As Sah’ray instructed, I presented myself at the shaman’s canopy that night and was again admitted. The tent was full of people, tribe elders, both men and women; acolytes of the shaman clustered together, heeding the wisdom being spoken. Keea was a vibrant, dark presence by the tent curtain. The discussions involved only tribal gossip; speculations about what other tribes were doing, arrangements for the coming celebration. I was not called upon to speak, although Q’orveh did acknowledge my presence as I entered the tent. I would have to be patient.
The meeting with the Toors nomads was destined to take place at an especially sacred nomad site, known as Helat’s Sink. Helat was a deity worshipped by all the nomad tribes. It took us only three days to reach the location, during which time members of the tribe, requesting my services, frequently approached me. Sah’ray was delighted by this and decided to manage my appointments. Each evening, a few people would queue outside her tent, and she would usher them inside, one at a time, where I sat burning a minor fume. Generally, these people wanted no more than simple mind-purifying rituals from me; they were unnerved and jumpy. I was happy to comply and, while burning assuaging fumes that calmed the mind, would murmur some gentle, reassuring words and massage the face and scalp of my clients. I was rather concerned that, by my undertaking this work, Q’orveh and his healers might think I was undermining their role within the tribe. I remained alert for signs that I was causing upset within the shamanic circle, but picked up no whisper of reproach.
One night, as I attended the talking-wheel, after having worked on a couple of people, Q’orveh commented that the fume-smell I carried into his tent on my clothes helped him relax. I took that, warily, as guarded approval of what I was doing.
Helat’s Sink was an enormous crater in the plains as if, in ages past, some heavenly body had crashed to earth there. Its creased sides descended steeply to a wide, flat expanse that, but for a cleared area where nomads can pitch their camps, was mostly covered by forest and scrub. A large lake dominated the centre of the crater, which Sah’ray claimed was bottomless. Many shrines had been built around the sides of the Sink, next to the lake, and even within the forest itself, some of which were now falling into decay. All bore the signs of recent offerings on their altars.
A road had been hacked into the side of the Sink and spiralled down at a gentle curve; it took considerable time for us to reach the bottom. I noticed a palpable change in the atmosphere as we descended; the chanting of my companions took on a lower note.
There was plenty of space for several tribes to make camp in the Sink without feeling too close to each other. The Toors had already arrived and erected their tents. The usual riot of children and animals milled beside the lake, and I noticed that the Toors used wheeled transport, for there were about a dozen hide-covered wagons standing around. To me, the Toors were indistinguishable in appearance from the Halmanes, which surprised me, seeing as Sah’ray made such a fuss about tribal identity. Both tribes made a great show of ignoring each other as the Halmanes made their way around the lake to an unoccupied spot. I wondered whether this presaged some kind of conflict, but Sah’ray reassured me by explaining mutual ignorance was polite behaviour until the point at which the shamans had greeted each other. Among the Toors, I noticed several people who were clearly foreign travellers like myself, although they were too far away for me to ascertain what race they were. I wondered whether any of them were soulscapers.
We erected our tents and fetched water from the lake before any approach was made to the Toors. An atmosphere of excitement was building up. Eventually, Q’orveh emerged from his tepee, with a straggle of keening entourage, and stalked magnificently over to the sprawling, decorated tent of the Toorish shaman, beside the lake.
Sah’ray and I linked arms and, with the rest of the Halmanes, edged forward to watch. Likewise, the Toors stopped what they were doing and gathered nearby.
Q’orveh was admitted to the shaman’s tent and, at this signal, everyone sat down to wait. Naturally, the two shamans spent considerable time catching up on gossip, which meant we had to sit around for over an hour.
Sah’ray, noting my impatience, began to tell me what I could expect to experience over the next three days. ‘Tonight, the women will gather together and perform a group ritual, as will the men,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow, marriages will be solemnised, matings arranged, and I will find a man. You could, too, if you’d like.’
She grinned at me. I smiled thinly in reply. Since setting my attention at Q’orveh and failing, I’d had little desire to seek carnal company elsewhere. Perhaps I should.
