The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds Read Free

for instruction, sir.” Everyone outranked an apprentice—even when the apprentice came from the family’s senior line—and ’Rekhe took pains to keep his voice respectful. Natelth had made it plain that he would not have his younger brother disgracing the family by causing trouble and discontent.
    “Come with me.” The clerk-tertiary led the way into the coiling three-dimensional labyrinth of the Ribbon ’s interior, and ’Rekhe followed.
    He tried to memorize the route as they went, but in spite of his efforts he knew that he would have to spend time with the ship’s map-models later. The ground-based portion of his prentice-training had given him an understanding of the basic principles of ship construction, but each ship had its own set of variations on the common design.
    The clerk-tertiary halted before an airtight door like all the others they had passed by, or through, on the way inward.
    “Prentice berthing,” he said. “Stow your gear and report to the junior wardroom in an hour.”
    With that, he departed, leaving ‘Rekhe to confront the door alone. Fortunately, it was merely closed, rather than dogged down tight. ’Rekhe pulled it open and stepped over the sill.
    The compartment held four bunks, stacked two deep on either side of the door. Corresponding lockers filled the rest of the available space along the bulkheads. The bunks were rigged with the cushions and webbing to double as acceleration couches.
    A girl sat cross-legged on one of the lower bunks, reading a flatbook and making notes on the margin-pad with a stylus. She wore prentice livery like ‘Rekhe’s own—more dark blue trimmed with crimson—and her short brown hair curled around her bent head in a loose mop. She looked up as ’Rekhe stepped into the compartment.
    “It’s first-come, first-served on the bunks,” she said. “You might as well take the bottom one on the other side before somebody else does.”
    “I like the top bunks,” said ’Rekhe. “Nobody steps on your face every night and morning.”
    The girl shrugged. “No accounting for taste. I’m Elaeli Inadi, by the way.”
    “Arekhon sus-Khalgath,” he said, sketching a bow.
    And the eiran that had hung like cobwebs around Ribbon-of-Starlight’s dark metal hull began to weave themselves into a newer pattern.
     
     
    On the day that the Ribbon left Eraasi for her trading voyage to Ildaon and beyond, Serazao Zulemem was at work in the outer office of the Harradi Group, a firm of legalists specializing in the financial affairs of Eraasi’s middle and upper nobility. The Demaizen estate was about to pass into the hands of its final inheritor, and Serazao had drawn the work of sorting and filing all the hardcopy that the case had generated during two decades of legal contests.
    Serazao’s parents, Alescu and Evya, had come to Hanilat from Eraasi’s antipodal subcontinent because well-trained legalists—and they were both well-trained—could prosper in the employ of the merchants and star-lords who made the city their base of operations. Her father soon achieved membership in the Harradi Group; her mother, more combative by nature, kept her own office as a court-litigant.
    Serazao herself was a quiet, industrious child. From the time she was old enough to make plans for her future and have others take them seriously, she intended to become a legalist like her parents. To that end, as soon as she reached the age of employment, she worked part time—full time during the school intervals—at her father’s firm.
    The litigation concerning the Demaizen estate had come near to outlasting the family lines that contended for it. Serazao knew from her parents’ dinner-table conversation that only the death from old age of one of the parties involved had brought the matter to a conclusion. Now the remaining heir was required to present himself at Harradi’s offices to take possession … in this case, of a portfolio full of deeds and account-books.
    Nobody had