Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles (19 page)

Perhaps she screamed.
Cheobawn had no memory of it. She found herself cowering in the
corner of Mora’s office staring in horror at the sphere, her teeth
chattering in shock. Seeing Bohea brought it all back for a moment;
the smell of blood, the screams of the carrion feeders, the
trumpeting calls of the bennelk, the cold, ruthless gaze of a ghost
man who could and would do anything to get what he desired. She
wanted to run but she needed to know what was happening to Sam. It
had taken her such a long time to build up the courage to cross that
distance and touch the bloodstone matrix again. She did not like what
she saw through Sam’s eyes.

Bohea had the bag of stones
in his hand, weighing it, a cold smile on his lips. There were men
standing around them, warriors with warrior minds whose leash Bohea
held. Sam knew this and was afraid even with his father standing at
his side as his shield man.

Here was Bohea, the
Ghostman, who moved pieces on a game board as big as the universe
with cold calculation and no regret, standing so close she could
touch him. He was missing the sparkly metal suit. Instead he wore a
shirt and pants made of stiff black cloth. Even his strange cap,
boots, and belt were black, the severity of this look relieved by
only by the simple gold buttons at the shoulders and collar and the
splash of multicolor over his heart. Was he real, here, she had
wondered or was he a construct, his true shape kept safe somewhere
far above their heads?

“
Five?” Bohea had
sneered, looking up a Sam, “Five is all you brought me?”

“
Give them back,” Sam
had said, frustration and fury roiling around in his gut. His father
touched his arm, wishing him silent. The older man was more afraid of
Bohea than Sam but that did not mean much. Sam was a notorious fool
where Bohea was concerned.

“
The Consortium has the
right to confiscate contraband,” Bohea mused, watching Sam squirm
under his gaze. “Especially dangerous contraband. If you wish to
contest this lawful act, you can submit a tort petition with the
local embassy of the Central Planet Consortium.” Bohea closed the
bag and turned away, his men closing in around him as he retreated.

“
They are mine!” Sam had
yelled hotly, shaking off his father’s restraining hand. “I
nearly died bringing them back.”

Bohea had stopped and turned
back, a cold calculating look in his eyes. Cheobawn had cringed,
fearing for Sam’s safety.

“
Perhaps you are right,”
Bohea had purred, his pleasure apparent. Sam was ever an easy mark
for his cruel humor. “I will let you keep two, to show that the CPC
is not without a sense of fairness. Call it payment for services
rendered.” Bohea put a hand inside the bag. His fingers touched the
stones and something cold and dark reached into Cheobawn’s mind.
She recoiled, terror choking the breath out of her lungs, breaking
the connection.

She had never told anyone
about touching Sam’s mind through the Old Father Bhotta’s
bloodstone. Not Tam, not Alain or Connor. Not even Megan. She was not
sure why. Even though talking to Lowlanders was forbidden, there was
an intimacy between her and Sam, a bond formed in the awful fires
that had raged hot and harsh through the ambient in that clearing
around Old Father Bhotta’s cooling body that day. Talking about it
was out of the question. She could not find the words to define what
she felt, even to herself. The thing in her heart was fragile, like
the flutterflies she used to make when she was a child, constructs
made of leaves and spider web that tattered and fell apart at the
merest breath of a breeze. Attempting to explain her connection to
Sam with words would have crushed it. Some things were just too
private to share.

Now she had a new reason to
reach into forbidden minds. Cheobawn looked down at her reflection in
the golden sphere. Bohea had three stones, the collective of his
three now greater than Sam’s one. The balance of power in the stone
matrix had changed. She had not dared touch the sphere after that
last time for fear of where it would take her. Even now, with Bohea
having delivered one to his enemies, it still left the Colonel with
two stones. It was not a lot but it might be just enough pooled power
to pull her away from Sam and towards Bohea’s own bloodstones.

Cheobawn took three long,
deep breaths and lifted the golden sphere out of its box. A warm rush
of information flowed across the surface of her mind but it was
diffuse and vague. Setting the com-sphere in her lap, she put her
palms flat against its side and listened harder. Very faintly, she
felt Sam. His mind was all fuzzy and full of strange emotions. He lay
abed but he was not alone. Curious, she opened up her mind and
extended herself through the matrix. A piece of Sam’s mind not
engaged in what he was doing turned with a snarl and slammed a wall
down between them.

Cheobawn hiccuped in
surprise and then giggled. Sam had found a woman to share his bed.
She wondered if he had a Pack now. Could the woman be his new Ear?
Could she stop worrying about him, now that he had someone to share
his burden? She shook her head. Those were questions for another
time.

“
Ah,” whispered a voice,
“at long last you have come. Welcome, Lady,”

Cheobawn froze. A violet
skinned creature dressed in long flowing robes sat facing her upon
the floor of Mora’s office, its long limbs folded in a parody of
her own meditative pose. The creature was not human but perhaps it
had once been. She could imagine Amabel concocting its body in her
labs by bonding bits and pieces of bhotta and bennelk and sky hunter
onto the living thread of a human. It had eyes and a nose and a
mouth, mostly in the right places but the mouth was lipless and the
nose broad and flatten. Its skin was naked and so pale it was nearly
translucent, the veins underneaht causing the violet blush. Something
that looked like scales adorned the sides of its chin and the apex of
its hairless skull. Iridescent frills sprouted like moss growths from
the side of its head where ears should have been. They moved almost
of their own accord, waving gently in an unseen breeze. Cheobawn
studied it. Each feature, taken by itself might have been grotesque
but in combination it was almost beautiful. The mouth especially had
a soft curve at the corners giving it a perpetual smile. She would
have stayed to talk but she needed to talk to Bohea.

