Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

A Working of Stars (36 page)

BOOK: A Working of Stars

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Damn.

The man in the loose coat wasn’t Len. And he
was
a Mage.

If the sus-Peledaen have gotten to the Circles on Ninglin already, we’re dead.

She met his eyes—yellowish-hazel eyes, like Len’s, but the expression in them now was not one of Len’s at all—and said, “I’d be glad to try the will of the universe with you, my friend, but not in here. Shall we walk outside?”

“Yes. There’s an alley not far off. We can make our working there.”

They walked together out of the Hanilat Lounge. Vai tried to calm her mind as best she could—it was not going to be good if she went into this affair cursing at the inconvenience of it all. On the other hand, if she could prevail in this back-alley working and shake the Ninglin Circles loose of the sus-Peledaen, then the others, Herin and Zeri and Len, the real Len, would be safe.

The alley proved to be as muddy and unappealing as every place else she’d been on Ninglin. But empty, which was good—not that anybody was likely to disturb a pair of Mages busy at a working.

“Do you want to draw the circle, or shall I?” she asked politely.

The Mage-not-Len, in his turn, was equally polite. “Neither one of us, I’m afraid.”

He took his hand from his coat pocket, and he had a weapon in it. Vai had time for one last, disgusted thought—
Magecraft is ruining me for fighting dirty; I should have seen this coming
—and then he shot her.

19:

NINGLIN: NINGLIN SPACEPORT; NINGLIN NEARSPACE THE VOID

H
ussav mounted the steps to the dining porch of the Far Call Guest House and pulled a chair up to the table. He was careful not to sit too close to Captain Irao—this wasn’t the time to screw things up by appearing to make threats. So far, though, things appeared relatively unscrewed. Irao was still listening, at least, and looked more cautious than anything else.

“It’s like this,” Hussav said. “When we left Eraasi, Lord Natelth was red-hot to get his bride back and have himself a proper wedding morning, and we could have asked for the codes for his private bank account and the services of half the fleet if we’d wanted, so long as we found the lady and brought her home.”

“I noticed that, back at Aulwikh,” Captain Irao said. “Four guardships chasing an obsolete cargo hauler. Very sus-Peledaen.”

“That was some good piloting, though,” said Egelt. “We were impressed. Not enough to stop us putting on speed and beating you to Ninglin … but still, we were impressed. And pleased with ourselves, when it looked like we’d finally nabbed you.”

Hussav picked up the tale again. “So you can probably imagine our state of mind when we received that message from our honored employer. Cut off, called back … never mind picking up you or the girl, just quit spending his money and get ourselves home.”

Captain Irao didn’t look particularly sympathetic. “I don’t know about your state of mind, but I’m relieved.”

“What
we
think,” said Egelt, “is that Lord Natelth has decided it’s a lot simpler to finish the wedding by declaring his lady-bride tragically deceased.”

Hussav nodded. “No more expense of chasing her, no need to bother with a wedding night, and no need to worry about keeping her around the house afterward. All the advantages of marrying the head of the sus-Dariv, and none of the trouble. There’s only one problem, and guess what it is? A pair of security operatives who happen to know that Zeri sus-Dariv isn’t really dead.”

“The more we thought about it, the less we liked the look of our long-term prospects,” Egelt said. “And our choices for a sudden change of career are somewhat limited. Given the choice of becoming spaceport bums on Ninglin—”

“—with a chance of working our way up to barroom bouncers or small-time thugs inside a couple of years—”

“—or throwing our lot in with you people and whatever you’ve got cooked up with the rump end of the sus-Dariv, it appears that the better choice is you.”

“Don’t let it go to your head, though,” added Hussav. “For a while there, ‘spaceport bums’ looked like it was going to be the big winner.”

“I’m rolling on the floor laughing,” Irao said. “But your story does sound plausible. You told it to me—are you willing to tell it to a Mage?”

“I’ll tell it to anyone,” Egelt said.

“Then we’ll wait here for a little while,” Captain Irao told him. “If Lady Zeri sees you here, she won’t come down. But her cousin Herin is going to be back any minute now, and he’s the Mage I’m thinking about. If you’re lying, he’ll boil your brains until they run out of your ears. But if he says you’re telling the truth, then unless Lady Zeri says otherwise, you’re in. Fair enough?”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Egelt said, and picked up his beer. He drained it in one long swallow.

