by Jo Clayton
"No! Of course not. What do you mean?"
"If the Pariahs, the shikwakola, don't believe like you, why should they care about your gods, demigods, whatever they are?"
"Ah. I see. In the Five Nations, the practices differ according to caste or according to kind among the out-caste. Island or Main, God is one and his Servants are honored."
"Aren't you asking for trouble, then, playing games with your own beliefs-or don't you believe?"
"Who's to say one is playing games? More often than not the Avatar himself does not know what he is. She is. Oppalatin works as he will, he is not bound by the fallible logic of man."
She gazed at him a moment, shook her head. "One thing I learned all the long years, you don't argue a man's religion. Come on, let's get out of here."
They slid through the winding channels, poling as quickly as they could to put distance between themselves and the islet, between themselves and the sunken boat, the hunk of metal that would shout its existence if the kanaweh had metal detectors on board their sleds. Shadith knelt before Asteplikota, as she had before, this time plucking tunes from her harp, singing a while, then playing again. It was an eerie feeling, performing for those unseen ears, sensing shikwakola all around her, gliding in parallel streams, sensing their fear, their confusion, the ebb and flow of their anger.
She was beginning to understand how Ginny was using her and the others. It was clear, too clear, clear enough to make her sick when she saw it. They didn't need to do anything, they just had to exist. Everything happening down here was forcing them into the roles he'd planned for them. Everything. They couldn't escape his manipulation-except by literally escaping, getting off this world. Damn the man. I won't be his Typhoid Mary, I WILL NOT! How you going to stop it, Shadow? Look what's happening, Virgin Singer. We've got to get off this world and soon or we'll have done all the damage he wants, everything he wants from us. Pretty little petlings dancing to his jingeetune, dipping our toesies… ah no no, up to our assies in a ocean of shit. I am going to kill that monster. If I ever get my hands on his neck, I'll squeeze till his eyes pop out.
She sang Mad Mara's Lament and put all her rage and sorrow into it and felt an answering anguish from the thinning darkness on either side of them. She wanted to cry out to those hidden listeners, don't believe it, it's not true, but she wasn't about to offer herself as sacrificial victim. There didn't seem to be any middle ground, if she wanted to live, she played the role, if not, she died and what good would dying do? Just get the others killed along with her. No doubt, they'd end as martyrs anyway and that could be the spark that set the world on fire. Ahlahlah, I wish I hadn't thought of that. Martyrs, oh gods, I KNOW that's on his pea-brain agenda. He's going to see the Gospah or the Nistam or both are blamed for killing us and watch the world explode. Maybe you're wrong. Sar, I've got to be wrong. When we're out of this trap, if we get out of it, I'd better have a long talk with Aste about this; if anyone knows, he does.
The air shook and the brightening day turned suddenly dark as a vast blanket of sleds filled the sky over them, flying low enough to brush the fronds of the taller trees. Sassa came screaming down, landed on the bow of Rohant's boat; he perched there hunched over, complaining at the noise and heat with querulous squawks and beak-clashes.
Cutter beams slashed through the foliage, churned the mud, boiled the water around them, bracketing them again and again, missing them each time though they were scalded by the steam from the suddenly heated water and slapped by severed fronds. Hastily, Shadith laid the harp flat on the pouches and dropped to a crouch in the bottom of the boat. Fragmentation bombs dropped around them, missing them every time though she heard screams from the shikwakola who'd been following them, cries of rage, fear and pain. She was splattered by mud thrown up by the bombs, metal fragments went whining through the sides of both boats, inflicting a few small cuts, one ripped across her arm an inch below the pellet wound, another clipped a tuft of hair above her ear. She yelped and grabbed at her arm; a second later she heard a scream behind her and swung round.
