Revenge of the Catspaw

by Helena Puumala

  THE WITCHES’ STONES: BOOK THREE

  REVENGE OF THE CATSPAW

  by

  Helena Puumala

  The Witches’ Stones: Book Three

  Revenge of the Catspaw

  Helena Puumala

  Copyright Helena Puumala 2016

  Published by Dodecahedron Books

  Cover image Copyright Dale Olausen 2016

  Cover Background:

  Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC 6334) European Southern Observatory

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Once again, I want to thank all of the family members and friends who have contributed to the development of my writing, through their caring and encouragement. Special thanks go to my sister Kaye, my brother-in-law Ken, and our friend Rosemary, three of our enthusiastic and trusted beta-readers.

  And, of course, my husband and co-writer (and Editor, as well as the other half of Dodecahedron Books) gets credit for some of the more scientific aspects of the book, as well as for contributing to some of the action sequences. He is also responsible for formatting the book and finalizing the cover.

  Thank you all, as well as anyone else who participated in the process, but whose name I have failed to mention.

  For the time being, this wraps up the Witches Stones trilogy. It has been an enjoyable and fascinating universe to inhabit for a time; at some later date, I hope to return to it, and explore it, and the characters who inhabit it, further. In the meantime, I am probing the realms where my muse dwells, hoping to be directed to other enjoyable stories.

  Helena Puumala

  Excerpt

  The men were wearing their Elite insignia, circles attached to the front left shoulders of their suit jackets; marks of status which they never displayed during their forays into Confederation space (probably because the democrats of the Confederation would have laughed at them). Coryn, nevertheless, having worked for The Agency for as long as he had, easily deciphered them. Silver and red: he was looking at Elites of the Second Tier. A lot closer to the top of the Neotsarian pecking order than was the fellow who was handing him off; he had a tricoloured circle on his shoulder, with no metallic hues.

  “Well done, Elite Kenney,” Elite Mogron said to the one who had brought Coryn. “Your next responsibility is to make certain that the Witches of Kordea know that we hold him. I trust you to work out how to do so, and how much to reveal about his present whereabouts. Remember, we want the Mackenzie girl to come looking for him, but, until we have the rebuilt version of the reflector-refractor in hand, we're not ready to take on all the seven covens of Kordea.”

  He turned to Geof and Evella.

  “You two wanted to safe-keep this specimen?”

  Evella licked her lips.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I'll take care of him.”

  “Geof, don't let her destroy him,” Mogron said. “Keep a leash on her worst tendencies. He's bait, and bait has to stay alive until the desired fish has been reeled in. Don't let her maul him too much.”

  Table of Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Excerpt

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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  About the Author

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  PROLOGUE

  The room was a richly furnished boardroom, but not large. The polished, hardwood table in the middle could have seated a dozen people at most. There were ornate counters and cabinets along two walls, the door on the third, and the fourth was a bank of windows, looking down, way down, upon a city-scape. The building was a tall one, and there were other tall buildings nearby, colourless grey on the outside.

  Four men were seated at one end of the table; the rest of the room was empty.

  “So, Elite Karil,” said one of them, the one with a gold-coloured circle adorning the left front shoulder of his grey suit jacket. “The Confederation Agents and the Kordean Witches ruined your operation. How was that possible?”

  He sat at the end of the table. The man he addressed was the one seated farthest from him, beside one of the two wearing circular insignia half in silver and half in red. His adornment had no metallic tone at all, but was tricoloured: white, green, and black.

  “The power that the Witches have at their command is phenomenal,” replied the man who had been addressed as Elite Karil, and there was wonder in his tone of voice. “We at the Amarto Laboratory thought that we had succeeded in harnessing enough of the Stone-energy to be in control of things, but we were wrong.”

  He shook his head.

  “The amount of power that was in the blast that destroyed the reflector-refractor is almost beyond belief. If only we could grasp control of it for ourselves, we would be in control of the Galaxy in no time at all!”

  “You were supposed to gain for us that power,” the man with the gold insignia said drily. “You were in charge of the Amarto Lab. You were responsible for the chattels who did the work. You were the one in the position of responsibility for the place when the Confederation-Kordean infiltrators destroyed it, and stole our chattels.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As punishment for the failure, you are relieved of your duties, and will go to your home world in disgrace. I will give the responsibility for rebuilding the laboratory, and the continuation of its work to Elite Mogron, here.”

  He nodded at the man sitting, alone, on his other side.

  “Elite Mogron, you were overseeing the efforts of Elite Karil up to now, of course, but did not have the hands-on responsibility during the disaster. Now I give you the task of regaining what was lost. I expect you to surpass the efforts of Elite Karil, and to gain for us the fantastic powers that he spoke of.”