When Vai came back to full consciousness, she was in a large, echoing space. Overhead worklights set in metal brackets shone down at her and made her turn her head away. She knew that she ought to be able to recognize where she was, or at least put a general name to it, but the pain in her arm was making it hard for her to think straight.

The Mage-not-Len had shot her, that much she was clear on; shot her in the upper part of her left arm. From the way it hurt, the bullet must have struck bone. She had vague memories of the Mage-not-Len manhandling her—half-dragging, half-walking—back out to the landing field and up the ramp of a grounded courier ship. Somewhere between the alley and the top of the ramp a voice had said, “She’s a friend. I was supposed to meet her here—you were right; we ran into trouble,” and not long afterward she passed out completely.

Somebody had bandaged and splinted her arm while she was out. Peculiar, she thought, to shoot her in one moment, and then to take care of her in another. No, not peculiar. Crazy.

It took her a moment more to figure out the rest of her situation. She’d been bedded down in emergency passenger berthing: absorbent foam pads and lots of heavy-duty safety webbing, made fast to recessed attachment points in the hold’s deckplates, a standard setup for converting cargo space into something safe for liftoff. It was also damned good for holding someone prisoner if you didn’t have a brig.

Given time, she thought she could probably get free, even hurting and with one arm splinted and useless. Emergency berthing wasn’t a specialized prisoner-holding setup, and Vai was a pro.

At least I used to be a pro. Getting captured like this—they ought to make me turn in my license.

But one thing she wasn’t going to have enough of, it seemed, was time. A brain-wiping roar filled her ears, the deckplates underneath her started vibrating with the rattle of a thousand jackhammers, and the pressure of liftoff came down on her and pressed her flat like a giant’s heavy, smothering hand. Then the pain in her arm expanded to fill the whole universe, and she passed out for a second time.

When she came to, things weren’t any better. She was still webbed down in the cargo hold. This time the Mage-not-Len was in there with her, holding his staff loosely in one hand, squatting on his heels a bit more than arm’s length away, and watching her out of those yellow-hazel eyes.

“You’ve got it wrong.” Her voice came out in a dry croak.

The Mage-not-Len blinked. “What?”

“You’ve got it all wrong. This is the part where you’re supposed to loom over me and make threats.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to threaten you, Vai.”

Wait a minute. He knew her name. She hadn’t used it once on Ninglin that she could remember, not even in the privacy of the guest home.

“Who the hell
are
you?” she demanded.

His expression was one of sheer bewilderment, and he shook his head in apparent frustration. “Don’t you remember—no. You wouldn’t know me, not anymore.”

Now she was starting to get really frightened. It was a disturbing experience to watch someone with Lenyat Irao’s face but another man’s expressions, way of moving, turn of phrase … “Did you kill Len before you took his body?”

“Kill?” For a brief instant his expression changed from bewilderment to distraction. Then he said, “No. The sus-Peledaen want him for questioning, I think, but they haven’t found him yet. Is his name Len?”

Damned amateur,
she thought. Her head ached. It would almost be better if she were being interrogated by professionals, complete with drugs and intimidation and calculated doses of pain. At least then she’d know what was going on. This—this was only making her tired and confused, and she hurt all over, not just in her injured arm.

She closed her eyes against the glare of the overhead lights—and so that she wouldn’t have to look at the Mage-not-Len’s face.

“Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you want,” she said, “so we can move on to the part where I don’t give it to you?”

“It’s … complicated,” he said.

“Well, don’t expect any sympathy from me on that account.” Her arm was throbbing; she could feel the low vibration of the courier vessel’s engines all the way up and down the broken bone. She wished she could pass out again and end all of this, but her body remained stubbornly conscious. “I’ll settle for the grossly oversimplified version if you’ve got one.”

He laughed. Not a cardboard villain’s gloating laughter, or the easy contempt of a torturer with the upper hand, but a laugh of genuine amusement colored with overtones of friendship and regret. And with her eyes closed—without the distraction of seeing Len and not-Len at the same time in the same body—she knew him.