Asteplikota clutched at the pole and screamed again, a cutter beam had sliced across the side of his head, removing scalp and hair and the tip of his ear, cutting off the end of his shoulder, she could see the bone glare white in the blackened flesh, she could smell charred hair and carbonized muscle. It wasn't a killing wound, but it was horrible and she shuddered at the pain that scraped her own mind raw as her Talent resonated to it. Cursing under her breath, she dug into her pouch, found her firstaid kit and crawled back to him. She set the kit down, twisted the pole from him as gently as she could and lowered him to the bottom of the boat. He screamed every time she touched him and moaned between the screams. Sweating and crying, she got him down, set a popper against his neck and squirted painkiller into an artery, then sprayed a temporary bandage over the burns and cuts. Asteplikota relaxed and closed his eyes. She eased him onto the pouches, took her roll of gauze and wound it about and about the wounds until they were a little better protected from contamination and unexpected jars.
The flits passed on, most of them. The worst was over here, though she could hear bombs and the hum of the cutters moving south away from them. She heard a raucous cry, looked back and saw the hawk powering into the air. Rohant was flattened out in the second boat like she was in this one, unhurt as far as she could tell, the cats beside him, nervous and upset but untouched. Kikun was standing, doing a peculiar shimmying dance. She stared, not understanding, then turned to gaze at the devastation around her. It seemed impossible they were all still alive. She twisted round and focused on Kikun again. His dance went on and on. Gouts of steam floated around him, the air shimmered as it would with heatwaves in a desert summer, but this was neither desert nor summer. His body wavered and attenuated, was solid flesh again, his edges melted into the air, were sharp and definite again, melted and were sharp… Rohant said you were a god incarnate. I don't believe that, but you're something. Maybe it's Luck, maybe it's you. I don't know.
She sat up, rubbed at her eyes. Looks like the Powers have decided there's no way they can land us, so the next best thing is ash us. And every other warmblood here in the Fringes. Gods, let's get out of here.
Sbe grabbed the pole, levered herself onto her feet. "Rohant, you all right?"
He got up slowly, the cats growling and snapping at his legs as if they resented his moving. He was suffering from feedback, standing without moving, hands pressed to his eyes; he wasn't tied as closely to the cats as he was to the hawk, but there was enough linkage to drive him to the edge of his control. He lowered his hands, blinked, blinked again, then looked hazily about for the pole. When he found it, he bent with care as if he'd break if he moved too precipitously, caught hold of it and straightened up. Still saying nothing, he dug it into the mud of the bottom and stood waiting for her to start moving.
***
The next hours were nightmare. They worked mechanically through a slowly lessening silence as the Wetlands woke from the shock of the attack.
Kikun stopped dancing. He huddled between the cats, face pinched, eyes squeezed shut, saying nothing, seeing nothing, doing nothing.
Asteplikota lay on the pouches moaning. She didn't dare give him too much of a painkiller; the drugs she carried were calibrated to her body and that body wasn't born here or anywhere near the homeworid of-this offshoot of the Cousin races. It worked on him, thank whatever for that, but every time she popped him, she was half afraid she was going to kill him.
After an hour of steady poling, she peeled out a stimtab and swallowed it. It hit her hard. Empty stomach. But she had no appetite and was too afraid of a repeat attack to stop and rest and eat. And she had to get Asteplikota somewhere a local doctor could look at him. The coast, that's where he said to go, that's where she was going.
She could orient as well as Kikun was supposed to do, she never got lost when she knew where she was and where she wanted to go. She didn't know either now, but she had a line, Asteplikot
a's line. North and east. She held that line. North and east she went, as directly as she could.
The day developed stifling and muggy, dank and cold, an adjectival misery; she worked up a sweat as she worked the pole; the thick salt film lay in a sticky ooze over' all her body, the discomfort adding another small increment to her depression. The tangle of channels was overgrown and treacherous;-time after time the channel she chose pinched out on her and she had to back up until she found a branch she could pass into and go round the blockage. The first time this happened, she mindrode Sassa for a while, but the canopy was too thick; the hawk couldn't find open channels from above the trees. Besides, she was too weary, she couldn't summon the concentration to pole and ride at the same time; things got fuzzy on her very fast.
In one of those interminable backtracings she let too much time pass and the painpop she'd given Asteplikota wore off. He started screaming and twisting his body about as he tried blindly to get AWAY from the pain. Cursing and impatient, she fumbled through the kit for the popper. The stimtabs were making her hands shake, sometimes her whole body shook; she knew she ought to eat something, there were a few tubes of concentrate in with the rest, but she ignored them, she bad the feeling she'd simply vomit the stuff up again, there was no point in wasting it. She fumbled the shot, but finally managed to hit the artery and Asteplikota settled back into his stupor. The popper was almost empty, something new to worry about.
