Spellsong - The Spellsong War Part 28

"Spellcasting is untrustworthy for the untrained."

"Like handling a blade?"

"It is more dangerous, from what I have seen." Jecks leaned back slightly in the straight-backed chair and steepled his fingers together. "Once, I'd not have, said that. Now ..." he shrugged.

"Now?"

"Bajim's forces fell to sorcery, and so did those of the Evult's." Jecks' brow furrowed. "What do you plan?"

"To see what the mirror will show me. I have an idea."

Jecks nodded and sat back, as if to wait.

Anna took a deep breath, then ran through one vocalise, then another. Her voice wasn't as clear as it should have been. Allergies from the rain and the mold that had to infest the ancient pile of bricks that was Synfal?

She cleared her throat and tried again. Finally, she picked up the lutar, then stopped at the quizzical expression on Jecks' face. 'You don't see this in public, all the time it takes sometimes to be able to sing."

"I have seen you cast spells..."

"Without all the preparation?" Anna nodded. "Half the time I'm afraid they won't work when that happens. Sometimes they don't. That's how I ended up defending myself with a knife," She s.h.i.+vered as she recalled how she'd gutted the poor young armsman whose only real fault had been following the orders of the wrong person.

Jecks offered a half-nod, turning in the chair to be able to see the mirror.

Anna turned to the dark wood framed mirror on the yellowed plaster of the wall. Her cleaning spell had not been enough to return the plaster to any semblance of white, a.s.suming it had ever been white.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me now Lord Dencer's hall.

Within its gates, Wendella show me fast and make that spell well last..."

In the silvered oblong on the wall was an image of a brown-haired woman. She sat, alone, almost slumped at a table in what appeared to be a tower room. Her hair was braided, but she turned and appeared to look at Anna and Jecks. The red eyes were sunken in dark circles. Those, and the barred window, told Anna enough.

After a moment, the sorceress released the image with a quick couplet, almost a chant. A moment of dizziness followed, but the lightheadedness vanished almost as swiftly as it had struck.

"You asked to see her, not Dencer."

"I had a feeling." What Anna had felt was that Wendella's situation would reveal more than seeing Dencer. Had it? She wasn't sure.

"Better that she had remained in Falcor," said Jecks, leaning forward in the chair. "Dencer fears you have suborned her."

"That's not likely. She hates me."

"He fears your sorcery.

"He fears any woman who will stand up to him." Anna took another swallow of water and forced herself to eat the last roll. "Why do so many men fear women here?"

Jecks cleared his throat.

Anna waited.

"There have always been more sorcerers than sorceresses." The white-haired lord coughed.

Anna let the silence continue.

"The sorceresses have always been more powerful. The Evult... he was perhaps the greatest sorcerer ever-and you destroyed him." Jecks forced his eyes to meet Anna's. "All know you have yet to claim fully the power that is yours.

"I've almost been killed twice, and newly killed myself more than that," Anna pointed out.

"No one else would have survived the smallest portion of your travail." Jecks gave a strained smile. "Do you wonder that Dencer, or the Sea-Priests, or Konsstin, all fear you?"

'"I've never been out to build an empire. All I've tried to do is to preserve Defalk."

"When folk hate, they do not think," mused Jecks. "That is why a thinking warrior, if he can survive the first few moments against a madman, will triumph."

"If there are enough madmen," suggested Anna, "like the dark ones..."

"Then there is no time to think."

"Great." Anna set down the lutar, realizing that it felt heavy, too heavy. "I need to eat-again. So do you." She looked at Jecks.

After a moment, he returned the smile, boyishly. despite his white hair, and Anna almost wanted to hug him. For that instant, the warrior lord was a cross between a teddy bear and a movie star.

"I could use some food," he admitted gruffly. "Not so much as a certain sorceress."

Anna walked to the door and opened it.

Fhurgen stood there, waiting.

"If you would, Fhurgen, could you have Captain Alvar join us here? And see if you can get someone to put together a platter with enough food for the three of us." She didn't want to try another spell without eating. "Don't you do it, either. Have the kitchen handle it.'' She flashed a smile, trying to convey warmth.

"We can manage that, Lady Anna." Fhurgen's dark eyes twinkled for a moment.

"Thank you." Anna closed the door and walked to the window to join Jecks. They both watched the rain, falling less forcefully, and more like a cold mist. She could sense just how close he was, and she started to reach out. No... you can't muddy things. Play like the virgin queen. But she was all too conscious that she didn't want to be a virgin queen or regent-not in the slightest.

She stepped back and sideways to look at the mirror on the wall. The finish of the ebony wood around the gla.s.s showed bubbles and discoloration. Then she recovered the lutar. "I'll try one more while we're waiting for Alvar and food."

Jecks turned so that he could watch the mirror.

Anna re-tuned before she sang the mirror spell.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, show me now Lord Sargol's hall, Within its gates, show Lord Sargol fast, and make that spell well last..."

The mirror swirled white, then blanked.

Anna frowned, then she shook her head. The way she'd composed the spell wouldn't allow showing Sargol if he weren't in his hall.

She lowered the lutar. How could she change it? It took several attempts with the grease marker before she had something. After humming through the tune to fix the new words, she looked at Jecks.

"It's not as easy as it looks to outsiders." Then she lifted the lutar.

"Mirror, mirror, in your frame, show me Lord Sargol in his fame, Where'er he may ride or be, show him now to me..."

