"I see." The silth's tone said more than her words. It said that the feeling the sagan had for those of the packfast was reciprocated. "Come out of there, old fraud. Now."
Shaking, Pohsit came up. But she stopped when her feet cleared the cellar stair. She stared at the silth in stark terror.
For an instant Marika was amused. For the first time in her young life, she saw the sagan at a genuine disadvantage. And yet, there Pohsit stood, even while shaking, with her paw making slow trips from bowl to mouth with spoonfuls of stew.
"That is the male end of the loghouse, is it not, pup?" the taller silth demanded.
"Yes," Marika replied in a small voice. Pohsit was looking at her still, still poisonous with promise.
The sagan staggered. Her bowl and spoon slipped from her paws. Those flew to her temples. She screamed, "No! Get out of my head! You filthy witches. Get out."
The screaming stopped. Pohsit descended like a dropped hide, folding in upon herself. And for a moment Marika gaped. That was the exact rag pile she had seen during the night when she was not sure whether or not she was dreaming.
Had Pohsit been up here then? But the silth seemed surprised by her presence. Seemed to have discovered her only recently.
No sense here ...
But she had seen her dam, too, hadn't she? And Pobuda. And many others who could not have been there because they were all dead. Or was that a dream?
Marika began to shake, afraid that she had begun to lose her grip on reality.
The alternative, that at times she was not quite firmly anchored in the river of time, she pushed out of mind the instant it occurred. That was too frightening even to contemplate.
"Just as I thought," the taller silth said. "Terror. Pure cowardice. She hid down there thinking the savages would not look for her there."
Hatred smoldered in the eyes that peeped out of the skin pile.
Marika sensed an opportunity to repay all the evil Pohsit had tried to do her. She had only to appeal to these meth. But Pohsit was Degnan. Crazy, malicious, poisonous, hateful, but still closer than any outsiders.
Grauel and Barlog would be pleased to learn that one of the Wise, and a sagan at that, had survived.
As though touching her thoughts, the older silth asked, "What shall we do with her, pup?" Marika now knew them for the creatures her elders had muttered against, but still did not know what silth were.
"Do? What do you mean, do?" She wished they would give names, so she could fix them more certainly in mind. But when she asked, they just evaded, saying their names were of no consequence. She got the feeling they were not prepared to trust her with their names. Which made no sense at all. The only other outsiders she had met, the wandering tradermales, insisted on giving you their names the moment they met you.
"We have looked into this one's mind. We know it as we know our own now." A whine escaped Pohsit. "We know how she tormented you. We know she would have claimed your life had she the chance. How would you requite such malice?"
The question truly baffled Marika. She did not want to do anything, and they must understand that. One did not demand vengeance upon the Wise. They were soon enough in the embrace of the All.
The older silth whispered, "She is too set in savage ways." But Marika overheard.
The other shrugged. "Consider the circumstances. Might we not all forgive our enemies in a like situation?"
There was something going on that Marika could not grasp. She was not sure if that was because she was yet too young to understand, or because these silth were too alien to comprehend.
She had been convinced that Pohsit was mad for at least a year. Now the sagan delivered final proof.
Pohsit hurled herself out of the rag pile at Marika. An iron knife flashed, its brightness dulled by traceries of Bhlase's poison. Marika made a feeble squealing sound and tried to crawl out of the way. Her effort was ineffective.
But Pohsit did not strike. She continued forward, bent at the waist, upper body way ahead of her feet. Her legs did not work right. Marika was reminded of a marionette one of the tradermales used to demonstrate at the night fire after the day's business was complete. The sagan had that same goofy, flailing gait.
It carried her the length of the loghouse and into the wall a few feet to one side of the doorway.
Marika watched the old meth rise slowly, a whimper sliding between her teeth. She faced around and met the cold stares of the silth, thinking of trying again. In a moment she put the thought out of mind.
Pohsit's behavior made no more sense than ever.
"What shall we do with her, pup?"
Still Marika would offer the sagan no harm. She shook her head. "Nothing ... I do not understand her. I do not hate her. Yet she hates me."
"That is the way of the false when faced with the true. You know you will not be safe while she lives."
Fear animated Pohsit now, and Marika suddenly knew the silth were right: she had hidden in the male fane out of cowardice. "Pohsit. Pohsit. What do you fear? You are so old death must be a close friend."
A spark of hatred for a moment glimmered through Pohsit's terror. But she did and said nothing more. Marika turned her back. "Let her do what she will. It is all the same to me."
The silth began ignoring Pohsit as studiously as did Marika. After a time the sagan quietly donned a coat-someone else's, way too big for her-and slipped out of the loghouse. Marika saw the tall silth nod slightly to the older.
She did not understand that till much later.
II
The silth questioned Marika about her talent. How had she grown aware that she was unusual? How had her talent manifested itself? They seemed convinced it would have caused her grave troubles had she let it become known.
"Your dam should have brought you to the packfast years ago. You and your littermates. As all pups are to be brought. It is the law."
"I know little about the packfast and the law," Marika replied. "Except that not many meth pay attention to either here in the upper Ponath. I have heard many jests made at the expense of that law. And I have heard our teacher, Saettle, say we came into the Ponath to escape the law."
"No doubt." The taller silth was extremely interested in Machen Cave. She kept returning to that. She asked Marika to be more specific about her experiences. Marika related each in as much detail as she could recall.
"You seem a little uncertain about something. As though there is more that you are afraid to tell."
"There is more," Marika admitted. "I just do not know if you will believe me."
"You might be surprised, pup. We have seen things your packmates would deny can exist." This was the older silth. Marika was not entirely comfortable with that one. In her way, she had a feel very like Pohsit. And she evidently had the power to be as nasty as Pohsit wished she could be.
"The last time I was there I really was not there. If you see what I mean."
The tall silth said, "We do not see. Why do you not just tell it?"
"The other night. When dam and the others went out to raid the nomads. They were up at Machen Cave with a big bonfire and all their Wise doing some kind of ceremony. Anyway, I followed dam through the touch. It was stronger than ever. I could see and hear everything she saw and heard." She choked on her words, eyed the silth oddly.
"You have remembered something."
"Yes. There was one of your kind there. With the nomads ... "
Both silth rose suddenly. The tall one began pacing. The other hovered over Marika, staring down intently.
"Did I say something wrong? Did I offend?"
"Not at all," the tall one said. "We were startled and distressed. A sister like ourselves, you say? Tell us more."
"There is little to tell. Dam and Gerrien attacked the nomads. Most of them panicked and fled. But suddenly this one meth, dressed like you almost, appeared out of nowhere, and-"
"Literally?"
"Excuse me?"
"She materialized? In fact? She did not just step from behind a tree or something?"