by J. D. Lakey
Black Bead
Text copyright © 2016 by J.D. Lakey
Cover & Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Dylan Drake
All rights reserved. Published by Wayword Press
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0692609477
ISBN-10: 0692609474
Book Website
JDLakey.com
Contact:
[email protected]
Illustrator Website:
DylanDrakeDesignInc.com
Printed in the U.S.A
Second Edition, January 2016
Other Books in the Black Bead Chronicles:
Bhotta’s Tears: Book Two
Spider Wars: Book Three
Trade Fair: Book Four
Dunauken: Book Five
For
All the children of my Heart
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Glossary
Rank & Dome Affiliation
About the Author
The real danger
When creating a weapon
Meant to destroy your enemies
Is not that you will fail
But that you will succeed
Beyond all expectations.
The Book of Mysteries;
The Living Thread, 12.37.15
Chapter One
Cheobawn looked up from her playthings and waited. Something had been stalking her in the shadows at the back of her mind since dawn and now it drew near. The thing stank of unnamed yearnings, unfulfilled wishes, and a hunger so deep it made her feel hollow inside. She counted its steps under her breath. One. Two. Three. On six, three young boys turned the corner, sauntered casually down the walkway that fronted the playground fence, and stopped at the gates.
“Ten,” whispered Cheobawn, watching them intently. Something about them piqued her interest. Other seekers had come. More than a few. These boys seemed different, somehow.
Was it their outer appearance that caught at her imagination? The boys were dressed like every other child in the village, in basic tunic and shorts, though these three made an attempt at looking presentable, with their damp hair pasted back against their skulls and their clothes freshly laundered, the creases still sharp from the hot irons used by the Mothers in the laundry.
Yet it was their clothes that seemed to set them apart from other boys. Cheobawn calmed her thoughts and let the details of the scene wash through her mind, wishing to solve this puzzle.
The Mothers never threw anything away if it still had use, especially clothing, since the process of turning dyes and yarns into fabric was labor intensive and relegated to the long dark days of midwinter. Clothes outgrown were simply returned to the communal stores, to be recycled and reissued to the next child in line. Time and use faded the natural dyes. The youngest children were invariably dressed in motley shades of pale.
These three boys, on the other hand, had somehow convinced the Mothers in charge of the stores to give them three almost identical outfits whose dyes were still rich and bright. Their multi-pocketed shorts were the same brown, their tunics an identical shade of green, no mean feat when one considered the vagaries of the weaving and dyeing processes.
On the surface, the uniformity of their appearance seemed prideful and vain, but Cheobawn found the effect comforting somehow. In a scuffle or an all out brawl, she imagined, it would be an advantage to tell at a glance who was friend and who was foe. Why males enjoyed solving their problems with their fists was a different puzzle that she would save for another day.
The troop of boys did not immediately enter the school yard. Instead they loitered, milling about in that jittery, wound up way universal to all little boys. It always reminded her of nervous herd animals with the smell of leopard up their noses. She did not need her psi skills to guess their purpose. Their furtive glances were drawn to Megan. The tall, slender girl, busy leading a dozen little girls in a complicated game of Dancing Molly, did not notice the boys right away.
Cheobawn slid further back into her favorite hiding place. The long thin leaves of the densely packed tubegrass curved over her head, casting her bower into deep shade. From here she could watch the world, safely unnoticed. From here she could watch the watchers.
The boys argued. It was a brief, intense storm on the ambient, quickly quashed by the leader, the loser sucking his unhappiness back behind the walls of his mind. Cheobawn sighed in relief, grateful for their self control. Such was the life in a village full of witches. One learned early to guard one’s thoughts.
Perhaps sensing the brief storm, Megan looked up and noticed them for the first time. She paused for a moment, her face betraying nothing, before turning back to her duties. Pretending indifference, she immersing herself in play with Cheobawn’s classmates, but her voice became too bright, too loud, too forced. Cheobawn grimaced, embarrassed for her friend. There would be no advantage to be had in the ensuing negotiations if the boys knew their interest was returned in kind.
Cheobawn had seen this all before, this awkward dance. As often as she watched it play out, it still puzzled her. It seemed to her that more things were going on under the surface than just picking partners. She had asked Da to explain it. He said six-year-olds were not meant to know certain things and she would understand it better when she got older. Cheobawn doubted this.
Bored, Cheobawn turned her attention back to her play. She placed another pebble carefully along the finger wide roads she had etched in the dust. The roads wound through a miniature world made of rocks, wooden toys, flowers and bits of stick and weeds. Cheobawn put her cheek down in the dust to see what the world looked like from the pebble’s point of view.
The gate squeaked open, catching at her attention. The leader had found his courage at last. He crossed towards Megan while his mates hung back near the gate. Cheobawn smiled and lifted her head to watch the drama. This was not the first
demi-Pack that had come hunting Megan. It would probably not be the last. Megan had very particular standards.
