Fall of Angels

LII

DESPITE THE HEAVY woolen blanket that covered the thin thermal blanket and the crude but heavy woolen nightshirt he wore, Nylan was cold. A thin layer of crystals from his own breath scattered off the blanket as he sat up. The room was dark, with only the hint of gray seeping through the thoroughly frosted single armaglass window, although Nylan knew, alerted by the sounds drifting up the steps from the great room, that it was late enough. Another storm had descended upon the Roof of the World, with yet more snow.

As if to punctuate his conclusion, the wind provided a low howl, and the window casements rattled. A few fine flakes sifted around the iced-over shutters as Nylan sat on the edge of the couch and stared at the peg holding clothes he knew would feel like ice against his skin.

“Don’t take the covers,” said Ryba. “It is cold up here.”

“Another furnace day.”

“It’s been a furnace day every day for the last eight-day, and we’re running through wood all too fast. Fierral’s coughing out her lungs because she spent too much time in the cold. Istril’s not that much better, and I worry because she’s pregnant.”

“Ayrlyn helped them both.”

“There’s a limit to what she can do, though.”

“Just like there are limits on the way you seem to be able to see pieces of the future,” Nylan pointed out.

Ryba sat up on the couch and swirled the covers around her. “I hate feeling this awkward.”

“You don’t look awkward,” Nylan pointed out as he struggled into his clothes. He’d wash later. That bothered him, too, that even for him cleanliness was falling behind the need to keep warm.

“Dyliess is already affecting my balance. My bladder already went.” The marshal of Westwind slipped to her feet. “I hate wearing this thing like a tent. At least I can still get into my leathers. Darkness knows how long that will last.”

“I’m headed down,” Nylan said.

“It might do your image good to arrive before me.”

“Thank you, gracious Marshal.”

“Oh, Nylan … it’s just that you’re always too busy to be punctual. Go get your tea.” Ryba pulled off the woolen gown. Her midsection was only slightly rounded, and the engineer wanted to shake his head. Ryba would feel huge while she was slimmer than most women who weren’t even carrying a child.

Nylan pulled on his boots and went. He had not even set foot on the stones of the main level when Kyseen greeted him.

“Ser, the cistern’s not filling. It’s half-full.”

“It’ll wait.” Nylan walked to the table, looming out of the gloom like a rock out of the fog of a harbor.

“Amazing,” whispered Gerlich, just loud enough for most to hear. “The engineer arrived before the marshal.”

“Amazing? I suppose so.” Nylan wished he could think quickly enough for a clever comment.

“What magic will you create, Mage, to return the waters to the tower?” asked Narliat.

“It’s not magic, Narliat. It’s a stone conduit that’s probably frozen solid because I didn’t get it buried far enough below the frost line.” Nylan snapped off a piece of bread and dipped it in a brown sauce that was left over from dinner the night before. “I haven’t lived here before, and I had to guess. No one around here could even build a tower.”

“But you are a mage.”

“You said that. I didn’t.” Nylan took a bite. Both bread and sauce were cool. Even the tea was lukewarm.

Across the table from Nylan, Ayrlyn offered a faint smile of condolence, but said nothing as she sipped her own tea.

The insides of the shuttered windows were masses of ice, created from drifted snow and the condensation from theguards’ breath. The four true windows were so heavily frosted that they were solid white. With a shiver, Nylan took a second sip of the warm tea that didn’t help all that much, then another mouthful of bread and sauce, followed by the last dried apple slices in the wooden bowl. The single fat candle on the table shed as much greasy smoke as light.

“I’ll be getting a few more apples for the marshal, ser,” said Kyseen, “and you can have a few, too.”

“Thank you,” said the engineer, although he wondered why he should be thanking her because the early birds had eaten everything.

The fruit had not made its way up to the table by the time Ryba sat down heavily in the chair with her back to the cold hearth.

“You seem tired, Marshal,” offered Gerlich.

Narliat smiled. From the middle of the second table, both Hryessa and Murkassa looked at Ryba and then at Gerlich. Ayrlyn frowned.

“I am tired,” Ryba admitted. “I’m especially tired of your superficial cheerfulness, and I’m almost tempted to send you out hunting at this very moment. So don’t push it.”

Nylan held in a grin.

“I beg your pardon,” Gerlich responded.

“No, you don’t. You just say you do,” said Ryba politely. “Snakes have more integrity than you do, Gerlich. So do the demons.”

