Burying the Shadow (24 page)

For a while, I
sat upon the rock by his side, listening to the concluding calls of
the rite outside. Soon, there was silence, for the men had melted
out of the glade, and gone to hunt among the grasses, sure in their
hearts they were the supernatural scions of a god.

A single
candle shivered in the cave, illuminating the still contours of the
holy man lying on the rock. Blood had soaked into the shroud like
water into a sponge. The stains looked like a map of the world -
not this world, but some other, unknown place. As I watched, the
countries grew, rising up from an ocean of dark warmth.

I lifted the
shroud away from his face. He did not feel it. He was deep inside
what the Tappish call the soulscape. I had him to myself. I could
do whatever I liked with this man. Sweet pleasures. The body I
inhabited quivered with interest. I, as a black silhouette against
the feeble light, leaned over the shaman. I could see myself from
all angles at once; attenuated, sleek, powerful. I kissed his lips,
just once, and he exhaled abruptly through his nose, like someone
coming awake from a deep sleep. Then I cast back the shroud from
his chest and began to lick the skin.

The sweet
ichor tasted of paint - an earthy, chalky tang. Gently, once the
skin was clean, I sucked each wound the knives had made and the
pure essence filled my mouth. My body awoke with a concentrated,
keening tingle, while he, unable to resist the delicious thrill of
my touch, filled up with desire. My head was aching, but in that
moment, I was as fully alive as a person can be, bursting with
energy and sheer joy. I let him wake as our bodies joined, knowing
all he could see was a dark shape above him, thinking me some
avatar of the night, some incubus bringing him the forbidden thrill
of unholy union. I told him, so quietly, that our communion was
holier than all others, and he believed me utterly. Who would not?
The evidence of sensation proved my words.

I rode him
into the vales of ecstasy, urging him onwards with my thighs as if
he was a horse between my legs. Stretch for the fastest gallop.
Stretch. Gallop faster than time, my beloved victim. He ran till
his heart would burst with the effort, and then I jumped him
through the flame, releasing the reins of constraint.

His cry of
repletion was a woman’s scream, a woman in childbirth, a woman
dying.

He asked me:
‘Who are you?’ and I bent once more to lick the drying wounds.

‘A traveller,’
I said, ‘who begs forgiveness for intruding upon your rite.’

‘Why ask
forgiveness when you were such an essential part of it?’ he
said.

I saw he was
an intelligent man, and pious. I did not answer, but smiled in the
dying candlelight. He began to speak, as I had anticipated, of the
bizarre things he had seen the past few days, and how my appearance
seemed just another inexplicable strangeness. Would I vanish away
with morning? I shook my head. No, I would not.

‘And yet, I
feel you are some part of the strangeness in the world,’ he said,
wondering.

I would not
commit myself entirely. ‘Maybe, I have seen things too,’ I said,
‘and maybe I can interpret some of them.’

‘Tell me,’ he
said, but I kept quiet on that subject.

‘The tribes
look towards the Taps now for help,’ I said.

‘Some do, but
not I,’ he replied sternly. ‘It might be that the activities of the
soulscapers are the cause of the disruptions.’

I shook my
head. ‘Oh no, they are not.’

‘Are you a
soulscaper?’ he asked, suspicious.

‘Not at all.
Would that I were, for you need one.’

‘Do I? By what
authority do you say these words?’

‘My own, but
it is true.’

‘Well, there
are dozens of them roaming about. Shall I kidnap the next one I
see?’

I laughed.
‘Not the next one, sweet shaman. I will tell you which one.’

‘How do you
know?’

‘Easy. You
see, in essence, there is only one and already her feet are leading
her towards you.’

‘You know
her?’

‘Yes, though
she doesn’t know me. I will tell you about her.’

In fact, I
told him very little, but it was enough for my purposes,
nevertheless.

Rayojini

‘
With even step and
musing gait, and looks commercing with the skies, thy rapt soul
sitting in thine eyes…’

From ‘Il
Penseroso, Milton

Once I left the town
of Yf, the Khaltish plains were warmed by a ghost of summer;
magically, the clouds moved southwards, leaving the sky as blue and
scintillant as polished sapphire. It was as if, once Harof’s soul
had been freed, a foul and predatory breath that had been souring
the air passed on.

