“The tradermales could still follow you with their radar,” Grauel said. “And silth could still find you with the touch.”
“Even so. Where are they? Do their rituals take so long? Barlog, where are your weapons? We don’t go anywhere without our weapons.” She herself carried the automatic rifle and revolver captured in the Ponath. She carried a hunting knife that had belonged to her dam, a fine piece of tradermale steel. She never left her quarters unarmed.
Grauel still carried the weapon Bagnel had given her during the siege of Akard. It remained her most precious treasure. She could have replaced it with something newer and more powerful, but she clung to it superstitiously. It had served her well from the moment it had come into her paws. She did not wish to tempt her fates.
Barlog was less dramatically inclined. Marika often had to remind her that they were supposed to be living savage roles. Marika wanted other silth to perceive them as terribly barbaric. It amused her that those with the nerve sometimes asked why she did not wear ceremonial dyes as well as always going armed.
She never bothered telling them that the daily dyeing of fur was a nomad custom, not one indigenous to the Ponath. For all there had been a deadly struggle of years, most of the Reugge could not understand the difference between Ponath and Zhotak meth.
There was a chill bite to the morning wind. It made her eager to be up and away, running free, riding the gale. Someday she wanted to take the darkship up during a storm, to race among growling clouds and strokes of lightning. Other Mistresses thought her mad. And she would never be able to try it. The bath would refuse to participate. And they had that right if they believed a flight would become too dangerous.
Marika had worked long and hard to develop and strengthen her natural resistance to electromagnetic interference with her silth talents. But in her more realistic moments she admitted that even she would be overwhelmed by the violent bursts of energy present in a thunderstorm. Flight among lightnings would never be more than a fantasy.
Barlog came hustling back armed as though for a foot patrol against the nomad. She even carried a pod of grenades. Marika ignored the silent sarcasm, for the bath appeared at the same time, each with her formal greeting for the Mistress of the Ship. All bath seemed to be very much creatures of ceremony.
Each of the bath was armed as a huntress. They knew Marika’s ways.
They did not like serving with her, Marika knew. But she knew it was nothing personal. The Reugge bath did not like any of the Reugge Mistresses of the Ship. It was part of their tradition not to like anyone who held so much power over their destinies.
“Positions,” Marika said.
“Food?” Grauel asked. “Or have I guessed wrong? Will it be a brief flight?”
“I brought money if we need it. Board and strap, please.”
The bath counted off the ready. “Stand by,” Marika called, and stepped onto her station. Unlike the bath, she often disdained safety restraints. This was one of those times when she wanted to ride the darkship free, in the old way, as silth had done in the days of slower, heavier wooden ships.
“Be prepared!”
Marika went down inside herself, through her loophole, and sent a touch questing. Ghosts were scarce around the cloister. They did not like being grabbed by silth.
She knew the cure for that. A whiff of the touch, like the sense of one of their own calling. A lure laid before them and drawn slowly closer. They were not smart. She could draw in a score at a time and bind them, and reach for another score.
The grand court was aboil within a minute with more ghosts than any other Mistress could have summoned. There were far more than Marika really needed to lift and move the darkship. But the more there were, the safer she would be. The more there were, the farther she could sense and see through that other level of reality. And the higher and faster she could fly — though speed was determined mainly by her ability to remain aboard the darkship in the face of the head wind of her passage.
She squeezed the ghosts, pressed them upward. The darkship rose swiftly. Grauel and Barlog gasped, protested, concerned for her safety. But Marika always went up fast.
She squeezed in the direction she wished to travel. The titanium cross rushed forward.
She rose as high as she dared, up where the air was cold and rare and biting, like the air of a Ponath winter, and maintained control of the ghosts with a small part of her mind while she gazed down on the world. The Hainlin was a wide brown band floating between mottled puzzle pieces of green. From that height she could not make out the flotsam and ice which made river travel hazardous. The dead forests of the north were coming down, seeking the sea. She glanced at the sky overhead, where several of the smaller moons danced their ways through the sun’s enfeebled light. She again wondered why the tradermales did nothing to stay the winter of the world.
She would, one day. She had mapped out a plan. As soon as she had garnered sufficient power... She mocked herself. She? A benefactor? Grauel and Barlog would be astonished if they knew what she had in mind.
Well, yes. She could be. Would be. After she had clambered over scores of bodies, of sisters, of whoever stood in her path. But that was far away yet. She had to concentrate upon the present. Upon the possibilities the Serke-brethren conspiracy presented. She had to get back to them, to sound them out. There might be more there than she had thought.
IV
Marika followed the Hainlin for a hundred miles, watching it broaden as two mighty tributaries joined it. She was tempted to follow the river all the way to the sea, just to see what the ocean looked like. But she turned southward toward the Topol Cordillera, not wishing to anger anyone by trespassing upon their airspace. She was not yet in the position of a Bestrei, who could fly wherever and whenever she wished. That lay years in the future.
Quietly, she admonished herself against impatience. It all seemed slow, yes, but she was decades ahead of the pace most silth managed.
