Shadowplay

Chapter 18. Squeezing

The voice of a gnat burring in her ear, Shadith drifted up out of a drug haze, blinked her eyes open and stared into the face of a stranger. "Who…" The word was a breathy croak barely loud enough to break through the hum of the airconditioning.

"One is the Gospah Ayawit, child." He tired to brush the hair from her sweaty forehead, but she jerked away from his hand though she paid for it with a swimmy half-faint. When her vision cleared, she saw the affronted look on his face, saw that he was contemplating forcing his touch on her. And she saw the moment when he changed his mind. He folded his hands across the bright beadwork panels on the front of his black robe and bent over her, dark and ominous and more frightening than she liked to admit. "What is your name?" he said. He had a rich rotund voice that dripped over her like melted butter and that was frightening also.

She shivered, closed her eyes. Here we go again. Do I tell the tale? Or do I say hell with it? Ahlahlah, I fell like shit fried. What happened anyway? I was shot, I think, I remember the sound of it… the pain… Gospah, gods, Aste said… Question… I can't stand…

The pain came back as the painkillers wore off. Her stomach turned over and waves of weakness muddled her head. What are they giving me? What kind of muck…

Under the sheet she closed her hands into fists. "Shadith," she said wearily.

"What are you?"

"Nothing to you." She opened her eyes a moment, let them droop shut again.

"Why did you come?"

"You think I want to be here?" She lay silent a mopent, then went into the tired litany she'd produced so many times before, speaking in a muttering whisper, telling herself she didn't care if he heard her or not, what could he do to her… she knew all too well what he could do, but she didn't want to think about that. Her Talent floated around her, amoebic and restless, without direction; it passed over him, tasted him, she had no sense he believed anything he heard, but she kept on until she finished.

"Why do you claim to be an Avatar?"

"I don't," she said and turned her head restlessly back and forth on the 'pillow, they never changed the questions, not even their order. The pain was getting worse, a pneumatic drill working on her shoulder. She was hot, sweaty, the sheet was wet with it, clinging to her, she wanted to push it off, but she couldn't seem to get it loose…

Someone came in the room, took that fool away who was trying to dig answers out of her she didn't have. That vulture, that picker over of bleeding souls, that iron maiden made flesh compressing thought to fit a rigid mold… Someone else eased the sheet off her, bathed the sweat from her face and shoulders and smoothed a damp cloth down her arms. She felt a prick in her arm, a burning that spread upward from her elbow, then the pain was a bubble floating away away from her as she dropped deeper and deeper into a rocking blackness…

She slept, ate, slept, woke again with someone standing over her, the Nish'mok Makwahkik this time. She closed her eyes, she didn't want to see him.

He wanted to know everything about her and Rohant and Kikun, about the explosion of the flit, about how they escaped the harrowing of the swamp, about Asteplikota, about Kiscomaskin, about the Islands, why and how they ended up in the capsules-he threw question after question at her, prypicks meant to dig out specific nuggets of data. She said nothing, just lay with her eyes closed, wondering when the painkiller would wear off this time and if the nurses or doctors or whatever they were would throw him out, too. He waited for a beat between questions to give her a chance to answer, then went on with his one-sided inquisition until he finished his list and stood silent beside the bed. The silence lasted for several minutes. Keeping her eyes closed was hard, but she did it. "I see," he said finally. "Think about it. I'll be back."

She thought about it and lay in a cold sweat until one of the young nurses came to give her a bedbath.

Helping Asteplikota had drained her medikit so she was dependent on local drugs and half the time the treatment seemed to make her sicker than the wound.

Fever seized hold of her, sleeping and waking.

She dreamed. Pain. Strangeness. Sliding into Kikun's head, looking out through the lacertine's eyes. In the nightmare, it seemed at once ordinary and terrifying that she was there. Pain. Locals were beating himlher, shouting questions-but they didn't stop for answers, they didn't really want answers, the questions were only an excuse to continue tormenting Kikun, the hate and fear in that small cell were smothering, the stench of them almost lethal… snake, they shouted at him, slimeviper… in the nightmare she knew that Kiskaids had a deep aversion to snakes; Kikun wasn't really, but he was close enough to wake that race horror and unleash a pitiless cruelty born of xenophobia and fear. In the nightmare she knew they were torturing him not for what he knew but for what he was…

In her delirium she cursed and cried out, flung herself about, several times reopening the wound and bringing on new and more dangerous bouts of fever.

