Burying the Shadow (12 page)

‘Any change?’
my mother asked her as she passed.

The woman
shook her head.

Ushas sighed
and walked over to the bed. I followed her. The boy looked dead;
his skin was bluish white, the lips colourless, the eye sockets
dark as if bruised. He was so thin. His hair looked like a
discarded switch of tangled straw on the pillow. Ushas bent down
and raised his body a little way off the bed and I saw that much of
his hair remained on the pillow as she did so. An evil whiff of
sickness filled the air. My stomach knotted; I had never seen
anyone as ill as this.

Ushas examined
his body and then lowered him back down. ‘Is it the Fear?’ I
asked.

She turned and looked
at me - oh, how I remember her face in that moment - and just
shrugged.
She cannot help him
, I thought,
she cannot heal
him.
I felt faint.

‘Physically, I
can find nothing amiss,’ she said. ‘And in the soulscape ...’ She
rubbed her face with long fingers, and then tucked her braids back
behind her ears. ‘If it is the Fear, then I came too late, and yet
the Tricantes swear his condition wasn’t that serious until just
before we arrived. Otherwise, they would have dragged in a
soulscaper off the street, I’m sure! I can’t understand it. His
father says the boy was simply listless, and prone to night
terrors. Local healers suggested it was a growing sickness - it can
happen - and that a good soulscaper could straighten out his mind
to face adulthood. But this, this is not a growing sickness.’

‘What did you
find in the soulscape?’ I asked, curiosity overwhelming
squeamishness.

Ushas actually
shuddered at the memory. ‘Every day I go in there,’ she said
softly. ‘Every day. It is a dead landscape. Utterly dead. I’m at a
loss for what to do.’

‘Have you told
the parents?’

She shook her
head. ‘I can’t give up yet.’

‘Do you want
me to accompany you today?’

She smiled
wearily and shook her head. ‘No, Rayo. I don’t want you in there
with me; you don’t have the experience for this yet. I just wanted
you to see, that’s all. It is not very often that we come across a
case like this, but it’s likely you will encounter one yourself, in
the future, and I think it’s important for you to be able to
recognise the external appearance. Now, I will burn the resin, and
I want you to wait outside until I’m in trance. Then, come back in,
and take away the resin bowl. Observe. Will you do that?’

I nodded, and
turned to the door. Pausing with my hand on the latch, I said, ‘Is
it possible to cure cases like these?’

Ushas was busying
herself with the resin bowl and her tinder. She did not look round.
‘There is always a first time,’ she said.

The tutors
never tell us of this condition. It is almost as if they want to
deny it exists. Older soulscapers take it upon themselves to
educate their juniors about it. I waited outside Salyon’s door,
until I was sure my mother was heavily in trance. Then, I quietly
re-entered the room, holding my breath, so as not to risk becoming
tranced myself, and put the resin-bowl out on the window ledge,
dousing it with a little water I found in a flagon on a table by
the bed. I left the window open and breathed the fresh air, until
the pungent scaping-smoke had thinned. Ushas was sitting on the
floor, straight-backed, breathing evenly. The boy was motionless as
before. I leaned against the windowsill and watched. Occasionally,
Ushas would curl her lips into a snarl, and twitch, but there was
no other sign of distress. After an hour, she sighed deeply, and
her head sank onto her breast. Then she looked up and blinked at
me, with a faint smile. Her face had an unnaturally purplish tinge
in the dark hollows of her cheeks.

‘I am not
without hope,’ she said. I went over and helped her to her
feet.

‘What did you
find?’ I asked, bringing her a cup of water.

She drank it
before answering. ‘A small and frightened shred of consciousness,’
she said.

We hugged each
other. Perhaps, tomorrow, she could coax that shred out of
hiding.

Ushas did not
ask for my company again, and the next day Liviana informed me I
was to be given a treat. ‘What treat is this?’ I asked.

She tapped her
nose. ‘Aha! Wait and see. Let me lend you some clothes; you must
look your best!’

I went along
to her dressing room, where we spent considerable time primping and
preening, accompanied by much hysterical laughter. Liviana had not
asked me how her brother was, which I thought was a little strange.
She was such a warm person; I could not understand why she wasn’t
more concerned about poor Salyon. When I began to tell her that
Ushas was hopeful about his condition, she changed the subject. It
was very odd.

