Burying the Shadow (42 page)

And yet,
despite this thoughtful behaviour, I could not, and would not,
trust him. I wanted to, desperately. I wanted to tell someone about
the whispers I heard that seemed to say my name, the shadows on the
edge of my vision suggestive of cloaked figures with pale,
attentive faces. I could not speak, only walk faster, and he,
without questioning, adjusted his pace to my own, talking
carelessly of life in Sacramante. It helped, if only through the
rhythm of the sound of speech, yet I realise now that he told me
very little really.

Inevitably,
because he was intelligent, Keea became aware that my self
confidence was deteriorating, and that something more than the long
hours of travelling was responsible for my obvious exhaustion. His
attempts to overcome this manifested as lively sarcasm, with which
he flogged my limping spirits. He mocked my occupation, my (what he
termed) arrogance, even my clothes. I responded with similar
cutting remarks, calling him a whore, a parasite, a precocious
upstart. All of this sparring seemed good-natured at heart. I was
unsure whether Keea was the cause of my condition, or not. If he
was, I was a fool, and subjecting myself to needless danger by
remaining close to him. If he was not, I was fortunate to have him
with me. I was so confused, I could not decide; my powers of
perception were weak and prone to inaccuracy. Nevertheless, saviour
or tormentor, Keea’s presence helped me maintain my sanity,
throughout some quite absurd experiences, in the land of Khalt and
beyond.

Each evening,
we would pause in our journey and erect our sleeping tents; in the
shelter of trees, if they were available. We’d build a small fire
and take it in turns to cook a meal. Game was plentiful and Keea
seemed to know where to find succulent roots, which we cleaned and
baked among the embers of our fire.

One night, we
had just settled down to eat - and we ate well during those weeks -
when Keea suddenly put down his plate and sat up straight, his
nostrils quivering like an animal’s.

‘What is it?’
I asked. I’d had a bad day. It had been warm again, after a few
days of cooler weather, and the heat haze had been full of moving
shapes just beyond my sight. Keea never seemed to notice these
things, although I kept hoping he would, just to confirm I was not
losing my mind.

He shook his
head at my question and took a cautious mouthful of food, still
staring above the grass. ‘The night is quiet. Have you
noticed?’

When he mentioned it,
I could sense the stillness. There were no animal sounds, and even
the grass itself was silent. Not so long ago, I would have noticed
these conditions at the precise moment when sound had died away. It
made me realise, yet again, how vulnerable I’d have been had I
travelled alone at that time, preoccupied as I was.

‘Predators
about? Maybe we should take it in turns to stand guard
tonight.’

He nodded
thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think we should.’

We finished
our meal with little enjoyment.

In the
morning, we discovered a dew-soaked figure sitting beside the ashes
of our fire. We had taken it in turns to remain awake throughout
the dark hours, and neither of us had heard or seen anyone
approach. Keea had been on last watch and we’d decided he should
sleep for a couple of hours, before we began travelling again. I
almost stumbled across the stranger as I went to replenish our
water carriers from a nearby spring.

The figure was
hunched low to the ground and dressed in dusty garments, the colour
of the grass itself, and they did not move a muscle at my approach.
I called for Keea and we both stood looking at this person, from a
few feet away, for several moments.

‘A nomad?’ I
asked. There was something unspecifically repellent about our
uninvited visitor, even though we could only see them from the
back.

‘Nomads don’t
usually travel alone,’ Keea replied.

‘Looks sick,’
I said, and stepped forward. Just a few minutes’ appraisal at close
quarters revealed that the creature was more than simply sick. I
offered water, and the stranger did not respond. I squatted down in
front of them, to see their face. I could not tell what sex this
person was. The stench coming off the body was disgusting; it spoke
of deep-seated disease. The face itself was distorted and
discoloured. The eyes appeared blind; just a mass of milky
discolouration in sticky sockets. Instinctively I drew back.

‘Plague!’ I
hissed at Keea.

Instead of
retreating swiftly, as any sensible person would, he came to squat
beside me. Our visitor still had not moved.

‘No, not
plague,’ Keea said quietly. ‘I have seen this before, Rayo.’

‘You
have?’