  Elite Karil did not comment on this. There was nothing to say. He was being blamed for the failure which the Witches had inflicted upon him, in spite of all the good work that he had squeezed out of the people he had had under his control. Those had included the chattels who had been the true creators of the amazing machine which the weird Kordean women had somehow managed to destroy! However, assigning blame was the privilege of the super-Elites with the right to wear the gold circles on their suits. As was the reallocation of responsibility after failures. There was nothing that a lesser Elite could do.

  Elite Mogron smiled a tiny, satisfied, smile.

  “I will take over the Laboratory,” he promised his superior, “and see to it that the reflector-refractor is rebuilt. I will capture more talented chattels to work the machine once it is operational. And I will force the Kordean crones to their knees, to serve us!”

  Easier said than done, thought Elite Karil. But he did not speak. He knew his place in the pecking order, and it was not a bad one. Although, had he succeeded in wresting the power of the Kordean Witches, his place would have become much better. But, were Elite Mogron's chances of success any better? Especially now that the crones and their covens had been warned of the Neotsarians' ambitions?

  “Good,” said the man at the head of t
he table. “We at the top level will be expecting results. It does appear that this effort has the promise of power with which we can remould the Galaxy in our image. However, we have to be clever, and ruthless in the pursuit of our ideals.

  “Elite Mogron, the work will receive whatever funding you require.”

  Whereas I had to beg for coins, thought Elite Karil. Yet I accomplished much, enough that the final failure was noted at the top level—by the gold-circled men. And now I've been booted out, so that Elite Mogron can take over, and reap the glory—if he can. Well, it was ever thus. It is how the Galaxy is supposed to be run.

  **

  The two men wearing the silver and red circles left the building together. They did not speak until they were on the street, a straight, orderly street, in spite of its mid-city location.

  “Have you plans for the pursuit of this audacious goal that the super-Elites seem to have decided is worth spending money on, in spite of Elite Karil's spectacular failure?” the one who had been merely listening at the meeting asked.

  Elite Mogron smiled.

  “Well, I was always in charge, but a step above Elite Karil, so I know what happened. In fact, I was responsible for much of it, although the unfortunate incidents took place under Elite Karil's personal watch. I chose him to look after the lab, knowing that he had a tendency to be loose with supervision. The common workers do better, and more creative work when they are less stringently supervised. He was not a nit-picker, an asset under the circumstances, I thought, although his downfall in the end.

  “Now I'll have to find another third-level, or lesser, Elite who will be as indulgent with those beneath him, as Karil was. I'll also have to decide if it is necessary to move the laboratory, and, if so, where. And I need more scientists, and more Stone-sensitives. That Mackenzie girl alone would suffice, I think, when it comes to amarto-sensitives, once the reflector-refractor technology is again operational; she is such a strong talent. The real Sarah, I mean, and not the pretty woman who was passing herself as Sarah, and fooling the operatives on Kordea with her feminine wiles.”

  “By now, she must know that we want to snare her,” his companion objected.

  “I'm sure that she does. So we'll have to be clever—and ruthless. I'm thinking that we can use the fact that the fool who heads The Agency the Confederation government has on our collective tails, is an idiot, prone to jealousy and envy.”

  “Interesting. Get him somehow to deliver the girl?”

  “No. He'll deliver the annoying Agent with whom she has fallen in love. She'll then deliver herself. She'll come looking for her lover.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The private apartment of The Eldest of the Circle of the Twelve, the largest of the Seven Sacred Witch Circles of Kordea, was not an ostentatious place. It consisted of two rooms and a bath, and the rooms were not large, although they were comfortable.

  The Stronghold of the Twelve, Ferhil Stones, was a large old edifice, built with blocks of stone, and ancient logs and boards cut from local forests. Kordean wood of almost every type was sturdy, hard, and beautifully grainy. The trees were slow-growing so the wood was expensive; off-planet only the rich could afford to own even small pieces of it. Fortunately, its near-indestructibility meant that the Kordeans were used to having plenty of it around—most of that plenty was very old.

  The living quarters of Marlyss, the Eldest, were no exception. The rooms were ancient, no doubt used by generations of Witch-women who had carried the responsibilities of The Circle Eldest before her. The sitting room, which at the moment was occupied only by a large, sentient animal known as The Greencat was generously furnished with wooden seats made comfortable with the addition of fabric-covered padding, and cushions. There was also a table with chairs. And along one inner wall stretched a counter with cupboards above and below it. There was a sink with hot and cold water taps in the middle of the counter's length, a rarity when it came to the personal living spaces of the Circle Witches.

  At the moment there were two used wineglasses in the sink, and a half-consumed bottle a wine on the counter next to it. The large cat appeared to be asleep on a braided rug in the middle of the floor. The door to the sleeping room was closed.

