Warlock Read Free Page B

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.”
     
    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 in a snarl of fury. But she restrained herself