Burying the Shadow (3 page)

Vasni lived
high in the city, on the seventh of the central trunks, no less,
and two tiers down from the aesthetes. Ushas and I walked the
thoroughfare from Great Root to Spiral, where we entered a pulley
carriage and were drawn aloft. The young man tending the pulley
made bright and hopeful remarks to my mother, but she just smiled
and said, ‘I promise you my daughter instead, when she’s a
mind.’

I was
flattered but didn’t, for a minute, believe either of them would
remember the message for that long.

Ushas was
always very lovely - right until the day she died, which was from a
poisoning she picked up somewhere off continent, long after I’d
climbed my own bough. That day, she was radiant; her long black
hair twisted into ropes and greased in place, with sparkling metal
pins threaded through the lobes of her ears. She leaned back over
the side of the pulley-cart, her hair-ropes swinging free, hanging
onto the cables. She had strong, bony features, perfectly sculpted,
and wiry muscled limbs. Her skin had the matt, silky sheen of black
plums. How she loved life in that body. In later years, I was glad
she had died before she lost her beauty; it would have distressed
her so.

We jumped out
onto Vasni’s platform and Ushas blew heartily onto his wind chimes
to tell him we were there. A boy, wearing a ceremonial robe of
russet cloth, came out from the hollow to answer us, and took us
into the smoky chamber where Vasni worked. All the light-boles were
curtained with yellow sacking, round which the most vigorous beams
of sunlight streamed in penetrating spears. What with the smoke and
the sharp rays, and the row of elderly scry-women mumbling in the
corner, it was a strange place for a child to find herself. Only
two of my relatives, apart from my mother, had been able to attend
the ceremony. Brothers of my mother, older men of (what seemed to
me) vast experience and therefore intimidating, they squatted
silently near the scry-women at the back of the chamber, still
dressed in travelling coats as if they’d had to hurry to arrive on
time. They were strangers to me; I hardly knew them.

Vasni rocked
in front of his smoky embers, legs crossed, palms on each knee.
Even as an old man he was handsome, run to forest thinness rather
than the matronly fat carried by many of the castrati scryers. He
wore a loose robe of stained orange; the symbols of his family and
guild burned into the cloth. His arms were covered in fading
tattoos, his brown-skinned skull shaved but for the liana-braids
hanging from the back of his head. It was said that, as a youth, he
had been stunning in appearance. One of my friends, a girl named
Aishar, had once told me Vasni kept his genitalia, mummified, in a
wrap of bark and silk, just to remind himself how much he had given
up, back then. I had also heard that he was scorned for ending his
line in that way; beauty is appreciated among our people, and the
most favoured are expected to breed and thus continue their
bloodline. I had seen Vasni before on ceremonial occasions, and he
had once blessed me by touching my face, but he seemed a strange
and awesome figure to me this day, and I shrank back behind my
mother. She gently put her hand on my shoulder, and murmured a few
words of encouragement.

Vasni leaned
over the embers of his fire and inhaled the smoke deeply, before
raising his head and saying, ‘Ushas, my child, let me greet
you.’

My mother
gently pushed me from her skirts and went to lean over the fire.
She inhaled the smoke and then put out her tongue, onto which Vasni
smeared a fingerprint of ash, or what looked like ash. Then he
pressed his thumb onto her forehead and chanted a line or two. My
mother responded with a soft murmur of notes, and then sank down
into a cross-legged sitting position opposite him.

Vasni nodded
in satisfaction and slowly raised his head again, fixing me with
his steady stare. He beckoned. ‘You, child of the child,
approach!’

Cautiously, I
went towards the embers. Behind Vasni, the row of scryers started
to chant, swaying from side to side. Vasni’s boy began to beat out
a simple rhythm on a carapace drum. My uncles began to hum softly;
a low, deep, masculine sound. Slowly, the sense of ritual stole
around the smoky chamber and entered my mind and body. The outside
world was eclipsed from my mindscape; rarely have I experienced
such moments of total reality. My mother sat with bowed head,
intoxicated by the fumes, although I did not know that then. I went
around to where Vasni was sitting and, at his direction, sat down
by his side. He smiled at me and, in the dim light, the indigo dye
on his teeth looked as brown and tarnished as old blood. For a
while he spoke to me of soulscaping, the history of our people, our
responsibilities and vocations.

