Warrior Witch

by J. D. Lakey

  “At that height, I think hitting the water will be like hitting stone. He is dead. The fishes of the Liff are feasting on his flesh.”

  “What? Why?” Connor sputtered.

  “There are so many other questions,” Alain said. “The laws of physics still apply even if you are doing something strange with space-time. How do you change your velocity between dimensions?”

  “I suck it in.”

  “You turn it into energy?” Alain asked in wonder.

  She nodded. “Yes. But I cannot hold it. It transitions from kinetic to potential back to kinetic.”

  “Yes,” said Tam. “The lightning thing is frightening. How are you not incinerated?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The sky above the Liff is a very big place. How did you choose that random spot in the sky?” Alain asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t. Choose it, I mean. I was not thinking.”

  Alain looked alarmed. He looked up at Tam, unable to hide his dismay. Tam shook his head. Now was not the time to yell at her about her sloppy planet-hopping skills. Thank the goddess, for she was in no mood for it. The pain of the wounds on her back distracted her from feeling the itch where the lightning had run down her body, but underneath the gore on her neck and shoulders the damage done by the outlaw’s fingernails was beginning to throb. She needed a hot bath. Barring that, a good long swim in the river.

  She was feverish by the time they got her back to the village. The women came out and shooed the boys away. Helping Megan, they took her down to the river, stripped her naked, and washed her cuts and abrasions with a harsh soap that made her cry.

  “Hissst now,” admonished Garta’s daughter, Clara. “Pigs are filthy animals. We don’t want you picking up some nasty parasite, do we?”

  Megan held her head, hushing her protests with soft endearments until the bath was finished. When Garta was satisfied that the wounds were clean, they lifted her out of the water, laid her on dry sheeting, and then proceeded to anoint all her wounds with a healer’s salve. Garta produced a card wrapped with thread and pierced with needles. Thus began the painful task of stitching the rips in her skin. Cheobawn did not cry this time, but it took all her will and exhausted her more.

  Finally, taking pity on her abused senses, they bound her chest with soft cloth, wrapped her in the sheet one last time, took her to a soft feather-bed in one of the huts, and tucked her under a pile of blankets. It was not enough. Only her shivering kept her warm. She fell asleep and dreamed of falling.

  Chapter 11

  An immense dubeh leopard—fur the color of shadows—hunted her through the pines forests of the Highreaches. Cheobawn grew iridescent insect wings and leaped into the sky, hunting the hunter. She knew this mind. The Margai, Kirr, was looking for her. Cheobawn swept through the sky towards Dunauken, racing to meet him. Even in dream-state, she knew she could not let the giant cat find her in the village. His psi gift would pluck her sleeping place from her mind, revealing their hiding place.

  High over the city’s towers, Kirr found her in the misty place.

  The gray-striped cat scowled down at her. She smiled. He was beautiful, this alien. It was hard not to be pleased to see him. “What troubles you, brother?” Cheobawn asked.

  “Are you safe? After today, I have begun to doubt my instinct to let you stay free to choose your own path. A very curious report landed on my desk just now—good people doing their duty by passing on information that is so impossibly outlandish that they risk their careers by putting such facts to paper.”

  Che cocked her head. Were there other earth-shattering things happening out in the world while her attention had been focused on a pig? “What has your whiskers in a knot, Margai?” she asked with a long-suffering sigh.

  “The long range scanners picked it up. Not big enough to warrant a repositioning of the satellite cameras so we have no images. Nobody cared. Until the small-weapons-fire warnings lit up the beacons, that is. By that time, it was too late. All I have is the testimony of a couple of low-ranking soldiers who just happened to be looking out a port while they were flying patrol. What do you know of an energy blast from a pulse rifle, a pair of humans falling from the upper atmosphere, and the sudden disappearance of one of the bodies? I have no physical evidence that any of this is true. If there was a body, it is gone, eaten by the fishes of this gods-cursed world long before anyone had the presence of mind to go drag the river for it.”

