Modesitt,L.E. - Recluce 04 - The Chaos Balance

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The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Edited by David G. Hartwell

A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010

Tor® Books on the World Wide Web: http://www.tor.com

To Lara, and her mother

I

THE ANGELS OF darkness made the Roof of the World their home, and after deceiving the followers of

light who had eagerly welcomed them, they wielded the ancient and dreadful weapons of Heaven and

vanquished those who rejoiced in the light.

In those first dark years, there were none at first among the dark ones who could descend to

the lower lands and bear the heat, and the lords of mankind, their true daughters, and their

consorts rejoiced that this was so.

For the angels of temptation bore blades that slashed through armor and loosed arrowheads that

treated iron bucklers as if they were rotten wood, and they raised a mighty stronghold called

Westwind, anchored on Tower Black, that rivaled Freyja in power. And the followers of light, who

had ages earlier forsaken the powers of the heavens, relinquished the barren heights to the dark

angels and their evil powers.

The dark angels were women who made a mockery out of hearth and home, who reviled men and

laughed as they destroyed all the armies of the Westhorns sent against them, as they forced the

great lords to heap dust and ashes upon their own heads and to bend their knees and pay tribute,

and to stand helplessly as their daughters were tempted from their hearths and consorts.

Yet an even more deadly evil was to flow from the Roof of the World, and none knew it, from the

mighty Nylan, smith of the angels, he who builded the Tower Black, he who forged the blades of

night and the arrows of the storms....

Colors of White

(Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)

Preface

II

THE WIRY AND silver-haired man paused at the end of the causeway from Tower Black, his breath

white in the sunlit chill. His eyes lifted from the cleared stones that led from Tower Black- the

tower whose stones he had wrested from the mountains, the tower he had raised to shelter the angel

crew of the Winterlance.

Another dozen steps before him, the causeway melded into the metaled road. Beyond the road was

the expanse of softening snow that stretched in every direction-eastward to the kay - plus - deep

drop-off that overhung the high forest, and to the mountains that bordered Westwind on the south

and west. Softening or not, the snow was still well over Nylan's head just about everywhere and

twice that in spots. That depth explained the ski traces and trails that paralleled the road,

though many were just there as remnants of training exercises for the newer guards.

From the mountains to the south rose Freyja; that impossibly ice-needled peak that dominated

the Roof of the World, glittering through the cold green-blue skies.

Nylan, wearing only a light jacket over his smithing clothes, walked slowly out to the road,

nodding at the barely raised patterns in the snow to his right that marked the walls outlining the

outdoor weapons practice yard.

Beyond the practice yard the stones of the road rose slowly to the west, past the smithy he had

built, to the canyon that held the stables carved out of the stone of the mountainside itself. A

thin plume of white smoke rose from the forge chimney. To his left, the road ran eastward for a

hundred paces or so, then curved northward over the stone bridge that marked the channel for the

tower drains and outfalls. Beyond the bridge, the metaled road began to climb the slope to the top

of the ridge, and the watchtower.

Nylan shivered as his eyes traversed the snow-covered slope to the north, east of the road.

Beneath the melting snow lay the ashes that were all that remained of the armies of Gallos and

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Lornth-and of a third of the guards of Westwind. Once the snow melted, in the eight-days ahead, he

hoped that the spring grasses would cover that desolate grayness quickly.

From the east his eyes turned south, toward the hummocks where dark stones had begun to

protrude from beneath the snow. Three large cairns-and twenty-two individual cairns-bore witness

to the harshness of two years of struggle against the lords of Candar and the Roof of the World

itself.

Yet Tower Black held more than the nine survivors of the thirty-one from the Winterlance who

had made planetfall. More than two score filled the six levels of the black stone tower-most of

them women and refugees who had sought a new life on the Roof of the World. Of the seven ship's

officers, there remained four-Ryba, Nylan, Saryn, and Ayrlyn. Of the twenty-four elite marines,

five remained-Huldran, Llyselle, Istril, Siret, and Weindre.

Outside of Daryn, the blond young standard-bearer from Gallos who had been wounded on the north

side of the ridge and protected by Hryessa-no one wanted to cross the spitfire from Lornth-Nylan

was the only adult male remaining in Westwind, scarcely surprising given Ryba's distrust of most

men.

He began to walk uphill between the heaps of snow and ice that flanked the road toward the

smithy. Until an eight-day earlier, the road itself had been covered with that ice and snow,

packed into a thick crust, but with midday temperatures slightly above freezing, Saryn had had the

guards clear the sections near the tower, extending the cleared areas daily- as much to begin

physically conditioning the upper bodies of refugees as for the need to return the road to the

condition necessary for the timber carts that would begin to roll once the way to the high forests

below Westwind was clear.

