Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(56)

Only the shutters on the second and third levels were finished, the results of Saryn's and Ayrlyn's handicrafts, and there were no internal doors. Rags had been pieced together to curtain off the two jakes and provide some privacy. Nylan hoped that they could finish the bathhouse and additional jakes facilities before too long-not to mention the shutters.

As he moved slightly, Ryba's eyelids fluttered, and she moaned. He waited, but she did not open her eyes. So Nylan slowly shifted his weight more in order to look out through the casement. A trace of white rime frosted the outer edge of the window ledge, but the whiteness seemed to vanish as the first direct rays from the sun touched the dark stone. The hint of wood smoke drifted in the window, blown down from the chimney momentarily.

Over the crude rack in the corner hung their clothes, including the ship jackets that probably would not be heavy enough for the winter ahead.

Nylan's eyes shifted back to Ryba's face, to the curly jet-black hair cut so short and the pale clear skin, to the thin lips and the high cheekbones. Her eyelids fluttered again, and she groaned.

"Not yet... not yet," she murmured.

Nylan waited, almost holding his breath.

"No..."

He reached out and touched the cool bare shoulder. "It's all right. It's all right."

Ryba shook her head and moistened her lips, but her eyes did not open for a moment. Then she shitted her weight on the lander couch and looked directly at the engineer. "No it's not. I was dying, and I won't finish everything that needs to be done for Westwind, or for Dyliess."

"It was just a dream ..." Nylan paused. "It was a dream, wasn't it?"

Ryba shook her head again, and squinted as she sat up. Then she swung her feet off the couch, letting the blanket fall away from her naked figure, until it covered only her waist and upper thighs. Her back to Nylan, she faced the open window, looking out toward the northern peaks that showed a light dusting of snow from the night before. The faintest touch of yellow and brown tinged the bushes and meadow grasses.

"It wasn't a dream. It was real. My hair was gray, and I was lying here, except I was in a big wooden bed, and there was glass in the windows, and people in gray leathers were standing around me." Ryba shivered and then stood, padding to the clothes rack, where she pulled on her undergarments and then the brown leather trousers and an old shirt-both plunder.

"If your hair had become gray, that had to be a long time from now." He stood and stretched.

"Nylan ... I wasn't finished, and it hurt that I didn't finish."

"Ryba," Nylan offered gently, "no one who really cares about anything is ever finished with life. And you care a lot." He forced a smile, then began to dress himself.

Ryba finished with the bone buttons of the trousers and then buttoned the shirt. "You're probably right, but it was real ... too real."

"Another one of your senses of what will happen?"

She nodded. "They come at odd times, but some have already happened."

"Oh?" He hadn't heard that part.

"Little things, or not so little. I saw your tower almost from the beginning-and I know what the bathhouse will look like." She sat back on the joined lander couches that served as their bed and pulled on her boots.

"Who is Dyliess?"

"Our daughter. I'm pregnant, and she'll be born in the spring, just before the passes melt."

Nylan's mouth dropped open. "You ... never .. ."

"She'll be a good daughter, and don't you forget that, Engineer." Ryba smiled. "I wanted the timing right. You can't do that much in the winter here, and next summer . .. we'll have a lot of problems when people realize we're here to stay. They think the winter will finish us, but it won't."

"Promise?" he asked.

"I can promise that, at least so long as you keep building." She stood in the open doorway at the top of the steps. "I want things to be right for Dyliess, and they will be."

"A daughter ... you're sure?"

"You wanted a son?"

"I never thought-one way or another." He shook his head, still at a loss, still amazed.

"You'll have a son. I'll promise that, too." Her voice turned soft, almost sad.

"You don't. . ."

"I know what to promise, Nylan. I do." Her eyes met his, and they were deep and chill, filled with pain. "There's no time to be melancholy, Engineer."

The forced cheer in her voice contradicted her calm and pale face. As they looked at each other, Nylan could hear the hum of voices from below, and the smell of something cooking, although he wasn't sure he was in any hurry to find out what Kyseen had improvised for breakfast.

"We do our best, Nylan, in spite of what may be."

"May be or will be? Can these visions of yours be changed?" Nylan sat down on the couch-bed and reached for his shipboots, his eyes still on her.

Ryba shrugged. "Maybe I only see what can't be changed. Maybe it can be. I don't know, because this is something new."

"All of this is something new." Nylan pulled on his ship-boots, getting so worn that he could feel stones through them.

"You need new boots. You ought to check the spares. We've only got about twenty pair left over."