‘Yes, look
around you.’ He gestured upwards. We had camped in a copse of tall
trees. Among the leaves, high above, dark wooden platforms could be
seen. We had camped in the midst of a nomad funeral site.

‘Are you
suggesting...’ I could not speak the words and opted for, after a
pause, ‘Is this thing
alive
?’

‘Not in any
sense we understand,’ Keea replied.

‘How can you
be sure?’

‘Easily. If
you examine this unfortunate semblance of humanity, you will
discover there is no heartbeat, no physiological activity
whatsoever. It is animated to a degree, yes, but I can’t tell you
by what. It has no function. It is not part of the life-chain. It
just
is
, decaying about itself.’

‘Then I must
deal with it immediately!’ I said, wanting more information about
this poor creature’s condition than Keea’s words, which sounded
more than a little ignorant and superstitious to me.

‘No! We must
just burn it!’ Keea said emphatically.

I could not
believe what I was seeing. There had to be some kind of
explanation. I did not think that this creature was literally a
dead thing brought back to some semblance of life. That was the
kind of primitive conjecture I would only expect from nomads!
Surely, Keea did not believe such a thing; he seemed so
intelligent. Nothing in this world could persuade me to burn
someone alive, and I was astounded Keea had suggested it. Yet
perhaps our discovery of this creature was what I’d been waiting
for; an ideal opportunity for investigation. Some of the answers I
was looking for might exist within this wretched creature’s mind,
or brain-cells; answers that Keea claimed he was seeking too.

I stood up and
began to walk quickly to my tent. ‘What are you doing?’ Keea asked,
irritably.

I pulled out
my bag of scry mixtures and equipment. ‘I’m going to explore this
person’s soulscape,’ I replied.

Keea stomped
over angrily and knocked the bag from my hands. ‘Don’t be insane!
You’re not capable.’

Indignation
flared within me. I felt stronger than I had for days. ‘How dare
you!’ I cried, snatching up my bag once more. ‘You have neither the
right nor experience to question my ability. Also, this might be
the only opportunity we get. I’m not going to let it pass by.’

‘Rayo, be
sensible. There is no soulscape in that thing! If you breathe the
scry-mix and enter
nothingness
, it may be impossible for you
to return. It could suck away your life-force.’

‘Superstitious, old women’s fire prattle!’ I replied. ‘I may have
been affected by strange influences recently, but I’m not afraid of
doing my job. This is familiar territory to me, Keea. I understand
it. There’s no danger.’

‘Yes there is!
You’re so blinkered. You think that thing’s still alive, don’t
you.’

‘Keea, it has
to be, in one sense or another. Now, let me get on with what I have
to do.’

I was sure we
had another case of the non-death on our hands, a person whose
spirit was barely in this world, but still recognisably alive. I’d
not come across one who could walk around before, but evidence was
scanty; it could be a fairly common phenomenon.

As I prepared
my mixes, I told Keea about Mouraf’s son in Yf. ‘You see, this may
be the same. Think, Keea: do you really believe a dead body can
walk around among the living? It’s preposterous!’

My exclamation
seemed to mollify him a little. I was pleased about the way the
balance of power had changed. Since I had met him on the road, Keea
had seemed much stronger than I. I’d not been happy about that and
welcomed this chance to reassert myself - and not just in his
eyes.

He watched me
moodily, hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. ‘How do you
know the scry mix will affect them? They look too far gone for
that.’

‘It affects
anyone; therefore, you should move away from the smoke.’ I paused.
‘I may need you.’

‘You are not
wholly confident then,
are
you,’ he said, with a certain
tone of triumph in his voice.

‘Only a fool
would not take some precaution,’ I replied. ‘But the risk will be
worth it. Think what we could learn.’

‘What did you
learn from the boy in Yf?’

‘I’ve seen and
heard a lot since then. Now, move back.’

I positioned
my charcoal holder in front of the motionless figure and sprinkled
it with a generous pinch of scaping-mix. Keea backed off
reluctantly and went into his tent.

