The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds by Doyle Debra; Macdonald James D

Author:Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D. [Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-06-14T22:00:00+00:00

For Theledau syn-Grevi it was the hour of observance.

He went to the moonroom as usual, but as soon as he stepped through the door he became convinced that he was not alone. He stepped no farther in than the threshold, but reached out and tapped the switch on the wall beside him. A dim silver light began to glow from recessed sources dispersed around the circular room.

He half-expected to find a burglar hiding there, or a spy from one of the fleet-families with reason to dislike the sus-Radal. As befitted half an expectation, he was half right. Iulan Vai was waiting for him, curled up on one of the watching-benches, wearing plain black garments and balancing a stick—no, not a stick, a Mage’s staff—across her knees.

“Good evening, my lord.” Vai rose to her feet and knelt to him as politely as ever, then resumed her seated posture. “I thought it was time I should report to you in person.”

“More than time,” Thel said. “You’ve been running your operations from Demaizen for long enough.”

She accepted the implied reproof without changing expression. “My people are well trained. Did you ever lack for anything that they could have supplied?”

“Not that I know of. But if I didn’t have it I wouldn’t know about it, would I?”

She smiled as if he had made a pleasing joke. “That’s the way it always is,” she agreed. “It’s the things you don’t know you’re missing that’ll get you every time. My lord, I stayed at Demaizen because of one of those things. As I told you at the time, matters were in train there which required my close personal observation.”

“And have these matters finally reached some kind of conclusion?”

“Oh, yes.” She paused—whether it was for effect, or to marshal her words properly, Thel couldn’t say. “Garrod syn-Aigal has found a hospitable world on the far side of the interstellar gap. I anticipate that the sus-Peledaen will be sending out an explorer ship before very long; Lord Arekhon’s in town and talking with his brother now.”

Thel scowled. “That is information you could have given me earlier.”

“To what end? Our fleet has no ships capable of making so long a transit. Better that the sus-Peledaen should take the risk of the first voyage … after all, you’ll be getting copies of all their data from your agent on board.”

“You?” he asked.

She nodded. “Demaizen will provide the ship’s Circle, and I’m a part of Demaizen now. You’ll have to appoint my current Agent-in-Charge to Agent-Principal in my place, of course.”

“Of course,” Thel said drily. Vai had always been high-handed where her operations were concerned, and he had tolerated it because she provided him with excellent results. She had not previously been accustomed to use that same high-handedness with Theledau himself. “You do realize, that’s not an appointment I can make, then take away again?”

“I know.” She lifted the ebony staff briefly from her knees, then balanced it again across them. “I have another place to come back to, if I come back at all.

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