Part 40 (1/2)

She glanced back at the players, dismounted and tuning, and she waited. After what seemed an interminable time, Liende called, ”We stand ready. Regent.”

”'Then start the spellsong.”

Anna timed the music and lifted her voice toward the silent keep.

”These arrows shot into the air, the head of each must strike Lord Sargol there-”

Anna dropped her hand, and sensed the release of the arrows.

”-with force and speed to kill him -dead, for all the treachery he's done and led.”

Slightly light-headed, she watched as perhaps two dozen arrows flew over the walls of Suhl. Had she heard a slight clatter?

The walls remained as silent as before.

Anna turned toward Farinelli, and laboriously got out the lutar and the mirror. After tuning the instrument, she cleared her throat.

”Show me now and show me near Lord Sargol bright and clear...”

The gla.s.s was explicit enough. Sargol was clad in gray inside a stone walled room, one with iron shutters-iron doubtless because he thought it proof against sorcery or some such. And it had been proof against the arrows. Sargol's eyes glittered, but he was very much alive.

Anna took a deep breath, feeling Jecks beside her, also studying the gla.s.s before she cleared the image.

Now what?

Her eyes flashed toward the hulking brick and stone keep of Suhl, its gates barred, its lord raging. She shook her head and turned to Jecks.

”Now what do I do?”

”I do not know.”

Why? Why...because it's the perversity of the universe. She turned and walked back to Liende.

The chief player watched as the regent approached.

”Liende, I'll need the flame spell-again.

”Lord Sargol still lives?” The chief player looked down.

”Unfortunately.”

Anna waited as the players reorganized. Neither Jecks nor Hanfor said a word, though they exchanged glances- and kept exchanging them.

Finally, in the late afternoon silence, with the brick and stone keep brazed in golden flat light of a sun that hung over the low hills to the west, Anna gestured to Liende and the players, then let her voice rise.

”Those who will not be loyal to the regency, let them die, let them lie, struck by fire, struck by flame...”

This time, the chords of Harmony did s.h.i.+ver the sky, and the ground trembled. Then came a wailing that should have been a counterpointed chord, except that nothing matched, not intervals, not key or scale or anything-the closest sound Anna had ever heard to pure dissonance, again a sound that no one else seemed to hear.

Her teeth and jaw ached, and her eyes watered, first from the sounds, and then from the lines of fire that arrowed from the impossibly azure blue of the sky, endless line of fire after endless line of fire.

Anna shuddered as she could sense a few of the fire arrows slash into her own armsmen. Bad spell... How do you know all your own forces are loyal in their hearts?

Sweat burst out on her forehead, a sweat of fear. Was she that loyal, even to herself?

Even before the last chord, darkness had begun to gather around her, swelling, vibrating, alternating with light. Anna fought to hold on to consciousness, fought, and the darkness receded, ever so slightly, hanging at the corners of her eyes.

Someone held a water bottle, and she drank before realizing that Jecks stood beside her and held it. Then she ate, heavy brown bread, dry like sawdust in her mouth.

After that she sat down in the dust, unmindful of the sneezes that racked her, the fires in her eyes, and the knives that twisted in her stomach. Her eyes open in the late afternoon, she saw nothing. Her ears clear, she heard nothing. Too d.a.m.ned close to Darksong . . . far too close. Maybe it had been part Darksong?

It couldn't have been-no double vision. But that raised more troubling thoughts. She could destroy peo- ple-if the spell were worded correctly-but not change them? Walls could stop arrows, but not fire?

In time, Hanfor returned to where she still sat in the dust: ”Lady... Suhl lies open to you.” The arms com- mander bowed deeply. ”None of those who survive gainsay your regency, nor that of Lord Jimbob. Even the two detachments of Dumaran lancers fell to the last man.”

Anna s.h.i.+vered at his tone, at the blankness of face and expression, at the ill-concealed fear. ”Thank...

you.” After a moment, she added, ”I didn't want it to be this way. I offered terms. . . . I did.” The only ones I could....

Hanfor nodded, but she could sense his feelings that the choice had been hers, and it had been. Hers alone. She couldn't blame Dieshr, the music department chair at Ames. or Avery, or Sandy,. or the kids, or the economic pressures. She'd chosen the spells and used them.

She tottered to her feet and looked at SuhI, looked at the open gates, sensed the horror she had created.

The bodies-sprawling from the walls, seemingly lying everywhere-were the worst, with red-and- purple burns and blackened skin, with clothing scorched and seared.

The stench of burned meat was everywhere, carried by the light and hot breeze.

Anna forced the bitter bile back down her throat, with every breath. She slowly turned to a pale Jecks, who stood beside his mount.

”Well . . Lord Jecks,” Anna croaked- ”Was it worth it? To save., the delicate sensibilities of the northern lords?”

Jecks' face, white as that of a marble statue, paled even more, whiter than his hair.

With invisible starbursts flas.h.i.+ng before her eyes, Anna could barely see, let alone stand. She let herself slump back to the ground and sat there.

”Lady Anna... here is a blanket.” Rickel's voice was soft.

Mechanically. Anna s.h.i.+fted herself onto the blanket, then closed her eyes. The starbursts still cascaded across her now-dark field of vision, and she opened her eyes.

Fhurgen handed her a chunk of bread. She took a small bite. Then she twisted and retched across the dust, adding yet another stench to those of fire and death.

f.u.c.k Defalkan conventions! I'm not doing this again.

...Despite the violence of her thought, Anna wondered. In Liedwahr, with its emphasis on force, could she totally avoid the use of greater force? And how?

How...in the name of G.o.d or the harmonies ... or whatever?

45 Anna stood on the worn stones of the battlement of the front corner tower of Suhl, looking blankly over the valley. The surface of the mound Sargol had raised was bare, with no sign of the infernal crossbow.

The tents had been struck, brushed clean, and stored in one of the keep's storerooms.