Cheobawn took her hands from
the sphere. The image did not go away. She could feel her mind
scrambling for explanation as reality wobbled around her before
settling firmly back in place again. Cheobawn wondered vaguely if
Menolly felt this way when her head was filled with temple smoke and
the visions came of their own accord, overwriting the real world. The
being bowed its head and gently curled the corners of its lipless
mouth in a way that might have been a parody of a human grin.

“
Hello,” Cheobawn said
tentatively. “Are you a smoke dream?”

“
No, sweet child, I am
very real,” the being purred.

“
I suppose I should
believe you, though if you were a figment of my imagination, you
would have to say that, wouldn’t you,” Cheobawn mused. “But I
must admit my imagination could not have created anything quite as
beautiful as you. You look real. Can I touch you?”

“
No. Unfortunately, what
you see is only a simulacrum; a signal, broadcast by me, received by
the machine you now hold in your lap.”

“
You did not go away when
I stopped touching my sphere,” Cheobawn pointed out, trying to
puzzle out the holes in this person’s explanation. “Are your arms
so long that you can you reach down from your starship above me and
touch this sphere?”

“
I am neither near nor
far. Time and distance are malleable things. My body sits upon a
planet far across the galaxy from where you are, the connection
between our stones no more than a conduit to convey our intentions.
Once focused, we do not need the stones, do we, you and I?”

“
But how …” Cheobawn
looked down at the sphere in her lap. Bohea took three stones. One
had gone to the Spiders. One had been promised to the race of the
starship pilots. Bohea had the last but he was not an adept. Her
heart sank through the floor. Her plan had failed utterly.

“
You are a Scerron,” she
said faintly.

“
Yes, clever girl.” the
Scerron said, “but you do not seem pleased by this. Is my presence
such a disappointment?”

“
I was hoping to talk to a
man named Bohea. I don’t suppose you can tell me where he is?”

“
Ah, I understand. Keeping
in touch with old friends. Let me see if I can find him for you,”
the being said, glancing off to the side at something that only it
could see. It looked back at her finally. “Be patient. I have sent
someone to wake him.”

“
He is there with you?”
Cheobawn asked, surprised. “I thought he might be here.”

“
Oh, rest assured, he is
there. He spends his time patrolling your local space and playing
clever games with your planetary politics while he awaits your
majority.”

“
But …“ She shook her
head, completely confused. “You sent someone off to wake him.”

“
I am Scerron. Distance is
not a factor when talking to my kin. Colonel Bohea’s ship is a
battle cruiser capable of starflight. His pilot is one of my
sisters,” she explained. “The time you must wait is the time it
takes for the Colonel to get dressed, walk down the companionways of
his ship to the navigation command center, and plug his body into the
neural network.”

“
Oh.” Cheobawn nodded,
pretending she understood any of that. “You were there already. I
did not have to wait for you to hear me. Did I interrupt a
communication?”

“
Your stone is never left
alone, Lady,” the Scerron said with a graceful bow of her head. “It
resides in the great temple in our capitol city, attended by a
perpetual array of priestesses. Someone is always listening.”

“
Listening?” Cheobawn
asked blankly. “Listening for what?”

“
Why, for you, Lady,”
the being said with a graceful flutter of her long fingers.

“
Why?”

“
Because we expect great
things of you.”

All sorts of emotions
cascaded through Cheobawn’s mind, not the least of which was utter
dismay. She wrapped her arms around herself and blinked back the
tears.

“
Oh, goddess, please don’t
do that,” she breathed, “I do not know that I can bear the burden
of anyone else’s expectations.”

“
Lady, I have disturbed
you,” the violet creature said, her ear gills fluttering in
agitation, stripes of shadow moving across her skin. “How can I
make amends?”

“
I am only eight years
old,” Cheobawn wailed in frustration, “I have not even moved into
Pack Hall, yet. Mora thinks I am still a baby and maybe I am because
I have a really hard time doing the right thing. Every time I think I
have it figured out, things go horribly wrong. People are dead
because of me, because of the things I have done, because of the
things I have failed to do. You are wrong about me. Sigrid is wrong.
Megan is wrong. I have no Luck but Bad. Why can't you just leave me
alone?”

“
You are a bright new star
in our heavens, Lady. The flares of your birth struggles sweep across
the universe, waking all who have the power to hear. Not all of them
are as benevolent as we. You do not shield these beautiful energies
and for us, it is very hard to look away. We wish you to stay safe so
we will watch over you until you are strong enough to defend
yourself. Who has died?” the Scerron asked. “What has happened?”

“
I need to talk to Bohea,”
Cheobawn yelled in frustration. “He has to stop this. The north
grows cold from his bombardment and I am afraid that spring will
never come.”

Cheobawn
watched as the dusky shadows rippled in complicated patterns across
the skin of the odd creature sitting on the floor in front of her. It
consulted again with someone she could not see before returning her
gaze.

“
That is impossible. Your
planet has been interdicted. The Consortium would not dare break that
treaty. Who bombards you?” the Scerron priestess asked, the corners
of her mouth not quite so bow shaped now.

“
What …” Cheobawn
puzzled over the words. “Interdicted. I do not understand.”

“
The recent agreement
between the Central Planet Consortium and my people is very clear.
Interference on your planet has been restricted to pre-treaty levels
and any contact with your people in particular, those beings who live
in the mountain domes such as yourself, is strictly prohibited ….”

“
Wait. Can you do that?”
Cheobawn interrupted the violet being, a frown between her brows.
“Decide for us, I mean, without our knowledge or consent? It is
sort of rude, don’t you think, to treat us like babies.”