Jo Clayton: Shadowplay

Kikun was slumped on her left. He was alive, but his soul was somewhere else, the body was an empty sac.

Rohant was on her right, struggling with the ropes that bound him to his pole, so much rope he was like a worm in a cocoon. Blood dripped from the wound on the back of his head, his eyes were glazed, wild, no intelligence left, only the ancestral beast glaring out.

The Gospah Ayawit came from the side and stood in front of Shadith. He was furious and afraid of the consequences flowing from the past hour's events. For one thing, Oppalatin had almost been denied his prime Sacrifice-the thought of his God's vengeance for this failure made him sweat all over. And there were Kiskaids bloodily, publicly, dead-already howls out there for his hide, rebels stirring everyone up against him. And against the Nistam-his hold on power would be even more precarious and the Nistam was not a man to tolerate the lapses of his subordinates. Both aspects of the Gospah's ambitions, the sacred and the secular, were put at risk by what the Singer had done. What they all had done, those cursed Avatars. If they were such.

"By your choice, so be it," he chanted, his voice carried out over speakers suddenly cleared of noise. (or so it seemed to Shadith as she twisted her wrists against the ropes, searching for a way to slip her hands clear). "You chose to begin the Last Battle beforetime, so do you bring the Culmination on you also beforetime. Come the sundown we send you home." He bowed, turned and walked to the front, brought his staff down three times on a sounding board and the ritual took up where the priest-Mimes, the Longhomers and the choir had left off when she brought their gods to life.

For a moment she gave'in to panic, then she bit down hard on her lip, closed her eyes and reached-searching for something, anything she could use to disrupt what was happening, rats or any sort of furry capable of chewing the ropes off her… I won't give up, she croaked, the words lost in the hoom of the horns, the doorndoom of the drums…1 won't give up as long as I'm breathing… there has to be a way… has to be… She spoke aloud to help focus her efforts, to escape from a terror-induced paisivity, to remind herself of the fragility of the body she wore.. despite the pain in her throat, she kept on talking as she searched.

Shadows crawled across the bubble as the sun descended, time was running out…

"Ginny, we're ready. Give the word and we go."

Ginbiryol grimaced. He was going to miss the Burning. Well, what could not be cured must be endured. He glanced at the ship-track; at the rate she was going, the Hunter would reach Kiskai about sundown, a nose to nose finish with the Fire. He spent a second hoping she would be just too late, then he unlocked the Kill-link and touched the sensor. "Right," he said. "The Bang's set for the moment we cross the Limit. Go."

As Ginbiryol Seyirshi's ship slid into the insplit, her detecs registered an enormous burst of radiation. He turned his head, smiled at Ajeri, then coaxed the Pet into his lap and began stroking the simi's velvety fur.

Shadith let the reach fade. Even Sassa was too far off to answer her call, driven away like all the other beasts and birds by the turmoil in the crater.

She was shaking with fatigue; her strength was gone, her mind was mush.

All she could see was fire.

All she could think about was fire.

Their voices deep, burring, near subsonic, the choir was chanting: Ma Ma Ma…

The lug-ikes picked up the sound, transmitted it to the pilgrims along with the Longhorn bellows and the beats of the god-Mimes' feet on the great Drums.

The cameras at the front of the Bubble sent images dark and bright of the choir, the Gospah and the god-Mimes out to those thousand screens scattered about the crater, showed the pilgrims their shadowforms circling through the ancient dance of the gods.

The back of the Bubble was dark and quiet, the cameras there were turned off until it was time for the Fire; there was no lug-ikes close enough to pick up the screams of the burning Avatars. That would be aesthetically unpleasing.

The ropes were wound round and round Shadith, knees to neck, were jerked so tight they dug grooves in her flesh. She fought against them until her arms and legs were numb and swollen and she couldn't move them anymore.

Finally she rested her head against the pole, closed her eyes.

Out on the crater floor, new trance-nodes were forming about ghost dancers and chanting rebels.

Men were calling for the Avatars, they were calling for the Three to come back, they were cursing Priests, Pliciks, and the Nistam.

Women, children, and grandparents moved into enlarging knots and began pushing toward the edges of the crater.

Rage built across that floor, rage against the Priests and the Pliciks and the Nistam himself, Tanak and Maka blaming him and his followers for the dead, blaming him for the vanishing of the demigods-the pilgrims' demigods, not the priests', not the Pliciks', most of all, not the Nistam's.

It was unifying them again, that rage, pulling them together almost as strongly as Shadith had.

The sticks were heavy on Shadith's feet and the stench of the oils that saturated them crawled up her nose. She wanted to sneeze, but she was too tired.

Her eyes burned with the sweat dripping down her face.

There were Na-priests out among the pilgrims, exhorting them, threatening them. Ayawit had given the orders.

They moved in a fog of rage, untouched by it, arrogant in their reliance on the terror their black vizards produced in everyone who saw them.

The pilgrims moved back from them, muttering inaudibly, not yet worked up enough to overcome their fear and attack these symbols of the sacred AUTHORITY.

A row of Na-priests were crouching across the front of the stage. They weren't watching the captives any more, they were watching the pilgrims.

Like the pilgrims they had dropped out of the celebration; like the pilgrims they paid no attention to the ritual, they no longer felt its compulsion. They were too afraid, too angry.

Serene in his conviction that he was right and would prevail, the Gospah chanted his litanies and moved through a choreography of worship so old it antedated the arrival of the Kiskaids on Kiskai.

Shadith was so tired. So very tired. Maybe it was time to accept the inevitable. She'd lived long, she'd known more worlds than most people knew cities, it was a strange life but a good one-in many ways though not all. She didn't want to die. Not now. But there was no way, no way…

The Pyres were cubic piles of seasoned hardwood, each piece of wood carved and saturated with sacred oils, raised two meters high about the center post. The top of each pile was relatively flat, two meters by two meters square.

Tethered to that center post by short lengths of rope, Miowee and Kayataki lay on the wood by Shadith's feet, more cursorily bound than she was, hands tied behind their backs, Kayataki's ankles also bound. The child was gagged (presumably because the celebrants didn't fancy listening to the screams of a little girl), but they hadn't bothered with the woman.

Miowee had forced her body around until her back was pressed against Kayataki's.

She was cursing and struggling with the rope on her daughter's wrists, her fingers bleeding as she tried to solve knots she couldn't see so her child could wriggle loose.

A SOUND came from the Maka and the Tanak, a low growl, not loud enough yet to overcome the volume of the chant pouring through the speakers, but it was growing, a wordless, shapeless SOUND, as the men began pressing toward the Bubble and the portable Crystal Palace where the Nistam sat.