She felt the nurses trying to hold her down and fought them, cursing them as torturers in half a dozen langues because she was Kikun fighting his tormenters, crying curses on their heads; it was the only weapon he had.

She babbled.

The nurses heard enough to make fearful, wondering guesses at the tie between her and the other Avatars and what this tie was doing to her.

Meskew came and listened. He had them time the crises and he checked those times against, ICikun's torture sessions.

Kikun was left alone after that.

Very much alone.

Locked in a cell and fed like a beast.

Rohant was left alone, too. The kana screwworms had tried their tricks on him, less the miasmic hate and fear. He simply glared at them and went nincs-othran, dropping into a trance-state where he could see and hear, move and tend to his body's needs, but felt nothing, either physically or emotionally. The Dyslaera had a far bloodier history and pre-history than the Kiskaids could even imagine or attempt, despite the efforts of the Napriests and the Nish'mok's own torturers; that trap-response was a survival trait selected for over aeons of ambush and feud. After viewing flakes of Question sessions, Makwahkik conceded defeat. There was no point in beating on an insensible, unresponsive block' of flesh.

Days passed. Weeks. It was like inskip joumeytime, everything else on hold, with the locals waiting for her to regain her strength so they could beat it out of her again-not much of an incentive to recover, but her body was young and strong and when her will faltered, her flesh prevailed.

She regained the weight burned off her by the fever, the wound closed over and pain retreated until she no longer needed the local painkillers; she was happy to dispense with these because they nauseated her and addled her head until she couldn't stand straight and twitched all over her face and lost the feeling in her toes and fingers.

The Gospah Ayawit didn't come back. She didn't miss him, but she worried about his absence whenever she thought about it.

The Nish'mok Makwahkik didn't come back. She worried about this a lot more.

She was confined to the single room; when she was able to get out of bed and allowed to walk around, all she could do was pace from wall to wall. She couldn't even look out; there was a window, but the glass in it was acidwashed and as good as a wall at keeping her from seeing what lay beyond it. She was bored, bored, BORED. They wouldn't bring her harp. It was too heavy, bound to put an unnecessary strain on newly knit flesh, and besides, wouldn't it press so painfully against the wound she couldn't use it anyway?

Late on the night when she was given the bad news about the harp, the youngest of her nurses slipped through the door; Shadith looked up from the tedious, turgid theology text which was all she had to read. "Wayan?"

"Singer, the Nato'isk said you had to turn off the light and sleep."

Shadith looked at the page she'd been working at, sighed, and shut the book. "No great loss. Any chance for some hot cider? If you're thinking about feeding me a sleeping pill, forget it."

"The Nato'isk said you had to take it, Singer." Wayan sighed, she went through this every night and was obviously getting tired of it.

Shadith grimaced and gave in once again. The head nurse had the personality of a truncheon and less than half the charm; that warhorse was quite capable of sitting on her head and ramming the thing down her throat with a steel rod.

Once again Wayan brought her a glass of water and gave her the pill; once again, Shadith tucked the capsule under her tongue and let the water slide down her throat. She was reasonably sure the little To'isk had no illusions about the pill actually following the water, but the girl was careful not to ask unnecessary questions and when she took the glass away, she was tactful enough to turn her back.

Her sandal soles squeaking softly on the composition floor, Wayan hurried to the door, opened it a crack and stuck her head through. For several minutes she spoke to the guard outside; from the tone of her voice, she was coaxing him to do something. As Shadith listened to them murmuring at each other, she tucked the pill into the cache she'd contrived in the side of the mattress, lay back, and wondered what the hell was going on.

