Warlock

by Glen Cook

  She strafed survivors wherever she found them, like a pup torturing a crippled animal. She could have slaughtered them with her talent easily, but she was so filled with hatred that she took more pleasure in giving them a slow, taunting death, letting them run and run and run till she tracked them down.

  But by midday that had lost its zest. She returned to the enclave and settled into a more systematic, businesslike revenge. After spending a few hours demolishing the base, she went to her saddleship and resumed hunting survivors again.

  The brethren and rogues would not soon forget the cost of their treachery.

  She wondered if she ought not to try taking a few prisoners. Questions really ought to be asked about the fate of the wehrlen. If he had existed at all, his survival might well keep the rogue movement alive despite her fury.

  Toward sundown she suffered a horrible shock.

  She was circling above woods where a dirigible had gone down, and... two things happened at once. She detected a small force of dirigibles approaching the enclave from the north, which fired her hatred anew, while below her she detected a moving meth spark that was all too familiar.

  Kublin!

  III

  Kublin. More killer airships. Which way to throw herself?

  Those airships would not be able to flee fast enough to escape her. She could catch them later. Kublin might vanish into the forest.

  Down she went, among the trees, pushing through branches till her saddleship rode inches off the ground. She stalked him carefully, for he seemed quite aware that he was being hunted. He moved fast and quiet, with the skill of a huntress. Once, when she drew close, he sent a burst of automatic weapons fire so close one bullet nicked the neck of her saddleship.

  Kublin. The treasured littermate for whom she had risked everything. Here. With the killers of her cloister.

  Even now she did not want to harm him, though she remained possessed of a virulent hatred. She seized a small, feeble ghost and went hunting him, found him, struck quickly, and touched him lightly.

  He brushed the ghost aside and threw a stronger back at her, almost knocking her off her saddle.

  What?

  Wehrlen!

  Kublin?

  Another blow as ferocious as the last. Yes. It could not be denied.

  She dodged his blows and collected a stronger ghost, struck hard enough to knock him down. He struggled to fight off the effects.

  He did have the talent, though he was no stronger than a weak sister.

  In a way, it made sense. They were of the same litter, the same antecedents. He had shown a feel for the talent as a pup, a strong interest in her own early unfoldings of silth talents.

  She grounded the saddleship, rushed him before he could recover, hit him physically several times, then slowly, forcibly, nullified his talent, reaching inside to depress that center of the brain where the talent lived.

  Her attack left him too groggy to answer questions.

  She sat down and waited, studying the uniform he wore.

  She had seen its like several times before. The rogues wore uniforms occasionally. She had examined enough prisoners to have learned their uniform insignia.

  Either Kublin had adopted insignia not properly his or he was very important among the rogues. Very important, indeed. If his insignia could be believed, he was a member of their ruling council.

  She should have killed him in the Ponath. Before she asked the first question, she had the dark feeling the Maksche raid would not have occurred had she finished him there.

  She ached inside. He was still Kublin, her littermate, with whom she had shared so much as a pup. He was the only meth for whom she had ever felt any love.

  He recovered slowly, sat up weakly, shook the fuzziness from his mind, felt around for his weapon. Marika had thrown it into the brush. He seemed puzzled because it was not there beside him. Then his glance chanced upon Marika, sitting there with her own rifle trained upon him.

  He froze. In mind and body.

  “Yes. Me again. I did all that last night. And I have just begun. When I have finished, the brethren and rogues will be as desolate as Maksche. And you are going to help me destroy them.”

  Fear obliterated Kublins’s defiance. He never did have much courage.

  “How does a coward rise so high among fighters, Kublin? Ah. But of course. You rogues and brethren are all cowards. Slabbers in the back. Friends by day and murderers by night. But the night is the time of the silth.

  “No! I do not want to hear your rationale, Kublin. I have heard it all before. I have been feeding on rogues for years. I am the Marika who has taken so many of your accomplices that we no longer have room for laborers in the Reugge mines. You know what I am doing with them now? Selling them to the Treiche. They have a hard time maintaining an adequate work force in their sulfur pits. The fumes. They use up workers quickly. I do not think it will be long before the Treiche have all the methpower they can handle.”

  “Stinking witch,” he muttered, without force.

  “Yes. I am. Also an enraged, bloodthirsty witch. So enraged I will destroy you brethren and your proxies, the rogues and this warlock, even if I die in the process. Now it is time for you to sleep. I have more airships to destroy. Later, I will return and ask you about this great warlock, this great cowardly murderer who animates you rogues so.”

  He gave her an odd look.

  She continued, “This is the base from which the whole filthy thing was launched. It is fitting that the villains die here. I will wait here and slaughter your accomplices as they return.” She snagged a ghost and touched him, left him in a coma.

  She slew the crews of two airships. The others drove her off with the talent suppressors. She had made a mistake, destroying everything at the enclave. The Sting remained the best weapon against airships.

  Later, she decided. She would find more fighting aircraft somewhere else.

