Burying the Shadow (6 page)

Beth gave me a
keen look; I saw his fingers twitch around the stem of his goblet.
‘So, the answer is simple. We find a young soulscaper; a
very
young one. Someone who is out on their first
scaping-range.’

I shook my
head. ‘No, still too old. If you insist we continue in this
madness, there is only one recourse. We must go to Taparak, and
find ourselves a child. Someone who is yet untrained, and whose
mind is more malleable. We have no choice. It is either this, or
else we go home and wait for the sickness to find us.’

Beth sneered
at me. ‘Gimel, you talk nonsense. We don’t have the time. A child
has to grow. It will take years.’

‘All seeds of
potential require a protracted growth period. You know I’m right,
Beth.’ The truth was, he derived so much pleasure from our
experiences with the soulscapers that he was disinclined to abandon
them. Eventually, his hunger for the sup would return and, when it
did, the blood of scapers would fuel the power of his art. A child
would not endow him with such delights; eloim code forbade the
supping of children.

He took a
silence upon himself at my remarks, which I would not caress away.
For all his tendency towards physical self-indulgence, Beth was not
stupid. I knew I only had to wait.

Two days
later, he relented. ‘Very well, we’ll take a boat to Taparak and
find your child, Gimel,’ he said.

Content, I
allowed him to kiss me.

Very swiftly,
I proved myself correct on all counts; we stayed in Taparak no
longer than a single night. I was so twitchy while we were there
that I could not take pleasure in sightseeing, which was a shame,
because Taparak is an astounding place. It seemed to me as if a
crazed artist had carved the whole city out of petrified wood;
walkways swept dizzily from massive trunk to massive trunk.
Bird-catchers killed their prey by squatting in the higher tiers of
the city and throwing missiles
down
onto the birds. This
could prove dangerous for people below should the hunters miss
their targets, which was fortunately rare. The narrow,
root-patterned streets were full of people, most of whom seemed to
be visitors from Lansaal, Khalt and the Delta Lands. Native Taps
were recognisable through their colourful clothing and artfully
braided hair. Carts rumbled over the uneven ground, drawn by small,
determined asses that paused for no-one. We’d left our bulky
carriage behind, with the driver and his assistant, at the Lannish
coastal town of Cozca and, after having ascended to Taparak itself,
hired a cart to take us to the visitors’ district where
accommodation was plentiful. We installed ourselves in a ground
level hostelry, while Tamaris went off to ingratiate herself with
the local traders and ask a few cautious questions. We supposed
that many visitors would be curious about local customs and that
inquiries concerning scaper training would not be too unusual.

Tamaris was
absent for several hours and was quite drunk when she returned.
Still, she had accomplished what she’d set out to do, having forced
herself upon a group of Taps in a taverna, in a manner only Tamaris
can get away with. Charmed by her open friendliness, the Taps had
teased her with stories, unaware that an astute mind was hidden
behind the fluttering lashes and girlish smiles. Between us,
Tamaris and I extracted the truthful aspects of all she’d heard,
discarding the more obvious elements of tale spinning. The Taps
were clever - especially the women - and had given little away, but
we still had enough information to help us. It was clear that
Tappish children underwent a ceremony at eight years of age, when
they were introduced to their future vocation. This must be some
form of initiation - perhaps an ideal time, for our purposes, to
make contact with a Tappish child. I knew that the soulscapers’
abilities to influence the minds of others was far superior to any
eloim’s - which was why we needed a soulscaper - but it was also
true that the Taps relied on their mind-altering scaping substances
to change their level of awareness, whereas an eloim could achieve
a similar, if weaker, effect through concentration alone. I
reasoned that this might mean Beth and I would possess a greater
clarity of mind should we establish psychic contact with a Tap. Of
course, we could not be physically present during one of these
initiation ceremonies, which meant we would have to project
ourselves - always an enervating experience. After our experiences
in Lansaal, we were quite familiar with the procedure of
soulscaping, but had not accomplished contact with a Tap from a
distance before.

