Darksong Rising (14 page)

Bring it whole in word and frame....

As she finished the song, Anna concentrated on visualizing the letter at Elizabetta’s fingertips,

and upon making the words and melody and visualization match.

The entire scrying pool exploded in steam even before Anna struck the final chord and finished

the last note. Small geysers erupted upward into the dim white plaster of the ceiling and sprayed

in all directions. The heat radiating from the water turned the air into a steam bath, and large

bubbles of steam burst from the vanishing water of the pool.

But the envelope was gone!

Lutar in hand, Anna wrenched open the heavy door with the other and staggered out of the steam

and boiling water and into the liedburg’s wide stone-wailed corridor. Her back was soaked with

near-boiling water.

“My lady!” Lejun reached out and dragged her farther away from the cascading steam.

Anna stared down, dumbly, at her reddened right hand. Her face felt hot, almost burning. Beside

her, Blaz and Lejun looked from her to the thick, smokelike steam pouring from the half-open

door and the puddles of steaming water on the floor stones outside the scrying room.

Jecks appeared from somewhere, his hazel eyes wide as he surveyed the slowly subsiding steam.

Then his gaze snapped to Anna.

Anna took a slow breath. She thought she hadn’t inhaled any of the steam. You hope not. She’d

read about what live steam did to lungs. “I need cold water! Quickly.”

Lejun dashed down the corridor.

Jecks’ eyes followed Lejun, then snapped back to Anna. “Mighty sorcery, my lady. Mighty

indeed. Are you well?" Was there the faintest quiver in that firm voice?

“I think so." Her knees were rubbery, and her eyes blurring slightly. Anna found that she was

clutching the lutar all too tightly. All you tried to do was send a letter! One letter to your

daughter. Just one!

She walked quickly, but almost mechanically, into her own chamber, where she dropped the

lutar on the bed as she lurched toward her bathchamber. There she began to splash cool water

across her face for several moments before groping for the washcloth and holding it across her

forehead until it warmed.

She had almost run through the water in the pitcher when Lejun reappeared with a full bucket.

“Thank you.” She plunged her hands into the bucket.

After a time, she could tell the cold water had helped, although her forearms and the back of her

hands were still blotchy and red. She walked slowly into the main chamber, where she sank into

the chair behind her writing desk, knocking off a scroll she didn’t bother to pick up as it rolled

across the worn rug.

After bending and replacing the scroll on the desk next to the others, Jecks sat down in the other

straight-backed chair, his warm hazel eyes on her. “Might I ask..." Jecks inclined his head toward

the closed chamber door, in the direction of the scrying pool.

“I was sending a letter... a scroll... to my daughter.”

“Across to the mist world?”

“Yes.” Anna nodded. She could feel the tears welling up, but held them back, back behind the

invisible barriers she’d learned to erect so many years before. Rather than try to say more, she

nodded.

“Are you most certain that you are well?”

“I feel all right. Except I’m burned a little.” She looked down at her hands.

Jecks shook his head slowly. After a time of silence, he said, “You are not what you seem. I see a

woman who looks young, but has children nearly so old as mine and who is wiser then I am... I

see a lady who speaks well, and appears beautiful, yet who can wreak greater destruction than

this Erde has ever beheld.” He laughed, not quite ruefully. “Just when I can tell myself that you

are not that different from the women of this land, then... you prove otherwise.”

Anna wasn’t sure that she wanted to prove otherwise. “I’m a woman like many others.”

“No. You are not like any others. There is none close to you. And for that, I am most grateful, if

sometimes startled.”

Does it have to be this way? Can’t I be reassured and be held and still be strong? “I’m still a

woman,” Anna insisted, “and all I wanted to do was send a message to my daughter.” Like any

other mother.

“Do you know if…she received your scroll?”

“I can’t tell. I sent the letter somewhere.” Anna reached for the half-full goblet of water on her

writing desk and swallowed it in two quick gulps. “I’ll try to summon her answer in a few weeks.

Then I might know. After that”—she gestured toward the closed door and the scrying room

beyond—"it’s clear I can’t try it often.”

Jecks nodded somberly. “You best might wait longer... after such as today.”

