"But they're all your shafts. So you get the fur. We all share the meat. That's a dubious benefit." Saryn laughed, and Nylan joined her.

   Snow-cat meat was tough, gamy, and no pleasure for teeth or tongue, even in a well-cooked stew.

   Nylan adjusted the bow in its cover and checked the quiver.

   "What will you do with the fur?" Saryn asked. "That's yours, you know."

   "Mine?"

   "Meat you can split, but not the hide. We all agreed that the choice is up to the one who brings the animal down, especially if you get wounded."

   Nylan's eyes flicked to the slash in his jacket. "It's only a cut."

   Saryn laughed. "Your skis didn't move much." Her eyes looked to the depression beside the trail.

   "That would have been futile," Nylan admitted.

   "So you stood there and fired three arrows at a charging leopard?"

   "It does sound stupid, when you put it that way."

   "Necessary," Saryn said. "What would have happened if you'd tried to ski away?"

   "I'd be under ten cubits of snow or a midday meal for the leopard."

   "So the pelt is yours. You earned it."

   "I suppose it will make a good coverlet for Dyliess. It's light and warmer than anything else."

   "Dyliess? Ryba's ... ?"

   Nylan nodded. "Mine, too."

   "That's a beautiful cradle you're making."

   "Thank you. It's almost done, and that's hard to believe." Nylan took a deep breath. "Don't we have to drag this beast somewhere?"

   "You get to drag it home. I've got the deer," Saryn said. "I even have some rope."

   "You are so obliging."

   "Think nothing of it."

   How Nylan got the cat carcass back to the tower he didn't know, only that his legs ached even more, his shoulder burned, as did his eyes, despite the eye black under and around them-which he'd have to wash off sooner or later. He felt light-headed.

   He had taken off his skis and leaned against the causeway wall and watched as Kadran and Saryn set up the tripod and skinned and gutted the deer and then the leopard. With the pelt off, the cat's carcass was thin, and Nylan felt almost sorry for the dead animal, even though it had certainly tried to kill him. "Thin," he murmured. "So fearsome, and so thin."

   "It's a hard life, even for the animals who live here," answered Saryn.

   A taller figure skied to a halt beyond the causeway, then bent and unlaced the thongs of his skis. Gerlich looked at Saryn and Kadran. "So you finally got something besides a deer. A real snow leopard. Congratulations, Saryn."

   Saryn smiled politely, pulling her scarf away from her mouth. "Thank you, but it isn't mine. I got the deer. Nylan put three arrows through the cat. All of them in the chest, not much more than a span apart."

   "In the chest?"

   Saryn rotated the carcass on the fir-limb tripod and pointed. "Here, here, and here."

   Gerlich inclined his head to Nylan. "My congratulations to you, then, Engineer. Your bows must carry farther in the winter."

   "I wish I'd been able to use them at that range," Nylan offered, pointing to the slash in the jacket. "Then this wouldn't have happened. He got a little closer than I would have ideally preferred. It's hard to fire arrows with claws in your face."

   After a moment, Gerlich answered, "I can see that." With a look back at Nylan, he crossed the causeway and entered the tower.

   "Ser," said Saryn, "we really don't need you. You might think about cleaning and dressing that slash. Relyn and I- we'll start tanning the pelt.. . don't you worry."

   Nylan heaved himself erect and picked up the skis and poles. "Thank you. You're probably right."

   After carting the skis down to the lower level and racking them and the poles, he started back up toward the fifth level, where the medical supplies were kept. He stopped at the main level and staggered into the great room, where he slumped at the empty table, too tired to climb the steps.

   While he really needed to wash out the cut on his shoulder, that meant climbing four more flights of steps, and digging out the antiseptic, what little there was left, and then going to the bathhouse. He took a deep breath.

   The main door opened, and Kadran struggled inside with a deer haunch, followed by Kyseen. Neither looked toward the dimness of the great room.

   "... should have heard the engineer... 'got a little closer than I would have ideally preferred.' I thought I'd die. Gerlich was going to shit building stones ..."

   "Engineer's a tough little bastard."

   "... quiet, a lot of the time... have to be tough to deal with the marshal... leopard's probably easy by comparison ..."

   Ryba, tougher than a snow leopard? Nylan chuckled to himself. No question about that, but he'd prefer to fight neither.

   As the two cooks vanished, he stood and walked toward the steps, and the antiseptic, the cleaning he wasn't looking forward to, and soreness in muscles he'd forgotten he had- and the headache, the headache that seemed not quite constant.

 

 

LIV

 

OUTSIDE THE FROSTED window, the day is dull gray. Even the snow on the fields in the distance is gray. That on the roads below Hissl's room has been tramped into a fro/en mixture of brown and gray.

   The warmth from the small brazier in the corner is more than welcome. Hissl shifts his weight on the stool to warm his right side, without taking his eyes from the glass on the table.

   Centered in the swirling white mists are the images of the black mage and the woman warrior. Each drags a carcass, but the mage drags that of a snow cat up the slope toward the line of smoke that rises from the tower chimneys.

   Two other figures, also on the long wide skis, sweep down the slope toward the pair.

   The mage appears awkward on the skis, but he is the one who drags the snow cat. Their breath puffs through the scarves that cover their faces, then falls in the bright light in powdery crystals toward the snow through which they climb.

   Hissl's eyes focus on the bows both carry, then narrow. He smiles. "No thunder-throwers now."

   Neither of the two skiers who stop on the white expanse above the toiling pair wear thunder-throwers, either, and Hissl's tight smile broadens. He tries not to think about a mage who will stand fast before a snow leopard, and his eyes flick to the window.

   The grasslands beyond Clynya are still covered with white, but the days are again lengthening, and even on the Roof of the World the snows will vanish in time.

 

 

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 great after 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, mayhap of 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.

 

 

LVI

 

". . . DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY Lord Sillek is receiving this trader with such honor ..."

   As she catches the murmur from halfway down the long table on the low dais, Zeldyan smiles and, under the table, squeezes Sillek's hand.

   He turns and smiles at his consort.

   "The honorable Lygon of Bleyans!" announces the young armsman - in - training at the doorway to the dining hall, his voice on the edge of cracking.

   Retaining the smile on his face, Sillek stands to greet Lygon. Zeldyan rises almost simultaneously. At the end of the table to Sillek's right, the lady Ellindyja smooths her face into a mold of polite interest. At the end to the left, Ser Gethen cultivates a look of indifference.

   Lygon, a round-faced man wearing a maroon velvet tunic and a silver chain, marches up between the two rows of tables in the dining hall as the murmurs die away and the leading tradespeople and landowners of Lornth watch.

   A quick trumpet fanfare sounds as Lygon steps onto the dais.

   Sillek gestures to the empty seat to his right. "Welcome, Lygon. Welcome to Lornth, and to our hospitality." He steps back. "This is Zeldyan, my lady and consort. Zeldyan, this is Lygon, the most honorable trader of Suthya."

   "Whenever you rulers call me honorable, Sillek, I want to reach for my purse." Lygon overtops Sillek by half a head, but bows low, first to the Lord of Lornth, and then to Zeldyan. "It is a pleasure to meet you, lady, and to know that Lord Sillek has you to enchant him and grace his towers."

   "It is my pleasure to meet you, ser," Zeldyan responds, smiling brightly. "And I will do my best to offer such grace, especially since you do us such honor." Behind her, Gethen nods minutely. "We don't want your purse, Lygon, just your presence." Sillek laughs easily and stands until the trader sits. Around the hall, the murmurs rise again. Lygon stares frankly at Zeldyan for a moment before his eyes return to Sillek. "Your consort, she is a true beauty." His eyes go back to Zeldyan. "And you are, my lady. Few indeed have your grace and beauty."

   "I do my poor best for my lord," Zeldyan answers, "for he is dear to me."

   Lygon nods, neither agreeing nor disagreeing as Sillek himself pours the red wine from the pitcher between them into two goblets almost equidistant from each man. The trader takes the goblet fractionally closer to Sillek.

   Sillek lifts the one remaining, raises it, and says, "To your continued health and to good trading."

   "To health and good trading," affirms Lygon. Those at the head table drink with Sillek and Lygon, though Zeldyan's lips barely pass the wine.

   Lygon sets his goblet before him and studies the great hall below the dais. "Quite a gathering."

   "Only the due of a first trader of Suthya." Sillek takes another sip from his goblet. "Even my consort's father made a special trip from Carpa to honor you."

   "First trader, twentieth trader-what difference does it make?" Lygon shakes his head. "We're all traders, and we try to be fair to all."

   Lygon's voice carries, but his eyes are on Sillek, and he does not see how Ser Gethen's lips tighten at his words.

   "Fairness-that's important to Lornth. It always will be," answers Sillek.

   "I had hoped that Lornth would continue the warm relationship enjoyed in the past with the traders of Suthya, and I am pleased to see such hospitality again offered." Lygon downs the remaining wine in his goblet with a single swallow, then slices the pearapple on his plate into slivers and pops a pearapple section and a chunk of Rohrn cheese into his mouth. "Always have good cheeses here."

   "I am glad you find them so, and trust you will always do so." Sillek takes a swallow of his wine, a swallow far smaller than it appears.

   "The wine's better than what your sire served. Where'd you find it?"

   Sillek inclines his head toward Zeldyan. "The uplands of Zeldyan's father's lands produce a good grape, and better wine."

   "Ha! Consorted well, for beauty and good wine. You demon, you." Lygon laughs.

   Sillek smiles, as does Zeldyan, but, at their respective ends of the table, neither Gethen's nor Ellindyja's face mirrors such apparent pleasure.

   "Heard some rumors-you know how things go-some rumors that a bunch of crazy women took over a mountaintop on your eastern marches." Lygon swallows and chews more of the pearapples and cheese. "Some even say," adds the trader through a full mouth, "they're evil angels."

   "That has been said," acknowledges Sillek, "and, if they survive the winter, I may well be occupied. Then again," he laughs wryly, "I may be occupied with the Jeranyi. I'm certain you've also heard that rumor. Well... it's true. I've got my chief armsman in Clynya. He's not exactly pleased."

   "It has also been said that you handed Ildyrom a stinging defeat." Lygon chews through the rest of the pearapple slices, barely avoiding spitting fragments across the linens.

   At her end of the table, Lady Ellindyja contains a wince.

   "The problem with such victories," Sillek responds, "is that they require maintenance. And supplies," he adds, looking at the trader.

   "No business tonight, Lord Sillek," protests Lygon. "It's a cold winter out there, and tonight's the time for warmth and good food."

   "I stand corrected." Sillek raises his hands, half in laughter, half in mock defeat.

   Zeldyan smiles. So does her father.

 

 

LVII

 

A LOW FIRE, for once, burned in the hearth of the great room.

   Ryba sat in the chair at the end of the table, with Saryn on her right and Nylan on the left. Ayrlyn sat beside Saryn, while Fierral sat next to Nylan with Kyseen beside her. Relyn was seated beside Ayrlyn. Gathered around the foot of the first table on the side below Saryn were Gerlich, Narliat, and Selitra. On the side below Nylan were Huldran, Istril, Murkassa, and Hryessa.

   "I'd guess you'd call this a status or planning meeting." Ryba's breath created a flicker in the candle at her end of the table. "I wanted to hear from each of you about how your efforts are going, and any suggestions you might have." The marshal looked at Gerlich. "Hunting?"

   "It's getting harder," Gerlich said. "The deer we do get are thinner. We haven't seen a snow leopard since the engineer killed his. The big cats have gone to lower grounds-or hibernated. The same for the bears."

   "The old ones say the leopards talk to each other," added Murkassa.

   Her breath nearly guttered out the other candle, and Huldran reached out and moved it more toward the center of the table.

   "What about smaller animals?" asked Ayrlyn.

   "It takes a lot of effort to catch them, and what good is a hare when we have to forage for more than a score of people?" Gerlich shrugged, looking toward Kyseen.

   "You get me three hares, and I can make a meal," affirmed the cook.

   "How are your supplies coming?"

   "Not as well as I'd like," admitted Kyseen. "We've been grinding and powdering some of those roots into the flour, and that stretches it. Some of the guards say it's bitter. What can I do? The potatoes are good, but we'll finish those off in another eight-day, maybe two, if we only have them every third day."

   "The potatoes are all that stick," said Huldran. "There's not enough meat, and the loaves are getting smaller."

   The low moan of the wind outside the great room punctuated her words, and, for a moment, no one spoke.

   "Birds?" asked the marshal.

