The Chaos Balance by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page A

allowed to get in the way of your dream."
    "It's not like that. I did what had to be done. Do you think that I liked killing Mran? Or seeing two-thirds of my crew wiped out? I relive that a lot. Do you think that I like seeing you leave, no matter what I've done? Do you think that I'll enjoy looking at all those cairns at the end of the meadow for the rest of my life? It's easy to criticize and to leave, Nylan.
    It's a lot harder to build something and live with the pain."
    "How you build is important, too," the engineer answered.
    "I built you and the guards an honest tower. An honest bath house. An honest smithy. Honest stables. Even the beginning of an honest metaled road to the rest of the world. You built with deception. You deceived me. You deceived Istril, Ayrlyn, and Siret. And, in the end, however long Westwind lasts, that deception will bring down your work."
    "You won't change, Nylan. You're just as deceptive as I am The difference is that I recognize it, and you won't." Ryba stood, waiting for Nylan to take Dyliess. "What I build will last, and only your name will remain, a vague legend about a mighty mythical smith, and that will be because I had Ayrlyn write a song about you."
    "You have an answer for everything, don't you?"

"So do you," she answered. "Take Dyliess. Sing to her, and I will tell her you did. Yes, I will. For her sake, not yours." Nylan stepped forward.
    "Ah . . . ooo .. ." Dyliess stretched her arms out to her father, looking up, a blanket wrapped around her waist and legs. Nylan picked her up, cradling her against his shoulder, and rocking back and forth, holding her tightly. Ryba slipped to the door. "I'll be back in a while." Still holding his silver-haired daughter, Nylan walked toward the trundle bed he had made and looked down. He stepped back across the smoothed plank floor to the rocking chair, where, cradling her against his shoulder, he sat down and began to rock . . . gently.
     
    "Oh, my dear, my dear little child,
    What can we do in a place so wild,
    Where the sky is so green and so deep
    And who will rock you to sleep?
    Your daddy is leaving; he's going away
    There's only a cradle and nothing to say,
    but when the stars shine over the western sky,
    try to remember that he once said good-bye."
     
    The tears rolled down the smith's cheeks, and his vision, his superb day and night vision, showed him nothing. Nothing at all.
    In time, he finally stood, laid the sleeping Dyliess in her cradle, and returned to his quarters to gather everything together.
    With a last look at the sleeping child, he started down the steps, loaded with all his gear, moving slowly to avoid tripping over the blade at his waist. The one in the shoulder harness would be easier to use, far easier, once he was mounted. Some of the customs of Candar made sense-usually those having to do with arms.
    As he trudged down to the fourth level, Siret glanced up after slipping on a work tunic. Her eyes took in all that Nylan carried, and, with a quick look to the bed where Kyalynn sat wrestling with a crude stuffed bear that Hryessa had made, Siret hurried across the wide planked floor to the stairs.
    The engineer paused.
    "Nylan? You're leaving, aren't you?" Her deep green eyes caught his.
    He nodded.
    "I could see it coming. Nothing you do pleases her."
    He shrugged. "I'm not like Gerlich. I won't be back, not that way."
    "You won't be back. This world needs you."
    He blinked, not expecting such a comment.
    "Ryba will fight the world. She will make the men who rule come to her and be defeated-but they won't. They'll let us rule the mountains, and let the truly unhappy women come to us." She smiled bitterly. "I've thought about it. People don't think I do, but I do ... a lot. The Marshal . . . and especially you . . . gave me that."
    "Me?" Nylan was feeling totally confused, wondering what else he had done that he hadn't seen.
    "I watched you, Nylan. You don't talk much about why you do what you do. You do it. You push