Fall of Angels

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Nylan returned Relyn’s smile and nodded when he passed Gerlich, and then eased into the seat at the end of the bench closest to the hearth.

  Saryn sat on the end of the table with her back to the windows, across from Nylan. Between her and Ayrlyn sat Hryessa in dampened leathers. Relyn sat to Ayrlyn’s left.

  “The fire feels good,” Nylan observed.

  “Since everyone’s soaked, it seemed like a good idea.” Ryba smiled faintly. “Our resident healer and communicator pointed that out.”

  “The damp is worse for health than snow would be. So I suggested the fire,” Ayrlyn said.

  Nylan turned on the bench so that the heat from the hearth would warm his back. While the shipsuits were thin, the synthetics did dry quickly.

  The big pot in the center of the table held a soupy stew, to be poured over the bread. Saryn passed him a basket of bread, and he broke off a chunk, then stood and ladled stew over it.

  “How did you get soaked?” Ryba asked.

  “Cleaning out the drains in the bathhouse so that the foundations wouldn’t get washed away. I also checked the other drains and the outfalls.”

  “It’s snowing on the higher peaks,” said Ayrlyn. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we got snow here within an eight-day or two.”

  “I hope it holds off. We’ve still got a bunch to do to get the bathhouse finished.”

  “Will it take that long?” asked Ryba.

  “Long enough,” said Nylan, pouring the hot root and bark tea into his mug where, when the hot liquid hit the clay, the mug cracked in two, as if a magical knife had cloven it, and the tea poured across the table.

  “Friggin‘… !” Nylan nearly knocked over the bench as he lurched sideways to avoid the boiling liquid that had started to drip off the table onto his legs. As he stood beside Ryba’s chair, he looked around for something to wipe away the tea.

  “Ser!” Kyseen stood and tossed a bunched rag toward Nylan, which opened and dropped onto Hryessa’s bread and stew.

  Hryessa’s mouth opened.

  “These things happen,” said Ayrlyn calmly, as she reclaimed the rag and spread it on the tea puddle.

  Hryessa looked at her stew and bread, then at Ayrlyn.

  Saryn grinned, shaking her head. “It doesn’t look like it’s been your morning, Engineer.”

  Nylan reached forward and gathered the tea- and stew-soaked rag, carefully wringing the liquid into the inside corner of the hearth where the heat would evaporate it. Then he mopped up more of the tea and repeated the process.

  In time he sat back down, glad at least that the split mug hadn’t poured bark tea over his bread and stew.

  “Here’s another mug, ser.” Rienadre set one in front of him and retreated. “Some of them don’t fire right. I’m sorry.”

  “Would you pour the tea?” Nylan asked. “I haven’t had much luck.” Rienadre took the kettle and poured. The mug held.

  “Thank you.” Nylan took a small sip, marveling that the tea wasn’t bad. That alone told him how bedraggled he felt. He took a mouthful of bread and stew, then another, trying to ignore the bitterness of the tubers and onions. From the corner of his eye as he set down his mug, Nylan could see Gerlich bending toward Narliat.

  “Finishing the bathhouse with hand tools is going to take time-and dryer weather,” the engineer added.

  “Cannot a mage do anything?” asked Narliat. “You have builded a tower that reaches to the skies, and you cannot make a few channels in stone?”

  Put that way… Nylan frowned. “Perhaps I can, after all.” The real question was the timing of Narliat’s question. Was Gerlich thinking up the nasty questions for the armsman, or was Narliat that disruptive on his own?

  “You are a great mage, and great mages do great things,” Narliat added.

  Nylan wanted to strangle him for the setup. Instead, he turned to the armsman. “I have never claimed to be a great mage. But I have done my best to accomplish what needed to be done, and I will continue to do so.” His eyes locked on Narliat until the other looked away.

  Then he took another chunk of bread and ate more of the stew, trying to ignore the gamy taste Kyseen had not been able to mask with salt and strong onions.

  XLII

  AS HE WAITED for Ryba, Nylan stood in the darkness at the unshuttered, unglazed window and looked at Freyja, the knife edges of the needle-peak softened but slightly by the starlight and by the snow.