“Kief?” Her eyes snapped open again—and now that she knew the truth, she could see that the other Mage’s nervous, awkward posture was all Kiefen Diasul. “What in the name of the twice-damned, bleeding, sundered galaxy do you think you’re
doing?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need you to tell me how to find Arekhon.”

“’Rekhe? He’s gone for good, Kief. We both know that.”

He gave an angry shake of his head. “No. If ’Rekhe were dead, I’d be free of the great working. But I’m stuck in it, like a bird in a net, and it won’t let me go.”

Oh, Kief,
she thought sadly.
Aren’t we all?
“Finding ’Rekhe won’t change that.”

“Yes, it will. I’m strong now, Vai; if I can find ’Rekhe the two of us can break the working together.”

“He wouldn’t help you,” she said. “The great working meant everything to him—he was as tied into it as you are. The only difference was, he didn’t mind.”

“Then when I find him, we’ll have to try the will of the universe and see which one of us prevails.”

She looked away, back up at the worklights overhead. “What makes you think I could show you how to find ’Rekhe, even if I wanted to?”

“You’re running from Eraasi, and you’re a Mage. Arekhon is the First of the only Circle you have left—where else would you go?”

“You’re crazy, Kief, do you know that? Stark, staring, raving mad.”

“Maybe. I don’t want to hurt you, Vai; I don’t bear ill will toward anybody who was at Demaizen.” He reached out and struck her injured arm lightly with the tip of his staff. “But I
will
hurt you if I have to.”

The pain was nauseating; she had to struggle not to vomit. As soon as she could control her voice again, she gasped, “All right. All right.”
Amateur. He’s an amateur, and he doesn’t know that you are—that you used to be—a pro. He’s not going to have any high expectations about how long you’re going to hold out before you cave
. “If you’re so dead set on getting to ’Rekhe that you have to beat me up to do it, then I won’t try to stop you.”

She could hear his sigh of relief. “Just tell me where I need to go.”

“My jacket—you took it off me when you splinted my arm. Or somebody did.”

“Yes.”

“Look in the inside sealed pocket and you’ll find a datacard. It’s a star chart, and it’ll work with any standard interface. You’ll know the rendezvous when you see it—it’s a flashing purple marker out beyond the Edge, and there aren’t any others like it on the chart.”

“Thank you.” He stood up and started to move away. “I’m sorry I have to leave you like this while we make the transit, but I can’t have you giving my pilot wrong ideas before we even get there. I can bring you some medicine for the pain, though; the ship’s kit has some of that.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to risk choking on my own vomit while I’m unconscious.”

“Suit yourself.”

And he went away, leaving her alone with the throbbing in her arm and the blood-loss-induced fuzziness in her head.

Those ships from Serpent Station had better be on their way to the rendezvous by now. Otherwise, she was going to end up stranded on the sus-Radal asteroid base with a madman.

Len waited with the two former—or nearly former—sus-Peledaen security operatives for some time. He was afraid at first that they’d get impatient and go away, but they didn’t; they sat there drinking beer in silence.

The cook’s helper brought Len’s afternoon special out of the kitchen while they were waiting. It wasn’t grilled tree-rat after all, but some kind of stew, heavy on the vegetables and smelling almost spicy enough for his Antipodean taste. The aroma made his mouth water, but he didn’t feel comfortable about eating a full meal while the two operatives had nothing in front of them except a couple of beers.

“Should I order you—” He made a vague gesture at the afternoon special.

“No thanks,” said the first operative, and the second one shook his head. Len went back to not eating.

The food on his plate had cooled completely by the time Vai’s cousin Herin appeared. He was coming down the street at a fast walking pace—almost a run for Herin; he normally ambled—and Len knew at once that something had gone awry.

Herin reached the bottom of the porch steps and saw the two security men, and his face went dead pale.

Looks like he recognizes one of them,
Len thought.
Maybe both of them.

Herin came up the steps without breaking stride. “Egelt,” he said curtly to the first man. Then he gave a stiff nod to the other. “Hussav.”

BOOK: A Working of Stars

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