by J. D. Lakey
“Spider has promised and Spider cannot lie,” she said. She tried to touch his cheek but her fingers passed through his flesh. Sam flinched away, wresting himself out of the grip of the stone matrix.
Cheobawn lifted her hands away from the stone and rubbed them against her pajamas. Oud, taking this as a signal to end the connection, whispered goodbye, the sound of it sliding through her mind like snowflakes across the surface of the dome.
That was not the only sound inside her mind. Legs rubbing against mandibles hummed for a moment in the air around her. It was the only warning she had before the common room dissolved and she stood upon the sands of Orson’s Sea. Spider stood before her, the ancient empty plain thousands of years in the past filling the horizon behind him. The city of Dunauken would grow here with time.
“I do not appreciate eaves dropping,” Cheobawn said, glaring at the giant arthropod. “My conversations with others are meant to be private.”
Spider laughed a spidery laugh, its short forelegs sliding back and forth like a bow over fiddle strings as the tips of its many claws danced a staccato in the hot sand under their feet. You are Spider’s child. There are no veils between us.
“I am no such thing. I am a child of the domes, not a child of the warm sea. There are no gills on this neck.”
Ask your Truemother. She knows. This is why she made you. You will come to me, to the hot beaches and the salty sea, and you will dance the egg bearer’s dance under the darkening moons with all the rest of my children who returned home.
“I will not,” Cheobawn said firmly, but unaccountable, a rising terror made her heart skip a beat. Spider seemed so sure of the future and she could only imagine it. What if Spider was right?
You will. It has been ordained. It is the thing that we sang into your forebearer's ears as we danced around the edges of your dome not long before you killed the last of us. Your Makers knew this though it has been buried and forgotten inside their minds these thousand years or more. Make me a weapon, we sang. Take the flesh of your bodies and make me a weapon that we might point it at those who killed us. You are that weapon. You are that Making. It is your doom to come down from the high places and take back the world from those who have stolen it from us. It is as you said to the Lowlander boy. Revenge is a meal long in the making and served with great joy to those who have forgotten their crimes. Spider never forgets. Spider cannot forget.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat as the memory of Sigrid’s Queen’s Gambit rose unbidden from the shadows in the back of her mind. That moment of triumph as the War Master’s aides tied Sigrid’s ribbons around the opposing Queen’s neck was an image seared into her brain. Now it haunted her waking mind.
Yes, whispered Spider, its body shivering in excitement. You know. Can you still doubt my words? This was your intended purpose from the moment you were born. Ask your Mothers.
“Mora will never send me away. She needs me,” Cheobawn said stubbornly but her protest sounded hollow even to her own ears. Who was she trying to convince, Spider or herself? Spider had sowed seeds of doubt in her heart and it was going to take all her power to sweep its toxic thoughts from her mind.
Cheobawn closed her eyes and began building geometry proofs in her head. Spider laughed its spidery laugh as it faded from her mind. She opened one eye and looked around. She was back in the common room, sitting on the map table, shivering, though the air was not cold. She stared at her distorted and upside down reflection in the golden sphere nestled in the hollow between her legs.
“I will not do what you want,” she whispered. “I may be a piece in a giant and complicated game of War; I will not argue that, but I can pick myself up and walk off the board anytime I want. If I stay or if I go, it will be my choice.” Having the sphere so close was suddenly more than she could bear. Cheobawn swatted it away. It sailed through the air to land on a nearby armchair piled high with clothes. “Not all paths lead to certain doom and being forewarned means I can step over the leg traps and pit falls,” she said. Saying it out loud made her feel better. Who was Spider to think it knew more than she about her own life, after all? “I will not hate. I will not kill for you. My fate is my own to write as I see fit,” she hissed at the offending ball, her body trembling uncontrollably, the sound of her chattering teeth loud in her head.
Alain came out of his sleeping chamber and peered at her in the dim light as he scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “Who are you talking to? It’s the middle of the night,” he whispered.