The Topol Cordillera was a low range of old hills which ran toward TelleRai from the continent’s heart. The airspace above constituted an open, convention corridor for flights by both the sisterhoods and the brethren. The hills were very green, green as Marika recalled from the hills of her puphood. But even here the higher peaks were crowned by patches of white.
The world was much cooler. The waters of the seas were being deposited as snow at an incredible rate. “And it need not be,” she murmured. She wondered that meth could be so blind as to miss seeing how the ice could be stopped. Never did she stop persisting in wondering if they did see, know, and do nothing because that was to their advantage.
Whose?
The tradermales’, of course. They were the technicians, the scientific sort. How could they help but see?
Who would hurt most? The nomads of the polar regions first. Then the pack-living meth of remote low-technology areas. Then the smaller cities of the far north and south, in the extremes of the technologized regions. The great cities of the temperate zones were only now beginning to catch the ripple effect. They would not be threatened directly for years. But the silth who owned them and ruled from them drew their wealth and strength from all the world. They should try to do something, whether or not anything could be done.
Ordinary meth would direct their anxieties and resentments toward the sisterhoods, not toward the brethren, who were careful to maintain an image as a world-spanning brotherhood of tinkerers.
The real enemy. Of course. Always it added up when you thought in large enough terms. The brethren pursued the same aim as the rogues. Secretly, they supported and directed the rogues.
Then they had to be broken. Before this great wehrlen came out of the shadows.
Her ears tilted in amusement. Great wehrlen? What great wehrlen? Shadow was all he was. And break the brethren? How?
That was a task that could not be accomplished in a lifetime. It had taken them generations to acquire the position they held. To pry them loose would require as long. Unless the
Communities were willing to endure another long rise from savagery.
The mistake had been made when the brotherhood had been allowed to become a force independent of the Communities. The attitude that made it unacceptable for a sister to work with her paws had become too generalized. The brethren’s secrets had to be cracked open and spread around, so silth-bonded workers could assume those tasks critical to the survival of civilization.
Her mind flew along random paths, erratically, swiftly curing the world’s ills. And all the while the darkship was driving into the wind. The world rolled below, growing greener and warmer. Ghosts slipped away from the pack bearing the darkship. Others accumulated. Marika touched her bath lightly, drawing upon them, and pushed the darkship higher.
The Cordillera faded away. A forested land rolled out of the haze upon the horizon, a land mostly island and lake and very sparsely inhabited. The lakes all drained into one fast watercourse which plunged over a rift in a fall a mile wide, sprinkled with rainbows. The fall’s roar could be heard even from that altitude. The river swung away to Marika’s left, then curved back beneath her in a slower, wider stripe that, after another hundred miles, left the wilderness for densely settled country surrounding TelleRai. TelleRai was the most important city on the continent, if not on the meth homeworld.
The silth called this continent the New Continent. No one knew why. Perhaps it had been settled after the others. None of the written histories went back far enough to recall. Generally, though, the cities on other continents were accepted as older and more storied and decadent. Several were far larger than TelleRai.
The outskirts of the city came drifting out of the haze, dozens of satellite communities that anchored vast corporate farms or sustained industrial enclaves. Then came TelleRai itself, sometimes called the city of hundreds because its fief bonds were spread among all the sisterhoods and all the brethren bonds as well. It was a great surrealistic game board of cities within the city, looking like randomly dropped pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, with watercourses, parks, and forests lying between the cloisters.
Marika slowed the darkship and came to rest above the heart of the city, a mile-wide circle of convention ground enfiefed to no Community, open to everyone. She harkened to the map in her mind, trying to locate the skewed arrowhead shape of the Reugge cloister. She could not find it.
She touched her senior bath. Greynes. You have been here before. Where is our cloister?
Southwest four miles, mistress.
Marika urged the darkship southwestward at a leisurely pace. She studied the city. It seemed still and lifeless from so high above. Till she spied a dirigible ascending. That must be one of the tradermale fastnesses there.
Now she saw the Reugge cloister. Even from close up it did not resemble the picture she had had in mind. She took the darkship down.
From a lower altitude the cloister began to look more as it should. It had tall, lean spires tapering toward the sky. Almost all its structures were built of a white limestone. It was at least three times the size of the Maksche cloister and much more inviting in appearance.
The city itself looked more pleasant than Maksche. It lacked the northern city’s grim, grimy appearance. It did not suffer from the excessive, planned regularity of Maksche. And the poverty, if it was there, was out of sight. This heart of the city was more beautiful than Marika had imagined could be possible.
Meth scurried through the visible cloister as the darkship descended. Several startled touches brushed Marika soon after it became obvious her darkship would land. She pushed them aside. They would not panic. They could see the Reugge ensignia upon the underframe of the darkship.
She drew on Greynes for word of the proper landing court, drifted forward a quarter mile, completed her descent as silth and workers rushed into the courtyard.
The landing braces touched stone. Marika relaxed, released the ghosts with a touch of gratitude. They scattered instantly.
