“Space. I wonder... Now I wonder why the Serke would...?”
“Yes. Suddenly, it looks like we have seen everything backward, does it not? For a long time I thought the Serke were using the brethren. Now I think the brethren have been using the Serke the way the Serke used the nomads. The Serke promised a great prize and secret support. The savages had little real choice, pressed as they were by the onset of the ice age. The brethren in turn baited their snare with the petroleum of the Zhotak. And the Serke leapt on it like an otec onto the scraps of greasy bread huntresses use in their traps along the side creeks. I am sorry. The brethren. I believe they are interested in the pitchblende.”
“You have evidence?”
“Only intuition at this point.”
Silth accepted intuition as a reliable data base. Gradwohl nodded. “Can you guess what their motives might be?”
“I think that brings us full circle, back to the problem that put me in a position to learn what I have. I think their ultimate goal is the destruction of the silth. Not just the Reugge, a minor Community, but all silth everywhere.”
“That is stretching intuition into the wildest conjecture, Marika. Into implausible conjecture.”
“Perhaps. Yet there were those who said that about the connection between the rogues and the enclave brethren. And there is no evidence to the contrary. Nothing to show any great tradermale love for silth. Not so? Who does love us? We even hate ourselves.”
“I will not permit that kind of talk, Marika.”
“I am sorry, mistress. Sometimes I grow bitter and am unable to contain myself. May I proceed upon my assumptions?”
“Proceed? It seems to me that you have handled the situation.” Gradwohl glared suspiciously, sensing that Marika wanted to cling to power momentarily gained. “Now it is time we started planning your Toghar ceremonies.”
“There will be more incidents, mistress. The brethren have been allowed to create an alternative society. One with far greater appeal to the mass of meth. One in which silth are anachronistic and unnecessary. In nature, the species that is unnecessary soon vanishes.”
“I am becoming fearful for your sanity, Marika. Intuition is a fine thing, but you persist in going far beyond intuition, into the far realms of speculation, then treating your fantasies as though they are fact. That is a dangerous habit.”
“Mistress, the brethren have created a viable social alternative. Please think about that. Honestly. You will see what I mean. Their technology is like a demon that has been released from a bottle. We have let it run free for too long, and now there is no getting it back inside. We have let it run free so long that now it nearly possesses the power to destroy us. And we have no control over it. They have cunningly held that in their own paws so long that tradition now has the virtual force of law. Our own traditions of not working with our paws cripple us.”
“My head understands your arguments. My heart insists you are wrong. But we cannot listen to our hearts always. I will reflect.”
“We cannot confine ourselves to reacting to threats only, mistress. As in the old folklore, devils spawn devils faster than they can be banished. They will keep on gnawing off little chunks of us unless we go straight after the demons who raise the demons.”
Gradwohl set aside a traditionalist silth’s exasperation with ideas almost heretical. That, more than her grasp of silth talents, was the ability that had fueled her rise to the first position among the Reugge. “All right, Marika. I will accept your arguments as a form of working hypothesis. You will be replacing Utiel soon. By stretching the imagination, the problems you conjure will fall within the purview of fourth chair. You may pursue solutions. But be careful who you challenge. It will be years yet before the Reugge are in any position to assert independence from the brethren.”
Marika controlled her features carefully. She exulted inside. Saying that, Gradwohl revealed far more than she knew. She did believe! And somehow, though she did not want it known, she was moving to loosen the chains of tradermale technology.
“As you wish, mistress. But let us not remain so enamored of our comforts that we allow ourselves to be destroyed for fear of losing them.”
“The ceremonies, Marika. All your arguments, all your desires, all your ambitions are moot without Toghar. Will you stop ducking and changing the subject? Are we going to secure your future? Or deliver it into the paws of those who would see you fail?”
Marika sighed. “Yes, mistress.”
“Can we set a date, Marika? Sometime soon?”
Fear twisted Marika’s guts. What was the matter with her? Toghar was simple. Countless silth had survived it. None that she had heard of had not. It was less to be feared than facing down the brethren over a few dozen criminals. Why could she not overcome her resistance? “Yes, mistress. I will begin my preparations immediately.”
Maybe something would come up to delay it.
III
“Grauel... I’m terrified.”
“Thousands have been through it, Marika.”
“Millions have been through birthing.”
“No one has ever died.”
Hard edge to Grauel’s words. The birthing remark was the wrong thing to say before her two packmates. “It’s not that. I don’t know how to explain. I’m just scared. Worse than when the nomads came to the packstead. Worse than when they attacked Akard and we all knew we were not going to get out alive. Worse than when I was bluffing Bagnel about attacking brethren aircraft if they tried to leave the enclave.”
“You were not bluffing.”
“I guess not. I would have done it if he had forced me. But I didn’t want to. And I don’t want to do this.”
“I know. I know you’re scared. When you’re genuinely terrified, you can’t shut up.”
Startled, Marika asked, “Really? Do I give myself away so easily?”
“Sometimes.”
“You will have to educate me. I can no longer allow myself to be easily read.”
Barlog stepped around Grauel, held out the white under-shift that was the first of the garments Marika would don. She appeared less empathetic than did Grauel. But when Marika leaned forward to allow her to slide the shift over her head, Barlog hugged her.
