Shadowplay

CELL 1

A bright green meadow cuddled by pointed peaks and a ring of ragged conifers. An immense tree grew In the center of that meadow, spreading out over half the open space. A larger wicker basket lay on its side and a wicker trunk, its top thrown back, sat beside the basket. Shadith stepped from the shadow under the tree and walked toward Kikun who stood beside the trunk, delicate reptilian hands on his nonexistent hips, watching Rohant the Ciocan wrestling with a pair of large black cats, roaring his pleasure at being reunited with them.

Ginbiryol Seyirshi made a slight adjustment to the pathecorder, then he touched the transfer:test sensors and shivered with pleasure as Rohant's currently uncomplicated joy rolled through him, and Shadith's anger and Kikun's less classifiable emotions. He touched his tongue to his lips, closed his eyes until he'd composed his face into its usual calm, then he looked up. "Puk."

Pukanuk Pousli put an agent on hold, turned his head. "Ginny?"

"Where is the ambush? I do not see the locals and they are not registering on the pathecorder."

"They're flyin in, Ginny. Havin to scramble a bit, remember, we're three months early."

"Get them in position as soon as possible. I will not tolerate sloppy work." He watched the action in the center cell for a moment, scowling at Shadith who'd walked over to join Kikun; that was a nuisance, the girl knowing so much she shouldn't know. He snatched a quick look at Ajeri and Puk, they'd both argued against bringing her. If they thought Luck was leaving him, they'd come at him like sharks, ready to tear into him the moment he let his guard down. That was not comfortable, he'd have to get rid of them and he didn't want to, they were satisfactory subordinates. Say it and see how they jump. Yes. "The girl knows my name, Puk. How does she know my name? I do not like that. She is too closely connected with the Hunter. I think we must do something about her."

Pukanuk Pousli grinned, insensibly reacting to the implication of control, reassured for the moment that Boss knew best. "If the final scene works out like you've planned it, Ginny, none of them down there's goin to be a problem. Not 'less there's such a thing as a real spirit-talker. Dead is dead and there's nothin quieter'n that." Chapter 7. So that's what it's all about-maybe

Kikun looked at Shadith from some unfathomable distance, his narrow, lined face blank, no recognition in his copper gaze. As if her appearance triggered something in him, he dropped to a squat, moved his arm in wide sweeps over the grass. With a frogtongue snap of his hand, he trapped something small down among the roots, held it between his two cupped palms as if he were tasting it with his handskin.

He shook his hands. She could hear small eeping sounds from inside them, smell a sudden stench wafted toward her by the crisp breeze.

He matched his voice to his tiny captive and sang it from terror to a burring calm. Slowly, carefully, he lifted his top hand, slid it away. A small gray-green lizard lay curled on his palm, its color his color so it was almost like a blemish on his skin rather than a separate entity.

It opened white-ringed yellowbrass eyes and stared into Kikun's copper irids. It yawned. He yawned. It stared. He stared.

Shadith looked round as Rohant the Ciocan came ambling over to her, his cats walking beside him, wreathing round his legs, rubbing themselves against him. "Your friend there, he's weird."

Kikun tossed the lizard to the wind, flung himself flat, and began rubbing his face against the grass, snuffling and biting at it and the earth it grew from.

Rohant yawned, brushed at the shreds of dried grass clinging to his dreadlocks. "What do you expect from a god incarnate?"

"Huh?"

"What m' son says. Lissorn ran across him on a capture run, hired him as a guide, and brought him back with the load. Had his reasons, no doubt. We haven't talked about it."

Kikun seemed to explode off the grass; he went running about the meadow with the wild abandon of a cat kept shut up too long. If there'd been walls, he'd have been bouncing off them.

"Opalekis-Mimo," she said. "Holy Dancer."

"Nanilody," he said. "In his home langue. Clown-dancer god. What are you talking about?"

"What I heard Ginny say." She dropped onto the grass, settled the harpcase beside her and folded her legs', in a lotus knot.

He lowered himself with the smoothness of movement that kept surprising her in a man as big and bulky as he was; the cats curled beside him. "You ready to talk now?"

She squinted at the sky. A large hawk was swinging in slow circles over the meadow. "Yours?"

"Mine."

"Ginny went to a lot of trouble, didn't he. Cats, hawk, he must have carried them in stasis pods, I didn't… um… and snatching you two, keeping you drugged so you wouldn't know who had you. Why?"

"My answer depends on yours."

"I don't like talking about… well, I suppose we're in this together and it doesn't matter all that much what that b'naduk finds out. I mindride. Just animals, people are too complicated, signals clash, give me a headache. Anyway, what I mean is when I want, I look through eyes, hear through ears not mine."