The boy, Tam was his name, stopped a few paces from Megan and bowed politely. There was an unconscious grace in the way he moved that made even this formality seem less an act of subservience and more like the first step in a well choreographed weapons form. Cheobawn listened to the ambient, curious about this strange boy in spite of herself. His hunger infected his mind, preceding him in waves. He wanted so much more than what the world was willing to give him. It was a sentiment she could understand.
Hope was not a thing she usually allowed in her heart, having been disappointed far too often but there it was, filling her and making the world brighter with its promise.
She knew of Tam. She had never had any harsh dealings with him, which already put him a notch above most of the boys of the village, whose curiosity could turn cruel. The beads of his omeh, barely visible above the neckline of his tunic, marked him as a son of the Waterwall tribe. His midnight black hair, so different from Home Dome’s sandy haired denizens, proclaimed his eastern tribe origins.
She remembered the caravan that had brought him, along with the handful of seven-year-old b
oys acquired that year from the Eastern Trade Fair. It had been three years ago. She had marked it in her mind because the men had staggered into the village nearly frozen, the pack animals driven close to death in the mad race to get down out of the passes before an unseasonable winter storm made the high mountain roads impassable. The Mothers, the fiasco of her Choosingday only weeks old and fresh in their minds, had blamed her Bad Luck for the odd weather just as they had blamed her Bad Luck for every mishap and change in their fortunes since.
Cheobawn did the math. That would mean Tam was over ten years old now. Technically, by village counting, that made him the same age as Megan, though Megan would not be ten for another few months.
A squabble broke out between two little girls about the finer points of Dancing Molly, drowning out anything Tam might have been saying. Megan broke it up with a soft word and a group hug and then rose to her full height, giving Tam a wintry stare. Since she was half a head taller than Tam, this made her gaze seem almost regal. Tam did not flinch under that look as Cheobawn had seen other boys do. Instead he returned her gaze and tried again, saying something with an eloquent gesture of his fine boned hands. Cheobawn admired him for his persistence.
“Are you the one? Please be the one,” she whispered softly to herself.
She watched them talk, her imagination filling in the conversion that she could not hear. Tam needed an Ear, that was obvious. All the ten-year-old boys with dreams of leading a Pack needed an Ear. Without a girl gifted with the psi skills needed to keep a Pack safely out of harms way, they could not make an independent foray outside Home Dome. Without an Ear, the demi-Packs went outside only as baggage on some other Pack’s foray, like the babies, the old, and the pregnant women. There was no honor in it and more importantly, any points won while on a mission went to the alpha commander of the lead Pack, not to the tag-along demi-Packs.
Megan answered Tam. Tam frowned and tried to argue. Megan folded her arms over her flat chest, a sure sign that she could not be persuaded. She spoke again, shaking her short, sun bleached curls away from her face.
Cheobawn dropped her eyes and studied her fingers where they lay buried in the cool earth. Here it comes, she thought sadly. Megan had stated her terms. Tam would argue and eventually say no. The boys always said no. Cheobawn sighed. One day, quite soon, Megan would follow her own internal needs and say yes. She needed a Pack as much as the boys needed a Little Mother to play Ear. Someday, soon, Cheobawn would be alone.
Cheobawn let her mind wander away, sinking it deep into the roots of the mountain underneath her hands, letting the cool darkness there ease the ache of her sorrow.
It was a surprise then, when a pair of shadows moved to block out the bright light streaming through the dome high over their heads. Cheobawn looked up into a pair of curious hazel eyes set in a kind face.
“Hello, Little Mother,” Tam said.
“Ch’che, this is Tam. He wants to ask you something,” Megan said, smiling encouragingly from behind Tam’s back.
Tam studied her. Cheobawn watched his eyes slide over the black bead set in her own omeh and then return to her face to meet her gaze. His expression did not betray his thoughts. Her estimation of him rose one more notch. Most people flinched from the implications of her black bead. His omeh, like Megan’s, already held a handful of honors, no mean feat for someone so young. Cheobawn’s omeh held nothing but her tribe designation and the hated black bead. With all those honors, he could have had his pick of any eligible girl in the village yet he came seeking Megan, who came burdened with a Black Bead child that she would not abandon.
Tam squatted down to Cheobawn’s level to speak to her. She did not care if the move was calculated or unconscious; it made him less intimidating. Perhaps, she thought to herself, I just might like you. She returned his gaze solemnly.
“My Pack needs an Ear, Little Mother. Megan says she’ll come but you have to come along, too. What do you say? Please say yes.”
Cheobawn blinked, surprised by the strange emotions those words triggered inside her. People did not have to be nice or polite to her when her Truemother was not around, so they generally were not. She glanced at Megan, who nodded, an excited little smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
Cheobawn looked down at her miniature world and pointed at one pebble after another.
