Warrior Witch

by J. D. Lakey

  Che laughed and ran after him. How did he do that—look into her heart and know exactly what she was thinking?

  Chapter 22

  The trees planted along the wide boulevard that encircled the Space Port of Occonomara bloomed in the rainy season, their orange blossoms resplendent in the white light of winter. Grateful for the space, their branches hung over the sidewalk and tried to reach across the paved road, the shade under their crowns made a hazy blue by the moisture laden air. The smell of the blossoms reminded Cheobawn of rotting fruit, and it was that perfume that attracted the winged pests. The air above the boulevard was thick with jewel-winged flutterflies, iridescent beetles, and a half-dozen other bugs she did not recognize, each more amazing than the next. The little green lizards came from far and wide to climb the trees and lurk among the blossoms, eating bugs until they could eat no more. Little birds the color of the sky fluttered everywhere. Flights of yellow quills skimmed the limits of the upper branches, sending up clouds of winged bugs into the air where they could be snatched up by hungry jaws. Connor had caught an orange stinging-spider the size of his thumb lurking in one of the blossoms. He kept it on a string and fed it beetles, which were dismantled with surgical precision. Che could not bring herself to watch it eat. She reminded herself to go to the library soon and find a book on Lowland flora and fauna that could put a name to all these creatures.

  The presence of the trees brought questions to her mind. She asked River, whose house and dojo sat in the shade of both trees and Space Port.

  “The Spacers planted them there long ago,” River had said.

  “Why those trees? Why so many?” Che had asked. “Surely there were trees that were less annoying?” River had just shrugged. It was not the kind of question Fathers tended to ask.

  She asked Sam. Sam had flashed her his impish grin, the one he used when he was remembering being a mischievous boy of ten who liked to hide hoppers in the housekeeper’s apron pockets. “It was meant to be a joke. They asked for a large flowering tree to make the Space Port more beautiful and to make the people hate them less.”

  “These trees grow sporadically in the forests of the Highreaches,” Che said, still puzzled. “The birds eat their seeds and scatter them far and wide, but few can compete for sunlight under the canopy of the black oak or the cedar. Most get choked out by the roots of the tube grass and whip trees.”

  Sam’s grin turned sheepish. “The joke was on us. It was a petty kind of revenge, but now we have to live with the mess we made.”

  Che could understand this. “Why not cut them down and plant something nicer?”

  Sam frowned. He had to think about that. “I guess we didn’t want to admit that what we had done had been stupid. Chopping them down would have felt like losing.”

  “Would you burn down your house if you thought it would hurt your Spacer masters?” Che asked reasonably.

  “Yes,” Sam had answered without hesitation.

  Cheobawn laughed. This explained so very much about the minds of Lowlanders.

  On this day, Cheobawn was teaching sword-form to a dozen kids, all of whom were at least three years older than herself. Weasel, Jonah’s nephew, was one of them. He had shown up the week after the incident in the Governor’s Tower with a handful of his school friends, demanding to be taught how to fight. River had refused. Street thugs, River had said darkly. Spies, Tam had warned.

  But Che had a score to settle with Weasel. Her days as a prisoner in the warehouse had not been forgotten. Grinning, she had tossed short sticks to Weasel and all his crew and taken them all on, all at once, right there in the middle of the sparring floor with her own Pack ranged around the room, doing nothing to interfere. When all of Weasel’s thugs had been laid out and lay groaning on the floor, she knocked Weasel’s stick from his hands and told him he could come back if he could convince three girls to come train with him. A week later, he showed up with four girls, all of them as rough as Weasel. Connor called the group her Knot-head class. The girls were quick learners and listened with interest when she talked about how to form a Pack.

  Since then, winter’s Darkday had come and gone. She would turn twelve this year. It was not an event she was looking forward to. At the very least it meant that she would have to leave her childhood behind.

