“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
After dinner was over at Mestra Adina’s, Garrod returned to his chamber and once again began calculating the days and years.
He understood now that for him, there would be no return to the homeworlds—at least, not while he still had the mind to know it—and he didn’t dare try walking through the Void again, not when each attempt brought him to a worse position than he had started from. If he wanted to continue his work he would have to do it from here.
If he wanted to continue.
For a moment, sitting at his desk amid his logs and printouts and pages of scratched-out numbers, Garrod felt the future’s madness already pressing against the edges of his mind. He didn’t know any longer what he should want—the survival of the homeworlds, the reunification of the galaxy, or just a peaceful existence for himself in this place to which the tangled eiran had apparently bound him.
But there would be no peace. He knew too much of the future already to hope for that. Entibor was bound to a wheel of political rivalry and civil war, and there was no one on the planet who cared to work the eiran on its behalf.
He laughed aloud, a sound that shocked him with its bitterness. How should he expect the people of Entibor to work the eiran when they had been cast into darkness by the stroke of the Sundering? The people of this world had departed so far from a true understanding of the universe that a man like Master Drey of the Cazdel Guildhouse—whom Garrod had come to respect, and with whom he had corresponded on a regular basis ever since they had first met—could deny that the eiran even existed.
And Drey at least, thought Garrod, is one who would be able to work the eiran if he wanted to.
Garrod allowed himself a moment of fantasy, letting his imagination picture an Entibor nourished and protected by its Circles, growing into a world pre-eminent on this side of the interstellar gap, a fit ally and trading partner for Eraasi and the homeworlds. Then he sighed and let the vision go. There would be no Circles on Entibor, and no partnership. The first ship from Eraasi would find a world once again devouring itself in internecine warfare, and possessing ships and weapons more powerful than any the homeworlds knew.
He forced himself to put aside despair and take account of his resources. He had a patron in Mestra Adina Therras, and he had the beginnings of a network of friends in the community of savants like Hujerie and Master Drey. And he had—even alone—the ability to work the eiran for his own benefit. He had scorned to do so on Eraasi, but Eraasi was not here.
No one working alone is powerful enough to change the future, Garrod thought. But with luck, and the help of friends, I can hope to be ready to meet it.
Arekhon led the way down the hall of the guest wing. There was a back staircase in the sus-Peledaen town house, a relic of the long-ago days before aiketen replaced living servants. He had come and gone that way when he was a boy, to avoid getting stopped and trapped in polite conversation with Isa’s friends or Natelth’s business associates, all of whom used the much grander, and carpeted, stairway in the front. Now—with any luck—he could use the back stairway to avoid meeting the armed man in sus-Peledaen livery who had admitted them that afternoon.
The door to the back stairs was made of the same papered-over wooden panels as the rest of the hall. He found the latch quickly, working by feel, and swung the door open.
Still no creaks … good. Beckoning Karil to follow him, he stepped into the darkness and shut the door.
“Can’t you make a light?” Karil’s voice whispered.
“I don’t want to draw anyone’s attention. Count the steps instead—there’s twelve between this floor and the second—five and seven with a landing in between them—and the same between the second and the first.”
He heard her mumbling under her breath all the way to the first floor, where the stairs opened into the kitchen. He stepped out of the stairwell and into the kitchen proper—and froze when a crimson light blinked at him from the darkness.
“Lord Arekhon,” it said. “Are you not sleeping well?”
He relaxed and suppressed an urge to laugh. It was only another of the household aiketen, going about its rounds.
“I was restless,” he said. “So I came down to the kitchen, like I used to do in the old days.”
The aiketh blinked again, four times on a slow count, communing with its links and records.
“The house-mind remembers,” it said. “Will you need anything?”
“No, thank you,” he said, and the aiketh drifted off toward the downstairs front. As soon as it was gone, he gestured Karil to come forward out of the stairwell.
