Glen Cook - Ceremony

"Darkship just came out of the Up-and-Over, mistress. Your darkship. It is in trouble."

Marika leaped up. "Send out ... "

"Every darkship available is headed that way, mistress. We expect to save them, but it will be close. They came through with only two bath."

Marika settled her nerves carefully, turning to old rituals seldom used since her novitiate. She reached with the touch, lightly, for it would not do to rattle a novice Mistress in trouble.

She found the darkship drifting inward, unstable in flight, damaged. Bagnel was not aboard. Neither was Grauel. Three bath were indeed missing. Barlog was there, at the axis, lying down, apparently injured. The darkships rushing to help had skipped through the Up-and-Over and were closing in. Marika remained close till all four meth had been transferred to safety aboard other darkships.

Her ship. Her precious oddball wooden dark-faring ship. It had been crippled. The signs were unmistakable. Someone had attacked it.

She began stalking the passageways of the alien starship, boots hammering angrily. This was it. This was the end of all patience. She would not tolerate any more. Those responsible for this would pay. "I am the successor to Bestrei. Would they have dared this with her? No." She would make them remember. That fact would become painfully apparent to those responsible. The silth would change if she had to send half the sisterhoods into the dark ... Rage sapped by vigorous exercise began to fade into worry. Where was Bagnel? What had become of Grauel?

She was at the lock when they brought the survivors inside. She said nothing. She just stood there letting the healer sisters get on with their work, spurred by her dark, angry glare.

More and more meth gathered as the word spread. The atmosphere aboard the starship grew depressing. Marika sensed little anger. That fed her own rage. They were depressed because they knew she would avenge this. Because they knew this outrage meant the beginning of a new era of friction.

They were not outraged, and that angered her almost as much as the fact of the attack itself. All this time with her and they had given no loyalty to herself or to the project. Or maybe only to the project. They might not care who was in control so long as they could proceed with their studies undisturbed.

"Move them into the games room," she instructed the healer sisters. "Prepare sleeping arrangements for five. One of you will be there, on duty with them, at all times."

As she started away one of the healer sisters expressed her mystification with a simple, "Mistress?"

"I want them kept together, in one place. And I want to be there with them. I am going for a few things. Have them in the games room when I get there."

And she did move in with them, watching them every instant, scarcely napping. If there was an enemy aboard the starship, he or she would not reach them.

There were moments when she marveled at her own paranoia, but they were far between. And even then she understood that paranoia was justified.

The bath she had made Mistress recovered first. She wakened and saw Marika hovering. Relief overcame her. Then embarrassment. Then silth training took hold and she began a formal report.

"Back up," Marika said. "Give it to me the way it happened-from the time you arrived on the homeworld."

"It is simple, mistress. Your male friend pursued his assignment with great vigor. He irritated many silth by his manner, and was tolerated only because he was your agent. But they are trying to forget you on the homeworld. They are angered by constant reminders of your power, though they have benefited much from what you have done. Already it can be seen where brethren have adapted knowledge we have gained here and have employed it to the benefit of all meth.

"But no one believed in our mission. Everyone believed we were spies sent to prepare the way for your return. No one would cooperate. Bagnel garnered what information he could by trading what we learned about the aliens for gossip. He worked long hours comparing what one order said to what others told him."

"Am I to assume that lack of cooperation was the reason you took so long?"

"Yes, mistress. That and the male's insistence on frequent visits to the mirrors. He learned more there than he did among those who have a logical interest in treating us honestly."

"Us. You keep saying us and we. Explain."

"We are not of the same Community, Marika, and that has stood between us. There have been moments of friction within our crew. But when we returned home we all found ourselves considered suspect by our seniors. None of our Communities welcomed us. We were all treated coolly and with suspicion, as though we were of an enemy order. Even your own most senior, Bel-Keneke, would have little to do with us."

"So what happened? Where are the others?"

"We were on a flight to Ruhaack from Khartyth, where we had spoken with the Frodharsch seniors, when we were attacked by rogue aircraft. They were much like the alien craft we saw when we visited that world. I amazed myself. I was able to gather those-who-dwell and strike at them. I had not been able to manipulate on the dark side before."

"Fear can inspire wonderful things. Rogue aircraft, eh? The Communities have let things go that far? Why do I bother trying to educate the fools?"

"Terrible things have happened, mistress. A fourth of the world is in rogue paws, mostly wilderness country, snow country, but held as firmly as any Community territory. More firmly, because it was from silth they took the land. The sisterhoods have ignored that, except for the few you organized to fight back. Many have become so frightened that they will not try to control the rogues. But you will find all that in Bagnel's reports. Let me continue.

"There were four rogue aircraft. I opened to the All and let it carry the struggle through me. I took the darkship down into rugged valleys where they could not follow, gathered and sent those-who-dwell. The rogue pilots were shielded by suppressor suits. But their aircraft were not protected. I downed three by damaging their control systems. The fourth fled. We sustained only minor damage.

"But as we neared Ruhaack we were hit by a suppressor beam. We were just two miles from the Redoriad cloister. I reached with the touch and appealed for help. None came. Rogues attacked on foot. There were at least a hundred of them, there in the shadow of that great cloister. It was a long, fierce fight. I slew many who were not protected by suppressor suits. But in the end we ran out of ammunition and they overwhelmed us.

"During the fighting I appealed repeatedly to both the Redoriad and Reugge cloisters. Finally the Reugge responded to my touch. Several darkships came out. They scattered the rogues and drove them off, but when they fled they took with them the voctor Grauel, the bath Silba, and the male Bagnel. The baths Rextab and Nigel were left dead. The rest of us were uninjured but in poor condition mentally."

The Mistress turned inward upon herself, remembering, radiating pain. Marika had to prod her. "Go on, please." She had a feeling there was more, and maybe worse, though her imagination had difficulty enough encompassing the disaster already set forth.

"Everyone refused to help us, then. We had been reduced to harmlessness, they thought, and that was enough for them. If they ignored us long enough, we would die eventually, I guess." A trace of sarcasm. "The threat of Marika's wrath would have no substance. She would be isolated in a far place. In time, I expect, messages would have gone out for all darkships to stay away from here, and recalling those few Mistresses who were with you. You would have been left to live out your life in exile."

Marika controlled the emotions boiling inside her. "I see. But?"