Warrior Witch

by J. D. Lakey

  “We lost ships and men out there, too,” Dominick shouted. “Who will pay for their loss?”

  Jonah, resplendent in his best vest, stepped out of the crowd. “As did I,” he shouted as he wagged a finger in Che’s direction. “This witch incited the beasts of the sky and water to attack us.”

  “Protected species that you attacked and killed,” shouted a hedge witch from the far corner, amidst nods of agreement from the rest of her group. The were the only women in the room beside Che and Megan.

  The Prince shook his head. “The Hegemony is innocent of these charges. Of everyone here, we are the least culpable.”

  Cheobawn choked on the angry words that wanted to spill out. How dare he lie in the presence of the High Mother? Everything traced its way back to this man. The Scerrons were under his employ and the CPC counted him as their leader.

  Tam, watching his littlest Ear, slammed the butt of his bladed stick against the fine marble tile under his feet. Cheobawn jumped as the sharp sound resonated throughout the chamber, silencing everyone. “The All Mother will speak now,” he said pointedly, reminding her to stay on plan.

  Che calmed herself as she looked around the room and then glared at the Prince Regent. “Shall we argue innocence?” Cheobawn said, pointing at Oud. “When you harbor this creature close to your heart and listen to her poisonous advice?”

  Oud flushed almost black as she rose to defend herself.

  Mora held up her hand. The room fell silent. She nodded down at Blackwind Pack. “I care not for these petty squabbles. These are my children. This is the one who will inherit my power. This is the ambassador of goodwill that I sent down the Escarpment to meet with you. You have done everything in your power to bring her harm. How am I to take this affront? The Highreaches trade at Meetpoint because it pleases us to do so. It would serve you your own kind of justice if we chose to let this generation of Lowlanders pass away without ever returning to Meetpoint. What say you? One hundred years without bloodstones. That seems only fair.”

  The room broke into a cacophonous howl.

  Cheobawn caught bits and pieces of it.

  “How can we take this threat seriously?”

  “They need us as much as we need them!”

  “How can a band of primitives declare war on us from so far away?”

  “They are children! I see no credible threat!”

  “Is this a game? I will not be made a fool of!”

  Che ignored everything and everyone except one person. She watched the Scerron high priestess. One way or another she was going to get answers from this being. Oud returned her gaze, her skin flashing random colored stripes now.

  “Your control crystal is locked into the com-spheres,” Flynn said in her ear. “The way is open.”

  It was time. Flynn had the location of the source of each image now. Taking the feed from the red control crystal in her ear-piece, he created four images of her and inserted them into the quantum fields inside the bubbles. A holographic image of herself appeared in each one. The last one he placed over her own body. She moved and all four images mimicked her exactly. The sound of her voice could have come from any of the images. For all intents, she had split herself into four and now stood, whole and real, on four different planets. Flynn had solved the problem of synchronizing the imagery perfectly.

  The crowd around her murmured in dismay.

  “What kind of trickery is this?” shouted the Speaker of the CPC, a man named Edwards. He rose and swiped his hand through Cheobawn’s image. The Prince’s security, just off camera, did much of the same thing. Oud. Oud knew what was real. She looked up at the com-sphere, her face a study in impassive boredom.

  “Come,” said the Prince, “grant that we are not straw-chewing pig farmers and do not subject us to this smoke-and-mirrors magic show.”

  Mora threw back her head and laughed, delighted. “I have always enjoyed a good magic show,” she said. “Please continue, Little Mother.”

  Che smiled and stepped out of the world and back in again, landing on a plush carpet with an intricate pattern and the deep, rich colors of natural dyes. Images swirled around in her head. The carpet was seeped in the magic of a village full of women sitting before the loom, whispering their prayers into the Oneverse with every knot they tied.

