The white-haired lord smiled, almost sheepishly. "I cannot. But I know that pure gold is softer than coin gold, and the gold you created-"

"I gathered it. I didn't create it."

"That gold must be pure," Jecks finished.

"It's pure. Will people take it? As golds, I mean?"

Jecks smiled again. "They will take it, and they will save those of your coins they can, and spend the coins of others. Yours are worth more, especially to merchants. If you had paid the Ranuans with such, you would have had even less difficulty."

"I don't know..." answered Anna musingly. Then she looked up. "Now... we can see about going to Ebra." Anna handed the list to Jecks. "If you would read this...see if there's anything on it we shouldn't do... and what I might have forgotten." She paused, then added, "and please sit down. We also need to talk about Lord Dannel."

"I feared he would be less than pleased."

"He is less than pleased. I'll try to draft some sort of response to say he's honorable, but Lysara's not going to be his consort."

"You will not reconsider? Many of the northern lords..."

Anna met Jecks' eyes. "If I give in to him, then where do I stop?"

"That may be, my lady, but he is a man who never relinquishes a grudge."

The Regent nodded. "I understand, but even if Nelmor agrees to a match between Tiersen and Lysara, Dannel would never accept it. Besides, he has to know that Defalk won't survive if things don't change." She looked at the rest of the scrolls. "Even here, things keep piling up."

Jecks laughed ruefully. "So said my daughter."

Anna picked up the second scroll. "The rivermen...again..."

37 Anna, Himar, and Jecks stood beside the scrying pool in the domed sorcery work building outside the hold at Loiseau. At midday, even despite the thick stone walls, the room was hot and still, and a trace steamy. The two men watched as Anna finished tuning the lutar.

"First," she said, "we need to find out where Bertmynn's forces are." She glanced at Himar, then at Jecks. "And what they're doing."

"They must be nearing Elahwa," hazarded Jecks, "if they are not already there and attacking the city. They were loading the barges weeks ago."

"Not all leaders move so quickly as the Regent," countered Himar. 'The roads may not be so good, either."

"We'll have to see, won't we?" Anna took a moment to clear her throat, then hummed, trying to ensure she was ready, before beginning the spell and concentrating on the idea of Bertmynn's forces.

Bertmynn, Bertmynn, Lord I'd see, show his forces now to me....

Upon the silvered waters of the scrying pool shimmered an image. Lancers rode along a muddy road through what appeared to be a drizzle. On the right side was a levee or a riverbank, Anna thought, and low field to the left. Behind the group of lancers in the image slogged several score of arms-men, and behind them was another dark ma.s.s that might have been more lancers. The rain was heavy, because large puddles had formed on the road, and the horses' hoofs were churning up large globules of mud.

Anna glanced at Jecks and Himar. Jecks was frowning, pulling at his clean-shaven chin, while Himar continued to study the image, his mustache drooping as he also fingered his chin and watched the image in the pool.

Anna could feel the perspiration building on her forehead, and, rather than hold the image longer, sang the release couplet. The water of the pool rippled slightly, then returned to its transparent state.

"They have not reached Elahwa," said Himar slowly.

"They have to be close with that rain," replied Anna.

Both men frowned.

"Most of Ebra is higher ground, except the plains near Elahwa or the Sand Hills, and they're south and west of Elaliwa. So there's going to be more rain near the coast or at the piedmont." She still remembered Sandy's lectures on the effect of orographic factors on rainfall distribution.

That got another set of blank looks.

"Never mind. They're not at Elahwa, but they're close. So it will take us...

what? Ten days, two weeks, to reach Elahwa? Or three weeks?"

"I do not see how it could be done in less than two weeks," offered Himar.

"You do not wish to be tired when you reach Bertmynn's forces," Jecks pointed out.

Anna nodded slowly. We'll see about who's tired. "We also have to see what young Rabyn is doing."

She lifted the lutar again.Rabyn,. Rabyn, Lord who'd be, show his grandsire's second lancers now to me and his own lancers and armsmen strong....

