Black Bead: Book One of the Black Bead Chronicles (3 page)

“Alright. I am putting your names down under provisional Pack. You can change your status if and when you decide to go permanent, but I highly recommend you stay temporary for at least a year. No sense rushing into anything until you get a little bit older and your heads get screwed on a little tighter. Four man team, Tam is the alpha male. Megan, the alpha female. Who you got earmarked for beta male?” When there was no response, Phillius paused and stared at the children, waiting.

“We’re a five man Pack,” Tam corrected.

“No,” Phillius said patiently, “you are a four plus one. She,” he pointed at Cheobawn, “is six years old and cannot be put on a roster for two more years. She also comes with her own set of rules. Under-agers are not allowed more than two clicks from the dome. If you encounter hostiles, you will not engage. Got that? No engagement. Period. Retreat and return to Home Dome. Is that understood?”

Tam ground his teeth together and glowered at no one in particular.

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you.” Phillius said loudly.

“Ye’sir,” the boys chorused together without much

enthusiasm.

“Now, who is to be your Second and who is the Third?” he asked again.
 

“Alain is beta, I guess, because he’s oldest,” Tam ventured. Connor squawked in protest. Tam quelled his outburst with a glare.

“Fine,” Phillius said, as he keyed the information into his form. “Pick up your tools and weapons at the weapons locker. Don’t forget to check with the Weapons Master. Do not lose your tools. Return them cleaned and undamaged or there will be dire consequences. Where is your foray form?”

“Uh,” Tam grunted, looking over at Megan. She sighed in exasperation and grabbed an empty form and a stylus from a stack on the corner of the desk. She turned on her heel and crossed the room to the row of seats set against the near wall. The Pack followed her.

“That’s alright,” yelled Phillius after them, “Take your time. I’ve got all day. Maybe the sun will set and you won’t have to bother going outside.”

Cheobawn’s head was spinning. She could hardly believe it. Her Da was letting her go. More importantly, Mora was allowing it. The world was so full of surprises. She floated across the room, barely aware of her feet touching the floor.

Megan unfolded the form and laid it flat on the low table in front of chairs. The boys gathered round. Cheobawn squeezed in past Alain and sat next to Megan, snuggling up close to see what was printed on the paper. Most of the paper was covered with a map of some kind. Words and numbers and lines of every color and weight swirled and coiled in upon

themselves. None of it made any sense at first glance. Then she spotted the black circle in the center of the paper labeled Home Dome. She leaned in closer, studying the drawing. If you ignored most of the swirly twirly stuff and just looked at the black lines, it became intimately familiar. This was her miniature world, only instead of being modeled in dust, someone had committed it to paper.

They did not teach map reading to six-year-olds although she knew maps. A beautiful map was tacked to the wall in her classroom. It had little cartoons of mountains covered with cartoon trees and cartoon rock jumpers, with cartoon domes strung like beads in the spaces between the mountains and the edge of the world. She liked to trace the roads that connected the other domes to the Windfall dome, reading the names of each village, imagining how magical it would be to live someplace so far away.

The map on the foray form was different. Familiar lines marked West Road, Waterfall Trail,  Orchard Trail and East Trail that split around a ridge and formed North Fork Trail and South Road. The paler lines curled and coiled in a confusing way until she realized they marked the places she knew to be high ground and ridge lines. She puzzled over the lines that formed a pattern of chevrons and then decided they matched the ravines in the model in her head.

The map had more secrets. Scattered across the paper were little numbered boxes of various colors with a key along the side to decipher their meaning. Cheobawn studied it intently, enraptured by the cleverness and precision of the mind that had invented it. The key indicated that a red box with the number nine represented dubeh leopards. She looked back at the map, letting her eye follow the black line labeled Orchard Trail up the page. A pleased smile touched her face. There was a red box at five clicks just as she had told Tam. The dubeh leopard’s den was known to the Elders.

“Where do you want to go?” Megan asked.
 

“Two clicks,” moaned Connor. “Where is the fun in that? I thought the whole point of a foray was to get out from under the thumb of all the adults. We’re going to be bumping into patrols every time we turn around.”

