Fall of Angels

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  XXXVIII

  SILLEK. GESTURES TO the chair closest to the broadleaf fern that screens the pair of wooden armchairs from the remainder of the courtyard and from Zeldyan’s family and retainers.

  “You are most kind, Lord Sillek,” murmurs Zeldyan as she sits, leaning forward, the husky bell-like tones of her voice just loud enough to be heard over the splashing of the fountain.

  “No,” says Sillek. “I am not kind. I am fortunate. You are intelligent and beautiful, and…” He shrugs, not wishing to voice what he thinks. Despite the apparently secluded setting of the chairs and low table between them, he understands that all he says could be returned to Gethen.

  “Your words are kind.”

  “I try to make my actions kind,” he answers as he seats himself and turns in the chair to face her directly.

  “Necessity does not always permit kindness.” The blond looks at Sillek directly for the first time. “Necessity may be kind to you.”

  “You speak honestly, lady, as though I were a duty. There is someone else who has courted you?”

  Zeldyan laughs. “Many have paid court, but none, I think, to me. Rather they have courted my father through me.”

  “I would like to say that I am sorry.”

  “You are more honest than most, and more comely.” Her hand touches the silver and black hairband briefly, and a sad smile plays across her lips. “Have you not courted others?”

  “I am afraid you have the advantage on me, lady, for I have neither courted, nor been courted-until now.”

  “Why might that be?” She leans forward ever so slightly.

  “Because”-he shrugs-“I did not wish to be forced into a union of necessity.” He laughs once, not trying to hide the slightly bitter undertone.

  “You are too honest to be a lord, ser. For that, I fear you will pay dearly.” Zeldyan’s tone is sprightly.

  “Perhaps you could help me.”

  “To be dishonest?” She raises her eyebrows.

  “Only if dishonesty is to learn to love honestly.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Ser Sillek.” Her eyes drop toward the polished brown stone tiles of the courtyard.

  Sillek reaches out and takes her right hand in his left. “Hard it may be, Zeldyan, but honest, and I hope you will understand that is what I would give you.” Another short and bitter laugh follows, then several moments of silence. “I would not deceive you with flowery words, though you are beautiful and know that you are. But comeliness and beauty vanish quickly enough in our hard world, especially when courted for the wrong reasons.”

  “You are far too honest, Sillek. Far too honest. Honesty is dangerous to a ruler.”

  “It is, but to be less than honest is often more dangerous.” Sillek frowns, then pauses. “Is it so evil to try to be honest with the lady I wish to join?”

  “You might ask her if that is her wish.”

  The Lord of Lornth takes a deep breath. “I did not ask, not because I do not care, but because I had thought it was not your wish. I have appeared in your life from nowhere, and there must be many who have known and loved both your visage and your soul.” He laughs softly. “I had not meant to be poetic, here, but my tongue betrayed me.”

  Zeldyan’s eyes moisten for an instant, but only for an instant, before she turns her head toward the broadleaf fern.

  Sillek waits, the lack of words punctuated by the splashing of the fountain. His eyes flick toward the end of the courtyard where he knows Gethen and Fornal make small talk about crops and hunting while they wait, and where, in another room, the lady Erenthla also waits.

  When Zeldyan faces Sillek again, her face is calm. “What would say your lady mother?”

  “Nothing.” Sillek wets his lips. “Her thoughts are yet another thing. A fine match, she would think. She would say to me that the Lord of Gethen Groves has lands, and his support will strengthen Lornth and your patrimony, Sillek.”

  “You court strangely, My Lord.”

  “So I do. Say also that I court honestly.” He offers her a head bow. “Would you be my consort, lady?”

  “Yes. And I will say more, Lord. Your honesty is welcome. May it always be so.” Zeldyan bows her head in return, then smiles ironically. “Would you wish my company when you deliver my consent to my father?”

  Sillek stands. “I would not press, but I had thought we both might speak with your father, and then with your mother.”

