“You, mistress.”
Bel-Keneke gave her a strained glance.
“The story is a simple one. For the past several years I have made my base on a world where we stumbled across evidence that the Serke had once rested a darkship crew. Just recently a Serke darkship, possibly headed here, appeared. We pursued it and it pointed the way, though I allowed the Serke Mistress to believe she had lost me. She was not as strong as I.”
“They will have defenses, Marika. They know you are hunting.”
“Of course. That is another reason I do not care to undertake the final move alone. If I am lost, nothing is gained for anyone else.”
“I will contact the most seniors immediately. I fear I cannot promise much, but I will do my best.” Bel-Keneke passed Marika a large envelope. “These are my comments upon the various most seniors. As you asked. I think, though, that you should rest before you do anything else. You do not look ready to challenge the universe.”
“I do not feel ready. You are right. I have driven myself hard for a long time. I will rest before I begin studying them. Thank you.”
“Good. I will return tomorrow, then. I should have a response from the most seniors. I will tell them as little as I can, and what I do tell I will bind with oaths.”
“Yes. That you must. Though the news will escape soon enough.”
Bel-Keneke rose and moved toward the door. A few feet short of the exit she halted, turned, looked at Marika oddly.
“Yes?” Marika asked.
“A random thought. About how you have become a huntress despite having become silth.”
“I have had similar thoughts often enough. But what game I stalk. Eh?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow.”
II
Marika wakened in the night, cold but somehow more comfortable than she had been in years. She had missed being enfolded in the homeworld’s unconscious background of touch. Even the base, with its population of transients, had not become comfortable.
She entered the room where Grauel and Barlog were sleeping and found them resting peacefully. She studied them in the light cast by the coals in their fireplace, wondering that they had remained with her so long, through so much. She knew they would continue till the All reclaimed them, though it was past time they moved on into the role of the Wise. Both had gone gray. Barlog had lost more spots of fur.
She considered ordering them to remain behind when she returned to the void. But she knew she would not. She could not, for they would be hurt beyond measure. They were her pack. They were her only true sisterhood. Her loyalties beyond those two attenuated very quickly. And they had none but to her and to a dream of yesterday.
She went back to the fireplace in the main room, added firewood, settled in her chair. She opened Bel-Keneke’s envelope.
Few of the names had changed. Death had not been busy during her absence. She wondered what time had done to change those old silth. Attitudes were most important. Had they lost their desire to finish the question of the Serke?
Attitudes could not be gotten from pieces of paper. Those she would not know till she had faced the meth themselves... She became restless.
She missed Bagnel.
Already? She mocked herself. It had been but hours since their parting.
For how long this time? Years again? Somehow, that seemed insupportable.
She went to the window and stared at endless vistas of white, skeletal in the moonlight. Biter grinned down like a skull, Chaser like something hungry in close pursuit. That was a change, if noticeable only to one who had been gone a long time. There was no permanent overcast.
She looked past the moons, and all the roving dots of light that had not been there before, in the direction whence she had come. She would be going out there again, soon. And this time she might not come back. Win or lose.
“How old are you, Bestrei?” she whispered. “Too old? Or still young enough?” Her restlessness increased. Finally she could stand it no more.
She went to the cabinet where she had stored her saddleship in times long gone, times that seemed to belong to another’s past. Who had that been, that pup-silth who had drawn a bloody paw across the face of the world?
The saddleship was there still, ready for assembly. It had not been touched. She brushed dust from her personal witch signs.
She considered only a moment more.
The outside air was more bitter than she remembered. She ignored the chill, drifting above the rooftops of Ruhaack, between pillars of smoke, looking longingly on winter-bound streets where nothing moved.
An occasional curious touch brushed her and departed satisfied. Her presence was accepted. She was home.
She was pleased. They were alert, for all that they could not be seen.
Where was Kublin now? What was he thinking? He must have had word of her return by this time. Could he guess its significance? Would his rogues react?
She should let it be whispered that she had come home to break their backs again. They would believe it. Kublin the warlock would believe it. He was mad. He feared her. Feared her as he feared nothing else, for he knew that he had strained her mercy beyond endurance.
They all feared her. For them she was the grauken, the stalker of the night without mercy, without pity. She was the hunger that would devour them all.
The rogue problem had been of great concern to Bagnel. She ought to examine it while she was here. Ought to get back into touch with it. Perhaps she could again find a fresh approach that would give these earthbound silth a novel way to defend themselves while she hunted down the ultimate authors of the dissatisfaction that produced the rogues.
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 ail 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 i
mport. 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 star-faring 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 plan
et. 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?”