Ceremony

by Glen Cook

  “I think you have, mistress. I think you may have accomplished more than you suspect. I think you will be recalled as one of the great Redoriad.”

  “I am not sure I wish to be recalled that way, pup. I think I want to be one of the remembered names in your legend. I think I want to be remembered as your teacher, as the one who brought you to see your responsibilities, your importance, as she who taught you to harness your inclination to excess... “Kiljar succumbed to a racking cough. Unable to help, Marika clung to her paw and fought back the sorrow bringing the water to her eyes.

  Kiljar’s paw tightened upon hers. “I do not want to go into the darkness riding the fear that I have failed, Marika. You are not of my sisterhood. You are not of my blood. Yet I have made of you the favored pup of my pack. I have done much for you that you know, and much more that you do not. I have watched you grow, and have clung to life desperately in hopes that your growth would become complete and you would mature into a silth fit to stand beside Dra-Legit, Chahein, and Singer Harden. You are in the position, and these are the times. You have the power and the talent to shape the entire world. You are doing so, with your great metal suns. They are the one regret I know I will be carrying into the darkness. I would have lived to have seen them shedding their warmth.”

  Marika’s throat had tightened till she could scarcely speak. She had to struggle to croak, “Mistress, you have been a true friend. I have found few of those. It is not a world for making friends.”

  “The great never have many friends, pup. Perhaps I have been less a friend than you think, for I have had the temerity to try to shape your destiny. One friend does not try to force a role upon another.”

  “You are a friend.”

  “As you will. You know what I want, do you not?”

  “I think I do.”

  “You would, yes. You always know. But I will say it anyway. I do not want you to return to old hatreds once I can no longer be here to peer over your shoulder and be the whisper of your conscience. We have made a sound peace with the brethren. A peace that can last if it is given a chance. An accommodation with which the majority of silth and brethren both are content. To take up old grievances now would... “

  “I will not, mistress. Though my stomach sours and my heart still fears their power, I will do nothing to alter the balance. I have reoriented my future toward the stars, as I had aimed during my novitiate. I have done what I can here. I will take my anger into the void in my search for the rogue Serke and their brethren masters. I will do nothing here unless others force me.”

  “Yes. That is well. Go stalk the stars. Find the criminals. That is where the true danger lies--though it must be growing weaker. They have not been back, except to sneak messengers in, since you drove Starstalker into the void. But do not allow that hunt to rule you entirely, Marika. The All has given you talents most silth would commit the thousand crimes to possess. You have learned to evade the consequences of the Jiana complex. I hope. Its aura does not hang so strongly upon you now. You have resurrected the Reugge from the ashes and have given them the potential to become one of the great sisterhoods of the future.”

  Kiljar coughed again, not so terribly. Marika waited in silence, knowing Kiljar was working hard to get said what she had to say.

  “I suspect you now face an opportunity to do for the meth race what you have done for the Reugge. If you walk the stars in the proper frame of mind.”

  “Mistress?”

  “I see three frames. Three great portraits sketched upon a canvas of time, perhaps overlapping one another, all forming a complete new life. The first is that of a pup. I forsee you dark-faring for the wonder, for the thrill of venturing where none have gone before. That is a thrill I knew well when I was young and first faring the void.

  “A second frame surrounds your quest for revenge upon those who did you, the Reugge, and all silth so much evil. It is in your character to become fixed within that frame, and to lose the wonder and the grand potential of what could come of a successful stalk. You must carry with you always the knowledge that a successful hunt could define the entire future of our race. Have you thought at all about what might come of open intercourse between our world and that of these aliens the Serke discovered?”

  “Only a little, mistress,” Marika admitted. “My entire concentration has been devoted to the mirrors. But great evils or great benefits, surely.”

  “Indeed. One or the other, but nothing trivial. They will be very different, pup. Very different, indeed, from what I have been able to learn. You must realize that they will not all be magnificent and terrible weapons and technologies and whatnot that not even the brethren have begun to suspect. They will be modes of thought and slants of eye and ways of hearing that have not occurred even to our greatest thinkers. They will be the product of a distinct evolution, with all that implies in the way of millions of years of shaping minds as well as forms. They will infect us with ten thousand new ideas, new hopes, new fears--as, I am sure, we will infect them. Imagine the impact of the silth ideal upon a species that has no concept of that sort.”

  “I have seen the edges of such things, mistress, and I find them frightening.”

  “Indeed. And how much more frightening to silth who are narrower of mind? Who have known but one way since first rising to walk upon their legs alone? How threatening to them? There is great potential in this meeting of races, and its shaping for good or evil will lie strongly in the paws of the successor to Bestrei, for that successor will have the strength to determine anything she wishes in the void. You recall the frontier maxim you quoted to me so often. As strength goes.”

  “I understand, mistress.”

  “I hope you do, Marika. I pray you do. Truly. Like it or not, the future lies in your paws. You are the shaper. The eyes of all silth will be upon you after my passing. Your defeat of Starstalker’s raid and your mirrors have made of you the best known of silth, though you sought no notoriety. The world over, meth will look to you first. It is a heavy responsibility. Can you be a Dra-Legit? A Charhein? A Singer Harden for our times?”