Once we were
ready to go out, Agnestia arrived. Her sophisticated calm was
tempered by a flush of excitement in her cheeks. Livvy had dressed
me in a simple, yet beautiful gown of dark ruby velvet that left my
shoulders bare and hugged my figure like a glove, prompting
Agnestia to exclaim, ‘Oh, how that suits you, Rayo dear! You look
like a Deltan princess!’ She leaned towards me confidentially.
‘Now, my dear, we are going on a little adventure. You must promise
you won’t breathe a word about it to anyone - especially our
parents!’

‘Promise!’
Livvy said, clutching my arm.

I shrugged,
slightly unnerved by the feverish joy in the other girls’ eyes.
‘Very well,’ I said.

Agnestia stood
back. ‘Good! Outsiders aren’t generally allowed where we’re going,
but because you’re just a girl, and some people are curious about
soulscapers, I’ve been requested to present you.’

‘Present me
where?’ I asked her. ‘Where are we going exactly?’ I wondered, with
a flicker of delighted dread, whether it was the court of the
Kaliph, or somewhere equally grand.

Agnestia
smiled broadly. ‘To the atelier courts,’ she replied.

I had already
gathered that the creative people of Sacramante were held in an
almost holy high regard. Artists and musicians were courted like
royalty. Still, I could understand why they were so celebrated;
talent oozed from the very walls of the city. We drove to the
atelier courts in one of the family carriages. All the artisans
lived in this area; it was a city within a city. Tall black gates
admitted us to the hushed, reverent atmosphere, where soaring
buildings blotted out the sky. The streets, in comparison to
Sacramante proper, were weirdly quiet and devoid of people.
Agnestia explained that the artisans needed tranquillity in which
to work, and that the outside world was excluded very deliberately.
Around us, high, balconied houses, many with glass roofs,
surrounded open courts, which were occasionally ceilinged by thick,
ancient rose-vines growing over trellises. There were many still
pools crusted with lilies, but no fountains. Livvy told me how the
richest Sacramantan families patronised the artisans of the city,
be they musicians, actors, poets or sculptors, and that the
Tricantes had an interest in many of these people.

The carriage
came to a halt outside a huge house of matt black stone, whose
front doors were at least four times the height of a man. Giant
trees rustled all around us, but there was hardly any other sound.
The door was opened to us by a uniformed serving-woman, whose apron
was of the most exquisite lace I had ever seen. We were ushered
inside the building. Here, I was silenced by the holy air of the
atelier; its entrance hall possessed all the sombreness of the most
ancient and brooding of cathedrals. Our shoes tapped obscenely loud
upon the glossy, wooden floor. I asked whose house this was, and
Livvy whispered back that the building comprised many fine
apartments, and that over fifty artisans lived there. Agnestia told
me we were going to visit the apartment of a famous singer named
Hadith Sarim - a fabulously exotic name that had an arcane feel
upon the tongue.

The
serving-woman took us up two flights of stairs. Handsome statues of
semi-naked elemental spirits reposed in niches and the walls were
covered in tapestries and paintings. Light fell down the stairwell
from far above, slightly green in colour, because vines were
growing over the skylights. I was amazed at the silence. Surely,
there should be sounds of instruments being played, voices
practising their scales or learning theatrical parts. Obviously, I
knew very little about the creative process. The serving-woman, our
guide, paused before a pair of double doors on the third floor
landing and pulled on a bell-rope. I heard it ringing sonorously
inside. The doors were opened, a small way, by another woman
wearing domestic uniform. She conferred in whispers with our guide,
and then asked us into the apartment.

The opulence
within was understated, and thus more impressive. We entered a
beautiful salon, whose polished wooden floor was covered only by a
modest circular rug, of black and red silk, near the hearth. The
white walls were hung with tapestries, worked in the style favoured
by Deltan carpet-makers; simple designs in palest ochre, blue and
gold. Huge round windows, set with stained glass that matched the
hangings and rug, let in a kaleidoscope of muted light. Hadith
herself came into the room as we entered, through a door opposite.
I had never seen such a striking and unusual-looking woman. Her
skin was utterly white, proclaiming that something other than
Bochanegran blood ran in her veins. She was framed from neck to
waist in long, white hair, which suggested age, yet her face was
young, and she wore a bright red robe that almost made the eyes
ache; a redness echoed in her thin, pencilled lips and in the
painted dots at the corner of each slanted eye. Her eyes, when I
first looked, appeared dark yellow. While Agnestia made
introductions, I hovered uncertainly in the background. In my own
country, my mother was a celebrity, but here, we were nobodies. I
did not feel comfortable with that. Then, as the serving woman was
taking our cloaks, the Sarim fixed me with a cat’s stare and said,
‘Ah, you must be the young soulscaper! How privileged I am to offer
you my hospitality!’ At which I felt considerably more important,
and relaxed enough to change my body posture to one of
communication and interest. Hadith came and touched my elbow
lightly, directing me to a seat. ‘When Agnestia told me the
Tricantes had soulscapers to stay, I just had to indulge my
curiosity and have her bring you here! What an intriguing life you
must lead!’

