Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(137)

"Just a moment." The wizard composes himself and steps forward, his fingers on the hilt of the white-bronze dagger at his belt.

A hooded figure stands at the outside door to Hissl's room and bows. "Have you thought about the keys to your wishes?"

"The keys to my wishes? How would you presume?"

"You are tired of being thought of as the second wizard, as a tool to be used and left aside. You would like position and power in your own right." The hooded figure remains on the landing.

"Stay there." Hissl takes two steps back, still watching his visitor, then circles behind the table with the glass. He looks from the hooded figure to the glass, then concentrates.

Slowly, a shape appears in the swirling mists, the figure of an armsman in brown leathers with a purple sash across the thin breastplate. Behind the figure is a black stone tower.

Hissl does not wipe his sweating brow as he releases his hold upon the glass.

"You are an armsman, but you come from the black tower of the devil angels. I could kill you." He pauses. "I should kill you."

The armsman takes one step into the room and stops. He extends his right hand, missing the index finger and thumb, but does not throw back the hood, for all that his features had just appeared in the screeing glass. "The angels took those from me. I cannot return to Lornth or my family. I offer you the chance for power and position."

"How can you offer me power and position? You have nothing." Hissl laughs. "And you have returned to the lands of Lornth, if not Lornth itself."

"My ... patron would like to see Westwind fall."

"Westwind?"

"That is what the evil angels call their tower and the lands they stole from the Lord of Lornth."

"If your patron is so powerful, why does he not take this . . . Westwind himself?"

The armsman shrugs. "Lord Nessil could not, not with threescore armsmen. You and the great hunter could, knowing what he knows and what you know, and what I know."

"And what is that?"

"He will have to tell you that."

"I am supposed to take that on faith? Ha!" Hissl laughs again.

"Here is another token." Slowly, the armsman extends an object, bending forward and setting it on the table beside the glass.

Hissl looks at the thunder-thrower, smaller than he had realized. "Why would I need that?"

"So you will not take the hunter on faith."

Hissl licks his lips as he regards the metal object that radiates both chaos and order. Finally, he says, "What does the hunter want?"

"To meet with you. To plan the conquest of Westwind."

"Ha! Young Relyn of Gethen had nearly twoscore armsmen, and he failed. So did Lord Nessil. You, your hunter, and I are supposed to succeed when they did not?"

"I was bid to tell you that more than a third of the angels who faced Lord Nessil are dead. Four are with child or have a babe, and only one thunder-thrower still works. Many of the angels are unhappy with the highest angel, and the black mage has lost much of his magic."

Hissl shrugs. "If your... patron is so eager to see me ... why, have him come to Clynya."

The hooded figure nods. "He said you would bid me so. Before long, he will come."

"I would like to see him." Hissl forces a smile. "That I would."





LXXXIV



"I'LL TAKE HER." In the darkness, Nylan slipped out of his side of the bed, his former lander couch, and picked up Dyliess. "She can't be hungry. You just fed the little pig."

He checked her makeshift diaper-too much remained makeshift within Tower Black-but she was dry. Nylan eased into the rocking chair. "Now ... now... little one..."

Despite his gentle singing, Dyliess's moans changed into a full-fledged crying.

Ryba sat up. "I'm tired, but not enough to sleep through that."

The engineer kept rocking, kept singing. Ryba flopped back on one side and rubbed her forehead. Outside the tower, the night wind whispered, its gentle hissing lost behind the cries and songs in the tower.

Dyliess continued to cry for a time. Then her cries dropped off to moans, and the moans to sniffles. Finally, she gave a last snuffle. Nylan continued to rock, and the wind whispered through the cracks in the shutters.

"I can't sleep, now," said Ryba, just above a whisper. "And I have a headache."

Nylan refrained from saying that he had several, and instead patted Dyliess on the back and stood, walking back and forth between the partly open armaglass window and the cradle. Finally sensing she was asleep, he eased Dyliess into the cradle, then immediately knelt and patted her back with one hand while rocking the cradle with the other.

Dyliess took three noisy breaths and settled back to sleep, but Nylan eased off the rocking slowly. After a time, he stopped and returned to his side of the bed, where he sat on the edge, eyes closed, and rubbed his temples with the fingers of his right hand.

"We haven't talked about children," Ryba said quietly into the darkness.

"What about them?"

"You never answered my question. You're being difficult."

"Probably."

"Do you want everything we represent lost?"

Nylan took a deep breath. "I don't know. It seems as though, so long as I build towers, and bridges, and bathhouses, and smithies, everything is fine, but when I say... oh... never mind... I can't explain how I feel."