Shadowplay

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.