Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles (10 page)

“
Did you? I ….” She
could not breathe. “Hypothetically speaking ….”

“
Of course.” Sigrid
nodded, watching her face intently.

“
If the reports were true,
Hayrald would have given them to me,” she said. “But if the
official reports were a subterfuge to protect more, ummm, fragile
sensibilities, then the pack and all its contents would have to
disappear forever, being an inconvenient truth.”

“
Yes, I thought the same,”
Sigrid said, nodding his head decisively, as if he was ticking things
off a list in his head, “You would have said something about it
afterward. At first I thought I had presumed too much, being too
familiar with an Ear from another Pack, and I said nothing more.”

“
I would never ….” she
said softly.

“
No, no, I know you would
not. People mistake your silence for aloofness but I know your
silence comes from understanding. It was not until this fall, on the
foray to Meetpoint with the last of the summer trade goods that it
all became clear how deep your gift runs.”

“
You cannot speak of …”
Cheobawn could not bring herself to say the words. She looked away.
“It is forbidden. I cannot listen to this.”

“
I had hoped the Elders
would tell you,” Sigrid continued speaking, ignoring her protests,
“but it became apparent almost at once that they would not. I could
not question that decision. I had no right to think you or I would
know better than an Elder. So, again, I said nothing, even though you
have shown me nothing but deep kindness and caring all your life and
it was unkind to keep the messages from reaching your ears.”

“
Messages?” she
breathed, her eyes wide.

She had to stop this before
it went any further but she found herself powerless in the face of
her own longing. A year and a half ago, in the fading days of summer,
she had stood in front of the Coven and their Husbands and had sworn
an oath to keep her silence while the First Mother and the High
Priestess of the Temple wove a cloth made wholly of lies about the
events surrounding the death of an ancient bhotta in a forest
clearing not far from the Meetpoint dome. That lie had been read into
the official records and just like that, lies became truth and truth
ceased to exist.

Officially, a foolish young
Pack, full of more exuberance than sense, went on an undocumented
foray using bennelk mounts without authorization, with the intent of
flying a kite in the winds above the Escarpment cliffs. Sybille’s
patrol, sent out to find them, caught up with them and brought them
home but not before the youngest Ear had been hurt testing the limits
of the kite.. It was a good story. The Elders laughed about it and
repeated as often as possible around the fountains and over the
dinner tables. What could have been a deadly mistake turned into an
amusing cautionary story about youthful hijinks. For most of the
ensuing winter, the members of Blackwind Pack could not show their
faces in public without a nestmother pointing them out to her charges
or the oldpas laughing behind their hands.

They had to be punished. It
would have set a deadly precedent if they walked away unscathed. For
an infraction as serious as this, they should have lost points in the
team rankings, but Mora took pity on them. Instead, they served three
months of extra duty under Finn in his workshops and under Vinara in
the stables. This was a ruse, truth be told. Finn wanted to discuss
airfoil designs with Alain and Vinara wanted to pick Cheobawn’s
brain about the finer points of bennelk behavior.

Duty in the stables had been
a relief for Cheobawn. Becoming the village laughingstock on top of
being a black bead pariah was more grief than she could bear.

The true account of the mad
dash down Waterfall Trail had been written in the dead of night in
Blackwind Pack’s quarters by Megan as the rest of the Pack gathered
around her and whispered the secrets they could never speak of again
once the night was over. It contained the whole story: Cheobawn
calling the bennelk herd out of the paddocks, mounting them without
bridles or saddle and making the run between Home dome and Meetpoint
dome in record time; Old Father Bhotta’s death screams calling
Cheobawn out of the dome in the dead of night; the three Lowland
treasure hunters who turned out to be more than they seemed; the
death of Garro; Sam leaping off the cliffs with a bag full of
bloodstones; the Spacer Bohea - Bohea, who in the end had never been
there at all, having dreamwalked the journey into the high lands
inside a robotic suit while lying encased in a neural web in a
starship high above their heads - Bohea, whose agenda had seemed
murkier and more laden with intrigue than anything the Coven could
imagine.

The sun had risen on that
last night of clarity and Megan had taken the chronicle away to hide
in a place only she knew. Blackwind Pack said nothing more, not even
to each other, forgetting everything until not even their dreams
carried the taint of the memories. Until now. Here was Sigrid, asking
questions that should not be asked.

“
Tell me,” she
whispered, dread turning her insides to jelly. This was all the
permission Sigrid needed, obviously wishing to be rid of the burden
of his secret.

“
Meshel and Breyden
thought you needed to know.” he apologized, “but the Mora's
Husbands insisted we keep our silence. They said they would tell Mora
and if Mora thought you needed to know, she would pass it on. I
assumed Mora ….” Sigrid’s voice faltered, a confused look on
his face. “I mean, how could she not tell you, you who already knew
the secret? Why be cruel for cruelty’s sake?”

Secrets. Mora and her gods
cursed secrets. Sigrid knew something he thought important enough for
him to break the Father’s code of silence whose rules protected the
delicate sensibilities of their psionic women.

“
What do you know?”
Cheobawn asked hoarsely, the old memories stirring up emotions she
thought she had laid to rest.

“
I know why your Pack was
not censored for stealing the bennelk. I know it was not you who flew
the kite off the cliffs. I know what and who you pushed off the
Escarpment.” Sigrid said softly. Cheobawn’s heart skipped a beat.

“
You can’t …” The
words just burst out of her of their own accord before she could
think clearly. She pressed her lips together, stopping them in mid
flow, took a deep breath, and fell back on to her old, well-practiced
lie. “Is this what passes for rumor and tall tales in the Fathers
House?” Cheobawn shook her head in denial. “Only the Covens knows
what happened that day. I know they did not tell you.”

