A Working of Stars (45 page)
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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
OPHEL: SOMBRELÍR
A
rekhon Khreseio sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen, Magelord and Void-walker, stepped out through the last of the Void-marks on his long journey from the asteroid base, and found himself standing on a black-and-white tiled terrace on a summer’s evening in Sombrelír. The street below the terrace bustled with activity—hovercars and jitneys and draftbeast-carts, laden with passengers and piled high with merchandise—and the fiery dart of a lifting starship rose skyward against the blue-purple dusk beyond.
rekhon Khreseio sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen, Magelord and Void-walker, stepped out through the last of the Void-marks on his long journey from the asteroid base, and found himself standing on a black-and-white tiled terrace on a summer’s evening in Sombrelír. The street below the terrace bustled with activity—hovercars and jitneys and draftbeast-carts, laden with passengers and piled high with merchandise—and the fiery dart of a lifting starship rose skyward against the blue-purple dusk beyond.
He turned to look at the building behind him, curious to see if it too had changed. It had been a hotel once, not long ago as his mind remembered it, a pleasant place with a certain faded grandeur. Now a different building stood there, solid and foursquare and weathered by the passage of many years, with a metal plaque set into the masonry next to its heavy bronze doors:
DARIV-IRAO MERCANTILE AND TRANSPORT
PRIDE—PROSPERITY—PROFIT
OPHEL—NINGLIN—ENTIBOR
It was a good thing to know, Arekhon reflected, that not everybody bound by Demaizen into the great working had served it with pain and blood—that some had served it by loving and doing well. He would call on the Dariv-Irao in the morning, and make arrangements through them, if he could, for a journey back to Entibor.
Arekhon had always prided himself on his service, and he had a promise to keep to Elaeli.
This one is for all the squad members of EMS North and the folks at Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital.
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
MAGEWORLDS
The Price of the Stars
Starpilot’s Grave
By Honor Betray’d
The Gathering Flame
The Long Hunt
The Stars Asunder
A Working of Stars
The Price of the Stars
Starpilot’s Grave
By Honor Betray’d
The Gathering Flame
The Long Hunt
The Stars Asunder
A Working of Stars
Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict
Requiem for Boone
Requiem for BooneThis is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
A WORKING OF STARS
Copyright © 2002 by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
Edited by Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
eISBN 9781466802735
First eBook Edition : September 2011
Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Doyle, Debra.
A working of stars / Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 0-312-86411-6
1. Life on other planets—Fiction. I. Macdonald, James. II. Title.
PS3554.09743414 W67 2002
813’.54—dc212001050753
First Edition: April 2002
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