Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(79)

Nylan nodded. "With most things, it's technique."

"The bows may save a lot more lives than the blades, ser. Ours, anyway, and that's what we're worried about." She paused, then flicked the reins. "We need to take care of these."

Nylan offered her a vague salute, watched as she turned her mount, then lowered the goggles.

The energy flows tumbled through the powerhead like green rapids, and Nylan felt he was using all his energy just to smooth them, and it took even more to begin to shape the rough metal bow frame around the composite.

Once more, his face was a river of sweat as he struggled with the laser and the shaping. And once more, he was drained, arms lined with internal fire and legs shaking, by the time he finished the bow and quenched it.

The powerhead was failing, yet, after what Istril had told him, the bows might be the most important thing he could make before the laser system collapsed. So he rested on the cracked stone he used as a seat, trying to catch his breath and regain his strength before beginning the next bow.

"So ... the mage is working hard." Relyn ambled into the north tower yard. He carried Nylan's creation in his left hand.

"The mage always works hard." Nylan wiped his damp forehead.

"You sweat like a pig. Yet I see no weapons, no hammers, no hot coals."

"This is harder than that."

"What? You work the fires of the angels' hell?"

Nylan stood and walked toward the firin cell bank and the laser wand. "Watch. Then you can decide."

Relyn's lips tightened, but he said nothing as Nylan lowered the goggles. The engineer inserted the composite strip in the groove of the bow frame, then picked up both with the tongs and the laser wand with his right hand.

Again, the greenish light flickered, and Nylan wrestled with the fluctuating power levels as he molded metal around composite. Sweat streamed into and around his goggles. His arms and eyes burned, and his legs felt rubbery even before he quenched the bow and set it aside.

He pushed back the goggles and blotted his face dry, but his eyes still burned from strain and the salt of his sweat. His tattered uniform was soaked. For a few moments, he just sat there, doubting whether the powerhead would last through another bow.

"Worse than the fires of the angels' hell," Relyn finally offered.

The words startled Nylan since, with all the concentration required, he had forgotten that the young noble had been watching.

"It's hard, but I wouldn't know about the angels' hell. I've only seen the white mirror towers of the demons."

"You look like men and women, but you are not." Relyn shook his head. "You bend the order force around chaos and form metal like a smith, and the fire you use is hotter than a smith's. Yet all the other angels say none but you can wield that green flame."

"I won't be able to do that much longer. The flamemaker is failing," Nylan conceded.

"That is why you work so hard?"

The engineer nodded.

Finally, Relyn bowed his head. "I have not been gracious, or noble. This ... it is a work of art, and you were generous to create it for me, especially when you have so little of the flame left. And you put some of your soul in it. That I can see. I will use it, as I can, but I would not wear it after my last words when we ate-or yours."

Nylan understood that the statement was as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get, and that the words had cost the younger man a great deal.

"It is yours to use." Nylan paused. "I only ask that you use it for good, not evil."

Relyn lifted his eyes. "You.have not.. ."

"No. I would not compel," Nylan said, mentally adding, Even if I knew how, which I don't. "The choice is yours. I don't believe in forcing choices. People resent that, and their resentment colors their actions and their decisions."

Relyn studied the smooth metal. "Now ... I must think."

"About what?"

The younger man gave Nylan a crooked smile. "About what I have seen and what I must do."

"I wouldn't stay here," Nylan said bluntly.

"But you do."

"That's true, but I'm an angel. You aren't." As he spoke, Nylan found himself thinking that he was only half angel, assuming pure Sybran equated to pure angel.

"Even angels have choices, Mage." Relyn lifted his remaining hand, then turned and walked uphill toward the ridge.

"What was that about?" Nylan asked himself, walking back to the bucket by the wall. He drank and splashed his face before returning to the last bow.

He shouldn't have worried about the last bow. The entire powerhead fused solid when he triggered the power. He looked at the day's work-five bows. Seventeen bows in all. Not enough, but better than none.

He began disassembling the laser, and he had returned all the components, useless or not, to the tower, all except the bank of firin cells and the five bows, when Ryba rode down from the ridge and reined up.

"Both the cutting heads for the laser are shot," Nylan explained. "They're totally fused."

"What were you doing?"

"It doesn't matter. The total cumulative flow was the issue. The heads are only made to last so long. I got five more bows done."

"That's almost enough. Can you modify the weapons head?" asked Ryba, almost idly, leaning forward on the roan, her fingers touching the staff of the composite bow Nylan had given her-one of his better efforts.