Burying the Shadow (40 page)

‘Who are
you?’

I had heard
no-one approach and wheeled round frantically at the sound of the
voice. Behind me, stood a young human girl of maybe eighteen
summers. Her hair was pale and confined messily behind her head;
her clothes were simple but spun of fine, expensive-looking wool.
She was carrying a bale of linen and was looking at me with angry
accusation. ‘What are you doing in here?’ she demanded.

I straightened
up. ‘I might ask the same of you,’ I replied, ‘given that the
occupant of this tower is reputed to live alone!’

The girl
narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re one of
them
,’ she said. ‘How did
you get in?’

‘Where is he?’
I asked. ‘Where is the Lord Sammael? Is he... is he still
here?’

‘I’m not
telling you that!’ the girl cried. ‘Get out!’ She came towards me
quite menacingly. ‘Get out!’ She dropped the linen on the floor and
picked up a broom standing beside a doorway, which she brandished
in my direction.

I was so
surprised by this aggressive behaviour from a human, I was
temporarily confused, and knew not how to respond to her hostility.
The girl poked me with the broom. She was not of patron stock, that
was clear; she was far too brutish and common. That meant she could
not be one of the solstice offerings. For a moment, I was afraid
that Sammael no longer existed and the Tower had become over-run by
unsupped vagabonds! After all, no eloim really knew what went on in
this place any more.

‘Is Sammael
here?’ I asked again, holding up my hands to fend off the
broom.

‘Get out
leech! Get out hag!’ screeched the girl, savagely thrusting her
weapon at my body.

Then, a voice
bellowed out of an adjoining room. ‘Lilian, Lilian, what
is
the fuss? I can hear nothing but your rude farmyard cacophony!
‘

‘A she-rat has
bellied her way into the Tower!’ the girl replied.

‘A what?’

‘A she-rat! A
big one!’

There was a
sound of a chair being scraped across a floor. I stood there,
utterly confused, as a tall, painfully thin man with shaggy red
hair came out of the room. He saw me, allowed himself a few seconds
of mute shock, and then sighed and folded his arms, leaning on the
doorframe. He was not a man; he was eloim. I could see that now,
but undeniably, there was a certain human casualness about him. He
reminded me, in a way, of Avirzah’e.

‘What
have
we here?’ he said.

‘Shall I push
her down the stairs?’ asked the girl.

He shook his
head. ‘No. Who are you, how did you get in, and what do you want?’
he asked me.

‘Are you Lord
Sammael?’ I asked, trying to sound dignified. Only hours before, I
had been poignantly balancing on the rim of a terrible abyss, my
heart and head full of profundity; now, I was living in a nightmare
of farce. Where was I?

‘Who wants to
know?’ he replied.

‘Gimel
Metatronim does,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘The fruit
of the Metatron’s loins? Ah, yes, I see the family resemblance now.
What are you doing in my Tower?’

‘Looking for
Sammael.’

He extended
his arms. ‘Well, you’ve found him. There’s little point in further
procrastination. What do you want from me?’

I glared at
the girl, and asked him, ‘May I talk to you in private?’

‘Hm? Oh, yes,
I see. Run along, Lilian, all is under control. The she-rat is
unfanged and affectionate, you see.’ He gestured for me to enter
his room.

‘Well, Gimel
Metatronim, you had better sit down. May I offer you refreshment?
We have a choice selection here.’

I had no doubt
of that, but shook my head. ‘No, talking with you will be
refreshment enough.’

‘I do hope
that wasn’t simple flattery...’ He bade me be seated, and I looked
around the room. It was comfortably furnished and a fire burned
fiercely beneath a huge mantle. All around were books and papers;
on the floor, on shelves that lined the walls, flowing over a
large, heavy desk under the window. Beneath my feet, the rug was
threadbare, and a few animal skins had been scattered around to
cover the worst spots. I attempted to regain my composure.

‘I have not
come here to flatter you,’ I said. ‘I need your advice.’

‘I do not give
advice,’ he said, leaning against his desk and folding his arms.
‘It is generally ignored, anyway. Before you decided upon this
visit, didn’t you think about why I’d shut myself away from worldly
concerns? What makes you think I will make an exception in your
case?’

