The Spellsong War: The Second Book of the Spellsong Cycle (58 page)

“There’s a banquet tonight,” Jecks offered.

Anna groaned. “I’m supposed to be entertained, and entertaining?”

“I believe that is what Lady Fylena said.”

“Then you don’t get to leave before I do.” Anna offered a smile.

“Your wish in that is my command.”

“You are still most careful, Lord Jecks.”

“With sorceresses, and regents, that is wise.” He kept a blank expression, but the hazel eyes twinkled, and Anna wished for a moment that she were neither regent nor sorceress.

A
shtaar turns in her chair to view the harbor through the open window. In the late twilight, the sound of insects hums upward from the trees below the Council building. To the north, points of yellowed orange flicker into being as the larger lamps on the harbor piers are lit. The darkness undotted by lamps denotes the river Nord and Vereisen Bay beyond.

At the knock on the door, the spymistress turns, returning her thoughts to the room illuminated softly by the wall-hung brass luminaries. Behind the spotless crystal mantels, the lamp flames scarcely flicker, but they are bright enough that her dark hair glistens in their light. “Yes?”

“You requested my presence, honored Ashtaar?” Gretslen bows as she steps inside and closes the dark-stained wooden door behind her. The lamplight turns her blonde hair into a faint cloud in the dim room.

“I did.” The darker woman gestures to the chair before
her desk. “You have reported that the sorceress now holds all of Defalk?”

Gretslen brushes a lock of short blonde hair off her forehead. “She has subdued all the rebels without destroying their keeps or all heirs, except in the case of Synfal. That she turned over to the heir to Defalk itself, Lord Jimbob.”

“She did not raze Stromwer?”

“No.”

Ashtaar purses her lips, and her fingers slip around the black agate oval, blacker even than her hair. “She has the loyalty of all Defalk, and yet she neither presses into Dumar nor returns to Falcor.”

“She guests with Lord Birfels of Abenfel. She and her forces are his invited guests,” Gretslen confirms.

“And the Sea-Priests remain in Dumar?. Can you determine why?”

“No, honored Ashtaar, save that their Sea-Marshal spends much time with Lord Ehara, who does not seem overly pleased.”

“Would you be pleased?” Ashtaar laughs. “He has the Liedfuhr to the west, the sorceress to the north, and the Sturinnese fleet in his harbor. He has been providing aid to the rebel lords of Defalk, and the sorceress knows that. Would you be in his seat?”

Gretslen shakes her head.

“The worst is yet to come,” predicts the spymistress. “Ehara is trapped between the Sturinnese, who will do anything to gain a foothold in Liedwahr and to destroy a powerful female ruler, and the sorceress. She will destroy them—and much of Liedwahr—if she must in order to keep the gilded chains of Sturinn from enslaving the women of Dumar and Defalk.” Ashtaar offers a cruel smile. “She does not know that, but she will.”

“And what of us?” asks Gretslen.

“We are worse, dear seer. We told her about the chains, and we will let her use her full powers, come what may.” Ashtaar’s fingers tighten around the black agate before she forces them to relax.

A
nna glanced to her right at the mist rising out of the gorge and above the trees and brush that blocked her direct view of the canyon and the river. Her eyes went to the damp clay of the trail that led to the narrows where she would try to create her dam. In the leather folder behind her saddle were her drawings, based on everything she could remember, and the elaborate three-stanza spell.
Elaborate strophic, homophonic spell . . .

She hoped she wouldn’t need it, and that she could concentrate on the drawing and the concept of the dam, but the words and melody notations were there if necessary. She felt tired, and she hadn’t even done any spell-casting. Then, most of the fatigue was probably from mental conflict. She didn’t like what she was planning, but she had to do
something
, besides waiting, and anything else she or Jecks or anyone else had thought up was worse—except doing nothing. And within a short time,
that
would result in even more dire consequences.

The lutar that accompanied her everywhere away from whatever keep she inhabited was also fastened behind the saddle. Jecks rode silently to her right, drawn into himself, and probably fighting the same internal conflicts. Anna snorted. He was probably wondering how they’d ended up saddled with a temperamental sorceress who didn’t want a return to the good old days. Women thinking? Openly questioning men? Or running holdings? What had Erde come to?

