Burying the Shadow (30 page)

There, we
caught it; a fizzling radiance. Homing in on it was no difficulty.
And this is what we found.

The soul-spark
of the ailing girl was being embraced by a god-form, which clearly
did not come from nomad mythology. They were copulating in a white
shrine, surrounded by ivy trees, the sky a pale lemon colour above
them. The girl was manifesting, quite typically, as a veil-clad
female, although the draperies suggested an image I would expect to
find in the land of Atruriey rather than from a Khaltish nomad
girl. She appeared to lack awareness, to be drowsy in a sensual
heat. It was obvious to me that she had lost touch with reality,
perhaps even the very concept of it. There was not the slightest
vibration of distress emanating from her. Perhaps there was no Fear
to remove... and yet.

The god-form
raised a heavy head, crowned with antlers, to peer at us with
curious yellow eyes. Fortunately, these archetypal manifestations
never possess intelligence. He had a large, red phallus, which was
unashamedly erect, and dripping with fluid. His nether parts were
those of a deer or goat. I realised that my theory concerning the
virgin births might well be correct. Still, this was not a
threatening image, and I knew I could remove it easily, by
performing a thought excision designed to expunge any unwelcome
phantoms. After I had directed this simple command, the god-form
vaporised instantly, without a struggle, leaving the girl mewing
and squealing with the horror of loss. Presently, her image faded
and I guessed she had been sucked back to reality.

It was time
for us to leave. I did not, at that juncture, wish to continue our
journey into the tribal soulscape. Aniti had not been wrong, it
seemed, but then, neither had I.

When we came
back to our senses, the girl was curled into a foetal shape on the
ground, sobbing piteously. I sent Juro to fetch the women of her
family to attend to her, leaving me alone for a few moments with
Aniti. There are some things that men must not be privy to - even
soulscapers. Without discussion of what we had done, Aniti and I
gently murmured a few relaxation mantras, straightened the girl’s
limbs, and held her in our arms, crooning softly. Presently, her
sobs abated to gulps, but there was no more we could do for her.
The familiarity of her people would be more healing.

As we walked
back towards where the wagons and tents were clustered round the
lakeside, Aniti cleared her throat gruffly and said, ‘I have to
stand admonished, Mistress Rayojini. You were right and I was
wrong. I apologise for my arrogance.’

I put a hand
on her shoulder, feeling altogether more sympathetic with relief.
‘No, you were not wrong. Neither of us were. What we discovered in
that poor girl’s soulscape is not a completely unknown phenomenon,
but it is very rare.’ I squeezed her fondly. ‘We have all been
panicked recently, what with all these strange goings on. I don’t
think any of us were sure of success when we entered the
soulscape.’

Aniti shook
her head emphatically. ‘No, you don’t have to absolve me. It was
you who thought to look for the opposite signs, not me. I would
never have thought of that.’

I shrugged.
‘Perhaps so, but don’t worry about it. You have learned something
and, if it was a mistake, it won’t be one you’ll make again.’

‘Soulscapers
shouldn’t ever make mistakes though!’ she said hotly, angry with
herself. ‘We can’t afford to. Too much is at stake.’

‘Well, I can’t
dispute that, but what’s done is done. Don’t be too hard on
yourself.’ Her capitulation made me feel protective towards her. I
was, in truth, feeling particularly high at that moment.

‘You were
right in all you said,’ Aniti blurted presently. ’I shall return to
Taparak, with or without my brother. Clearly, this is not a time
for me to be practising my art afield. I need more guidance...
more...’ She shook her head. ‘Where are our guardian-pursuers when
we need them most? Where? Sometimes, I wonder whether they are real
at all, and not just a dream put into our heads by the
scryers!’

Her words cast
a chill over my mood. ‘My guardian-pursuers are very real to me,’ I
said softly. We had stopped walking, standing together in a shadow
of the trees.

‘How do you
invoke them?’ Aniti asked in a hoarse whisper. ’How do you commune
with them? I can never feel them, never!’

‘I can’t
answer your questions,’ I replied. ‘It’s too personal.’

