Fall of Angels

II. THE WINTER
XLVII

AS HE WALKED back from the bathhouse, and the jakes he was getting gladder and gladder about having completed, Nylan pulled down the ship jacket that had a tendency to ride up over the lined leather trousers. The lining consisted of the synthetic material left from his tattered work shipsuit, inexpertly stitched in place. The combination was warmer than the shipsuit, and certainly less drafty.

In the archway between the bathhouse and the tower, just before the closed north door, ice was already forming on the walls, from the collected and frozen condensation of the breath of those who passed through, and from the moisture coming from the completed showers.

“Too far from the furnace or the water-heating stove.” The engineer opened the north door and then closed it behind him, his fingers tingling from the chill metal latch-not quite cold enough to freeze skin to it.

He could sense the residual warmth from the furnace ducts as he walked into the great room, although he could tell from the lack of air motion that no logs had been added to the firebox recently.

He stopped at the staircase when he saw Ayrlyn bent over her lutar. For a time, he listened to the soft words which she half-sang, half-hummed.

On the Roof of the World, all covered with white,

I took up my blade there, and I brought back the night.

With a blade in each hand, there, and the stars at my boots,

With the Legend in song, then, I set down my roots.

The demons have claimed you, forever in light,

But the darkness of order will put them to flight,

Will break them in twain, soon, and return you your pride,

For the Legend is kept by the blade at your side.

The blade at your side, now, must always be bright,

and the Legend we hold to is that of the right.

For never will guards lose the heights of the sky,

And never can Westwind this Legend deny …

And never can Westwind this Legend deny.

The words echoed softly in the great room, and the wind that hurled the snow against the shutters and windows supplied a backdrop of off-rhythm percussion.

The four armaglass windows in the great hall provided the only exterior light, and that illumination was diminished by the storm and the snow that had gathered in the outside window ledges and half covered each with snow. Snow sifted through the windows that had but shutters and built into miniature drifts on the stone ledges, drifts occasionally swirled by the gusts that forced their way around the edges of the shutters and sent thin tendrils of freezing air across the room.

Nylan waited until Ayrlyn stopped and looked up before he spoke. “That’s a haunting melody.”

“It should carry the words well enough.” Ayrlyn’s voice was cool, measured. “That’s what she wants.”

“Ryba?” Nylan eased himself onto the bench on the other side of the table from the redhead.

“Who else wants songs? Most people work on firewood, food”-she laughed softly-“or bathhouses and towers. I still have to do other things. Skis are what Saryn and I have been doing, but the song comes first, or, at least, not last.” Ayrlyn paused. “You haven’t made your skis or even tried skiing. That’s going to make it hard on you. Even Siret’s been out, and in her condition, balancing isn’t easy.”

“Do I have to?”

“Of course not. You can stay inside all winter or walk the two trails we can keep packed. Anyway … I wish I could have spent more time learning the skiing, but Ryba wanted the songs.”

The engineer frowned. “She’s trying to build a culture, in a hurry.”

“I don’t object to that. Songs have always been part of any culture, and we need some sort of verbal reminder …” Ayrlyn paused. “I just don’t know that I like what I’m doing. The words are as much hers as mine, and … I just don’t know.”

“The guards seem to like them.”

“Do you?”

The directness of the question stopped Nylan, and he pulled at his chin, then licked his lips. Finally, he answered. “They’re too harsh.” Then he shrugged. “But people only respond to strength, or force, whether that force is in song or a blade.”

“Whether they’re angels or demons.”

Nylan nodded.

“So the great marshal will use every tool of force necessary.”

“I don’t see that we’ve had much choice. Mran, Gerlich, Relyn, bandits … all of them wanted to force things their way.”

“That’s a sad comment on so-called intelligent beings.” Ayrlyn glanced toward the stairwell. “So … I’ll sing this one tonight, after the evening meal. It should please the marshal.”

“You’re angry.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? She’s right. This world needs changing. Even I see that. What if I’m just a tool in the process?”

“We’re all tools.”

“You like that?” asked the redhead.

“No. But you have to survive before you can get beyond being a tool. I just haven’t figured out how to get that far.”

Ayrlyn shook her head. “I’ll see you later, fellow tool. Now that this task is done, it’s back to the mundane businessof crafting and carving skis.” Ayrlyn stood. “You too should join us.”

“In what?”

“Making skis and learning to use them.”

“Me? I’ve never skied.”

“If you don’t want to be walled behind these stones all winter, you’d better learn, and you can’t learn if you don’t have skis.” Ayrlyn picked up the lutar. “It might make it less necessary for you to be a tool.”

“That’s a great choice. Be imprisoned for half the year or learn to do the unnatural in the middle of powdered ice so cold that walking over it will freeze your breath into ice crystals.”

“It’s a choice.” Ayrlyn lifted her eyebrows, before heading toward the stairwell.

It was a choice. Not the best of choices, but a choice, like all the other choices that seemed to face Nylan.

As Ayrlyn carried her lutar down the stairs to the lower level, another set of steps sounded, coming from the bathhouse. Nylan waited, watched, until Relyn stepped into the great room.

“I hoped I would find you, mage.”

Nylan gestured to the table. “Sit down.” He sat without waiting for Relyn to do so.

