She sent stealthy ghosts out to cripple what few systems did exist in tiny sabotages that would not become apparent till the weapons were actually used. She sent more down to the world to do the same to the rogues’ suppressor systems. She pursued her quiet, undetected guerrilla campaign till she neared collapse from exhaustion. Then she rested. And when she could do so, she went on.
She was not discovered during her preparations. It was what she wanted, and yet she was not entirely pleased. What she could do so could the pawful of Serke exiles hidden with Starstalker.
It was time to begin the scourging, the scouring, the cleansing. Time to let the fire fall, though it was no wind she sent down upon the world of her birth and hatred.
She did what no other silth had ever imagined or tried. She summoned the system’s great black and sent it down against her enemies.
The death screams of rogue minds reached her there in the void, so numerous were they and so terrible were their deaths. So great was the horror that it reached that deeply hidden place where her compassion lay. She called out her hatred, hardened the shell around it, and continued the killing till she had cleansed every installation she had been able to locate.
At the desert base of the brethren, after their destruction of Maksche, her rage had led her to a slaughter of thousands. A slaughter so great it had shaken the world almost as much as the bombing of TelleRai. Against this kill that was but a fleck in the eye of a murdered beast.
The rogue world went mad. The airwaves went insane with confused messages, frequently cut short. And because Skiljansrode was dead and there was no one else to intercept their messages, the silth remained ignorant of the terror that had been loosed.
Black and terrible as the killing was, rogues survived. Marika released the great black, rested, allowed the remaining rogues to absorb her message. Recovered, she searched again, and found many more installations, every one defended by active suppressors.
Panic fogged the New Continent. It was so powerful she could not see how the silth could not sense it.
She summoned the great black, sent it down again, and delivered a new message. Only the most powerful batteries of suppressors could withstand its grand, dark fury.
Again she released it. And still there were rogues. She nurtured her hatred, lest it bleed away before the task she had set herself was done. No half measures this time. No getting distracted and going away before the job was finished. No matter the cost to herself or the homeworld.
She reached with the far touch, probed those installations that had withstood the great black. Kublin. Littermate. I have come home. You have roused me this time. This time there is only one way you can survive. Return me my meth. She gave nothing away by admitting her presence. By now they would know their enemy down there. Who else had the dark-sider strength to do such slaughter?
The rogues responded just as she had expected. They tried to destroy her. But it took them hours to locate her, hours she used to recover her spent strength. Then they discovered that most of their weapons had been incapacitated. Their beamers did nothing. Their missiles exploded in their silos. And when they had failed in their counterattack the far touch came down again.
I am here, Kublin. Littermate. Warlock. And you are dead unless I receive my meth. Think of sleeping with the worms, coward. Think of this whole world sleeping with the worms. It will, if that is what it takes.
By now the Communities were aware that something terrible was happening. Their best fartouchers found her there in orbit and recognized her. Panic spread with the speed of lightning. It exceeded that of the rogues, who remained armed with the illusion that they could fight back.
Voidships rose from the surface. Marika sent one harsh, intransigent warning.
Most of the voidships turned back. The few that did not perished in the grasp of the great black.
Marika searched for and found Bel-Keneke and prodded her with the far touch. Gather the most seniors of the Communities. There will be a convention. She closed herself to any response.
She reached elsewhere. Kublin. Littermate. Deliver Grauel, Bagnel, and the bath named Silba to the Reugge cloister at Ruhaack. You have one day. Then you die. And all who stand by you die with you.
She continued launching periodic attacks upon rogue centers where she had been unable to detect the presence of her comrades. With practice she found that the great black could be pushed through the shielding of even the most powerful battery of suppressors.
She rested yet again while her senior bath managed the wooden voidship, then sent, Bel-Keneke. I will be coming down soon. The most seniors had better be gathered. I will have no mercy upon those who do not appear before me.
Then back to another message for Kublin. Kublin. Littermate. I am coming down. If my meth are not at the Reugge cloister I will have no mercy at all. There will be no place you can hide. I will hunt you down to the very last of you.
She began a leisurely descent, allowing those below ample time to respond, either with attacks or surrender to her will.
There were no attacks.
Chapter Forty-Two
I
There were darkships everywhere around the Reugge cloister, and scattered about the fields outside the town. Fields, she noted, that showed signs of beginning to thaw. Maybe the mirrors were working. The air did not have its customary toothy bite.
She saw witch signs of orders of which she had never heard, of Communities great and small, gathered from the ends of the world. She sensed more darkships in the air, hastening to the gathering, coming from afar. Her command had been unrealistic. It was physically impossible for some to reach Ruhaack in so short a time.
She drifted into the landing court, noting that the cloister itself was free of snow. The court had been cleared for her arrival. Silth were arrayed in accordance with the demands of ceremony for the arrival of a great most senior. She was grimly amused because they accorded her that honor.
