A Working of Stars (16 page)
Read A Working of Stars Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
He pushed himself to his feet, but the body that had fallen stayed behind, unmoving. He turned to look at ’Rekhe. “Am I dead?”
“You followed your own luck to get here, and left all the rest behind. That’s no way to complete a working.”
He was suddenly filled with a flood of intense regret. “We could have mended the galaxy.”
“We still can.” ’Rekhe lifted his staff in a gesture that was half-threat, half-invitation. “Come.”
“I can’t,” he said, and felt the substance of his meditation dissolving around him as he spoke. “There are other things that I have to do.”
He dropped back into the physical world with a shudder. The meditation chamber was unchanged, as always, and he himself was unharmed—the aches and bruises from his metaphysical encounter would fade quickly, as such things tended to do. The shadow-Arekhon’s words remained with him, however:
You followed your own luck to get here, and left all the rest behind.
You followed your own luck to get here, and left all the rest behind.
And his own luck had not been enough. The struggle in his meditation could have many meanings—it was in the nature of such things to address more questions than just the one that had been asked—but one answer at least was clear to him. Alone, he would never free himself from the great working. To do that, he needed allies. In his mind, the offer of help had come from Arekhon, whom he had known and trusted long ago—but Arekhon was long gone from Eraasi.
Arekhon’s sister, however, was not. Kief left the meditation chamber and hung up his mask on its peg outside the door. The clock on the wall said that he had been engrossed in his meditation all night and part of the next day. He had work to do—and a reply to send to Isayana sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen, putting himself and his Circles at her disposal in the matter of her current project.
ERAASI: HANILAT ENTIBOR: AN-JEMAYNE
Z
eri sus-Dariv’s wedding day dawned fair and sunny, one of the rare days of fine weather that sometimes came to Hanilat in the midst of the winter wet. Zeri considered the clear sky to be a dead waste of a good omen—her prospective bridegroom had no more interest in marriage for its own sake than she herself did. She said as much to Rieny, one of the two friends from her theatre group who had come over to assist her in dressing after the customary fashion, helping her into the traditional gown of flame-red tissue and arranging her short blond hair so that it would support the many-ribboned bridal headdress.
eri sus-Dariv’s wedding day dawned fair and sunny, one of the rare days of fine weather that sometimes came to Hanilat in the midst of the winter wet. Zeri considered the clear sky to be a dead waste of a good omen—her prospective bridegroom had no more interest in marriage for its own sake than she herself did. She said as much to Rieny, one of the two friends from her theatre group who had come over to assist her in dressing after the customary fashion, helping her into the traditional gown of flame-red tissue and arranging her short blond hair so that it would support the many-ribboned bridal headdress.
“Why does Natelth need to marry, after all?” she said. “He has his sister to keep the house in order—I’ve met her, and it’s no surprise
she
hasn’t married; she’d sooner talk to
aiketen
than people—and he has his younger brother to step into his place if anything should happen—”
she
hasn’t married; she’d sooner talk to
aiketen
than people—and he has his younger brother to step into his place if anything should happen—”
“Had,” said Rieny. Her long fingers moved skillfully, buttoning up the row of tiny, self-covered buttons that ran up the back of Zeri’s gown. She’d already heard Zeri’s complaint more than once during the preparations for the wedding, and by now she scarcely bothered to look up from her work. “If you’d troubled yourself even once to think about politics, you’d know that his brother’s dead.”
“I know that he came back from across the interstellar gap,” Zeri said. That had been while she was still pretending she wanted to work for the family someday, and her desktop had been full of the story for weeks.
“He came back,” said her other friend, Lyida. Lyida had her cosmetic box in hand, and was busy painting Zeri’s brows and lashes to conform to the current mode. “And then he disappeared … don’t squint, there’s a dear … and a while later we heard that all of the Demaizen Mages were dead. Except for his sister, Lord Natelth is every bit as kindred-bare as you are.”
“That’s what I mean,” Zeri said. “The man must have kept himself unmarried on purpose, waiting for something like this to happen.”
“It could just be his luck,” said Rieny. “The shoes, now … give me your foot. The sus-Peledaen fleet-Circles are supposed to be some of the strongest ones around, and he gets his luck from them.”
Zeri steadied herself with a hand on Rieny’s shoulder as she slipped first one foot and then the other into her flame-red wedding slippers. “I wish I knew for certain that it was just his luck.”
“Oh, dear. You don’t think …” Lyida’s eyes were big with concern.
Zeri shook her head. She hadn’t meant to voice that particular nagging worry—Rieny and ’Yida didn’t deserve the trouble they might get into if they happened to speak of it in the wrong quarter. “I don’t
know.”
know.”
“Take my advice,” said Rieny. “Don’t try to find out.”
She stepped back and looked at Zeri with her head on one side like an artist contemplating a work-in-progress. “Very nice. ’Yida, are you finished with her face?”