“The delivery entrance is this way,” he said.
Arekhon led the way across the kitchen to the rear entry. The door to the outside was locked, and as soon as he touched it he knew that opening it would trigger an alarm as well. Isa’s work, of course; his sister would never have let an outsider touch the house-mind.
She’d never thought to make her systems proof against him, either. He could see the luck of the house where it touched the lock and the alarm, like a silvery network threaded through with his sister’s unmistakable presence. It was the work of scarcely a moment to tug at the lines gently and pull them into a new pattern, one that would let him pass and bid the alarm be silent.
He opened the door.
The motion of the door swinging open must have alerted the guard at the rear entrance. The lurking figure came up out of the shadows between the trash bins before Arekhon could get his staff into his hand.
“High time you showed up,” said Iulan Vai. “I was about to go in after you.”
43:
Year 1130 E. R.
ERAASI: HANILAT STARPORT
Ty and Narin were waiting with a rented groundcar at the Five Street transit hub. They’d parked the car in the shadows at the far end of the lot from the kiosk—Ty, lounging at the steering yoke with his hair combed forward over his ears, looked like a Port Street native ready for a joyride. Narin was only a dark figure in the obscurity of the back seat. She swung open the rear door as Arekhon approached.
“We thought you might be needing us,” she said. “So we summoned ourselves. The car was Vai’s idea, though.”
Arekhon gestured at Karil to take the seat beside Narin. Once the Entiboran was safely within, he turned back to Vai with one hand still on the top of the open door and said, “They’ll be able to trace you through the account slips.”
Vai shrugged. “Renting a groundcar’s not illegal. I didn’t use my real name when I signed for it anyway.”
“Your real name’s going to be on the account when they cross-check it.”
She chuckled, a surprisingly warm sound in the shadowy parking lot. “No, it isn’t. And I didn’t put down Demaizen for the drop-off point, either. You were planning on going to Demaizen, weren’t you?”
“Where else?” Arekhon said. The silent, stealthy escape from the town house had left him feeling fretful and pettish, with other, darker feelings waiting beyond that to have their turn with him. “There’s nothing left for me in Hanilat, and even less than nothing in the fleet. I’m out of options.”
“You could walk the Void, like Garrod—” Narin cut in.
“If I did, I’d have to leave the rest of you behind. And we’ve had more than enough of that already.”
“Then you need a ship.”
“Natelth gave me one ship. I don’t think he’s likely to give me another.”
“There’s a chance that I can find a ship for you,” Vai said. Her expression, in the light of the groundcar’s reading lamps, was thoughtful. “But it may take a while. I’ll join you at Demaizen as soon as I have news.”
Natelth went to bed after dinner feeling considerably more pleased with the universe than when he’d gotten up that morning. ’Rekhe’s venture beyond the Edge might not have charted any useful trade routes—in these uncertain times the distances were too far for profit, and the fuel requirements were to
o high—but the ship Octagon Diamond was a prize beyond all estimation. Natelth had read the reports sent back on sus-Mevyan’s message-drones, that told of the Diamond’s powerful engines and her complex inorganic ship-mind, her delicate sensor array and heavy, crushing guns. She was more advanced, in many ways, than the ships of the sus-Peledaen; but not so advanced that the orbital yards couldn’t copy her.
He hadn’t yet thanked his brother properly, Natelth reflected as he drifted off into sleep. Because ’Rekhe had done well by the family, even if he’d had to leave their altars in order to do it—with a whole fleet of warships like the Diamond, a man could restore order to the homeworlds, then go on to deal from a position of strength with the strange, rich planets across the gap.
He was dreaming of stars falling on the lawn of the back garden like blossoms after a windstorm—an oddly cheerful dream, considering the image—when the household’s primary aiketh awakened him.
“Lord Natelth.” The synthesized voice held a distinct note of urgency.
The field of drifted stars vanished into the mists of dream. Natelth groaned and pushed himself up onto one elbow. “What is it?”
