Glen Cook - Doomstalker

And there were the rare few who lived the dream. They could leave the planet itself, to venture among the stars, to see strange worlds and stranger races. But there was little said of that in the early days. Just enough to whet her appetite for more.

The second pathway of learning resembled the first, and paralleled it, but dealt only with the Reugge sisterhood itself, teaching the sisterhood's history, its primary rituals, its elementary mysteries. And mercilessly pounded away at the notion that the Reugge sisterhood constituted the axis of the meth universe. Marika tired of that quickly. The message was too blatantly self-serving.

The third course ...

In the third pathway Marika learned why her dam had feared and hated silth. She learned what it meant to be silth. She studied to become silth. And that was the most demanding, unrelenting study of all.

Her guide in study, her guardian within the packfast, was named Gorry.

Gorry was the elder of the females who had brought her from the packstead. She never quite recovered from that journey. She blamed her enfeebled health upon Marika. She was a hard, unforgiving, unpleasant, and jealous instructress.

Marika preferred her to the one called Khles, though. The healer sisters did have to take her leg. And after that loss she became embittered. Everyone avoided her as much as possible.

Still they would not allow Marika to see Grauel or Barlog. She began to understand that they were trying to isolate her from any reminder of her origins.

She would not permit that.

III

Marika stood at the center of a white stone floor in a vast hall in the heart of Akard fortress. The floor around her was inlaid with green, red, and black stone, formed into boundaries and symbols. High above, glass windows-one of the marvels of the packstead-admitted a thin gray light come through a frosting of snow. That light barely illuminated the pillars supporting an all-surrounding balustrade forty feet above. The pillars were green stone, inlaid with red, black, coral, and white. Shadows lurked behind them. The glory of that hall ended at the columns, though. The stone of the wall back behind them was weathered a dark brownish gray. In places lichens patched it.

The white floor was a square forty feet to a side. The symbol at its center was that of the entwined comets, in jet and scarlet, three feet across. Marika stood upon the focus of the mandala.

There were no furnishings and no lighting in that chamber. It stirred with echoes constantly.

Marika's eyes were sealed. She tried to control her breathing so no sound would echo anywhere. She strove under Gorry's merciless gaze. Her instructress leaned on the rail of the balustrade, motionless as stone, a dark silhouette hovering. All the light leaking through the windows seemed to concentrate on Marika.

Outside, winter flaunted its chill and howl, though the spring melt should have begun. It was time trees were budding. Snowflowers should have been opening around the last branch-shaded patches of white. But, instead, another blizzard raged into its third day and third foot of gritty powder snow.

Marika could not put that out of her mind. It meant continued hard times in the upper Ponath. It meant late plantings, poor hunting, and almost certain trouble with nomads again next winter, no matter how mild.

Very little news from the upper Ponath reached the packfast. What did come was grim. The nomads had decimated several more packsteads, even without their wehrlen to lead them. Other packsteads, unable to sustain a winter so long, had turned grauken.

Civilization had perished in the upper Ponath.

Summer would not be much of a respite, for there would be little game left after a winter so cruel.

There had been no word from the Degnan packstead. The fate of the Laspe remained a mystery.

There were silth out now, young ones, hunting nomads, trying to provide the protection Akard supposedly promised. But they were few, unenthusiastic, and not very effective.

Something whispered in the shadows under the balustrade. Something moved. Marika opened her eyes ...

Pain!

Fire crackled along her nerves. A voice within her head said, calmly, See with the inner eye.

Marika sealed her eyes again. They leaked tears of frustration. They would not tell her what to do. All they did was order her to do it. How could she, if she did not know what they wanted?

The sound of movement again, as of something with claws moving toward her stealthily. Then in a sudden rush. She whirled to face the sound, her eyes opening.

A fantastic beast leapt toward her, its fang-filled jaws opened wide. She squealed and ducked, grabbing at a knife no longer at her waist. The beast passed over her. When she turned, she saw nothing. Not even a disturbance in the dust on the floor.

Pain!

Frustration welled into anger. Anger grew into seething blackness. Ignoring the throbbing agony, she stared up at old Gorry.

Then she saw ghosts drifting through the shadows.

The old silth wavered, became transparent. Marika snatched at the pulsing ruby of her heart.

Gorry cried out softly and fell away from the railing.

Marika's pain faded. The false sounds went with the pain. She breathed deeply, relaxing for the first time that day. For a moment she felt very smug. That would show them that they could not-

Something touched her for an instant, like the blow of a dark fist. There was no pain but plenty of impact. She staggered off the center of the mandala, fell to her knees, disoriented and terrified.

She did not seem to be in control of herself. She could not make her limbs respond. What were they doing to her? What were they going to do to her?

More sounds. These genuine. Hurried feet moved above.

The paralysis relaxed. She regained her feet. Excited whispers filled the chamber. She looked up. Several silth surrounded Gorry. One pounded the old silth's chest, then listened for a heartbeat. "In time. Got to her in time."

The tall one who had come to the packstead, who now had only one leg, leaned her crutches on the railing and glared down at Marika. She was very, very angry. "Come up here, pup!" she snapped.

"Yes, Mistress Gibany."

Much to her embarrassment, Marika had discovered that Khles was not a name but a title. It marked Gibany as having a major role in Akard silth ritual. What that role was Marika did not yet know. She had not yet been admitted to any but the most basic rites.

In her own loghouse neither defiance nor the inclination to debate would have occurred to Marika. But here in the packfast, despite repeated warnings, she felt little of her customary reserve. These silth had not yet earned her respect. Few she saw seemed deserving of respect. She met Senior Koenic's eye and snapped, "Because she hurt me."

"She was teaching you."

"She was not. She was torturing me. She ordered me to do something I do not know how to do. I do not yet know what it was. Then she tortured me for not doing it. She taught me nothing. She showed me nothing."

"She was teaching you by forcing you to find the way for yourself."

"That is stupid. Even beasts are shown what they must do before their trainer rewards or punishes them. This way is neither reasonable nor efficient." She had thought out this speech many times. It rolled out almost without thought, despite her fright.

She believed what she said. Her elders in the Degnan pack had been impatient enough with pups, but they had at least demonstrated a thing once before becoming irritable.

"That is Gorry's way."

"It being her way makes it no less stupid and inefficient."

The senior was in a surprisingly tolerant mood, Marika reflected, as the fear-driven engine of her rage began to falter. Few adult meth would so long endure so much backtalk.