  It was unwise to let your attention wander while sparring with this group. Weasel, a hard gleam in his eye, tried to break her nose. Cheobawn knocked his stick down and delivered a hard double tap to his ribs that made him double over. “You will never get any good at this if you keep telling people your intentions with your eyes, Weasel,” she said, giving him back his stick. She was watching Weasel carefully for any hint of rebellion, so she did not look around when the front door opened and stayed open.

  “Close the doors!” she roared. “Don’t let the bugs in.”

  “Too late,” drawled Kander Hess.

  Cheobawn froze, momentarily breathless. Kander. She turned her head. The black Psi-Ops uniform was unmistakable. There he was, standing alongside Kirr, framed in the doorway full of hazy light and the sparkle of a sun-dappled swarms of bugs. Kirr was glaring at the bugs, daring them to enter, a tactic which seemed to work on most of them. The swarms stayed outside. Kander reached over and removed a green lizard from the back of the Margai’s silver kimono and tossed it outside.

  Che handed her sticks to her best student, one of Weasel's girls. “Finish up for me,” she said as she padded barefoot across the polished wood floor, her eyes never leaving the two Psi-Ops soldiers. Did Sillianna know they were back? She had not mentioned it the last time they spoke. Willa was now part of a Pack. Those who wished to join her would automatically take the name of the Pack. Was Kander about to change his last name to Darktide? Or would he refuse the privilege of joining Sillianna’s Pack?

  “Little Mother,” Kander Hess said, bowing his head. Kirr shut the doors and turned, his thumbs in his belt, his stance that of a warrior at rest. His body told her much. He had not forgiven her, but he had not come to pick a fight with her, thanks be to all the goddesses.

  “I thought I would never see you again,” Che breathed out in pleasure. “You left on the last Scerron ship without saying goodbye.”

  Cheobawn studied the Margai, trying to guess at his mood. If she owed anyone an apology, it was to Kirr. He had listened as the Life of Rat was torn apart and put back together again and it had not been pleasant. She was sorry that she could not warn him beforehand to shut his mind to it. If he stayed long enough, they would have that conversation.

  “The Scerron Pilots gave us no choice in the matter,” Kirr growled. “They stayed in service to the Prince just long enough to return his ships to home port. Then they took their own ships and just disappeared. We looked for them. Found what we think is their home planet eventually but its empty.”

  Che looked away. The fate of the Scerrons was not something she would ever talk about. “And how goes the new Pilots?” she said after a while.

  “Unnerving,” Kander said with a shudder. “You are cruel, All Mother.”

  “Yes? Yes, I suppose I am. But the Spider War is over. Spider wanted peace. And who better to drag a ship across the universe and around the corners of time, but a species of space-faring spider. I envy you. I would dearly love to see a starship park next to a tangle of glass-spiders and watch as they enmesh it and take it elsewhere.”

  “What is to keep them from walking us around a corner to some starless spot in the universe and open our ships up to vacuum so they can dine on us at their leisure?” Kirr asked.

  “The glass-spiders consume radiation. It is only in the mating cycle that they seek land to feed on flesh. It will be here, on Occonomara, and you will have sufficient notice of the event beforehand. All Spider has assured me that this will not happen in other human space.”

  “We would feel better if we had a human interface on board to interact with. Some sort of Navigator. The ship AI does not understand the anxie
ty of war veterans,” Kander said.

  “Yes, be patient. We are working on the next phase of this plan.”

  Startled, Kander and Kirr stared at her and then began asking questions. Che held up her hand. “Come. There are chairs out on the patio and I am sure Megan has started the tea-service. It would be rude to keep them waiting.”

  “Did you know we were coming?” Kirr asked.

  “There is always someone coming,” Che snorted. “The list of supplicants is endless.”

  That was the easy answer. Would they understand the real answer? You are here, therefore there must be tea. That was how a Coven worked, Cheobawn had come to understand. She was still learning.