“What do you say, Cheobawn?” Tam asked softly, ignoring his newly designated Third. “Shall we show Connor a good time?”

“Why are you asking her?” Connor snorted.

Tam punched him in the shoulder. Connor scowled and rubbed the doubly injured appendage as Tam moved to put his body between Cheobawn and Phillius before he spoke again.

“Quiet,” he hissed. “Do you want everyone to know our business? You guys keep your mouths shut and follow my lead.” Alain and Connor exchanged looks over the top of Tam’s head. Connor raised an eyebrow. Alain shrugged.

“Cheobawn!” hissed Tam, drawing her attention away from the interesting play of power amongst the boys. She looked down at the map and cocked her head. It took her a moment but she managed to superimposed her own mental picture of the world on top of the curling lines. Fun, she thought. Something happy answered her. She put her finger on the spot that made her insides bubble with laughter.

“Too far. That’s five clicks, at least,” Alain said, shaking his head.

Cheobawn moved her finger back toward the dome to a line labeled North Fork Trail.

“If we walk fast, no one will know that we ever went where we should not,” she suggested softly.

“Wow,” Connor breathed, “and I thought girls would make things more boring.”

“I am all up for a good adventure, but if we get in trouble, no one will know where to find us,” Alain stated, a

worried frown on his face.

“No trouble,” Cheobawn said with absolute certainty.

“What a load of dung. Why are we listening to her?” Connor asked. Tam lifted his fist. Connor put his hand over his shoulder and shied away. Tam turned to Megan.

“What does your Ear say?” he asked her. Megan cocked her head to the side and listened, her eyes gone distant. Then she shrugged.

“The way is clear now. No imminent threats,” she said. Tam gave Alain a smug look and then turned to Cheobawn.

“Show the closest trouble, wee bit,” Tam suggested.

Cheobawn took the stylus from Megan and drew seven squares on different spots on the map. Then, consulting the key, she filled in the numbers. All were more than a click from their intended path.

“How do … nobody can do that. Is this some kind of trick?” Alain sputtered.

“Let’s go find out,” Tam said, a sly smile on his face.

Alain and Connor slid suspicious looks from Tam to Megan to Cheobawn and then back again, trying to figure out who was conning whom.

“Boys,” Megan sniffed in annoyance, growing out of patience with their squabbles. She took the stylus from Cheobawn and drew a slightly serpentine line from the dome symbol to the spot just this side of the two click mark on the North Fork Trail. Then she filled in the empty lines below the map.

“I am calling this a foraging mission, with no particular goal in mind. There and back again, gleaning what we can find. Any objections?” she asked.

If they had any, the look she gave the boys made them think twice about voicing them.

Tam considered the map for a moment, thinking hard.

“Alright. This is how it’s going to go. We get outside the eyesight of the dome guards and then double time it to the spot Cheobawn picked, have our fun and then glean on our way back. Nobody expects full baskets on a first time foray and the areas near the dome are always harvested first, so we can say the pickings were lean.”

Cheobawn beamed in delight. The plan was brilliant. Tam was rapidly becoming her favorite person in the whole world, after her Da and Megan, of course. Tam looked around the group. Connor and Alain nodded.

“Fine,” he said, grabbing the form and returning to the desk. He handed it to Phillius, who read it with amusement.

“Wow,” said Phillius dryly, “an oldma could cover more territory. I take back what I said about the hard road, Tam.”

The newly formed Pack’s alpha male returned the older man’s gaze calmly, his face betraying nothing. Cheobawn cocked her head and listened. She liked what she felt coming from the Pack leader’s head. There was a cleverness and a confidence that comforted her. She began to relax a little more. Trusting Tam’s judgment could become dangerously easy.

Phillius looked back at the map and stiffened. Cheobawn bit her lip. It suddenly occurred to her that her boxed numbers did not belong on a foray form and that surely Phillius would suspect who had put them there. The Coven chose to ignore her gifts but the Fathers were painfully aware of them and tried to protect her from her own folly whenever possible. When Phillius lifted his gaze, his eyes found Cheobawn. She smiled, trying to appear the picture of innocence.

