Mran's head snapped back, and the lifeless body slumped onto the field.

Ryba looked at the marines. "I never want to do this again-ever. But I will if I have to. We won't survive if everyone thinks she can second-guess me. I'll listen to ideas, and I have, and I've taken them. But there's no room for this sort of thing."

As Ryba belted on the crossbelts, Huldran turned to Nylan. "Hard woman."

He nodded. "I'm afraid she's right. According to our local source, old Narliat, we're regarded as the evil-doers from the skies, and force of arms and surviving up here in the cold are all that are likely to save us. More democratic systems don't work well with large egos, and marines and ship's officers all have large egos." Nylan snorted.

"Frigging lousy situation." Huldran's green eyes glared momentarily.

"Let's try to make it better." Nylan shrugged, and turned to walk back toward the incomplete tower. He didn't know what else Ryba could have done, not without creating even more problems in the days ahead, but he didn't want to talk to her at the moment. Even if some people, like Gerlich and Mran, or Lord Nessil, the dead local leader, seemed to respect only force, Nylan might have to accept it, but he didn't have to like it.

He looked back to where Ryba mounted. He suspected Ryba was shaking, inside-high speed took a lot out of a body-but the captain seemed as solid as the stone Nylan labored over as she turned the roan toward the next field.

XIII.

"WHAT WILL YOU do with the cowardly wizard, dear?" asks the heavyset and gray-haired woman who sits on the padded bench in the alcove.

The black-bearded young man pulls down his purple vest and walks toward the empty carved chair with the purple cushion, then turns back to face her. "Much as I distrust Hissl, Mother dear, I wouldn't call him cowardly. According to the handful of troopers who returned, he was attacked, and he used his firebolts.

After Father and nearly twoscore troopers were killed, he retreated. If he hadn't brought them back, we still wouldn't know what happened for sure. Then I would have had to rely on Terek's screeing, and I don't like that, either. He's even more devious than Hissl."

"All wizards are devious. That was what your father said, Sillek," the lady Ellindyja responds.

"He was right, but they have their uses."

"What will you do with Hissl?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? After he led your father to his death? Nothing?" Ellindyja's voice rises slightly, its edge even more pronounced.

"What good will killing him do? We've just lost three squads of troopers, and it looks like we now have an enemy behind us, right on top of the Roof of the World, possibly able to close off the trade road to Gallos. Lord Ildyrom and his bitch consort are building a border fort less than a half day's march from Clynya, and the Suthyan traders are talking about imposing more trade duties. Sooner or later, we'll have to fight to take Rulyarth from them or always be at their mercy."

Sillek pauses. "With all that, you want me to kill a wizard and get their white guild upset at me? Create another enemy when we already have too many?"

"You are the Lord holder of Lornth now, Sillek. You must do what you think best... just as your father did."

"What good would executing Hissl accomplish?"

His mother shrugs her too expansive shoulders. "The way you explain it, none. I only know that difficulties always occur when white wizards are involved."

"I will keep that in mind." Sillek turns and walks to the iron-banded oak door, which he opens. "Take the wizards and the others to the small hall."

"Yes, ser."

Sillek holds the door to his mother's chamber and waits as she rises. They walk down the narrow hall to the small receiving chamber where he steps up and stands before the carved chair that rests on a block of solid stone roughly two spans thick. The lady Ellindyja seats herself on a padded stool behind his chair and to Sillek's right.

Seven men file into the room. The five troopers glance nervously from one to the other and then toward the two wizards in white. None look at Lord Sillek, nor at his mother, the lady Ellindyja. Hissl's eyes meet Sillek's, while Terek bows slightly to the lady before turning his eyes to Sillek.

"Who has been in the forces of Lornth the longest?" Sillek's eyes traverse the troopers.

"Guessin' I have, ser. I'm Jegel." Jegel has salt - and - pepper hair and a short scraggly beard of similar colors. His scabbard is empty, as are the scabbards of all five troopers. The left sleeve of his shirt has been cut away and his upper arm is bound in clean rags.

"Of the three score who rode out with Lord Nessil, you are all who survived?"

"Beggin' your pardon, ser, but we aren't. Maybe a dozen rode down the trade road to Gallos. Welbet led 'em. He said that you'd never let anyone live who came back with your father left dead."