  “She would like that.”

  Sillek extends his hand, and Zeldyan takes it, though she scarcely needs it to aid her from the chair. Their hands remain together as they walk past the fountain and back toward the far end of the courtyard.

  XXXIX

  NYLAN USED THE tongs to swing the rough bow frame into the focal point of the laser, struggling to keep the power flows smooth and still shape the metal around the composite core.

  On the stones he used for cooling after the quench lay a circular cuplike device with a blunt-very blunt-hook and two bows-most of a morning’s work. He hoped the metal cup and hook would serve as an adequate artificial hand for Relyn; he was tired of the veiled references to one-armed men.

  His eyes went back to the two bows. All told, the engineer had made twelve over the eight-day before, each a struggle sandwiched between limited stone-cutting and building the heating stove for the bathhouse, and welding the two laundry tubs. Ellysia, relegated to laundry as a collateral duty because her obvious and early pregnancy had limited her riding, had immediately commandeered both. According to what Nylan had overheard, though, she refused to launder anything of Gerlich’s.

  Nylan permitted himself a smile at that, before he forced his concentration back to controlling the laser, and smoothing the metal around the cormclit composite core of what would be another bow.

  As the tip of greenish light flowed toward the end of the bow, the energy flows from the powerhead fluctuated more and more wildly, and Nylan staggered where he stood, trying to hold the last focal point.

  Pphssttt! Even before the faint sizzling faded into silence, Nylan could tell from the collapse of the flux fields around the laser focal points that the powerhead had failed. The engineer slumped. The other cutting powerhead was in little better shape. The weapons head, although scarcely used, would squander power, depleting the cells in a fraction of a morning-without accomplishing much, except destroying whatever it was focused on.

  The last powerhead might last long enough to finish another handful of the composite bows.

  He frowned. First, he needed to cut the shower knife plates. Then, if the second powerhead lasted that long, he could go back to the bows. At least, the black tower was finished. That is, the basics were-roof, floors, the hearth, chimneys, the stove and the furnace itself, and the water system from the tower wall to the lower-level cistern.

  Everyone had needed something. Ryba had wanted weapons; everyone had needed shelter; the horses had needed stables; the tower had needed some windows… the list had seemed endless.

  He disconnected the powerhead from the wand, glancing toward the uncompleted bathhouse behind him. Huldran, Cessya, and the others were raising the roof timbers on the stables.

  The single clang of the triangle announced the noon meal, and Nylan took the artificial hand and the broken power-head. He dropped off the powerhead in the tower, then found Relyn by the causeway. The mahogany-haired man sat on the stones watching Fierral and Jaseen spar, his eyes narrow.

  “Greetings, Mage.”

  “Greetings. I brought you something.” Nylan extended the device.

  “What… might that be?”

  “What I promised the other evening when I measured your arm.” The engineer extended the artificial hand and mounting cup, measured to fit over the healing stump.

  “It might be better than nothing, ser.” Relyn took it in his good left hand.

  Nylan felt himself growing angry, and the darkness rising within him, but he bit back the personal anger and chose his words carefully before he sp
oke. “It is no evil to lose, either a battle or a hand, to someone who is better. It is a great evil to refuse to struggle against your losses. I offer you a tool to help in that struggle. Are you too proud to use that tool? Does an armsman refuse a blade when his is broken?”

  Rather than say more, Nylan turned and left. He was one of the first at table for the midday meal, rather than the last, but he refused even to look in Relyn’s direction.

  After he ate, Nylan excused himself and trudged back to the north side of the tower, where he set up the laser with the remaining powerhead.

  On the other side of the tower, in the fields, the field crew-Selitra, Siret, Ellysia, and Berlis, who still complained about her thigh wound-were gathering the beans, and digging up some of the bluish high-altitude potatoes. The potatoes that didn’t seem ready could wait, but with the threat of light frosts growing heavier, the last of the aboveground produce had to come in.