Cheobawn wrapped her arms around her body, trying to control the tremors in her muscles as Alain padded across the floor towards her. Spying the com-ball, he picked it up and put it in its cradle. “Candles that burn too bright exhaust themselves long before their time,” he said.
“I do not think I like Spider,” Cheobawn said around the quaking of her jaw. Unaccountable, she began to cry.
“What a chowder head you are sometimes,” Alain said, gathering her up and carrying her back toward his own bed chamber. “What was Connor thinking, letting you work yourself down to bone? We are well and truly done with the whole spider fiasco. They are the Lowlander‘ s problem now. Forget them.” He set her down on his bed and crawled in beside her, pulling her close against him under the covers. Warmed by the heat of his body, the shuddering faded as her body relaxed against his. “Time to rest and play. We could go mushroom hunting in the bogs tomorrow if you want. Tam could use a day outside in the fresh air and sunshine, let me tell you. It was not easy for him, being cooped up and walled away from the world. Holy introspection is not his cup of tea,” Alain said sleepily, his cheek resting against her golden curls. Cheobawn’s eyelids grew heavy, Alain’s voice shielding her from the worst of the ambient. “We need to go out in the real world where no one cares who you are and you don’t have to think about anything but what lies around the next bend in the trail. Free to run and shout and laugh out loud and be …” Alain’s voice trailed off into sleep. Cheobawn followed him, slipping sideways into sleep. The dream was waiting for her there.
It was a dream full of sunlight. She sat in a meadow making flutterflies out of flower petals and spider webs, her Pack ranged around her in peaceful repose. Connor chewed on a long stalk of grass as he stared up at the cloudless sky while Megan and Tam plotted and planned, laying on their bellies to draw diagrams in the dust. Alain said something that she did not quite catch but he was looking expectantly down at her constructs.
Cheobawn breathed upon the creation in her hand and it came to life and flew up into the sky to dance in the still air over their heads. Lying back in the grass and watching its fantastical movements, Cheobawn let her laughter mingle with that of her friends.
If there were shadows they were far away and far too polite to jump out at her while she rested.
Excerpt from Trade Fair
Book Four of the Black Bead Chronicles
Chapter 1 – Morning, Day One
A message notice popped into the middle of Hayrald’s screen, accompanied by an insistent beep. The border of the message icon bled red into the document behind it.
The First Prime scowled accusingly at his terminal. Did his Husbands not understand that he could not be disturbed for every minor emergency if he was ever to get through these gods-cursed Trade Fair rosters? He had a dozen sparring events scheduled and not enough judges and referees to man them. He needed to shift the schedule around. Again.
Windfall Dome’s Trade Fair was in two weeks and he, as First Prime, Husband to the Coven, and First Father, had every Master Craftsman under the dome breathing down his neck demanding more space in the booths along the main promenades while Nedella’s kitchen apprentices, wanting to flesh out the feast menus, tried to co-opt the patrols and turn them into hunting forays. It did not help that every time he left his office he had to mediate an argument between the nestmothers and sparring coaches over the allocation of the practice floors. Dome pride dictated that this year’s crop of seven-year-olds be ampl
y prepared for the competitions so as not to shame their teachers. The nestmothers could not be blamed for wanting an advantageous match for their charges.
Thanks be to the goddesses that the burden of hosting a Trade Fair only fell on an individual dome every five years, Hayrald thought, stabbing the alarm icon with his finger.
Phillius’s face filled his screen. His Third looked grim, his skin pallid, a fine sheen of sweat on his brow. Hayrald leaned forward, his mood going from annoyance to battle-wary in an instant.
“First Prime, I regret to ….” Phillius said, his voice a strangled growl in his throat.
“What is wrong?” Hayrald asked, his sharp tone cutting through the formalities.
“A dubeh has taken one of the children and … “
“Where?” Hayrald barked, rising to his feet.
“We are at the East Gate. The alarm has been sounded to call in the Packs but I do not think all of them are in hearing range.”
“You know what to do. Stay there until I arrive.” Hayrald paused. Where was Blackwind Pack today? He could not remember. “And Phillius. I need a list of who is out.”
