Jo Clayton - Shadowplay

In the morning, heavy-eyed and so angry still that she couldn't eat, she went to the training court and worked on the songs, the stylized stiff movements of the sacred choreography. After. a while she was almost happy; the work absorbed her and kept her from replaying the death of the furwing and remembering the Fire that was beginning to haunt her dreams.

And so it went, day after day. No threats were made overtly, but now and again, whenever Ayawit felt she wasn't cooperating as enthusiastically as he thought proper, Kayataki was brought in and whipped gently, her skin reddened but not broken. It was enough.

Shadith bled again, was isolated and purified, and put back to work.

The priests who watched her would not talk to her, would not respond to anything she did; even when she hit at them, they only moved away. She was not alone, never alone. Despite that, her days in the Misthakan were very like those in the cell on Ginny's ship. This time, though, she couldn't let herself give up. The Fire was waiting for her.

She kept trying to find a crack to wiggle through, but there was nothing. By the time the wagon was finished and the trek to the Otcha Mistiko Cicip was about to begin, the futility of everything she did was beginning to wear her down. When they came for her, she stared at them, then went without comment. She was taken with the others and incorporated in the PROGRESSION, riding in a palanquin with Miowee and Kayataki, Kikun and Rohant walking beside it, the cats at Rohant's heels and Sassa flying overhead.

Ignoring the warning hiss of their priestguards, Shadith leaned out, bringing her head close to Rohant's. "Any ideas? My mind's blank."

"Nada. Can't breath without a damn priest up my nose."

"You too, huh."

"Ten days on the road, maybe there's something there."

"We wait and see, I suppose."

"Yeah. You better pull your head in, our guards are getting nervous. We want to keep them sweet."

"Sweet, hunh." She straightened and looked around with considerable interest as the parade formed up, the court like painted paper butterflies fluttering around a slight figure she took to be the Nistam until Miowee told her otherwise.

Day drifted into day as the wagon moved along the Pilgrim Road; Shadith sang when she was ordered to, Kikun danced, Rohant preened and posed (and muttered angry sarcasms that almost made her laugh.) Each day the response was more intense, so intense she was battered to a nub by day's end and Kikun was reduced to a lump of skin and bone. Day after day after day, the wagon crept among the crowd that spread from horizon to horizon, funneling onto the long twisty grade that led to landing place, the dead volcano. The place where they were going to die.

They could talk, they were freer than they had been, but there was even less chance of escape; they'd have to push through the throng of pilgrims and it was obvious at half a glance that they'd get two steps, three, before they were herded back.

Night… ghost dancers like painted shadows pale against the dark watchers… Tapwit priests ladling soup in pilgrim bowls and passing out hard biscuits… pilgrims sitting motionless and hushed around the wagon, focusing on the Three, praying at them, worshiping them, like a blanket smothering… Shadith couldn't think, could barely breathe… Kikun huddled close to her, used her as a buffer, a far too inefficient barrier between him and the silent demands of the watchers… Rohant, more and more the predator… restless, irritable, pacing, pacing, sniffing at every crack for a way to escape.

Death by Fire… it hung over them all… burned alive… and no way of escaping it… burned alive… they weren't thinking about helping the others, not any more, it was how can I escape. I… I… but there was no escape… unless… Unless Aleytys came faster than Shadith had a right to expect… vengeance was ashes in the mouth, what good would it do them when they were dead… eighty-three days… eighteen now, fifteen when they reached the Mistiko Otcha Cicip, twelve when the Fire was lit… Lee would get here too late, at least a week too late, maybe more. Unless… unless Shadith could finesse a way out… contrive a holding action… something, something…

Mid-afternoon on the tenth day, the wagon labored across the floor of the crater and pulled up before an immense broken Bubble of black volcanic glass.

The PseudoNistam climbed down and vanished into the housing cavern while the VraiNistam took his seat in the crystalpalace (pellet proofed glass on an armorsteel cage), on the crystal throne with his court around him.