Beside Istril, at the far end of the second table, Relyn paled.

“You could even say, behind my back, that I’m in a bitchy mood. That’s a mildly polite way of putting it.” Ryba smiled. “So the next time you attempt to patronize me, you might have to eat steel or ice. You can take your pick.”

Kyseen hovered behind Nylan, holding the small bowl of dried fruit, waiting until Ryba turned to the cook and nodded. Kyseen set the bowl between Ryba and Nylan.

“Thank you, Kyseen,” said the marshal.

“Thank you,” echoed Nylan.

Nylan glanced at Gerlich and caught the under-the-breath“ Thank you, thank you-it makes me puke …” With a forced smile, Nylan looked at the hunter and said, “Why, Gerlich, I thought you had better digestion than that. By the way, the reason I’m usually late is that I have better things to do than to sneak around and complain about how things are run around here, or make snide remarks under my breath. Or go out and hide and sulk in the snow while pretending to hunt.”

Narliat turned pale; Gerlich opened his mouth, and then shut it.

“You know, Gerlich,” added Ryba. “You always did underestimate the engineer. In the end, it’s likely to prove fatal.”

“Might I be excused?” Gerlich asked quietly.

“Of course.” Ryba smiled.

Gerlich stood and bowed, but not too deeply.

“Your timing was excellent, Nylan. That should stop his plotting for a time,” said Ryba. “A day or two, perhaps.”

“Are you going to kill him?” asked Ayrlyn.

“No,” said Ryba. “There’s been enough death, and that sort of thing wouldn’t play well with the guards. Not yet.” Her face held a bitter smile. Then she took a sip of tea. “This is almost as bad as liquid manure. Almost, but not quite.”

Nylan took several of the apple slices, but left most of them for Ryba. She needed them, and so far, he didn’t. He did refill his mug from the steaming pot that Kadran set on the table. The bark-and-root tea tasted better hot, or perhaps he couldn’t taste it so well when it was hot.

He munched another piece of bread.

Ayrlyn rose and nodded to the marshal, then to Nylan. “We’ll be doing a lot of woodwork for the next few days, ser, and I need to see to the space, and the glue.”

Ryba nodded, as did Nylan, since he didn’t have much choice with a mouth full of dry bread.

“We have problems with the water, I understand,” Ryba said after Ayrlyn had departed.

“I’d guess the frost line is lower than I’d calculated, butI’ll have to check now that I’ve eaten and have some strength.”

“You made such a to-do about the water …”

“I know. I know. It’s all my fault.” With a groan, Nylan rose and headed down to the lower level and the cistern, Kyseen following closely.

All the guards in the kitchen area watched as he neared the cistern. He opened the cover and peered inside. His eyes saw almost nothing, but his senses could feel that the inlet pipe was mostly filled with ice. The water level had dropped to the half-full point, a good two cubits below the stone inlet conduit. A few drops glistened on the ice-coated inlet spout.

Nylan extended his senses, attempting to hold the feeling similar to the neuronet. So far as his senses could follow the water back up the conduit, he could sense only ice. Finally, he stepped away from the tower’s cold south wall, leaving the cover open and turning to Kyseen. “It’s frozen. Keeping this open might help, but make sure everyone stays away from it.”

“Ser?” asked Kyseen.

“The air here is warmer. It might help thaw the ice inside. The piping wasn’t deep enough. I’m pretty sure it’s frozen outside as well.”

“What do we do? You can’t fix it now, can you?” Kyseen made a vague gesture up the steps toward the heavy lower outer door, which continued to vibrate, despite the southern exposure and the heavy windbreaks beyond.

Beyond the stone walls, the wind howled.

“We may not be able to fix it until spring, and that’s a long time,” answered Nylan. “For now, take the extra caldrons and fill them with snow. Put them by the furnace. When they melt, pour the water into the cistern and start over. If we can get the water level up, and warmer, it might help.”

“Should we put some on the stove?”

“Not until after meals are cooked, and don’t add any wood to the fire. We really don’t have enough wood as it is. The tower’s warm enough down here to melt the snow.”

Up in the room he and Ryba shared-that was another story. The center space was warm enough, thanks to the furnace ducts, but only when the furnace was burning. The shuttered window had become a mass of immobile ice.

“What about boiling water?” asked Kadran.

“That won’t do any good until the water level’s up near the inlet spout, and that means melting a lot of water.”

