The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds (14 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds
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The ancestors, he hoped, were pleased with their present circumstances. He himself was unlikely to continue the family line—perhaps his sister would—but the luck that the old ones had sent him over the years meant that he was not too far removed from their favor.
At last, his devotions finished for the day, Elek rose and gestured to Jaf—who had knelt likewise, at an outsider’s respectful distance—that he should rise also.
“The household
aiketen
will take you to your room,” Elek said. “Refresh yourself, and rest for as long as you need to. When you’re ready, we can have breakfast—and speak, perhaps, of this matter you mentioned to me earlier.”
 
 
Iulan Vai left Hanilat at midmorning, not long after Arekhon sus-Khalgath set out on the road to Demaizen in the Hall’s well-maintained but elderly groundcar. Vai had passed along the job of keeping an eye on Elaeli Inadi to one of her contacts in the sus-Peledaen fleet. The contact was well placed to see what, if anything, Pilot-Ancillary Inadi brought back to the ship; if it turned out to be nothing more than pleasant memories, at least Vai wouldn’t have wasted any of her own time on a false lead.
Arekhon sus-Khalgath, on the other hand, she kept for herself. It was possible, she supposed, that the young Mage’s evening engagement at the Court of Two Colors had served no purpose other than a bit of nostalgic pleasure. He and Inadi had served their fleet-apprenticeship together, before he had gone to the Circles, and Vai knew how such an experience could bind people for years afterward.
But there was more than dining and dalliance going on this time, she thought. I can smell it. Natelth and the fleet legalist both in the same day, and Inadi kept for best-and-last—that’s not the schedule of a man with nothing but pleasure on his mind.
Vai made the journey to Demaizen in a rented high-speed flyer expensed to one of her department’s fictional companies. Not surprisingly, she reached the countryside near the Old Hall well in advance of her research subject. She used the extra time to pick out a comfortable vantage point on the brush-covered slopes to the west of the Hall. Her coat and leggings of dappled brown fabric blended into the stone and leaves of the hillside, and—in case she should be noticed in spite of her efforts—she carried a wildlife observer’s pocket recognition guide and tally pad.
The observer’s clothing also justified the long-range spyglasses through which she had been watching Demaizen Old Hall for the greater part of the afternoon. So far she had seen only normal activity, plus a genuine and duly recorded sighting of a speckled whipworm slithering out of sight between two rocks.
The Hall itself was a broad, sprawling building made out of the buff-colored local stone. Glass windows—three stories’ worth, not counting attic and basement—flashed in the afternoon sunlight. According to Vai’s research, a few generations ago the Hall had been the social and political center of the entire district, the residence of the main line of the sus-Demaizen family, with nearly a score of permanent residents and a full staff of servants. These days, all the servants were long gone, and so were all the sus-Demaizen family but one.
The purr of an engine on the road below drew Vai’s attention, and she raised her spyglasses. It was the Hall groundcar, all right, a battered grey six-wheeler that hadn’t been new since Garrod’s grandfather’s day. It ran with far less choking and sputtering than a vehicle its age had any right to do—
that engine is last year’s model at the very oldest
—and even on the winding one-lane track leading up to the Hall it maintained a steady, rapid pace.
The groundcar slid into one of the Hall outbuildings that had been renovated to make a garage. The sound of the engine died, and a minute or two later Arekhon sus-Khalgath came out of the building. He carried no luggage with him into the Hall except a small black satchel. Vai could see it plainly in the slanting afternoon sunlight, along with the ebony rod that hung by a clip from his belt.
She watched his posture and movement as he crossed from the garage to a door at the rear of the main building, and nodded to herself.
Whatever he’s got, he doesn’t want to let go of it. Getting it away from him isn’t going to be easy.
 
Year 1123 E. R.
 
