Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea

by Helena Puumala

  Sarah studied the energy bag. What sort of energy were the strands composed of? How could she break them?

  If this was work of The Organization—and who else could it possibly be?—the energy that the mesh was made of was amplified energy, it occurred to her. Not the energy of sixty-three women with their sixty-three Stones, but, perhaps, the power of a single amarto handled by one woman, amplified many times.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  She realized that another Witch had joined her, and she was carrying along with her another mind which was feeding information to her. Dian had mentally joined her, and somehow she had brought Jaime’s scientific intellect with her!

  But of course! Dian was normally a member of the Twelve; she had no doubt sensed Marlyss’ distress and had settled into a trance to try to help. And she had sensed what Sarah was trying to do, and, somehow, she had been able to tune into Jaime’s mentality in order to add his Terran scientific knowledge to the attempt to foil whatever it was that was being done to the anomalous moon.

  “If we can break the right strand, the whole mesh ought to unravel, and roll back to its origins,” came the male thought behind Dian.

  “Then the trick is to figure out which strand is the one we need to break,” Sarah subvocalized.

  Barely had she voiced the thought when the three images flew up to where the cord of energy turned into the mesh bag; the three of them had but one thought, and that was that the place to look for the main strand was where the one strand turned into many.

  “It has to be a flimsy construct, considering how it has been created,” came Jaime’s thought once again.

  Sarah examined the place where the mesh began. She refused to allow the fact that she was looking at an enormous bag to discourage her; that was what the creators of the barrier were counting on, she told herself. They had built an illusion, and they were counting on the fact that it looked forbidding, to keep anyone faced with it from figuring out how it could be defeated.

  Later she could not quite explain how she knew which energy cord was the original one; once again, it was as if someone was feeding the information into her mental being. For a split second she hesitated, but no, there was no way anyone could feed false information to even a trainee Witch at this level of being. The illusion created by the amplification of energy mimicked reality only as long as the observer accepted it as real; now she was looking for the truth under the image, and an untruth could not hold its shape.

  “It’s this one,” she subvocalized to Dian. “This is the one we must tear apart.”

  “Let’s do it. Jaime, return to the Office; I’m going to pull in Marlyss, the Circle of the Twelve, and the other Circles.” Dian’s thoughts had a ring of authority almost as strong as that of the Eldest of the Twelve.

  Then Marlyss was there, too; they were The Circle of the Thirteen, and for a moment Sarah was aware that it was something new and different, and perhaps more powerful than anything on Kordea had ever been. And it was her incorporeal hand on the chosen strand that tore at the cord, broke it thanks to the power that was being fed into her astral being.

  The mesh unravelled before her astral eyes, the energy cord rolling in on itself, and disappearing from view. Sarah’s mind slid back into her place in the Circle of the Twelve, and Dian’s returned to Trahea. Marlyss directed the motion which returned the moon LIna back into the position in which, approximately, she had been orbiting Kordea for as long as the Witches had been keeping her there.

  *****

  “Would someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  Coryn glared at Jaime as his mentality returned to the present moment in the Liaison Office. Everyone except Jillian and he, and Jaime and Dian had left; the insulating curtains covered the east-facing windows, though the ones on the northwest were still bare.

  Jaime shook himself, and rose from the cross-legged position which Dian had instructed him to take—how long ago was that?

  “Thanks for not disturbing us,” Jaime said as he perched on a corner of a desk. “We better leave Dian alone until she and the Witches are done dealing with the emergency.”

  “Emergency? What emergency?” Coryn asked, looking grim. “What happened?”

  Jillian had seated herself on the nearest empty desk to listen, too; she had called Joe, and told him that she’d be late getting home, when she had realized that the trance into which the Witch Dian had fallen, and dragged Jaime along with her, seemed to be about to continue into the sunlit hours. Dian had been thoroughly agitated before she had settled down, cross-legged to do her Witchy thing, insisting that she needed Jaime and his expertise along with her. Jillian had had no idea that a Witch could draw another person’s consenting mind along on some of her trips.

