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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

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BOOK: The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds

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“He couldn’t have stopped you.”

“No, but I might have had to leave the family altars for real if it came to that.”

“But it didn’t,” she said. “So where are you going?”

“I have a letter of introduction from the fleet-Circle’s First to another Circle out in the Wide Hills district.”

“That’s a long way from Hanilat.”

“It’s shorter than the far end of a trading voyage,” he said. “And I didn’t have much choice. Garrod syn-Aigal is the only Void-walker I know of who isn’t bound to one of the fleet-families. He was working at the Institute when we left Eraasi on the
Ribbon;
I thought he’d still be there when I came home.”

“But he wasn’t, so now you’re going away to—where in the Wide Hills, exactly?”

“Demaizen.”

“Never heard of it … you
will
write me a letter once in a while, won’t you?”

He smiled and drew her closer. “Only if you promise to write me letters back.”

Year 1122 E. R.

ERAASI: HANILAT STARPORT
AREGIL HIRING HALL
BEYOND THE FARTHER EDGE: AN-JEMAYNE

T
he Port Street Foundling Home kept the children it took in until they reached the age of legal employment; resources did not exist to shelter them further. The warden made every effort to find some kind of work for those who departed, but not all of his efforts were rewarded with success.

In spite of Ty’s unpromising origins, nobody expected him to be one of the warden’s difficult cases. He came to what would of necessity be his last year at the Home easy in heart about his future path. He would leave the Home and its school for the fellowship of the Three Street Circle.

He had, by that time, worked with the Circle for half a dozen years: From the early days when he had been a wide-eyed youngster coming around once a week to watch the Mages at their staff practice, to the present, when he was spending all of his free time in their company. He had learned how to use the simple visualizations and meditations, and had begun to practice regularly with—though he did not yet own—a short wooden staff. He had not taken the final step that would mark him as a Mage forever, the act of joining his strength and will to the Circle’s larger intent, but he knew that the day would come soon.

When the warden called him to the office one afternoon close to the end of the term, Ty felt no particular twinges of unease. He hadn’t been a discipline problem—except sporadically, and in the usual proportions—for years, ever since he’d found out that the Mages wouldn’t let him study with them on those days when he had fallen from grace. He’d learned to keep up his classwork for the same reason; he never became one of the Home’s shining academic lights, but he did well enough to stay out of trouble.

The office was a small, worn room on the first floor of the Home. It had seen a number of different wardens, and a generation or more of such interviews as this. The immaterial dust of all those past conferences lay thick on the cabinets and the chairs and the wide wooden desk; Ty considered saying as much aloud, but after a moment’s thought decided not to bother. The warden, who saw the physical world and nothing more, would only want to have someone come around with a dampened rag.

Ty took the plain wooden chair across the desk from the warden, folded his hands, and waited. The warden looked at him for a moment, then pulled a sheet of paper out of a large grey folder.

“It’s time we talked about your future,” the warden said.

It was his invariable opening line for an end-of-school interview. The Home’s dormitory comedians had been doing parodies of it for decades. Ty had learned sense, if not respect, over the course of the past few years, and kept his amusement to himself.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

The warden cleared his throat. He seemed ill-at-ease; Ty, noticing this, felt a distant, feathery moment of apprehension, quickly suppressed by a clear conscience.

“We all thought,” the warden said, “that once you left, you would be going to join the Three Street Circle.”

The moth-like touch of apprehension returned, stronger this time—
thought? would be?
—but Ty said nothing and strove to keep his bearing serene.

“I was hoping to go there,” he said. In spite of his best efforts, his hands tightened. “Is there a problem?”

“Well, yes … they say they can’t have you.”

The apprehension wasn’t a light and far-off thing any longer; it settled in Ty’s stomach like a block of lead. For the past six years, ever since the day when he had first comprehended its existence, he had bent himself toward a single goal. Now—if that effort was to be rejected—he wondered if he had accomplished nothing except to make himself unfit for anything else.

He swallowed. His mouth felt dry inside, like paper. “Did they say anything about why?”

“Umm … yes.” The warden looked again at the sheet of paper he’d taken from the folder. “The First apologizes on behalf of the whole Circle, but he says that they’re not brave enough to teach you.”

Ty stared at him. “The First says
what?”

“Listen.” The warden read aloud from the paper. “‘We are, honesty compels me to admit, a minor neighborhood Circle with no ambition to become anything more. Your student Ty has already learned those things which we can teach without bringing him completely into fellowship with us; but to take that final step would, I fear, push our Circle onto a path which we do not have the strength to walk all the way to the end.’”

“Where do I go now?” Ty whispered. His eyes burned with the effort of holding back the tears of shock and betrayal. “What can I do?”

For a moment the room darkened and he saw the bright cords of life like arrows piercing him through hands and heart, straight and hard. Then he blinked and the visions vanished, though not the pain they brought with them.

“We’ll find a place for you, of course,” the warden said, not noticing Ty’s words or the blackness. “Here is a letter of introduction for each of the two hiring halls in Aregil. A strong young man willing to work should be able to get by there while seeking other opportunities.”

Karil Estisk turned down her lamp. The rainy night outside was only city-dark. The lights of An-Jemayne, her own lamp multiplied a thousand thousands of times, reflected off the bottom of the low-hanging clouds and turned the sky a sullen charcoal color. The street lights along the road outside her apartment building shone upward, patterning her ceiling with the shadows of tree branches outside and lace curtains within.

These days the planetary news was full of stories about heightened tensions and the chance of renewed conflict to come. So far, though, Karil hadn’t seen a return to the blackout nights of her early childhood, when she and her family had slept in the bomb shelter more often than not. If she were lucky, she’d be back into space and away before things got that bad again.

