Fall of Angels

LV

CARRYING A CLEAN outfit, Nylan padded down the stairs in his boots and old trousers, trying to ignore the chill that seeped around him. He slowed as he neared the fourth level.

Gerlich unloaded his gear, racking the quiver in the shelf space that was his, and hung the long bow beside it, his fingers running over the wood, almost lovingly. Then he removed the shoulder harness and the great blade.

The big man slid the blade from the scabbard, studied it, and took a small flagon from the bag that hung from one of the pegs. After extracting a pair of rags from the leather bag, he used one rag first to dry the blade and afterward the scabbard, before draping the damp rag over a shoulder-high peg on the long board fastened to the wall. Then he unstoppered the flagon and poured a small amount of oil onto the other rag before closing the flagon. Gently, the hunter oiled the blade from hilt to tip.

As he watched the hunter, Nylan puzzled over several items. Although Gerlich brought back no game, he had brought back fewer arrows, and shafts and arrowheads were not easy to come by. Had Gerlich lost the shafts?

Nylan smiled. Perhaps the great hunter was not so greatafter all. He shook his head as he studied Gerlich. Why did the hunter carry the huge blade on a hunting trip? Any sort of sword was difficult to use on skis. In fact, anything was hard to use trying to balance on wooden slats spanning deep powder snow.

Based on his encounter with the leopard, Nylan could certainly testify to that. He lifted his right shoulder, felt the soreness. Despite the antiseptic, one section of the slash had become inflamed, enough so that Ayrlyn had been forced to use her healing talents-a way of forcing out the disorder of infection.

After having watched her do it, Nylan had practiced on the shoulder wound himself, keeping it chaos-free. That talent might come in useful at some point, especially when the few remnants of the medical supplies were exhausted. The talent didn’t seem to speed healing much, but it stopped infection and would reduce scarring, Nylan suspected.

“Any luck?” Nylan asked from the steps.

Boredom replaced surprise on Gerlich’s face. “Not this time. We’ve killed most of the dumb animals, and I’ve got to travel farther every time.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Nylan nodded and continued down the steps.

There were people near the hearth in the great room, but the engineer continued onward toward the north door. He shivered as he hurried through the ice-lined archway and into the bathhouse. The stove was yet warm, and some water lay on the stone tiles of the first shower stall, but no one remained in the building. Huldran probably had used the shower-or Ryba-or both.

Nylan stripped off the boots and trousers and checked the knife valve. Then he stood under the frigid water only long enough to get thoroughly wet, before lathering himself with the liquid concoction that Ayrlyn had claimed was the local equivalent of soap.

The amber liquid looked like oil laced with sand and flower petals. That was also what it smelled like-rancid flower petals. It felt like liquid sandpaper as Nylan stood,damp and freezing, on the cold stones of a shower stall without a door, trying to scrub grease off his hands, frozen and thawed sweat out of his stiff hair, and grime off most of his body.

He had to wet his body twice more just to get lathered half properly, and then it took three short rinses-just because he couldn’t stand under the cold water that long. Cold? The water had been warmed some by the bathhouse stove’s water warmer.

The only excuse for a towel was a napless synthetic oblong that might have qualified as a hand towel on Heaven except for the fact that it was designed to shed water-not absorb it. So Nylan had to use it more to wipe the water off his body, letting a combination of evaporation and what felt like sublimation do the rest.

While he looked and smelled more human at the end of the process, the bluish tinge to his skin spoiled the feeling. The goose bumps and shivers remained long after he donned the relatively clean clothes that had taken two days to dry after he had washed them. Finally, his feet were dry enough for him to pull on the wool-lined boots.

The bathhouse remained empty, except for him.

When he had stopped shivering violently, he marched resolutely toward the brick archway that had become a solid arc of ice. The ends of his damp hair still froze before he got into the tower and closed the north door behind him. After carting his old trousers up to the top level, he returned to the great hall, and the coals in the hearth.

In the dimness, Relyn sat on one side, Murkassa on the other, each one’s back to the coals. Neither looked at the other. Both shivered.

