The senior did not live so well.
There was more comfort, and more wealth, in that one chamber than Marika had seen in her entire life at the Degnan packstead.
Gorry was recuperating upon a bed of otec furs stuffed with rare pothast down. The extremities of the room boasted whole ranks of candles supplementing the light cast by the old silth’s private fire. Fire and candles were tended by a nonsilth pup of Marika’s own age.
Marika saw many things of rich cloth such as tradermales brought north in their wagons, to trade for furs and the green gemstones sometimes found in the beds of streams running out of the Zhotak. There were metals in dazzling abundance, most not in the form of tools or weapons at all. Marika’s head spun. It was a sin, that power should be so abused and flaunted.
“Come here, pup.” The candle tender helped prop Gorry up in her bed. The old silth indicated a wooden stool placed nearby. “Sit.”
Marika went. She sat. She was as deferential as she knew how to be. When the rage began to bubble she reminded herself that Grauel and Barlog depended upon her remaining in good odor.
“Pup, I have been reviewing our attempts to provide you with an education. I believe we have approached it from the wrong direction. This is my fault principally. I have refused to acknowledge the fact that you have grown up outside the Community. I have not faced the fact that you have many habits of thought to unlearn. Until you have done that, and have acquired an appropriate way of thinking, we cannot reasonably expect you to respond as silth in an unfamiliar situation. Which, I now grant, all of this is. Therefore, we will set a different course. But be warned. You will be expected to adhere to sisterhood discipline once it has been made clear to you. I shall be totally unforgiving. Do you understand?”
Marika sensed the tightly controlled rage and hatred seething within the silth. The senior must have spoken to her. “No, Mistress Gorry.”
The silth shuddered all over. The candle tender wrung her paws and looked at Marika in silent pleading. For a moment Marika was frightened for the old meth’s health. But then Gorry asked, “What is it that you do not understand, pup? Begin with the simplest question.”
“Why are you doing this to me? I did not ask —”
“Did your dam and the females of your pack ask if you wanted to become a huntress?”
“No, mistress,” Marika admitted. “But —”
“But you are female and healthy. In the upper Ponath a healthy female becomes a huntress in the natural course. Now, however, it develops that you have the silth talent. So it is the natural course that you become silth.”
Marika was unable to challenge that sort of reasoning. She did not agree with Gorry, but she did not possess the intellectual tools with which to refute her argument.
“There is no choice, pup. It is not the custom of the sisterhood to permit untrained talents liberty within the Community demesne.”
Oblique as that was, Marika had no trouble understanding. She could become silth or die.
“You are what you are, Marika. You must be what you are. That is the law.”
Marika controlled her temper. “I understand, Mistress Gorry.”
“Good. And you will pursue your training with appropriate self-discipline?”
“Yes, Mistress Gorry.” With all sorts of secret reservations.
“Good. You will resume your education tomorrow. I will inform your other instructresses. Henceforth you will spend extra time learning the ways of the Community, till you reach a level of knowledge of those ways appropriate to a candidate of your age.”
“Yes, Mistress Gorry.”
“You may go.”
“Yes, Mistress Gorry.” But before Marika departed she paused for a final look around. She was especially intrigued by the books shelved upon the one wall beside the fireplace. Of all the wealth in that place, they impressed her most.
Sleep became a stranger. But just as well. There was so much to do and learn. And that way there were fewer of the unhappy dreams.
She was sure her haunt was Kublin’s ghost, punishing her for not having seen the Degnan Mourned. She wondered if she ought not to discuss her dreams with the silth. In the end, she did not. As always was, what was between her and Kublin — even Kublin passed — was between her and Kublin.
II
The dreams continued. Spotted, random dreams unrelated to any phenomenon or natural cycle that Braydic could identify. They occurred unpredictably, as though at the behest of another, which convinced Marika that she was the focus of the anger of her dead. Ever more of her nights were haunted — though she now spent less time than ever asleep. There was too much to learn, too much to do, for her to waste time sleeping.
Braydic told her, “I think your dreams have nothing to do with your dead. Except within your own mind. You are just rationalizing them to yourself. I believe they are your talent venting the pressure of growth. You were too long without guidance or training. Many strange things befall pups who reach your age without receiving guidance or instruction. And that among the normally talented.”
“Normally talented?” Marika suspected Braydic was brushing the edge of the shadow that had pursued her since she had noticed that something had passed among Akard’s meth. All treated her oddly. The pawful of pups inhabiting the fortress not only, as expected, disdained her for her rude origins; they were afraid of her. She saw fear blaze up behind evasive eyes whenever she cornered one long enough to make her talk.
Only Braydic seemed unafraid.
Marika spent a lot of time with the communicator now. Braydic helped her with her language lessons, and let her pretend that she was not alone in her exile. Seldom did she see Grauel or Barlog, and when she did it was by sneakery and there was no time to exchange more than a few hasty words.
“Gorry has much to say about you to my truesister, Marika. And little of it good. Some reaches my humble ears.” Nervously, Braydic set fingers dancing upon a keyboard, calling up data she had scanned only minutes before. Her shoulders straightened. She turned. “You have a glorious future, pup. If you live to see it.”
