Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress - Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 36
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Spellsong - The Soprano Sorceress Part 36

By the time she had the gelding ready to ride and the saddlebags fastened in place, Daffyd and the three armsmen were ready and waiting.

"I'm sorry." She led the palomino out of the stable into the sun. "It takes me longer."

Anna glanced at the two laden packhorses, glad that Daffyd had been willing to take care of those goods. She looked again. Each horse carried a large bundle tied over the saddle.

"Lord Hryding insisted on supplying travel provisions," Daffyd confirmed.

"Where's the lutar? Did you finish it?"

"It's finished-in the brown canvas case there." Daffyd pointed to the piebald mare.

Anna pulled her floppy-brimmed hat from her belt and adjusted it, then mounted. As she started down the road to the hall gates, Markan rode on her left, and Daffyd eased his mare up beside her on the right. The two other armsmen fell in behind the pack mares.

The road toward Synope was empty, but bore recent hoofprints and wagon traces.

"How fast do you wish to ride, lady?" asked Markan.

"I don't have that much experience with riding, but we made it from the Sand Pass to Synope in a little over three days. Would that be fast or slow?" Anna asked.

"That is a good pace," Markan reflected.

"I can handle that." Anna paused, then added, "Before we leave Synope, I need to make a stop to pay a debt. It's just east of the center of town.''

"Lady..." began Daffyd.

"I have to," Anna said. "I wouldn't feel right about it." Even with what she planned, she still didn't feel right, but didn't know what else she could do.

Even before they reached the center of the town, Anna wore a fine coat of dust, and her nose itched. She was squinting as they headed into the sun.

Several dozen individuals filled the central square of Synope as the five rode past Yuril's.

"I haven't seen that many people here since we arrived."

"Market day," answered Daffyd.

At least a dozen faces turned toward the riders as they passed the brick stand and headed toward the cooper's shop.

"That's her... the sorceress..."

"Warrens and spades.. . warrens and spades!"

"Looks almost like a girl."

"Say she's hundreds of years old... buried her grandchildren..."

"Get your spices here! Fresh spices from Mansuur!"

"Bet Lord Hryding's pleased to see her leave."

"Wager that Lady Anientta's even more pleased." Anna had no doubts about the last.

"People hereabouts don't get that much chance to see a real sorceress, lady," said Markan.

"They don't see much of anything." Fridric's voice drifted up from where he rode beside the pack mares.

The white-haired cooper looked up and then away from the group.

Anna tried to rub her nose gently to stop the itching and keep from sneezing, then guided Farinelli down the narrower lane toward Dalila' s house.

"That's the young miller's house," said Fridric. "My sister is his consort," explained Daffyd.

Anna reined up outside the long and narrow miller's house, then dismounted. She handed Farinelli's reins to Daffyd. "I won't be long."

"You don't-" he began.

"I do."

Dalila already had the door open before Anna reached it, and the pregnant woman stood in the doorway with Ruetha on her hip.

Anna inclined her head. "I never had a chance to thank you properly, Dalila, and I didn't want to leave Synope without seeing you."

"I only did for you as any friend of Daffyd's. . "You were gracious and gave me a place to rest and sleep when I knew no one," Anna said. "That kind of hospitality-it's rare on any world.

What I'm doing probably isn't proper, but it's all I can do right now." She pressed the silver coins into Dalila's free hand. "These are for you."

"But I couldn't."

"Then keep them safe for the children. They might need them someday:" Anna paused. "And do not give them to Madell. They are for you and the children."

"But why?"

"Because you offered hospitality to a stranger, because you trusted your brother." Anna squeezed Dalila' s hands, then released them. "Because you are a good person when you did not have to be good."

"The harmonies be with ye, lady," Dalila said softly.

Anna's throat felt thick, but she smiled and offered a head bow. "And with you."

"Bye..." said Ruetha.

"Good-bye, Ruetha. Take care of your mother."

Anna swung back up onto Farinelli. Markan led her entourage back toward the center of Synope to take toe road north and west to Pamr.

"You did not have to do that," Daffyd said as they passed the cooper's once more.

"I feel better about it." Anna flicked the reins, and Farinelli whuffed. Sorcery was taking getting used to, and she was realizing that it wasn't exactly what she had thought it would be.

The circles under Brill's eyes made even more sense now. As did her own thinning frame. She was begining to think she needed to eat more, but stuffing herself made her feel like a hog and a glutton.

"How long to Pamr?" the player asked Markan.

"Three, four days, if the roads are clear," answered the older armsman. "If the discordant Ebrans are still in Mencha."

Anna wanted to groan-not another four days in the saddle.

55.