   "We've got owls and gray-hawks up here. That's all we've seen, anyway," answered Gerlich. "Neither has much meat, and they're so quick I don't see how you could shoot them."

   Ryba nodded and turned to Saryn. "What about the livestock?"

   "There isn't enough grass and hay for the horses and the sheep," Saryn said. "We've cut back on the corn for the chickens, and they've cut back on laying. There's not enough grain for the rest of the winter for them, either."

   "The chickens, they lay little in the winter," said Hryessa. "I would start killing the older ones and let the young ones live for the year ahead."

   "Can you work that out?" asked Ryba.

   Saryn glanced at Hryessa, then at Ryba, and nodded. "That still doesn't solve the fodder problem."

   "The lander we used for storage is more than a third full," said Selitra.

   "I helped fill that full, I did," interjected Narliat.

   "We're only about halfway through the winter," pointed out Saryn. "There's no forage out there, and there won't be even after the snow melts."

   "There are the fir branches . . ." suggested Murkassa. "Goats sometimes eat them."

   "It doesn't do the goats much good," pointed out Relyn,. "and sheep can't eat as many things as goats."

   "We're getting short of food," Ryba pointed out, "and we don't have enough food for both sheep and mounts." Her eyes narrowed. "We can get more sheep, one way or another, if we have to. Without mounts we're dead."

   "We need twenty mounts," said Fierral. "And they can't be skin and bones."

   The marshal turned back to Saryn. "Figure out a slaughter schedule for the sheep-and horses, if need be-that will leave us with twenty mounts, if you can, by the time there's something for the sheep and horses to forage on. It would be good to have some sheep left, but . . . we'll need the mounts more to get through the summer."

   "That's going to take a day or so."

   "A day or so won't make any difference. Also, work it out with Kyseen. That's so she can plan the food schedule to keep everyone as healthy as she. can, given this mess."

   Saryn nodded.

   "What about timber? Firewood?" asked Ryba.

   "We're almost out of the green timber for making things," said Saryn flatly. "We've got skis for everyone, and you've seen the chairs and room panels-and the cradles. That's about all we can do this winter. We're running through the stove wood and firewood. We can't even drag enough wood up from the forest to replace what we're burning. If we drag up more than we are now, the horses will need to eat more, and some will get lung burn."

   "Should we turn the furniture into heat?" asked Gerlich idly.

   "No," answered Ayrlyn. "That wouldn't add two days' heat, and it would be a waste of all that effort. Besides, the impact on people's morale . .."

   "Just asking."

   "Try thinking," muttered Huldran under her breath.

   Nylan barely kept from nodding at that.

   "Anything else?" The marshal looked around the table.

   Gerlich nudged the woman beside him.

   "The roof in the showers leaks," ventured Selitra.

   "We can't do much about that until spring," Nylan admitted.

   "Sometimes the water freezes on the stones. That's dangerous," said the lithe guard.

   "Getting up on that roof now would be more dangerous," pointed out Nylan. "And it's too cold for the mortar to set. We don't have roofing tar ... maybe by summer."

   "I hope no one falls."

   "Is there anything else we can do something about?" asked Ryba. "If not, that's all. Saryn . . . you stay. I'd like your estimates on what livestock should be slaughtered and how that might stretch out the feed and fodder."

   As Nylan stood by the window while Saryn provided rough fodder estimates to Ryba, he listened to Hryessa and Murkassa, talking in low voices by the shelves under the stone staircase.

   "... a third of a place filled with hay and grass, and they would start slaughtering now?"

   "Would you wait until there was no food, and then kill them all, or have them starve?" asked Murkassa. "These women, they are smart, and the Angel thinks ahead, far ahead."

   Perhaps too far, thought Nylan, turning back to the pair at the table. He hadn't liked Gerlich's using Selitra to bring up problems with the bathhouse, either. The engineer forced himself to take several deep slow breaths, then turned his thoughts back to the table, though he remained beside the frosted and snow-covered window.

   "I'd say a sheep now, and another one in an eight-day ... two chickens ... lay in three days ... that leaves eight hens and four half-grown chicks."

   "Mounts?" asked Ryba.

   "There's one nag, gelded, barely gets around."

   "See if Kyseen can make something there. Start with the nag, not the sheep. A sheep can give wool and food. A male that can't work and can't stand stud-that's useless."

   Nylan half wondered if someday he'd be just like the poor nag. He pursed his lips and waited until Saryn strode out. Then he stepped up as Ryba rose from the chair. "In short," he said, "things are bad and getting worse, and it's going to be a long time before the snow melts."

   "That's not a problem," said the marshal. "It's going to warm up within probably three eight-days. But it's likely to be almost eight eight-days before there's any spring growth, even in the woods, that the animals can forage through, or before Ayrlyn can get out and trade for food."

   "Eight eight-days? That's going to be hard. Really hard."

   "Harder than that. Much harder." Ryba walked toward the steps down to the kitchen area.

 

 

LVIII

 

THE TALL MAN smooths his velvet tunic before stepping into the tower room.

   "You do honor to receive me, Lady Ellindyja," offers the tall trader.

   Lady Ellindyja steps back from the door and offers a slight head bow. "I do so appreciate your kindness in coming to see one whose time is past." She slips toward her padded bench, leaving Lygon to follow.

   As she turns and sits, she picks up the embroidery hoop, and smiles as she finds the needle with the bright red thread.

   "Ah .. . my lady, you did-"

   "Lygon, you are a trader, and you have dealt fairly with Lornth for nearly a score of years."

   "That is true." Lygon runs his hand through the thinning brown hair before settling into the chair opposite Ellindyja. "I would like to believe I have always been fair. Firm, but fair." He laughs. "Firm they sometimes take for being harsh, but without a profit, there's no trading."

   "Just as for lords, without honor, there is no ruling?" asks Ellindyja, her needle still poised above the white fabric of the hoop.

   Lygon shifts his weight on the chair. "I would say that both lords and traders need honor."

   "What weight does honor add to a trader's purse?" asks Ellindyja, her tone almost idle.

   "People must believe you will deliver what you promised, that your goods are what you state they are."

   "Do you tell people what to buy?"

   Lygon frowns before he answers. "Hardly. You cannot sell what people do not want."

   "I fear that is true in ruling, too," offers Ellindyja, her eyes dropping to her embroidery as the needle completes a stitch. "The lords of a land have expectations. Surely, you are familiar with this?"

   "I am a trader, lady, not a lord." Lygon shifts his weight.

   "I know, and you would like to continue trading in Lornth, would you not?" Ellindyja smiles.

   "Lady . . ." Lygon begins to stand.

   "Please be seated, trader Lygon. I am not threatening, for I certainly have no power to threaten. I am not plotting or scheming, for I have my son's best interests at heart. But, as any mother does, I have concerns, and my concerns deal with honor." With another bright smile, Ellindyja fixes her eyes on Lygon. "You are an honorable man, and you understand both trade and honor, and I hope to enlist your assistance in allaying my concerns." She raises the hand with the needle slightly to halt his protestation. "What I seek from you will neither cost you coin nor ill will. I seek your words of wisdom with my son, at such time as may be appropriate. That is all."

   "I am no sage, no magician." Lygon rubs his forehead.

   "I have little use for either," answers Ellindyja dryly. "As you remarked at the dinner the other night, my son faces a difficult situation. Lord Ildyrom has created some difficulties to the south, while the demon women have seized part of his patrimony in the Westhorns. These women are said to be alluring, not just to men, but to malcontented women here in Lornth." She pauses. "And all across the western lands, even in Suthya. Would you want women leaving Suthya to create a land ruled by women? How would you trade with them? Would they not favor traders from, say, Spidlar?"

   "I could not say. I have not heard of such." Lygon licks his thick lips.

   "Let us trust that such does not come to pass, then." The needle flickers through the white fabric. "Yet how can Lord Sillek my son support such a cause merely because it would benefit the traders of Suthya?"

   Lygon's brows furrow. "If you would go on ..."

   "It is simple, honored trader. My son is concerned that the honor of merely regaining his patrimony is not enough to justify the deaths and the coins spent. His lords are concerned that their daughters and the daughters on their holdings do not find the wild women alluring, but they cannot speak this because they would be seen as weak or unable to control their own women."

   Lygon shakes his head. "What has this to do with trading?"

   Ellindyja's lips tighten ever so slightly before she speaks. "We have few weaponsmiths, and armies require supplies. If the honor of upholding your-and our-way of life is not sufficient for you to speak to my son about the need to uphold his honor, and that of his lords, then perhaps the supplies needed in such an effort will offer some inducement. Except you need not speak of supplies to Lord Sillek. That would be too direct, even for him."

   "My lady . . . you amaze me. Lord Sillek is fortunate to have a mother such as you."

   "I seek only his best interests, trader. Happily, they coincide with yours."

   "Indeed." Lygon's eyes wander toward the door.

   Lady Ellindyja rises. "You must have matters to attend to more pressing than listening to an old lady. Still, if you could see it in your heart to offer your observations about honor and about how you see that lords would not admit their concerns publicly . .. why, I would be most grateful."

   Lygon stands and bows. "I could scarcely do less for a mother so devoted to her son."

   "I am deeply devoted to his best interests," Ellindyja reiterates as she escorts the tall trader to the door.

   The tower door opens, and Lygon steps into the hallway and strides toward the steps to the lower level, his face impassive, his eyes not catching the blond woman who is descending from the open upper parapets.

   As she follows the trader down the steps, Zeldyan's eyes flick to the door to Lady Ellindyja's room, and her mouth tightens.

 

 

LIX

 

IN THE CORNER of the woodworking area of the tower, Nylan slowly traced the circular cuts he needed to make in the scrap of poorly tanned leather. That way, he got longer thongs and could use the leftover scraps. Even so, his makeshift net was turning into a patchwork of cord, leather thongs, and synthcord.

   He glanced at the pieces of the unfinished cradle, then at the rocking-chair sections. Both needed more smoothing and crafting before he glued and joined them, but his hands cramped after much time with the smoothing blade-and Siret and Ellysia had a more urgent need to finish their cradles.

   From the other side of the tower came the smell of meathorse meat, cooking slowly in the big oven. There was also the smell of bread, with the hint of bitterness that Huldran and others had noted.

   Nylan found himself licking his lips-over horse meat?

   It had been a long winter. For a few days, they'd eat well. And then they wouldn't, not for another eight-day or so. He tried not to dwell on the fate of the poor swaybacked and tired gelding and instead looked at the fragile-appearing net.

   "How do you catch the snow hares?" Nylan had asked Murkassa.

   "Weaving I know, and cows, and sheep, but not hunting. Men hunt, Ser Mage." The round-faced girl had shrugged, as if Nylan should have known such. Then she had added, "It is too cold to hunt here, except for you angels, and I must stay behind the walls."

   Hryessa had been more helpful. "My uncle, he once showed me his snares and his nets .. ."

   After listening to descriptions of snares and setting them, Nylan had decided nets were more practical in the deep snow of the Roof of the World.

   Then, he hadn't considered the sheer tediousness of making the damned net. With a slow deep breath, he started cutting, trying to keep his hands steady, knowing that, as in everything, he really couldn't afford to make any mistakes, to waste any of the leather.

   He rubbed his nose, trying to hold back a sneeze. With the dust left over from building and the sawdust from woodworking and the soot from the furnace, he wondered why they weren't all sneezing.

   Kkhhhchew! Kkkchew! The engineer rubbed his sore nose again.

   "It's hard to keep from sneezing," said Siret from where she smoothed the sideboards of her cradle. "I hate it when I sneeze, especially now."

   Behind and around Nylan, guards worked on their own projects. Ayrlyn was attempting a crude lutar, using fiber-cabling from one of the landers as strings. Surprisingly, Hryessa also worked on a lutar.

   As he knelt on the slate floor, Nylan caught a glimpse of boots nearing.

   "It's getting presentable in size," said Ryba.

   Nylan stood. "The net? Yes. Whether it will work is another question, but I thought I'd try for another niche in the ecological framework."

   The marshal laughed. "When you talk about hunting, you sometimes still sound like an engineer."

   "I probably always will."

   "What else are you working on?" Her eyes went to the wood behind Nylan.

   He gestured, glad that the cradle's headboard was turned so the carving was to the wall. While he couldn't conceal the cradle itself, he wanted some aspect of it to be a surprise.

   "The cradle for Dyliess. A chair." He laughed. "Once the cradle's done, I'll have to start on a bed. Children grow so fast. But that will have to wait a bit, until the snows melt, and until we're in better shape."

   "At times, I feel like life here is always a struggle between waiting and acting, and that I'll choose the wrong thing to wait on because we don't have enough of anything." Ryba forced a laugh. "I suppose that's just life anywhere."

