Warlock

Chapter Sixteen

I

Gradwohl climbed onto a stool. "Sit if you like," she told Marika.

Marika settled crosslegged upon the floor, as had been the custom among the packs of the upper Ponath. Furniture had been unknown in her dam's loghouse.

"Tell me about yourself, pup."

"Mistress?"

"Tell me your story. I want to know everything there is to know about you."

"You know, mistress. Through your agent Moragan."

Gradwohl seemed amused. "She was that transparent?"

"Only looking back."

"Nothing substitutes for direct examination. Begin simply. Tell me your story. What is your name?"

"Marika, mistress."

"Tell me about Marika. From her birth to this moment."

Marika sketched an autobiography which included her first awarenesses of her talent, her unusually close relationship with her male littermate Kublin, her troubles with one of the Wise of her dam's loghouse, and all her troubles during her stay at the fortress Akard.

Gradwohl nodded. "Interesting. But possibly even more interesting in complete privacy."

"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 Ponath, 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, despite 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."

Those goals were nothing less than the overthrow and destruction of all silthdom. A grand vision indeed, considering the iron grip the Communities had upon the world.

III Marika's first attempt to visit Braydic did not go well at all. Called out of the communications center, the technician met her with evasive eyes and an obvious eagerness to be away. Marika was both amused and pained, for she recalled who it was who had held the door guards at bay in the heat of crisis.

"No one saw you, Braydic," she said. "You are safe. I doubt the guards themselves could identify you. They were on the edge of hysteria and probably recall you as being a demon nine feet tall and six wide."

Braydic shuddered and stared at the floor. Marika was disappointed, but knew what that momentary commitment had cost Braydic. She had risked everything.

"I owe you, Braydic. And I will not forget. Go, then, if you fear having me for a friend. But I promise my friendship will not falter for it."

Marika returned two weeks later. Braydic was no more sure of herself. Pained, Marika determined that she would not return again till she had attained some position of power, the shadow of which could fall upon Braydic.

She had begun to grow aware of the value and uses of power, and to think of it. Often.

That second visit, cut short, left her an hour free. She went to her away place in the tower.

Spring now threatened Maksche. The city lay under a haze from factories working overtime to fulfill production quotas before their workers had to report to the fields. Because of the shortening growing seasons, every worker now had to labor in the fields to get sufficient crops planted, tended, and harvested. Else the city would not make it through the winter.

This failing winter had been the worst in Maksche's history, though it was mild compared to those Marika had seen in the upper Ponath. But succeeding winters would be worse. The Maksche silth were now driving their tenants, their dependents, their meth property, so Maksche would be prepared for the worst when it came.

A darkship rose from the square below. The blade of the dagger turned till it pointed northward. Once it was above Maksche's highest structures, it fled into the distance.

From the date of the most senior's arrival, darkships had been airborne every day the weather permitted, hunting nomads, tracking nomads, scouting out their strong points and places of meeting, gathering information for a summer campaign. The Reugge could not challenge the Serke directly. They had neither the strength nor proof other Communities would consider adequate. So the most senior meant to defeat their efforts by obliterating their minions.

She was tough and bloodyminded, this Gradwohl. She meant to fertilize the entire northern half of the Reugge province with nomad corpses. And if she could manage it, she would add several hundred troublesome rogue males to the slaughter.

The cloister was ahum with an anticipation Marika hardly noticed. She did not expect to become involved in Gradwohl's campaign.

How long before Dorteka allowed her to explore Maksche? She was eager to be away from the cloister, to break for a few hours from this relentless business of becoming silth.

Maksche was odd, a city of marked contrasts. Here sat the cloister, all but its ceremonial heart electrically lighted and heated. One could get water simply by lifting a lever. Wastes were carried away in a system of sewage pipes. But outside the cloister's walls few lights existed, and those only candles or tallow lamps. Meth out there drew their water from wells or the river. Their sewers consisted of channels in the alleyways, washed clean when it rained.

It had not rained all winter.

Meth out there walked, unless they were the rare, rich, favored few who could rent dray beasts, a driver, and a carriage from the tradermales of the Brown Paw Bond. Silth sisters going abroad in the town usually rode in elegant steam coaches faster than any carriage. If Dorteka allowed her out, would she be permitted the use of such a vehicle? Not likely. They were guarded jealously, for they were very expensive. They were handcrafted by one of the tradermale underbrotherhoods not part of the local Brown Paw Bond, and imported. They were not silth property.