  Between the carcasses dragged in by Gerlich and salted or dried, and the wild roots, and crops, and the barrels of assorted flours gotten in trading, Westwind might get through the winter-on tight rations. The food concentrates were almost gone, far faster than Ryba or Nylan had anticipated.

  Clang! Clang! The triangle sounded twice.

  Nylan looked up from reconnecting the second power-head as Istril led four other riders uphill toward the ridge. Another set of would-be crop raiders, no doubt. There wasn’t the swirl of the white chaos-feel on the local net that happened when large numbers of armsmen showed up. Why his senses worked that way, he didn’t know, only that they did.

  Since they didn’t seem to need him, he turned his attention back to the work at hand. With the goggles in place, he studied the sheets of metal taken from lander three and the lines chalked on them.

  Finally, he triggered the laser and began to cut the knife plates, quickly and without much smoothing. All eight went quickly, and he took a deep breath when the long-handled plates were completed. The rest of the “valves” could be worked out with local materials, if necessary.

  He moved the leftover metal and laid out the three rough bow forms and the three composite cores he had already cut.

  Maybe… maybe… the laser would last through all three.

  At the sound of hooves, Nylan looked up. Istril led a mount, over which was a body. So did two of the marines who followed. Seven mounts, and three bows in all, and no obvious casualties for the marines. Nylan took a deep breath, then noticed that Istril had turned toward him.

  She reined up well short of the laser.

  Nylan checked the power and pushed back the goggles. “No casualties?”

  “No.” She smiled broadly. “The bows work well. Very well.” Then the smile became a grin. “Gerlich doesn’t know what the frig he’s talking about. He couldn’t have sent an arrow as far as your bows, even with that monster of his. It’s technique.”

  Nylan nodded. “With most things, it’s technique.”

  “The bows may save a lot more lives than the blades, ser. Ours, anyway, and that’s what we’re worried about.” She paused, then flicked the reins. “We need to take care of these.”

  Nylan offered her a vague salute, watched as she turned her mount, then lowered the goggles.

  The energy flows tumbled through the powerhead like green rapids, and Nylan felt he was using all his energy just to smooth them, and it took even more to begin to shape the rough metal bow frame around the composite.

  Once more, his face was a river of sweat as he struggled with the laser and the shaping. And once more, he was drained, arms lined with internal fire and legs shaking, by the time he finished the bow and quenched it.

  The powerhead was failing, yet, after what Istril had told him, the bows might be the most important thing he could make before the laser system collapsed. So he rested on the cracked stone he used as a seat, trying to catch his breath and regain his strength before beginning the next bow.

  “So… the mage is working hard.” Relyn ambled into the north tower yard. He carried Nylan’s creation in his left hand.

  “The mage always works hard.” Nylan wiped his damp forehead.

  “You sweat like a pig. Yet I see no weapons, no hammers, no hot coals.”

  “This is harder than that.”

  “What? You work the fires of the angels’ hell?”

  Nylan stood and walked toward the firin cell bank and the laser wand. “Watch. Then you can decide.”

  Relyn’s lips tightened, but he said nothing as Nylan lowered the goggles. The engineer inserted the composite strip in the groove of the bow frame, then picked up both with the tongs and the laser wand with his right hand.

  Again, the greenish light flickered, and Nylan wrestled with the fluctuating power levels as he molded metal around composite. Sweat streamed into and around his goggles. His arms and eyes burned, and his legs felt rubbery even before he quenched the bow and set it aside.

  He pushed back the goggles and blotted his face dry, but his eyes still burned from strain and the salt of his sweat. His tattered uniform was soaked. For a few moments, he just sat there, doubting whether the powerhead would last through another bow.

  “Worse than the fires of the angels’ hell,” Relyn finally offered.

  The words startled Nylan since, with all the concentration required, he had forgotten that the young noble had been watching.

