"They help. This is a strange world, but in many ways better than what I left."

"I trust you will always find it that way." Nylan cleared his throat. "And that you keep working on those new skills."

"I hope that Kyalynn has such skills. I wouldn't want her to be just a guard."

Siret's green eyes darted toward the stairs, as if to ask if Ryba were descending.

Kyalynn yawned.

"Well . . . work on your own skills." Nylan wiggled his finger out of the sleepy Kyalynn's hand and stood.

Siret offered a smile and rose. "I need to put them to sleep while I can. Ellysia can watch them while I practice and do a few things for me."

Istril and Weryl were at the next table, and Nylan crossed the stone tiles.

Weryl's eyes were already green, and they locked in on Nylan as the engineer approached his son.

"He knows his father," Istril said quietly.

"I should have realized earlier. There were clues there, but I just never thought.

.." Nylan shook his head.

"I'm not upset. It was my choice. You've saved my life twice, you know." Istril gave a wry smile. "And I don't even know what to call you. Part of me thinks of you as an officer and 'ser,' and part as Nylan."

"Whatever you feel comfortable with."

" 'Nylan' in private and 'ser' in public."

Nylan smiled. "All right."

"You know," Istril said quietly, "I'm stuck here. When I've been hunting, I've gone down lower, especially last summer. The air was so hot and thick that I felt like I couldn't breathe. Ayrlyn can do it. She's from Svenn. I couldn't. The guards that go with her-they all lose weight, and it takes them days to feel good after they return. That's why Ayrlyn takes different ones each time. You're only half Sybran.

You could handle the heat and thick air. So could Weryl. He's young ... but I couldn't." She shrugged. "It's not bad here, though, and it's getting better. I'm glad Blynnal came."

Weryl made a stretching motion, as if to reach out to Nylan. Nylan took the small hand and let Weryl's fingers curl around his.

"Oooohhh..."

"He likes you." Istril shifted the boy onto her other knee, closer to Nylan.

"I'd hope so."

"What are you going to do?"

"Right now, I'm trying to figure out a faster way to forge arrowheads. We need a lot of them. If I can solve that problem, I might go to work on planning and building a sawmill . . ."

In time, Nylan finally stood.

"I understand, Nylan, if you don't want to spend too much time with me. But keep stopping to see Weryl." Istril's face was calm, somewhere between content and resigned.

"I will." What else can I do? he thought. They are my children. Why . . . why did you do this to me? Why did I refuse to see what was happening? Because it was easier? He forced a smile, which softened as Weryl "gooed" again.

Either Istril or Siret would have been warmer to him than Ryba, and Siret really wasn't that interested-or so she said-in any man. Yet he never even considered them-because he was still bound in the officer-marine separation? And Ayrlyn, crying in the night?

Again, nothing was quite what it seemed on the surface, even with people. He supposed people still thought he and Ryba slept together. That was another problem they hadn't resolved-or he hadn't. Surprisingly, Ryba hadn't pushed.

What else did she know?

He snorted once, ironically, as he started up the steps to the fifth level. Wasn't that always the way it was? Ryba knowing, and not saying, and Nylan the great mage, bewildered and struggling. He snorted again.

In the dimness of the fifth level, Ellysia was practicing, puffing, with Saryn, Hryessa, and Ydrall. Nylan eased around the sparring and toward the section of storage shelves above the unused weapons laser. He scooped the parts he had taken from the lander and roughly bent into shape into a worn leather bag that had been some poor raider's purse.

Then he headed back down to the lower level. As he passed the third level, he saw Siret rocking Kyalynn to sleep. Dephnay, on her knee, looked wide awake.

Nylan found Relyn in the space off the kitchen, laboriously smoothing what looked to be a wooden tray.

"That looks good," observed the smith-engineer.

"I said I'd help her. She's too quiet." Relyn looked up. "Blynnal. She won't ask for anything."

"Some people won't. She's improved the food a lot."

Relyn grinned. "Sometimes, I get a little extra."

"I haven't forgotten my promise," Nylan said, taking out the pieces of metal.

"Like everything around here, it's taking longer. If you'll come here, I'd like to measure these. I'll probably have to hot-hammer-or whatever they call it- these together, but I wanted to check the fit first."

Relyn extended his hook.

Nylan slipped the pieces in place, then nodded toward the knife. "I need to see how tight it should be."

"As tight as you can make it, Mage."

The knife slid into the makeshift clamp easily, too easily. Nylan studied the construction, then took his own knife and scratched where the changes should be.

"We'll try again."

"You do not admit failure, do you?"

Nylan laughed, harshly. "Life is trial, and error. Those who succeed are those who survive their failures and keep trying. So far, I've been lucky."

Relyn looked back at the tray. "It is not luck-that I know. You understand how the world works." He smiled wryly. "I hope to learn that, too."

"You probably know more about that than I do," admitted Nylan.

"Never, Mage. You refuse to accept how much you do know."

"That's all," Nylan said, uneasy with Relyn's words. "Now, I have to make it work, and then forge scores and scores of arrowheads."

"You will," promised Relyn.

"I hope so." Nylan wished he were as sure as the young man from Carpa, but when he returned to the smithy, he carried the pieces for Relyn's clamp.

Huldran was waiting, and they loaded more of the charcoal into the forge.

XC.

ZELDYAN EASES HERSELF into the armchair facing the alcove where the lady Ellindyja embroiders.

"You do me honor, Lady," offers Ellindyja.

