“I suppose you are right. Let me rest awhile. Let me become attuned to where and when I am. Then I can get on with trying to reshape my world in the image of its past. Amusing, no? Me, trying to back into the future.”
Bel-Keneke did not understand her words or mood. Marika suspected that she did not understand them herself, though she pretended otherwise. Maybe it was all just age sneaking up on her.
II
Marika brought the darkship southward over the tops of dead trees, barely high enough to clear the reaching branches. She cleared the edge of the woods, then dropped till the wooden cross hurtled along inches above the snow. The landing struts sometimes dragged. The wind of her passage whipped up and scattered loose powder snow behind her.
She brought the darkship to a violent halt and dropped it into the snow. She and Grauel and Barlog piled off, ran low to the edge of a ravine, flopped.
Below, a dozen rogues were reloading a rocket launcher. The females opened fire with their rifles. Bodies jerked and spun. Two of the males got off shots of their own before they were hit, but did no damage. Some tried to flee. Marika seized a ghost and overtook them. Then she led the huntresses in a wild scramble down into the ravine, snow flying, to finish the wounded.
“This one is faking, Marika,” Barlog said, yanking a youngster upright.
“Hold him. We’ll take him with us.” She examined the others. All dead or soon to die. She kicked the nearest rocket launcher. “A fine piece of machinery.”
The first rocket had hit the Reugge cloister only moments before, wrecking the tower Marika customarily occupied. There had been no warning. Marika and her huntresses had been out almost by chance, down with the bath mapping a search sweep of rogue territory northeast of Ruhaack.
She had been airborne before the second rocket arrived.
“They look like the machines made by those aliens,” Grauel said.
“Don’t they, though? I wonder how much knowledge they spirited out over the years?”
“What shall I do with this pup?” She had the captive cringing at her feet.
“We’ll truthsay him. For what that’s worth.” Marika did not expect to learn much.
She had been back to Ruhaack five days. This was the third attempt upon her life. One she had been unable to trace. She believed silth might have been behind it. The other had been brethren in inspiration, but her search for those behind it had dead-ended. Her enemies were careful to cover their trails these days.
“Here? Now?”
“Here is fine. We can leave him with his friends.”
Truthsaying the youngster was easy. He had no resistance. And was almost an empty vessel where knowledge was concerned, though Marika nursed his entire rogue history from him.
“They are pulling them in young, now,” she said. “He was barely more than a pup when they enlisted him. That damned Kublin is insane.”
Grauel looked at her expectantly.
“We’ll backtrack him. At least he knew where he’d been. Somewhere there’ll be a rogue who hasn’t moved on. We’ll grab him and hope he gives us another lead.”
“The slow, hard way,” Barlog said. “One villain at a time.”
“That may be the only way.”
“Kill him?” Grauel asked.
“Yes.”
Grauel broke his neck. “I’m old,” she said. “But the strength remains.”
Marika replied, “Yes, you’re still strong. But you are old. It’s decision time.”
“Marika?”
“I will be going back to the alien ship soon. Chances are that it will be many years before I return to the homeworld again. You have often expressed a desire to spend your last days as near the Ponath as can be.”
Neither Grauel nor Barlog responded. Marika waited till the gawking bath had returned to the darkship to ask, “Have you nothing to say?”
“Is that what you wish? That we remain behind?”
“You know it isn’t. We have been together for a lifetime. I don’t know what I would do without you. You’re my pack. But I don’t want to stand in your way if you are ready to assume the mantle of the Wise. If I had any conscience I would, in fact, urge you to do so. The young voctors at the cloister are in desperate need of firm and intelligent guidance. By staying with me you’ll only see more of the same, and probably come to no good end. Half the race wishes me dead, and half that half might try doing something about it.”
“We will do as you command, Marika,” Barlog said.
“No. No. No. You will do what you want to do. It’s your future. Don’t you understand?”
“Yes, mistress,” Grauel said.
Marika favored her with a scowl. “You are baiting me. You are not as dense as you pretend. Come. We will discuss this later.” She stalked toward the darkship.
She took the darkship up and turned out across the snowy wastes, toward the ruins of TelleRai. The rogues had come from there in a ground-effect vehicle still hidden among the dead trees of the woods.
The rogues who had sent them had moved out of their hiding place, but had not moved fast or far enough. Marika overtook them. She captured two, truthsaid them, and continued her hunt.
Before day’s end the trail had taken her most of the way to the eastern seaboard. A dozen scatters of defeated rogues lay behind her. She found herself wondering why her sister silth had so much trouble suppressing them. They needed only to invest vigor and determination.
She took the darkship up and let her far touch roam the wilderness. Somewhere in those icy badlands there was a major rogue hiding place, one they had believed could not be traced back through the levels of their organization.
She sensed a place where many meth were gathered, deep beneath the surface. She captured a strong ghost, rode it through a long, twisting tunnel, and found herself inside a weapons manufactory. More than two hundred meth were at work there, including bond females...
Females!
Marika considered them closely. They were not prisoners. Some even seemed to be supervisors.