“Now what are you going to do?” demanded Kyseen.

“I still have to check the bathhouse,” he answered as he crossed the kitchen and headed back up the steps to the north door. “That might tell me where the freezing’s happening.”

The north archway was cold, as usual, but the bathhouse was tolerable, perhaps because Huldran had a fire going in the stove. Nylan climbed up the brick steps beside the wail-designed for just such a purpose-and checked the water warmer-which was three-quarters full. A thin stream of water trickled into the warmer’s reservoir, but only a thin stream, even with the knife gate wide open.

“How long have you had the fire going?” he asked Huldran.

“Not long, ser. Colder than a winter deer’s rump in here earlier.”

Nylan sighed. “Maybe heating the stove will increase the flow more. If not, we can use the stove to melt snow, and perhaps the heat from that will also keep some water flowing.” He paused. “Once the storm lets up, I’ll check the outfalls.”

“Hope the stove helps, ser,” offered Huldran.

“So do I.”

He shook his head as he passed through the ice-covered cave that the archway between the tower and bathhouse had become. Chronologically, they weren’t quite at midwinter, from what he could figure, and everything was freezing. Maybe more heat would help … and maybe not.

Another blast of cold air shivered through the archway following a long low moan from the gale outside, and a short icicle hanging from the bricks overhead broke looseand shattered across the stone floor, several pieces skidding against the tower door.

The unheated archway was better than an open space between tower and bathhouse, but not much, reflected Nylan, as he opened the tower door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. He stopped shivering when he started down the steps to the almost comfortable lower level of the tower.

On the side of the lower level away from the kitchen-opposite the furnace-Ayrlyn directed a half-dozen marines in their efforts to turn rough wooden slabs and planks into furnishings for the tower-wall partitions, stools, an occasional chair, and several cradles.

Nylan stepped toward the group.

“How is the water going, ser?” asked Siret.

“There’s enough in the bathhouse for some washing, a few quick showers, and maybe more as the stove warms things up,” Nylan said, inhaling the aroma of baking bread that never quite seemed to leave the kitchen area. Did Kadran and Kyseen do all the baking as much to keep warm as to feed the marines?

“What about the cistern?” asked Istril.

“I can’t do much about that now. We’ll see if Kadran can get the water level up. That might help.” He shrugged. “If I can’t fix the water, at least I can do something useful.” Nylan picked up the dovetailed section of the cradle that was beginning to resemble a headboard. Carving and fitting the pieces was slow, even with the glue Relyn had developed from ground deer hooves and boiled hide and who knew what else.

After studying the design he had scratched on the wood, he set the headboard down and took out his knife, borrowing the common whetstone to sharpen it.

“Can I follow the same pattern?” asked Istril, as she stepped up beside him, no longer nearly so slim in the midsection as she had been in the summer and early fall. “For the cradle, not the design.” Then she covered her mouth and smothered a cough.

“Of course,” answered the engineer. “Is there anything I can explain … or help with?”

Istril flushed.

So did Nylan, although he didn’t know why, and he stammered, “With the woodworking. I’m not an expert. That’s Ayrlyn.”

“That cradle looks very good, especially for the tools we have,” commented Ayrlyn.

“I’ve had a lot of time,” said Nylan. “And probably even more to come.”

“He’s safer down here,” whispered Berlis.

Both Siret and Istril turned toward the mouthy guard, and Berlis stammered, “The marshal … she is a little touchy … right now …”

“You’d be touchy, too,” said Saryn, looking up from where she smoothed a curved backpiece for what looked to be a chair. “She has to think of everything and put up with idiots like the great hunter.” Saryn glanced toward the corner where Ellysia quietly worked over another plain cradle. “I’m sorry, Ellysia. I didn’t-”

“No offense taken, ser. He’s a lying cur. I just hope he’s got good genes.” Ellysia showed broad, even teeth, then looked down over her swollen midsection at the sideboards she was painstakingly rounding.

Nylan studied the design again, the sole tree twisting out of the rocky hillside, then let his senses take in the wood before he lifted the knife.

“ … everything he does is beautiful …”

The engineer tried not to flush.

“Not quite everything,” quipped Ayrlyn quietly. “You haven’t seen him ski, obviously.”

Nylan grinned in spite of himself, thinking about the considerable additional practice he would clearly need in that area. Then he slowly drew the knife over the line that represented the right side of the rocky slope, deepening the groove gently … gently.