Secca walked beside the gray mare, the reins held loosely in her right hand, her boots hitting heavily on the gray paving stones of the ancient Corian road to Morgen. Her feet, legs, and back were sore, and her face raw from the damp winds off the endless low hills of western Wei.
A good hundred yards ahead rode the Norweian officers and their squad of lancers. Their mounts didn’t need extra care, Secca reflected. Something bothered her, and she had not been able to grasp what it was…what might be wrong that she wasn’t seeing. She looked to the hillside to her right, but the brown grasses and the leafless bushes, and the scattered low junipers could have been anywhere. Anywhere. Then, she nodded and turned to Alcaren, who walked beside her, leading his chestnut gelding.
“You have that look, my lady,” he said with a smile.
“I realized what has been fretting at me.” She gestured to the hillside. “What is wrong with the hillside?”
He frowned. “Little that I can see.”
She nodded. “Did you not tell me that Nordwei had also suffered in the Spell-Fire Wars?”
Alcaren smiled. “There was not so much sorcery used here in the west—except that many of the forests burned and have never regrown. The places that look like Ranuak are to the south and east of Wei itself, mostly along the River Ost. That was closer to the Mynyan holdings.”
“No one ever mentions that in schooling in Defalk,” she said slowly.
Her observations were cut short as the toe of her boot caught the slightly upraised edge of a paving stone, and she stumbled forward, barely catching her balance. “Dissonance!” You were the one who suggested walking the mounts…And she was. She’d just forgotten how slow and painful walking was, even on the antique metaled road. And how cold in a land where spring came late, and winter lingered.
“Are you all right?” asked Alcaren.
“I am.” She shook her head, aware once more how her feet hurt. “How far?”
“About a dek since you last asked,” he said with a smile.
“I didn’t look pleased when you didn’t feel well on the Silberwelle,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Walking is hard on sorceresses with small feet and short legs.”
“I am sorry, my lady. I was not taking pleasure in your discomfort.”
“Then…why the smile?”
“It was more of a wistful smile,” Alcaren said slowly. “I was thinking about music. I don’t suppose I’ll ever look at it or listen to it the same way.” He paused. “Yes…you know that music is the basis of sorcery, but in Ranuak, instrumental music was acceptable—without words and only on a single instrument. Now…it’s more of a tool.”
Secca tilted her head, recalling Anna’s words.
“You look thoughtful,” her consort observed.
“I was thinking about Anna. She said something like that. She missed music by what she called the great masters.”
“Who were they?”
Secca shrugged. “She used many names. They were all from the Mist Worlds. I remember Mozart and Schumann and Poulenc. She talked about them more than the others. Sometimes, she’d say something about the tragedy of music in Liedwahr was that it was nothing more than a tool and never would be more than that because complexity introduced the possibility of greater error and because no working tool needed greater errors.”
“Hmmmm. I can see that. But…how could it be otherwise? Even dinner music is a tool of sorts, something to put people at ease.”
“Only in Ranuak,” Secca replied. “It didn’t put Fehern at ease.”
“Nothing would have put him at ease.”
“Any use of music puts off most people,” Secca suggested.
“Like dancing?”
Secca shook her head. “There is a reason for that. Spell music that affects the body is Darksong. People dance to music, and the old books talk about dance music with drums being especially harmful.”
“So, because dancing looked like Darksong, the old rulers banned it?” Alcaren snorted.
“I didn’t say it made sense.” Secca shrugged. She found her steps slowing as she climbed the last few yards of the gentle hillside curve in the road, until she reached the crest, where her eyes took in the mist of the valley that opened below. “There is supposed to be a town here, at the far end, with an inn. That’s what Salchaar said.”
“Good. We could use the rest—if we can get there before dark.”
Secca hoped so, even as she tried not to think about where the Maitre and his sorcerers and lancers might be and what they might be doing.