The traders sold no vehicle outright, but leased them instead. Lease contracts demanded huge penalty payments for damages done. Marika suspected that was motivated by a desire to keep lessees from dismantling the machines to see how they worked.

A tradermale operator came with every vehicle. Outsiders were not allowed to learn how to drive. Those males obligated to the vehicles of the cloister lived in a small barracks across the street from the cloister's main gate, whence they could be summoned on a moment's notice.

When her hour was up, Marika went to Dorteka and asked, "How many more points do I have to accumulate before I can go into the city?"

"It is not a point system, Marika. You can go whenever I decide you deserve the reward."

"Well? Do I?" She had held back nothing. Having been used as a counter in a contest she did not understand, for reasons she could not comprehend, she had gone all out to arm herself for her own survival. Dorteka could not have demanded more. There was no more she could give.

"Perhaps. Perhaps. But why go out into that fester at all?"

"To explore it. To see what is out there. To get out of this oppressive prison for a while."

"Oppressive? Prison? The cloister?"

"It is unbearable. But you grew up here. Maybe you cannot imagine freedom of movement."

"No. I cannot. At least not out there. My duties have taken me into the city, Marika. It is disgusting. I would rather not traipse around after you while you crawl through the muck."

"Why should you, mistress?"

"What?"

"There is no reason for you to go."

"If you go, I have to go."

"Why, mistress?"

"To keep you out of trouble."

"I can take care of myself, mistress."

"Maksche is not the Ponath, pup."

"I doubt that the city has dangers to compare with the nomad."

"It is not danger to your flesh I fear, Marika. It is your mind that concerns me."

"Mistress?"

"You do not fool me. You are not yet silth. And you are no harmless, eager student. A shadow lives behind your eyes."

Marika did not respond till she carefully stifled her anger. "I do not understand you, mistress. Others have said the same of me. Some have called me doomstalker. Yet I do not feel unusual. How could the city harm my mind? By exposing me to dangerous ideas? I have enough of those myself. I will create my own beliefs here or there, regardless of what you would have me believe. Or could it harm me by showing me how cruelly Reugge bonds live so we silth can be comfortable here? That much I have seen from the wall."

Dorteka did not reply. She, too, was fighting anger.

"If I must have company and protection, send my packmates, Grauel and Barlog. I am certain they would be happy to accept your instructions." Her sarcasm was lost on Dorteka.

She and Grauel and Barlog had been at odds almost since the confrontation with the most senior. The two huntresses had been making every effort to appear to be perfect subjects of the Community. Marika did not want them to surrender quite so fast.

"I will consider that. If you insist on going out there."

"I want to, mistress."

The great ground-level gate rolled back. Grauel and Barlog stepped out warily. Marika followed, surprised at their reluctance. Behind her, Dorteka said, "Be back before dark, Marika. Or no more passes."

"Yes, mistress. Come on!" She ran, exulting in her freedom. Grauel and Barlog struggled to keep pace. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"It stinks," Grauel said. "They live in their own ordure, Marika."

And Barlog; "Where are you going?" Already it was evident that Marika had a definite destination in mind.

"To the tradermale enclosure. To see their flying machines."

"I might have guessed," Barlog grumbled. "Slow down. We're not as young as you are. Marika, all this obsession with flying is not healthy. Meth were not meant for it. Marika! Will you slow down?"

Marika glanced back. The two huntresses were struggling with the cumbersome long rifles they carried. "Why did you bring those?" She knew Grauel preferred the weapon she had gotten from Bagnel.

"Orders, Marika. Pure and simple and malicious orders. There are some silth who hope you'll get killed out here. The only reason you get a pretense of a bodyguard is because you have the most senior's favor."

"Pretense?"

"Any other silth would have at least six guards. If she was insane enough to come out on foot. And they would not be so shoddily armed. They would not have let us come except that we are two they won't miss if something happens."

"That's silly. Nobody has been attacked since we've been here. I think all that is just scare talk. Good old grauken in the bushes."

"No one has been foolish enough to walk these streets either, Marika."

