Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress - Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 11
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Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 11

Part of the problem was the songs. She'd never realized how many dealt with love, and feelings. She needed a song that dealt with solid objects, or weapons, or something.

Her mind was blank. With all the songs she'd learned over the years. . . Her mind was blank...

not blank of songs. There was the jewel song, and all the arias from Boheme, and Barber, Don Giovanni, and even Lakme. Delibes had some violence in ..... .. Were there some sections that could be used? She murmured the words, not singing them until she reached the section she sought.

"Que le ciel me protege Me guide par la main Chasse le sacrilege Au loin de mon chemin!"

"Sacrilege" wasn't it. Could she use "les ennemis' '?- that was a near rhyme even in French.

But... the words wouldn't do much except in a battle, and she didn't expect to see one. At least, she certainly hoped she wouldn't. Still, she wrote down the words, with the change, and the rough notes of the melody line. Would they be enough? She couldn't write the whole score, and even if she could, could anyone read it? She hadn't seen any written music. Was there any?

She rubbed her forehead and took a swallow from the goblet, turning it in her hand. Why did she have so many questions? In novels, heroines or heroes just did things, but what was she supposed to do?

She looked back, at the key-harp. She might as well tune it, even if it were only good for composing or learning. A piano would have been better. Why an underpowered harp?

Then she nodded, almost ashamed at her slowness. If the strength of spells were determined by the combination of music and voice, and if most spells took twelve players or more, a sorcerer or sorceress had to be limited by what he or she could develop and teach. That meant that there couldn't be that many sorcerers, not when it took talent, trained skill, the ability to read both language and music, and write both in a semi-literate culture.

With a piano... or something like it. . . She shook her head. A good pianist and singer-or even a good guitarist and singer-would be the equivalent of... what? A guided missile, atomic weapons? She didn't know... and she didn't have a piano, or a clavier or a harpsichord.

She strummed the strings, then counted-twenty-four- three octaves. It sounded almost like equal-tempered timing, but not quite. Perhaps an early, form, without the minute adjustments that made the system work smoothly? She hoped so as she reached for the tuning levers.

After getting the key-harp in what she hoped was a rough tune, a very rough tuning, Anna looked at the short stack of paper and rubbed her forehead. Surely, surely.. . Surely she could come up with something.

What about repeating her cool-water experiment, if only to prove she st ill had the talent? She had left the envelope with the last words in the green handbag. Shaking her head, she began to write with the greasy pencil, since she hadn't even brought her one working spell with her. Some sorceress.

The words were as awful as ever, but she scratched out "cold" and replaced t with "cool."

Then she ran through the vocalises quickly. Should she use the key-harp?

She turned the chair and picked the harp up, resting it on her leg, and trying to duplicate the melody. She stopped after a dozen notes. Even using a one-note-at-a-time melody was laborious with the unfamiliar instrument. She set the harp back on the table. Maybe later.

After clearing her throat again, she sang the words again, emphasizing "cool" and thinking about ice water.

Surprisingly, the goblet didn't split, but frost rimmed both goblet and pitcher, and the water was cool indeed, and a pair of ice cubes bobbed in the pitcher.

Anna grinned, but the grin faded quickly. So she could chill water. That wasn't going to do much of anything, let alone get her back to Ames and Elizabetta. With a deep breath she looked at the paper again.

Love songs.... Why did almost every song she knew deal with love or something like it?

Her eyes drifted to the road below the hill, and the single rider who headed up toward the hall, a rider wearing a sleeveless purple surcoat.

There had to be some songs she could change. . . didn't there? To what.. . for what? She shook her head angrily. No one was telling her anything, and she didn't know enough to know what to ask.

Could she do something with the candle-lighting spell? She wrote down the words and looked at the paper. After glancing around the room, finally wadding up a sheet of paper and setting it on the floor. She hummed through the tune and tried her improvisation.

"Paper white, paper bright, flame clear in my sight."

The single sheet of paper went up in an instantaneous blaze.

Anna wiped her forehead. Would it work with other items? She wrote out a set of lines to the same rhyme scheme, but pondered.... If every word were critical, what about armsmen? Would such a spell work on them? She took a deep breath, and penciled in another thought.

