She was a disturbing influence in Akard. The old could not deal with her. They wanted her out of the way for a while, so they could regain their balance. And maybe so they could decide what to do about her.
She did not allow herself to dwell upon that. The possibilities were too grim. She was not as confident of her safety as Braydic said she should be. The senior and Khles and Gorry all had made the point repeatedly that she was at their mercy. And she had her responsibility to Grauel and Barlog. Why could she not conform more, at least outwardly? She tried, but invariably they would touch some unyielding chord of rebellion.
The party stopped moving. A huntress returned from the point to report, “We are there. Just beyond that loom of rock.” She indicated a star-obscuring line ahead. Marika leaned on her javelin and listened, grateful for a chance to catch her breath. They had been climbing since sundown, and for three nights before that. And now they were just yards from the planned limit of their journey. Now they would turn and begin the long downhill return to Akard.
“You can see their campfires from the rim,” the scout said. Marika became alert. The nomads? They were that close? And confident enough to show lights at night?
The pack responded with angry murmurs. Soon Marika found herself poised at the brink of an immense drop-off, staring at the patch of winking campfires, like a cloud of stars, many miles away.
“They feel safe beyond the Rift,” muttered Rhaisihn, the silth who commanded the party. “They think we will not come on. Curse them. Far-toucher. Where is a far-toucher? I need instructions from Akard. I need to touch the other parties, to let them know that we have found the savages.”
Even in the darkness the view’s immensity awed Marika. When the others withdrew to carry out orders or begin making camp, she remained, staring at moonlight glinting off mists, streams, lakes, patches of unmelted snow. And at that constellation of campfires.
Whenever her gaze crossed that far camp, she suffered a startling resurgence of emotion she had thought fully dulled. But the hatred and anger remained, buried. She wanted revenge for what had been done to the Degnan.
The first ghost light of approaching day obscured the feeble eastern stars. Marika went down to her own camp, where she found Rhaisihn with two far-touchers, muttering angrily. Her request for permission to carry the pursuit beyond the Rift had been denied.
There were ceremonies upcoming at Akard, and it would be hard enough now to get back in time to participate. If they pressed on north the ceremonies would have to be forgone.
Marika was indifferent to ritual obligations. She interrupted. “Mistress? May I have the watch on the nomad camp?”
The silth looked up, startled. “You? Volunteering? I am amazed. I wonder what ulterior motive you may have. But go ahead. You may as well be of some use.”
Rhaisihn did not like Marika. Marika did her share and more, yet Rhaisihn persistently accused her of malingering, perhaps because she tended to daydream. Marika stilled her anger and returned to the rim of the Rift. She found a prominence and seated herself.
The light had grown strong enough to obscure all but the westernmost stars.
There were few stars in the skies of Marika’s world. No more than a few hundred. Most were so feeble only the sharpest eye could discern them. The only truly bright heavenly bodies were the moons and nearest planets.
The light continued to grow, and Marika continued to sit, as fixed as part of the landscape, her awe unabated. The lighter the dawn, the more grand the view. The lighter the dawn, the more she was astounded by the spectacle before her.
The Rift was a break in the earth’s crust tilted like a monster paving stone ripped up by an earth giant’s pry bar. The fall before Marika was at least two thousand feet. The Rift extended to either paw as far as she could see. The north spread out like a map. A map now partly obscured by mists over lakes and rivers and their verges. Most of the ground seemed flat and meadowy, maybe even marshy, but in the far distance there were darker greens that could only be forests. Beyond those the tundra began.
She looked to the east for some sign of the Great Gap, a wide break in the Rift wall through which both nomads and kropek migrated, and through which the nomads would have withdrawn. Those who had gone, for it was rumored that many had decided to remain in the upper Ponath. Parties from Akard were hunting them, too.
There was no sign of the Gap.
That vast sprawl of northland was hypnotic. There was no way Marika could gaze upon it and not fall into a daydream.
A light, wandering something touched her mind as lightly as gossamer on the wind. Startled, she evaded automatically, then focused her attention… And became very frightened.
That silth was not one of her party. That silth was out there.
For all her determination to learn, she had as yet mastered only the rudiments of silth mind exercise and self-control. She applied what she did know, calmed herself, let go of emotion, then went down inside herself seeking the gateway Gorry had been teaching her to find.
This was one of those rare moments when the gateway opened easily and she slipped through into the realm of ghosts, where the workaday world became as unreal as a chaphe dream. She captured a little fluttering wisp of a ghost, commanded it to carry her toward the nomad camp. To her astonishment, it complied.
She had tried that often before, and had had success only on a few occasions when she had wanted to do harm, when she had commanded by instinct, her will an iron engine driven by black hatred.
Luck was not enough. She could not guide the ghost with precision. She caught only random glimpses of the camp.
But those were enough.
She was aghast.
There were thousands of the nomads. Most were but fur and bones, clad in tatters, a little better shape than the few Marika’s party had taken on the hunt. For all they had plundered the upper Ponath, they had done themselves little good. The sight of starving pups caused her the most discomfort, for it was hard to hate, and easy to have compassion, for the very young.