‘Tomorrow night, we will have the festival with dancing and wildness and special magicks. I can’t wait!’ Sah’ray could barely contain her lusty enthusiasm.
Q’orveh eventually emerged from the Toorish tent and made a sweeping signal with his arm. Gratefully, the Halmanes stood up and began to disperse. Members of the Toors approached them, some people embracing as they met old friends, or relatives who had married out-tribe. I was relieved everything had become so friendly.
Sah’ray introduced me to a group of Toors that she knew - I think a sister of hers was involved somewhere - and I was invited to their tent for refreshment. Then, the Shadow slithered up to my side and said, ‘I have to drag you away. Make your excuses.’
‘Why?’ I demanded, far from pleased.
‘Work for you, scaper,’ he said, with a sarcastic curve of the lips. ‘Q’orveh, in his wisdom, wants you to represent the tribe.’
His annoyance gratified me. ‘Then, of course, I shall. But in what respect?’
‘There is trouble among the Toors, I think.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ I didn’t want to get involved in any inter-tribal dispute.
‘It’s scaping work, that’s all. You’ll find out. Just stop asking questions and follow me!’ He marched off towards the Toorish shaman’s tent and I was forced to run after him. I was intrigued. Soulscaping work here? And why me? It must mean that the foreigners I had seen did not include any Taps.
The Toorish shaman, Toortaki, was little more than a boy and would not speak to me directly. In some tribes, the shaman will speak only with his acolytes. Q’orveh was sitting beside this shamanic stripling, magnificent as a god-form in comparison with the boy, who was skinny and rather pinched of face. Q’orveh gestured for me to sit, which I did. Prudently, I held my tongue, waiting for Q’orveh to speak.
‘There is work for you here, soulscaper,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘I was told that, yes.’
‘The Fear is in one of the Toors. No scaper has yet been able to remove it.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. ‘I’m not sure I can work miracles where others have tried and failed,’ I replied. ‘There is no such thing as a good or bad soulscaper. We are all equal.’ That wasn’t exactly true - some of us were more skilled than others - but we never admitted that to outsiders.
Q’orveh’s expression did not change, yet I think I had embarrassed him. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said smoothly. ‘I have assured the Toors our soulscaper is the best. You must try, Rayojini.’
‘Of course I will try,’ I answered, wondering since when I had become ‘their’ soulscaper.
The afflicted girl was lying in a covered wagon, attended by a woman I supposed was her mother, or at least a close relative. A whole party of individuals set out from the shaman’s tent, all of whom insisted on being present during my initial examination. Inside, the wagon was pungent and dark, the space cramped. They were not the best conditions in which to conduct a physical inspection. I addressed the girl’s relative. ‘Other soulscapers have examined this girl?’
She nodded, her mouth pursed tightly as if she had been forbidden to speak.
‘Are any of them still with the tribe?’
Again, a nod.
Q’orveh was squatting beside me, his bare knees poking out of his robes and touching my thigh. Not one to resist an impulse, I put my hand on his shoulder. He did no
t move away or tense himself, so I applied a gentle pressure. ‘I would like to speak with these other scapers,’ I said, in a low voice.
‘Of course,’ he murmured back, his face so close to me, I could smell the herbs on his breath. ‘Perhaps you should examine this girl yourself first, though.’
‘Very well.’
She was in her early teens, a pretty little thing, whose eyes were wide and staring. I opened her mouth, looked inside, sniffed her breath. It was rank, a sure sign. I rolled back her eyelids, noted the colour of her eyes, the marks upon this colour, the size of the blackness at its core. I felt her skin, and scrutinised the palms of her hands for sign of mental illness. It seemed she was a straightforward case. I couldn’t imagine why other scapers hadn’t been successful in healing her. Obviously, they wouldn’t have revealed their difficulties to the Toors; I would have to speak with them myself. On an impulse, I made a quick examination of the girl’s torso and belly. A thought came to me. ‘Your tribe healers have examined her?’
The woman nodded again.