The smith frowned as he turned off the road and crossed the packed snow, to the door of the

smithy. This winter there had been enough wood for the furnaces, and for hot water in the

bathhouse, unlike the first winter on the Roof of the World. They'd still had to slaughter some of

the sheep for lack of fodder, but only a few.

Nylan eased open the smithy door, closing it behind him, before he spoke to Huldran. "You were

up here early."

"It was noisy this morning. Dephnay was howling, and neither Siret nor Istril could quiet her.

So," the stocky blond guard beside the forge shrugged, "all three were awake. Yours, thank

darkness, don't howl. They just babble. But I don't sleep that well with babbling."

"I'm sorry, Huldran."

"It isn't your fault. Istril keeps telling me that, as if every guard doesn't know it."

"She didn't have-"

"Ser . . . you're not perfect and neither is the Marshal, but between the two of you, you've

saved us, and a lot of women on this forsaken planet. No one else could have designed and built

Tower Black."

Nylan reached for the leather apron.

"Not much left in the way of charcoal." The stocky Huldran fed another set of short logs to the

forge fire. "We're back to starting with wood coals."

"Saryn said the wood crews could do a charcoal burn early this spring. She's got enough

bodies."

"Warm bodies we've got," Huldran snorted. "Trained guards we don't, and two of the best are

Siret and Istril." She broke off.

"I know. I know." And Nylan did. Both the silver-haired guards had children less than a year

old, and both children were his-through Ryba's manipulation of the last residue of angel high-

technology. He tightened his lips. While he loved both Kyalynn and Weryl-and Dyliess, his daughter

by Ryba-having been an involuntary and ignorant stud still grated on his nerves.

Yet what could he do? He had to admit Ryba had been right about the cultures that surrounded

them, and angels weren't exactly welcomed anywhere. Nor did he feel right even thinking about

leaving his children, whether he'd been an involuntary stud or not.

Yet Ryba was getting harder and harder to take, and each day felt like a balancing act. Ryba,

former captain of the U.F.F. Winterlance, was now Marshal of Westwind, and undisputed ruler of

that chunk of the Westhorns known as the Roof of the World-a land so high and cold that very few

of the locals could survive more than short stretches outside in full winter. Then, Ryba and all

of the surviving ship's marines-now the guards of Westwind-were full-blooded Sybran, born to an

even colder heritage than the Roof of the World, unlike Nylan and Ayrlyn.

Nylan shook his head and removed his jacket, hanging it on one of the wooden pegs beside the

front double doors. Reminiscing and mentally complaining wouldn't forge blades-and Ryba wanted

more of the deadly weapons he had developed. For her all-too-accurate visions indicated that, in

the seasons and years ahead, scores of women would seek out the refuge that Westwind had become.

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Was that his destiny-armorer of the angels, forger of weapons of death and destruction? And

involuntary stud? So far he'd avoided repeating that-since the great battle-but he could feel the

pressure building.

The smith took the flat and crude shovel formed from lander alloys and eased the scarce

charcoal from the basket across the forge coals. He nodded to Huldran, and the blond guard pumped

the great bellows while Nylan took out his hammers and a strip of lander alloy-not that there was

much left, but he would use it while he could. Then he'd have to figure out another way to make

high-quality blades-if he could.

On the forge shelf rested a local blade-broken and melted around the edges from the devastation

Nylan had created by merging one dying weapons laser with the "order fields" of this unknown

world, so like and yet so unlike the powernets he had ridden as the engineer of the Winterlance.

More than a thousand such local blades were stacked, like cords of wood, behind the smithy. Some

were whole, some partly melted, and some broken.

A wry smile crossed the smith's lips. And a year ago he'd worried about metal stocks?

"Ready, ser?" asked Huldran.

"Ready as ever." He laid the alloy on the coals. From bitter experience he'd learned that, in

the initial stages of forging blades, the softer local iron had to be forge-welded into the alloy,

not the other way around.

By the time the midday chimes rang from the tower, they had managed to flatten the iron of the

local blade into the strip of alloy, flatten the mixed metals, fold them and flatten them once,

twice, and three times, then yet again. A dozen or more such fold-weld-flattenings, and Nylan

would have metal ready to forge into a blade itself. He knew that even more of the pattern-welding

would have been better, but time was short, and Ryba less than perfectly patient. In any case, the

later forge steps would go more quickly.

All winter long he and Huldran had forged blades, spurred on by Ryba's insistence that every

guard-every recruit- should have at least two of the shortswords that were equally deadly as

blades or missiles. All of the blades were essentially modified copies of the pair that Ryba had

brought down from the Winterlance-the Sybran nomad blades the Marshal and former captain of the

angel ship had carried and practiced with throughout her service career.

"I'll bank the coals, ser, not that we've much to bank."

"You up to starting one of your own this afternoon?"

