by J. D. Lakey
With her silence near to complete, she let Tam tell what he knew, which was very little while she tried to forget the trip down to the Escarpment had ever happened.
Strangely enough, it had been Sybille who broke her silence. Mora’s Third cornered her in Herd Mother’s stall one day and asked point blank what she was hiding.
Cheobawn had opened her mouth to lie and then stopped herself. What had Megan said about spiraling? Ears and killers flowed in opposite directions and that Sybille was an Ear who killed. If anyone could understand the scope of death and destruction that had followed her down Waterfall Trail to the Meetpoint dome, it would be Sybille. They now had much in common, Cheobawn thought, having so much blood on her hands. She told Sybille everything.
As far as Cheobawn knew, that story was repeated only once, to the Coven. But no one outside of that select few ever asked her for an explanation after that.
Now she was back to answer more questions. Cheobawn sighed.
The acolyte opened the familiar door and held it for her. Cheobawn nodded her thanks as she peered around the door frame to make sure they were alone. The room was empty except for Menolly and a handful of her assistants. They were all busy boxing up the last of the Sam’s equipment.
Cheobawn crossed the room to her Mother’s side.
Menolly stood before a table covered with the contents of one of Bohea’s packs, studying something in her hands. She looked up as Cheobawn approached, her face oddly impassive.
“What do you think this is?” Menolly asked, holding out a wooden box, the lid open, revealing a glass ball set in a well-padded bed of soft cloth.
Cheobawn took the box cautiously. The box and the cloth were both strangely foreign. Cheobawn ran her fingers over the polished wood, wondering at the depth of translucent color and the slick feel of its highly polished surface. The object inside the box was innocuous and unremarkable by comparison. It looked like a twisted lump of clear glass.
Cheobawn studied it, curious. There were odd depths inside the folds of the crystal. Something tickled the ambient. She listened to it, following the strange feeling as it slipped away and disappeared around a corner. Cheobawn blinked in surprise. How could the ambient have corners?
She touched the glass with the tip of one finger. It felt strange. Colder and more slippery than ordinary glass should be. She pushed at it. Her finger slid around a corner into somewhere else. She jerked it away, squeaking in surprise.
Menolly caught the box as it tumbled out of her hands, snapping the lid shut over the strange thing inside without touching it.
“Well?” Menolly asked.
“Did you touch it?” Cheobawn asked examining her finger, checking to see if it was still whole. It was. “You might have warned me first.”
Menolly put the box on the table. An acolyte gathered it up and deposited it in one of the many crates.
“Any ideas about what it might be?” Menolly asked.
“Uh, the gift from the Scerrons, if I am allowed to guess,” Cheobawn said with a casual shrug, eying the boxes. “The Bohea mentioned such a thing.”
Was Bohea’s black box inside one of those crates, listening to the room? Surely the Mothers had been more careful. She had tried to explain its danger more than once.
She could not risk having the Spacer’s ears hear this conversation.
Menolly waited patiently, her look insistent.
Cheobawn looked at her Mother and lied. She was getting very good at lying.
“I think it is a toy. More than a toy. A teaching tool … for the very young. The Scerron young.”
“Really? What does it teach?”
Cheobawn bit her lip, thinking. Truth was better than lies, sometimes.
“How to navigate between stars,” Cheobawn said, listening to the object’s ambient.
It was so much more, but the Coven did not need to know about it just yet.
In the depths of the glass knot, around a corner or two, outside of this or any gravity well, in the spaces between one moment and the next, the Scerrons had buried a message just for her.
The Scerron’s complaint against her had been a fabrication, a mere ruse to get the CPC to send an envoy to find her but not just to deliver this box into her hands.
Bohea had been the messenger and the message.
Cheobawn smiled fondly, thinking of him in this new light. He stood as a silent warning from a race of psi adepts who, like her, liked to play with very powerful and dangerous things. The wave of terror she had sent off-planet during her first foray had been interpreted, not as a threat, but as a distress call.
The universe is full of listening Ears, the message in the glass ball began. The only safe place to hide in the game of power is as one of the players. We will make sure you are safe for now, but prepare. When they think you are ready, they will come for you.
Cheobawn meant to find the Scerrons one day and thank them for caring enough about the well-being of one small mountain girl to plot a clever plan that would keep her safe while she learned to use her abilities.
The CPC was duly terrified of her, the Scerrons said, this terror based solely on the lies of their own star pilots but at the same time, those lies whetted the appetites of those who walked the circles of power. They wanted her but feared ruining her. She was young. Unformed. Not yet done acquiring the skills she needed to wield her gifts. The ruling hegemony would leave the Highreaches alone. In whatever contract the Scerron’s now negotiated, the safety of the domes had been added as a footnote.
Cheobawn’s smile widened as she stared at her abused finger. She loved games. The one played by the Scerrons had the promise of being truly complex and ingeniously inventive.