‘You must understand there will a degree of risk involved in scaping; the girl is pregnant.’
‘No!’ the woman said indignantly. ‘That is not possible.’
‘The signs seem clear,’ I replied gently. ‘Perhaps a healer should be summoned to make sure.’
There were discrepancies between the physical symptoms and that of the eyes, but I was positive I was not mistaken. Very shortly, an elderly woman came into the wagon. Except for the two shamans, the rest of the men were dismissed. Both the healer and I made a careful examination of the girl. She was, as I had suspected, with child. She was also, (again I’d had my suspicions), virgin. Q’orveh and I exchanged a glance.
I whispered in his ear. ‘This pregnancy should be terminated.’
He nodded, and turned to Toortaki. The boy was looking rather stunned and green about the face; I suspected it might have been the first time he’d encountered the genitals of a female. Q’orveh briefly told Toortaki what he had heard on the road concerning virgin births. He gave rather a lurid description of the deformed deer-child. Although the implications in his words were clear to me, I could tell they weren’t really suggesting the same thing to Toortaki. Q’orveh could not be as blunt as was obviously necessary, because some tribes had very strict religious codes about pregnancy, and he would be wary of giving offence. I ended up becoming impatient and, offensive or not, stated my recommendation in plain terms. The whole situation was repellent.
‘I feel this pregnancy should be terminated immediately,’ I said. ‘At least before any further attempts at soulscaping are made. It might be a fluke this has happened. Shared bathing water, I have heard, can lead to the quickening of a child, but even so, I do not think any risks should be taken. A girl’s life is at stake, if not her sanity.’
Support came unexpectedly from the girl’s relative. ‘You are right. I will boil some water,’ she said, and squeezed her way past the shamans to leave the wagon.
I was not sure how the Toors felt about such procedures, or even if their healer knew how to accomplish them. All soulscapers have a fair amount of medical training, and resolving unwanted pregnancies was a common feature of our work. I was perfectly capable of dealing with it and said so. The Toorish shaman gave his permission for me to proceed, almost without thinking about it. The healer readily agreed to assist me. A shadow of the Fear was over all of us in that wagon, I am sure.
There is little need to dwell upon the details of what we did to rid that poor girl of whatever had come to inhabit her body. The foetus was indeed bizarre, yet it was difficult to discern whether its expulsion from the womb had deformed it, or whether it had grown that way. I knew we were most likely to see peculiarities in everything at that point and tried to remain objective.
‘We need to talk,’ Q’orveh said to a white-faced Toortaki. ‘Both tribes.’
The boy nodded. He looked so ill, I thought I’d better mix him a quelling potion as soon as we left the wagon. ‘We will meet before the celebrations,’ he said, in a thick, constricted voice. ‘I will summon the elders.’
‘And the soulscapers,’ Q’orveh added.
Toortaki shrugged. I sensed reluctance, but he said, ‘If you wish. I think we should talk privately first, however.’
‘I would like to confer with these scapers myself,’ I said. ’Perhaps we could talk together while the tribe elders are meeting.’
‘That seems sensible,’ Q’orveh said.
I smiled at him gratefully; he was being an ally.
As we came out of the wagon, eager to escape its stink of blood, I said, ‘Q’orveh, I would like to speak with you, too. Alone, if that’s possible.’ It was too good an opportunity to miss.
‘It is difficult to be alone,’ he said, but seemed amenable to the idea. ‘Among the tribes, aloneness is a thing to be avoided. We thrive in each other’s company.’
‘I have things I want to discuss, and I, being a loner, thrive in intimate situations,’ I replied, with a careful smile. Already, I could see members of the Halmanes preparing to converge on the focus of their tribe. I wanted to say, ‘Get rid of them’, but realised that might be going too far. ‘Where shall we go?’ I asked hurriedly.
‘My canopy. You can have your privacy there.’
‘I thank you. However, I feel certain of your intimates will attempt to prevent our being alone.’
He gave me a strange look. ‘There is no-one there,’ he said. ‘I am sure of that.’
