She looked to the stars.
After Bestrei, perhaps. After a probe to the far face of the dust cloud, to look for the aliens. Then a short time home, to eliminate Kublin and secure her bridgeheads behind her.
This time she must. This time the world would be watching. This time there could be no mercy even were she so inclined.
She had slain Gradwohl, her mentor, rather than be thwarted. Why not Kublin? In terms of her own wild frontier culture, let alone that of the silth, a male meant less. Even a littermate. Even a male who was the last surviving male of the Degnan pack.
Soon sunlight set the eastern sky aglow. It was time to return, to catch a nap before Bel-Keneke brought the results of her contacts with the most seniors. Below, meth had begun moving through the snowy streets. An occasional startled eye or paw of greeting rose when her shadow passed.
She considered the soft silver brightness of the mirror in the trailing trojan, which had risen before the sun. Unlike the mirror in the leading trojan, it did not yet appear impressive.
The smaller mirrors in geocentric orbit formed a necklace across the morning. Where they doing any real good? Was the project all wishful thinking, despite Bagnel’s positive reports?
She drifted in through her window and, after dismantling her saddleship, stoked up the fire and sat before it, warming her paws. A glance around at ancient stone, piled into a structure by Serke bonds and engineers thousands of years before her birth. It was a fortress haunted by time. A long way from a Ponath loghouse, she thought. A long, long way.
She knew she was aging. She had not been very reflective when she was younger.
Much to Marika’s surprise, Bel-Keneke arrived before anyone else stirred. Marika responded to her scratch, let her in, then returned to her place before the fire. “You are up and about early, mistress.”
After hesitating Bel-Keneke took the other chair. “I have been up awhile. I heard you were out on your saddleship. I thought if you were up and around already we might as well get started. I have spoken to all the appropriate most seniors. It took rather less time than I anticipated. None of them were surprised. They had their decisions made.”
“Yes?” Marika was surprised, if the several dark-faring most seniors were not.
“They had heard of your return and suspected its import. From those who were more talkative I gathered that it has long been an article of faith that Marika the Huntress would not return till she had sniffed out her quarry’s den. You will be pleased to hear that, without exception, they have issued orders to their starfaring Mistresses of the Ship to assemble at your base world.”
Marika faced Bel-Keneke. “I honestly did not expect such a quick, affirmative response. Certainly not a unanimous one. From what Bagnel had to say I gathered that my return would not be greeted with unreserved joy. I expected to have to argue and threaten for weeks.”
“Some decisions have been debated on the quiet for years, Marika. I think every most senior knew in her heart what she would say when the time came. Too, as some mentioned, a formal convention would cost valuable time and would draw unwanted attention. So the thing was done entirely informally, quietly, and the darkships will join you as quickly as they can be redirected.”
“I have missed something, I suspect. All this without debate. Without consulting me to see if I might have been touched by the All and gone raving mad? I have a feeling I must do some reflecting.”
“It is a thing that needs doing, Marika. That is long overdue to be done. We cannot survive if this shadow persists. The rogue problem is about to go out of control. Defeat of the Serke and those brethren rebels who fled with them would deal the warlock’s followers a crippling emotional blow. Suddenly they would stand alone, with no hope of gaining the technology they believe will give them victory. Their only weapon would be the sorcery of the warlock—the very thing they are fighting to destroy.”
Marika nodded and waited. The rogue problem did deserve more examination before she departed.
Bel-Keneke continued, “All are agreed. Destroy the Serke and break the back of rogue hope. As for debate, what have we been doing? Everything has been debated a thousand times in your absence. Every nuance has been brought forward and laid open and the entrails read. Every most senior has had ample opportunity to examine her heart and determine where she must stand. And stand for this we must.”
“It seems—almost disappointing. From the moment I turned homeward I have been steeling myself for a grand battle. All that worry wasted.”
“The fact is, they think they know you, Marika. As I said, you coming home meant you had found the Serke. And they were confident that you would, one day. So some policy had to be established. Perhaps you could have had your big battle four, or even three, years ago. There are ancient enmities to be gotten around. Some cannot, even now, consult directly with others. Tacit agreement formed, and eventually solidified into fixed policy. If there was any way to manage it, every sisterhood would be there when the final confrontation came.”
Marika had begun to catch a glimmer. “To make certain that the Reugge do not take up what the Serke began?”
“Probably. In part. You see some of it now, I think. There is always more to everything than meets the eye. You must set aside the simplicities of your life over the past seven years and recall the complexities of life on this world. All unity is born of fear. Have a care that you do not move before you are politically ready, able to do the thing backed by a mix of sisters that is above reproach.”
“I understand.”
“I am told that some voidships are headed out already. How soon will you leave to guide them?”
“Ah-ha,” Marika murmured. “Glad to see you, so sad you have to leave.”
“What?”
“I get the feeling that, whatever else it may signify, there is not great joy at Marika’s return.”
