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choice of our own."
"Touched how?" Grauel asked. "There are mornings when I rise wondering if it
might not have been better had the nomads taken us all at the beginning."
"Why?"
"Things are happening, Marika. The world is changing. Too much of that change
centers upon you, and you never seem fully aware of it. There are times when I
believe those sisters who feared you as a Jiana sensed a truth."
"Grauel! Don't go superstitious on me."
"We will stand by you as long as we survive, Marika. We have no choice. But do
not expect us to give unquestioning approval to everything you do."
"All right. Accepted. I never expected that. Did anything interesting happen
while I was away?"
"It was a quiet night. I suspect you were right when you predicted the rogues
would give up on Maksche. You'd better rest now. If you still plan to go
flying with Bagnel this afternoon."
"I forgot all about that."
"You want to cancel?"
"No. I see him so seldom as it is."
Despite all else, she maintained her relationship with Bagnel. He maintained
his end as well, despite hints that it was no longer fashionable with his
superiors. He was, she felt, her one true friend. More so than Braydic, for he
asked only that she be his friend in return. He stayed as close as Grauel and
Barlog, in his way, without being compelled by their sense of obligation.
"Yes. Definitely. I'll be going. I wish I could show him the saddleship. Maybe
someday. Waken me when it's time."
Thenceforth Grauel and Barlog watched her quarters while she was away.
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II
Marika had just come to the end of her seventh visit. She asked, "How much
longer do you think, mistress? I am getting impatient."
"I know. Gradwohl warned me you would be. Next time we will go aloft. The
Mistress of the Ship and her bath will be preoccupied with the ascent. They
should not notice your peculiarities. What they do note can be explained by
telling them that you are from the wilderness. We will pass you off as a
junior relative of mine. I come from a rural background myself, though I went
into cloister younger than you did. We Redoriad keep a better watch on our
dependents."
"Three days, then."
"No. Five this time. And find a reason for being out of sight longer. We will
not be able to make an ascent and return in time to get you home in one
night."
"That may be difficult. Maksche keeps a close eye on Marika."
"If you do not appear I will know that you were unable to make the
arrangements."
"I will manage it. One way or another."
She did so by feigning ill health. She began three days early, pretending
increasing discomfort. Grauel and Barlog aided in the deception. She received
offers of help from the healer sisters, of course, but she put them off.
Before departing, she told Grauel, "They will want to treat me when you tell
them I am not feeling well enough to come out. If only so they can report my
condition to my enemies. Stall them. I expect to be tired enough to look
thoroughly ill when I get back. We can let them at me then. I'll make a swift
recovery."
"Be careful, Marika." Grauel was both in awe and dread of what Marika was
about to do. "Come back."
"It isn't that dangerous, Grauel." But, of course, she could not convince the
huntress of that. Grauel was only a few years past not even being able to
imagine walking among the stars.
Marika began assembling her saddleship, eager to be airborne, eager to be free
of her mundane duties, eager to mount the voidship, and more than a little
frightened. Her insides were tight with anticipation.
"This coming and going... " Grauel started, then tailed off.
"Yes?"
"I think some of the sisters are suspicious. You move at night, but the night
is the time of the silth. Even at night there are eyes to see strange things
moving above Maksche's towers. There has been talk about strange visions in
the moonlight. Whenever strange things happen they somehow become attached to
the name Marika, despite the evidence. Or lack of it. I may not be able to
keep the sisters from entering if-"
"You may go to any extreme but violence. This has to be kept quiet as long as
possible. A leak could bring both the Reugge and Redoriad into direct
confrontation with the Serke. That would mean the end of us."
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"I understand."
Marika finished assembling the saddleship. She bestrode it, strapped herself
into a harness she had modified, lay down behind the windscreen she had
installed. Windscreen and harness adaptations made it possible to fly at great
speeds.
She reached for ghosts. The saddleship lifted and drifted through the window,
brushing its stone frame. She glanced back once to wave to Grauel, and saw
Barlog come rushing into her apartment. What did she want?
No matter. Nothing could be more important than tonight's flight.
She set her ghosts to work with a vengeance, raced away.
She thought she heard a far voice call her name, but decided it was just a
trick of the air rushing around the windscreen.
Snow-splattered earth whipped past below.
III
Softly, Kiljar said, "Just stand there on the axis, the same as any passenger
on any darkship."
"Will we get cold?" Marika asked question after question, all of which she had
asked before and had had answered. She was too nervous to control her tongue.
She recalled Grauel or Barlog telling her, long ago, that she betrayed her
fear because she talked too much when she was frightened. She tried to clamp
down.
The senior bath left the Mistress of the Ship and came to Marika and Kiljar
carrying a pot like a miniature of the daram cauldron that stood inside the
doorway to the grand ceremonial hall at Maksche. She held it out to Kiljar.
The Redoriad took it and drank. The bath then offered it to Marika, who sipped
till Kiljar said, "That is enough."
"It tastes like daram, but it is not as thick."
"There is essence of daram in it. Several other drugs as well. They make it
possible for the Mistress to draw fully upon everyone aboard. You will see."
A feeling of peace crept over Marika, a feeling of oneness with the All. She
turned into herself, went down through her loophole, watched as the Mistress
gathered ghosts and drew upon her bath. The giant cross lifted slowly. Marika
sensed the strain required to elevate so massive a darkship. She was tempted
to help, overcame that temptation. Kiljar had admonished her repeatedly
against doing anything but remaining an observer. There would be ample
opportunity for participation later. First she had to experience being
separated from her birth world, to explore a new realm of those-who-dwell.
The darkship rose straight toward Biter, which stood at zenith, glowing down
from his pockmarked face. Higher and higher. For a time Marika did not realize
how high, for there was no change in temperature nor of the rarity of the air
she breathed.
Then she could see all TelleRai spread below her. She had flown very high
aboard her saddleship, but never so high that she could see all the city and
its satellites in their entirety. The satellites lay scattered over hundreds
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