They went down deep into the guts of the old fortress, to a level that had been dug out after its abandonment, to a vast open area lighted electrically. Scattered about were the frames of a score of partially assembled darkships.
“They are wooden!” Marika exclaimed. “I thought—”
“We discovered that while sisters could extract titanium as you suggested, the process was slow and difficult. With modern woodworking machinery, we could produce a wooden darkship faster. Not elegant ships like those of the high period before the brethren introduced their imitations, but functional and just as useful as anything they produce. Over here are the four craft we have completed so far. We are learning all the time. Using assembly-line techniques, we expect to produce a new ship each week once we are into production. That means that soon no sisterhood will be dependent upon the brethren for darkships. We expect to produce a large reserve before circumstances force us to reveal ourselves. Come over here.”
Gradwohl led Marika to a large area separate from the remainder. It was empty except for a complex series of frameworks. “What is this?” Marika asked.
“This is where we will build our voidship. Our Reugge voidship.”
“A wooden one?”
“Why not?”
“No reason, I guess.”
“None whatsoever. And it would not be a first. Over here. Not exactly a darkship, but something I had put together for you. I thought it might prove useful.”
“A saddleship.”
“Yes.”
“It is gorgeous, mistress.”
“Thank you. I thought you would appreciate it. Want to try it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought you might take it back to Maksche.”
“But mistress….”
“I will follow you in case you have trouble managing it. It is not difficult, though. I learned in minutes. You just have to get used to not having bath backing you.”
“How do we get it out of here?”
“It disassembles. All these ships come apart into modules. We thought it would be useful to be able to take them inside, where they would be safer.”
Marika thought of the brethren’s airships and nodded. “Yes. All right. Let us do it.”
Half an hour later she was riding the wooden steed through the night a thousand feet up, racing the north wind toward Maksche. She found the saddleship far more maneuverable and speedy than the conventional darkship, though more tiring.
The experience filled her with elation. Gradwohl had to press her to take the saddleship down before the cloister began rising for the day. The most senior wanted her to keep its existence secret. “Use it only when you are certain you will not be seen. It is for emergencies. For times when you have to go somewhere swiftly and secretly. Which I will be talking to you about more later.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I
Most Senior Gradwohl’s “later” came just two weeks after she gifted Marika with the saddleship.
Those two weeks saw rogue pressure rise markedly. Marika sent three hundred prisoners to the Reugge mines. The sisters responsible for managing them protested they could feed no more, had work for no more. And still the rogue movement found villains willing to risk silth wrath.
They came from everywhere, and though few recalled how they had come to Reugge territory, it was obvious they had been transported. They spoke openly, almost bragging, of the great wehrlen who was their champion. But Marika could learn nothing about him. Could not even gain concrete evidence of his existence as more than a legend being used to motivate the criminals.
The rogues succeeded in killing a number of silth. They overran one small, remote cloister and slaughtered everyone within. Marika was distressed. She could not understand how those attackers could have been so successful. Unless they had been led by this wehrlen himself.
The rogues were active elsewhere, too, for the first time, though to a lesser degree. But whomever they struck, wherever, friends of the Reugge Community were hurt.
Even the Redoriad suffered.
There was one assassination right in TelleRai.
The Serke hardly pretended noninvolvement anymore. Marika intercepted a message in which a rumor was quoted. It claimed a senior sister of the Serke had said in public that anyone who stood with the Reugge could expect to suffer as much as did they.
Marika remained baffled by the Serke determination. And angry. She had to ask Grauel to keep reminding her to control her temper. At one point she nearly flew off on a one-meth mission to destroy a Serke cloister in retaliation.
Two weeks after receiving her saddleship, she began to get less sleep.
Gradwohl visited her. She was direct. “I have spoken with Kiljar, Marika. An arrangement has been made. Each third night you will fly to TelleRai, directly to the Redoriad cloister, where you will meet Kiljar. Your first few visits will be devoted to teaching you to pass as a Redoriad sister. When she is satisfied that you can do that, you will be introduced to the voidships.”
Marika had seen it coming, Her furtive late-night flights aboard her saddleship, which she could assemble and slip out the largest window of her quarters, had shown her it was capable of velocities far beyond those of a standard darkship. If she used the saddle straps, and lay out upon the saddleship’s neck, and bundled herself against the chill of passing air, she could reach TelleRai in two hours. Obviously, the most senior had had something in mind when she had the saddleship built.
“To the world’s eye you will remain here, pursuing your normal routine. Only the most reliable silth on either end will be aware of what is happening. We hope the Serke and brethren will be lulled.”
“I do not believe they will be, mistress. That is, they may not see what we are doing, but they already see the possibility. Otherwise they would not have resumed pressing so hard.”
“That will come up at the convention. The Serke are trying to avoid one, but they will not be able to stall for long. They have made themselves immensely unpopular. Their behavior is no longer a matter of strictly parochial interest.”
