He stifled a sigh. Did it matter? Ryba was going to do what Ryba was going to do, or what her visions told her to do, and for the moment he had no real choices.

Nor did any of them, he supposed, not if they wanted to survive. He tried to close his eyes, but they hurt more closed than open, with a gritty burning.

The shutter on the far side of the tower rattled again as the wind forced its way against the tower, and more icicles broke off and shattered across the plank floor.

Even the armaglass window creaked and flexed against the storm, although Ayrlyn insisted that, while the storms would be more violent in the eight-days ahead, they represented the warming that was already under way.

Nylan hadn't seen any real warming outside, and the snow was still getting deeper, and the game scarcer, and the livestock thinner, and tempers more frayed.

He tried to close his eyes again, and this time, this time they stayed closed.

LXII.

NYLAN LAY IN his snow-covered burrow, the long thong attached to the weighted net suspended over the concealed rabbit run.

Catching even rodents was a pain. First he'd had to put out the nets almost an eight-day before so that the damned frost rabbits would get used to the scent-or that the cold and wind would carry it away. But even when they triggered the net, somehow they never had stayed caught long enough for Nylan to get there.

So he'd been reduced to tending his net traps in person.

It had taken him all morning to get the one dead hare strapped to his pack, and it was well past mid-afternoon. Now, lying covered in the snow, watching the second rabbit run he had discovered, Nylan could sense the snow hare just below the entrance to the burrow. It had poked its head out several times, but not far enough or long enough for Nylan to drop the net.

So the engineer shivered and waited... and shivered and waited.

The sun had almost touched the western peaks before the hare finally hopped clear of the burrow.

Nylan jerked the thong and the weighted net fell.

The rabbit twisted, but the crude net held, and in the end, Nylan carried a small heap of thin flesh and matted fur up through the snow. Now he had two thin, dead snow hares- that was all.

He was cold, his trousers half-soaked. The sun was setting, and he had a climb just to get out of the forest, even before the ridge up to Westwind.

All that effort, for two small hares. In the future, could they breed them? Except that meant more forage and grain stored, and there was a limit to what they could buy or grow.

He waded through the snow that was chest-deep downwind to where his skis were. Once he went into a pothole, with the snow sifting around his neck and face. He slowly dug himself out.

His fingers fumbled as he strapped his boots to the skis in the growing purple deeps of twilight. Then he pushed one heavy ski after the other along the slope.

When he reached the packed trail the horses used to drag the trees up the ridge, he unfastened the thongs and carried poles and skis up the ridge. By the time he reached the causeway, all the stars were out, and the night air cut at his lungs.

From the darkness outside the tower, he stumbled inside into the gloom of the front entry area inside the south door, carrying skis, poles, and hares.

The warmth of the great room welled out and surrounded him, and the twin candles on the tables seemed like beacons.

Ayrlyn reached him first as he leaned against the steps. "Ryba was worried. It gets cold out there when the sun goes down."

"I know. It took a little longer than I thought." He looked toward the guards at the table, his eyes focusing on the cook near the end of the second table. "Kyseen.

My humble offerings." Nylan raised the pair of dead hares.

The dark-haired cook slipped from the table and hurried across the cold slate floor. "All offerings are welcome these days, ser."

Kadran followed her. "If you can bring in a couple more, we can tan the pelts and stitch them together as a coverlet for Ellysia's Dephnay," added the second cook. "This tower's not so warm as it could be for a child ... begging your pardon, ser, knowing you did the best you could, but it's not."

"By next winter, it will be warmer." Nylan hoped they would be around for next winter.

"You go eat, ser," insisted Kyseen. "I'll dress these quick so they don't spoil, and I'll be back up in an instant."

"Have you eaten?" he asked. "I wouldn't want to spoil your meal..."

"I've eaten, and you haven't." Kyseen took the two hares and started down the steps.

Nylan left the skis and poles by the stairs. He'd put them away after he ate.

"Two rabbits? That's all?" asked Gerlich as Nylan walked slowly toward his place at the table.

"I'm still learning." As Nylan sat, heavily, ignoring the cold and dampness in his trousers, he asked, "By the way, when did you last bring in any game?"

Gerlich flushed. "I brought in a winter deer, not a rabbit."

"That was more than two eight-days ago," Ayrlyn said as she reseated herself across from the engineer.

"So?" retorted Gerlich. "Everything's scarce these days, and we've probably already killed the stupid ones."

"We can't live on stupid game," pointed out the singer.

"The hares are another meal." Ryba's voice cut through the argument. "And each meal helps." She smiled for a moment at Nylan, though there was sadness in the expression as well as pleasure and relief.

"It's always cold and dark! Always!"

Nylan turned his head at the loud words from the lower table, where Istril had laid her hand on Murkassa's shoulder.

"The days are getting longer now," pointed out the silver-haired guard. "Before long, it will be getting warmer as well."

"It's still too cold and dark." Murkassa's words seemed lower, though Istril patted her shoulder again. "Even the wall stones are cold and dark."

Turning back to the trencher before him, Nylan took a slow swallow of the warm tea, not even minding the bitterness. He reached for the chunk of bread left for him.

A portion of a mutton stew or soup also remained, only half-warm, but Nylan began to eat, hardly conscious of the coolness of the meat and gravy, or the lumpiness that marked the last of the blue potatoes ... or of the continuing conversation between Istril and Murkassa.

LXIII.

"I CAN'T! I can't!"

