The journey and the shopping put together took up most of an entire day, and as usual it was late afternoon before Narin returned to the Hall. She maneuvered the groundcar into its sheltered place in a converted outbuilding, then cut power and got out.
She picked up a couple of the jugs of soap, those being the nearest things to hand, and entered the Hall by the rear door that led to the kitchen. Yuvaen syn-Deriot was there when she came in, pouring hot water through a leaf-strainer into a blue pottery mug. The sharp scent of pale spring-picked uffa rose up from the steaming mug and pricked at her nostrils.
Yuvaen looked up as the kitchen door slammed shut behind her. “How was Bresekt?” he asked.
“Crowded,” she said. She set the two jugs of soap down on the tile floor near the stairs to the laundry room. “Noisy. Like always. Want to come help me unload the rest of the stuff?”
“Of course,” he said.
Several minutes later, the groundcar was empty and most of its contents—still in bags and crates—had been transferred to the kitchen’s central worktable. From there, Narin and Yuvaen began the task of sorting through the purchases and stowing them in their appointed places.
“Ten cans of sliced neiath fruit in heavy syrup,” Narin said, removing the items in question from the bag and passing them to Yuvaen one by one. “The third cabinet from the left, under the counter.”
“We still have four cans of neiath from the last time,” Yuvaen observed as he bent to put the fruit away.
“Everybody likes it. And it keeps.”
“A good point.” Yuvaen straightened, and added, in the same tone as before, “Garrod thinks it might be time to name a Third for the Circle.”
Narin didn’t look up from the bags on the worktable. “Four bottles of dish soap, two bottles of shampoo … those go upstairs … . Garrod’s probably right.”
“I thought it might be a good idea if I talked with you about it first.” Yuvaen stashed the dish soap underneath the main sink next to the floor cleanser and set the bottles of shampoo aside on the counter. “What do you think about taking on the rank yourself?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t got the luck for it. Or the nerve, at my age.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your nerve that I can tell. But you know best about your luck.” Yuvaen paused. “That leaves us with a choice of Del or ’Rekhe, or maybe Serazao.”
“Not ’Zao,” Narin said at once. “She’s too rigid. She’ll keep the workings anchored as long as she’s got breath, but she doesn’t have enough imagination.”
“So it comes down to Delath and Arekhon.”
“Unless Garrod’s willing to wait for Ty to get quite a bit older,” she said. “And if waiting were an option, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place, would we?”
“Probably not,” Yuvaen admitted. “But since we are having it, how do you read our two possibles?”
He waited, saying nothing, while Narin unpacked an entire crate of breakfast supplies—porridges, fruit jellies, flaked grains, quick-heating baked goods in long-term storage pouches. Finally she said, “Del’s steadier, in some ways, but …”
“You don’t think he’s up to it?” Yuvaen sounded a bit surprised, which confirmed Narin’s suspicions about which candidate the Second himself favored. “He got his training right here, after all.”
“Which means he’s a lot like you. And like Garrod. If you’re serious about bringing in a Third, you’ll need someone with enough difference to balance things out.”
“That’s why we thought maybe you—”
“No.”
“I suppose not,” Yuvaen said. “But I don’t know if Arekhon’s strong enough for the job, either.”
She abandoned the bags of groceries and faced the Second squarely, her feet set apart as though she braced herself again for balance on the Dance’s moving deck. “You asked my opinion, and I’m giving it to you. ’Rekhe isn’t a solid rock like you are, or like Garrod is, or like Del. He’s the water that goes around the rock, maybe, or the wind that blows across it—and believe me, Yuva, because I know it, wind and water are strong enough to outlast all the rocks in the world.”
Jaf Otnal returned to his own office suite in the Zealous Endeavor Building, full of a warm sense of satisfaction with the interview just past. He wasn’t surprised to find his friend Riet waiting in the inner office when he arrived. Riet was the firm’s chief economic forecaster, and would have heard about the mind-gel problem from his own sources already—and he knew how long Jaf had been waiting for such an opening.
“Do you think Kammen went for it?” he asked as soon as Jaf had shut the door behind him. Riet was Ayaratan by birth, and had little patience with subtlety and indirect maneuvering. He’d wanted to broach the matter of the star-lords to Kammen several months ago, but Jaf had counseled him to be patient.
“I believe he did,” Jaf replied. He walked to his desk, picked up a black onyx puzzle-paperweight and started to play with it. The desk toy was both complex and delicate—a good metaphor, he reflected, for any number of things in life. “But we’re still talking about a course that might destroy the company. We could wind up selling fruit pies on street corners, or worse.”
“Or we could wind up richer than even the star-lords could imagine,” Riet said. “But someone, somewhere, has to make a stand—and if we’re the ones who lead it, then we’ll be running Zealous Endeavor when the star-lords have all gone begging.”
Jaf regarded the chief forecaster thoughtfully. “Don’t you think the people on the top floor will have something to say about that?”
“I don’t think the top floor needs to know too much.”
“What are you saying?”