As she pursed her lips, moistening them, she leaned forward and patted Farinelli, getting the faintest of
whuffs
from the gelding. Ahead of her rode Rickel and Fhurgen,
and behind Anna, Hanfor and Lord Birfels. After the veteran and the lord rode Lejun and then the regent’s players, followed by the Purple Company.

The players were silent, even Delvor, the struggling violinist, and Duralt, the cocky falk-horn player who was too often full of himself. Anna missed Daffyd. For all of his puppy-dog hurt looks, for all that his misconstrued spell had dragged Anna to Defalk, he’d been a good player and leader and had stood up for what he believed in—and for Anna—and he’d died at Vult doing it.

“Lady Anna . . . ?” Birke’s voice almost broke—the problems of adolescent growth—as he edged his mount nearer to hers.

She turned her head, eastward, left, and let the rising sun warm her full face. “Yes, Birke.”

“What . . . what will happen . . . after . . .”

“After the sorcery?”
That is a damned good question
. “There will be a dam, and a large lake behind it. When the water reaches the spillway—that’s a lower place in the dam—it will flow over the dam, and then the river will continue.”

“But . . . why . . . do such sorcery?”

“To let the Dumarans and the Sturinnese know I could halt the river forever. To persuade the Sturinnese to leave Liedwahr.”
You hope. . . .

“They might not,” Birke said. “My sire says they are like ants in a granary. You have to remove everything and kill them all before they will leave.” He paused. “Would you do that?”

“Birke,” Anna said slowly, “one day you will inherit your sire’s lands. You’ll be responsible for all of the holding. You know what the Sturinnese have done. They’ve conquered the Ostisles and now they have a fleet in Dumar. Would you like to see Lysara and Clayre in gilded chains? Or your own consort when you have one? What would you do?”

“They have often taken many years . . . and you are powerful. They cannot defeat you.”

Anna wanted to shake her head. She’d seen it in academia on earth, and in Erde among the lords . . . and everyone else. If the problem wasn’t immediate, ignore it and hope it will go away. “Birke . . . your faith in my ability is touching, but how long will I live? I’m older than your father, possibly older than Jecks. And I can be killed. It’s almost happened twice.”
More like half a dozen times if you count the backlash of sorcery
. “Then what?”

The youth’s forehead furrowed. After a time, he answered. “Lady Anna, when you talk, nothing is quite the same. But it is hard. I remember when you bespelled Virkan. At first, I thought you were fearsome, and then Skent said something strange. He talks more like you, you know. He said that you had only spelled Virkan to do what a good person would not need a spell for.” Birke glanced at the winding trail ahead, then looked back at the sorceress. “He said that you seldom spelled except to make things better for everyone.” The redhead laughed nervously. “And he looked at me, and he told me that what was better for lords wasn’t always better for everyone else. I would have struck him except . . . he’s bigger, and he seemed so calm.”

Anna glanced over her shoulder. Birfels was talking quietly to Hanfor. “Birke . . . Skent was right. What is good for one lord is not good for all lords, and what is good for all lords may not be good for all people. You remember Secca?”

“The little redheaded fosterling. Lysara wrote me about her, but . .”

“You had already returned to Abenfel. She has two brothers, one older and one younger. She is brighter than either. She is fairer and more determined than either. Would it be better for her to hold the lands or her brothers?”

Birke looked at the mane of the roan he rode. “The sons. . . . They have always been heirs. . . .”

“Exactly. It’s hard, isn’t it? If you admit that Secca might be a better landholder, then wouldn’t you have to admit that Clayre or Lysara might have that skill, too?” Anna laughed. “I’m not changing the succession laws, except in cases where the sons are incompetent or there aren’t any sons.” She paused. “Isn’t it better that Cataryzna hold her father’s lands than some outsider?”

Birke nodded. “That . . . that is better.”

“Well . . . that’s the sort of thing I am changing. Nothing more.”
Not for a long time, anyway. That’s enough to turn some of the older lords purple as it is
.

Birke screwed up his face. “But you did not . . . I mean . . . Dumar . . . and the Sea-Priests . . .”

“I didn’t, did I?” The sorceress wiped her forehead. Despite the early-morning coolness in the hills, she was starting to perspire. Nerves? “I’m hoping that if I cut off the river to Dumar for a time, that will persuade Ehara to get the Sea-Priests to leave.”