Wayan reached through the opening, brought in a black, bulb-ended case. Smiling triumphantly she carried this like a victory prize to Shadith and set it on the quilt beside her. Brown doe-eyes shining with a private laughter, she patted the belly of the case. "When he was about my age, my oldest-but-one brother thought he was going to be an ilili-nikasoh and sing his way to fame and fortune," she giggled and began undoing the latches, "but it got to be too much like work so he went to the Kastakana instead." She lifted from its frayed green velvet bed a delicate lutelike instrument and set it on Shadith's stomach. "None of the rest of us has any gift for music, so I thought why not? This kitskew isn't heavy and you won't hurt your shoulder, it sits in the lap when it's played."

Shadith pushed up, touched the wood, then the strings; it was a lovely, graceful instrument, if not a work of art, at least one of high craft. "It's beautiful," she breathed. "I can't take this, Wayan. It must have cost an arm and a leg."

Wayan wrinkled her nose, primmed her mouth. "Waweh! What it cost. Helli was a pretty boy and bouncing in and out of Plicik houses from the day his hair was cut for a man. He had the kitskew off some hag he bedded for what he could tease out of her, he called it Kishi and kissed its backside when he told me. Better you have it, Singer, you're right, it's a nice thing and doesn't deserve the smell of its getting. Use it and make it sweet again."

She glanced round at the door, twisted her face into a comical scowl. "But if you please, dear patient, not till the morning, or the Nato'isk will have my hide." She put the kitskew back in its case, clicked the latches home, and set it on the floor beside the bed. With a quick, conspiratorial smile she straightened her starchy robe, adjusted the folds of her white service shawl and went scurrying out. A moment later, she stuck her head back in. "And shut off the light, remember?"

Shadith stared after Wayan; she could feel her jaw dropping. It was rather like being nipped by a nursling lamb; you know the thing has teeth, but it's so soft and cuddly and guileless you don't expect it to use them. She'd been wholly preoccupied with herself; she hadn't thought of the people tending her as people at all. Just shadows. Adjuncts. Rushing around, doing things for her. She searched through the sheets for the bell cord, found the light switch and shut off the lamp, then wriggled around until she was stretched out on her back staring up into the dark. There was a lot to think about. The hiatus was bound to end. Tomorrow, the next day… soon. And then they'd all be catapulted back into Ginny's web. Eighty-three days, Spotchals to here. What'd old warhorse say this morning? I should stop malingering. Thirty plus three days is long enough to lie around getting waited on hand and foot? Thirty some days… well, it's one way of killing time. Hunhi If you don't get killed yourself. Don't try it again, old Shadow, the next fool might be a better shot. Fifty days to go… maybe less-I wonder how high Lee can crank that ship up if she's in a hurry to get somewhere? Vryhh ships are the fastest around, nothing can catch them. Somewhat lacking in hard data, that. Let's hope… let's hope she can… cut it… seriously cut it… down…

She yawned, sleep stealing over her despite her plans to get her immediate future better organized. Still weak from the wound and the fever, she slipped from her drowse into a deep, dreamless sleep.

In the morning she began experimenting with the kitskew, running simple scales and listening to the tuning. She tried remembering and picking out some of the songs the women sang that night in the Hostel until one of the morning nurses rushed in and stopped her; it took Shadith some time to find out why, then she shook her head, ruefully amused by her own stupidity. Rebel songs naturally wouldn't go down well, not here. She went back to her own collection, retuning the kitskew to her needs. It had a rich singing tone, with interesting overtones from the secondary strings and was close kin to many of the stringed instruments she'd mastered in her original body. Getting used to this one with these fingers was harder than she expected and frustrating. Ahlahlah, a babbling baby could do better, my fingers feel like sticks. Chording, sari Come on, Shadow, you can pat your head and rub your belly with the best of 'em. It's like learning to swim, some idiot throws you in the ocean and it all comes back. Damn, there goes another fingernail. I want my gear. You think they going to give it to you, naaaa. I swear, I'm going to boot Ginny's behind here to Wolff, give me half a chance.