  “It’s hard, but I wouldn’t know about the angels’ hell. I’ve only seen the white mirror towers of the demons.”

  “You look like men and women, but you are not.” Relyn shook his head. “You bend the order force around chaos and form metal like a smith, and the fire you use is hotter than a smith’s. Yet all the other angels say none but you can wield that green flame.”

  “I won’t be able to do that much longer. The flamemaker is failing,” Nylan conceded.

  “That is why you work so hard?”

  The engineer nodded.

  Finally, Relyn bowed his head. “I have not been gracious, or noble. This… it is a work of art, and you were generous to create it for me, especially when you have so little of the flame left. And you put some of your soul in it. That I can see. I will use it, as I can, but I would not wear it after my last words when we ate-or yours.”

  Nylan understood that the statement was as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get, and that the words had cost the younger man a great deal.

  “It is yours to use.” Nylan paused. “I only ask that you use it for good, not evil.”

  Relyn lifted his eyes. “You.have not…”

  “No. I would not compel,” Nylan said, mentally adding, Even if I knew how, which I don’t. “The choice is yours. I don’t believe in forcing choices. People resent that, and their resentment colors their actions and their decisions.”

  Relyn studied the smooth metal. “Now… I must think.”

  “About what?”

  The younger man gave Nylan a crooked smile. “About what I have seen and what I must do.”

  “I wouldn’t stay here,” Nylan said bluntly.

  “But you do.”

  “That’s true, but I’m an angel. You aren’t.” As he spoke, Nylan found himself thinking that he was only half angel, assuming pure Sybran equated to pure angel.

  “Even angels have choices, Mage.” Relyn lifted his remaining hand, then turned and walked uphill toward the ridge.

  “What was that about?” Nylan asked himself, walking back to the bucket by the wall. He drank and splashed his face before returning to the last bow.

  He shouldn’t have worried about the last bow. The entire powerhead fused solid when he triggered the power. He looked at the day’s work-five bows. Seventeen bows in all. Not enough, but better than none.

  He began disassembling the laser, and he had returned all the components, useless or not, to the tower, all except the bank of firin cells and the five bows, when Ryba rode down from the ridge and reined up.

  “Both the cutting heads for the laser are shot,”
Nylan explained. “They’re totally fused.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The total cumulative flow was the issue. The heads are only made to last so long. I got five more bows done.”

  “That’s almost enough. Can you modify the weapons head?” asked Ryba, almost idly, leaning forward on the roan, her fingers touching the staff of the composite bow Nylan had given her-one of his better efforts.

  “Not really. It’s designed for maximum power disbursement in minimum time-that’s a weapon configuration.” The engineer unfolded the carrying handle on the right side of the firin cell frame.

  “What about your… abilities?”

  “I can channel the flows, shape them, but I can’t hold back that kind of power flow. With the industrial heads, they’re designed to be choked down, except it’s not choked. They draw power at any level…” Nylan shrugged. Explaining how things felt with a new ability he couldn’t adequately describe even to himself was difficult. He unfolded the other carrying handle.

  “How much power do we have left?”

  “Fifty percent on one bank of cells. The emergency generator might last long enough to get that bank to full power. Then again, it could quit any time. The bearings are nearly shot.”

  “That could power the weapons laser, couldn’t it?” Ryba smiled again, almost cruelly.

  “For a while. The cells might hold for a year.”

  Ryba straightened in the saddle. “You’ve done well, Nylan. The great smith and engineer. You built a tower, a bathhouse, stables, figured out how to heat them-and still left the weapons laser. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  As she rode off, with the way she spoke, he almost wished he hadn’t accomplished so much.

  XL

  “SER GETHEN OF the Groves!” announces the young armsman - in - training, “accompanied by Lady Erenthla, and Zeldyan, of the Groves of Gethen.”

  The single horn plays a flourish, and Sillek, concealing a wince because the horn player is off-key, hopes that Gethen is not terribly musical.