Fall of Angels (54 page)

  
"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?"

  
"We're hungry now."

  
"Shut up, Denalle," added Rienadre. "Someone's got to think ahead. You think there's a food market over the next hill? Or a seed store?"

  
"Stuff it! I'm tired of your superiority. I'm tired of you, and I'm tired of this whole planet. I just want out. Out! Do you hear me?"

  
"I think the whole Roof of the World hears you," added Nylan before the healer could speak. "The marshal will let you leave anytime. The only question is whether you want to be beaten, raped, killed, or just be a paid slut once you reach a town." He shrugged. "Who knows? You might find some peasant nice enough to feed you, shelter you, and give you a dozen kids."

  
Denalle glared at the engineer. Nylan met her eyes evenly.

  
Then she looked down. "I hate this place."

  
"I don't think any of us would have chosen it," Nylan said quietly. "We just have to make the best of it. You have any ideas to make it better, let someone know. We are listening." He started toward the cart, then stopped and asked Ayrlyn, "You don't mind if I use the cart around here? I'm going to cart stones."

  
"Stones?" asked Ayrlyn.

  
"I'm going to build a stone culvert and crude bridge where the outfalls cut through the road. Unless I fix that, it will just get worse. Then, as I can, I'll be using stones to pave the road from the causeway to the bridge, and then up the ridge. Someday, we won't have to worry about the mud, then."

  
"I thought you were going to work on a forge."

  
"I'll probably do both. I can't use the forge until I make charcoal. I'd need help with the logs, and that'll have to wait until after planting."

  
"That's a lot of stones," said Ayrlyn. "You can have the cart. It's not as though we couldn't come and get it almost immediately."

  
Nylan grinned and walked toward the stables.

  
"Use the gray," Ayrlyn called. "She's used to the cart."

  
By the time the engineer had the gray harnessed and the cart ready, the planting detail had left.

  
He had tucked his blade and scabbard in the narrow space beside the seat, so he could get it quickly-Ryba had insisted he have it near-and flicked the worn leather leads. "Come on, old lady."

  
His eyes went to the blade. With the practice that Ryba had also insisted upon, he was improving, but he still wasn't comfortable with the blade, even as he found that he could now usually keep from getting spitted-or the equivalent with the wooden practice blades-and could actually strike most of the other guards at will, except for Ryba and Saryn. He could also run through the exercises with his own blades-finally-without danger of taking off an ear or other limbs.

  
He flicked the leads once more, and the gray tossed her head vigorously but followed him through the mud toward the outcroppings farther up the gorge from the stable.

  
Rough stones there were, more than enough, and Nylan slowly filled the cart until it seemed to sag over the wheels. By then his back felt as if it were sagging as well.

  
"Hard labor-they never told me about this in engineer's school," he mumbled to the gray.

  
The mare didn't answer, but chewed the few green shoots she could reach from where Nylan had tethered her. She kept chewing as he untethered her and slowly led her and the creaking wagon down past the stables, past the smithy site, past the tower and causeway to the gaping hole in the muddy patch that passed for a road.

  
Then he began to unload the stones, one after the other, stacking each where he thought it would be closest to where it would be needed. After the wagon was empty, he flicked the reins, half dragging the mare from cropping the white flowers and the tender leaves beneath, and headed back uphill.

  
"Nice day, ser," called Hryessa from the causeway, where she had taken off her boots and was knocking the mud from them against the stones of the causeway wall.

  
Behind her, in the low-walled practice area, Llyselle and Siret sparred with wands, their mounts standing by, since Ryba had decreed that at least two outriders were to be ready at all times.

  
"It is, at last." He waved to Hryessa and kept leading the mare uphill.

  
For the second load, Nylan concentrated on finding larger chunks of stone, the kind he could use.to frame a large culvert. Two long green trunks might help. Ideally, stone alone would last, but he couldn't always afford to do the ideal.

  
After he finished loading the cart, he stretched and tried to massage his back. The planting detail was still struggling with mud and seeds when he returned to the road and began stacking the stones from his second load.

  
He glanced to the tower as the triangle sounded once. Almost before its echoes died away, Siret and Llyselle galloped up the hill. The guards in the planting group laid aside shovels, hoes, and warrens, and reclaimed bows and blades.

  
Nylan continued to unload stones until he heard hoofbeats on the trail down from the ridge. Then he dropped the last stone and strapped his scabbard in place. Only the two Westwind mounts returned, but Llyselle and Siret each carried another rider.