Anna refilled the water goblet and took another swallow. “We’ll see.”

“Do you still wish to leave for Fussen on the morrow?”

“We might as well. The burns won’t be that bad. They’re not forming welts. Maybe I can do

something about the succession in Fussen, and reassure Nelrnor and Jearle, and…whatever else

will help the western lords." Anna stood slowly. "I need to put myself back together. We still

have a lot to do before we go. If you’d meet me in the receiving room in a bit...?"

“Of course.” Jecks rose as she did.

Anna looked at the back of the door as it closed. Are you pushing him away again? Why? Or is it

just because you’re a sorceress? She took another deep breath as she walked toward the

bathchamber. Her legs were still rubbery, and she probably should eat before long.

When she had blotted and combed and straightened herself, and checked her face again to ensure

that it was not blistering, she left her room, stepping past her guards, and started for the receiving

room. Then she turned and headed back along the stone tiles of the corridor, past the door to her

own room, striding purposefully until she reached Lady Essan’s door.

Giellum and Lejun trailed her, then set themselves on each side of the door as Anna knocked,

and then stepped inside.

As Anna entered, the white-haired lady turned in her seat Her eyes flicked to the middle-aged

woman who had started toward the door. “You may go, Synondra.” The firmness in her voice

reminded Anna that Lady Essan had once been the consort of the strongest ruler of Defalk in the

generations before the unfortunate Lord Barjim.

“Welcome, Regent." Synondra bowed to Anna, and then to her mistress. “Yes, Lady Essan.” The

maid stepped out of the chamber and closed the door behind her.

“Lady Essan, I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting you.” Anna slipped into the straight chair across

from the carved and upholstered rocker that held the older woman.

“Aye... a while it’s been, sorceress and near-daughter...." Essan nodded.

“Yes,” Anna admitted. “It never seems like there’s enough time.”

“Donjim, always he said that. Said it while he was dying, too." Essan’s laugh was both harsh and

rueful.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Anna bent forward and took a handful of the salted nuts in the

small circular dish. They’d help her falling blood sugar.

“Do that, daughter-who’d-be.” Essan smiled momentarily. “And what bit of gossip or history

might you wish today?”

Anna couldn’t help grinning at Essan’s knowing tone. “You know Lysara? Lord Birfels’ oldest

daughter?”

“The stately young redhead...aye. Courteous... and well-spoken. She visits me at times. A good

head on those shapely shoulders.”

Anna nodded. She hadn’t known that Lysara visited Lady Essan, but then, there was probably all

too much she didn’t know. “Did she tell you that her parents are pushing for a consort for her?”

Essan frowned. ‘That she did not. We had talked of her mother. Lady Trien was quite young

when she died, and young Lysara wished to know more of her. The daughter is much like her

lady mother, I fear."

“You fear?”

“Lady Trien was like you—fearless and far brighter than the men around her. Birfels took her

against his family’s wishes. With him, she was almost happy. With another she might have

perished.”

The sorceress nodded slowly. That figured. “Lysara’s stepmother wants to consort her to young

Hoede”

“That Lady Fylena would, for should aught happen to Birke or the other boy, none would wish

Abenfel to fall to Lysara’s consort, were he young Hoede." Essan laughed harshly.

 
"I'm opposing it, but all I've promised is to look for a suitable consort,” Anna shook her head

before helping herself to another handful of nuts.

“Finding such may be difficult.”

“Almost anyone would be better than Hoede, but I’d like to find someone to complement her.”

“Lord Dannel be a proud man, and one not to cross lightly.”

“His son’s proud, too, but there’s nothing between his ears except pride." Anna snorted. “Lysara

deserves better.”

“Ah…well she might, but the old lords will be turning in their graves even afore they are laid in

them, and you may have to lay some in those graves, would you support a woman’s cares.”

Essan arched her eyebrows. “Would you do such?”

“I’d rather not, but I might have to,” Anna said. “What would you suggest?”

“Find her the proper consort, and tell none of her family or his until you tell all, and decree it to

be so, and that way all will blame you—as they would anyway.”

“You’re so encouraging.”

“You would wish an old lady to deceive?”