The next evening Wayan sneaked Shadith's kit to her and helped her glue on the false nails, then she teased the guard into leaving the door open and the nightstaff in the infirmary gathered round for a sing. They taught her Pakoseo songs and love songs and joke songs; guards and all, they sang until they were hoarse and her hands were sore with playing.

That night Shadith slept ferociously well; most of the pain was gone, her energy was returning and, altogether, she just felt good.

The Nish'mok's office was suffused with pearly gray morning light from the northlooking window-wall. A few raindrops slid down the glass, blown at a slant by a healthy wind that made the air inside seem stale and oppressive. Wondering why she was here and what was going to happen, Shadith stood gazing across the crowded, busy bay, white sails bellied out and poufs of black smoke from the steamers, gray water whipped to froth. The city swept in a broad arc along the shoreline, rising to a rocky for on the north horn and the immense pile of stone, wood and tile riding its crest. The Nistam's little cottage. I am Colossus bestride the world, see me and tremble. She made a face at it (scandalizing the guards ranged along the hinderwall), then strolled to the three backless armchairs lined up in front of the table and settled herself in the middle one.

Rohant stalked into the office. He ignored the guards, nodded at Shadith, dropped onto the chair beside hers and sat clicking his claws on the arms and glowering at the table.

Kikun came in surrounded by more kanaweh, officious scowling Kiskaids who prodded him and jerked him about until they got him to the third chair and dumped him in it. Shadith chewed her lip, feeling more helpless right then than she had when she was shut in that miserable cell onboard Ginny's ship. Anything she did would make things worse.

His painfully repressed fury giving his chest an unhealthy rale, Kikun got to his feet and moved around behind Shadith; he stood there, leaning against her, his hands on her shoulders. Needing her. Her eyes misted, she reached up, touched his fingers. "All right?"

"All right now." He took warmth from her and his breathing quieted, she could feel him gathering himself, smoothing out the jags and getting ready for whatever was coming. She wasn't all that ready herself, the only thing she knew was whatever they wanted she wasn't going to do it. Gently stroking Kikun's fingers, she turned to Rohant.

"Fifty days to go," she said. "About Think we can make it?"

Rohant shrugged. "Can't change it, so we live with it."

"Maybe we can find another smuggler."

He swung round, his eyes narrowing. "Another?"

"At the cattletrot." She sighed: Read this(?) "Someone you knew?" He sighed: So-so, go slow. "Not to say knew." She signed: Told(him) pass (the) word. "Just a face I'd seen before."

"Why keep it to yourself?" He signed: Why (before)(not)sign(?) "I've got credit, you've got credit, we might have bought passage."

"Maybe you've an urge to suicide, I haven't." She signed: Because I did(not)think of it, why did(not) you(?)

"That why we got blown out of the water?" He signed: Mea culpa. Head bowed(and)bloody. "Never mind. Explains why Miralys already knew who when where. I was going to ask you about that."

"Doesn't short the time any. We still have to stay alive till they get here." She signed: G know(s). For sure. We (now)dangerous.

"Just have to keep twisting." He signed: Tell mudfeet? "Locals mention what they mean to do with us?" She signed: No(!)

"No, but I doubt if this lot is any different from the other." He signed: Why(?)

"At least the other side didn't shoot me." She signed: What point(?) Some (have to be)(G(his))men. (Already)know. Will(not)help. Some not. Can(not)help.

"There is that." He signed: Gotcha. "It doesn't count for much, it's this side that's got us. How you feeling?"

"Like I'll be glad to get back where the treatment isn't worse than the trauma. I itch. And I can't play my harp yet."

"If you've got the energy to paitzher like that, I'm going to stop worrying about you."

"Hah."

As if on cue Makwahkik came in, exuding energy like a shorting dynamo, dynamotor on feet no wheels. He dropped into the swivelchair behind the table, glanced briskly from one to the other, settled on Shadith. "You're looking better than the last time I saw you, Singer. One hopes the search this time was more thorough and you've had your teeth pulled. My kanaweh shoot straighter than that fool one reminds you we've both forgotten." He raised a brow.

