by J. D. Lakey
“I know that. You are all messed up inside your head. There are walls where none should exist and no walls where there should be many. But no matter. I have taught you how to fly. You are leaving this place and never coming back.”
“Gods,” Sam whispered, confused, “if you are going to throw me off the cliff, just do it.”
“We won’t throw you. You are going to jump,” she said, handing him the satchel of stones.
Chapter Twenty Six
She flicked a fingersign at the boys. Watch him, it said. Then she returned to the wing and began to unfurl it.
“What? No, wait. I am sorry,” Sam said, clutching the satchel of stones to his chest. “I am sorry for everything we did. Let me stay. I can be of use. I know things that you need to know. I can teach you. I can help you when you deal with the traders,” Sam begged, his eyes traveling around the circle of faces that watch him. “Please don’t kill me.”
Cheobawn gave the wing a hard shake. The joints snapped open, the spines spread wide, and the spidersilk began to hum in the wind. She managed to hold it steady while she kicked her toe through the pile of climbing equipment, looking for something that would work as a belt. She found some webbing, similar to the plasteel webbing of her own belt. It would do. She bent to retrieve it. The wing bucked in the air, anxious to be off doing what it did best. She pulled it back and picked up the webbing. It came, pulling more webbing with it. They just might be able to cut it down and make it work.
Sam stared at the wing as she approached him, his eyes wide with horror.
“I am not jumping off this cliff using that,” he said in no uncertain terms.
Cheobawn ignored him. She held up the webbing.
“What is this?” she asked.
“A body harness,” Sam said faintly, barely glancing down, transfixed as he was by the wing.
“Put it on. I want to see.”
Tam had to drag the satchel from Sam’s white-knuckled hands. With a little encouragement from Alain’s stick, Sam put the harness on. What at first glance had seemed a jumble of straps and buckles turned into a beautifully made web that cradled his entire torso. It even had a place to attach the wing’s hooks. Cheobawn looked over at Alain, hoping he had noticed. Alain was already taking mental pictures and making notes. Their next wing was going to be so much better. Smiling, she looked back at Sam.
“OK. I am going to hand you the wing and hook it to your belt, uh, your body harness,” she said. “Empty your mind. As your hands touch the struts, your body is going to remember how they work. When you think you are ready, I want you to ease out into the wind on the edge and jump. Any questions?”
“Please don’t make me do this,” Sam whispered.
Cheobawn ignored him. She brought the wing to his back. The two boys had to force Sam’s arms up. He did not want to close his hands around the struts or put his fingers in the sheaths. Cheobawn attached the suspension hook to his belt and then walked around him, grinning. The wing sang in his hands.
“I do envy you this,” she said, taking the satchel back from Tam and hanging it around Sam’s neck. “You are going to have so much fun.” She tugged on his harness and pulled him closer to the edge. Sam gasped as the wing bucked in his hands for a moment. Cheobawn watched his face, watched him remember flying, watched as he automatically adjust the declination of the wing surface to reduce the lift forces.
“Ah, it is coming to you,” she said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the rush of the air around them. “You know how to fly this thing, don’t you?”
“Gods curse you,” he swore, his voice hollow as he stared out at the empty sky. “Get out of my head, witch.” Cheobawn did not take offense at his impotent protest.
“Yes, you know now. Listen to me carefully, Samwell Wheelwright. The wing will only take you so far. It was designed to carry less weight. You cannot fly to the edges of Orson’s Sea as you might wish to. Gravity will be your enemy all the way down. I am sorry for that. But I will give you two choices. I will take the stones from you, toss them off the cliff, and let you take whatever equipment you need to help you survive on your journey back to your people.” She paused to let that thought sink in before she continued. “Or you can carry only the stones. Choose.”
He said something vile to her. Tam and Alain moved as one to hurt him but she stopped them with a look.
“Choose, or I shall have Tam and Alain toss you off the edge and make you sort the wing out on your way down.”
