Only a few chuckles greeted his remark, then small talk resumed around the two tables, especially at the end away from the hearth where Huldran and Cessya sat.

Nylan overheard a few of the phrases.

". . . bathing when there's ice on the walls ..."

"... better than stinking . . ."

". . . cares? No one but the engineer, and you know how dangerous that'd be ..."

Nylan glanced toward the corner of the first table where Narliat sat beside Denalle, who was attempting to practice her Anglorat on the armsman. Narliat's face was bland, although Nylan sensed the man was fighting boredom.

Nylan concentrated on finishing his meal, although he required two more large chunks of bread to get him through the last of the spiced meat.

"No sweets?" asked Istril, her voice rising above the murmurs around the tables.

"What kind of sweets?" replied Gerlich.

"Not your kind, Weapons. You're as direct as that crowbar you carry. That's hard on a woman." Istril stood and walked toward the steps to reclaim the composite bow.

Relyn, sitting beside Ayrlyn, watched the slender marine. He pursed his lips, opened his mouth, then closed it. "How . . . ? No man would accept that in Lornth."

"This isn't Lornth, Relyn," said Ayrlyn. "This is Westwind, and the women make the rules. Gerlich crossed the marshal once; she took him apart. She used her bare hands and feet to kill a marine who crossed her."

The young noble glanced at Nylan. "What about you, Mage?"

"Gerlich is better at the martial valors than I am, I suspect."

"You're better with a blade," said Ryba, "for all of his words about his great sword."

Gerlich's eyes hardened, but he turned and smiled to Selitra, then rose and bowed to Ryba. "It has been a long day, Ryba, and we will be hunting early tomorrow."

Ryba returned the gesture with one even more curt. "May you sleep well."

Gerlich smiled, and Nylan tried not to frown. He liked the man less and less as the seasons passed.

"You are a strange one, Mage," said Relyn slowly. "You are better with a blade than most, yet you dislike using it. You can wield the fire of order, and yet you defer to others."

"Too much killing leaves me unable to function very well."

"But you are good at it."

"Unfortunately," Nylan said. "Unfortunately."

Later, in the darkness, Nylan and Ryba walked up from the great hall, slowly, the four sets of steps that led to their space on the sixth level.

"Some nights, I get so tired," said Nylan. "It's easier to chop wood and do heavy labor than to use the laser these days. It's beginning to fail."

"Can you do any more of the bows?"

"I did six. I might be able to do some more, but I haven't cut all the stone troughs for the bathhouse and showers. I did get the heater sections done."

"A heater?" asked Ryba.

"It's not really a water heater, but I figured that I could put a storage tank with one side on the back of the chimney for the heating stove, because not many people will bathe in ice water in a room without heat. It probably won't get the water really hot, but it might make it bearable, and the back stone wall is strong enough to hold a small tank."

"You're amazing."

He shrugged in the gloom of the third-level landing, almost embarrassed. "I just try to make things work."

"You won't always be able to, Nylan."

"Probably not, but I have to try."

"I know." She reached out and squeezed his hand, briefly, then started up the steps again.

When they reached the top level, Nylan paused. Framed in the right-hand window, the unglazed one, was Freyja, the ice-needle peak faintly luminescent under the clear stars and the black-purple sky. Nylan studied the ice, marveling at the knife-sharpness of the mountain.

Ryba kicked off her boots and eased out of the shipsuit. Nylan turned and swallowed. Lately, Ryba had been distant, oh - so - distant. He just looked.

"You don't just have to look," she said in a low voice. "Today is all that is certain."

He took a step forward, and so did Ryba, and her fingers were deft on the closures of his tattered shipsuit.

"You need leathers," she whispered before her lips touched his. "Leathers fit for the greatest engineer."

"I'm not-"

"Hush ... we need what is certain."

Nylan agreed with that as his arms went around her satin-skinned form, still slender, with only the slightest rounding in her waist, the slightest hint of greater fullness in her breasts.

Later, much later, as they lay on the joined couches that they still shared, Nylan held her hand and looked at Freyja, wondering if the peak had a fiery center like Ryba.

"I'll be back," Ryba whispered as she sat up and pulled her shipsuit over her naked form. She padded down the stairs barefoot, after picking up an object Nylan could not make out, night vision or not, from beneath the couch.

As the cold breeze sifted through the open windows- both the single window with the armaglass and the one with shutters alone were open-the engineer pulled the thin blanket up to his chest, and waited . .. and waited.

His eyes had closed when he heard bare feet, and he turned and asked sleepily, "What took so long?"

"I ran into Istril, and she wanted something," Ryba said. "I'm never off-duty anymore, it seems. I was able to help her, but it took a bit longer than I'd thought.

She thinks a lot of you."

"She's a good person," Nylan said, stifling a yawn and reaching out to touch Ryba's silken skin, skin so smooth that no one would have believed that it belonged to an avenging angel, to the angel.

"Yes. All of the marines are good. That's one reason why I do what I do." Ryba let Nylan move to her, but the engineer felt the reserve there, the holding back that seemed so often present, even at the most intimate times.

And he held back a sigh, only agreeing with her words. "They all are good, and I do the best I can."

"I know." Those two words were softer, much softer, and sadder. "I know." But she said nothing more as they lay there in the cool night that foreshadowed a far, far colder winter-as they lay there and Ryba shuddered once, twice, and was silent.

Hryessa's words ran through Nylan's mind, again and again. "But she is the angel."

Darkness, what had they begun? Where would it end?

XXXVIII.

SILLEK. GESTURES TO the chair closest to the broadleaf fern that screens the pair of wooden armchairs from the remainder of the courtyard and from Zeldyan's family and retainers.