  “Things with this Organization bunch are getting serious,” Jaime said, while Coryn paced the floor, his eyes darting from Jaime to the entranced young Witch, and back.

  “They’ve been serious for some time now,” the Liaison Officer responded. “That’s why we’re where we are, now, and will have to make our way across to the Residences in broiling sunlight.”

  “We have enough hooded capes,” Jillian said soothingly. “The sun won’t kill us in that amount of time; it’ll just make us uncomfortable.”

  “Yeah. It’s not the rays that have got me antsy,” Coryn protested. “But I need you to explain yourself, Jaime, the best you can. I need to know what sort of shit we’re dealing with, now.”

  “It’s the moon, Lina,” Jaime sighed. “The one in a crazy orbit. One of the things that the Circle Witches do routinely, is keep her in place. Normal gravity could not keep that thing up where it is, without help, and the help comes from the Seven Witch Circles, with the Circle of the Twelve leading the pack.

  “They’ve got her positioned so that they only have to give her a nudge every now and then, whenever she seems about to shift, or lag, or whatever, to keep her where they want her. The Twelve check her position periodically; they did that this past night.

  “Apparently, they discovered that Lina had shifted more than she should have in the time since the last check, so much, in fact, that there was some danger that she could go rogue—and the mathematical calculations involved in figuring out what a rogue moon would be most likely to do would probably take a pretty sophisticated computer. The Eldest of the Twelve brought in all the other Six Circles, and together, under the leadership of Witch Marlyss, they tried to push the moon back into place.

  “Only they couldn’t budge it. Sarah went to investigate, and discovered that there was an energy mesh enveloping Lina. Dian became aware of the situation because, obviously, as a member of the Twelve, she is attuned to the others of her Circle, as well as to Sarah who was replacing her.

  “The three of us figured out what had to be done; presumably sixty-four Witches, including Sarah and Dian, are presently doing it.”

  “Are you telling me that The Organization has figured out a way to threaten the very integrity of this planet?” Coryn asked, scandalized.

  “It seems that they think that they have,” Jaime answered with a shrug. “It didn’t work.”

  “It didn’t work this time,” corrected Coryn. “Could it do so another time?”

  “I rather doubt it. There’s a smoke and mirrors aspect to what they were doing, and now that the Witches are on to it I doubt that they’ll fall for it again.”

  *****

  That evening, shortly after sunset, Coryn received a call from the communications console at Ferhil Stones. The caller was Sarah.

  “The Eldest Marlyss is of the opinion that we need to have another meeting, this one including the Eldest of each of the other Circles, too,” she said. “And you, Witch Dian and Jaime, of course. She’s even willing to include other Agency personnel if that seems wise to you.”

  “I have sent messages to the Agency Headquarters to ask for any information that they might have that is relevant to this situation,” Coryn responded. “I should imagine that t
hey’re consulting their information network even as we speak.”

  Coryn was speaking of the spy network which The Agency had succeeded in establishing across The Organization worlds. It had not been all that difficult, was Sarah’s understanding. In a social order where the political power was concentrated at the top levels, there were always plenty of disaffected people on the lower rungs of the ladder who were perfectly willing to tattle on their so-called “betters” to whomever was willing to listen. The Agency had simply made certain that such people would get a hearing.

  The Liaison Officer offered to host the meeting at the Official Residence.

  “We have plenty of room here,” he said, “and could do a catered affair. I haven’t come even close to depleting my entertainment budget, as you can probably guess.”

  “Witch Marlyss did suggest that it might be best if the Liaison Office arranged things,” Sarah replied. “She wants to be seen as cooperative, rather than bossy, to the other Eldest, I think. Can you also arrange transportation? Browhorns, whether as mounts, or as carriage teams, just don’t have the speed that is needed, right now.”

  Coryn saw the crooked grin on Sarah’s face as she mentioned the single-horned animals. He smiled back at her, glad to see, and hear, that she had a touch of her old humour back.