ERAASI: DEMAIZEN OLD HALL
 
D
emaizen was far enough to the north and west of Hanilat that the autumn air had a sharp bite to it, and the fire that burned on the kitchen hearth was useful as well as ornamental. Arekhon, bringing in his packet of red leaf to store in one of the preserving cupboards, found Kief and Narin making fish stew for dinner. Kief tended greens and stock in the steaming soup kettle, while Narin worked at turning a platter of silverlings into spoon-sized chunks. She apologized to each fish before she made the first cut; at least, Arekhon supposed that the muttered words in her native Veredden were an apology.
The kitchen at Demaizen had been brought up to date more than once since the construction of the Hall itself. The gleaming metal counters with their inset cookstoves and cupboards and cold-storage bins came from the most recent rebuilding, as did the long central worktable, but the great man-tall stone fireplace had been part of the room since the first. The hooks and cranes for open-hearth cookery remained in place—if the Mages of Garrod’s Circle ever decided to spit-roast an entire sunbuck, they had the equipment to do it.
Kief looked around from the soup kettle as Arekhon entered. “I see you made it back from Hanilat in one piece.”
“Actually, I was waylaid by bandits on the road,” said Arekhon. He found an empty jar in the preserving-cupboard and tucked the packet of leaf inside it, then closed the door. “They sliced me into collops and you’re talking to my ghost.”
“More stew for the rest of us, then,” said Narin. Another silverling came apart into neat bits underneath her filleting knife as she spoke. “Did you get what you went for?”
Arekhon hefted the leather satchel he’d carried with him from Hanilat. “It’s all in here. Family stuff, so be careful—if any of it turns up with the sus-Radal, Natelth will have an apoplexy.”
“We’ll be careful,” Kief promised him. “Can the Hall read your charts, or are we going to have to find a ship-mind to translate them first?”
“These are all house copies. As long as we’ve got a working data-reader, there’s no problem.”
Narin had come to the last of the silverlings. It lay gleaming on the white pottery dish, its dead eyes round and yellow, like buttons. She said something to it in Veredden, then slashed it open and lifted out the bones with a flick of her narrow blade. She glanced up from her work for a moment to ask, “Does Garrod know you’re home yet?”
“What … oh. No. I came in by the back way.” Arekhon had been distracted, briefly, by the smooth economy of her work with the knife. “Will you teach me how to do that sometime?”
“Cut up fish? What for?”
He shrugged. “I might want to do it some day, and I might as well do it right. Where is Garrod, anyhow?”
“In the long gallery,” Kief said. The steam from the soup kettle came up in clouds around him as he stirred. “Practicing staff-work with Yuva and the rest of them.”
“And he let you two dodge out of it? He must be getting soft-hearted.”
“Never fear,” said Narin. “He got Kief and me first thing. Beat the pair of us up one side of the gallery and down the other, then sent us off to put salve on our bruises and start cooking dinner. He’ll get you, too, as soon as you show up.”
“As long as he lets me put down the charts first,” Arekhon said. He nodded amiably at the two cooks, then left the kitchen by the inner door and ambled off.
 
