Shadowplay

CELL 7

Each circle was closed about a small bonfire sprinlded with aromatic resins, a fire streaked blue and green. The matrons sang their caste hymns, preparing to receive the blessing of the Pasepawateo Mitewastewapal, each set of hymns counterpointing the other, the women were apart yet one, parts of a greater whole, celebrating Oppalatin's creative force in ways profoundly traditional and profoundly subversive. Ignoring the former and incensed by the latter, the Gospah (High Priest) Ayawlt sent his enforcers out and whipped the women from their circles. Na-priests in masks and black leather beat them while their families watched, took the Malta leader from her circle and the Tanak leader from hers, and led them to the Ma Misthakan and the Question.

And so it went, violence and destruction present in every scene except those with the tapwits and their provisioning, Ginbiryol Seyirshi examining and testing each of them, rejecting some, marking others for further exploration, selecting the rest for storage. There was a film of sweat on his face, but no other sign he was affected in any way by what he was seeing in the cells and feeling through the instrument on the ledge before him, the one he called a pathecorder.

He saved the central cell for last, the one that was larger than the others, the one with his prime actors in this bloody drama. He watched with satisfaction, then apprehension and anger as they struggled to understand what had happened to them.