She sent ghosts scurrying through the cloister, detected no signs of treachery or foolishness. For all the talent amassed, not a whiff of a trap. “As strength goes,” she murmured. When the wooden voidship grounded she told her bath, “All of you stay close to me. For your own protection.” She glanced skyward. Both mirrors were visible. Each seemed as brilliant as the sun itself. A world with three suns. Nowhere in her far travels had she encountered anything as strange as that.
Purely for the drama of the moment she pulled down ghosts from the upper air and made them shimmer about her. She stepped down from the darkship.
Bel-Keneke came to meet her, a silth grown old in a very short time, fur ragged, gray, body quaking as she approached alone. Marika glared, unable to restrain her feelings completely. She stood with ghosts glimmering around her, crawling through her fur, motionless, speechless, waiting.
Bel-Keneke croaked, “The convention has begun assembling in the great hall, Marika. Not all have arrived yet, some being impossibly far to begin. But all have promised to come, and I am told that all who have not yet arrived are in fact hurrying here as fast... “
“I am aware of that. Hear this. Henceforth you will address me as mistress of mistresses. That which you feared has befallen you, and that which you fled has overtaken you. Lonely, lonely, the stars come down, and the fire washes away the sins upon the earth... “What in the name of the All was she saying? Marika controlled herself. “You stirred the darkness and wakened its wrath. You have brought it upon yourselves. You would not let be. You have forced me. From this moment I am most senior of most seniors. And I intend to proclaim a new order. Those who find they have no desire to embrace it will soon be reunited with the All. I am out of patience, out of tolerance, out of understanding. Lead on to the great hall, Bel-Keneke. My old friend, upon whom I bestowed all blessings.”
Bel-Keneke turned. She walked, bowed as though by the weight of time, her shoulders drawn as though she expected to be struck. Fear trailed her like an evil perfume.
The most seniors were
gathered in the great hall, indeed. As Marika stepped in she recalled it as it had been after the kalerhag of the Serke and the fire set by those who had taken themselves into exile. Half ruined, choked with burned corpses. Alive with the stench of death.
Death lurked there now, slithering around behind the smell of meth fear.
She examined the silent silth in their shivering scores. So many. And so many of them so very old. And all of them so very frightened.
She stalked to the high seat that Bel-Keneke occupied in ordinary meetings of the Reugge council and seated herself. Her bath and Barlog moved in behind her, their weapons held ready. Barlog, she sensed, moved back behind everyone, not really trusting the bath to stick. She waited silently, her touch roaming the cloister. She could find no Grauel. No Bagnel. No Silba.
So.
Some shaking, deputized silth moved toward her. She raised a paw, freezing them where they stood. They dropped their gazes and waited.
She grasped a powerful ghost from high above, drew it down, tamed it, and sent it wandering rogue territory, into the installations she had not yet destroyed, amid the enduring terror and confusion. And she found an old gray male who could be none other than Kublin.
So old... But she, too, was aging, for all silth had their ways of staying the teeth of time. How many years did she have to tame this mad civilization and prepare it for what would come upon it from the stars? Maybe not enough.
That was the task left her, after she had fulfilled her duty to her own. To sculpt this world a single face. For the alien was coming. Sooner or later. The meth were known, now, through her own doing. Seekers would find, as she had found the Serke, given determination and time.
Kublin. Littermate. I see you there. You are running out of time. Where are my meth?
He started, amazed that she had found him. He shouted panicky orders. Rogues ran hither and yon.
There is no mercy in me this time, Kublin. Littermate. This time, if I must, I will make you die a death that will balance my past foolish mercies. Unless you surrender Grauel, Bagnel, and Silba, you are doomed and damned. Do not persist in your stupidity. You are strong, but I am stronger. I cannot be stopped. I am the successor to Bestrei, and I am ten times stronger than ever she was. I am not constrained by her ancient codes of honor. I have a hunger in me, littermate. It is a hunger for your soul, like the hunger of the grauken, and I am barely able to restrain it. Bring them to me, Kublin. Bring me my meth. Or I surrender to the grauken within me.
Immensely powerful suppressor fields rose around the installation, forcing her out. But she was strong, and went more slowly than they hoped. Before she lost touch she saw females, silth, moving near Kublin. They were all very old, very ragged. Their apparel was Serke.
So. As she had suspected, that struggle was not at an end either. Only a pawful remained, but they went on, trapped in the destiny they had woven for themselves.
What better place to hide than upon the world that had spawned them, far from the deadly hunter of stars? Was Starstalker concealed right here in the system? In the shadow of a distant asteroid, somewhere where no voidfaring silth bothered to go?
That answer would come soon enough.
Marika stationed her tame ghost near the installation and held it there with a thread of touch while she returned herself to flesh and the grand convention she had summoned.
They were conversing, some in soft tones or whispers, most with the touch. Snatches quickly patched together in one grand consensus. Doomfarer. Jiana. That look is upon her, stronger than ever before. Something dire is about to happen.
The reek of fear in that great hall was ten times what it had been upon her entry.