  She led them through the dojo and down a long hall that opened out onto the tree-lined patio with the tiles shaped like the footprint of a dome. Cheobawn stopped, a little surprised by who stood on the edges of the circle. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Why was it so surprising to her still? Tam, Alain, Connor, River and Flynn stood in an arc around the back of her favorite chair, fully armed and armored. Tam had the position just behind her left shoulder. Shield man. Even Grist and Orin, from the old Ironheart Pack, had come, though they had only become part of her Pack a few months previous.

  She had not called the Fathers of Blackwind Pack. They had just come, sensing her unspoken need. The magic of it made her giddy with pleasure. She had yet to get a confession from Spider or Amabel as to who had been fiddling with the Father’s genome. Brigit had just smiled. “Magic,” the Mother had said. Amabel had rolled her eyes and pressed her lips together, choosing silence over argument.

  There in the sun-dappled shade where no bug dared to invade, Megan had put two more chairs in the circle, rounding out the number to ten. Doreeth and pregnant Willa sat in two of those chairs. Willa was there because Sam had banned her from the Sunbird II until after the baby was born. They had just gotten married only a month before, though Willa’s baby bump had been visible for months, the ceremony meant to appease the offended sensibilities of Robert.

  “Shocking,” Doreeth had said, a smile playing on her lips. Lowlander pair bonding was a strange ritual, and Che refused to listen to its complexities. Willa had shrugged. She had not taken Wheelwright as her last name. She was part of a Pack now. Darktide was her Pack name. She was Alpha and two of her truesisters were her heartsisters. Who Willa had picked as her second had surprised even Cheobawn. The courtesan Sillianna was now officially Sillianna Darktide. Sam, still out on the river, was about to come home to an earth-shattering change in his life. He would need to pick his own Second and Third if he was to hold his own in this strong-willed Pack. Perhaps Kander would agree to the position. Che did not doubt that Sam would meet this challenge with equanimity. He had dared to love her, a lowly Black Bead, hadn’t he?

  Thora, Tsionna, and the two hedge-witches who now called Doreeth their Alpha, stepped onto the patio bringing trays laden with clean china and fresh pots of tea from the kitchen to replenish the damage done to the tea service over morning meditations. Bags of knitting and half-done socks sat everywhere. Ach, knitting, Che thought with a grimace. It had been one of those kinds of mornings. They had been trying to solve one of the Lowlander’s more knotty problems, it seemed. Knitting helped them focus, Megan had explained. Megan had become an expert knitter.

  Che tried to remember who had been scheduled for this morning. One of the governor’s emissaries, if she recalled. Those were the meetings she avoided, preferring to teach with River in his dojo. The governor must have met with that stone wall called Mora and thought to influence the High Coven through her ambassadors. Che was not about to second-guess Mora’s strategies in this game of War. Surely, Megan had been polite and tried to help solve the problem as only a Mother could. The males of the new governor’s staff usually left frustrated. It could not be helped. Megan’s request that they bring their wives next time fell on deaf ears. The days of any governor’s rule was numbered though, he did not realize it quite yet.

  Megan handed her the first cup of tea, prepared exactly how she liked it. Che sipped on it and sighed. Neither Kirr nor Kander sat. They stood before their chairs and eyed the male members of Blackwind Pack.

  “Ignore them,” Che said.

  “I would be more comfortable if they took their hands off their weapons,” Kirr purred. It was a threat. His own hand was hidden in his kimono, surely resting on something deadly.

  Che smiled. “They are practicing being empty until the time when they are not. Do not give them reason and they will stay as you see them.”

  “Empty?” Kander Hess repeated.

  “The paradox of emptiness is that you are always full of the things you need to know most,” Che said. “Kirr understands this.”

  Kander looked over at his friend. “Do you?”

  Kirr’s whiskers twitched. He sat down.

  “OK, then,” Kander said, taking his seat. Megan passed the tea cups around the circle and then sent the plates of cookies around after.

  Che watched the circle, listening to the contentment of the individuals. Only Kander marred that bliss.