  “She is visiting the Prince Regent,” Flynn said in her ear. This was for the benefit of Blackwind, who needed to know which chimera was the real Cheobawn. Che looked up at the Prince and wondered if he knew what coiled around his ankles. Woman's magic. Cheobawn shook the weavers out of her head and tasted the timeline of the man they called the Face of All Humanity, elected leader of the Hegemony, the Prince Regent, Prince Karleman IX. He had been born ordinary, in a nest full of ordinary children, some Truebrothers, some not. Timothy they had named him. It was not until he ascended the throne that they called him Karleman. He did not govern as Mora governed, with all her heart and mind. No. He was more a marionette whose strings were being pulled by a thousand different interests. The room was full of people. Soldiers, servants, diplomats and politicians. A great many of those beings were human but some were not. Cheobawn could name only a few of those species. They ranged around him, standing behind the tightly focused com-sphere, the power behind the throne, the puppeteers. One person stood out from the others. Colonel Bohea. She had dealings with this Spacer and had always wondered what had become of him. Here he was, tucked under the Regent’s long arms, whispering his insanity into this mess. Cheobawn considered him for a moment. In retrospect, perhaps he was not so crazy. She had met too much insanity since she had come down the Escarpment. Bohea raised an eyebrow, suddenly amused by something. Che looked away. She had given herself away. She waited for him to betray her but when he did not, she nodded. Curiosity was Bohea’s flaw. He would wait to move, wait for her to betray herself, not believing that she was any threat to his employer.

  Cheobawn settled the room into the back of her mind and looked up to meet Timothy’s eyes.

  “We must come to some form of agreement. That being said, I must inform you that you cannot lie to me. Lies will only make things worse,” Che said.

  The prince grimaced. “Are you a mind-reader like my Psi-Ops corp?”

  Cheobawn shrugged. “The same but different. Tell me this. Why should I trust you? Why should I listen to anything you have to say? The history between the Hegemony and the planet called Occonomara has been a bloody one. You take but do no give. You demand but do not grant concessions. You assume too much. We are nothing like the people of the Central Core and our needs have evolved beyond what they were when we first made landfall.”

  “Our relationship is very complicated but I can boil it down to one simple fact.” the Prince said. “You have what we need.”

  “Bloodstones,” Cheobawn said.

  “Yes, that and the knowledge on how to use them. No one knows more about bloodstones than your people.”

  “You would be hurt if Mora made good on her threat and cut off the supply for one hundred years standard.”

  “Eventually, it would hurt, yes. My vaults are full of bloodstones. We would be fine for a while. Perhaps long enough to outlast your embargo. Any longer and the intricacies of the machine that keeps human civilization running would slowly deteriorate.”

  Cheobawn nodded. She glanced over at the room full of people. He was being as honest as he could be under the circumstances. Time to ask the real question.

  “Did you not wonder why the Scerrons appeared as if by magic at the beginning of the Spider War?”

  “Err? What? That was two thousand years ago. I was not alive then.”

  “Ask your advisers. Surely someone wrote the history of the Human-Scerron treaty.”

  “There is no treaty. Just a contract,” Timothy said. “The Scerrons sold their services to us for a price.”

  “Why?” Che asked.

  “They were afraid of the spiders,” someone said from the crowd
off to the side. Cheobawn turned her head to see who was speaking. An oldma stood there, pushed to the side, her clothes not half as splendid as everyone else. ”The Scerrons said that the spiders had gone crazy and were pushing through their space, taking Scerron planets one by one. They said it would be just a matter of time before they took all the human planets as well. They agreed to act as Pilots if we agreed to contain spider-kind.”

  “Did you think to go investigate that claim?” Cheobawn asked.

  Oud turned black and stood, rising to her full height. “What is this? Dare you question our allegiance?” she shouted.

  “Why bring this up now?” asked the prince.