  The madness had begun to pass. She could not get her whole heart into the fight. It was time to move on. Time to take Kublin in and drain him of knowledge. Time to find the most senior and join her in assessing the damage to the Reugge Community.

  Time to rest, to eat, to recover. She was little stronger than a young pup.

  She returned to Kublin.

  He had wakened and gnawed at his wrists in an effort to kill himself. Her touch had left him too groggy to succeed. She was astonished that he had had the will and nerve to try. This was her cowardly Kublin? Maybe his courage was selective.

  She bandaged him with strips torn from his clothing, then threw him across the neck of her saddleship. She clambered aboard, called up ghosts, rose from the woods. Airships quartered the wind to the west, searching for those who had destroyed the enclave and attacked them. She bared her teeth in bitter amusement. Never would they believe that all that damage had been done by a single outraged silth.

  “Have to be more careful next time,” she mused. “The time after that for sure. They will be ready for any kind of trouble then.”

  As the saddleship limped eastward, slow and unstable with Kublin aboard, she fantasized about the Tovand, the main brethren enclave in TelleRai. A major strike there would make a dramatic statement. One that could not be misinterpreted. She imagined herself penetrating its halls by night, stalking them like death itself, leaving a trail of corpses for the survivors to find come sunup. Surely that would be something to make the villains think.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I

  Marika’s passage eastward was a slow one. The extra burden of her littermate added geometrically to her labor. And she had been expending her reserves for days.

  Each fifty miles she descended for an hour of rest. One by one, the moons rose. She considered Biter and Chaser and a point that might be the Serke voidship Starstalker. The weather seemed better lately. Did clear skies signal a change for the better? Or just a brief respite?

  It took her awhile to recall that it was the tail end of summer. In a month the
storm season would arrive. The snows would return. Below, scattered patches threw back silvery glimmers. Despite the season and latitude. It would get no better.

  As Marika neared the Hainlin she sensed something ahead. It was little more than a premonition, but she took the saddleship down. Kublin whimpered as the bottom dropped out.

  Too late. That something had sensed her presence, too. It moved toward her.

  Silth.

  She dropped to the surface, skipped off the saddleship, slithered into the brush, checked her rifle and pistol, ducked through her loophole to examine the ghost population. “Damn,” she whispered without force. “Damn. Why now, when I’m too tired to face a novice?” The All laughed in the secret night.

  She did her best to make herself invisible to silth senses.

  The silth did miss her on her first passage, sliding over slightly to the north. Marika extended no probes, for she did not want to alert the hunting Mistress or her bath.

  She felt the silth halt at the edge of perception, turn back. “Damn it again.” She slipped the safety off her rifle, then collected a strong ghost.

  She would not use the ghost offensively. She was too weak. She would fend attacks only, and use the rifle when she had the chance. Few silth expected rifle fire from other silth.

  Not once did it occur to her that the prowler might be friendly.

  The silth approached cautiously. Marika became more certain her intentions were unfriendly. And she was a strong one, for she masked herself well.

  Almost overhead now. Low. Maybe she could get a killing burst off before... A shape moved in the moonlight, dark, low, slow...

  That was no darkship! That was a saddleship like her own.

  Marika?

  There was no mistaking the odor of that touch. Gradwohl! A flood of relief. Here, mistress. Right below you. She left the brush and walked toward her own saddleship as the most senior descended.

  “What are you doing here, mistress?”

  “Looking for you. What have you been doing?”

  “I went after the raiders. Have you been to Maksche, mistress?”

  “I came from there.”

  “Then you know. I got them, mistress. All of them. And many more besides. Perhaps even their warlock. They have paid the first installment.”

  Gradwohl remained astride her saddleship, a twin of Marika’s. Marika mounted her own. Gradwohl indicated Kublin. “What is that?”

  “A high-ranking prisoner, mistress. Probably one of the leaders of the attack. I have not yet questioned him. I was considering a truthsaying after I have recovered my strength.”

  She felt rested after the few minutes down, despite the tension. She was eager to get back to Grauel and Barlog. She lifted her saddleship. Gradwohl followed, hastened to assume the position of honor. They rose into the moonlight and drifted eastward at a comfortable pace.

  I want you to drink chaphe when we get back, Gradwohl sent. I want you to rest long and well. We have much to discuss.

  Marika considered that thoroughly before she responded. Between them she and Gradwohl had seldom shifted from the formal mode, yet tonight there was an unusually odd, distant aroma to the most senior’s sending. She was distressed about something.

  What is wrong, mistress?

  Later, Marika. After you have rested. I do not want to go into it when you are so exhausted you may not be in control of all your faculties.

  Marika did not like the increased distance implied by the sending’s tone. I think we had best discuss what must be discussed now. In the privacy of the night. I sense a gulf opening between us. This I cannot comprehend. Why, mistress?

  If you insist, then. The Reugge have been crippled, Marika. This is what is wrong. This is what we must discuss. The Reugge have been hurt badly, and you want to make the situation worse.