For once, Beth
was happy to follow my lead. If hunting was his province,
mind-seeking was mine. Tamaris’ most precious snippet of
information was that initiation ceremonies took place early in the
morning. I did not know how long we would have to stay in Taparak,
and doubted whether we’d be lucky on our first attempt at finding a
suitable child, but there was little point in wasting any time.

The following
morning, Beth and I composed ourselves in my room at the taverna,
lying down on the bed and breathing together, forging a link
between ourselves. We had suffered many differences of opinion,
even heated arguments, during our journey east, but once our minds
touched, all hostility melted away.

‘You have
hated me,’ Beth observed.

‘True,’ I
replied, ‘but we knew this journey would be difficult.’

‘I’m
sorry...’

‘I know that.
Rise!’

We could not
enter the soulscape, but we could move, disembodied, through the
real world. The combined essence of our minds soared up through the
tiers of Taparak, the ancient trunks shadowy to our altered
awareness.

‘What do you
see, sister?’

‘Many bright
sparks, many souls...’

‘A child?’

‘There are
hundreds of children. They are the brightest flickers. Look...’

‘Must we
examine them all?’ The tone of his thought echoed his reluctance
for so much tiring work.

‘Wait... Don’t
strain yourself, Beth. Conserve your energy. I will search.’

My prowess for
mind travelling had always been stronger than Beth’s. I knew I
could not keep him away from his body for too long. The shortest
journey was exhausting; making contact with another individual
could actually be painful.

I released
myself to the flow of the world’s rhythm, not struggling to search,
but simply letting my instincts guide me. Lightly, taking Beth with
me, I danced from spark to spark, pausing for the briefest of
touches. The children sensed me, but I moved so swiftly, the
sensation was too fleeting to cause them alarm. I felt my strength
begin to falter and told Beth we would examine only two more souls,
when a condensed node of energy attracted my attention. Within it
gleamed the radiance of a child, but the diffuse glow around it
indicated minds expanded beyond normal consciousness. Could we be
so fortunate as to discover what we were looking for this soon?

‘Beth!’

‘I see
it!’

Together, we
streaked towards the brightness.

There is an
old man, and it seems he summons us.
He invokes beings that
he calls the guardian-pursuers.
Surely, he can only mean
ourselves.
What are we, Beth and I, if not that?
We
guard.
We pursue...
There: the child, her lovely
gleam, her bright innocence, so trusting.
And she too
reaches out to us.
‘Be with her in life,’ says the old man,
‘drive her to excellence.’
Lead her. Guide her.
Oh,
it will be our privilege, sweet child.
I am breathless
before the beauty of her naked soul.
We touch, and the link
is forged.
Clawing the residue of Beth’s failing strength
into my grasp, I align our souls with the child’s.
I can
even see her name, as if it marks every cell of her body.
Rayojini.
Rayo.
Daughter.
She has been
waiting for us.
She is the one, the only, possible
one.

Back in the
taverna, I blinked into the morning light, my body filmed with
sweat, my chest heaving, as if I had been running hard. Beth
coughed beside me. I sensed him shiver.

‘It is done,’
I said, in barely more than a whisper.

Beth rolled
painfully towards me, and put his damp brow on my shoulder. ‘I
should never have doubted you,’ he said. ‘Forgive me.’

‘Beth, there
is nothing to forgive. The journey brought us here... Everything
that has happened... inevitable... ‘

He nodded
weakly, and presently, fell asleep. I was drained beyond the point
where I could comfortably sleep myself, and lay quietly, in deep
relaxation, listening to the morning sounds of Taparak outside. A
great burden had been lifted from my soul. I had divested its
weight onto the child Rayojini, and I knew she would not feel it
there. It could not harm her. Not yet. Not for a long time. The
child was my little seed. As had been promised in the ritual, I
would haunt her to womanhood. I would nurture and strengthen her
powers from afar. She would flourish within the caul of my
benevolence.

Leaving the
island, I was quite happy to let Beth lead us further east. We
ended up in Atruriey; a marvellous land. The people there reminded
me strongly of our patrons, and we were welcomed as artists most
warmly. I even think one or two of them suspected there was
something different about us - beyond what might be excused as an
artistic temperament and aristocratic feyness - but nothing was
said.