  “Spider calls me Mother. I have the memories of that moment when Spider first leaped into space more than a hundred-million years ago. Spider met many species as it explored this galaxy. One of them was the Scerrons. Spider and Scerron have existed in harmony for tens of thousands of years. When the Scerrons sent their first delegation to the Central Core a treaty between Spider and Scerron had been in place for just as long. So the reason for a human-Scerron pact is still a mystery to me. Spider had reason to hate humans. You killed the Ones who Stayed. They were the fail-safe meant to outlast all the spiders who went out into the dark, in case the dreamer who dreamed the glass spiders was a fool after all. You destroyed his home world. Spider had reason to hate. But why did the Scerrons choose to take sides? I understand that rulers must be secret-keepers. But what is the secret of the Scerrons? Whose side were they on?”

  Oud sat down hard and flashed pale violet for a moment, her gills a dark chartreuse.

  Timothy looked at his advisers expectantly. There was honest confusion everywhere. The Prince Regent grew angry. “What? No one can debunk this ridiculous claim?”

  “There is no record of this and anyone who knew is long dead,” said the oldma.

  Cheobawn waved her hand. “Never mind. I have an easier question. Why did you send a ship with a containment box to Occonomara for the explicit purpose of killing me?”

  “I did no such thing,” he said coolly. He looked over at Oud. “Perhaps you can answer this question.”

  “I have no control over the actions of a rogue sister,” Oud said impassively.

  Cheobawn stared at her. It was stunning how well this Scerron lied. The Scerrons were hermaphroditic clones who shared a communal mind. Talking to one meant you were talking to all of them. Could a Scerron go rogue? How was it possible? It would surely be an excruciating form of insanity. She turned back to Timothy.

  “Let’s change the subject. A considerable amount of low grade bloodstones left your planet recently and found their way into the hands of a syndicate whose only purpose is to assassinate enemies of the Hegemony. That syndicate operates on every human planet. Men were hired on Occonomara for the purpose of killing me. Look me in the eye and tell me that you know nothing of this.”

  Timothy, Prince Regent of all of human space, looked into her eyes, saw her rage, and had the intelligence to feel afraid. Perhaps it was finally sinking in how close he was to being exterminated.

  “I have no control over the underworld. You cannot blame me for everything that goes wrong.”

  “Why not? You are their ruler. Does the fate of a planet, a people, a being mean so little to you?” Che asked softly, studying the Regent with a curious interest.

  “I am nothing,” said the Regent stubbornly. “A figurehead. My family will replace me with another if I die here, and things will remain the same. How far are you willing to take your revenge?”

  Colonel Bohea moved, there in the corner of her eye. It was time to leave.

  “Is it revenge or is it justice?” Che said, stepping out of the world, around a corner, and back in again.

  She stepped out onto a parquet floor that gleamed, dark and rich with age, under her slippered feet. In the Prince’s hologram, Bohea put his hand into her chimera and met no resistance.

  Timothy was shouting at Mora. “Your daughter is riding rough-shod over these proceedings! Rein her in.”

  “I am still amused so, no, I will not,” Mora said serenely.

  Cheobawn sucked in the memories of the room and stored them away for later. She met Edwards stare. “You are Speaker. I am told that means you are the voice of all the planets of human space. So many voices in your ear. Surely one of them has told you the truth about the nature of how things are out in the world. What do you know of the Scerron conspiracy to keep the Spider War going for as long as possible? What would motivate them to do such a heinous thing?”

  The other CPC men muttered things that only Edwards could hear. Edwards silenced them with a wave of his hand.

  “You know nothing. There is no proof to back up what you are saying.”

  “Proof? I need no proof. There is only truth. Answer my questions. I understand the nature of Outlaws and Pirates. Are you like them? Are you a broken people with no inner compass? Without truth, you seem to have only two rules. The rule of Law or the rule of Money. Which rule controls you?”

  “I am sure I don’t know what you mean,” Edwards said. “You are a citizen of the Central Planets. There is no truth but what your government says is truth. You are a primitive people. I do not expect you to understand money or law. You cannot have one without the other.”

  Cheobawn closed her eyes and shook her head, refusing to believe this man was really that stupid.

  “I seek the truth here,” Che said patiently. “Do you know how to tell the truth?”

  “The world is not that simple, young lady,” Edwards said sternly.

