by J. D. Lakey
“Maybe we can just toss them into Badnite Creek and hope it flushes them all the way down to the Lowlands,” Breyden suggested.
“These are not space-faring spiders. They are egg layers. I don’t know that they would survive the journey in the dead of winter. Even if they could navigate an ice bound creek, I do not believe they will survive a fall off the Escarpment outside their shells.”
Meshel thought for a moment. “They are small. Gravity would not be their enemy. It is the winds we need to worry about. Badnite Creek turns to mist halfway down the cliff. The babies would get caught in the updrafts and be scattered. The lower forests would get showered with baby spiders, each having to orient itself and then find the great river before the predators ate them.”
“Now? You bring this up now?” Connor asked, pinning Meshel with a pained look of horror.
“No one asked,” Meshel said with a shrug.
“They cannot survive the tumble down the Escarpment as they are.” Erin said, a faraway look on her face. She was not afraid to let the little alien minds talk to her in the ambient. Cheobawn smiled at Sigrid’s Alpha Ear. Erin blinked and met Cheobawn’s eyes. “Can we hide them here long enough for them to grow up? How big would they have to be to climb down the cliffs without being washed away by the falls or torn to pieces by the winds?”
Cheobawn shook her head. “The eggs need to be hardened off under hot sand to trigger the growth of their exoskeletons. They cannot exist as they are for much longer.”
“What are we going to do?” Soral asked sadly. “We worked so hard to keep these few alive and now it seems it was all for nothing.”
“Oh, well,” Iroc said with a shrug. “At least we tried.”
Cheobawn frowned at him. “I do not think I want a species of giant bennelk-sized spiders mad at me. Do you?” Iroc had the grace to look a little sick at the thought.
Cheobawn turned back to study the pond, her ignorance weighing heavy on her mind. Not for the last time in her life, she wished for all the wisdom of the Elders that she might see her way clear of this mess.
She lay down upon the damp decking and leaned out over the water, letting her fingers trail in the frigid pool. The babies called to her, tugging at her mind, making her heart ached with their terror. They did not want to die as the other eggs had died.
An urge that defied sanity filled her. She wanted to turn on these two legged beings standing behind her and kill them as a small revenge for all those deaths. Cheobawn closed her eyes and tried to shake Spider’s children out of her mind. Spider would not leave her.
Parlay, Spider whispered in her Ear. Seek a treaty with those who wield the power. Spiders and dome builders have much in common. Offer them the thing they want more than anything else.
What would that be? She asked but the answer was already there, an impossibly crazy idea that seemed to hang like a beacon of light inside her brain; a two thousand-year-old plan, laid out with meticulous care and patiently enacted, one step at a time. The perfection of its symmetry overwhelmed but the tenacity of Spider’s single minded focus frightened her. She leapt to her feet and turned to stare at Ramhorn, her heart pounding, her mouth dry. It was suicidal, this thing she needed to do.
Connor had been waiting, watching for any clue to the state of her mind. He groaned. He did not like what he saw behind her eyes. Ramhorn Pack stood behind him, their eyes full questions. “Tell us,” Connor begged, knowing beyond a doubt that he would not like her answer.
“We are going to do the thing least expected,” Cheobawn said, putting more confidence in her voice than she felt.
“Which is?” Sigrid asked.
“We are going to ask permission,” Cheobawn said.
The faces around her seemed universally confused. Breyden was the first to break the silence. “What does that mean?”
“We are going to request a Council tribunal.” Cheobawn liked the sound of those words. It seemed right. She considered her new found friends for a moment and then said the next thing that popped into her brain. “I will need more than Connor as Champion at my back. I would be honored if Ramhorn Pack stood beside me in front of the Council.”
“By all that is gods cursed holy,” Breyden said, looking painfully sober now, “you want us to beard the dragons in their den? Whatever for?”