This time the image split, the first showing Mansuuran lancers riding along a road that could have been anywhere, with golden fields to one side, and what looked to be vineyards on the other, bounded with stone walls. The second image was that of a parade ground overlooking a city ... with what looked to be the ocean in the background.

"I would guess that to be Esaria," suggested Jecks. "No other city in Neserea is close to an ocean or even a large lake."

"It is Esaria," confirmed Himar. "There is the Prophet's Palace, the west wing... there." The overcaptain gestured.

Anna sang the release couplet, then set down the lutar and blotted her steaming forehead, wondering if the sorcery effectively heated the pool and boosted the humidity in the room. She touched a finger to the water in the pool and nodded.

It was almost warm enough to bathe in. Another spell soon, and it would be.

"So the second set of lancers are on their way somewhere, probably to Elioch or our borders, but Rabyn's own troops haven't left Esaria." Anna nodded. "Let's take a look at Hadrenn." She lifted the lutar and sang once more.

Hadreun, Hadrenn, Synek's lord for me, show him clear and close to me....

The silvered waters of the pool showed a heavyset brown-haired man in a stained green tunic. The left side of his face bore a long reddish scar. Hadrenn stood in a courtyard, apparently resting from practicing or sparring with a blade. The smile he offered the other figure was open, yet rueful.

Anna concentrated, trying to remember Hadrenn's face, before she released the image. "I'll keep checking on him from time to time."

"You trust him not? Yet you would consider going into Ebra?" asked Jecks.

"I trust him more than most people I haven't met, but it can't hurt." She looked toward Himar. "We leave tomorrow. You'll need to send a messenger to Hadrenn telling him we're coming."

"Tomorrow?"

"Why not? If Rabyn decides to attack, it's better we go into Ebra before he starts to move his troops. It's farther from Esaria to Elioch than from Mencha to Elahwa, isn't it?"

"Maybe three or four days farther, a week if they do not make haste."

"Tomorrow," Anna reiterated. And you hope this isn't a big mistake, but it's better to act than react, and you've always had to react before.

38.

WEI, NORDWEI.

The Council Chamber is empty except for the five figures seated around the long black table, a table that shimmers like a perfect black gem in the dim light cast by the oil lamps set in sconces on the dark stone walls."Counselor Ashtaar... junior Counselor Ashtaar... has some information to share with us," announces Tybra. The black-and-silver seal that hangs from her neck casts darts of light randomly. "You may begin." The dark-haired council leader nods at Ashtaar.

"The sorceress has employed her skills to lift gold from the earth and to turn a small portion of it into corns. She has not made that knowledge known. She is now marching her forces toward Synek, presumably to meet with Hadrenn, and thence to deal with Bertmynn."

"She will support Hadrenn?" asks a smooth-shaven man in dark green to Tybra's right "It is more likely that Hadrenn will support her when she defeats Bertmynn, Counselor Virtuul." Ashtaar's voice is even, and her eyes remain on Tybra.

"You seem to think that Bertmynn's defeat is the likely outcome. Is that not a...hasty... a.s.sumption?"

"Unless she attempts sorcery that will kill her, or unless she is killed by those close to her, I do not see anyone in Ebra defeating her. Those of great talent left when the Evult took power, or served the Evult and died at the sorceress' spells."

"A very careful statement, Ashtaar, regarding Ebra. See you other possibilities, then?" asks Tybra.

"There is a darksinger in Pamr who has twice evaded her. He is far stronger than she knows, and he has rediscovered the use of the thunder-drums..."

"Truly barbaric," comes a whisper from the left side of the table.

.... and young Rabyn is not only building thunder-drums, but he is equally adept with poison and treachery. The young Prophet is training and marshaling large forces. He will doubtless attack the west of Defalk when he discovers the sorceress is engaged in Ebra."

"What of his regent, the wily Nubara?"

"We doubt that Nubara will prevail, but should he, then the sorceress would be free to act at leisure in Ebra."

"Has she made no provisions for a possible attack from the west?" asks Virtuul, his tone almost idle.

