The Chaos Balance

VII

In the dim light cast by the fat candles-one on each of the six tables-Nylan pushed the platter away. He’d eaten too much, too quickly. Then he smiled at the irony. A year ago, they’d all been on the verge of starvation-that had certainly contributed to Ellysia’s weakness and the chaos fever that had killed her and left Dephnay an orphan. Now, Westwind had enough in its larders that Nylan felt comfortably full.

Blynnal’s cooking had also helped.

Ryba had pulled her chair to the side, and the glowing embers in the hearth added some light and a gentle warmth to the big room. The Marshal rocked Dyliess in her arms, gently.

“That was good,” Huldran said.

Nylan nodded.

Holding a sleepy Dyliess to her shoulder, and patting her back, Ryba pushed back her chair and glanced at Ayrlyn. “Could we have a song?”

“I’ll get my lutar.” The healer/singer rose. Behind her, so did Istril.

“It’s good Ayrlyn’s teaching Istril and Llyselle the songs,” the Marshal remarked quietly.

“I didn’t know that Llyselle was learning them.” Nylan took a long swallow of water from his goblet. He didn’t like the bitterness of the tea in the evening, not unless his muscles were exceedingly sore from smithing, and, despite his wiry frame, that soreness didn’t occur that often anymore. Then, after almost two years, he’d adjusted to a lot of heavy labor, from smithing to practicing with metal weapons designed to inflict maximum damage on other individuals-preferably while escaping the receipt of similar injuries.

“Like the songs…”

“…some of them…”

“…singer makes them sound so good…”

Ayrlyn did make them sound good-if she’d just refrain from ever performing the song she’d composed about the mighty smith Nylan. That one, reflected the silver-haired man, was truly awful. He shifted his weight on the bench and took another sip of the cold water, glad that he’d had a chance to take a warm shower-warm for Westwind, anyway-before the evening meal. His self-designed water system had not frozen once during the winter, and all the recruits who had helped with the repairs were even gladder than he had been. They hadn’t been so glad the previous fall when he’d insisted on greater cover for the water lines and a few other laborious details.

Ayrlyn slipped back into the great room almost unnoticed until she stood at the hearth, her flame-red hair glinting with a light of its own. Istril eased up beside her.

The two strummed a few chords, looked at each other, then began to sing.

“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 blades at your side.

The blades 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.”

“Good!” offered Ryba, amid the scattered applause. “Each time it gets better.”

Nylan had to agree with that, although he knew that Ayrlyn had more than mixed feelings about creating songs to fuel a female militaristic culture. So did he, but given the reception they had gotten from the locals, there weren’t many options, not on a planet where women had virtually no rights-at least anywhere the angels had heard of so far.

At the same time, Nylan reflected, he had, in some ways, even fewer options. His guts tightened, reminding him that he was deceiving himself. In Candar, any man had some options. He swallowed, wondering why his growing mastery of the local order fields was accompanied by an equal vulnerability to the pain of death and increasing discomfort with deception and untruth. And by increasing uneasiness with Ryba, he reminded himself, an uneasiness compounded by his feelings of responsibility toward his children.

Or is it a worry about the alternative? About having to face an unfamiliar outside world alone? He shook his head, again recognizing that there was something about the order fields that forced more self-examination, self-examination that was never exactly welcome.

The smith’s eyes went through the darkness, no barrier to any of the silver-haired guards, to study Daryn. The blond young man fidgeted ever so slightly on the bench beside Hryessa. Hryessa, one of the first refugees to Westwind, had developed into a first-class guard, a demon with a blade according to Saryn. Her eyes were rapt and fixed on Ayrlyn.

“A ballad,” called Llyselle. “The Sybran one.”

The redheaded healer readjusted the lutar, touching the tuning pegs and strumming the strings before she began.

“When the snow drops on the stone

When the wind song’s all alone

When the ice swords form in twain,

Sing of the hearths where we’ve lain.

“When the green tips break the snow,

When the cold streams start to flow,

When the snow hares turn to black

Sing out to call our love back.

“When the plains grass whispers gold

When the red blooms flower bold,

When the year’s foals gallop long,

Hold to the fall and our song….”

The stillness was almost absolute in the hall, punctuated by a scattered cough or two. The memory of Sybra was still too raw for the survivors, and the grief was too palpable even to the women from Candar.

“Something cheerier?” suggested Huldran.

Ayrlyn nodded, murmured to Istril, and began again.

“All day I dragged a boat of stone

and came home when you weren’t alone,

so I took all those blasted rocks

and buried all your boyish fancy locks…

and took you for a ride in my boat of stone….”

Nylan wasn’t certain how much cheerier the song was, but the locals especially loved it, perhaps because Ayrlyn had reversed the sexes in the verses.

In the end, the last song was predictably the same.

“The guard song…the guard song!” chanted the newer recruits.

Ayrlyn looked wryly at Nylan; Istril just looked at the floor. Ayrlyn stood before the hearth, lutar in hand, adjusting the tuning pegs and striking several strong chords before beginning.

“From the skies of long-lost Heaven

to the heights of Westwind keep

we will hold our blades in order

and never let our honor sleep.

“From the skies of light-iced towers

to the demons’ place on earth,

we will hold fast lightning’s powers

and never count gold’s worth.

“As the guards of Westwind keep

our souls hold winter’s sweep;

we will hold our blades in order,

and never let our honor sleep….”

Nylan still wasn’t sure about honor, since it seemed to him that people who talked a lot about it killed a lot of people and then paid a far higher price than anyone ever intended.

He managed to stifle a yawn as he rose from the bench and rubbed his stiff backside. The benches were wood, and hard, after sitting for a long time, songs or no songs.

He glanced around, but Ayrlyn was gone, and so were Istril, Siret, Huldran, and Ryba.

He shrugged and headed for the jakes before bed. Tomorrow, there would be more smithing-more blades-and he still wasn’t quite sure they were a good idea, but he had none better.

The rough form for Daryn’s foot was taking longer, far longer, than he had thought, since he had to squeeze it in-just as Relyn’s handhook had taken longer and had had to be worked in between the endless weapons creation.

He stifled another yawn as he turned toward the lower-level jakes, stifled a yawn and tried not to think about children and Ryba and the darkness that was Candar.