   "What are you doing?" he asked.

   "Checking on what everyone else is doing. Then I'll start pulling out guards for blade practice."

   "You're still doing that on the fifth level? It's dark up there."

   "It works fine. They really have to concentrate. Besides, using a blade has to be as much or more by feel as by sight." Ryba cleared her throat. "Nylan ... you need practice with a blade. A lot more practice."

   "Another vision?" he answered glumly.

   "Another vision." There was nothing light in her voice.

   "All right. After I get a little more done on the net."

   "I'll be a while. I need to talk to Kyseen." Ryba's eyes passed over the back side of the cradle's headboard without pausing as she turned and crossed the space toward the kitchen.

   Nylan's ears followed her progress.

   ". .. not a warm bone in her body ..."

   "... like the queen of the world ..."

   ". . . even cold with the engineer . . . show him some warmth .. ."

   "... she's not kept in a corner, caged up, like me," added Murkassa. "She can walk the snows."

   Istril, almost like a guardian, touched the Gallosian woman's arm. "It is getting warmer. It won't be that long."

   "... too long, already. The stones of the walls will fall in upon me..."

   All the guards were getting worn and frazzled. Nylan hoped that Istril were right, that it wouldn't be that long, but he wasn't counting on it. That was why he worked on the net.

   "... never loses sight of the weapons, does the marshal?" asked Siret, not looking up from her continued smoothing of the sideboards of the cradle she knelt beside.

   "No, and she's right, even if I dread getting bruised and banged up."

   "You do better than most, ser."

   "You're kind, Siret, but she makes me feel like an awkward child, even when she's carrying extra weight and is off balance."

   "What about me, ser?" asked the visibly pregnant guard.

   "You're still sparring?"

   "She says that the men around here could give a damn if I'm with child. Or have a babe in arms."

   "She's probably right about that, too," Nylan answered slowly.

   "Sad, isn't it?"

   They both took deep breaths, almost simultaneously. Then Siret grinned, and Nylan found himself doing the same.

 

 

LX

 

SILLEK WALKS INTO the armory, followed by Terek. The Lord of Lornth spots the assistant chief armsman, sharpening a blade with a whetstone. "Rimmur?"

   The thin man looks up from the stool, then stands quickly. "Yes, ser?"

   Behind Sillek, Terek closes the door.

   "How can I help you, ser?"

   "Since Koric remains to hold Clynya, I need you to make sure that our armsmen are ready to travel as soon as the roads firm. I don't mean an eight-day later. I mean the day I lift my blade. Do you understand?"

   "Yes, ser. Where do we make ready to go?"

   "I'm not telling you. Nor will I until we start to march." Sillek's smile is grim.

   "Ser . . . that'll make it hard . . ." Rimmur's words die under Sillek's glare. "I mean ... the men ..."

   "Let me explain it," answers Sillek. "I have Ildyrom and the Jeranyi to the west, and these evil angels to the east. If I announce I'm going after the angels, Ildyrom will be in and through Clynya within days after the snows melt, or the rains -stop, and the roads firm. If I go after Ildyrom, the traders will raise their prices and lower what they pay, and the angels will be free to take over more of the Westhorns, including the trade routes and the lower pastures. If I do nothing, everyone will think they can make trouble."

   "Yes, ser," answered Rimmur. "Which are you going to do?"

   Sillek slaps his forehead theatrically and glares at the assistant armsman. "If I tell you and the armsmen of Lornth that I'm going after Ildyrom, then everyone will tell everyone else, and in three days all of Candar will know, and the traders and the angels will make trouble. If I say I'm going after the angels, then Ildyrom and his war-women will make trouble. So I can't say. You just have to get them ready. I'll announce where later."

   "Yes, ser. They won't like it, ser."

   "Rimmur ... do they want to know and be dead, or not know and be alive?"

   "Ser?"

   "If no one knows where we're going, whether it's after Ildyrom or the black angels, then our enemies can't plan. If they can't plan, then fewer of our men get killed. So just get them ready. Tell them what I told you."

   "Yes, ser." Rimmur stands and waits.

   As Terek and Sillek head up the narrow steps to the upper levels of the tower, the white wizard clears his throat, finally saying, "You never did indicate . .. ser . .."

   "That's right, Terek. I did not. I do not know what sort of screeing or magic the angels have. So my decision remains unspoken until we leave. That way, Ildyrom and the angels have to guess not only which one I intend to attack, but also when."

   "As Rimmur said, ser, that makes preparation uncertain."

   "Terek . . . before this is all over, we'll end up fighting them both. So prepare for both eventualities." Sillek steps out onto the upper landing and turns. "Your preparations won't be wasted."

   "Yes, ser." Terek inclines his head.

   "Good." Sillek turns and walks down the corridor to the quarters where Zeldyan waits.

 

 

LXI

 

THE NIGHT WIND whistled outside the tower windows, rattling the shutters on the partitioned - off side so much that small fragments of ice broke off and dropped to the floor inside the sixth level. From the third level below came the faint crying of an infant, Dephnay, but the crying died away, replaced by the faintest of nursing sounds, and gentle words.

   On the slightly warmer side of the top level of the tower, protected by the thin door, the recently completed partitions and hangings, Ryba and Nylan lay in the darkness.

   Nylan's legs ached from the skiing, the endless attempts to find and track the smaller rodents he knew were in the forests. His arms and shoulders ached from the drubbings he had taken in his last blade-sparring sessions with Saryn and Ryba in the half darkness of the fifth level of the tower. His lungs were heavy from the cold. His guts grumbled from the continual alternation of too much meat and too few carbohydrates with the periods of too little food at all. His upper cheeks burned from near-continual frostbite, and his fingers ached from holding a smoothing blade or a knife too long.

   For all his exhaustion, he could not sleep, and his eyes fixed on the patchwork hangings that moved, ever so slightly, to the convection currents between the cold stone walls and the residual warmth of the chimney masonry that ran up the center of the tower.

   Ryba lay on her back, nearly motionless, eyes closed, the woolen blanket concealing her swelling abdomen.

   In the darkness through which he could see, Nylan studied her profile, chiseled against the darkness like that of a silver coin against black velvet, a profile almost of the Sybran girl-next-door, lacking the regalness that appeared whenever she was awake.

   What had made her able to struggle against such odds, going from a steppe nomad child to being one of UFA's top combat commanders and to founding a nation or tradition that seemed almost fated to endure?

   Would it endure? How long?

   He stifled a sigh. Did it matter? Ryba was going to do what Ryba was going to do, or what her visions told her to do, and for the moment he had no real choices. Nor did any of them, he supposed, not if they wanted to survive. He tried to close his eyes, but they hurt more closed than open, with a gritty burning.

   The shutter on the far side of the tower rattled again as the wind forced its way against the tower, and more icicles broke off and shattered across the plank floor. Even the armaglass window creaked and flexed against the storm, although Ayrlyn insisted that, while the storms would be more violent in the eight-days ahead, they represented the warming that was already under way.

   Nylan hadn't seen any real warming outside, and the snow was still getting deeper, and the game scarcer, and the livestock thinner, and tempers more frayed.

   He tried to close his eyes again, and this time, this time they stayed closed.

 

 

LXII

 

NYLAN LAY IN his snow-covered burrow, the long thong attached to the weighted net suspended over the concealed rabbit run.

   Catching even rodents was a pain. First he'd had to put out the nets almost an eight-day before so that the damned frost rabbits would get used to the scent-or that the cold and wind would carry it away. But even when they triggered the net, somehow they never had stayed caught long enough for Nylan to get there.

   So he'd been reduced to tending his net traps in person.

   It had taken him all morning to get the one dead hare strapped to his pack, and it was well past mid-afternoon. Now, lying covered in the snow, watching the second rabbit run he had discovered, Nylan could sense the snow hare just below the entrance to the burrow. It had poked its head out several times, but not far enough or long enough for Nylan to drop the net.

   So the engineer shivered and waited... and shivered and waited.

   The sun had almost touched the western peaks before the hare finally hopped clear of the burrow.

   Nylan jerked the thong and the weighted net fell.

   The rabbit twisted, but the crude net held, and in the end, Nylan carried a small heap of thin flesh and matted fur up through the snow. Now he had two thin, dead snow hares- that was all.

   He was cold, his trousers half-soaked. The sun was setting, and he had a climb just to get out of the forest, even before the ridge up to Westwind.

   All that effort, for two small hares. In the future, could they breed them? Except that meant more forage and grain stored, and there was a limit to what they could buy or grow.

   He waded through the snow that was chest-deep downwind to where his skis were. Once he went into a pothole, with the snow sifting around his neck and face. He slowly dug himself out.

   His fingers fumbled as he strapped his boots to the skis in the growing purple deeps of twilight. Then he pushed one heavy ski after the other along the slope. When he reached the packed trail the horses used to drag the trees up the ridge, he unfastened the thongs and carried poles and skis up the ridge. By the time he reached the causeway, all the stars were out, and the night air cut at his lungs.

   From the darkness outside the tower, he stumbled inside into the gloom of the front entry area inside the south door, carrying skis, poles, and hares.

   The warmth of the great room welled out and surrounded him, and the twin candles on the tables seemed like beacons.

   Ayrlyn reached him first as he leaned against the steps. "Ryba was worried. It gets cold out there when the sun goes down."

   "I know. It took a little longer than I thought." He looked toward the guards at the table, his eyes focusing on the cook near the end of the second table. "Kyseen. My humble offerings." Nylan raised the pair of dead hares.

   The dark-haired cook slipped from the table and hurried across the cold slate floor. "All offerings are welcome these days, ser."

   Kadran followed her. "If you can bring in a couple more, we can tan the pelts and stitch them together as a coverlet for Ellysia's Dephnay," added the second cook. "This tower's not so warm as it could be for a child ... begging your pardon, ser, knowing you did the best you could, but it's not."

   "By next winter, it will be warmer." Nylan hoped they would be around for next winter.

   "You go eat, ser," insisted Kyseen. "I'll dress these quick so they don't spoil, and I'll be back up in an instant."

   "Have you eaten?" he asked. "I wouldn't want to spoil your meal..."

   "I've eaten, and you haven't." Kyseen took the two hares and started down the steps.

   Nylan left the skis and poles by the stairs. He'd put them away after he ate.

   "Two rabbits? That's all?" asked Gerlich as Nylan walked slowly toward his place at the table.

   "I'm still learning." As Nylan sat, heavily, ignoring the cold and dampness in his trousers, he asked, "By the way, when did you last bring in any game?"

   Gerlich flushed. "I brought in a winter deer, not a rabbit."

   "That was more than two eight-days ago," Ayrlyn said as she reseated herself across from the engineer.

   "So?" retorted Gerlich. "Everything's scarce these days, and we've probably already killed the stupid ones."

   "We can't live on stupid game," pointed out the singer.

   "The hares are another meal." Ryba's voice cut through the argument. "And each meal helps." She smiled for a moment at Nylan, though there was sadness in the expression as well as pleasure and relief.

   "It's always cold and dark! Always!"

   Nylan turned his head at the loud words from the lower table, where Istril had laid her hand on Murkassa's shoulder.

   "The days are getting longer now," pointed out the silver-haired guard. "Before long, it will be getting warmer as well."

   "It's still too cold and dark." Murkassa's words seemed lower, though Istril patted her shoulder again. "Even the wall stones are cold and dark."

   Turning back to the trencher before him, Nylan took a slow swallow of the warm tea, not even minding the bitterness. He reached for the chunk of bread left for him.

   A portion of a mutton stew or soup also remained, only half-warm, but Nylan began to eat, hardly conscious of the coolness of the meat and gravy, or the lumpiness that marked the last of the blue potatoes ... or of the continuing conversation between Istril and Murkassa.

 

 

LXIII

 

"I CAN'T! I can't!"

   From the corner of the furnace and woodworking room where he smoothed the sideboards of the cradle, Nylan looked toward the stone steps.

   "NO! I won't. I can't."

   Beside him, Siret dropped the polishing cloth, then awkwardly bent over, trying to reach the scrap of fabric. Nylan retrieved it and handed the cloth back to her. "Here."

   "Thank you, ser. I feel like I can't do much of anything easily-"

   "No! It's too white! It's . .. AEEEiiiii..."

   Across the room, Ayrlyn set down the lutar bridge she had been working on, nodded to Hryessa, and hurried up the stairs. After a momentary hesitation, Nylan lurched to his feet and followed Ayrlyn, not knowing quite why he did, but feeling that he should.