The Tappish
are descendants of the great Deltan Kings of ancient times, a guild
of healers who colonised the island. Being scholars and mystics, as
well as healers, our ancestors had sought to probe the secrets of
the human mind. They discerned two areas within the psyche, which
are very closely linked; the mindscape, which is the realm of
conscious thought and decision-making, and the soulscape - a
deeper, more inaccessible area - in which the hidden desires and
compulsions, the most esoteric symbols of the entire human race,
reside. ‘Within the soulscape,’ Vasni said, ‘dwell all the gods
that ever lived, all the thoughts that have ever been thought, all
the memories of the human race.’

Perceiving
interconnectedness between all living things, the ancient Taps
believed that every individual was somehow linked through the
abstract country of the soulscape. By understanding the soulscape,
it might be possible to understand human motivation. The fortunate
discovery of the properties of certain herbs and their parasites
had been instrumental in developing the soulscaping craft. Through
prudent use of the mind-altering substances they had found -
burning the crushed wings of ‘scaper beetles’ - our ancestors had
been able to prove their theories to be correct. They had learned
how to expand their awareness and actually enter the soulscape
themselves. By doing this, they found they were able to have a
direct effect upon the soulscape’s reality: they could
change
it.

The soulscape,
Vasni told me, can be visualised exactly like a vast city. ‘Your
personal scape,’ he said, ‘can be seen as a many-roomed house
within this city. Each of us has our own house there, and most
people never open their doors to look outside. They do not know how
to. Yet we Taps are able not only to go outside our personal
dwellings in the soulscape, but also to enter other people’s
dwellings too. We can travel wherever we wish to, on the streets
and in the parks of this place, always aware of each house’s
relation to the city, perceiving the greater picture. And, because
we can see the houses from the outside, as it were, it is easy for
us to discern where they are damaged and how to repair them.’

Through
soulscaping, we can heal the human mind of most hurts and, because
the majority of illnesses are connected with the mind, we can often
cure the body of physical ailments as well.

‘But healing
is not our only task,’ Vasni said, raising a stern finger. ‘No. We
are hunters too.’ He spoke to me then of the great Fear that haunts
the minds of humankind, always lurking in the shadows, seeking for
weaknesses that are doors into the soulscape. Finding ingress, the
Fear breeds madness, hysteria and weird moon-cycle delusions. While
soulscapers travelled abroad, plying their trade, it was also their
duty to be alert for the Fear, to pursue it into the soulscape,
corner it and slay it.

The alarm I
felt at this news made me confident enough to ask questions. ‘What
is the Fear? What does it look like?’

‘Nobody but a
soulscaper can see the Fear,’ Vasni answered, leaning towards me.
‘And they look for it in the eyes of their fellow creatures. A good
soulscaper can always see the Fear, looking out, if they have
trained themselves to recognise it. As to what it is, I can only
say this: it is a very old thing, perhaps a renegade fragment of
the soulscape itself that has escaped into the world. Once a person
is infected with it, only a soulscaper can drive it away.’

‘Is it ever
dangerous for us?’

Vasni pondered
my query. ‘If there are dangers, they are those of ill discipline,
carelessness and pomposity. A dedicated, well-schooled soulscaper
would rarely accost something they could not handle. But... there
are always exceptions. It is important for you to apply yourself
diligently to your training.’

How exciting
my future sounded! I would be trained to enter this subconscious
realm and work with the creatures found there. I would be a healer
and huntress. It seemed as if, one day, I would tread the soil of
my invented playtime worlds, for they existed within the soulscape.
All imaginative creations lived in this place, where myth was
tangible and could be experienced through all the senses. I
listened earnestly to everything Vasni said, wanting to please him,
to show him I was capable of following my mother’s path.

He finished
his narrative with a closing gesture; hands spread out, palm
downwards, extended from breast to arm’s length. ‘Now, we shall
see,’ he said. ‘Lean forward, child.’

His long, hard
fingers curled around the back of my neck. I was puzzled for a
moment and then, with unexpected force, he pushed my head down
towards the glowing embers at our feet. I remember that I
struggled. I remember the glow of the charcoals suddenly becoming
large and livid in my eyes, looming towards me like fiery boulders.
My mother, still slumped with her head upon her breast, didn’t even
look up. ‘Relax, child,’ Vasni said, behind me, in a sibilant
voice. ‘Trust me and breathe. Breathe deep.’

Close to, the
smell of the embers was bitter and stifling; the heat scorched my
throat. My eyes began to sting, and I blinked them furiously, hot
tears falling down onto the charcoal; turned to steam, no doubt,
even before they met the heat. I coughed, and it seemed that my
whole body convulsed; the cough came from somewhere very deep
inside me. It was terrible. I was afraid that Vasni was going to
burn my face and that my ritual was to be one of scarring and
torment. Vasni was pinching the nerves in my neck so tightly, I
could not move at all. The only sounds I could make were
insignificant mews, barely audible.