Phillius considered her, a worried scowl on his brow. The children held their breath. Despite Mora and Hayrald’s instructions, Phillius had final say on all forays while he sat at this desk. After an endless moment, the Third Prime sighed in resignation and finished filling out his foray report. It seemed to take forever. Finally, he stopped and handed the map back to Tam. Pinning them with a glare, he pulled a blue medallion out of his pocket. He held it up. They all stared at it as if it were a magical talisman from a fairytale.

“Give this tag to the gate guard and take the red one he gives you. Do not lose your tag. It is the only way to keep track of who is in and who is out of the dome. Gleaner baskets can be found in the Pantries. Remember everything you have been taught and don’t do anything stupid. Mess this up and you all will be staying in, doing drills, until the snow melts next spring, got that?”

“Ye’sir,” the Pack barked smartly, almost dancing in anticipation.

“Go on, get out of here, before I change my mind,” Phillius growled, handing the blue tag to Tam.

Tam snatched it up and herded his Pack out into the diffused sunlight.

Out on the promenade, Alain leapt into the air and whooped like a banshee, coming down with a grin stretching from ear to ear. Tam grinned back at him as he grabbed Connor in a headlock and tousled his hair. A jostling match ensued amongst the boys until Megan cleared her throat loudly.

“Uh, right,” Tam said, breaking away and becoming more serious. “Let’s go. Daylight’s wasting.”

Chapter Three

The gaggle of children crossed the Central Plaza again, their pace somewhere between a jog and a joyous skip. At the Pantry they sorted through the backpacks and baskets hanging on the wall by the door, all the while trying to stay out from underfoot of the day’s kitchen detail who were busy gathering ingredients for the communal evening meal from the bins, baskets and boxes that lined every surface in the room. When everyone had a gleaning basket, Tam went from child to child making sure of the fit, testing shoulder straps and waist straps, making adjustments when needed. He was set to lead them back outside when he stopped suddenly.

“Wait here. I forgot something,” he said. Turning, he ran back into the bowels of the immense storage room. He returned minutes later, his arms heaped high with tins of trail rations, plus five full water skins hung over one shoulder.

“I nearly forgot,” he said with an apologetic shrug, handing them out. “We will miss the midday meal while we are outside.”

Suitably provisioned, they left the Pantry and raced each other back across the square to the weapons warehouse. The children tumbled through the door, breathless with laughter.

The duty of weapons master had fallen on Zeff this day. He was her favorite oldpa. She loved that he wore his silver hair long and pulled back in a knot at the back of his head. Few Fathers lived to get the silver in their hair. Cheobawn thought it made him look elegant and wise. It certainly set him apart from all the other Fathers who kept their hair cut close for convenience.

The old man looked up, smiling. Then he caught site of Cheobawn’s short frame in their midst. The smile faded to be replaced with an intense stillness. Cheobawn watched him, wondering if males had psi abilities that they did not reveal to the Mothers for surely Zeff was listening to his own personal ambient. Cheobawn held her breath and waited for the scolding. It did not come, though it was apparent that Zeff had much he wanted to say. Instead, the old man grunted and held out his hand.

“Let’s see your tag,” he said.

Tam held it up but did not relinquish it, as if it were too precious to be risked in strange hands.

“Phillius already checked with Hayrald,” Tam said in a rush, trying to belay any more arguments. “We are a four plus one, in the records under temporary Pack.”

Zeff met Cheobawn’s eyes, a doubtful look on his face. Cheobawn gave him an tremulous smile, wishing with all her heart that he would put away whatever reservations he was feeling. Mora could not keep her locked up in the dark for the rest of her life and the village Fathers could not protect her from her own fate, as much as they wished to. The Pack held their breath and waited.

“Fine,” Zeff said at last. “Everyone go get your tools and come back here.”

Alain headed towards the rack of short swords. Tam grabbed him by the arm and steered them all over to the rack of bladed sticks. While nicely suited for cutting down hard to reach fruits and nuts, the sticks turned into deadly weapons in well-trained hands. It was the first weapons form every child learned.

Cheobawn, too short for the long weapon, went over to another rack and picked up a gleaner’s hook. The short staff, meant for harvesting wild grain, had a small, sickle shaped blade on one end.