“Mistress?”
“You have told me very little about Marika inside.”
Marika grew uneasy.
“Do not be frightened, pup.”
“I am not, mistress.”
“Liar. I met a most senior when I was your age. I was petrified. There is no need. I am here to help. You are not happy, are you? Honestly, now.”
“No, mistress.”
“Why not?”
She thought she had made that clear. Perhaps their backgrounds were too alien. She rambled till Gradwohl lost patience. “Get to the point, pup. There are no ears here but mine. Even were there, your sisters would make no reprisals for what you say. I will not permit that. And do not lie. I want to know what the real Marika thinks and feels.”
Irked, Marika tested the water with a few mild remarks. When Gradwohl did not explode, she continued till she had revealed most of her dissatisfactions.
“Exactly what I suspected. An absolute lack of vision from the very beginning. I was not a feral myself, but I endured similar troubles. They sense strength and power, and it frightens them. In their way, silth have minds as small as any common meth. Those who might be surpassed want to stifle you before you develop the skills to command them. It is a severe shortcoming of the society silth have developed. Now. Tell me more about Akard.”
Gradwohl spoke no more of Marika’s place in things, nor of her feelings. Instead, she concentrated upon a minute examination of events during Akard’s final days. “What has become of the other survivors? Especially the commtech and the tradermale?” She used the Ponath dialect word tradermale as though it was unfamiliar.
Marika reflected carefully before saying, “Braydic was assigned work in the communications center here.” Had the most senior noted the sword-carrying meth who had threatened the guards behind Grauel, keeping them from interfering? “They will not let me see her. Bagnel vanished. I assume he rejoined his brotherhood. They say there is a tradermale place here in Maksche.”
“Presumably I could reach him through his factors.”
“Darkship, mistress?”
“The flying cross. That was you in the tower, was it not? You touched Norgis just before we set down.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“What did you think?”
“I was awed, mistress. The idea of riding such a thing…. I rode one coming down from Akard, but most of that escapes me.”
“You are not frightened by it?”
“No, mistress.”
“You do not find those-who-dwell frightening?”
“No, mistress.”
“Good. That will be all, pup. Return to your quarters.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“There will be changes in your life, pup.”
“Yes, mistress,” Marika said as she walked toward the doorway.
Grauel went through first, surveyed the hallway, nodded. Barlog backed out behind Marika, rifle still trained on the most senior.
Not one word about the confrontation passed between the three of them.
The changes began immediately. The morning following the interview, a silth the age of Marika’s dam came to her cell. She introduced herself as Dorteka. “I am your instructress, detached from the most senior’s staff for that purpose. The most senior has ordered an individualized program for you. We will get started now.” Plainly, Dorteka did not like her assignment, but she was careful to avoid saying so.
Marika would soon note a cloisterwide shift of attitude toward one who had caught the most senior’s interest.
That first morning Dorteka took her to a meditation chamber. They sat upon the floor, across a table of the same stone as the cloister, in the eerie light of a single oil lamp. On Dorteka’s side lay a clipboard and papers. Dorteka said, “Your education has been erratic. The most senior wants you to go back and begin at the beginning.”
“I would be with pups….”
“You will proceed at your own pace, independent of everyone else at every level. Where your training has been adequate, you will advance rapidly, to your limits.” Dorteka straightened a paper. “What would you like to do for the sisterhood?”
Marika did not hesitate. “Fly the darkships. To the starworlds.”
A trace of amusement showed in the tilt of Dorteka’s ears. “So the most senior suggested. The darkship is possible. The starworlds are not.”
“Why?”
“We were too late going out. We looked in the wrong places. The starworlds are all enfiefed, and they are guarded jealously by the sisterhoods who own them. Even to leave the planet now would mean an immediate challenge to darkwar. So darkwar can be our only reason for entering the dark. We will not. We have no one capable of challenging.”
Puzzled, Marika asked, “What is darkwar? No one will explain.”
“At your level it will be difficult to comprehend. In essence, darkwar is a bloodduel between the leading Mistresses of the Ships of Communities in conflict. The survivor wins the right of the dispute. Darkwar is rare because it usually seals the fate of an entire Community.”
Bloodduel Marika understood. She nodded.
“Time enough for such things after you gain a solid foundation. You wish to become involved with the ships. Then you shall become involved, if you remain interested once you become qualified. There are never enough sisters willing to work them. You do read and write?”
“Yes, mistress.”
Dorteka handed her a sheet of paper. “This is our schedule. We will adjust it as needed.”
Marika looked it over. “Not much time left for sleep.”
“You wish to fly darkships, you must learn to endure sleeplessness. You wish to see your friend Braydic, you will remain stubbornly devoted to your studies.” Dorteka pushed a scrap of paper across the table. The notes on it were in a paw almost mechanically perfect. “Suggested motivators for the feral subject Marika.”
“The most senior?”
“Yes.”
The interest shown by the most senior was a bit intimidating.
The sheet was filled with a complicated diagram for earning the right to visit Braydic or the city.
