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he caught hold of Kaya s hand and led her after Shadith....
The cats writhing about him, Kikun danced his shimmer-dance, putting aside the
stamps and turns beaten into him by the priests. Shiver and shimmer he moved
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slowly after Shadith and Rohant, holding the feed steady, maintaining the flow
from the pilgrim trance into Shadith so she could keep that trance going, keep
the illusion there to pin the eyes of everyone and let them walk away....
Using the hallucinated THREE to open a way for them ...
Nikamo-Oskinin twenty stories tall, bending to sweepher illusory, fingers
through the pilgrims ... Shadith struggled across the floor of the crater
... exhausted, running on the dregs of her strength, emptying herself to keep
the trance in place, the
IMAGES whole and pres-ent ... she won one meter, two, three, ten, twenty ...
the Firedeath at her back
... pulling endurance out of a consuming terror, she drove herself on and on
... playing the kitskew till her fingers bled ... singing the same song over
and over....
WATCHER 13
1
Ginbiryol Seyirshi watched the Invocation begin, then switched his attention
to the prisoners. All that chanting and hopping around, it was boring, the
kind of thing one might expect from that woman the girl was going to meet,
that xenoethnologist, boring, boring, boring. Most of it he would have to
throw out, maybe keep a little for the color and of course one could always
sweeten the scenes by mixing in the pulsing terror from the girl. Ahhh, she
was afraid, ah yesss, she was sick with horror. He touched the test-sensors on
the pathecorder and smiled as he felt a lump of horror/terror/fury grow inside
him; he savored the sour flavor of her nausea. Yes. Fire and death. Ahhh, that
would be splendid. Firedeath. He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the
burning in anticipa-tion, smelling the meat....
2
The second day started out more interesting and im-proved as it progressed,
especially after the girl began singing. He listened to that soaring voice,
contemplated the shining youth of the singer, so sweeet, so tennnder-and on
the verge of ceasing to exist. Exquisite pathos. He could see his clients
weeping at the sadness of her fate, reveling in every nuance of her pain. They
were a sentimental lot. Which was just as well if they were not they would not
pay his prices.
In the early afternoon when the resonance was born between the singer and the
pilgrims and began to build and build, he was elated; the charge coming
through the EYEs was so strong it was close to blowing the circuits
of the pathecorder. His connoisseurs of emotion would be ecstatic.
When he saw the giant Holos form, he laughed aloud and murmured encouragement,
tender nothings, loving nonsense. So good, so good, a phenomenal finale,
blessed be the Lady for sending you to me....
3
A moment later he was scowling as Shadith began slogging slowly and painfully
down the ramp, then
across the crater floor, forcing her way through the pilgrims, heading for the
broken section of the crater wall where the Road came in, the Cicipi Gate.
Kikun, Rohant, and his beasts were following her. That, that.... He looked
around as if the answer to handling her was pinned on the wall somewhere. He
was alone, Ajeri was in the gym, and Puk was still tucked away in the tranx
web. He rubbed his hands together, glared up at the Pet whose chatter was
beginning to irritate him. He didn t need them. He knew the kephalos better
than anyone, it just took time....
Stroking his thumbnail over his chin and down along his throat, he
contemplated Cell 1. She was halfway across the crater already, the others
plowing along be-hind her, the Holos of the local demigods dancing a stately
pavane above them, the pilgrims swaying and ululating, lost in a trance so
deep they were blind to everything but the towering images moving over their
heads. He examined the readouts and frowned. What was pouring off the locals
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was beginning to move beyond the capacity of the pathecorder circuits, even of
the kephalos itself. Triggered, he thought, by the Three, especially the girl
and that odd little lizardman. Despite the strain of his instruments, it was
good. It was very good. Better than anything he d expected to capture.
Fascinating, the synergy developed by those Three.
He unfolded Cell 2, the one assigned to Rohant, emp-tied it out and sent the
POV dancing from EYE
to EYE, the scene careening here and there, front and back, side to side, as
he tried to decide what to do; he did not want to break the trance and lose
the dancing demigods, they were going to make this
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