The Chaos Balance

XVIII

Nylan studied the room again-lander couch, rocking chair, table, stool, bed-that was all. Stone walls…he’d laid almost every stone. Window casements-his design. The entire tower had been his dream, his way of making the Roof of the World safe for the angels, for the children he had known would come, if not as he had expected.

He glanced at the pair of blades on the couch, the single composite bow and quiver, and the two saddlebags-one filled with his few clothes and a spare pair of boots, the other with hard bread and cheese, and some dried venison.

His jacket was rolled inside the makeshift bedroll that lay on the saddlebags. In the bags were those few items he owned-after two lives, really. Two lives, and those few items were all. And-once again-he had no idea where he was going or what he was doing-not beyond escaping.

He took a deep breath and swallowed, hoping Ayrlyn was ready, knowing she’d been ready long before he had. Then, she’d never really been at home on the Roof of the World, and he’d been the one to build Tower Black. His eyes went to the open window, through which he could see puffy clouds marching out of the northeast across the green-blue sky.

The smith took another deep breath, squared his shoulders, crossed the landing, and stepped into the Marshal’s quarters.

Ryba-the Marshal of Westwind-sat in the rocking chair, Dyliess in her lap. Her pale green eyes fixed on Nylan. “You’ve finally decided to leave, haven’t you?”

Nylan nodded. “You knew all along. Your visions told you that I’d have to leave. You knew seasons ago, but you wouldn’t share them. You never have shared those visions, and you never will. You wouldn’t change anything because it might jeopardize Westwind. And you’d never jeopardize Westwind.”

Ryba’s arms tightened ever so slightly around her daughter. “I wouldn’t do anything to threaten Dyliess.”

The silver-haired girl wriggled as if Ryba were holding her too tightly. “Ah…wah! Wah!”

“I know.” Nylan’s voice was flat. “Nothing can be allowed to threaten her-or your dreams.”

“What about your dreams? Your mighty tower? What about your plans for the sawmill?”

“I’ve written them out, with sketches, and I’ve discussed them all with Huldran-even the gearing. She can finish building the mill. She’ll do what you want, just like all the others.”

“The smith and the singer…off into the sunset, leaving the hard work for everyone else.” Ryba’s lips twisted. Her eyes seemed bright, brighter than usual, and she looked down at the plank floor, then out the window. Her left hand stroked Dyliess’s hair.

“You have a strange definition of hard work, Ryba.” Nylan snorted. “I did the building, and you and everyone else thought I was obsessed, crazy. But this past winter, no one complained when they were warm and cozy, when they had running warm and cold water.

“You schemed behind my back. You used me to get Siret and Istril pregnant. Who knows who else you tried with? And I didn’t even see it. I should have, but I didn’t. In my own clumsy way, I trusted you.” He looked toward the empty trundle bed in the corner. The cradle he had made was down on the fourth level with the guards. He swallowed. Should he even try to say more? “You don’t trust anyone.”

“You’ve decided, haven’t you?” she asked again. “The words don’t matter. You’ve decided. You and Ayrlyn. Just go. Take what you need. I know you. You’re so guilt-ridden you’ll be more than fair. Just go. Let us get on with life.”

“Leave me some time with Dyliess.”

“Why? You’re leaving.”

“You owe me more than that. I’m only asking for a little time with my daughter. She won’t remember it-but I will.”

“You don’t have to leave.” Ryba’s voice was even, almost emotionless. “You’ve built Westwind. As you keep telling me.”

“No. I don’t have to leave. I can have every guard here pity me. I can live here for the rest of my life, wondering whether I can trust you. I can risk everything and then wonder if you care, or if it’s just for another monument or legacy for the future. Because I’ve come to care for someone else, what would happen to her? Would you drive her out or dispose of her?” Nylan’s voice remained level. “After all, nothing can be allowed to get in the way of your dream.”

“It’s not like that. I did what had to be done. Do you think that I liked killing Mran? Or seeing two-thirds of my crew wiped out? I relive that a lot. Do you think that I like seeing you leave, no matter what I’ve done? Do you think that I’ll enjoy looking at all those cairns at the end of the meadow for the rest of my life? It’s easy to criticize and to leave, Nylan. It’s a lot harder to build something and live with the pain.”

“How you build is important, too,” the engineer answered. “I built you and the guards an honest tower. An honest bathhouse. An honest smithy. Honest stables. Even the beginning of an honest metaled road to the rest of the world. You built with deception. You deceived me. You deceived Istril, Ayrlyn, and Siret. And, in the end, however long Westwind lasts, that deception will bring down your work.”

“You won’t change, Nylan. You’re just as deceptive as I am. The difference is that I recognize it, and you won’t.” Ryba stood, waiting for Nylan to take Dyliess. “What I build will last, and only your name will remain, a vague legend about a mighty mythical smith, and that will be because I had Ayrlyn write a song about you.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“So do you,” she answered. “Take Dyliess. Sing to her, and I will tell her you did. Yes, I will. For her sake, not yours.”

