Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Read online

  Tonight he had spoken of Ari Rosselin-Metadi. “My lady’s brother is not a man who works to avoid trouble.”

  “Ari couldn’t be inconspicuous if he tried,” she had answered, countering the Professor’s blow as she spoke and striking out in turn. “But the hand of the Guild is over him.”

  The Professor turned the stroke aside with ease. “The Guild’s hand? Or your own?”

  “I’m an Adept,” she said. “My hand and the Guild’s are the same.”

  She missed her block then, and the Professor’s next blow came in against her side. He struck again without waiting for her to recover.

  “Mistress, are you sure?”

  “When I came to the Guild,” she said, blocking again, “I told Master Ransome I would obey—”

  “—in order that you might learn,” the Professor finished for her. The third blow in his sequence came crashing down past her guard and ended the match. “Apprentice vows. But no one remains an apprentice forever.”

  After that she had awakened, to lie staring up at the darkness with her ribs aching from blows that she had taken in a dream. Now she moved through the sequences as she had dreamed them, taking the blows and blocks and counterstrikes and working with them until they flowed together without need for thought.

  She didn’t want to think, particularly. It didn’t take dreams and prophecies to know that trouble was coming, and that when it arrived, the vows of a single medic-turned-Adept would dwindle to matters of no importance at all.

  The old section of downtown Namport dated from the first few decades of the planet’s settlement. In those days, the buildings had been thrown together using local materials whenever possible, to cut down on the cost of importing fixtures and fittings. Later, in the good times after the end of the Magewar, Namport had grown too fast for the old section to keep up. The wooden-frame buildings with their shuttered balconies weren’t fashionable anymore. Prosperous citizens moved out to newer parts of town, leaving the run-down older houses for the workers who provided casual labor around the port and the industrial districts.

  Namport’s traffic, like its architecture, was a mix of galactic technology and local materials. Most of the city dwellers drove nullgrav-assisted hovercars that didn’t need roads in order to operate; and the small-time farmers who harnessed the native tusker-oxen for draft animals had no use for pavement at all. Pedestrians like Owen Rosselin-Metadi had to pick their way through the mud from puddle to puddle.

  Owen lived in one of the old quarter’s oldest buildings—a slowly decaying clapboard structure painted a faded and peeling green—and his current job, in the laundry room of a bathhouse at the edge of the spaceport, had him working nights and walking home along the unpaved streets as the sky grew light. Today the street outside his apartment building was deserted except for the neighborhood drunk sleeping propped up against a trash bin. Even the one or two streetwalkers who worked this part of town had gone home.

  The main door of the building was open, as usual; whoever owned the place and collected the rent wasn’t going to waste good money on scan-locks or security guards. Owen climbed up the four flights of stairs—ignoring the lift, which had been broken for so long most of the tenants didn’t realize that it existed—and unlocked the door to his room.

  His apartment was “furnished,” which in this section of Namport meant that it contained a table with one leg shorter than the other three, a folding metal chair with dents in the seat and back, and a narrow cot with a lumpy mattress. The sheets on the mattress were Owen’s, purchased out of his first week’s pay. Master Ransome had supplied him with enough funds to cover his expenses, but he preferred to work his own way as usual, leaving the roll of credit chits tucked inside the mattress cover for an emergency backup.

  Nobody had come into his room since he’d left it the evening before. He would have known if anybody had. After Pleyver, he’d taken precaution upon precaution, but if there were any Mages left on Nammerin they were keeping their distance. Owen had counted on setting something in motion with his arrival, anything from a disturbance in the currents of Power to a physical attempt on his life, and he found the lack of interest disturbing.

  The Mages ought to be here, he thought, as he stripped out of his working clothes. They’ve had a functioning Circle on Nammerin for a long time, and it shows. All the patterns have knots and kinks in them; they’ve been twisted out of shape by sorcery. I should have startled the Circle into action just by showing up.