"Why not?"

"Then dump some logs on the fire."

Huldran grinned. "You going to practice after you eat? That's dangerous."

"I'll be careful." Either Saryn or Istril or Siret would single him out. He and Ryba avoided

practicing skills against each other-there was too much resentment there for it to be safe for

either of them.

Nylan racked the hammers and checked the metal blank that would soon be another deadly

shortsword, then eased on his jacket before heading out of the smithy and down toward the tower.

A handful of newer guards, led by Murkassa, one of the first locals to seek out Westwind,

walked swiftly down from the canyon that held livestock and mounts, but they were several hundred

paces up the road from the smithy. The round-faced and brown-haired guard lifted a hand in

greeting, and Nylan returned it before turning onto the road.

Nylan had barely cooled off before he stepped through the main door to Tower Black. He squinted

in the far dimmer light of the tower, but took a deep breath of the fresh-baked dark bread that

Blynnal did so well and the aroma of something else-the mint-spiced stew, he thought, probably

created around the remnants of the deer that Ayrlyn had brought in two days earlier, after the

light dusting of snow from a spring storm.

"Nylan?" Istril, carrying her son Weryl in her arms, motioned from the de facto nursery on the

left side of the tower entry area.

He turned and crossed the stones of the entry hall.

Her face was slightly flushed, as though she had been outside in the cold. Weryl's face was

also red.

"You were outside?" Nylan asked.

"We walked up to the stables with Siret and Kyalynn. Ydrall went with us, but she was cold the

whole way. Kyalynn and Weryl just babbled the whole time." Istril grinned down at her son. "The

cold like this doesn't bother him at all."

"With what you wrapped him in, I imagine not."

"I am glad you got another snow cat. Once I have it tanned, it will make a good parka."

"For a year or two." Nylan laughed.

"Da!" offered Weryl, thrusting a chubby hand toward his father.

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"Da to you, too," returned Nylan, taking his son, and still half wondering at the circumstances

that had resulted in three of the four infants in Westwind being his-when he'd only slept with

Ryba at that time.

"We'll have five more lambs," the silver-haired Istril announced quietly.

"Practicing your healing, again?"

Weryl tugged at Nylan's index finger, his grip firm. Nylan smiled at his son.

"The more healers the better. You and Ayrlyn can't do it all, and what happens if you're hurt,

like in the big battle with the Lornians and the Gallosians?" asked Istril.

"I was glad you'd practiced."

"So was the Marshal. Her arm was a mess."

"You wouldn't know it now."

"She used to get tired faster when she practiced blades, but she's almost over that now," noted

Istril.

"Slow, she's faster than anyone else."

"Except you and Saryn. You're as fast as she is, but you don't like to go for the kill. Saryn's

even more of a killer than the Marshal." Istril held out her arms for Weryl. "You need to eat.

He's eaten."

"What about you?" asked Nylan as he handed his son back to Istril, disengaging Weryl's fingers

from his own index finger.

"Antyl will watch him while I eat." Istril smiled warmly and carried their silver-haired son

back to the nursery.

Nylan turned, then stopped to avoid running into one of the cooks.

"Greetings, ser." Blynnal bowed her head, about all she . dared bow, as pregnant as she was and

carrying the large baskets of fresh-baked bread up from the kitchen on the lower level of the

tower.

Nylan had no doubts about the father. Blynnal had worshiped Relyn before the one-armed man had

slipped out of Westwind one step ahead of a vengeful Ryba. And Relyn had worried a lot about the

cook-pretty, but timid, and one of the few women in Westwind with no desire to lift a blade

against the majority of men in Candar.

After following Blynnal past the lower tables, Nylan slipped around her and into the space at

the end of the bench at the first table, the position that had always been his. The hearth to his

right was dark-but between the warmth that drifted up from the kitchen on the level below and the

residual heat from the wood-fired furnace, the high-ceilinged room was warm enough.

Saryn sat across from Nylan, while Huldran eased onto the bench on Nylan's left. Ayrlyn, her

flame-red hair seemingly glinting with its own light, slipped onto the bench across from the smith-

engineer.

Even before Nylan poured the steaming tea in his mug, Ryba sat down at the end of the table in

the only chair in the great hall.

"How is the forging coming?" she asked politely.

"We're working on two more blades," he answered. "From what I figure, that will bring us to

nearly a hundred of them- about a score more than two per guard. We've had to go back to starting

the forge with wood, and we'll be out of charcoal in another eight-day."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd just work on blades until the charcoal goes."

"More visions?" he asked quietly.

"Such as they are." Ryba broke off a chunk of bread.

Nylan took a chunk of the dark bread after her and passed the basket to Huldran, then looked

across the table, noting the pallor in Ayrlyn's face. "Dephnay again?" he asked.

