Free The Stars Asunder: A New Novel of the Mageworlds by Debra Doyle, James D. MacDonald Page B

to him.”
    She smiled at ’Rekhe again, and his head spun. “I’d rather go back to prentice berthing and give it to you.”

7:
     
    Year 1117 E. R.
     

    ERAASI: DEMAIZEN OLD HALL
ARVEDAN HOUSE
HANILAT STARPORT
     

    When the fleet steamed back into Amisket, Narin Iyal discovered that she was a hero. The Storm of 1116, product of a massive weather system raised by the Circles of the drought-stricken antipodes, had raged up and down the length of the Veredden Archipelago for three days. The townspeople of Amisket had feared that the fishing ships were lost, taking their families and the town’s livelihood with them. The people were grateful—exceedingly grateful. For weeks afterward Narin couldn’t pay cash money for as much as a shoelace, and half a dozen children were named after her in the first month alone.
    She wanted nothing to do with any of it. Halfway through the second month, she told the town council of Amisket that they would have to find a new Mage to head their Circle for them. Then she took passage to the mainland on the packet-boat that brought the weekly mail, and walked inland from the coast.
    She had no clear idea of where she was going—except away from Veredde—and she wandered the by-roads for almost half a year. The Circles she came across would give her hospitality, and invariably wished her well, but none of them offered her a place. Always, after a day or two, or at most a week, she would thank them politely and move on.
    On the first warm day of spring, she was in the Wide Hills district, walking beside the highway running out of Demaizen Town. She’d heard rumors, over the past months, of a new Circle forming in the area. Maybe they would have a place for a Mage who understood the work of a First—all the work of a First, down to the bitter last of it—but who didn’t want to do it ever again.
    Shortly after she’d turned off the highway onto the road leading to the Hall, she heard the sound of a groundcar’s engine, and a truck bearing the logo of a prominent medical-services firm overtook her and slowed to a stop.
    The driver called out the window, “Is this the road to Demaizen Old Hall?”
    “I think so,” she said. “Back in town they said to turn at the stone gate, and that was a stone gate back there. So either this is the right road or we’re both lost.”
    “You’re going to the Hall? Might as well ride the rest of the way with me. I’ve got a delivery to make up there.”
    She climbed into the passenger-side seat. “What are you delivering?” she asked, as the truck began rumbling once again up the long slope.
    “Medical aiketen,” he said. “Top-line trauma units. Not something you install in somebody’s basement every day, let me tell you.”
    “Are they going to the Demaizen Circle?”
    “That’s right. Complete installation, fully instructed and fully stocked.”
    Narin was impressed. Medical aiketen cost a great deal of money—the Amisket Circle had made do with the fishing fleet’s ancient basic-services model, which only worked half the time and was chronically short of supplies. If the Demaizen Circle was equipping itself with a fully functioning infirmary tucked away in the basement, they could push their workings to the limit.
    The Hall itself turned out to be large and imposing—big enough to hide a dozen infirmaries and not feel crowded—but Narin was more interested in the Mage who came out to meet the driver of the delivery truck. She waited, standing a little to one side, while the driver identified himself to the Mage as a person authorized by the company to unpack and install its products, and the Mage identified himself as Yuvaen syn-Deriot, Second of the Demaizen Circle. The driver and the Second signed and countersigned half a dozen different papers; when the driver put away his copies and began offloading, Narin came forward.
    “They told me in Demaizen Town that there was a Circle forming here,” she said. “Is this so, or is