“But . . .”

“If they don’t?” Anna shrugged. “We’ll have to see. At least this way, I’m not using sorcery to kill scores or hundreds or thousands of people.”
If it works. . . .
She repressed a shiver. “Isn’t that the narrows there?”

Birke stood in the stirrups. “Yes. There goes a buck! If I had my bow out, we’d have venison.”

Anna watched as the big white-tailed red deer—was there such an animal?—bounded from the cleared area into the trees that climbed the hills to the east of the trail. She was glad Birke hadn’t had his bow out and strung. She turned in the saddle. “Liende, I’d like the players to set up on that grassy spot on the ridge there, right below those bushes.”

“Players!” Liende ordered.

Anna eased her water bottle from its holder and took a long slow swallow before replacing it. By then, Farinelli had carried her to the partly cleared ridge that overlooked the narrower section of the gorge.

Most of the mist had cleared from above the river, save for a few wispy strands drifting out of the shadows she couldn’t see below her on the eastern side.

“Purple company!” called Hanfor. “Squads one and two back along the trail, up to the crest by that pine. Squads three and four, ride down to where those two bushes sit by that fallen trunk.”

As the armsmen followed the arms commander’s orders and dust swirled across the high meadow, Anna dismounted, handing Farinelli’s reins to Lejun and then unpacking the folder with the spell and the drawings of the dam. Folder in hand, she stretched, then lifted her shoulders, walking in circles to get the stiffness out of her legs. Her steps took her down to the overlook, and she studied the gorge once more.

The Falche seemed wider than even the few days earlier, the silver ribbon twisting in the shade hundreds of yards below. As she watched the play of light and mist and shadow, she cleared her throat, then began her vocalises.

“Holly-lolly-polly-pop . . . Damn!” She coughed, trying to clear out her throat, then began again. It was going to take a long time to get clear. It did—four separate vocalises and a lot of mucus.

Only the faintest of mist streamers were left by the time she turned from her warm-up and view of the Falche. Jecks was waiting for her by Farinelli, water bottle in hand, after she walked back up the gentle slope through the knee-high brush.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I should not be.” He shrugged. “I worry every time you attempt the impossible.” A small laugh followed. “You have made the impossible possible, time and again, but still I worry.”

“This time even more?”

He nodded.

“You may be right. This is a
very
ambitious spell.”

“Sometimes, my lady, you try too hard to avoid shedding blood.”

“You all wanted me as regent. That’s who I am.” Anna laughed brittlely and shook her head. “No . . . you didn’t want me. You wanted someone to preserve Defalk, and you got me. That’s different, isn’t it?”

“In these times, Defalk could not have a better ruler.”

“You’re so careful, Jecks, but I understand. Thank you.” She took the water bottle and drank, then handed it back.

The players stood on the cleared part of the ridge, stretching, coughing, clearing throats. The sounds of strings and the clarinet-like woodwind and the deeper falk-horn intertwined as the group finished its warm-up tunes.

“Your players stand ready, Lady Anna,” Liende said.

“Thank you, Liende. I’m almost ready.” Anna walked to where Hanfor waited, still mounted. “I don’t know what will happen, but it could spook the mounts.”

“I have told the men that. They understand.”

“Good.” She paused. “Thank you.”

Hanfor touched his brow in an informal salute. “May the harmonies be with you, Lady Anna.”

Anna glanced from Hanfor to Jecks, getting a brief smile from the white-haired lord. She took a last swallow and coughed gently to make sure her throat was clear. Finally, she nodded to Liende.

“The battle tune. On my mark. . . . Mark!” The head player gestured, and lifted her clarinet-like horn, turning to join in the melody she had started.

Anna tried to stay focused and relaxed, letting her body and cords carry the music, her mind on trying to hold the image of the dam, her eyes on the drawings, attempting to project them in place in the narrow gorge below.

“My words must start the damming of the river here below . . .”

Even from the first words, the sky seemed to silver, and to freeze—a silver-blue hemisphere frozen in time. From the players’separate parts—each note rang like a tiny bell, even the sweet singing of the strings, and the deeper bass of the falk horn.