Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles
Read Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles Online
Authors: J.D. Lakey
For
Everyone who said “More
Please.”
Other Books in the Black
Bead Chronicles:
Black Bead: Book One
Bhotta's Tears: Book Two
Trade Fair: Book Four
Dunauken: Book Five
Exerpt
from
Trade Fair: Book Four
“…
Jerrod made me a
necklace for my birthday out of stones he found down on the beach. It
is quite beautiful, each bead like a tiny drop of blood. Mindy called
them bloodstones and the name has stuck much to Jerrod’s
displeasure. He is so proud of his gift. I cannot blame him. Life in
the camp is hard, especially for the women. We were allowed to bring
so little. Jewelry was a luxury denied us. I try to wear the beads
but the weight of them has become strangely unbearable. I cannot hear
myself think when they are around my neck, for some reason. … the
other day I found myself standing on the watchtower staring up at the
ridge of mountains on the northern horizon with no memory of having
left the campdome or crossing the fields or climbing the ladder to
the platform. … I know it is crazy but I think if you listen hard
enough, the necklace starts to sing …”
─
Anna, the first Mother,
excerpts from
The Journals,
Year Two
,
The Forbidden Books
“
I’m bored,” said
Cheobawn, the underage and provisional member of Blackwind Pack.
It was a travesty, her
status. Injustice that only Mothers could mete out on their children.
She was eight and had been eight since the middle of summer.
She spun the long knife on
the palm of her hand one last time before flicking it across the dorm
room. It came to rest, quivering, in the center of a target wired to
the storage closet door. There were targets placed strategically
around the Pack's common room for just this purpose. Tam, her Alpha
male, had thought it best to preserve the much-abused lintels and
built-in cabinetry in Blackwind Pack’s dormitory suite from further
damage. The previous generations had not been kind to their lumber.
Cheobawn ran her fingers
unconsciously through her blond curls and glared at the white light
streaming through the south windows. Winter had come to the
Highreaches, and with it came the bitter cold. No one was allowed out
of the dome unless they had good reason to go. Sparring space was at
a premium because everyone in the tribe was starting to get dome
fever. The need to move, to run, to fight had infected the minds of
everyone. She had not been able to reserve space in the sparring
rooms until late in the day.
Part of her problems was she
was called Cheobawn Windfall when, by rights she should have been
called Cheobawn Blackwind. Mora, her Truemother stood like a wall
between her and all she desired and because Mora was First Mother to
Windfall dome and High Mother to all the domes, there was no higher
authority she could go to to voice her grievances.
Cheobawn slouched across the
common room and leaned over the back of Connor’s chair, watching as
he filled his third screen with what was proving to be a very long
theoretical calculus problem.
Connor, Tam's Third, threw
down his stylus. It bounced and rolled off the desk into the drifts
of notes and wads of crumpled paper from his previous failed attempts
at problem solving. When he ran out of screen space Connor had the
bad habit of scratching his notes on whatever surface was handy.
Megan had grown tired of cleaning math problems off the wall by the
study station and gone down to the recycling center and returned with
a stack of used paper.
“
Must you do that? You are
driving me loopy. Go mope somewhere else. Don’t you have something
constructive to do?” the ebony-haired boy asked, his face
attempting a sternly paternal look she had last seen on her Da’s
face the night before. The glowering brow and thin lipped frown was
not an expression native to Connor’s face. On Hayrald that look
could freeze your blood, but on Connor’s eleven-year-old face it
reminded her of a cherub with indigestion. Cheobawn bit the inside of
her cheek to keep from giggling. “Surely,” Connor asked
pointedly, “your teachers have your lesson queue loaded with
ciphers that you could be playing with.”
“
I finished them last
night after Mora banned me to my room for sassing her during dinner,”
Cheobawn said. Mentioning the confrontation with Mora brought the
anger back afresh to her mind and put her out of sorts with the world
once more. “And don’t tell me to go read again. I am years and
years ahead in my reading lists. The teachers refuse to unlock the
adult reading material on my learning station.”
Connor’s scowl deepened at
the mention of the First Mother’s name. They were about to start
the long-familiar argument again. He thought it unwise on her part to
test the limits of Mora’s patience and could not understand why she
took every opportunity to goad the First Mother into any sort of
reaction. He had made his opinion known on this matter on more than a
few occasions.
