Book 2 - Warlock Read Free Page B

trying to interpret the huntress’s moods.
She was exercised about something most of the time.
    “I want to go out into the city, Grauel.”
    “Why?”
    “To explore.”
    “That is not permitted.”
    “Why not?”
    “I do not know. Rules are not explained here. They are
enforced. Ignorance is no excuse.”
    What was the penalty for disobedience?
    Marika banished the thought. It was too early to challenge
constraints. Still, she felt compelled to say, “If this is
life in the fabulous Maksche cloister, Grauel, I may go over the
wall.”
    “Barlog and I have very little to do either, Marika. They
think we are too backward.”
     
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III
    The absolute, enduring stone of the cloister became a hated
enemy. It crushed in upon Marika with the weight of massively
accumulated time and alien tradition. Enforced inactivity made it
almost intolerable. Each day she spent more time in her towertop
away place. Each day meditation did less to ease her spiritual
malaise.
    Her place overlooked nothing but the courtyard, the city, and
the works of meth. There was a constant wind, a north wind, but it
did not speak to her as had the winds at Akard. It carried the
wrong smells, the wrong tastes. It was heavy with the sweat of
industry. It was a foreign, indifferent wind. That wind of the
north had been her friend and ally.
    Often she did not leave her cell at all, but lay on her pallet
and used a finger to draw stick figures in the sweat on the cold
wall.
    Sometimes she went down through her loophole into the realm of
ghosts, but she found little comfort there. Ghosts were scarce
where so many silth were gathered. She sensed a few great monsters
way high above, especially in the night, but she could not touch
them. She might as well reach for Biter.
    There was a change in atmosphere in the cloister around the end
of Marika’s sixth week there. It puzzled her till Barlog
showed up to announce, “Most Senior Gradwohl is coming
here.” Most Senior Gradwohl ruled the entire Reugge
Community, which spanned the continent. “They are frantic
trying to get ready.”
    “Why is she coming?” Marika asked.
    “To take personal charge of the effort to control the
nomads. Two days ago nomads were seen from the wall of the packfast
at Motchen. That is only a hundred miles north of Maksche, Marika.
They are catching up with us already.” In a lower voice
Barlog confided, “These Maksche silth are frightened. They
have a contract with the tradermales that obligates them to protect
traders anytime they are in Reugge territory. They have been unable
to do that. Critza is just one of three tradermale packfasts that
were overrun. There is a rumor that some tradermales want to
register an open petition for the Serke sisterhood to intercede in
Reugge territories because the Reugge can no longer maintain
order.”
    “So?” Marika asked indifferently.
    “That would affect us, Marika.”
    “How? We have no part in anything. We are tolerated for
some reason. Barely. We are fed. And otherwise we are ignored. What
do we have to fear? If no ones sees us, who can harm us?”
    “Do not talk that way, Marika.”
    “Why not?”
    “These sisters can go around unseen. One of them might
hear you.”
    “Don’t be silly. That’s nonsense.”
    “I heard it from . . . ” Barlog
did not finish for fear of compromising her source.
    “How much longer can you tolerate this imprisonment,
Barlog? What does Grauel think? I won’t endure it much
longer, I promise you that.”
    “We can’t leave.”
    “Says who?”
    “It’s not permitted.”
    “By whom? Why not?”
    “That’s just the way it is.”
    “For those who accept it.”
    “Marika, please . . . ”
    “Go away, Barlog. I don’t want to hear you
whine.” As Barlog was about to leave, she added,
“They’ve tamed you, Barlog. Made a two-legged
rheum-greater out of a once fine huntress.” Use of the
familiar mode made Marika’s words all the more cutting.
    Barlog’s lips parted