The Kam priests got the wagon into the store cavern and unhitched the kekelipis.

The Gospah and his Na-priests herded the rest of the sacerdotes and the Three up one of the twin ramps into the black-glass Bubble and began laboring to bring order out of Chaos.

By sundown they all were settled in, pilgrims and Pliciks, prisoners and priests.

Small fires bloomed across the crater floor and climbed the walls as high as people could perch. The Otcha Cicip hummed with sound, laughter, music as people ate their dinners and exchanged the gossip they'd packed in with them. The noise rose to a peak as Sisipin Full reached zenith, then faded as families and clans and single travelers settled to sleep.

Shadith crouched by the front of the cage they'd put the prisoners in and watched the moonshadows crawl across the floor. Three days, then the Fire. She reached into her boot, touched the welt that hid the crystal knife and was tempted. Then she sighed and took her hand away. There was a solid rank of Na-priests sitting like stone teeth across the mouth of the Bubble and a score of others rolled in their blankets, sleeping on the floor. She wouldn't get two steps before she woke at least one. No chance. Not now. Gods, Lee, put your foot down and GET HERE!

Invocation-the first morning:

The Gospah Ayawit's mellifluous voice dripped out over the pilgrims from speaker-towers twenty meters high scattered about the five-squared kilometers of the crater floor. Clad in cloth of gold with Kiskaid totem symbols wrought with colored gemstone beads and Kiskaid holy writ in gold and silver wire with diamond accents, the Gospah Ayawit shimmered and glittered like the sun himself from screens ten meters tall. "Mat Weh Kat ta ti…," chanted the Gospah, calling Oppalatin to witness their worship, calling the folk to listen, hear the bells of change ring out, hear the word of Oppalatin: Mat Weh Kat ta ti Oppalatin Ma! Illiloo Kiskaiwin Eh ishi shikahisheeaywin Keh kah Sak kehaaa din Kid Ma! Kid Ma! Kid Ma…

The antique syllables went on and on, slithering and sliding past the ears of pilgrims mostly ignoring him-talking, laughing, doing clapsongs and slapdances, setting out their blankets and their jugs of wine and fruit drinks, their crisps and popcorn and pretzels and fried fowl and roasted kipsi fruits and the thousand other things they'd packed in for the occasion, tieing on their ribbons and testing the bells on their leggings, the wooden clackers on thumb and forefinger, their bone pipes and baby kitskews, their drums and rhythmbones. The sun was pleasantly warm with a few cloud puffs to turn the sky bluer than blue and just enough of a breeze to make the crowding comfortable. They looked up now and then to see the Gospah glitter, to see the Longhorn Pipers standing on their benches, the Palaka Dancers dancing on the Great Drums: Ni-tahwaikis in husks and seeds; Tahnokipo Waposh in tortoiseshell and polished stone with clackers on his legs and soundstones in his hands; Shapostim Mayah in feathers and ribbons with strips of bells along his legs and tinkly, tiny cymbals on his fingers.

Shadith watched from the cage at the back of the Bubble. Kikun was stretched out on a lumpy pallet laid along the left side of the cage, recovering from the battering of the trek here; Rohant knelt by him, holding his hand. Miowee was huddled at the back of the cage, sunk into a black depression that Shadith had a hard time shutting out-especially since she was looking fire in the face, at the moment a more literal fire than the one that had been haunting her. Bonfires crackled energetically, one on each side of the stage at the front of the broken Bubble, near where the ramps went, down. These weren't the Sacrifice pyres-those were set up at the back of the Bubble, cameras focused in tight on them, carved posts and carved sticks saturated with aromatic oils. Now and then an errant breeze brought her the odor of those oils, nauseating her. Bumdeath-it scared her witless. As time passed and hope evaporated, she was more and more out of control… turning into a quivering mess.