Fall of Angels

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Then he drew into the dimness behind the stones of the chimney and central pedestal and waited, sensing her climbing the steps. In time, the sound of her steps, slower slightly with each passing day and heavy with the weight of the child she carried, announced her arrival.

  Nylan watched as she bent down, as her fingers touched the wood, stroked the curved edges of the side panels, as her eyes focused on the single tree rising out of the rocky landscape in the center of the headboard.

  “Do you like it?” He stepped out from the corner. While the cradle was no surprise to her, he had tried to keep the details from her as he had finished the carving and smoothing-all the laborious finish work.

  Ryba straightened, her face solemn. “Yes. I like it. So will she, when she is older, and so will her children.”

  “Another vision?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

  “You make everything well, Nylan, from towers to cradles.” Ryba sank onto the end of the bed.

  “I didn’t do so well with the bathhouse.”

  “Even that will be fine. We just didn’t have enough wood this winter to keep it as warm as we needed.”

  “The water lines needed to be covered more deeply.” His eyes went to the cradle again.

  So did Ryba’s. “It is beautiful. What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know.” Nylan didn’t know, only that, again, something was missing. “I don’t know.”

  Part III

  The Spring Of

  Westwind

  LXXII

  IN THE COLD starlight, the short man struggles through the knee-deep snow, snow that is heavy and damp, that clings to everything but his leathers. The snow glistens with a whiteness that provides enough light for him to continue. His boots crunch through the icy crust covering the road that will not be used by others for at least another handful of eight-days.

  The soft sound of wings mixes with the light breeze that sifts through the limbs of the pines and firs, and a dark shadow crosses the sky, then dives into a distant clearing.

  The traveler shivers, but his feet keep moving, mechanically, as if he is afraid to stop.

  Occasionally, he glances back over his shoulder, as though he flees from someone, but his tracks remain the only ones on the slow-melting snow. On his back he carries a pack, nearly empty.

  As he lifts one foot and then the other, his mittened fingers touch the outline of the cylindrical object in the pouch that swings around his neck under jacket, tunic, and shirt. He tries not to shiver as he thinks of the object, instead continuing to concentrate on reaching the warmer lands beyond the Westhorns, the lower lands where the heights do not freeze a man into solid ice.

  He puts one foot in front of the other.

  LXXIII

  NYLAN GLANCED FROM the bed to the half-open tower window. Outside, the sun shone across the snowfields, and rivulets formed pathways on the snow, draining off the grainy white surface and into the now-slushy roads and pathways. In a few scattered places, the brown of earth, the dark gray of rock, or the bleached tan of dead grass peered through the disappearing snow cover. Despite the carpet of fir branches, much of the road from the tower up to the stables was more quagmire than path.

  The east side of the tower was half ringed with meltwater that froze at night and cleared by day, so much that from the eastern approach to the causeway, the tower resembled the moated castle that Nylan had rejected building.

  His eyes flicked from the window back to Ryba, whose own eyes were glazed with concentration and the effort of measured breathing. On the other side of the lander couch stood Ayrlyn, her fingers resting lightly on Ryba’s enlarged abdomen. Beside her was Jaseen.

  “I’m hot,” panted the marshal.

  The joined couches had been moved toward the window because the ice and snow melting off the slate stone roof had revealed more than a few leaks that dripped down into the top level of the tower.

  Nylan used the clean but tattered cloth to blot the dampness off Ryba’s face, then put his hand on her forehead.

  “That feels good.”

  “Good,” affirmed Nylan.

  “Just a gentle push… gentle…”

  “Hurts… tight…” the marshal responded. “Dyliess?”

  “She’s doing fine, Ryba,” said Ayrlyn.

  “I’m… not…” Ryba shivered. “Cold now.”

  After he drew the blankets around her shoulders, Nylan blotted Ryba’s damp forehead again. “Easy,” he said. “You’re doing fine, too.”

  “Easy… for you… to say.”

