Part 65 (1/2)

”Veria. Please join us,” invites the gray-haired Matriarch with a pleasant smile upon her round face.

”You expected me.” Veria slips into one of the two vacant chairs.

”Of course. What has happened will affect the SouthWomen greatly.” The Matriarch sips her tea.

”Greatly. Your presence will allow them to understand what has happened.”

”The sorceress tried to build a great dam with sorcery,” Veria begins. ”and it failed-”

”It took a mighty regenflut. and the dam did not fail; the ground around the dam failed.” The Matriarch corrects her dark-haired daughter with a smile. ”Even now the dam holds together, and it will do so for longer than any of us will endure.”

'Moth-Matriarch, does that not show her weaknesses still?” Veria's fingers lighten around the pale blue cup.

”Veria, if you will permit your aging father,” Ulgar says with a smile as he steps up to the table with a green-and-golden ceramic pot in his hand, ”I will refill your cup.

”Thank you.” Veria's fingers loosen their grip on the fluted cup that matches the pot, and she inclines her head. ”Thank you, Father.”

”The sorceress has weaknesses, as you say. Veria,” answers the Matriarch. ”As do we all. The weakness was not in her sorcery, but in her failure to understand that the rock to which she anch.o.r.ed her sorcery was not so strong as either she or her spell. And the spell was pure Clear-song.”

”Clearsong or no, it was a failure,” points out Veria.

”Sister. . . that failure destroyed the entire fleet of the Sea-Priests,” says Alya. ”Not a s.h.i.+p of those in Narial remains.”

”Even her failures are successes,” says Veria. ''This cannot continue. The harmonies will not permit it.”

”The harmonies permit what they will,” suggests the Matriarch. ”I feel that this failure was not the success you suggest. She will pay for it; she has paid for everything, and the hannonies do not permit us to escape. With the forces she has wielded, even less will they permit her to evade fate.”

”Yet you support her?” asks Veria.

Alya looks at Veria, but the dark-haired woman refuses to meet Alya's eyes.

”1 support the harmonies.” The Matriarch smiles. ”So does she; as she understands them. So should the South Women.”

”You said this would affect the SouthWomen,” Veria suggests.

”It will. Lord Ehara and the Sturinnese cannot accept such a devastation. All their resources will go to Dumar. They will not treat with the freewomen of Elawha, and they will kill them immediately and as quickly as possible.”

”You had said that such would occur because Sturinn was backing Bertmynn. Now you say that it will happen because the Sea-Priests are not backing Beitmynn.” Veria snorts-loudly.

”They will no longer suggest. They will send more coins and fewer arrmsmen, and the price of those coins will be higher, and paid with the blood of the freewomen and any who oppose Bertmynn and the plans of the Sea-Priests.”

'You merely seek another way to forecast failure for those women who wish to be free.”

”The women of Ebra will he free, in spite of your plots and blades, Veria. They will be free because of the prices that the sorceress will pay, and you will suffer”

”Are you threatening me?” Veria sets down the green fluted cup.

”No, my daughter.” The Matriarch shakes her head sadly. ”I know what the harmonies demand. They de- mand much, and they demand more of those who supply blades for others to fight their battles than of those who lift them for their own ends.”

Ulgar slurps his tea noisily. As the others look at him, he adds. ”That is why the sorceress will prevail.

She does what she must, and then asks others.”

The Matriarch nods, bat her eyes are sad, and fixed upon Veria.

90.

The sorceress glanced at the reflecting pool, then cleared her throat, beginning another vocalise. After three, her voice was firm, cords clear, and she lifted the lutar and sang.

”Show in Dumar, high and true, what the raging flow did do...

Show me now, and show me all, of how it struck and what did fall...”

Anna forced herself to lower the lutar gently, even as her eyes were drawn into the scenes in the reflecting pool, even as she heard the indrawn breaths of Hanfor and Jecks.

A muddy sea tossed objects on an equally mud-drenched beach-spars. sections of rope, limp, doll-like figures in muddy white uniforms. Farther along the beach were the remnants of a s.h.i.+p, timbers shattered, jagged ends protruding from the waters like spears.

”The Maitre of Sturinn will not be pleased,” said Jecks.

That's an understatement, and then some. Anna did not speak, letting her eyes take in the scenes that followed each other, so many that they could not all show in the pool at once.

Another scene displayed brown waters swirling around piles of timbers smashed against riverbank, a bank where gra.s.ses and trees had been pressed flat or swept away, where long patches of red earth had crumbled into the waters. Carca.s.ses of animals, scattered human bodies, tree limbs, and debris littered the riverbanks.

Another vista showed rows upon rows of roofless and collapsed houses. below a bluff. Behind the collapsed houses was a heap of wet earth, from the edge of which protruded walls and timbers. The wet earth had peeled away from the bluff.

”Dumaria, I think,” murmured Jecks. ”The lower part is on the river.”

River water piled up behind and flowed through and over and around a long heap of stone blocks that had once been a bridge.

The pool showed another town, a small one, where nothing remained but foundation walls and a sea of mud, and figures toiling through the mud, searching for bodies or belongings, or both.

Anna's eyes burned and her stomach twisted. She'd wanted to avoid that kind of destruction and even her attempts at that had created a disaster, another kind, but a disaster, possibly even a greater disaster than killing thousands of armsmen. Which you will now have to do...anyway....

Another score of scenes followed before she choked out the release spell. She had to sing it twice, because she couldn't hold the words the first time.

'I never...planned...for that,” she finally said after lowering the lutar and setting it on the writing table.

”We know,” Jecks answered, ”but Lord Ehara and the Sea-Priests do not.”

”Surely, Lord Ehara will request the Sturinnese leave,” murmured Hanfor.

”Never,” said Jecks flatly. ”Now... now he cannot give in. His own people will destroy him unless he attacks us. Within days; he will march on Defalk.”

”He will march after such destruction?”