‘Q’orveh, what is the Holy Death?’
We were sitting in his tent. It was dark, with the door curtain shut fast. Incense smouldered sullenly in a dish; we were wrapped in smoky perfume. Q’orveh reclined upon his cushions, long-limbed and lithe, like an archetypal soulscape vision of male beauty. His tangles of matted hair were like an animal’s mane, trailing the length of his spine; dusty, and lighter in colour at the ends where the sun and rain had bleached it. He smelled like an animal; clean, but muskily aromatic. We were so close, yet I was aware that his body language did not incline towards me. I kept my voice low, expecting the shadow of Keea to manifest, at any moment, in a corner, his dark eyes watching keenly.
Q’orveh appeared puzzled by my question. ‘I cannot believe the soulscapers don’t know,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘No, you misunderstand. I just want to know what it means to you, your tribe, your own explanation for it.’
Q’orveh narrowed his eyes. ‘You are soon going to say something connected with this subject that I will not enjoy hearing.’
I raised my hands. ‘Maybe so, but, until I have spoken with the other soulscapers here, there is no one, other than yourself, whom I can trust. Also, you said you wanted to discover the cause of the strange phenomena on the road, how and why. Please, answer my question. I will explain its relevance shortly.’
‘Very well. To us, it is the Sacred Paling, when a person takes on the colour of the moon, glowing from within to symbolise its holy connotations.’
‘What do you mean by holy?’ I interrupted. I knew little of nomad mythology, not having had much opportunity to meet its glyphs in the soulscape. Soon, I felt, that would change.
‘The god takes them. They are sacrifices to the Gardling, Helat.’
‘Your god?’
He nodded. ‘We have only one. Helat. An androgyne who regenerates and has a host of offspring, all of whom hide in the world, influencing the ways of men. Helat has three breasts. One squirts nectar, one blood and the other poison. You can imagine how this symbolism is incorporated into the most secret of our rites.’
‘I think so. So, those who die the Holy Death are taken by Helat.’
‘Well, we say that the members of the host take them.’
‘The children of Helat?’
‘Yes. Some believe we are the product of these children mating with men and women, which is why we are part unman. The children of Helat are very beautiful. It is said they can appear to a person ou
t alone on the plains, and lure them into an endless embrace. People have died that way.’
‘It is said...’
Q’orveh shrugged. ‘We have only imagination. No-one survives the embrace of the host to tell of it.’
‘Until now... maybe.’
Q’orveh raised an interested eyebrow. Perhaps my heresy wasn’t as fearsome as he’d thought it would be. ‘What are you suggesting?’
I shrugged. ‘It is only a guess... May I present my theory? It is this. Suppose the non-deaths are ‘failed’ Sacred Palings.’
‘Intellectually, I might suppose it. But, what do you mean by that? The host are losing their power?’
I doubted whether it was a good idea to tell this man I did not believe in his god, or its children. I did not believe in any god outside the confines of the soulscape. I had stupidly thought Q’orveh to be as rational as a Tap. He wasn’t. He still gave his inner symbols external life, as his people did.
‘What I mean, Q’orveh, is that I feel we have to establish exactly what the Holy Death is, to understand why it has changed. If it has.’
‘There are some things we must not question too closely,’ he replied. ‘We are only human and must not presume upon the territory of gods.’
I smiled. ‘Q’orveh, I do that all the time. It’s my job.’
Unfortunately, he took offence at that. His face hardened. ’I think I can understand why so many of the shamans will not tolerate a soulscaper in their path. They say you rival the host, or presume to. Rayo, you are only a woman of flesh and blood.’
‘So what do we do? Sit back and let things happen?’
‘I don’t think there is anything we can do. It is beyond our powers. We can only appease the Helat in whatever way we can. Rites, prayers...’
I had to interrupt him. ‘You called me to speak with you first, Q’orveh. Now, I am speaking! Why are you backing away?’
‘I feel it is becoming too dangerous. Anyway, your flimsy theory hardly explains the other things we’ve discovered; the blood places, the... births.’