The second image centered on a gray-haired and slender man, with a trimmed gray beard and a regular tanned face. A darkly handsome figure, Anna decided. Lord Sargol rode a gray mount, with a gray cloak, half open.

Behind him rode armsmen. How many, Anna could not tell from the image presented in the wall mirror.

Nor could she tell where he rode. She wanted to stamp a foot, childish as it felt. She needed better spells-more precise ones. . . or something.

Her eyes went to Jecks "Have you seen enough?"

"Yes, Lady Anna.''

Anna released the spell. This time, the dizziness didn't pa.s.s immediately, and she walked slowly back to her chair, setting the lutar on the bed behind it.

She sat and took a long swallow of water, hoping it wouldn't be that long before Alvar and supper, or whatever a late-afternoon meal might be called, arrived.

"You need to eat more," suggested Jecks, mildly, not quite meeting her eyes.

"1 know. I know.'' She closed her eyes for a moment, but that only got her white sparkles against the red- tinged darkness, and she opened them nearly immediately. "Do you know what it's like to have to eat all the time? To worry that you'll die if you can't eat?"

"Once - - many years ago, I had to eat much more. Jecks laughed, half humorously: "Now, I wish I could. Always, we wish for what we have yet to reach or what we have left behind."

That was true enough. With a gust of damp air, Anna looked toward the window. The rain had picked up again, and she could hear it splatting against the outer walls of Synfal.

It wasn't that long before a thrap on the door.

Jecks rose, and Anna let him.

Alvar followed the two serving girls and the heaped platters into the room. He glanced around, then slipped out, only to return with another chair from somewhere even before the girls left.

On one platter was a variety of white and yellow cheeses, as well as slabs of cold meat. The second platter held noodles of some sort, covered with a steaming brown sauce. There was a large basket with a long dark loaf of bread, and a smaller basket with three apples.

Anna felt her mouth watering. She tried some of everything, and found herself wolfing down the mint- spicy noodles, not caring that much that her eyes were watering.

Again, she ate twice what either man did, and then had some more of the white cheese and the dark bread.

After that, she sliced up the tart apple and ate that, and more cheese.

"Good food, and I thank you, Lady Anna," Alvar said as he finished.

"I, too." said Jecks, adding, "Sorcery is wearying work. More wearying than wielding a blade from what I see."

"I never would have thought it," Anna admitted, reaching for the last crust of the hot dark bread.

Finally, with her headache and dizziness gone, she picked up the lutar again. "Let's see what other sorcerers are following me."

Alvar swallowed as she began to sing.

"Of those with power of the song, seek those who'd do me wrong, and show them in this silver cast, and make that vision well last."

This time the images in the gla.s.s were fewer, far fewer. There was the blond seer from Nordwei whom she'd seen from the beginning, a hawk-faced man in white who had to be one of the Sea-Priests, and a young black-bearded man with intense eyes that burned: She turned to Jecks and Alvar.

Jecks shook his head.

As she could smell the heat of the mirror's wooden frame. Anna released the images.

The looks of hatred on the faces of both the Sea-Priest and the unknown young man bothered her. She couldn't prove it, but she felt those looks were directed at her, and she'd learned the hard way what happened when she didn't take into account her feelings.

At the same time, she had to wonder. Were there that few with power who would do her wrong?

"The woman's from Nordwei. She's been following me ever since I got here, I think. Is the man in white one of the Sea-Priests?"

"I do not know, lady," answered Alvar.

"I would say so, from his garments," said Jecks.

"What about the young man?"

"He looks like a dark monk or a commoner," answered Jecks.

Why would a commoner hate her? Should she investigate more? She frowned. She couldn't sing spells for everyone who opposed her-not all at the same time. Still carrying the lutar, Anna walked over to the table and finished the last of the water. She'd need to orderspell more. That could wait.

What else should she scry? Dencer? She took a deep breath. How could she craft a better spell?

"Lord Dencer, show me then and now, what he does 'gainst me and how.

Show the scenes both far and near and show us what one should fear."

The mirror obligingly split into three scenes. In the one in the upper left third of the gla.s.s, Dencer sat on a low ridge watching what appeared to be lancers practicing something. From what Anna could see, there were hundreds of lancers, far more than she had. In the left-hand side of the gla.s.s, Dencer stood beside a desk, holding a velvet pouch. Across the desk was an officer in a crimson uniform. The lower scene showed an aerial view of the land. Anna didn't see anything familiar. There was a road, flanked by several hilltops, and fields and perhaps a keep or holding in the distance.

After several moments, she turned to Alvar. The captain lifted his shoulders. "Lady Anna, I do not understand."

"It is a vision from the heavens," Jecks explained. "That could be anywhere in southern Defalk. I do not see anything I recognize, but the land is softer and greener than in the north."

As heat radiated from the wooden mirror frame and it threatened to burst into flames, Anna released the spell. As she looked at Jecks, a crack broke the silence. Black lines split the mirror into three sections, still held by the frame.

"I think I need another mirror."

"You are hard on gla.s.ses." Jecks glanced at the window as rain splattered into the room. "Perhaps the shutters?"

Anna nodded.

Alvar used a striker to light the candles, while Jecks stood and went to the window to close the double shutters.

"The armsman in red-you think he was from Dumar?" she asked in the flickering light from the candles.

"Ehara's lancers are said to wear red." Jecks sipped the amber wine.

Anna thought she might have some. . . later. "Ehara's sending golds to Dencer, like the Norweians warned me."