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Ennez spoke up: "You aren't thinking of raiding a snare operation, are you, Dav?"

He surveyed the list, chin in hand. "I am. I'm thinking we still have time to crash one of these snaring parties. I'm thinking we can snag another Black Hat and turn her."

"Are you insane?"

"What about it? They won't be expecting us. We just swoop in, grab a Black Hat or two, and be off."

"I don't know, Dav," Syg said

"Listen to Sygillis, Dav!" Kilos cried.

"The Sisters won't like that, Dav," Ennez said. "Watching Syg here 24/7 just about gave them aneurisms. Have you ever tried caring for a grumpy, headached Sister, Dav? It's not a pretty thing."

"Hmmm, you might be right, two is too many. We'll grab one for now."

"And just what are we going to do when we get her here? She'll be a hissing cobra just waiting to spit venom," Ennez said.

"What if she blows herself sky high once we get her aboard?" Kilos asked.

"Oh, that's a myth," Dav protested. "Syg—you never thought about blowing yourself sky high, did you?"

"No—I was too busy trying to figure out how to kill you first— then blow myself sky high."

"See, Ennez," Dav said.

Syg winked at Dav and blew him a kiss.

"Then, if it'll make you happy, we'll have to grab her hard and incapacitate her. Syg, can we somehow drain them of their Shadow tech?"

"Yes, but it will be very painful. She won't be happy about it."

"Syg," Davage said, "I thought you were all ready for this."

"I am, Dav, but I just don't want anyone to get hurt—you especially. Abducting a Black Hat might not be a good idea. She'll be too hostile to reason with. She'll have to be killed before she takes the whole ship with her."

"But if we relieve her of her Shadow tech, then she'll be much less of a threat, no matter how cross she initially is, yes?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"What about her guard of Hulgismen and any other Black Hats who might happen to be around? Just how cross do you think that lot will be?" Ennez asked.

"Again, this is supposed to be a surprise movement. All the Black Hats I've ever seen operate pretty independently. True?"

"Yes."

"So, what's the problem?"

Syg looked down at the table. "I don't know. I simply don't want you to get hurt."

"I'll be fine. You will agree that this life is a bit better than that of a Black Hat?"

"Need you ask me that?" Syg said, incredulous.

"Then I think it's worth a try. Can you detect the presence of Shadow tech from a distance?"

"Yes, and so can the Sisters."

"Then here's what we'll do. We will tour several of the planets on the list. If we detect Shadow tech, we'll Sight them from orbit, see what they're doing, and come up with a quick plan."

"How are we going to do that?"

"I can Sight them from orbit. So can the Sisters."

Syg's eyes lit up. "You can do that?"

"I can."

"Oh, your Sight is the best Gift of all!"

"Syg … you're going to make me ill here, please," Kilos said.

"You don't think that the Black Abbess hasn't thought of this already, Dav?" Ennez asked. "I mean, she's not an idiot."

"I don't believe she'd ever think we'd have the temerity to seek out and disrupt a snare operation."

"Why not? We had the temerity to steal one of her Black Hats, right? Whatever she's got in store for us, it's going to be a whopper, and it's going to suck, and it's going to be on grand display."

"I agree with Ennez," Syg said. "She's going to want to make a statement. The usual operations probably won't do."

Davage thought a moment. He looked at the list. "I think we'll still head out. I see Calendor is a possible candidate. We'll go there and see what there is to see."

2

Davage woke in the dark. As usual, he was in Sygillis's bed. She was asleep, having a terrible nightmare. She thrashed and whimpered.

Davage tried to wake her.

She began crying.

"Syg, wake up."

She screamed.

"Syg!"

She awoke finally and sat up. She looked around; she didn't appear to know where she was for a moment. Finally she looked at Davage and appeared relieved.

"Dav," she said. "I just had a bad dream." She pulled herself into his arms, her naked body up against his. "I dreamt of my temple, in Metatron."

"Your Black Hat temple?"

"I dreamt that it turned silver, just like my Shadow tech. I dreamt that the Black Abbess came to destroy my temple …"

"And what happened?"

"Somebody inside the temple fought back, fought the Black Abbess."