  “I know.” Nylan kept his tone light, although, with his perceptions, he could sense that Ryba’s labor was going well, if any labor, and the effort and pain involved, could be said to be going well.

  “Push… a little harder.”

  “Am pushing…”

  “Stop…”

  “… tell me to push, then not push… make up your mind…”

  Nylan held back an inadvertent grin at Ryba’s asperity.

  “We’re trying to do this with as little stress on you and Dyliess as possible.”

  “… little stress?”

  Jaseen nodded, but said nothing.

  Nylan patted away the sweat on Ryba’s forehead, then squeezed her arm gently.

  “Push!” demanded Ayrlyn.

  The marshal pushed, turning red.

  “You have to breathe, too,” reminded Ayrlyn after the push.

  “Hot…” gasped Ryba.

  Nylan eased the blankets away from her shoulders.

  “All right… get ready…” said Ayrlyn.

  Through it all, Nylan stood by, occasionally touching Ryba, infusing a sense of order, though that order was not essential. In the end, a small head crowned, and Jaseen eased the small bloody figure into the light, and onto the Roof of the World.

  “In a bit, you’ll need to push again,” said Ayrlyn.

  “I… know… let me see her,” panted Ryba.

  When the cord was tied and cut, Ayrlyn eased the small figure onto Ryba’s chest. Dyliess seemed to look around, then turned toward her mother’s breast, her mouth opening and fastening in place.

  “You little piglet,” murmured Ryba.

  “Like her mother,” affirmed Nylan. “She’s concentrating on what’s important.”

  His senses extended over his daughter, taking in the hair that would be silver and the narrower face that was also from his Svennish heritage. In some ways, almost, she felt like Kyalynn, Siret’s silver-haired daughter.

  Nylan swallowed, then looked away toward the window, back out to the spring, and the melting snow, back out to the few green shoots that hurried through the patches of white.

  Not now, he thought, not now, and he forced a smile, which turned into a real one as he watched Dyliess, even though his chest was tight, and a sense of chaos swirled through his thoughts.

  “They’re both fine,” Ayrlyn affirmed.

  Jaseen nodded.

  Ryba’s eyes closed, a half-smile on her face.

  LXXIV

  “DON’T WE KNOW where we’re heading? Or when?” Hissl walks to the barracks door. By looking out and down the street, he can see the haze of light green-the grasslands that stretch all the way from Clynya to the South Branch of the River Jeryna.

  Koric shrugs. “Lord Sillek is not telling anyone. We know we will be moving against either Lord Ildyrom or against those angels on the Roof of the World. One way or the other… we have to be ready.”

  “He hasn’t said?” asks the white wizard.

  “No. Rimmur said he almost took off his head for asking.” Koric laughs. “I can’t say as I blame Lord Sillek. If people knew where or when, they’d be ready, and our armsmen would be killed. As it is, everyone’s waiting for him to make a mistake, any mistake. Everyone talks. You know how hard it is to keep things quiet. Ildyrom probably has spies in every tavern in Clynya, and a few other places as well, if you know as to what I mean.”

  “Yes, I know.” Hissl
smiles faintly.

  “You seen any sign of the Jeranyi, yet, in your glass?” Koric asks.

  “Not anywhere close to the grasslands, but the grass is short, and the way’s still muddy.”

  “Could they come up the river? Don’t you wizards have trouble with running water?” Koric fingers the hilt of the big blade on the bench before him.

  ‘ “I can see what’s on the water, not what’s in it or under it. But they wouldn’t swim all the way upstream from Berlitos.” Hissl forces a chuckle.

  “No, Wizard, I guess they wouldn’t. But you be looking for them. I wouldn’t want any surprises. Neither would Lord Sillek.”

  “I’ll be looking,” Hissl replies. “I’ll certainly be looking”

  LXXV

  FROM THE CAUSEWAY, Ayrlyn and Nylan looked at the fields and the stretches of mud that had been crude roads the previous fall and snow-covered trails through the winter. The fields and meadows were white and brown, still primarily white, although long green shoots poked through the white in places.