‘Well... not
really.’ I was dazzled by her presence. ‘I haven’t finished my
training yet.’

‘You have such
beautiful eyes!’

I felt my face
grow hot. There was something uncomfortably intimate in Hadith’s
manner, an intimacy I was unfamiliar with.

We sat down on
plump, rug-strewn couches, and the serving-woman brought us watered
wine and biscuits. Hadith Sarim did not eat or drink anything.
Everyone was speaking of the opening of a new play the following
evening. It was a certainty that everyone who was anyone would be
there. Naturally, the Tricantes had booked a balcony at the
coliseum, and both my mother and I would be able to attend. Hadith
Sarim had a cameo piece in the production. She was to play a breeze
and would sing accordingly as she blew across a representation of
an empty street, where the
prima donna
actress would be
lamenting the loss of her soul. ‘The production should be of
interest to you,’ the Sarim told me. ‘In a way, it concerns your
profession.’

I was
flattered by Hadith’s attention. She confessed to a fascination
with soulscaping and asked me to tell her of it. All I could do was
relate some of the experiences I had had during my training; the
training methods themselves, of course, were secret.

‘It must be
very similar to making love with a close, close friend,’ Hadith
declared, interrupting one of my stories. ‘To be one, in that way:
it is more than sex, of course. I have an empathy with that.’

I could not
comment. Virgin still, my face flamed. She noticed, of course she
did, and smiled. Mercifully, she did not speak.

Rayojini

‘
At once delight
and horror on us seize…’

From ‘On
Paradise Lost’, Milton

Even Ushas seemed
excited by the prospect of a visit to the theatre. She had told me,
when I returned from the Sarim atelier, that her work with Salyon
was progressing; very slowly, but it was still progress. She said
she would welcome an evening’s entertainment, away from the
concerns of an addled soulscape. I did not tell her about my visit
to the house of Sarim, not because I feared she might inform the
Tricante parents, but for some other, deeper reason. Once I had
departed Hadith’s presence, my awe of her had lessened but it left
a potent residue behind. The thought of that pale, enchanting
woman, with her hint of hidden menace, made me feel absurdly
excited. I did not want to see her again, exactly, but I wanted to
think about her all the time.

There was a
great deal of feminine fussing during those blissful hours before
we all trouped out to the coliseum. Breathless with anticipation, I
let Livvy drape me in her clothes, giddy from the dabs of sharp
scent behind my ears. In comparison to the loose, swaggery clothes
of Taparak, Sacramantan attire had felt very uncomfortable to me,
and the evening wear was even worse, but once harnessed into silk
and sashes, I felt so adult and willowy, discomfort was a minor
concern. Livvy had pinned my hair into a stiff black net, studded
with jet; my eye-sockets had been subtly shaded with shiny, dark
green powder, my lips with scarlet clay-sugar.

‘Everyone will
be there! Everyone!’ Liviana cried, dancing around her room,
spreading out a lacy black fan and peeking over its taut vanes.

The two
cousins, Perdina and Voile, emerged from their sanctuary, dressed
in white, their black hair loose like curtains around their pale,
narrow faces. The men, comparatively dull beings in this house of
female finery, were dashing nonetheless in tight clothes of
viridian and iron blue, gold earrings glinting among the oiled
ringlets around their shoulders. We all bundled into the Tricante
carriages; torches spitting white sparks at rear and start,
polished horses caparisoned in satiny leather shifting restlessly
in their harness. And then, crammed into the carriage, ear-high in
crushed satin, lace and silk-net, we were off, trotting swiftly out
of the Tricante court into the aromatic, torch-lit night. My heart
was beating so fast, I could actually hear it echoing in my ears,
and my face felt on fire with excitement. Agnestia produced a
silver flask of vicious brandy, which she passed around the
carriage, making her mother scold and laugh.