Shadowplay sq-1

by Jo Clayton

  Kikun stretched, got to his feet looking sleepy and mostly absent. "No informers in the Pariah, not now not later." He shuddered, intoned, "Makh Hen made it so, there's no reward that's rich enough to pay for dead and maimed. Kana or Na-priest, come they near the Fringes, they are dead-and dead we'll be, should we stay too long." He opened his eyes wide, spread his hands and jerked them up-down, a chopping gesture meant to underline his words. "My azee tells me begone before the week ends."

  Rohant scratched at his jaw, shook his head, then whistled to the cats who'd gone off exploring; when they appeared, he went striding away along the island with the great black beasts frisking beside him.

  Shadith watched them vanish into the gloom. "Well, it is to be hoped nothing eats him or shoots him." She stood and looked around. "What now?"

  Miowee scrubbed her hand across her face, bent to touch her daughter's hair. "There should be a shelter somewhere around the spring. I expect it's been provisioned for us."

  "If not,, our stay'll be even shorter than Kikun suggests."

  Kikun chuckled. He jumped to his feet, turned around twice, then fell onto his knees with his back to Miowee. "On," he said.

  Miowee scowled at him, angry because she had no reasonable choice but to let him carry her. For over a decade, since she'd lost first her eye then her legs, she'd fought against pity and horror, distaste and averted gaze, fought against being shut away in a genteel home run by Kamsisters where her injuries wouldn't offend the passersby. Despite desperate times she never spoke of, including repeated rapes, muggings, pecking-order battles, and bearing her daughter alone on ragged sacking in a deserted warehouse, she'd made a life for herself where she was dependent on no one for mobility or support; more than that, she'd won a wide following for her love songs and joke songs and above all the passionate and powerful songs calling for redress of the wrongs done Maka and Tanak in the name of traditional values-those values that perpetuated ancient injustices and maintained in power and wealth those who'd always had power and wealth. And now she was discarded like sucked-out pulp and reduced in front of her daughter to the cripple she'd refused to be. She said nothing. She'd learned in a hard school to do what she had to without making a fuss about it. She swung herself onto Kikn's back, told Kayataki to take his hand and come along.

  The shelter was a shikwakola makee, a three-room but on stilts with walls of woven reed and a thatch roof.

  Shadith ran up the ladder, found a heap of supplies piled into the middle of the front room along with an assortment of spare clothing though there was nothing for Rohant except one extra-large robe that might or might not accommodate his shoulders.

  She swung round holding up the robe as Kikun put Miowee down on an aromatic reed cushion. "Looks like Ro's going to be stuck with blankets if we're here long enough to do a wash."

  Kikun heeheed and went back to collect the rest of the gear.

  Miowee tried to smile, but the grimace evolved into a yawn. She shook herself, gazed thoughtfully at Kayataki crumped beside her, head on her thigh. With a visible effort she lifted her head and looked directly at Shadith. "Put Kaya to bed for me, will you please. I'm too tired to move."

  A small but energetic fire crackled in a three-legged stone brazier set on a round ceramic tile in the main room. The cats were a complex knot of black fur in front of the door; in the puzzle tree spreading like an umbrella over the makee, Sassa was asleep and dreaming of fish. Kayataki was deeply asleep on the springy pile of bedmats in the small room to the left.

  Shadith lay with a battered mug warming her stomach on the outside, most of its contents warming her insides. Her eyes were closed; she was looking through the eyes of a flying furwing similar to the furry she'd ridden the first night in the swamp, but considerably larger. "It's like someone pulled the plug, it must have been going on since before we got here. I suppose that's your people, Mee, passing the warning the town's getting too hot for anyone." She paused a moment, but Miowee said nothing. "The Pilgrim Road out of Iril is wall-to-wall people, far as the furwing can see, most of them walking, some riding or driving… urn… I suppose they're mos and kekelipis, not that I've ever seen those beasts… no motors… that's the rules, huh? Back at the city… kanaweh flitting about firebombing the Quarters and they're not being all that careful about boundaries… from the way they're built, some of the houses burning are Kawa. And the fires are spreading. The fools are going to burn the whole city if they don't cool it." She grinned into the twilight where the others were dark lumps barely visible. "I don't hear any groans, so I'll keep on. The Kasta, I can see some*windows boarded over, smoke stains, not much damage, it'll take more than a few bombs to level that lump. Flits going in and out like bothered bees. Hmm, that's odd. The guard on the roof is a Na-priest. Looks like the Gospah has expanded his territory. Well, well. The kanaweh out of control or near to it, the city burning and Makwahkik vanished, I'd say your people really made a dent this time. The Kiceota. Hmm. One of the flits seems to 've taken a hefty bite out of the north tower. There's a sag in the seaside wall, flit didn't hit that, but it blew one helluva chunk out of the cliff beneath. Searchlights all over the place, probably if we went outside, we'd see them from here. Small army on the walls. Maybe you didn't actually put the bomb up his arse, but I'd say you've got the Nistam sitting nervous. Ahhh! My head's getting tired. I think that's all for tonight."