Marika did not want to argue. She wanted to see airships. She pressed ahead. The tradermales built machines that flew. She had seen them in her education tapes and from her tower in the nether distance, but it was hard to connect vision screen images and remote specks with anything real. The airfield lay too far from the cloister for examination from her tower.

An aircraft was circling as Marika approached the fence surrounding the tradermale enclave. It swooped, touched down, rolled along a long concrete strip, and came to a halt with one final metallic belch. Marika checked Grauel and Barlog for their reactions. They had seen nothing like it before. Servants of the silth saw very little of the world, and tradermale aircraft were not permitted to fly near the cloister.

They might have been watching carrion birds land upon a corpse.

"Let's get closer," Marika said. She trotted along the fence, toward a group of buildings. Grauel and Barlog hurried after her, glancing over their shoulders at the aircraft and at two big transport dirigibles resting in cradles on the far side of the concrete strip.

The advantage of being silth, Marika believed, was that you could do any All-bedamned thing you wanted. Ordinary meth would grind their teeth and endure. She breezed into an open doorway, past a desk where a sleepy tradermale watched a vision screen, dashed down a long hallway and out onto the field proper, ignoring the startled shout that pursued her. She headed for the freighters.

The nearest was a monster. The closer she ran, the more she was awed.

"Oh," Grauel said at last, and slowed. Marika stopped to wait. Grauel breathed, "All bless us. It is as big as a mountain."

"Yes." Marika started to explain how an airship worked, saw that she had lost both huntresses, said instead, "It could haul the whole Degnan pack. Packstead and all. And have room left over."

Tradermale technicians were at work around the airship's gondola. One spotted them. He yelled at the others. A few just stared. Most scattered. Marika thought that was amusing.

The fat flank of the ship loomed higher and higher. She leaned back, now as awed as Grauel and Barlog. She beckoned a male either too brave or too petrified to have fled. He approached tentatively. "What ship is this, tradermale?"

He seemed puzzled by that latter, dialect word, but got the sense of the question. "Dawnstrider."

"Oh. I do not know that one. It is so big, I thought it must be Starpetal."

"No. Starpetal is much larger. Way too big for our cradles here. Usually only the smaller ships come up to the borderlands."

"Borderlands?" Marika asked, bemused by the size of the ship.

"Well, Maksche is practically the end of the world. Last outpost of civilization. Ten miles out there it turns into Tech Three Zone and just gets worse the farther you go." He tilted his ears and exposed his teeth in a way that said he was making a joke.

"I thought I hailed from the last outpost," Marika countered in a bantering tone. "North edge of the Tech Two." If she could overcome his awe, he might have something interesting to say. She did realize that most meth considered Maksche the end of the world. It was the northernmost city of consequence in the Hainlin basin, the limit of barge traffic and very border of Tech Four-permitted machine technology. It had grown up principally to service and support trade up the Hainlin, into the primitive interior of the vast and remote northern Reugge provinces. "Well, savagery is relative. Right? We are civilized. They are savages. Come, Barlog. Grauel."

"Where are you going?" the tradermale squeaked. "Hey! You cannot go in there."

"I just want to look at the control cabin," Marika said. "I will not touch anything. I promise."

"But ... wait ... "

Marika climbed the ladder leading to the airship's gondola. After a moment of silent debate, Grauel and Barlog followed, shaking visibly, driven onward only by their pride. A Degnan huntress knew no fear.

Dawnstrider was a freighter. Its appointments were minimal, designed to keep down mass so payload could be maximized. Even so, the control cabin was bewildering with its array of meters and dials, levers, valves, switches, and push-buttons. "Do not touch anything," Marika warned Grauel and Barlog for the benefit of the technician, who refused to leave them unsupervised. "We do not want this beast to carry us away."

The huntresses clutched their weapons and stared around. Marika was puzzled. They were not ignorant Ponath dwellers anymore. They had been exposed to the greater meth universe. They should have developed some flexibility.

She did not remain impressed long. Dawnstrider was a disappointment, though she could not pin down why. "I have seen enough. Let us go look at the little ships."

She went down the ladder behind the technician, amused by the emotion betrayed in his every movement. She was getting good at reading body language.

She did not sense the wrongness till she had moved several steps from the base of the ladder. Then it was too late.