Riet began ostentatiously counting on his fingers. “I’m saying that all our communications pass through satellites owned by the star-lords—all our essential raw materials move from planet to planet through the star-lords—all our finished goods move back to market again through the star-lords—and the star-lords have enough money to hire the very best in traitors and espionage.”
Jaf nodded. “You have a point. Several points. I think we can bury our efforts somewhere in your research budget, at least for now.”
“Then we’ll need to see results in the next two or three quarters.” Riet thought for a moment. “I can give you something, I believe.”
“Good. Meanwhile, I’m going to take a leave of absence to clear up some family matters—and visit with a few close friends—back on Ildaon.”
Riet gave him a dubious look. “Riding with the star-lords?”
“If the star-lords ever find out about this conversation,” Jaf pointed out,
“riding in my own groundcar won’t be safe. Don’t worry about me this time, though. By the time the star-lords notice that something unusual is going on, I’ll be back.”
“Good luck to you, then. Lunch today?”
“The usual place.”
Riet left the office. Jaf watched him go, then glanced down at the black onyx puzzle in his hands. At some point in their conversation, he had slid the last piece into place and locked it down.
“So,” he mused aloud. “We’re doing it.”
He looked out the window, away from Beshkip toward the distant mountains obscured by industrial haze. The project was not, he thought, impossible. The star-lords bought their food somewhere, they bought their steel somewhere, they sold their pirated goods somewhere, and they did their banking somewhere. And somewhere—in one of those places, or in another—they would have to be vulnerable.
He set down the puzzle and touched the desktop switch that reactivated the room’s voice sensors.
“I need to take extended personal leave,” he said to the office-mind. “A matter of family obligation. Get me passage to Ildaon, first available transit. Make reservations for lunch today at the Windflower, two guests. And purchase two hundred Eraasian tons of mind-gel, local spot market price, immediate delivery.”
“Retu
rn from Ildaon?” the room inquired.
Jaf thought for a moment. “Leave that open.”
11:
Year 1123 E. R.
ERAASI: HANILAT STARPORT
Natelth sus-Khalgath, senior in the sus-Peledaen line, waited in his study to receive his last caller of the afternoon. His darkwood armchair, and the guest chair that complemented it, occupied the bay window at the front of his study. On the low table between the chairs, a polished copper pot stood on tripod legs, a lump of solid alcohol burning in its lower tray. A pair of crystal glasses waited for Natelth to fill them with the fresh-brewed drink.
There was a knock at the outer door. Natelth raised his voice enough to carry through the thick wood. “Come in.”
The door swung open, and his brother entered.
Arekhon had changed in the time since he had left the fleet for the Demaizen Circle. He’d abandoned the family colors for plain black and white, and wore his dark hair long after the country fashion. Even the short staff clipped to his belt was nothing more than a cubit and a half of polished wood, chastely ornamented with silver wire. Some things remained the same, however: As usual, ’Rekhe had delayed his courtesy visit until near the end of the working day, but not past it, a calibration too precise to be anything but deliberate.
Typical of him, Natelth thought as he gestured his brother into the empty chair. Squeezing the family into the thinnest possible slip between daylight business and his own pleasure.
For a moment Natelth considered inviting Arekhon to join the household at dinner, purely for the sake of throwing his sibling’s plans for the evening into disarray, but discarded the idea as unworthy of the head of the sus-Peledaen.
“’Rekhe,” he said. “We haven’t seen you in Hanilat for quite a while. Isayana worries that sus-Demaizen holds you on too short a leash.”
“We keep ourselves busy, I’m afraid,” Arekhon said. “Isa frets too much.” The implied rebuke had not escaped him; Natelth watched the awareness of it show briefly in his eyes like a spark from grey flint, and felt pleased.
Natelth waved a hand toward the copper pot. “Will you join me in a glass of red?”
“Of course.” Arekhon’s pleasure seemed genuine. “There’s never anything but pale at the Hall, for some reason.”
“I’ll have the kitchen make you up a package of decent leaf before you go.
“I do well enough with the yellow,” Arekhon said. He picked up the glass that Natelth had filled for him, and sipped at it. Fragrant steam curled up from the hot liquid; he inhaled it and let out a contented sigh. “But if it makes Isa happy, I’ll take some of the house mix back with me to Demaizen.”
Again, Natelth raised his voice. “Kitchen, do you hear?”
The voice of the kitchen replied over the household command circuit. “I hear.”
“There; it’s done.” Natelth turned back to his brother. “What brings you into Hanilat this time—more errands for sus-Demaizen?”
“Not precisely.” Arekhon was looking pleased about something; pleased and excited. “I had business of my own to set in order.”
The phrasing, coupled with his brother’s expression, made Natelth uneasy. He frowned. “Is something going on at the Hall?”
Arekhon gave a fractional shrug. “Only the usual.” His tone was unconvincing. After a moment’s pause, he added, “Garrod’s decided to name a Third for the Circle.”
“A Third,” Natelth said. That would explain much. He turned a sharper eye on his brother. “You?”
“Yes.”
“Isayana will be proud.”
Their sister would also, Natelth thought, come close to worrying herself sick. Not all Circles with a named Third did dangerous work—sometimes the honor was merely a way to spread out the drudgery of administration—but Garrod syn-Aigal sus-Demaizen had kept his Circle with only a Second for as long as Natelth had known of its existence.