Nylan stepped forward.

“Ah…ooo…” Dyliess stretched her arms out to her father, looking up, a blanket wrapped around her waist and legs. Nylan picked her up, cradling her against his shoulder, and rocking back and forth, holding her tightly.

Ryba slipped to the door. “I’ll be back in a while.”

Still holding his silver-haired daughter, Nylan walked toward the trundle bed he had made and looked down. He stepped back across the smoothed plank floor to the rocking chair, where, cradling her against his shoulder, he sat down and began to rock…gently.

“Oh, my dear, my dear little child,

What can we do in a place so wild,

Where the sky is so green and so deep

And who will rock you to sleep?

Your daddy is leaving; he’s going away

There’s only a cradle and nothing to say,

but when the stars shine over the western sky,

try to remember that he once said good-bye.”

The tears rolled down the smith’s cheeks, and his vision, his superb day and night vision, showed him nothing. Nothing at all.

In time, he finally stood, laid the sleeping Dyliess in her cradle, and returned to his quarters to gather everything together.

With a last look at the sleeping child, he started down the steps, loaded with all his gear, moving slowly to avoid tripping over the blade at his waist. The one in the shoulder harness would be easier to use, far easier, once he was mounted. Some of the customs of Candar made sense-usually those having to do with arms.

As he trudged down to the fourth level, Siret glanced up after slipping on a work tunic. Her eyes took in all that Nylan carried, and, with a quick look to the bed where Kyalynn sat wrestling with a crude stuffed bear that Hryessa had made, Siret hurried across the wide planked floor to the stairs.

The engineer paused.

“Nylan? You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Her deep green eyes caught his.

He nodded.

“I could see it coming. Nothing you do pleases her.”

He shrugged. “I’m not like Gerlich. I won’t be back, not that way.”

“You won’t be back. This world needs you.”

He blinked, not expecting such a comment.

“Ryba will fight the world. She will make the men who rule come to her and be defeated-but they won’t. They’ll let us rule the mountains, and let the truly unhappy women come to us.” She smiled bitterly. “I’ve thought about it. People don’t think I do, but I do…a lot. The Marshal…and especially you…gave me that.”

“Me?” Nylan was feeling totally confused, wondering what else he had done that he hadn’t seen.

“I watched you, Nylan. You don’t talk much about why you do what you do. You do it. You push yourself, and…people take, and they take. I started asking why. So…” She shrugged, and her eyes were bright. “I had to tell you that I am grateful for all you’ve given…to let you know I wasn’t like so many of the others.” After a moment she swallowed. “Westwind is too small for you, and you’re not full Sybran so you can leave here.”

“I’m not looking forward to the heat,” he said, trying not to choke up, and wondering if his decision to leave were such a good one after all.

“The healer’s going with you, isn’t she? Some guards will suffer. And the children.” Her eyes darted to the bed where Kyalynn looked down at the bear that lay across her chubby legs.

“Istril, Llyselle, even you have some of the talent.” He smiled wryly. “You’ll be able to do as well as we can, if you can’t already.”

“We’ll manage, but we’ll never be as good. But I knew that it had to happen. Relyn said it would.”

“Relyn? He’s been gone since the battle.” Not that Nylan hadn’t wondered about the one-handed man, especially after Blynnal had turned up pregnant-but Nylan had been the one who advised Relyn to leave before Ryba found a way to eliminate the former Lornian noble because he’d found religion.

Nylan snorted to himself. The idea that he-a former angel ship’s engineer-was the prophet of a new faith of order was almost ludicrous. Even more absurd was Ryba’s contention that Relyn’s preaching such a faith would undermine Westwind. Not so absurd had been her intent to remove Relyn in the chaos that followed the great battle-except Relyn, warned by Nylan, had slipped off into the night.

“Ryba said that he has already been preaching his new gospel of order.” Siret looked around. “I heard her talking to Saryn. Tryssa-she was one of the last new recruits to reach us before the snows-she was talking about the one-handed prophet in black who forecast the fall of the old ways and the rise of order. He’s also preaching about building a Temple of Order.”

“Great.” Nylan glanced up the steps.

“He said that, sooner or later, you would have to leave, and that the healer would go with you.” Siret smiled sadly. “I listen, you know?”

“I know.” He shook his head. “But everyone seems to know what I’m doing before I do.” Then he added. “Thank you. I didn’t stop to have you make me feel good.”

“I know. You’re a good man, a good person.”

He dropped his eyes. Much as he appreciated the compliment, Nylan knew he wasn’t that good. If he were, so many things would have turned out differently. “Where’s Istril? I should say good-bye.”