   By the south door to the tower, Jaseen and Istril held a struggling brown-haired figure-Murkassa-dressed in a heavy jacket.

   "Too white! It's too white!" Murkassa's flailing arm caught Istril across the cheek, but the silver-haired guard pinned the arm to her anyway, ignoring the red blotch that would be a bruise.

   Ayrlyn stepped up to Murkassa, whose body was stiff, and whose screams had become incoherent, and touched her forehead. Murkassa jerked away, but Ayrlyn followed the movements, again touching her forehead.

   After a moment, the dark-haired woman slumped, and the two holding her lowered her to the floor.

   "Whew!" muttered Jaseen.

   Istril put a hand to her cheek.

   Ayrlyn bent down and stroked the woman's forehead. "You'll be all right. . ."

   Nylan swallowed. Had he felt that unreasoning fear and rage? He studied the figure on the stones. Murkassa's face, though relaxing under the healer's touch, remained drawn. Or was it just thin?

   Nylan thought for a moment. Wasn't everyone's face thinner? His trousers were looser.

   "Hut fever," Ayrlyn said wryly, straightening up.

   "Hut fever?" asked Istril.

   "She's not built for the cold-not enough body fat when she came here," explained Ayrlyn. "We really don't have warm enough garments-or sufficient food for a good cold-weather diet. She can't stand the cold. She's afraid of it-with reason-but she can't stand being kept confined." Ayrlyn shrugged. "The conflict just got to her."

   "What do we do?" asked the medtech. "There's nothing in the kits, little enough left anyway, and we're saving that for childbirths."

   "She'll be all right." Ayrlyn sighed, then sank onto the stairs.

   Nylan could feel her exhaustion, almost the way he had felt when he had worked hard manipulating the fields for the laser-or the powernet on the Winterlance. The Winterlance seemed a lifetime ago, and, in a way, it was.

   "Just take her up to her bunk. She'll be all right when she wakes." Ayrlyn's voice was low and hoarse.

   "You sure?" asked Jaseen.

   The singer and healer nodded.

   Jaseen turned and called to Weindre, who stood gaping by the stairs from the lower level. "Give me a hand."

   "Istril's there."

   "Get your rump over here. Last thing we need is Istril lugging weights up.stairs. Then we'll have someone else needing medical care we haven't got the supplies for."

   As Weindre neared, Istril said quietly, "I'm sorry."

   "You've got nothing to be sorry for," said Jaseen. "Someday it'll be her turn, and she'll need help."

   As the two guards carried Murkassa up to the next level, followed by Istril, Nylan said to Ayrlyn, "Stay here. I'll be right back."

   He hurried down to the kitchen and cornered Kadran. "I need some bread, something for the healer."

   "Healer?"

   "Ayrlyn used that healing touch on Murkassa-she went crazy, Murkassa, I mean-and Ayrlyn looks like she's been run over by a couple of horses."

   Kadran frowned. "Just a little. You never lie anyway, ser, but some, they'd tell me anything to get more to eat, and we got to keep it fair."

   "I know. I appreciate it."

   "Here you go, ser." Kadran cut a thin slice from the end of a loaf cooling on the table. "Just try not to talk about it, or everyone will have a tale of some sort."

   Nylan nodded wryly. "I'd gathered as much. Thank you."

   Nylan carried the thin slice of the bitter and dark bread up the stairs, where he handed it to Ayrlyn.

   The healer took it without speaking and began to eat, slowly. More slowly, the color returned to her face. "How did you know?" she asked after she licked the few crumbs from around her lips.

   "I could . . . sense it. You sort of manipulated the whiteness away from her, but that takes energy."

   For a moment, neither spoke as Jaseen and Weindre trudged back down the steps. Nylan moved to let them pass.

   "We got her in her bunk. Istril's staying with her," Jaseen announced.

   "Thank you, Jaseen, Weindre," said Ayrlyn.

   "No problem. Want you around to do that healing if I need it." Jaseen offered a smile and a half salute. "We're going down where it's warm." After the guards had disappeared into the lower level, Nylan sank back onto the stone step.

   "Thank you," Ayrlyn said.

   "You're welcome." He added, "I saw Murkassa after you put her to sleep, and I was thinking how thin she was." He shifted his weight on the stone.

   "Everyone's thin. Haven't you noticed that?" Ayrlyn glanced down at the entry space by the closed south door, then back at Nylan. "The fact that Istril, Siret, Ryba, and Ellysia are pregnant takes our minds away from it-that and the bulky clothes. We're not on what seems to be a starvation diet, but you need three to four times the food intake if you're active in cold weather, and we have to be active-for a number of reasons-like getting enough wood to keep from freezing. So we really don't have enough food."

   "Is it ever going to get warmer?"

   "It already is. The ice is thinner on the windows, and before long they'll stay clear all the time." Ayrlyn paused. "I worry about the food, though. Darkness knows what it will be like by early summer."

   Nylan nodded. They needed more hares, more game . . . more everything. He knew what he was doing from now on.

   "You can't do it all, Nylan," Ayrlyn said softly."

   "You can't solve every problem."

   "But I have to do what I can." His eyes met hers. "How could I live with myself if I didn't?"

   After a moment, she looked down at the stones. Then she raised her brown eyes to his. "I appreciate that, but it will always bring you sadness, because people take advantage of it, just like they only respond to force." Her fingers touched his hand for an instant, and he could feel the warmth that was more than physical-and the sweet sadness-before she dropped them.

   He nodded. "I know. So do you."

   Their eyes met for a moment before he looked away. Why was she the only one who really understood? Or was she?

   After another long moment, he asked, "Do you need anything else?"

   "No," Ayrlyn answered with a faint and enigmatic smile. "The bread was fine. I don't need anything else to eat."

   Nylan nodded again, and helped Ayrlyn to her feet. "I have to get back to woodworking."

   "I know."

   Again, he could feel her eyes on his back as he went down the stone steps to the lower level.

 

 

LXIV

 

ZELDYAN RESETTLES HERSELF in the large padded chair beside the bed, wearing a green silksheen dressing gown that, while it sets off her golden hair, barely covers her midsection. "He's active," she says, looking down and smiling. "I wish he weren't quite so ... strong."

   "You always say 'he.' " Sillek stands up from the chair that matches the one where Zeldyan sits.

   "You always question that. The child is a boy. Even if he were a girl, would it matter? We're young."

   "It matters not to me." Sillek steps up beside her chair, bends, and kisses her cheek.

   "But it matters to all the holders, and to your enemies." A touch of bitterness creeps into Zeldyan's voice. She shifts her weight in the chair. "I can't ever get comfortable these days."

   "A lord is always captive to his people's perceptions." Sillek glances toward the window, beyond which he can glimpse the distant fields, half white, half brown.

   "You mean the perceptions of the holders and those with wealth?" Zeldyan again shifts her weight in the chair and glances toward the corner that holds the chamber pot.

   "I cannot support a large standing army. So I must have the support of the large holders. They want the succession of Lornth to be ensured."

   "If either a son or a daughter could hold Lornth, there would be more stability."

   "Not as they see it." Sillek reaches down and squeezes Zeldyan's shoulder. "Only men can be holders."

   "Or warriors. Or lords." Zeldyan glances up. "Even your mother feels that way, and she understands more than most men. Yet she pushes and pushes for you to attack those women on the Roof of the World. Even enlisting foreign traders."

   "Lygon ... he can't do that much, and we can make that work to our advantage."

   "For now," she agrees. "But how can you put off .all these questions of honor that your mother raises or the idea that you are weak if you do not attack the Roof of the World?" Her lips tighten, and she forces them to relax.

   "I can put that off for a time," he muses. "But not forever."

   "I know. If you fail to strengthen Lornth"-she looks to the closed door-"Ildyrom will likely succeed in taking it. If you are successful, then all the holders will demand you reclaim the Roof of the World."

   Sillek nods slowly.

   "What real good is that land? Only angels or demons could live there. Was it worth your father's death? If a few damned women want to live there . . ." Zeldyan shakes her head.

   "Some women have already deserted their households. One was caught; the others were not."

   "Oh ... so the idea of a refuge where women are not beaten, where they can bear arms-that frightens the strong men of Lornth?" Zeldyan shifts her weight in the chair again. "I'm sorry, Sillek. It's not you. You've been fair and open. And, in his own way, so is my sire."

   "I'm still Lord of Lornth, and the men have the power, and they look to me to put things right-as they see it."

   "As they see it... what they see will be the death of us all."

   "I am trying to work around that."

   "I know. I know."

   "I'll be back." Sillek bends and kisses her cheek again. "At midday?"

   "At midday." Her eyes drift toward the chamber pot.

 

 

LXV

 

"IT HURTS ... NO one said it would hurt like this . . . damn you, Ryba! Damn you!"

   Siret's words, muffled by the steps and the ceiling and floor separating the great room from the marine quarters above, were still clear.

   Nylan looked at Ryba.

   "Childbirth hurts," the marshal said, "as I'm going to find out firsthand before too long." She winced slightly as Siret yelled again.

   The space across from Nylan was vacant. Both Ayrlyn and Jaseen were up with Siret. At the base of the table, Gerlich glanced quizzically at Nylan, then whispered something to Narliat. The former armsman raised his eyebrows and looked at Nylan.

   Nylan could almost sense the pain rolling down from the upper level. Finally, he stood. "Maybe I can help Ayrlyn."

   "You're not a healer or a medtech," pointed out Ryba.

   "No ... but healing takes a sort of... field strength . . . and I can help there. Besides," he pointed out, tossing the words back over his shoulder, "I'm not good at standing around and doing nothing."

   The silence behind him lasted but a moment, and the buzzing of conversations rose, louder than before, even before he started up the stairs.

   Siret's face was red as Nylan approached the couch in the dimness of the candlelit third level. Ayrlyn was pale, and Jaseen glanced at the engineer as if to ask what he was doing there.

   "Good," murmured Ayrlyn.

   Without asking, Nylan touched the back of Ayrlyn's neck, trying to extend that sense of ordered power. Through Ayrlyn he could sense the wrongness.

   "Need to move her," he said quietly, "the child."

   "How?" murmured Ayrlyn.

   Nylan didn't know. He knew only that it felt wrong. He let go of Ayrlyn and touched Siret's left arm.

   For the first time, she saw him. "You came. You came."

   "Hush," he said, embarrassed. "We'll see what we can do."

   Jaseen frowned and mouthed behind Ayrlyn's back, "The baby's stuck."

   Nylan nodded, but his perceptions reached out again, almost, it seemed, independently, trying to catalogue the problems, from the cord that was around the child's neck to the tightness of the birth canal to ...

   First... as though he were guiding a laser, he strengthened the flow of blood, oxygen, life force-in the confusion of mixing systems, he did what felt right, hoping that his feelings were correct, since he was no doctor, only an engineer. But there were no doctors.

   "She's breathing easier . . ." murmured Jaseen.

   Ayrlyn nodded.

   "... hurts, hurts so much," whimpered Siret.

   Nylan's legs were shaking, and he went down on his knees beside the former lander couch, his fingers brushing the silver-haired guard's forehead, then her abdomen as he tried to loosen what needed to be loosened, ever so gently, half wondering if he were dreaming or dead, as the room took on an aJmost surreal air, as he kept shifting the strange black-tinged forces in a pattern he did not quite understand, but could only feel.

   Beside him, he could feel another black-tinged presence, sometimes helping, sometimes leading.

   "There!" exclaimed Ayrlyn. "There! Push again!"

   "I'm pushing," groaned Siret.

   Nylan closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get the room to stop swirling around him.

   "You have to push again," announced Jaseen. "You've still got the afterbirth."

   "Hurts . . ." Siret's voice was low, but stronger.

   "You can do it."

   "Good."

   After a time, the engineer stood and looked at Ayrlyn. "You did it."

   "No, you did it. I didn't have the nerve to try until you started."

   "We did it, then."

   They looked at Siret, and at the girl she held to her breast, the infant with the silver fuzz on her scalp that would be silver hair like her mother's.

   Siret smiled, finally, wanly, and then said, "Thank you. I could feel you changing things ... somehow. She wouldn't have lived, would she?"

   "No," said Jaseen. "But she's a strong little girl. So don't you worry. Now, we've got to get you two cleaned up, and I can do that. Those two"-and she jerked her head toward Nylan and Ayrlyn-"they spent every bit of that magic they had on you. You're a lucky woman."

   Siret's green eyes closed for a moment, then opened. "I'm so tired."

