the knoll, thinking, Just a hundred bars or ingots. She concentrated on visualizing those bars, stacked on the open ground to the right of the players, as she began the spell.

  Search, search, search the ground deeply all around, verily, verily, verily, gold will here be found....

  The ground shivered, noticeably, and several horses whuffed uneasily, even before Anna started into the second stanza of the spell.

  Bring, bring, bring the gold, straightly here to mold, verily, verily, verily....

  As she neared the end of the spell, the ground began to heave, and she forced herself to concentrate on finishing while struggling to maintain her balance. A series of strobelike lights flashed overhead and seemed to knife into the ground near the players, lights so bright that the fall sun seemed dint After the strobes came a hot wind, nearly blistering.

  Then, the unseen harp of harmony strummed the chords of the afternoon with an intricate chording that only Anna sensed and heard-that she'd discovered from experience. In the sky to the east, over the Ostfels, clouds appeared where none had been, quickly expanding and darkening as they rose even higher into the heavens.

  Thurmmmm... Thunder rolled across the sky and rumbled over the river flat.

  Anna sank onto the hot ground, barely sitting up, and only marginally conscious of the rising wind and the lightning and thunder to the east Her eyes burned, and her head throbbed. She looked up dully as Jecks eased his mount beside her and handed down a water bottle.

  "You m
ust drink," he insisted.

  She took the bottle... and a long swallow... before or speaking. "Did we get any gold?"

  "Look there." Jecks laughed and gestured beyond the players, most of whom were sitting in positions similar to Anna's. "More than enough. You have mayhap a hundred bars or so."

  "A hundred," Anna said, half-wondering. "Would you go see... if they're gold."

  Nodding, Jecks eased his mount away from Anna. She took another long swallow from the water bottle, and the worst of the headache faded ever so slightly. Not only does spellsinging drain you, but it dehydrates you as well.

  She found she had almost drained the water bottle by the time Jecks again reined up beside her.

  "There are indeed a hundred," he announced quietly, bending down from the saddle. "Each of the bars weighs more than a stone, and yet they are barely two spans long. It will take all six wagons to carry them."

  Gold was heavy, Anna recalled, but how heavy had eluded her. She wanted to shake her head, but tried to keep her mind on the necessary. "If you would have them start loading the wagons...?"

  "I have already. I have young Skent watching the loading and counting. We should make prudent haste for Loiseau." Jecks frowned. "You will need a strongroom there."

  'There is one, I think." Anna slowly stood and walked toward Liende.

  The chief player, cleaning her horn, glanced up. "Regent?"

  "Good work. There will be a special bonus of two golds for each of them, and five for you."

  "Ah... two golds?" Liende swallowed.

  Doesn't anyone reward anyone around here? "Isn't that fair?" asked Anna, adding guilelessly, she hoped, "A lot of this will have to pay for roads and armsmen, but the players should have some."

  "Never have any players received golds such as that," Liende pointed out.

  "Good. If you would tell them... but they won't get them until after we get back to Loiseau."

  Liende smiled. "I would be most happy to tell them." Anna took Farinelli's reins from Kerhor and slowly mounted the gelding, her legs so wobbly that she had to pull herself up as much as use her legs. Once mounted, she eased the gelding up beside Jecks.

  "Never would I have suspected such use of sorcery..." Jecks frowned. "Yet... one cannot pay in bars of gold."

  "No . . . but if I can drag gold out of the ground, I can turn bars of gold into coins." After a moment, she added, "I hope." Always hoping... but someday that hope won't work out. Just trust that it won't be too soon.

  Would the hundred bars or ingots be enough? Sitting limply in the saddle as the ten lancers loaded the bars into the wagons, Anna hoped so... and that she could indeed turn bars into coins. More hope...

  36

  Anna forced herself to finish the loaf of bread and the last wedge of cheese set on the wooden platter beside her in what once had been Brill's scrying room. That left one loaf of bread. The spell to mine and refine the gold had cost her weight-and strength-that she couldn't afford to lose.

  Feeling the pressure of the food she needed and didn't want, she burped quietly, instinctively looking around. She had to smile at her foolishness, but she'd been brought up to believe that ladies never burped. Even when they're staffing themselves with heavy food to survive.

  She took another swallow of cool water, welcome in the warmth of the scrying room, then set the mug down on the table.

  Her eyes went to the scroll that had just arrived by messenger from Lord Dannel of Mossbach. She picked it up again, her eyes going over the words.

  ".... understand you have done much for Defalk... but you must understand that you have treated my son less kindly than I would treat a serving maid. You have dismissed him because he cannot master numbers he will never employ and because he would not defer to those of lower birth. You have denied him the right to an honorable consort.... Such actions may hold beyond the mist worlds, but no lord of Defalk would gainsay my right to withhold liedgeld for such unacceptable behavior. I will not do so, in recognition of your efforts on behalf of the Thirty-three, but I would like the honored customs of Defalk restored and respected...