"She's getting better, but Tryssa got burned with hot grease. Cold water helped-except for her

eyelids."

Nylan winced at the thought of grease across the eyes, and the effort it must have cost the

flame-haired healer. Healing through the order fields was exhausting, as he knew from experience.

He'd collapsed more than once. "How is she?"

"She'll be fine."

"How about you?"

"I'll need a nap after I eat. A long one." Ayrlyn took a long swallow of the hot tea.

Nylan nodded sympathetically, then took a sip of his own tea while waiting for the huge

crockpot filled with stew to reach him.

"You need to eat more," Hryessa badgered Daryn from the foot of the table.

"You need to be strong to return to Gallos," suggested Murkassa, a glint in her eye.

"I cannot return," said Daryn quietly, a flush stealing over his fair-complected face. "You

know that. One of the standard-bearers of Gallos? A single survivor? I would be suspected of

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treachery ... or worse."

"We've been through this before," said Ayrlyn, interrupting the teasing, straight-faced. "You

certainly weren't the only survivor, just the only one daring enough to -entice a guard. Some of

the wounded in the lower camp made their way back to Lornth and Gallos."

Daryn flushed again, then replied. "Most died. You know that, healer. Those that did return

reached their homes before the winter snows. After a winter on the Roof of the World ..." Daryn

shrugged.

"You could not have traveled. You almost died," said Hryessa.

"No." Daryn laughed, not quite bitterly. "It is difficult for a one-footed man to travel the

Westhorns."

"Almost as difficult as for a single woman to travel Candar unmolested," added Ryba dryly.

A murmur of assent ran across the tables.

Nylan wanted to shake his head. Candar was a powerflux ready to explode, and just by founding

Westwind Ryba had started the energy cascade.

"Daryn?" asked the Marshal.

"Yes, Marshal," answered the youth warily.

"What do you know about a place called Cyador?"

"Only what the traders tell, ser. It is the ancient home of those who follow the white way, and

filled with silver and malachite, and great buildings walled with mirrors that catch and hold the

sun. Even the smallest of dwellings are like palaces."

"Exactly where is this paradise?"

"Somewhere beyond the Westhorns-that is all I know."

"What brought that up?" Nylan asked Ryba.

"I've been studying some of those scrolls Ayrlyn picked up, and there are some disturbing

references to Cyador, especially to how the ancient ones channeled the rivers and built the grass

hills to turn back travelers. Oh, and about how some daughters of Cyador fled to the barbarians."

Ryba's voice turned dry. "I wonder about paradise if those daughters fled."

A murmur of laughter went around the table.

"It must be beyond Lornth, then," said Ayrlyn. "Relyn never mentioned it. Nor did Nerliat."

"Relyn's probably spreading tales about the great new ancient one," suggested Hryessa.

"That will only cause more trouble," said Ryba quietly. Her eyes turned on Nylan momentarily,

before she took a mouthful of the mint stew.

Not about to get into a discussion about Relyn and his efforts to create a new religion based

on what he had learned from Nylan, the smith ate quietly, occasionally glancing at Ayrlyn, pleased

to see some of the pallor leaving her face as the healer ate.

"Eating helps, doesn't it?" he said, knowing it was an inane comment, but wanting to reach out.

"Somewhat. With some rest, I'll feel better," answered Ayrlyn.

"If someone needs something that way," he offered, "send them to me. Or Istril. She's

practicing her skills."

"I told her to. I'm glad she is."

"We will need more healers," Ryba said coolly, and the certainty of her words chilled Nylan.

What else was she seeing?

Ayrlyn and Nylan exchanged glances, then continued to eat 'without speaking.

After the midday meal, Nylan walked up the five flights of the stone steps to the top level,

turning right into his quarters, across from Ryba's. He looked around the bare room-one window,

glazed in wavery local glass; a lander couch that made a hard bed, but better than anything of

local manufacture; a crude table and stool; and a rocking chair for when he sang Dyliess to sleep.

"Nylan?"

He turned.

The dark-haired Marshal of Westwind stood in the door, carrying a squirming silver-haired

child, more than an infant, but not quite a toddler. "Could you take her? I'd like to practice. Or

you could practice first-"

"Go ahead. I'll practice after you." The smith-engineer extended his hands for his daughter,

and she extended hers.

"Gaaaa. .."

"Gaaa to you, too." Nylan lifted Dyliess to his shoulder and hugged her.

"I'll be down below," Ryba repeated. "Then ... I don't know."

"Fine." Nylan eased himself into the crude rocking chair he'd crafted just so that he could

have one in his own quarters to rock Dyliess.

As he rocked, her fingers grasped the edge of the carvings on the back of the chair, and then

his silver hair-and his ear.

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"Easy there, young lady. Your father's ears are tender." He lowered her and sat her in his lap,

beginning to sing to her.