“As you see, a visit to your friend requires you to accumulate one hundred performance points. Those are mapped out for you there. Leave to go outside the cloister will be more difficult to obtain. It is subject to my being satisfied with your progress. You will never get out if I feel you are giving less than one hundred percent.”
Crafty old Gradwohl. She had speared to the heart of her and tapped forces which could make her learn. The thought of seeing Braydic sparked an immediate urge to begin. The opportunity to get into the city, too, stirred her, but less concretely.
“I doubt that I will permit a city visit anytime soon. Perhaps we will accumulate several opportunities for later.”
“Why, mistress?”
“The streets could be dangerous for an untrained silth. We have been having a problem with rogue males. I expect the Serke are behind that, too. Whatever, silth have been assaulted. Last summer ringleaders were rounded up and sentenced to the mines, but that did little good. The brethren—those you call tradermales—may have a paw in the movement.”
“The world is not so complicated on an upper Ponath packstead,” Marika observed.
“No. You see the schedule and rewards. Are they acceptable?”
“Yes, mistress.”
“You will become a full-time student, with no other duties. You will accept the discipline of the Community?”
“Yes, mistress.” Marika was surprised to find herself so eager. Till this morning she had cared about nothing. “I am ready to begin.”
“Then begin we shall.”
II
Marika’s education commenced before the next dawn. Dorteka wakened her and took her to a gymnasium for an hour’s workout. A bath followed.
Marika’s determination almost broke. She nearly broke her vow to obey and conform.
A bath! Meth—of the upper Ponat
h, at least—hated water. They never entered it voluntarily. Only when the populations of insects in one’s fur became too great to stand….
The bath was followed by a hurried meal prior to the first class of the day, which was an introduction to being silth. Rites and ceremonies, dogma and duties, and instruction in the secret languages of the sisterhood, which she hardly needed. She discovered that there were circles of sisterhood mysteries silth were supposed to penetrate as they became older and more skilled. Till Dorteka, she had no idea how much she had been shut out.
She ripped through those studies swiftly. They required rote learning. Her memory was excellent. Seldom did she need to be shown anything more than once.
She excelled in the gymnasium. She was her dam’s pup. Skiljan had been fast, strong, hard, and tough.
The second class lay across the cloister from the first. Dorteka made her run all the way. Dorteka made her run everywhere, and ran with her. The second class was not as susceptible to rote learning, for it was mathematics. It required the use of reason. Silth naturally tended to favor intuition.
After mathematics came the history of the sisterhood, a class which Marika devoured in days. The Reugge were a minor Community with a short, uneventful past, an offshoot of the Serke that had established independence only seven centuries earlier. Sustenance of that independence was the outstanding Reugge achievement.
Silth had a history that stretched into prehistory, countless millennia back, when all meth lived in nomadic packs. The earliest sisterhoods existed long before the keeping of records began. Most silth had little interest in those days. They lived in an eternal now.
Marika’s pack had maintained a record of its achievements called the Degnan Chronicle. That it had been kept in her dam’s loghouse had been a source of pride to the pup. Barlog still kept it up, for she and Grauel believed that as long as it survived and remained current, the Degnan pack survived. As a historical instrument, the Degnan Chronicle was superior to any kept by the Reugge even now. For the Reugge Community, history was an oral tradition mainly of self-justification.
Broader historical studies proved no more informative. They raised more questions than they answered, as far as Marika could see. What were the origins of the meth? In olden times—as now among the nomads of the north—they were pack hunters. Physically, they resembled a carnivore called a kagbeast. But kagbeasts were not intelligent, nor did their females rule their packs. In fact, female meth did not rule the primitive packs of the southern hemisphere, where silth births were rare. There the males hunted on equal footing.
When Marika asked, Dorteka theorized, “Female rule developed because of the high incidence of silth births in northern litters. So I have heard.
“Primitive packs such as your own are structured around the strong. When the strong become weakened by time or disease, they are pushed aside. But a silth could stave off challengers even though she was weak physically, and once in command would tend to be partial to those who shared her talent. In primitive packs where breeding rights are reserved for the dominant females, silth dominance would mean especial favor to the spread of the silth strain.”
Marika observed, “Then an old female like my instructress Gorry, at Akard, could stay in control till she died, yet could not lead or make rational decisions, really.”
Dorteka snorted. “Which indicts the silth structure, yes. For all the most senior said about trust and whatnot in your interview—yes, I have heard all about that—we live under rule by terror, pup. The most capable do not run the Communities. The most terrible do. Thus you have a Bestrei among the Serke without a brain at all but in high station because she is invincible in darkwar. She is one of many who would not survive long if stripped of her talent.”
After general history came another meal, followed by a long afternoon spent trying to harness and expand Marika’s talents.
Dorteka went through everything with her, side by side. She graded herself, making herself the standard against which Marika should perform.
Marika almost enjoyed herself. For the first time since the fall of the Degnan packstead, she felt like her life was going somewhere.
