Burying the Shadow (70 page)

Where do these
words come from? Why am I so sure? I have Gimel’s image in my head
as I speak. She has never tried to prey on me. Yet, she could have
done, surely? And Beth, what had he brought me but forbidden
pleasure in my dreams. If he had bitten me then, he had not drawn
blood. Neither of them had behaved as mindless predators. They had
invaded my life because they needed me. And Keea had intercepted me
before I could hear the truth from them.

This is an
alien land, and I don’t know how to get back to my reality, but I
am jubilant. Now, I begin to understand.

Mikha’il is
fading, even as I watch. Eloat overestimates his power. Mikha’il is
a tortured being, and his suffering is weakness. To govern by
subjection and torture is a mistake.

‘You have
deceived me,’ I say. ‘You perverted the image of Gimel Metatronim
in my mind. You manipulated me, you humiliated me, and you tried to
break my sanity with your illusion-spinning in Khalt and the
Strangeling! I know that now.’

He cries out,
and falls to his knees. I walk towards him through the foam of
blood and lean down. Beneath my hand, he feels human. He is
shaking. When he looks up at me, there are tears in his eyes. ‘The
things you say are true,’ he says, weakly. ‘But I was created for
only for one purpose. And it destroys me. What can I do? I can only
obey the command of my creator.’

‘Why not let
the cycle complete itself?’ I ask him. ‘You know that your brother
was supposed to take the place of Eloat. Why not let that happen?
We can do something to begin that process in this place. Will it
kill you to help me do that?’

Mikha’il
screws up his eyes. He appears to be very near death. ‘I am not
allowed to do that,’ he says. ‘My life or death means nothing.’

‘Not to Eloat,
no, but to Sammael?’

At the mention
of his brother’s name, his eyes fill with fear. ‘You should not
have said that name. He will have heard you. He is coming. I feel
it.’

My body aches in
resonance with his eternal sorrow.

‘I am an idea,
a purpose,’ he says. ‘Nothing beyond that. I am not a brother, not
a lover, not even a son.’ He reaches out with red, sticky fingers
to clutch at my coat. I take his hands in my own.

‘Sammael is
coming,’ I say. ‘Wait for him.’

He moves
feebly in my arms. ‘Wait for him? Then I wait for death. He will
not forgive me. From him, I can expect only vengeance.’

‘Perhaps, but
I don’t believe that.’

‘You are only
human. This is beyond your experience.’

‘Maybe so, but
in my human ignorance I still recall the account you read to me in
Sacramante, and how it told of Sammael’s grief. It did not speak of
vengeance.’

‘Oh, Rayo, I
hurt so much. I will bleed until Sammael is dead or he has killed
me! Look at me. It is too late.’ He groans and convulses. ‘Hold me,
Rayo, hold me tight. Make me feel something. I cannot feel...’ His
head lolls against my chest and I hold his body very tightly. It is
so light, less weight than a small child, as if all its substance
is floating away like dust. I am soaked in his blood, his holy
blood. I hold onto him, willing him substance, willing him flesh.
‘Come soon,’ I cry, inside my head. ‘Please come soon, come
soon!’

‘Forgive me,
Rayo,’ Mikha’il says; it is a weak sound.

I kiss his
hair. ‘Hush. We are all puppets, in one way or another. I do not
blame you.’ I can’t stop the tears falling from my eyes. I am
weeping for the world, for Mikha’il, for Gimel. I am weeping for
myself. Is this the end of everything, here on an empty road, with
a dying spirit in my arms? I solved the puzzle too late. If I had
listened to Q’orveh, would it have made any difference? Still, no
point in crying about it now. I am facing the unknown and, in these
last moments, my old vigour returns in force. This is an adventure,
and I am not afraid. ‘Hold on,’ I say to Mikha’il. ‘Hold on. I am
with you.’ He does not answer. Perhaps he is already dead.

Then, we are
surrounded by light, light so dense and real we could gather it up
in our arms, eat it, bathe in it, clothe ourselves in it. I see a
being of light, manifesting in the sky before us, similar to
Mikha’il, as I had first seen him, yet stronger, more vital. It is
a creature of purpose and intention, whose motives are founded in
greater concerns than fear of punishment. It can only be the
brother of Mikha’il. He comes towards us and all I am holding in my
arms is the fragment of a fragile soul. This, I offer up to the
Prince of Light. Before he takes this burden from me, he asks, ‘Do
you act of your own free will?’ He asks me that. I cannot believe
it, and can hardly answer.