Rohant was looking back, waiting for her. She got to her feet, took up the pole and waved. And they were off again.
A few sleds passed overhead; the kanaweh were grid-searching now, mopping up any life forms they'd missed on their first pass, but there were no more cutters, no more frag bombs around the boats. Kikun shriveled further, seemed to shrink beneath his skin; it hung in folds about his bones. What she'd suspected before, she was sure of now; he was expanding that curious "not-here" he could project, that made eyes slide off him and minds forget him the moment the eyes turned away. He was covering them and the cover worked.
***
Clouds gathered as the day wore on. Under the trees it was so dark it might have been midnight. Shadith peeled off the last stimtab, swallowed it, glanced at Asteplikota; his face was flushed with fever, hot and dry. She sighed and got to her feet, looked back at Rohant, sighed again and started poling. Her arms felt like mush, the shaking was worse. She dug the pole in and shoved, pulled it loose, set it again. On and on…
The trees grew smaller and sparser, there was more weed and reed. A heavy breeze lifted, licked against her face; there was no relief in it, breathing that air was like chewing leather, with about as much sustenance and flavor in it. Clouds of pinhead biters drifted aimlessly on the wind, settled on her, crawled about licking up the sweat. On and on…
She heard a croak behind her. Rohant. She planted her pole, looked back. He was crouching, tasting the water. He looked up. "Salt," he said. "The coast."
WATCHER 4
CELL 60
A child saw the Three. Nataminaho smiled at her and beckoned. Opalekis-Mimo laughed so infectiously she laughed, too. Nikamo-Oskinin played the kittkew so sweetly she clapped her hands and wept with pleasure. Time, the Singer sang, Pakoseo-Time is now. Then they were gone. The child ran to her mother and told her tale. Dozens of children in dozens of villages in west coast Nakiskwen saw and said the same.
Dressed in pilgrim green, with staffs and sandals and a foodpack of a minimum size, extended families on the western side of the continent laid down their tools, walked off their lobs and started east.
The Wik priests came hurrying after them, tried to convince them to return. The family elders listened as they walked, shook their their heads when the priests were finished and continued on the Pilgrim Road, staffs pounding on the dirt, prayerbeads clicking through their bent and horny fingers.
Afer a short time, an old woman began one of the ancient chants:
Milwakiwim Oppalatin, Blessings be on Oppalatin.
Her powerful, if ragged contralto rang out and drew a humming echo from her kin. Milwakiwim Oppalatin.
CELL 59
Whooping and howling, the Kansi Riders (Plicik enforcers of the Landlaw) spurred their bull mos round and round the Maka landfolk who ignored them as best they could and kept moving South in stubborn silence, heading for the Pilgrim Road bisecting the Grass.
The Kansi cut at the walkers with their brine-soaked razor-tipped stockwhips, trying to drive them back behind the fences.
The landfolk kept walking, children in the middle, ignoring the whip cuts, ignoring the kicks and shoves from the mos, walking and singing, gazing straight before them as if they saw the Three striding there, leading them on their Pakoseo. Prayerbeads rolling thr their fingers, they kept walking South.
After another hour of futile threatening and harassment, each Kansi cut a walker from the crowd, threw him or her across the withers of his mo and rode off.
When the Kansi and their captives were no more than rapidly dimishing dustclouds, there was a collective moan of grief with punctuating cries of grief and loss, but not a single walker turned back. lab ough
CELL 1
The barrier island was a stretch of sand half a meter at its highest above the sea with a skim of gray-green, salt crusted brush and reeds plus a thorny tangle of the ubiquitous amtapishka vine. The boats were pushed up onto the sand on the landside of the island, tethered to the poles which were driven into the sand.
The ocean was a brilliant blue, like sapphire at once liquid and crystalline, restful despite its patterned restlessness. The sky was the same blue, but softer and more diffuse, as empty as the sea. A few cloud puffs intensified rather than diluted that emptiness.