  “Snow lilies.” Ayrlyn pointed to a green stem rising from the snow.

  “Some things will grow in the strangest conditions,” mused Nylan. “They grow through the snow, and we can’t even walk up the hill without sinking knee-deep in mud. We’re not moving much anywhere for a while.”

  “The stables are even more of a mess because all that packed snow turned into ice and then melted all at once. Fierral’s in a terrible mood. Then, I’m surprised she’s not that way more often.”

  “Why?” asked the engineer.

  “How would you like to be the chief armsmaster under Ryba? Fierral knows that nothing she does will ever match Ryba. That means she’ll always be the chief flunky.”

  “Hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense.”

  “Of course it does.” Ayrlyn snorted.

  “We won’t be seeing any bandits or invaders for a while, I’d bet.”

  “No traders, either,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

  “You could ride out, and it would be dry when you returned.”

  “If it didn’t rain, but I couldn’t bring much back without the cart, and how would I get it out of here?”

  “Hadn’t thought about mud.” Nylan turned his eyes downhill and to the east. Below the lower outfalls, the cold rushing water, both from the runoff diverted from around the bathhouse and tower and from the drainage system, had cut an even deeper gouge through the low point of the muddy swathe that had been a road, a depression that was fast becoming a small gorge.

  “I knew I should have built a culvert there,” muttered Nylan.

  “Exactly when did you have time?” asked Ayrlyn.

  “The road to the ridge needs to be paved.” Nylan ignored her question, since the only free time he’d had, had been after the snow had fallen. “It’s almost impossible to leave the tower anyway.” He glanced toward the fir trunks stacked beyond the causeway, noting that the trunks on the bottom of the pile were more than half sunk into the mud. “I suppose we can cut and split the rest of that wood.”

  “You always have to have something to do, don’t you?”

  “There’s always more to do than time to do it,” he pointed out.

  She nodded slowly. “Do you think that when you die someone will build a huge stone memorial that says, ‘he accomplished the impossible’? Or ‘he did more than any three other people’?”

  “No one will build me any memorials, Ryba’s prophecies notwithstanding.” Nylan paused, and then his voice turned sardonic. “Don’t you know that’s why I built the tower? It’s the only memorial I’ll ever have, and I’m the only one who knows it-except you.”

  “You’re impossible, Engineer.” Ayrlyn turned to him, and her eyes were dark behind the brown. “She sees the future, but you take the weight of that future.”

  “I suppose so.” Nylan shrugged. “But who else will? The guards, even Ryba, laugh at my building, my obsession- I’m sure that’s what it’s called. The predictably obsessed engineer.” His words turned bitter. “If this were a novel or a trideo thriller, the editors would cut out all the parts about building. That’s boring. You know, heroes are supposed to slay the enemy, but no one has to worry about shelter or heat or coins or stables or whether the roads need to be paved or whether you need bridges or culverts to keep them from being impassible. Bathhouses are supposed to build themselves, didn’t you know? Ryba orders sanitation, and it just happens. No matter that the snow is deep enough to sink a horse without a sign. No matter that most guards would rather stink than use cold water. No matter that poor sanitation kills more people in low-tech cultures than battles. But building is boring. So is making better weapons, I suppose. Using them is respected and glorious and fires the imagination. Frig… every mythological smith has been the butt of jokes, and I’m beginning to understand why.”

  “You’re angry, aren’t you?”

  “Me? The calm, contained engineer? Angry?” Nylan swallowed. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t upset me, Nylan. And I do understand. Do you think that going out trading is any different? We need all these goods to survive, but trading isn’t glamorous like winning battles. Do you know what it’s like to have every man stare at your hair and run his eyes over you as if you wore nothing? To know you can’t lift a blade because women are less than commodities, and almost anything goes? And if you do use your blade, you won’t be able to trade for what you need?” Her voice softened and took on an ironic tone. “Besides, no one wants to trade with someone who kills some idiot and then has to empty her guts on her own boots.” The redhead laughed. “They don’t do trideo dramas about people who trade for flour and chickens, either.”