"On top of old Freyja, all covered in ice . . ."

His voice was getting hoarse when there was a rap on the door.

"Yes?"

"Ser ..." A thin-faced woman with mahogany hair stood at his door. "The Marshal sent me up-"

"You're going to take care of Dyliess while I practice, Antyl?"

"If you'd wish it, ser."

"That's fine." Trust Ryba to send someone else to Nylan for Dyliess. Despite the close quarters

of the tower, Ryba avoided Nylan as much as possible, asking as little as possible, as though he

were the unreasonable one. He'd been tricked into being a stud, manipulated into incinerating

thousands, and deceived in who knew how many little ways, but he was unreasonable-even though he'd

essentially built and armed Westwind. And Ryba wondered why he didn't want anything to do with

her? If it weren't for Dyliess and the other children . . .

But they were his and linked to Westwind, and there was no changing that, none at all.

He stood up from the rocking chair and eased Dyliess to his shoulder for a moment, patting her

back. Then he half-lowered her and kissed her cheek before easing her into Antyl's arms.

"How's Jakon?"

"He be fine, ser, a strong baby. He sleeps now." With a broad smile, the brunette turned and

headed down the stone steps of the tower.

Nylan stripped off his jacket and headed down the steps to the dimness of the fifth level,

where practicing was a contest not only against his partner, but against the gloom and uncertain

lighting. Ryba claimed that blades were as much feel as vision, and perhaps she was right. Nylan

wasn't certain he'd even seen half the men he'd killed with a blade over the past two years. He'd

certainly felt their deaths, suffused with white agony, but had he really seen them with his eyes?

That was the problem with Ryba. She was almost always right, but he hated her insistence that

power-or cold iron- was the only true solution to surviving in Candar.

"Here's the engineer," called Istril, holding Weryl and watching the sparring floor.

"Catch!" called Saryn.

Nylan's hand reached out almost automatically and caught the hardwood wand, flipping it again

and catching the hilt end. As he did, he absently wondered how he had gotten so proficient in

handling antique weapons of destruction-except he wasn't. He could defend himself against most,

and he had killed more than a few raiders and attackers-one at a time, since, after the first or

second killing, the white-infused waves of pain that flowed through him left him virtually

incapacitated.

He wasn't unique. All those who showed the innate ability to manipulate the order fields to

heal-all the silver-haired ones and Ayrlyn-had the same problem. Ryba couldn't heal, but she could

certainly kill.

Interestingly, Nylan reflected as he flexed the wand, trying to warm up briefly, all of those

who showed those healing traits had survived, even despite the battles they had been forced to

fight.

"Watch this," Saryn told the handful of recruits lining the chalked-off practice floor.

Nylan knew only about half the faces by name, and he wished they wouldn't watch. He glanced to

the corner where Daryn sat on a stool. The smith probably needed to craft some sort of prosthetic

device for the youth's foot, as he had for Relyn's lost hand.

"Ready, Nylan?"

"Not really." The smith lifted the hardwood wand, trying to let the feeling of unseen darkness

and order flow around him and through him.

Saryn lifted her wand, a shimmering laserlike force that probed and slashed through the gloom

of the fifth-level practice area.

As usual, Nylan felt awkward, barely parrying Saryn's initial attacks, giving ground and

retreating, trying to capture the sense of order that was his only salvation from bruises or, in

actual combat, death.

As he melded with the hardwood wand that mirrored a blade, he finally surrendered to the flow

of order and let the wand take its own course.

"... engineer's so good ... bet not even the Marshal could touch him . . ."

"... notice, though ... he never strikes ... all defense .. ."

But how long could he only defend? How long?

III

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THUS CONTINUED THE conflict between order and chaos, between those who would force order and those

who would not, and between those who followed the blade and those who followed the spirit.

On the Roof of the World, those first angels raised crops amid the eternal ice, and builded

walls, and made bricks, and all manner of devisings of the most miraculous, from the black blades

that never dulled to the water that flowed amidst the ice of winter and the tower that remained

yet warm from a single fire.

Of the great ones in those times were, first, Ryba of the twin blades, Nylan of the forge of

order, Gerlich the hunter, Saryn the mighty, and Ayrlyn, of the songs that forged the guards of

Westwind.

For as the skilled and terrible smith Nylan forged the terrible black blades of Westwind, and

wrenched the very stones from the mountains for the tower called Black, so did Ryba guide the

guards of Westwind, letting no man triumph upon the Roof of the World.

For as each lord of the demons said, 'I will not suffer those angel women to survive,' and as

each angel fell, Ryba created yet another from those who fled the demons, until there were none

that could stand against Tower Black.

So too, as did each of the forges of Heaven fail, did the mighty smith Nylan bend the fires of

the world to his will and forge yet anew the black blades of Westwind.

