The Chaos Balance

XI

Even before Nylan sat at the table and balanced Dyliess on his right knee, his eyes kept ranging to the end of the great room toward the central pedestal and the staircase. He could feel the slight movement of warm air from the furnace ducts set in the central stone pedestal that held the stairs and around which the tower was built. Interspersed with the warmth were gusts of cold dry air from the opening of the main tower door as guards headed up to handle livestock details or wood-carrying.

Breakfast was the usual-some bread, some cheese, and for the stout-hearted, some thin porridge. Eating one-handed, Nylan suffered through the yellow-green bitter root-and-leaf tea, taking quick sips and keeping the mug out of reach of Dyliess’s curious fingers. The bread was dark and cold, but hearty and chewy.

“Gaaaa…da…oooo…” His daughter’s hands grasped for his bread.

“Grabby, isn’t she, ser?” said Hryessa from farther down the table.

“They all are at this age, from what I can tell,” Nylan answered. “They want to grab the world and explore.”

“Don’t we all?” mumbled Huldran, finishing a wedge of cheese and some bread.

Nylan reached out and redirected Dyliess’s wandering hand, in time to keep her from grasping the spout of the teapot. “Exploration gets dangerous.”

“True enough even when you get older.” Saryn frowned, then added after a moment of silence, “Ryba said you were working on more blades.”

“We’ve been working on blades on and off all winter. Don’t you have enough yet?”

“For now. She insists we’ll have over fourscore guards by fall, maybe more, that we’ll have to convert half the fifth level into a barracks room or something.” Saryn turned her head as if Ryba were to appear, and the short, dark brown hair seemed almost black in the great room lit by only the four armaglass windows.

“Or start adding to the tower,” Nylan said.

“You said it would hold over a hundred.”

“It will,” the smith answered, his eyes still seeking Ayrlyn. He hadn’t seen Istril, either. “How many years will it take to build the addition if each stone has to be chipped out of the canyon with a sledge and chisel?” Somehow, Nylan wasn’t thrilled about adding to Westwind, but he wasn’t about to voice that lack of enthusiasm.

“Oh…”

“Exactly.” Nylan fed Dyliess a morsel of bread, although she’d already eaten. Dyliess promptly gummed it and deposited starchy brown drool on Nylan’s hand.

“I was wondering,” ventured the dark-haired former ship’s pilot. “Is there any way you could forge more bows? I mean, you started on the first blades with the laser, but you managed to forge the others.”

“There’s cormclit left,” Nylan acknowledged, “but it’s a directional heatshield composite. I had the demon’s own time cutting it with a laser. It just fragments into strands when I’ve tried to cut it with a chisel, and bench shears just jam or chew it into shreds. Then there are the alloys. I can’t even soften the lightweight, high-temp ones, and those were what I used for those bows.” He shook his head. “I’ve tried, but…”

He frowned. Had that flash of flame-red been Ayrlyn headed down to the kitchen?

“I thought I’d ask. We’ve only got sixteen of those killer bows.” Saryn coughed. All too many guards coughed through the winter, probably from too much mouth breathing outside in the chill of the Roof of the World. “We only lost one in the battle.”

“You threatened to dismember any guard who lost one, even if she were dying,” said Huldran. “I remember that.”

“I was right,” Saryn said. “They’re twice as good as anything the locals have, and they’re not replaceable.”

“There’s still too much up here that’s not replaceable,” Nylan offered. “We need a better low-tech base.”

“Like your sawmill?” Saryn grinned. “What comes after that?”

“I thought about a flour mill, but we’re too high to grow grain-”

“He never stops thinking, does he?” The number two of the Westwind guards finished her tea with a gulp.

There was too much to think about, reflected Nylan, from Ryba’s coldness to children to Ayrlyn, not to mention smithing. He’d still only rough-formed the prosthetic foot for Daryn-something for a man would certainly be low on Ryba’s priority list, he suspected, far below weapons.

“Got to run,” added Saryn. “We’re going to see what it’s like down below near that grove of hardwoods off the lower meadow below the brickworks. You remember those ironwood trees? They’re lousy for woodworking, but the healer says they’ll make good charcoal. You did say you needed charcoal.”

“I did. We can’t do much at the smithy without it.”

“Daaaa…” injected Dyliess, lurching toward Nylan’s mug again.

By the time he had intercepted her grasping fingers and had his tea under control, Saryn was headed out of the great hall.