“To be honest, there is very little. As I have said, you have become a legend in your absence. And that legend is not entirely a positive one. Your great violences are the things that are remembered. As the legend grows, so grows the fear of what you may do next.”
“I see.” Marika reflected for a moment. “I will be staying a few days for sure. My huntresses and bath need to get into touch with the homeworld once more. I need to do that myself. When you return from so long out there you are almost stricken by the realization that something has been missing.” She thought a moment more. “When I leave, it will be by night, secretly. Do not tell anyone that I have gone. Meantime, have bonds begin whispering that I have come home to silence the rogue menace.”
“Are you sure?”
“They will hear of it quickly. The warlock will respond one of two ways. He will attack wildly, in which case you will decimate his followers, or he will go into hiding, taking his vermin with him, in which case you will have a breathing space in which to regain your balance. Further, if the world believes that I am here to hunt, it will not concern itself with other possibilities. It will not watch for me to slip off to the stars. Perhaps, even with the delay for assembly at my base, I can strike before the Serke learn that they have been found.”
“Perhaps you should have remained most senior. You have the twisted bend of mind, like Gradwohl before you. You go at things no more directly than did she.”
“I am happier being Marika. I never wanted first chair.”
“For which I remain in your debt. Will I see you again?”
“Again?”
“Will you come back after you have subdued the Serke?”
“I expect to. There are the rogues. There is the warlock, with whom I have an especial grievance. He has been allowed to make free with his villainies for far too long.”
Bel-Keneke did not seem pleased. Marika was surprised. After all this time she still did not feel secure in first chair?
She might be wise to watch her back once the Serke threat ceased to be. “Come to morning ceremonies with me,” Marika suggested. “It has been half a
generation since I celebrated them properly. It seems an appropriate time to petition the indulgence of the All.”
“Very well,” Bel-Keneke replied. Reluctantly. “I am behind in my own obligations.”
They slipped out of the apartment quietly. But not so quietly that their departure went unremarked. Grauel took up a revolver and trailed them through the cloister halls.
III
Marika stood before the window, contemplating falling snow. Huge, slowly drifting flakes. Chill drifted in around the window frame and lapped across her toes. There were no real thoughts in her mind except that, out there somewhere, there was a pup whom she had loved more than any other creature. Her littermate. Her only ally when she was small. And now her most deadly, most intractable enemy.
And she did not understand.
What had happened in his life to make him change so? To shape him to such iron hatred?
For all she had sworn to herself, so many times, to forget, she still recalled the pup that was. That was the Kublin she knew, not this incredible monster called the warlock. This male thing with the skills of a silth and a mind so far askew that…
Some would say she was his mirror image. That she was mad too. So who knew?…
A feather of touch brushed her. It was time.
She retreated to the chair before the fire. The fire had died to coals barely putting out heat. She slipped her boots on, donned her coats, collected her personal arsenal, extended her touch to see if anyone was in the hallway.
All clear.
When first they had come among silth, Grauel and Barlog had been terrified of sisters who, they believed, could move about invisibly. This was not possible in reality. But a talented and cunning silth could use the touch below a conscious level to direct the gaze of others away, so that she might walk unnoticed except by those she did not notice herself. Marika extended that low level of touch as she passed through the cloister to the landing court.
It was the heart of night. Her precaution was unnecessary. No one was stirring.
Grauel and Barlog had the darkship prepared. The bath were ready. She strode to her place at the tip of the dagger. The senior bath touched her, asked about the bowl.
It will not be necessary this time. She had not told anyone anything about the flight. We will not be going off planet. The cloister would rise in the morning to find her gone, with nothing save a brief note saying she would return soon.
She surveyed the others. The snow was falling faster. The bath at the hilt of the dagger was the vaguest of dark shapes. They were ready. She secured herself with her straps. Seldom would she do without anymore, unlike the rash Marika who had dared fate every flight when first she had learned the darkships.
Up. Away. Low, over the steep slate rooftops. Here and there a brush of startled touch as some silth sensed a darkship passing. She brushed them aside, gained speed.
Her initial flight took her southwest, till she was beyond touch from the cloister, then she turned north and drove as hard as she dared into the fangs of the wind. It was as vicious as ever it had been.
The wooden darkship settled into the courtyard of Skiljansrode. Nothing seemed changed there, except that the surrounding snows were deeper and the old fortress harder to pinpoint. To the west there was a wall of ice, a massive glacial finger, forerunning the even more massive accumulations to the north. How much longer would the silth of Skiljansrode hang on? Till the ice groaned against the roots of the wall? Was secrecy worth so much?
The darkship touched down. As Marika stepped from the dagger there was one sharp touch from one of the bath: Watch out!
What had appeared to be banked snow exploded. Heavily armed voctors stepped forward, weapons ready. Careful, Marika sent, especially to Grauel and Barlog. She allowed herself to be disarmed, feeling little trepidation. It was impossible to disarm her truly without killing her. The others accepted disarmament with less grace.
A sleepy-eyed Edzeka appeared from the doorway leading to the inner fortress, way below the ice and earth. “Some greeting for your patron,” Marika chided.