“She took Weryl out earlier. She was taking him on a ride. She had so many things I wondered if she were leaving, but she said she’d be back.” Siret frowned. “She never lies. But she looked sad. I wonder if she knew you were leaving.”

“I don’t know.” Istril knew a lot, a lot that the wiry guard didn’t voice.

“You need to go. You need to say good-bye to Kyalynn.” She darted across the room and scooped up their daughter, bringing her back to him.

As Nylan hugged his daughter, his tears bathed them both, and he wanted to rage-against fate, against Ryba, against himself. Why was it that everything had so high a price?

He finally eased his silver-haired daughter back to her mother. “Take care of her.”

“I will. And I will make sure she knows who you are. A man and not a legend.”

He half-walked, half-stumbled down the rest of the stairs and out the main door. Perhaps some guards watched, but Istril was not among them, nor Weryl, and he saw none of their faces as he forced himself up the road to the stable.

Most of the guards were out in the fields, or down below the ridge in the timber camps. He heard the sound of hammers as he passed the smithy, but he did not stop. He wasn’t up for another emotional parting, and Huldran, of all people, would understand. Still…he put his feet forward, wondering where Istril and Weryl were.

Under the load he carried, despite the muscles developed from smithing, he was sweating and panting when he reached the stable.

Ayrlyn had both mounts saddled and waiting in the shade of the stable door. “You look like chaos. What happened?”

“I had to say good-bye to Dyliess and Kyalynn…” He coughed. “I couldn’t find Weryl.” He dropped the gear in a pile, then lifted the saddlebags and began to strap them in place.

At the thump of the dropped equipment, a chicken scurried away from the stable and uphill toward the shelter that had held the livestock through the long winter.

Ayrlyn lifted the bow. “Won’t Ryba be a little angry about this?”

“She said I could take what I needed, that I was so guilt-ridden I’d be fair.”

“She has that right,” Ayrlyn said softly. “I’m glad you brought it. You’ve done so much for everyone else. I brought six extra blades-two of your blades, and four small crowbars for trading. Ryba won’t miss the crowbars, and you deserve some of your own. You wouldn’t bring them, and you might not ever have the chance to forge replacements. They’re all packed away. And all my trading silvers.”

“Practical woman. I don’t think I have more than a half-dozen silvers and a few coppers.” The engineer eased the bedroll into place. “I did bring one spare blade, besides the pair.”

“Good. I also brought some water bottles for you. You’ll need them when we get down into Lornth.”

“You still think that’s the right way to go?”

Ayrlyn lifted her shoulders as she strapped a water bottle in place. “We go east and run into Karthanos and Gallos, and the easterners feel even nastier than the Lornians. Also, something about the west-”

“Feels better?”

The healer nodded. “I couldn’t say why.”

“I’ll trust a good feeling over sterile reasoning any day, especially here.”

“I don’t know,” mused Ayrlyn. “There’s more to the order magic of this world. It’s not just feeling. There’s a system, somewhere.”

“You’re talking like an engineer, not a healer.”

“Aren’t they really the same?”

Nylan laughed, then began to readjust the shoulder harness that would hold his second blade. With one at his waist and the other in the shoulder harness, he should have access to one weapon in any situation. Even as he hoped he didn’t have to find out, he knew he would. Candar was that sort of place.

After he tightened the harness and checked his ability to draw the blade easily, he looked at Ayrlyn. “Are you ready?”

Ayrlyn glanced out the open stable door and down the narrow canyon. “I can’t believe Istril wouldn’t bring Weryl.”

“I didn’t exactly broadcast our departure. Did you?”

“No…but she would have known.”

Nylan led the mare out into the sun and climbed into the saddle. “Maybe we’ll see her on the way out.”

“Maybe.” Ayrlyn sounded doubtful.

In the still-cool light of spring, they let the mounts carry them down the road and past the smithy.

Ydrall and Huldran stood by the door to the structure that Nylan had designed and built-and where he had forged scores of the deadly Westwind blades. At least, he had managed to finish one more nondestructive item-a foot for Daryn, along with all the blades.

“Take care, engineer…healer,” offered the blonde.

“You, too,” said Nylan. His voice was thick.

As they passed the causeway, a handful of guards in the bean field straightened. One pointed in their direction and waved. Nylan waved back.

His vision blurred as he looked beyond the indistinct faces, as he saw the cairns in the background, with the dark green stalks that would bear starflowers rising from the rocks.

When the mare’s hoofs struck the stones of the bridge, his eyes went to the tower, but no one stood on the causeway or waved.

Nor was there any farewell from the watchtower as they crossed the top of the ridge and headed down, down to the road that would take them west.

As the two rode past the scattered trees on the lower ridge and eased the mare onto the road to the west, the same road used by the Lornians and Gerlich the year before to attack Westwind, Nylan could sense a figure moving through the trees.

