Warlock (34 page)

“None whatsoever. Few Communities do. But they all want a share of the plunder. And they will get it. Otherwise the convention will go nowhere.”

“Wonderful.”

A slith came from the trees, hastened to Kiljar, whispered. Kiljar looked grim.

“What is it?” Marika asked. A bad feeling twisted her insides.

“Somebody relayed your opening terms to the Cupple Islands. Those ships we saw around Starstalker. A great many of their type are lifting off, packed with brethren.”

Marika’s bad feeling worsened.

II
I

An old silth appeared, too excited to retain her cool dignity. “The darkships are leaving the cloister at Ruhaack! The Serke are... are...”

“You would deal with brethren!” Marika snapped at Kiljar. She raced to her darkship. “Grauel! Get aboard. Bath! Mistress! Get it airborne.”

The remaining silth stood bewildered for a moment, then scattered.

Marika was well away before anyone else lifted off. She touched the Mistress of the Ship. The Reugge cloister. Hurry.

“What is it, Marika?” Grauel asked. She kept turning, weapon ready, seeking something she could not find.

“I don’t know. But I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling. A premonition. I don’t want to be caught on the ground. We’ll pick up Barlog, then head for Ruhaack.” She was as confused as any of the silth aboard the darkships swarming up below.

Any course of action had to be positive.

The enemy was on the move.

She touched the Mistress of the Ship again, showed her where to go as Grauel protested, “Marika, Barlog is in no condition to —”

“I don’t care. I want her with me till we see what’s going to happen.”

The Mistress of the Ship brought the darkship to rest beside the window to Marika’s quarters. Marika gestured violently. The Mistress rotated the darkship, brought one arm into contact with the windowsill. “Hold it there!” Marika ordered. “We’ll be back in a minute. Grauel, break that window.”

Grauel tottered along the beam, eased past the bath at its tip, smashed glass with her rifle butt. She jumped through. Marika followed. “What now?” Grauel asked.

“Barlog.” In her mind a clock was ticking, estimating the time it would take the brethren fugitives to rendezvous with Starstalker.

Intuition began shrieking at her. “Hurry!” she barked.

They found Barlog sleeping, still partially immobilized by the healer sisters. They pulled her out of bed and hustled her to the window. Marika leapt out onto the arm of the darkship. It sank beneath her weight. “Hold it steady!” she yelled. “All right, Grauel. Push her up. Come on, Barlog. You have to help a little.”

Barlog was no help at all. Marika pulled, balanced the huntress upon her shoulder. For a moment she became conscious of the long plunge that awaited her slightest misstep, froze. Never before had she been particularly cognizant of the danger of falling. She turned carefully, gestured the bath to duck, eased past. “Come on, Grauel.”

Grauel, too, was conscious of the emptiness beneath the darkship. She was slow about boarding and slower crossing to the axis. Marika had Barlog strapped down by the time she arrived. “Strap up fast,” Marika said. “Mistress! Take us up! Go high and head toward Ruhaack.”

Marika became aware that she was being observed from a darkship poised just beyond the boundary of the cloister. Kiljar. She waved, pointed. Kiljar’s darkship rose.

The clock in Marika’s mind told her the tradermale lifters would have reached Starstalker. She touched Kiljar. I am going to the Ruhaack cloister. With any luck those left behind may be cooperative.

Do not forget Bestrei.

How can I? Would you care to bet that she was not aboard the first voidship up?

Behind them, above the city, darkships swarmed like insects on a warm morning. Touches of panic fluttered the otherworld. There had been collisions and deaths by falling.

Marika reached, touched every sister she could, told them to get higher, to get away from the city.

She felt for the sky, for the Serke voidships, and to her surprise she found them. They were clustered, more than a dozen of them, and they were much higher than she could rise in pursuit. They were on the edge of the void and hurrying outward.

Marika felt Starstalker rise from behind the rim of the world. There was a deadly feel to the voidship, as though it had metamorphosed into something terrible. It radiated a threatening darkness. It climbed the sky rapidly.

It lost its deadly aura as it approached zenith, as Marika hurried to TelleRai’s southwest, toward Ruhaack. That modest city, where the Serke made their headquarters, lay a hundred miles away. Its supporting satellites brushed those of greater TelleRai.

Why did Starstalker seem less black? Marika opened to the All. There! The deadliness remained, but it had separated from the voidship.

Kiljar. They have sent something down against us.

That something came down fast. Very fast. Streaks of fire burned the upper sky and backlighted the clouds. Thunder hammered the air.

They were forty miles from TelleRai when the first sword of fire smote the world.

The first flash blinded Marika momentarily. There were more flashes. A grisly globe of fire rolled upward above the city. Shuddering, fur bristling, Marika felt the thundering wind, the first shock wave raging toward her.

Another great flash illuminated the mushroom cloud.

The Mistress of the Ship lost control. The darkship twisted toward the ground.