“Stinging spiders, buzzy hive, fuzzy gang, fenelk, bhotta den, treebear,” Cheobawn recited. Then she pointed at the toys and flowers and the weed stalks. “Bloodstones, honeypots, hoppers, bog apples, fernhens, silk spiders.”
A blank expression crossed Tam’s face. At least he had the grace not to laugh out loud.
“That’s a nice game, Little Mother, but I want to go outside. Outside?,” he said the last loudly, as if she was hard of hearing.
Megan giggled. Cheobawn scowled at both of them and reached out to brush away her designs. Megan stooped quickly, catching her wrist before she could do too much damage.
“Don’t be silly. He didn’t understand your model. You have to be patient with boys,” saying the last as if that explained so much of life’s puzzles.
“Model? Map? That’s a map?” Tam asked, a light dawning in his brain.
“Do not be fooled by her size or her age. Amabel knew what she was doing when she made Ch’che. Mora did not want just any ordinary truedaughter. Now pay attention. This mound of sand,” Megan explained, pointing, “is the Home Dome. Those flowers are the gates. The lines are roads and trails. The rocks are bad things. The toys and such are good things. North on the model is north in the real world. Do you need her to repeat the list?” Megan asked, testing him.
“No, wait,” Tam said, studying the things etched in the dust. After a moment he looked up and met Cheobawn’s steady gaze. His next question surprised her. “Did you make this for me? How did you know I was coming?”
Cheobawn snorted in disgust. Demi-Packs, despite all their lessons, seemed to view the psi abilities of Little Mothers in a singularly egocentric way.
“She makes them every morning. It helps her keep track of things,” Megan explained. “Go ahead. Ask her something else.”
“Like what?”
“Belief takes trust,” Cheobawn said cryptically, moving a stone.
“Huh?”
“She wants you to test her Ears,” Megan translated
patiently.
“A test? Oh,” he mused, thinking for a moment. “Alright. Say I wanted to go five clicks north of Home Dome along the Orchard Road. What is out there?”
Cheobawn rose up onto her hands and knees and very carefully extended a winding line and then put a handful of rocks just off the left hand side of the trail.
“Dubeh leopards,” she said. “A mom and her cubs.”
Tam stared at the little pile of stones and then looked back at her, obviously thinking hard.
“Mora gets all the field reports every morning. Who is to say she did not read them and is just drawing from memory?” he suggested to Megan.
Cheobawn smiled slyly at him, daring him to believe that.
“Do not torment him, Ch’che,” the older girl scolded. To Tam she said, “The reports go to the office of the First Mother, not to her living quarters.”
“My truemother keeps her comscreen locked against me. Every time I figure out her pass code, she changes it,” Cheobawn sniffed in annoyance.
Tam studied them both, trying to see if the two girls were playing some sort of game at his expense. Megan blinked innocently at him. Cheobawn continued moving the pieces in her miniature world. He looked down, distracted by the movement, perhaps wishing he had paid more attention to her descriptions of the markers.
Cheobawn moved a pair of stones and decided to take pity on him.
“Fenelk mother and her yearling calf,” she said, tapping the pebbles to the west of the sand mound. “She smells the fuzzy gang and moves up the mountain, putting distance between herself and them. She need not worry. Fuzzies have full bellies. They found the treeb
ear’s den last night and will not eat again for days,” Cheobawn assured him.
“How does she do that?” Tam asked. “They never told me that the Ears could be this accurate.”
“That’s nothing,” Megan said, purposefully ignoring his question. “Current ambient is easy. Watch this. She’s amazing. Ch’che, show me the mountain at day’s end.”
Cheobawn put her hand out and then paused. The day slipped away from her and fell into disarray. How curious. This had never happened to her before. The days of the Windfall tribe were as predictable as the sunrise. She chewed on her bottom lip and pondered the source of such uncertainty.
A thought came to her from out of nowhere. Since she was obviously about to go outside, out beyond the edges of the well patrolled perimeter of the village, the presence of her future self altered the map. The more she tried to see the future, her own future, the more chaotic it became.
“Ch’che?” Megan prompted, concerned.
“Well, that was impressive,” commented Tam, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Shhh,” Megan hissed. “Ch’che, is there something wrong?”
“I am out there. All possibilities exist in me,” Cheobawn said vaguely, trying to sort out the infinite number of futures running through her head.
“Huh?” said Megan.
“You are one spooky little kid, did you know that?” commented Tam.
Cheobawn stood up and brushed the dirt off her grubby knees. This was exciting. She wanted to hurry up and find out what her future self was up to.
Tam and Megan did not move. They squatted in the dust and stared up at her with their mouths open.
“Well? Are we going outside or not?” Cheobawn asked impatiently.
“Unh,” grunted Tam, shaking his head, “Sure, why not?”
Cheobawn grinned at them both and stepped around them to saunter over to the gate. The two boys eyed her uncertainly and then looked up as Tam approached.