Kikun came ambling back; he dropped on his stomach beside her, pulled loose a strand of grass and began chewing on it. After a minute he spat out the shreds of fiber, reached round the harpcase and began stroking her arm.

Shadith ignored him. "The man who snatched us, he's got this pet, a simi; he likes to keep it around. I used its eyes and ears and picked up a few things. Names, for one. Ginny the Boss, Puk the Lute, Ajeri the Pilot. This world's called Kiskai."

Kikun wrapped his hand about her wrist, rubbed it against his face, smelled at it. She tried to pull away, but his long slim hands were much stronger than they looked. She jerked at her arm, glared at him.

An image bloomed in her head: Kikun and not-Kikun, painted in black and white stripes, head to toe, dancing with energy and an oddly attractive awkwardness, naked and grossly priapic, grinning amiably, that friendliness a little frightening.

Another image: Her original body, angular, phthistic, long throat distended though she couldn't hear the song, vague figures behind her, her sisters dancing the dreams in that song.

"How…" she said, aloud; she glanced at Kikun. His eyes were closed, there was a satisfied smile on his face. She shook her head, pulled her hand free, reserving her questions for later. "Where was I?"

"Ginny."

"Right." She thought a minute then laid out what she knew of their captors, finished, "You know who he is, what he's doing, don't you."

"Think so. About a year ago there was a man come to Voallts Korlatch in Spotch-Helspar. We deal in rare beasts, train exotics for pets and stock hunting preserves, that sort of thing. Though I say it myself, we are the premier traders in the field. So we have a lot of scouts out looking for new material and a lot of stock on hand. The man, he called himself Zradit do Watts, he wanted to buy old records from us, worlds we looked into where the beast stock wasn't worth the bother collecting. Which we explained to him were Family property and not for sale at any price. Then he wanted to buy a pair of Ri-Tors, offered half again what they were worth. Don't know if you know the Ri-Tor. Hard to keep captive, tend to die on you trying to escape. About ten times the size of Magimeez here." He stroked the sleek black head of the cat pressed against his thigh. "Happens we had a pair, but they were already contracted for. Besides, we want to know who we're selling to, we like to know where the beasts are going and how they're going to be used. So we do background checks on our clients." He grinned as he met Shadith's skeptical gaze. "It doesn't cost us, csezheri. On the contrary. Very much on the contrary. Those that can afford what we provide are the kind to run like scalded moggies from any smell of sleaze. We don't have to pander to the sickheads which suits us just fine."

"If you say so. Watts was Ginny?"

"No. Agent. Go-between."

"I can certainly believe that, he likes his skin, our Ginny."

"Right. But we didn't have much trouble making the connection. Watts' list wasn't long, just slimy, with Ginbiryol Seyirshi perched atop the pile. We took a good look at what we found and we said no thank you, we don't care to deal."

"Why? What's wrong with Ginny, besides him being a murderous kidnapping little bastard, I mean."

He sat rubbing the cat behind its mobile ears and scowling at the sky. "Ginbiryol Seyirshi, entertainment entrepreneur extraordinaire. Phah! The butabek makes snuff-flakes. Torture milked to the last drop. His client lists read like a roll of… hmm, well, say a list of those Voallts Korlatch will not deal with. Hunting is one thing, but slicing up a beast while some mokkus jerks off, that's different. He's also got a thing for offing children. Nice huh?"

Shadith frowned. "That doesn't quite… he likes creatures more than people, the children, all right, he's weird about children, especially girls. Don't get your backhair up, Ciocan. I believe you, it just means he's more complicated than I thought? She moved her shoulders uneasily, not happy with that idea, then shifted focus to another suggestion. "You said his agent wanted Ri-Tors. You think he's planning to exchange you… us… for them? Or maybe he's running out of victims and wants the world list you wouldn't give him."

"No, I'm afraid not. Nothing so simple. I think we're players in one of his Limited Editions. A snuff job on a grand scale, if anything that drunk does could be called grand."

The hawk came wheeling down, lit on the trunk, wobbled a little, then perched there, treading the wicker uneasily, his eyes fixed on Rohant.

After staring at the bird for a long moment, Kikun turned to the meadow in front of him, pounced on a tuft of grass and came up with a small rodent. He jumped to his feet, took it to the trunk, and tossed it to the hawk.

Rohant scowled. "Don't do that, Kikun; I don't want Sassa taking food from anyone but me."

"He won't." Kikun's nostrils flared as he watched the bird tear into the rodent. "You, me, same thing to him." He came back and sat beside Shadith, slender wiry arms draped over his drawn-up knees. "Tell the tale, shi'che'i Ciocan."

"Not much left worth telling. Wars and massacres, plagues and… you name it, he sits up there recording it." He growled, then spent some time soothing the cats; the anger in his voice made them uneasy. The hawk screamed and beat its wings. Kikun chirrupped at the bird and calmed it, though it still stepped nervously from foot to foot.

