Often when Marika did sleep she fell into a strange dream wherein she rode a surrealistic, shifting beast across a night infested with stars, without a wind stirring her robes and fur, without a planet below. There was peace in that great star-flecked void.
Mornings afterward she would waken with her determination refreshed, no longer caring if anyone loved her.
She was alive for the sake of a creature called Marika, not for anyone else. She would salvage the freedom of the Reugge if she could. She owed the Community something. If she succeeded, so much the better. If she did not, she would not much care.
She would help the Serke if there were no other way of opening her pathway into the great dark.
She was second chair, yet Gradwohl tinkered with it in a manner that there were no duties for her at Maksche. In time her campaign against the rogues was so successful she had little to do but monitor reports of ever-dwindling criminal activity. She began to find herself with time on her paws. That left her time to brood. She began to feel hemmed in, pressured, restless.
III It was the anniversary of Marika's confrontation in Bagnel's quarters. She had extended her morning exercises by an hour, but they had done nothing to stay her restlessness. A call to Bagnel had proven fruitless. He was tied up, unable to entertain her. She faced a long and tiresome day of poring over stolen texts, searching for something she did not already know; of skimming reports from Braydic's intercept teams and plant listeners, finding the same old things; of scanning statements from informants seeking rewards for helping capture members of the rogue movement.
She had had all she could stand of that. She wanted to be free. She wanted to fly.
"This is not what I want to do with my life. How do they get anyone to take first chairs? Barlog! Tell the bath to prepare my darkship."
"Marika?"
"You heard me. I am sick of all this. We're taking the darkship up."
"All right." Barlog disapproved. She had found herself a niche, helping direct the movement of information, which suited her perfectly. And she did not like Marika's laying claim to the ship. It was not yet assigned her formally. It still belonged to the cloister generally, though no one else had used it all year. Barlog was becoming very conscious of place and prerogative. "Where will you be going?"
"I don't know. I'll just be going. Anywhere away from all this. I need to feel the wind in my fur."
"I see. Marika, we have come no nearer finding the warlock."
Marika stifled a sharp reply. She was tempted to believe the warlock a product of rogue wishful thinking. "Inform Grauel. She'll need to find a sub if she has cloister duty today."
"Do you expect to be up long?" Barlog looked pointedly at a heap of reports Marika had yet to consider.
"I think so. I need it this time." She had done this before, but only for brief periods. Today, though, demanded an extended flight. The buildup of restlessness and frustration would need awhile to work off.
"As you command." Barlog departed.
Marika scowled at her back. For one who had come to set so much stock in place, Barlog was getting above herself. She shuffled papers, looking for something that might need immediate attention.
For no obvious reason she recalled something Dorteka had said. About a museum in TelleRai. The Redoriad museum? Yes.
TelleRai. Why not? She was secure enough now. Both in her power and within herself.
She summoned one of the novices assigned to run and fetch for her. "Ortaga, get me some medium-scale maps of the country south of here. The Hainlin to the sea, the coast, and everything west to and including the air corridor to TelleRai. As far south as TelleRai."
"Yes, mistress."
The maps arrived before Barlog returned. Marika laid out a flight path that would pass over outstanding landmarks she had heard mentioned by bath and Mistresses of the Ship with whom she had spoken. She told the novice, "I will be gone all day. I expect to return tonight. Have the other novices sort the papers the usual way. Tag any that look important."
"Yes, mistress."
"Barlog. At last. Is the darkship ready?"
"It will be a short time yet, mistress. The bath told me that they will want to fulfill the longer set of rites if you intend an extended flight."
"I see." Marika did not understand the bath. They had their own community within the greater Community, with private rites they practiced before every flight. The rites apparently amounted to an appeal to the All to see them through unscathed.
There were Mistresses, like Bestrei of the Serke, who considered their bath in the same class as firewood. They cared not at all for them as meth. They drew upon them so terribly they burned them out.
Even lesser and more thoughtful Mistresses had been known to miscalculate and destroy their helpers.
Marika took some coin from her working fund, then donned an otec coat. Otec fur was rare now. The coat was her primary concession to the silth custom of exploiting one's status. Otherwise she lived frugally, dressed simply, used her position only to obtain information. Any sort of information, not just news about rogue males or about the space adventures of the dark-faring Communities. She had accumulated so much data she could not keep track of it all, could not keep it correlated.
Grauel joined her as she and Barlog reached the grand court where the darkships came and went. Workers were removing hers from its rack. It was so light only a half dozen were needed to lift it down and carry it to the center of the square. They unfolded the short arms and locked them into place. Marika eyed the line of witch syrinxes painted on shields hung along the main beam.
"Someday I will have a darkship all my own. I will have it painted all in black," she said to no one in particular. "So it can't be seen at night. And we will add Degnan symbols to those of the Reugge."
"The tradermales could still follow you with their radar," Grauel said. "And silth could still find you with the touch."
"Even so. Where are they? Do their rituals take so long? Barlog, where are your weapons? We don't go anywhere without our weapons." She herself carried the automatic rifle and revolver captured in the Ponath. She carried a hunting knife that had belonged to her dam, a fine piece of tradermale steel. She never left her quarters unarmed.
Grauel still carried the weapon Bagnel had given her during the siege of Akard. It remained her most precious treasure. She could have replaced it with something newer and more powerful, but she clung to it superstitiously. It had served her well from the moment it had come into her paws. She did not wish to tempt her fates.
Barlog was less dramatically inclined. Marika often had to remind her that they were supposed to be living savage roles. Marika wanted other silth to perceive them as terribly barbaric. It amused her that those with the nerve sometimes asked why she did not wear ceremonial dyes as well as always going armed.
She never bothered telling them that the daily dyeing of fur was a nomad custom, not one indigenous to the Ponath. For all there had been a deadly struggle of years, most of the Reugge could not understand the difference between Ponath and Zhotak meth.
There was a chill bite to the morning wind. It made her eager to be up and away, running free, riding the gale. Someday she wanted to take the darkship up during a storm, to race among growling clouds and strokes of lightning. Other Mistresses thought her mad. And she would never be able to try it. The bath would refuse to participate. And they had that right if they believed a flight would become too dangerous.
Marika had worked long and hard to develop and strengthen her natural resistance to electromagnetic interference with her silth talents. But in her more realistic moments she admitted that even she would be overwhelmed by the violent bursts of energy present in a thunderstorm. Flight among lightnings would never be more than a fantasy.
Barlog came hustling back armed as though for a foot patrol against the nomad. She even carried a pod of grenades. Marika ignored the silent sarcasm, for the bath appeared at the same time, each with her formal greeting for the Mistress of the Ship. All bath seemed to be very much creatures of ceremony.
Each of the bath was armed as a huntress. They knew Marika's ways.
They did not like serving with her, Marika knew. But she knew it was nothing personal. The Reugge bath did not like any of the Reugge Mistresses of the Ship. It was part of their tradition not to like anyone who held so much power over their destinies.
"Positions," Marika said.
"Food?" Grauel asked. "Or have I guessed wrong? Will it be a brief flight?"
"I brought money if we need it. Board and strap, please."
The bath counted off the ready. "Stand by," Marika called, and stepped onto her station. Unlike the bath, she often disdained safety restraints. This was one of those times when she wanted to ride the darkship free, in the old way, as silth had done in the days of slower, heavier wooden ships.