  Had Kiljar not been so close to dying, Marika might have become impatient. At the moment she could say only, “I will not disappoint you, mistress.”

  “Good. Good, pup. And do not disappoint yourself. Sit with me now. In silence. I believe I am ready. I have done all that I must do.”

  Kiljar closed her eyes. Marika felt her composing herself through the mental rituals. She continued to hold the old silth’s paw.

  The All was not long in claiming Kiljar, then. And for hours afterward Marika did not think of anything else, did not once calculate what Kiljar’s passing might mean on the mundane level of what direction the Redoriad would now take. Even the importance of Kublin’s escape did not penetrate her awareness till she had come to an accommodation of her loss.

  In her grief she was reminded that even now, when she had acquired the power, she had not discharged a debt placed upon her when she was but ten years old. She had not seen to the Mourning of the Degnan pack. That was a thing that would have to be done. She would discuss it with Grauel and Barlog.

  Kiljar gone. The world would not be the same.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I

  Marika worked out her grief aboard her saddleship. She flew north, into the wilds below Skiljansrode, and spent three days in the hunt for Kublin. Three days during which few traces of the fugitive were found. He had planned well, her crafty little littermate. He traveled by night, in the dark of the moons, in snow storms, in high winds, seldom leaving a trail that could be seen from aloft the next day. Those who hunted him always knew where he had to be within a hundred square miles, but they could not pin him down more closely.

  After three days Marika left the hunt, resigned. The All would will Kublin caught or not, according to its grand design. She had more pressing matters to attend.

  She made daily pilgrimages into the void, studying the progress of the mirrors, learning the n
eighbor stars of her sun. Each of those, she discovered, had its unique flavor that she could identify instantly if she simply abandoned thought and opened to the All. Once she found the key the learning process accelerated till she could know a star in seconds.

  All was well with the mirrors. Bagnel kept a firm paw on the project. She was not needed there looking over everyone’s shoulder every moment.

  She went out to Kim again and experimented there, and found she was able to learn the new, strange stars visible only from there in just a matter of hours.

  Home again, after having intentionally stretched herself by not pausing to rest upon the planet. She returned to Ruhaack to catch up on the situation upon the homeworld.

  Kublin had not been taken, though Bagnel had sent a squadron of dirigibles to help with the search. Their technological advantages had been of no value.

  Marika began to suspect that her littermate had used the fartouch to call in help after all.

  She learned that the new most senior of the Redoriad was a silth named Balbrach, who had been nominated by Kiljar before her passing. Balbrach had pledged to pursue her predecessor’s policies, particularly in operating in concert with the Reugge. The alliance represented a concentration of power unseen for generations.

  There had been a Serke courier incursion. The patrols hoping to jump the messenger had been insufficiently alert. The darkship had gotten past them and gotten down without betraying its landing site.

  “We’re still hunting for them,” Bagnel told her. “We have traces picked up by satellite, but the optics just aren’t what they should be. If our resources weren’t so totally committed to the mirror project, we might develop an observation network... “

  “It isn’t really that critical. What we have will do the job. It’s just a matter of forging better communications between your radar operators and our huntresses.”

  Bagnel was amused. “Of course. Just plant a qualified fartoucher in each of our installations. Or put one of our radio operators aboard each of your darkships. Nothing to it. Assuming you can get around however many millennia of tradition.”

  “Of course,” Marika said, with sarcasm equaling his. “Nothing to it. There are times when I wonder how we meth have managed to survive.”

  Bagnel had come down from the Hammer soon after learning of her return. He had called her from the brethren legation at Ruhaack and they had flown together into the wastes to that remote base from which the Reugge cloister at Maksche had been attacked. The brethren still maintained a small establishment there, rebuilt after Marika destroyed the base, as a way station at the intersection of dirigible lines. Marika had gone out upon her saddleship, flying off the wing of Bagnel’s increasingly venerable Sting fighter. Now they were aloft in the Sting, putting it through its paces.

  “I hear you’ve been promoted again,” Marika said.

  “Yes. As always, the factors reward incompetence. The leading mirror is now all mine to demolish.”

  Marika was amused. He was so persistently negative about his own abilities. “I will be going away soon, Bagnel. As soon as modifications to my darkship are completed and I have trained a group of new bath.” She had asked for the four strongest upcoming bath the Reugge and Redoriad could provide. The extra would be a reserve, would allow rest and rotation during extended interstellar passages. And she had a further experiment in mind that would require the presence of an extra silth. “I have the darkship at the dome on Biter being fitted to carry a detachable pod in which we can haul stores.”

  “Then you plan to be gone a long time.”

  “I’ll be back in plenty of time to celebrate the triumphant completion of the first mirror.”

  “I see little enough of you now. If you disappear for years again... “

  “I seriously doubt I will be gone that long. I was teasing.”

  “You’re going after the Serke, aren’t you?”

  “That’s the main reason. But also to see what’s out there. Just to see it.”

  “Then the Serke are as much excuse as they are reason.”