  His stomach growled, reminding him that the spiced bear stew-that was what Kyseen had called it-had not fully agreed with his system. Would it be that way all winter, although he could scarcely call it winter, since only a few dustings of snow had fallen around the tower? Not all of the scrub bushes and deciduous trees had shed their gray leaves, although it was clear most kept about half, shriveled against the winter.

  Meals were enough, so far, to keep body together, but not much more, and it wasn’t that cold yet.

  Nylan leaned forward and looked to the north side of the tower and the half-roofed bathhouse. Almost instinctively, he curled his hands, and his fingertips rested on the callused spots at the base of his fingers. He had far too much to finish, far too much, and, as time passed, fewer and fewer cared, except for the few like Ryba, Ayrlyn, and Huldran, and the guards with children.

  He turned toward the stairs as he heard Ryba’s steps-heavier now-approaching.

  “Dyliess hasn’t been kind to my bladder,” said the marshal.

  “I’m sorry about the tower design,” apologized Nylan. “I just wasn’t thinking about waste disposal.”

  In a rough-sewn nightshirt of grayish beaten linen, Ryba sat down heavily on her side of the twin couches. “Narliat and Relyn think this tower is luxury, the sort of place for lords and dukes or whatever. Neither wants to leave. They’ll have to, by spring at the latest.”

  “If they have to leave, why are you letting them stay?”

  “I don’t want the locals to find out much about us until we’ve got things in better order. So far, the only people who have left have been those who have fled our weapons, mostly in terror, and traders who have never seen things closely. I’d like to keep it that way for a while longer. And we can learn a few things more from Narliat and Relyn.” Ryba shrugged. “Relyn might end up fathering a child or two, and he seems bright enough.”

  The engineer pulled at his chin, “You’re pregnant, and so are Siret and Ellysia. Isn’t that a lot for the numbers we’ve got?”

  “Three or four out of sixteen-not counting Hryessa- that’s only about a third, and most will be able to fight by late spring. Most children will be born in winter or early spring in Westwind, anyway.”

  The calm certainty in Ryba’s voice chilled Nylan more than the wind at his back, but he asked, “Four?”

  “I think Istril is, also,” said Ryba.

  “Istril? She doesn’t strike me as the type to play around.”

  “I could be wrong,” Ryba said. “I’m not always certain about these things, but she will be sooner or later.”

  “But who?”

  “I can’t pry-or see-into everything, Nylan. Right now, I’m just fortunate enough to be gifted, or cursed, with glimpses of what might be. That’s bad enough. More than enough.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know what it’s like to see pieces of the future? Not to know, for certain, if they’re what will be or what might be? Or whether you’ll bring them into being by reacting against them?”

  Nylan cleared his throat. “I said I was sorry. I hadn’t thought about things quite that way.”

  Ryba looked at the stones of the wall beside Nylan. “You deal with stone and brick and metal-the certain things. I’m wrestling with what will sustain life here for generations to come. What do I do about men who are killers? Or those who will leave? Or may leave?”

  “I don’t like the implication that I’ll leave.” Nylan sat down beside the dark-haired woman and touched her shoulder. “I don’t have any pat answers. I do what I can,
everything that I can think Of, as well as I can.”

  “I know, Nylan. You work like two people. You’ve done things I don’t think are possible, and Westwind wouldn’t be without you. But a place isn’t a community without traditions, values, that sort of thing, holding it together. That’s why we need your tower, Ayrlyn’s songs-”

  “And your ability to teach and create military strength?”

  Ryba nodded. “It’s going to be tough.”

  “It’s already hard.”

  “It’s going to get harder,” she predicted, looking out at the cold shape of Freyja. “A lot harder.”

  In the end, they lay skin to skin, and, after a time, Ryba was passionate, demanding, and warm. Predictably, before they had even relaxed, she had to get up.

  “You just went,” he protested sleepily.

  “There are some things, especially now, where I don’t control the timing.” She pulled her gown down and padded down the stone steps.

  Fighting exhaustion and sleep, Nylan tried to analyze the subtle wrongness behind her words… but nothing made sense.

  Before either solutions or sleep reached him, Ryba padded back up the steps and slipped into the couch. Her cool hand stroked his forehead for a moment. “You’re a good man, Nylan. No matter what happens, remember that.” She squeezed his shoulder.