"You are most kind, Lord Sillek," murmurs Zeldyan as she sits, leaning forward, the husky bell-like tones of her voice just loud enough to be heard over the splashing of the fountain.

"No," says Sillek. "I am not kind. I am fortunate. You are intelligent and beautiful, and ..." He shrugs, not wishing to voice what he thinks. Despite the apparently secluded setting of the chairs and low table between them, he understands that all he says could be returned to Gethen.

"Your words are kind."

"I try to make my actions kind," he answers as he seats himself and turns in the chair to face her directly.

"Necessity does not always permit kindness." The blond looks at Sillek directly for the first time. "Necessity may be kind to you."

"You speak honestly, lady, as though I were a duty. There is someone else who has courted you?"

Zeldyan laughs. "Many have paid court, but none, I think, to me. Rather they have courted my father through me."

"I would like to say that I am sorry."

"You are more honest than most, and more comely." Her hand touches the silver and black hairband briefly, and a sad smile plays across her lips. "Have you not courted others?"

"I am afraid you have the advantage on me, lady, for I have neither courted, nor been courted-until now."

"Why might that be?" She leans forward ever so slightly.

"Because"-he shrugs-"I did not wish to be forced into a union of necessity." He laughs once, not trying to hide the slightly bitter undertone.

"You are too honest to be a lord, ser. For that, I fear you will pay dearly."

Zeldyan's tone is sprightly.

"Perhaps you could help me."

"To be dishonest?" She raises her eyebrows.

"Only if dishonesty is to learn to love honestly."

"You drive a hard bargain, Ser Sillek." Her eyes drop toward the polished brown stone tiles of the courtyard.

Sillek reaches out and takes her right hand in his left. "Hard it may be, Zeldyan, but honest, and I hope you will understand that is what I would give you."

Another short and bitter laugh follows, then several moments of silence. "I would not deceive you with flowery words, though you are beautiful and know that you are. But comeliness and beauty vanish quickly enough in our hard world, especially when courted for the wrong reasons."

"You are far too honest, Sillek. Far too honest. Honesty is dangerous to a ruler."

"It is, but to be less than honest is often more dangerous." Sillek frowns, then pauses. "Is it so evil to try to be honest with the lady I wish to join?"

"You might ask her if that is her wish."

The Lord of Lornth takes a deep breath. "I did not ask, not because I do not care, but because I had thought it was not your wish. I have appeared in your life from nowhere, and there must be many who have known and loved both your visage and your soul." He laughs softly. "I had not meant to be poetic, here, but my tongue betrayed me."

Zeldyan's eyes moisten for an instant, but only for an instant, before she turns her head toward the broadleaf fern.

Sillek waits, the lack of words punctuated by the splashing of the fountain. His eyes flick toward the end of the courtyard where he knows Gethen and Fornal make small talk about crops and hunting while they wait, and where, in another room, the lady Erenthla also waits.

When Zeldyan faces Sillek again, her face is calm. "What would say your lady mother?"

"Nothing." Sillek wets his lips. "Her thoughts are yet another thing. A fine match, she would think. She would say to me that the Lord of Gethen Groves has lands, and his support will strengthen Lornth and your patrimony, Sillek."

"You court strangely, My Lord."

"So I do. Say also that I court honestly." He offers her a head bow. "Would you be my consort, lady?"

"Yes. And I will say more, Lord. Your honesty is welcome. May it always be so."

Zeldyan bows her head in return, then smiles ironically. "Would you wish my company when you deliver my consent to my father?"

Sillek stands. "I would not press, but I had thought we both might speak with your father, and then with your mother."

"She would like that."

Sillek extends his hand, and Zeldyan takes it, though she scarcely needs it to aid her from the chair. Their hands remain together as they walk past the fountain and back toward the far end of the courtyard.

XXXIX.

NYLAN USED THE tongs to swing the rough bow frame into the focal point of the laser, struggling to keep the power flows smooth and still shape the metal around the composite core.

On the stones he used for cooling after the quench lay a circular cuplike device with a blunt-very blunt-hook and two bows-most of a morning's work. He hoped the metal cup and hook would serve as an adequate artificial hand for Relyn; he was tired of the veiled references to one-armed men.

His eyes went back to the two bows. All told, the engineer had made twelve over the eight-day before, each a struggle sandwiched between limited stone-cutting and building the heating stove for the bathhouse, and welding the two laundry tubs. Ellysia, relegated to laundry as a collateral duty because her obvious and early pregnancy had limited her riding, had immediately commandeered both.

According to what Nylan had overheard, though, she refused to launder anything of Gerlich's.

Nylan permitted himself a smile at that, before he forced his concentration back to controlling the laser, and smoothing the metal around the cormclit composite core of what would be another bow.

As the tip of greenish light flowed toward the end of the bow, the energy flows from the powerhead fluctuated more and more wildly, and Nylan staggered where he stood, trying to hold the last focal point.

Pphssttt! Even before the faint sizzling faded into silence, Nylan could tell from the collapse of the flux fields around the laser focal points that the powerhead had failed. The engineer slumped. The other cutting powerhead was in little better shape. The weapons head, although scarcely used, would squander power, depleting the cells in a fraction of a morning-without accomplishing much, except destroying whatever it was focused on.

The last powerhead might last long enough to finish another handful of the composite bows.

He frowned. First, he needed to cut the shower knife plates. Then, if the second powerhead lasted that long, he could go back to the bows. At least, the black tower was finished. That is, the basics were-roof, floors, the hearth, chimneys, the stove and the furnace itself, and the water system from the tower wall to the lower-level cistern.