Burying the Shadow (36 page)

‘You seem to
know a lot about Tappish custom, boy...’ Perhaps I had told him too
much. ‘Nobody but soulscapers know about the guardian-pursuers. How
did you find out about them?’

He shrugged,
remarkably casually, seeing as I’d just cornered him. ‘You just
spoke about them,’ he said. ‘Perhaps other Taps have as well.’

I wondered
whether he was implying that Aniti or Juro had confided in him. It
was hard to believe; Taps just didn’t tell outsiders their secrets,
and yet Keea did have a point -
I
had babbled out my story
to him. Now, having calmed down, I wished I hadn’t.

‘You are an
intelligent boy, Keea,’ I said. ‘So you must realise that
soulscapers work with symbols. The guardian-pursuers are merely
metaphors for our own consciences, self-discipline, and
self-control.’

He laughed.
‘Really! Then your conscience just attacked you in the road, did
it?’

‘I’m not sure
what
just attacked me,’ I replied, trying to speak with some
authority, ‘but I cannot dismiss the possibility that it was
self-generated.’

‘The rider
too?’

It was obvious
to me that he was looking upon our conversation as some kind of
game. ‘The rider was real enough,’ I said, ‘and the bird-woman
seemed so, but I shall retain an open mind as to their origin.’

Keea smiled at
me slyly. ‘Perhaps, with the advent of these new times, your
personal authority will continue to hound you in the flesh,
soulscaper!’

‘What new
times?’

Keea narrowed
his eyes through the grass. ‘You have to admit strange things are
happening in the world.’

‘Perhaps.’ I
sipped for a few moments from the drink he had given me, eyeing him
obliquely. For one so young, he sometimes spoke with the confidence
of a far older person. Perhaps appearances were deceptive. He
looked about eighteen years old. ‘You mystify me a little,’ I
said.

He smirked at
me. ‘How flattering!’

‘Not
necessarily. I just wonder why you’ve made sure I’m aware you have
information I need, and yet refuse to share it. I wonder why you’re
trying to play with me. Are you foolish enough to believe the
things that are happening are part of a game? You are interested in
me, Keea. I know you are. Perhaps you too realise that if there is
danger in Khalt, only people like me can cope with it.’

He laughed.
‘From the state I just found you in, I wouldn’t count on that!’

I made an
angry sound and he took hold of my hands. ‘Let me see to those
cuts. I don’t mean to insult you, Rayojini. I quite like you.’

‘How fortunate
I am!’

Keea produced
some balm and lint from his luggage and wiped my face and hands. ‘I
didn’t do this to myself,’ I said.

‘Perhaps not,
but do you still think the creature that attacked you was your
guardian-pursuer?’

The horror of
it was fading. It would be easy to doubt what my eyes had seen. Why
would one of my own guardian-pursuers attack me? It didn’t make
sense. ‘Somehow I made her real,’ I said. ‘Somehow. I
saw
her!’

For a few
moments, Keea studied me carefully. I could almost see him sifting
through several things he wanted to say to me. For a moment, I was
tempted to say, ‘You need my help, don’t you’, for his expression
held ghostly shreds of confusion and anxiety.

‘They are
important to you,’ he said, staring me steadily in the eye. ‘Those
creatures ...’ The last word held a tone of pure disgust.

‘Why are you
so interested in my guardian-pursuers, Keea?’ I asked.

He glanced at me
sharply, almost guiltily. ‘I don’t want you to lose your mind,
that’s all, and there is a danger of that around here.’

‘Thank you for
your consideration...’ I finished the minted water and handed him
back the cup. ‘It was very fortunate you found me, I suppose. So,
are you going to escort me back to Halmanes, now? They, at least,
have confidence in my sanity!’

He seemed
puzzled. ‘You want to go back?’

‘That
is
why you’re here, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t run
errands for Halmanes, Rayojini.’

‘Yet you were
following me...’

He grinned and
gestured at the road. ‘See this? There is a choice of two
directions. There was a fifty per cent chance I’d run into
you.’

‘I don’t
really feel you have answered me but, if you want me to believe
you’re travelling independently, so be it. Where are you
heading?’

‘We’re going
to the Strangeling, aren’t we?’