‘Nothing
whatsoever. I took a risk.’ I gave him a frank glance. He was
nothing like I’d expected. The Parzupheim were more ethereal, my
father more regal. Was this really the one they had called the
Prince of Light? I found it hard to believe. He was sinewy, his
face lined more strongly than was usual in an eloim, but they were
the lines of expression, not age. He was handsome in the way that
human men are handsome, not eloim. What did he do here in this
place all alone? Why hadn’t he gone insane? Perhaps he had.

‘Did the
Metatron let you in?’ he asked me.

I shook my
head. ‘No, I used deceit to gain entrance.’

‘Well, that’s
commendable at least, I suppose!’ He peered at me. ‘So, do the
atelier courts still stand and surround my sanctuary...?’ Then he
shook his head before I could respond. ‘No, I’m not curious. I’m
not going to ask questions. After all, if I’d wanted the answers
I’d have come outside, wouldn’t I?’

‘I don’t
know,’ I answered carefully. ‘If
I’d
locked myself away for
so long, I might be a little afraid of open spaces and many
people... But still, I think I’d yearn for company now and
again.’

Sammael smiled
widely; my answer had pleased him. ‘Strangely enough, I find I’m
glad you came,’ he said.

I told him all
about what had been happening. He listened eagerly as if I was a
new book that had magically acquired the ability to speak its text
aloud. He did ask questions, some of them probing inquiries about
my narrative, others apparently unconnected; brief demands about
various individuals, a thirst for gossip. His mind flitted from
thought to thought like a frantic bird, but he kept his conclusions
to himself, only asking questions and then stabbing a finger at the
air, saying, ‘Yes, yes!’

I was patient,
but hoped he would enlighten me when I’d finished the story. I
ended it by describing my ascent of the hill, and the state of the
weather outside, the tolling of the bell. Here, Sammael stopped
me.

‘Sandalphon is
here?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Waiting
outside,’ I replied.

Sammael turned away
from me, to look out of the window. There was a moment’s silence,
the meaning of which I divined easily. I had breached the defences
he had constructed between himself and the world. For a while, at
least, the Tower door was well and truly open.

‘Would you...
would you like me fetch him?’ I asked quietly.

He pondered
the question. ‘I don’t think so.’

An
uncomfortable atmosphere had settled in the room. Sammael was
lonely for his kind, I could see that now, and I, in most respects
a child of the earth, was not, in his eyes, one of his kind. What
had impelled him to prolong this insufferable torment of
loneliness?

‘I have
everything I need here,’ he said.

‘Are you still
glad I came?’

He turned
around and smiled at me. ‘Tell me what you think your problem
is.’

I respected
his reticence. ‘Well, Avirzah’e thinks the Watchers are
instrumental in what is occurring. He thinks that nothing is
coincidental.’

‘Does Metatron
share this view?’

‘It is hard to
say. He believes my idea about the soulscaper is a good one, but
quite honestly in view of everything else that has happened, it
seems such a small solution - too small.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t
know. That’s why I came to you. It wasn’t a decision lightly
made.’

‘The smallest
solutions are generally the best ones,’ he replied. ‘Grand plans,
grand ambitions are easily reduced to ashes, whereas a small plan
can sneak through to devastating effect. At least, I have come to
think that.’

‘Maybe, but I
have been wondering recently whether we should be here in this
world at all, whether my attempts at restoring our position are
against natural law. We have tried to assimilate ourselves with
humans, haven’t we, but we cannot fulfil that desire completely. We
have been living on borrowed time.’

Sammael laughed. ‘You
poor creature! There is no natural law; anything is possible in
this universe, anything. If eloim want to remain here, they
probably can, but change is inevitable. They might not remain as
they were.’ He sat down on the floor in front of me, leaning back
against a chair, and clasped his arms around his knees. ‘You are
wrong in saying that eloim have tried to assimilate with humanity;
they haven’t. They have made what they see to be massive
compromises, but they hang on to the past, to approximate memories
of their past forms. They cling to immortality in a mortal world
and yet, at the same time, they relinquish certain powers which
would be useful. Oh, Gimel Metatronim, I gave up trying to
philosophise about this a millennium ago! Now, the eloim have
reached the horizon of a great decision; they can reclaim their
heritage, or they can sacrifice it and be absorbed into the world.
It is that simple. Your soulscaper will be able to tell you this,
if she can withstand a journey into the eloim soulscape.’

