Home again, after having intentionally stretched herself by not pausing to rest upon the planet. She returned to Ruhaack to catch up on the situation upon the homeworld.
Kublin had not been taken, though Bagnel had sent a squadron of dirigibles to help with the search. Their technological advantages had been of no value.
Marika began to suspect that her littermate had used the fartouch to call in help after all.
She learned that the new most senior of the Redoriad was a silth named Balbrach, who had been nominated by Kiljar before her passing. Balbrach had pledged to pursue her predecessor's policies, particularly in operating in concert with the Reugge. The alliance represented a concentration of power unseen for generations.
There had been a Serke courier incursion. The patrols hoping to jump the messenger had been insufficiently alert. The darkship had gotten past them and gotten down without betraying its landing site.
"We're still hunting for them," Bagnel told her. "We have traces picked up by satellite, but the optics just aren't what they should be. If our resources weren't so totally committed to the mirror project, we might develop an observation network ... "
"It isn't really that critical. What we have will do the job. It's just a matter of forging better communications between your radar operators and our huntresses."
Bagnel was amused. "Of course. Just plant a qualified fartoucher in each of our installations. Or put one of our radio operators aboard each of your darkships. Nothing to it. Assuming you can get around however many millennia of tradition."
"Of course," Marika said, with sarcasm equaling his. "Nothing to it. There are times when I wonder how we meth have managed to survive."
Bagnel had come down from the Hammer soon after learning of her return. He had called her from the brethren legation at Ruhaack and they had flown together into the wastes to that remote base from which the Reugge cloister at Maksche had been attacked. The brethren still maintained a small establishment there, rebuilt after Marika destroyed the base, as a way station at the intersection of dirigible lines. Marika had gone out upon her saddleship, flying off the wing of Bagnel's increasingly venerable Sting fighter. Now they were aloft in the Sting, putting it through its paces.
"I hear you've been promoted again," Marika said.
"Yes. As always, the factors reward incompetence. The leading mirror is now all mine to demolish."
Marika was amused. He was so persistently negative about his own abilities. "I will be going away soon, Bagnel. As soon as modifications to my darkship are completed and I have trained a group of new bath." She had asked for the four strongest upcoming bath the Reugge and Redoriad could provide. The extra would be a reserve, would allow rest and rotation during extended interstellar passages. And she had a further experiment in mind that would require the presence of an extra silth. "I have the darkship at the dome on Biter being fitted to carry a detachable pod in which we can haul stores."
"Then you plan to be gone a long time."
"I'll be back in plenty of time to celebrate the triumphant completion of the first mirror."
"I see little enough of you now. If you disappear for years again ... "
"I seriously doubt I will be gone that long. I was teasing."
"You're going after the Serke, aren't you?"
"That's the main reason. But also to see what's out there. Just to see it."
"Then the Serke are as much excuse as they are reason."
"Of course they are. I'm really going because that is what I've wanted to do from the moment we pups first heard stories of meth who went to the stars."
"I wish I could see ... "
"You could. One more wouldn't make much difference. You might decrease our range, but not enough to concern me."
"I wish ... I have too many responsibilities, Marika. We have reached a point where the mirrors definitely look practical. No, I couldn't. Yes, I would like to see the stars. Maybe later. After this is done and the warm is falling. After you have done what you have to do. And that frightens me."
"Why?"
"I am frightened by what you may find. What you have been doing cannot remain a secret. Those here who are still in contact with your enemies will hear about what you are doing. And they will relay the news. It will find the Serke before you do. And because you are Marika, and can do what other silth cannot, they will be afraid. They will prepare for you. They'll be waiting."
Marika had thought of that, and it was of concern to her. She did not know how to prevent it. "You'll just have to do better preventing contact. That's all I can say."
"You know I'll try. But do not forget that that is not my specific responsibility. I can only nudge and urge and appeal and beg and suggest. Others, perhaps with less concern for your welfare, will be in control."
"I have faith in you, Bagnel. Fear not. We will fly together again, in this same box of rusty bolts, over this same barren landscape. Let's hope it's on a day when fewer dooms shadow the world."
"That can't help but be, I think. Though the dooms breed."
Marika's eyes narrowed. "You are trying to tell me something."
"Perhaps ... Being out at the mirror or the Hammer most of the time, I have little opportunity to keep track of what those who look for rogues are doing. But before I joined you a friend came to me with the latest rumor they had tapped."
"Yes?"
"The warlock is back."
Marika took a minute to get herself under control. Then she took another. "That is impossible. He perished when I destroyed those who had ravaged Maksche."
"I report only hearsay."
"The warlock?"
"The same one. The one who was the rogues' great hope a few years ago."
"I suppose it had to be," Marika murmured. "And I blinded myself."
"What?"
"I have done the unforgivable, Bagnel. I have made the same mistake twice. That is never forgiven."
But who could believe Kublin in the role of the warlock? A whimpering coward?
"What is it, Marika?"
"Nothing crucial. Let's fly a bit more, in silence, then take our leave."
There was something Marika had to do before departing, before pursuing her stalk among the stars, and she was afraid.
II Marika brought the darkship out of the Up-and-Over virtually on top of the darkness that lurked at the edge of her home system. That blackness reeked to the touch, stinking of wickedness and death, of gnawed bones and ripped flesh and corrupt corpses and hatred unconstrained. If the void had a heart of evil, this ghost was its animate form.
This ghost was like no other she had encountered, and she had identified hundreds of different kinds. This ghost was, in a way, an absence. Most others seemed bright, flighty, sometimes curious, sometimes afraid, but always colorful and seldom inimical unless under silth direction.
This was an absence of color moved by its own grand malice. It was a thing that did not need direction to be inimical. It would strike out at the unwary. Only because it could not move as swiftly as lesser voidghosts, and because the silth had learned to appease and baffle and, rarely, to control it, did it not strike every darkship that tried to leave the system.
Control. That was Marika's goal. The highest or darkest of dark-sider sorceries, managed only by a dozen silth before her ...
It moved toward her, almost as swiftly as thought. She squeezed the ghosts that carried her darkship, fleeing, pulling it along after her, staying out of its reach while she explored it with her touch.
She let it catch up.
Three times she recoiled from its cold, malignant vibration before she found sufficient courage to reach farther, to strive to control it.