   Nylan extended his perceptions, afraid she might be hemorrhaging or something worse, but, beyond the damages his mind and senses insisted were normal-he could only find exhaustion.

   He shook his head.

   "Anything wrong?" asked Jaseen.

   "No. Except that everyone insists this is normal."

   Ayrlyn and Jaseen laughed.

   "I need some tea," Nylan said, "and I can't do anything more here." He felt guilty as he stepped away, but Siret and her baby daughter seemed all right. He tried to ignore the blood that seemed to be everywhere as Jaseen started with the antiseptic.

   Slowly, he made his way down the stairs, but a faint smile came to his face as he realized that, strange as it had been, everything had turned out the way it should. He crossed the great room, half aware that the tables were mostly empty and that Ryba had left.

   "You look like a proud father," said Gerlich cheerfully.

   Narliat smiled nervously.

   "You know, Gerlich," Nylan said coldly. "The woman was in pain. For the record, not that it should matter, I never slept with her. And you should know that. So shut up before I stuff you into a piece of stone." He turned and sat down at the end of the table.

   Gerlich sat silently, as if stunned, but Nylan didn't care. He was tired of Gerlich's games and insinuations.

   Ryba had already left, but Kyseen or Kadran, or someone, had left the bread and some tea. The tea was lukewarm, but tasted good. Nylan ate the bread slowly, sipping the tea.

   After a time, Ayrlyn sat down across from him. "Thank you. We might have lost them both."

   "You were doing fine. I just made it easier." He cupped his hands around the mug, glancing at the window behind her, aware that the snow had melted and/or sublimated off the armaglass.

   "Siret was glad you were there."

   "I'm just an engineer, stumbling along and doing what I can." He refilled his mug, then hers. "I make a lot of mistakes."

   Her hand touched his wrist, just for a moment, and he felt a sense of warmth. "You're a good man, Nylan. It's ..." She broke off the words, and repeated, "You're a good man. Don't forget it."

   Nylan looked toward the window, hoping spring was coming, and dreading it at the same time. He took another sip of tea, vaguely aware that Ayrlyn had slipped away, as his thoughts skittered across Siret and a silver-haired child, across a tower without enough food, across Gerlich's uncharacteristic silence, across Ayrlyn's warmth.

   He sipped more tea, tea that had become cold without his noticing it.

 

 

LXVI

 

AS HE HEADED back up to the tower's top level, Nylan paused on the steps, looking into the tower's third level with eyes and senses. There, in the darkness, a silver-haired guard held a silver-haired infant daughter to her breast and gently rocked back and forth on the rocking chair that all the guards, and even Nylan, had helped to make.

   "Hush, little Kyalynn, hush little angel. .." Siret's voice was low, but sweet, and apparently disturbed none of the guards sleeping on the couches in the alcoves spaced along the tower walls and separated by the dividers many had not only crafted, but personally decorated and carved.

   Some remained awake.

   Nylan could see where one of the other silver-haired marines-Istril-now heavy in her midsection-stared through the darkness in his direction.

   Did she have the night vision? Had it been conferred by that underjump on all who had gotten the silver hair? How many of the former marines had strange talents, like his or Ryba's, talents they had never mentioned?

   That Nylan did not know, for he had never mentioned that ability, though Ryba had guessed-or learned through her strange fragmentary visions. His eyes slipped back to Siret, his ears picking up the gentle words.

   "Hush, little angel and don't you sigh / Mother's going to stay here by and by ..."

   Nylan swallowed. He'd always heard the lullaby with "father" in the words, but he had the feeling that fathers weren't playing that big a part in Ryba's concept of what Westwind should be.

   How long he listened he wasn't certain, only that little Kyalynn was asleep, as was Dephnay, and so were their mothers. His feet were cold by the time he slipped into the joined couches up on the sixth level.

   "Where were you?" whispered Ryba.

   "I went down to the jakes."

   "That long?"

   "I ... went ... to the bathhouse ... it's more . . . private." He felt embarrassed, but the heavy mutton of the night before clearly hadn't agreed with his system. "The mutton . . ."

   "I see ... I think."

   "Then I stopped to listen to Siret singing to her daughter for a moment. You don't - I didn't - really think of her as a mother. You see them with those blades, so effective, so . . ." Nylan paused, searching for the words.

   "So good at killing?"

   "No. I don't know. It just touched me, that's all. I don't even know why. It's not as though I really even know her. I just helped a little."

   A shudder passed through Ryba.

   "Are you cold?" He reached out to hold her, but found her shoulders, her body warm, despite the chill in the tower. The rounding that was Dyliess made it difficult for him to comfort her, or to stop her silent shaking.

   In the end she turned away, without speaking. Even later, after they had fallen asleep, his arm upon her shoulder, Ryba had said nothing, though her silent shakes - had they been silent sobs? - had subsided.

 

 

LXVII

 

SUNLIGHT POURED THROUGH the narrow open window of the tower. So did a flow of cold air, ruffling the hangings and rattling the thin door that closed off the marshal's quarters.

   "We're doing all right with the food," Ryba said. "The snow's beginning to melt off the rocks, and it won't be all that long before we can send out Ayrlyn to trade for some things."

   "It is warming up," admitted Nylan. "I hope we can count on it continuing." He peered out the narrow opening, squinting against the bright light, and studying the blanket of white-and the few dark rocks on the heights to the west of the tower.

   "A storm or two won't make that much difference," pointed out the marshal of Westwind. "We've still got more than anyone expected."

   "You managed it very well," Nylan agreed, looking out the open window-the fresh air, cold as it was, was welcome. "Very realistically."

   " 'Realistic,' that's a good term." Ryba shifted her bulk on the lander couch. "Most people aren't realistic. Especially men."

   Rather than debate that, Nylan asked, "What do you mean by 'realistic'?"

   Ryba gestured toward the window. "The locals can't really live up here. It's hard enough for us. Realistically, they should just leave us alone. Over time, we'll be able to make the roads free of bandits, facilitate trade, and stabilize things. Not to mention providing an outlet for abused women, some of them, anyway, which will make men-some of them- less abusive. If they attack us, a lot of people get killed, more of them than of us." She sighed. "That's a realistic, or rational, assessment. But what will happen is different. The local powers-all men-will decide that a bunch of women represent a threat to their way of life, which isn't that great a life anyway, except for a handful of the well-off, and they'll force attacks on us. If they win, they wouldn't have any more than if they hadn't attacked, not really, and when they lose, and they will, they're going to lose a whole lot more over time."

   "How would women handle it?" Nylan asked almost idly. "Do you want me to close the window? It's getting colder in here."

   "You probably should. A lot of the cold air drops onto the lower floors, even with the door closed." Ryba shifted her weight again. "They say you can never get comfortable in the last part of pregnancy. I believe it. Now . . . how would women handle it? I can't speak for all women, but the smart ones would ask what the cost of an action would be and what they'd get. Why fight if you don't have to?"

   "Maybe the smart men do, too, but they don't have any choice," suggested Nylan, stepping over to the window and closing it.

   "That could be," admitted Ryba. "But you're conceding that the smart men are surrounded by other men with power and no brains."

   Nylan shrugged.

   "Too many men want to dominate other people, no matter what the cost. Women, I think, look at the cost."

   "Women also manipulate more, I suspect," Nylan answered. "Men-most of them-aren't so good with subtleties. So they dislike the manipulative side of women."

   "When it suits them. Manipulation isn't all bad. If you can get something done quietly and without violence, why not?"

   "Because men have this thing about being deceived and being out of control." Nylan laughed wryly. "They can go out of control when they find out they've been tricked or manipulated," .

   "Let me get this straight. Men fight and have wars because they can't manipulate, and then they fight and have wars whenever they feel they are manipulated?"

   Nylan frowned. "I don't like the way you put that."

   "If you have a better way of putting it, go ahead. Personally, I believe women, given the chance, can do a better job, and, here, I'm going to make sure they get a better chance." Ryba eased herself onto the floor. "I'll be glad when I can get back to serious arms practice. For now, it's just exercise."

   "I doubt it's ever just exercise," quipped Nylan, following her down to the dimness of the next level and the practice area.

   He paused on the steps, noting that among those already practicing with Saryn and a heavy-bellied Istril were Relyn and Fierral. The one-handed man gripped the fir wand in his left hand with enough confidence that Nylan could see he had been practicing for some time.

   Ryba picked up a wand. "Istril? Shall we?"

   Istril bowed.

   Nylan took a deep breath and headed down to the woodworking area and the unfinished cradle. What Ryba had said about men seemed true enough, but that apparent truth bothered him. It bothered him a lot. Were most men really that irrational? Or that blind?

 

 

LXVIII

 

HALFWAY UP TO the top of the ridge, Nylan looked back, adjusting his snow goggles. Gerlich and Narliat remained out on the sunlit flats, Gerlich shouting instructions as Narliat struggled with a shorter pair of skis. The shorter skis would probably work, Nylan reflected, now that the midday warmth had partly melted the snow and left it heavier and crustier. As he continued up the ridge, leaving Gerlich and his hapless pupil on the flats before the tower, Nylan wondered why Gerlich had suddenly taken an interest in instructing Narliat on skis.

   Was he becoming a counterfeit Ryba, trusting no men? He didn't distrust Relyn, although he didn't understand the man. Relyn seemed different, as though he had changed and were not sure of himself. Gerlich, on the other hand, seemed ever more foreign, contemptuous, stopping just short of provoking Ryba.

   As Nylan reached the top of the ridge, he looked back. Narliat was skiing slowly, following a track already set in the snow, and Gerlich continued to encourage the local.

   Nylan used the thongs to fasten his boots in place, then skied down the ridge in the gentle sweeping turns he had never thought he could do. He still lurched and flailed, but did not fall.

   He stopped at the bottom of the ridge, searching the trees, then finally pushed his skis west, toward the narrower strip of forest, following his senses. Were the gray leaves on the handful of deciduous trees beginning to unshrivel? They'd have to sooner or later, but Nylan hoped it would be sooner.

   As he entered the trees, now bare of snow, the engineer swept the scarf away from his mouth. The wool was too warm, and he couldn't breathe as he slid the heavy skis through the space between the trunks, his perceptions out in front of him, trying to sense any possible game.

   He saw older hare tracks, expanded by the faint heat of the midday sun, tree-rat tracks, but nothing larger or newer.

   Moving slowly, he paused frequently, letting his senses search for signs of life he could not see. His fingers strayed to the bow at his back.

   Something stirred-slightly-beneath a snow-covered hump, but Nylan shook his head. That something was a bear not likely to emerge for a time, and there was no way the engineer was going to try to dig out something far more than twice his size.

   He slowed as his eyes caught the tracks in the snow- something like deer tracks, but larger. He turned his skis slightly downhill to follow the tracks, his senses ranging ahead.

   From his perceptions the animal seemed to be a large deer-or an elk. Nylan had never paid much attention to those sorts of distinctions, but it definitely offered the promise of a lot of meat.

   The big deer had migrated up from the lower elevations, or, thought Nylan, fled local hunters seeking game as the snow in the lower hills melted.

   Nylan must have skied nearly another kay before he saw the animal, standing in a slight opening under a large fir. The engineer stopped in the cover of a pine. If he moved farther toward the deer, the animal would see him, yet he was still more than fifty cubits away.

   Nylan remained in the shadows of the pine, as silent as he could be, downwind of the deer, finally deciding he was as close as he dared. Slowly, quietly, he withdrew an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and released it. The next shaft was quicker, as was the third.

   The buck snorted, and then ran. Nylan slogged after him, not pressing, but moving steadily. If he had missed, he'd never catch up. If he'd wounded the beast, then he ought to be able to wear it down-if it didn't wear him down first.

   Within a few cubits of where the buck had stood were scattered bloodstains. He also found a shaft, wedged in a pine trunk-probably the third shaft. After recovering that- carefully-he replaced it in the quiver and put one ski in front of the other, trudging through the ever-heavier snow along a trail of scattered blood droppings.

   Sweat began to ooze from his forehead, and he loosened his jacket and untied the scarf and put it inside the jacket. He didn't want to stop to get into the pack.

   A welcome shadow fell across the forest as a single, white puffy cloud covered the sun.

   Nylan's legs began to ache, and the buck turned uphill at a slant. Nylan's legs ached more. He glanced ahead, and did not see the hump in the snow-a covered root or low branch.

   His left ski caught, and he twisted forward. A line of pain scored his leg, and he grunted, trying not to yell. For a moment he lay there, letting his perceptions check the leg. The bones seemed sound, but another wave of pain shot down the leg as he rolled into a ball to get up.

   Slowly, he stood, casting his senses ahead.

