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.
WATCHER 2
On the Bridge, the scenes in the cells kept changing, a mosaic of hate and pain and terror.
"Wicikinkatim nanipotima," the street boys chanted, faces blacked with mud-filthy dog, murd'ring hound-slings whirring, petting with pebbles the kipao (street guard) who backed away from the whore who'd tolled him into the alley. Holding his pants up with one hand, he fumbled for his gun with the other, his eyes searching the murky shadows for the taunters; he was young and frightened, greasy with sweat. "Pipo, pipo," the street boys chanted, hidden in the smoky shadows. Pigflea, pigflea. Giggling and whooping, a boy came darting from a doorway and flung mud at the guard's face, went scrambling away as the man clawed at the mud and began shooting at the jeering children he couldn't see. The teener whore dropped flat and crawled away as a second boy rushed silently up behind the guard, snatched the gun away from him and faded back Into the night. The young kipao panicked and started to run. A shot came from somewhere behind, blew his head into bloody shards. The street boys whooped their triumph in wild ululating howls, a boy soprano sang, ''Tocikatim tocikopipo"-dead dog, dead flea.
CELL 21
Flitters whine over a dark huddle of shacks, search lights spear down into the narrow, crooked streets. In the flitters, dark intent faces are lit by the amber glows of the of the control panels, kanaweh all, the Nistam's secret security police.
Light from one flitter flowed over a ragheap In a boarded-up doorway, came sweeping back; the ragman scuttled off, running as fast as he could in a lurching lopsided panic.
The kana handling the light Impaled the tcuttler with it, thumbed a jak stud, triggering a spray of explosive pellets from the gun tied into the light.
"That's another one for us, he said. "Scratch it down, Kaweeshk. Two more and ltoshin buys the beers this week. Come on, Weeshk, let's lob a gas grenade in house that pikshikoshk come out of, see if we can flush the rest of 'em."
"Put a cork in it, Wakso. You know what the Gospah said. Street is fair game, houses we leave alone.
"Damn jerkoff, sticking his twitchy nose in places it don't belong. Let him play with his Na-priests and leave us do our job. I'd like to…"
"Shut up, fool. And pay attention to what you doing, I thought I saw something move down there."
CELL 22
The streetsinger looked carefully around, set out her silverbowls, adjusted the patch over her empty eyesocked and shoved a fragment of wood against the forward wheel of the skateboard she used to get around since she had her legs crushed under a Na-priest's ground car a few years back. She settled the kitskew (a stringed instrument like a lute) on her stumps and began playing a lively air, one meant to draw attention to her. She knew better than to stay long in any one spot, so she'd developed her act to make her impact fast.
"Miowee, Miowee, It's Miowee." The urchin she'd paid was doing a grand job, he'd got his friends to help, they were dancing and clapping and laughing; they probably would have done it without pay because they liked her, but she never took advantage of that-which was why their enthusiasm lasted. "Miowee," they cried, pulling In the crowd to hear her. She increased tempo for a moment, then slid into her favorite complainsong:
Eh, Oppalatin, it's Miowee speaking. You
Haven't been round here lately and we
Have built ourselves some misery.
What, God? You been busy stringing
Cloud to cloud, sick of seeing
Ayawit's fat ass raised In prayer?
Oppalatin, I Miowee do respectfully
Suggest you straighten out a thing or two:
Childs who dine on dreams and drink cold air
Who sell their bodies till their souls
Are no longer there.
Us who fry for saying things that's true,
Who drip our fat on Ay-No-Wit's
Designer spits and dip our tippy
Tosies in his hot and holy coals.
Us who're beat and booted out when all we do
Is ask the bloody bosses for our due
And proper wages. Do you hear me,
God? Is your ear free? Listen!
Eh, Oppalatin, it's Miowee asking.
Do you have a nose, oh God? You
Haven't poked it out in ages. Oh?
Can't stand the smell of blood? Then do
Something 'bout the dogs that make it flow.
Eh, Oppalatin, if you don't know
Them, here they come, I gotta go.
The crowd melted away from around her. The children scooped up her silverbowls and gave them to her, then they ran before and behind her as she dug her sticks into the paving and sent her skateboard racing down the bolthole she'd laid out for herself before she began her song. Behind her she heard a child cry out, she sobbed with rage but she didn't turn back, there was nothing she could do. Nothing but keep singing out her fury and her condemnation of the way things were. Maybe, someday, kipaos wouldn't beat children in the streets.
CELL 23
Chanting in the Oldlangue, the line of Kampriests dropped incense into the half circle of bronze braziers.
Kneeling on a totem inlay, the Kawa totem, a group of Kawa families with infants wafted for the Singing-in and the smoke blessing for their children. Suddenly, one woman gasped, pointed at the streamers of smoke twisting above the braziers. "Them," she cried, "The Three, do you see them? There. Nataminaho. See! See! Beasts beside him, There. The bird over him. And there. Opalekis-Mimo. And there. Nikamo-Oskinin."
As she began there was silence, then another and another cried out Yes, yes, I see them. Eyes widened, went dark as pupils expanded. Even the priests succumbed to the general hysteria and SAW.
A line of dancers serpentined through the mean streets of the Maka Quarter, acquiring new dancers with every undulation of its ever lengthening body. Drummers marched beside them, tapping out the heartbeat of the dance, the support of the song, the ancient street song of the Pakoseo attributed to the Prophet of the first Pilgrimmage.
Children ran with the dancers, a mob of street urchins, blowing crude whistles or swinging bull-roarers, dancing with the Serpent though not part of it.