Ceremony

"Fear can inspire wonderful things. Rogue aircraft, eh? The Communities have let things go that far? Why do I bother trying to educate the fools?"

"Terrible things have happened, mistress. A fourth of the world is in rogue paws, mostly wilderness country, snow country, but held as firmly as any Community territory. More firmly, because it was from silth they took the land. The sisterhoods have ignored that, except for the few you organized to fight back. Many have become so frightened that they will not try to control the rogues. But you will find all that in Bagnel's reports. Let me continue.

"There were four rogue aircraft. I opened to the All and let it carry the struggle through me. I took the darkship down into rugged valleys where they could not follow, gathered and sent those-who-dwell. The rogue pilots were shielded by suppressor suits. But their aircraft were not protected. I downed three by damaging their control systems. The fourth fled. We sustained only minor damage.

"But as we neared Ruhaack we were hit by a suppressor beam. We were just two miles from the Redoriad cloister. I reached with the touch and appealed for help. None came. Rogues attacked on foot. There were at least a hundred of them, there in the shadow of that great cloister. It was a long, fierce fight. I slew many who were not protected by suppressor suits. But in the end we ran out of ammunition and they overwhelmed us.

"During the fighting I appealed repeatedly to both the Redoriad and Reugge cloisters. Finally the Reugge responded to my touch. Several darkships came out. They scattered the rogues and drove them off, but when they fled they took with them the voctor Grauel, the bath Silba, and the male Bagnel. The baths Rextab and Nigel were left dead. The rest of us were uninjured but in poor condition mentally."

The Mistress turned inward upon herself, remembering, radiating pain. Marika had to prod her. "Go on, please." She had a feeling there was more, and maybe worse, though her imagination had difficulty enough encompassing the disaster already set forth.

"Everyone refused to help us, then. We had been reduced to harmlessness, they thought, and that was enough for them. If they ignored us long enough, we would die eventually, I guess." A trace of sarcasm. "The threat of Marika's wrath would have no substance. She would be isolated in a far place. In time, I expect, messages would have gone out for all darkships to stay away from here, and recalling those few Mistresses who were with you. You would have been left to live out your life in exile."

Marika controlled the emotions boiling inside her. "I see. But?"

"I freely admit that some of us would have permitted that to happen had our own orders not treated us like bearers of pestilence. We suffered that for a few days only. Your voctor Barlog was enraged. She was also very determined to rectify the situation and to do something to recover our companions from the rogues-or at the very least to have vengeance. But as matters stood we were powerless. When even your own Community would do nothing ... We argued long hours and decided we had to come for you. Still, we were short of crew. And still we could recruit no aid of any sort. Finally our anger and disgust grew so boundless we decided to attempt the passage, feeble though we thought our chances were. The voctor Barlog, with no talent at all, volunteered to risk herself completely by standing bath.

"But before we departed, she insisted we had to recover Bagnel's reports from the Reugge cloister. At that point, I think, she was in full command, though she was not silth. We bowed to her age, wisdom, and, most of all, her determination, which is not unlike your own when your mind is set."

Marika was mildly amused. It had been a long time since any junior had dared speak so frankly. She found she approved.

The Mistress continued, "We slipped in by darkship, hovered outside the window of our quarters there, and Barlog broke in. It took her several trips to bring all the reports aboard. During the last of those several Reugge sisters tried to compel us to return them. Barlog was out of patience with silth political nonsense. Her words. She gu

"It was an heroic passage," Marika said. "If it does not spawn a legend it will be because of the fool nature of silth." Secretly, she was amazed that the Mistress had made it through-with almost no practical experience, only two bath, and a talent that was marginal at best. Her chances should have been nil. "There is a lesson in it that should not be lost. Determination counts for as much as any other factor. Where are Bagnel's reports?"

"Still aboard the darkship. In the carrier baskets."

"Thank you. This will not be forgotten. There will be great rewards and terrible reprisals because of what you have suffered. It has destroyed the last of my patience and mercy. You rest. You treat yourself well. I appoint you my deputy in my absence, with full powers to speak as I would speak."

"You are going back?"

"There are debts to be collected. There are friends in durance. This I will not tolerate." Within the hour Marika had conscripted a darkship crew and had had them ferry her out to her wooden voidship. III The homeworld of the meth swam before her. She drifted past the mirror in the leading trojan, noting that it was complete and in full operation. Afar, the second was so near completion it would be finished within a month.

Bagnel's report declared the long winter beaten. It was in retreat, though it would be a long time yet before it could be declared fully conquered.

The project was winding down. Briefly Marika wondered what impact that would have upon meth society. Perhaps the unity could be kept alive in projects designed to recover lands and resources the winter had given up.

She wondered for a moment about her place in history. It did mean something to her, despite her protests to the contrary. It concerned her a little because she had no friends among those who would do the remembering. She feared the silth would recall her for things that seemed to her of little real consequence, and others not for her accomplishments but her tyra

She did not worry about it long. She was silth enough to have little attention to devote to far futures.

She drifted past Biter, past Chaser and the lesser moons, past the Hammer and all the stations and satellites that had been orbited during the erection of the mirrors. She moved into position above the New Continent, well inside geocentric orbit, but remaining stationary with respect to the planetary surface, a fraction of her mind devoted to controlling those-who-dwell, who maintained her position.

They did not know she had come, down there. They did not know out there on the edge of the void. She had come with the stealth of a huntress intent on counting coup upon a rival packstead. They were not watching, anyway. They did not expect her. How could they believe that one novice Mistress with only two bath and a wounded voctor in support could run the long reach out to the alien starship?

She sent ghosts to explore the world below, carefully, carefully, lest their passage be detected. She found very little beside disappointment.

Skiljansrode-that Gradwohl had created, and she had shaped into an engine of silth-managed technology, and that Edzeka had developed into her personal technical Community-was no more. A gutted ruin, the surrounding snows littered with the corpses and machines and airships of those who had brought it low. Edzeka had been overconfident of her fortress, it seemed. But as she had promised, the warlock had paid a high price for his vengeance.