“How is she?” he asked.
“Sleepy. She was restless last night. Teeth, I think. Ayrlyn touched her, but there is no chaos, just a trace of white around her teeth. I felt it, but I wasn’t sure.”
Nylan cradled Kyalynn in his left arm, and she looked up with a yawn, the dark green eyes mirrors of her mother’s, her hands slowly reaching toward Nylan’s face. “Waaaa… dan!”
“Somehow, I don’t think she’s asking for water,” Nylan observed. “I’ll probably wake her up, and she’ll be cranky all night.”
“That won’t be any change from last night.”
“So you were a grumpy girl, and you kept your mother up all night, all the time. That wasn’t a, nice thing to do…”
“Waaaa-daa-da… ooo…”
“No, it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.”
Kyalynn yawned again, as Nylan rocked her, then once more, and shut her eyes. Shortly, a snort and a soft snore followed.
“You can always get her to sleep,” said Siret.
“That’s true,” the smith said. “When I talk, I can put anyone to sleep, especially if I talk about building something.” But the building was done, mostly, and now he was a weapons smith, forging more destruction. Did it always take force and more force?
He walked slowly toward the nursery and the corner bed that was Kyalynn’s. There he eased her down, and patted her back gently for a moment, murmuring softly, until he was certain she would sleep.
Nylan glanced at the bed beside Kyalynn’s, and patted a sleeping Dyliess on the back for a moment. Half the time in the nursery he still felt amazed.
Antyl smiled from the inside corner where she nursed her own son Jakon, rocking slightly in the plain wooden rocker that all the guards had helped craft early in the long winter.
Istril was burping Weryl, but she studiously avoided looking at Siret or Nylan, confirming the smith’s suspicions about the oh - so - casual prearrangements.
Nylan and Siret eased out of the nursery and toward the great room.
“She still looks like you,” the engineer said quietly.
“She takes things in like you do. She sees them, and she doesn’t make a fuss, but she knows-I swore she could feel you healers when you worked on Llyselle’s hand. Her eyes got wide, and she just watched.”
“Could be,” mused Nylan, stopping at the end of the lowest table. The aromas of mint and spice and bread filled the room. “We both have the talent. You’ll have to be careful when she gets older.”
“She might be too sensitive? I’ve thought of that.” Siret nodded, then gestured. “I can see the Marshal’s waiting for you.” Her voice cooled.
Nylan smiled wryly, then wiped the smile away before turning and continuing toward the hearth and head table.
“How are the blades coming?” asked Ryba. “I’m starting another. The one we finished yesterday is ready to sharpen.” Nylan stepped around Ryba’s chair and slid into his place on the bench next to Huldran. “Another one?” groaned Saryn from across the table. “Another one.” Nylan offered a bright smile. “And Huldran will have another finished late today or tomorrow.”
“Two?” Saryn shrugged, then wiped, her steaming forehead. “You two keep this up, and we’ll have enough of those killer blades for a complete U.F.F. legion.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” asked the engineer, ladling out Blynnal’s noodles.
“I haven’t figured out any other way to stop the locals. Have you?” asked Ryba mildly.
Nylan shrugged. That was the problem with Ryba. While her answers to questions were usually right, they all too often involved the maximum application of force necessary before someone else did the same. And the few times when the angels hadn’t been able to apply such force had been near-disastrous. Had he avoided leadership because he didn’t like the preemptive use of force? Or because he knew it was necessary on the violent world where the angels had landed? Or both?
Ayrlyn slipped into her seat across from Nylan. Her eyebrows lifted momentarily, but she said nothing, instead pouring some tea and drinking half a mugful almost immediately. By the second bite of the noodles, despite the leavening effect of the flat bread, Nylan’s forehead was sweating more than if he were standing before his forge. The cool tea helped, if not enough. “The food here-it is always good.” That comment came from Daryn.
Nylan looked at the young armsman, wanting to shake his head. Did all the locals like things spiced? Was it a survival ploy to cover the taste of meat or flour that wasn’t quite right?
“We try to make everything good,” offered Ryba.
