You were informed."

"That was when I shifted more lancers from Mansuus to Wharsus, in case they attempted to land there." Kestrin stands and walks away from Bassil, toward the windows on the north side of the study, where he stares out into the rain.

Bassil waits.

In time, the Liedfuhr turns. "Send dispatches to all garrisons. Tell them to be especially alert.

Send messengers to the forces entering Neserea. Tell them to avoid battle with either the Sea- Priests or Lord Belmar and to make their way to Esaria as quickly as possible." He looks to Bassil. "You have more bad news?"

"Some of each, sire."

"The worst first, then." Kestrin tightens his lips, listening. "Lord Belmar has defeated and slain the Sorceress of Defalk. Your seers believe that there are already Sea-Priest sorcerers in Neserea."

"Believe?"

"They are encountering wards of some sort against their scrying."

"That makes a sorry sort of sense." The Liedfuhr clasps his hands behind his back, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Go on."

"The Sorceress of Defalk slew some ten companies of Belmar's forces, but that still leaves him with almost six companies yet."

"And the support of the dissonant Sea-Pigs."

"Yes, sire."

"The better news?"

"The Sorceress Protector of the East has destroyed close to forty companies of Sturinnese in Dumar, along with their sorcerers and drummers. She is moving northward toward the trade pass and against the last remaining force of Sturinnese in Dumar. Lord Fehern has vanished, and the Seers say that he is dead, but know not how."

"He was a traitor to his brother, who was a far better man, and his death is no loss."

"That may be, sire, but that leaves no Lord High Counselor in Dumar."

Kestrin laughs ruefully. "Better a sorceress there than anyone Lord Robero would choose."

Bassil nods slowly.

"We can but hope that the Sorceress Protector will destroy the last of the Sturinnese opposing her and move northward quickly. Would that we could send her a messenger saying such."

"By the time one reaches her . . ."

"All is likely to be decided," Kestrin finishes the other's sentence. He turns back toward the window and the rain. "Before that, matters will get worse, much worse."

"Sire?"

"I learned a long time ago, watching my father, that when affairs are difficult, and when it seems that they could not be worse, they inevitably become so."

Bassil nods imperceptibly, but does not speak. Outside the study, the rain continues to fall from clouds of formless gray.

52.

Standing in her stirrups for a moment to stretch her legs, Secca glanced forward past the vanguard that wound its way downhill. The clay road descended and curved gently eastward around a hill covered with apple trees showing but the faintest hint of green at the tip of some few leaf buds. Overhead, the sky was clear and cloudless, and a soft warm wind blew at her back. A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney of the dwelling at the end of a muddy lane halfway up the hill, a good dek away. On the lower right side of the road was a field, half-tilled.

Secca smiled, suspecting that the tiller had hurriedly taken his mule or horse out of sight when he had seen the column of riders.

According to the maps and the glass, they were but five deks or so from the hamlet that the Sturinnese had briefly garrisoned to defend the trade pass, but the scouts had reported no new tracks on the damp clay of the road and no sign of the Sturinnese. Before they had broken camp that morning, Richina had used the scrying glass, and the image had shown the Sturinnese already partway through the pass, riding beside a stream swollen with runoff.

Secca wondered if her small force would be able to catch the Sturinnese before they joined with Belmar's forces. Yet . . . what else could she try?

As she settled back into the saddle, Secca felt herself shaken---not by something like thunder or the shaking of the earth, but by a harmonic chime, one that indicated major sorcery. But the chime was almost clean, not with the dull undertones of death, or the dissonance of Darksong.

She glanced to Richina, riding slightly ahead and to Secca's right.

Richina had already turned toward Secca. and the younger sorceress's mouth opened as if to frame a question.

Secca nodded. "Sorcery."

Richina closed her mouth.

Alcaren had already turned his mount and was riding back toward them along the shoulder of the road.

"We need to stop and see what has happened," Secca said. "What do you think?" asked Alcaren as he eased his mount around beside Secca's.

"We need to check the scrying glass. The Sea-Priests have done something."

"The Sea-Priests?" blurted Richina. "But that was Clear-song."

"Who else?" asked Secca. "I cannot see Jolyn essaying such. She could not have reached Neserea from Falcor, and it did not feel like a death chime." She turned in the saddle. "Chief players!"

Alcaren motioned to Gorkon, one of the lancers riding guard behind Secca. "Would you summon Overcaptain Delcetta?"

"Yes, ser."

Even before Gorkon had turned his mount toward the rear guard, Alcaren was urging his brown gelding back forward toward the vanguard where Wilten rode.

Secca began to run through a vocalise to warm up her voice while she kept riding---until Alcaren reached Wilten, and the order echoed back. "Column halt! Stand by!"

From the rear guard came a similar command.

Secca eased the gray mare to the uphill side of the road, looking for a clear space short of the apple trees that was not muddy. She rode another ten yards forward before discovering a square area paved with stones, perhaps four yards on a side, with a narrow lane down to the main road, possibly an ancient loading area. She reined up and dismounted, handing the mare's leads to Easlon, and unfastened the lutar from behind her saddle.

Alcaren was close behind her, followed by Richina. While Alcaren unfastened the scrying mirror, Secca took out her lutar and began to check the tuning on the instrument She finished the tuning and ran though another vocalise.