‘Yes!
Yes!’

Then he stoops
and becomes, as Mikha’il did, a tall winged man, standing upon the
road, but he does not wear armour; he is as naked as love, clothed
only in his wings. His hair is exactly the same colour as the blood
all around me. He kneels down in front of me and takes the smoky
vestiges of his brother into his arms. ‘Mikha’il, I am here. I have
you,’ he says, and with his fingernails, rips the skin of his own
chest, above the heart. He places Mikha’il’s insubstantial head
against the wound, and lets his brother drink. It is so bizarre, so
like a mother with her child. And, just like a woman carelessly
breastfeeding an infant, he talks to me while the meal is taken.
‘You are Rayojini,’ he says.

‘Yes, I
am.’

‘Gimel has
told me about you. She chose well.’

‘I have done
nothing,’ I say.

‘Precisely,’
Sammael answers, and smiles.

Mikha’il has
regained his substance. He does not look like Keea any more, nor
even Gimel. I realise that he is the person who pressed the coin
into my hand at Ykhey’s gates, the strange figure I’d seen sneaking
out of the upper room at the Temple Gate Inn. He is still weak, and
lies helplessly in his brother’s arms, but I know he is no longer
dying.

‘Now, we must
conclude our business,’ Sammael says, and gets to his feet,
dragging Mikha’il to a shaky stand.

‘My purpose is
to kill you,’ Mikha’il says. ‘I am the obstacle in your path. Why
sustain me? Why hold me now? I am your nemesis.’

‘My purpose is
to love you,’ Sammael replies, ‘and you are only an obstacle if you
will it so. I shall sustain you for eternity, for we are the future
of two worlds. Separately, we are in conflict, but together, we are
Potential.’

I stand apart
from them, watching, listening.

‘You desire
power!’ Mikha’il cries. It seems that, even now, he is still
clinging onto the lies he has been taught.

Sammael has
great patience. ‘I desire change,’ he says softly, ‘for the good of
all. I am a servant of Elenoen and Earth, not a god. That is the
difference you must understand.’

‘You are
lying!’ Mikha’il cries, struggling in Sammael’s hold. ‘This cannot
be true!’

Sammael will
not let him go. ‘How can I persuade you?’ he asks, and I can hear
desperation in his voice. ‘By saying that in memory of you, I have
lived apart from my people for hundreds of years? By telling you I
never gave up hoping, that I knew the time would come when the
arrested possibilities began to flow? You think I want to become
Eloat? You are wrong; it is a lonely, terrible existence. And yet,
it is my destiny. I have no choice, no matter how strongly I would
like, at this moment, to take you back to Earth and hide. We could
hide, Mikha’il. I could take you beyond the reach of Eloat’s whip.
Without you, it will take Eloat aeons to penetrate Earth’s reality
again. We could be together for that long. But I will deny myself
such contentment. This is the only proof I can give you of my
intention. I have waited, Mikha‘il, to tell you these things, and I
trust your integrity. Do not disappoint me.’

Mikha’il turns
his head to look at me. Does he really want my counsel? I am only
human. ‘Try it,’ I say. ‘What have you to lose? If believing
Sammael is the wrong decision, you will die, and Earth will suffer,
but if it is the right decision, anything could happen. Great and
wondrous things, perhaps. If I were you, I’d just believe him. It’s
worth the risk, isn’t it?’

‘Listen to
her,’ Sammael says, ‘human minds are full of marvels. Eloat will
not be able to resist our combined intention to remove him and to
rid our world of its stagnation. Let the new day dawn. Conjoin with
me again, and we’ll take this power home.’

Their
communion is beyond my comprehension. I see two winged beings,
neither male nor female, spiralling up, in a tangle of wings. They
begin to spin, so fast, it is impossible to discern the two
separate beings at all, and when the spinning stops, there is only
one.

I jump up,
suffused by wild joy. ‘Who are you?’ I cry out.

‘Samikha’il!’
they answer, and I begin to laugh, the breathtaking laughter of
tears.

Samikha’il
holds a sword in his hand. It is a sword of energy, the energy of
raw creativity. There is a sound around me like lightning
shattering plates of glass the size of the Earth. ‘Help me make me
a doorway, Rayojini,’ Samikha’il says.