  “What were we talking about?” Che asked.

  Kander chewed on a mouthful of cookie, scowling.

  “A human interface,” Kirr said.

  “Ah. Yes. Mora says be patient. Amabel has designed you a Navigator. It just takes a while to grow them.”

  Kander choked on the cookie. He had no good opinion about the Makers of the Living Thread. Genetic manipulation was forbidden on all the human planets.

  “Grow?” Kirr asked.

  “Humans must be incepted into a womb and born. Then there is the long process of training. I was six when I went out on my first foray. How old would you like your Packs to be?”

  “Packs?” Kander asked in consternation. “No, no. An interface. One. A navigator.”

  “You cannot expect an Ear to go into space without her Pack, surely?” Megan said.

  “How many children are we talking about?” Kirr asked. “Can you grow the number we need?”

  “Perhaps,” Megan said. “It depends.”

  “On what?” Kander asked.

  “On whether enough Mothers volunteer the use of their wombs. On whether the nestmothers are willing to give us their charges. On whether the Packs are brave enough to want to go on a foray to the other side of the universe and back. Amabel’s micro-scalpels can do only so much.”

  Cheobawn hid a smile behind her teacup. It was not like this moment caught the High Coven by surprise. The embryos, designed years ago, had been thawed and incepted the moment Cheobawn had jumped off the Escarpment.

  “Children? You are giving us children? Surely not. Children grow bored. Children whine when they want to go home,” Kander protested.

  Che looked at Megan. “What have we learned about home?”

  “Home is where the Pack is,” the older girl said with a serene smile.

  Che looked over at Tsionna and Thora and then glanced over at the Fathers standing guard around her. She had adopted so many in the past few months. She turned her head and met Kirr’s blue eyes. “And Pack is where the heart is. Look around you. This is my Heart. Your Navigators will be very much the same.”

  Glossary

  Admiralty: The branch of the Hegemony’s military who administer the Space Port and all its personnel of Occonomara

  aft: at, near, or toward the stern of a ship

  airship: a generic term for all the anti-grav ships that operate out of Dunauken’s Space Port

  All Mind: the amalgam of all the minds of all the creatures of the planet Occonomara

  All Mother: the being who belongs to the All Mind who has taken up the burden of managing and overseeing the All Mind

  Alpha: dominant male or female in a group, the leader. Blackwind Pack’s Alphas are Tam and Megan

  Alpha Ear: dominant female psi adept of a Pack

  ambient: the communal, psychic cloud surrou
nding all living things

  anti-grav ship: a small, sleek, bullet shaped ship whose engines grab the power of the gravity well of a planet and uses it for propulsion, flying up by falling down

  Battle Trail: the complicated system of sign language and sounds that allow a group to move silently through the forest and still be able to communicate with each other

  Bear Under the Mountain: the synergistic group sentience of all life north of the Escarpment

  belaying pin: a pin or rod, typically of metal or wood, used on board ship and in mountaineering to secure a rope fastened around it

  bennelk: mountain antelope, a smaller cousin of the fenelk, used as a mount for patrols

  bhotta: Large wingless lizard, the apex psi predator in an ecosystem where all animals are psi

  Black Bead: traditionally, a failed Ear whose psi is suspect and not to be trusted, the term was secretly redefined by Mora and the Coven to mean “the Ear who will guide us through the Dark”

  black containment-box: a box made of an energy absorbing material that does not allow any energy to escape from inside its walls used to store un-synced bloodstones or bloodstones of a suspect connection

  bloodstone: stones formed inside the bodies of the psi animals of the planet; tuned by the witches expert at manipulating psi energy. The properties of quantum entanglement make them valuable for star navigation and real time communication across the vast distances of space

  blue quills: a cobalt blue flying lizard indigenous to the marshes of the River Liff’s delta

  carrion dragon: small, scarlet, carnivorous, winged lizard indigenous to the forests above the Escarpment