The ghost passed something in black. Someone not ravaged by malnutrition. Someone arguing with several dominant nomad huntresses. Marika tried to turn back, to take another look, but her control was inadequate. She caught one more glimpse of someone in black from a distance. The costuming appeared to be silth, yet it was different, subtly, from that which she knew.
A dwindling shrieking sound hammered upon her, filtering in from that other world where her flesh waited, petrified, upon an outcrop overlooking the sprawl of the north. There were harmonics of terror, of death, in that cry. She fought to drive her ghost away from the nomad encampment, back to her body.
She had no skill. It was like trying to herd a butterfly. It fluttered this way and that, only tending in the proper direction.
Her flesh relayed hints of a disturbance back there. Of excitement. Of danger. She felt tendrils of panic touch the edge of her. Then came the light caress of an investigative silth touch. A touch that became more firm, an anchor. A lifeline along which she could pull herself back to her flesh.
She returned to a body gripped by an intense flight-fight reaction. There were meth all around her, all chattering but Rhaisihn, who was just coming back from helping Marika return. The commander stared at her when she opened her eyes, slightly puzzled, slightly angry, a whole lot disconcerted. The leader turned to her chief huntress. “Get these meth out of here.”
The huntress tried to do as instructed. But one meth would not go. One who carried a heavy hunting spear and appeared willing to fight rather than be budged. Barlog.
“What happened?” Marika asked in a small voice, certain something dramatic had happened while she was away.
“That was a foolish thing to try at your level,” Rhaisihn said, her concern surprising Marika. “You must learn with a guide.”
“What happened?” Marika demanded. “I sensed something terrible.”
“Obrhothkask fell off the ledge.” Rhaisihn indicated a point
just two feet from Marika. “The All only knows what she was doing.” Rhaisihn glared at Barlog. The huntress had not yet set the butt of her spear to earth. Her teeth were bared in a snarl so fierce Marika knew she would take anything as a challenge, and would fight rather than be moved an inch.
“We will discuss this later,” Rhaisihn said. “Under more favorable circumstances. Settle her down. Then rest. We start south tonight.”
“There are silth in that camp,” Marika told Rhaisihn’s back.
“Yes. There would be.” Rhaisihn skirted Barlog carefully. The huntress faced her as she passed, turning slowly, spear at the ready. Only after the commander disappeared among the rocks did she begin to relax.
Marika practiced her calming exercises. She waited on Barlog. Once the huntress was no longer in the grip of her fury, she asked, “What happened? How did Obrhothkask fall?”
Barlog’s eyes were hard and narrow and calculating as she settled beside Marika, stared at the nomad encampment. No awe of nature in her. “The butt of a spear struck her in the small of the back. She lost her balance.”
“Oh?”
“Rumor says you were warned to remain alert. Perhaps you did not take the warning seriously.” Barlog reached inside her jacket, produced a steel knife. It was the sort for which the tradermales demanded a dozen otec furs. “Let this talisman be a reminder. Save for a timely spear butt, it would be through your heart now. And you would lie where the witch lies.”
Marika accepted the shining blade, barely able to comprehend. Barlog rose and strode toward the camp, spear upon her shoulder.
Marika remained where she was, thinking for half an hour, staring at that knife. Obrhothkask’s knife. But Obrhothkask was only a few years her senior, and they had hardly known one another. Obrhothkask had no reason to attack her. Surely she would not have done so on her own. She was the most dull and traditional of silth trainees.
“Guard your tail,” Braydic had said so often. And she had not taken the warning with sufficient seriousness. So a meth had died.
She snapped upright and peered over the edge. There was no sign of the fallen silth. The body was too far below, and in shadow. After a glance toward camp, Marika tossed the knife after its owner.
Twelve otec furs just thrown away. Barlog would have been appalled. But it might have been construed as evidence of some sort.
The homeward journey was a quiet one. Obrhothkask’s death hung over the party, never forgotten. Silth and huntress alike avoided Marika and Barlog. The Degnan huntress seldom allowed Marika out of her sight.
Marika concluded that everyone knew exactly what had happened, and everyone meant to pretend that it had not. For the sake of history Obrhothkask’s passing would be recalled as accidental.
Marika wondered about the form and substance of a silth Mourning. Would she be allowed to witness it? Would it be a form she could memorize and secretly apply to the account of her unMourned packmates?
Thinking of old debts and a time of life that now seemed as remote as the tale of another meth’s puphood, she realized that she had had no dreams since leaving Akard’s environs. Would that haunt be waiting when she returned?
After that she was not incautious again, ever. And never again was there so crude and direct an attempt to displace her.
Marika got the sense of much hidden anger and activity generated by the attempt, the death, and perhaps even the attempt’s failure. She suspected the meth responsible was never identified.
She did not get to witness a silth Mourning. There was no such rite, as she understood a Mourning.
Summer fled quickly and early, and winter stormed into the world again.
CHAPTER TEN
I
It was a winter like the one preceding, when the doom had come to the upper Ponath. Harsh. But it began with a lie, hinting that it would be milder. After it lulled everyone, it bared its claws and slashed at the upper Ponath with storm after storm, dumping snow till drifts threatened to overtop Akard’s northern wall. Its chill breath howled without respite, and left everything encrusted with ice. For a time the Akard silth lost touch with their Reugge sisters in the south.