She snorted. Great! She could turn paper into fire, and maybe an armsman or two, if she had time to sing, if she had some accompaniment.

Her eyes went to the window once more, toward the clear hot day outside. Finally, she took another swallow from the goblet and reached for the Boke of Liedwahr. Maybe that would help with ideas. . . or something.

15.

With the rap on the workroom door, Anna glanced up. "Would you care to accompany me back to the hall for the midday meal?" asked Brill.

Anna looked at the half loaf of bread and the empty platter that had held apple slices. She was still hungry. How could she be? "Yes. Unfortunately. I seem to be hungry all the time."

"Magic is hard work," Brill offered. "There are few weighty sorcerers."

That might be so, but Anna hadn't been doing that much sorcery. She was still trying to figure out the basis for a few verses or adapt a few songs that might possibly be converted to the magic of Liedwahr-she hoped. She'd figured out a way to cool water-safely-and bum paper. Nei- ther was particularly inspiring. "I haven't been working that hard."

Brill glanced at the dark spot on the stone floor.

Anna flushed. "1 burned some paper. The spell worked."

"Why paper? Paper is hard to come by, lady."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize that."

"There are a number of objects and materials in the closet," Brill inclined his head toward the closet door Anna could not see.

Anna donned the floppy hat, following the sorcerer out to the horses-and the two guards- who waited outside in the shade offered under what amounted to a portico. Gero stood behind the guards, eyes downcast.

"Is all well?" asked the sorcerer.

"We'd not be seeing anything strange," offered Wiltur, the older guard, one hand still on the blade at his waist. "'Cepting a messenger.''

"Messengers do not bode well," Brill said lightly, "but we all know that." He laughed gently.

Anna smiled briefly at the two men, then untied Farinelli, and climbed into the saddle, trying to ignore the blazing sun and dust as she rode beside Brill and toward the hall. Gero and the guards followed.

"To the northeast there," said the sorcerer with a gesture to the hills that hugged the eastern horizon, "lies Lake Aulta. Vult is the home of the dark ones, and it lies some thirty leagues north of the lake through the mountains."

Anna concealed a frown. Why were the dark ones attacking some thirty leagues to the south?

Or were the distant mountains so impassible that they made direct travel difficult? She smiled to herself ruefully, thinking about horses and foot soldiers crossing the Rockies-or the Appalachi- ans. Cumberland Gap had been the gateway to Tennessee, and that had been less than two hundred years earlier. But it was still hard to believe she was stranded in a place where such considerations were necessary. "I take it the mountains are impassable for an army?"

"For a large force," Brill conceded. "And clearsong sorcery does not work that well there, except where there are no trees."

Anna rubbed her nose, to try to keep from sneezing, then shifted her weight in the saddle.

Farinelli whuffed, and she patted his shoulder. "Easy there . good boy."

That got her a snort.

Even the chickens were silent in the midday heat as she reined up before the stables, and by the time Anna had walked from the hail stables, she felt like a morning glory subjected to the South Dakota badlands in August. She shivered, recalling the time Avery had dragged them all camping and Elizabetta had come down with roseola in the middle of nowhere.

The cool of the hail was welcome, and she stopped for a moment in relief, pulling off the floppy hat.

Anna started up the stairs, followed by the ever-present Florenda. Anna pursed her lips. She hated being followed. That was one thing that Mario had done as a preschooler that had driven her crazy. She'd cross the family room, and he'd follow. Then Avery had used the same tactic, as things were falling apart, following her from room to room, except he'd kept saying, "We just have to look at this logically. You're feeling, Anna, and you need to think about it."

Brill bowed and said, "I will meet you in the salon, Lady Anna, shortly." At the top of the steps, Anna turned to the serving girl. "Florenda?"

"Yes, lady."

"Are you to do my bidding?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Good. Follow me." Anna marched to her bedchamber and into the robing room.

Florenda tagged along. "You wish some help in rob-big?"

"No. I need some more clothes. In this whole place there are two pairs of trousers that fit, and two shirts, and not much more in the way of gowns and drawers."

"Drawers?"

"Underclothes, smallclothes, the stuff you wear under your trousers or dresses."

"Yes, lady?"