"Who would do that?"

"My Hulgismen. I could hear them, crying out for me, crying out for help." She looked at him. "They called me mother, Dav!"

She embraced Davage and wept into his naked chest. "They called me mother."

"Syg, it was just a dream."

"It was so real. I could hear their voices. I could see their faces."

Davage wiped her tears away and kissed her.

"Dav, do you think that my temple might have converted itself to silver too, that the Hulgismen within were reborn, just as I was?"

"It's possible, I suppose. The Hulgismen, though, shouldn't they just move on to another temple?"

"No, Hulgismen from two different Black Hats tend to not get along."

"The city of Metatron is on Ergos, correct?"

"Yes. South, in the Fernath region."

"Well, we've plotted solution of Calendor to check for suspected Black Hat snaring activities. How about the moment we're done, we'll plot solution for the Mirendra system, go to Ergos and have a look."

"Do you mean it, Dav?"

"Certainly. We can survey the situation, and if your temple has, in fact, turned to silver, then I imagine we'll just improvise something from that point."

Syg beamed and kissed Davage. "I knew there was a good reason I let you live! I'm joking—I'm joking!"

* * * * *

Detecting a snare operation was much more of a chore than Dav had first thought. They had gone to Calendor, as it was one of the planets on Dav's list of potential sites hosting a large Snaring Op. Calendor, a fairly pleasant world of a mostly agrarian people, turned out to be overflowing with Shadow tech, but not from a specific Snaring operation—it was everywhere in small, metered amounts. People, items, animals, buildings had it on them. It was in the air, soaked in the water. Not much, just bits here and there, but it was enough to make simple detection very complicated. Shadow tech appeared to be more common than he could ever have imagined.

In the end, though, the grand, sinister snaring operation that Dav had imagined was not there. The masses of Black Hats just waiting to be scooped up like red and black sugar cubes was not to be.

Score one for the Black Abbess.

He wondered, though, what the Black Abbess was cooking up—what sort of twisted plan she will try to unleash on them.

He had come to realize that the Black Hat Sisterhood was, at its core, a political organization pretty much like any other and, as such, public opinion figured greatly in its activities. People, both League and Xaphan, saw them as evil, fierce, and unbeatable, and they had to labor to maintain that image. They had to be just that.

Turning Syg—taking a Black Hat Hammer and a self-professed "mean Black Hat"—caused the Black Abbess, among other things, a PR crisis. People might look at this and say, "Why, the Black Hats aren't as bad as we thought," and she couldn't have that.

She was going to have to do something; she was going to have to respond in kind in a manner that will have people shuddering again. Her plan, whatever it turned out to be, was going to be a lot more subtle and insidious than he'd first thought. He was used to enemies like Princess Marilith—a straight-up, over-the-top bad guy who fought him, as such, straight up. She was easy to fight, and she was easy to predict, though he could never fully "get her" in the end. He knew she didn't know any other way to fight him other than full bore—all out. That was a fight he knew he could win every time.

The Black Abbess, though, will probably spend as much time setting the stage, creating a spectacle, as she would actually fighting. The stage and the political message, and effect it will have on those watching played big in her plans. Davage, sitting in his office, had to acknowledge that he didn't have a great deal of skill in this particular area. His father probably had a better head for this, for scheming and political maneuvering. The fight itself will be almost an afterthought— the fall, though, that's where the detail was.

He wanted to make sail for Gioma, another planet on his list that he thought might be entertaining a current Black Hat snare operation. Gioma was promising, as an old League hero, Lord Veltro of Goima, once annoyed the Black Abbess, but as he promised Syg that he will first stop at Mirendra and check in on her temple, he had to live up to his word. Gioma had to wait.

She dreamed of her temple, that it had turned to silver. She only had it once or twice, but the dream was full and unforgettable. She couldn't get the thought out of her head.

So, they'd make a quick stop and have a look.

Syg—a mighty, powerful Black Hat in her day—abducted into their ranks, ripped from her mother's arms. She crawled in the dark, she said, in the Black Abbess's church, through passes too short to be able to stand. She scrabbled for food—starving, she was bled of her Shadow tech. Pushed into a foul pit, she was forced to fight a fellow trainee—a fight to the death, Syg emerging victorious, but her wrist broken.

