The man and the woman sit across from each other, platters empty but still on the table. In a smaller and higher chair sits a daughter, with the blonde hair of her mother. The Matriarch sips a glass of an amber wine, while her consort glances at their child.
The child leans forward in the chair to take one of the glazed almonds from the dish on the table.
“Just a few,” says Alya.
“Yes, Mother.”
A half-smile crosses the man’s face before his eyes return to Alya. “You are disturbed by the news from Synek?”
The Matriarch frowns. “I would have been surprised if Mynntar had prevailed, even with the aid of the Sturinnese. I worry greatly about the use of Clearsong to poison Mynntar.”
“Did he not deserve it?” asks Aetlen.
“He did. That is not the difficulty. I fear we shall see much more and different uses of spellsongs in the seasons ahead. Now is not the time for shadow sorcery. Not with the Ladies of the Shadows visiting me, and recalling the horrors of the Spell-Fire Wars.”
“You worry about them?”
“Their worries are the same as mine—but they will not see that the evils of not using sorcery may be even worse than the horrors of using it.”
“You expect the new Sorceress-Protector to abandon what has worked so well for more than a score of years?” asks Aetlen.
“No. She acted then as she needed, but I fear she will yet try more subtle shadow sorcery,” replies the Matriarch, smiling at her daughter even while she eases the dish of almonds out of reach of her youngest.
Alcaren—wearing the pale blue of the Matriarchy, but with insignia neither of an officer nor a ranker—sits in the straight-backed chair by the door, eyes flicking from the Matriarch to her daughter and then to her consort. He stands and slips to the second-story window, studying the way below, then the dark clouds beyond the harbor. His fingers curl around the hilt of the sabre, then uncurl, as if willed to do so.
“Because she does not understand that shadow sorcery is fully effective only after great power has been displayed?” Aetlen’s voice is dry as he brushes back white-blonde hair that shows neither the white nor the silver of aging.
The Matriarch nods.
“Mother?” asks the girl, who would stand perhaps to the Matriarch’s shoulder, “why couldn’t you bring another sorceress from the Mist Worlds, the way they once did in Defalk? One who had great power?”
Alya frowns. “It is not that simple, Verlya. Knowledge is a form of Harmony. The great sorceress Anna was not a sorceress when she came to Liedwahr. She was a singer of songs, for songs do not have the power in the Mist Worlds that they do here. Even so, she was most fortunate to have survived the trip. Such a trip would kill a knowing sorcerer or sorceress.” The Matriarch smiles. “We were most fortunate that she was who she was. I would not gamble on such. I could not.”
“Are the other sorceresses like her?”
“No. No person is like unto another. Nor are sorceresses. There are three, and they are all powerful, but most different. The eldest is the Sorceress of Defalk, and she is most like the sorceresses of old, and finds herself in a world where such is most dangerous. The second would be a sorcerer, for she uses men as men have used women, and she feels the currents of power among the lords. The third, and the youngest, she is the shadow sorceress, much as the great sorceress was, and should she ever emerge into the full light of Harmony, she also will change Liedwahr, perhaps far more than the great sorceress. Yet she would hug the shadows close.”
“Why does she stay in the shadows?”
“Because for many years, the shadows have allowed her and the one who taught her to shape the future of Defalk and of Liedwahr unseen and more gently.”
“I would not like my future changed from the shadows,” states Verlya. “Not by a sorceress.”
“That will change, for a time.” The Matriarch sighs. “It will change so much that all will yearn for the shadow days.”
“I won’t,” avers the girl.
“We shall see,” temporizes the Matriarch.
“Indeed we shall,” adds Aetlen.
By the window, Alcaren frowns, ever so slightly, as his gaze returns from surveying a harbor far too empty of vessels.