“And you do, honored Marshal. Westwind is truly amazing.”
The youth had been trained well in Gallos, at least in manners, Nylan reflected, and he was adaptable, more so than Gerlich had been. The former weapons officer had never accepted that Ryba was his better in everything from commanding to armed and unarmed combat. Of course, Gerlich had died in his attempt to storm Westwind. He’d also gotten a lot of guards killed unnecessarily, as well as one of the white wizards of Lornth. That hadn’t bothered Nylan. Those white wizards were innately nasty, although why they were was yet another unanswered mystery.
“We try, Daryn. We try.” Ryba’s tone was light, but carried the edge that never left her voice anymore.
Nylan blotted his forehead.
“Do you think you should start training someone else in smithing?” asked Ryba.
“Cessya was working, but…” Nylan shrugged and glanced toward Huldran.
“Gerlich’s wizard got her,” Huldran finished. “Ydrall’s shown some interest in the past. She liked your fancy pikes.”
“If she is interested, I think it might be a good idea,” Ryba suggested, lifting her mug to her lips. “Otherwise, find someone else.”
“What’s the urgency?” asked the smith.
“You said you wanted to work on building your mill,” Ryba pointed out. “If you do, you can’t smith, not all the time, and we’re going to need a lot of smithwork. So I’d like you and Huldran to start training whoever it is in the next few eight-days, before the snows clear and you’re back building the sawmill.”
Nylan concealed a frown. All of what Ryba said was correct, but the words felt somehow wrong, and that bothered him. His eyes crossed those of Ayrlyn, and he got the faintest of nods in confirmation.
“There’s been more snow this winter, and that means more mud,” the engineer said. “That means it will be longer until we can reach the brickworks and the millpond down there-”
“Good,” answered the black-haired Marshal. “You’ll have more time to do blades and train another smith.”
Her answer felt even more wrong to Nylan, but the quickest of frowns from Ayrlyn warned him not to push Ryba.
“Did you find out any more in those scrolls about Cyador?” he asked easily.
“There wasn’t much,” Ryba admitted. “I get the feeling that it’s some sort of Rationalist leftover, with a heavy dose of chauvinism.” She shrugged. “Right now I don’t have much to go on, but it bothers me.”
The name Cyador chilled Nylan, too, but he had even less reason to be worried than Ryba. After all, he was just a smith and an engineer. Just a hardworking technical stiff and onetime involuntary stud who really didn’t have a mission anymore, now that the tower and the attached facilities were complete and the armies of Lornth and Gallos annihilated. He took another helping of noodles and then blotted his forehead.
“You’re a glutton for punishment, ser,” said Huldran.
“That’s definitely one way of putting it,” the smith agreed as he broke off another chunk of the flat bread. “A true glutton for punishment.”
He ignored the bluelike flash from Ayrlyn’s eyes, even as the tightness in his guts told him he shouldn’t. But he felt as though everyone else were directing him, guiding him, from Istril and Siret arranging which child he saw to Ryba’s efforts to boost Westwind’s armory-almost endlessly, it seemed.
And the worst part was
that he had no answers, no direction, except to keep forging destruction.
He swallowed more tea. Maybe he’d feel better if he worked on that foot for Daryn-something besides destruction.
VI
THE THREE-A blond woman, a gray - and - black - haired man, and a younger black-haired man-sat around a small and ancient table in the tower room that had belonged to the Lady Ellindyja before her exile to the Groves in Carpa. All three bore a resemblance to each other.
The older man lifted the scroll. “I told you both about this…”
The blond woman with green eyes glanced toward the window and the dark spring clouds framed by the dark wood, clouds looming over Lornth, and, as lightning flashed, then to the door.
“He’ll be all right, Zeldyan,” said the younger man.
“I do not like to leave him, not after… everything,” said Zeldyan.
“Get young Nesslek, then. He’s certainly not old enough to repeat what we say.” The older man laughed.
“I would feel better.” Zeldyan nodded and rose.