"That's the way it should be .. ."

Sillek ignores the whispered comment from his mother, but the troopers shift their weight.

"Why did you come back?" he finally asks.

"My consort just had our son, and I was hopin'..." Jegel shrugs.

"Did you ride away from my father in battle?"

"No, ser." Jegel's brown eyes meet those of Sillek. "I charged with him." His eyes drop to his injured arm. "Got burned with one of those thunder-throwers, but I followed him until there weren't no one to follow. Then I turned Dusty back."

"Dusty?"

"My mount. I ran into the wizard at the bottom of the big ridge-him and most of the rest. Most went with Welbet. The rest of us came back with the wizard."

"What did you think of the strangers?"

Jegel shivers. "Didn't like their thunder-throwers. One woman-she was the one with the blades-she threw a blade, and it went right through Lord Nessil's armor, like a hot knife through soft cheese. Then she took his horse, and slaughtered three, four of the troopers with both the blade and the thunder-thrower, almost as quick as she looked at 'em."

"Were they all women?"

"Mostly, ser. Except the one I got. He had a thunder-thrower, but it did him no good against my blade."

Sillek's eyes turn to the second trooper.

"I be Kurpat, Lord Sillek. I couldn't be adding much."

"Did you leave my father?"

"No, ser."

Sillek continues the questioning without finding out much more until he comes to Hissl.

"And, Ser Wizard, what can you add?"

"About the fighting, Lord Sillek, I can add little, except the thunder-throwers throw tiny firebolts, much like a wizard's fire, but not so powerful."

"If they were not so powerful, why are so many troopers dead?"

Hissl bows his head. "Because all of the strangers had the thunder-throwers, and because the thunder-throwers are faster than a wizard. If your father had twoscore wizards as powerful as Master Wizard Terek, there would be no strangers."

"Pray tell me where I would find twoscore wizards like that?"

"You would not, ser, not in all Candar."

"Then stop making such statements," snaps Sillek. "Don't tell me that twoscore wizards will stop the strangers when no one could muster so many wizards.

Besides, you'd all be as like to fight among each other as fight the strangers."

"Pray answer a widow's question, Ser Hissl," requests Ellindyja from the stool on the dais. "How was it that you counseled my consort to attack the strangers?"

Hissl bows deeply. "I am not a warrior, Lady. So I could not counsel the lord Nessil in such fashion. I did counsel him that the strangers might be more formidable than they appeared."

"But you did not urge him to desist?"

Hissl bows again. "I am neither the chief mage of Lornth"-his head inclines toward Terek-"nor the commander of his troops. I have expressed concerns from the beginning, but the chief wizard advised me that, since I could not prove that the strangers presented a danger, we should defer to the wishes of Lord Nessil, as do all good liegemen."

"You, Chief Wizard," Ellindyja continues, "did you counsel Lord Nessil to attack the strangers?"

"No, my lady. I did inform him of their presence, and I told him that they were appeared likely to stay."

"And that some were exotic women, I am sure."

Hissl's lips twitch.

Sweat beads on Terek's forehead before he answers. "I did inform him that several, men and women, had strange silver or red hair. I also told him that they had arrived from the heavens in iron tents and that he should proceed with care."

"You, Ser Hissl, did you bid him proceed with caution?"

"Yes."

"Then why did he attack them?"

"My lady," responds the balding wizard, "we rode up in peace, but the leader of the strangers refused to acknowledge Lord Nessil, even when he drew his mighty blade."

"I see. I thank you, Ser Wizard." Ellindyja's voice is chill.

Hissl offers a head bow to her.

"Go... all of you." Sillek's face remains blank as the five troopers and the wizards walk quietly toward the door.

XIV.

NYLAN ADJUSTED THE single pair of battered goggles and then lifted the powerhead of the laser in his gauntleted hands. The wind blew through his hair, and the puffy clouds scudded quickly across the sky, casting quick-moving shadows across the narrow canyon where the engineer stood. The chilly summer wind carried not only the scent of evergreens, but of flowers, although Nylan could not identify the fragrance. The starflowers had all wilted or dried up, but lower yellow sunflowerlike blooms appeared in places, and long stalks that bore single blood-red blooms jutted from crevices in the rocks at the western edge of the meadow-and from between the rocks in the cairns.

