title: The Shadow Sorceress (Spellsong Cycle, Book 4)
author: L. E. Modesitt
description: In Modesitt's fourth absorbing book of the Spellsong Cycle (The Soprano Sorceress, etc.), the student Secca picks up the mantle of musically managed magic from Sorceress-Protector Anna, protagonist of the earlier novels set in the Europeanoid world of Erde. Secca reluctantly serves the legitimate Lord of Defalk, for whom Anna was regent, and the imperfect leader Robero a bumbler known less elegantly in childhood as Jimbob. One of Robero's annoying habits is matchmaking (few, if any, suitable consorts exist for powerful women with frightening and exhausting powers). The early pages demonstrate road-building, a constructive and popularly supported sorcery performed with a band of musicians, and then a solo, slow-acting assassination as examples of "the shadow side of sorcery" Secca uses that term in weighing the death of one cruel man against the sufferings of many, but later is surprised when she herself is referred to as "shadow sorceress" for her manipulating events from the sidelines. Defalk's leaders must face the consequences of Anna's desperately inventive changes in their war-torn country, as well as the serious ongoing threat of the Sea-Priests from beyond, who employ major sorcery and subjugate women in literal chains. Secca's taking charge and developing her staff and personal relationships provide the chief interest here; the full story of the Sea-Priest invasion presumably awaits future volumes in the series.
zlib_text: THE
  SHADOW
  SORCERESS
  BOOK FOUR OF THE SPELLSONG CYCLE
  L. E. MODESITT, JR.
  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
  NEW YORK
  For Susan, Kacy, and Ava
  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen
  property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the
  publisher has received any payment for the “stripped book.”
  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed In this book are either products of
  the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
  THE SHADOW SORCERESS
  Copyright  2001 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce has book, & portions thereof, in any form.
  Edited by David G. Hartwell
  A Tor Book
  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
  175 Fifth Avenue
  New York, NY 10010
  www.tor.com
  Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
  ISBN: 0-765-34013-5
  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2001027048
  First edition: June 2001
  First mas