Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles (30 page)

“
You live with your dogs
in a cottage-for-one by the North Gate,” Cheobawn pointed out,
wondering if he was being ironic.

“
Hmph,” Zeff grunted, “I
am old. I have outlived my Pack. The dogs understand me better than
most humans and listen without judgment. We are not talking about me.
Do you remember your Choosingday?”

Cheobawn looked up in alarm.
This was not a conversation she wanted to have with this Elder, or
any other for that matter. Thankfully, her Choosingday was a subject
studiously avoided by everyone, all conversations veering wide of its
mention just as their eyes veered away from the black bead in her
omeh. She had only ever discussed it with her Pack and that was how
she meant to keep it.

The oldpa mistook her
silence for acquiescence and continued.“You were three so you
probably don’t remember it. It was not your normal Choosingday
ceremony.”

“
I wouldn’t know,” she
said, her face strangely frozen over the bones of her skull. She
grimaced, trying to work the blood back into the muscles. “I do not
attend Choosingday ceremonies. Ever.”

“
No, I can’t fault you
for that,” he nodded, “what with all the Mothers running around
like fen hens chasing their hawk scattered broods. Yours was a
particularly extravagant affair. Mora ordered a feast complete with
barrels of beer and bottles of berry brandy. She had made no secret
that she and Amabel thought you were their finest work. Before your
inception, the Coven spent months in the High Chambers of the Temple
praying with Mother Menolly in the smoke of the altar. Your birth was
greatly anticipated.”

“
I do not remember the
feast.” Cheobawn said through stiff lips.

“
Ach,” Zeff mused,
scratching his chin, “Well, it didn’t happen, did it? No one
wanted to rub Mora’s nose in your failure. They knew how much she
had invested in your success. Besides, by the time it became apparent
they were not going to kill you, the magic had sort of been sucked
out of the day. The beer and the brandy went back into the cellars
and we ate leftover pastries for a week after.”

Cheobawn buried her
trembling fingers in the loose skin of the puppy’s neck. It nibbled
on her earlobe as she looked away, off into the distance, beyond the
walls of the dome. Even now, after all this time, her stomach
tightened into a knot when she tried to remembered that day.

Zeff took her silence as a
good sign and kept talking.

“
Sybille had you to
herself right before the actual ceremony. I don’t doubt the entire
Coven filled your ears with instructions before that day, telling you
what was expected of you, but I can only imagine what Sybille said.
She can be bloody minded when she wants something.”

“
She said Mora loved me,”
Cheobawn said faintly, the memories fogging her mind. “She said I
had to be a good girl and pick the box full of love. I had asked for
a puppy. I assumed Mora had changed her mind and gotten me a pet.
Little fool, I was. I had not the sense to understand that gifts are
never about getting what you want or need but about giving emptiness
and expecting gratitude.”

“
It is not always like
that,” Zeff said softly.

Cheobawn bit her lip and
refused to look at him.

Zeff sighed sadly and
continued. “It was a triple blind test. No one knew which box was
which. That year, there had been a plague of fuzzies. It was easy
enough to catch a few. Drug them down, put them in the dark, they lie
inert, just like a soft cloth dolly or a plush toy.”

“
I knew. I heard them in
the ambient. I could feel them coming towards me for days. I was so
happy. I spent the day singing fuzzy songs,” Cheobawn said hoarsely
around the ache in her heart.

“
Mora had her knife out,
that day,” Zeff said, his voice soft with memories. “It is
ceremonial, you understand. In the old days, before the time when all
the Mothers born had the gift, the Coven kept their knives handy, in
case the little beasty in the box got out.”

“
In case the wrong box was
chosen,” Cheobawn correcting him, “and the child needed to be
killed. I have studied the ancient traditions.”

“
Yes,” the oldpa
conceded with a grimace. “That was true in the old times. Back when
they did not allow the Fathers into the ceremonies. It was an ugly
thing, killing a child. The Mothers thought to protect the hearts of
the Fathers from the necessity of death. It’s one of the reasons
the Fathers will never know whose child is whose. Attachments are
discouraged. We are supposed to consider all the children as our own.
But it had been generations since a runt was born that needed
killing.”

“
Is there a point to
this,” Cheobawn asked evenly, starting to get annoyed. Did he
really expect her to wax nostalgic about this?

“
There was no hesitation.
You picked up that box and held onto it like your life depended on
it. Mora let you drag it off while Phillius took the other box away
to dispose of the fuzzy. You ended up under the altar, hidden behind
the drapery of a half dozen altar clothes, talking to something.”

The dark place under the
altar stood like a beacon mid the memories of that day. Cheobawn
shuddered, refusing it entry and thought of other things.

“
We had no hint of the
disaster,” Zeff said faintly, “until Phillius came running back
in, clutching that cursed dolly and looking like he’d seen a
ghost.”

“
Da killed it. He pinned
it to the altar with a blade through its skull. The blood was … I
hated him but he took me away from the Coven and I was grateful for
that. I think I slept next to him in his bed in the Fathers House for
a long time after that.” Cheobawn closed her eyes and buried her
face in the puppy’s fur. “I don’t remember much more.”

“
All the Coven pulled
their knives out,” Zeff said gravely. “It was the First Prime
that kept you alive long enough for the Mothers to see reason.
Hayrald gathered you up, shielding you with his body, daring Mora to
kill you as the whole village watched. She is a wise woman. For as
much as she loved him, she needed him more. Without him, there would
be no peace between the Coven and the Fathers House. She let him have
his way. Do not think that the Coven rules under the dome. They
serve. Some things not even your psionic gifts can tell you. She
chose to trust Hayrald’s wisdom that day.”