“There is a situation that requires your input.”
“Explain.”
The red light inside the aiketh’s plastic shell blinked on, then off again.
“The house-mind on the orbital station reports that the members of the Demaizen Circle who remained aboard Octagon Diamond have effected an unauthorized departure. A check in response of personnel from Octagon Diamond now in this building brings word from the unit assigned to housekeeping in the guest wing that the special guest’s room is now unlocked, and that the room is empty.”
Natelth rose and put on his night-robe. “Show me,” he said. “Instruct one of the aiketen to fetch Isayana as well.”
He followed the aiketh down the hallway to the guest wing. Outside the windows, the sky was beginning to turn pinkish-grey. In the faint light, he saw that one of the bedroom doors was standing a little ajar. He crossed over the threshold and stepped inside.
As the aiketh had told him, the room was empty. The pillows and coverlet on the bed were unwrinkled—as if no one had slept there, or even sat for a moment or two on the edge of the mattress—and the sleep shirt and night-robe lay untouched where the housekeeping unit had placed them. The window was shut; the guest had left, unmistakably, through the unlocked and open door.
“Search the house and grounds,” Natelth ordered. “And summon the housekeeping unit. At once.”
The aiketh blinked and flashed. “The housekeeping unit is currently in transit to this point. Lady Isayana comes with it.”
Natelth waited impatiently for the unit and his sister to arrive. He hoped that Isa wasn’t going to be difficult about questioning the household aiketen —she had instructed all of them, and many of the specialized units were of her personal design and assembly. She would shield them from trouble if she could.
The housekeeping unit and Natelth’s sister came into the room together. Isa had responded to the summons without bothering to robe herself; she still wore her long nightgown and bed socks, and her hair hung down over her left shoulder in a thick, loose braid. The housekeeping aiketh floated close by her, and her right hand rested—protectively? Natelth wondered, or proprietorially?—on the top of the unit’s domed plastic shell.
She took in the empty room and the unused bed, then looked down at the aiketh beside her. “This unit tells me that our special guest is missing.”
“Gone out through an open door,” Natelth said. “Which should have been locked.”
Isa shook her head. “It was locked when our guest retired. I instructed the house-mind myself.”
The primary aiketh blinked crimson. “Units involved in active searching report that the special guest is not inside the house or the back garden, and the house-mind reports that no one has effected egress since it sealed off the house for the night. One of the housekeeping units”—it paused, and the aiketh hovering next to Isayana flickered rapidly in response to the acknowledgment—“now reports that Lord Arekhon’s room is likewise empty. The house-mind correlates with an entry in the housekeeping night-log, that Lord Arekhon was active in the kitchen area at the second hour.”
Natelth looked at Isa sharply. “Could ’Rekhe have opened this door?”
“We never took him off the list,” Isa said. “But why would he—?”
“The reason doesn’t matter,” Natelth said. He felt the beginnings of a deep, cold anger stirring inside his chest. “What about the main doors front and back? Those were newly instructed since Rain-on-Dark-Water left for the Edge. Could Arekhon have opened either one of them without setting off the alarms?”
Isa pulled on her braid, frowning thoughtfully. “I’d bet good money against anybody else in Hanilat being able to do it … but not against ’Rekhe. He’s a clever one; he knows how I think better than almost anyone else on Eraasi; and he’s a Mage. What I don’t understand is why he took our guest along with him.”
“I suspect that he felt some kind of obligation,” said Captain sus-Mevyan’s voice from the open door. The Diamond’s captain was an early riser, and already had on her fleet livery. She glanced about the empty room. “But as you said yourself, he’s a Mage. They don’t think like the rest of us.”
“It makes no difference,” said Natelth. The anger was fully roused now, and running through his veins like an icy current. “He’s left us, and taken a valuable resource with him. The situation will have to be … dealt with … before he does anything to make it worse.”
