Burying the Shadow (5 page)

Tamaris
hurried towards me, put her arms around my shoulders.

‘Get up,’ Beth
said. ‘Quickly!’

‘What
happened?’

Tamaris helped
me to my feet. I could not look at what lay on the grass.

‘He couldn’t
take it,’ Beth said sharply. ‘I thought this might happen.’

‘It killed
him?’

My brother
shook his head. ‘No... but he saw... he knew.’ He sucked his upper
lip, staring down at the motionless shape. Then he glanced at me.
‘Are you alright?’

I did not
answer, but struggled, light-headedly, towards the stile. Tamaris
scurried after me.

‘He went
crazy,’ she said, ‘flinging himself about. Lord Beth ended it for
him... in a civilised way. We could do nothing else.’

I could not bring
myself to speak, painfully aware that we had contravened an
unspoken law. We had killed; not through the sup, but in cold
blood. Nothing felt completely real; the night around me seemed
like an illusion. I could remember nothing of the man being in my
mind. Beth came up behind me, reached to touch me. I shook him
off.

‘Don’t speak.
Don’t touch,’ I said.

‘Get her to
bed,’ Beth said to Tamaris. ‘Ramiz and I will remove the
remains.’

As I walked
unsteadily back to the fohndahk, leaning on Tamaris’ arm, I was
thinking how wrong the soulscaper had been in his assessment of his
ability to protect himself. So wrong. His own madness was the last
thing he’d feared.

He was the
first, the first of many.

I forced
myself to develop a shield of passionless dedication, rather than
ponder the possible consequences of our quest. It helped to think
that we were engaged on a holy mission and that each soulscaper we
encountered was simply expanding the knowledge we needed to save
our people. A kind of unreality took hold of me. Coolly, I did what
had to be done, feeling nothing. Tamaris and Ramiz became quite
adept at sniffing out lone soulscapers, although after the first
occasion, we were more discerning about whom we actually let into
our soulscape. We used the same story of my fictional illness,
which allowed me to sit quietly and uninvolved while Beth did the
talking. I felt queerly detached during these interviews, as if I
really was mentally ill. Beth was pleased. My demeanour added
conviction to his claims. I did not realise that a change was
coming over me.

Both Beth and
myself could speak Lannish, but we used only the Bochanegran tongue
for our transactions. The soulscapers, all of whom, it is said,
speak every language in the world, were as we suspected shrewd
creatures to a fault. Several of them were keen enough to be
acutely suspicious of us, despite our convincing fabrications and
superbly delivered performances. I remember one or two of them
actually believed my brother and I to be victims of the Fear. One
man told me he did not like what looked out of my eyes. How could I
respond to that? He was clearly seeing the truth of me; for all my
pious motives, a dangerous killer.

Once we had
approached an individual, and allowed them access to our own
soulscape, we could not simply leave them in possession of this
knowledge and pass on. Only the patron families in Sacramante were
aware of our more intimate needs, as predators - for obvious
reasons. To other humans, any creature needing to feed on their
ichor for survival were simply legends; no more real to them than
fairies or ghosts. However, it seemed that no soulscaper was strong
enough to endure the weirdness of our inner landscapes; in short,
it tended to drive them mad. We could not risk these pathetic
casualties blurting something out to their colleagues, and so had
to cull them in order to cover our tracks. At first, I was sickened
by the necessity of having to dispose of these people, although
Beth appeared to relish it; his sensuality had run riot since we’d
left Bochanegra. Until that time in Lansaal, the only murder of
humans by eloim I had witnessed had been the rare and regulated
ritual of sacrifice, part of the agreement we had with the patrons.
At home, regular supping was nothing more than honouring the holy
trade; sustenance for pleasure. Except for the occasional sacred
sacrifices, which were always confined to significant festivals or
events, death was not part of our relationship with humanity. But
as time went on, my heart seemed to harden to the culling.