“Teaching toy,” said Menolly enigmatically, nodding. The priestess picked up a stylus and a sheath of papers clipped to a writing board and began making notes. Cheobawn peered over her shoulder. It was a catalog of the Lowlander artifacts. Menolly wrote something beside an entry and then looked up, catching her spying. “Thank you. You can go back to class, now.”
Cheobawn looked at the pile of equipment rapidly disappearing into crates, wondering if there was a cup that twisted flat somewhere amongst all the alien detritus. She would have liked to keep that one thing as a memento from her foray out to the edge and back.
“Where are you taking all that?”
“Never you mind. You do not need to know,” Menolly said, not looking up from her lists.
“We could learn from them by what they left behind,” Cheobawn said tentatively, trying one last time to insert reason into the matter. Menolly looked up, her papers forgotten.
“Learn from what? Learn from whom? The official record says that Tam took Blackwind Pack to the Escarpment to fly a kite with near disastrous consequences. The injuries you returned with were caused when the kite failed and you spiraled into the rocks whereupon your Alpha was forced to rescue you. What is in those boxes does not exist.”
“So. I am stuck with memories that I cannot discuss with anyone. Will you one day explain what happened? I have searched the database for definitions of words that make no sense. The hub-brain has been maddeningly blank.”
Menolly considered her young nestmate. Cheobawn waited patiently while the priestess came to some decision. Menolly pressed the sheath of papers against her chest and began to recite.
“An oldpa took two small boys to the west pastures by way of the footpath, not realizing they could not swim. They came to the rope bridge. To the first boy he said, ‘Keep your eyes on your destination. No matter what you do, don’t look down.’ The boy took hold of the guide wire, put his feet on the single strand of rope and began to cross. Halfway across, fear rose in his heart and he looked down. The rush of the water under his feet disoriented him. He lost his balance, lost his grip, and fell in, drowning.”
Cheobawn grimaced. Menolly’s teaching tales were
usually a little more uplifting.
“I do not see …“
“The old
pa realized his mistake,” Menolly continued. “To the second boy he merely said ‘See the foot rope. It is the universe. There is nothing but the rope. No matter where you put your feet, the rope will be there to support you.’ Of course, the boy crossed quickly and without mishap.”
Menolly looked at her expectantly.
Cheobawn squinted, trying to see what lay in-between the lines of the High Priestess’s story.
“What does that mean? Ignorance is bliss?” Cheobawn asked. Menolly shook her head, ever patient.
“Death,” Menolly said softly, “tumbles beneath your feet. But it does no good to tell you that. You have played with Death from the moment you were born. It is an old companion and, dare I even say it, perhaps even a friend. What the Mothers would have you remember is that Truth, your truth, unsullied and innocent of any taint, is the rope beneath your feet. No matter where you go, no matter where you place your feet, it will keep you safe and on the right Path.”
Cheobawn scowled at her nestmother.
“Teach me to swim. Then I can cross anywhere.”
Menolly snorted and turned away. Cheobawn caught the hint of an amused smile on her Mother’s face.
“So. Do you think to swim the raging floods that uproot trees and tumble boulders about like dead leaves caught in a whirlwind? Why can you not take good advice when it is given?”
“You will have to answer my questions eventually,” Cheobawn said stubbornly. If she was anything, she was tenacious.
“Ah. Here I am, content to wait for that day. Learn from my example,” Menolly said evenly, studying her lists.
Cheobawn sighed a heavy sigh, her heart full of resignation but her eyes lingering longingly on the crates.
“Can I hold Old Father Bhotta’s stone one last time?” Cheobawn asked quietly.
Menolly looked up and stared at Cheobawn for a long moment.
“I do not think it wise,” Menolly said, finally, who had surely listened to Sybille’s report and rightly guessed that she wanted to check on Sam.
“I just need to know that it is safe, is all,” Cheobawn begged.
Menolly considered her for another moment, then shrugged. “Ask Mora. She keeps it close.”
“Does she?” Cheobawn said, unable to hide her surprise.
“Shoo,” Menolly said, handing the papers over to one of her assistants and heading out the door. “I told Onan I only needed you for a few minutes.”
Mora had Old Father Bhotta’s bloodstone. Cheobawn smiled. It was not lost to her after all.
She took her time getting back to class, pausing to cast her Ear out to the north of the orchards. It was Sixthday tomorrow and Tam had planned a hunt, their intended quarry the shaggy white hares that lived in the high meadows above the orchard paddocks.
It was meant to entertain her. Her Alpha seemed to think she got broody if she had too much time on her hands. The hunt was a gift. Cheobawn had smiled and said thank you. Alain’s lesson on pleasing Tam had not been lost on her.
As a consequence, Tam had them practicing with their bows in every free moment they could find. She had very little time to brood.