Anger seized her. She set the ghost ravening.
The massacre lasted fifteen seconds. A screaming electromagnetic surge severed her connection with the ghost. She suffered a moment of disorientation. The darkship plunged fifty feet before she regained her equilibrium and control.
So. They had adapted a suppressor field so it would shield an entire installation. It was to be anticipated. They had adapted it so it would protect individuals upon the alien starship.
No matter. These meth were dead. Voctors would come to cleanse the place once she reported it.
She took her darkship up high and sent a general far touch roaming that face of the continent. Kublin. The game is about to end. I am coming for you this time.
She expected no response and received none, but was certain Kublin would receive the message if there were as many wehrlen among the rogues as some silth suspected.
She drifted away westward, to continue the hunt elsewhere.
III
“How long do you plan to stay this time?” Bel-Keneke asked from what had become her customary seat before the fireplace in Marika’s quarters, though now those quarters had been shifted.
“Until I find the rogue I seek,” Marika said. “A day or a decade.” It had been a month since her return to Ruhaack. A dozen attempts on her life had failed. The cloister had suffered damage on several occasions. “Do not be distressed. Do not be frightened. I wish there were some way I could stem your fear that I intend to wrest the Reugge away from you.”
Bel-Keneke was startled. “I do not... “
“Of course you do. Because your one weakness is insufficient imagination. If I have such wicked intentions, why have I not displaced you already? Do you doubt that I could in a test of strength? Entertain, for the sake of argument, the remote chance that I would not want to endure the responsibilities of being a most senior. Assume that I have a task to complete here and then I shall depart for the Serke starworld. I
really would rather spend my time nursing secrets from the alien starship.”
Bel-Keneke seemed mildly embarrassed.
“Shall we drop the matter and turn our attention to the rogue problem?”
That problem had become one silth dared not ignore. In the past month the rogues had become violently active, betraying a level of strength and organization unsuspected even by those few silth who had taken them seriously. Their weaponry was a shock, and they had made excellent tactical use of their talent suppressors. A lot of damage had been done and many silth had died.
It was, of course, all Marika’s fault. So the word ran among those who refused to see their own failures.
“All right,” Bel-Keneke said. “The rogues.”
“They can be beaten. They can be wiped out. If the Communities would cease blinding themselves, pretending they are only a nuisance. The problem must be recognized for what it is and approached in the same cooperative spirit as the mirror project.”
“That is a matter of survival, Marika.”
“Stubborn folly. Stubborn folly. Things are not so because we wish them so. They have to be made so. This is a matter of survival, Bel-Keneke. Those rogues are determined to obliterate all silthdom. And they are going to manage it if someone does not wake up.”
“They are but males.”
“True. Absolutely true. Are you any less dead when a male puts a bullet through your brain?”
“Marika, you credit them too much... “
“Ask yourself who unleashed the fire that consumed TelleRai. Mere males. They will not go away because we wish them away. They will not go away because we turn our backs and refuse to see them. Those are the very reasons they come back again and again. I smash them, then the rest of you pretend they do not exist after I have gone on to something else, and the disease reestablishes itself. It was not imagination that destroyed my tower.”
Bel-Keneke looked like one patiently suffering the ravings of one touched by the All.
Irked, Marika continued, “They now have an unknown number of hidden bases and manufactories. I have revealed several of those already. You have seen the things they were stockpiling. And you will still insist that they are just a nuisance? Must they kill you in order to gain your attention?”
Bel-Keneke shook her head.
“Try to imagine what they may be preparing in more remote places, safer from searchers.”
Bel-Keneke showed no enthusiasm, even so. Marika was disturbed. Was all silthdom paralyzed by some mad suicidal urge? She feared she would have to call on the terror of her name to mobilize a real effort to overcome the rogues.
She was convinced that Kublin had built a movement so strong it no longer needed the support of the defeated Serke. It would attain its goals without it if silth continued to blind themselves to the threat.
Kublin, she was convinced, was not just the warlock; he was the driving force behind the rogue movement. She knew Kublin because she knew herself. Kublin might be cowardly at times, but he was very much like her. He was every bit as determined, if for reasons she could not fathom. In a way battling him, she battled her mirror image. She had acted, thus far, as though she was dueling herself, guessing what she would have done in Kublin’s place before she made a move. And that had allowed her to deal this new crop of rogues numerous and frequent disasters.
The difference between Kublin and herself was that he was less willing to risk his person. In his place she would have come out to kill herself instead of sending assassins.
As a test she had tried an offer of rich rewards for information. She had had few takers. As she had expected. That revealed the real strength of the rogues. They were so strong and so feared that few ordinary meth would dare betray them.
“It is time to put the fear of silth back into the populace,” Marika said.
Bel-Keneke looked startled.
“I do not want to press anyone, but I will if I must. I do not tolerate willful blindness in myself and I will not tolerate it in anyone else. We will destroy the rogue if I have to compel the Communities to join in the hunt.”
