L. Modesitt - Fall of Angels

“No, sher.”

“‘Ser’ will do, thank you. The term applies to honored warriors.” Ryba turned away from the two at the corner of the hearth. “A good rendition, Ayrlyn. Very good.”

Ayrlyn bowed and walked toward the shadows that shrouded the stairs.

Relyn glanced toward Ryba’s pale and impassive face and whispered to Narliat. “She is truly more dangerous than Lord Sillek.”

Far more dangerous, Nylan felt, for Ryba had a vision, and that vision just might change the entire planet-or more. Sillek and the others had no idea what they faced.

The engineer’s sense of reason wanted to deny his feelings. Logic said that a mere twenty-plus marines and an engineer could not change history, but he could feel a cold wind every time he thought of the words Ayrlyn had composed, as though they echoed down the years ahead.

IN THE NORTH tower yard, Nylan glanced from the armaglass panels up at the sky, where gray clouds twisted in and out and back upon each other as they churned their way southward, bringing moisture from the northern ocean.

Behind him Huldran and Cessya ground more lavastone for the mortar needed to finish the southern wall of the bathhouseand the archway in its center that would lead to the north tower door. As the powder rose into the air, the intermittent cold breeze blew some of the fine dust toward the engineer.

Kkkche w w w!!! He rubbed his hose and looked at the two marines, working in their threadbare and tattered uniforms. Then he checked the connections on the power cables, and the power levels on the scrambled bank of firin cells he was using-twenty-four percent.

He lowered the goggles over his eyes.

Baaa … aaaa … The sound of the sheep drifted around the tower. Nylan hoped someone knew something about sheep, because he didn’t. They gave wool, but how did one shear it? Or turn the fleece into thread or wool or whatever got woven into cloth? There was something about stripping the oil from the wool, too. Saryn or Gerlich probably could slaughter them and dress them, but how many did they want to kill-if any? And when?

What about the chickens? Kadran had them up in a narrow cut Nylan had made above the stables-a makeshift chicken coop. Would it be warm enough in the winter, or should they be in with the sheep or horses? Who would know? He couldn’t attempt to resolve every problem, but he hoped someone else could figure out the sheep and the chickens.

He forced his thoughts back to the job at hand-cutting the armaglass to fit the window frames that Saryn and Ayrlyn had made.

Nylan studied the chalked lines on the scarred and oncetransparent panels from the landers. If he cut carefully, and if his measurements were correct, he might have enough glass for eight windows-four for the great hall and the rest for the living quarters-one or two on each floor where people slept. In the coming winter, the tower would still be dark-they had no lamps and only the few candles.

His eyes flicked in the general direction of the second large cairn-and the eleven individual cairns. How could Ryba promise that Westwind would change history whentwo seasons had reduced their numbers by more than a third? Children? But how many?

“Stop it!” he told himself, lifting the powerhead.

Cessya and Huldran glanced up, and Nylan looked down at the armaglass, forcing himself to take a deep breath and concentrate on the cutting ahead.

He triggered the energy flow to the powerhead, and began his efforts to narrow the laser’s focus even more. Unlike his efforts with stone or metal, the armaglass sliced quickly and easily, and Nylan soon looked on eight evenly sized pieces, each ready to fit into a frame.

After clicking off the power, he checked the cell-bank energy level-barely down at all. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at the armaglass sections, then pushed back the goggles and walked over to the frames. Each frame was complete, except for the top bar, so that the armaglass could be slipped into the grooves.

Still wearing the gauntlets, Nylan picked up a section and eased it into the frame. It stuck halfway down, but with some tugging and wiggling, he managed to push the glass all the way into the frame. Saryn and Ayrlyn could assemble and install the rest of the windows. Another problem resolved.

Then he looked back at the laser. Because he had used so little energy, he might even have some power to use for Gerlich’s project, not that Gerlich had asked Nylan directly, beyond complaining about underpowered bows.

Nylan removed the fraying gauntlets and wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm. Cool breezes or not, using the laser left him hot and sweaty. After a swallow of water, he looked at the two smaller braces on the stone, along with the two long rods of composite beside them, then at the sketch that Saryn had drawn from memory.

Nylan studied the pair of braces once more, then pulled on the gauntlets and eased the goggles in place. The lenses were so scratched that he relied on his senses more than on his sight. All the equipment from the Winterlance was falling apart, overstrained and stressed from usage far heavier thanever planned for by Heaven’s shipbuilders and the angels’ suppliers.

Finally, he triggered the power to the laser. The composite sliced easily, and he quickly had the rough form he needed. Then he set that aside and began shaping the brace toward the ideal shape that Saryn had suggested.

The first long, slow pass with the laser left him with the metal too heavily bunched near the grip. After three passes, with the sweat streaming down his face and around his goggles, he had the shape he needed, leaving an open groove down what he thought of as the spine of the metal.

He cut the power flow and set the laser wand aside gently, removing the goggles and gauntlets and sitting on a building stone. There he wiped and blotted his face.

In the meadow to the east, the grass was browning more each day. The leaves of local deciduous trees, even those that seemed like oaks and had acorns, did not change color much. Half the leaves seemed to turn to a light gray and shrivel into almost thin strips clinging to the branches, while the other half dropped off. Why? He didn’t know and might never.

“Ser?” asked Huldran as she carried a stone past him and toward the slowly rising southern wall. “What’s that?”

“A bow … maybe.”

“You’ll get it right.”

Nylan wasn’t sure about that, but he put the goggles back on, and then pulled his hands into the gauntlets. After measuring the composite rod, he triggered the laser, trimmed the rod more, and then started to mold the metal around the rod.

EEEssssssTTT! The would-be bow exploded into burning sparkles, and Nylan threw it into a stone-walled corner. He backed away quickly and set down the wand as quickly as he could so that he could beat out the smoldering fabric on his upper arm. As he did, he thanked the high command for insisting on flame-retardant uniforms.

He took off the goggles and studied the ragged and now burned and holed right sleeve. A section of his biceps was faintly reddened, but he could feel just warmth, not the pain of a burn.

With that, he watched as his protobow collapsed into a puddled mass of metal and melted composite. What had happened? He knew iron-based alloys could burn, but the laser hadn’t been that hot.

He glanced upward. Overhead, the gray clouds continued to twist back and forth on each other, but not even a sprinkle had fallen on the Roof of the World, let alone lightning.

On the other side of the tower, a procession of marines conveyed the last of everything remotely usable from the landers into the tower. Another group was systematically finishing the stripping of the lander shells and storing what could be used for future building or raw materials in the first lander, which had been dragged up next to the bathhouse wall. The second lander shell was at the foot of the narrow canyon where Nylan had quarried his stone, partly filled with cut and dried grasses for winter feed for the horses. Drying racks, made of evergreen limbs, ranged across the spaces below the ridge rocks.