“We are going to offer them a deal,” Cheobawn said as she walked back up the dock, the tall members of Ramhorn Pack parting to let her pass. Connor, who up until that moment had been frozen in one spot staring at the dark pond and looking like he wanted to throw up, shook himself out of his reverie and chased after her, pushing Sigrid and Breyden out of the way to take up his place at her left shoulder. Cheobawn let a small smile play for a moment at the corners of her mouth. Tam had trained his truebrother well in the art of combat. Connor, as her shield man, knew instinctively to stay clear of her sword arm. She would carry no sword into this battle but then swords were useless against the Coven, whose weapons of choice were words that could bind a person tighter than ropes or chains.
Chapter Seventeen
The atrium at the top of the Temple was an inviting space, dotted with water fountains and hidden alcoves amidst exotic potted plants and planters full of strange and alien looking shrubbery. Ancient gnarled trees shaped by a lifetime spent confined in too small a space stood upon twisted roots that seemed intent on clawing their way out of the shallow soil of their pots while their twisted canopies reached, forever frustrated by the mini dome that curved over their heads. Sheltered from the outer dome’s enviromatic controls, the great room was sultry and humid. Sunlight filtered through the greenery and bounced off the white tiled floors, chasing all the shadows away and illuminating everything with a subtle glow. Hidden deep within the greenery, in the center of the room, under a lazily spinning fan that did not cool so much as remind you that you were hot, a space was kept clear for five overstuffed chairs and a low table meant to hold a tea service. To the uninitiated the atrium appeared benignly benevolent.
This was a lie, of course. Cheobawn, having sat at Mora’s feet during many a tribunal and having watched the supplicants squirm, sweating from heat and nerves under the laser scrutiny of the Coven, had come to believe that the Mothers intentionally kept the climate hot and the surroundings seductive in their beauty. The Fathers played at War down in the plaza using every strategy they could devise. Up here, at the top of the Temple under the apex of the greater dome, the Mothers were no different. Every nuance of a tribunal, from the placement of the Mothers’ chairs and the positioning of the supplicants, to the Fathers, armed, armored, and arrayed around the edges of the room, was meant to disconcert, disarm, and strip away the walls around a person’s mind that they might stand naked in front of the First Mother and speak the truth from their heart.
Cheobawn prepared her team as best she could, recounting everything she knew from her own experiences and from things she had overheard. Tradition ordained exact manners and dress but there was room for creative invention amidst the rigid formulas. Connor and Ramhorn Pack donned the soft padded leather armor used for full contact sparring but wore little more than thin underwear underneath to absorb the sweat. They were all allowed ritual weapons. A pair of long knives strapped to each thigh added the look of authority while boosting their shaky confidence.
Cheobawn chose a plain dress of pale green silk, the sash a nut brown – Blackwind’s colors. The neckline of the dress drooped low around her thin frame, revealing the black bead in her omeh for all to see. She went unarmed; she was more than a supplicant on this day, she was a penitent. It was time to make peace with her former nestmates. If the Mothers wanted her to be naked, so be it. She would not fight them.
A pair of acolytes met them in the temple foyer and escorted them through the bowels of the temple to the lift hidden at the end of the hallway lined with meditation rooms. The acolytes whispered a steady stream of instructions as they walked. Cheobawn nodded politely whenever they paused to take a breath but
the rest of her team followed her instructions and remained unresponsive.
The doors of the lift slid silently closed around them, leaving them in silence at last.
Connor leaned in close to whisper loudly in her left ear. “I thought you said supplicants were supposed to walk the stairs all the way to the top of the tower to show their devotion to the Coven.”
“I always thought taking the central staircase was supposed to show your willingness to transcend your ego,” Erin said.
“So what does taking the lift signify? That we are on the fast track to oblivion?” Meshel asked, a worried frown between his brows.
Sigrid laughed. “We should be honored by this. Are we trouble makers to be called against our will? No. We are citizens seeking advice and guidance. Our request for an audience was not made frivolously.”
“Or,” Cheobawn said, “they wish to keep this meeting private, a thing they cannot do if the entire dome sees us trudging up to the atrium in our battle armor.”