Sam snarled at her and stepped to the lip. With a powerful thrust of his legs, he leapt off into nothingness.
Cheobawn watched as he fought for control. He stalled out. Correcting his mistake put him into a tight spiral that took him perilously close to the rocks. There the wind caught him. She could hear the struts moan under the stresses as the wind tossed him high into the air above their heads.
Cheobawn threw back her head and laughed with delight. The boys joined in, hooting in appreciation. Sam dug the tip of one wing into the wind and circled, spiraling higher and higher. When he was almost a speck, he straightened out and headed south. They watched in wonder as he sailed away, across the Lowlands.
The clouds and the mist finally obscured their vision and they lost sight of him for the last time.
”The next kite is going to be so utterly awesome,” she said in wonder.
Tam groaned. Alain laughed and then turned to look at Bohea.
“What do we do with him?” he asked, his good humor draining away.
Cheobawn glanced over her shoulder. She had done a lot of thinking on the ride away from the clearing with Old Father’s corpse in its center.
“Bring him,” she said, crossing to the pile of equipment. She kicked through it, then stooped to pick up the small, featureless black box. She held it up for Bohea to see as Connor herded him close.
“What is this?”
“It is a sensor.” he said. “Lady, the Scerrons need an answer.”
“Sensor. What does it sense?”
“Anything. Everything. It can be adjusted to pick up energy readings of every sort from the motion of subatomic particles to the slow shift of the universe around its center.”
“Show me how it works.”
Bohea shook his head. “That is impossible. Even if I wanted to, I could not.”
Cheobawn glared at him. “You are here. This is here. Yet when you see it, when you read what it is telling you, when you touch it and make it do what you want it to do, you are not here. You are somewhere else. Where are you?”
Bohea stared at her.
“I do not know why I am surprised by this. You have proved over and over again that we have underestimated your knowledge and your abilities,” he said softly.
Cheobawn leaned in close that and stared into those dark eyes.
“You are Star Woman’s child. I can hear you. You are up there,” Cheobawn hissed softly, pointing at the sky. “Yet you are down here. Tell me what I want to know. Do not make me go hunting you in your ship.”
Bohea stared at her, not quite believing she could do what she threatened. She was not so sure she could either but she was not going to tell him that.
“My body sits inside a neural web connected to the ship-brain. This suit is merely a tool, an extension of my body and the machine sentience. It is a clever lie that allows me to go into dangerous places without actually risking my physical body.”
“I feel you. You are inside the suit,” she insisted.
“A testament to the suit builders, Little Mother. It costs the price of a dozen bloodstones to build. I will pass on your appreciation.”
Cheobawn turned and tossed the black box back onto the pile. She walked over to Alain and retrieved the hollow weapon. She looked from it to Alain. He shook his head, his frustration warring with his deep interest. He could not make it work. She turned and held it up.
“Make this work.”
“Again, I cannot. Will not. The control interface is not downplan
et.”
She tossed it back to Alain. Alain hung it back over his shoulder, pleased to have it back. Bohea flinched at its abuse. He was lying about something but she could not tell what it might be.
“The ruling family would have me tell you that they …”
“Gah,” Cheobawn yelled, throwing her hands up as if to ward off his intrusion into her mind. “Stop. You nag worse than a nestmother. It is taken care of already, alright?”
“Excuse me?” Bohea asked, looking profoundly confused. She had managed to break his mask of control at last. “What is taken care of?”
“Everything. You had a long list. I did listen, you know. Perhaps I did not understand all the words. If you would have gone with Sam down the cliff as I first intended, you would have them in hand already. But now you must wait for him to get back into the Lowlander’s world and hope that he has managed to hang onto at least one, though I fear he will leave a trail of them, scattered behind him as he decides the weight is not worth his life. Find him. He will give you one if you offer him his heart’s desire.”