‘Is it really
that simple? Is it nothing to do with the Watchers and...’ - I had
to say it - ‘...Mikha’il?’

Sammael
blinked at me slowly. ‘We are observed, of course we are. We lost
our battle with them, and yet we won. We were cast out of our
world, true, but we came to inhabit the one coveted by our
enemies.’

‘But even this
world turned against us,’ I said, ‘otherwise we wouldn’t be
confined here in Sacramante, hiding our true selves away from
humanity.’

‘That too, was
inevitable,’ Sammael said. ‘You should not feel indignant about it.
We gave humanity knowledge and, in return, they gave us sustenance.
It seemed a necessary thing at the time. Eloim could no longer feed
from one another, not if they wanted to pass for human. Only human
blood can maintain the fleshly shape that we had chosen for
ourselves, and which has been held by eloim to this day. It was the
first mistake we made on this world - perhaps the worst. I foresaw
the results, much to the displeasure of my brethren. We should have
mingled utterly with humanity, interbred with them. If we had
discarded our psychic abilities, and much of our creative spirit,
we could have held onto flesh without needing human ichor to
sustain it. We should have rid ourselves of eloim traits.’

‘Yet you have
not done so!’ I interjected.

He smiled
sadly. ‘No, but I am ancient and eccentric, and I have hopes that,
one day, an unlikely and enraptured reunion will occur, for which I
will need
all
of my eloim characteristics... Anyway, allow
me to continue. Humanity eventually came to resent the tithe of
blood eloim demanded from them; they found it unsavoury, despite
its advantages. At that time, many eloim insisted on supping to the
point of death for the donor; they drank spirit as well as blood.
This is what caused the war between the two races, which was no
doubt observed by our estranged kin, from the old world, with much
grinning and gleeful hand-rubbing! A minority of humans, namely
those referred to as the ‘Old Blood’, realised that the
relationship was symbiotic, and all that was required to achieve
the correct balance was a control of our sustenance taking. Not all
humanity agreed, of course, which resulted in our furtive seclusion
in Sacramante. All this happened a long time ago. We had to connive
and plot to secure our position. For a long time, we were in
hiding, until enough years had elapsed for us to creep forth and
call ourselves artisans. I wanted no part of it. “Give me enough to
eat and let me rot in peace”, I told them.’

‘Do you feast
until death, then?’ I asked. ‘Every time?’

‘It is the
nearest I can get to... the things that I miss,’ he replied,
unflinching. Then, he stood up abruptly. ‘The things that I miss!
They basked in pleasure as I suffered, damn them!’

I jumped in alarm; the
outburst had been so unexpected. ‘Who is the girl?’ I asked him
quickly. ‘The one you called Lilian?’

He calmed down
instantly, and ran a hand through his brilliant hair. ‘Just that; a
girl. I have them with me, just a few. I can’t bear to be totally
alone. They keep me company.’

‘They? How
many?’

He made an
irritated gesture as if the question was trivial. ‘Oh, I don’t
know. A few. They come from the Strangeling. They come here to find
me. I let them live and die here, if they want to.’

‘But how do
they get here?’

From the
Strangeling?
I thought.
How was that possible?

‘Gimel, humans
occupying the Strangeling lands are not quite like other humans. I
think they consider themselves to be another race entirely, living
among our ruins there as they do. They have been affected by the
memories of our history. They have absorbed all the feelings that
haunt the place.’ He grinned. ‘They are pantomime eloim!’

‘So you
brought them from the Strangeling yourself then?’ I wished he’d
answer my questions.

Sammael shook
his head. ‘No. In the old days, when this tower was built, an
underground route was dug from here to the Strangeling. Naturally,
I wanted a back door, in case of emergency. Also, in the beginning
I was drawn back to the Strangeling often. I liked to walk among
the ruins.’

‘And you made
contact with humans who’d come to inhabit the ruins?’ I was
visualising the story in my head. It seemed so vivid.