Spider Wars: Book Three of the Black Bead Chronicles Read online

  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

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Books by J.D. Lakey

  Map

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Exerpt from Trade Fair: Book Four

  Glossary

  Rank and Dome Affiliation

  About the Author

  Message from the Author

  Copyright

  “… 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

  Chapter One

  “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.

  But Megan had left her, going off to the temple with Tam and Alain. Cheobawn had cried herself to sleep for a week afterward.

  “What am I saying?” Connor said in mock horror, trying to turn his gaff into humor. “Nobody likes to talk to girls, not even other girls.” It was a sad attempt at best but she pasted a smile on her face and flashed it over her shoulder to reassure him that no offense was taken. “You have tons of friends. There’s Vinara. She lets you groom the bennelk whenever you want without making you sign up on the stable roster. And Zeff. He thinks the sun rises and sets by you. Hasn’t he promised you one of Lady’s puppies this spring? And what about Nedella? She sneaked us into the kitchens and showed us how to make berry crisp that one time.”

  “She was feeling sorry for us because Tam and Alain and Megan had just started their temple training and she caught us camping out in the dining hall looking pathetic,” Cheobawn said with a rueful shake of her head.

  “Whatever. It got us out of stick training with the remedial sparring class. And the berry crisp wasn’t bad either. Why don’t you go and see if the bennelk need brushing?”

  “A storm is coming. They don’t like me messing with their fur when their stormsense is strong,” Cheobawn said, the words falling out of her mouth unbidden as she reached out towards the brightly-colored markers scattered across the map table.

  Tam had made the table for her. She had thought him demon-possessed when the idea first caught fire in his imagination. The first grimstorm of the winter had descended on the dome, early and brutal, turning the world outside into a white chaos of wind and cold and snow, effectively penning everyone inside the dome. The Elders had been fretful and grouchy, frustrated that they could do nothing about the fields of hay yet unharvested and the animals left unprotected in the high pastures. It would be days before the awful truth would be discovered and the damages assessed. She had been pacing their packroom like a caged lizard when Tam had whooped in delight, leapt to his feet, and dashed out the door. They had had no choice but to follow him, out the door, down the stairs, across the dome, to the Library, a place seldom visited by any but the oldpas. Cheobawn had never had reason to enter the old archives until that moment and found the silent vaults, with their tall, thin windows and their dust-laden sunbeams oddly peaceful. The stillness inside the thick, whitewashed walls seemed impervious to the perpetual industry of the dome and all its inhabitants.

  The Pack had spent the next two days scrounging through the archive rooms, rummaging through bins stuffed with rolls of plans and cubbyholes crammed with maps of every sort until Tam found what he wanted. Cheobawn closed her eyes as she remembered the look of unbridled delight on Tam’s face as he held the old, dog-eared piece of parchment up to the light to study the faded map. Megan, whose eyes and nose were streaming as she sneezed uncontrollable in the presence of so much dust, had glared at him and demanded an explanation. Tam had walked away, a mysterious smile on his beautiful face, infuriating her further.

  Again, they followed him. What other choice did they have? They followed him as he took the map to Finn, the Master Tinkerer, who showed them how to make the table and brew the glue they needed to bond the map to the table top. Finn even helped them with the construction of the hidden compartments around the edges of the table that opened just like the wooden puzzle boxes now resting, long forgotten in the bottom of her old toy box. After a month of hard work, Tam saved the last step for himself. He banned them from the workshop and would not let them see the table until it was done.

  They had exclaimed in wonder as their Alpha leader unveiled the final product. He had applied a clear varnish to the wood and parchment alike, making the colors of the map spring back to life, the almost invisible tracery of contour lines and pale blue stream lines once again clean and precise while the natural wood around it glowed like a finely crafted frame. Cheobawn touched the table in awe, not believing that a piece of faded parchment and a pile of lumber could be transformed into something so magical. Finn put it on a dolly for them and they hauled it across the dome and up the Pack Hall stairs. It was Megan who wanted to place it near the natural light of the windows in their common room and had directed the boys as they rearranged the study desks, gear lockers and overstuffed chairs to accommodate it. Then Tam had shown her how to use it.

  “See, wee bit,” he had said. “It’s just like the map on the foray form but instead of geometric colored shapes to mark the spots where things are located, I made these.” And he had shown her how to open the hidden compartments, each one a puzzle, each one having a different series of spring-loaded panels and slides, each filled with brightly-colored bits of plasteel cut into cubes and spheres and pyramids, each a match to the two dimensional shapes m
arked in the map legend of the foray forms. “You don’t have to sit under the tubegrass and make maps in the dirt anymore. You can use this map to see the world and tell us what it has to say.”

  She had cried, touched by his gift, her tears making him worry that he had hurt her somehow. Megan had punched him in the shoulder and called him an enormous dufus, which made everyone laugh.

  That memory was a small little treasure Cheobawn kept locked up safe inside her heart. It had made the next day more bearable, when Tam stole Megan away and, along with Alain, had joined all the other kids who had turned twelve that year as they streamed into the Temple to begin the cloistered training that was a requirement for every village member upon reaching child-bearing age. They would spend the next one hundred days studying the arts of meditation, pleasure, and mind-body control.

  That had been sixty days ago. The next forty days stretched endlessly in front of her and she thought she just might go mad before it was done. She could not remember a life that did not include Megan. The older girl had always been there, kissing away her hurts and giving her practical advice and common sense directions when the ambient overwhelmed her with its bodiless and ephemeral problems. There was a hole in her life, now; one that she did not know how to fill. Hanging around Connor just made everything seem worse. He missed Tam, his truebrother, as much as she missed Megan, and together the ache of their loneliness seemed to echo back to her doubly magnified.

  Connor covered his pain with humor. He joked about it and called Tam’s training Full Contact Meditation, or when he was feeling particularly frustrated, Remedial Sex, but she did not quite understand why he said it with a nervous snigger as if he was embarrassed by what the Elders were teaching in the Temple. Cheobawn did not think what happened in the Temple was quite as simple as learning the mechanics of controlling reproduction nor did it sound like fun. Menolly, as High Priestess, personally oversaw this psi training, and Amabel, as Maker of the Living Thread, supervised the body mastery classes that taught fertility control, making Cheobawn suspect that the training was arduous, exacting, and not to be envied in any way. The kids who came out of the temple at the end of winter always seemed more serene yet somehow harder, much like sword-steel might be tempered in a furnace to better accept an edge.