Bel-Keneke sighed. “There is a great deal of confusion yet, Marika. You know very well that many of the strongest Communities lost their most seniors during your adventure against the Serke. They have not yet stabilized into any fixed hierarchy. You cannot expect them to have formed policies.”
“The lack of a certain meth in control should not rob a Community of direction at mundane levels. You... Never mind. Argument accomplishes nothing. As strength goes. I would appreciate it if you would contact those Communities that do have most seniors and tell them that I plan a major rogue hunt directed to the northeast. Tell them I want all the darkships that can be mustered. My intention is to mount a sweep that will cripple the rogue’s offensive capacity. If in the course of the sweep I find the one rogue I am hunting myself, his loss will set his movement back so far the rogues will present no threat for years. You all will be rid of me, for I will disappear into the void once more. And you can all go back to your somnolent pretense.”
Bel-Keneke refused to be angered. “Very well. As you wish. I will see that your fleet is assembled.” Bel-Keneke’s tone recalled that of Marika’s dam Skiljan when she was discussing tribute that had to be paid to the silth at Akard. A little something yielded grudgingly so a greater power would leave one alone.
Damned blind fool. They were all damned blind fools. Maybe they deserved... “Thank you, mistress. I appreciate your efforts. I must go now. I have to visit the comm center.” She left Bel-Keneke there, served and observed by Grauel and Barlog.
She stalked the hallways of the cloister, irked with herself. She was growing too intolerant and impatient, she feared. In younger days she would have tried to maneuver, to manipulate, to get what she wanted more slyly. These days the impulse was to turn to power at the first impediment.
From the comm center she contacted the Hammer, ostensibly to see how Bagnel’s preparations were coming, actually to turn off her thoughts for a while while talking with someone who wanted nothing from her and from whom she wanted nothing. She left the conversation pleased. Bagnel had assembled a scientific team that, he assured her, was more than respectable in knowledge, ability, and reliability.
She began to feel anxious to move into deep space once again.
The homeworld was not home anymore.
If anywhere ever had been.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I
Grauel returned from the window. “The sky is filled with darkships, Marika. They are grounded in the streets and on the open ground around the cloister. I never imagined there were so many.”
“I am amazed,” Marika admitted. She looked at Bel-Keneke. “What did you tell them?” In one week more than three hundred darkships, of the planet-bound sort, carrying as many as a half dozen voctors each, had gathered at Ruhaack.
“I told them what you told me to tell them.” Bel-Keneke was not surprised at the response. “You are much feared, in more ways than you can imagine.”
“Whatever moves them, I had better take them out before the spirit falters. Is there a place where they can be gathered so that I can speak to them all? Tomorrow I will lead them out against the rogue.”
“I thought you would want to address them. I have made arrangements with the Redoriad. The west wall of their cloister overlooks open ground. Nearly half of them are grounded there anyway.”
“Thank you.”
Marika examined the weather auspices. It would be a clear night, and the major moons would be in near conjunction. She set her speechmaking for that hour.
She said nothing new or particularly inspiring, nor did she try to whip the assembly into a froth of hatred. She simply told the silth that they had a job of work to do, and if they carried it out properly they would end this rogue threat that had begun to seem like a reign of terror. An hour before dawn she raised her wooden darkship and led the airborne horde northeast, to that region she believed to
be the heartland of Kublin’s shadow empire.
She expected heavy action and she was not disappointed. In that region the rogues had invested heavily in time and labor and resources, and so felt compelled to resist instead of to run.
The Mistresses accompanying Marika learned quickly after several darkships had been downed by suppressor beams. Fear inspired cooperation. The moment a Mistress detected anything inimical she summoned aid. When superior strength had gathered the Mistresses grounded and sent in their voctors to do the killing, supporting them with their talents.
In the six hours following the first contact fourteen installations were captured and more than a thousand rogues slain.
Marika did not participate directly. She remained high above the hunt, probing the far distances with her touch, occasionally sending, Kublin, I am coming for you. She was certain he was out there, cowering in some secret command center, watching his fastnesses fall.
Grauel and Barlog watched her and became increasingly unsettled. They began to prowl the arms of the darkship, restless, watching her closely. They sensed a darkness growing in her.
The more stubborn the rogue resistance, the more angry and hate-filled she became. Something had twisted inside her. She was no longer able to think of Kublin as the fragile, sweet littermate she had known as a pup. She could not remember him as the youngster she had saved in the Ponath at the risk of her entire future, nor as the adult she had spared by imprisonment and murder after his raid upon Maksche.
He would not learn. He would not recant. He would not cease his misdeeds. She had risked everything for him, and he had given nothing but pain in return. She had no more love for him. Not a spark. She wanted only to hurt him in return.
Splash the plains of snow with blood. If he did not join the dead, maybe he would read a message he would finally understand.
A squadron of latecomers arrived from Ruhaack. Marika touched them. They seemed eager to join the hunt, like pups racing after the panicky denizens exploding out of an opened leiter nest. She was pleased. Slow as silth were to start, she had no trouble inspiring them once they decided to move.