"You are the Lady of Lornth," responds Zeldyan easily.

"No longer. That is your position, now, but you are most kind to recall my past.

.. honor." The needle carries crimson thread into the white fabric. "How might I be of help?"

"I thought you might like to hear. There was a dispatch from Lord Sillek, Lady,"

answers Zeldyan.

"And you were thoughtful enough to come to tell me, and in your condition, too.

I appreciate that. I do." Ellindyja knots the crimson strand and threads green through the eye of the needle.

"I am well indeed, only sore, and that is passing. Nesslek is strong, and healthy indeed, and for that I am glad." Zeldyan laughs. "But I stray. Lord Sillek has taken the ford below the great fork and nears Rulyarth. According to the dispatch, they have destroyed nearly a thousand Suthyans, and less than that number stands ready to defend Rulyarth. The city was never walled, you know,"

she adds conversationally.

"I had heard that somewhere," Ellindyja assents. "You understand these things, I can tell. It must help, being raised in an honorable warrior's holding."

"I was fortunate," Zeldyan says, shifting her slender figure in the chair. "My mother was learned, and taught my father and her children. My father was skilled in arms and taught her and us both honor and arms."

"He taught arms to the lady Erenthla?" Ellindyja raises her eyebrows.

"But, of course. He wanted no helpless women in his holding." Zeldyan smiles as she rises. "I must go, but I did want you to know that Lord Sillek is well."

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Lady."

Zeldyan inclines her head.

As the door closes behind her, Ellindyja snaps the green thread, and knots it in a quick, hard motion.

XCI.

THE ALLOY IN the tongs began to change color, getting redder under the influence of the coals. Above the open doorway to the unfinished smithy, a fly droned, circling toward the sweating smith-engineer.

Arrowheads! Nylan was already sick of dealing with them, despite the acclaim the product had received from Istril and Fierral. Roughly two hundred had been finished. Nylan smiled. That meant two hundred that Fierral and the marines had to smooth and sharpen and fletch-and that also meant netting birds. Relyn had proved helpful there, explaining how to net them and which ones worked better.

With the tongs, Nylan flipped the red-hot metal onto the now-dented makeshift anvil, then began hot-cutting the shape of the arrowhead with the chisel and hammer while Huldran took over the tongs.

The hammer rose, and fell, and Nylan moved the chisel. Sparks of metal flew with each impact. One rough shape lay on the anvil, and Nylan began the cutting on the next. He concentrated on following the hidden grain of the metal, letting his senses guide him, even more than his sight.

That guidance resulted in stronger arrowheads, but each was subtly different from the next-not enough, Nylan hoped, to affect their flight.

Through the roof beams, the sun beat into the smithy, and sweat dripped down Nylan's face. He brushed back a fly, twice, before it buzzed across the meadow toward the smelly sheep from whence it had probably come. Nylan blinked back sweat. While he and Huldran forged, around them Cessya and, surprisingly to Nylan, Nistayna had worked on getting the roof timbers in place, but the roof had to wait for the completion of the forge itself.

Each day, after completing forging, Nylan mixed up some mortar and added to the hood and chimney of the forge. The door and windows could wait.

Before the metal cooled enough to need reheating, he had five shapes cut. With each day, his strokes, while probably crude compared to the local smiths, had gotten surer, and the finished product needed less and less smoothing.

Nylan nodded, and Huldran swung the uncut section of metal back into the coals. The smith-engineer brushed the sweat off his forehead with the back of his forearm, then took the tongs. "Need more air, Huldran."

The stocky blonde began to pump the bellows. While some air wheezed out through the sides of the bellows, most came up through the air nozzle, and the coals glowed hotter.

Nylan walked out to the dwindling pile of charcoal-another problem-and used a shovel to bring in another scoop, which he distributed evenly. Then he flipped the metal to get a better heat distribution.

He lifted the metal onto the anvil and turned to Huldran. "You try one."

Huldran just nodded and slowly picked up the hammer and chisel.

Clung!

Nylan winced as he felt the shiver up the guard's arm. "Angle the chisel a shade- to the outside. It cuts cleaner, and it doesn't hurt as much."

The second blow did not ring quite so off-key. Huldran finished two rough arrow-shaped forms before Nylan lifted the metal back into the forge.

"Harder than it looks, ser," Huldran admitted as she pumped the bellows.

"Yes. You didn't do badly. My first were pretty crude. I'll do the next batch, and then you can do some."

"You're a lot faster, and Fierral needs a lot of arrows."

"I know, but you need some practice, too. Westwind needs more than one person who can handle things like this. Otherwise, an accident-or an arrow from one of the locals- could wipe out everything I've learned."

When the metal came out of the forge again, cherry-red, Nylan resumed cutting.

The two kept working until past mid-morning, when they came to the end of the sheet of alloy. All that remained were a few scraps that Nylan swept into an already battered wooden bucket.

"Someday, I'll work on reforging the scraps into stock. I think that's what they call it." He wiped his forehead. "We need a break, and I need to find another panel in one of the landers that won't take forever to unfasten."

"I'll bank the fire," Huldran volunteered.

"Thanks." Nylan blotted the sweat out of his eyes again, then began to walk downhill along the trail he hoped would someday be a real road.

To the south, by the cairns, grazed the handful of sheep. Desain and Ryllya were weeding and working the fields, along with Selitra, who was supervising while weeding and cleaning out the small irrigation ditches.