  Cheobawn shuddered as her rage turned the pit of her stomach into a furnace. She stared at Edwards, thinking about ways he could die.

  “Wee bit,” Tam whispered in her ear. “Hold it together. If you want him dead I will be happy to kill him for you but that is not why you are here.”

  “Just answer the questions,” Che snarled at Edwards. “How much did the Scerrons pay you to look the other way while they manipulated the direction and outcome of the war with Spider?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Edwards shouted.

  Oud blushed purple but did not protest further.

  “Profit.” Cheobawn said. “I am talking about profit. Your worlds are run by money. Who took the largest profit during the war years. Surely you kept records? I am told there is a price for everything, even death. Who profited the most when Spider destroyed the Margai home world?”

  Kirr spat in rage. Kander had to restrain him when it seemed like he meant to charge the podium. Perhaps her rage was contagious.

  The Speaker looked over at the Prince Regent. “How much longer are you going to let this farce continue?

  Cheobawn trembled. It was taking everything she had not to kill this man. “You tried to exterminate Spider, a sentient, space-faring race. Did you not think about the consequences?”

  “They were our enemy,” Edwards said as if that explained everything.

  Cheobawn took another deep breath. They seemed to be infected with a visceral xenophobia that blinded them to any form of understanding. Is this what Amabel meant when she talked of primitive genes that no longer served a purpose? It was time to turn that gene off.

  “The domes rejoice in the prowess of our opponents because it means we have a true measure of ourselves if we have bested the best. What is the measure of you, who fought a war that did not need fighting? Did you ever question why Spider gave up and retreated? It was not because you had won. You had not. It was because Spider finally got what he wanted.'[

  “What? You are mistaken. We gave up nothing,” Edwards sputtered.

  “No. It was not a military victory. Spider retreated because the Scerrons told him that the domes had created the child foretold by their Oracles. Spider retreated to await my birth. Is that why men were sent to kill me? Was it some sort of petty revenge to get back at Spider?”

  “You want the truth?” Edwards sho
uted at her. “You are nothing to me. I had no hand in any assassination plots against you.”

  Cheobawn nodded. She stepped out of the world and back in again.

  And landed on the center tile of River’s courtyard. Holding out her hand she caught the rat that the scarlet quills had found down by the river. The rat squeaked in fury and buried its teeth in the flesh of her hand between thumb and forefinger. Che allowed it. It was a paltry revenge for the thing she was about to do to it. She stepped out of the world.

  And back in again, landing on the Oud’s ornate floor. To those watching, the sudden appearance of the rat seemed magical, as if she had conjured it out of thin air. Her com echoed the disturbed mutterings of all the people in all the rooms connected by com-sphere.

  “What is this? Some sort of Highlander game. We do not need to be convinced of your power,” shouted the prince. He was looking at Mora. Mora had been watching Cheobawn intently, perhaps as surprised as everyone else at the appearance of the rat.

  “Power?” Mora said with disdain. “You have only just begun to see what true power is. Respect it and keep silent. The game is not yet done”

  The floor of Oud’s temple was made of tiny tiles that formed a picture of the universe and all its stars. Was it a map? If so, it was exquisite in its detail. Thousands of candles and incense sticks burned in this place, the smoke curling around countless giant pillars before rising up to the ceiling hundreds of feet above her head. Oud sat next to two com-spheres, one that let her talk to Occonomara. The other connected her to all her sisters on all the starships currently navigating the folds of space.

  Cheobawn met Oud’s eyes. Oud had eyes only for the rat. Blood dripped down Cheobawn’s fingers and stained Oud’s mosaic floor. What little color that remained in Oud’s skin drained away. The Scerron was ash gray now. The smoke and shadows hid many forms and at the sight of Cheobawn and her rat, they all fled. It was a rout as only a mob of Scerrons in panicked retreat could produce. Silently, the tall, willowy forms disappeared from the shadows in the temple. In the next moment, she was alone with Oud.