Fall of Angels

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Nylan wanted to laugh at the thought of a throwing blade being a standoff capability. How far they’d fallen from lasers and de-energizer beams, although the weapons laser still remained mostly intact. “We’re having enough trouble with arrowheads.”

  “We need something.”

  “I told you. I’ll try to rework some of the captured blades-the terrible ones,” said the engineer-smith, “that’s if you don’t mind losing some coins.”

  “After today, we have enough coins and blades that you can have a few of them to work with. I’m sure you can figure out something.”

  Nylan yawned again, wishing he were that certain.

  XCVII

  ZELDYAN RISES FROM the scrolls that are stacked on the desk by the window and turns to greet her visitor. “Lady Ellindyja, I must apologize for a certain disarray.” Despite her apology, every blond hair is in place under the silver hair-band inlaid with malachite, and her green tunic and trousers are spotless.

  “ ‘Disarray’ is not a term I would ever think of applying to you, dear,” responds Ellindyja. “You are always prepared.”

  “I thank you for your kindness, and I am most happy to see you. Is there anything in particular to which I owe this happy visit?”

  “I understand that a force of Gallosians attacked the Roof of the World an eight-day ago,” begins the lady Ellindyja. “You, of course, as Lady of Lornth, would know more of this than I. Perhaps you could enlighten me?”

  “I would be more than pleased to share what little knowledge I have, although you doubtless have many more sources than do I.” Zeldyan picks up the small bell off the table and rings it. “Please, do be seated, and I will have cool, sweetened green juice sent up.” She gestures to the largest armchair in the sitting room.

  “I so appreciate your kindness.” Ellindyja smiles and eases her bulk into the large chair. Her eyes cross the room-to the cradle. “You are sure that ringing will not wake young Nesslek?”

  “If it should wake him, I will hold him.” Zeldyan smiles. “Children, I have seen, grow so quickly, and I am not yet tired of enjoying him while my comfort means much to him.”

  “They do grow quickly, and you are to be commended for your care and concern.”

  A stocky serving maid appears and bows to Zeldyan. “Yes, my lady?”

  “A carafe of the cold fresh green juice, with honey, and some of the fresh pastries, if you please.”

  The dark-haired maid nods and slips out through the door.

  Zeldyan steps toward the cradle and studies her sleeping son, then takes the straight-backed chair across the low table from her consort’s mother. “I received a report from one of the wizards-he sent a report directly to Lord Sillek as well-that a Gallosian force attempted to attack the angel outpost on the Roof of the World. The Gallosians lost many armsmen. The wizard was uncertain if any of the angels were killed, but some were wounded.”

  “That must have been Hissl. He is never certain about anything. Except his own importance,” Ellindyja adds.

  “Still… wizards, uncertain or not, have a usefulness.”

  “This… incursion… has a disturbing flavor. I was also under the impression that a dispatch arrived from Gallos, something about the inability of Lornth to control the depredations of its inhabitants?” Ellindyja smiles sweetly.

  “Yes,” replies Zeldyan. “As you doubtless know from the dispatch, though it was addressed to Lord Sillek, Lord Karthanos expressed his regrets. He wrote that he felt compelled to take action because the situation on the Roof of the World had become most distressing to his holders. Lord Karthanos expressed the hope that Lord Sillek, once he returned to Lornth, would redress the situation on the Roof of the World.”

  “I had gathered it was something like that.”

  The door opens, and the serving maid returns with a silver tray, on which there are a crystal carafe filled with a green liquid, two empty goblets, and a pale green china plate on which are heaped a number of miniature pastries. The maid sets the tray on the table, bows, and retreats, closing the door behind her.

  Zeldyan pours two goblets and waits for Ellindyja to take one.

  The older woman also takes a small pastry and eats it delicately. “These are good. I recall something of the like from when I visited your mother-a family recipe, perhaps?”

  “I learned a great deal from Mother, for which I am most thankful.” Zeldyan takes a sip of her green juice, holding the goblet and waiting.