"She has called up some levies, and her arms commander is quietly mustering forces to move to Denguic... we think. Rabyn can bring almost three hundred- score armsmen and lancers, with the hundredscore from Mansuur. Defalk could not muster half that, even were all levies called, and they have not been." Ashtaar waits for the next question.

"Yet the sorceress is far from stupid," points out Tybra. "Far from that. Has she not scried what is occurring?"

"It is difficult to ascertain what she has scried, but she has done much scrying. That we know. And she left many indications with the Liedfuhr's envoy that she would finally visit her own lands in Mencha. She took but tenscore lancers there."

"So she grows cunning as well," remarks Virtuul. "No one would suspect she would begin an attack into Ebra with but tenscore lancers.""She took but fifteen when she headed south toward Dumar," notes Ashtaar.

"But she picked up additional forces from Lerona, Abenfel, and Stromwer,"

counters Virtuul.

"And she will use Hadrenn's forces as well," suggests Ashtaar. "What choice has he, but to follow her?"

"She is not so much cunning as bold," declares Tybra. "She gambles that she can defeat Bertmyrin quickly and then return to destroy Rabyn, if he should attack."

"If she does..." comes the whisper from the left side of the table.

"If she does, the Liedfuhr will have to decide whether to reach terms with her or hazard his forces against her."

"He has pledged not to act."

"Has that made any difference before?" asks Tybra dryly.

II.

LIEDFINSTER.

39.

With the late-afternoon sun at their backs, Anna and Jecks rode eastward along the narrow road, leading the players and the tenscore lancers. Each hoof that struck the ground lifted dust out of the fine soil that had drifted across the road from Mencha to the Sand Pa.s.s. Ahead, looming on the horizon, lay the Ostfels.

Anna blotted her forehead before taking another long swallow from her water bottle. "lt's hard to believe that it could have been hotter here."

"It was, my lady," replied Jecks dryly. "It was, as we both know."

"Maybe I didn't want to remember." Anna laughed and took another swallow from the bottle before replacing it in the holder.

The ground on each side of the road was covered with intermittently s.p.a.ced brown gra.s.s. Almost level, it rose gradually for several deks to a low hillcrest. As Anna recalled, beyond that crest, the land dropped into the shallow bowl-like valley below the Sand Pa.s.s, and in that valley, against the base of the Ostfels and the beginning of the Sand Pa.s.s, lay the fort raised by the sorcerer Brill for Lord Barjim-the fort and the now-drained defense reservoir. The fort had been built to guard the Sand Pa.s.s-the gateway to southern and eastern Ebra-and it had been the site of Anna's first battle in Defalk. Not exactly a resounding victory, either.

The Regent could see tracks in the ground between the clumps of gra.s.s, tracks left by fleeing armsmen and pursuing Ebrans a year earlier, tracks that would not vanish anytime soon in the still-dry lands of eastern Defalk, lands dry despite the return of seasonal rains.

"It will be years before these gra.s.slands recover," said Jecks.

"If ever," Anna replied.

"If the rains continue, they will. When I was a boy, the gra.s.s here was shoulder-high on my mount. I would see that again.""So would I." Anna blotted sweat out of her eyes once more.

"You sent that scroll to Lord Dannel?" asked Jecks, somewhat later.

"I did. I tried to be gentle, but.. ." Anna shrugged. "If I waited or stalled him, he would be angry because I put him off, and if I don't change my mind, he'll be angry."

"He will not be pleased."

"I know. No one's ever pleased around here. Save us, but don't upset anything, and don't change anything, even if the reason why we got in trouble was because we wouldn't change."

"Lady...you are hard on them. Change comes not easily to any man."

"I know." She took a deep breath. "But it's the same everywhere. I had to dismiss the granary attendant because he wouldn't clean out the granary before it was filled. I destroyed a family because I wouldn't submit to a man's advances. Yet these people think it's my fault. I allow a young woman some little choice in whom she will spend her life with, and you'd think I'd... I don't know what..."

Jecks looked away, clearly uncomfortable, and Anna closed her mouth. The handsome lord was still from Defalk, and nothing she said would change matters.