   The buck was not that far away, perhaps two hundred cubits, just out of sight, and Nylan slowly slid the left ski forward, then the right.

   When he reached the next low crest in the hill, he could see the big deer, almost flailing his way through the snow.

   Nylan pushed on, trying to ignore the pain in his leg.

   With the sound of the skis on the crusting snow, the deer lunged forward, then sagged into a heap.

   Nylan finally stood over the buck, but the animal was not dead. Blood ran from the side of its mouth, and one of the shafts through the shoulder had been snapped off. More blood welled out around the other shaft, the one through the chest. The deer tried to lift his head; then the neck dropped, but he still panted, and the blood still oozed out around the shaft in his chest.

   Nylan looked at the deer. Now what? He didn't have anything for a humane quick kill. Finally, he fumbled out the belt knife.

   Even using his perceptions, trying to make the kill quick, it took him three tries to cut what he thought was the carotid artery. Three tries, and blood all over his trousers, the snow, and his gloves. Even so, the deer took forever to die, or so it seemed to Nylan, as he stood there in the midday glare and the red-stained snow. The sense of the animal's pain was great enough that, had he eaten recently, he wouldn't have been able to keep that food in his guts. Even though they needed the meat, his eyes burned.

   Nylan worked out the one good arrow shaft, cleaned it on the snow, and put it in his quiver. Then he dug out the rope and the sheet of heavy plastic. Awkward as it was working on skis, he left them on, afraid that he'd never get them back on if he took them off.

   The poor damned deer was heavy, and the plastic sheeting was smaller than the carcass, which had a tendency to skid sideways as Nylan pulled it. The snow had gotten even damper under the bright sun, and most of the way back was uphill. Nylan's left leg stabbed with each movement of the skis.

   The rope cut into his shoulders, despite the heavy jacket, and sweat ran into his eyes. It felt like he had to stop and rest every hundred cubits, sometimes more often.

   Mid-afternoon came, and went, before he cleared the forest and reached the bottom of the ridge. There, Nylan dragged everything onto the packed snow surface of the trail, took off his skis, and tied them to the sheeting.

   With another series of slow efforts, he started uphill.

   Halfway up, two figures skied down and joined him.

   "Ser?"

   Nylan looked up blankly, then shook his head as he recognized Cessya and Huldran.

   "Frigging big animal, ser," observed Huldran with a grin.

   "Heavy animal." Nylan nodded tiredly. "I could use some help." That was an understatement.

   "We can manage that." Huldran studied the red deer. "Lot of meat here."

   "I hope so. I hope so."

   As the two marines unfastened their skis, Nylan just sat in the snow beside the trail.

   "You all right, ser?"

   "I'm a lot better since you arrived." Nylan staggered up as they started to pull his kill uphill once more. The muscles in his left leg still knotted with every step, but the pain was less without the strain of pulling the makeshift sled and deer.

   Saryn was waiting, tripod ready, by the time the three reached the causeway.

   Nylan set his skis against the tower wall and sat on the causeway wall, too tired to move for a time. The sun had just dropped behind the western peaks, and a chill freeze rose.

   "Ser," ventured Huldran, "would you mind if I took your skis and poles down?"

   "I definitely wouldn't mind. I'd appreciate that very much."

   "Don't stay out too long, ser," added Cessya, picking up his poles.

   "I won't." The coldness of the wind felt good against Nylan's face, and he just sat there, staring into space.

   Saryn looked up from the deer carcass, then at Nylan. "Good animal, but you sure made a mess."

   "I'm a poor killer and a worse butcher," Nylan said, his voice rasping. "I wasn't planning on getting anything this big. I hope I didn't spoil anything by taking so long."

   "It's cold enough that it isn't a problem." Saryn grinned. "Gerlich came back earlier. He said there wasn't anything within kays."

   "There isn't. I went down that section you call the forest wedge."

   "And you carted this back that far? That's a long climb."

   "Huldran and Cessya helped me back up the ridge."

   Kyseen hurried out the tower door, looked at the deer, then at Nylan.

   "Mother of darkness! What am I going to do with that?"

   "Cook it," snapped Saryn. "The engineer didn't cart it back to waste."

   "Tonight.. . the meal's done."

   "I'm sure you can find something to do with this tomorrow, Kyseen," Nylan said. "And they'll eat anything you cook."

   "They're already complaining about the chicken soup, and it's not even on the tables. Why didn't I wait for the big deer the engineer brought-that's what Cessya asked."

   "Tell her it's worth waiting until tomorrow." Nylan grinned, and slid off the wall, trying not to wince as his leg hit the stones of the causeway. "You mind if I leave you, Saryn?"

   "No. You did the hard work. This is simple drudgery." Saryn's skinning knife flashed again.

   Nylan limped into the tower, and looked down at his damp and bloody clothes. Should he go straight to the laundry, or up to find something, like his sole remaining shipsuit, that was dry?

   "You look even worse than manure." Ayrlyn walked toward him from the stairs leading up from the lower level. "You're limping. Is any of that blood yours?"

   "I fell chasing the deer. I don't think any of it's mine."

   "Let me see." Her fingers lifted the trouser bottoms and touched his upper calves. "It feels like you ripped the muscles. You shouldn't be skiing or hunting for a while."

   Nylan could feel a faint touch of warmth radiating from her fingers, and a lessening of the cramping. The pain subsided, slightly, from an acute stabbing into a duller, but heavy aching.

   Ayrlyn straightened. "I hope it was a big deer."

   "It's a huge deer," interjected Huldran as she passed, adding, "I'll get the stove in the bathhouse warmed up. You look like you need it, and there's a little wood we can spare."

   "I'm all right," Nylan protested, feeling as though he were being humored.

   "Enjoy it," Ayrlyn laughed. "People are glad to see another solid meal. And you do look like you need some cleaning up. I'm going to help Saryn. From what everyone's said, she needs it, or she'll be out there all night."

   Nylan flushed. "It's not that big."

   The healer grinned before she turned.

   Nylan looked at the stairs up to the top level. The bathhouse wouldn't have warmed that much yet. He suppressed a groan before he started up the stone steps.

 

 

LXIX

 

IN THE WARM lower level of the tower, Nylan worked only in a light tattered shirt and trousers, occasionally even wiping sweat from his forehead, as he smoothed and evened the cradie's sideboards. At times, he had to stop and massage, gently, the aching left calf that still had a tendency to cramp if he stood on it too long without moving.

   A few cubits away, Istril used a single smoothing blade to plane the sideboards of the cradle that could, except for the carvings and designs, have been a mate to the cradle before Nylan.

   The engineer glanced at Istril's headboard-which bore a crossed hammer and blade surrounded by a wreath of pine boughs. He nodded at the detail of the pine branches.

   "You like it, ser?" She leaned back against the cool wall stones and wiped her forehead.

   "You did a much better job on the carving.than I did," he admitted. "The pine wreath is good."

   "Thank you. I worked hard on it." She grinned, although the grin was wiped away as she stopped and massaged her abdomen. "They say the last part is the hardest."

   "Of woodworking?"

   "Of bearing a child. I suppose that goes for anything."

   Nylan nodded, lowering himself onto his knees to take the weight off his leg, but the stone was hard, and he'd have to switch position before long.

   "Jaseen said you and the healer saved Siret and Kyalynn."

   "We did what we could. It happened to be enough."

   "If... I need you ... would you?"

   Nylan nodded. "If you need us, we'll be there."

   "Thank you."

   He paused. "Istril, could you feel what we did?"

   The silver-haired marine blushed slightly. "A little, ser."

   "Good. You might try to explore that talent. It could come in useful."

   Istril paled. "Ah ... excuse me, ser." She turned.

   "Are you all right?"

   "I'm fine. Fine as I can be with someone punching my bladder." The formerly slim guard half walked, half waddled up the tower stairs, even though, except for the distended abdomen, she carried no extra weight.

   Nylan couldn't imagine carrying and bearing a child. Having to experience the pain and discomfort secondhand was bad enough. Maybe Ryba was right. Maybe things would be better if women ran them. Then, again, maybe they'd just get used to abusing power, too. The soreness in his knees from kneeling on the hard rock got to him, and the engineer switched to a sitting position beside the cradle.

   He picked up the fine-grained file and studied it, glancing at the assembled cradle in front of him. After looking at the wood, he set the file aside and picked his knife back up.

   With long strokes that were as gentle as he could make them, he worked on rounding the left sideboard just a touch more, trying to make the sides match as closely as he could. The relief around the rocky hillside on the headboard needed to be deeper, too, although he sometimes felt as though attempts at art were almost a waste in a community struggling to survive.

   He looked up at the sound of boots.

   Relyn stood there, studying the cradle. After a moment, the red-haired man asked, "Were you ever a crafter, Ser Mage?"

   "No, I can't say that I was." Nylan blotted his forehead with the back of his hand, then shifted his weight on the hard stone floor.

   "Then the forces of order have gifted you." Relyn squatted next to the cradle, his fingers not quite touching the carving of the single tree rising out of the rocky hillside.

   "It's not as good as Istril's," Nylan said, nodding toward the momentarily abandoned work.

   "She is also one of the gifted silver-heads." Relyn eased into a sitting position with his back against the wall.

   "Are there many in Lornth with silver hair?"

   "None, except the very old, and their hair is a white silver, not the silvered silver of the angels." Relyn tapped the blunt hook that had replaced his right hand against the cut stone of the wall in a series of nervous movements, almost a replacement gesture for tapping fingers or snapping them.

   "You look upset," the engineer observed, lowering his voice, although only Rienadre and Denalle remained on the woodworking side of the lower level, and they were laboring together on a chair of some sort across the room, in the area closest to the kitchen space.

   Relyn glanced at the other two guards. "It grows warmer. What am I to do? I am not welcome in Lornth. I would have to fight to prove I was no coward."

   "I saw you practicing the other day. The blade looks comfortable in your hand."

   "I hope to learn enough to defend myself with the bad hand."

   Nylan frowned. "Maybe . . . maybe, we could figure out a clamp or something so that you could fix a knife to the hook. Don't some fight with a blade and a knife?"

   "That... I have not heard of."

   "It's been done," Nylan affirmed.

   "Since you say it, Mage, that must be so."

   "Wouldn't that help? Enemies wouldn't think you were defenseless on your right."

   "Again, you prove you are dangerous." Relyn frowned. "Could you make such a device?"

   "I'll see what I can do. Let me see your knife, though."

   Relyn eased the knife out and passed it hilt-first to the engineer.

   Nylan looked at it for a time before speaking. "I think I can, maybe bend some rod locks so they'll hold the hilt." He handed back the knife. "I take it you'd rather not stay in Westwind."

   "I am no mage. Nor am I a mighty and powerful warrior like the hunter. Nor did I handle a blade, even with two hands, as well as the best of these guards. Even those bearing a child work and improve their skills-and with those devil blades you forged?" Relyn shook his head. "Also, I do not trust the marshal. She smiles, but she smiled when she took off my hand."

   "Why are you telling me?"

   "I must talk to someone, and I distrust you the least, because you would build rather than destroy."

   "Thanks," answered Nylan dryly. "I suppose I deserve that."

   Relyn shrugged apologetically.

   "Do you think the marshal will have you killed in your sleep or something?" Nylan asked, wishing he had not even as he spoke.

   "It is possible. It is possible that lightning might strike me as well. I do not fear either . . . now."

   "Ah ... but you think your welcome might wear thin?"

   "There is not that much food, is there?"

   "I did bring in that deer, and that means more game might be moving higher into the mountains."

   "That will be true for a time, but only for a time."

   "Where could you go?"

   "South, north, east-anywhere but west." Relyn grinned briefly. "I do not have to decide that until the snows melt, perhaps later." He paused. "If I should need to depart sooner?"

   "I'll let you know if I know" Nylan laughed softly. "Sometimes, I'm among the last to discover things."

   "It is often that way when one deals with women."

   "Even in Lornth?"

   "Even in Lornth, even as a holder's son," Relyn affirmed, as he stood, using the hook to catch the edge of a stone wall block and to help balance him. "Thank you, Ser Mage." He offered Nylan a head bow before turning andxheading for the steps.

   Nylan looked down at the cradle. A daughter coming? That was hard to believe as well.

 

 

LXX

 

NYLAN TOOK ONE end of the saw and looked across the half-cubit-thick fir trunk to Huldran. "Ready?" Another trunk lay beside the path, ready for their efforts when they finished cutting and splitting the first.

   "Ready as you are, ser." The broad-shouldered marine grinned.