  Early morning of their fourth day on the island. The biterswarms were still sleeping off the night's excesses, the air was pleasantly warm though heavy with damp and just enough wind was blowing to brush the flat, lacy surfaces of the puzzletree fronds against each other, producing a gentle susurrous. Nflowee was sitting on the fallen tree near the sandy stretch where the flits had landed, Kayataki beside her; she was playing a jokesong on her kitskew and singing harmony with her daughter. Stripped to shorts and an undershirt, Kikun was dancing on the sand, a slow sinuous twisting that was more plantlike than animal.

  Shadith stood at the water's edge, frowning at the enigmatic swamp; she couldn't see more than a few meters into the trees, not with her own eyes and she was feeling more than a little burned out after the nightly sessions flying over the city, not so much from the effort it took as from what she had to look at. She'd seen death before, destruction, war. She'd never learned to look at it with indifference, perhaps because after the first time, the time her family died, she'd always been been an outsider with none of the resources the locals had for deadening that fear and loathing. None of the justifications. None of the righteousness. Rohant had been gone for hours. At least it seemed like hours. He's restless… only four, no, three days, can't count this one yet, and he almost can't stand it. Maybe its the length of the rope tieing us down, the longer the tether, the closer to breaking it, the more impossible…

  She glanced over her shoulder at the others, smiled, then went back to glooming at the water. They're out there now, the shikwakola, I don't have to reach to fed them watching. Kikun was right. We're going to have to go somewhere else. Soon. Where? No answer. How? Worse. No, boats, no flits, no nothing. We're almost as much in prison as we were in the Kasta, they stuck us in the pantry to save for later, the kuudj… might as well've stayed where we were… except for the burning-Sar! don't want to think of that… Walk out? There's Miowee… she'd have to be carried… and Kaya… it's impossible… a raft? have to cut down trees… hard to know what the shikwakola would think of that. Feed us to a slither, maybe?

  She clicked her tongue, kicked sand into the water. Cut down trees, Sail With what, our teeth? I swear, next time I get to a city, rm going to STAY there. Hang on with teeth and fingernails if I have to and kick the crutch off anyone who tries to shift me.

  Kiscomaskin strolled from under the trees. "No, don't stop," he said. "A charming tableau. Finish your song, please, my dears." He dropped to a squat beside Shadith and watched Kikun dance to the song Miowee and Kayataki were singing.

  When they were finished, he clapped politely, then straightened up and
moved away from the water's edge. "I imagine you're getting rather bored with this… ah… solitude. Where's the Hunter?"

  Suddenly wary, though she was careful not to show it, Shadith got to her feet. "You said it, bored. He's off nosing around the swamp." She reached for the nest of muddaubers she'd located in case of trouble. "He'll be back before dark. Probably not much before." She felt Miowee's eyes on her, but she wasn't worried about the streetsinger fumbling a cue. Or Kaya-the girl had learned before she could walk to smell trouble and keep her head down.

  Kiscomaskin inspected Miowee as she set the kitskew on the trunk beside her and reached for its case; Shadith felt him decide the cripple was nothing he should worry about. "Too bad. I was hoping to make a sweep of you all." He slid his hand beneath his coat and brought out a small quickfirer…

  … and before he got off a shot, Miowee put a bullet through his head, using the pistol in the kitskew case. "Shadow," her voice was a harsh rasp, "any more of them?"

  "He wouldn't bring witnesses."

  "Don't give me logic. Are there any more?"