  Che scowled, trying to think up a good lie. Maybe Tam was right. Truth was much less exhausting. She shrugged. “Oh. That.”

  “Oh that?” growled the gray-furred Margai.

  “I . . . needed to defuse a very bad situation very quickly. It was the best I could do with so little preparation.”

  “The best . . .?” Kirr’s lips curled back from his long canines. He was getting angry. “Have you become so jaded by death in such a short time? I know you. I know your heart. This man’s death would have mattered more to you once.”

  This barb found its mark in her heart and it made her angry that he knew her so well. “Do not snarl at me!” she hissed, her ears wanting to flatten against her skull. It was bad enough with everyone in Blackwind Pack yelling at her. She did not need this oversized smoke leopard telling her how to run her business. Much to her surprise, her ears did as she intended. They swiveled and flattened themselves against her skull. Cheobawn put her hands up to her face. She had whiskers and fur. It had not been intended, this shape-shifting. In this place where nothing was real, she had borrowed her body-sense from Kirr. This goddess-cursed Margai had set no decent boundaries on his mind to keep her out.

  “What . . .?” Kirr rumbled, taken back by her sudden change in appearance in this place of the mind.

  “This is your fault! You have gotten into my head,” she shouted, furious with him for no sane reason.

  “And literally under your skin,” Kirr purred, amused. “I am truly your brother, now. Why did you need to kill that man?”

  “I needed his pulse rifle to go away,” she growled. “He was holding it.”

  “Ah. Remind me to teach you close quarters hand-to-hand combat. Too bad you have not learned to fine-tune that new gift of yours. Speaking of that, did you mean to put a hole in the star-cruiser, or had they finally pushed you to your breaking point, making you angry enough to want to kill those who were hurting you?”

  Cheobawn gasped, the accusation hurtful. “It was not like that. I would never . . . I am not a killer. That is, I do not mean to be. I was not . . . until I came down the Escarpment.” She stopped, confused. How could she make him understand the desperation of that moment?

  “And yet kill you did,” Kirr said solemnly.

  “I was dying. I needed to find a way . . . out,” Che sputtered. She looked up at him, wanting him not to judge her. “I had few options. The All Mind would not release me and my Mothers have not granted me permission to die, yet.”

  The implications of this statement were not lost on the giant cat. Kirr’s ears flattened, his nostrils snapping nearly closed. “And you would obey their demands, no matter how unreasonable? Who are your Mothers that they can force you to stare Death in the face and have it back down?”

  Cheobawn shook her head. It was not like that. She was not brave or powerful. She was just stubborn, as her Mothers had so often reminded her. Why did she feel the need to defend them? “The will of the Mother is everything. Who would we be without their guidance?”

  “What . . .?” Kirr breathed out, trying to control his emotions. “What do your Mothers grow inside those domes? Will they someday release a plague of soldier-drones upon an unsuspecting universe?”

  “They already have. I am that plague,” Cheobawn said bitterly.

  “You are a child who loves everything too much. Is this what they intended? Explain this to me, for I truly want to know,” he snarled. “Were you meant to come down the Escarpment and win our hearts and minds over with th
e purity of your love? You should tell your Mothers the real world does not work like that. Love means nothing to those who lust for power.”

  Cheobawn studied him. He was being intentionally cruel because he was angry with her. She understood that. She could even sympathize with him. His life and the life of his species had been paved with tragedy. His home-world had been one of the first to fall in the early days of the Spider War. The War had done things like that. Extinguished the Margai and pried the Scerrons loose from their hiding places to come seek a safe haven among the humans.

  “I have never lied to you,” Cheobawn said. “I have never been anything but my true self. You do love me. I have read it in your heart. I have given you no other alternative. I am the thing your heart has yearned for from that day it was broken for the first time.”

