Fall of Angels (36 page)

  
The rain washed away the blood from the thin cut as fast as it welled out, but the cut was only skin-deep. The water started to swirl down the drain, then stopped. The engineer sighed and went fishing again, this time coming up with a round stone just the right size to plug the drain.

  
He watched the water swirl and start to drain, and again stop.

  
After repeating the process nearly a dozen times, the drain seemed to be flowing freely, and he slogged through the instep-deep water to the other end of the bathhouse and the second drain-also plugged.

  
After four tries, he got the second drain running freely, but the first drain had become plugged again-with several more stone fragments.

  
All in all, Nylan slogged back and forth between the two drains nearly half a dozen times before the area inside the walls was drained, although several depressions remained as ankle-deep puddles.

  
Then he circled the tower, checking the rock-lined drainage way on the lower east side of the tower. While the drainage way was a narrow rushing stream that seemed to divert the deluge from the tower foundations, beyond the stones the water had already dug a trench knee-deep through the lowest point of the makeshift road to the ridge.

  
Nylan shook his head. They would need a stone culvert, or something, to keep the road from being washed out with every heavy rainstorm. He took a deep breath and headed back to the north door of the tower, his shipboots squishing with every step.

  
Water-resistant or not, Nylan's jacket was soaked, as was everything else. But the drains were working, and the water from all around the tower was flowing freely into the outfall he had designed. Beyond the outfall... He just winced.

  
His head ached again; his neck and shoulder muscles were tight, and his eyes burned, and he trudged back to the north side of the tower. He turned the heavy lever, and the latch plate lifted. A strong push and the door swung open, barely wide enough for him to squeeze through sideways, before it stuck.

  
Nylan edged inside and checked the door. The hinge pins were solid, and the strap plates hadn't moved. He bent down, then nodded. With the moisture, the wood had swelled, and perhaps the latch end had drooped some with the extra weight and usage. Whatever the exact reason, the end of the door was wedged on the stone.

  
He grunted, and half lifted, half shoved the door back closed.

  
After closing the door, he took off his jacket and wrung it dry, letting the water spill on the stones by the door. Then he stripped off his boots and the shipsuit and repeated the process with the shipsuit, ignoring the fact that he was standing near-nude by the door. He turned his boots upside down and poured out the remaining water.

  
As he set them down, the north door eased open, then stuck once more.

  
Siret squeezed inside, barely able to maneuver her thickening midsection through the narrow opening. Her deep green eyes fixed on him. "Ser?"

  
"Trying to wring out the worst of the water," he explained.

  
Siret said nothing, her eyes still on him as he redonned the shipsuit, and he could feel himself blushing. Once he had the damp suit back on, he shoved the door shut, barefoot, his feet sliding on the cold damp stones.

  
"I'm sorry, ser," Siret finally said. "I should have helped, but I ... I just... I don't know what happened." Her eyes did not meet Nylan's.

  
"That's all right." He slowly pulled on the damp boots. "Thank you." Siret turned and headed toward the great room on the other side of the central stairs.

  
Nylan followed. Even before he was two steps into the great room, he felt the heat, from the hearth, more welcome than the odor of fresh bread coming from the grass baskets. He spread his damp jacket on the shelves beneath the stairs, then walked toward the warmth, glad that his seat was close to the hearth.

  
The two tables were nearly filled with damp marines. Narliat's dry leathers stood out, as did Kadran's and Kyseen's. The dryness of the cooks' clothing, Nylan could understand, but Narliat sat beside Gerlich, who looked like a drowned rodent, with his damp chestnut beard and longer hair plastered against the back of his neck. Relyn, across the table, was soaked as well, but he offered a smile.

  
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.