After she stepped through the door, the younger man turned. “Do you think she dotes upon him too much? She trusts no one with him.”
“In this time of uncertainty? Hardly, Fornal. Your sister knows that her doting is limited. It is those women who refuse to understand that-like Lady Ellindyja-who cause trouble. Darkness knows we have more than enough trouble, anyway.” The older man’s index finger touched the scroll. “We could use one of those white wizards that Sillek squandered on the Roof of the World.”
“He did not have much choice.”
“The greater price we pay for such folly.” Gethen shook his head. “And Sillek knew it was folly. We talked of it, but, no, he was young, and the holders would not accept that he had wisdom beyond his years. Nor would his most esteemed mother.”
“You hate the Lady Ellindyja,” said Fornal. “Yet she was only trying to uphold Sillek’s honor with the older holders.”
“I have no problem with honor, Fornal. Honor and trust are a man’s greatest allies, but the Lady Ellindyja used her idea of honor to destroy the holders’ trust in Sillek. He could have been the greatest lord of Lornth, and he loved Zeldyan in a way that the poets claim is common-and seldom happens in life. Yet his own mother incited her friends, and the old holders, to push for the war against Westwind. Where lies honor in that?” Gethen shrugged. “Now… we have a regent’s council, which is always suspect. We have Ildyrom free to nibble at the grasslands, and Karthanos protected by the demon angels and free to wreak his will on eastern Candar.”
Fornal frowned before answering. “He will not cross the Westhorns against the dark angels.”
“Not across their lands, but what will happen after he takes Spidlar? He will, sooner or later. Can he not move all his troops south into Analeria and swing through the southern passes into Cerlyn?”
Fornal stroked his black beard, rubbed his chin, then looked up as Zeldyan closed the door behind her. She carried the blond Nesslek, his eyes closed, cradled in her arms.
“You were speaking of Karthanos?” she asked, easing herself back into the wooden armchair. “Best we consider the scroll, first. How long has it been since word has come out of Cyador?”
“Almost a generation. Genglois found one scroll in the old library, and there are others, but I bid him cease searching,” said Fornal. “It also referred to the copper mines. Genglois said that Berphi-he was the Lord of Cyador then-died thereafter, and the Cyadorans never pursued the issue.”
Gethen lifted the scroll. “Do we ignore the demand? Do we ask for recompense? We cannot fight another land… not after last fall.”
“Why do we not send a polite answer that says nothing?” asked Zeldyan. “As if we totally misunderstood? They think we are ignorant forest-dwellers anyway.”
“It might buy time, and we can use much of that,” mused Gethen. “But why does the Emperor of Cyador trouble us now?”
“According to Skiodra and the other traders that frequent the outlying stations-”
“Outlying stations?” asked Fornal.
“They do not permit outsiders’ parties within Cyador-a few travelers perhaps, but certainly not traders, especially not after the Kyphrans tried to seize that isolated port town,” Zeldyan explained.
“Guarstyad,” confirmed Gethen. “It seems to have roused this Lephi against us all. What do we know of him?”
“Some of the Cyadorans have no great love of this Lephi. There was a struggle for the succession, and he ousted his beloved younger brother.”
“I recall that,” Fornal noted. “In the end, the older brother murdered the younger, but they called it a battle.” The dark-haired man smiled crookedly. “Younger brothers have a way of being loved, I gather. Especially after they’re dead.”
“I don’t think Relyn is dead,” said Zeldyan. “And I don’t appreciate the comment. I have always loved you both.”
Fornal looked down at the table. “I am sorry, sister. That was uncalled for.”
“What do you think about Zeldyan’s idea?” asked Gethen, his weathered face carefully impassive.
The younger man nodded. “If we make the response flowery enough, we can manage several exchanges of messages. Especially if we express our concerns that it has been so long since last we heard from the great and mighty land of Cyador.”
“We’ll have to give in or express defiance sooner or later,” the blond woman cautioned.
“It takes a fast messenger nearly two eight-days to reach Cyad,” said Gethen, “and we cannot be expected to respond the day we receive such a message.”
