LE Modesitt Recluce 06 Fall of Angels (v1.5)

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do what I can, everything that I can think Of, as well as I can.
I know, Nylan. You work like two people. You ve done things I don t think
are possible, and Westwind wouldn t be without you. But a place isn t a
community without traditions, values, that sort of thing, holding it together.
That s why we need your tower, Ayrlyn s songs-
And your ability to teach and create military strength?
Ryba nodded. It s going to be tough.
It s already hard.
It s going to get harder, she predicted, looking out at the cold shape of
Freyja. A lot harder.
In the end, they lay skin to skin, and, after a time, Ryba was passionate,
demanding, and warm. Predictably, before they had even relaxed, she had to get
up.
You just went, he protested sleepily.
There are some things, especially now, where I don t control the timing.
She pulled her gown down and padded down the stone steps.
Fighting exhaustion and sleep, Nylan tried to analyze the subtle wrongness
behind her words& but nothing made sense.
Before either solutions or sleep reached him, Ryba padded back up the steps
and slipped into the couch. Her cool hand stroked his forehead for a moment.
You re a good man, Nylan. No matter what happens, remember that. She
squeezed his shoulder.
He squeezed her hand in return and murmured, Know you try your best, for
everyone.
She shuddered, and let him hold her, but she would not turn to him as she
sobbed silently.
XLIII
IN THE NORTH yard outside the bathhouse, Nylan picked up the hammer and
chisel. Behind him, on the roof, Denalle and Huldran spiked roof tiles onto
the cross-stringers mortised into the main timbers to provide a flat surface.
Overhead, the clouds were white and puffy, like summer clouds, but the
chill in the late autumn wind belied that. To the west, the clouds seemed
evenly spaced, and Nylan hoped that they would stay that way. His eyes dropped
to the pair on the roof-Cessya had ridden off with Ayrlyn.
& damned gourds, whatever they were, never ripened& bitter in the stew,
worse than that rancid bear meat&
Just keep complaining, Denalle, and I ll spike your hand right under the
next tile, snapped Huldran.
Potatoes are good& hope they last&
More spikes, Denalle.
Nylan let his eyes drop from the unfinished roof to the dark stone before
him that would be a water-conduit section.
And you cannot make a few channels in stone? Narliat had asked, at
Gerlich s prompting. And Ryba had just left Nylan hanging.
His choices were simple. Abandon the idea of showers. Finish the trough
pipes in wood, which would need continuous maintenance, or try low-tech
stone-cutting methods. In a low-tech culture, cleanliness was important for
health and survival, and if he didn t make it easy or halfway convenient,
cleanliness would go the way of the Winterlance. Besides, abandoning anything
would cause problems with Gerlich. He was coming to like the big man less and
less. Was that because he was coming to trust his feelings more? And Ryba-how
much was she deceiving him, just to ensure that Westwind would survive?
He moistened his lips. In some ways, it didn t matter. He was stuck
finishing the bathhouse the hard way. He took a deep breath and studied the
chunk of dark stone, letting his senses drop into the heavy mass, following
the lines of stress and fault. If he nudged that line& and boosted that& then,
just maybe, the stone would break&
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He brought the hammer down on the chisel. Clung! The impact shivered up his
left arm. There was a technique to chiseling stone, and he had no idea of what
it was. He raised the hammer again.
Clung! A flake of stone the size of his thumb flew from the chisel, but the
reverberation still numbed his arm. A dozen strokes later, he had learned a
better angle and not to grip the chisel so tightly. He also had only chipped
out a narrow groove in the stone.
The clouds had almost disappeared, leaving the sky a bright green-blue, but
the wind seemed stronger, and colder.
Even before he heard the hooves, Nylan could sense the approaching horses,
knowing that they were marines-and Ayrlyn. There was no sense of the white
disorderliness that seemed to accompany the arrival of locals.
The five horses, and the cart acquired from Skiodra and since rebuilt,
headed over the ridge and down the track to the tower. The clay remained damp
enough from the previous rain that there was no dust. Riding pillion behind
Istril was a woman in tattered leathers, with long brown hair. Another [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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