Burying the Shadow (26 page)

‘You think it
is something to do with soulscape phantoms, no doubt.’

‘It is
possible, but I am not convinced. I do think whatever
is
happening has been brewing for a long time, though; for years,
maybe.’ I took a drink from the cup and it was not bad; sweet and
fiery.

Q’orveh drank
also. ‘I have found many strange things in my path,’ he said, and
he was looking beyond me at the youth sitting against the tepee
flap. I shivered.

‘Perhaps such
things should be left upon the path and not picked up,’ I replied
lightly, and buried my nose in the cup. Perhaps I had been too
forward. I could feel the boy’s attention quicken; the needles had
become daggers.
Think what you like
, I thought.
You
cannot harm me, boy.
I visualised a light of protection around
my body and the effects of his personal power dwindled instantly; I
no longer ached from unseen darts.

‘Sometimes, we
have no choice in the matter,’ Q’orveh said. ‘Sometimes, it is
destiny.’

‘I prefer to
shape my own destiny,’ I said, hoping he wouldn’t be offended.

He shrugged.
‘Each to their own beliefs. So, tell me what you have seen and
heard concerning strange events.’

I was
reluctant to tell him. It had been remiss of me not to realise he
would believe himself to be the interrogator, rather than be
content to answer my questions. The non-deaths were soulscaper
business. I groped around for something to say. ’Well... as you
have said, people talk of spirits in the air, evil spirits
perhaps...’

Q’orveh
laughed. ‘I am not a fool, woman! Soulscapers don’t believe in
spirits! What have you heard? Tell me!’

‘Strange
deaths,’ I said dryly.

‘And what is
strange about them?’

I had been
staring at the rug beneath me, now I looked up and fixed him with
what was intended to be a commanding stare. He was smiling back at
me. I had been stupid to underestimate him. ‘Q’orveh, there are
some things I cannot speak of that are connected with my craft.
Please respect this.’

He frowned and
nodded, waved a hand at me. ‘Of course. Tell me what you can.’

‘Deaths that
are not deaths.’

‘The dead
walk.’

‘Not
exactly.’

‘But they
do!’

I closed my
eyes and made an assuaging gesture. ‘As you wish. I have a feeling,
Q’orveh, that there are predators about.’

We looked at
each other keenly; it was a long, long moment. He would have nodded
at me, but obviously couldn’t, and merely blinked at me twice.

‘Soulscape
predators?’ he asked lightly, as if I was the one with the
ridiculously superstitious belief system.

‘Acting
through people, maybe. I can’t explain. But something.’ Even as I
talked to him, ideas were tumbling through my head; he was just a
sounding board.
Yes!
I thought,
soulscape predators, a
consensual enemy, a mind sickness of vast proportions, passed from
person to person like a disease. Maybe?

‘So, in your
wisdom, soulscaper, what do you suggest we do?’

His question
took me off-guard. ‘I will have to observe,’ I said.

‘Mmm, we don’t
know what to do either,’ he answered, with a kindly smile.

Q’orveh was
handsome. I wanted him, and even once he’d made it clear our
business was over for the time being, I hung around making light
conversation in the hope that he would reciprocate. My own voice
sounded ludicrous in my ears as I asked him pointless questions
about sheep and mules. He must have been aware of my intentions,
but I could not work out what he was thinking. He took time to
consider his answers, no matter how banal the enquiry. Perhaps he
was mocking me. I know the limits and strengths of my own power,
and how to exert it to kindle desire, but all my attempts to use it
on Q’orveh just seemed to fizzle out. Maybe there was
another
, somewhere; someone whose claim could not be
breached. I doubted strongly whether it was the female acolyte
fawning over his body, or even the silent, deadly youth at my back,
whom I had surmised Q’orveh feared in some way.

Disappointed
with him and myself I eventually abandoned my efforts and took my
leave. Q’orveh said we would have to talk again at some other time.
We would indeed. I had hoped that I’d be spending the night in
Q’orveh’s tent, but now I’d have to take advantage of Sah’ray’s
offer, after all. A pity. It left a sour taste in my mouth as I
ducked out of the shaman’s tent and into the clear night. I inhaled
deeply. Was I losing my touch? Two failures, in such quick
succession, did not rest easy with me. Admittedly, there was
nothing I could have done about Harof, but I had never been
unsuccessful in a seduction attempt before.