Mouraf had
insisted on loading me up with goods; food, items for barter and,
suggested by Annec, a stone plaque, which had been elaborately
etched with my mother’s name the night before. Heavily laden, I bid
farewell to the Yflings, and to silence their entreaties, I agreed
to return in the spring, and join in with the celebrations of their
vernal religious festival. It was a lie, for, in my heart, I knew I
would not return, no matter how much I would have liked to. Since I
had stood in Mouraf’s yard and faced the wind, since I had
acknowledged that something,
something
, was stirring in the
world, if not in the soulscape as well, I knew I had taken hold of
the tail of a dark and slippery serpent, one which may well turn
and bite me, fatally, before I could analyse its venom.

The night
before, I had lain awake into the chill hours before dawn,
thinking, yes, yes, it will become clear to me, it is getting
clearer
now
. Secure in my soulscaping philosophies, I was
convinced that simply by
deciding
to look for an answer to
the soul-shreddings, the non-deaths, I was sure to find it. The
hunt itself was an irresistible compulsion because, as someone who
stripped bare the most secret imaginings of the human mind, I
disliked mysteries. However, the very nature of the predatory force
I had encountered in Harof’s withered soulscape meant there had to
be dangers - the biggest danger being my lack of information about
it. I could only hope there was a simple explanation, but I was not
without unease as I made my goodbyes in Yf.

Very soon,
however, the bright warmth of the day banished my nocturnal
misgivings, and once out on the road, striding west into the narrow
mountain range that girdled the lower plains, my spirits were
soaring along with the wide-winged birds that rode the thermal
breezes, high above. Maybe there were new gods up there, too,
winging their way east on the wind.

By noon the
following day, I was already leaving the mountains behind. There
had been little climbing, as the trails were well defined and often
trod. An old woman lived in a cabin on a shelf of rock, where I
paused for the night, but she had few tales to tell, other than the
usual gossips of weddings and funerals, none of which were remotely
interesting. She did have a little icon, however, which she claimed
had been left as payment by a traveller, some days before, for a
night’s lodging.

‘And who is
this?’ I asked her, picking up the crude carving.

She made a
sacred sign - a new one - and said, ‘One of the lost children,
madam, one of the lost.’

I replaced the
carving in its niche. ‘Does he have a name?’

‘She has no
name. Not yet.’

It was not
really an uncommon thing to find.

I resumed my journey
and made quick progress to the other side of the mountains. Nothing
untoward occurred, and neither did I uncover any mysteries. In
fact, I was beginning to wonder whether my dire premonitions in Yf
had been nothing more than an emotional reaction to the unpleasant
procedure I’d had to initiate with Harof.

Before me, the
seemingly interminable plains of western Khalt, known as the Kahra
Flats, rolled out to the horizon; the place where nomads roamed,
and soulscapers trod carefully. Vast herds of beasts sailed the sea
of waving grasses, which was hissing in the balmy breeze and
shaking its feathery autumn tassels; the air was full of downy
seeds. As I descended the foothills, I could see the plain was
laced with the darker ribbons of flattened roads, where the great
caravans from the Delta Lands carried their exotic produce to
Bochanegra and the northwest. It was the first time I had travelled
this way, having confined my activities to Lansaal and Atruriey for
most of my career. This was a wild and beautiful place, which
although flat was blanketed in places by thick forest.
Occasionally, there would be areas where eastern Khalts had come to
farm the land, defending their territory from any nomads who
objected to the Flats being enclosed. Settlers tended to be wary of
travellers, because it was not unknown for nomad scouts to disguise
themselves as southerners in order to penetrate the farmsteads and
sow poison in the grain or water. Having been alerted of this by
other soulscapers, I kept to the roads, ignoring any narrower
tracks that would lead to settlements. Nomads, on the other hand,
were gregarious, and generally welcoming to strangers, as long as
their rather unpredictable and superstitious instincts weren’t
aroused, and they didn’t feel threatened. I was amply stocked with
currency and victuals, so had no immediate necessity to ply my
trade. Therefore, I intended to mingle with the nomads as much as
possible, posing as a simple tinker with goods to barter in the
west. This was not because I yearned for company but because I
sought clues to the non-deaths. If anything of that nature had
occurred among the nomads, they were bound to have exaggerated it
and invested it with all kinds of ominous significance.