From her place Bel-Keneke made a sign, sped a feeble, frightened touch that told her that the last of the most seniors had arrived. Marika rose. She chose to speak instead of touch, and to speak in the tongue of common meth instead of any silth language. “Pups in gray mange, with your fur falling out, why are you so afraid? What is one savage from the wilds of the upper Ponath? Look. See how amusing, in her country clothing, her savage bloodfeud paints, carrying her weapons like some common fur trapper. Is this an object of fright?”
Her voice hardened. “I am reality, who has been baying along your backtrail so long. I am that which you fear, and I have overtaken you. I am not pleased with you. You have been in command. You are responsible. Your Communities have done foolish, stupid things, over and over and over, and then you have insisted on compounding them with more follies and stupidities. The story is always the same. Always the story of silth greed. Always the story of silth manipulation and maneuvering and treachery, never the story of meth thinking of tomorrow, never of meth facing reality and the future and seeing what lies there. I have preserved you and preserved you, and for what? Why? You will not learn. Perhaps you cannot learn.
“This is a new age, sisters. Can you not understand that? We are alone in this universe no more. We must sculpt a single outward face.
“I sent you a messenger, to apprise you of that, and you saw in him only one more opportunity to vent the greed and treachery that lies coiled about your hearts. You saw nothing else, and you heard nothing at all.”
She glared down at the packed, silent, frightened silth. She sensed that some were considering attacking her. If they dared, as a group, they might end their terror forever. But not one among them had the courage to be the first to move.
“I read your hearts. As you are afraid of me now, so you stand convicted of the crime of cowardice in the face of the rogues who would have wrested your world from you. Had wrested it from you, save for small regions where they allowed you to abide till they chose to eliminate you. Again and again I gave you the chance to destroy those who would devour you, and always you squandered it. Again and again you allowed them to regain their strength, and each time become stronger, while you snapped at one another’s backs and tried to steal starships or lands or whatever it was that for the moment seemed more important than the survival of your Communities. You will not save yourselves.”
She stared, dared. No one responded.
“You do not protest the indictment. Not one of you, though some are less guilty than the rest.” She reached into the void, pulled. “You would not learn, would not live together, would not defend yourselves. If you have no other value, then you might at least serve as examples of the cost of stupidity to those who will come after you.” She yanked viciously. The great black struggled, but it came. “We cannot rebuild the world with you, that is obvious. We will see if it can be done without you.”
They did not understand for a while. Then they understood only too well. The otherworld filled with outraged, terrified touch. And they remained true to what they were. They panicked rather than do what they needed to save themselves. They would not join even then.
Marika hammered another layer of armor around her heart. She told herself they were poor silth, that they truly deserved what was to come. But she hurt. She could no longer love herself.
She drew Barlog and her bath close to her, to envelop them in her own protection, then unleashed the fury of the great black.
You experience true darkwar, she flung into the horror of screaming mouths and twisting bodies and flying blood. I bring it down upon you, for the race.
It lasted far longer than she expected. When it was over she felt hollow, wasted, as though the massacre had been a futile and pointless gesture, little more than a pup’s destructive tantrum.
Her companions did not speak to her. The bath eased away, overcome with horror. Barlog seemed more disgusted than horrified. Marika did not think much of herself at that moment, but she refused to turn inward, to scrutinize her feelings and motives.
“They wanted a doomstalker. A Jiana. They insisted. I have given them one. Come, you. We have business with the rogue.”
As she walked to the courtyard and darkship, stepping over and around still forms, Barlog finally said, “Marika, they will not suffer this. You
have sealed your doom. You have cried bloodfeud upon all silthdom.”
“I know, Barlog. I know. But they’ll have to work together if they’re going to finish it, won’t they? They’ll have to eliminate the rogue at their backs before they dare turn upon me, won’t they? In order to destroy me they will have to become what I want them to be, won’t they?”
A wild awe filled Barlog’s eyes as she realized that Marika had walked into this knowing exactly what she did.
“I have them by their cropped tails, Barlog. And I am not going to let go till they have remade themselves in the image I want. I have more surprises waiting for them... But you need not be any part of this. You can retire to the packsteads on our world out there. It’s not the Ponath, but it’s... “
“No. We have lived together--so many trouble-filled years. So much blood. We will die together. I insist. I have nothing else.”
“If that is what you wish. Come. Let’s go find our friends. And lay my family to rest.”
Barlog shuddered.
II
Kublin had not exhausted his arsenal, nor would he surrender. He was as stubborn, was as much Jiana, as Marika was. He had his own dream of the shape of the future and was as determined to give it form.
But he did yield. A little.
Marika hammered at him a week, reducing his final strongholds one by one, slaughtering his followers. Then she laid siege to his final redoubt, a place far beneath the earth shielded by suppressors so powerful even the great black could not penetrate them. Marika brought in laborers and voctors by the thousand, began digging.
A deputation of terrified rogues came out. They brought Grauel, Bagnel, and the bath Silba.
Only Silba was alive.
She then understood why the coward had been so stubbornly determined. He had had little with which to trade.
Grauel and Bagnel had died before her return to the homeworld. Kublin had had no counters with which to play a trading game.