Shadowplay

CELL 1

The stink of perfumed oils brought her back. She was tied to the center pole of a Sacrifice Pyre, her boots sunk in the carved sticks, Mlowee bound beside her knees like a slave sacrificed to serve her mistress in the afterlife, Kayataki beside her mother, bound and gagged so she wouldn't cry out when the Fire took her, both of them tethered to the center post. Shadith tried to say something, but all she could do was croak; her throat felt destroyed. He should have ended it, that priest. He was too cruel. Ropes wound round her, knees to neck. No more running, no more maybes left for her.

Kikun was slumped on her left. He was alive, but his soul was somewhere else, the body was an empty sac.

Rohant was on her right, struggling with the ropes that bound him to his pole, so much rope he was like a worm in a cocoon. Blood dripped from the wound on the back of his head, his eyes were glazed, wild, no intelligence left, only the ancestral beast glaring out.

The Gospah Ayawit came from the side and stood in front of Shadith. He was furious and afraid of the consequences flowing from the past hour's events. For one thing, Oppalatin had almost been denied his prime Sacrifice-the thought of his God's vengeance for this failure made him sweat all over. And there were Kiskaids bloodily, publicly, dead-already howls out there for his hide, rebels stirring everyone up against him. And against the Nistam-his hold on power would be even more precarious and the Nistam was not a man to tolerate the lapses of his subordinates. Both aspects of the Gospah's ambitions, the sacred and the secular, were put at risk by what the Singer had done. What they all had done, those cursed Avatars. If they were such.

"By your choice, so be it," he chanted, his voice carried out over speakers suddenly cleared of noise. (or so it seemed to Shadith as she twisted her wrists against the ropes, searching for a way to slip her hands clear). "You chose to begin the Last Battle beforetime, so do you bring the Culmination on you also beforetime. Come the sundown we send you home." He bowed, turned and walked to the front, brought his staff down three times on a sounding board and the ritual took up where the priest-Mimes, the Longhomers and the choir had left off when she brought their gods to life.

For a moment she gave'in to panic, then she bit down hard on her lip, closed her eyes and reached-searching for something, anything she could use to disrupt what was happening, rats or any sort of furry capable of chewing the ropes off her… I won't give up, she croaked, the words lost in the hoom of the horns, the doorndoom of the drums…1 won't give up as long as I'm breathing… there has to be a way… has to be… She spoke aloud to help focus her efforts, to escape from a terror-induced paisivity, to remind herself of the fragility of the body she wore.. despite the pain in her throat, she kept on talking as she searched.

Shadows crawled across the bubble as the sun descended, time was running out…