Tradermales rushed from beneath the airship, all of them armed. Grauel and Barlog snapped their weapons to the ready, shielded Marika with their bodies.

"What is this?" Marika snapped.

"You do not belong here, silth," a male said. "You are trespassing on brethren land."

Marika's nerve wavered. Yet she stared the male in the eye with the arrogance of a senior and said, "I go where I please, male. And you mind your manners when you speak-"

"You are out of line, pup. No one comes into a brethren enclave without permission of the factors."

He had the right of it. She had not thought. There were compacts between the Reugge and the tradermales. She had overlooked them in her enthusiasm.

A stubborn something within her refused to back down, insisted that she up the risk. "You better have these males put their weapons aside. I do not wish to harm anyone."

"I have twenty rifles, pup. I count two on your side."

"You are speaking to a darkwalker. I can destroy the lot of you before one trigger can be pulled. You think about dying with your heart ripped out, male."

His lips peeled back in a snarl. He was ready to call her bluff. The set of Grauel's shoulders said that the huntress thought her mad to provoke the male so, that she would get them all killed for nothing.

Fleetingly, Marika wondered why she did provoke almost everyone who ever challenged her.

"We shall see." The tradermale gestured.

Marika felt an odd tingling, like that she experienced around high-energy communications gear. Something electromagnetic was being directed at her. She spotted a tradermale in the background aiming a boxlike device her way.

She dived down inside herself, through her loophole, snagged a ghost, and slammed it into the guts of the box. She twisted that ghost and compressed it into an ever more rapidly spinning ball, all within an instant. She watched it shred wires and glass.

She came back in time to watch the box fly apart, to hear the technician's startled yelp. He raised a bleeding paw to his mouth.

Fingers strained at triggers. The leading tradermale betrayed extreme distress. "You see?" Marika demanded.

"Hold it! Hold it there!" someone shouted from the distance. Everyone turned.

More males were running along the airstrip. In a moment Marika realized why one seemed familiar. "Bagnel," she said softly. Her spirits rose. Maybe she would escape the consequences of her own stupidity after all.

The instant she began to see hope, she started worrying about the consequences that would follow the report that would reach the cloister. There would be a complaint, surely. Tradermales were said to be militant about their rights. They had struggled for ages to obtain them. Their organization was by-the-rules where those were concerned.

Marika was mildly amazed to discover she was more afraid of Dorteka than she was of this potentially lethal confrontation.

A few tradermale weapons sagged as they awaited those approaching. Tension drooped with them. Grauel and Barlog relaxed, though they did not lower their weapons.

Bagnel rushed up, puffing. "Timbruk, what have you got here?" He peered at Marika. "Ha! Well! And I actually thought of you when they told me. Marika. Hello." He interposed himself between Marika and the male he had called Timbruk. "Can we have a little relaxation here, meth? Everybody. Put the weapons down. There is no call to get anyone hurt."

Trimbruk protested, "Bagnel, they have trespassed ... "

"Obviously. But no harm done, was there?"

"Harm is not the point."

"Yes. Yes. Well, Trimbruk, if they need shooting we can do that later. Put the weapons down. Let me talk. I know this sister. She saved my life in the Ponath."

"Saved your life? Come on. She is just a pup. She is the one who ... ?"

"Yes. She is that one."

Trimbruk swallowed. His eyes widened. He looked spooked. He stared at Marika till she became uncomfortable. Twice his gaze seemed pulled toward a group of buildings at the north end of the field. Each time he jerked it back to her with sudden ferocity. Then he said, "Relax, brothers. Relax. Weapons on safety."

Marika said, "Grauel, Barlog, stand easy. Put your weapons on safe."

Grauel did not want to do it. Her every muscle was tense with a rigidly controlled fight-flight response. But she did as she was told, though her eyes continued to smolder.

Barlog merely heaved a sigh of relief.

Bagnel did likewise. "Good. Now, shall we talk? Marika, what in the name of the All did you think you were doing, coming in here like that? You cannot just walk in like you own the place. This is convention ground. Have they not taught you anything over there?

"I know. It was stupid." She stepped closer, spoke more softly. "I was just wandering around, exploring. When I saw the airships I got so excited I lost my head. I forgot everything else. I just had to look. Then these males ... " She broke off, realizing she was about to make accusations that would be unreasonable and provocative.

