By “honored guest,” Arekhon supposed, his brother meant the prisoner. He hoped that the invitation meant Natelth was inclined to look to the worlds beyond the gap as potential friends and allies, but nothing he had seen so far in the homeworlds had given him cause to feel sanguine about the possibility.
He was not, apparently, the only one to harbor doubts. Captain sus-Mevyan wore her most formal fleet livery for the evening’s dinner, in spite of the fact that the sus-Peledaen shuttle had to dock with the Diamond by means of a boarding tube, necessitating an awkward zero-gravity scramble from the larger ship to the smaller. Arekhon, after considerable thought, had chosen to wear his most formal working robes, as a reminder to Natelth that the Circles were not the fleet, and that he belonged to the Circles. Nor would it hurt for the head of the sus-Peledaen to be reminded exactly whose agency had made the voyage of discovery possible.
The prisoner had presented difficulties. sus-Mevyan had offered Karil a set of fleet livery—trousers and tunic of blue piped with sus-Peledaen crimson—but she had refused them. Her own clothing, such of it as had been transferred from Forty-two before leaving Entibor, was worn and strictly utilitarian. Narin had to use the sharp point of her knife to rip away the crimson flashes and piping from the fleet livery, leaving it a plain nobody’s-color blue, before Karil would agree to wear it.
The three of them, sus-Mevyan and Arekhon and Karil, made a silent, uneasy party aboard the shuttle to the planet’s surface. The dimensions and angles of the Eraasian ship, instead of reassuring Arekhon with their familiarity, felt disturbingly alien after the time he had spent aboard Octagon Diamond. The shuttle’s captain and crew all wore sidearms, another new thing in his experience: Not symbolic weapons like the boarding pikes, but heavy projectile weapons meant to kill from a distance.
He saw that sus-Mevyan was also taking in the sidearms. The Captain’s expression, which had not been cheerful before, darkened even further, but she said nothing. If the Captain had dreamed of better things for her homecoming than this, she wasn’t going to embarrass herself by admitting it.
The shuttle landed, and the crew escorted them to a waiting groundcar. Arekhon supposed that all the men and women in sus-Peledaen livery were meant to show Natelth’s respect, but he couldn’t help thinking of them as an armed guard. The groundcar had thick tinted windows, so that nobody watching it go past would be able to tell who was inside, and it whisked them through the streets of Hanilat without stopping for signs or signals.
Another oddity, Arekhon thought. Natelth hadn’t thought before that the sus-Peledaen were above the law. That they were the law, sometimes … but never above it.
The sus-Peledaen town house where he had grown up looked much the same as it always had, at least from the outside. But when the door swung open, it wasn’t one of Isayana’s hand-crafted aiketen waiting inside to welcome them, but yet another armed man in fleet livery.
“Dinner will be ready shortly,” he said. “Meanwhile, Lord Natelth wishes to see you in his study.”
The three from the Diamond followed him up the stairs. Arekhon felt the give of the carpet underfoot and the cool slickness of the polished darkwood banister beneath his hand, and remembered how he had come up the same stairs, once upon a time, for the purpose of talking his brother out of the fleet-family’s confidential charts. He wondered if Natelth remembered the occasion as well.
The study looked much as it had during that previous visit, except that there were two more chairs, and the glass in the bay window was thick and tinted like the windows of the groundcar. The uffa-pot stood on its tripod legs in the center of the low table, with crystal glasses surrounding it, and Natelth stood with his back to the table, looking out of the window.
He didn’t speak until after the door guard had left. Then he turned and spoke to Captain sus-Mevyan, without bothering with a formal greeting.
“So. Your message-drones preceded you, and the family’s builders and stargazers have been doing wondrous things with what you have already given them. But what you say about a multitude of worlds on the far side of the gap disturbs me; I don’t know if that is good news, or bad. You were there, Captain—tell me what you say.”