  Lord Dannel was angry-but angry enough to suggest withholding liedgeld-because of a spoiled and thickheaded idiot who was his son? Anna shook her head. Almost all parents were protective, but Dannel's actions reminded her of the worst of those she had encountered as a teacher. The chauvinistic worst.

  She'd have to draft some sort of placating response that suggested that Hoede was the honorable son of an honorable father whose talents did indeed lie elsewhere, but that honor on the part of Mossbach and honor on the part of Abenfel did not necessitate drawing two youngsters into a consortship both would regret....

  She sighed. "Or something like that," she murmured, looking down at the ten bars of gold stacked beside the table, and she sludied the blocks of gold-or bars-or ingots. Then she bent and lifted the topmost. That took two hands, even though the bar was only two spans long. After holding it briefly, she eased it back onto the small pile.

  With a deep breath, she looked at the two sketches on the table. The circular designs were simple-the crossed spears with the R beneath on the drawing that represented one side of a coin, and the simple word "Defalk" imposed on simple outlines of the liedburg at Falcor. Anna then picked up the Neserean gold coin and compared it to the second gold. one minted in Wei. From what she could tell, both weighed the same. In a strange way, it made sense. Underlying Liedwahr was the idea of harmony, and it would have been unnecessarily disharmonious to have coins of different weights. Dissonance was reserved for weightier matters.

  She snorted and stood. easing the lutar from its case and beginning to tune it, as she went through another vocalise.

  After several more vocalises, she straightened and concentrated on the first spell, and on the set of designs on the table.

  Coin, coin, by this my own design, a coin figured round and fine, weighted like all others here of gold, signifying the Regency as strong and bold.

  Clink! As the last note died away, a single coin rested qn the table, next to the drawing. Anna reached for it, then stopped. Her fingers could feel the heat radiating from the metal. She bent down and looked. The coin, not even quite the size of an American nickel, bore on the upper side the emblem of crossed spears.

  "Now all you need is a few thousand more," she murmured, setting aside the lutar and reseating herself at the small worktable. She refilled the mug from the pitcher and took another healthy swallow.

  She brushed her index finger over the surface of the small coin, but it was merely warm. She picked it up and studied it., noting that the inscriptions and design matched those she had drawn. With that, a smile crossed her lips, then faded. You only need afew thousand more like this one.

  Shouldn't you bring in the players? Anna shook her head. Some things were better not seen... if she could make the spell work at all for larger numbers of coins, then she should do it with the lutar.

  She stood once more, checking the lutar's tuning and clearing her throat before beginning the revised spell.

  Coin, coin, by this my own design, a thousand coins both round and fine, weighted like all others made of gold, signifying the Regency as strong and bold.

  This time, a wave of heat, steamy and metallic, filled the workroom, and Anna backed out into the hallway. As she retreated, awkwardly closing the door, the clink of metal striking the floor sounded almost like heavy rain.

  With her right hand still holding the lutar, she blotted her steaming forehead with her left sleeve, listening. The pattering clinking had stopped. After what seemed forever, she eased open the door, stepping back as warm metallic air puffed from the scrying room. Finally, she stepped inside. Gold coins lay strewn across the polished stones of the floor, hundreds of them. Probably a thousand.

  Anna slipped into the room and closed the door. After she set the lutar on the table, she began to stack the warm coins on the table in stacks of ten. In time, she had exactly one hundred stacks. Her eyes dropped to
the stack of bars on the floor. She swallowed. Exactly one bar was missing. She looked again... less than one bar, since a small oblong of gold lay in the right-hand upper corner of the stack of gold bars.

  She tried to figure it out-with more than a thousand coins a bar, and one hundred bars stored below Loiseau-ninety below the hold and nine before her... The Regent shook her head slowly. What dared she do with all that gold? She had the equivalent of more than ten years' liedgeld. If she spent it too quickly... she'd generate the local equivalent of inflation... and if anyone knew exactly how much there was... she'd have thieves and who knew what else prowling through Mencha and Loiseau.

  She needed a concealment spell-or something-after she converted another bar or two to coins to pay for her coming campaign. Then she laughed. Once she had all the gold in the storeroom, she could weld it into a stack with sorcery and then conceal it. No one had the technology to move that mass-not quickly-and that would be if they could find it.

  She went to the door of the domed building and peered out.

  Frideric, Blaz, and Lejun all stiffened.

  "If one of you could find Lord Jecks and ask him to join me... if you would?" She smiled as pleasantly as possible.

  "Ah ... I will, Lady Anna," offered Blaz.

  "Thank you. Tell him I'll be in the room with the pool, please." She slipped out of the early-fall heat and into the somewhat cooler hallway, walking slowly back to the scrying room. Then she sat down and forced another swallow of water and more of the bread before she got back to work.

  Anna was making a list-of everything that needed to be handled in one way or another before she left Loiseau-when Jecks knocked on the door.