  Her words, while true, were crass and intentionally cruel. Kirr stared at her. “Was Kander right? Are you playing me? Do you think to take advantage of our friendship? You made me your messenger. Now I am embroiled in the politics of bloodstones, star colonies, and domes. I risk my career just by talking to you now. Friendship with you is not a simple thing.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, confused.

  “You should have let us all think you were dead. Your secret-keepers love you because, as you say, they can hardly help themselves. Even under questioning, their minds become entangled in your magic and never betray you. You could have hidden yourself and we would never have thought to come looking for you. But no, you killed a man in the most spectacular and public way possible, thus telling everyone you are still alive. I can no longer lie to cover for you and some of my superiors have started to question my loyalty. Why would you do that?”

  “I have no control over my magic. I wanted to stay hidden in the dark but my Luck drags me back into the light,” Che said earnestly.

  “I don’t believe you. You wanted everyone to know you were alive. Why else would you steal that boat and allow yourself to be recognized by a riverman who made it his business to tell anyone who would listen that Samwell Wheelwright’s witch child was roaming—free-as-you-please—on the river, working her magic under the guise of being a very inept thief. That rumor ran like a wildfire through all the pubs and by the end of the next day, all your enemies had begun to move against you. There is a price on your head now. The dregs of the underbelly of this world have cobbled together a small fleet to search for you. Dominick has diverted half his men to the task of finding you. The governor has petitioned the Admiral for help in this. The Admiral has refused but only because he has orders from the Hegemony to find you before anyone else does. Kander and I are busy interrogating every drunk on the waterfront, hoping someone has seen you or your sailboat. Half the orbital sensors are now trained on the River, looking for a small girl on a boat called the Wanderlust.”

  Cheobawn flinched. She did not want to hear this. Any of it. She did not want to turn her mind’s eye in that direction for fear it would make her step away from the path she was now on. She wanted to keep on pretending to be a pirate on a river with no walls to cage her.

  Kirr waited for her to respond, but when she merely hung her head and kept her silence, he continued. “I am beginning to doubt the purity of your innocence. It cannot be an accident, the consequences of what you do. Kander and I have discussed it. Alive, you are a deterrent. If we are to believe the Scerrons, you are a weapon of incalculable power—something to be feared.”

  Cheobawn looked up, her lips pressed around the angry words that wanted spill out of her mouth like molten stone, but Kirr was still chastising her.

  “To those whose interests are hopelessly caught up in the bloodstone trade, you are a prize of such value that no one would dare to demolish the fragile construct of the domes or the land of the bloodstones by harming you. Whatever the case, your presence on this planet ensures the well-being of every living thing on it. The Prince Regent meant to separate the two. Take you away from this planet. Build a population of bhotta on a Central Core planet. Solve an untenable situation by separating it into manageable and malleable parts, hoping to deal with each part using simpler strategies. But the Prince Regent did not believe that you were anything but a child. His advisers felt this planet was just something you clung to for comfort.” Kirr snorted. “As if you ever had need of a dolly.”

  Che cocked her head. “You have grown bloodstones off planet?”

  Kirr stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “Are you even listening to what I am saying?”

  “It did not work, did it?” Cheobawn, All Mother, asked, almost to herself. “You would have to recreate this planet down to the last stone and creature. The quantum entanglement is not so easy to copy.”

  Kirr stood frozen, staring down at her. “Cold. Deep in your core, I only find ice. I think your Mothers gave you your first knife when you were born. Surely you clutched that blade to your breast, recognizing a kindred spirit. Now, the way of the knife is as familiar to you as breathing. A person cannot risk holding you for fear of being sliced open by the fierceness of your will.”

  Cheobawn felt her jaw clench around the words that wanted to come rushing out of her heart. Instead, she looked up to consider him. She wanted to take offense, but everything he said had its roots buried in the truth. One thing was certain. She had broken his heart in some way. She was not quite sure how and maybe that was the problem. That she was not friend enough to understand his pain.

