Read The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds for Free Online

he’d paid to call himself part of Ferrdacorr’s clan. *I have,* he said.
    The Selvaur shook his head, a gesture he must have picked up from the humans he worked with on Nammerin. *Ahh.* He looked over at his partner, and then back at Ari. *Will he be all right, now that you’re here?*
    *I don’t know yet,* Ari said.
    He moved away from the Selvaur, and knelt down beside Jessan. “What have we got?”
    Jessan shook his head. “We’ll need the lab work to confirm it, of course—but if this isn’t third-stage Rogan’s I’ll toast my commission and eat it for breakfast.”
    “Rogan’s,” said Ari. “Damn.”
    The Selvaur made a nervous sound deep in his throat. *Is he going to die?*
    *Maybe,* said Ari. It was unbecoming for one Forest Lord to lie to another, even in kindness. *Help us move him to the aircar. If we get him to the hospital, he may have a chance.*
    The return trip was every bit as bad as Ari had feared, with the wind picking up, and the sick man shaking with chills and screaming in delirium the whole way. At last, though, they got the farmer checked in and under care, and made their way, wet and muddy, to the Junior Officers’ staff lounge for a cup of hot ghil . Off-worlders found the local drink sludgy and bitter, but like everybody else at the medical station, Ari had been on Nammerin so long the stuff was beginning to taste good.
    The staff lounge was a converted storage dome, furnished with a half-dozen stackable chairs and a lumpy couch that someone had picked up secondhand at a flood sale. A holoset stood in the center of the dome atop its packing crate. Jessan clicked on the set, and the latest episode of “Spaceways Patrol” flickered into view, its colors dulled and its outlines fuzzied by atmospherics.
    Ari sat back on the couch and gave his mug a gentle shake before taking the first sip— ghil was warming and filling and a natural stimulant, but it did tend to leave sediment in the bottom of your cup.
    “Rogan’s Disease,” he said. “What next?”
    “You never can tell on this planet,” said Jessan. “The week after I got here—two years ago this LastDay morning, but who’s counting?—the CO’s pet sand snake got mildew. Had to freeze-dry the beast to kill the stuff.”
    “Wouldn’t that kill the sand snake, too?” asked Ari. You never could tell about Jessan’s wild stories. He told them all with the same straight face, and it was usually the unlikely ones that turned out to be true.
    “Oh, no,” said Jessan, shaking his head. “Just sent it into premature hibernation.”
    “And then, I’ll bet,” said a woman’s unfamiliar voice from the doorway, “he had to put it under the ultraviolets to reset its clock. Come on, Jessan, tell us another one.”
    Ari rose, ducking out of habit even though the lounge’s ceiling provided ample headroom, and turned toward the door. He saw a human female of about his own age, a small, plain-featured person whose thick black hair was twisted up into a knot at the back of her head. She wore a Medical Service uniform without insignia.
    “Gentlelady,” Ari began, and then saw the polished wooden staff slung across her back on a leather cord. “Mistress,” he corrected himself.
    Jessan chuckled. “Llannat, this is Ari Rosselin-Metadi. Ari, this is what else showed up while you were gone—Llannat Hyfid, our brand-new Adept. She’s my relief.”
    Ari gave her the full Entiboran bow of respect, just as his mother had taught him years ago. “Mistress Hyfid.”
    She made a face. “Call me ‘Llannat,’ please. I’m from Maraghai, and the ‘Mistress’ bit makes me uncomfortable.”
    There weren’t a lot of humans living on Maraghai, but the Selvauran distaste for human ranks and titles tended to rub off on the few who did. Ari looked at Llannat with a bit more interest. *Do you understand Forest Speech?* he asked.
    The answering smile lit up the young woman’s dark, bony features like a lantern on a cloudy night. “Oh,