  “You can see, I am sure,” the lady Ellindyja finally continues, “the difficulty this situation has raised.”

  “Yes. It is rather clear. The male holders on each side of the Westhorns are outraged that a group of women has created what appears to be an independent land. If Sillek refuses to conquer them, then he faces dissatisfaction here in Lornth, and possible greater loss of face and lands if Lord Karthanos takes matters even more into his hands.” Zeldyan sets the goblet down and smiles. “Of course, Karthanos was unsuccessful, and that may be why he is requesting, so politely and indirectly, that Lord Sillek put his lands in order.”

  Ellindyja sips the green juice, blots her lips with a silksheen cloth, and replaces the goblet on the table. “You are suggesting something, my dear, but I am afraid that suggestion is not as clear its it might be.”

  Zeldyan shrugs. “Lord Karthanos is known for his cunning. Perhaps he has judged that this would-be country of women cannot be taken.”

  “That would seem unlikely. A mere handful of women?”

  “Unlikely it might be, but were it so, and were my lord to squander his funds and forces upon the Roof of the World, then what would there be to keep Karthanos from acknowledging these women and then expanding his domains into such areas as Middlevale or eastern Cerlyn?”

  Lady Ellindyja purses her lips, but for a sole moment. “You are dubious about the skills and valor of your lord?”

  “I love, honor, and respect my lord, and that love, honor, and respect demand that I offer him my best judgment. No one stood against the eagles of the demons when they landed ages ago in Analeria, and I would rather my lord be cautious than suffer the fate of Lord Pertelo.”

  “Such caution would be wise, save that such caution would have all holders on both sides of the Westhorns clamoring for your lord’s early departure from his stewardship.”

  “You may well be right, my lady, for most men are ever fools, and those who are not, such as my lord, are often captives of the multitudes,” Zeldyan acknowledges.

  “Lord Sillek must make his own destiny, and reclaim his patrimony. Would you have him do otherwise?” Ellindyja holds the glass, but does not sip from it.

  “My lord must follow his destiny, as you have pointed out so clearly,” answers Zeldyan. “Do have another pastry.”

  “One more,” agrees the lady Ellindyja.

  “Some more juice?”

  “I think not, but you are so kind.”

  Zeldyan pours herself another half goblet, and her eyes flick, ever so briefly, to the cradle.

  XCVIII

  A FAINT LINE of sunlight crossed Nylan’s face as he loaded more charcoal onto the forge coals started from wood. The basic planks for the smithy roof were in place, set almost clinker fashion, but in one or two places, thin beams of sunlight shone through.

  There were no shutters, nor doors, nor a real floor. The only reason he had a roof was that Ryba and Fierral needed weapons, and that meant the ability to forge in poor weather. Would Westwind always rest on weapons?

  The engineer-smith picked up the heavy iron/steel blade and extended his senses, studying the metal, following the grain. His lips curled as he felt the weakness that ran up what he would have called the spine of the blade. Not only did he not know smithing-he didn’t even know the right terms.

  He had no real tools, no real idea of how iron should be forged-just a basic understanding that a sort of waffled forging and reforging of steel and iron, combined with a quench that he developed more by feel than by physics, might
improve the local product.

  He laughed. Might improve? It also might turn a dull and serviceable crowbar of a weapon into scrap metal. But the marshal of Westwind needed better weapons for the new recruits, blades sharper, tougher, and lighter than the huge metal bars favored by the locals.

  There was another difference. The locals seemed to want to beat each other to death. It almost seemed that the equivalent of cavalry sabres were looked down on, as though it were a badge of honor to carry the biggest and heaviest weapon possible. Ryba just wanted to find the quickest and most efficient way to win.

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked Huldran as he set the blade aside on the brick forge shelf to the right side of the forge proper. He picked up a thin strip of alloy with the tongs, setting it on the coals.

  Huldran pumped the bellows slowly and without comment. The alloy began to heat, more slowly than the local blade would. After a bit, Nylan eased the blade into the coals, almost next to the alloy, and waited for it to heat.