‘A doorway
into where? Earth reality?’

‘No. Elenoen.
We must pass through and put an end to this conflict once and for
all, for the sake of both our worlds. Samikha’il cannot make this
portal alone. In our combined state, we are detected as a threat,
and there is opposition, but you, you can do it.’

‘How?’ I
screech, my fists bunched in frustration. ‘I don’t know Elenoen! I
can’t visualise how to reach it!’

‘It is very
simple,’ Samikha’il says, patiently. ‘To you, Elenoen is the place
beyond death, beyond the soulscape. Use your art, soulscaper. Make
the portal with your art.’

Beyond death.
To visualise that and make it real, I have to die. I know that.
Death. I don’t want to die. And yet, my purpose in life has always
been to help others, to alleviate sickness and distress, wherever,
or however, I uncover it.

‘Do what is
necessary, then!’ I say. ‘I will do all I can to make this portal
you need.’

‘Of your own
free will?’

‘Yes, of my
own free will.’ At this final moment, it seems as if this is the
task for which I have been born.

Samikha’il
seizes the essence I have become in his wings. I know instinctively
the right thoughtforms to create the portal. It is just like
opening an unlocked door. Through the portal, I can see another
world, thronged by creatures that are but dim reflections of the
being in whose aura I ride. This world is not like the one I know
in any way. It is not like any soulscape I have ever seen. It is
beyond words utterly.

We streak
through it, to its heart. The sword is raised; the crest of
infinite probability about to break into a thousand waves. I hear a
sound that is like no other, but I know it is the sound of a
frightened god. Around me, the echo is taken up by a million
million other gods, in other realities, other worlds, who feel the
wave breaking, who feel the tide, who feel the new day. Unleashed,
the sword flies, and its name is Potential. In that place, I know.
I am Knowledge. And the swords strikes home.

Rayojini

‘
Then with
transition sweet new speech resumes. Thus thou hast seen one world
begin and end… must thou hast yet to see…’

Paradise Lost,
Book XII

I came to my senses in
a room of glass. I was lying on a hard, glossy surface. It was
neither warm nor cold. Light filled my eyes; it was so bright I
dared not open them. For a few moments, I could not recall who I
was or where I might be, knowing only that to find myself conscious
at all was surprising. I could not remember why.

‘Rayo...
Rayojini.’

Strange
sounds. What could they mean? In a way, they were familiar
but...

‘Soulscaper!
Awake! Look at me!’

Slowly, I
opened my eyes, but I could not discern the details of my
surroundings. Who calls...? Who calls...? And to whom?

‘It is I,
Samikha’il, who is now Eloat.’

The words were
like pictures in my mind. I saw a dusty room, a table, an ancient
book. Suddenly, a wave of sensation coursed through my body. It was
like being woken from a deep sleep by a harsh blow. I threw myself
upright, scrabbling on the shiny surface. If this was death, I
needed to face it on my feet. I was in an enormous room of ice or
crystal, all of which was glowing with its own light. Tall,
shimmering figures stood around its edge that appeared, to me, like
flames with eyes. Before me, stood a god: Samikha’il. He looked
similar to the man I had seen at the gates of Ykhey, while at the
same time very different. It was hard to describe. His skin glowed
like soft yellow flame and his hair was black and red, like the
smouldering colours of a low fire. I had never seen, nor could have
imagined, such raw beauty.

‘Gently now,
Rayo.’ His arms were ready to enfold me, and it was beyond me to
refuse their embrace. As he touched me, all tiredness fled my mind.
I felt strong, and alert and full of energy, but there were
peculiar squeaky sounds around me, which I quickly realised was my
own voice trying to speak.

‘The cold,’ I
gasped. ‘The bite, the sword... Oh Helat!’ I put my hands over my
eyes. ‘I’m dead! I’m dead!’

I could hear
Samikha’il laughing. ‘Dead
where
exactly?’ he said.

‘I don’t
know,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You tell me!’

‘I have
brought you to Elenoen,’ he said.

‘Then, it is
over... the problem... all over?’

He nodded,
smiling. ‘Almost. However, there is one final task for which I must
call upon your service. I do not ask you to do this for myself
alone, but for others who I feel you care about.’

‘What
task?’

‘Something to
do with veils,’ he answered.