Again that in-smash of anger, of near insane determination to see Marika punished for a crime the pup could not comprehend. Fear followed the thoughts, which were so repugnant Marika's stomach turned. She reeled away and her sensing consciousness whipped past her, into the shadows within Machen Cave.
She screamed.
Kublin clapped a paw over her mouth. "Marika! Stop! What's the matter, Marika?"
She could not get the words out. There was something there. Something big and dark and hungry in a way she could not comprehend at all. Something not of flesh. Something that could only be called spirit or ghost.
Kublin seemed comfortable with it. No. He was frightened, but not out of control.
She recalled Pohsit across the creek, nursing inexplicable hatreds and hopes. She controlled herself. "Kublin, we have to get away from here. Before that notices us."
But Kublin paid not attention. He moved forward, his step dreamlike.
Had Pohsit not been watching, and malevolent, Marika might have panicked. But the concrete danger on the far bank kept her in firm control. She seized Kublin's arm, turned him. He did not struggle. But neither did he cooperate. Not till she led him to the creekside, where the glaze left his eyes. For a moment he was baffled as to where he was and what he was doing there.
Marika explained. She concluded, "We have to go away as though nothing happened." That was critical. Pohsit was looking for something exactly like what had happened.
Once Kublin regained his bearings, he managed well enough. They behaved like daring pups loose in the woods the rest of the day. But Marika did not stop worrying the edges of the hundred questions Machen Cave had raised.
What was that thing in there? What had it done to Kublin?
He, too, was thoughtful.
That was the real beginning. But till much later Marika believed it started in the heart of that terrible winter, when she caught the scream of the meth on the breast of the cold north wind.
Chapter Two
I
Having questioned Marika till she was sure her scream was not one of her daydreams, Skiljan circulated through the loghouses and organized a scouting party, two huntresses from each. After Marika again told what she had heard, they left the packstead. Marika climbed the watchtower and watched them pass through the narrows around the stockade, through the gate, then lope across the snowy fields, into the fangs of the wind.
She could not admit it, even to herself, but she was frightened. The day was failing. The sky had clouded up. More snow seemed in the offing. If the huntresses were gone long, they might get caught in the blizzard. After dark, in a snowfall, even the most skilled huntress could lose her way.
She did not stay in the tower long. A hint of what the weather held in store came as a few ice pellets smacked her face. She retreated to the loghouse.
She was frightened and worried. That scream preyed upon her.
Worry tainted the rank air inside, too. The males prowled nervously in their territory. The old females bent to their work with iron determination. Even Zertan got a grip on herself and tended to her sewing. The younger females paced, snarling when they got in one another's way. The pups retreated to the loft and the physical and emotional safety it represented.
Marika shed coat and boots, hung the coat carefully, placed her boots just the right distance from the fire, then scampered up the ladder. Kublin helped her over the edge. She did not see Zamberlin. He was huddled with his friends somewhere.
She and Kublin retreated to a shadow away from the other pups. "What did you see?" he whispered. She had asked him to scale the tower with her, but he had not had the nerve. For all his weakness, Marika liked Kublin best of all the young in the loghouse.
He was a dreamer, too. Though male, he wanted much what she did. Often they sat together filling one another's heads with imaginary details of the great southern cities they would visit one day. Kublin had great plans. This summer coming, or next at the latest, he would run away from the packstead when the tradermales came.
Marika did not believe that. He was too cautious, too frightened of change. He might become tradermale someday, but only after he had been put out of the packstead.
"What did you see?" he asked again.
"Nothing. It's clouded up. Looks like there's an ice storm coming."
A whimper formed in Kublin's throat. Weather was one of countless terrors plaguing him for which there was neither rhyme nor reason. "The All must be mad to permit such chaos." He did not understand weather. It was not orderly, mechanical. He hated disorder.
Marika was quite content with disorder. In the controlled chaos of a loghouse, disorder was the standard.
"Remember the storm last winter? I thought it was pretty."
The packstead had been sheathed in ice. The trees had become coated. The entire world for a few hours had been encrusted in crystal and jewels. It was a magical time, like something out of an old story, till the sun appeared and melted the jewels away.
"It was cold and you couldn't walk anywhere without slipping. Remember how Mahr fell and broke her arm?"
That was Kublin. Always practical.
He asked, "Can you find them with your mind-touch?"
"Shh!" She poked her head out of their hiding place. No other pups within hearing. "Not inside, Kublin. Please be careful. Pohsit."
His sigh told her he was not going to listen to another of her admonitions.
"No. I can't. I just have the feeling that they're moving north. Toward Stapen Rock. We knew that already."
Only Kublin knew about her ability. Abilities, really. Each few major moons since last summer, it seemed she discovered more. Other than the fact that Pohsit was watching, and hating, she had no idea why she should keep her talents hidden. But she was convinced it would do her no good to announce them. Driven by Pohsit, the old females often muttered about magic and sorcery and shadows, and not in terms of approbation, though they had their secrets and magics and mysteries themselves-the sagan most of all.
Carefully worded questions, asked of all her fellow pups, had left Marika sure only she-and Kublin a little-had these talents. That baffled her. Though unreliable and mysterious, they seemed perfectly natural and a part of her.
Considering mysteries, considering dreams and stories shared, Marika realized she and Kublin would not be together much longer. Their tenth birthdays had passed. Come spring Kublin and Zamberlin would begin spending most of their time at the male end of the loghouse. And she would spend most of hers with the young females, tagging along on the hunt, learning those things she must know when she came of age and moved from the loft to the south end of the loghouse.
Too soon, she thought. Three more summers. Maybe four, if dam kept forgetting their age. Then all her freedom would be gone. All the dreams would die.
There would be compensations. A wider field to range beyond the stockade. Chances to visit the stone packfast down the river. A slim maybe of a chance to go on down the road to one of the cities the tradermales told tales about.
Slim chance indeed. While she clung to them and made vows, in her most secret heart she knew her dreams were that only. Huntresses from the upper Ponath remained what they were born. It was sad.
There were times she actually wished she were male. Not often, for the lot of the male was hard and his life too often brief, if he survived infancy at all. But only males became traders, only males left their packsteads behind and wandered where they would, carrying news and wares, seeing the whole wide world.
It was said that the tradermales had their own packfasts where no females ever went, and their own special mysteries, and a language separate even from the different language used among themselves by the males she knew.