The dream had tormented her every night since her return from the tradermale enclave. She had told no one, but Grauel and Barlog sensed that something was torturing her.
Marika wished she could go visit Braydic. The last time the dreams had come, soon after her arrival at Akard, following the destruction of the Degnan packstead, she had shared her pain with the communications technician. Braydic had been unable to interpret the dream. Eventually, she had agreed it must be Marika’s conscience nagging her because the dead of the Degnan pack had not gone into the embrace of the All with a proper Mourning.
After the return of the dreams, she had asked Grauel and Barlog where they stood in regard to that unsettled debt.
“We can do nothing now,” Barlog told her. “Someday, though, we will take care of it. Perhaps when you are important and powerful. The score is not forgotten, nor considered settled.”
That was good enough for Marika. But meantime she had to endure the horror of her nights.
Dorteka wakened her from this dream. She was early, but Marika was too fuddled to realize that till after they had been into their gymnasium routine for some time. “Why are we up so early?” she asked.
“We have new orders, you and I. We are headed north.”
“Up the river? To chase nomads?” Marika was astonished. It was the last thing she expected.
“Yes. The great hunt is in full cry. The most senior is sending everyone who has no absolute need to remain. She sent a note saying that means us especially.”
Just last evening word had come round that the most senior had ordered all patrolling darkships to destroy any meth they found upon the ground. They were to operate on the assumption that no locals had survived. No mercy was to be shown.
“What is it all about, mistress?” Marika asked. “Why is Gradwohl so determined? I have heard that winter may not break this year, at least in the upper Ponath. That the ground will remain frozen. No crops could be planted there. So why fight for useless territory?”
“Someone exaggerated, Marika. There will be a summer. Not that it matters. We are not going to send settlers into the Ponath. We are simply validating our claim to our provinces. In blood. Gradwohl is leading us in a fight against the Serke, and this is the only way we can battle them. Indirectly.”
“Why are the Serke so determined, then? I am told wealth is the reason. I know about the emeralds, and there is gold and silver and copper and things, but nobody ever did any mining up there. It is a Tech Two Zone. There must be some other reason the Serke risk conflict.”
“Probably. We do not know what it is, though. We just know we cannot allow them to steal the Ponath. Them or the brethren.”
“You think the reason the tradermales will not help us is because they want to steal the Ponath, too?”
“I expect the Brown Paw Bond would stand with us if they could. We have been close associates for centuries. But higher authority may have been offered a better cut by the Serke.”
“Could we not impose sanctions?”
Dorteka appeared amused by her naiveté. “Without proof? Wait. Yes. You know, and I know, and everyone else alive knows what is happening. Or we think we do. We suspect that the brethren and the Serke Community have entered into a conspiracy prohibited by the conventions. But no Community extant will act on suspicion. The Serke have Bestrei, and flaunt it. As long as the Reugge cannot present absolute and irrefutable proof of what is happening, no other Community faces the disagreeable business of having to take sides. They would rather sit back and be entertained by our travails.”
“But if the Serke get away with this, they will be a threat to everyone else. Do the other orders not see that? Armed with all our wealth, and Bestrei besides…”
“Who knows what is really going on? Not you or I. The other sisterhoods may be in it with the Serke. There are ample precedents.”
“It all seems silly to me,” Marika said. “Will Grauel and Barlog be able to go with me?”
“I am sure they will. You are a single unit in most eyes.”
Marika glanced at her instructress, not liking her tone. She and Dorteka tolerated one another because the most senior insisted, but there was no love between them.
Marika, Grauel, Barlog, and Dorteka, with their gear, boarded a northbound darkship about the time Marika should have begun her mathematics class. The bath, before going to their places at the tips of the short arms, made certain the passengers strapped themselves to the darkship’s frame. All gear went into bins fixed around the cross’s axis.
Marika paid much more attention to the darkship and its operators this trip. “Mistress Dorteka. What is this metal? I have seen nothing like it before.” It seemed almost invisible when probed with the touch.
“Titanium. It is the lightest metal known, yet very strong. It is difficult to obtain. The brethren recover it in a process similar to that they use to obtain aluminum. They fairly rob us for these ships.”
“They make them?
“Yes.”
“I would think it something we would do for ourselves. Why do we let them rob us?”
“I am not sure. Maybe because to argue is too much trouble. We do buy them, I think, because their ships are better. We have been buying them for only about sixty years, though. Before that most of the orders made their own. There was a lot of artistry involved. Most of those old darkships are still in service down south, too, around TelleRai and the other big cities.”
“What were they like? How were they different? And what do you mean, buy? I thought the tradermales only leased.”
“Questions, questions, questions. Pup…. They do not lease darkships. We would not let them get away with that. In some ways they have us too much in their power now.
“The old ships are not much different from those you have seen. Maybe smaller, generally. They were wooden, though. A few were pretty fanciful because they were seen as works of art. They were pawcrafted from golden fleet timber, a wood that is sensitive to the touch. The trees had to be at least five hundred years old before they could be cut. They were considered very precious. The groves are protected by a web of laws even now. So-called poachers can be slain for even touching a golden fleet tree.