At his words,
something contracted around my heart. For a moment or two I was
afraid that some invisible net was closing in, tightening around
me, and yet, on another level, I was relieved not to be alone. ‘Why
do you want my company?’

‘To tantalise
you with what I do and do not know.’

‘And what if
I
don’t want company, hmm? I usually travel alone.’

‘Why should we
separate when we have the same goal?’

‘Which
is?’

‘Enlightenment, naturally.’

I nodded,
pulled a sour face. ‘If you can promise you will not try to
frustrate my investigations...’ I glanced at him quickly. ‘And what
of Q’orveh? You are prepared to leave him?’

‘Q’orveh will
survive!’ Keea stood up, obviously not wishing to discuss that
subject with me. ‘Do you feel well enough to travel?’

I snorted
disparagingly and clambered to my feet beside him. ‘Keea, I am
always well enough to travel. I can travel in my sleep, if needs
be.’

All around us,
the fog was thinning, becoming transparent. Already the sun was a
pale disc in the sky. Keea helped me restrap my carryback and we
started to walk towards the west. There was no conversation, but
Keea whistled between his teeth; a low, marching refrain. I
squinted at him beneath the brim of my hat. Now was I getting way
too jumpy or was it possible, however unlikely, that Keea had
somehow engineered all that I had just experienced? All that had
happened in the temple of Helat indicated he might be an
illusionist of some kind. My instincts did not trust him. Were his
motivations malevolent or benevolent? Yet despite these
reservations, he intrigued me, not least because of his intimacy
with Q’orveh. It would be as if I carried a tangible memory of the
shaman with me if I travelled with his boy. Q’orveh would be aware
by now that both Keea and I had left the camp. In a way, that gave
me satisfaction. I wanted him to think we had left together. This
was most unlike me. Could such emotional flotsam cloud my judgement
of Keea? As I thought this, he glanced at me and smiled. I would
have to remain alert.

Gimel

‘
So soft and
uncompounded is their essence pure, not tied or manacled with joint
or limb, nor founded on the brittle strength of bone like cumbrous
flesh…’

Paradise Lost,
Book II

A few weeks after I
had projected my spirit out into the world, and had initiated
certain vital processes, I returned to my body in Sacramante. It
felt stiff from disuse, even though I’d only been away from it for
a short time. Now the ingredients had been thrown into the
cauldron; I could only wait until the slow fusion was complete, to
discover what fascinating result they would produce.

Awaking to an
autumnal chill, I felt as if I had been away for a hundred years. A
questioning wind fluted around the high tower; above me, the black
veils of the bed flinched restlessly to its tune. As I returned
languorously to full consciousness within my body, the hayfield
aroma of the plains slipped away from my memory, overcast by the
echo of the last angry words I had exchanged with my brother, Beth.
I was afraid of what might have happened in my absence.

Tamaris came
to help me, when she heard me stumbling down the stairs of the high
tower. She took me to my rooms, bathed my body and let me feed from
her wrist as I floated in the perfumed water. The curtains were
drawn against a glum afternoon, and lamps, fragranced with
essential oils, were burning low. ‘Has anything... happened?’ I
asked.

Tamaris’ dark
eyes were cloudy with concern. She looked tired. Soon, we would
have to perform the ritual for her rejuvenation. I didn’t want my
faithful servants dying from neglect! ‘Lord Beth has been working
hard,’ she replied.

I closed my
eyes and relaxed into the water, grateful he was still in the
house, at least.

‘Madam..?’ The
tone of Tamaris’ voice suggested she was about to address a
difficult subject.

‘Yes,
Tamaris?’

‘We - Ramiz
and I - are
aware
all is not right between you and Lord
Beth.’

‘It could
hardly have escaped you, dear Tamaris. We made enough noise about
it!’

‘Well... we
want you to know that Lord Beth has not...’ She screwed up her face
in vexation.,

‘Speak, for
the sake of Light! I won’t bite you!’ We both smiled at the joke.
She stroked a sliver of amber-scented soap down my arm.

‘Avirzah’e
Tartaruchi has not been near the house, and neither has Lord Beth
been near his. We thought you should know that.’

‘Thank you. It
is gratifying news.’ I stood up in the bath and Tamaris wrapped me
in a voluminous towel. I would dress and then visit my brother.