Relyn eased onto the bench, actually using the blunt, halfhooked end of the metal hand to balance, although Nylan caught the wince as the other put too much pressure on the still-tender stump.

“That replacement will take getting used to, I’m afraid,” Nylan said. “And it will probably be cold outside unless you cover it. The metal will pick up the chill. I didn’t think about that when I crafted it.”

Relyn waited for a moment, saying nothing. As the wind rattled the shutters, and more snow sifted onto the inner casement ledges of the windows, he finally spoke. “The hunter … he says that you are not really a mage. Is that true?” Relyn struggled with the Sybran/Heaven Temple tongue.

“Gerlich?” Nylan shrugged. “That depends on what you mean by a mage. Can I throw firebolts the way your wizards can? No. Can I tear apart things? No. If that’s what you mean by a mage, I’m not, and I never said I was.”

Relyn pursed his lips. “You made those devil blades that cut through armor, did you not?” Half his words were Old Anglorat. “And you used the flame of the angels?”

“I did, but that’s a form of machine, not magic.”

“The singer, she says that you used magery to twist the flame in a way that no one else could.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Nylan admitted. “And I can use that ability to chisel stone a little more easily.”

“I saw you carve that hard black stone like it might be wood. No stoneworker I have seen could do that.”

“Does a name matter?”

“Names are important,” insisted Relyn.

“Are they?” asked Nylan. “Substance lies in what is, not what people say.”

Relyn frowned. “Words cause people to act. If someone calls you evil angels, then that gives others a reason to destroy you.”

“That’s true,” Nylan admitted, “but only when you talk about inspiring people to act. Their actions cause destruction, not the words directly. All the words in the world will not make me into a white wizard. All the words in the world will not bring back your hand.”

“I do not know about that …” Relyn muses. “Do not the white wizards whisper incantations to bring about their actions? Did I not hear you talk to yourself when you guided the green flames of order?”

“Did you not talk to yourself when you practiced with the blade?” countered Nylan. “The actions matter, not the words which surround them … although words can certainly inspire actions.” He cleared his throat, then paused as a violent gust of wind rattled the windows and shutters and shivered the great south door on its heavy iron hinges. “That’s often the problem with rulers. They move people with their words, and because they do, they believe that theycan use words to change the physical world. They can change people’s minds and feelings, but unless those people use shovels and some form of power, the words will not move the mountains.” As he finished, the engineer looked down at the table. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk so much.”

“You are a mage, a different mage, but a mage, and how will I learn about what you do if I do not listen? I can see your actions”-Relyn lifted the artificial metal hand-“but not your thoughts.”

“I’m not sure that my thoughts are terribly important.” Nylan laughed. “The marshal’s perhaps, but not mine.”

“She thinks great and terrible thoughts, I fear.”

Nylan thought the same of Ryba’s thoughts, but he only answered, “She does think great thoughts, and she will change this world.”

“So will you, Mage.”

“Me? Only so far as …” Nylan stopped. “I do not think so.”

Relyn laughed. “More so than you think.” He stood. “But I must think more. Thinking is harder than the blade.”

Nylan frowned. “There’s no reason why you couldn’t relearn the blade with your other hand. Saryn could certainly teach you.”

Relyn paused. “A left-handed blade?”

“No worse than a black mage,” countered Nylan.

Relyn laughed harshly, then turned.

As the former noble walked toward the stairwell and up the steps, Nylan glanced back at the now-empty tables and the cold hearth. After a moment, he crossed the great room and headed down to the tower’s lowest level.

In the kitchen, the heat radiated from the stove where the long loaves of bread baked. Nylan took a deep breath, enjoying the aroma. Kyseen and Kadran worked at the blocky worktable, its surface already marked with the imprints of knives, slicing potatoes into circles and dropping them into the largest caldron. Both wore rough shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Kyseen set down her knife and, taking a pad madeof rags, opened the stove grate, easing in two chunks of wood, one after the other.

“We’ll need to saw some more small stove wood,” Kyseen told Kadran, checking the coals in the stove, with the door open.

More heat welled out into the lower level, enough that Nylan, even by the foot of the stairs, could feel himself getting warm and dampness on his forehead. He unfastened the light ship jacket.

“It’s your turn,” Kadran said back to Kyseen.

“All right.”

Cloaks wrapped around them, Narliat, Hryessa, and Murkassa stood in the alcove between the side of the stove and the central stairwell.

“Narliat, and you two-you could do some woodcutting,” suggested Nylan. “It might even warm you up.”

“Friggin’ right,” whispered Kyseen to Kadran, who nodded.

“Kyseen will show you what to do,” Nylan suggested, before heading toward the other side of the lower level and the rudimentary carpentry which awaited him. Carpentry? He really didn’t have that much of a feel for wood, but he had no real tools for working metal. By the next winter, he really should think about building another structure, a small smithy where he could learn, one way or another, more traditional metalworking. Even with his ordering ability, he suspected it would be a long summer and hard work, but there were too many tools and items that Westwind needed-and too few coins to purchase them. On the other hand, with the lander shells, there was metal, even if it did take his strange ability to work it.

Ayrlyn gave him a crooked smile as he stepped toward the planks.

“Where do I start?” he asked, repressing a shudder at the thought of trying to cross deep powdery snow on a pair of carved boards.