Connor sighed. “Wow. If that is your attempt at making us all feel better, then please stop. I don’t think I can stand one more word of encouragement.”
“Trust your gift, Little Mother,” Sigrid said. The confidence in his voice made Cheobawn feel a little better but she could not shake the feeling that the swift ascent through the temple left her little time to gather her thoughts. She took a long, slow, shuddering breath and tried to calm the flutterflies in her stomach.
Long before she felt she was ready, the doors swished open. Her heart jumped in her chest. Hayrald stood before them, blocking their exit, Phillius, Raddoc, and Wissen at his back – all of the Coven’s Husbands. Cheobawn bowed her head and paused. She could feel Connor, frozen in his place at her side, waiting for the smallest hint of her next move.
He would have been dismayed by the confusion in her mind so early in the game. The First Fathers’ presence surprised her. Her bow was more than a show of respect. This pause gave her time to consider the message behind the Mother’s tactic. Only in the gravest of cases did the Coven require the full weight of all the head Fathers to be present for a tribunal. Was it a sign of honor or a sign of the gravity of the situation? How much did Mora already know? How much had she already guessed? One thing was certain. In the battle of wits, Mora had gotten off the first shot and scored a hit.
“The First Mother waits,” Hayrald said. He made no effort to hide his love for her. It was there in every note of his voice.
Cheobawn looked up into her Da’s face and thought that the days of calling him Da were rapidly coming to a close. Moving out of the Coven’s residence was the first step of many that would set her towards independence. She was no longer a child that needed to pretend the ties between her and Hayrald were anything more than emotional bonding between two very lonely people.
“Thank you, First Prime,” Cheobawn said. Hayrald’s sad smile mirrored her own. He did not need a psionic gift to know the direction of her mind.
“You are still an underager,” he said, his voice rough with emotion as he leaned in close, his words for her ears only. “No matter what the circumstance. Stay small for a bit and give yourself a chance to grow up.”
“What choices are left to me? I am as I have been made to be. I have been reminded recently that I live on borrowed time. For that I am grateful; to you and to the Coven. But I am not so serene that I can wait patiently for my doom. Better to pick up the sword and step out onto the field of battle now, than wait while my ill fated luck destroys those who would try to keep me safe.”
Hayrald shook his head, a stubborn set to his mouth. “It is the Elder’s duty to protect the children against the dangers, seen and unseen. Do not forget that.”
“How can I sit passively at the sidelines if only I can see what threatens me?” she asked him. Hayrald had no answer to that. She could see the pain and confusion behind his eyes and she was sorry for that but making peace with her Da was not on her agenda this day. She had bigger problems to solve.
Stepping past the First Prime, she entered the atrium, Connor and Ramhorn Pack trailing behind her. Cheobawn did not need to look back to watch as the First Prime and all his Fathers closed ranks behind them to block any retreat.
The way to the center of the atrium was not a straight line. A maze of planters, benches, and statuary confused the senses and created a snaking path for Cheobawn’s column of warriors. Finally, after many turns, the path led into the central circle. Cheobawn paused there to assess the lay of the land.
A circle of overstuffed chairs upholstered in an eclectic array of brocade spidersilk dominated the space before her. Unaccountably there were not five chairs, arranged in an open ended arc but six, the sixth chair completing the circle. What ploy was this? She had no time to puzzle it out. Again, the Coven had surprised her, scoring one more hit at her self confidence. Cheobawn shook off that thought. She was a penitent. Being naked and defenseless was to her advantage. She sent her warrior champions off with a flick of her hand. Connor, Sigrid, and his packbrothers spread out along the edge of the circle behind her to stand witness while Hayrald and his co-husbands emerged from the forest of plants behind the Mothers.
Only Erin and Soral followed in her wake as she stepped into the circle to approach her Mothers. Cheobawn stopped at the place normally reserved for petitioners; the back of the empty chair before her. She took the time to study the faces arrayed against her. From left to right sat Amabel, Mora, Sybille, Menolly, and Brigit. They were all dressed in their finest silks, even Sybille who had foregone her riding leathers for the occasion and donned a dress of ivory silk with a dusky rose sash. Cheobawn studied her, wondering where she hid her knives under the soft folds of cloth.