  “I’ll talk to the Port Authorities and see if we can’t get the use of a few more flyers,” he promised her. “I’ll mention that, on account of the seriousness of the situation, we really don’t want to rely on the travel speed of the browhorns.”

  *****

  “I think that we may have to take this fight to the home turf of our enemies,” Witch Marlyss said when the eight greenhoods, Sarah, Coryn, Jaime and Jillian had gathered in the reception room of the Official Residence.

  They were seated at the long meeting table which Coryn had had brought into the room. Food and drink were available at another table, and everyone had been encouraged to help themselves. Coryn, less willing than the residents of Ferhil Stones to conduct affairs with servants present, had sent Curt and Dili home after they had arranged the food service. He had promised that he and Jaime would see to it that the perishables left over would end up in the catering kitchen refrigerator. Dili had shaken her head at this, but since she was being paid for the usual number of hours even though she did not have to work them all, she had swallowed her complaints.

  “And how are you proposing to do that?” asked Witch Clarisse, the Eldest of the Six. “It seems to me that these people know way too much about us, and we know almost nothing about them.”

  “They seem to have the ability to observe us from afar,” added Witch Karina, the Eldest of the Eleven.

  “It’s all very, very disturbing,” said Witch Nadina, the Eldest of the Ten.

  Witch Nadina really was the eldest of her Circle, not just in name, but in actual years. Sarah, listening while she ate the meat and pastry roll which she had grabbed onto her plate, judged the woman to easily be in her seventies or eighties. Yet, she was a very capable Witch, Sarah knew, having worked with her during the release, and the nudging into place, of the moon Lina. As a matter of fact, she had been surprised when she had been introduced to the elderly woman. Her astral form had not shown any age-related weaknesses—but then, she would have been pushed into retirement had that been the case.

  “It has been a long time since anyone in the galaxy tried to usurp the Power of the Seven Witch Circles of Kordea,” she added. “A very long time. And I can’t say that I quite understand why these people are doing it. What do they expect to gain by destroying the world which houses the women trained to use the Stones?”

  “I suspect that the idea is not to destroy Kordea, but to reduce it to chaos,” Coryn said. “And to then use the chaotic conditions to grab the Stones, and to enslave those who can use them.”

  He sighed.

  “Witch Marlyss, you said, when we spoke earlier, that you thought that the emotional amplification discovered in the amarto-detectors was a cry for help. Do you still think that?”

  Marlyss smiled humourlessly.

  “I think that I know where you’re going with that, Coryn,” she said. “And the answer is: no, not so much. I think that whoever wired that into them was trying to warn us.

  “Have you, through your Terran ways of finding facts, come across something to confirm that?”

  Coryn turned to Jillian, as the Second Liaison Officer.

  “Jill, you have the full report? Perhaps you can enlighten us?”

  Jillian sipped water from her glass and stood up, her eyes on the electronic tablet in front of her. She had eaten nothing; Sarah supposed that she wanted to do her presentation on an empty stomach.

  She shifted her attention to take in everyone at the table.

  “First of all, I want to say that The Agency is taking what happened here very seriously,” she began. “The Confederation absolutely does not want The Organization to get control of the amarto-powers of the Kordean Witches. Energy like that in the hands of people who believe that they are the only ones fit to rule the humanity of the entire galaxy....”

  She shook her head; then plunged on:

  “I don’t know if any of you are aware that The Agency has been keeping a network of spies gathering information on The Organization worlds for as long a time, almost, as the rift which created The Confederation and The Organization has existed.”

  She took a second to grin wryly.

  “Of course, The Organization is always trying to spy on us, too, and sometimes they even succeed—for a while. Part of The Agency’s mandate is to find and to put an end to their spying, and I believe that we’ve been successful at that more often than they have been in discovering our spies. The reason for that is simply that we’re not as arrogant as they are, and, more willing to listen to people’s concerns.

