L. Modesitt - Fall of Angels

“I couldn’t see or feel anything,” said Weindre.

“No,” added Huldran.

“There’s a sort of darkness around you,” said Ayrlyn, “and that darkness seems to focus the whiteness-it has a hint of an ugly red-of the laser.”

Nylan nodded. “That feels right. Do you want to try it?”

“No!” Ayrlyn’s mouth dropped open after her involuntary denial. “I … I don’t quite know why I said that.”

“Something in you feels rather strongly. Do you have any idea why?”

“The white of the laser. It feels wrong … really wrong … disordered … ugly.” Ayrlyn shuddered.

“I couldn’t see anything like that,” said Huldran, “but I watched the power meter, and you’re using a little less than half what’s normal, except for the first few instances. It seems to be cutting better than I ever saw.”

“What is this place, anyway?” asked Weindre.

“Who knows? A different universe, maybe, where the laws of nature, physics, are different. Not a lot different, or we wouldn’t be surviving, but different.” Nylan picked up the laser again. “And if we don’t get enough stone for the tower, we won’t be surviving.” He disliked his own tone, perhaps because it reminded him of Ryba’s attitude. What was happening to him? He was seeing patterns and neuronets that couldn’t be and getting ever more critical of Ryba. And yet he worried about sounding like her.

“You’ll have to take it slowly,” insisted Ayrlyn.

“Unless you can find someone else who can do it,” pointed out Huldran.

“Why don’t I see if I can rotate some of the marines up here, just to see if anyone can do it-or even sense what you’re doing?” asked Ayrlyn.

“Fine. But there’s only so much power here.”

“I’ll send them,” said Ayrlyn firmly. “Take your time.”

“Yes, mother fowl.”

“Cluck, cluck …”

Nylan grinned and readjusted the goggles. “Ready?”

“Yes, ser.”

He lifted the powerhead again.

“HOW DID PEOPLE come here?” asked Ayrlyn, moving back from the heat of the cook fire.

“The old ones?” Narliat edged toward the heat and half turned to face the redhead. “The old ones came a long time ago.”

In the growing late twilight of early summer, Nylan sat behind the two, concentrating on Narliat’s speech and trying to catch the meanings of the slurred and modified Rationalist words.

“ … like you strangers, they came from the skies … not in tents of iron, but upon the backs of iron birds …” Narliat gestured with the healing hand, and the missing thumb and forefinger did not seem to hamper him as much as the stillsplinted broken leg.

“Were there people already here?” asked the comm officer.

“There were the druids, the people of the Great Forest, and many others … especially those in other lands beyond Candar-”

“Candar?” asked Nylan.

“Ah, the wizard, he does speak.” Narliat turned to the engineer. “Candar-that is all the lands that are surrounded by the oceans here, the lands of Gallos and Lornth, and Jerans, and Naclos, and Lydiar in the east.”

“Candar is the name of the continent,” said Ayrlyn.

“It is Candar, not continent,” explained Narliat. “Candar is where the old ones landed … the old tales claim that the mighty iron birds took all of the plains of Analeria to land. That is how big they were, and their wings shadowed whole towns …”

“Analeria is the high plains region east of these mountains,” added Ayrlyn, brushing flame hair from her eyes, still acting as a comm officer.

“ … and the old ones were glad, for they had fled from the awesome ice lances of the angels of Heaven. The wizards, the white ones, they say that you are fallen from the angels of Heaven. Is that true?”

“We’ve certainly fallen,” quipped Nylan, slowly, in what he recalled from his service indoctrination in Rationalist dialect, “but-”

“So they were right!” Narliat’s eyes widened. “You are angels. Do you freeze everyone to death who opposes you? Are you going to freeze me?”

“No,” said Ayrlyn and Nylan, nearly simultaneously.

“What does our friend have to say?” Ryba, both blades on her hips, looked down at the three.

“He was telling us about the old legends. Sit down. If you can follow tangled Old Rat, you might find it interesting,” suggested Ayrlyn.

Ryba eased herself onto a cut-off tree-trunk section that served as a seat. The remainder of the tree had been laboriously cut into a handful of planks with the single collapsible grip saw.

“She is the cherubim-or a seraphim. Truly, she was terrible,” stammered the local armsman.

“Terrible?” murmured Ryba. “How delightful.”

Nylan frowned, but only cleared his throat.

“You were telling us about the old ones,” prompted Ayrlyn, “how they came to the high plains of Analeria on the backs of the great birds …”

“Those birds, they had feathers whiter than snow, and the tips of those feathers were like mirrors, and they even turned back the sun … and the old ones brought with them the knowledge of metals, and of the cold iron that turns back the fires of chaos …” Narliat paused and looked up at Ryba.

Nylan followed the local’s glance, trying to picture the captain as Narliat saw her-an angular face, with a regular but sharp nose and high cheekbones, pale clear skin that tanned only slightly, dominating and penetrating green eyes, broad-shouldered and muscular without being overly stocky, and short hair that had become so dark that it seemed to swallow light. In fact, she looked like an avenging angel.

“The fires of chaos?” asked Ayrlyn. “What can you tell us about the fires of chaos?”

“No wizard am I,” declared Narliat, and his eyes went to Nylan, then back to Ayrlyn. “Those who are wizards control the fires of chaos.”

“Like the man in white?” suggested Nylan.

“Hissl? Yes, he is … he was one of Lord Nessil’s three wizards.”

“He still is,” added Nylan. “He escaped. Hissl did, I mean. What about this Nessil?”

“Lord Nessil-your seraphim killed him with the iron lightning she flung through him.” Narliat coughed. “He was the lord of Lornth, and Lornth claims the Roof of the World.”

“Not anymore,” said Ryba.

Nylan’s eyes looked down toward the cook fire where various small rodents had been spitted and were being turned. The horse meat from the animals killed in the attack had been tastier than the rodents, but not much. A lot of the meat had been wasted, because they’d had no way to preserve it. Ryba hadn’t been pleased with that, Nylan reflected, not at all. Then, some days, she didn’t seem pleased about much. That hadn’t changed much, though, not from when she’d had a sound ship under her.

On the far side of the fire, Gerlich leaned close to a lithe marine-Selitra. The former weapons officer, who had taken to wearing Lord Nessil’s hand-and-a-half blade, said something, and they both laughed, but Selitra glanced sideways at Ryba, who remained concentrating on Narliat.

Charred and fire-roasted rodents, mixed with the vanishing ship concentrates, were scarcely Nylan’s idea of a good meal. Ayrlyn had found some roots that resembled-or were-wild onions, but without cook pots, their culinary value was minimal.

“ … the lords of Lornth came out of the Westhorns here, many, many years ago, almost as long ago as when the old ones came in from the skies on their mighty birds with feathers like mirrors …”

“Are there any traders that cross these mountains?” interrupted Nylan.

“Traders?” asked Fierral from behind Nylan.

“We’ve got some local coin now, and some jewelry, and a bunch of blades. We could buy a few things-like sledges or wedges, cook pots. Most traders don’t care about politics.” Nylan cleared his throat. “Maybe other things.”