Book 3 - Ceremony by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

from their exhausts. She gained rapidly, reaching
ahead to see what she faced.
    Two ships carried no crew at all. She allowed the darkship to
drift while she captured a stronger ghost and took it forward for a
closer look.
    The uncrewed two were loaded with what must be bombs, great
cumbersome devices with a jury-rigged feel. She explored one
rapidly, but could find no way to disarm it or to detonate it
prematurely.
    She took the ghost into the fuel stores of those two ships,
compressed it to marble size, put spin on it, and used it to
perforate the tanks. She returned to flesh in time to watch the
second flower of fire blossom against the night.
    She felt the rage explode among the thwarted rogues, felt them
begin sweeping the surrounding night. She returned to the
otherworld and began stalking them.
    They could not see her! Their radars could not pick up her
wooden darkship. She was running right up to them, and they could
not see her!
    She hit one ship after another, just as she had taken the bomb
drones. They scattered so she could not massacre them all.
    Mistress. Come out. The Serke have turned our way.
    She had known that would come and had ignored it.
    Five of them to her one plus a spare Mistress. The odds were too
long, strong as she was. Yet there was no way to hide from them. To
do that she would have to abandon the talent entirely. To do that
in the void meant instant death.
    She curved after a rogue ship belching flame in an effort to
escape, closed up, killed it, began looking for another.
    Mistress . . . 
    There is time. Do not distract me again.
Six brethren
ships had been negated. They would remember this raid as a
disaster.
Just guard me.
    Let the Serke come. She was strong and treacherous. If nothing
else, she could outrun them.
    She was closing on another rogue when the Mistress touched her
again. She suppressed her anger at being interrupted.
    She did not need the warning.
    Astounded, she forgot the rogue as she stared at a glowing
darkship that had materialized only a few hundred yards away. She
recovered barely in time to help the Mistress turn the attack.
    This Serke Mistress was weaker than she. Grimly, Marika ducked
through her loophole and seized a ghost, hurled it back.
    The darkship vanished.
    Another appeared an instant later, in another quarter, and
vanished again before she could do it harm.
    She finally understood. They were trying to attack her through
the Up-and-Over.
    How could she get out of this?
    She could see no escape.
    Decision came instantly. She swung the tip of the wooden dagger
toward
Starstalker
and accelerated.
    The Serke recognized her intent. They flung themselves into her
path. She and the Mistress brushed their attacks aside and
continued the drive toward the great voidship. Soon the sisters
there would have to move or be rammed.
    The Serke tried placing a preponderance of strength in
Marika’s path. But once they did that she knew where to
expect their appearances. She recovered her advantage of her
superior grasp of the dark side.
    Short, sharp touch-shrieks filled the void as a Serke
Mistress’s heart exploded and her bath realized they had no
hope.
    Marika continued gaining velocity.
    Starstalker
vanished.
    Marika searched the void, wondering where it would return from
the Up-and-Over. If she chased it hard enough it might not be able
to recover the rogues before darkships rose up from the
planet’s surface or came from other work sites. The rogues
might have to be abandoned.
    A lance of fire cut past her. She had not kept close enough
track of the rogues. She had allowed one to sight her visually.
Hurriedly, she threw a ghost its way, destroyed it, and returned to
flesh to find her Mistress almost overwhelmed by the Serke. A pair
of darkships drifted nearby, radiating elation, thinking they had
her.
    Marika hammered at one. Again the dark filled the despair.
    The second darkship vanished.
    Marika spotted
Starstalker
again, far away, and darted
toward it.
    It was