“
They did not have to. We
came up the Escarpment this last time with two messages, both of them
directed to you. Surely Mora told you?” Sigrid asked, pity in his
voice.

She wanted Sigrid to stop
but she could not say the words. Stop, she thought. It had been
months since Garro last haunted her dreams. Please stop, she thought.
Months since Sam’s look of desperation did not hang continuously
behind her closed eyelids. Stop. Even now, she avoided blood, the
smell of it taking her back to that day in the clearing as Garro’s
head turned to mist and his dying body assaulted her with its last
convulsive motions.

“
Tell me,” Cheobawn
said, her breath shuddering out of her lungs.

“
Ramhorn Pack has done the
autumnal Meetpoint run for two years running. The rules of this game
are the same every time. Load the balloons with goods and men, drop
off the edge and ride them down. Take what we need from what the
Lowlanders offer. Load the balloons and ride them back up the cliffs.
This was what Ramhorn was taught by the Elders but this time down, it
was different. The river traders had a new Captain. He seemed young
for such a position of responsibility but the other Lowlanders
treated him with great respect so the Elders finally agreed to trade
instead of coming back up the cliffs.”

“
What did he look like,
this Captain?” she asked, afraid of the answer. Sigrid looked down
at her, sympathy in his eyes, hearing the pain in her voice.

“
He could have been one of
us except for the color of his eyes. They were like beads of clear
amber. His beauty was marred by a nose badly broken and badly set.”
Sigrid shook his head. “He said that was your fault.”

“
Samwell Wheelwright,”
she breathed, feeling both pleased and dismayed. His was the life
that had weighed most heavily on her soul. “Did he say how he came
to be leader of the river traders?”

“
He said that was your
doing as well. He bought an equal partnership in his father’s
company using the last of the bloodstones you gave him.”

“
Ah,” she said, nodding,
a weight lifting off her heart, “I am glad it turned out so well
for him. I had feared the worst.”

“
He told us many strange
things, perhaps to get us to trust him and convince us he meant you
no harm. He told us about climbing the Escarpment with two other
males. About killing a giant bhotta. About you.” Sigrid pinned her
with a strange look. “How young you had seemed. How frightened you
were at first. About the things you tried to teach them but they were
too blind to understand. He says he is sorry for that. He told us
about Tam and your Pack and a race … against death. About a kite
made by children. About a bag with forty-six bloodstones whose weight
came near to killing him. About crashing into the earth with only
nine stones left but having circumstance whittle that number down
until all he had was two, one of which he used to buy his place in
his father’s business. The last one he will never part with, he
says. He keeps it in a bag around his neck and shows it to no one,
though he pulled it out to show us when his men were not looking. He
said you climbed into his mind and never left. He says you stalk him
in his dreams. He worries that your masters punished you for slipping
your leash to find him. That perhaps you died at their hands and
became a ghost, so that you might haunt him forever as a reminder of
all the ways he wronged you.”

“
Did you tell him I was
alive?” Cheobawn asked, sad for Sam, sad for his confusion.

“
We told him nothing. It
was not deemed appropriate by Phillius who was the foray leader. We
took his messages but promised him nothing in return.”

“
And the messages?”
Cheobawn asked, terrified of the answer.

“
It was rude and ignorant.
Typical of the Lowlander mind. I wanted to kill him but Phillius
prevented me. I dare not repeat it for fear of offending you.”

Cheobawn smiled at that.

“
Too late. I have been
inside Sam’s mind. Nothing can offend me anymore.” Cheobawn
reassured him dryly. Sigrid grunted. Then he shrugged in resignation,
closed his eyes, and began to recite the words with an inflection and
an accent that were not his own.

“
I hated you for throwing
me away. But hate and love can be two sides of the same coin. I can’t
get you out of my head. You haunt my dreams and subvert my waking
hours. I am here for you, when you need me. Meetpoint is mine now. I
will wait for you, if you ever wish to find me.”

Cheobawn closed her eyes and
tried to breath around the pain in her heart. She was a fool in more
ways than anyone could count for caring about this Lowlander but Sam
was a thousand times more the fool than she was for wanting something
he did not understand. Bohea was right about that.

She opened her eyes. Sigrid
was looking at her again, an accusation in his eyes.

“
What connection does he
presume he has, I wonder,” the young Father asked softly.

“
Ach, it is stupid,
really,” she said, shaking her head. “I let him live. He puts too
much importance on a simple matter of necessity.”

“
Yes, I see,” Sigrid
nodded. “Thus, he has joined the rest of us.”

“
Huh?” she grunted,
staring up at the young Father’s face, hunting for clues behind the
woolsey mask.

“
Having been caught up
myself in the zephyrus wind that flows about you, I can understand
his confusion. You are a storm, Little Mother, which sweeps across
the land, scouring the world clean and piling the detritus up in
fanciful drifts to suit your own pleasure.”

“
What? I am not,” she
protested. “You think it is my will that makes these things happen?
You are very much mistaken. I am as you see me. Small and less than
nothing.”

“
You stand in the eye of
the storm, Little Mother,” Sigrid insisted, “and think it is a
balmy spring day. Pretend if you must. I will not be the one who
dissuades you.”

“
Pish!” Cheobawn
snorted, thinking it ironic that she had told that very thing to
Hayrald not long before. Enough of this maudlin self-inspection. She
picked up the reins and kicked Cloud Eye into a faster gait. The day
was drawing to a close and they were going to get stuck far from the
dome by the time night set in.