Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(42)

"On the Roof of the World? One winter and they'll be dead or ready to leave."

"I don't know about that." Hissl touches his left cheek with his forefinger, and he frowns. "We were wearing jackets and cloaks. The wind was cold. It was still just beyond spring up there. They were in thin clothes, and they were sweating-all of them."

"We will see." Terek pulls at his chin again. "We will see."

"Yes. That is true." Hissl frowns ever so slightly, then smiles.





XXIII



THE GREEN THAT had sprouted from the hand-furrowed rows of two of the fields rose knee-high in places, waist-high in others, depending on the plants. The potatoes had been planted in evenly spaced hillocks, but the green-leaved plants nearly covered all the open ground of the third field, except along the diagonal line where the water from the storm eight-days earlier had created a trench, since filled in. Behind the fields, the landers squatted, droplets of dew beading and then streaking the metal. Well beyond them were the large cairn and the seven others, including the latest one for Desinada. Already, dark blue flowers grew from between the cairn stones to mix with the red blood-flowers that were fading as the summer passed.

Nylan turned to the west, where, in the dawn, the fog seemed to rise off the squared structure of black stone that dominated the area above the field. The final upper sill of the wall stones stood more than ten times the height of a woman. Rising out of the middle of the tower was a square construction of mortared stones, and at the central point about half the rafters for the roof were connected. The remaining rafters were lined up in the stone working yard below the tower.

Nylan stood in the dawn and studied the south-facing opening that would be the doorway. While the heavy pins had been set in the stone lintels, the door had yet to be built, as did the causeway to it.

His eyes flicked from the tower base up the black stones. No great work of art, but it would be big enough and strong enough to do what would be necessary, unless the locals decided to drag siege engines through the mountains, or spent seasons building them and supporting the builders with an army. Neither seemed likely. Then, he reflected, nothing about the planet was terribly likely.

At the sense, rather than the sound, of someone approaching, he turned toward the landers.

"You don't sleep much, do you?" Ryba stopped several paces short of him.

"Neither do you, apparently."

"Burdens of leadership, curse of foresight . . ." Ryba cleared her throat, then turned toward the tower.

His eyes followed hers. "Still a lot to do. Sometimes, more than sometimes, I wonder what else I've forgotten."

Her hand touched his shoulder. "It's beautiful ... the tower, and I can see, you know, that it will last for generations. Maybe longer."

"You can see that?"

Ryba shrugged, almost sadly. "Some things I can see. Like the women who will climb the rocks searching for Westwind, for hope, for a different life. Like the men who will chase them, not understanding."

"Westwind?"

"I thought it was a good name. And that's what it will be called." Her laugh was almost harsh. "So we might as well start now."

Nylan turned to her. "You're seeing all this?"

"Nylan ... you can bend metal and power, and Ayrlyn can touch souls with her songs, and her touch heals small injuries-and Saryn-she glitters when her hands touch the waters or a blade. Why shouldn't I, who rode the greatest neuronets of all, why shouldn't I have a power beyond the blades?"

"Foresight?" he whispered.

"At times ... yes ... It's only occasional... now ... but I wonder..." She shook her head. "You think it's easy to kill one of your own, to be as hard as the stones in your tower? To see what might be, if only you're strong enough .. . ? To know that everyone will die if you're not..."

His hands touched hers, and found that her hands and fingers were cold, trembling, for all that he had to raise his eyes to meet hers.





XXIV



"THUS CONTINUED THE conflict between order and chaos, between those who would force order and those who would not, and between those who followed the blade and those who followed the spirit.



"On the Roof of the World, those first angels raised crops amid the eternal ice, and builded walls, and made bricks, and all manner of devisings of the most miraculous, from the black blades that never dulled to the water that flowed amidst the ice of winter and the tower that remained yet warm from a single fire.



"Of the great ones in those times were, first, Ryba of the twin blades, Nylan of the forge of order, Gerlich the hunter, Saryn the mighty, and Ayrlyn of the songs that forged the guards of Westwind ...



"For as the skilled and terrible smith Nylan forged the terrible black blades of Westwind, and wrenched the very stones from the mountains for the tower called Black, so did Ryba guide the guards of Westwind, letting no man triumph upon the Roof of the World.



"For as each lord of the demons said, 'I will not suffer those angel women to survive,' and as each angel fell, Ryba created yet another from those who fled the demons, until there were none that could stand against Tower Black.



". . . and so it came to pass that Ryba was the last of the angels to rule the heavens and the angel who set forth the Legend for all to heed . . ."