“Mixed, I think,” the Captain said. “Lord Garrod—who is lost—him—self had grave misgivings about what he had done. It’s true that the far-side worlds can build starships faster and more powerful than any I’ve ever heard of, with ship-minds of unusual construction and weapons that make ours seem pitiful. But they have no idea that any worlds lie beyond the interstellar gap, and unity, as we have it, is unknown to them. And more—we were able to bring back with us a native of that world, who can translate all the Diamond’s papers and textfiles, and explain its workings.”
She gestured to indicate Karil. The Entiboran caught Arekhon’s eye and murmured in her own language, “What is she saying to him about me?”
“She says that you can be a translator and a teacher for his people.”
“Hunh. Does he plan to give me a choice?”
“Probably not. We can talk about it later.”
The quiet exchange in Entiboran had caught Natelth’s ear, and Arekhon saw a moment of suspicion cross his brother’s features. It vanished as Natelth came forward to clasp him in a warm embrace.
“’Rekhe, it’s good to have you back safe again. Isa’s been working over the kitchen’s instructions ever since word came that your ship was in orbit—she doesn’t trust the far-siders’ ship-kitchens, she says. I think she believes you’ve been starving.”
“For lack of red uffa and neiath jam, most certainly,” Arekhon said. “Otherwise … I do well enough. All the same, it’s good to be home.”
“Excuse me, my lord,” Captain sus-Mevyan broke in. “But we’ve been out of touch for quite a while, and have returned to find things changed from what they were. How shall I explain the difference to my crew?”
“There is no explanation,” Natelth said, “except that somehow we must have offended the gods and the ancestors beyond all forgiveness. The old customs that kept peace between the star-lords have been broken, and the ties of trade and obligation that bound together the homeworlds have come undone. The unity you spoke of is a thing of the past.”
“Someone’s going to have to restore it, then,” said sus-Mevyan bluntly. “Because I tell you truthfully, my lord, it’s the only advantage we’ve got.”
“I don’t like it,” Narin said.
Iulan Vai looked at her. “Don’t like what?”
The three remaining Mages of the Diamond’s Circle had gathered in their meditation chamber after the shuttle’s departure. Their withdrawal had gone unnoticed, as far as Vai knew, in the general excitement of making orbit and renewing direct contact with the sus-Peledaen. She had long since determined that the chamber was both without spy-holes—either accidental or deliberately constructed—and free of electronic eavesdroppers, and she rechecked it frequently; it was as safe a place for private conversation as any aboard ship.
“Don’t like having ’Rekhe down in Hanilat while we’re stuck up here,” Narin said. The Veredden woman had a long strip of the scarlet piping from Karil’s despised fleet-livery, and her square brown hands worked with it as she spoke, tying and untying complex knots. “If he runs into trouble, we’ll never know until it’s too late.”
“He’s going to dinner with his own brother,” Ty protested. “What kind of trouble could he run into that way?”
Vai suppressed an urge to smile. Ty was the youngest of the Demaizen Mages, and sometimes it showed. “His brother is also the head of the sus-Peledaen fleet-family—which appears to be claiming this part of space, though I’d like to know how—and Natelth might have ideas about keeping things like the new ship-knowledge private to the family.”
“’Rekhe’s brother has trouble understanding that the fleet doesn’t own Circles like it owns ships,” Narin said. The strip of red piping twisted and knotted under her hands. “I’m afraid he may try to claim us for
the fleet as well.”
“That would start trouble, all right,” Ty said, after a moment’s thought. “Arekhon wouldn’t like it.”
Narin began unpicking the latest knot with the point of her knife. “As long as we’re on board the Diamond, the fleet has us, whatever Lord Arekhon likes or doesn’t like about it.”
“Then we have to get off the Diamond,” Ty said.
“It’s not so easy as all that,” Vai told him. “Notice how few people they’ve actually let down to the surface so far—the Captain, the First, and the prisoner, and all three of them sent straight to Natelth.”
“Maybe we should ask—”
“No.” The knot came undone, and Narin slid her knife back into its sheath. “If we ask the sus-Peledaen for a shuttle to the surface, they’ll have to refuse. And then they’ll know what we want to do.”