And she fell into darkness, into an everlasting evil dream where she killed and did unspeakable things for years and years.

The Black Abbess, a cruel black stain.

He wondered, though—were the Sisters any different?

It was considered a great honor and rare privilege when the Sisters came calling. Davage had the honor seven times previously—four at Castle Blanchefort, two aboard the
Seeker,
and one on his old ship
Faith.

The stage was always the same.

A small contingent of Sisters arrived and politely announced that he had been "selected." They then asked if he was agreeable to participate in their "program." Smiling, soft spoken through their Marine translators, wearing their winged headdresses and light traveling cloaks, it was hard, if not impossible, to say no to them. It was hard not to love them, to adore them.

He always agreed; most "selected" gentlemen agreed. It was an honor, after all. One never wanted to disappoint a Sister, to send them away, to say no.

The next day the Sisters arrived. Again they thanked him for participating and then showed him to a closed door and invited him to go in, where, inside, a Sister waited.

He never recalled seeing the Sister in the room. She was always in bed, the bed covers pulled up to her eyeballs.

Those eyes, fixed on him.

She then, almost immediately, gently took him by the mind and led him into green passes of bliss and harmony, a symphony of delightful sound. There, hallucinating, enraptured, he lingered for hours and the Sister, unseen behind these lovely veils, was seeded by him.

In the morning he awoke and the Sister would be gone.

Sometimes he recalled a dim memory of slender arms around him, of small, shy kisses on his face and neck. He could sometimes recall hearing "I love you … I love you …" in his mind.

He would then dress and go outside, where the contingent of Sisters, for a final time, thanked him, and took their leave, their mission accomplished. Two years later, in the Old Vith chapels and hidden cloisters of Valenhelm, Pithnar, or Belle, a girl child would be born—a Sister from birth. His daughter—but owned entirely by the Sisterhood. Occasionally, when a contingent of Sisters passed him in the streets, one might give him a second glance and smile in a shy, knowing way. He, in return, doffed his hat, wondering if they had … ever been in arms.

Did she have any choice, this girl child? Though not abducted as a Black Hat, not chained, not forced to crawl, not forced to fight, was she any less a prisoner?

He wondered; he wondered.

3

The Mirendra system, on the boarder of League/Xaphan space, was fallen down, sad, dark, and starving for light. Mirendra, once a massive blue giant star, the "Eye of the Cat" in the Mertens constellation as seen from Kana, was sucked down to a dull ember. Sucked dry by the Xaphans—all five of them.

The Xaphans—it was easy to blame everything on them.

They had first come at the end of the age of the Elders. At that time, The League served the Elders, roving the heavens, looking for stars that might nourish them. Joyous, the League fulfilled is role, guiding the Elders to new stars, and there the Elders fed, taking just what they needed, causing no harm.

But then the Xaphans came. They were creatures very similar to the Elders—huge, planetary in size, powerful in the extreme, and hungry for starlight. But where the Elders shared, the Xaphans hoarded. Where the Elders gave, the Xaphans took. They attached to the star, bled it dry, and quickly reduced it to a small, cold spark.

And that wasn't all. They liked a bit of suffering to go with their meal of starlight. They liked the fear and the dying that went along with it. The more populated a star system was, the better.

Some said in hushed tones that the Xaphans were in fact the Elders, soured and corrupted into another form, that five of the original twenty-five went bad. That's what some said.

Gaudy and utterly evil, the Xaphans clouded themselves in endless illusion and glamour. They came to the League in the last days of the Elders, as they weakened and died, and presented themselves boldly. Appearing as rich, pompous Elder-Kind, they arrogantly entreated the League to serve them, to come to the Xaphans and cast aside the Elders. The rewards, they promised, would be beyond measure.

The remaining Elders, growing weak and pitiful, implored the League not to listen. They begged them to instead fight the Xaphans, to forever make war upon them, for the suffering they would create will be horrific. The Elders exacted the Promise from the League: that they will fight the Xaphans, that they will defend all life from the Xaphans, and finally, that they shall not kill the Xaphans either.