Glen Cook - Ceremony

Were they on the run again, that last dozen or so? Had they another hiding place still? Would Starstalker's survival leave a hope where she wanted all hope slain?

Marika felt very old when her home sun materialized and she saw her birthworld again. Very old and very useless. Yet she was convinced that she was far from playing out the role that had been decreed for her by the All. Beyond the few remaining tasks imposed upon her by circumstance lay her own life. She might yet have something for herself, if she was not still a tool of fate.

She directed her darkship toward the Hammer.

Bagnel met her in the airlock. He directed brethren to care for her companions. The moment they were alone, he said, "The news is spreading already. You have destroyed the rogues."

Baffled, she asked, "How can that be? I must be the first ship back."

"You came back. That was evidence enough. It was on every radio network within minutes of your coming out of the Up-and-Over. At least that speculation. So. Did you do it?"

"We destroyed most of them. But it was very expensive. There will be little joy of it. I am exhausted, trying to beat the news home. And I'm depressed, old friend. Yet I am elated too. For once and all I have refuted the Jiana accusation. I have led the race out of its darkest hour."

"Have you?"

"What?"

"I don't like the look of you, Marika. There is a new darkness behind your eyes. It is the darkness I saw there when you were young."

Marika was not pleased. "It must be the darkness that comes of battle, Bagnel. It will be a long time before I can shake my memories of my meeting with Bestrei. There was darkness incarnate, for all her nobility."

"There is an old saying among the meth with whom I spent my puphood. It goes, 'We become that which we would destroy.' "

"I've heard it before. It's not always true. I will not become a new Bestrei."

"You're much more. You're a thing that cannot be understood. There has been much discussion of you in your absence. Undertaken in complete confidence that you would succeed in doing what you have done. That discussion has been underlaid by fear of Marika, the wild silth, the dark-walking sister with no allegiance and no limit to her power. I know you will do what you will do and nothing I can say will shift your course an inch. So I will only beg of you, be careful. The frightened do desperate things."

"So I have been warned already. Yet I have been given no specifics."

"There are no specifics to be had. At least by those of us who might be tempted to relate them to their target. Only rumors."

"What of Kublin and the rogues?"

"They have been quiet. Surprisingly so. Again, though, there have been rumors. That they have been preparing for your return, come you in triumph or defeat. It is said that they are convinced that by killing you they can start a scramble for control of the alien ship that will so embroil the attentions of the dark-faring silth that they will be left with a free paw here at home. I have a feeling their estimate is close to the truth. The rumor mill also has much to say about undercover planning in various Communities for an effort to seize and exploit the alien."

Marika folded a lip in sardonic amusement. "So I have no friends at all. Not that I ever had. And my death would serve everyone's purpose. I think we belong to a sad race, Bagnel."

"I could have told you that truth the day we first faced one another on Akard's wall."

"Does the project continue well?"

"As well as might be expected, considering that we have had to do without the voidships that accompanied you and the fact that so many meth have become distracted by other matters. We brethren persevere."

"Has it reached a stage where it could survive without you?"

"Everything can survive without me. I am wholly disposable."

"A matter I would debate strongly, with you or anyone else. Would you like a new challenge? A challenge greater than putting new suns in the sky?"

"You intrigue me, Marika. If anyone but you made a statement like that ... What is it?"

"How would you like to unravel the secrets of the alien starship?"

He examined her intently. "What are you saying?"

"One of the reasons I've come home is to recruit replacements for the rogue scientists who were studying the starship. I want you to be in charge."

"You found it? You have it? It wasn't just speculation?"

"It's very real. And very strange, in the way things are strange when they are similar." She began describing the ship.

"Ah."

She saw the marvel he tried to conceal. The eagerness. The excitement.

"If you want it, the job is yours. But it could be dangerous. I have declared that the vessel is going to be mine, held in trust for all meth. As you suggested yourself, some Communities do not feel it should be that way. They feel they should have it for themselves, and I have been warned that more than one might try to seize it."

"Of course. No might about it. There will be efforts to grab it. Even with the lesson of the project before them, silth are unable to comprehend the notion of working together for the good of the species. They have trouble enough working together for the good of their orders."

"It may be a difficult thing, Bagnel. I am strong, but I stand alone out there. I will have to have support. Any team I put into the starship will be dependent upon my remaining on friendly terms with the Reugge and Redoriad. They will have to supply us. I cannot carry that load alone."

"Even them I would not count on completely were I you, Marika. But consider: How did the Serke and rogues support themselves without supplies from the homeworld? Theirs may be the path you'll want to follow yourself. Sever the ties entirely. Go ahead and be what they have called you, a Community unto yourself."

"It may come to that, though I still refuse to believe that the silth can remain so narrow."

"Refuse if you like. I will refuse to believe that you have become so naive during your absence. Are you acting? To me? You know that the unity forged for the mirror project is a harbinger of nothing. That was and remains desperation, the only answer in a struggle for survival. It has come so far even the rogues would not dream of destroying them. But their very nature makes them vulnerable in other ways, to those who seek power and profit. Among all the other accusations thrown your way over the years the secret dreams of some have been betrayed by their canards about your intentions in regard to the mirrors."

"I have no intentions. My intentions were satisfied when I convinced everyone to build them."

"True. But still some whisper that you intend to seize them when they are complete and use them to hold the race hostage."

"That's stupid. If I wanted to hold the race hostage I could do so right now, without mirrors. I am the greatest walker of the dark side this race has ever produced. If it was in me to extort something, I could scourge the population till everyone surrendered and there would not be a thing anyone could do."

Marika bit her lip, forcing herself to shut up. This was not something that needed to be said even to Bagnel.

"I know. You don't have to convince me. And I suspect that there is no point trying to convince others. They will believe what they want to believe, or, even knowing the truth, will say what they want to say to serve their own ends. Do what you have to do here, Marika, guarding yourself every second, then get out. Resign yourself to a life far from the homeworld. You may indeed be the strongest darksider ever to have lived, but you are not strong enough to survive here. I am not Degnan, nor even of the upper Ponath, but I would feel compelled to give you rituals of Mourning if you fell. And I don't know how."

"Enough. I appreciate your concern, as always. Will you go back with me once I finish my business here? Will you break all precedents and traditions and be second chair of my new star-roving Community?"