“You should have sent warning,” Edzeka said without a hint of apology. “The visitors we get are seldom friendly. You are lucky the voctors gave you time to be recognized. Come. Cferemojt, return their weapons.”
After the chill of the flight from Ruhaack Skiljansrode’s interior seemed stiflingly hot. “That bears a little elucidation,” Marika said. “That you seldom get friendly visitors. Do you get unfriendly ones?”
“Only the enemy knows where to find us. Three times he has sent forces against us. Three times we have devoured them, leaving none to take him their woe. But he will try again, because this place means much to him. It is more than just a place where he was held in bondage. This is a place that defies his technology. I believe he has been shocked. His talent suppressors have meant nothing here. We do not need the talent to obliterate his brigands. Intelligence is adequate. That must frighten him. That must make him suspect his doom may spring from this place.”
“His doom will spring from here,” Marika said, tapping her skull. “He is the reason I have come. Skiljansrode, though isolated, is the best place to begin taking those steps necessary to eliminate the rogue threat—assuming you have continued in the fashion set when I dwelt here myself.”
“We go on. We seldom change.”
Marika noted and ignored the continued disdain of ceremony and formality. Her own fault, of course. Gradwohl had created Skiljansrode, but she had shaped it, and she had had little use for ceremony or formality in those days. Or even now, most times, though sometimes a part of her insisted that it was her due. Was she not—though she never felt it herself—the preeminent silth of her generation?
“The intercept section is still in place?”
“It is. Though reduced. There is very little on which to eavesdrop these days. The brethren have changed their codes and signals since they now know we eavesdrop, but we have kept up with their honest side. Only the rogues themselves give us much trouble. But their traffic is seldom significant. He knows we are listening. He must have his important messages paw-delivered.”
“Very well. I will be spending most of my time in communications and intercept, arranging some unpleasantries for him.”
“How long may we expect to share your company?”
“You will not have to endure me long. Perhaps two days. Three at the most. How long depends on how quickly I make my contacts and how cooperative I find those who have not seen or heard from me in ages.”
Edzeka understood that well enough. “And it is true, what they are saying?”
“Is what true? What are they saying?”
“That you have found the Serke.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Off intercept. It is the topic of the day. Did Marika return to the homeworld because she has found the Serke at last? Has she destroyed them? Has she not? In either case, if they have indeed been found, what will that mean to silth, to rogues, to the honest brethren, to meth in general? Will the Reugge arrogate to themselves the technology of the aliens, as they arrogated the Serke starworlds?”
“What? We received three poor planets and a begrudged right to venture beyond the homeworld’s atmosphere. Hardly an arrogation, considering what we suffered at the paws of the Serke and their allies. We should have gotten it all. We would have taken it all had I been then what I am now. There would have been no negotiation, no convention, no nothing but the obliteration of the Serke and their allies.”
“Calm yourself, mistress. I merely repeat what I have overheard. Those Communities that have been in the void for generations naturally resent the intrusion of the Reugge. They make accusations, take positions. Would they be silth if they did otherwise?”
“True. Of course. Posturing. Always posturing.” But there was food for thought in what Edzeka had said. The solution of the Serke problem would raise new troubles possibly as dangerous. She had refused to face that before. It
was time she invested in some reflection.
Marika had set herself a task. And for the first time she feared she had found one she could not handle. A simple job: Contact those silth who had worked with her in her days as the Reugge charged with bringing the rogue under control. Enlist them in a new and similar effort, gathering intelligence against her return from the meeting with the Serke.
But it was not simple. Many years had passed. All those silth had moved around, been promoted, passed into the embrace of the All, changed their names. Many were impossible to trace. Silth were not strong on keeping records.
Of those she did find, few were interested in helping. New duties, new responsibilities, new perquisites. Older and more sedentary, in some cases. Plain laziness in others. And complacency. The curse of most silth, complacency. How could anyone remain complacent after the events of recent decades?
The internal workings of the Reugge were more orderly than those of most Communities. Marika had less trouble finding old allies and agents. But even there she had trouble recruiting. Many did not wish to be identified with her anymore. She was not in power and not upon the pathway to power. She had abdicated.
Yet she did locate a few score old accomplices willing to strive for the communal defense, who recalled the old hard ways and who were willing to seek and implement new hard ways of excising the cancer surrounding the warlock. Probably most of those thought they saw a chance to improve their places.
“The world changes,” Marika told Grauel. “But silth do not. Not in any way that matters. I think we may be living in the last years, at the end of time, as silth history goes. And those fools do not begin to suspect.” She leaned back in a chair. Grauel and Barlog watched with faces of stone. “They cannot see anything in the mirror of the world. They cannot foresee with the simple intellect the All has given them. In one way it does not matter if the warlock is eliminated. I can obliterate him and everyone who serves him, to the last rogue meth, and still what he symbolizes will live on, just as strong. It is a poison in the heart of the race. Why do I even bother?”