“The bloodstones? You are talking about the bloodstones? How … how do bloodstones help me?“
“Not just any bloodstones,” Cheobawn said patiently. “Old Father Bhotta’s stones. All it takes is one. With one you will be able to hear all the rest. Hearing one, you will be able to recover the others. You can keep all but two. Give one to the Scerrons with my apologies, though I think you will need more stones to satisfy their new contract.”
Bear Under the Mountain danced gleefully upon the spires of the Dragons Spine. Life in the Highreaches seemed to be returning to normal.
Tell him, whispered Bear.
You are too bloody-minded for diplomacy, she sniffed at Bear haughtily.
Bear shook his deep pelt and laughed, not offended by the truth.
“And the second, Little Mother?” Bohea asked.
“It would be best if it were presented by one of your kind as a formal apology and an offering of peace through reparation but it is not necessary. You could probably do nothing and eventually a stone would find its way to those people you call Spiders. They will understand the message.”
“Message?” Bohea asked faintly. “What did you do to those stones?”
Cheobawn shrugged. “Go find one. Listen to Old Father Bhotta’s song.”
“Reparation?” Bohea asked the air around him. Cheobawn cocked her head to listen. The feeling that there were more ears than her own listening to this conversation would not leave her. He was not along on his starship. How odd it must be, to exist in two places at once.
“I kept Old Father Bhotta whole. He lives inside the stones. The memories in the stones are a gift and an invitation. Bear Under the Mountain grieves the emptiness of his seas. He would see them filled again.” Cheobawn said.
“Perhaps we are misunderstanding you. You cannot possibly think to offer this planet up as a foothold planet to an alien species.” the Bohea breathed in horror.
“Who is more alien on this rock? You or Spider? Old Father did not think two-legged creatures belonged here but Bear loves the people of the domes. We may not be the Children of his Flesh but that does not matter anymore. He does not believe the Spiders to be strangers, nor does Star Woman. If the Spiders come, it would not be wise to oppose them.” Cheobawn added the last as a helpful hint, thinking she should pass on her hard learned lesson in her dealings with Bear.
Again, he misunderstood her words.
“We have beaten the Spiders back from the edges of human space. Do you think that we cannot enforce our own blockades?” Bohea scoffed.
Cheobawn shook her head in exasperation. It was easier to talk to the bennelk than to this one hard-headed human.
“What of the Scerrons? Have you also solved their problem? Will the bloodstones redress their complaints? Should I tell the ruling hegemony that their precious star travel is no longer being held hostage by an infant adept on a backwater planet?” Bohea asked, not believing her reassurances.
It took Cheobawn a few seconds to realize he was talking about her.
Spacer, she thought, using Sam’s word as if this explained so much. It was not a compliment.
Of all the things this star man had told her, the complaint of the Scerrons had rung the most hollow. Someone was lying or being lied to.
She smiled serenely at Bohea.
“Star Woman dances us all in the hem of her skirts,” Cheobawn said. “The Scerrons know this. They know her as I know her. Give them one of Sam’s bloodstones. All will be forgiven.”
“None of this makes sense. What should I tell my superiors at the CPC?” Bohea asked, his face a mask of confusion. “Let me tell them, at least, that I have established diplomatic relations with your people so that we may talk again.”
Cheobawn put her hand in her pocket to touch the black stone with her fingertips. Sam was busy, searching for his next updraft. She smiled and sent him an image of sun baked earth making the air shimmer with heat. He found such a place and spiraled up into the heavens again. The stones in his satchel hummed with his pleasure. As long as the tribes had this stone, the others would be there to hear, just by asking.
“That too, resides in the stones,” Cheobawn said. “You really should have gone with Sam.”
Bohea walked to the edge of the Escarpment and looked out into the void, a calculated look on his face.
“What is Sam’s heart’s desire?” he asked.
“He wants his father to respect him,” she said, watching the face that was not a face but a mirror of one that sat far over her head.