“On it,” Phillius nodded, signing out.
Hayrald ran for the door, a virulent string of curses falling from his lips. His assistant, an oldpa named Nashua, looked up in alarm as Hayrald threw the door open.
“Post a level two alert and tell the Weapons Master that I am coming. Follow the protocols until I tell you otherwise,” Hayrald shouted in Nashua’s direction as he dashed through the outer office.
Hayrald’s mind raced as he ran down the three flights of stairs to the floor of the Training Hall. So many questions. How? Why? Why now? The Ears were meant to keep the forays alive. What had gone wrong? He was out the side door and running down the wide promenade that led to the East Gate before he could get his mind working properly. The questions would be answered in time but one thought plagued him. A prayer pounded in his mind to the beat of his feet upon the smooth path.
Please, goddess, let it not be Blackwind Pack.
The boy, Iroc of Ramhorn Pack, met him at the East Changing Room, a pair of boots and their liners in one hand and a light armor vest in the other. Iroc tossed him the vest and knelt, holding the boot liner open to receive his foot. Hayrald kicked off his dome slippers and shoved his feet into the offered footwear. Donning the vest, Hayrald stooped to help the young Father snap the buckles in place down the front of each boot.
Zeff arrived, just then, a foray belt laden with a pair of sheathed long knives over one arm and a bladed stick nestled in the crook of the other. The stick Zeff tossed to his First Prime as he drew near, freeing his hands to spread the belt wide. Hayrald walked into its embrace and pivoted, Zeff’s sure fingers snapping the buckles closed.
“I knew letting the baby Packs go out today was a bad idea,” Zeff growled as he settled the belt into place and checked the seating of the blades in their sheathes. “Lady has been warning me for days that something hungry stalked the southern woods.”
Hayrald paused. “Why was I not informed?”
“Nobody listens to an oldpa and his dog,” Zeff sniffed. “Wissen thought it might just be the plagues of fuzzies. They fill the woods like lice on a hen’s back this spring and they are bolder than I have ever seen them. Raddoc doubled the number and strength of the patrols. Phillius thought that would be enough.”
Hayrald stared at the oldpa in dismay. This was the first he had heard of it. It seemed that everyone had been sheltering him while he sifted through the organizational nightmare of the Trade Fair. Harsh word hung in the back of his throat but he swallowed them. This discussion would have to wait for another time. Hayrald spun about and leaped down the steps to the promenade.
He ran towards the East Gate, the problem of a dozen caravans from the nearest domes headed towards Windfall Dome suddenly of little importance.
Just outside the Gate, beyond the flock of Ears who milled about uneasily near the immense doors, Hayrald found Phillius standing amidst a circle of grim faced Fathers, his head bowed, a sour look on his face, as if he, too, were praying to a goddess that was not wont to answering his prayers. Hayrald knew that look. His heart sank. It was a very bad situation indeed that reduced Phillius to prayer.
The men parted to let their First Prime into their center. Hayrald paused at the sight that greeted him there. A group of children clung to each other, pale faced and covered in gore. It was Ironheart Pack led by their Alpha, Orin.
Hayrald sighed sadly. Ironheart, their Alphas just out of Temple Training and bonded for life, had all the makings of a great Pack. He would have liked to have watched them grow into their power. Only twelve and already Orin’s skill at leadership bordered on remarkable.
A career cut short. It was really too bad but there was no helping it.
Orin knelt in a puddle of blood, clasping his Second, Garrick to his chest, the rest of his Pack guarding his back. The young Alpha wept silently, his tears streaming down his cheeks, dripping off his chin to anoint the face of his fallen Packmate. His two Little Mothers hovered protectively over both boys but they were near to collapse themselves, an unforgivable sin.
The First Prime studied the fallen boy. Garrick’s skin was ominously pale, his eyes all but blind in their glassiness. Garrick. Orin’s Second. He was still breathing but it was only through conscious effort, each rise of the chest a struggle. The boy clung to life, perhaps out of a misplaced sense of duty or perhaps out of sheer ignorance. The body sometimes needed reminding that it had been killed.