“She’s a handful,” said Huldran.

“Saryn? She’s not bad.”

“I meant your daughter.” Huldran laughed. “Already, she has a mind of her own.”

Like her mother, Nylan thought, but he only said, “She does.” Then he finished the last of his own tea and a last morsel of cheese before standing and lurching off the bench and toward the stairs to the tower’s lower level.

Still carrying Dyliess, Nylan made his way down the stone stairs into the warmth below. Turning away from the heat of the kitchen, where Blynnal and her crew labored, Nylan found Ayrlyn in the corner of the lowest-level room in the tower-in the corner of the woodworking area, sitting on a stool and practicing chords on her lutar. She was not singing, and her eyes were puffy.

“I kept looking for you,” he said, shifting Dyliess.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Ouuuu,” mimicked Dyliess.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yes, there is.”

“What?” Ayrlyn’s voice was flat.

“What about last night? Why? And why wouldn’t you come to breakfast?”

“Because…” Ayrlyn took a deep breath. “I don’t like sharing you, but I can’t do what Ryba did. First, there’s no technology left, and, second, I wouldn’t trick you. It’s not easy.” The healer took a deep shuddering breath. “Her daughter will be all Istril really ever has, you know? How could I deny her that? You’ve saved her life twice, and she worships you, and it…it has to be more personal…” Tears oozed from the corners of the healer’s deep brown eyes.

“What about Weryl?” Nylan shook his head. “I’m missing something. A lot of somethings.” He reached out and took her hand with his left hand, the free one. “That can wait. I’ve been thinking…”

“About time…” Ayrlyn swallowed once, twice, then spoke again. “How long can Istril count on Weryl staying in Westwind with Ryba’s distrust of men? Until he’s fifteen or twenty and slips off?” Ayrlyn coughed, trying to clear her throat. “He is your son. Do you really think he’ll buy all of Ryba’s propaganda? Especially with all the legends about you?”

“You talk as if I won’t be there.”

“You won’t. You and Ryba barely tolerate each other. Everyone sees it, but no one says anything. Ryba still needs more blades, and you feel responsible for Dyliess, and Weryl, and Kyalynn. How long can you hang in there for the children before…” The flame-haired healer shook her head. “Nylan…you’re sweet, but you’re dense about some things.”

“I know. I know.” Nylan glanced toward the end of the room where Murkassa entered, along with two other new guards-one called Jiess, Nylan thought. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Now?”

“Now,” the smith insisted. “Or as soon as I can hand Dyliess over to Antyl for a little bit.”

“Just a moment.” Ayrlyn eased the lutar into the case and then set the case up on one of the empty shelves that had held planks and timber earlier in the winter. “I’ll meet you at the end of the causeway. Don’t be long, or I’ll freeze solid.”

“It’s spring.”

“I’ll freeze half-solid.”

“I’ll hurry.”

Nylan trudged back up to the nursery and looked around, finally seeing Antyl in the corner nearest the north door that led to the bathhouse and laundry.

“Be wondering how long afore you’d be here,” said the mahogany-haired woman, extending her arms to Dyliess. “Jakon misses the silver-heads. He be telling when they’re not here. So’s Dephnay. It’s like they reassure the others. Like you do, ser.”

Part of their heritage? An earlier manifestation of sensitivity to the order fields-the black “magic” of Candar?

“Me?” asked Nylan involuntarily.

“You and the flame-healer. And the other silvertops. People settle down round you. Except the Marshal, but she’s the Angel, and that’s different. Don’t know as to what some of us had done, weren’t for Westwind. Now, don’t ye be minding me. Your little ones be fine.”

Nylan smiled and headed for the main door to the tower-the south door, pausing as Llyselle passed, carrying in an armload of stove wood for Blynnal.

“How’s the hand?” he asked.

“Almost healed.” The silver-haired guard shook her head. “So stupid. I just took my eyes off the saw an instant. You survive battles, and almost lose a hand to a saw, a frigging handsaw.”

“It happens.”

“It’s still stupid, but I was lucky you and the healer were near.” With a last smile, Llyselle headed toward the lower level. The engineer-smith closed the tower door behind himself and hurried out to the end of the causeway, his ship-jacket closed only halfway.