Maybe I should close up the apartment for good this time,
she thought.
I can always rent another one if I have to.

She found the idea depressing. She didn’t like the thought of becoming like the older spacers, the ones from her parents’ generation and before, who did their best to live their lives outside of atmosphere and never went dirtside if they could help it.

Karil turned away from the light and went back to her treadmill. She used the machine whenever the cold or rain made running outside too uncomfortable. A professional spacer needed to keep in shape. In an emergency on shipboard, the strength and reliability of her own body might be the only thing that would prevent disaster. Karil thought about disasters a lot, trying to work through what to do in each event, so if the real thing ever happened she’d be ready.

Her brother told her thinking about things might make them happen … or maybe things that were going to happen made people think about them first. When he talked that way, she wasn’t always clear on what he meant. She didn’t think that he was, either.

A knock sounded at her door. Karil switched the treadmill off. She wasn’t expecting a visitor, and this was hardly the hour for a stranger to arrive at anyone’s home. She hurried over to the security flatscreen that showed the view outside her main door. The screen showed static snow. The relay still hadn’t been repaired. She made a mental note to file another work order with the house management.

The knock sounded again.

“Damn,” Karil said, hunting around for a shirt. One of the benefits of living on an upper floor was that no one was likely to be standing outside her window, and she liked to exercise topless for the sake of freedom of movement. She pulled on the first shirt she found—an oversized stretch-knit with the Swift Passage Freight Line’s logo screen-printed on the back—then went over to the door and peered out through the vision prism.

Someone was waiting—a tall, fair man dressed in black, carrying a long wooden staff. With an exasperated sigh, Karil opened the door.

“Lenset,” she said. “You have some nerve showing up after everything you put Mamma and Dadda through.”

“We all choose our own paths.”

“Pompous, aren’t you? Come on in before somebody sees you. That would be all I need, for the neighbors to know that I get visits from religious fanatics.”

“Your rooms are too small,” he said. “Let’s walk.”

“It’s cold outside. And wet.”

“Not that wet. Let’s walk. I have some news.”

Karil sighed again. “Oh, well, if you must.” She set the thumbprint lock to positive, pulled down a heavy jacket, and followed her brother back out into the hallway. She closed the door behind her and asked, “Where to?”

“Around. Wherever the spirit of the universe wills us.”

“Stop talking that way.”

“I won’t argue it, not tonight,” Lenset said. He walked ahead of her along the hallway and down the stairs—the elevator was stuck again—until they came to the street.

“How did you get in?” Karil asked, breaking the silence at last out of curiosity. “The front door’s only supposed to admit residents.”

“If I explained it to you you’d only get angry,” he said. He nodded to the right, where a paved sidewalk bordered the building’s outer wall. “That way.”

“You haven’t changed,” Karil said. Her breath steamed in the cool air. She started out walking at a brisk pace, forcing Lenset to lengthen stride to catch up to her, and willed her teeth not to chatter. She’d just gotten warmed up, and this was not her idea of the way to cool down. “Come on.”

“I have a job,” Lenset said, after they had walked for a while in silence.

The worst thing about him, Karil thought, was that it was impossible to predict what he’d do. She hated that.

“Good,” she said aloud. A hoverbus clamored by on their left, its internal lights showing seats full of sleepy passengers, its side panels lit up with advertising slogans. “That means you won’t be asking me for money. This time.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me what kind of job it is?”

“If it isn’t dropping fritters in a quick-lunch booth, I can’t imagine what it might be.” She looked at his staff. “Do you have to carry that thing around with you?”

“It’s a symbol,” he said.

“So’s everything, with you. You’re dying to tell me about this job—you came to see me in the middle of the night, you were so damned excited. So talk.”

“Councillor Demazze’s hired me.”

“You’re kidding.” The richest, the most powerful, the most mysterious and reclusive member of An-Jemayne’s entire ruling elite. If Demazze ever left the city, the press didn’t report it. Karil didn’t think that they would dare. “Does he know about your little hobby?”

“I think it’s what got me the job,” Lenset said. “Either that, or I got it because you’re my sister.”

Karil didn’t know how to respond. The whole idea of someone like Demazze paying attention to her—of even knowing about her—was downright unnerving.

The main road was coming up just ahead, with its twin lines of illuminated signs. Most of them advertised one vice or another, all the way from gluttony to drunkenness and avarice. They were getting near the starport strip now, and away from places where smart people walked alone at night. Karil avoided this area as much as possible; whenever she needed to get from her apartment to the port she used the direct underground shuttle. Lenset, of course, could walk through all sorts of squalor without even noticing it was there. She supposed the staff was protection for him. Not even criminal scum liked to deal with someone who openly proclaimed mental instability.

This part of An-Jemayne was one of the pre-war areas that hadn’t been bombed, and the lack of renovation showed. One sign showed a mug tilting back to a man’s mouth, over and over. Karil wondered how the illusion of liquid vanishing into his gigantic maw was done. Holos, she supposed, but the picture didn’t have the typical holo fuzziness.

So, was this a mechanical? She let her mind travel that way for a bit, in order to avoid thinking about her brother’s news. It was bad enough that Len was here at all. To have him bear the news that a member of the shadow government knew of her existence was worse. Most people—those with an average supply of sense, anyway—tried to escape the notice of the powerful.

“Demazze asked a lot of questions about you,” Lenset said finally. “And he asked me to do him a favor. To ask you to do it, that is.”

“What kind of favor?” Karil felt a shiver that wasn’t related to the air temperature run down her back. This sounded like politics, and it sounded like Len had finally done something too stupid for her to get him out of, and had capped it by dragging her in after him.

“He said to do this only if you wouldn’t tell anyone where it came from,” Lenset began ominously.

“Cut out the drama, would you?”

BOOK: The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds

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