Lyida snapped shut the cosmetic box. “As long as she doesn’t go teary-eyed on me at the last minute.”
“And ruin all your hard work?” Zeri said. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“Hold still, then, while we do the crown and ribbons.”
Zeri stood unmoving while Lyida and Rieny first secured the twisted wire coronet in place with hairpins, then began affixing the bunches of long, fluttering ribbons: green and yellow for the sus-Dariv, blue and crimson for the sus-Peledaen, flame-red for the bridal altar, and shimmering metallic silver for the
eiran
that the Mages worked in their Circles. Zeri hoped that the sus-Peledaen Circles were working the luck for her today; all of her family’s Mages had died with the guardships of the sus-Dariv fleet.
eiran
that the Mages worked in their Circles. Zeri hoped that the sus-Peledaen Circles were working the luck for her today; all of her family’s Mages had died with the guardships of the sus-Dariv fleet.
“There,” said Rieny, when the last ribbon was in place. “It’s time to go. Syr Treosi is waiting.”
Zeri didn’t move. She couldn’t—she felt as though someone had glued the soles of her bridal slippers to the apartment floor. “I don’t want to go.”
“Oh, my dear … !” Lyida’s face crumpled up with sympathetic distress.
Rieny cast a scornful look in Lyida’s direction. “Of course you don’t,” she said to Zeri. “Who would? Call Syr Treosi in here, if you feel that way, and tell him that you won’t go through with it.”
“No.” Zeri drew a long breath, and let it out upon a sigh. Her feet could move again, and she took a step forward, away from her friends’ supporting presence. “The sus-Dariv need me to do this. Without it, we’ll fall apart and lose everything.”
“That’s my Zeri,” Rieny said, and kissed her quickly on the cheek. “Look them in the eye and smile.”
Ayil syn-Arvedan hadn’t been accustomed to follow the internal politics of the Institute’s Mage-Circle. She knew—in the same general way that she knew Trelu Perres of the Theoretical Quasi-Organics Department was also Comptroller of Lower-Study Admissions and Fees—that Esya syn-Faredol was the Circle’s current First; and after the rainy night when Kiefen Diasul had turned up on her doorstep with blood on his robes, she hadn’t been surprised to hear that the Ancient Literatures Department was searching for a new scholar to fill Esya’s old position. It was the right of every Circle to order its own workings, even if the Institute’s Mages seldom needed to deal with any disruption of the
eiran
greater than bad food in the scholars’ refectory or rowdy students making noise in the wrong part of town.
eiran
greater than bad food in the scholars’ refectory or rowdy students making noise in the wrong part of town.
But, as she herself had pointed out to Delath more than once, these days everyone on Eraasi lived in unsettled times. She didn’t know who had stepped into the position of First of the Institute Circle, but she wasn’t surprised, either, to find Kief once again at her front door, this time by daylight. He didn’t seem as wrung-out and barely held together as he had the last time, which was a relief, but he still looked too thin and too tired.
“Are you all right?” she asked after she had let him in.
He collapsed onto her sofa and leaned his head, eyes closed, against its cushioned back. “Don’t you mean, ‘What are you really doing here?’”
“I
am
curious,” she admitted. “But right now you look like somebody has been chasing you hard and not letting you sleep.”
am
curious,” she admitted. “But right now you look like somebody has been chasing you hard and not letting you sleep.”
“An apt description,” he said. “But not anyone’s fault but mine.”
“Good.” She took a step toward the apartment’s tiny kitchen, speaking over her shoulder as she did so. “You also look like somebody hasn’t been feeding you properly. I don’t suppose you have an
aiketh
to do that kind of work.”
aiketh
to do that kind of work.”
“No. I’m capable of handling it myself.”
“Hah. I know you—I shared an office with you, remember? Ready-prepared stuff in cans and boxes. And I’ll bet you don’t even sit to eat at a proper table.”
“Guilty. I admit it.”
“Let me make you some bread and cheese while you’re here, then, purely to ease my conscience.”
“If you insist,” he said. “I won’t say no.”
She got out the brick of sharp cheese from the preserving-cupboard, and the loaf of dark brown homemade bread, and started slicing. As she worked, she said, “So what
are
you really doing here, anyway?”
are
you really doing here, anyway?”
He sighed without opening his eyes. “You do know why today is important, don’t you?”
“Well,” she said, “it’s the end of the session, for one thing.”
“I haven’t been a student or a teacher here for almost two decades,” he pointed out. “I’ve forgotten most of the academic calendar by now.”
She set the plate of bread and cheese down on the low table in front of the couch. “And you don’t want to find out if the Institute has graduated any nice young Mages for your Circle to snap up?”
“I know the answer to that one already,” he said absently. His mouth was already full of sliced cheese. He swallowed and said, “No—today Lord Natelth is marrying the little sus-Dariv. Or marrying the remnants of her family’s fleet and all their ground-based holdings. It comes to the same thing.”