Bohea grunted, a look of deep thought on his face. “He is a fool,” the ghost man said. With a powerful thrust of his legs, he leapt out into space. She watched him fall. She watched as the mirror face vanished and the suit collapsed like an empty sock. She watched as it began to glow like a ball of tinder just on the edge of combustion. Then she watched it turn into dust. The wind whipped the ash away and as quick as that, the ghost man was gone.
She suddenly remembered something. Stamping her foot in frustration, she uttered one of Sam’s favorite oaths.
“I don’t know what that means but you probably shouldn’t say it in front of an Elder,” Alain said dryly.
“I thought that went brilliantly,” Tam said. “Why are you upset?”
“Gah,” she said, turning around at the sound of Megan’s whistle of alert. Megan pointed, an alarmed look on her face. Herd Mother was coming down the game trail, her family close on her tail. “I just remembered. He still had my pocket knife in his belt. What am I going to tell Hayrald?”
Alain laughed. Tam bent down and kissed her on the top of her forehead.
“You are so crazy. I love you,” Tam said. Cheobawn smiled and hugged them both.
Chapter Twenty Seven
A temple acolyte came knocking on the classroom door, whispering things into Onan’s ear. The teacher turned and met Cheobawn’s eyes, a disapproving look on her face. She beckoned with a quick wave of her fingers. Cheobawn tried not to scowl or otherwise betray her annoyance as she gathered up her things and crossed to the door. She was a month behind in her studies already. How did the Coven expect her to catch up if they kept dragging her out of class every time they needed a question answered?
The acolyte said nothing. She merely turned and walked down the hall. Cheobawn dutifully followed her out of the Learning Center, across the central plaza, into the Temple, and up the west staircase to the fourth floor. People stopped to stare all along the way. Cheobawn longed for the days when she felt invisible. The Meetpoint foray had made her notorious but it was notoriety of the worst kind. Mora could no longer hide her odd daughter behind her walls of secrecy and silence. Cheobawn’s mistakes had become too public. A Pack could not disappear with most of the Dome’s bennelk herd for a handful of days and not draw notice. Her foolishness made good fodder for the village gossips. The tongues had not stopped wagging since. Cheobawn could no longer be ignored.<
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The acolyte led her down a long hallway lined with doors. Cheobawn did not need a guide to know where they were going. She had been up those stairs and down this hall every day for more than a month.
Would the questioning begin all over again? Questions about things that did not exist in the lexicon of dome knowledge and never would.
Had her Pack suffered the same fate? Had they also been pulled away from their studies to be paraded across the dome for all to see and comment on? Were Tam and the rest of Blackwind Pack shut up behind one of these doors, retelling their story to a member of the Coven?
That day on the Escarpment, as Hayrald and Sybille rode out of the forest, angry and already embroiled in a heated discussion before they had even heard a single word of explanation, Cheobawn had thought to warn her Pack, once more, that certain words could never be said. But they know nothing, Bear Under the Mountain had whispered, inordinately pleased with himself. Or nearly nothing. They are safe for now.
Of course, Bear was right. It was this wisdom that guided the answers she gave to the Coven and their Husbands. Not knowing who knew what and too tired to try to figure out what was safe to talk about and in front of whom, she had settled on silence. It had been easy enough to remember that she was seven and that Ears had no business being anywhere near the death-dealers of a foreign hunting party.
What was there to say, really? She could not endure talking of the details of Garro’s death so she simply said nothing.
Bohea. Bohea’s harsh, steely heart tainted all her memories of him. She could not repeat anything he had said to her without feeling him standing over her, twisting her words into some strange and alien meaning. The words choked her so she did not say them.
Sam? The Mothers took the bloodstone from her. Without Old Father’s stone she had no way of knowing if Sam still lived. The guilt of this began to eat away at her. No. She could not talk about Sam, about walking into Sam’s mind and teaching him to fly and then making him leap off the Escarpment. What she had done was forbidden and she did not think the Coven would understand why she had done it, nor would they understand how intimate she had become with the strange Lowland boy in such a short time. Even she could not understand how she could take that closeness and use it as a weapon against him. It made her feel like a monster.