The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [29]
“And the Seraphim and the Cherubim were most wroth, and they gathered unto them all the angels that were men, and the white mists that tell of the truths that are within men and within women, be they angels or mortals. And they encircled all of the angels within the white clouds.
“Yet Ryba and lesser of the angels who were women broke from the circle and gathered themselves, their possessions, and their children unto themselves and unto their chariots, and they departed Heaven in their own way.
“The Cherubim and the Seraphim drew unto themselves all the angels that remained and armed all with the swords of the stars and the lances of winter, and carried destruction and night unto the demons of light.
“Across the suns that are stars, and even through the depths of winter between stars, the remaining angels pursued both the demons of light and the angels who had fled.
“But the demons of light drew unto their own ways and resources and builded for themselves the mirror towers of blinding light that dispersed back unto the angels the energies of the swords of the stars and the lances of winter.
“The stars dimmed, and the firmament that contained Heaven and all the stars and even the darkness between stars shook under the powers of the Cherubim and the Seraphim, and the change winds roared across the faces of the waters and blotted out the lights.
“Yet the demons were not dismayed, and mounted into their towers and hurled them against the angels, and again the firmament trembled and tottered, and this time, the stars fell into winter, and Heaven was rent in many places, and smoke that poisoned even the angels rose from that burning, and the Cherubim and the Seraphim, and the host of the angels perished, as did all but the strongest of the demons of light.
“Ryba, the least of the rulers of angels, thus became the last of the rulers, and the angels, having fallen from the stars after the time of the great burning, came unto the Roof of the World, where they gathered the winds for shelter and abided until the winter should lift.
“Yet upon the Roof of the World, as a memory of the fall of the angels, winter yet remains.
“So in that time, Ryba sent forth her people unto the southlands and the western ways, and told them: Remember whence you came, and suffer not any man to lead you, for that is how the angels fell . . .”
—BOOK of RYBA
Canto 1, Section II
(Original text)
XX
THE INN BARELY distinguishes itself from the trampled ice and heaped snow. It squats in the center of what might be meadows in the summer, its low stone walls not more than eight or nine cubits high, topped with a steep-pitched roof of gray slate tiles.
Creslin, his silver hair concealed by the oiled-leather parka hood he has tied tight as protection against the winds that have swirled around him for the past several kays, stands where the road widens out onto the flat valley holding the inn.
From the structure’s two chimneys—one at the right end and one in the middle—white and gray smoke forms a thin line, flattened by the wind and barely visible against the overhead clouds and the snow-covered slopes behind the inn.
The sound of a horse’s neigh echoes across the ice and the packed snow. Why would a horse be in the stables so soon after midday? Unless the beast was part of the party that had preceded him to the inn. With a shrug, Creslin takes a deep breath and starts toward the long building. Smoke continues to rise, but no figures brave the gusting winds.
A wooden door, braced with timbers, swings wide at the left side of the inn, and a bulky shape lumbers out and stops under the overhang of the eaves, facing Creslin and waiting.
Creslin continues along the stone road until he is less than two rods from the hitching rail that is nearly buried with snow shoveled from the two clear paths at the front of the building. One path, wide and filled with frozen hoofprints, leads leftward to the