   "I hope," Nylan grunted as he pulled the blade handle toward him, "you're a lot more ready than that."

   "Do we really need this wood now?" asked Huldran.

   "We could get more storms. Even if we don't, do you think it will go to waste? After this winter? Besides, we can't plant now. We're just about out of wood planking for new fixtures, and there's only so much equipment for people to hunt. Also, we'll need wood for the kitchen stove and," Nylan laughed, "to defrost the bathhouse."

   "You used it more than I did," pointed out Huldran.

   "We probably used it more than about half the guards did together."

   "If we get more guards, they'll have to use it. You know what standing next to Denalle is like?"

   "Do I want to find out?"

   Huldran shook her head over the motion of the saw.

   "I was afraid you'd say that."

   As they sawed, Gerlich opened the tower door, and he and Narliat walked out across the causeway and leaned their skis against the low wall near the end of the causeway. Gerlich carried his great bow, the second one, since the first had broken, and both bore packs.

   "Off hunting?" asked Nylan, without stopping his efforts with the saw.

   "We'll see what we can find," Gerlich answered. "Now that it's warmer, and Narliat's learned to ski better, he can help me pack back whatever we get." The hunter grinned. "There might even be another one of those big red deer." The grin faded. "Sometimes, Engineer, sometimes . .."

   "I'm just an engineer," Nylan admitted.

   "He is also a mage," added Narliat.

   "I know that," said Gerlich. "He's the one who doesn't." The tall man hoisted his skis. "We need to be off."

   The two carried their skis up the trail toward the top of the ridge.

   "That's a case of white demon leading the white demon," puffed out Huldran.

   "He brings back food."

   "Sometimes . . . and he's not shy about letting the whole tower know."

   When Nylan and Huldran finished the first cut, a piece of trunk a little over a cubit in length lay on the stones of the causeway.

   "Do we split or keep sawing?" asked Huldran.

   "Saw another," suggested Nylan.

   "This is a lot of sawing for a trunk that's not all that thick."

   "It's as thick as a single horse can drag. Anything bigger, we'd have to saw where it was felled, and I don't want to struggle with a saw in chest-deep snow." Nylan paused, and Huldran staggered.

   "Tell me when you're going to stop," she said.

   "Sorry." Nylan tried to catch his breath, grateful that the air was no longer cold enough to bite into his lungs.

   "Ready?" asked Huldran after several moments. "Let's forget about splitting until we get this thing cut."

   They resumed sawing, even as Fierral marched out with nearly a squad of guards. All of them went up to the stable, and brought back three mounts, on which were strapped the other crosscut saw, and two of the four axes.

   "More wood?" asked Nylan, pausing with the saw, then adding, too late, to Huldran, "I'm stopping."

   Huldran stumbled back several steps, and barely kept from toppling into the deeper snow only by grabbing onto Rienadre.

   "I'm sorry, Huldran."

   "Ser . . . please?"

   Fierral shook her head. "There's not much else we can do right now. So we'll cut and trim as much as we can. We'll leave the smaller limbs in cut lengths for later in the year when we can bring them back with the cart, and we'll drag back the trunks. Saryn thinks we should set aside more and more to start seasoning so that we'll have a supply for making planks."

   "She's probably right."

   After Fierral and the squad trudged up the trail to the ridge, both Nylan and Huldran took a break, for some water and other necessities, before they resumed. As they sawed, Ayrlyn and Saryn came and trudged up to the stables to feed livestock, along with Istril, who was worried about the mounts.

   When the three returned, Nylan and Huldran had only finished five more sections.

   "You two are slow," jibed Saryn.

   Nylan took his hands off the saw-and Huldran staggered again, almost toppling into the snow-and gestured. "You want to take this end?"

   "Ah ... no, thank you, Nylan. I'm working on finishing those dividers for the fourth level."

   "I thought we were out of wood for that sort of thing," said Huldran, leaning on the now-immobile saw.

   "They were rough-cut eight-days ago. The finish work is what takes the time," answered Saryn.

   "What about you, Ayrlyn?" asked Nylan. "Room dividers?"

   "Healing. I'm worried about this rash little Dephnay's got. It keeps coming back. And Ellysia's having trouble nursing, and there aren't any milk substitutes here."

   "We need a few goats or cows, you think?" asked the engineer.

   "We need everything." Ayrlyn shook her head as she left with the others.

   "Ser, if you stop to talk to everyone, this trunk's still going to be here by the time we plant crops." Huldran cleared her throat. "And I did ask if you'd let me know when you stop sawing. Twice."

   "Sorry." Nylan looked down at the slush underfoot and used his boot to sweep it away from where he stood. "All right?"

   Before the next interruption, they managed almost a dozen more cuts, leaving them with most of the first trunk cut into lengths to be split. Despite the gloves, Nylan could feel blisters forming on his hands, and the soreness growing in his arms and shoulders.

   They were halfway through yet another cut, one that would leave only a few more cuts to finish the second trunk, when the horses reappeared on the ridge, dragging more fir trunks-two each-down the not-quite-slushy packed snow of the trail toward the tower.

   Fierral and her squad were laughing by the time they reached the causeway and stacked the six trunks up.

   "You two are so slow."

   "Do you want to do this?" asked Huldran, without slowing her sawing.

   With grins, Denalle and Rienadre shook their heads.

   "We'll just bring in the trunks, thank you," added Fierral. "Has Kadran rung the triangle yet?"

   "No." But as Nylan spoke, Kadran came out and rang the triangle for the midday meal.

   "Good timing," added Selitra.

   Huldran let go of the saw, and Nylan stumbled forward and rammed the saw handle into his gut, so hard that he exhaled with a grunt.

   "So sorry, ser." She grinned.

   "All right," Nylan mumbled. "Next time I'll remember."

   "What was all that about?" asked Kadran.

   "Nothing," answered Nylan. "What are you serving?"

   "Venison, your leftover venison, spiced with pine tips, a few not quite moldy potatoes, and a handful of softened pine nuts. The bread is more bitter than ever, but the healer says it's edible."

   "It's better than starving."

   "Not much," commented Berlis, as she followed Denalle and Rienadre into the tower.

   Fierral, Selitra, and Weindre did not go inside, but led the horses back up to the stables.

   "More wood will help," said the cook. "When will you have some split?"

   "Mid-afternoon," Nylan guessed.

   "I'll send Hryessa and Murkassa out for it. They can take that kind of cold." Kadran paused. "It's not really that cold anymore, but they think it is. Flatlanders!" She snorted.

   "You can tell she's from the Purgatory Mountains," said Huldran as Kadran left. "Let's finish the last cut before we eat. Fierral and the others will take that long to get the horses settled anyway. Then we can try splitting what we've sawed when we get back."

   Nylan took up his end of the saw once more.

   After the midday meal, Nylan picked up one of the axes and looked at the sections of trunk. "I don't know."

   He lifted the axe and brought it down. The axe head buried itself in the wood, which creaked, but did not split. He lifted the axe, and the wood came with it. So he brought wood and axe down on the frozen ground together. It took him two more attempts before the circular chunk of wood split into two unequal sections.

   "I think sawing is easier." Nylan panted as he half leaned on the axe handle.

   "Let me try."

   "Be my guest." Nylan handed the axe to Huldran.

   Her first attempt also stuck in the larger log section, but the second effort split that section in two. "Only took me two." The blond guard smiled at Nylan. "Splitting's easier."

   "You were working on a smaller section. Try one of the big ones."

   Huldran shrugged and lifted the axe again. It took her two attempts to split the log chunk. "It's tough. Maybe we don't have the technique."

   "Green wood is harder, I think."

   They alternated efforts, slowly improving, until they had reduced the sawed sections into chunks of stove and furnace wood. The guards who passed the wood-splitting avoided commenting after a quick look at Nylan's face.

   About mid-afternoon, as promised by Kadran, Hryessa and Murkassa peered out from the tower door, some time after Nylan and Huldran had returned to sawing another green fir trunk.

   "We've got plenty there for you," said the engineer.

   Hryessa stepped out quickly, then stopped by the pile of split wood, looking at the open jackets and the two sweating figures. Her breath formed a faint white cloud as she spoke. "It's still cold here. It is not as bad as before, but..." She shrugged. "Yet you are hot."

   "It's so cold up here that you'd think the lowlanders would leave us alone, wouldn't you?" asked Huldran, not stopping her sawing.

   Nylan just kept moving his end of the saw.

   Murkassa, stooping to fill her arms with split wood, shook her head sadly. "They are men."

   "It is sad, in a way," added Hryessa, as she struggled back into the tower, leaving Huldran and Nylan to their sawing.

   "I'm not sure it's sad being a man," Nylan puffed as he kept the blade moving.

   "It is if you're as hidebound as the locals are."

   "The women have it much worse."

   "For now," pointed out Huldran.

   "Point taken," Nylan said. "Let's take a break." As he slowed the saw, he glanced to the west where the sun hung just above the Westhorns.

   The tower door opened, and Murkassa and Hryessa trooped out again, this time accompanied by Jaseen and Kadran.

   "They said you had a lot of wood here," explained Jaseen, glancing over the pile. "You two make a good team."

   "True," said Huldran. "I don't like taking breaks, and he won't quit until the job's done."

   "I need something to drink," Nylan told Huldran. She nodded, and he walked into the tower and then out through the north door and through the archway, where most of the ice had slowly melted, leaving the split stone floor perpetually damp. He made his way to the laundry area where both tubs, full of clothes and chill water, stood with no one nearby. Nylan held out a hand toward the stove. It was warm.

   He shrugged. With little soap, soaking helped. He wondered if some of the recently cut and split wood had found its way into the bathhouse warming stove. Why not, now?

   The water was beginning to flow more regularly, and Nylan drank from the laundry tap, trying not to spill too much on the floor, then used the jakes. As he walked back, he passed Siret, carrying Kyalynn, as he started through the north tower door.

   "You have the laundry detail?" he asked.

   "Yes, ser. It's better that way now that I'm so far along. I still do my blade practice and exercises, though."

   Nylan shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Letting the water warm to room temperature probably helps get things cleaner, too."

   "I hadn't planned it that way . .."

   "Don't tell anyone." With a grin, Nylan held the door, then closed it after them.

   "You took long enough," said Huldran.

   "Some things take a little time." He took up his end of the saw, looking at the third or so of the trunk that remained to be cut.

   Before they finished cutting two more lengths, the kitchen crew had carted off all the split wood, and Nylan had asked Jaseen to carry one armful out to the bathhouse stove.

   "You might get cleaner clothes that way . .. also warmer wash water," he told the medtech. Except she's more like a healer now. No medtechs on the Roof of the World, he thought.

   "Sounds like a good idea." Jaseen winked at him.

   Nylan ignored the wink, wondering why she had offered the gesture, and kept sawing. After they finished sawing their fifth trunk, with the sun starting to drop behind the western peaks, they began splitting.

   Whheeeee . . . eeeee . . .

   At the sound of horses, Nylan glanced uphill. Fierral led the three horses over the ridge, each dragging two mid-sized trunks.

   Huldran and Nylan looked at each other, then at the three trunks piled by the trail road.

   "We're never going to gel caught up."

   "Just think of it this way. We're working on next winter. So we can burn wood all winter long and be warm," said Nylan. "And have warm showers and water that's only cold, not liquid ice."

   "It does sound better when you put it that way." Huldran picked up the axe again and split a half-trunk section into quarters, then the larger quarter in half, before handing the axe back to Nylan.

   "You're going to be stiff, Engineer," laughed Fierral as the logging crew stacked six more long trunks beside the trail path.

   "Since you're done for the day," grunted Nylan, splitting another section, "let Huldran have the other axe so we can finish this. Then, your people can take down the split wood when they go in."

   Fierral unstrapped the axe, and Huldran took it.

   Denalle, winding up one of the hauling ropes, groaned.

   "You want to do what the engineer's doing?" asked Fierral.

   "Been doing it all day ..." mumbled Rienadre.

   "You got breaks. There were six of us." Fierral raised her voice. "Denalle, Rienadre, and Berlis-you don't have to climb to the stable, but you get to cart in wood. Selitra, Weindre, and I will stable and rub down the horses."

   Several groans echoed around the causeway.

   "You want to be warm-you cart wood."

   Fierral, Selitra, and Weindre started up the shadowed snow trail to the stables with the horses. The other three guards carried sets of skis into the tower, then straggled back across the causeway to stack wood in their arms.

   Huldran held her axe for a moment and looked at Nylan. They both grinned. Then, Nylan set down his axe and massaged his right shoulder with his gloved left hand.

   "I'm already sore, and there's two days' work stacked behind us."