From the corner of the furnace and woodworking room where he smoothed the sideboards of the cradle, Nylan looked toward the stone steps.

"NO! I won't. I can't."

Beside him, Siret dropped the polishing cloth, then awkwardly bent over, trying to reach the scrap of fabric. Nylan retrieved it and handed the cloth back to her.

"Here."

"Thank you, ser. I feel like I can't do much of anything easily-"

"No! It's too white! It's . .. AEEEiiiii..."

Across the room, Ayrlyn set down the lutar bridge she had been working on, nodded to Hryessa, and hurried up the stairs. After a momentary hesitation, Nylan lurched to his feet and followed Ayrlyn, not knowing quite why he did, but feeling that he should.

By the south door to the tower, Jaseen and Istril held a struggling brown-haired figure-Murkassa-dressed in a heavy jacket.

"Too white! It's too white!" Murkassa's flailing arm caught Istril across the cheek, but the silver-haired guard pinned the arm to her anyway, ignoring the red blotch that would be a bruise.

Ayrlyn stepped up to Murkassa, whose body was stiff, and whose screams had become incoherent, and touched her forehead. Murkassa jerked away, but Ayrlyn followed the movements, again touching her forehead.

After a moment, the dark-haired woman slumped, and the two holding her lowered her to the floor.

"Whew!" muttered Jaseen.

Istril put a hand to her cheek.

Ayrlyn bent down and stroked the woman's forehead. "You'll be all right. . ."

Nylan swallowed. Had he felt that unreasoning fear and rage? He studied the figure on the stones. Murkassa's face, though relaxing under the healer's touch, remained drawn. Or was it just thin?

Nylan thought for a moment. Wasn't everyone's face thinner? His trousers were looser.

"Hut fever," Ayrlyn said wryly, straightening up.

"Hut fever?" asked Istril.

"She's not built for the cold-not enough body fat when she came here,"

explained Ayrlyn. "We really don't have warm enough garments-or sufficient food for a good cold-weather diet. She can't stand the cold. She's afraid of it-with reason-but she can't stand being kept confined." Ayrlyn shrugged. "The conflict just got to her."

"What do we do?" asked the medtech. "There's nothing in the kits, little enough left anyway, and we're saving that for childbirths."

"She'll be all right." Ayrlyn sighed, then sank onto the stairs.

Nylan could feel her exhaustion, almost the way he had felt when he had worked hard manipulating the fields for the laser-or the powernet on the Winterlance. The Winterlance seemed a lifetime ago, and, in a way, it was.

"Just take her up to her bunk. She'll be all right when she wakes." Ayrlyn's voice was low and hoarse.

"You sure?" asked Jaseen.

The singer and healer nodded.

Jaseen turned and called to Weindre, who stood gaping by the stairs from the lower level. "Give me a hand."

"Istril's there."

"Get your rump over here. Last thing we need is Istril lugging weights up.stairs.

Then we'll have someone else needing medical care we haven't got the supplies for."

As Weindre neared, Istril said quietly, "I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," said Jaseen. "Someday it'll be her turn, and she'll need help."

As the two guards carried Murkassa up to the next level, followed by Istril, Nylan said to Ayrlyn, "Stay here. I'll be right back."

He hurried down to the kitchen and cornered Kadran. "I need some bread, something for the healer."

"Healer?"

"Ayrlyn used that healing touch on Murkassa-she went crazy, Murkassa, I mean-and Ayrlyn looks like she's been run over by a couple of horses."

Kadran frowned. "Just a little. You never lie anyway, ser, but some, they'd tell me anything to get more to eat, and we got to keep it fair."

"I know. I appreciate it."

"Here you go, ser." Kadran cut a thin slice from the end of a loaf cooling on the table. "Just try not to talk about it, or everyone will have a tale of some sort."

Nylan nodded wryly. "I'd gathered as much. Thank you."

Nylan carried the thin slice of the bitter and dark bread up the stairs, where he handed it to Ayrlyn.

The healer took it without speaking and began to eat, slowly. More slowly, the color returned to her face. "How did you know?" she asked after she licked the few crumbs from around her lips.

"I could . . . sense it. You sort of manipulated the whiteness away from her, but that takes energy."

For a moment, neither spoke as Jaseen and Weindre trudged back down the steps. Nylan moved to let them pass.

"We got her in her bunk. Istril's staying with her," Jaseen announced.

"Thank you, Jaseen, Weindre," said Ayrlyn.

"No problem. Want you around to do that healing if I need it." Jaseen offered a smile and a half salute. "We're going down where it's warm." After the guards had disappeared into the lower level, Nylan sank back onto the stone step.

"Thank you," Ayrlyn said.

"You're welcome." He added, "I saw Murkassa after you put her to sleep, and I was thinking how thin she was." He shifted his weight on the stone.

"Everyone's thin. Haven't you noticed that?" Ayrlyn glanced down at the entry space by the closed south door, then back at Nylan. "The fact that Istril, Siret, Ryba, and Ellysia are pregnant takes our minds away from it-that and the bulky clothes. We're not on what seems to be a starvation diet, but you need three to four times the food intake if you're active in cold weather, and we have to be active-for a number of reasons-like getting enough wood to keep from freezing.

So we really don't have enough food."

"Is it ever going to get warmer?"

"It already is. The ice is thinner on the windows, and before long they'll stay clear all the time." Ayrlyn paused. "I worry about the food, though. Darkness knows what it will be like by early summer."