A Working of Stars

A Working of Stars Read Free

Book: A Working of Stars Read Free
Author: Debra Doyle
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up.”
    “If you trained him, ’Rekhe, I’m sure he’s good.” She leaned against him for a moment in silence, looking out at the dark, and then said, “As soon as the Provost is taken care of, I’m going to the country and staying there for a while … will you stay there with me?”
    “Yes,” said Arekhon. Elaeli’s summer cottage was isolated enough that the scandal-rags didn’t bother with it—at least not for something as commonplace as bedroom gossip. Arekhon thought of the pleasure of waking beside Elaeli in the morning sunlight, and sighed.
    You have to leave now, the woman in his dream had told him. It’s almost time.
    He did not think that she had been speaking of the house in An-Jemayne.

1:
     
    ERAASI: DEMAIZEN OLD HALL; DEMAIZEN TOWN; ERAASIAN FARSPACE ENTIBOR: ROSSELIN COTTAGE
     
    H erin Arayet sus-Dariv took his rented groundcar around the last curve on the uphill drive to Demaizen Old Hall. The burnt-out shell of the ruined building reared up against the sky ahead of him. A little later, he saw a line of rusting metal hulks drawn up in good order on the overgrown gravel driveway, with clingvine spreading over them and tall stalks of field weeds springing up around their treads.
    He slowed the groundcar into a careful approach. He’d taken his usual precautions before setting out on today’s errand—a pocket-pistol concealed inside his jacket, a knife hidden up his sleeve, a note to the family’s Agent-Principal filed among his personal effects—but he knew that against Magecraft, such measures would do him little good. And whatever had happened to the line of blasted and shattered assault vehicles had been a Mage’s work.
    Nobody knew, or at least nobody admitted in public to knowing, exactly who had sent the private assault team up against Garrod syn-Aigal and his Circle. The incident had taken place during the period of civil unrest that had disturbed Eraasi’s main continent over ten years before; but Demaizen had been an independent Circle during that period, supported by Garrod’s private fortune and not tied formally to any particular faction or institution. True, they’d had an informal connection to the sus-Peledaen fleet-family—Lord Natelth’s younger brother had been one of the Demaizen Mages, and members of the Circle had taken part in the sus-Peledaen exploratory voyage to the far side of the interstellar gap—but such a connection should have given Demaizen more protection, rather than less.
    The one thing Herin could say for certain about the attack was that neither side had survived the encounter, and that no guilty parties had revealed themselves by coming in to clean things up afterward. The house and grounds had passed into the hands of the Wide Hills District Wildlife Protection League, according to Lord Garrod’s testamentary wishes; and the League so far had operated strictly within the boundaries of its charter, leaving the ruined Hall untouched.
    Herin wasn’t surprised. What the Mages wanted had a way of happening. Garrod had wanted the Old Hall left alone, and alone it stayed, unaltered except by the elements. No graffiti marked its smoke-stained walls, and no empty cans or broken bottles littered the shadowed ground beneath. Even the local adolescents, it seemed, chose to go elsewhere for their amateur debaucheries.
    He left his groundcar parked in the driveway and made his way up the front steps of the Hall and through the great, broken doors. Inside was more destruction, cracked brick and burnt wood and more than once a disturbing glimpse of something that looked like bone. He found the door that his contact had told him about, a small one that opened onto a service stairway, and started down the narrow steps into the basement.
    “Syr Arayet.”
    The voice came from the darkness ahead of him. It was low and not unpleasant—a woman’s voice, he thought. A moment later, a light came on in the corridor. After a few seconds, he realized that the pale,

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