Worldcon and Snippet 3

Still here in San Jose although the convention ended an hour ago.  Tomorrow I fly home.

On the whole, it went  well.  Oh, there were little glitches, but there always are.  I think some 7,000 people showed up.  The panels I attended were good and the one with Peter S. Beagle ("Why Do Writers Kill Characters?")  was superb -- very thoughful and moving.  In general I got very positive vibes from other writers, a reminder that writing is supposed to be fun.  (So why do I find it so hard?)  My autographing and reading were both well attended.  The series panel drew a massive audience, much too big for the room.  Did it go well?  I was too stressed out to tell.  I did manage to say a few things, despite an incipient row between an older white male writer and a younger female writer sitting next to me.  Some of the questions I would have asked if I had still been moderator were brought up, but nothing about the costs of living with a long series for years.  My impression was that the others hadn't shared my experiences, not all of which have been good.  Perhaps I can do the panel again at another con with a different, more balanced slant.

Anyway, here is the third part of my reading:

Jame felt, at last, a rising twinge of anger. Her fists clenched, nails pricking into palms.
“Those who know me best do not say such things.”
He sneered, although one corner of his mouth twitched.  More dancers broke stride, looking confused.
“The Master sought immortality,” he said, his voice rising in a harangue to reclaim his followers.  “Perhaps he did not get exactly what he wanted, but why should we not? Souls are cheap.  Everybody has one.  Most will sell them for the right price.  Look at the people who first volunteered theirs for this great experiment. City lords, hill chieftains, even some from our own temple.”
“What?” said Titmouse.
“Oh yes.  Your so-called missing priests, from among those who came with me from the Riverland.  I told them the truth.  They trusted me.  Who are you to say that they did not get what they wanted?  Part of them will live forever, or at least until they run out of inferior souls on which to feed.  What are mere bodies compared to that?  The strongest survive.  Gerridon taught us that.  Do you think yourself wiser than he?”
“I think that he is a selfish moron,” said Jame, “trying to bend forces beyond his control who in turn seek to make him their creature, their one voice.”
“Blasphemy!”
He raised his hands again and brought them sharply down.  The dancing priests converged on the center, except for those who had hesitated.
Jame pushed Loogan to the wall, out of the way.
“But Gorgo…!”
“Trust me.”
The dancers circled Jame, trying to draw her into their pattern.  Turn, cup the air with a hand to gain command of it, slide forward and back with a foot to draw in power, turn again, release…. 
A blast of wind made Jame stagger.  It stank of singed power.  Oh, where was the Tishooo when she needed him?  Not in this enclosed space.
The priests were in motion again, circling, circling, and the room seemed to spin with them.
“Dance, puppet, dance!” cried Ishtier, clapping his hands.
He might have signaled the change in the Sene, from Senetha to Senethar, from dance to fight.  An acolyte sprang at Jame – she recognized him as the one who had shoved her when last she had been here.  She channeled aside his fire-leaping kick, scooped up his leg and dropped him backward on his head.
“Next?”
The high priest hastily clapped again.
The Great Dance once more gripped the room, commanding body and soul.  Jame felt it tug at her senses, but brushed it off with a wind-blowing shrug of the mind. Trinity, but she was tempted to use this game against them as she had once before (oh, so irresponsibly) to enthrall guests at the Res aB’tyrr. 
Turn, sway, reap their souls, as the Dream-weaver would have done, as she had been taught to do by golden-eyed wraiths under shadows’ eaves….
No.  That was the role for which the Master had bred her.  She was not nor would she ever be his puppet.
The swirl of dancers brought her back face to face with Titmouse.
“I don’t understand,” he said.  They mirrored each other in the Senetha that in itself mirrors the Great Dance, but on a less potent level.  “Why would the Master want you, a thief, a tavern wench?”
“Torisen Highlord is my twin brother and I am his heir.” Speak truth to this man, her instincts told her, even while caution whispered, Shanir! “Gerridon is my uncle.  Own mother was Jamethiel Dream-weaver.”
Two priests, fighting, parted them. Ishtier’s control was breaking down. Jame used water-flowing to pass between the combatants.  The high priest was screaming.  The room seemed to tilt.
Here, back, was Titmouse.
“Also, I think that I’m one of the Tyr-ridan,” she shouted at him over the uproar.
Some of the dissident priests had formed a line, arms linked, and were dancing together.  Stomp, stomp, stomp, kick; stomp, stomp, stomp, kick.
“Which one?”
“Regonereth.  That-Which-Destroys.”
“Oh.  Who are the other two?”
“Torisen and our first cousin Kindrie, whose father was Gerridon, but I don’t hold that against him.  We three are the last pure blooded Knorth.”
Titmouse stopped.  Priests bounced off his sudden wall of stillness.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Would you say such things to just anyone?”
She spoke in a startled lull, louder than she had intended.  Priests stared at her.
“What?”
Titmouse grabbed Gorgo out of his steaming bowl and stuffed him, all flailing limbs, into his pocket.  “Come on,” he said, catching Jame and Loogan each by an arm and hustling them out of the hall.
A shadowy figure leaned against the wall opposite, greeting them with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, go away,” Titmouse snarled at it, and swatted a clot of cobwebs out of his path.