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“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 shadowsacross 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.” I 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 stoneetching, 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.