  “You are right. I am a weapon,” she said finally, trying to help him understand. “Nothing more. Nothing less. Only another warrior could dare love me. But you have been inside my skin. You know who I am. You know what I am. I am the blade forged in the terrible furnace of my Mothers’ love. But I am not unique. I am a blade but I come from a land where all my kindred are weapons. Perhaps I have become the worst kind of monster—a weapon no longer controllable by those who forged me. I will make my own way in the world and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Kirr shook his head. “You are not making any sense. You are not that monster.”

  “No. I am more than that,” Cheobawn agreed. “I hear what the planet hears. Every wish. Every prayer. Every fairytale told to children as they drift off into sleep. The weight of those unfulfilled yearnings have sent this world spinning out of balance. I have been sent by my Mothers to right the wrongs and bring harmony back to the world.”

  “What? How?” Kirr scoffed. “How can your Mothers expect you to do the impossible?”

  “I?” Che sighed. She scratched her nose. Surprisingly, it was no longer covered in fur, but was human once more. “I listen with more than just ears. I hear as only an Ear can hear. What I hear flows through me. I share with the Oneverse and the Oneverse hears my mind. The yearning of this one little planet has shifted the course of all creation.”

  Kirr twitched his whiskers. “You think like a child who believes in magic. You believe that there is one being who will right all the wrongs and erase all the hurts. But this is not how your Mothers taught you, warrior child. It has split your brain, half of you wanting to pick up a blade and demand your own personal justice, the other half needing to surrender to the will of the greater good.”

  Perhaps this was true. What was she? Warrior or witch? She needed to ponder this for a time. Che smiled at Kirr and began to fade. Someone was listening to this conversation. Their attention tugged at her mind. “What I want is unimportant. Do you want a piece of advice? I will give it to you for free. You want to help me. So help me by helping yourself. Do what you will. There is no wrong choice. Take a leap. All that matters is that you are in motion. Close your eyes and trust that your feet will land in the next place, the exact place the Oneverse needs you to be. Trust in your own magic. If you can’t do that then at least trust in the magic of the Oneverse.”

  Kirr threw his hands up in the air. “It is impossible to argue with you. Come back to Dunauken. I will keep you safe.”

  “Soon,”
Cheobawn said, stepping out of the misty place and into somewhere else.

  Menolly knelt before the altar, incense burners filling the room with dreamsmoke. This was the High Priestess’s private sanctuary. Cheobawn drifted in the air above the altar, tangled in the coils and curls of smoke and the will of her Mother.

  “Are you going to hover or are you going to settle and talk to me?” Menolly asked without looking up.

  Che shook herself free of the smoke and sank to the floor, kneeling by the Mother’s side. Menolly did not move, her eyes still closed.

  Che waited. Then she cleared her throat. Menolly opened her eyes and stared up at the altar but still did not look at her Black Bead child.

  “You called me,” Che reminded her.

  “Yes? Yes. You were supposed to send a report. River has not heard from you in days. He worries. The Lowlanders and the Spacers and the CPC are still moving against you. That fool Prince still thinks he can outsmart an entire Coven. You breaking out of the starship has them terrified. Fear will make them do foolish things. Take pity on your soldiers and send River one of your carrion dragons. The other, Lawflin, awaits your orders. You cannot keep your warriors in permanent limbo.”

  “Lawflin?” Cheobawn asked. She tried to find an explanation in Menolly’s mind. There were no walls between them. The dreamsmoke was not to blame. Menolly wanted to share. It was easy enough to find what she needed. “The other one? Ah, I remember now. You sent two scouts down the cliffs to prepare the way. Lawflin is the second?”

  “Well?” Menolly asked. “What are you planning?”

  “I? I plan nothing. I can only pick up the threads of this game of War you have created for me and try to hold on to them while the world whizzes by around me. You were once a Black Bead. You know what I face,” Cheobawn said, accusation in her voice. She had only recently found this fact out. Relief warred with betrayal inside her heart. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to about her difficult task back when she was still living under the dome.