Anna turned and glared. "I don't need help. I don't need you following me around. What I do need is more clothes. I'd appreciate you taking care of that, rather than following me around."

The girl swallowed. "But Serna. . . and Lord Brill.. ." "Tell Serna I've told you what I need. If she has a problem with that... then she can talk to me." Anna smiled. "And you can also tell Serna that I will be very displeased if I find out that she is even thinking about punishing you for carrying out my wishes."

Florenda swallowed.

"And I will punish her if you are replaced."

That got a tentative smile, tinged with hidden amusement. Anna wanted to sigh, hoping she'd covered all the possibilities. "Now.., get on with finding me some clothes. You can still wake me in the morning or announce meals, and you can check with me when I come back to the hall- but otherwise, get me some clothes that fit."

"Yes, Lady Anna." Florenda remained standing in the middle of the robing room.

Anna pointed to the dusty outfit she had worn before. "Take that and go. Now."

Florenda backed out. When the door closed, Anna took a deep breath. "1 hope it works."

After washing up, Anna returned to the salon where, for once, she arrived before the sorcerer.

She seated herself, pouring more water into her goblet, and sipping it while she waited.

Brill's face was solemn, almost impassive, when he finally entered the salon. "You need not have waited."

From the formality of his statement, Anna decided it was better that she had. "You have always waited for me."

The sorcerer pulled out the heavy iron chair, which grated slightly on the stone floor, then sat and immediately filled his goblet with the dark wine that Anna had not tried.

"Bad news?" she asked, adding, "I saw a rider in purple, earlier..."

Brill lowered his goblet. "Lord Barjim sent a messenger."

"You don't sound pleased."

The sorcerer shook his head. "The dark ones are beginning to mass their forces on the far side of the Sand Pass. Lord Barjim estimates they will begin to march in two weeks, perhaps three."

He took a long sip from the goblet Serna slipped through the doorway, her sandaled feet almost silent as she carried two platters to the table-one with narrow wedges of both yellow and white cheese, surrounded with dried apple slices, the other with a long loaf of dark bread.

Brill waited until the server set down the platters, then broke off a chunk of bread from the one and nodded to Anna. She took a chunk herself, and added several wedges of the yellow cheese, and some apples, to her plate.

"Did you expect them so soon?" Anna asked, hoping the sorcerer would provide more informat ion. She st ill knew so little.

Brill chewed through some cheese and bread before answering. "That they would attack before harvest was to be expected. This soon... Barjim had hoped for more time, and so had I."

Anna chewed through another mouthful of bread, nodding for him to continue.

"With the bad harvest of last year, and the dry winter, supplies are scarce. We have a half a season to harvest- and Lord Barjim probably owes half his share of the harvests to the usurers in Encora."

"Encora... you haven't mentioned that."

"That's the Iiedstadt of Ranuak, and the richest city in Liedwahr."

"That's the one women run?" Anna asked. "If it's so rich, why aren't the dark ones attacking there?"

"They are," snorted Brill. "They're moving the Whispering Sands south." The sorcerer refilled his goblet. "Defalk is an easier target. With all the coins the usurers have, the Ranuans can afford a large standing army, not just levies. Of course, the bitches also need the army and the ships to prove they can collect on their loans." Brill took another deep swallow from the goblet, then broke off another chunk of bread.

Anna ate silently for a time, trying to put together what she had learned. Finally, she spoke.

"Do you think that what the Ebrans plan is to take over Defalk, then bring back the rain and prosperity, and use that-"

"Exactly," snapped Brill. "It's so obvious, that an outsider like you can figure it out in less than a week, and no one in Liedwahr has been able-or willing-to say so." The goblet went down on the table with a thump. "Then, they might have to join forces against the dark ones. In- stead, they each hope that the lizard snake eats the others first."

"You're upset," Anna prompted.

"I am requested, in return for silver, to join Lord Barjim's forces at his summons."

"'Requested'?" Anna gave the word an ironic twist.

"I don't exactly have a choice, dear lady. If Defalk falls to the Ebrans, they will have no use for sorcerers of my type-or yours. If, by some miracle, Lord Barjim holds them off without my assistance..." Brill frowned.