Shadith scratched at her arm, scowled. "Three people? That's all he's got up there, counting him, you can't count the mercs or the Paems."

"He's got money and drugs and a Talent at twisting people. Given he locates a place in the right mood, that's all he needs. Rumor says he's depopulated half a dozen worlds. For what that's worth." He spat, his dreadlocks moved out from his scalp. "They say he boils down the death of a people to the peak moments, his definition of peak." He spat again, wiped his hands on his knees; his golden eyes narrowed to threat slits as he contemplated Ginny's iniquities. "They say he does one Limited Edition about every ten years, he makes a thousand copies of the show and charges a WorldYear Income for each. And gets it. I think that's why we're here. I think this world is ready to explode and we're detonators. We could be infected with some plague, we could be put here to start a war, you name it, csezheri."

"Sari What a mess. By the way, call me Shadow, hmm? I think you're right. Any ideas what we do about it?"

Kikun laughed suddenly. "He's mad as a wish with its foot in a hole. Hopping. You had better walk very soft, Shadow our friend."

Shadith blinked. "Mindread? You can stretch it that far?"

"Oh, no. It just come to me. Things do that. Now and then, then and now." He blinked at her, looking for the moment as mindless as the little lizard he'd held a while ago. "What is, was, will be, it's all here, in me, in you, Twiceborn. In this also." He pulled a blade of grass loose, handed it to her.

She let the grassblade fall, switched her stare to the wide blue stretch of empty cloudless sky. "Then he's watching right now. He'll always be watching. Listening to everything we say. Whatever we try, he'll know it and can counter it before we can do anything."

Kikun shrugged. "So so."

"Tsoukbaraim!"

Rohant chuckled, bit it off, more anger than humor in the sound. "I figure that doesn't need translating."

"Fill in the blanks," she pulled her hand across her mouth, "any little obscenity you feel fits the occasion. I might as well be back at the Station with that creep herding me."

"What?"

"Never mind." She made a face. "Out of the fryingpan into the ftyingpan. Well, remembering that the little viper's listening, any ideas for getting us out of this?"

"You know Dyslaer?"

"No and even if I did, he's got plenty of translation capacity in that ship of his, it's half kephalos." She shook her head at the Ciocan's skeptical grunt. "Eighty-three days is a long time, that's the insplit count from the Station to here. I'd 've gone crazy sitting there staring at the walls, so I went mindwalking round the ship, picking up whatever I could. You never know before the moment what you're going to need when. Which reminds me, I have a sinking feeling, if the locals don't kill us he will. He'll make sure there's nothing left to tie him with this place. He's got enough firepower aboard to ash a small fleet. Nasty stuff. Including a worldbanger. I think. Looked like it, anyway, from what I've read."

"Boom," Kikun said. His voice was soft and sad. "Doom. Some say the world will end in ice. Ice is nice, but fire is surer. You have said too much, Shadow twiceborn."

"I said too much when I named him, Clowndancer. All the rest flows from that…" She stopped talking because Kikun wasn't listening any more, he was staring fixedly into the empty sky. Before she could say anything, he went limp, giggling to himself, in some world she had no access to. She turned to Rohant.

The Ciocan shrugged. "Don't ask me. He gets like that when there's a change in the wind." He gave Magimeez a last headrub and got to his feet. "You the only one had a look at the lay of the land, Shadow." He scratched at his mustache, smoothed his thumb over the dangling ends. "Dio! I'm tired of dancing around the obvious. Only way off this world is someone comes and picks us up. You know, I know, the one place we're likely to find a skipcom is where Ginny has his surrogates running this operation and that'll be in the biggest city around. Which way do we go?"

Shadith flung her arms out, let them drop. "East, west, I don't know, either way we get there. The biggest cities I saw were on the two coasts. Mountains." She flicked her fingers at the peaks beyond the tree tops. "I saw two ranges of them, one on each side of this continent, both of them run north/south. Tell me which one we're in, I'll tell you where we go."

Kikun yawned, flipped onto his back. "Backtrack the sun." He laced his fingers over his rib cage and smiled amiably at Rohant, then Shadith. Rohant growled, irritated by Kikun's deliberate obscurity. The wind whipped his mane about his head as he thrust his hands into the pockets of his tunic. "Diol why…" His face went blank, he crumpled to the grass.

Shadith swung around. Three men stood in the shadow of the Whisper tree. One of them held a weapon to his shoulder, he was bringing it round to her. She flung herself to one side, diving behind Rohant's body for its minimal protection while she reached for the hawk, meaning to send the bird at them…

She ran out of time. The stunbeam swept over her and she went down and deep.