“
Why are you telling me
this,” Cheobawn asked, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. The puppy
wiggled out of her hands and climbed her chest to bury its nose in
the blond curls behind her ear.

“
I think you should not be
so hard on the Coven and their Husbands. They do the best they can
with what they know. You cannot blame them for being less than you in
some ways. They fear you.”

“
I am not a monster,”
Cheobawn said stubbornly.

“
No, no,” Zeff said
firmly. “No, you are not. You are something new and strange. It is
their own ignorance that frightens them. They are terrified that they
might err and in that error, break you. They fear that anything they
might do would steer you away from the path that you are meant to
walk. They fear to teach you yet they fear that if they do not, you
will destroy everything in your ignorance.”

“
Yet the First Mother
insists on sheltering me,” Cheobawn said fiercely, looking up into
Zeff’s pale eyes. “Secrets and lies are my bane.”

“
Ach,” Zeff grunted in
agreement, “but they are confused by the number of your years and
the innocence in your heart, Little Mother. Mora most of all. She
knows what the futures holds for you. It is she who opened the Book
of Secrets. The knowledge there must be terrible indeed because it
changed her irrevocably. I remember her when she was a girl, you
know, before she was appointed to her post. She used to know how to
laugh. It is sad, but I think she has forgotten how.”

Cheobawn stared at the
oldpa. “Do you wish me to pity Mora?” Cheobawn laughed. It was a
sound without mirth. Zeff flinched.

“
She is not like you,
Little Mother,” Zeff said. “Deep down inside, she is still that
girl who used to love to play, but the burden of birthing you into
the world has left no room for play in her heart. She will see you
fulfill your destiny, no matter what the cost.”

“
You must excuse me for
not feeling grateful,” Cheobawn said acidly.

Zeff
took the dogs and left her to her thoughts. Nothing was as it seemed,
apparently. She had been wandering through her life in a blissful
haze of ignorance. Now her brain boiled as she tried to fit the
pieces of her shattered puzzle back together. She thought that she
might never sleep again but her lids grew heavy almost immediately
and she slept once more.

“
Hey,” Connor said as he
tickled her lips with the tip of his finger. “You get real food
today. Wake up.”

She bit her abused lips and
squinted at him through bleary eyes. A look of intense relief
suffused his face as she blinked away the sleep, drew a deep breath,
and managed to suppress the cough it triggered. The bubbling deep in
her lungs was back.

“
It feels like I’ve been
running in the cold again,” she said hoarsely.

Connor handed her a glass of
water. She did not want it, but after a few sips found herself
draining the glass.

“
Yeah, Amabel says we need
to get you on your feet today and start walking,” he said, fluffing
her pillows.

The water reminded her of
other bodily functions. She sat up and threw the covers off her legs.

“
Where do you think you
are going?” he asked, sounding a little alarmed.

“
You said I need to walk.
I thought I would start by walking to the bathroom,” she said
patiently.

Mollified, he held out his
hand. She took it to make him feel useful but the minute she took a
step, she was grateful for the support. Everything seemed wobbly. By
the time she got back to bed she needed to rest. Connor tucked her in
and refilled her water glass.

“
We’ve got to talk. The
Spiders need …“she said between sips.

Quiet,
Connor’s
finger said.
Wait. Too many ears.

Cheobawn frowned. She was
going to say something more, but a healer walked through the door.
She was followed not long after by one of Nedella’s apprentices,
bearing a tray. Cheobawn sat up, realizing, all of a sudden, that she
was famished. The tray was put out of her reach. Cheobawn looked at
it and then back at Connor, hoping he would get the hint.

Patience
, he signed.

The healer poked and prodded
and pressed the studs of her med unit into a few orifices, studied
the readings, and then left.

“
What happened after…”
she said.

“
Eat first,” Connor
said, retrieving the bed-tray and placing it over her knees. He
removed the lids from the bowls to reveal soup, jellied compote and
snowpudding with honey crystals dusted over the top. The cup only
held weak tea.

“
This is not food,”
Cheobawn said in disgust.

“
Eat it and maybe they
will give you real stuff,” he said, picking up a spoon. She grabbed
it out of his hand.

“
I know how to feed
myself,” she said acidly. “I will eat if you talk.”

“
Eat and I might let you
see the surprise we made for you,” Connor said. Cheobawn glared at
him, her spoon hovering over her soup.

“
You first,” she
growled. “Start by telling me what day this is.”

“
It’s Restday. You have
been out of your head for a week,” Connor said. “Breyden took you
up on Cloud Eye and whisked you away and when we finally got the
cattle settled and into the dome, Amabel and Mora wouldn’t let me
anywhere near you. I finally had to make an appeal to the First
Fathers, reminding them that I had first of kin rights as your
packmate but by then they had given up on you and did not care if I
came here or not.”

“
Given up?” she prompted
around a mouthful of pudding.

“
Eat your soup first, you
little savage, and don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Cheobawn wrinkled her nose
at him but switched to the soup all the same.

“
Given up. Moved you out
of the full time care and up here, to wait and see if you would die.
You surprised them when you didn’t. You surprised them even more
when your arm returned to normal about three days ago.”