Something momentous, then, was going on at Demaizen Old Hall. Natelth wasn’t sure what to think about that. Hard enough to look at Arekhon and see an ordinary Circle-Mage: ’Rekhe was too young, almost a generation younger than Natelth or Isayana, and he possessed not the least vestige of seriousness. To see him as one of the ranking Mages of a Circle, with all that such a name implied, was something that Natelth found almost impossible.
A rush of questions pressed against his closed mouth. He swallowed all of those which it would have been undignified for him to ask, and which Arekhon—being a Mage, and therefore no longer under his family’s authority—had no obligation to answer, and said only, “Other than leaf, is there anything you require by way of foodstuffs?”
“We are quite well supplied with all we need,” Arekhon said, a bit stiffly, as if sus-Demaizen’s ability to provide for his Circle had been called into question—as indeed it had been. “I should be going.”
“Sit, sit,” Natelth said, half afraid that his brother would rise and depart without further ceremony. The Mages were an odd lot, and not bound by the usual rules of courtesy. He leaned back in his chair and regarded the younger man patiently for a moment before speaking again.
“You know that all of our family’s resources lie beneath your hand. Surely there is something?”
“Perhaps one thing,” Arekhon said.
“Name it. It is yours.”
“The charts. All the stars, all the worlds. I want to take copies back to the Old Hall.”
At that moment, Natelth was aware that he had been maneuvered into the offer. Not dishonorably, not by trickery or force, but maneuvered all the same.
He did not allow his face to show any change. “You have them,” he said. “And now, come join me for dinner. You must; the family will wish to see you.”
At least, Natelth thought, not allowing his lips to curve either up or down, I have paid him back in small part. Whatever plans he has for the evening are now disrupted.
Elaeli Inadi paused at the entrance to the Court of Two Colors. Night had fallen outside; within, dozens of lamps on tall wrought-iron poles reflected like stars off the crystal dome of the Court. The waters of the central fountain rose skyward and fell again to their hidden sources, mingling and interlacing in the air above the pool, and throwing back the lamplight in a glitter of refraction.
A discreet scan of the room reassured Elaeli that she had come dressed appropriately for the place and the occasion, in a tailored outer-dress over satin leggings, all in dark blue piped and lined with crimson. Not a fleet uniform, but near enough that the garments felt comfortable to somebody who had worn the sus-Peledaen livery since her apprentice days. That the colors also looked well with her fair skin and her loose, light-brown curls was a pleasing bonus.
One of the Court’s servitor-constructs glided toward Elaeli across the black and white tiles that gave the establishment its name. The aiketh’s counterforce unit kept it hovering a handspan above the floor in spite of its mass. A red light glowed inside its smoky black housing as it spoke.
“Be welcome, honored one. Are you awaited here?”
“Arekhon sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen,” she said. “He reserved a table earlier.”
The aiketh hummed and nickered—communicating with the Court’s main intelligence, Elaeli supposed. The makers of the Court’s aiketen had done their work well; when this one spoke again, its artificial voice held a carefully-constructed note of polite regret.
“Lord sus-Khalgath begs that you will take your ease at the chosen table and await his coming,” it said. “Matters at the house of his brother force him to delay.”
Elaeli suppressed a smile. So Natelth got you for dinner after all. I told you he would.
“I’ll wait,” she said.
The aiketh led her to a table near the fountain. Clear water, fed by the Court’s own spring, fell plashing into the basin and filled the air with a cool mist. Green and blue ferns in tile planters muted the sounds of the Court and gave the illusion of a private grotto.
True privacy could also be had he
re, for those who desired it, but for now Elaeli had no objection to being seen. Arekhon might have left his family altars—such as they were, Natelth never having struck her as especially pious—and gone off to the Mages, but there was no estrangement. Word would get back to the sus-Peledaen fleet that Pilot-Ancillary Inadi, daughter of a greengrocer and a physician’s assistant, nevertheless dined at the Court of Two Colors with a member of the family’s senior line, and those who might have opposed her future promotion would speak a bit more civilly to her thereafter.
You’re a clever man, ’Rekhe, she thought, and a good friend to boot. Whatever you’ve got in mind this time, I’ll help you if I can.
The aiketh brought her a crystal goblet of woodflower cordial and a bowl of candied fruit, and she disposed herself to wait. The Court was a pleasant place to wait in, which was fortunate; almost an hour went past before Arekhon sus-Khalgath came into the area beneath the crystal dome. He was dressed as he must have been for the visit to his brother: In plain black and white, with nothing to mark his calling but the staff at his belt, and nothing to mark his rank except his unstated assumption that anyone in Hanilat who needed to know him probably already did.
Elaeli smiled. ’Rekhe had a prideful streak in him, but it was buried deep—far deeper than her own ambition, about which she had no illusions at all.
He smiled back at her as he sat down in the chair opposite. “Ela! I’m glad you waited. Natelth trapped me, exactly like you said he would. I was barely able to snatch a moment free to send word to the Court.”
The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds Page 10