“Someone’s coming,” said Ayrlyn.

Nylan glanced back toward the ridge, though he could not see the tower beyond, and his hand went to the blade at his waist. With both eyes and senses, he tried to track the approaching rider.

Beside him, Ayrlyn shifted in her saddle. “No chaos there.”

Istril rode forward, out of the trees, Weryl strapped to her chest. She also wore twin blades. Her free hand patted Weryl on the back.

“Nylan?” Istril’s eyes were red, as if she had been crying, and her voice was hoarse.

“Istril? I looked for you and Weryl, but Siret said you’d taken Weryl off riding.” Nylan eased the mare to a stop, and Ayrlyn stopped the chestnut. “I didn’t mean to go off without saying anything.”

“I knew.” Istril coughed as she reined up. “Knew you’d have to leave.” She turned to Ayrlyn. “I’m sorry for the trouble and the hurt I caused you, healer. But you’ll understand, I hope.”

“Istril…” began Ayrlyn.

“Hear me out, please, ’fore you say anything.” The silver-haired guard turned to Nylan. “You have to take Weryl, ser. He’s your son. He has to go with you. I know he does.”

Nylan winced. “He’s yours, too, Istril, far more than mine.”

“What kind of life will he have here? He’s got your blood. The Marshal’ll drive him out before he’s even grown. He can live in the lowlands. I can tell that. I can’t. It’ll be all right for the next one. The Marshal’s not the only one who sees the future. I’ll call her Shierl. She’s a girl, and the Marshal looks fond on girls.”

“Why?”

“You saved my life, ser, more than once, and Weryl’s all I can give, and you’ll raise him right. You do everything right. You will.”

Beside him Ayrlyn offered the faintest of smiles.

“Da?” asked Weryl, stretching out his hands.

Istril fumbled with the straps of the carry-pouch. After a slow and lingering embrace, she slowly eased Weryl away from her and lifted the silver-haired boy toward Nylan.

Nylan stretched out his own hands, too, even though he knew that the single syllable meant little enough, and that giving him Weryl was the most painful action Istril could ever have taken.

As the smith struggled to settle Weryl in place in the pack on his own chest, readjusting the sword harness and the blade itself, Istril dismounted and began to unfasten the two bags behind her saddle. Her cheeks were again tear-stained. “One’s food-the best I can do; the other’s clothes. They’re not much.”

“I’ll carry one,” Ayrlyn offered.

“You’ll be good to the engineer…and Weryl.” Istril swallowed and coughed. “…hate this…hate it…but I’d have nothing…without you two.”

“You would have done fine,” Nylan protested.

“Without you two, every last one of us’d be dead or slaves or both.” Istril cleared her throat. “This way…this way…I’ll have Shierl and a life, and Weryl’ll have the best…he can, too.”

Nylan didn’t know what to say, and he patted his son on the back and looked helplessly at Istril.

“Won’t stand here weeping…like some fool.” Istril threw herself into the saddle, took a long look at Weryl, then urged her mount into a trot back up the road to the ridge and the tower.

“Daaaa…” said Weryl, and Nylan wondered if the sound were as sad as he thought, or if the sadness were his.

How did he get into such messes? Was it life, fate, or his own inability to see all the patterns? He could see enough to know that Westwind had needed a tower, and all the buildings, and the smithy and the mill, yet-where people were concerned-he felt so blind, so inadequate.

He glanced at Ayrlyn, sitting stone-faced on the chestnut.

“You haven’t said much.” The engineer looked at Ayrlyn.

“I feel sorry for Istril, and I’m angry at Ryba. It didn’t have to happen this way.” The healer took a deep breath. “I need to think about all of this. If it were anyone but Istril…anyone-”

“You’d leave me?”

“Probably.” Ayrlyn shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t, but I’d be angrier, a whole lot angrier. Istril’s not the self-pitying, self-sacrificing type. She knows what would happen to Weryl, and it’s tearing her apart. And it would only be worse if you rode back to Westwind. So don’t even think about it. Istril didn’t mean it as a guilt-trip. But I’m angry. In effect, we have a child before we’ve really had a chance to sort anything out, and I can’t really even be angry at you. Except I am. Part of me says that it wasn’t your fault, and part of me wants to know why you’re so frigging noble that you always end up picking up the pieces.” She flicked the reins. “We’d better get moving. Sitting here on the trail doesn’t solve anything.”

No…it didn’t.

Nylan cleared his throat, patted Weryl on the back, wondered how long before the boy would be hungry, and flicked the mare’s reins, beginning a journey whose end he didn’t know for reasons he could feel but not articulate, with a son he barely knew in some ways-and they were headed for a land where they were probably hated because he couldn’t stay where he had built a safe haven.

Life was just so fair, so wonderfully equitable. His jaw tightened as he eased the mare after Ayrlyn.