It was a winter like the one preceding. The nomads again came down out of the north in numbers greater than before. Many of the packs that survived the first invasion succumbed to this one—though much of the bad news did not reach Akard till after winter’s departure. Still, scores of refugees appealed for protection, and the silth took them in, though grudgingly.
Twice small bands of nomads appeared on the snowfields beyond the north wall, fields where during summer meth raised the fortress’s food crops. They examined the grim pile of stone, then moved on, not tempted. Marika chanced to be atop the wall, alone and contemplating, the second time a group appeared. She studied them as closely as she could from several hundred yards.
“They are not yet suicidal in their desperation,” she told Braydic afterward.
“The key phrase is ‘not yet,’ ” Braydic replied. “It will come.” The communicator was a little distracted, less inclined to be entertaining and instructive than was her custom. The ice and cold kept her in a constant battle with her equipment, and in some cases she did not possess the expertise to make repairs. “This cannot go on. There is no reason to expect the winters to get better. They had best send me a technician. Of course, they do not care if they never hear from us. They would be pleased if the ice just swallowed us.”
Marika did not believe that. Neither did Braydic, really. It was frustration talking.
“No. They will not try it yet, Marika. But they will one day. Perhaps next winter. The next at the latest. This summer will see a stronger effort to stay in the upper Ponath. We have given them little difficulty. They will be less inclined to run away. And they are becoming accustomed to being one gigantic pack. This battle for survival has eclipsed all their old bitternesses and feuds. Or so I hear when my truesister and the others gather to discuss the matter. They foresee no turns for the better. We will get no help from Maksche. And without help we will not stem the flood. There are too many tens of thousands of nomads. Even silth have limitations.”
What little news filtered in with the fugitives was uniformly grim and invariably supported Braydic’s pessimism. There was one report of nomads being spotted a hundred miles south of Akard, down the Hainlin. Braydic received some very bitter, accusing messages because of that. Akard was supposed to bestride and block the way to the south.
The communicator told Marika, “My truesister will not send anyone—not even you—hunting nomads in these storms. We are not strong. We do not have lives to waste. Come summer. Then. When there is only the enemy to beware.”
Enemy. As a group. The concept had only the vaguest possibility of expression in the common speech of the upper Ponath. Marika had had to learn the silth tongue to find it. She was not pleased with it.
Indeed, the senior and silth of Akard did nothing whatsoever to arrest the predations of the nomads. Which left Marika with severely mixed feelings.
Packs were being exterminated. Her kind of meth were being murdered daily. And though she understood why, she was upset because their guardians were doing nothing to aid them. When some pawful of refugees came in, bleeding through the snow, frostbitten, having left their pups and Wise frozen in the icy forests, she wanted to go howling through the wilderness herself, riding the black, killing ghosts, cleansing the upper Ponath of this nomad scourge.
It was in such moods that she made her best progress toward mastery of the silth magic. She had a very strong dark side.
That winter was a lonely one for her, and a time of growing self-doubt. A time when she lost purpose. Her one dream involved the stars ever obscured by the clouded skies. It seemed ever more pointless and remote in that outland under siege. When she reflected upon it seriously, she had to admit she had no slightest idea what fulfilling that dream would cost or entail.
She did not see Grauel or Barlog for months, even on the sly?
??which was just as well, probably, for they would have recognized her dilemma and have taken the side which stood against dreams. They were not dreamers. For wilderness huntresses maturation meant the slaying of foolish dreams.
Braydic encouraged the dreamer side, for whatever reasons she might have, but the communicator’s influence was less than she believed. Coming to terms with reality was something Marika had to accomplish almost entirely for herself.
The lessons went on. The teaching continued throughout long hours. Marika continued to learn, though her all-devouring enthusiasm began to grow blunted.
There were times when she feared she was a little mad. Like when she wondered if the absence of her nightmares of the previous year might not be the cause of her present mental disaffection.
The Degnan remained unMourned. And there were times now when she felt guilty about no longer feeling guilty about not having seen the appropriate rites performed.
It was not a good year for the wild silth pup from the upper Ponath.
II
The kagbeast leapt for Marika’s throat. She did not move. She reached inside herself, through the loophole in reality through which she saw ghosts, and saw the animal as a moving mass of muscle and pumping blood, of entrails and rude nervous system. It seemed to hang there, barely moving toward her, as she decided that it was real, not an illusion conjured by Gorry.
A month earlier she would have been so alarmed she would have frozen. And been ripped apart. Now her reaction was entirely cerebral.
She touched a spot near the kagbeast’s liver, thought fire, and watched a spark glow for a fragment of a second. The kagbeast began turning slowly while still in the air, clawing at the sudden agony in its vitals.
Marika slipped back through her loophole into real time and the real world. She stood there unmoving while the carnivore flailed through the air, missing her by scant inches. She did not bother to turn as it hit the white floor behind her, claws clacking savagely at the stone. She did not allow elation to touch her for an instant.