Grauel and Barlog were there when she was ready to step down. The three bath positioned themselves a step behind. “A beautiful flight, sisters,” she told the bath. They seemed fresher than she was.
The eldest bowed slightly. “You hardly drew upon us, Mistress. It was a pleasure. It is seldom we get a chance to see much of the country over which we travel. If from ever so high.” She removed her gloves and rubbed her paws together in a manner meant to suggest that Marika might refrain from going up into such chill air.
Several silth rushed to Marika, bowed according to their apparent status. One said, “Mistress, we were not informed of your coming. Nothing is prepared.”
“Nothing needs to be prepared,” Marika replied. “It was an impulse. I came to visit the Redoriad museum. You may arrange that.”
“Mistress, I am not sure —”
“Arrange it.”
“As you command, mistress.”
They knew who she was. She smelled the fear in the courtyard. She sensed a subtle flavor of distaste. She could read their thoughts. Look at the savage. Coming into the mother cloister under arms. With even her bath carrying weapons. Carrying mundane arms herself. What else could be expected of a feral silth come from the northern wilderness?
“I will view the highlights of the cloister while arrangements are being made.”
The level of panic did not subside. More silth arrived, including several of the local council. They appeared as distressed as their lesser sisters. One asked, “Is this a surprise inspection, Marika?” The name stuck in the silth’s throat. “If so, you certainly have taken us off our guard. I hope you will forgive us our lack of ceremony.”
“I am not interested in ceremony. Ceremony is a waste of valuable time. Send these meth back to work. No. This is not an inspection. I came to TelleRai to visit the Redoriad museum.”
Her insistence on that point baffled everyone. Marika enjoyed their confusion. Even the senior silth did not know what to make of her unannounced arrival. They went out of their way to be polite.
They knew she had the favor of the most senior, though. And the most senior’s motives were deeply shadowed. They refused to believe this a holiday excursion.
Let them think what they would. The most senior was not around to set them straight. In fact, she was not around much at all anymore. Marika often wondered if that did not bear closer examination.
“How is the most senior?” one of the older silth asked. “We have had no contact with her for quite a long time.”
“Well enough,” Marika replied. “She says she will be ready to begin what she calls the new phase soon.” Marika hoped that sounded sufficiently portentous. “How soon will a vehicle be ready?”
“The moment we obtain leave from the Redoriad. Come this way, mistress. You should see the pride of the cloister.”
Marika spent the next hour tagging after various old silth, leaving a wake of staring meth. Her reputation had preceded her. Even the lowliest of workers wanted to see the dangerous youngster from the north.
A novice came running while Marika’s party was moving through the most senior’s private garden, where fountains chuckled, statues stood frozen in the midst of athletic pursuits, and flowers of the season brightened the soft, dark soil beneath exotic trees.
Marika said, “I cannot see Gradwohl having much taste for this, sisters.”
The eldest replied, “She does not. But many of her predecessors liked to relax here. Yes, pup?” she snapped at the panting novice.
“The Redoriad have given permission, mistress. Their gate has been informed. Someone will be waiting.”
Marika’s companions seemed surprised. She asked, “You did not expect them to allow me to see their museum?”
“Actually, no,” one of the old silth said. “The museum has been closed to outsiders for the last ten years.”
“Dorteka did not mention that.”
“Dorteka?”
“My instructress when I first came to Maksche. She reminisced fondly of a visit to the Redoriad museum when she
was a novice herself.”
“There was a time, before the troubles began, when the Redoriad opened their doors to everyone. Even bond meth and brethren. But that has not been true since rogue males tried to smuggle a bomb inside. The Redoriad have no wish to risk their treasures, some of which date back six and seven thousand years. After the incident they closed their gates to outsiders.”
Another silth explained, “The Redoriad take an inordinate interest in the past. They believe they are the oldest Community on the New Continent.”
“May we go, then?” Marika asked. “Is a car ready?”
“Yes.” The old silth seemed displeased.
In a merry tone, Marika said, “If you really want to be inspected, I can come back later. I must become acquainted with this cloister, as I no doubt will be moving here soon.”
Deep silence answered that remark. The older silth started walking.
“Why are they this way?” Grauel asked. “Feeling hateful, but being so polite?”
“They fear that I’m Gradwohl’s chosen heir,” Marika replied. “They don’t like that. I am a savage and just about everything else they don’t like. Also, my being heir apparent would mean that they would have no chance of becoming most senior themselves. Assuming I live a normal life span, I will outlast them all.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing we arrived unannounced, then.”
“Possibly. But I doubt they would go to violent extremes. Still, be alert when we get into the streets. There has been time for news of our arrival to have gotten out of the cloister.”
“Rogues?”
“And the Serke. They aren’t pleased with me either.”
“What about these Redoriad? They are the other major dark-faring Community. Might not their interests parallel those of the Serke? Getting into their museum so easily...”
“We’ll find out. Just don’t let them move me out of your sight.”
“That has not needed saying for years, Marika.” Grauel seemed almost hurt by the reminder.