  Shadith loosed the daubers and made a quick sweep around the island; she caught a distant hint of Rohantcoming back for lunch as usual. Not as usual when he gets here and sees what dropped in. Shikwakola, too. Watching. More of them. Not good. No one else. Mee can let her hormones rest.

  "Rohant's coming in, no strangers around," she said wearily. "At least we have transport, courtesy of that." She waved a hand at the corpse. "Has to be a flit back there, or a boat. We'll need it, the shikwakola about ready to pop. Better to go before they do-if we had any idea where to go."

  Kikun looked at her, moved quietly off into the trees.

  Kayataki had her legs pulled up and her thin arms wrapped round her knees; she was a little paler than usual and she was carefully not-looking at the dead man, the man her mother had killed. She was too calm. Shadith read emptiness in her. Seven years old and she'd seen more death and torment than men ten times her age.

  Like the child, Shadith was feeling nothing. No revulsion. No regret. Not even anger. Not any more. Not at Ginny, not at the people running this world, not at Fate or Luck or whatever it was that ran the universe. She was worn out. She went over to the dead man, stirred him with the toe of her boot in his ribs. "Why?" she said after a while. "I don't understand. Why?"

  "Weyy-ah, I don't know." Having broken the gun down, Miowee was cleaning and oiling it. "I could guess. You're too hard to control. Like trying to hold a live kilifish. It keeps squirting out of your fingers no matter how tight your grip. He'd get more mileage out of you dead, especially if he could lay the blame for killing you on the Nistam." She inspected the barrel, gave it a last wipe, and began reassembling the weapon. "He can't do what the Makh Hen did; he'd have to coax you and that wouldn't work, would it? The three of you've made no secret about wanting to go home, wherever it is you call home." She put the gun in the case, snapped the latches and set the case on a clump of grass beside the trunk. "Kaya, you all right?" She reached down, stroked her daughter's hair. "Home, child a mine, the man goin home," she sang softly, her voice in its lowest notes, caressing yet remote. "Walkin the hard way, the long way, walkin on stones he pile up hisself…" She began humming and plucking single notes from the strings.

  After a while, her voice shaking, then gaining strength, Kayataki took up the chorus: Walkin home, walking home.

  "Home, child a mine, the man going home," Miowee sang, repeated the phrase, Kayataki blending with her, child soprano light and pure, woman contralto, worn, ragged, as powerful as it was let to be. "A long way, a hard way on the shells of his hurts…"

  The song went on and on, adding travails to Kiscomaskin's route to redemption until Miowee laughed, ruffled Kaya's hair, laughed again as Kikun was suddenly there, handing her a mug of hot tea.

  After they rolled Kiscomaskin into the water for the slithers to feed on, they sat and drank tea and ate stale biscuits and waited for Rohant to get back so, they could argue out what was best for them to do.

  They were still arguing when the Na-priests came for them.

  WATCHER 12

  1

  Cursing with concentrated malevolence, his voice a shrill whine that sent the Pet shuddering onto the back of the Chair where it sat with its hands pressed over its ears, Ginbiryol Seyirshi watched Shadith and Kikun roll Kiscomaskin's body into the murky water. He glanced at Ajeri, saw her shudder (absurdly like the Pet) and fix her eyes on her magazine; she was too afraid of him to open her mouth, but he knew she was dreading a Praisesong with him in this mood. That gave him a savage satisfaction which was momentarily pleasing, but he knew it wasn't prudent; he needed her. He didn't like it, he loathed the truth in it, but he considered himself above all a practical man. He made a note to start looking for candidates to replace her and Puk, then went back to wrestling with the current crisis.

  When he had his rage under control, he touched a sensor, gave a set of coordinates to the listener below, and followed with sour satisfaction the arrival of the Na-priests.

  2

  The days rolled on. The EYEs continued to collect scenes and send them to the satellites which fed them to Ginbiryol while a third of the world's population poured into Wapaskwen-only a third because the Pakoseo fervor dissipated considerably as it reached the more ratified levels of power; the crowd of pilgrims was heavily weighted toward Maka and Tanak with a salting of Kawas and Kisar and a very few Pliciks. There was a complex web of consinships, of shared attitudes, most of all a shared hatred of the Plicik AUTHORITY and all the brightsider priests who collaborated with that AUTHORITY to wring everything possible from the low, to pile the chains on the workers and keep them on. There was kinship and a common history, a common enemy. Perhaps because of this, perhaps because there were whole families, infants to grandmothers, walking together, perhaps because the Pakoseo fervor exhausted them, the immense throng was extraordinarily peaceful. Elbow to elbow they marched without much clashing; there were a few fights, none with weapons, a few screaming matches curiously muted and soon over, nothing more.