Yet, despite Nylan's efforts in smiting the legions of the demons into dust, Ryba the mighty

was not satisfied, and she asked for more black blades than the snowflakes that fell upon Tower

Black, and for arrows that no armor could stop. And Nylan bent the forges to his will, and it was

so, and still was Ryba displeased. . . .

.. . and so it came to pass that Ryba was the last of the angels to rule the heavens and the

angel who set forth the Legend for all to heed. ...

Book of Ayrlyn

Section I

(Restricted Text)

IV

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD, Protector of the Steps to Paradise, and-"

"Enough, Themphi. Enough," answered the silver-robed figure who sat easily in the sculpted

malachite and silver chair on the dais. "What is the problem? This time?"

The man in white bowed. "My lord Lephi ... the snows were mighty, and the Great East River

rises."

"And all the rice fields in Geliendra will be washed away?"

"Yes, Sire. And those in Jakaafra." The white wizard bowed again, more deeply.

"What of the northern dams, and the diversions?"

"The .. . storms .. ." stammered Themphi. "You were-"

"They destroyed those as well as the locks of Kuliat? Why was I not informed of that?"

"Your Mightiness received the scrolls in the field . . ." Themphi offered a stained scroll. ".

. . as you did this one at Guarstyad-"

"I am supposed to remember details of waterworks when I am trying to rebuild the fireships? Or

commanding an army? Or remember that I received a scroll in the midst of dark confusions?" Lephi's

eyes flickered toward the two sets of ornate open grillwork that flanked the dais and concealed

the Archers of the Rational Stars. Then he leaned forward in the malachite and silver chair, his

silver linens rustling. "Themphi, my wizard of the Throne of Reason, Emperor and heir to the

Rational/Stars I may be, but even emperors do not recall everything-especially in these times." He

paused. "Why do the eastern barbarian kingdoms no longer respect Cyador?"

"Sire?"

"You are thinking of rice fields, Themphi. We will address those in a moment. Why is mighty

Cyad no longer respected?"

"Cyador remains mighty."

"Yet barbarian traders attempted to establish a fortified enclave at Guarstyad, miserable

corner of the word that it is. Why?"

"It is on the borders of Cyador, and there are no Mirror Lancers or Shining Foot there."

"In my grandsire's days, they would not have dared. Why do they dare now?"

The wizard frowned ever so slightly. "You routed them, Sire. They will not try again."

"Had we the great fire cannons or were the fireship completed, they would not have dared."

Lephi leaned back in the shimmering throne. "The barbarians have short memories and respect little

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save force. We must restore our abilities to supply that force."

"Yes, Sire."

"You humor me, Themphi. You think I am erratic and obsessed. Perhaps I am. An emperor must be

obsessed. How else can he guide his people?"

The wizard nodded.

"Answer me! How else?"

"Any ruler must guide his people."

"You talk, and you say nothing. Would that I did not need you and your kind. Would that. . .

but wishes are but fluttering breezes dashed against stone." Lephi sighed. "Now . . . you may

proceed with the rice fields."

"I should have seen that you were informed once you returned, Your Mightiness," offered

Themphi.

"Someone should have. Someone should have." Lephi eased back in his throne. "Can we send the

White Engineers?"

"The Second is at hand . . ." offered the wizard.

"No ... the fireship project comes first. I will not let those thieves from Ruzor or Lydiar or

Spidlar . . ." Lephi let his words break off.

"The Third Company could go. You sent the first to Fyrad-"

"To rebuild the trading piers and the levees. I recall. With the Second engaged here . . . Yes,

send the Third." Lephi paused. "And send one of the Mirror Legions. Whichever one Queras can spare

most."

"Yes, Your Mightiness." Themphi bowed as if to depart.

"Have we heard from the northern barbarians?"

"About the reopening of the copper mines?"

"Exactly."

"No, Sire. The messenger could not have reached Lornth yet, even upon the fastest of Your

Mightiness's steeds."

Perspiration beaded on the white wizard's forehead as Lephi's eyes narrowed.

"Are you suggesting, white wizard, that I am impatient?" asked the Lord of Cyador.

"No, Sire. Only that Lornth is far beyond the Walls of the North."

"Those walls will move northward again. We will need the copper for the fireships to come."

Lephi smiled. "Inform me when we receive word from Lornth. In the meantime, best you study the old

tomes on the diversions, Themphi. And on containing chaos within ship boilers."

"Yes, Mightiness." The white mage's voice was even.

V

NYLAN STEPPED FROM the smithy, even before Blynnal rang the chimes for the midday meal, squinting

as the snow-reflected glare cascaded around him.

"Frigging bright," mumbled Huldran as she stumbled out into the light after the smith.