 
The gallery at Demaizen ran the length of the Hall’s upper story. Tall uncurtained windows along one side of the room and at both ends provided ample sunlight. In the late afternoon, minute flaws in the window-glass caught the sunlight and sent it back out in prismatic sparkles onto the empty walls. The floor of the gallery was made of plain wood, once carpeted but now bare; Garrod’s Mages used the room for practice with their staves.
As Kief had promised, the rest of the Circle was already at work when Arekhon came into the room: Delath and Serazao and Ty and Yuvaen syn-Deriot, practicing staff-work in pairs under the eye of the Lord of Demaizen himself. Garrod looked away from the fighting for a moment as Arekhon approached. His eyes went at once to the leather satchel and he smiled, making crinkles appear beside his dark eyes and causing his thick, grizzled brows to tilt upward at a reckless angle.
“So you have the charts,” he said. “That’s good. What did you have to promise Natelth for them?”
“Only my company for dinner, would you believe it?”
“He values you that highly?”
“Probably not,” Arekhon said. “But I’d already made plans for the evening, and he knew it. So he got something for his trouble anyway.”
Garrod chuckled. “I hope you weren’t too disappointed.”
“Not really. I expected that Natelth would try something like that, so I set my own appointment accordingly. I was still late … but not so late that anything was spoiled by it.”
“Clever of you,” said Garrod. “Now, if you give me that satchel, you can take your staff and go fight with Yuva for a while. We’ll see how clever you are then.”
“That’s right,” Arekhon said. Laughing, he pulled off his outer coat to stand in his shirt and vest, then unclipped his staff from his belt and raised it above his head in a long, elaborate stretch. “Take advantage of a man stiff from sitting in a groundcar all day.”
Garrod beckoned to Yuvaen syn-Deriot. “Instruct him, Yuva. Or let him instruct you, as the case may be.”
The Second of the Demaizen Circle had already unclipped his staff. He held it out level in front of him with both hands, twisting his torso from side to side, limbering himself. Then he released the end of the staff in his left hand and made the ebony rod whistle as it spun before him. He looked at Arekhon through the blur of motion.
“You can’t fool me, ’Rekhe. Rested up from a long night’s sleep in a soft bed, that’s what you are.”
Arekhon thought of Ela, and of how he had fallen asleep in the Two Colors guesthouse with his head lying upon her breast, and smiled in spite of himself. “I can’t deny it—my pillow, at least, was very soft.”
“This is where you get the lumps to make up for it,” Yuvaen said. “Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
“Then let us begin.”
Yuvaen took the third guard position, with his staff guarding his left side while his upper arm guarded his right. Arekhon also took third, his knees flexed. Yuvaen was taller than he was, but he was used to that—so were Delath and Garrod himself, and Arekhon was accustomed by now to regular sparring with bigger and heavier opponents. It was not size that made Yuvaen syn-Deriot formidable: He had been Garrod’s Second since the time the Demaizen Circle was founded.
For a little while neither Arekhon nor Yuvaen moved. Then Yuvaen began to open and close the first of his empty hand, curling and uncurling the fingers in a slow, steady motion. A pale green light stole out along the length of his staff. Except for the regular flexion of his left hand, he remained motionless.
Arekhon didn’t move. A slow exhalation, and a violet light began to glow around his staff: Faint, almost invisible, throwing no illumination.
Yuvaen smiled. “Hiding something?”
He slipped the end of his staff underneath Arekhon’s and pressed it aside, leaving Arekhon open to a thrusting blow. Or he would have, had not Arekhon, in the same instant, raised his staff and dipped it down again—a click and slide of wood on wood, and a quick, economical blur of motion—leaving them back in the position from which they had begun.
Yuvaen didn’t stay there long. He pushed his staff sidewise against Arekhon’s, trying to shove it aside and clear the way for a thrust. He had the strength and the physical mass to do it—
but I’m not
that
much of a fool, Yuva,
Arekhon thought, and made no effort to resist the pressure. A slight change in the position of his hand, instead, and the angle at which he held his staff shifted, sending Yuvaen’s weapon sliding away and pulling Yuvaen himself out of guard.
Yuvaen reached to recover, and Arekhon moved. The end of his staff flicked out toward the opening on Yuvaen’s left side. Yuvaen twisted and caught Arekhon’s staff with his own to block the blow.
The vibration made Arekhon’s hand sting—and a second later, he felt Yuvaen’s staff slam into his ribs. His mind registered the bruising impact of wood against flesh, but there was no time to dwell on it. Yuvaen had already used the rebound from the blow to clear the way for a strike coming in to Arekhon’s ribs from the other side.
Arekhon took a step backward.
Let’s make things a bit more even,
he thought,
see if we can unbalance you a bit;
and he brought his staff down in a strike at the pressure point in the upper part of Yuvaen’s left arm.
The blow went in cleanly. Arekhon felt his staff shiver with the unmistakable feel of a solid, proper hit. His brief flare of satisfaction died an instant later, when Yuvaen’s counterstrike smashed into his wrist and knocked his staff away, and he realized that the Second had taken his disabling blow on purpose, for the sake of the opening it had provided.
“There it is,” Yuvaen said. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his left arm was hanging limp, but his staff was in his right hand while Arekhon’s lay on the wooden floor. “Thank you for your instruction.”
Arekhon cradled his aching wrist in his left hand. He would be spending time with the Hall’s medical aiketh later, between that and his ribs …
well, so will Yuva, so it’s not all on one side this time.
 