Aniti
chastised herself again. ‘I must be the only soulscaper who has
never met her guardian-pursuers, never felt them near her, never
communed with them!’

I did not
answer. The truth was, I felt that her experience was the same as
all other soulscapers, and that my ambivalent familiarity with my
guardian-pursuers was distinctly unusual.

We ate beside the
fires; the tribes mingling, children splashing through the shallows
of the lake. Dogs roamed from group to group, seeking tidbits,
musicians tuned their instruments for the approaching rites. At the
appointed hour, everyone began standing up. There was no particular
signal given; people just knew when the time was right. The remains
of the meal were quickly cleared away, and the fires were amply
stoked, so that they would still be smouldering when we all
returned to camp. Older children, not yet of an age to participate
in the ceremonies, had been instructed to guard the younger ones,
and had stationed themselves importantly around the tents,
brandishing knives.

I had been
sitting with Aniti and Juro among a crowd of Toors. Now, Sah’ray
materialised at my side from out of the dark and urged me to
accompany her. I grabbed hold of Aniti, because I wanted her to be
with me. She was still so furious with herself, I feared that,
alone at this potent occasion, she would be vulnerable to soulscape
intrusions.

The women had
begun to creep through the trees. Sah’ray told us there was a
special ritual place hidden in the forest, used by all the tribes
and rich in power. The elder women of the tribes had assumed a kind
of leadership over the rest of us. They glided ahead with the
authority of priestesses; their tiered skirts swirling round their
ankles, their heads held high, long braids loosed down their
backs.

The excitement
of the nomad women was infectious. We acknowledged our own feminine
power as we hurried through the dark; we had our own mysteries that
no male would ever penetrate. Anything could have watched us from
the thick undergrowth; I would not have been surprised to see
manifestations of imps or sylphs. Gradually, the happy excitement
of the women mutated to controlled hysteria; soon, I sensed, it
would erupt.

Eventually, we came to
a wide clearing, where there was short, springy grass underfoot.
Above us, queen of the rite, the pregnant moon shone down fiercely
through the gap in the trees. I wondered if the men were conducting
their own rite nearby, but could hear no sounds other than the
natural music of animals and birds going about their nocturnal
business around us. Nobody seemed to want to venture out into the
naked arena beyond the trees, where the grass had been bleached to
bone whiteness beneath the moon’s colourless radiance. Sah’ray
tapped my arm and gestured. She had begun to unlace her bodice. I
understood. The women must be unclothed to endure the painful,
white light. Clothes might shrivel and burn to blackness beneath
its touch, but flesh would only absorb it and glow. In the world of
the night, all is black and white, and we were there to celebrate
its colours. I disrobed myself, telling Aniti to do likewise and we
folded our clothes and placed them in a neat pile beneath one of
the trees. Then we felt brave enough to bathe in the shower of
light.

Cautiously,
the women stepped out onto the grass, feeling with their hands for
the cold rays, slowly turning their bodies, stretching their
spines, reaching up to the sky. Aniti and I hovered on the edge,
unsure of the movements. I noticed she flicked a glance at my body;
I felt absurdly tall and masculine beside her. Aniti was a
voluptuous creature, whereas as I am mainly skin-covered bone.

I had noticed
that some of the women had carried large objects wrapped in cloth,
which I thought might be poles to support a canopy, or something
similar. Now, I could see that these objects were actually enormous
wooden horns. Four of the elder women stationed themselves at equal
distances around the roughly circular glade, each in possession of
a horn, which they supported on the grass. At some unseen signal,
they placed their lips against the mouthpieces of these horns, and
began to blow. Aniti and I moved into the gathering of women; we
could no longer observe from outside.

At first, the
sound felt like a wind passing over the flesh, below the threshold
of human hearing. Then the ground began to vibrate with the sound
and a deep belling could be heard. This was the voice of the earth
herself, calling out to her white sister of the skies. We, in the
centre of the glade, were filled with the vibration of this sound.
Our hair crackled with the power of lightning, our ears popped with
the pressure of it. Every pore of our being, (and we
were
one being), was filled with the sound. I felt as if I had lost all
my identity to it; all I could do was move to its monotonous note.
Then the drums began, and we found we were free to dance.