Looking back,
I feel that a beast was loosed in me in Lansaal - it was certainly
loosed in Beth - an ancient beast from ancient times, which lurks
still within the hearts of our people, waiting for the scent of
terrified blood to wake it from sleep. This beast led me, let me
stand by while Beth killed, let me - eventually - bend to the
unwilling sup myself. May the Old Ones forgive me, but as the
leagues rolled past our carriage windows, the pleasure of the hunt
came over me too and I reverted to a forgotten, former wildness.
Eventually, I no longer had to force myself to kill. And yet, at
the time, I could not find the will to be ashamed of it, which
means I must accept that this cruel greed is a part of me,
thankfully hidden in the regulated, civilised world of Sacramante,
but always present in the deepest corners of my soul.

Our kills
became cleaner; there was little mess. Tamaris and Ramiz buried
what remained of the victims, after Beth and I had taken any
sustenance we desired. We found no one capable of withstanding the
eloim soulscape. It was as if some higher power of the world
condemned us for our actions. Every day brought us nearer to
Taparak with our quest unfulfilled.

Eloim living
in Lansaal were few and far between, and tended to be very
unapproachable. Most were enclosed family groups, who were nervous
of outsiders because of the need to keep their identities secret.
Their virtual immortality caused them problems, and meant they had
to move accommodation quite regularly, so that suspicion was not
aroused among the local people as to their longevity. As it was,
the majority of these families were either feared or viewed with
scorn by their closest neighbours, because of the distance they
maintained from the local community. Shrouded carriages, securely
walled demesnes, and tribes of in-bred servants who would
occasionally roam outside the walls, were fuel for gossip and
speculation. Because the eloim were so careful, they made
themselves weirdly visible. In Sacramante, we had evolved very
complex and painstaking methods for camouflaging our differences
from humanity. We could not have maintained these precautions
without the cooperation of our patrons, but the provincial eloim
did not have recourse to human supporters. Their lives were often
fraught with danger.

Beth and I did
manage to secure lodgings in one or two eloim redoubts - we missed
the company of our own kind - but I found the Lannish eloim
oppressive; their paranoia is infectious. Discreet enquiry assured
us no one but Sacramantan artisans appeared to be suffering from
the sickness of despair. Perhaps their consistent anxiety about
being discovered left no room in the hearts of Lannish artisans for
yet darker pressures.

Because eloim
outside Bochanegra have no human patrons, they really do have a
much harder time than their Sacramantan peers; there are, for
example, no willing offerings for the sup from outside their own
staff. Beth and I wondered how they ever managed to find time to
express their creativity, and it was true all works of art we saw
in these houses were frantic, doom-laden affairs. Their reluctance
to seek sanctuary in Bochanegra mystified both Beth and myself. We
concluded they must have a proud and defiant streak within them,
and must, in some ways, enjoy their precarious existence.

We discussed
our intentions with no one; as far as the Lannish eloim were
concerned, we were simply the spoiled scions of a noble Sacramantan
house, idly exploring the continent. Most advised us to return home
as soon as we could. They thought we were too innocent to be
roaming Lansaal, that in our ignorance we might betray their
existence to humanity, although they disguised their self-concern
as being worried about our safety.

As we
approached Toinis, we stayed for two days with a venerable eloim
diva, a sweet and incredibly ancient lady who, in order to protect
herself, had resorted to supping only on the blood of chickens. Her
name was Favariel Eshahim, and she claimed to be the last daughter
of a lost eloim throng. Her skin was in a disgraceful condition -
only to be expected, considering her meagre sustenance. She lived
in an area plagued by a particularly stringent religious code -
implemented by a particularly stringent local priest - so was
forced to be meticulously careful in her behaviour. A myriad of
diverse cults thrived in Lansaal, and a group of rich mystics had
formed the Church of Pure Soul in Favariel’s area about sixty years
ago. Any eccentrics were regarded as heretics by the infuriatingly
active high priest, especially those who did not attend the church
on a regular basis. Favariel tried to appease this quick-tempered
zealot by sending yearly offerings of gold to the church - an act
that allowed her a precarious security - and pleading a frailty of
age that precluded church worship. ‘I fear he will live forever!’
she declared, when telling us of her difficulties with the man. ‘I
only hope my gold lasts longer than he does! Whoever comes after
him just cannot be as bad!’