  “But, because The Confederation believes in allowing people to come and go freely among the member and affiliate worlds, The Organization Hounds were able to bring to Kordea the electronic gadgets with which they intended to zero in on Sarah in order to abduct her to work for them, using her amarto-talent. Their attempt was foiled, as you know, and we obtained four of the amarto-detectors. Which is why, as well as thanks to the good work of all you amarto-sensitives, and our new Scientific Advisor, Jaime, we had enough knowledge of the advances The Organization had made with their amplification project that it was possible for you, the Circle Witches, to remove the nasty threat that The Organization dangled, for a while, over this whole planet.

  “Those of us who are at least somewhat familiar with the way The Organization operates think that, had the weakness in their ruse not been discovered, they would have descended on Kordea, demanding that they be allowed to partake in the decisions the Witch Circles make—otherwise Lina would either fly out of its orbit, or fall into the planet causing untold damage. Once they had installed themselves as the powerbrokers on the planet, they would have agreed to remove the trap around Lina, and allowed the Circles to return the moon into its proper position.

  “The question, then, is: how did they succeed in doing what they did, even if what they did was mostly a deception, though a pretty darn good deception? And the answer is that we don’t know, and it seems too dangerous, right now, for The Circle Witches to use their talents to look for the answer.”

  “Unfortunately, yes, that is so,” said Nadina, when Jillian drew a breath. “I fear that they would learn too much about our methods by watching us operate.”

  “Which is at the crux of the problem,” added Marlyss. “Since they already seem to know way too much.”

  “It seems necessary to attack the problem in an old-fashioned, Terran way,” said Jillian. “The Agency has begun the process already. According to the replies that we’ve received to our queries, it is possible to make some very educated guesses as to the location of the facility where The Organization’s amarto-work is done.

  “Some Agency people will make their way to that locati
on very soon. The question I’d like to put to you, the Circle Witches of Kordea, is: do you want to be a part of the operation, and if so, to what extent?”

  Jillian nodded to Coryn, and sat down. Coryn stood up.

  “We have details as to the presumed location of the laboratory,” he said. “The Agency has also alerted top Confederation politicians to the seriousness of the situation, though nobody wants to start a war with The Organization. My take on it, however, is that if things come down to the wire, we cannot afford to back down; for The Organization to have in their hands the kind of power that the Kordean Witches wield, is, quite simply, too dangerous for civilization as we in The Confederation know it.”

  “And we, the Circle Witches of Kordea, certainly do not want to have our powers wrested away from us, and turned into a force to enslave us, along with the rest of the galaxy,” Marlyss stated flatly.

  “But we believe in peace,” added Nadina. “War is always destructive, no matter that its cause may be just.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Coryn. “Unfortunately, our opponents seem incapable of appreciating that. Up until now, they have not, ever, been in a position to try to crush The Confederation under a military boot, but if they should gain what it takes to do so... well, I don’t want to be around to see it.”

  “Which is why we have no intention of ceding the control of Kordea to The Organization,” added Jillian.

  “And why we want you Kordeans to cooperate with us in eradicating their laboratory, and bringing out the people who work in it,” said Coryn.

  “But will those people want to leave?” asked Nadina.

  “Some of us rather think so,” Coryn replied. “It looks like The Organization has got their expertise, at least partly, through coercion. The so-called renegade Witch, Anya, seems to have been either seduced, or forced, into cooperating with The Organization powers.”

  “Do you really think so?” Nadina, again. “The way I heard the story is that she was a wilful, stubborn woman who refused to allow herself to be guided by anyone.”

  “She may have fallen into a trap through wilfulness or foolishness,” Coryn conceded. “But I suspect that The Organization found a carrot and a stick combination which left her between a rock and a hard place. When I researched Sarah Mackenzie’s past I discovered that her biological grandmother had gone to a great deal of trouble to hide her newborn boy from someone. Indeed, she gave the babe away to strangers who, she made sure, badly wanted a child, and agreed to falsify the record of the birth so as to erase Anya from it totally.”