The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [66]
Both hands grasp the arms of the chair, her fingers tightening as if to lever her slender body erect on the smooth red-oak deck. Then the fingers spasm, and she shudders.
“Sister, you deserve . . . all the hells of the eastern wizards.” She closes her eyes, as if the words alone have exhausted her, but she remains in the chair, behind those closed lids recalling the mirror and the swirling white that blocks any contact with her lifelink.
“Darkness damn . . . him and damn . . . her.” Her breath rasps through chapped lips and a parched throat. “Damn . . . damn . . .”
XXXVI
THE SOUND OF hammer upon chisel clangs, off-key, disordered, in the morning shadows that cloak the canyon.
The silver-haired man trudges back from the leading edge of the construction, past the first of the deep, straight clefts that separate one foundation block from another, each block a rock cube more than thirty cubits on a side. As he steps up to the unloading stand, he leans forward to balance the weight of the rocks in the basket upon his back, ignoring the ache in his shoulders and the crease-edged pain of the basket’s canvas straps.
Before him stretches the newest canyon of the mountains, a knife-sharp raw gash open to the east. At the base of that gash are the joined stones of a roadbed that strays not a thumb’s width to the left or to the right, a roadbed that runs from Fairhaven to where he stands, or so he has been told. Behind him, scarcely four hundred cubits distant from the square timbers of the unloading apparatus he approaches, the canyon’s clean-cut walls terminate in a barrier of solid stone. The trees and soil, more than two hundred cubits above, have been removed, and the dust and white ash from that removal drift into the notch below, causing the workers to cough occasionally, and to squint and blink away the ash and grit.
Halfway between the unloading platform and the mountain wall that blocks the road’s progress stand two figures in white: white boots, tunics, and trousers.
With the ease of habit, the silver-haired young man turns and presents his burden, slipping from the straps and standing aside to wait for the return of the empty basket. His eyes skip over the glittering arc that flows from the northern wall of the canyon a kay eastward from his work: a stream that tumbles into the watercourse beside the road, clawing futilely at the massive granite blocks and smooth-fitted stonework that support the road. Some of the mist from the falling water drifts back toward the silver-haired man as the light morning breezes shift.
The fill-master swivels the unloading spout to direct the smaller granite chunks into the space between the two base blocks and above the stone drain. The watercourse beside the new construction remains empty except for scattered puddles from the rain of the afternoon before.
“Next!”
Stepping to the other side of the unloading platform, the man who has no name, none that he can presently remember, reclaims his empty basket and trudges back toward the wizards in white.
Tweet! Tweet! A shrill whistle splits the morning shadows, for the sun has not yet climbed high enough to strike the bottom of the canyon.
“Stand back! Stand back, you idiots!” The order— conveyed in a disordered, grumbling growl—tumbles from the fleshy lips of a man in white leathers who wears a sword and a white bronze-plate skullcap. “You! Silver-top! Stand by the stone. Behind the barrier!”
After edging behind the low stone wall that rests on wooden skids, the nameless worker takes his place among a dozen huddled figures.
“Close your eyes! Close your eyes!”
Remembering the pain, the silver-haired one complies. Has there been a time without pain? He feels that once such a time existed.
CRACK! CRACCCKKKK!
A flash brighter than the noonday sun, sharper than the closest of lightnings, flares across the stone face that rims the canyon.
Once-solid rock fifty