Thinking of the crystal blade disguised as a welt in her boot, Shadith smiled noncommittally; they'd missed that, though her armory was gone when they returned the remainder of her gear (except for the harp) a few hours ago. She considered his words and his attitude and wondered what the man thought he was about. Whatever, it didn't mean anything to her. Let him talk. Let him see where it got him. Nowheresville and Nevemeverland.

He had light brown eyes with flecks of orange in them, marmalade eyes. He pinned her with them, measuring her unspoken hostility with the ease of long experience, then he turned to Rohant. "Hunter, one is certain you were aware of listeners. Fifty days you have before your friends? family? come for you. You've made it obvious that one cannot use you for information, so you've no value that way. A kana is dead. The girl killed him, you others are complicitous. The judgment is death by the strangler's cord." He waited for a response; when he got none, he went on. "It is possible-though one believes not likely-that you really are Avatars of the Three. Yes, one knows you've denied it, but that means nothing, less than nothing." He smiled, though he shouldn't have bothered, it didn't improve his face any. "There's plenty of historical precedent to suggest you wouldn't know if you were." He moved his hand as if he were brushing away what he'd, just said. "And the truth is, it doesn't matter what the truth is, only what people think it is. And they think you are the Three. Rumor of you has spread throughout the Five Nations, so there's value in you after all. If you consent to play the Game with us. It's that or the Cord."

Rohant folded his arms across his chest, his dreadlocks bushed out in threat-response, the papillae of his scalp erecting like gooseflesh on an icy day; his eyes narrowed and brightened as the pupils shrank until his stare became hot gold. "Bluff," he said. "Maybe you can throw a fool to the eels without consequences, you can't do us without joining us."

"Perhaps not now, but the march to the Holy Ground is less than four weeks off. Ten days on the Pilgrim Road, three more of ceremony and rite until the Culmination. Count the days, Hunter. Less than fifty, yes?"

"So?"

"The Pakoseo Year ends with the Culmination. After that your value is nil. After that, who cares what happens to you. Do you understand what one is saying?"

Rohant bared his tearing teeth in a broad grin. "So we take our chances. The Wheel turns."

The Nish'mok nodded. "One expected that." Gelid marmalade eyes moved over Shadith, touched Kikun, moved back to her. "Do you concur? Does the Hunter speak for you, Dancer? Singer?'

Kikun hissed, laughed as he saw the Kiscaid flinch. Shadith stared back at the Nish'mok, her mouth set in a stubborn line.

"I see." He swung the chair around, flicked a switch on the corn. "Nahwac, time is." He swiveled back and stood. "It is apparent one must give you further reason for acquiescence. Come."

They emerged from the empty door-lined corridors into the whip of a wind heavy with rain and the salt tang from the sea. They were on a covered walkway that circled three stories above a barren stony court, a pit without shelter from rain or sun or anything else the weather provided. The Nish'mok waved the guards back, pointed at an arcaded overlook. "Stand there, the three of you. Watch."

Down in the pit a door opened. In groups of two, three, five, prodded by unseen kanaweh, a number of locals, men, women, children, came blinking into the watery daylight like revenants from a graveyard-which they might as well have been. Hostages or rebels, whatever they were, what life was left to them was most probably going to be short and painful.

One of the last arrivals was a youngish woman with a kitkew tied to her back. Her legs were cut off at mid-thigh, she had a black patch over one eye and wild black hair twisted into dreadlocks much like Rohant's. A guard more impatient than the rest booted her out of the doorway, then stood watching as she crawled along on stumps and elbows till she reached the north end of the pit-court where there was fractionally more shelter from the rain.

Several young boys separated from the rest and crossed to the woman, moving with a peculiar sliding, sidling gait-prepubescent, thin and ragged, archetypal street urchins. "Miowee." It was almost a song one boy made of her name. The sound came lightly to the listeners despite the wind, clear and sharp, even amplified a little. "Sing for us, Miowee."