Truth be told she had her own ulterior motives for agreeing to go out on a hunt. There were far too many split lips and black eyes showing up in the other Packs. Much to her surprise it was not Connor who sat down every night for dinner with bruised and bloodied knuckles but Tam. What surprised her more was that the Husbands knew about it and turned a blind eye to her Alpha’s reign of terror on the other boys.
Tam. Her beautiful Tam. They would have to finish the conversation started while standing waist deep in the pools above Badnite Creek. She had accused him of being faithless. She had not meant it and had been sorry for saying it every minute of every day since but she did not mind the strange fruit it had born.
She meant to act broody as often as possible and then let the boys fuss over her. It seemed to make them happy.
She checked the ambient one last time.
Bear Under the Mountain was not where she expected him to be, asleep under her feet. She paused and looked up, past the panels of the dome, past the dome of the sky, finding him out on the edges of the world, dancing with Star Woman.
Cheobawn shook the pair out of her head. It was not over. Even Bear knew that.
She smiled as she continued across the plaza. What had Tam said? One did not go hunting for trouble. If you stood still, it would eventually find you.
Glossary
Alpha: Dominant male or female in the hierarchy of a Pack.
ambient: The communal psychic cloud surrounding all things.
Badnite Creek: The large creek that runs from the White Dragon, past Windfall Dome, down to the cliffs at Meetpoint.
Battle Trail: Sophisticated game of Dancing Molly, done in silence using fingersign usually used outside the dome.
Bear Under the Mountain: The synergistic sentience of all life north of the Escarpment.
bennelk: Mountain antelope, a smaller cousin of the fenelk, used as a mount for patrols.
Beta: Second in command.
bhotta: Large black scaled lizard, predatorial.
Black Bead: A failed Ear whose psi is suspect and not to be trusted.
bloodstone: A gem stone prized by the domes for its range of colors, its hard crystalline structure, and its use as a psychic enhancer.
blue tag: Permission tag given to Packs to foray outside.
Central Plaza: Open courtyard under the apex of the dome whose center is marked by a large water fountain.
Choosingday: The day three year old girls must prove their psi abilities.
click: The distance a human man can walk in an hour.
Coven: The First Mother and all her wives.
com sphere: A machine made of bloodstones and crystal brains attached to the inside of a gold sphere that acts as an antenna which, in turn, acts as an extension of an Ear’s psi abilities.
Dragons Spine: The range of mountains that separate the High Reaches from the northern ice fields.
Drover: A mother learned in the art of riding and managing the herd animals of the dome.
Ear: A psi adept female member of a Pack.
East Trail: Road leading out the East Gate.
Eiocha: The largest moon.
Elder: Tribal member over the age of sixteen.
Epona: The smallest moon.
Escarpment: The southern boundary of tribal lands.
fenelk: A horned and tusked antelope from the southern forests, it is the largest herbivore in the High Reaches. Domesticated and used as beasts of burden by the domes in the caravans to move goods between domes.
First Mother: The penultimate Mother in the Dome hierarchy, responsible for all life in and around the Dome.
First Prime: First Husband of the First Mother and her Coven. Penultimate Father in the Dome hierarchy.
foray form: The detailed topographic map of the area around the dome updated daily by the elders to include current threats used by the foray packs to plan their expeditions.
High Mother: The leader of all the domes in the High Reaches, voted into office by the First Mothers of each dome.
Little Father: The formal title of boys who have not reached their majority.
Little Mother: The formal title of girls who have not reached their majority.
Lowlands: The land below the Escarpment.
Lowlander: Those humans who live in the Lowlands.
Maker of the Living Thread: Master Geneticist.
Natalmother: Mother who is impregnated by the Maker of the Living Thread and who bears the risk of gestating a child to full term.
Nestmother: The Mother in charge of rearing a group of children between the ages of three and seven (if male), and three and eight (if female). After the age of seven boys are traded, and after the age of eight girls join Packs.
North Fork Trail: The northern trail that splits from East Trail to run along the top of the cliffs and skree slopes.
omeh: A plas
teel and bloodstone necklace woven whole around the necks of every child not long after their birth which contains twenty three threads containing the record of their genetic patterns. The color of the beads and the arrangement of knots is unique to each dome.
Orchard Road: The north road leading past the orchards into the north paddocks.
Orchard Trail: The road leading out the North Gate.
Orson’s Sea: The southern shallow sea between the continent and the Ten Thousand Islands.
Pack Hall: Residence where the declared Packs reside in communal dorm rooms.
Pack: A group formed by children, it is the requirement of any who want to leave the dome. To Pack is enter into a formal binding contract with a chosen few. Upon reaching majority, these ties are permanent, the members considered Husbands and Wives.
Pantry: The dome’s communal food storage.
Psi: Short for psionic. The genetically bred abilities of dome women to perceive the world using super-psychic means.
red tag: The foray tag for outside travel used to track all outside activities.
Son of the Flesh: Boys born of the dome in which they reside.
Son of the Heart: Boys traded in Trade Fairs as future Husbands to the Mothers of the recipient domes.