I have never
heard music as eerie or compelling as that of the nomad women’s
rituals. In any other circumstances, I am sure, it would have
sounded hideous. But at that time, in that space, it was the only
permissible sound;
our
sound, that of the blood flowing in
our veins, the throb of womb-power, the invisible potency of the
female spirit.

Then, as the
moon travelled across her kingdom, a new secret was revealed. At
the edge of the clearing, an immense statue appeared. I had not
noticed it before and, for a superstitious moment or two, actually
considered whether it was a living, breathing thing that had
slipped out of the soulscape and into reality. Common sense rebuked
me. It had been in shadow and had only been revealed by the gradual
movement of the moon; more time must have passed than I
thought.

The statue
represented Helat. Its serene face beamed mysteriously down at the
dancing women, sensual lips curved into a perfect smile. Its body
was slim, lacking voluptuous female shape around the hips, but
possessed of three large breasts, that looked as if they were
bursting with nourishment. The statue was seated, its hands upon
its thighs, its knees apart. An erect phallus pointed to the belly,
straining up from a dark crevice, where the stone was stained by a
thin trickle of what I took to be water. Maybe it was a natural
spring, incorporated into the carving. I could not imagine the
nomads ever having been able to carve this monstrous idol
themselves but, as far as I knew, no other races worshipped the
androgyne Gardling, Helat. Perhaps, they had adopted this god-form
from an earlier race of the plains. It looked incredibly ancient,
as if it possessed the innate wisdom of an idol that has been
worshipped for centuries. Whoever had built it, Helat knew who its
people were now; it smiled down benevolently on the dancing women,
impassive and pregnant with potential. On its brow, the symbol of
the moon. On the backs of its hands, that of the sun.

I became dizzy
with the dancing, and was almost in trance, watching Aniti’s swift
dark shape flitting among those of the paler nomads. Then, I
noticed that one of the women was approaching the idol. She climbed
up the few shallow steps between its legs, so that she could reach
the pool that had formed in its lap. She dipped a cup into the
liquid, only a small cup, which she brought back to the dancing
women. There must have been nearly a hundred of us, swaying there
in the glade, but there was a sip for every one of us from that
cup. I expected it to taste of something rank and stagnant but,
although there was an earthy flavour to it, the water was pure and
indeed earth-born. I knew I had tasted the life fluid of Helat.

After this,
the drumbeat faded away, and all the women began to sit down upon
the grass, everyone panting a little and wiping sweat from their
eyes.

Aniti sat down
beside me. ‘What now?’ she mouthed.

I
shrugged.

We soon found
out. It was time for rites of passage to be conducted; young
virgins being brought, for the first time, into the mysteries. The
nomad women did not trust men to deflower their children. Following
the symbolism of Helat, each girl must deflower herself. To the
unsuspecting, these rites might seem alarmingly primitive and
barbaric, yet I who had been privy to the ceremonies of many
religions and cults upon my travels, simply prepared myself, with
interest, to spectate.

Perhaps though
I was too complacent and underestimated the potent emotion being
invoked. Aniti and I observed - Aniti, with a rising sense of
unease, for she took hold of my arm - as the first girl was led to
the lap of the god by two old women. She placed a garland of small,
woodland flowers over Helat’s stone phallus.

‘They can’t!’
Aniti hissed into my ear. ‘Surely...’

I put my
finger to my lips, trying to signal that we were only guests and
must not show any discontent.

The girl bowed
to the idol and then sat in the cold water of its lap, facing
outwards, raising her knees so that her feet were planted firmly on
each thigh. I felt rather relieved at that point, having been
convinced she had been about to spear herself on the statue; I was
unsure whether Aniti would have been able to contain her disgust at
that. Chanting softly but insistently, the old women blessed the
girl. Then, they summoned a younger woman, though fully-bloomed and
mature, who walked up the shallow steps, carrying some object
wrapped in a dark cloth. The old women unwrapped this object and
handed it to the girl. I could see it was a carved phallus, perhaps
of wood or bone. One of the old women nodded at the girl and led
the others back down the steps. The significance of this object was
obvious. Aniti made a muffled sound at my side.