Each huntress, in her own way, understood well the price of becoming silth. Grauel, who never could bear pups, and Barlog, who had not been allowed since accepting the Reugge bond. Barlog said, “It isn’t too late to leave, Marika.”
“It’s too late, Barlog. Far too late. There’s nowhere we could go. Nor would they tolerate us trying. I know too much. And I have too many enemies, both within and outside the Community. The only way out is death.”
“She’s right,” Grauel said. “I’ve heard the sisters talking. Many hope she won’t go through with it. There is a powerful faction ready to take all our heads.”
Marika walked to a window, looked out on the cloister. “Remember when we rated nothing better than a cell under Akard?”
“You’ve come a long way,” Grauel admitted. “You’ve done many things of which we couldn’t approve. Things I doubt we can forgive, even knowing what moved you. There are moments when I can’t help but believe what some say, that you’re a Jiana. But I guess you’ve only done what the All demands, and that you’ve had no more choice than we do.”
“There’s always a choice, Grauel. But the second option is usually the darker. Today the choice is Toghar or die.”
“That’s why I say there really isn’t any choice.”
“I’m glad you understand.” She turned, let Barlog pull the next layer of white over her head. There would be another half-dozen layers before the elaborate outer vestments went into place. “I hope you’ll understand in future. There will be more evil choices. Once I fulfill Toghar, my feet will settle onto a path from which there will be no turning aside. It is a path into darkness, belike. A headlong rush, and the Reugge dragged right along with us, into a future not even the most senior foresees.”
Gra
uel asked, “Do you really believe the tradermales want to destroy the silth? Or is that just an argument you’re using to accumulate extraordinary powers?”
“It’s an argument, Grauel, and I’m using it that way. But it also happens to be true. An obvious truth to which the sisters have blinded themselves. They refuse to believe that their grasp is slipping. But that’s of no moment now. Let’s move faster. Before they come to find out why I’m taking so long.”
“We’re right on time,” Barlog said, arranging the outer vestments.
Grauel slipped the belt of arft skulls around her waist. Barlog placed the red candidate’s cap upon her head. Grauel passed her the gold-inlaid staff surmounted by a shrunken kagbeast head indistinguishable from a meth head in that state. In the old days it would have been the head of a meth she had killed.
Grauel brought the dye pots. Marika began staining her exposed fur in the patterns she had chosen. They were not traditional silth or Reugge. They were Degnan patterns meant for a huntress about to go into single, deadly combat. She had learned them as a pup, but never had seen them worn. Neither had Grauel or Barlog, nor anyone of the pack that they could recall. Marika was confident none of today’s witnesses would understand her statement.
She stared at herself in a mirror. “We are the silth. The pinnacle of meth civilization.”
“Marika?”
“I feel as barbaric as any nomad huntress. Look at me. Skulls. Shrunken head. Bloodfeud dyes.” For weeks she had done nothing but prepare for the ceremonies. She had gone into the wild to hunt arfts and kagbeasts, wondering how other candidates managed because the hunting skills were no longer taught young silth.
The hunt had not been easy. Both arfts and kagbeasts were rare in this winter of the world. She had had to slay them, to bring the heads in, and to boil the flesh off the arft skulls and to shrink the head of the kagbeast. Grauel and Barlog had assisted only to the limits allowed by custom. Which was very little.
They had helped more preparing the dyes and sewing the raiments. They were better seamstresses than she, and the sewing had been done in private.
“Do you want to go over your responses again?” Grauel asked. Barlog dug the papers out of the mess on Marika’s desk.
“No. Any more and it’ll be too much. I’ll just turn off my mind and let it happen.”
“You won’t have any problems,” Barlog prophesied.
“Yes,” said Grauel. “Overstudy... I studied too hard when they made me take the vector exams.”
“Voctor” was the silth word that approximated the Degnan “huntress,” though it also meant “guard” and “one who is trusted in the silth presence bearing weapons.”
“There were questions where I just went blank.”
Barlog said, “At least you got a second chance at the ones you missed. Marika won’t.”
It did not matter terribly, insofar as the outcome of the ceremonies proper, if Marika stumbled occasionally. But to be less than perfect today would lend her enemies ammunition. They would use any faltering as a sign that she was less than wholly committed to the silth ideal.
Appearances, as always, were more important than substance.
“Barlog. Are you still keeping the Chronicle?”
“Yes.”
“Someday when I have the free time I’d like to see what you have said about what has happened to us. What would Skiljan and the others have thought if they could read what you’ve written, only fifteen years ago? If they’d had that window into the future.”
“They would have stoned me.”
Marika applied the last daub of vegetable dye. Gathering the dyes had been as difficult as collecting the animal heads. There had been no choice but to purchase some, for the appropriate plants were extinct around Maksche, destroyed by the ongoing cold.
Marika went to the window again, stared north, toward her roots. The sky was clear, which was increasingly rare. The horizon glimmered with the intensity of sunlight reflected off far snowfields. The permanent frostline lay only seventy miles from Maksche now. It was expected to reach the city within the year. She glanced at the heavens. The answer lay up there, she believed. An answer being withheld by enemies of the silth. But there would be nothing she could do for years. There would be nothing she could do, ever, unless she completed today’s rites.