“Fine,” said Zeldyan, opening her blouse and easing Nesslek to her breast. “We can buy a season, perhaps a year. Then what?”
“Give the copper mines to Ildyrom,” suggested Fornal, “and let him cope with Cyador, except that wouldn’t be honorable.”
“Even if it were honorable, I would prefer another course,” said Gethen. “But the longer before we must face any other land in battle the better.”
The three nodded, not exactly in unison, but in agreement.
VII
IN THE DIM light cast by the fat candles-one on each of the six tables-Nylan pushed the platter away. He’d eaten too much, too quickly. Then he smiled at the irony. A year ago, they’d all been on the verge of starvation-that had certainly contributed to Ellysia’s weakness and the chaos fever that had killed her and left Dephnay an orphan. Now, Westwind had enough in its larders that Nylan felt comfortably full. Blynnal’s cooking had also helped. Ryba had pulled her chair to the side, and the glowing embers in the hearth added some light and a gentle warmth to the big room. The Marshal rocked Dyliess in her arms, gently. “That was good,” Huldran said. Nylan nodded. Holding a sleepy Dyliess to her shoulder, and patting her back, Ryba pushed back her chair and glanced at Ayrlyn. “Could we have a song?”
“I’ll get my lutar.” The healer/singer rose. Behind her, so did Istril.
“It’s good Ayrlyn’s teaching Istril and Llyselle the songs,” the Marshal remarked quietly.
“I didn’t know that Llyselle was learning them.” Nylan took a long swallow of water from his goblet. He didn’t like the bitterness of the tea in the evening, not unless his muscles were exceedingly sore from smithing, and, despite his wiry frame, that soreness didn’t occur that often anymore. Then, after almost two years, he’d adjusted to a lot of heavy labor, from smithing to practicing with metal weapons designed to inflict maximum damage on other individuals-preferably while escaping the receipt of similar injuries.
“Like the songs…”
“… some of them…”
“… singer makes them sound so good…”
Ayrlyn did make them sound good-if she’d just refrain from ever performing the song she’d composed about the mighty smith Nylan. That one, reflected the silver-haired man, was truly awful. He shifted his weight on the bench and took another sip of the cold water, glad that he’d had a chance to take a warm shower
-warm for Westwind, anyway-before the evening meal. His self-designed water system had not frozen once during the winter, and all the recruits who had helped with the repairs were even gladder than he had been. They hadn’t been so glad the previous fall when he’d insisted on greater cover for the water lines and a few other laborious details.
Ayrlyn slipped back into the great room almost unnoticed until she stood at the hearth, her flame-red hair glinting with a light of its own. Istril eased up beside her.
The two strummed a few chords, looked at each other, then began to sing.
“On the Roof of the World, all covered with white,
I took up my blade there, and I brought back the night.
With a blade in each hand, there, and the stars at my boots,
With the Legend in song, then, I set down my roots.
The demons have claimed you, forever in light,
But the darkness of order will put them to flight,
Will break them in twain, soon, and return you your pride,
For the Legend is kept by the blades at your side.
The blades at your side, now, must always be bright,
And the Legend we hold to is that of the right.
For never will guards lose the heights of the sky,
And never can Westwind this Legend deny…
And never can Westwind this Legend deny. “
“Good!” offered Ryba, amid the scattered applause. “Each time it gets better.”
Nylan had to agree with that, although he knew that Ayrlyn had more than mixed feelings about creating songs to fuel a female militaristic culture. So did he, but given the reception they had gotten from the locals, there weren’t many options, not on a planet where women had virtually no rights-at least anywhere the angels had heard of so far.
At the same time, Nylan reflected, he had, in some ways, even fewer options. His guts tightened, reminding him that he was deceiving himself. In Candar, any man had some options. He swallowed, wondering why his growing mastery of the local order fields was accompanied by an equal vulnerability to the pain of death and increasing discomfort with deception and untruth. And by increasing uneasiness with Ryba, he reminded himself, an uneasiness compounded by his feelings of responsibility toward his children.
The Chaos Balance Page 3