Fifty steps down the dry gorge stood a horse harnessed to a makeshift sledge.

Two marines-Berlis and Weindre- waited by the horse for the cut stones that Nylan hoped he could deliver. He also hoped the laser lasted long enough for him to cut a lot of stones.

He touched the power stud, and the laser flared. Nylan could almost feel the power, like a red-tinged white cloud, that swirled from the firin cells into the laser. He released the stud.

"What's the matter, ser?" asked Huldran.

"Nothing major," he lied, thinking that it was certainly major when the ship's engineer imagined he could see actual energy patterns. His head throbbed slightly with his words, and he massaged his temples. The effect was almost like coming out of reflex step-up.

The wind whistled through the branches of the stunted pines farther back and higher in the narrow gorge. He moistened his lips.

"Are you all right, ser?" The stocky blond Huldran bent forward.

"I will be." / will be if I can get my thoughts together, he added to himself. As he looked around the gorge, he wondered whether, if he cut the stones correctly, he could also hollow out spaces so that the area in front of his quarrying could eventually be walled up or bricked up for stables or storage or quarters.

Then he shook his head. He was getting too far ahead of himself. The power swirl-why was it familiar?

"Something . . . but nothing bothers him . . . got nerves like ice ..."

He tried to push away the whispers from Weindre and concentrate on the power flow. Flow-that was it! It was like a neuronet flow. He touched the stud again, briefly, and concentrated, ignoring the sweaty feeling of his hands and fingers within the gauntlets.

The laser flared just for a microinstant, but that was enough.

Nylan squared his shoulders and studied the rock, then aimed the head along the chalked line. The white-red line of invisible fire touched the line. Nothing happened, except that the rock felt warmer, hotter, redder.

"Frig," Nylan muttered under his breath, as he cut off the power again. He'd been certain that the laser would cut through the rock. Lasers cut everything, from cloth to metal. Why wouldn't they cut rock?

Because, his engineering training pointed out, they burned through other substances, and the rock could absorb more heat than cloth or sheet metal, and it didn't accept the heat evenly, either.

"Problems, ser?" Huldran blotted the sweat oozing across her forehead.

"Some basic engineering I need to work out."

He needed to work out more than basic engineering.

After taking another deep breath, he triggered the laser once more and reached out with his thoughts, as though he were still on the neuronet, ignoring the impossibility of the setting, and smoothed the power flow. This time, the rock began to smoke along the focal line of the laser, and a slight line slowly etched itself along the chalk stripe.

Nylan depowered the laser, and checked the power meter-half a percent gone for nothing, nothing but a scratch on black rock.

"Ser?" Huldran stepped forward to look at the black stone.

"We're getting there," he lied, pushing the goggles back and wiping his damp forehead. "It's slow. Everything's slow."

"If you say so, ser."

Could he narrow the focus, somehow use the netlike effect to redirect the heat into a narrower line? If he couldn't, the laser wasn't going to be much good for stone-cutting.

Replacing the goggles, he checked to see that the head was set in the narrowest focus, then triggered the power. As the fields built, he juggled the smoothing of the power flow and his efforts to channel power into the thinnest line of energy possible. For an instant, all he got was more stone-etching, then, abruptly, the lightknife sliced through the black rock.

Nylan's eyes flicked to the power meter-the flow was half what it should be. He stopped his-were they imaginary?-efforts to smooth the flow and felt the red- white swirl and watched the meter needle rise and the slicing stop. Hurriedly, he went back to his not-so-imaginary efforts to reduce the laser power flow fluxes, letting himself drop into the strange pseudonet feeling that eased the energy flows to the laser and reinforced the energy concentrations. Even though he had no scientific explanation for the phenomenon, his efforts reduced the energy draw of the cutter by nearly fifty percent, while cutting stone in a way he wasn't certain was possible, and he wasn't about to turn his back on anything that effective, whether he could explain it or not.

As the tip of the laser reached the end of the chalked line, Nylan eased it back along the second line, then along the third, before releasing the stud. He wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, then knelt, adjusted the powerhead, and positioned the laser for the undercut.

Still concentrating, he powered the laser, smoothed the flow, and drew it along the line. Then he released the stud, and, using the gauntlets he had pressed into service to protect his hands from rock droplets, he tried to wiggle the stone. The whole line wobbled.