Shadowplay

CELL 23

Chanting in the Oldlangue, the line of Kampriests dropped incense into the half circle of bronze braziers.

Kneeling on a totem inlay, the Kawa totem, a group of Kawa families with infants wafted for the Singing-in and the smoke blessing for their children. Suddenly, one woman gasped, pointed at the streamers of smoke twisting above the braziers. "Them," she cried, "The Three, do you see them? There. Nataminaho. See! See! Beasts beside him, There. The bird over him. And there. Opalekis-Mimo. And there. Nikamo-Oskinin."

As she began there was silence, then another and another cried out Yes, yes, I see them. Eyes widened, went dark as pupils expanded. Even the priests succumbed to the general hysteria and SAW.

A line of dancers serpentined through the mean streets of the Maka Quarter, acquiring new dancers with every undulation of its ever lengthening body. Drummers marched beside them, tapping out the heartbeat of the dance, the support of the song, the ancient street song of the Pakoseo attributed to the Prophet of the first Pilgrimmage.

Children ran with the dancers, a mob of street urchins, blowing crude whistles or swinging bull-roarers, dancing with the Serpent though not part of it.

Women leaned from upperstory windows In the decaying houses, throwing down offerings of grain and bits of cloth and colored paper, a rain of prayer for fertility and empowerment.

Bands of Na-priests and pairs of heavy-armed kipaos watched from side streets, waiting for the order to break up this defiant and patently subversive festival. It would come, they knew it, they just had to wait until the edge was off the crowd, until the miserable Makas had exhausted themselves and their passions.