Chewing on a
sweet plucked stem of honey-grass, I was sauntering dreamily along
one of the wide roadways, when I came across my first group of
nomads. It was a glorious morning, the sun beating down from a
cloudless sky onto the drying grasses that were shoulder-high
beyond the road. Lizards and small rodents skittered across the
path in front of me, diving from one stand of grasses to the next.
I felt full of optimism; the world was a beautiful place and I,
that morning, was its centre. I had been happily visualising myself
returning to Taparak with the reason for the non-death, and its
solution, written concisely in my notebook. It would presage a new
age for soulscaping; all scapers would be summoned, from around the
world, to discuss my findings, and new techniques would have to be
developed and implemented. The daughter of Ushas would leave her
mark upon history; she would change the course of soulscaping
itself. I was quite content to be alone with these cosy thoughts;
so much so, that the noise of approaching people was a source of
indignant irritation, at first. The chaotic sounds of the nomad
troupe, moving down a sidetrack to join the main path, assaulted my
peace long before I could actually see them.

It was
customary for the head shaman to lead a tribe line, chanting
rhythmically to dispel any demons blocking the road ahead. I
identified the tall and feral-looking creature who first appeared
before me as being of this category. He stepped out from the minor
track, stooping in a hunter’s crouch and warily scanning the road.
Although I had stopped walking, and was standing only feet away
from where he had emerged, with an expression on my face that must
have registered displeasure, the shaman made no sign that he had
seen me. He warily stamped his left foot, which summoned the rest
of his troupe. His immediate acolytes - trainees, wise women and
smoke-readers - filed out behind him, shaking rattles and ringing
handbells. Next, came the ritual dancers, swaying slowly to the
rhythm of the chant, stamping and turning, with expressions of
intense concentration on their faces. They milled in an unorganised
crowd, absorbing me into their midst, yet there was still no
recognisable communication between us. Finally, the remainder of
the tribe appeared through the tassels of grass, children racing up
and down beside the more intent adults. Goats, mules and long-eared
sheep wandered haphazardly among the group, bleating and chewing,
and there were skinny, furtive hounds with cautiously wagging
tails. Only the dogs took any notice of me, warily sniffing my
clothes before backing away. I began to smile; never had I
encountered such a chaotic social entity as this.

Then, the
shaman raised a pointing finger in my direction, and for a moment
or two, the performance of his followers intensified, with much
shrieking and shaking of rattles; women lamented at the sky,
lifting their hair with clawed fingers.

I folded my
arms and watched, tempted to applaud, but wise enough not to risk
offending them.

Eventually,
the shaman must have realised enough was enough, and raised his
hand above his head. Everyone stopped leaping, groaning and
wriggling, in order to stare at me. To a person more nervous than
me, it would have been a terrifying sight. I stepped forward and
touched my brow and my lips with steepled fingers, addressing them
in the ubiquitous Middle Khalt. ‘Glad day, sir, to you and your
people.’

He replied in
a brutish tongue, pig-Khalt or somesuch, which I could barely
understand. Gestures accompanied the speech, which sounded low and
angry, much like the language used by the Abomina Priests of
Lansaal, a minority cult, among whom the acts of self-denial and
self-mutilation were much loved. The shaman was an impressive
sight. Like all Khaltish seers, he wore the tangled garb of a
priestess, and might even have been a eunuch. The Khalts, like the
Taps, often feel moved to emasculate themselves when ascending to a
higher plane of communication with the soulscape. His skinny,
well-muscled body showed through rents in his robes. Grasses and
flower stems had been woven through other threadbare areas, along
with shells of many sizes (from the shores of the Bitter Lakes, no
doubt), long shiny feathers from the tails of birds, and hanks of
hair, whose origin I preferred not to think too deeply about. After
waving his arms and grumbling incomprehensibly for a few moments,
he made a dismissive gesture with his hands and then spoke a few
gruff words to one of his acolytes, a young girl carrying a tabor
thick with rattle plates. She nodded and then addressed me directly
in halting, yet perfectly enunciated Tappish.