“What?”
“Gorry knows pups and talents. She was once important among those who teach at Maksche. She calls you the greatest talent-potential Akard has yet unearthed. Maybe as remarkable a talent as any discovered by the Reugge this generation.”
Marika scoffed. “Why do you say that? I do not feel remarkable.”
“How would you know? At your age you have only yourself as comparison. Whatever her faults, Gorry is not given to fanciful speaking. Were I in your boots I would guard my tail carefully. Figuratively and even literally. A talent like yours, so bright it shines in the eyes of the blind, can become more curse than gift of the All.”
“Curse? Danger? What are you saying?”
“As strength goes, pup. I am warning you. Those threatened by a talent are not shy about squashing one — though they will act subtly.”
Again Braydic tapped at a keyboard. Marika waited, and wondered what the communicator meant. And wondered that she no longer felt so uncomfortable around the communications center. Perhaps that was another manifestation of the talent that so impressed Braydic. The communicator did say she was dealing instinctively with the electromagnetic handicap that others never overcame.
Braydic yanked her attention back to what she was saying. “It is no accident that most of the more important posts in most of the sisterhoods are held by the very old. Those silth were only a little smarter and a little stronger when they were pups. They did not attract attention. As they aged and advanced, they looked back for those who might overtake them and began throwing snares into the paths of the swifter runners.”
What Pohsit would have done had she had the chance.
“They did not press those older than they.”
Marika responded with what she thought would be received as a fetchingly adult observation. She was a little calculator often. “That is no way to improve the breed.”
“Th
ere is no breed to improve, pup. The continued existence of all silthdom relies entirely upon a rare but stubbornly persistent genetic recessive floating in the broader population.”
Marika gaped, not understanding a word.
“When a silth is accepted as a full sister, her order passes her through a ritual in which she must surrender her ability to bear pups.”
Marika was aghast. That went against all survival imperatives.
In the packs of the upper Ponath, reproductive rights were rigorously controlled by, and often limited to, the dominant females. Such as Skiljan. Mating freely, meth could swamp the local environment in a very few years.
The right to reproduce might be denied, but never the ability. The pack might need to produce pups quickly after a wild disaster.
“A true silth sister must not be distracted by the demands of her flesh, nor must she be possessed of any obligation beyond that to her order. A female in heat has no mind. A female with newly whelped pups is neither mobile nor capable of placing the Community before her offspring. Nature has programmed her.”
Braydic shifted subject suddenly, obviously in discomfort. “You have one advantage, Marika. One major safety. You are here in Akard, which has been called The Stronghold of Ambition’s Death. None here will cut you in fear for themselves. They are without hope, these Akard silth. They are those who were kicked off the ladder, yet were deemed dangerous enough to demand lifelong exile. The enemies you are making here hate you because they fear your strength, and for less selfish reasons. Gorry dreads what you may mean to the Community’s future. Long has she claimed to snatch glimpses of far tomorrows. Since your coming her oracles have grown ever more hysterical and dark.”
Marika had assumed a jaw-on-paw attitude of rapt attention guaranteed to keep Braydic chattering. She did not mind the communicator’s ceaseless talk, for Braydic gladly swamped the willing ear with information the silth yielded only grudgingly, if at all.
“The worst danger will come when you capture their attention down south. And capture it you will, I fear. If you are half what Gorry believes. If you continue in the recalcitrant character you have shown. They will have to pay attention.” Braydic toyed with the vision screen. She seemed uneasy. “Given six or seven years unhindered, learning as fast as you have, the censure of the entire Community will be insufficient to keep you contained here.” The communicator turned away, muttering, “As strength goes.”
Marika had become accustomed to such chatter. Braydic had hinted and implied similar ideas a dozen times in a dozen different ways during their stolen moments. This time the meth was more direct, but her remarks made no more sense now than when Marika had first slipped in to visit her.
Marika was devouring books and learning some about her talent, but discovering almost nothing of the real internal workings of the Reugge sisterhood. She could not refrain from interpreting what she heard and saw in Degnan pack terms. So she often interpreted wrong.
Silth spoke the word “Community” with a reverence the Degnan reserved for the All. Yet daily life appeared to be every sister for herself, as strength goes, in a scramble that beggared those among frontier “savages.” Never did the meth of the upper Ponath imperil their packs with their struggles for dominance. But Marika suspected she was getting a shaded view. Braydic did seem to dwell morbidly upon that facet of silth life.
It did not then occur to Marika to wonder why.
She left her seat, began pottering around. Braydic’s talk made her restless and uneasy. “Distract them with other matters,” Braydic said. “You are, almost literally, fighting for your life. Guard yourself well.” Then she shifted subject again. “Though you cannot tell by looking, the thaw has begun. As you can see on the flow monitors.”
Marika joined Braydic before one of the vision screens. She was more comfortable with things than with meth. She had a flair for manipulating the keyboards, though she did not comprehend a third of what Braydic told her about how they worked. In her mind electronics was more witchcraft than was her talent. Her talent was native and accepted fact, like her vision. She did not question or examine her vision. But a machine that did the work of a brain... Pure magic.