  He squeezed her hand in return and murmured, “Know you try your best, for everyone.”

  She shuddered, and let him hold her, but she would not turn to him as she sobbed silently.

  XLIII

  IN THE NORTH yard outside the bathhouse, Nylan picked up the hammer and chisel. Behind him, on the roof, Denalle and Huldran spiked roof tiles onto the cross-stringers mortised into the main timbers to provide a flat surface.

  Overhead, the clouds were white and puffy, like summer clouds, but the chill in the late autumn wind belied that. To the west, the clouds seemed evenly spaced, and Nylan hoped that they would stay that way. His eyes dropped to the pair on the roof-Cessya had ridden off with Ayrlyn.

  “… damned gourds, whatever they were, never ripened… bitter in the stew, worse than that rancid bear meat…”

  “Just keep complaining, Denalle, and I’ll spike your hand right under the next tile,” snapped Huldran.

  “Potatoes are good… hope they last…”

  “More spikes, Denalle.”

  Nylan let his eyes drop from the unfinished roof to the dark stone before him that would be a water-conduit section.

  “And you cannot make a few channels in stone?” Narliat had asked, at Gerlich’s prompting. And Ryba had just left Nylan hanging.

  His choices were simple. Abandon the idea of showers. Finish the trough pipes in wood, which would need continuous maintenance, or try low-tech stone-cutting methods. In a low-tech culture, cleanliness was important for health and survival, and if he didn’t make it easy or halfway convenient, cleanliness would go the way of the Winterlance. Besides, abandoning anything would cause problems with Gerlich. He was coming to like the big man less and less. Was that because he was coming to trust his feelings more? And Ryba-how much was she deceiving him, just to ensure that Westwind would survive?

  He moistened his lips. In some ways, it didn’t matter. He was stuck finishing the bathhouse the hard way. He took a deep breath and studied the chunk of dark stone, letting his senses drop into the heavy mass, following the lines of stress and fault. If he nudged that line… and boosted that… then, just maybe, the stone would break…

  He brought the hammer down on the chisel. Clung! The impact shivered up his left arm. There was a technique to chiseling stone, and he had no idea of what it was. He raised the hammer again.

  Clung! A flake of stone the size of his thumb flew from the chisel, but the reverberation still numbed his arm. A dozen strokes later, he had learned a better angle and not to grip the chisel so tightly. He also had only chipped out a narrow groove in the stone.

  The clouds had almost disappeared, leaving the sky a bright green-blue, but the wind seemed stronger, and colder.

  Even before he heard the hooves, Nylan could sense the approaching horses, knowing that they were marines-and Ayrlyn. There was no sense of the white disorderliness that seemed to accompany the arrival of locals.

  The five horses, and the cart acquired from Skiodra and since rebuilt, headed over the ridge and down the track to the tower. The clay remained damp enough from the previous rain that there was no dust. Riding pillion behind Istril was a woman in tattered leathers, with long brown hair. Another refugee? wondered the engineer. And Istril? She wasn’t riding any differently. Was that another of Ryba’s foresights? Something that might be?

  Nylan shrugged, wondering how many more women would arrive at Tower Black before the winter closed in. Given the attrition the angels had suffered, more bodies would be helpful-if there were enough food. They had the sheep and the chickens, but how would they feed livestock through the winter? Didn’t that mean more grain? Or grass or hay? Or something?

  As the horses passed and he saw that Ayrlyn was safe, he picked up the hammer once more, ignoring the numbness in his fingers from the wind and the impact of iron upon steel.

  By the time the triangle by the main south entrance to the tower clanged for the midday meal, Nylan had completed rough channels in two stones, each the length of his forearm. His fingers were cramping, and his arms were scratched from the rock fragments that had split and ricocheted. No wonder not much got built quickly-or with any complexity-in a low-tech, culture.

  Nylan set aside the hammer and chisel and stood stretching as Denalle and Huldran climbed off the roof. The eastern side was more than half finished. “Looks good,” he offered. “Except we have to mortar it or it’ll be dripping melted snow inside all winter,” pointed out Huldran.