Bagnel was amused. But he said, "Did you have to be so ... I see. They have taught you-taught you to be silth. I mean, the way silth here understand being silth. Cold. Arrogant. Insensitive. Never mind. As they say, silth will be silth. Timbruk. It is over. There is no need for you here now. This is to be forgotten. No record. No formal protest. Understand?"

"Bagnel ... "

Bagnel ignored him. "I owe you a life, Marika. But for you I would have become meat in a nomad's belly more than once. I repay a fraction of the debt here. I forgive the trespass." In soft humor, he added, "I am sure your seniors would have a good deal to say to you if they heard about this."

"I am sure they would. Thank you."

Timbruk and his males were stalking away, some occasionally glancing back. Except for the male who had tried to use the box. Despite his wound, he was crouched over the remains, prodding them with a finger, shaking his head. He seemed both baffled and disturbed.

"Come," Bagnel said. He started toward the buildings through which Marika had made her dash.

She asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I am assigned here now. As assistant security chief for the enclave. Since I did such a wonderful job as security officer at Critza, they awarded me a much more important post." His sarcasm was thick enough to cut. Marika could not determine its thrust, though. Was he his own target? Or were the seniors who had given him the job?

"That was what you were doing up there? I always had a feeling you were not a regular wander-the forests-with-a-pack-on-your-back kind of tradermale."

"My job was to protect the fortress and manage any armed operations undertaken in the region of its license."

"Then you were in charge of that hunting party you were with the first time we met."

"I was."

"I thought old Khronen was in charge."

"I know. We allowed you think so. He was just our guide, though. He had been in the upper Ponath all his life. I think he knew every rock and bush by name."

"He was a friend of my dam. At least as near a friend as she ever had among males."

Bagnel, daring beyond belief, reached out and touched her lightly. "The memories do haunt, do they not not? We all lost so much. And those who were never there just shrug it off."

Marika stiffened her back. "Can we look at the small aircraft on the way to the gate?"

Bagnel rewarded her with a questioning look.

"The crime is committed," she replied. "Can I compound it?"

"Of course." He altered course toward a rank of five propeller-driven aircraft.

"Stings," Marika said as they approached. "Driven by a single bank nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engine that develops eighteen hundred meth power. Top speed two hundred ten. Normal cruising speed one sixty. Not fast, but capable of carrying a very large payload. A fighting aircraft. Who do tradermales fight, Bagnel?"

"You amaze me. How did you find out? We fight anyone who attacks us. There are a lot of wild places left in the world. Even here in the higher Tech Zones. There is always a demand for the application of force."

"Are these ones here for the push against the nomads?"

"No. We may reoccupy our outposts if the Reugge manage to push the nomads out, but we will not help push."

"Why not? The Brown Paw Bond suffered more than we did, if you do not count the packs. Posts all along the Hainlin ... "

"Orders, Marika. I do not pretend to understand. Politics, I guess. Little one, you picked the wrong sisterhood at the wrong time. Strong forces are ranged against the Reugge."

"The Serke?"

"Among others. They are the most obvious, but they do not stand alone. That is off the record, though. You did not hear it from me."

"You did not tell me anything I did not know. I do wonder why, though. No one has bothered the Reugge since they split from the Serke. Why start now?"

"The Reugge are not strong, Marika, but they are rich. The Hainlin basin produces a disproportionate amount of wealth. Emeralds out of the Zhotak-those alone might be reason enough. We Brown Paw Bond traders have done very well trading junk for emeralds."

Marika harkened to younger days, when tradermales had come into the upper Ponath afoot or leading a single rheum-greater, exchanging a few iron tools, books, beads, flashy pieces of cloth, and such, for the clear green stones or otec furs. Every year Dam's friend Khronen had come to the Degnan packstead, bringing precious tools and his easy manner with pups, and had walked away with a fortune.

The Degnan had been satisfied with the trades. Emeralds were of little value on a frontier. Otec fur was of more use, being the best there was, but what it would bring in trade outweighed its margin of value over lesser furs.

Junk, Bagnel called the trade goods. And he was right from his perspective. Arrowheads, axe heads, hoes, hammers, rakes, all could be manufactured in bulk at little cost in Maksche's factories. One emerald would purchase several wagonloads here. And books, for which a pack might save for seasons, were produced in mass in the city's printshops.

