Miowee looked astounded, then gasped as she understood what was happening. She wriggled around and crawled along the mattress until she was hunched over the notebook. She read what Shadith had actually written: My Talent-mindriding beasts-seeing, hearing, feeling what they see, hear, feel. It will take time but I think I can find your daughter-if she's anywhere in the city-would that help?-could you get her away?
Her voice steady, her face expressionless, Miowee said, "I like the way it sounds in the original, you could use that as a refrain of sorts; it's meant to be a love song?"
"Yes. The rhythm though, the two langues are very different… I don't know…"
Miowee took the stylus, wrote: Yes. Yes. Yes. I can. I will. Don't ask how. Not even you. If you are playing games with me, I will strangle you. Or something. Somehow. How long?
"If you can shorten the phrase," she said, "Break it into different repeats. Like this maybe." She wrote more, read aloud: Min mudda aksira My saklimo-heh strayed from me A short time ago, an eternity Min Mudda aksira ana ajuana My saklimo-heh sets my soul on fire I thirst for him, I perish from desire
Shadith took the notebook. "I see. Yes, it can be done that way and the phrases would still make sense. But wouldn't the repetition get terribly monotonous? Or… I just had a thought, why not exaggerate that monotony?"
She wrote: No games-don't know how long-depends where she is and how much beastlife there is about-need eyes to look through-can move from mind to mind-can't linger long without base-or see without actual physical eyes-if don't find her before mens. over, be limited to sleeptime search-take lots longer. With luck, could be tomorrow-without, who knows?-want something for this-help to hide-if manage to get away-till rescue. Three of us.
She wrote more, read aloud: Min mudda aksira-o A short time ago Min mudda aksira-i My saklimo-heh strayed from me A short while ago, an eternity Min mudda aksira-o A little week ago Min ana ajuananee Thirst consum-ed me Min ana a'ishashana aree a'rire My saklimo-heh set my soul on fire I thirst for him, I perish from desire
Miowee looked up, smiling, made the Kiskaidish formal-sign for agreement (a pressing of the palms together, a dip of the head), then she reread the last lines. "No, no, Shadow, you've gone over the edge, it just doesn't work." She yawned. "I'm tired, even if we're not going to be working today, let's get some sleep." She pushed the notebook at Shadith. "I think you need to change again. You're showing through that shift."
"Ahhh! What it is to be a woman." Shadith grinned at Miowee, gave her a thumbs-up and took the notebook into the bathroom where she shredded the pages and flushed them away.
Seven days later seven women came for Shadith, gray-haired matrons dressed in heavy black robes, black gloves, black veils thrown over their heads and held in place by a crown of jayshi antlers, the ends fluttering about their knees. They circled her, singing a dirgelike chant, closed in on her and stripped her. They whipped her with soft wool straps the color of fresh blood, a ceremonial scourging. They wrapped her in a bright red blanket, pulled over her head a white jayshi skin painted with sacred patterns and deeply fringed, the fringes splitting over her arms and hanging to mid thigh in front and back. They spun her round and round, then took her from the room. Seven prepubescent girls lifted the kitskew from its case and carried it after the matrons. Seven unmarried maidens wearing long yellow cloths wound about their breasts and loins brought in buckets of purified water and began scrubbing every inch of the cell.
The matrons took Shadith to the Kisa Misthakan and drove her at a trot around the outside of the Great Wall, scourging her as she ran with the red wool straps.
Wearing only thick black blindfolds and black loincloths, two Kam priests swung open the postern gate and stood with their backs to the opening, their faces to the wall, as the matrons led Shadith inside the Purification Court.
At the far end of the octagonal court a large wooden tub steamed gently into the brilliant morning air. The matrons stripped Shadith again, bathed her, stood her on the blanket and anointed skin and hair with perfumed oils, then one of them took black and white paints and soft wood sticks and drew geometric patterns on her face and on her arms and down along her body to her feet. Another unfolded a shift, its fine white cloth billowing in the wind. Three drew it over her head and tied the laces that snugged the bodice against her slight form while the loose skirt fluttered about her legs, brushed against her bare and painted feet. In silence with the others silently following behind, two matrons took her wrists and led her from the court into a lightless maze-she could hear bare feet pattering, hands sliding against stone, siss, siss, the women around her breathing in unison.
This whole thing was beginning to have an odd effect on Shadith. Ancient and rational, of a species able to manipulate such things, fully aware of the way these rituals develop and the reasons behind them, yet she was catching awe and wonder from the women and the girls-perhaps it was the impact of their deep belief in what they were doing, perhaps some sense of the antiquity of this rite. It made her uncomfortable, that feeling, yet it was close to irresistible because there was a part of her that NEEDED to belong to something which would reach out and enfold her. She was lonely; she hadn't let herself think about that, but it was part of her fear of University, of being alone on a whole world with no one who knew her history, no one she could talk to without holding back… she tried to shake off the malaise, but it ate deeper and deeper into her… made her all too susceptible to the power of the rite…
A door boomed open ahead, with the sound of the crashing of thunder, more thunder came, the beat of huge drums, their boom-doom vibrating in the bone.
The matrons brought Shadith into an immense hall, three stories tall, galleries rising rank on rank along the sides, sunbeams slanting into torchlight from twin rows of clerestory windows while incense drifted lazily down from silver censers dangling on silver chains bolted to the ceiling beams. Na-priests in black leather and black wool stood shoulder to shoulder, silent and ominous, filling the lowest gallery, five hundred of them, staring down at her. Above them the second gallery was crowded with Kisar judges and scholars, the wealthiest of the Kawa merchants. Women-Kisar, Kawa, and Plicik-each in their own sections, filled the third gallery. On the floor, Plicik males like beaded peacocks stared with easy arrogance at Shadith and her retinue.
The matrons brought her to the foot of the curved shallow-stepped stair to the altar stage with its Chair of the Gospah and above that the Totem of Oppalatin-an immense maskin carved from some dark tight-grained wood, rearing on his hind legs, reaching out with silver claws extruded and gleaming, as if to at once embrace and threaten the accembled believers. The women backed away from her and lay on the crimson carpet, their faces pressed to the wool, their arms outstretched. The girl-children with the kitskew came timidly forward, placed it on the lowest step, then backed away and dropped flat behind the matrons.
The Gospah Ayawit stood beside his Chair, a massive backless banc with the form in abstract of a maskin crouching, carved from the same wood as the Totem. He beat his staff on a wooden soundboard beside his feet, "Opplatin Awashoneeotehiya'asewacikapiyah," he intoned in the liquid heart-rhythm of the ancient langue. "Oppla's bounty blessings be. Well done, Omisa, Otanisan. Depart now, your work is complete." He brought the staff down again, stood waiting while the matrons and the girls got to their feet and backed out, spines arched, heads bowed over hands pressed together, fingers up. When they were gone, he stood smiling benignly down at Shadith. "Prepare, O Nikamo-Oskinin, prepare." A third time he set the board booming. "Ni-tahwaikis."