Part 81 (1/2)
Alvar raised a blade, and spurred his mount into a charge, followed by a full squad of Defalkan armsmen.
Trying to ignore the fleeing sorcerer, Anna forced herself to concentrate... to concentrate on the spell she had worked out because Jecks had insisted. Her fingers touched the strings of the lutar.
”Weapons of sorcery, weapons of night, hidden by spells and away from Clearsong...
your powers rebound to your speller so strong with double the power and double the might...
Burn into dust and sear unto ashes and light.
The interlocked half-couplet scheme was supposed to make it stronger... would it? Anna wondered as she sang, but forced her voice into the spell, forced herself to finish it, slamming home the last note with all the power she had.
Then she vaulted from Farinelli, half noting the scream and the column of flame that flared from the road ahead. She stumbled, but did not fall as she dropped to her knees beside Jecks, where Liende already worked with a cloth to stanch the blood. The javelin had vanished, the result of Anna's spell. She only hoped that the spell hadn't made the wound worse.
Jecks' face was pale, whiter than his hair, and his breath was light and ragged.
Liende looked at Anna.
The sorceress bolted to her feet, fingers on the strings of the lutar. She had hoped never to use the song, but the words were burned in her mind, from another time, another battle, and she could only improvise quickly, hoping she would be quick enough, and sure enough.
”... always strong, as though young, spells always cleanly sung.
back from danger, bring him life, through all strife...”
Again, she had to struggle to keep her voice open, free. against all the strains pressing in on her, ignoring the press of horses, and the clamor of voices-all pushed away as she finished the Darksong spell.
Strophic Darksong....
Around her, strange chords were reverberating in a pattern of polyphony she couldn't quite grasp. But polyphony is a pattern... or is it a texture? You should know....
”Too much...” That was what she thought someone said.
Above her, despite the scattered puffy white clouds, the sky s.h.i.+mmered silver and black, alternating like a strobe light, the black quickly predominating, the silver vanis.h.i.+ng, as the sky turned the jet of night around her.
”The lutar...”
Her fingers were as numb as her mind as she tumbled forward into the darkness, the darkness of Darksong.
When Anna woke, lying on her cot, Liende was sitting beside her on a stool-rather, two images of Liende were, no matter how hard Anna squinted. The chief player's white-streaked red hair was tangled, almost matted, and dark circles ringed Liende' s eyes, but the player smiled faintly.
”Jecks...?” Anna rasped.
Liende extended a water bottle, and Anna fumbled for it, eyes unable to gauge the distance, before she drank gratefully.
”He will live. It will be seasons before he lifts a blade.”
Anna nodded. She tried to lift her head, but lay back when dissonant ba.s.s chords slammed through her skull, rippling the double images of tent silk overhead.
”You stopped breathing,” Liende said, her tone matter-of-fact. ”I had to move your chest.”
”Thank you.” Anna blinked. Her eyes burned. ”I'm sorry. It didn't seem right. ... Now, I've messed up everything.”
”That is not so.” Liende shook her head. ”Your armsmen respect you for saving him-and for destroying the Sea-Priest. Your players are resting, and Ehara still remains behind the walls of Envaryl.”
Anna took another swallow of water. The dissonant chords a.s.saulting her subsided, slightly, but the two images remained.
”Fhurgen?”
Liende glanced down, confirming what Anna had already felt.
Yet what else could she have done?
”He was dead. . . almost before you dismounted.”
Anna wanted to shake her head. Even before she had been regent, the big black-bearded guard had looked out for her. Then... Jecks had been looking out for her as well.
”Darksong is dangerous.” Liende paused. ”Do you love Lord Jecks?”
”Sometimes I think so. Sometimes, I don't know.” There's so much 1 don't know... been so little time...
so much to do...
Liende smiled more broadly. ”There is a saying about actions revealing the heart.”
Do you love Jecks? Because he has stood by you. Or for more? Or are you desperate? That desperate?
Before Anna could think more, her eyes closed.
117.
Struggling against the faint double images that still cloaked her sight after more than four days, Anna stood in the doorway and looked from the sleeping white-haired figure in the bed to the chief player, and then to the guard at the door.
”He sleeps more easily,” said Liende. ”There is no fever. The wound is clean. Your elixir, it kept out the poisons.” Her lips pursed. ”And your spells.”
Anna sometimes wondered if her greatest legacy might not be distilled alcohol, rather than anything else.
She glanced back to Jecks. ”I still worry about leaving him here in Hasjyl. The javelin ripped up his chest and shoulder badly.” Would she have had the courage to take enchanted javelins meant for someone else?
She hoped she could have been so brave, but she doubted she had that kind of courage. She was a survivor, not a hero.
She'd been lucky to be able to cast a Darksong spell without being totally destroyed, as she had been at Stromwer. Then, the spell over Jecks had been limited to one person at close range, probably before there had been too much damage from the wound. Even so, it would be more than a week before she was fully recovered, she suspected.
”You have spell-searched the town, and left twoscore of armsmen to guard him. He should not be moved until he is better, a few days, at least,” Liende pointed out. ”Once you finish Lord Ehara, you can watch over Lord Jecks on the return to Dumaria.”
”I know, and I can't let Ehara get away,” Anna said. ”I don't have to like it.” How many times over how many years had she thought those words? You have to do it. but you don't hove to like it.... Was that always the way it would be?
Jecks' eyes fluttered, then opened. Anna stepped nearer the bed.
”You...are...here...” The raspiness of Jecks' voice tore at her.
Where was the strong leading man? The man who had taken a javelin meant for her?