  Once the crude steel blade had heated, he laid it on his makeshift forge. Then he eased the hot alloy strip on top of the cherry-red blade, and lifted the hammer, his senses extended as he tried to feel how he would meld the two.

  Three blows later, he knew he was in trouble. The alloy went right into the local steel like a chisel through wood.

  “Frigging alloy,” he mumbled under his breath. “Of course it wouldn’t work the simple way.”

  “It never does, ser,” pointed out Huldran.

  “Unfortunately.”

  It took Nylan longer to separate the barely hammered pieces than it had to half join them.

  “If that doesn’t work…” He walked to the unfinished Smithy door. High cumulus clouds-with dark centers that promised lightning, thunder, and high winds-filled the sky. Too bad he couldn’t harness lightning bolts into an electric furnace. “Right!” he snorted as he walked back to the forge.

  What if he flattened the alloy into a paper-thin sheet and then smoothed the local steel over it? Then if he heated the sheets and folded them back and flattened them together- always with a layer of the alloy on the bottom-would that work?

  He set aside the mangled blade and used the tongs to put the alloy into the forge.

  “You think you can make this work?” asked Huldran, pumping the bellows, sweat running out of her short blond hair.

  “For a while. We’re just about out of the thin alloy sheets from partitions and the like. I don’t have the tools to take apart the lander hulls. If I had the tools and talents of a good local smith, I might be able to, but I don’t.”

  After a time, he eased the alloy from the forge and began to hammer it into a flatter sheet. The alloy lost heat quickly, and he had to reheat it before he was even a third of the way down the narrow strip.

  It took until mid-morning just for Nylan to flatten the alloy and the blade, and to hammer-fold the two together once. His arms ached. His shoulders were sore; his hands were tired; and he understood why, the old pictures showed smiths as men with arms like tree trunks.

  He eased the once-folded metal onto the side of the forge.

  “Now what?” asked Huldran.

  “We take a break. Then we go back to work.”

  “You mean this works?”

  “Oh, it’s working. It’s slow, like everything in a low-tech culture.” Nylan stood and stretched, trying not to wince too much. “Why do you think that even a terrible blade is worth almost a gold?” He took a deep breath and lifted and lowered his shoulders, trying to loosen them. “I read somewhere that a good smith might have to fold and refold iron and steel together dozens of times to get the right kind of blade.”

  “Dozens of times. It took half the morning for once.”

  “That’s what I meant,” pointed out Nylan dryly. “Lasers and lots of energy make that sort of thing a lot easier. Now all we’ve got is charcoal and hammers and muscles. It takes longer.” He walked toward the tower. After a moment, Huldran followed.

  XCIX

  SILLEK STANDS ON the pier. Gethen stands several paces inshore of him. The armsmen at the foot of the old pier hold torches, but the light barely carries to where the Lord of Lornth stands a dozen cubits out on the rickety structure that sways with the incoming tide. The sound of surf rises beyond the bay. The harbor is empty. So are the warehouses that held goods, though a handful still hold grain.

  “Only because they couldn’t get enough ships in,” Sillek says to himself.

  “What did you say?” asks Gethen.

  “Nothing. Nothing.”

  “You thought this might happen, didn’t you, Sillek?” Gethen looks down at the dark water. “That the traders would pull out without a fight?”

  Below them bobs a waterlogged chunk of wood, and beyond that some unidentifiable bit of moss-covered and slimy debris. The cold air coming off the Northern Ocean smells of salt with a hint of rotten fish and ocean-damp wood.

  “I hoped they would. Wars cost money, and they’ve always kept Rulyarth as a place to bleed, not to fight over. This was the easy part. Now it gets harder.” Sillek looks into the darkness. “We’ll have to bribe the independent traders, with something, and rebuild at least one of the piers. And probably reinstate the barges on the lower section below the rapids.”

  “You’ll get some cargoes. My wines alone-”

  “Your wines will likely save us, Gethen. For that I am grateful.”

