Abruptly, Siret set down the hammer and looked toward the shadows.
Saryn stepped forward across the cut-stone lip of the quarry to where Saryn stood.
“Do you need something, ser?” asked Siret.
“I was just observing,” said Saryn. “You’re working the stone the way the engineer did, maybe even better.”
“I don’t think so, ser,” replied Siret, not looking directly at the commander, but not actually looking away, either.
“I do. I’ve seen you both.” Saryn let the silence hang between them for a moment. “You’ve never said anything about it.”
“What is there to say?” Siret lifted the hammer, struck the chisel, and an improbably long wedge of stone split away from the block. She turned the stone on the flat ledge she was using as a work surface, then struck again. In what seemed moments, a dressed stone rested there.
Two guards immediately hurried over from where they were stacking rough blocks and carried the dressed stone to the wagon that waited at the end of the road up from the stables.
“Just as Nylan built Tower Black,” Saryn said, “you’ll build the rest of Westwind.”
“I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for a safe future for Kyalynn. That means a bigger stronghold. That takes stones and healthy women.” Siret waited as the two guards returned and lugged a rough oblong of stone up and set it on the ledge.
After the guards had walked down into the quarry to fetch more rough blocks, Saryn asked, “What do you think about Dealdron?”
“His leg is healing. Your guards did a good job of splinting it.”
“That wasn’t what I meant. You’re one of the few who can sense…you know what I mean. Will he fit into Ryba’s plans, do you think?”
“You can tell if people tell the truth, Commander.”
“Feelings are harder for me.”
Siret looked at the woman who had been a UFA command pilot. “Weren’t they always, ser?”
“You’re suggesting something.” Saryn offered a grin.
“To heal or work metal or stone…you have to feel. If you let yourself feel too much, you lose your effectiveness as a commander and a warrior, like the engineer did.”
Saryn hadn’t seen that Nylan had lost much effectiveness, not until after he’d destroyed thousands, then conveniently collapsed. “That may be, but what about Dealdron?”
“He’ll work out fine if you don’t ignore him.” Siret emphasized the “you” just slightly.
“Why me?”
“He believes in earned loyalty. You’ve earned it. So far, no one else has.”
Saryn didn’t care for the implications of Siret’s words, but she had to accept what the healer sensed and knew. “Have you talked to him about building techniques?”
“He knows some things we don’t. He’s also afraid that he wasn’t that good a plasterer and that we’ll find that out.”
“Since we don’t know anything about it, that might be difficult.” Saryn’s words were dry. “But don’t mention that to him.”
“I didn’t, but he knows enough that he’ll find out.”
“That can’t be helped, can it?” Saryn laughed. “He’ll figure it out anyway if he hasn’t already. There’s not any plasterwork anywhere in Westwind. He’ll see that, sooner or later.”
Siret replied with a half smile.
“Can you teach anyone else to cut stones the way you do?”
“None of the locals…Oh, they can handle the hammer and chisel, but they don’t sense where to strike and at the right angles. Daerona is a decent mason and a stone setter.” Siret paused. “The one who’s likely to be the best is Aemra. She likes it, and she comes up here and helps me in the afternoons.”
“She’s barely ten.”
“She’s better at it than anyone else.”
“Does Ryba know?”
“She may, but I haven’t told her. Neither has Istril. Istril’d be just as happy to have her daughter as a stonecutter. Aemra’s also artistic.” Siret walked to the end of the rock shelf, where she bent down and lifted an oblong of stone.
Saryn swallowed. The front side bore a sculpted face-that of Istril, although the hair was barely roughed in place, as was the neck. Even so, Istril’s grace-and something else, perhaps a trace of the pain that seemed to go with healing-was embodied in the stone.
“Aemra did that?”
“No one else. It’s to be a present. Istril hasn’t seen it.”
“You might have her work on a bust of Ryba as well.”
“She wants to finish this one first before she does. She is only ten, Saryn.”
The arms-commander nodded. Why was it that everything connected with the engineer created complications, even a daughter he’d never seen?
XVI
Every time a great angel leaves the Roof of the World, those who rule in lands far and wide should tremble and prepare for times of trouble, for each who leaves is unlike any other, and each shall leave her footprint and her name upon the lands she touches for ages to come.
There will be those who bear blades that none can parry, and few who oppose them will survive, and none will prosper. There will be those whose words are more deadly than slings and arrows, and those whose very countenance will charm beasts and yet freeze warriors…
Yet the first and last to leave Westwind shall also be silver-haired, save that both will be men, and destruction and rebirth will be their heritage, intertwining through the ages so that none will know from whence either came, nor the reasons why their actions will so afflict the world with changes that will lead to yet other changes, ceaselessly, all along the river of time.
Of those between, those upon the Roof of the World and those who descend to mold and form the Legend will free women to be what they should and can be. They will topple lands, and rebuild them, and they will create cities and places of art and beauty that will last through the ages, and yet the men who rule elsewhere will call them tyrants and worse.
Especially will those who follow the path of the white demons fear and condemn the angels and what they have wrought, and those selfsame demon followers will rip chaos itself from the earth itself and slash their way through mountains to strike at the lands of peace and prosperity where women rule. And yet all that will come to naught, high as the cost will be to those who would defend the Legend.
For in the end will the heritage of the Legend triumph, though it may not seem as such to those who behold that heritage and the fruits that it will bear over the endless years…
Book of Ryba, Canto I, Section IV [Original Text]
XVII
Over the next eightday, the Roof of the World warmed, as much as it ever did. The root crops continued to grow, and the hardy redberry bushes showed signs of blossoming. Predictably, Ryba showed irritation at the time it would take to create the horn composite bows, then ordered the bow-making to continue as quickly as possible with the limitations.
Because a thundershower was drenching Westwind in mid afternoon on sixday, Saryn decided to stay inside until it passed and undertake a thorough inspection of Tower Black from the level below Ryba’s quarters to the lowest level, which held the carpentry shop as well as sickbay and the armory. Everything was largely in place on the upper levels. Sickbay itself was empty, and she walked quietly to the carpentry shop, stopping well short of the entry archway when she saw Dealdron seated on an old bench, using a small plane to smooth out a headboard for one of the narrow pallet bunks that would be used by the younger guards. After a time, he set the plane down and slipped a small knife out of his belt, one so small it fit almost within his palm. He began to cut a design in the middle of the headboard. Behind him, several other guards worked on various projects, but none paid much attention to the young Gallosian.