Marika went into TelleRai that night undetected, and joined Kiljar in her private quarters. She discovered that the Redoriad seniors lived very well, indeed. She did not learn much else that trip, except that she had limits. She barely had the strength to keep the saddleship aloft long enough to return to Maksche. She slept half the following day.
She returned to her work groggy of mind and aching in her joints. That she did not understand, for there had been nothing physical in her night.
The experience repeated itself each time Marika flew south, though each trip became easier. Developing endurance for flying was easier than developing it for running.
She had let her morning gym sessions lapse once Dorteka was no longer there to press her. She resumed those now.
Grauel caught on during Marika’s third absence. Marika returned to her quarters to find her packmates awake and waiting. They eyed the saddleship without surprise. Marika disassembled it and concealed the sections. Still they said nothing.
“Does anyone else know? Or guess?” Marika asked.
“No,” Grauel replied. “Even we do not know anything certain. It just seemed strange that you should be so tired each third day. Each time you looked like you had not had much sleep.”
“I should learn to bar my door.”
“That might be wise. Or you might have someone guard it from within. If there was anyone you could trust to do so.”
Marika considered the huntresses. “I suppose I do owe you an explanation. Though the most senior would not approve.”
Grauel and Barlog waited.
“I have been flying down to TelleRai. To train with the Redoriad silth. As soon as I can pass as a Redoriad sister I will begin learning the ways of their voidships.”
“It is what you wanted,” Barlog said.
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am still a Ponath huntress at heart, Marika. Still
Degnan. I was too old when I came to the silth. All this flying, this feuding, this witchcraft, this conspiring and maneuvering, they are foreign to me. I am as frightened now as I was when we arrived at Akard. I would as soon be back at the packstead, for all the wonders I have seen.”
“I know. But we have been touched by the All. The three of us. We have no choice of our own.”
“Touched how?” Grauel asked. “There are mornings when I rise wondering if it might not have been better had the nomads taken us all at the beginning.”
“Why?”
“Things are happening, Marika. The world is changing. Too much of that change centers upon you, and you never seem fully aware of it. There are times when I believe those sisters who feared you as a Jiana sensed a truth.”
“Grauel! Don’t go superstitious on me.”
“We will stand by you as long as we survive, Marika. We have no choice. But do not expect us to give unquestioning approval to everything you do.”
“All right. Accepted. I never expected that. Did anything interesting happen while I was away?”
“It was a quiet night. I suspect you were right when you predicted the rogues would give up on Maksche. You’d better rest now. If you still plan to go flying with Bagnel this afternoon.”
“I forgot all about that.”
“You want to cancel?”
“No. I see him so seldom as it is.”
Despite all else, she maintained her relationship with Bagnel. He maintained his end as well, despite hints that it was no longer fashionable with his superiors. He was, she felt, her one true friend. More so than Braydic, for he asked only that she be his friend in return. He stayed as close as Grauel and Barlog, in his way, without being compelled by their sense of obligation.
“Yes. Definitely. I’ll be going. I wish I could show him the saddleship. Maybe someday. Waken me when it’s time.”
Thenceforth Grauel and Barlog watched her quarters while she was away.
II
Marika had just come to the end of her seventh visit. She asked, “How much longer do you think, mistress? I am getting impatient.”
“I know. Gradwohl warned me you would be. Next time we will go aloft. The Mistress of the Ship and her bath will be preoccupied with the ascent. They should not notice your peculiarities. What they do note can be explained by telling them that you are from the wilderness. We will pass you off as a junior relative of mine. I come from a rural background myself, though I went into cloister younger than you did. We Redoriad keep a better watch on our dependents.”
“Three days, then.”
“No. Five this time. And find a reason for being out of sight longer. We will not be able to make an ascent and return in time to get you home in one night.”
“That may be difficult. Maksche keeps a close eye on Marika.”
“If you do not appear I will know that you were unable to make the arrangements.”
“I will manage it. One way or another.”
She did so by feigning ill health. She began three days early, pretending increasing discomfort. Grauel and Barlog aided in the deception. She received offers of help from the healer sisters, of course, but she put them off. Before departing, she told Grauel, “They will want to treat me when you tell them I am not feeling well enough to come out. If only so they can report my condition to my enemies. Stall them. I expect to be tired enough to look thoroughly ill when I get back. We can let them at me then. I’ll make a swift recovery.”
“Be careful, Marika.” Grauel was both in awe and dread of what Marika was about to do. “Come back.”
“It isn’t that dangerous, Grauel.” But, of course, she could not convince the huntress of that. Grauel was only a few years past not even being able to imagine walking among the stars.
Marika began assembling her saddleship, eager to be airborne, eager to be free of her mundane duties, eager to mount the voidship, and more than a little frightened. Her insides were tight with anticipation.
“This coming and going….” Grauel started, then tailed off.
“Yes?”