“Mothers,” Cheobawn said with a bow of her head.
“Sit, sit,” Amabel said as she began pouring tea from the tea pot into six porcelain teacups. “The water is not getting any hotter and the day is not getting any longer.”
Cheobawn did the only thing she knew to do. She sat. The chair was not meant for someone who had not yet seen her ninth birthday. Her slippered feet dangled a hand-span above the white tiled floor.
“Go away,” Sybille said, her tone peremptory bordering on rudeness, her eyes on Erin and Soral, who had taken up positions on either side of Cheobawn’s chair. Cheobawn did not have to turn around to know the two girls did not move. Sybille sighed, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “We all know each other here, Little Mother. Let us dispense with the formalities and displays of power and cut to the meat of your agenda. Please ask your guard to retreat to the benches and sit with the boys. We have much to discuss.”
Cheobawn put her hand out over the softly stuffed arm of the chair and made the sign with her fingers that sent the two girls away and then listened to the sound of their slippers on the tile floor as they obeyed her command. I am alone and without witnesses, now, Cheobawn thought. She should have been anxious but the old familiar serenity that preceded a sparring battle settled in her heart, erasing all emotion.
Naked, she thought. So be it.
“You do them no favors, dividing their loyalties as you do,” Mora said, her voice soft as she watched the girls walk back to the line of boys who stood at the ready. “Nor does it help the dome to seduce them away from our rule.”
“Yes, First Mother,” Cheobawn said, though she dearly wanted to argue against this unfair assessment. Were they not all children of the dome? Even at their most outrageously rebellious, no child ever brought danger down upon the village. Even Sigrid’s adoration was based in his belief that she would keep them all safe. Amabel handed her a cup. The tea was an herbal concoction meant to please the senses and soothe the mind. Cheobawn resisted its pull. “It is my own cursed nature that attracts them to my cause,” Cheobawn said. “They are under the mistaken assumption that I need saving.”
“Ah, to be young and easily seduced by the idea of heroic tragedy,” Menolly said. Cheobawn eyed the Mother as she took her cup from Amabel, wonderi
ng is she was being ironic.
“Do you need saving?” Mora asked.
“I think that perhaps I do,” Cheobawn said softly, staring into the depth of her teacup.
“Oh, dear,” said Brigit with a long suffering sigh. “What have you done now?”
“Nothing good, I’ll wager,” Amabel said, handing Brigit her tea.
“We are here at your request, truedaughter,” Mora said taking her cup from Amabel’s hands. “What do you want from the High Council?”
“Why am I sitting in a chair as an equal?” Cheobawn asked, looking up at her Mothers’ faces. It was not that she was avoiding the question. The seating arrangement seemed pertinent to the subject at hand.
“Is that what you think?” Mora asked, her eyes studying her from under her heavy lashes. “Perhaps it is merely a concession to your recent illness.”
“Magic,” Brigit said with a chuckle that set her ample breasts to jiggling, “works best in circle.”
Cheobawn looked up at the plump nestmother and smiled. Trust Brigit to see the best in things.
“Who would have thought you would come this far,” Sybille said, her face as enigmatic as her statement.
“I knew,” Menolly said with utter confidence. “Was it not written in the smoke on her Choosingday?”
“Enough foolishness,” said Amabel. “Why are you here, daughter?”
“I wish to apologize for the hurtful things I have said in the past,” Cheobawn said, choosing her words carefully. “I do not want to move out of the Coven’s house and leave hard feelings between us.”
“You are a child,” Brigit said, her eyes crinkling at the corners, her voice kind. Brigit could always be counted on to be her advocate in the family disputes. “It is a mark of our success as Mothers that you wish to fly from the nest and test your wings. No one blames you for your struggle.”
“Did you need a Tribunal to tell us this?” Sybille asked. “Why did you drag your honor guard to the top of this tower? It was not to apologize for being a brat, surely?”