Despite the bright sun, the first green tendrils of the snow lilies rising through the melting whiteness, and the dampness at the ends of the snow piles flanking the road, Ayrlyn’s jacket was fastened all the way up, her gloved hands in the pockets of the worn heavy-weather parka that was one of the handful that had come down in the landers from the Winterlance.

“Cold?” he asked.

“I’m always cold here, even in summer.” Her brown eyes flashed in that way that conveyed a blueness, even though the smith intellectually knew that the blue flash he saw was more an order field manifestation than anything visual. Order field or not, it meant anger. “I’ve done pretty well for someone not raised in a freezer like the rest of you. I don’t hide in the tower, and I don’t crouch by the kitchen stove. Darkness knows, I feel like it. But I don’t.”

“I never said anything about that.”

“You don’t have to. You’re not as bad as the others, but all of you are so damned condescending about it. I’d love to get you down in the lowlands in summer, and then smile at you while the sweat pours off your forehead and you feel like you’re going to fall over from heatstroke.”

Nylan pursed his lips. Was he really that bad? “Am I that bad?”

“No. Not usually, but I’m in a lousy mood. And you ought to know why. That is something you should know.”

“You’ve been here for me…” he said slowly. “When no one else was…not anyone who understood.”

“There were others? You told me-”

“There weren’t any others. Except…for last night…there never have been…not since almost a season before the battle last fall. I told you that, and it was true. There weren’t any others, because I don’t get close to just bodies. I’m not a Gerlich. I never have been. And I can’t talk about it.”

“That’s been clear, and I’ve tried to be understanding.” Ayrlyn shook her head, her eyes glistening.

“Then…why?” he asked helplessly.

Ayrlyn walked from the causeway out to the road and turned toward the ridge, leaving Nylan standing by himself.

He turned to follow, repeating his question. “Why?”

“Don’t you understand, Nylan? I won’t beg. I won’t ask.” The flame-haired healer began to walk more briskly out toward the bridge.

Nylan hurried after her, then settled into a quick walk beside her. For a time he walked silently, hoping she would say more. She didn’t.

“Did you ever think that I don’t like begging, either?” he finally asked.

“Begging? When all you have to do is lift a finger, and any guard in the tower would crawl to your couch?” Ayrlyn stopped in the middle of the small bridge and turned eastward, looking out across the slow-melting snow, into the glare of the mid-morning sun off the expanse of white. Beyond the drop-off, in the distance rose the dark spires of the high forest, now that the evergreens had shed their cloak of winter white.

“I didn’t notice you crawling,” he said slowly. “And I haven’t lifted my finger, as you put it, to beckon anyone else.”

“I won’t crawl. For you. For anyone. And you didn’t turn Istril away, not at all.”

Nylan sighed. “It didn’t seem right to have her in my bed, and it didn’t seem right to turn her away. Especially when she said she’d talked to you. She doesn’t lie.”

“That’s a great line. I bedded her because she doesn’t lie.”

Nylan winced, as though a Lornian arrow had slammed through him. “That isn’t what I meant. It wasn’t an easy situation.”

“You think it was easy for me? You ought to know by now how I feel. Yet you stand there and look at me as if I had four heads or spouted chaos and fireballs with every word.”

Nylan looked down at the cold, cold stones of the bridge underfoot. After a moment, he forced his eyes up and to meet Ayrlyn’s. “Would you believe”-he swallowed, trying to force the words out-“that you’re so honest that it scares me worse than facing those wizards did?”

Her eyes did not flicker, just waited.

“I’m not that honest. And I’m not very brave. I never wanted to be captain. You know that. How could a man who deep inside fears everything…how could I ever lead people? How could I ask you…?”

A faint smile crossed her lips, like the glimmer of sunshine after a storm. “The way you just did…by being honest with me…by not trying to be the solid engineer that no one touches. I don’t want a hero image. I don’t want a male version of Ryba. I have fears, Nylan. Everyone does. You do. I can deal with that. I just can’t deal with a man who hides from himself.”

Hides from himself…yes, you do. The engineer licked his lips, ignoring the chill ice that coated them, then sublimated away. “I have a lot…to learn.”

“So do I. Will you learn it with me?”

“If you’re gentle with me…that kind of honesty is hard,” he admitted.

“All honesty is hard. So is love.” Her eyes were brown, soft, and deep, and he felt lost in them, lost in wondering what he had not seen, what must have been so obvious. His hands reached for hers as they stood on the stones of the bridge he had built, in the cold spring of Westwind.