  He folded his discarded garments and laid them on the chair, with his shoes side by side on the floor beneath, then stretched himself out on the lumpy cot. Sleep tugged at him like an undertow, trying to pull him away from the shore, but he forced himself to stay awake and keep thinking for a few minutes longer. He had work to do, and—if Master Ransome was right—little enough time to do it in. If the Mages on Nammerin weren’t going to reveal themselves of their own accord, then he would have to stir them into action.

  Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow’s a better time for it. I can wait. Time isn’t just on the Mages’ side. It works for me as well.

  In the quarters he shared with another of the Medical Station’s lieutenants, Ari Rosselin-Metadi squeezed a dollop of shaving gel out of the tube and rubbed it onto his cheeks and chin. While the depilatory was doing its work, he laid out his uniform on the neatly made bottom bunk. He’d gotten dressed as far as socks and trousers when he was interrupted by a pounding at the door.

  Bare to the waist, with the greenish shaving gel stiffening on his face, Ari padded across the room. The old scars of an encounter with a sigrikka—one of the great predators on the planet Maraghai—stood out against the massive, heavy muscles of his bare back and arms. He palmed the lockplate and the door panel slid aside.

  Out in the hallway, the greyish pink light of early morning filtered down through the skylight onto the tousled hair and short, stocky form of Bors Keotkyra. The younger officer was carrying a thick bundle of printout flimsies in one hand.

  Ari scowled at him. “What’s the racket about? Thomir just got in from being night officer, and you’re pounding loud enough to wake the dead.”

  “Promotion lists are in,” said Bors. “Three people from the station made lieutenant commander, and you’re one of them.” He rattled the sheaf of flimsies. “And new orders came in along with the promotion lists—you’ve got some of those, too. Orders, I mean. You’re getting out of this mud-pit. Some people have all the luck.”

  “I’ll trade my luck for yours any day,” Ari said. “You don’t happen to know where they’re sending me, do you?”

  Bors shook his head. “You’re getting a ship tour; that’s all I know. See you at breakfast—I have to go finish spreading the good word. Later!”

  “Later,” said Ari. He hit the lockplate again, and the panel slid shut.

  Over in the top bunk, Thomir lifted his head off his pillow far enough to ask blearily, “What was that all about?”

  “Orders and promotions.”

  “Oh,” Thomir said, and yawned. “And here I thought it was something important.” Ari’s current roommate was both a recent arrival on Nammerin and a newly minted lieutenant; promotion and reassignment wouldn’t be coming his way again any time soon.

  “Well, it isn’t. Go back to sleep.”

  Ari wiped off the shaving gel with a damp facecloth—actually, a square of the standard-issue reclaimable synthetic that the Space Force used for everything from bandages to blankets—then stuffed the cloth into the recycler and began putting on the rest of his uniform. He slid his arms into the sleeves of his tunic and shrugged it into place, then sealed the tabs and went back over to the closet. A leather gun belt hung from a hook inside the closet door.

  The gun belt supported a heavy, war-surplus blaster. Ari belted on the weapon and straightened it so that that holster lay along the outside seam of his trousers. He gave his uniform a final check in the mirror, then headed out of the room and down the corridor to the
officers’ mess.

  The doors of the dining hall slid open, and Ari caught the Nammerin station’s distinctive early-morning smells of water-grain porridge and fresh-brewed cha‘a. A babble of voices mingled with the clink of glasses and tableware. Even the people who usually didn’t speak to anybody until after the third cup of cha’a were talking, passing the printout flimsies of the promotion and reassignment lists back and forth and checking for news of friends and acquaintances.

  Ari got himself a bowl of porridge, a mug of cha’a, and a mug of the sludgy local drink called ghil. He carried his tray over to the nearest table. Esuatec from Outpatient waved a handful of flimsies at him as soon as he sat down.

  “Hey, Ari!” she said. “You made lieutenant commander.”

  “I know,” Ari said. “Bors told me. Who’s got the list of billet assignments?”

  “I do. I’m going to the supply depot on Agameto.”

  “Not bad.”