“Am I ready?”
“On the outside,” Grauel said.
“We haven’t forgotten a thing,” Barlog said, referring to a checklist Marika had prepared.
“Let’s go.”
Turmoil twisted into hurricane ferocity inside her.
The huntresses accompanied Marika only as far as the doorway to the building where the ceremonies would be held. The interest was such that Gradwohl had set the thing for the great meeting chamber. Novices turned the huntresses back. Ordinarily the Toghar rites were open to everyone in the cloister. Only those involved and their friends turned out. But Marika’s ceremonies had drawn the entire silth body. She was no ordinary novice.
Her enemies were there in hopes she would fail, though novices almost never did so. They were there in hopes their presence would intimidate her into botching her responses, her proper obeisances. They were there in hopes of witnessing a stumble so huge that it could not be forgiven, ever.
Those who were close to Gradwohl, and thus to the most senior’s favorite, were there to balance the grim aura of Marika’s enemies.
The enemies made sure no nonsilth were present. Marika was more popular among the voctors, whom she had given victories, whom she treated as equals, and who liked the promise of activity she presented.
Marika stepped through the doorway and felt a hundred eyes turn upon her, felt the disappointment in enemies who had hoped she would not show. She took two steps forward and froze, waiting for the sisters not yet seated to enter the hall and take their places.
Fear closed in.
It was not a proper time. Gradwohl and Dorteka both repeatedly had tried to tell her not to place all her trust in those-who-dwell. Even knowing she should not, she slipped down through her loophole, into that otherworld that overlapped her own, and sought the solace of a strong dark ghost.
She found one, brought it in, and used it to ride through the chamber ahead, reassuring herself that the ceremonies would proceed in the usual way. It was a cold world out there, with the ghosts. Emotion drained away. Fear dribbled into the ether, or whatever it was through which the ghosts swam. The coldness of that plane drained into her.
She was ready. She had control. She could do it now. She could forget what it would cost her, could forget all her nurture as a huntress-to-be, dam-to-be, of the Degnan pack. She released the ghost with a stroke of gratitude, pulled back to the world of everyday, of continuous struggle and fear. She scanned the hall ahead with cold eyes. All the sisters had taken their places.
Coolly, she stepped forward, standing straight, elegant in her finery. She paused while two novices closed the door behind her. She faced right and bent to kiss the rim of an ancient pot that looked like a crucible used till it had had to be discarded. She dipped a finger in, brought thick, sweet daram to her lips and tongue.
That pot was older than the Reugge. Older, even, than the dam Community, the Serke. Its origins had been lost in the shadows of time. Its rim had been worn by the touch of countless lips, its interior crusted by residue from the tons of daram that had filled it over the ages. It was the oldest thing in the Reugge world, an icon-link that connected the Community with the protosilth of prehistory, the symbolic vessel of the All from which silth were granted a taste of infinity, a taste of greater power. It had been the kissing bowl of seven gods and goddesses before the self-creation of the All.
The glow of the daram spread through Marika, numbing her as chaphe would, yet expanding her till she seemed to envelope everyone else in the hall. They, too, had tasted daram. Their mind guards were down a fraction. Touch leaked from everyone, pulling her into a pool of greater consciousness. Her will an
d personality became less sharply defined and singular. It was said that in the ancient lodges, before civilization, silth had melded into a single powerful mind by taking massive doses of daram.
That part of her, the majority, which remained wholly Marika, marveled that hidden beyond this welcoming glow there could be so much fear, spite, enmity, and outright irrational hatred.
Her sponsor Gradwohl and the chief celebrants waited at the far end of the hall. She spoke her first canticle, the novice requesting permission to approach and present her petition for recognition. A silth somewhere to her right asked a question. She replied automatically, with the proper response, noting in passing that her primary interrogator would be Utiel, the old female she would replace in fourth chair. All the Maksche councillors seemed to have assumed roles in the ceremonies, even the senior, who had been all but invisible since falling out of favor with Gradwohl.
Before she realized what was happening, the initial interrogatory ended. She approached the celebrants. Again there were questions. She did not become involved on a conscious level. She responded crisply, automatically, made her gestures at the exact appropriate instant. She felt like a dancer perfectly inserted into her dance, one with the music, leaping, twisting, turning with absolute grace, the thing itself instead of an actor, the ultimate and ideal product of a perfect sorcery. Her precision, her artistry, fed back to the celebrants so that they, too, fell into her matchless rhythm.
The slight tension brought on by the presence of enemies faded from the shared touch of the daram, expunged by the experience of which she was heart. That experience began to swell, to grow, to drown everything.
And yet, deep within her, Marika never wholly surrendered to the commitment the rite was supposed to represent.
The celebrants completed the final interrogatory. One by one, Marika surrendered her staff, her belt of skulls, her cap, her ceremonial raiments to the kettle of fire around which the celebrants stood. Noisome smoke rose, filled the hall. In moments she stood before the assembly wearing nothing but her dyes.