“Every frame member and strut in the old ships was individually carved from a specially selected timber or billet. The way I hear, a shipbuilder sister might spend a year preparing one strut. It might take a building team twenty years to complete a ship. No two darkships were ever alike, unlike these brethren products. These things are plain and all business.”
All business maybe, but hardly plain. This one was covered with seals and fanciful witch signs that, Marika suspected, had something to do with the Mistress and her bath.
“You say those old ones are still around?”
“Most of them. I have seen some in TelleRai that are said to be thousands of years old. Silth have been flying since the beginning of time. The Redoriad museum at TelleRai has several prehistoric saddleships that are still taken up once in a while.”
“Saddleships?” Here was something she had missed in her search for information on flying.
“In olden times that sort of silth who today would become a Mistress of the Ship usually flew alone. Her ship was a pole of golden fleet wood about eighteen feet long with a saddle mounted two-thirds of the way back. You would find the Redoriad museum interesting, what with your interest in flight. They have something of everything there.”
“I sure would. I will find out about it if I ever get to TelleRai.”
“You will get there soon enough if Gradwohl has her way.”
“Then I suppose the reason for buying metal ships is because that is easier than making them.”
“No doubt.”
“Are there any artisans left? Sisters who could build darkships if necessary?”
“I am sure there are. Silth are conservative. Old things take a thousand years to die. And about darkships there are many still devoted to the old. Many who prefer the woode
n ships because the golden fleet wood is more responsive than cold metal. Also, many who feel we should not be dependent upon the brethren for our ships.
“The brethren keep taking over chunks of our lives. There was a time when touch-sisters did everything comm techs do now. Their greatest bragged that they could touch anyone anywhere in the world. That far reach is almost a lost art now.”
“That is sad.”
The darkship was fifty miles north of the city already. Ahead, Marika could just distinguish the fire-blackened remains of a tradermale outpost. Kharg Station. It marked the southernmost flow of nomad raiding for the winter. Its fall had been the final insult that had driven Gradwohl into the rage whence this campaign had sprung. Its fall had come close to costing Senior Zertan her position, for she had made no effort to relieve the besieged outpost.
“I think so, too. We live in the moment, we silth, but many long for the past. For quieter times when we were not so much dependent upon the brethren.” Dorteka eyed the ruins. “Zertan is one of those. Paustch is another.”
The darkship moved north at a moderate pace. After marveling at the view of the plain and the brown, meandering Hainlin, Marika slid down inside herself. For a time she studied the subtle interplay of talent between the bath and the Mistress of the Ship. These were veterans. They drew upon one another skillfully. Fatigue would be a long time coming.
Once she thought she understood what they were doing, Marika began cataloging all she knew about her own and others’ talents. She found what she was seeking. She returned to the world.
“Dorteka, could we not make our own metal darkships? Assuming we want to produce the ships quickly? We have sisters who could extract the metal from ore with their talents. It could not be difficult to build a ship if the metal was available.”
“Silth do not do that kind of work.”
Marika ran that through her mind, looking at it from every angle but the logical. She already knew the argument made no logical sense. She must have missed something because she still did not understand after trying to see it as silth. “Mistress, I do not understand.”
Dorteka had forgotten already. “What?”
“Why should we not build a metal darkship if it is within our capacity? When it is all right for us to build a wooden one? Especially if the tradermales are working against us.” There was some circumstantial evidence that a tradermale faction was supporting the ever-more-organized efforts of the rogue males plaguing the Reugge.
Dorteka could not explain in any way that made sense to Marika. She became confused and frustrated by her effort. She finally snapped, “Because that is the way it is. Silth do not do physical labor. They rule. They are artists. The wooden darkships were works of art. Metal ships are machines, even if they perform the same tasks. Anyway, we have tacitly granted that they fall inside the prerogatives of the brethren.”
“We could have our own factory inside the cloister….” Marika gave it up. Dorteka was not interested in a pup’s foolish notions. Marika invested in a series of mental relaxation exercises so she could clear her thoughts to enjoy the flight.
The darkship did not pursue a direct course toward Akard. It roamed erratically, randomly, at times drifting far from the river, on the off chance contact would be made with nomads. The day was far advanced when Marika began to see landmarks she recognized. “There, Grauel. What is left of Critza.”
“The tradermales will not be restoring that. That explosion certainly took it apart.”
Bagnel had set off demolition charges in what the nomads had left of the packfast, to deny it value to any nomads who thought to use it later.
“Now. There it is. Straight ahead,” Barlog said as the darkship slipped around a bend in the river canyon.
Akard. Where Marika had spent four miserable years, and had discovered that she was that most dreaded of silth, a strong darkwalker.
The remains of the fortress were perched on a headland where the Hainlin split into the Husgen and an eastern watercourse which retained the Hainlin name. It was webbed in by scaffolding. Workers swarmed over it like colony insects. The darkship settled toward the headland.
It was a scant hundred feet off the ground when Marika felt a sudden, strong touch.
Hang on. We have a call for help.