“I think some of the sisters are suspicious. You move at night, but the night is the time of the silth. Even at night there are eyes to see strange things moving above Maksche’s towers. There has been talk about strange visions in the moonlight. Whenever strange things happen they somehow become attached to the name Marika, despite the evidence. Or lack of it. I may not be able to keep the sisters from entering if—”
“You may go to any extreme but violence. This has to be kept quiet as long as possible. A leak could bring both the Reugge and Redoriad into direct confrontation with the Serke. That would mean the end of us.”
“I understand.”
Marika finished assembling the saddleship. She bestrode it, strapped herself into a harness she had modified, lay down behind the windscreen she had installed. Windscreen and harness adaptations made it possible to fly at great speeds.
She reached for ghosts. The saddleship lifted and drifted through the window, brushing its stone frame. She glanced back once to wave to Grauel, and saw Barlog come rushing into her apartment. What did she want?
No matter. Nothing could be more important than tonight’s flight.
She set her ghosts to work with a vengeance, raced away.
She thought she heard a far voice call her name, but decided it was just a trick of the air rushing around the windscreen.
Snow-splattered earth whipped past below.
III
Softly, Kiljar said, “Just stand there on the axis, the same as any passenger on any darkship.”
“Will we get cold?” Marika asked question after question, all of which she had asked before and had had answered. She was too nervous to control her tongue. She recalled Grauel or Barlog telling her, long ago, that she betrayed her fear because she talked too much when she was frightened. She tried to clamp down.
The senior bath left the Mistress of the Ship and came to Marika and Kiljar carrying a pot like a miniature of the daram cauldron that stood inside the doorway to the grand ceremonial hall at Maksche. She held it out to Kiljar. The Redoriad took it and drank. The bath then offered it to Marika, who sipped till Kiljar said, “That is enough.”
“It tastes like daram, but it is not as thick.”
“There is essence of daram in it. Several other drugs as well. They make it possible for the Mistress to draw fully upon everyone aboard. You will see.”
A feeling of peace crept over Marika, a feeling of oneness with the All. She turned into herself, went down through her loophole, watched as the Mistress gathered ghosts and drew upon her bath. The giant cross lifted slowly. Marika sensed the strain required to elevate so massive a darkship. She was tempted to help, overcame that temptation. Kiljar had admonished her repeatedly against doing anything but remaining an observer. There would be ample opportunity for participation later. First she had to experience being separated from her birth world, to explore a new realm of those-who-dwell.
The darkship rose straight toward Biter, which stood at zenith, glowing down from his pockmarked face. Higher and higher. For a time Marika did not realize how high, for there was no change in temperature nor of the rarity of the air she breathed.
Then she could see all TelleRai spread below her. She had flown very high aboard her saddleship, but never so high that she could see all the city and its satellites in their entirety. The satellites lay scattered over hundreds of square miles. To the west, clouds were moving in, rolling over the islands of light.
The Mistress of the Ship was surrounded by a golden glow. Turning, Marika saw that the same glow surrounded each of the bath. It was not intense, but it was there. She could detect nothing around Kiljar or herself.
She started to ask a question.
Touch, Kiljar sent. Use nothing but the touch.
Yes. The glow. What is it?
The screen that restrains the void. What some sisters call the Breath of the All.
We a
re surrounded, too?
We are. Watch now. Soon you will begin to see the horizon curve. Soon you will see the moonlight shining off the snow in the north. No. Not tonight. It is snowing there again. Off the backs of the clouds, then.
It is a rare night when it is not snowing north of Maksche, mistress. The darkship was gaining velocity rapidly. What is that glow along the horizon? The horizon had developed a definite bow.
Sunlight in the atmosphere and dust cloud.
Marika lost herself in growing awe. She could see almost all the moons. More than she had seen at one time before. She could discern a score of the satellites put up by the brethren and dark-faring sisterhoods. They were brilliant dots moving against the darkness.
What is that? She indicated a bright object rising from the glow along the edge of the world. It was too small to be a moon, yet larger than any satellite.
The Serke-brethren voidship Starstalker. Just in from the dark this week. We will pass near it. By design. The Redoriad ship is out, but Starstalker is similar.
Won’t they…?
Be upset? Perhaps. But they have no basis for a protest. We can look. Inside Biter orbit is convention space.
Marika glanced back at the world—and was startled. The Mistress had reoriented the voidship. The planet was down no longer. The darkship was moving very fast now.
She was in the void. If the glow she could not see failed her, she would die quicker than the thought.
All sense of motion vanished, yet the world continued to grow more curved. The bright spark of the voidship Starstalker drew closer, though the ship upon which Marika stood seemed at rest.
She looked upon the naked universe, sparklingly bright, clearer than ever she had seen it from the surface, and surrendered to awe.
Kiljar touched her. Over there. The darkness where there are almost no stars at all. That is the heart of the dust cloud. The direction our sun and world are traveling. It will become more dense before it clears. It will be five thousand years before we finish passing through.
That is a long winter.
Yes. We are getting close to the voidship. Do nothing to attract attention to yourself. They will be displeased enough as it is.