  Esuatec nodded. “Could be worse. You know what they say: ‘Why die? Go Supply! Stay in the rear and count the gear.’”

  Ari drained his mug of ghil in one long swallow, and followed it up with a mouthful of cha’a to rinse the grit out of his teeth. As far as he was concerned, ghil ranked as one of Nammerin’s better contributions to the problem of breakfast—it combined the high protein of a nourishing soup with the added bite of a mild stimulant—but even native-born Nammeriners admitted that the texture required some getting used to.

  “I suppose supply clerks on Agameto get sick once in a while,” he said. “And I hear the weather’s nice there. What about me?”

  “You’ve got—” Esuatec flipped through the pages. “—oh, this is a good one—you’ve got a berth as head of the medical department on board RSF Fezrisond.”

  “The Fezzy hasn’t gone anywhere outside the Infabede sector in years,” Ari said. “And she’s Admiral Vallant’s flagship, to boot. Formalities. Spit and polish. Inspections and visiting diplomats and dress uniforms at breakfast.”

  The complaint was mostly for ritual’s sake. Ari was not at all displeased with the assignment: nothing flashy, but a good, solid promotion into a responsible position. He turned to his bowl of water-grain porridge with a sense of satisfaction and a general feeling that the day had begun on a propitious note.

  A shadow fell across his tray as somebody else sat down across the table from him. He looked up. It was Llannat Hyfid in her customary unmarked uniform, with the ebony staff clipped as usual to her belt. She looked thoughtful. He watched her as she put milk and sugar into her cha’a and drank half of it before setting the mug down again on her tray.

  “The orders are in,” he said finally. He didn’t suppose she would care much about the promotion list, since Adepts didn’t carry rank.

  “I heard,” she said.

  “Bors?”

  “Who else?” Llannat sighed. “He means well. But all that boundless enthusiasm makes me feel old sometimes.”

  “Wait until he’s been in the service a couple more years,” said Esuatec. “He’ll be as ancient as the rest of us.”

  Ari shook his head. “No such luck. Bors will still be young and enthusiastic when he’s a hundred and two.” He turned back to Llannat. “So what did you get, anyway?”

  “Didn’t Bors tell you? They love me so much here on Nammerin they’re keeping me around indefinitely.”

  “Oh.” Ari took up a spoonful of porridge, looked at it for a moment, and let it fall back into the bowl. He turned the empty spoon over in his hand, then turned it bowl-up again and laid it down on the tray. “It’ll save you packing and unpacking, I suppose.”

  “Yes.” She drank more cha’a. Her dark eyes seemed focused on something halfway between the far side of the table and the rim of her mug. “You have a ship tour?”

  He nodded. “On Fezrisond.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I suppose it is. Or maybe not. I don’t know.” Llannat put the empty mug down without looking at it. “You were probably right the first time.”

  Esuatec looked from Llannat to Ari and back again, then stood up. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “They need me early over in Outpatient this morning.”

  Ari pulled his thoughts together enough to say something polite, but Esuatec was already gone. Llannat was still gazing out into the empty space over the tabletop.

  “I thought you’d be glad to stay on Nammerin,” said Ari finally. “You told me one time that it reminded you of home.”

  “Parts of it do,” Llannat said. “But I didn’t join the Space Force because I wanted to stay on Maraghai.”

  “I guess not.” Ari thought for a moment. “You could always ask the Guild—”

  “No,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way. I decided to stick with the Space Force, and that means I go where the Space Force sends me. Or doesn’t send me.”

  “We’re—you’re stuck, then,” Ari said. “Nammerin until further notice.”

  She sighed. “I know. Think of us dirtsiders once in while when you’re out there zipping through hyperspace and touring the galaxy.”

  “If the Fezzy makes it outside the Infabede sector while I’m on her,” Ari said, “I’ll pay you fifteen credits and buy you a drink the next time we’re on liberty in the same port.”

  Llannat smiled for the first time that morning. “Make it twenty credits and dinner,” she said, “and I’ll take your bet.”