  “Doing the roof’s friggin‘ hard on the knees,” added Denalle.

  “You want to wash clothes in the snow?” asked the older guard.

  “The way things are going,” said Denalle, looking down at her threadbare and tattered working shipsuit, “we won’t have anything to wash.”

  “The healer just brought in a cart of some kind of cloth, and more barrels of flour, it looked like. You’ll be spending part of the winter sewing up your kit for next year.” Huldran smiled at Nylan.

  “I didn’t sign up for sewing.”

  “Neither did the rest of us. Do you want to fight with your bare breasts hanging out?” asked Huldran.

  Denalle glared at the ground.

  “Let’s go eat,” suggested the engineer.

  As Nylan neared the lower table, Relyn, sitting beside Jaseen, raised his right arm, and the artificial hand, and nodded. The engineer smiled back.

  “You made that, ser?” asked Huldran. “Why?”

  “So he wouldn’t have any excuses to mope around,” Nylan said dryly. “You’ll note that I made it blunt. Very blunt.”

  Huldran laughed.

  The newcomer was seated between Saryn and Ayrlyn, near the head of the table on the window side. For some reason Narliat was on Ayrlyn’s right, with Gerlich on the other side of the former armsman. Nylan surveyed the two tables and found that Hryessa was seated near the foot of the second table, beside Istril and across from Relyn and Jaseen. Istril looked down at her trencher, and her lips curled. Had Ryba been right? Was she pregnant? The engineer glanced toward the hearth and kept walking until he reached the end of the table.

  “How is it going?” Ryba asked as Nylan waited for Huldran and then slipped into his end seat beside the marine.

  “Huldran and the others are doing well on the roof. Maybe two days before it’s tight.”

  “Could be three,” Huldran said, “if we run into trouble.”

  “And you?” Ryba asked Nylan.

  “I’m getting the hang of the stone-cutting, but it’s slow.”

  “The weather will hold for at least several days,” Ayrlyn said.

  “Good.” Nylan poured some of the hot bark-and-root tea and waited.
The mug did not crack. He picked it up and took a sip, waiting for Huldran to help herself to the bread in the grass basket. “Another refugee?” The engineer turned to Ayrlyn as he took a chunk of bread and handed the basket to Ryba.

  “Thank you,” said the marshal.

  “This is Murkassa,” said Ayrlyn in Old Anglorat. “She’s from Gnotos. That’s a little town in Gallos, just east of the Westhorns.”

  The round-faced girl, and she seemed more a girl than a woman, nodded, her long hair so thin that it fell in a cloud over her shoulders.

  “This is Nylan. He is an engineer and a mage,” Ayrlyn explained, still in Anglorat.

  Murkassa’s brow furrowed at the word “engineer.” She turned to Ayrlyn. “What kind of mage?”

  “Black, I’m told,” Nylan answered before Narliat could open his mouth and create trouble. “I make things.”

  Narliat had his mouth open, but Ayrlyn’s elbow caught the former armsman in the gut, and he closed it.

  “Nylan is-” Gerlich started to speak, then stopped as he realized Murkassa did not understand him.

  “How was your luck with the traders, Ayrlyn?” asked Ryba.

  “They had some of what we needed, but it cost me three blades and a gold.” She glanced at Nylan. “I’m not quite as good as the engineer.”

  “Any spikes?” Nylan asked, knowing that Huldran wanted to know.

  “A small keg-those were half a gold, and they wouldn’t budge on that, but you and Huldran put them high on the list.”

  “We can’t finish the bathhouse roof without them,” said the marine. “Not without taking all winter.”

  “What else?”

  “Heavy wool cloth. Rough as a new recruit. Some tanned hides for winter gloves, another eight barrels of flour and two of dried fruit. A bag of salt for drying whatever we slaughter or bring in from hunting. Another big kettle for Kyseen. A half-dozen needles-another half gold, but how can anyone sew without needles?-and a roll or spool of heavy thread that’s almost twine. And a bunch of little things, some spices, and a big bag of onions and two sacks of potatoes, and a barrel of dried corn for the livestock.” The redhead shrugged. “That doesn’t leave too much in the Westwind treasury. They said they’d be back in an eight-day, if it doesn’t snow.”