  Mistress? The Reugge have been hurt, that is true, but we have not been destroyed. I believe the cornerstones of our strength remain intact. We can turn it around on the brethren and —

  We will turn it around, but not in blood. All the world knows what happened. No one believes rogues made the raids on their own, unsupported. Those, and Kiljar’s experience with the Serke voidship, have been enough to cause a general clamor for a convention. Even by some elements within the brethren. The Brown Paw Bond nearly ceased to exist because of the raids. Their enemies within the brotherhood tried to exterminate them along with us. The Redoriad are going to demand dismemberment of the Serke and the banning of all brethren from space for at least a generation. Already some among the brethren are crawling sideways, whimpering as they try to bargain for special consideration for their particular Bonds. They have imprisoned a number of high masters, saying they acted on their own, without approval, in a conspiracy with the Serke. We have won the long struggle, Marika. At great expense, yes, but without resort to challenge or direct bloodletting — other than that in which you have indulged yourself. It is time now to back away and let the convention finish it for us.

  You will accept that? After all these years? After all the Reugge have suffered? You will not extract payment in blood?

  I will not.

  Marika reflected a moment. Mistress, will I be continuing my education with Kiljar?

  Gradwohl seemed reluctant to respond. Finally, she sent, There will be no need, will there? Bestrei will have been disarmed by the dispersal of her Community.

  I see.

  I am not sure you do. Your focus is sometimes too narrow. That is why I want you to rest under the influence of chaphe. To become totally recovered before we examine this in detail. I want you able to see the whole situation and all the options. We will be headed for a period of delicate negotiations.

  What will become of Bestrei? She could not imagine a sisterhood being dismantled. But there were precedents. The Librach had been disbanded by force after a convention four centuries earlier, after considerable bloodshed.

  She will be adopted into another Community. If she wishes.

  And the Serke assets?

  They will be dispersed according to outstanding claims.

  The Reugge will possess the strongest of those. Yes? And because the brethren will pretend to have been used, and to be contrite, and will sacrifice a few factors, they will get off with a wrist slap. And in a generation, before you and I are even gone, they will be back stronger than ever, better prepared, more thoroughly insinuated into the fabric of society.

  Marika. I told you you should rest before we discuss this. You are becoming unreasonably emotional.

  I am sorry, mistress. I remain a Ponath bitch at heart. When I see bloodfeud directed my way, I have difficulty letting the declarer beg off if he sees that he is going to lose. Particularly when he will return as soon as he feels strong enough to try again.

  The brethren were manipulated by the Serke.

  You are a fool if you believe that, mistress. The brethren were the manipulators. You have seen the evidence. They used the Serke, and now I see them starting to use you even before they have shed their previous victims.

  Marika! Do not anger me. You have been brought far in a very short time. You are a member of the ruling council of the Reugge, soon to be one of the major orders.

  At the price of honor?

  Do not harp on honor, pup. Yours remains indicted by the existence of the male lying before you.

  Mistress? Coldness crept into Marika.

  Would you subject him to a truthsaying? Really? Now?

  It would provide the final proof of the villainy of the brethren.

  Perhaps. And what would it prove about you?

  Mistress?

  You accuse me, Marika. By your tone you accuse me of crimes. Yet I have forgiven you yours. Dorteka was precious to me, pup, yet I forgave even that. For the sake of the Community.

  You know?

  I have known for more than a year. The Serke presented the evidence. You saved a littermate in the Ponath. The result was what has happened these past few days. But eve
n that I can forgive. If you will shed the role of Jiana.

  Jiana? And, You engineered this holocaust? This is where you were headed all along? You had no intention of challenging Bestrei? Of breaking into the void? I was just your distraction?

  I pursued both goals equally, Marika. The success of either would have satisfied me. My mission is to preserve and strengthen the Reugge. I have done that. I will not permit you to diminish or destroy what I have won.

  You called me Jiana. I do not like that.

  There are times when you seem determined to fill the role.

  Mistress?

  Everywhere you go. Maksche is just the latest.

  I had nothing to do with that. I was in TelleRai when —

  You were. Yes. And that is the only reason you survived. The rhythm of your visits altered. The only reason the brethren attacked was to destroy you. You, Marika. The other attacks were diversions meant to keep aid from rushing to Maksche. But you were not there. You went off to TelleRai off schedule. You did not have the decency to perish. Accept, Marika. Do not continue to be a doomstalker.

  I am no doomstalker, mistress.

  Destruction walks in your shadow, pup.

  This is foolishness, mistress.

  First your packstead, Marika. Then your fortress, your packfast, Akard. Now Maksche. What has to happen before you see? The end of the world itself?

  Marika was baffled. Gradwohl had been sound of mind always, spurning such superstitious nonsense. This made no sense. All these things would have happened without me, mistress. The brethren and Serke began their game long before anyone ever heard of Marika.

  The All knew you. And the All moved them.

  Marika gave up. No argument could change a closed, mad mind. She peered down at moonlight reflected off the Hainlin. That was as much of the void as she might see. I want the stars, mistress.