"Sun and snow." The smith nodded and began to walk downhill. Despite the comparative warmth and

the disappearance of the snow and ice cover from the south side of the rocky cairns and some

sections' around the canyon mouths, he hadn't seen any signs of snow lilies. Did that mean they'd

have more spring snows? Or had the guards done something in their cultivation to kill off the

lilies?

Nylan didn't know. There was so much that they had yet to learn about this world. The

similarities to Heaven-type worlds helped, but there were certainly differences, like the

semideciduous trees that looked H-norm, but had green leaves that turned gray and curled up around

the branchlets that held them. Only about half the leaves fell every year.

And the reference to Cyador had surprised Nylan. Ryba had intimated that the place was almost a

throwback to the white demons of Rationalism, but again, in almost two years no traders or locals

had mentioned Cyador. He'd never even heard the name before, and that kind of surprise bothered

him. Had Ryba gotten another vision? He had begun to wish long before that her visions were not so

devastatingly accurate.

"Did you ever hear the name Cyador?" he asked Huldran.

"Before the Marshal mentioned it the other day? No. Maybe the healer had, but no one else had,

either, except for Ydrall, but she came from coins."

"What did Ydrall know?"

"Not much more than Daryn, except that they don't let traders in and that they keep their women

locked up. They have trading stations at the borders-or they used to. Lornth had problems with

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Cyador years ago, and there hasn't been much trading since. Ydrall didn't know what kind of

problems, though."

A culture even harder on women than Lornth and those of the lands bordering Westwind? He shook

his head, then rubbed his chin. He really needed a shave. He didn't care for the local bearded

look at all, but shaving with a blade, a real dagger-edge blade, had taken some learning, and not

a few cuts along the way. Of course, some of the local recruits had wondered if he was actually a.

man, since he didn't have a beard-as if hair made the man. He snorted.

As they reached the outer end of the causeway to the tower, Blynnal appeared and used the

wooden mallet to hammer out a rough melody on the chimes that had replaced the old triangle. She

wore a burlaplike apron over her gray trousers and tunic, and a jacket thrown over everything. The

brunette smiled shyly at Nylan. "I do not have the touch of the healer, not with the songs, but I

try."

"You have the touch with the food," the smith-engineer responded. "And we're all very thankful

for that."

"It is good to have so many people who like what I cook. Dyemeni-he never liked anything." Her

eyes went to Nylan. "Would that all men were like you." Then she smiled again. "Today, we have the

noodles with the hot sauce, and the flat bread."

"Good." Nylan inadvertently licked his lips. When Blynnal said food was hot-it was spiced hot

and then some.

"The tea is cold-for you." Blynnal laughed, then struck the chimes again.

Huldran grinned and glanced at the smith.

"You'll need that tea, too," Nylan predicted.

"Probably, but it's a lot better than the slop poor Kadran fixed."

As Nylan walked into the entryway, Siret stood by the nursery with Kyalynn, waiting. Smiling at

the tall silver-haired guard and mother of his other daughter, the smith wondered if the two

silver-haired guards had an informal arrangement as to which child he would see before the noon

meal. Still, he had to admit he looked forward to seeing the children, more than a little.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Sleepy. She was restless last night. Teeth, I think. Ayrlyn touched her, but there is no

chaos, just a trace of white around her teeth. I felt it, but I wasn't sure."

Nylan cradled Kyalynn in his left arm, and she looked up with a yawn, the dark green eyes

mirrors of her mother's, her hands slowly reaching toward Nylan's face. "Waaaa... dan!"

"Somehow, I don't think she's asking for water," Nylan observed. "I'll probably wake her up,

and she'll be cranky all night."

"That won't be any change from last night."

"So you were a grumpy girl, and you kept your mother up all night, all the time. That wasn't a,

nice thing to do..."

"Waaaa-daa-da . . . ooo . . ."

"No, it wasn't. It really wasn't."

Kyalynn yawned again, as Nylan rocked her, then once more, and shut her eyes. Shortly, a snort

and a soft snore followed.

"You can always get her to sleep," said Siret.

"That's true," the smith said. "When I talk, I can put anyone to sleep, especially if I talk

about building something." But the building was done, mostly, and now he was a weapons smith,

forging more destruction. Did it always take force and more force?

He walked slowly toward the nursery and the corner bed that was Kyalynn's. There he eased her

down, and patted her back gently for a moment, murmuring softly, until he was certain she would

sleep.

Nylan glanced at the bed beside Kyalynn's, and patted a sleeping Dyliess on the back for a

moment. Half the time in the nursery he still felt amazed.

Antyl smiled from the inside corner where she nursed her own son Jakon, rocking slightly in the

plain wooden rocker that all the guards had helped craft early in the long winter.