Hayrald caught the eye of the two nearest Fathers and pointed his chin at the Little Mothers as he squatted down near the two boys. Without further fuss, the girls were whisked away and given over to the Mothers by the door. They would be taken back into the dome, away from the offending presence of death. Amabel would see to them at the infirmary. They were no longer a Father’s concern.
Hayrald squatted down by the two boys and lifted a flap of shredded leather that had once been a light armor vest. It was hard to see around so much blood and it did not help that Orin’s arm pressed over the worst of the wounds. Hayrald gently nudged Orin’s arm from its place, his hands firm, then insistent when Orin resisted for a moment. The sinuous gleam of exposed organs made Hayrald flinch. He looked again into Garrick’s face. A moment of lucidity fought its way clear of the pain in those young eyes.
“It was my fault,” Garrick whispered. “Do not blame Orin.”
“No one is to blame,” Hayrald said gently as he pried Orin’s arms from Garrick’s body. Phillius lifted the distraught boy away as Hayrald took Garrick’s head and laid it gently on the ground. “The Luck sometimes turns on all of us.”
Hayrald caressed the boy’s clammy forehead and leaned in close to look into the glassy eyes. “The goddess gets what she wants. Greet her for me,” Hayrald whispered in the boy’s ear as his knife entered Garrick’s chest, the thrust quick and efficient, the blade piercing the heart and slicing it open with a practiced jerk of the wrist. Garrick gasped and then sighed, relaxing under Hayrald’s hands, the flesh going unnaturally flaccid in death.
Hayrald wiped the blade clean on the boy’s shorts before sheathing and rising to his feet again.
“You could have called the healer,” Orin said, through his tears. “It was not so bad that Amabel could not put him together again.”
Phillius shook the boy, an angry flush rising above his collar. Hayrald put out his hand, calming his Third with a touch.
“You will learn one last lesson as an Alpha before you go back into the ranks of the Packless. Take your dead Packmate back to the place where the dubeh killed him and then bring me back his omeh, uncut.”
The boy turned green. The omeh, the beaded honors necklace, woven around the neck of every child of the dome at birth and then rewoven once a year on their birthday until the child reached maturity, could not be removed without removing the skull first. Taking an omeh was a grisly job, especially from someone you loved.<
br />
Hayrald’s heart had no room for pity. “What did you forget this day?” he asked softly.
Orin glared up at his Prime, not yet broken, his lips pressed into a thin, white line.
“Must I tell you, then?” Hayrald asked, pinning the boy with a hard stare.
Orin broke under that look. The boy bowed his head, muttering something under his breath.
“That’s right,” Hayrald nodded. “The mountain keeps what it takes. Now go give the mountain what it requires, Little Father.”
Hayrald watched Orin as his Third, a boy named Grist, helped him pick up their dead Packmate, refusing to feel the grief that wanted to take hold in his heart. It did no one any good if the small Alpha could not do his duty. Teaching the young was never easy.
Carrying Garrick’s body towards the forest’s edge, the two small boys struggled under their heavy burden yet no Father offered to share it. Death was a lesson best learned in solitude, it was said.
Hayrald surveyed the remaining circle of Fathers. Picking Kiern, one of his more cool-headed Alpha leaders, out of the crowd, he nodded after the boys.
“Take your Pack and watch over them. Do not let them see you.”
Kiern nodded and turned, his Second and Third following him. The other Fathers parted to let them pass. Two young Mothers separated themselves from the group by the door and jogged to catch up with their departing Pack.
“I want some explanations and I want them now.” Hayrald seethed, rounding on Phillius. “Why is this child dead?”
“This is not the worst of it,” Phillius growled, his own rage still barely controlled. “Orin’s Pack was six in number. He had three Little Mothers.”
Hayrald felt sick.
“Who is missing?”
“His Alpha Ear, Leena. It is she that the dubeh wanted. Garrick tried to save her and paid dearly for his effort.”