Just when I
was sure I was about to pass out, if not lose my eyes and skin to
the heat, Vasni yanked me backwards, right back, and thumped me in
the centre of my chest with his free fist. I gulped air, so
disorientated that I tried to swallow it, like food. Vasni pressed
me gently onto the floor, into the rough, gritty folds of his
perfumed sacking-mats. ‘Lie still!’ he commanded.

I lay on my
back, trying to remember how to breathe properly. Vasni inhaled
loudly, and I could visualise great columns of smoke being sucked
off the fire and into his nostrils. His voice, when he spoke, was
full of the power of the fire, and the women nearby bleated
affirmatives between each slowly-intoned word. ‘Now,’ he boomed, ‘I
will scry for the child’s future and, as part of this ceremony,
invoke those who will watch over her in this life; the
guardian-pursuers.’

The scryers
behind him began to keen in high, warbling voices, and I lay there,
with eyes squeezed tight, my fists clenched across my belly. My
head was full of the potent smoke; I had never felt so dizzy, and
my limbs ached in a strange way that was both uncomfortable and
pleasant. What would happen now? Who were the guardian-pursuers? I
had not heard of such people before.

Vasni chanted
in ancient Tappish for a while and then slipped into the modern
tongue. His voice was perfectly pitched; no crack of age, no falter
of lips and tongue. ‘Heed us, unseen ones,’ he began, his voice
sonorous above the crooning of the women. ‘We bring to you a
fledgling soulscaper. May one of your number assign their soul to
hers. May they urge her to excellence in life, protect her from the
Fear, drive her ever to inquiry, fill her dark corners with their
shadow, be with her from this moment until she leaves the flesh and
crosses to the soulscape in body and mind. Hear us and approach!
Reveal yourselves in this one instant to the child Rayojini,
daughter of Ushas! Make yourselves known, oh unseen ones. This I,
your servant, Vasni, request; I, who gave you my manhood for
eternity. Hear me and approach!’

Instantly,
there was silence. I could hear the women breathing, but the
drumbeat and the chanting had ceased. Vasni’s presence filled the
room, even behind my clenched eyelids. I could feel his life force
beating like a slow, smoky wing across my soul.

It was then
that I opened my eyes. Perhaps they were still full of smoke, or
the effects of it, but it seemed as if the whole chamber was in
utter darkness, but for the shape of Vasni and the dull glow of the
embers. I could not see the walls, the light-boles, or even any of
the other people whom I knew were sitting there with me. All was
Vasni; Vasni like a living tree, his roots of spirit dipping down
into the petrified heart of our city, down into the mountain, down,
down, into the fertile ooze far below. I could almost see the
living essence of the world rising up through his spine,
fountaining out of his head, falling to the ground, sinking back
into the deep shadows of the earth. And then it seemed as if Vasni
too was fading from my sight, as if I was being drawn away, far
away, until Vasni and his embers were like little dim pictures in
the distance. Gradually, a formless darkness came between me and
this image. It was winged, or cloaked, this darkness, and billowing
like an enormous black wind-sail. I was filled with a dreadful
terror, (had the Fear itself come for me?) but I could not escape.
Closing my eyes made no difference, for I could still see, and
could not move my head at all. My tongue seemed to have swollen to
fill my mouth; I could not call for my mother. The roiling shape
loomed over me and I screamed in my head. Was this the
guardian-pursuer Vasni had summoned? It was a dreadful thing - so
alien to the light and space of Taparak. I could not believe the
soulscapers had access to, or affinity with, such creatures. It
appeared to lean over me and, for a second, the darkness parted,
like a veil being drawn aside. Within, I saw the most astounding
thing: two beings, two auras of pale light, giving off a perfume as
beautiful as spirit-scent. They looked like male and female, but
even as a child, I knew the unseen ones could have no real gender,
as we understood it. The female shape smiled at me and reached
towards me with a glowing, white hand. Her nails were like bright
red almonds. I tried to reach out in return, but even though they
seemed so close, it was as if I tried to reach across infinity, a
universe. We never touched. She looked at the male, and they nodded
at one another. Then they took a step forward as if crossing from
one tree platform to another. It was no difficulty for them. Both
of them leaned down, and I felt as if my flesh was alight with
their radiance. The female kissed my brow, followed by the male. My
flesh began to burn there; a delicious, cold burning. I wanted to
make a sound, any sound, but I could not. And then they were gone.
In an instant. The chamber rushed back in to fill their space,
ringing with the sound of women chanting and the low, steady call
of Vasni the scryer.