Shadowsinger by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page A

do?”
    Bassil remains silent, even as he blots more water from his forehead.
    â€œIs there nothing?”
    â€œI would not suggest anything, sire, merely to provide an appearance. You can but protect your land, and aid your sister as you can. The snows in the Mittpass melt earlier than all others, and far earlier than the sea ice breaks in the Bitter Sea. You might consider having provisions to send to the Sorceress Protector of the East, should she defeat the Sturinnese in Dumar and start to ride northward into Neserea.”
    â€œI should support her, riding into…” Kestrin laughs. “What you are telling me is that she is my sole hope of preserving Annayal’s succession.”
    â€œYes, sire. Only she has the knowledge of the Great Sorceress. Whether she has the strength and the will to use such…that we can but see.”
    â€œWe will see.” Kestrin looks to the river for a long moment before turning back. “We have more than a few orders to draft to redeploy forces, do we not?”
    â€œYes, sire.”
    â€œBest we get on with it.” Kestrin motions for the overcaptain to reenter the study, then follows him, closing the door firmly behind himself and stamping his boots on the maroon mat inside the door.

17
    In the midmorning, Secca sat in the middle of the battered wooden bench, with scraps of rough brown paper stacked around her on the table. She massaged her forehead with her left hand, blinking eyes that were reddened with the effort on concentrating in the dim light, then tried to hold a sneeze. “Kkkk…chew!”
    She rubbed her nose.
    â€œYou’re not getting a chill, are you?” Alcaren sat at the corner of the table farthest from Secca, facing away from her, lumand in hand. On his corner of the table were two sheets of the brown paper with notes, and a grease marker beside them.
    â€œNo. It’s something in here. When I go outside, I’m fine.” Secca looked at the notes she had made, then the sheets of paper she had taken from the large envelope Anna had labeled “Armageddon.”
    â€œYou can’t exactly read through those outside.”
    â€œNo.” What troubled Secca, more than when Anna had explained the file, was the understanding that she might have to use the spells—and that the alternative of not using them would mean her defeat and the fall of Liedwahr.
    â€œYou may never need these spells, Secca,” Anna had said. “I hope you never do. But if you do…and if you use them, Erde will never be the same because everyone will see what sorcery can truly do.”
    Secca picked up the sheet before her, and slowly read through the spell, as well as the musical notation, which indicated that the spell melody was based on one of the simpler fabrication spells that most players knew.
    Remove the air and in emptiness hold fast
    till—and all within breathe their last…
    Anna’s gracefully angular writing noted, “This is for use against sorcerers. I doubt any sorcerer can sing without air to breathe, and without air there isn’t a spell that can carry.”
    Secca winced and leafed to the next spell, a long one she didn’t remember seeing.
    Hydrogen to hydrogen, fuse in pressured desire ,
    oxygen free to sear just like the sun’s fire…
    The note below was long and cryptic, with words and phrases that Secca didn’t understand at all, except for the last words. “If you don’t understand this one completely, don’t use it. Either it won’t work, or it will turn whatever you direct it against into a blast of fire hotter than the center of the sun. Don’t sing it unless you’re behind three feet of stone and more than three deks away. Even so, it could kill you and everyone around you. This is only to destroy an enemy when you can’t possibly escape.”
    Secca shuddered. Why hadn’t she noticed that spell? She turned to the