  Marlyss lay on her bed, one pale hand in the dark-skinned hand of the Guru Johannes, savouring the pleasure of having just experienced something that she had never expected to know. It was the pleasure of late-life sex. She had for a long time been of the opinion that the pleasures of the flesh were not compatible with the busy life and the heavy responsibilities which were the lot of The Eldest of the Twelve, the most important, and the most powerful person, male or female, on the world Kordea. Besides, the possible partners had been scarce; certainly various of the men of the landed gentry around Ferhil Stones would have been happy to have bedded her, but they were all without a trace of ESP, and completely uninterested in the pursuits which made up the lives of the Witches. Marlyss knew that she would have found them boring, and her sex-drive had not for years been strong enough to make her want the kind of meaningless connection which would have been the only kind possible with such men.

  When she had been a young Apprentice at Ferhil Stones, she had formed a passionate connection with another Apprentice, but Carlina had chosen, for excellent reasons, to return to her home village to apprentice under the local Healer, after she had finished her studies at the Stronghold. Meanwhile Marlyss had been fingered, already then, as a possible Circle Eldest. The break-up had left Marlyss emotionally raw, and she had not been able to even imagine trying to find a replacement lover.

  Thus, she had concentrated on her role, first as a member of the Circle of the Twelve, and then, when the time had come, as the leader of the Circle, and the most influential person on the planet.

  It had not occurred to her until the dark-skinned, white-afroed man who now shared her bed—at least for the moment—had contacted her, mentally at first, that it was possible for her to have a meaningful sexual connection with a kindred spirit. But here she was, Marlyss, the Eldest of the Twelve, happily ensconced in the large bed which took up most of the space in her bedroom, with the Guru Johannes, who had come visiting, not just to lie with her, but to discuss matters of grave importance to both of them.

  Whether this particular pillow talk was purely mental, or if the participants chose to use their vocal chords, is not known. The substance of it, however, went approximately as follows:

  “You say that these power-hungry Neotsarians targeted your people in their early attempts to find folk who could work with amartos?” Marlyss asked as she lay back on her pillows, feeling thoroughly relaxed in spite of the dangerous currents that both she and the Guru had sensed whirling throughout the Galaxy.

  Where was the wine? They must have left it and the glasses in the sitting room. Ah, well. They would get up soon enough, and finish the bottle then.

  “How did that work out? For them?”

  “Not well at all,” the Guru Johannes replied. “My people don't use the Stones. We don't need to—most of us are gifted with extra-sensory perception which does not require crystal amplification. Not that it isn't possible that some of us might learn to extend our talents with them, if we took lessons, here, at Ferhil Stones, for example. But it has never been necessary to do so, on my home world. There have always been plenty of capable ESPers around for us to do whatever we have found it necessary to do. What we have lacked in the strength of the individuals, we have made up in numbers.”

  “So the persons whom they abducted from your home world could do nothing with the machine that these people had put together?”

  “That's right. And they were all young—older, experienced people are harder to entice to leave their homes for another planet, than adventurous, young fools—and had little interest in the Neotsarians gadgets, never having known a machine-intensive culture.”

  “But The Organization people did not allow the youngsters to return home, after they had determined that they were useless to
them?”

  “No, they did not.” Guru Johannes shook his wild-haired head. “They certainly did not. We did try to retrieve them, using our talents, but, even a large group of us was not able to wield the kind of psychokinetic force that your Sarah Mackenzie displayed when she used that cache of amartos to send a roomful of women and a large cat across half the galaxy.”

  He gave his head another shake.

  Marlyss grinned at him.

  “Sarah is rather remarkable,” she said. “And the bowlful of amartos did help her to do what she did. Although I'm not sure that any one in the Circle of the Twelve could have done what she did, even with a bowlful of the Stones. Not even young Dian, and she is the most talented one of us.”

  “We do want the young fools back,” the Guru sighed. “I'm hoping that our cooperation—yours, and mine, and that of the Terrans of the Confederation—will help to achieve that, besides all what you and the Terrans hope to do.

  “Thing is,” he added, “and I have not spoken of this with anyone outside of my own people, until now, that the young men who were taken are being abused. We know this because one of them was in a committed relationship with a young woman, which means that she is able to reach his mind, even over the distance involved. Why the fool young man allowed himself to be enticed to go off is beyond me, but it is a good thing he did, since otherwise we would not have known of this. As it is, his paramour is sharing his emotions, suffering with him, perhaps going insane with the pain—and, so far, we have been unable to help her much.”

  “Creator save us!” Marlyss exclaimed. “Are those people mad? No wonder Coryn was so angry with us for allowing poor Janelle to fall into their hands when they seduced her mother into letting them have her! He must have had some idea, even then, of what they are like! I can excuse my complacency only by claiming ignorance!”

  “I think that the mind-blind have an advantage over us sensitives when it comes to imagining the horrors which people are capable of inflicting on others of their own kind. Which is one of the reasons why I'm counting on working with them—only with the best of them, of course.”