About a third of the adults seemed horrified by this turn; they walked away and clustered in a tight knot at the far end of the court. The rest gathered into a ragged arc about the woman, squatting patiently, waiting for her to begin. It probably would have been more politic if she'd refused them, more prudent to keep quiet and refrain from baiting her captors, but even three stories above her, Shadith could see that she was a woman for whom prudence would always be a second choice.

Miowee looked up at Makwahkik and laughed, an unrepentant, irrepressible sound that mocked him and all he represented. Swinging the kitskew around, she bent over it a moment, tuning it, then she swept a cord and threw back her head, fixing her eyes on the watchers above, challenging them to do their worst. She played a complicated effervescent tune that settled quickly to simplicity, the pit acting like a gigantic sound horn.

Forgetting anger in delight, Shadith clutched the rail and leaned into the sound as far as she dared, shivered with pleasure as the streetsinger's rough contralto filled the horn. "Fire in the streets," Miowee sang: There's fire in the streets The streets fill with dead children Children fight your killers with stones Stones and bones build our revolution Revolution burns in our blood Our blood rises in a drowning tide The tide sweeps away the murderers of our souls Our souls burn with Oppla's fire…

Miowee interrupted the chainsong for a passionate cadenza on the kitskew, singing vowel sounds around and through the voice of the instrument, an endless outflow of pain and anguish with an edge of fury. Shadith vibrated to the anger and the artistry, felt an answering passion rise in her. She sang softly with the singer below, not trying to compete with her, following her lead, then stopped to listen as Miowee reclaimed the chain: There's fire in the streets The streets rise against the thieves of our strength Our strength fuels the revolution Revolution builds in our hands Our hands reach out and take hold of life The life your stranglers steal We steal back with steel and stones Stones and children's bones fuel our fury Our fury rages through the streets The streets burn with holy fire

Once again Miowee let the chain slide; she played and crooned, fantasies of pluck and strum, of soaring wordless song that was attack and assertion of her self and cause-and Shadith opened her throat and sang with her, wordless wondrous play and passion, her soprano lifting up and up, echoing, mirroring, plaiting distant harmonies… until Miowee stopped the interplay, stilled the strings with a sudden, powerful dissonance. After a beat of silence, she took up the chain… There's fire in the palaces and factories The factories fill with the stilled breath of dead men Dead men rise and cry out for retribution Retribution rides the winds of revolution Revolution burns with holy fire There's fire in the streets…

"Enough!" Amplified and colder than the rain, the Nish'mok's shout drowned instrument and voice both.

Shadith swung round, furious at the interruption; she opened her mouth to excoriate him-and a laugh was startled out of her as Miowee complied but got in a small dig, a slide down a string, a clown's pratfall in sound.

Makwahkik ignored both of them. "You at the far end, stand with your backs against the wall, the rest of you join the singer. Quickly." The handheld bullhorn filled the space without effort. He wasn't shouting any more. He didn't need to. "Kimeesit."

A kana stepped through the door, touched his chest and bowed, a lean, gray-haired man taller than most. "Move them."

The man bowed again and stepped back inside.

The next several minutes were noisy confusion and deliberate brutality, the meanness of the kanaweh gnawing at Shadith all the more because it was so unnecessary, these people were starvling skeletons with barely enough energy to stand; only the boys were offering any resistance and even that was passive rather than active-they clustered around Miowee, taking on their own bodies the shoves and kicks that were aimed at her, the cuts from the limber, slitted canes.

When the confusion was sorted out, around a dozen prisoners were pressed against the southwall, the rest (about twice the number) were regimented in three rows back against the northwall; eight kanaweh were arranged in a line across the middle, four facing south, four north. Kimeesit stood in the doorway looking up.

Makwahkik held up four fingers, then pointed south. He clapped his hands.

The sound made Shadith jump, then gasp; the crack of the pellet guns came amplified and echoing up the pit. Four prisoners fell.

"One has learned your lesson, Singer," Makwahkik said. "Tomorrow it will be eight." He clapped his hands again and the kanaweh began herding the prisoners out of the pit. "The next day ten. You can stop it any time."