"Is that why the Ponath is kept savage?"

Meth, with the exceptions of tradermales and silth, seldom moved far from their places of birth. Information did not travel well in the mouths of those with an interest in keeping it close. How angry Skiljan would have been had she known the treasures she acquired for the pack cost the traders next to nothing. She would have believed it robbery. Just another example of innate male perfidy.

"Partly. Partly because the silth are afraid of an informed populace, of free movement of technology. Your Communities could not survive in a world where wealth, information, and technology traveled freely. We brethren would have our troubles. We are few and the silth are fewer still. Between us we run everything because for ages we have shaped the law and tradition to that end."

They walked around the fighting aircraft. Marika found its presence disturbing. For that matter, the presence of Dawnstrider was unsettling. Trade in and out of Maksche did not require a vessel so huge. There was more here than met the eye. Maybe that explained Timbruk's hostility.

"The Sting's main disadvantage is its limited range when fully fight-loaded," Marika said, continuing with the data she had given earlier.

"You are right. But where did you learn all that, Marika? I would bet only those of us who actually fly the beasts know all you have told me."

"I learned in tapestudy. I am going to be a darkship flyer. So I have been learning everything about flying. I know everything about airships, too."

"I doubt that." Bagnel glanced back at Dawnstrider.

"But those craft ... " Marika indicated several low, long, ovoid shapes in the shadow of a building on the side away from the city. "I do not recognize those."

"Ground-effect vehicles. Not strictly legal in a Tech Four Zone, but all right as long as we keep them inside convention ground. You came close to catching us using them that time you first met me."

"The noise and the smell. And Arhdwehr getting so angry. Engines and exhaust. Of course."

"Every brethren station has a few for emergency use. Mainly for hurried getaways. You remember the odd tracks going away from Critza? Where I said some of our brethren got out? Ground-effect vehicles made those. They leave a pretty obvious trail in the snow." He went on to explain how the machines worked. Marika had no trouble grasping the concept.

"There is much I do not yet know, then," she said.

"No doubt. There is much we all do not know. Let me give you some advice. Try to consider the broader picture before you let impulse carry you away again."

"What?"

"There is a great deal of tension between the Brown Paw Bond and the Reugge right now. Our factors not only refused to help reclaim the provinces overrun by the nomad, they would not lease the fighting aircraft the Reugge wanted. I do not pretend to understand why. It was a chance for us to sweep up a huge profit."

"I see." Marika considered the fighting aircraft once more. It was a two-seat, open cockpit biplane with two guns that fired through the airscrew, four wing-mounted guns, and a single gimbal-mounted weapon which could be fired rearward by the occupant of the second seat. "I would love to fly one of those," she said. The tapes mentioned capabilities that could be matched by no darkship.

"It is an experience," Bagnel agreed.

"You fly?"

"Yes. If there was trouble and the aircraft had to be employed, I would be a backup flyer."

"Take me up."

"Marika!" Grauel snapped.

Bagnel was amused. "There is no limit to her audacity, is there?"

"Marika," Grauel repeated, "you exceed yourself. You may be silth, but even so we will drag you back to the cloister."

"Not today, Marika," Bagnel said. "I cannot. Maybe some other time. Come back later. Be polite at the gate, ask for me, and maybe you will be permitted entrance-without all this fuss. Right now I think you had better leave before Timbruk goes over my head and gets permission to shoot you anyhow." Bagnel strode toward the gateway buildings. Marika followed. She was nervous now. There would be trouble when she got home.

Bagnel said, "I do not think your sisters would be upset if Timbruk did you in either. You still have that smoky look. Of the fated outsider."

"I have problems with the silth," Marika admitted. "But the most senior has given me her protection."

"Oh? Lucky for you."

They parted at the gate, Bagnel with a well-wish and repeated invitation to return under more auspicious circumstances.

Outside, Marika paused to scan the field, watched Bagnel stride purposefully toward distant buildings. Her gaze drifted to those structures in the north. Cold crept down her spine. She shivered.

"Come. We are returning to the cloister right now," Grauel said. Her tone brooked no argument. Marika did not protest, though she did not want to go back. She did have to cling to the goodwill of Grauel and Barlog. They were her only trustworthy allies.