   "We want to be warm next winter. Someone told me that," returned the stocky blond guard.

   Nylan looked at the four cut, but unsplit, trunk sections. "There aren't too many left here."

   "Here comes Gerlich," said Huldran, "but I don't see Narliat."

   "Maybe he's following the great hunter."

   "Maybe . . . except he always likes to get to the food first." Huldran brought the axe down again.

   Nylan followed her example, and by the time Gerlich dragged his bundle up to the causeway, they were cleaning the axes. Rienadre was stacking another armful of wood, but the other guards had not returned for their third load.

   "Where's Narliat?" asked Huldran.

   "Gone," answered Gerlich. "I was trying to pack this boar-thing up the slope, and when I stopped, he was gone." The hunter gestured to the dead boar. "This is heavy. Maybe not quite as heavy as a red deer, but there's a lot of meat there."

   Again, Nylan could sense the wrongness about Gerlich's words, and he instinctively looked for Ayrlyn, but the healer was nowhere around, not that she had any reason to be out in the twilight and cold.

   "It does look like a lot," Nylan temporized.

   "Sneaky little bastard, anyway," said Rienadre as she staggered away under a load of wood.

   "He was born here, not on Heaven," said Gerlich, setting his skis against the wall by the door. "I'm going to get Saryn, to see if she can help me butcher this."

   As he went inside, Kadran came out to ring the triangle. She looked toward the carcass. "The hunter's back. What's that?"

   "Gerlich brought back a boar," answered Huldran. "Of course, he lost Narliat along the way."

   "Why does this happen to us?" asked the cook. "We've got a thin soup and barely enough bread, and he brings in a juicy boar, and everyone's going to complain and ask why we've got soup." She rang the triangle.

   "We're coming!" called Fierral.

   Saryn and Ayrlyn followed Gerlich across the causeway, Saryn bearing the tripod and the hooks. Gerlich hoisted the carcass into place after Saryn set the tripod into the packed snow of the trail beyond the end of the causeway stones.

   "We'll gut this and rough-cut it now," said Saryn, "and stack the sections in the archway by the north door. That's plenty cold. Then Kyseen and Kadran can figure out what to cook and when later tonight or in the morning."

   "Fine," said Gerlich. "Fine."

   "Another good meal," offered Weindre as she, Selitra, and Fierral passed the tripod.

   "Not tonight," said Ayrlyn. "Tomorrow."

   Selitra nodded to Gerlich, but the hunter did not return the gesture.

   "Let's take some wood." Fierral looked at the remaining split sections.

   "Trust Denalle to leave some," muttered Weindre, bending to scoop lengths into her arms.

   "There's not that much left," said Fierral.

   "I'll take a load, too," said Nylan. "That should do it."

   "I'll rack the axes," offered Huldran.

   "Thanks." Nylan followed the guards down to the lower level and into the far kitchen corner, and the makeshift wood bins there.

   "See!" snapped Kyseen, stirring a kettle. "Even the engineer carts wood."

   Nylan nodded after dumping his armload and trudged to the bathhouse to wash up. The wash tubs were empty, and tilted to dry. He supposed the clothes were hanging on lines around the tower, on one side of the fifth level, usually.

   Fierral stood in one shower stall, using the tap to rinse her face and hands. In another was Selitra, stripped to the waist. Nylan passed and quickly looked away.

   He used the tap valve in the laundry area to wash his hands and face, blotting the chill water from his face with his hands, and shaking the water off his hands in turn.

   "Still better than trying to find the stream." Fierral laughed as she joined him in walking back to the great room.

   "That's true. I hope we can get enough wood to keep the place warmer next winter."

   "That would be nice."

   Nylan slipped into his spot on the bench before Ryba or Gerlich had arrived. For a moment, he just sat, his head in his hands, realizing just how tired he was, and how sore he was going to be-and there were days more of wood sawing and splitting to come! Maybe it would improve his muscular condition, but would he survive it?

   Ayrlyn sat down across from him. Neither spoke for a time, until Nylan finally lifted his head.

   "Hard day?" Ayrlyn asked.

   "Yes. I wasn't built to be a lumberjack."

   "Thin soup, again," said Ayrlyn. "They won't like it."

   Kadran's and Ayrlyn's prediction seemed fulfilled. As the seats filled, Nylan listened.

   ". . . thin soup, and there's a big pig carcass in the back archway..."

   "... always hold out a good meal for tomorrow when we get crap today .. ."

   "Why do the hunters always bring the good stuff in late?"

   Holding Dephnay in a half pack, Ellysia sat at the second table, beside Siret and Kyalynn. Siret cradled Kyalynn in her arms. Dephnay kept squirming until Ellysia put the child up to her shoulder and patted her back.

   Istril sat down heavily across from Siret and beside Hryessa, and then Ryba walked past the two mothers and eased herself into her chair. "I see Gerlich isn't here."

   "Not yet."

   "He's washing," added Ayrlyn.

   Ryba waited until Gerlich sat down. "I understand that Narliat left," she said evenly.

   Gerlich turned to face the marshal. "I was pulling the carcass up the hill. When I looked back he was gone."

   "Just like that?"

   "That boar was heavy, and I didn't have enough rope for both of us."

   "Did Narliat say anything before he left?" Ryba nodded to Ayrlyn.

   "No. He talked about how he'd never be an armsman again, but he's said that a number of times." Gerlich took a short swallow of tea from his mug.

   Again, Nylan could sense the whiteness, the partial wrongness surrounding the hunter's answers.

   Kyseen set one of the heavy caldrons on the table, then used the ladle to fill Ryba's bowl/trencher. Kadran followed with the baskets of bread.

   "Did he say anything else?" Ryba asked.

   "Nothing special."

   "Where do you think he went?"

   "I don't know. He was headed west, I think, but he could have doubled back or turned north or south."

   "He won't go south, not far," said Ayrlyn. "Straight south is just more mountains. Southwest leads to the local equivalent of the hottest demons' hell. It's a place called the Grass Hills, except there's not much grass, they say."

   "West or north, then," observed Ryba with a nod. "And that means the locals will know more about us. Well... they would sooner or later." She paused, then added, "I'm glad you were able to bring back that boar."

   "My pleasure, Ryba. My pleasure."

   Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances, and Ryba shook her head.

   Gerlich frowned.

   "We'll have solid meals tomorrow," Ryba added. "Might I have some bread?"

   Nylan passed her the basket. The soup was more tasty than many previous efforts, and hot, for which he was grateful. The bread was bitter, but the bitterness didn't bother him. His shoulders were tight and ached, and while the tea helped, it didn't help enough.

   Later, after a meal of small talk and speculation about how soon the snow would really melt, Nylan dragged himself up to the top level, following Ryba.

   He sat on the end of the couch. "Gerlich isn't telling everything."

   "He's lying," Ryba said tiredly, shifting her weight on the couch. "I didn't need you and Ayrlyn to tell me that. He's lied from the beginning."

   "Are you going to let him keep doing this? You killed Mran."

   "Gerlich hasn't openly defied me, or you, or anyone. We know he's lying, but knowing and proving it aren't the same thing." Ryba eased her legs into another position. "I hate this. Now my legs get swollen all the time. I'm already regarded as a tyrant by some, and I can't throw him out or kill him until he gives some obvious reason. He won't, though, because he can't stand the hot weather below, and that makes it even worse. He wants to be marshal, and he's plotting to replace me."

   "How? No one likes him, except maybe Selitra."

   "Who said anything about liking him? He's using Narliat, I'm sure, although I can't see it clearly, to try to find some local backing."

   "Local backing?"

   Ryba laughed harshly. "Gerlich is a man. He can make the argument that the locals can't take Westwind, but they can ensure that one of their kind-a good old boy-runs it. He'll try to join the local gentry, or whatever passes for it ... and, if we're not careful, he could."

   "What about your ... visions?"

   "They show Westwind surviving. But it could survive under Gerlich's descendants as well." Ryba took a deep breath and shifted position again. "I hate this."

   Nylan frowned. Like Gerlich, Ryba wasn't telling the whole story. Then again, were any of them telling the whole story? He licked his lips.

   "We need some rest." Ryba leaned over and blew out the small candle, then stripped off her leathers and eased into her tentlike nightgown.

   Nylan undressed in the dark.

 

 

LXXI

 

NYLAN SET THE cradle-pale wood glistening in the indirect light that filtered through the single armaglass window of the tower's top level-where Ryba would see it.

   Then he drew into the dimness behind the stones of the chimney and central pedestal and waited, sensing her climbing the steps. In time, the sound of her steps, slower slightly with each passing day and heavy with the weight of the child she carried, announced her arrival.

   Nylan watched as she bent down, as her fingers touched the wood, stroked the curved edges of the side panels, as her eyes focused on the single tree rising out of the rocky landscape in the center of the headboard.

   "Do you like it?" He stepped out from the corner. While the cradle was no surprise to her, he had tried to keep the details from her as he had finished the carving and smoothing-all the laborious finish work.

   Ryba straightened, her face solemn. "Yes. I like it. So will she, when she is older, and so will her children."

   "Another vision?" he asked, trying to keep his voice light.

   "You make everything well, Nylan, from towers to cradles." Ryba sank onto the end of the bed.

   "I didn't do so well with the bathhouse."

   "Even that will be fine. We just didn't have enough wood this winter to keep it as warm as we needed."

   "The water lines needed to be covered more deeply." His eyes went to the cradle again.

   So did Ryba's. "It is beautiful. What do you want me to say?"

   "I don't know." Nylan didn't know, only that, again, something was missing. "I don't know."

 

 

Part III - THE SPRING OF WESTWIND

 

 

LXXII

 

IN THE COLD starlight, the short man struggles through the knee-deep snow, snow that is heavy and damp, that clings to everything but his leathers. The snow glistens with a whiteness that provides enough light for him to continue. His boots crunch through the icy crust covering the road that will not be used by others for at least another handful of eight-days.

   The soft sound of wings mixes with the light breeze that sifts through the limbs of the pines and firs, and a dark shadow crosses the sky, then dives into a distant clearing.

   The traveler shivers, but his feet keep moving, mechanically, as if he is afraid to stop.

   Occasionally, he glances back over his shoulder, as though he flees from someone, but his tracks remain the only ones on the slow-melting snow. On his back he carries a pack, nearly empty.

   As he lifts one foot and then the other, his mittened fingers touch the outline of the cylindrical object in the pouch that swings around his neck under jacket, tunic, and shirt. He tries not to shiver as he thinks of the object, instead continuing to concentrate on reaching the warmer lands beyond the Westhorns, the lower lands where the heights do not freeze a man into solid ice.

   He puts one foot in front of the other.

 

 

LXXIII

 

NYLAN GLANCED FROM the bed to the half-open tower window. Outside, the sun shone across the snowfields, and rivulets formed pathways on the snow, draining off the grainy white surface and into the now-slushy roads and pathways. In a few scattered places, the brown of earth, the dark gray of rock, or the bleached tan of dead grass peered through the disappearing snow cover. Despite the carpet of fir branches, much of the road from the tower up to the stables was more quagmire than path.

   The east side of the tower was half ringed with meltwater that froze at night and cleared by day, so much that from the eastern approach to the causeway, the tower resembled the moated castle that Nylan had rejected building.

   His eyes flicked from the window back to Ryba, whose own eyes were glazed with concentration and the effort of measured breathing. On the other side of the lander couch stood Ayrlyn, her fingers resting lightly on Ryba's enlarged abdomen. Beside her was Jaseen.

   "I'm hot," panted the marshal.

   The joined couches had been moved toward the window because the ice and snow melting off the slate stone roof had revealed more than a few leaks that dripped down into the top level of the tower.

   Nylan used the clean but tattered cloth to blot the dampness off Ryba's face, then put his hand on her forehead.

   "That feels good."

   "Good," affirmed Nylan.

   "Just a gentle push ... gentle . . ."

   "Hurts ... tight. .." the marshal responded. "Dyliess?"

   "She's doing fine, Ryba," said Ayrlyn.

   "I'm ... not..." Ryba shivered. "Cold now."

   After he drew the blankets around her shoulders, Nylan blotted Ryba's damp forehead again. "Easy," he said. "You're doing fine, too."

   "Easy ... for you ... to say."

   "I know." Nylan kept his tone light, although, with his perceptions, he could sense that Ryba's labor was going well, if any labor, and the effort and pain involved, could be said to be going well.

   "Push ... a little harder."

   "Am pushing ..."

   "Stop..."

   ". . . tell me to push, then not push . . . make up your mind.. ."