Anna took the lutar out of the crude canvas case, then sat cross-legged on the bedroll on the low knoll where they had camped. They had stopped at sunset, far enough west that the Ostfels had disappeared. In any direction that Anna had looked all afternoon, she had seen only gently rolling hills, some few covered with trees, but mostly just fields and meadows. Many of the fields were clearly untended dry soil partly covered by sparse flowers and weeds.

In the gloom barely lifted by Clearsong-that point of light in the west that was far brighter than earth's evening star and far dimmer than earth's moon-she could see Farinelli outlined against the stars. Glancing overhead and then to the south, she made out the small reddish disk of the second moon-Darksong.

The moons were a discordant reminder that Erde was real. Never would Anna have dreamed a dream with two moons-they were something Avery or Sandy would have thought up.

She tightened the tuning pegs and then strummed the lutar's strings. The tone was... different, not as tinny as the mandolin, but not as resonant as she would have expected from a guitar.

"That's strange," Daffyd said. "Harsh, it is." She wondered how he would have heard a true guitar, without the softness that the gut strings provided.

"I thought sorcerers had to be separate from the music and the players." Stepan adjusted his thin blanket on the dry grass that seemed to crackle with each movement.

"I'm told that it works better that way." Anna frowned as she wrestled with the stiff tuning peg. "Some spells it doesn't matter."

"Stepan," called Markan out of the gloom, "we need some help with the tieline for the mounts."

"Coming." The sandy-haired young man bounced up and away from Anna and Daffyd.

"Lord Brill said that it didn't matter with darksong," Daffyd whispered.

"You didn't tell me that before."

"I didn't know you could do darksong."

"I can?"

"Anything that affects living things has darksong in it. The spell with Madell..." Daffyd's shrug was pronounced enough to be visible in the dim moonlight and starlight.

Wonderful-she'd have a reputation as a dark sorceress before she ever got to Falcor. "So now everyone will call me a darksinger?"

"Most sorceresses are considered darksingers, whether they are or not, lady." Markan folded a blanket and sat down on it.

"Any woman with power is evil," Anna said wryly.

"Except in Ranuak, where men with power are evil. Or Nordwei, where both men and women with power are evil. Or Ebra, where anyone in a dark robe has power and is evil." Markan's boyish grin was wide enough to be visible in the dim light.

A faint breeze swirled through the campsite, and for the first time since dawn, Anna began to feel comfortable.

Fridric sat down next to Markan.

"Stepan?" asked Daffyd.

"He gets first watch, since we did most of the work on the tieline."

In the silence that followed, since Anna didn't feel like talking, mentally she reviewed some of the spells she had developed-the repulsion spell, the various burning spells, the looking-glass spell, the untried spell to create a gown. Would a gown spell be considered darksong? All the fabrics she knew came from something living-except polyester, and somehow that didn't seem likely on Erde.

Anna tried the chording for the burning-spell song.

"That's not quite a melody, is it?" observed Markan.

"No. It's homophonic." Anna felt difficult.

Daffyd and Markan exchanged glances, but Anna kept working on the chords and the tuning until she had the progression and the fingering the way she wanted them.

Then she shifted to "Go Away from My Door' '-her repulsion spell, but had to stop after a handful of chords as the lutar slipped out of tune. That was to be expected with new strings, but it was irksome to keep re-tuning.

After a time, Markan and Fridric lay down, and so did Daffyd.

Finally, she stopped struggling with the lutar and looked up at the cold and unfamiliar stars.

Was her sun, her earth, somewhere in those heavens? Was her daughter looking at the same stars from somewhere else?

The stars blurred as her eyes burned with not-quite-shed tears. She put the instrument back in its case and stretched out herself, the blanket only across her waist as sleep slowly crept over her.

54.

Anna stood in the stirrups, trying to stretch her legs and relieve the tighmess in the muscles above her knees. Either she wasn't riding the way she should be, or everyone's upper legs were ready to fall off.

The road was a strip of dust rising from packed red clay five yards wide and stretching from one low hill to the next. To her left was what had once been an orchard, with over half the trees dead or dying. The stead's house, visible a hundred yards back from the road, had a sagging roof and empty, shutterless windows.

"Is it like this all the way to Falcor?" asked Anna.

"For the next day or so," said Markan, "until we get to the Chean River valley. Lord Kysar built ditches from the river three years ago."

"Didn't the river dry up. too?" Anna brushed away a persistent fly, and Farinelli's tail swished at the pesky insect.

"My legs are sore,' mumbled Daffyd, from the gray mare to Anna's right. "When do we stop for something to eat?"

"We stopped just a while ago." The senior armsman looked at Anna.