  “No. They focus on the great heroes,” Nylan said. “Like Ryba.”

  “Part of that’s not easy, either,” Ayrlyn pointed out. “She does see things, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “It must be terrible.”

  “I suppose so.” Nylan didn’t want to say more, feeling as though he’d poured out more than he’d ever intended, and Ayrlyn wasn’t even the one with whom he slept.

  “I mean it. If she has a vision, or whatever it is, can she trust it? Does she dare to oppose it? What should she do to make it occur, if it’s an outcome she wants? What are the options and trade-offs?”

  “You still talk like a comm officer, sometimes.”

  “I probably always will.” A brief laugh followed. “Don’t you see, though? What she has is a terrible curse. It’s much easier to be a healer, or a black mage. We do the best we can, and, if we make mistakes, we aren’t faced with the idea that we knew in advance and still failed.”

  “She doesn’t see everything.”

  “That’s worse. How can she tell what might be a wish, or what leads to what she sees?” Ayrlyn shivered.

  Nylan moistened his lips, and his eyes flicked toward the top of the tower. The wind rose, and a fluffy white cloud covered the sun, and Nylan shivered also, but not because of the darkness or the chill that swept across Tower Black and the causeway where they stood.

  LXXVI

  “YOUR SON, LORD Sillek.” The midwife turns to Sillek, her face blank with the concealed expression of one who felt Sillek had no rights to be in the room.

  Sillek glances from the small figure in the midwife’s arms to Zeldyan’s washed-out and sweat-plastered face, then back to the child and the fuzz upon his scalp that already bears a blond tinge. He smiles broadly at both his son and his consort.

  “Have you a name?” asks the midwife.

  Sillek ignores the question and bends over the wide bed. His lips brush Zeldyan’s cheek. “I love you.” His fingers squeeze hers for a moment. “Thank you. He’s healthy and wonderful. You are, too.”

  “May I?” asks the Lady of Lornth, her arms reaching for the infant as Sillek steps back.

  “You?” asks the midwife.

  “He’s my son.”

  Sillek’s eyes fasten
on the midwife until she lowers the boy into Zeldyan’s arms.

  Zeldyan eases the seeking mouth into place and smiles faintly. “His name is Nesslek, after his father and grandsire.”

  “Nesslek…” muses Sillek. “You had that thought out all along, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.” Zeldyan’s quick grin fades. “I still feel like a herd of something ran over me.”

  “Would you like a wet nurse now?” asks the midwife. “Lady Ellindyja…”

  “No. Thank you. Not now.” Zeldyan’s arms tighten ever so slightly around her son.

  Sillek watches both, a smile on his lips and in his eyes.

  LXXVII

  TWO HUNDRED CUBITS uphill from Tower Black, still well below the rocks that rose into the sides of the stable canyon, Nylan looked at his forge site. Four corners marked with rocks, that was all, not that there was much he could do until the planting was complete-food was the first priority.

  With a forge, he might be able to make a simple plow, if he could bend metal around a wooden frame. He certainly wouldn’t have the heat to forge metal lander alloys-soften them, perhaps, and even that would be hard. He’d also need charcoal, lots of it, and that meant work down in the forest, after it dried out more.

  He turned toward the greenery below, the sprigs of grass sprouting even in the field area, and the sprays of thin white lacy flowers that seemed to have sprung up everywhere.

  Despite the chill that had him in his worn ship jacket, the engineer took a deep breath of the clean air, glad to be out of the tower. Then he started up to the stables. His first job was to fix the road, and he needed the crude cart to lug down rocks, piles of rocks. As he passed the lander, now used for fodder storage, he could hear Ayrlyn and the guards as the healer organized the planting detail.

  “Those are potatoes? Where did you get these?” demanded Denalle.

  “We grew them. The ones we saved are known as seed potatoes,” said Ayrlyn, almost tiredly. “The number of potatoes we saved for seed wouldn’t have fed anyone for more than an eight-day-and then what would we have to plant for the next year?”