That was the Mistress of the Ship with a warning so powerful even Grauel and Barlog caught its edges.
Marika barely had time to warn them verbally. The darkship shot forward, rose, gained speed rapidly. The robes of the Mistress and bath crackled in the rushing wind. Marika ducked down through to examine the altered relationship between the Mistress and bath. The Mistress was drawing heavily on the bath now.
The darkship climbed to three hundred feet and arced to the east, into the upper Ponath. A few minutes later it passed over the site of the Degnan packstead, where Marika had lived her first ten years. Only a few regular lines in the earth remained upon that hilltop clearing.
Marika read grief in the set of Grauel’s upper torso. Barlog refused to look and respond.
The darkship rushed on toward the oncoming night. Way, way to her left Marika spotted a dot coming down from the north, angling in, occasionally spilling a crimson flash as sunlight caught it. Another darkship. Then to the south, another still. All three rushed eastward on intersecting courses.
Marika’s ship arrived first, streaking over a forest where rifles hammered and heavier weapons filled the woods with flashes. A clearing appeared ahead. At its center stood an incomplete fortress of logs. It was afire. Huntresses enveloped in smoke sniped at the surrounding forest.
Something black and wicked roiled around Marika. The darkship dropped away beneath her, plunging groundward. The darkness cleared. The Mistress of the Ship resumed control of her craft, took it up. Chill wind nibbled at Marika’s face.
Screams came from the forest.
The second and third darkships made passes while Marika’s turned. Marika went down through her loophole, located a ghost not bearing the ship, and went riding. She located a band of wild silth and wehrlen. They were feeble but able to neutralize the three silth who commanded the besieged workers and huntresses.
A hum past her ear pulled Marika back. The Mistress was into her second pass. Rifles flashed ahead. Bullets whined past the darkship. One spanged against metal and howled away.
Marika dived through her loophole, found a steed, lashed it toward the wild silth. She allowed her anger full reign when she reached them.
She was astonished by her own strength. It had grown vastly during her brief stay at Maksche. A dozen nomads died horribly. The others scattered. In moments the nomad fighters followed.
The darkships began flying fast, low-level circles, spiraling outward from the stronghold, exterminating fugitives. Marika’s Mistress of the Ship did not break off till after three moons had risen.
III
Paustch was in charge of the reconstruction of Akard. She was no friend of that uppity pup Marika or her scandalously undisciplined savage cohorts, Grauel and Barlog. She tolerated their presence in her demesne only a few days.
During those days Marika wangled a couple of patrol flights with the Mistress on whose darkship she had come north. The Mistress was not being sociable or understanding of the whims of a pup. She respected Marika’s darker abilities and hoped they would help her survive her patrols.
No contact came during either flight.
On her return from the second venture, Marika found Dorteka packing. “What is happening, mistress? Have you been recalled?”
“No. We have been assigned the honor of establishing a blockhouse directly astride the main route from the Zhotak south into the upper Ponath, somewhere up near the Rift.” The look she gave Marika said much more. It said this was an exile, and that it was all Marika’s fault because she was who and what she was. It said that they were being sent out into the wilderness because Paustch wanted her both out of her fur and into a difficult position.
Marika shrugg
ed. “I would rather be away from here anyway. Paustch and her cronies persist in aggravating me. I am long-suffering, but under the circumstances I might eventually lose my temper.”
Dorteka first tilted her ears in amusement, then came near losing her temper. “This hole is primitive enough. Out there there will be nothing.”
“The life is not as hard as you imagine, mistress. And you will have three experienced woodsmeth to show you how to cope.”
“And how many nomads?”
Marika broke away as soon as she could. She did not want to argue with Dorteka. She had plenty of firm enemies already among those who had power over her. Dorteka would never be a friend, but at present she could be counted upon for support as an agent of the most senior.
She was pleased to be assigned to a blockhouse garrison. It meant a respite from the grinding silth life, with all its ceremony and all the animosity directed her way. She did not enjoy that, though perforce she must live with it.
Next morning a school of darkships lifted Marika, Grauel, Barlog, Dorteka, and another eight huntresses and ten workers across the upper Ponath. The assigned site overlooked the way that had been both the trade route with and invasion route for the nomads of the Zhotak. Marika did not anticipate any real danger from nomads. She believed the savages all to have left the Zhotak long since. The vast majority should be looking for easy hunting far to the south of the upper Ponath.
“Dorteka. The nomads have lived hard lives ever since I have been aware of their existence. The Zhotak was a harsh land even before the winters worsened. Before they became organized, the raids they made were all acts of desperation. Now that they are fighting everywhere, all the time, they do not seem so desperate.”
“What are you driving at, pup?” They had just landed at the site, a clearing on a slope overlooking a broad, meadowed valley. There was a great deal of snow among the trees on the opposite slope yet.
“In the past they did not have time free from trying to get ready for the next winter to spend their summers attacking and plundering. Now they have that time. To me it would seem their problems getting food have lessened. But I do not see how that could be. They are hunters and gatherers, not farmers. The winters have wiped out most of the game animals. So where are they getting food? Besides from eating their dead?”