His eyes flicked from the window back to Ryba, whose own eyes were glazed with concentration and the effort of measured breathing. On the other side of the lander couch stood Ayrlyn, her fingers resting lightly on Ryba’s enlarged abdomen. Beside her was Jaseen.
“I’m hot,” panted the marshal.
The joined couches had been moved toward the window because the ice and snow melting off the slate stone roof had revealed more than a few leaks that dripped down into the top level of the tower.
Nylan used the clean but tattered cloth to blot the dampness off Ryba’s face, then put his hand on her forehead.
“That feels good.”
“Good,” affirmed Nylan.
“Just a gentle push … gentle …”
“Hurts … tight …” the marshal responded. “Dyliess?”
“She’s doing fine, Ryba,” said Ayrlyn.
“I’m … not …” Ryba shivered. “Cold now.”
After he drew the blankets around her shoulders, Nylan blotted Ryba’s damp forehead again. “Easy,” he said. “You’re doing fine, too.”
“Easy … for you … to say.”
“I know.” Nylan kept his tone light, although, with his perceptions, he could sense that Ryba’s labor was going well, if any labor, and the effort and pain involved, could be said to be going well.
“Push … a little harder.”
“Am pushing …”
“Stop …”
“ … tell me to push, then not push … make up your mind …”
Nylan held back an inadvertent grin at Ryba’s asperity. “We’re trying to do this with as little stress on you and Dyliess as possible.”
“ … little stress?”
Jaseen nodded, but said nothing.
Nylan patted away the sweat on Ryba’s forehead, then squeezed her arm gently.
“Push!” demanded Ayrlyn.
The marshal pushed, turning red.
“You have to breathe, too,” reminded Ayrlyn after the push.
“Hot …” gasped Ryba.
Nylan eased the blankets away from her shoulders.
“All right … get ready …” said Ayrlyn.
Through it all, Nylan stood by, occasionally touching Ryba, infusing a sense of order, though that order was not essential. In the end, a small head crowned, and Jaseen eased the small bloody figure into the light, and onto the Roof of the World.
“In a bit, you’ll need to push again,” said Ayrlyn.
“I … know … let me see her,” panted Ryba.
When the cord was tied and cut, Ayrlyn eased the small figure onto Ryba’s chest. Dyliess seemed to look around, then turned toward her mother’s breast, her mouth opening and fastening in place.
“You little piglet,” murmured Ryba.
“Like her mother,” affirmed Nylan. “She’s concentrating on what’s important.”
His senses extended over his daughter, taking in the hair that would be silver and the narrower face that was also from his Svennish heritage. In some ways, almost, she felt like Kyalynn, Siret’s silver-haired daughter.
Nylan swallowed, then looked away toward the window, back out to the spring, and the melting snow, back out to the few green shoots that hurried through the patches of white.
Not now, he thought, not now, and he forced a smile, which turned into a real one as he watched Dyliess, even though his chest was tight, and a sense of chaos swirled through his thoughts.
“They’re both fine,” Ayrlyn affirmed.
Jaseen nodded.
Ryba’s eyes closed, a half-smile on her face.
LXXIV
“DON’T WE KNOW where we’re heading? Or when?” Hissl walks to the barracks door. By looking out and down the street, he can see the haze of light green-the grasslands that stretch all the way from Clynya to the South Branch of the River Jeryna.
Koric shrugs. “Lord Sillek is not telling anyone. We know we will be moving against either Lord Ildyrom or against those angels on the Roof of the World. One way or the other … we have to be ready.”
“He hasn’t said?” asks the white wizard.
“No. Rimmur said he almost took off his head for asking.” Koric laughs. “I can’t say as I blame Lord Sillek. If people knew where or when, they’d be ready, and our armsmen would be killed. As it is, everyone’s waiting for him to makea mistake, any mistake. Everyone talks. You know how hard it is to keep things quiet. Ildyrom probably has spies in every tavern in Clynya, and a few other places as well, if you know as to what I mean.”
“Yes, I know.” Hissl smiles faintly.
“You seen any sign of the Jeranyi, yet, in your glass?” Koric asks.
“Not anywhere close to the grasslands, but the grass is short, and the way’s still muddy.”
“Could they come up the river? Don’t you wizards have trouble with running water?” Koric fingers the hilt of the big blade on the bench before him.
“I can see what’s on the water, not what’s in it or under it. But they wouldn’t swim all the way upstream from Berlitos.” Hissl forces a chuckle.
“No, Wizard, I guess they wouldn’t. But you be looking for them. I wouldn’t want any surprises. Neither would Lord Sillek.”
“I’ll be looking,” Hissl replies. “I’ll certainly be looking.”
LXXV
FROM THE CAUSEWAY, Ayrlyn and Nylan looked at the fields and the stretches of mud that had been crude roads the previous fall and snow-covered trails through the winter. The fields and meadows were white and brown, still primarily white, although long green shoots poked through the white in places.
“Snow lilies.” Ayrlyn pointed to a green stem rising from the snow.
“Some things will grow in the strangest conditions,” mused Nylan. “They grow through the snow, and we can’t even walk up the hill without sinking knee-deep in mud.We’re not moving much anywhere for a while.”
“The stables are even more of a mess because all that packed snow turned into ice and then melted all at once. Fierral’s in a terrible mood. Then, I’m surprised she’s not that way more often.”
“Why?” asked the engineer.
“How would you like to be the chief armsmaster under Ryba? Fierral knows that nothing she does will ever match Ryba. That means she’ll always be the chief flunky.”
“Hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense.”
“Of course it does.” Ayrlyn snorted.
“We won’t be seeing any bandits or invaders for a while, I’d bet.”
“No traders, either,” pointed out Ayrlyn.
“You could ride out, and it would be dry when you returned.”
“If it didn’t rain, but I couldn’t bring much back without the cart, and how would I get it out of here?”
“Hadn’t thought about mud.” Nylan turned his eyes downhill and to the east. Below the lower outfalls, the cold rushing water, both from the runoff diverted from around the bathhouse and tower and from the drainage system, had cut an even deeper gouge through the low point of the muddy swathe that had been a road, a depression that was fast becoming a small gorge.
“I knew I should have built a culvert there,” muttered Nylan.
“Exactly when did you have time?” asked Ayrlyn.
“The road to the ridge needs to be paved.” Nylan ignored her question, since the only free time he’d had, had been after the snow had fallen. “It’s almost impossible to leave the tower anyway.” He glanced toward the fir trunks stacked beyond the causeway, noting that the trunks on the bottom of the pile were more than half sunk into the mud. “I suppose we can cut and split the rest of that wood.”
“You always have to have something to do, don’t you?”
“There’s always more to do than time to do it,” he pointed out.
She nodded slowly. “Do you think that when you die someone will build a huge stone memorial that says, ‘he accomplished the impossible’? Or ‘he did more than any three other people’?”
“No one will build me any memorials, Ryba’s prophecies notwithstanding.” Nylan paused, and then his voice turned sardonic. “Don’t you know that’s why I built the tower? It’s the only memorial I’ll ever have, and I’m the only one who knows it-except you.”