She had to cough some mucus from her throat, and then try another vocalise. By the time she felt ready to sing, Alcaren had laid the scrying mirror on its leathers on the weathered stones.

Delcetta, Wilten, the chief players, Richina, and Alcaren had formed a semicircle around the glass, flanking Secca on both sides.

Secca took a slow breath, and then sang.

"Show us now and in this glass the change in harmony that's come to pass, that has chimed throughout this land.. ."

As Secca watched, the mirror silvered, then shivered to show a solid line of rock between two low mountains. Steam rose from the rock and from behind it. In the foreground, a narrow and winding road ended abruptly at the jumbled mass of rock and soil, and to one side was an empty streambed.

"A wall of rock . . . across the entire trade pass," murmured Palian.

"But why?" said Wilten quietly. "Or have they already crossed into Neserea?"

"I would judge so," replied Secca, "but we should see before we decide what we should do next." She lifted the lutar once more.

"Show us now as if upon a map of this or other land, where those of Sturinn we've pursued now ride or stand . . ."

The white star appeared on the far side of the trade pass, clearly well to the north of the sorcerous barricade.

"They used sorcery to melt their way through the pass, and then blocked it behind them,"

Richina suggested. "They must fear you greatly, lady."

Secca waited for a moment, until all had a chance to study the mirror, before singing the release couplet. Then she considered Richina's thought, frowning before speaking. "No. I think not.

There is much more than such involved. They have shown little fear of me, or of Clayre."

"How can we reach Neserea?" asked the younger sorceress. "Will we have to cross Dumar and attempt to return through Stromwer?"

"That pass is also blocked," Secca pointed out. "There is no way to reach Neserea quickly, not unless you wish to try even greater sorcery and destroy whole mountains," said Alcaren.

"I do not know that we should try that." Secca tilted her head. "That may be what they wish.

Even if they do not, we are reacting to what they do."

After a moment, she lifted the lutar.

"Show us now as if upon a map of Neserea's land, where Belmar's forces now ride or stand. . ."

The map showed most clearly a green star on the road south of the River Salya, a road that swung southwest toward the Mittpass. Secca nodded, then, after singing the release couplet, handed the lutar to Richina. "If you would use the map spell to show where the Liedfuhr's lancers are in Neserea?"

"In Neserea . . . Oh . . . yes, lady." Richina's fingers ran over the lutar's strings. She licked her lips and then cleared her throat. Finally, she sang.

When Richina had finished the third map spell, the mirror showed a maroon star on the road east of the Mittpass, a road that intersected the one on which Belmar's forces rode, if some considerable distance from where the Mansuuran forces appeared to be.

"How far between them?" asked Delcetta from where she stood at Alcaren's shoulder.

"I would judge more than a hundred deks at the moment," replied Alcaren. "Perchance a hundred and fifty."

Secca noted the steam coming from the damp stones and could sense the heat from the scrying mirror. While there was a small spare mirror, there was no sense in breaking the larger mirror.

"The release couplet."

"Ah . . . yes, lady."

Looking for a moment at the mirror that reflected familiar faces and the clear sky overhead, if slightly distorted by the heat of sorcery, Secca pursed her lips. "I must think." Think . . . indeed you must.

For a long time she stood, holding a lutar she had forgotten was in her hands, her eyes looking nowhere.

As she stood there, in the spring sunlight, with a warm breeze at her back, she could sense a cold and darkness, not of the day, but of the spirit, descending upon her, and she shivered.

Alcaren eased forward and murmured softly, "Are you all right, my lady?"

"We will talk later," she replied in an even lower murmur, before raising her voice, "I was just thinking of the cold of the Mittfels. But that cold matters not. We will ride for Dumaria. That is all that we can do at this moment." Secca offered a smile she did not feel, then bent and reached for the lutar's case, slowly casing the instrument, and then waiting for Alcaren to wrap the scrying mirror and refasten it behind Secea's saddle.

A puzzled look passed across Richina's face.

The faintest of sad smiles crossed the lips of the gray-haired Palian.

53.

Secca stood just outside the plank door of the cottage in the chill evening breeze, looking up to the east at the white disk of Clearsong. In the twilight, hanging over the bare-limbed trees of the woodlot adjoining the hamlet where they sheltered, the moon looked far larger than when it was higher in the sky. In the west, barely visible against the lighter horizon that had not totally faded from the recently set sun, was the red point of Darksong.

Hoping that the rising of Clearsong and the setting of Darksong was a favorable omen, even knowing that it was not, Secca smiled. briefly. What would happen depended on what she could do, not upon the moons. Or what you will do.

The door of the cottage opened, and Alcaren eased outside into cold and slipped along the wall until he was standing shoulder to shoulder with his consort. For a time, they both looked at the swiftly darkening sky, and neither spoke.

"You have fretted all afternoon, yet you have said nothing," finally offered Alcaren.

"I cannot explain, even to myself," Secca said. "I have read Through Lady Anna's terrible spells.

I have thought about what needs to be done, and no matter what course I choose, the results look to be equally terrible."

"What about shadow sorcery?" asked Alcaren. "Is there some smaller, if terrible, sorcery that will foreclose the worst of what you foresee?"

"There is one possibility." Secca shook her head. "For that, I will need a brass or bronze tube perhaps two spans long, If we cannot find brass or bronze, iron may suffice."

"Oh?"

"Do not ask me why. Not now."

Alcaren looked at her, but did not speak.