“I strained to get a hand to my face, but my arms were tight to my sides. I was rolled up in a grass blanket. Two people were carrying me, I thought. And it seemed like we were going uphill. I listened.The motion stopped. They laid me down on turfy ground. I picked up a few words; it was 2JS saying something about how he’d invited all these people here as part of his penance and that he was offering a deer to the fastest among them, with more profuse apologies and plans for a more elaborate fest...ival in the near future. Stupidly, I felt embarrassed for 2JS and the whole Harpy House, even though they were going to kill me. I flipped over four times as the blankets unrolled. Air. It was like diving into cool alcohol. I was on my back, on a canvas ground-cloth under bright torchlight. A wave of jeer/cheers rose up on all sides and cut off as though someone had given a sign. There were four beats of silence and then a chorus of “We far below you thank you over us,” in the high aristocratic voices of thirty or forty young k’iik’ob’—literally, “bloods.”MoreLessRead More Read Less
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