I was relieved
by the helpless welcome in Beth’s eyes, when I approached him in
his brush court, although the ambience of the room itself was not
that which I had expected to find. Gentle afternoon light came in
through the north windows, and the room was full of tranquillity.
Beth was dressed in a loose, paint-smeared shirt, the sleeves
rolled back to his elbows. His hair was unbound, hanging round his
shoulders; usually, he tied it back severely when he was working.
Smiling, I walked past him, without attempting an embrace, and went
to examine his latest work. Some of my relief condensed into a
harder substance.

‘A good
likeness,’ I said.

The painting
was of Avirzah’e. He was represented naked, but his loins were
modestly shrouded by the tips of long feathers of purple hue. These
feathers were the curling pinions of enormous wings, which Beth had
painted sprouting from Avirzahe’e’s shoulders. The wings rose to
bony joints high behind his head and swept around to fill the edges
of the canvas. His hair poured like red and black flames to the
upper corners of the picture, his head thrown backwards, reflecting
a divine light that shone from above. His hands were raised in
helpless supplication. Somehow, the attitude did not seem typical
of the Avirzah’e I knew, but perhaps I did not know him as well as
I thought I did. Poor Beth, it must have felt like slow and
agonising death, keeping his distance from the Tartaruch; this work
of art was but a poor substitute.

‘Gimel...’ He
sighed. ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’

I turned to
inspect his condition more thoroughly. If I had hoped to see signs
of physical decay, which would have given me a reason to reprimand
him, I was disappointed. He appeared to be in the peak of
condition; the Tartaruch’s juices must be potent indeed! Still, his
face was creased in anguish. ‘I commend your continence,’ I
said.

He made a
bitter sound and threw down the brush he was holding into a pile of
rags. ‘I am torn two ways,’ he said. ‘Don’t make light of my
predicament.’

‘You committed
an impulsive act, Beth. I cannot lessen the burden of that.’

He shook his
head. ‘No, the act was not impulsive, and neither do I regret it. I
have been thinking hard while you were lying alone on the
black-veiled bed, beloved.’

I should think he had!
‘And yet you have not gone to the Tartaruch... Has he attempted to
summon you?’

‘Of
course!’

‘Then, there
is a puzzle. If you truly have no regrets concerning your action, I
cannot understand why you did not obey the summons...’ It was as if
I was forcing him to say hurtful things. It was as if I wanted him
to surprise me and dissipate my fears. I was also aware of how my
harsh words violated the peaceful atmosphere of the room. My
presence was insensitive and destructive, as if it was I, not Beth,
who was in the wrong.

Beth’s
shoulders slumped. He picked up a rag and began to clean his hands.
‘I share Avirzah’e’s philosophy, to a degree, but I cannot involve
myself in his activities. He has my support - on a spiritual
level.’

‘Such lofty
talk, Beth! It is rubbish!’

‘I am very
confused, Gimel. You cannot guess how much...’ He smiled at me
sadly. ‘Look at you; you are so self-assured, so confident in your
beliefs. There are more than two sides to every issue, you know.
Blinding yourself to all but one is not the answer.’

I was alarmed
by the calm reason in his voice; he made it sound so plausible.
‘Beth, we committed ourselves to a course of action. You have
betrayed me by abandoning it!’

‘I did not
abandon it! You didn’t want Avirzah’e near your soulscaper, so you
forbade me to assist you. It is your doing!’

‘I saw you
drunk on Tartaruchi blood; that is all. Your involvement would have
contaminated the whole procedure!’

He raised his
hands and threw down the cloth. ‘If you wish to believe that, do
so! How is Amelakiveh?’

‘Competent. As
I expected. He will soon establish contact with the
soulscaper.’

‘And what does
he think of you working alone?’

‘It is not his
concern!’

‘Don’t be so
arrogant, Gimel. He is faithful to me as well as to you.’

I sighed and
rubbed my face with weary hands. I didn’t want us to be arguing
like this, but the hard, painful core in my heart, caused by Beth’s
betrayal, made me reluctant to assuage the situation. Still, it was
clear to me that Beth would not make any concessions; the role of
peacemaker would have to be mine, whatever my feelings. ‘We mustn’t
fight,’ I said. ‘It’s what the Tartaruch wants.’