“So we don’t ask,” Vai said. This was a problem whose solution she understood. “We tell them. And we don’t tell them the truth, either. We tell them a lie, and make sure it’s a big enough lie that they’ll want to believe it … that Garrod spoke to us through the Void, maybe, with an urgent message for Lord Arekhon.”
“They’ll never believe it long enough to send up a shuttle,” Ty said. “No matter what we tell them.”
“We’re Mages,” said Narin. She tucked the red piping away inside her jacket and unclipped the staff from her belt. “If we work the eiran properly, the sus-Peledaen will believe us for as long as we need them to.”
Dinner was worse than the conversation in the study had been. Isayana had done prodigies of instruction in the kitchen, and the food served up by the aiketen was everything that Arekhon could have hoped for—neiath jam and all.
Nevertheless, he found himself having to feign an appetite. The changes he had witnessed since returning to the homeworlds, and sus-Mevyan’s words to Natelth, combined to fill him with a sense of oppressive dread. The voyage they had all undertaken with such great hopes and such high aspirations—what could be nobler and more audacious than striving to bring together an entire sundered galaxy?—had ended in nothing but corrupted endeavor and growing darkness.
Natelth and sus-Mevyan spoke together for most of the meal. Natelth asked an occasional question about the far side of the interstellar gap, but only to clarify things he’d already learned from the message-drones. The rest of the talk was all about the current state of affairs on Eraasi, and why somebody had seen fit to fire a missile at the Diamond on her way past Ayarat.
“Sus-Radal, most likely,” Natelth said. “They’re born pirates, those people, and they hold a lot of trade routes on the edges of homeworlds space.”
“You’ll have to take care of them someday,” said sus-Mevyan. “Maybe sooner than someday, if things are as bad as you say.”
“They’re that bad. But the sus-Radal are too strong for me to hit them now. Let somebody else try it and get broken first.”
Arekhon had been translating under his breath for Karil’s benefit—there was no point in keeping the prisoner in the dark, and she understood enough of their language by now to follow the drift of the conversation anyway—and Natelth’s remarks appeared to startle her much less than they did him. She caught his change of expression, shrugged, and said in Entiboran, “Politics. You’ll get used to it.”
In the same language, he said, “I shouldn’t be having to get used to it. Things were never like this before.”
Isayana looked at him with concern from her end of the table. “Is there something wrong, ’Rekhe? I hope the menu isn’t displeasing to our guest.”
“It’s fine, Isa,” he said. “She was asking me about the jam—I told her it was my favorite when I was a boy.”
He hadn’t lied to Isayana before, outside of the usual minor evasions of childhood; that he did so now, by instinct, disturbed him. Isayana would never use his private opinions against him—he trusted her implicitly on that—but she would pass them on to Natelth. And Arekhon was not quite willing, any longer, to trust his brother.
The meal ended with sweetened tartgrass sorbet in fluted wafer cups. Natelth, smiling graciously, offered the three from the Diamond hospitality for the night—“we still have a great deal to talk about in the morning”—and sus-Mevyan accepted for all of them before Arekhon could demur. Isayana took sus-Mevyan and Karil away with her to the guest rooms; Arekhon, pleading weariness, made his escape before Natelth could draw him into a conversation, and settled down for the night in his old bedroom on the top floor.
The room had changed very little since he had last slept there. Somebody—Isayana, probably, or one of her aiketen—had put most of the toys and models away out of sight, although enough of his favorites remained that the walls and the shelves weren’t bare; and Ribbon-of-Starlight, his last-built and favorite, still hung suspended from the ceiling on thin, invisible strings. The aiketen had left a night robe and a sleep-shirt on the foot of the bed. He changed into the shirt, leaving his black Circle garments folded on the chair beside the bed, and lay down for the night.
42:
Year 1130 E. R.