Istril was burping Weryl, but she studiously avoided looking at Siret or Nylan, confirming the

smith's suspicions about the oh - so - casual prearrangements.

Nylan and Siret eased out of the nursery and toward the great room.

"She still looks like you," the engineer said quietly.

"She takes things in like you do. She sees them, and she doesn't make a fuss, but she knows-I

swore she could feel you healers when you worked on Llyselle's hand. Her eyes got wide, and she

just watched."

"Could be," mused Nylan, stopping at the end of the lowest table. The aromas of mint and spice

and bread filled the room. "We both have the talent. You'll have to be careful when she gets

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older."

"She might be too sensitive? I've thought of that." Siret nodded, then gestured. "I can see the

Marshal's waiting for you." Her voice cooled.

Nylan smiled wryly, then wiped the smile away before turning and continuing toward the hearth

and head table.

"How are the blades coming?" asked Ryba. "I'm starting another. The one we finished yesterday

is ready to sharpen." Nylan stepped around Ryba's chair and slid into his place on the bench next

to Huldran. "Another one?" groaned Saryn from across the table. "Another one." Nylan offered a

bright smile. "And Huldran will have another finished late today or tomorrow."

"Two?" Saryn shrugged, then wiped, her steaming forehead. "You two keep this up, and we'll have

enough of those killer blades for a complete U.F.F. legion."

"Isn't that the idea?" asked the engineer, ladling out Blynnal's noodles.

"I haven't figured out any other way to stop the locals. Have you?" asked Ryba mildly.

Nylan shrugged. That was the problem with Ryba. While her answers to questions were usually

right, they all too often involved the maximum application of force necessary before someone else

did the same. And the few times when the angels hadn't been able to apply such force had been near-

disastrous. Had he avoided leadership because he didn't like the preemptive use of force? Or

because he knew it was necessary on the violent world where the angels had landed? Or both?

Ayrlyn slipped into her seat across from Nylan. Her eyebrows lifted momentarily, but she said

nothing, instead pouring some tea and drinking half a mugful almost immediately. By the second

bite of the noodles, despite the leavening effect of the flat bread, Nylan's forehead was sweating

more than if he were standing before his forge. The cool tea helped, if not enough. "The food here-

it is always good." That comment came from Daryn.

Nylan looked at the young armsman, wanting to shake his head. Did all the locals like things

spiced? Was it a survival ploy to cover the taste of meat or flour that wasn't quite right?

"We try to make everything good," offered Ryba.

"And you do, honored Marshal. Westwind is truly amazing."

The youth had been trained well in Gallos, at least in manners, Nylan reflected, and he was

adaptable, more so than Gerlich had been. The former weapons officer had never accepted that Ryba

was his better in everything from commanding to armed and unarmed combat. Of course, Gerlich had

died in his attempt to storm Westwind. He'd also gotten a lot of guards killed unnecessarily, as

well as one of the white wizards of Lornth. That hadn't bothered Nylan. Those white wizards were

innately nasty, although why they were was yet another unanswered mystery.

"We try, Daryn. We try." Ryba's tone was light, but carried the edge that never left her voice

anymore.

Nylan blotted his forehead.

"Do you think you should start training someone else in smithing?" asked Ryba.

"Cessya was working, but..." Nylan shrugged and glanced toward Huldran.

"Gerlich's wizard got her," Huldran finished. "Ydrall's shown some interest in the past. She

liked your fancy pikes."

"If she is interested, I think it might be a good idea," Ryba suggested, lifting her mug to her

lips. "Otherwise, find someone else."

"What's the urgency?" asked the smith.

"You said you wanted to work on building your mill," Ryba pointed out. "If you do, you can't

smith, not all the time, and we're going to need a lot of smithwork. So I'd like you and Huldran

to start training whoever it is in the next few eight-days, before the snows clear and you're back

building the sawmill."

Nylan concealed a frown. All of what Ryba said was correct, but the words felt somehow wrong,

and that bothered him. His eyes crossed those of Ayrlyn, and he got the faintest of nods in

confirmation.

"There's been more snow this winter, and that means more mud," the engineer said. "That means

it will be longer until we can reach the brickworks and the millpond down there-"

"Good," answered the black-haired Marshal. "You'll have more time to do blades and train

another smith."

Her answer felt even more wrong to Nylan, but the quickest of frowns from Ayrlyn warned him not

to push Ryba.

"Did you find out any more in those scrolls about Cyador?" he asked easily.

"There wasn't much," Ryba admitted. "I get the feeling that it's some sort of Rationalist

leftover, with a heavy dose of chauvinism." She shrugged. "Right now I don't have much to go on,

but it bothers me."

The name Cyador chilled Nylan, too, but he had even less reason to be worried than Ryba. After

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Modesitt, L.E. - Recluce 04 - The Chaos Balance

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