Bloated with our
actions in Lansaal, we had little need to feed for several months,
and took only wine and water. I got involved with a travelling
eloim theatre company, for whom Beth was happy to paint scenery
and, accompanied by Tamaris and Ramiz, we stayed with this group
for several years.

During this
time, I maintained a subtle contact with Rayojini, watched her grow
from afar. Sometimes, when she had girlish problems, which she
found difficult to solve, I prodded her a little with an idea or a
feeling, although I shrank from making my presence too obvious. I
thought it unlikely that guardian-pursuers were, under normal
circumstances, real beings. After having spoken to so many
soulscapers in Lansaal, I thought these creatures were probably
metaphorical images for the child’s own conscience. Therefore, it
was vital that Rayojini didn’t seem to be more in tune with the
idea of her guardian-pursuers than other children. If her mother or
her tutors got suspicious, they might undertake a deep soulscaping
on the child, and destroy my link with her. Still, it was
pleasurable when I could help her. I liked to feel her earnest
little mind praying to Beth and myself, thanking us, as her
guardian-pursuers, for our guidance. The fact that she addressed
both of us did needle me a little though, because Beth had scant
interest in the child, leaving it to me to keep an eye on her
progress. He never communicated with her at all and yet, in her
prayers, I could see him through her eyes; beautiful, shining,
powerful. When she grew up, would she start desiring this handsome
image in her head? What then?

Then, one
evening as we were sitting round a campfire in deepest Atruriey, a
twitching started up in my fibres. Beth caught my eye and a feeling
passed between us. We knew it was time to return home. Absurdly, I
felt I would be leaving Rayojini behind, but I did not speak of
this to Beth. I kept it secret, how fond I’d become of the
child.

The city was in a
hectic mood when we returned. Invitations to the Di Corborans, the
Vielkorekhs, the Mougadis, littered the welcome-table in the hall
of our house, some of them quite eaten away by mice. Our especial
patron, Leone Di Corboran, dispatched two of his daughters, Leda
and Vicretia, to our domain once the servants had gossiped in the
zuko
, and news of our homecoming had spread about.

Beth, feigning
tiredness, although we had been back for two days, shut himself in
his rooms, so I had to entertain the creatures alone. I had
intended to visit the Metatronim family stronghold that afternoon,
for news had come to us from a friend of dreadful occurrences
during our absence; the sickness had not abated. In all honesty, I
needed to see my family, just to make a head count and reassure
myself that they were all in good health. Therefore, I felt
extremely indignant when Tamaris informed me Leone’s daughters had
arrived. Still, without our patrons, our lives would be very
difficult indeed, so I pasted a welcoming smile across my face, and
bid Tamaris show them up to my solar.

Vicretia was
the sweeter of the two Di Corboran girls, although Leda possessed
the greater wit. The last time I had seen them, Leda had just been
married to her second cousin, whereas Vicretia had been a silent
and delicate girl of thirteen. Vicretia had blossomed into a very
attractive young woman; Leda, on the other hand, had just
blossomed. I assumed she now had a brood of her own.

‘Fashaw,
Gimel,’ Leda told me, breezing into my solar, trailing limp gloves
like filleted limbs, ‘but you haven’t changed a bit! Four years
you’ve been away too! Wild air suits you, truly. Look at me!’ She
twirled before my dark mirror. ‘A pound for each year of your
absence!’ I suspected it was slightly more than that. She bustled
towards where I lounged, in artistic composure, on the divan. Her
lips pursed in anticipation. ‘Oh, but you’ve been missed.’ I
deflected the kiss by turning my head. She caught me on the
ear.

‘Don’t lick
me, Lee!’ I laughed sweetly, to sugar the sting. ‘You lie to me,
anyhow. What of your other favourites, hmm?’

‘None as lush
as you!’ she quipped, admitting to nothing.

I peered over
her white, plump shoulder. ‘Hello Vee, how lovely you look! It’s
been so long. Come, sit by me.’ I patted the divan, protecting the
place with my hand, so that Leda could not stuff herself into
it.