Vai didn’t take long to get from Five Street to the avenue where the sus-Radal townhouse stood. Once there, she waited for some time in the shadows of an adjoining building, as she had waited earlier outside the sus-Peledaen delivery entrance, to make certain that she had arrived unobserved.
Things had changed with the sus-Radal since her last visit. She marked a watcher—whose, she couldn’t tell—keeping tabs from across the street. The rear entrance had its watcher also, but a less observant one; and the palmscan lock on the door still answered to the touch of Vai’s hand.
The moon was rising as she slipped into the quiet house. She’d always preferred the night hours for her dealings with Theledau sus-Radal, when she could find him alone in his own place, under the watchful eye of the moon. The room at the top of the house was unlocked, as usual. The other members of Thel’s household were Hanilat-bred, but he’d always left the moonroom open in case anyone should feel drawn into a proper reverence.
Vai didn’t feel any reverence to speak of, but she did feel gratitude that her former employer hadn’t abandoned his ideals completely. She seated herself on one of the side-benches set against the wall and waited again, this time until Theledau himself arrived.
He came into the room and made a brief obeisance to the moon, visible in its first quarter just below the apex of the crystal dome. Like everything else Vai had encountered since the Diamond’s return, Thel had changed: Even by the pale light of the quarter moon she could see that his black hair had wide streaks of grey, and his face was marked by deep new lines of care and worry. He noticed her almost at once, however, and his abstracted expression changed to one of genuine delight.
“Syr Vai,” he said. “I’d heard that sus-Peledaen’s ship was home at last, but I hadn’t expected to see you down from orbit quite so soon.”
“I took leave,” she said. “Very informally.”
Thel nodded. “Are you planning on going back?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ah. The question then is, what news do you have for me?”
“You read my reports,” Vai began. “Off of the sus-Peledaen message-drones.”
“Yes. Excellent material. The sus-Peledaen have been incorporating the new technologies into their ships for some months already—”
“We noticed,” said Vai. “Someone shot at us on our way in.”
“Natelth sus-Khalgath isn�
��t a trusting man, and his captains follow his lead. But our ships, at least, knew what to expect—thanks to you. The fleet-family owes you a debt, lulan.”
“And I have a request,” Vai said at once. “So we’re well matched.”
The opening had been deliberate, she was sure. Theledau wasn’t stupid enough to bind himself to a debt by accident, and he had to suspect that she’d come to ask a favor—news alone would have arrived through other channels. Vai felt a moment of relief. She hadn’t liked the idea of trying to wheedle Thel out of a ship, no matter how much ’Rekhe and the Circle might need one, but the delicate weighing of favors and obligations was another matter, and she was used to that.
“What is it that you need?” said Thel. “If it’s within my power—and within reason, of course—then it’s yours.”
“I need a ship,” Vai said. “Void-capable, long-range, small crew. Surface-to-orbit, if you can.”
Thel regarded her thoughtfully. “A ship is within my power, certainly. But within reason? Convince me, Syr Vai.”
“I won’t mention the message-drones,” she said; “you know about those already. But the sus-Peledaen also have the vessel Octagon Diamond —a fully-functioning source of more technical information than could possibly have been encoded into a drone—and they have an honored guest from the Diamond’s homeworld to assist them in learning their way around.”
She paused, and allowed herself to smile. “Or at least they used to have one. She’s with the Demaizen Circle now, and the Circle intends to keep her. Is that news worth a ship, do you think?”
“It might be,” Thel conceded. “But if you’ve stolen something that Natelth sus-Khalgath thought was his, a ship may not be enough to save you. Not an ordinary ship, at any rate.”
Vai studied Thel’s expression carefully. She knew a counter-offer when she heard one coming, and she wondered what this one would be. At least she could be sure that Thel was bargaining with her in good faith; he wouldn’t insult the moon overhead by doing otherwise.
The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds Page 36