  “I’ve been tired of seeing the Suthyans eat up the profits with their port charges.” Gethen kicks the rotten wood of the pier, and a chunk flies out into the dark water of the harbor.

  “We’ll need some charges, or we won’t have a port,” cautions Sillek. “We’ve got some hungry people here who are going to be very unhappy. And then there’s Ildyrom.”

  “He hasn’t moved on Clynya.”

  “No, but that ties up more armsmen and a wizard. I really can’t afford another campaign this year. That’s why that business with Karthanos bothers me. I could care less about the middle of the Westhorns. The land doesn’t feed my people, and there aren’t any precious metals there. But because a bunch of women took it over, it’s going to create a real problem with a lot of the traditional holders.” Sillek takes another few steps seaward, testing the planks underfoot. One creaks and bends under his weight. He shakes his head. “When you solve one problem, you get two more.”

  “You’re right about the Roof of the World.” Gethen laughs. “That’s why I’m glad you’re the lord, and I’m not.”

  “Well… if anything happens to me, you’ll inherit the mess. So don’t laugh too hard.”

  “Me?” Gethen’s amazement is unfeigned.

  “Who else? The holders wouldn’t accept my mother as regent, for which I am grateful, or Zeldyan, for which I am not. So I’ve named you as head of the regency council, with Zeldyan and Fornal as the other two counselors. You’re respected, and your blood runs in Nesslek. Besides, you don’t want the job-not that I hope you ever get it, you understand.” Sillek’s voice turns dry with his last words.

  Both men laugh.

  Behind them the torches flicker in the wind, and before them the faint phosphorescence of the waves outlines the distant breakwaters.

  C

  THE STOCKY CLOAKED figure climbs the outside stairs to Hissl’s quarters and waits outside the door, silhouetted against the late twilight horizon of summer.

  Hissl opens the door.

  “I have come to see how things are going,” says the cloaked armsman.

  “Matters are not so simple as the great hunter would think,” snaps Hissl, motioning the other into his rooms, but leaving the door ajar. “If I leave here while Lord Ildyrom remains a threat, no amount of success on the Roof of the World will leave my head attached to my body, unless I stay on the Roof of the World.” The wizard glares at the armsman. “How did you like winter on the Roof of the World?”

  “I am not a wizard, ser,” answers the armsman.

  “I am not a devil
angel, either, raised in the cold of Heaven and suckled on teats of ice.”

  “How soon can you gather what you promised?”

  “Lord Sillek is still in Rulyarth, and may well be there until close to the end of summer”

  “The end of summer?”

  “The great hunter wishes a reward. The reward must.come from Lord Sillek. If we offend him…” Hissl shrugs. “So we must wait, until I can be relieved, for when he returns, I can certainly request relief for a time after a year in this hole. Wizards are not that easy to come by.”

  “If your good lord does not wish to relieve you?”

  “Then I can leave my position-but I would leave in good enough humor to claim His Lordship’s reward. Not so if I deserted, especially not when he is waging war, such as it is, against the Suthyans.” Hissl smiles sardonically.

  “Can you get armsmen that late in the year?”

  “I have the coin. With coin, I can obtain twoscore of armsmen, maybe more if the harvest is poor.” Hissl looks toward the window and the darkening courtyard below. “Come back when you hear that Lord Sillek is returning.”

  “I will be back.” The armsman bows and slips out the door.

  Hissl’s eyes turn to the blank glass. He smiles.

  CI

  As THE SUN neared the western peaks, Nylan eased the blade he had labored over for more than a day into the quench, watching the color intently, noting the flickering effect created by the wavelike patterns of the hard-forged intertwinings of alloy and steel. When the purplish shade crossed the edge he eased the weapon out of the liquid and onto the bricks to cool in the gentle and dying heat from the forge.

  The slightly curved blade, similar to but subtly different from the laser-forged blades, carried order and strength without as much of a black sheen to the metal.

  “Another good one,” offered Huldran.

  “Tomorrow, you can start one.”

  “Me? It won’t be near as good as yours.”