She lived in a
wonderful old house, which was falling badly into decay. And yet,
with its rose-garlanded, crumbling walls, its ancient stone
embellishments, the house only appeared more beautiful because of
its dissolution. There was but one servant left in the house - an
elderly peasant woman - who had been with Favariel for eighty years
or more. At one time, she had provided her mistress with
sustenance, but now Favariel refused to sup from the woman; she was
too old, her blood was thin, and the strain placed on her heart by
being supped might easily kill her. Favariel feared being left
alone. She, more than any of the Lannish eloim we had previously
encountered, was delighted to meet us, and laid the amenities of
her household at our feet, insisting on showering both Tamaris and
myself with gifts. Our luggage cases were stuffed with exquisite
antique jewellery and elaborate gowns of pale, powdery silk. In
return, Beth quickly painted a flattering portrait of her, and our
servants insisted on letting her sup from their veins to her fill.
By the time we left her, she looked much healthier, and a youthful
bloom had come back into her flesh. We also arranged to send her a
couple of human retainers from Sacramante, once we returned home. I
thought it disgraceful that no other Lannish eloim clan had done
anything to help her before now.

On our last
night in her house, as we talked together after supping, she
mentioned that she thought a lone artisan was wandering around the
countryside, who behaved eccentrically to her mind. Eccentric, by
eloim standards, presaged something extremely odd indeed. I pressed
her for information, worried she might be referring to the business
Beth and I were involved in, but she seemed reluctant to expand on
her theory. ‘They leave signs, that is all,’ she said. ‘It has been
going on for some years.’ After that, Beth and I were alert for the
phenomenon, but came across nothing out of the ordinary.

Our
experiments with soulscapers had continued to be depressingly
unsuccessful. It got to the point where we had taken so many
victims that the urge to sup was lost. Even Beth was sated, and we
had to resort to outright murder; precious blood spilling untasted
over the Lannish fields. The beast in both of us was exhausted, and
a dim perception of the foulness of our behaviour began to clarify,
once more, in my mind. In the end, it was me who called a halt to
the procedure; it was pointless and wasteful.

We had reached
the lively port of Toinis and, as usual, had taken lodgings in a
secluded fohndahk. I was tired, disillusioned with our quest,
disappointed with myself, and wanted only to return home. The
encounter with poor Favariel had especially depressed me. Beth was
still eager to continue, as he was enjoying our travels immensely.
I think this was because his creative soul had opened up like a
sunflower, away from Sacramante. As he feasted on the sweet ichor
of the Taps, it seemed their mystic lifeblood flowed into his
fingers, summoning marvellous scenes from the soulscape. Gone were
the precise and mannered portraits he was famous for at home, which
hung on the walls of patron galleries. Now, his paintings were
undisciplined and fierce: no demure maidens in limpid bowers, but
powerful sorceresses depicted against violent skies, cowering souls
dismembered at their feet, soulscape monsters wheeling round their
heads. He painted beautiful demons that smiled with frightening
realism from the canvas; demons that - even though only
representations in paint - promised pain and pleasure in equal
measure. Beth had sold many of these savage, lustful canvases as we
travelled; they intrigued the Lannish art dealers and commanded a
high price.

One evening,
we sat out on the fohndahk terrace, lazily drinking our way through
a carafe of orange wine. Tamaris and Ramiz had ventured out into
the night, intent on secret adventures of their own; the mysteries
of humans closely allied to eloim households, into which we were
too polite to pry. Beth was in such a lively mood, it was difficult
for me to broach the subject on my mind, but eventually, I forced
him to listen to me. ‘We cannot keep destroying soulscapers,’ I
said. ‘They are too precious.’

Beth resented
my sharp tone. ‘Then what do you suggest we do? I have no intention
of returning to Sacramante until we have accomplished our
task.’

‘But, Beth,
they are too old, all of them, in spite of their smooth skin and
silky eyes.’ My remarks were loaded with insinuations. ‘Their
experience works against them. We need someone who has the Tappish
ability, but who lacks the preconceptions of a mature scaper. You
must know this too, in your heart.’