As a precaution, in case he
decided to sock her, Cheobawn backed away. The trestle table in the
middle of the room stopped her retreat. Turning, she followed its
edge, her fingers trailing over the knife-scarred wood. The edge was
the only part of the table free of the dross and clutter of the four
children who lived here. Cheobawn morosely eyed the unstable pile of
maps, reports, sweat-stained tunics, and practice weapons. Her stuff
should have been in that pile. Her books, plastine worksheets, and
stray dirty socks should have joined that pile six months ago when
she turned eight.
She looked away, not wanting
the reminder of Mora’s stubborn determination to keep her from
growing up. Other kids did not have to fight as hard as she to gain
their independence. Pack Hall should have become her permanent
residence, by right, on her eighth birthday.
Cheobawn's eyes scanned the
room, looking for a diversion to lighten her dark thoughts. She would
not ruin her Restday by thinking of Mora.
Connor was still scowling at
her from where he sat. The only clutter-free spot in the room also
happened to be the desk that held the communal study station. The
console, crystal-locked into Windfall Dome’s central data core, was
running a data mining program for his statistics thesis, effectively
locking out any other use while it processed the mountains of
information housed in the crystalline brain buried beneath the temple
square. Connor kept glancing up at it from time to time to check its
progress. Cheobawn glared at the machine, unreasonably offended that
Connor found it more interesting than his own packmate. It was
Restday, their one day off from the full schedule of sparring,
lessons, and chores. Why couldn’t they go out and play like every
other Pack in Pack Hall?
“
You know, being eight …”
Connor said, interrupting her gloomy thoughts.
“
Eight and a half,” she
said, correcting him automatically.
“
Excuse me, eight and a
half,” he said, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. She
was beginning to think he forgot her age on purpose just to annoy
her. “So ancient, yet still you have not figured out how to keep
your mouth shut around Mora and the rest of the Coven. You would
spend less time serving detention if you could just put a pleasant
smile on your face and pretend to agree with them once in a while.”
Cheobawn chose to ignored
his comments. They would never see eye to eye on how to handle the
Coven’s prickly personalities.
“
I asked her again, last
night,” Cheobawn continued, her face settling into an outraged
pout. “She is being so unreasonable about it. I am eight. I am part
of a Pack. I should be living and sleeping here with the rest of you.
Every time I ask, she thinks up new reasons why I should stay home.
Now she says I should wait until Megan is released from the Temple.
It is just so …” Cheobawn pressed her lips together, refusing to
say the hated word.
“
Unfair?” Connor
finished her sentence for her. “Maybe. But it’s not like you are
missing anything. With Tam, Alain, and Megan locked away all winter,
this place gets awfully lonely. I didn’t want to say anything
'cause I didn’t want you to think I was being a crybaby but I have
been sleeping in the Fathers House for the past month just so I could
have somebody besides you to talk to.”
“
What’s wrong with
talking to me?” she asked belligerently, pretending to be affronted
by his ill-thought-out words. She thrust out her jaw and settled into
a fighting stance. If he would not play, maybe she could start a good
fight.
“
You’re a girl. Men need
to talk to other men. Just like girls should hang out with other
girls their own age so they can talk about ….” Connor choked on
the last words and looked away, heat rising in his cheeks. He had
seen the grimace of pain that had flashed across his Ear’s face.
Cheobawn, ashamed that she had let slip the mask that hid the hurt
inside her heart, turned away and pretended to study the map table
set under the bank of windows along the south wall of the room while
she attempted to get her emotions under control. Truth be told, she
had no friends her own age. Outside of her Pack, she had no friends
at all. Mora and Amabel had made sure of that when they had woven the
black bead into the knots of her omeh on her Choosingday.
Mora, as her Truemother,
should have slit her three-year-old throat that day as tradition
demanded, yet inexplicably she had not and neither Amabel nor Menolly
had dared oppose her in her madness. Instead, they had resuscitated a
long dead tradition, choosing to mark her forever as Bad Luck, the
worst thing one could be in a society that lived and died by the Luck
of their psi gifts. Bad luck got people killed and superstition held
that its ill winds were as contagious as a virus and that the death
of its bearer was the only remedy. Her honors necklace, with its
hated ebony bead, stood like a wall between her and all the other
children her age.
Logically, she could not
fault her classmates. They could not afford to be associated with her
in any way. The nestmothers barely tolerated her presence in the same
classrooms with their precious darlings as it was. The competition
for status among the Packs was intense and the arbiters of success
used the harshest of measuring sticks. The least little flaw made the
difference between top of the heap and bottom of the hill. The
children her age, even young as they were, hungered for that
approval. Being friends with a black bead jeopardized her classmates’
success and they all instinctively avoided her; everyone except
Megan; Megan, Amabel’s truedaughter, who had been her heartsister
for all her life.