The pungent
fume odour swelled around me, bringing a thousand comforting
memories of Taparak, and soon eclipsed the foul stink of the
stranger before me. I arranged myself into the habitual
cross-legged position and took long, deep breaths. Before the fume
took effect, I made an objective study of the face in front of me.
The muscles were slack, the skin mottled. One cheek seemed pushed
inwards, as if the person had been lying on a hard surface, and the
flesh had not sprung back to its usual shape. Bodily functions were
clearly running down, and I was amazed it could still actually move
about. As the thick, grey smoke surrounded us, the figure’s left
hand twitched a little and, through the fug, I saw its mouth
tremble. These signs were reassuring. I crooned a few comforting
words - they may have been of some help - and concentrated on
leaving one reality for another.

A regular
pinch of scry-mix produces a fume of perhaps ten minutes duration,
which is enough to affect both a soulscaper and their client
sufficiently for scape-sharing to occur. A trained soulscaper can
‘step back’ into normal reality at any time, an aspect of my
training for which I was soon destined to feel particularly
grateful.

As usual, I
became aware of the consensual soulscape taking shape around me,
and prepared to enter the individual scape of our peculiar guest.
The soulscape scenario around me was shimmering oddly, as if in a
heat haze. I could not see very well, and there was no immediate
sign of the stranger’s presence. This was most unusual, but I had
expected something out of the ordinary, so was not too concerned at
first. I instructed my body to reach out, in reality, and touch the
sick person in front of me. This might facilitate soulscape
contact. I was totally unprepared for what occurred. The minute my
flesh touched the cold meat, I was engulfed, in the soulscape, by a
great, icy cloud, a thick, grey fog that was tinged with a sickly,
putrid yellow and which stank of corrupted flesh. It was a far
stronger stench than that of the sick stranger’s physical body. I
sensed my own body gagging, although my soulscape form was
unaffected in that way.

Then, I
noticed movement in the fog. Collecting myself, visualising a core
of sustaining light within me, I summoned whatever lurked there
towards me.

It was the
eyes I saw first. Pitiful, yet empty, they were the only aspect of
the shambling figure approaching me that retained any semblance of
normality. The thing was a stray thought form trapped into a
disintegrating shape, which was decomposing even as I looked at it.
Tatters of flesh ran, semi-liquid, from spongy bones. One thighbone
had departed company from the hip, attached only by stretched rags
of flesh. The face was an indescribable horror, features melting
from the skull. And I had summoned this thing towards me! I backed
away, my soulscape form now experiencing the stench - which was
spiritual more than anything - and beginning to lose its cohesion.
It seemed as if this dreadful creature was contaminating the
soulscape as it struggled forward. It was like a disease eating at
the substance of the inner world; it should not, under any
circumstances, be allowed to remain there.

I had to claw
my strength back to me, strain to regenerate my flame of protection
but, thank Helat, again my training did not let me down.
Visualising an enormous wave of pure, cleansing water rising up
around me, I projected it as forcefully as I could at the
yellow-grey fog and the foulness it surrounded. Testing my belief
to the extreme, I convinced myself the water was destroying the fog
and the stumbling monster. Again and again, I fashioned this
elemental weapon and hurled it forth, becoming almost hysterical,
so that I was creating tidal waves and throwing them out for
several minutes after I needed to. Eventually, I realised the
soulscape was clean - steaming, but clean - and I directed the
water to sink into the ground. My work was over.

The procedure
had not been as dangerous as Keea had feared, but neither had it
been as informative as I had desired. Utterly drained of strength,
I forced myself back to conscious awareness. My nose was full of a
disgusting stink, and I vomited copiously into the grass. I could
not bear to look at the thing in front of me, and got shakily to my
feet, averting my eyes.

Keea had come
out of his tent, and was waiting anxiously just beyond the perfume
of the smoke. I had only been in the soulscape for a few minutes,
because the smoke was still potent. I looked at Keea steadily for a
couple of seconds, and then wiped my mouth. He did not speak, but
watched me as I scattered the fume mix and damped the smoke with
handfuls of grass, holding my breath the entire time. I did not
want to be aware of the soulscape just then, even though the
contamination had been successfully dispelled. I kicked the ashes
and made a gesture with my hand, signifying to Keea that it was
safe for him to approach. He came and took my forearms in his
hands, peering into my face, his eyes full of concern. At that
moment, we were utterly in accord.