Rohant lay stretched out on the sand, wrapped in one blanket with another rolled up for a pillow. He was asleep, snoring, a gaunt look lying uncomfortably on his broad face. Painfully reddened with flakes of skin peeling off It, his nose jutted like the beak of his hawk, his chin was a minor promontory.
Kikun sat at his feet, a small nub of a man, not sleeping, but huddled in on himself, visibly plumping as if he drew sustenance from the sun's heat and the whip of the wind that blew onshore with enough force to tear the bushes loosed their roots hadn't gone down to bedrock.
Asteplikota lay in the boat, gauze laid loosely over his face to keep off the biters. He was not doing well. He was restless with fever despite the antibiotics Shadith finally took a chance on and fed him, knowing the odds were they'd kill him; they brought the fever down enough to prevent brain damage, but they weren't right enough to do more than ameliorate the infection. He was asleep, moaning in his sleep, but comfortable and warm with a big cat dozing on each side of him. The hawk perched on a thwart, tearing at the body of a small rodent.
Shadith stood looking out across the empty ocean, the wind blowing strongly against her, molding her torn and bloodied clothing against her body, teasing at hair matted into clumps and tangles. There were shadows under her eyes and furrows dug from her nose round the corners of a mouth too wide and too defined to match the childish contours of her face, a childishness that was rapidly melting under the stress of the flight; her cheeks were hollow, emphasizing the Jut of her cheekbones. The delicate rondure of her child's limbs had gone hard and knobby. When she unfolded her arms, her hands shook.
As if she could see the EYE-though of course she could not, that was impossible, the direction of her gaze was chance-she scowled straight at him. "Ginbiryol Seyirshi, hear me. It's your game. If you want us on the board, get your ass in gear and send us some backup." She turned away from him and once more stood staring out to sea.
Ginbiryol Seyirshi was raging, but he didn't let it show. He controlled every nuance of his behavior. He was never caught napping, he was always ready to handle anything that came at him. He took immense pride in his imperturbability, it was an important part of his mystique, it was something he fought fiercely to protect. He could feel Puk the Lute watching him, Ajeri the Pilot was looking sidew
ays at him, waiting for him to react to Shadith's Challenge.
He shook with hatred for that girl with her sneaking Talent, but he couldn't show it. If he railed against her, he called in question his own judgment-and his Luck. He chose to bring her here, it was his decision to let the Avatars run loose for a while. They were doing what he brought them here to do, generating rumor and stirring up the castes, setting the low against the high, and they were doing it very effectively. No one could deny that. At least five hundred Pariahs were dead or dying, the flits had left behind them a swath of destruction thirty km wide. And the Three had moved through that chaos as if they truly were gods, with witnesses in plenty to testify to it and spread word about it. Grace of that oddity who called himself Kikun. There Ginbiryol's luck had served him well. That drunken Dyslaerik Unmate who sold them the information had told the truth, hard as it was to believe. Ginbiryol had a moment's regret that he'd let Puk have the creature to play with before he'd squeezed every drop of data from him about this putative god incarnate, but that was unimportant at the moment; if he wanted more data, all he need do was reach out and take it. He decided all that mattered was Kikun's belief in this absurdity; his conviction would convince others without him doing anything. Especially if they wanted to believe.
Luck. The Lady had brought him everything in one throw of his net. Even though this girl was insolent and probably dangerous, she was quite satisfactory as Virgin God. If he didn't need her in the production, he'd have her as Penitent in a Praisesong none of them would forget; as it was he would have to make do with the end Ayawit had waiting for her. Luck, yes. Kikun was a demigod and the Ciocan with his tied-beasts was perfect for the Hunter. Gathering him up had given Ginbiryol more than a little satisfaction. It was a Ismail earnest of the payment Family Voallts were going to make him for the insult they had put on him when they refused to deal with his agent. There was not a man, woman, or other alive who could say he had put the hurt on Ginbiryol Seyirshi. He did not allow that to happen. If it did happen, he erased it. The Ciocan had felt his hand already, the rest of Family Voallts would be destroyed one by one when he found time to deal with them.