 
Dinner came at sunset. By custom, the members of the Circle took their meals together in the small dining room—the great room at the heart of the Old Hall served another purpose these days. Garrod was the last of his line, but previous generations at sus-Demaizen must have run to families of considerable size, since the table in the small room easily accommodated all eight of the Hall’s current residents.
As the Circle’s most junior Mage, Ty from Port Street had the chair at the far end of the table from Garrod and Yuvaen. Kiefen Diasul had occupied the bottom place before him, and if the Circle ever gained a ninth member, Ty would yield to the new arrival in the same way.
Ty was hungry after the afternoon’s practice, and the smells of fresh bread and Narin’s fish stew made his mouth water. Meals were always good when it was Narin’s turn in the kitchen. Ty’s own limited cooking skills came out of working refectory detail at the Port Street Foundling Home. He could lay out a platter of cold sliced meat, boil up a pot of breakfast gruel, or—in a pinch—tear up greens for salad, but not much else. Nobody went hungry on the occasions when Ty’s name stood at the top of the work roster, but they didn’t show up early for dinner, either.
Garrod was silent during dinner—Ty suspected he was already turning over in his mind the best way to use that satchel full of sus-Peledaen charts—but Yuvaen was in good spirits and disposed to be talkative.
“So,” he said to Arekhon sus-Khalgath, as cheerfully as if he hadn’t come close to breaking the new Third’s wrist a little while before. “How did you find the pleasure-palaces of Hanilat?”
“Mostly with a street map,” the Third replied. He didn’t sound like someone who had been the recipient of one of Yuvaen’s bouts of vigorous instruction, either; Ty, whose own welts and bruises still smarted, had to admire his air of unconcern. “Yours, I think … at least, I found it in the groundcar, and the notes were in your handwriting. Did you ever settle that bill from the establishment on Five Street?”
Yuvaen had opened his mouth to reply when the doorbell rang. The sound cut off further speech in mid-word. The others at the table, equally startled, also fell silent.
Ty hadn’t heard the bell ring since the day he first came to Demaizen from Hanilat. The apparatus was older than Garrod’s occupation of the hall, a chain-and-chimes antique with a tone that reverberated throughout the entire lower floor. Nobody who lived at the Hall ever used it, and even the occasional visitors from Demaizen Town knew enough to go around to one of the side doors first.
Garrod looked at Ty without speaking. One of the duties of a Circle’s junior Mage was to carry out tasks like answering doorbells. Ty rose and left the room as the bell rang a second time.
The Hall’s main entrance was on the building’s western side, underneath the long gallery on the floor above. The fan window over the door shone bright red with the glare from the setting sun, and the whole vestibule was full of crimson light. The bell sounded yet again as Ty opened the door.
A woman stood at the top of the short flight of semicircular granite steps. She was about Ty’s own middling height, with short, neatly trimmed black hair, and wore a field-coat and leggings of brown and black stippled fabric. She was hung about with bits and pieces of outdoor equipment—a a weatherproof logpad, a set of long-range spyglasses, a daypack—and the field-coat sported a patch proclaiming her to be a member of the Wide Hills District Wildlife Protection League. Her expression was one of mild bewilderment.

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