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

looked inward, searching the three-dimensional world of the sea for the streaky feeling of the fish’s lives. She could sense the others searching as well—Tam strong and steady, Laros knife-blade sharp, and Kas like a bright flame of luck in the deep water. Now she had to draw them together like one of the purse seines that the trawlers used, combining all their energies to bring both the fish and luck in taking them into one physical spot.
    “Seek them, hold them, bring and bind them,” she said. “We are one.” The circle pulsed in the depths like a ring of silver, marking the darting presence of the fish. “Find the place. Join them and lock them to a place.”
    “We need to be stronger,” Tam said. His voice seemed to come from far away, outside of the sea-deeps where the minds of the Circle made their search. “To find the place so that the boats can find it.”
    “I’ll give to the working,” Narin said. “Who will match me?”
    “I will,” Tam replied.
    He stood, bringing his staff up before him. Narin did the same, and felt the power of the universe surging around her, ready to be taken like the fish she sought. She drew the power into herself and let it flow out again redoubled, making her staff shine with a deep green fire. Blue fire answered from the other side of the tiny space. The same current that flowed through Narin like one of the rolling seas beneath the ship, flowed now through her Second as well.
    The two staves met with a crack. Narin saw the luck fly out from them like rainbows, and felt a surge of joy. This would be a good working, a strong working—the congruence of the inner and the outer worlds would guarantee its success.
    Again Tam attacked; again she countered, then counter-attacked. They pressed together, striving to create and make manifest the luck of the fleet through the essential contradiction of the universe opposing itself. Sweat rolled down their necks in spite of the physical chill of the space, and their breathing grew hoarse and ragged.
    Then, as quickly as the energy had risen, it flared in a last bright dazzle and fell away. Narin stepped back.
    “It’s done,” she said. “I have them.”
    She reached into her shirt pocket underneath her robe and pulled out a pencil stub and the chart of the fishing grounds. She drew a neat dot on the chart, circled it, and wrote a time beside it. Then she drew more circled dots, and wrote more times. The dots and times, when she had finished, represented where the fish had been, were, and would be. The pattern showed an eastward drift at slow speed.
    “So that’s why we couldn’t find anything,” Tam said, watching over her shoulder as she worked. A fisherman and a fishers’ Mage for many years, he knew that the location lay well outside the fleet’s usual grounds, farther to the west of the island homeports than anyone had expected.
    Narin refolded the chart and tucked it back into her shirt pocket.
    “Rest,” she said to the other Mages. “I’ll take this to the Captain. He’ll want to inform the fleet.”
     
     
    The sus-Peledaen convoy guarded by Ribbon-of-Starlight made its first trading stop at Ildaon. The chief exports of Ildaon were mineral pigments, raw textiles, and exotic furs; in return, the Ildaonese bought second-cut red uffa to blend with the harsher native leaf, and luxury-model flyers of Eraasian design. Captain syn-Avran allowed members of the guardship’s crew to go on liberty in the port city, as long as they kept out of trouble. Arekhon sus-Khalgath and Elaeli Inadi were in the next-to-last group to go.
    They wore their best apprentice livery for the occasion—inconvenient, if someone on Ildaon had it in for traders, but useful if a port official or a fellow crewmember needed to spot them quickly in a crowd. They also wore sus-Peledaen ship-cloaks of dark blue lined with crimson. Ildaon’s starport was situated on a high northern plateau, and the season was local winter.
    A traders’ hostel