Ayil shook her head. “Poor girl.”
“More than she knows. Her new husband is a hard man.”
“So I’ve heard. He stays away from the Institute, though.”
“Be grateful,” Kief said.
“I am.” Ayil sank into the nearby armchair and set her feet up on its matching hassock. “You’re one of Lord Natelth’s Mages—shouldn’t you be working the luck for his wedding right now?”
“In theory.”
She looked at him curiously. “Not in practice?”
“He has the fleet-Circles for that.”
“Your Circle isn’t part of the fleet? I thought all of the sus-Peledaen Circles were.”
“Not mine.” He shook his head. “None of mine.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “You work for the sus-Peledaen, but you don’t like the star-lords any more than you ever did.”
“I don’t like it that the Circles have to depend on a star-lord’s patronage, or on the goodwill of the community,” he said. “Demaizen was independent, so long as we didn’t need anything beyond the scope of Garrod syn-Aigal’s personal fortune—but then we needed a starship, and for that it was either go to the sus-Peledaen or auction off ourselves and our knowledge like livestock to the highest bidder.” He fell briefly silent, thinking who-knew-what unpleasant thoughts. “Maybe we should have done that anyway. It couldn’t possibly have made things worse.”
“So now you can’t bring yourself to work the luck for a marriage-alliance that stands to give the sus-Peledaen any more power than they’ve already got.”
He nodded. “Something like that, yes.”
“Then work the luck for the little sus-Dariv, as you call her. She’s another one who’s taking herself to the sus-Peledaen because all the other choices looked even worse. If there’s anyone who needs luck in Hanilat today, it’s her.”
This time Kief’s pause was longer, and more thoughtful. “You have a point there.” He put the last of the sliced cheese in between two thick pieces of bread, the better for carrying away and eating out of hand. Then he stood. “I think I’ll go talk with the Institute Circle after all.”
Fas Treosi was waiting for Zeri in her apartment’s outer room, in the company of two large and impassive guardsmen whose presence he acknowledged no more than he did that of the furniture. He bowed to Zeri and took her arm, escorting her formally down the hall to the elevator and out to the street. Rieny and Lyida followed; Zeri heard them murmuring back and forth to each other behind her, and behind them the muted crackle and murmur of one of the guardsmen conferring with somebody else, out on the street.
The groundcar that waited for them outside was a full-sized wedding-coach, built tall and boxy enough to accommodate an entire bridal party without crushing anyone’s gown. Zeri allowed Syr Treosi to assist her in mounting the steps to the passenger compartment. Rieny and Lyida insisted on arranging her ribbons and the folds of her dress after she was seated, and she let them do what they wanted, without protest.
It had taken all of her resolve to break the contact between her feet and the familiar, comfortable floor of her own apartment. She had been content there, desiring—and getting—nothing more from life than a moderate amount of comfort; she should have known that even such ordinary good luck could not last forever unsustained. Now she rode, passively, in the wedding-coach bearing her from home to the place where she would live from now henceforward.
The streets the coach passed through appeared dim and blue-tinged, a visual artifact of the thick tinted glass in the windows. The wedding-coaches of Zeri’s childhood hadn’t had dark windows—the brides in their flame-red dresses had smiled out at the world through clear glass. A bride who felt rich in luck might even choose to ride through the streets of Hanilat with the top and sides of the wedding-coach taken completely down, so that the breeze of her passage whipped the ribbons of her bridal crown into a trailing, rainbow-colored cloud. Children would run after such a coach for blocks, hoping to catch a ribbon worked loose by the wind.
When did it all change?
Zeri wondered.
Nobody does things like that anymore—instead, we sit in a dim light and hoard our luck like misers.
Zeri wondered.
Nobody does things like that anymore—instead, we sit in a dim light and hoard our luck like misers.
The coach rumbled to a stop outside the imposing town house of the sus-Khalgath sus-Peledaen. The driver opened the coach’s passenger door, and Syr Treosi once again assisted her on the steps. Rieny and Lyida came down after her, gathering up in their hands the long ribbons of her bridal crown. It wouldn’t do for the door of the wedding-coach to snatch away all the bride’s good luck as it slammed closed.
The door of the town house swung silently open. A housekeeping
aiketh
hovered on its counterforce unit inside the building. A red light flickered inside the smoky plastic housing of its sensorium, but the construct didn’t speak, only extended one of its manipulative members to point the way farther within. On the far side of the vestibule a second
aiketh
waited to show the bridal party down the long inner hall, and a third stood outside the double doors at the end.
aiketh
hovered on its counterforce unit inside the building. A red light flickered inside the smoky plastic housing of its sensorium, but the construct didn’t speak, only extended one of its manipulative members to point the way farther within. On the far side of the vestibule a second
aiketh
waited to show the bridal party down the long inner hall, and a third stood outside the double doors at the end.
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