The exercises, the entire program, were nothing like what she had had to suffer through with Gorry. There were no monsters, no terrors, no threats, no abuses. For silth class Marika seated herself upon a mat, closed her eyes, led herself into a trance where her mind floated free, unsupported by ghosts. Dorteka adamantly insisted she shun those-who-dwell.
“They are treacherous, Marika. Like chaphe is treacherous. You can turn to them too often, till you become dependent upon them and turn to them every time you are under pressure. They become an escape. Go inside and see how many other paths lie open.”
Marika was amazed to discover that most silth could not reach or manipulate the deadly ghosts. That was a rare talent, dark-walking. The rarest and most dread talent of them all was being able to control the giants that moved the darkships—the very giants she had summoned at Akard for more lethal employment against nomads.
Her heart leapt when she learned that. She would fly!
Flight had become a goal bordering upon obsession.
“When can I begin learning the darkships, mistress?” she asked. “That is what interests me.”
“Not soon. Only after you have a sound grounding in everything it takes to become true silth. The most senior would like you to become a flying sister, yes, but I feel she wants you to be much more. I suspect she plans a great future for you.”
“Mistress?” At Akard there had been much talk of a great future, little of which anyone had been willing to explain.
“Never mind. Go through and see how far you can extend your touch.”
“To whom, mistress?”
“No one. Just reach out. Do you need a target?”
“I always have.”
“To be expected of the self-taught, I suppose.” Dorteka never became exasperated, even when she had cause. “It is not necessary. Try it without.”
Despite the grind, which left little time for sleep, Marika often visited her tower, sat staring at the stars, mourning the fate that had enlisted her in a sisterhood incapable of reaching them.
Dorteka’s sessions could be as intense as Gorry’s, if not as dangerous. Marika found herself grasping skills instinctively, progressing so rapidly she unsettled her instructress. Dorteka began to see what the most senior had intuited. That much talent in the paws of one raised to the primitive huntress world view, with its harsh and uncompromising values…. The possibilities were frightening.
Evenings after supper, Marika’s education turned to the mundane, to the sciences as the Reugge knew them. Though they were laden with a mysticism that left Marika impatient, her progress was swift, and limited only by her ability to grasp and internalize the principles of ever more complex mathematics.
Word came down from the most senior: expand the time given math. Let the sisterhood trivia slide.
Dorteka was offended. The forms of silthdom were important to her. “We are our traditions,” she was fond of saying.
“Why is the most senior doing this?” Marika asked. “I do not mind. I want to learn. But what is her hurry?”
“I am not sure. I am certain she would disapprove of my guessing. But I believe she may be thinking in terms of sculpting some sort of liberator for the Reugge. If the Serke keep pressing us and the winter keeps pushing south, we could be devoured within ten years. She does not want to be remembered as the last most senior of the Reugge Community. And she has begun to feel her mortality.”
“She is not that old. I was surprised when first I saw her. I thought she would be ancient.”
“No, she is not old. But always she hears the Serke baying behind her. However, that is not our worry. Mine is to teach. Yours is to learn. The whys are not relevant now. Time will unfold its leaves.”
Marika continued to advance at a rate that shocked Dorteka. The teacher observed, “I begin to suspect that, despi
te themselves, our sisters at Akard taught you a great deal. At this rate you will, in every way, surpass your own age group before summer. In some ways you already exceed many sisters accounted full silth.”
Much of what Marika encountered was new. She did not tell Dorteka that, afraid of frightening her teacher with the ease with which she learned.
After evening classes there was an events-of-the-day seminar conducted by the Maksche senior’s second, a silth named Paustch. This took place in the hall where Marika had confronted Gradwohl, and Marika was required to attend. She kept the lowest profile possible. Her presence was tolerated only because Gradwohl insisted. No one asked her opinion. She offered none. She had no illusions about her presence there. She was the senior’s marker, but she did not know in what game. She ducked out first when the seminar ended.
Thus she stayed close to the warming feud with the Serke, with the latest on nomad predations, gained an idea of the shape of politics between sisterhoods, heard of all their squabbles, caught rumors about the explorations of distant starworlds. But mostly the Maksche leadership discussed the nomads and the ever-more-common problem of male sedition.
“I came into this in the middle,” Marika told Dorteka. “I am not certain I understand why the problem is such a problem.”
“These males are few and really only a minor irritant,” Dorteka said. “Taken worldwide their efforts would not be noticeable. But they have concentrated their terrorism in Reugge territories, especially around Maksche. And a large portion of their attacks have been directed against guests of the Reugge—clearly an effort to make us appear weak and incapable of policing our fiefs. And the Serke, as you might expect, have been making the most of the situation. We have been subjected to a great deal of outside pressure. All part of the Serke maneuver against us, of course. But we cannot prove they are behind it.”
“If the behavior of males here is unusual…. Are these rogues homegrown?” As an afterthought, she added the appropriate, “Mistress?”
Dorteka’s ears tilted in mild amusement. “You strike to the heart of the matter. In fact, they are not. Our native males are perfectly behaved, though they often lend passive support by not reporting things they should. Sometimes they even grow so bold as to provide places of hiding. Certainly they sympathize with the rogues’ stated goals.”