I paused
outside the tent before making my way back to Sah’ray. I needed
time to indulge in a little analysis of my conversation with
Q’orveh.

Then, a voice
came up out of nowhere and hissed intimately in my ear, cruel as
truth. ‘He cannot please women. You were wasting your time.’

I jumped and
looked round swiftly. The silent youth had crept out of the tent
behind me. He must have stood and watched me for several moments
before hissing at me. I shuddered involuntarily.

‘How
assiduously you defend your territory,’ I said, quite sharply. A
strong smell of ambergris emanated from his body; surely not a
perfume the nomads could have access to. I doubted whether they had
much of value to barter.

He shrugged.
‘Not
mine
- just a park to wander through, that I enjoy from
time to time.’

I had no
answer for that. The youth snickered in the darkness. ‘You want a
man? Find one in your soulscape, sister.’ Then, he was gone.

I shivered;
suddenly time condensed, convulsed, and I was sixteen years old
again, my body skewered by a dream. A man from my soulscape... Even
though I had developed my own explanations for the imaginary
ravishment I had suffered at the hands of the Metatronim, some
primitive part of me, which I could not control and which burst
forth into my mindscape at unexpected moments, still believed I had
lost my virginity in that dream. Was it coincidence that Q’orveh’s
boy had invoked a memory of that time, or had his remark been
deliberate? I found myself wondering more keenly about him. Q’orveh
had intimated he had found the boy upon the road, and there had
been undercurrents of fear and coercion in the few words he had
spoken about it. I reviewed what I had learned. The nomads had
encountered peculiar things; most of which they had, as I had
already anticipated, exaggerated and expanded. However, I was
intrigued by the way Q’orveh had associated the migration of gods
with the phenomenon. The boy had been found upon the road; I would
have to discover in what way he had managed to become annexed to
the tribe, given that Q’orveh clearly had mixed feelings about him.
The boy seemed to have considerable power or influence and, in some
way, resented my arrival. There could be many reasons for that, of
course, some of them depressingly mundane, but there was no doubt
he had intimidated me, a fact with which I was far from
comfortable. It would be easy to give in to the romantic fancy that
he was some kind of dark vapour, who had cleverly penetrated the
defences of the nomads, and resided in their midst as an unsavoury
infection. I felt a compulsion to remove it - him - permanently.
Although I knew there were dangers in following this path of
thought, my instincts insisted the boy was somehow instrumental in
whatever was happening. Also, how dare he laugh at me!

I slept very
badly on the first night; Sah’ray had kicked my legs continually,
whimpering in her sleep. Fortunately, her tent was larger inside
than it appeared, although she was clearly used to having it all to
herself. If she had guessed my intentions concerning the shaman,
she was sensitive enough not to comment upon them, and had made me
most welcome when I’d crept up through the night after leaving his
tent. The food she had prepared for me was rather congealed,
however.

The tribe
emerged from their tents at dawn, some of them seeing to the first
meal of the day, others packing up the camp, preparing for another
day’s travel. Young men and women danced in the damp ashes of the
previous night’s fire to release any lingering flame spirits, and
there was a great feeling of imminent departure all around us; in
the air as well as in the camp itself. I crawled out of Sah’ray’s
tepee, stretching and yawning, stiff as wood, and yearning for a
draught of water because Q’orveh’s liquor had shrivelled my mouth
as I slept. There was a spring some distance off, where twittering
people had gathered to draw water, flushing themselves down with
it, as they stood in the springy grass along the banks. I sauntered
up slowly, admiring the wet, naked bodies shivering in the cool
morning; all laughter was shaky because the air was chilly enough
to set everyone’s teeth chattering.

Q’orveh’s boy
was squatting by the stream. He was fully clothed, although his
trousers were wet to the knees. His hair was tied back neatly at
the nape of his neck. I recognised him instantly because he glowed
with dark. From yards away, I could tell he was aware of my
approach, prompting me to think, ‘Well, I have made an enemy here.’
Indignantly, I walked right up to him and said, ‘My sleep was
peculiarly free of dreams.’