  In Wapaskwen, especially in Aina'iril, the Five fought a chaotic battle. The city was burning and Mohecopa's fieldcorps were scattered along the Pilgrim Road, most of them impossible to contact. The few kipaos left in the city retreated to their blockhouses and ignored whatever happened in the streets.

  Makwahkik's death was proving one of the Five's larger mistakes. The kanaweh had slipped beyond anyone's control; in addition to their nightly raids on the Quarters, individual kana were breaking into armories, taking flits and going on killing sprees among the Pilgrims, concentrating on Maka and Tanak groups but not worrying where their stray shots went; others were looting Kawa storehouses, even some Kisar compounds; shrines were losing their votive tokens, the gold and jeweled bits, and what the raiders didn't take, they destroyed and desecrated. The Gospah Ayawit tried to calm them and reinstate discipline, but they wouldn't listen to him and beat or shot the Na-priests he sent out to them. The Nistam didn't bother trying; he stayed in the Kiceota behind rank on rank of Royal Guards and puttered in his garden. For the most part, the other Pliciks were cheering the kanaweh on, only having second thoughts when their own houses got singed.

  Ginbiryol tasted, dumped, selected, saved, excised, drowning his anger in the flood of satisfaction at the savagery and chaos below, in the familiar, comfortable work of compiling his images, the anticipation of the final cut, the pulling together of those images into a unified work of art, that final satisfaction that was greater than any other.

  CELL 9

  Asteplikota lay back in the longchair as the girl brushed and braided his hair, pulling the shining blond loops around to cover the ridged scarring where his scalp had been sliced away. It was a pleasant attention, but it made him uneasy; he had a strong aversion to such pampering.

  And he was worried about his brother, uncertain, now that Kiscomaskin wasn't here to reassure him-not with words, because words were unimportant and u
nreliable, but with the flash of his smile and the warmth of his fondness. It was at those moments when they were alone and wrapped in bloodcaring that he felt Kiscomaskin's posturing was only that, the mask of a man protecting himself from his gentler side.

  The girl finished her task, dipped and backed out. As if he'd waited outside for her to be done and begone, Lihtaksos tapped lightly on the doorpost, came in without ceremony, a measure of his disturbance. "Oppla Bless, Aste my friend. Kiscomaskin, has he been here in the past week?"

  Asteplikota sat up. "No. I haven't seen him since he left for the Main."

  Lihtaksos dropped on the hassock by Asteplikota's feet, seemed to crumple In on himself. "The Three are in the Gospah's hands, have been for the past two weeks, but he doesn't have your brother, even in his deepest pit, we're sure of that. And he's nowhere else. We've looked. I'm sorry, Aste, but I think he's dead. I don't know how or who, but I can see no other answer."

  Asteplikota closed his eyes, touched the tips of his fingers to his brow, hiding his face. Grief was cold in him, it was a loss he couldn't comprehend. He'd half been expecting it, but that didn't help. Somewhere distant, almost beyond reach, he felt anger, he knew it was anger, but it was meaningless right then. He dropped his hands. "I see. So?"

  Lihtaksos brushed absently at the wrinkles in his shirt. "Killing Makwahkik was a mistake," he said wearily. "Maybe there was satisfaction in it, perhaps even justice. But it was most definitely a mistake. There was a center to what we were fighting, now there's none. We hit at clouds and gain nothing from it. People die now for nothing, nothing at all, Aste, nothing at all Come back with me. We need you. Dencipim is at everyone's throat; Wetakisoh is drawing back into himself his caution is becoming paralysis; Mohecopah goes around in a permanent gloom saying I told you so. He warned us against killing Makwahklk and now he's proved right." Lihtaksos smiled wryly. "Much more of that and I'll strangle him myself. Kiscomaskin was our balance wheel, Aste: we could defer to him. None of us is willing to give that power to the others, none of us is big enough to take it. We need you."