  “Of course they are. I’m really going because that is what I’ve wanted to do from the moment we pups first heard stories of meth who went to the stars.”

  “I wish I could see... “

  “You could. One more wouldn’t make much difference. You might decrease our range, but not enough to concern me.”

  “I wish... I have too many responsibilities, Marika. We have reached a point where the mirrors definitely look practical. No, I couldn’t. Yes, I would like to see the stars. Maybe later. After this is done and the warm is falling. After you have done what you have to do. And that frightens me.”

  “Why?”

  “I am frightened by what you may find. What you have been doing cannot remain a secret. Those here who are still in contact with your enemies will hear about what you are doing. And they will relay the news. It will find the Serke before you do. And because you are Marika, and can do what other silth cannot, they will be afraid. They will prepare for you. They’ll be waiting.”

  Marika had thought of that, and it was of concern to her. She did not know how to prevent it. “You’ll just have to do better preventing contact. That’s all I can say.”

  “You know I’ll try. But do not forget that that is not my specific responsibility. I can only nudge and urge and appeal and beg and suggest. Others, perhaps with less concern for your welfare, will be in control.”

  “I have faith in you, Bagnel. Fear not. We will fly together again, in this same box of rusty bolts, over this same barren landscape. Let’s hope it’s on a day when fewer dooms shadow the world.”

  “That can’t help but be, I think. Though the dooms breed.”

  Marika’s eyes narrowed. “You are trying to tell me something.”

  “Perhaps... Being out at the mirror or the Hammer most of the time, I have little opportunity to keep track of what those who look for rogues are doing. But before I joined you a friend came to me with the latest rumor they had tapped.”

  “Yes?”

  “The warlock is back.”

  Marika took a minute to get herself under control. Then she took another. “That is impossible. He perished when I destroyed those who had ravaged Maksche.”

  “I report only hearsay.”

  “The warlock?”

  “The same one. The one who was the rogues’ great hope a few years ago.”

  “I suppose it had to be,” Marika murmured. “And I blinded myself.”

  “What?”

  “I have done the unforgivable, Bagnel. I have made the same mistake twice. That is never forgiven.”

  But who could believe Kublin in the role of the warlock? A whimpering coward?

  “What is it, Marika?”

  “Nothing crucial. Let’s fly a bit more, in silence, then take our leave.”

  There was something Marika had to do before departing, before pursuing her stalk among the stars, and she was afraid.

  II

  Marika brought the darkship out of the Up-and-Over virtually on top of the darkness that lurked at the edge of her home system. That blackness reeked to the touch, stinking of wickedness and death, of gnawed bones and ripped flesh and corrupt corpses and hatred unconstrained. If the void had a heart of evil, this ghost was its animate form.

  This ghost was like no other she had encountered, and she had identified hundreds of different kinds. This ghost was, in a way, an absence. Most others seemed bright, flighty, sometimes curious, sometimes afraid, but always colorful and seldom inimical unless under silth direction.

  This was an absence of color moved by its own grand malice. It was a thing that did not need direction to be inimical. It would strike out at the unwary. Only because it could not move as swiftly as lesser voidghosts, and because the silth had learned to appease and baffle and, rarely, to control it, did it not strike every darkship that tried to leave the system.

  Control. That was Marika’s goal. The highest or darkest
of dark-sider sorceries, managed only by a dozen silth before her...

  It moved toward her, almost as swiftly as thought. She squeezed the ghosts that carried her darkship, fleeing, pulling it along after her, staying out of its reach while she explored it with her touch.

  She let it catch up.

  Three times she recoiled from its cold, malignant vibration before she found sufficient courage to reach farther, to strive to control it.

  Control came far more easily than she had expected. In some way she could not fathom her dark side spoke to its, and meshed with it, and, in moments, the great monster became an extension of her will, a force she could hurl as simply as tossing a pebble with a flick of her wrist. She threw it at a piece of cometary debris. It struck savagely, compressed, caused gases to boil, to explode. A short-lived flare illuminated space.

  Marika turned loose and backed away, awed. So much power! No wonder Bestrei was feared.

  She reached again, lightly, and found the darkness possessed of a fearful respect for her, a vague, almost thoughtless admiration for her dark power. It acknowledged her its mistress after those few moments.

  She backed away again. And now, at last, she began to see and understand what it was so many silth had seen in her, and had feared.

  She reviewed the strongest silth she knew, and knew none of them could have done what she had. Few could have taken control of the ghost at all, let alone so swiftly, so easily, so thoroughly.

  And she knew, then, what it was she had sensed about Bestrei that time when their trails had crossed. Bestrei could take a great dark ghost easily too--though hopefully without imagination, or cunning, or any especial ability to direct it with her intellect. Bestrei, too, was slanted far toward the dark side.

  Marika turned and drove toward the homeworld, toward the dome upon Biter where her venture was being prepared, but she watched over her shoulder, considering a region about thirty degrees to one side of the Manestar. Bestrei, she sent, in a hopeless long touch. I am coming, The long wait of the meth is nearly done. Soon we will meet.