He was rinsing
his face in the stream and did not turn for a moment or two,
leaving me unacknowledged for long enough to feel insulted. Then he
sprang to his feet, causing me to jump back, uncontrollably, in
alarm. He grinned. ‘Come and see this,’ he said, and leapt over the
stream.

I made a sound
of irritation, because my heart was still hammering with shock; I’d
thought he was going to attack me. Squatting down, I took a few
handfuls of the pure water, which revitalised my palate and my
spirit.

The boy
watched me silently from the other side of the stream, hands on
hips. Then, when I had drunk, he said. ‘Well, follow then. The
others will be moving off soon and I suppose you’ll want to eat
before.’ He sauntered off into the knee-high scrub, confident that
I would follow him. I did so, without qualm. No way could I allow
this creature to see I was wary of him. Q’orveh had made that
mistake; I had no intention of doing so.

The sounds of
the tribe members by the stream faded very quickly, swallowed up by
the thick, green murk of the forest. Birds were calling through the
morning, drawing up the sun from rest. Animals rustled away from
our path. I kept a fair distance between us. The boy had the
self-assured grace of a person whose body is often fondled and
admired. It was as if he’d been trained to be an actor or a dancer,
or had at least been well-schooled in the arts of the flesh by
one.

We ducked into
deeper growth, scrabbled, almost bent double, through a tangle of
thorny shrubs, finally emerging into a rough clearing. I had been
able to smell something distasteful for a few minutes; now I
understood why. This was a nomad burial circle. Platforms about ten
feet off the ground ran like a balcony around the trees, littered
with indistinct and colourless shapes. I have no fear of the dead,
but I do respect them, and kept my eyes averted after a quick
glance.

‘Why have you
brought me here?’ I asked. I had a feeling he intended to frighten
me.

‘Do you
believe the dead can walk again?’ he replied.

‘Do you really
want an answer from me? Is that why I’m here?’

He smiled.
‘Look, one of us is going to have to answer a question. I’ve
brought you here so you can see. Soulscapers see much more than the
normal person, they say. Tell me what you see.’

‘You are not a
normal person,’ I said. ‘You are playing with me. I do know this,
boy. You are a shadow.’

He laughed. ‘A
shadow am I? What kind?’

‘A dark one,
naturally.’

‘In that case,
aren’t you afraid I might have brought you here to hurt you?’

‘No, because I
am more powerful than you. I actually still believe you are jealous
because I wanted your master last night. You are playing and you
are a snake.’

‘Please answer
my question. I want to know what you think.’

We are not
communicating,
I thought.
We are not communicating at all. I
don’t know what we’re doing.
Still, I wandered to the nearest
tree, put my hand upon the bark and gazed upwards to the platform.
It creaked slightly and there was a sudden rattling, whirring sound
as a bird flapped out of the foliage. I did not receive any bad
feelings particularly; this place was truly dead. ‘If corpses
really are climbing down from the trees, this is not a place where
it has happened,’ I said. ‘But then, I expect you already know
that.’

‘You will be
needed, soulscaper,’ he answered.

I looked at him
sharply, and realised that he was not of Khaltish stock; he was too
pale, his eyes were too wide, lacking the catty, slanty look of the
nomad. His hair was matte black, an absorber of light.

‘Do
you
need me, Shadow?’ I asked, teasing. ‘Is that the reason for this
performance?’

He shook his
head, a grin splitting the serious expression on his face. ‘I don’t
need anyone, soulscaper. I’m just telling you, so you’ll be
prepared.’

I nodded,
warming to the game. ‘So tell me, what
is
happening in the
world. Your master doesn’t know. Do you?’

He twitched -
no other word for it. ‘No, I don’t know. I only watch. Whatever is
happening won’t be solved in this reality, I do know that.’

The pertinence
of his remark astounded me. He was probably right. I folded my arms
and gazed around the clearing. The dead do not walk, I was sure of
that. ‘So, you have shown me. What
exactly
you expected me
to learn from this, I am unsure, but I will remember the place.
Now, I am hungry.’ I turned around and headed back into the trees.
I expect he followed me, though I did not look.