ERAASI: HANILAT STARPORT
ENTIBOR: VILLA OF MESTRA ADINA THERRAS
Arekhon hadn’t expected to get much rest, but the familiar surroundings of his childhood lulled him into sleep despite his uneasiness. It was past midnight by the bedside clock when the sound of footsteps crossing the threshold brought him suddenly awake. He sat up, reaching for his staff, but drew back his hand when he saw that the prowler was Captain sus-Mevyan. She was barefoot, and wore a guest-robe like the one at the foot of his bed.
“Captain,” he said warily.
In the faint glow from the clock, he could see her lips twitch in a brief, wry smile. “Relax, sus-Khalgath. I’m only here to talk.”
He relaxed, as ordered, but only a little. “Talk, then.”
She moved his folded clothes to the foot of the bed and sat down on the chair. “To make it brief: If you intend to break away completely from your brother and the sus-Peledaen—and I could see the thought in your face, while Lord Natelth and I talked—then do it tonight.”
“Why tonight?”
Again she gave him the half-smile. “Because tonight you’re in your brother’s house, and if you leave from here it’s his problem. But if you wait until you’re back on the Diamond to have second thoughts about working with the fleet, then—if Lord Natelth’s conversation tomorrow goes the way I think it will—I’m going to have to stop you.”
“Then why speak to me about it now?”
“Three reasons,” she said, “and three reasons are enough to make me decide to act. The first reason is that I’m not such a fool as to think that seizing you and putting you in detention will make your brother feel grateful to me, regardless of what he would do to me if I failed. And the second reason is that I’m definitely not such a fool as to want what stopping you would do to my luck.”
“What’s the third reason?”
“Gratitude,” she said. “This voyage has done well for me, sus-Khalgath—the Diamond outweighs Rain-on-Dark-Water in your brother’s eyes, and I have a chance at a new ship in the fighting fleet he’s building. Lord Natelth is a determined man; he’ll have peace again in the homeworlds if he has to rule them himself to do it, and a captain who throws in with him now can rise high and go far.”
“We—the Circle—didn’t do any of this for the sake of your advancement, Captain. Or for the sake of the sus-Peledaen.” He sighed. “We wanted to restore the galaxy … and now it seems that everything we’ve done since we started has only broken it further into pieces.”
“All you Mages think too much,” sus-Mevyan said. She stood up again and moved toward the door. “I’ll leave you now, sus-Khalgath … sleep well.”
She padded out of the room, and her footsteps diminished into silence.
Arekhon waited for several minutes until he was certain that the upstairs was quiet once again. Then he got out of bed and dressed himself in the Circle r
obes he had worn earlier—the dark folds would blend into the shadows, which was an unanticipated advantage—and stepped out into the hall.
Moving quietly, he made his way to the second-best guest bedroom. sus-Mevyan might still be awake, but she would not be expecting him to come this way—the Captain had glimpsed his growing alienation, earlier that evening, but he didn’t think even she understood how far it had already gone. The door to the second-best room was locked from the outside, but the lock answered to his hand without complaint; he was a Mage, after all, and a member of the family.
The door swung open without sound, as he knew it would. Isayana would never allow squeaky hinges in a mechanism under her control. Inside the room, Karil stood at the window overlooking the back garden. Arekhon saw at a glance that she was still fully dressed, and that the bed had not been slept in.
“You could probably get out that way if you wanted to,” he said, in a low voice that wouldn’t carry outside the room. “The back wall isn’t too high to climb. But you’d do better coming with me instead.”
Karil didn’t turn around. “Why would going with you be any better?”
“Because I won’t imprison you and force you to speak against your own people—as you’re afraid that my brother will.”
She turned, then, and looked at him. Her eyes were pale in the shaft of moonlight coming in through the window. “You know him. Would he?”
“If you’d asked me before I crossed the interstellar gap, I would have said no. But everything has changed since then.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away from Hanilat. To a place where my brother doesn’t have any authority. I’ll think about what to do next when we get there.” He paused. “Are you coming?”
The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds Page 35