On and on… Kikun fed her more of his brew; the taste didn't improve as it cooled, but it kept her going… on and on… Rohant woke briefly several times, grumped under his breath, cleared his throat and spat overside into water, went back to sleep… on and on .. there was an air of desperation about the flits swooping overhead, but none of them seemed interested in the kana boat, no matter how erratically it raced down the river… on and on…
"Turn soon," Kikun said.
"Yes," Asteplikota said, "We'd better get off the river."
"Where? What side?"
"Left. Into the Wetlands. There's a branch should appear soon… There. Now."
WATCHER 3
The fire bloomed in the dark, sudden as a sneeze. A naked man painted in horizontal stripes of dusty black and chalky white rose from the ring of painted men who raised a noise of rattles and rattling drums that seemed to lift him off the ground. Nata kata atahao, they sang in the Oldiangue, Kiki kiska kiskelita.
The dancer scooped resins from the spirit pouch and flung them into the fire with passionate intensity in every line of his body, flung himself into leaps and cartwheels, the capers and caprioles of his sacred dance. The ring of men swayed and chanted in unison, breathed in unison, even thought in unison.
Na-priests came from the trees in black cowls and black leather, pellet rifles in their black-gloved hands. Sunk deep in their outlaw ceremony, the celebrants saw nothing, the dancer saw nothing but the grand images of the dreamgods. A black hand lifted, the rifles snugged against black leather cheeks. The hand fell. There was a rapid, spitting volley. The celebrants fell over between one breath and the next, dead before they knew they were shot.
Several of the Na-priests gathered the bodies into a pile while the rest of them vanished into trees. There was the shriek of chainsaws and other less definable noises, then the priests were back with chunks of wood which they piled around and over the bodies. They emptied half a dozen carafes of fuel over the pyre and tossed matches at it. In silence as intense as the chanting and the dance, they squatted and stared into the fire until the pile was ash, flesh and wood alike.
CELL 26
PAKOSEO PAKOSEO PAKOSEO The Serpentine grew and grew as it wound through the workers' quarters and burst into the streets where the Tawa merchants had their clan houses, the Tanak and Maka folk would not have dared this intrusion even a month ago, but the Pakoseo fervor was building among the despised and disenfranchised and beginning to catch among the young in the more advantaged castes. Shy and a little afraid, young Tawas, male and female alike, slipped from the dull-faced Tawa compounds, Pakoseo ribbons fluttering In their hands, tambours tied to their belts and sashes. They caught hold of Tanak and Maka hands they wouldn't have touched in ordinary times and raised their voices in the driving beat of the dance: PAKOSEO PAKOSEO PAKOSEO
A two-wheel racer went roaring and squealing through the filthy, rain-sodden streets of the laborers' quarter, In the factory town called Alomapoy. When it came to the town square, the rider reached back, slashed at the cords binding the bundle on the rack, then went racing off, leaving the mutilated body of the kipao sprawled on the worn cobbles.
CELL 18
His ancestors had dug the Room, lined it with stone and timber, then laid plaster frescos over the stones, images of rites that excited him desperately when he first saw them and realized what they promised. He found the place by accident of rot and worm, stole money from his father to hire a Tanak tramp to repair the panels and restore the secrecy. Killing the Tanak wasn't very satisfying, he was so ignorant those days, he'd known nothing. He used the frescos as a crude guide and buried the man folded in fetal position beneath the hearth. He hadn't read the books yet, he hadn't heard the Secret God whispering In his ear. He hadn't known about Becoming or Hitsa or how Hitsa could help him Become. He hadn't known who he really was, that he was Nataminaho the Hunter being reborn from the flesh of man.
The EYE followed him, recording his satisfaction as he marked a girlchild as his next sacrifice, recording his impatience as he waited for the proper moment to take her. It was not yet time to move openly. His time would come to him. God's Voice told him she would come. And it was so.
He collected her like a ripe fruit, took her to the Room and followed in loving detail the ritual he had derived from his reading.
When she was at last near her peace, he took her beating heart from her body and ate it, slicing it thin as paper and roasting the slices over the ritual fire, consuming the Hitsa with her heart, drawing into himself her purity and her strength, taking another step toward the Great Transformation. The God Voice had promised him a Pakoseo Year and it was upon them even now. Everything the Voice had promised had come to him. He was very happy.
When the heart was gone, he wrapped the child in a clean sheet, took her out into the night. She was an empty vessel; if he burled her as he had the Tanak, she would begin to draw back into herself the power he had taken from her. He dropped her In the ditch, took the sheet back to the Room and burned it.
It didn't matter what happened to her leavings. She was empty, she had played her destined role and all that was sacred in her lived in him now.
CELL 19
A little girl's body lay sprawled in stinking water and rotten weeds; she was naked and she'd been beaten until her face was a pulp, broken ribs glistened white and yellow through the mud and putrifying meat; her torso was ripped open from pelvis to just above the heart which was missing and there were other mutilations, at the moment mercifully hidden by the mud and broken weeds drapped over her corpse.
She lay undiscovered for several days, then a farm laborer came past on a tractor, intending to get a field ready for planting. He saw the body, fell off the machine, and waded into the ditch. He eased her up out of the mud and slime, wrapped her In a bit of canvas, and took her to the village.
The villagers gathered around him, wordless, their anger so deep they could only moan and sway. A woman came pushing through them, uncovered the body. She screamed, tore at her hair, her face, her clothes. Her sisters and the other women led her off.
When she was inside her house, the men of the village took the child's body to the lspisaco and banged on the Great Door, their heavy somber blows the dead child's knell. There was no response this time, there'd been none the time before or the time before that. They didn't expect any. They took her head and her hands and left the rest of her in silent accusation.
CELL 4
The thin wiry man was pacing about the command center with the furious energy of a fruiting tornado as he listened to the reports coming in from assorted sources.
"Kwantawiyal lost them, he's been disciplined and is hot to go after them, we have promised him a bounty for each head if he brings them in alive. There is nothing in writing, so that is no problem."
"A patrolboat on the Kinosipa is about an hour overdue with its call-in. Five kanaweh crewing it, Wisake no Wohtin, the Ni-sec. A slug, him, been disciplined so often he's worn a rut in the Cage. But you-know-who's his Uncle. We have attempted to establish contact, but we haven't been able to raise him. Since he was in the grid, seems likely his continued silence is directly connected with the explosion that occured just before dawn at the Iskota Estate. The flit that exploded was reduced to shards as we reported-earlier, but we did manage to locate a section of the drive pod with a serial number. We ran it through the Log. It's legit. Flit's registered to one Napechiko, a Kawa In a twoboat fish village named Wanshin, about thirty Iskals north of Aina'iril. It's a junker he rents out to whoever comes up with the price, the last one being a gutter-bait go-between of even less worth than the flit, guess who. E-heh. One Kwantawiyal. Tests are still being made, but it is becoming clear that there was nothing organic in the flit when it blew. It Is possible, therefore, that the patrol came across the fugitives and was killed by them. The Ni-sec being our favorite slug Wiseacre, there's not much doubt of it. Most likely those terrorists have taken control of the boat and are using it to escape the search grid. We are combing both riverbanks for evidence this happened. So far there is no result from that investigation.