“A cheerful group,” Nylan observed.

“Feeding fowls-that is all I can do that is useful,” snapped Relyn, raising his artificial hand. “Or sheep. It is so cold that I can barely hold the bag.” His eyes turned on Nylan. “Your hair is wet.”

“I couldn’t stand being dirty and unshaven any longer. I took a shower.”

“You have ice in your veins.” Relyn shuddered. “You are more terrible than the women. They are merely angels, trying to live as people.”

“That’s nonsense,” Nylan retorted. “I’m trying just as hard.” He stepped toward the residual warmth of the hearth.

“They did not think of the tower and build it. They did not find the water that flows when all is frozen. They did not forge the blades of black lightning. They did not build the small bows that send arrows through plate mail.” Relyn stood, but his eyes were on the stones of the floor. “They only fought and grew crops and hunted. You forged Westwind, and all that it will be. I have finally seen the truth. You are the first true black mage.”

Nylan snorted. “Me? I’m the man who can barely cross the snows on skis. The one who couldn’t get a thunder-thrower to kill anyone …”

Relyn laughed … gently. “The thunder-throwers do not belong in Candar. Nor did the magical tools you first used. Yet all the weapons you created and all the buildings you built will remain. Everything you forged belongs here on the Roof of the World, and everything will last for generations. If you died today, what you have wrought would remain.”

“That was the general idea. You seem to be the first one to fully understand that.” Nylan paused, and in the silence could hear the sounds of voices and tools and cooking coming up from the lowest level of the tower. “What’s so strange about it? I helped to build a tower, but there are towers all over Candar. I forged some blades, but armsmen all over Candar carry blades. I created bows, but archers have existed for years.”

Relyn just shook his head.

“Murkassa?” Nylan turned to the thin and round-faced girl.

“Yes, Ser Mage.” Murkassa pursed her lips and waited.

“Tell the honorable Relyn that he’s full of sheep manure.”

“No, ser. You are the black one, and the marshal is the Angel, and you have brought the Legend to the world.” She looked sideways at Relyn. “The men of these lands, mayhapof all lands, are like Jilkar. They respect only the strong. You have made these women strong-”

“They were already strong.” Nylan laughed bitterly.

“Then you have kept them strong, and they will force the men of Candar to respect them-and to respect all women.”

“That is why Sillek will come to attack Westwind,” said Relyn. “After him may come Lord Karthanos of Gallos.”

“Is that why Lornth dislikes Jerans?” asked Nylan. “Strong women?”

Relyn nodded.

With the low moaning of the wind, the engineer turned toward the windows. “Some mage I am. I can’t even keep this place warm enough.”

“It is warm enough for the angels to grow and prosper. It is warm enough that all Candar will tremble at the name of Westwind. I should think that would be warm enough.” Relyn’s tone is ironic.

“You give me far too much praise, Relyn.”

“No … ser … you do not choose to see that you have changed the world. You have changed me, and you will change others, and in time few indeed will understand the world before the Legend.”

“You are different,” Murkassa added. “You see women as strong, and as you see them, so are they.”

“Women are strong. Stronger than men in many ways,” Nylan said.

“As you say, Mage.”

Nylan shook his head. Why did they take his words as a statement of faith, as if what he said became true? Outside, the howling of the storm rose, and Nylan wondered, absently, how the sheep, chickens, and horses were faring. The enemy was the winter, not the preconceptions of men in Candar.

Both Relyn and Murkassa exchanged amused smiles, as if Nylan could not see the obvious. Maybe he couldn’t.

“I’m going down to work.”

“Yes, Mage.”

They smiled again.

Change the world? Nylan tried not to frown as he left the slowly chilling great room to descend to the woodworking area and his efforts with the cradle and the rocking chair he was beginning. Changing the world by building a tower with rudimentary water and sanitation? By using a dying laser to forge a handful of blades and a few composite bows? By nearly getting killed by a snow cat or always falling into snow over his head?

He snorted again. He had a cradle to finish-and a rocking chair-and he couldn’t afford to be distracted by delusions of grandeur.