  The afternoon sunlight falling across his pillow roused Owen from sleep. He lay for a moment with his eyes closed, testing his surroundings for danger. Nothing. The currents of Power flowed as they always had, their patterns undisturbed except for the constant underlying distortion that marked the presence of a working Mage-Circle.

  I learned to recognize that on Pleyver, he thought, even if I didn’t accomplish much else in all the time I spent there.

  He got out of bed, yawned, and stretched. From the stretch, he moved smoothly into the ShadowDance routines that the Adepts at the Retreat taught to all their students. He could have performed the ShadowDance for much longer than it took him to finish the basic sets; he enjoyed losing himself in the slow, graceful movements that needed only a small change in emphasis to become quick and deadly.

  But he had things to do, and a limited time to in which to do them. When he’d finished the last set, he sponged the sweat off his body with cold water from the sink in the kitchen nook—the shower in the apartment’s tiny bathroom didn’t work any more than the lift did—then dressed in his second set of work clothes, the clean ones, and settled himself cross-legged on the bare floor to meditate.

  This time his meditations took a more active form. Much as he had tested the apartment and the neighborhood for trouble when he first awoke, he extended his awareness out further, taking in more and more of Namport. He was looking for Mages, which was nothing new—he’d done that every day since he first arrived on-planet—but this time he wasn’t bothering to hide his tracks.

  Let the Circle notice me, he thought. If they get nervous, they’ll do something rash. And then I’ll have them.

  Nothing happened, however. He was almost ready to end the session and get on with his normal workday when he felt the patterns alter. Someone was coming—someone was looking for him, with more than physical senses. The approaching presence brought with it something of the pattern he had learned to recognize as Magework.

  I’ve found them, he thought. And then corrected himself. No. I’ve found somebody—but I don’t think it’s the Circle.

  For there was no malice in the presence, and no fear. Whoever came seeking him wasn’t an enemy, as any of the Nammerin Mages certainly would be, and might even be a friend.

  He waited. Before long, he heard the stairs creak, and a knock sounded on his door.

  “The lock’s an easy one,” he called. “Come on in.”

  He heard a click, and the door opened. The young woman who stepped across the threshold wore a Space Force uniform without insignia, but her rather
plain, dark features were familiar enough. He’d known Llannat Hyfid when she was an apprentice at the Retreat on Galcen—a confused and uncertain medical-service ensign with a late-blooming sensitivity to the currents of Power.

  “Mistress Hyfid,” he said, giving her the courtesy due to the title while he continued to assess the changes time and experience had brought.

  She’d made progress, no question about it, steadying and strengthening more than he’d expected in the time since he’d last met her. There were other changes, too, chief among them the short, silver-trimmed ebony staff she wore clipped to her belt. The distinctive aura of Magework clung to the staff like purple fire, its patterns clearly visible to Owen’s already-sensitive perceptions.

  Where did she get that thing? he wondered. And how can she touch it without knowing what it is?

  “Owen,” she said. If she noticed his reaction to the staff, she didn’t show it. Ignoring the cot and the rickety chair, she sat down on the floor across from him. “It’s been a while—and this isn’t where I expected to see you again.”

  For a moment Owen was uncertain how he should deal with his unexpected visitor. He watched her, not speaking, while he sorted through the possibilities in his head.

  Does Master Ransome know what she’s carrying? Should I tell him … no. She’s Adept, not apprentice; she has the right to make her own decisions, and she doesn’t feel like a traitor.

  But the staff made him uncomfortable just the same. If the local Mages could sense it, they might do—who knew what they might do? Unless the power it represented in the hands of an Adept made even them nervous.

  It ought to. It makes me nervous.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said finally.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Llannat said. “But you might as well be broadcasting yourself over all the holovid networks in Namport. You were certainly giving me headaches as far out as the Medical Station.”

  “You should have taken the hint and stayed away.” He leaned forward a little, catching her gaze and holding it. “Listen to me. You being here is dangerous. For me, for you. Don’t ask why. Just go.”