Columns of numeral squiggles slithered up the screen. “Is it warmer in the north than it is here, Braydic?” She had sensed no weakening of winter’s grasp.
“No. Just warmer everywhere.” The communicator made a minor adjustment command to what she called an outflow valve. “I am worried. We had so much snow this winter. A sudden rise in temperature might cause a meltoff the system cannot handle.”
“Open the valves all the way. Now.”
“That would drain the reservoirs. I cannot do that. I need to maintain a certain level to have a flow sufficient to turn the generators. Else we are without power. I cannot do my work without power.”
Marika started to ask a question. A tendril of something brushed her. She jumped in a pup’s sudden startle reaction. Braydic responded with bared teeth and a snarl, an instinctual reaction when a pup was threatened. “What is it, Marika?” She seemed embarrassed by her response.
“Someone is coming. Someone silth. I have to leave.” She was not supposed to be in the communications center, exposed to its aura.
There were many things she was not supposed to do. She did them anyway. Like make sneak visits to Grauel and Barlog. The silth could not keep watch all the time. She slept so little. And the fortress’s huntresses seemed disinclined to watch her at all, or to report observed behavior that was not approved.
She suspected Grauel and Barlog were responsible, for allthey admonished her incessantly in their brief meetings. She caught occasional hints that her packmates had developed fierce reputations among Akard’s untalented population.
Marika slipped away through a passage which led to the roof and the metal tree. Up there the aura still disoriented her, though not so she was unable to slide away in the moonlight and take a place upon the northern wall, staring out at the bitter snowscape.
To her, winter did not appear to be loosening its grip.
From the edges of her eyes she seemed to see things moving. She did not turn, knowing they would not be there if she looked. Not unless she forced her talent with hammer-blow intensity.
She did not look up at the great cold sky either, though she felt it beating down upon her, calling.
Someday, she thought. Someday. If Braydic was right. Someday she would go.
Chapter Ten
I
It was a winter like the one preceding, when the doom had come to the upper Ponath. Harsh. But it began with a lie, hinting that it would be milder. After it lulled everyone, it bared its claws and slashed at the upper Ponath with storm after storm, dumping snow till drifts threatened to overtop Akard’s northern wall. Its chill breath howled without respite, and left everything encrusted with ice. For a time the Akard silth lost touch with their Reugge sisters in the south.
It was a winter like the one preceding. The nomads again came down out of the north in numbers greater than before. Many of the packs that survived the first invasion succumbed to this one — though much of the bad news did not reach Akard till after winter’s departure. Still, scores of refugees appealed for protection, and the silth took them in, though grudgingly.
Twice small bands of nomads appeared on the snowfields beyond the north wall, fields where during summer meth raised the fortress’s food crops. They examined the grim pile of stone, then moved on, not tempted. Marika chanced to be atop the wall, alone and contemplating, the second time a group appeared. She studied them as closely as she could from several hundred yards.
“They are not yet suicidal in their desperation,” she told Braydic afterward.
“The key phrase is ‘not yet,’” Braydic replied. “It will come.” The communicator was a little distracted, less inclined to be entertaining and instructive than was her custom. The ice and cold kept her in a constant battle with her equipment, and in some cases she did not possses the
expertise to make repairs. “This cannot go on. There is no reason to expect the winters to get better. They had best send me a technician. Of course, they do not care if they never hear from us. They would be pleased if the ice just swallowed us.”
Marika did not believe that. Neither did Braydic, really. It was frustration talking.
“No. They will not try it yet, Marika. But they will one day. Perhaps next winter. The next at the latest. This summer will see a stronger effort to stay in the upper Ponath. We have given them little difficulty. They will be less inclined to run away. And they are becoming accustomed to being one gigantic pack. This battle for survival has eclipsed all their old bitternesses and feuds. Or so I hear when my truesister and the others gather to discuss the matter. They foresee no turns for the better. We will get no help from Maksche. And without help we will not stem the flood. There are too many tens of thousands of nomads. Even silth have limitations.”
What little news filtered in with the fugitives was uniformly grim and invariably supported Braydic’s pessimism. There was one report of nomads being spotted a hundred miles south of Akard, down the Hainlin. Braydic received some very bitter, accusing messages because of that. Akard was supposed to bestride and block the way to the south.
The communicator told Marika, “My truesister will not send anyone — not even you — hunting nomads in these storms. We are not strong. We do not have lives to waste. Come summer. Then. When there is only the enemy to beware.”
Enemy. As a group. The concept had only the vaguest possibility of expression in the common speech of the upper Ponath. Marika had had to learn the silth tongue to find it. She was not pleased with it.
Indeed, the senior and silth of Akard did nothing whatsoever to arrest the predations of the nomads. Which left Marika with severely mixed feelings.
Packs were being exterminated. Her kind of meth were being murdered daily. And though she understood why, she was upset because their guardians were doing nothing to aid them. When some pawful of refugees came in, bleeding through the snow, frostbitten, having left their pups and Wise frozen in the icy forests, she wanted to go howling through the wilderness herself, riding the black, killing ghosts, cleansing the upper Ponath of this nomad scourge.