I had no answer for that. He was right. ‘I just don’t have enough information, that’s all.’ I stared at him steadily. ‘Q’orveh, don’t try to deceive me; you yourself suspect the Sacred Palings and the non-deaths are connected. I know you do.’
‘I do not deny it,’ he answered smoothly. ‘But I still question whether we have any right to interfere.’
‘Even when your dead walk?’
His face had become stone. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want to discuss this any further until the tribe elders have met. Perhaps you should go and find your compatriots now.’
I was stung; he had dismissed me.
The soulscapers travelling with the Toors, two of them, were unknown to me. They were brother and sister, natives of the eastern eyries of Taparak, and a good deal younger than me. Aniti was a strong-boned handsome girl with wide, thick eyebrows, while her brother Juro was more slender, his eyes unusually pale. Perhaps their youth and inexperience explained why they had not been able to heal the Toorish girl.
It was late afternoon by the time we got to speak and I, feeling superior in the face of their lack of years, doubted strongly whether I would benefit from our consultation. They, on the other hand, might learn much from me. They had a tent to themselves - clearly demonstrating just how valuable soulscapers were becoming to the nomads of Khalt, who at one time used to interact with stray Taps by plucking out their eyes, or skewering them through if they dared to practice their art among the tribes.
Aniti and Juro were shy in my presence; I felt my voice was too loud and hearty. I wasn’t sure where to begin and asked them who their mentor was. It was someone I was only vaguely familiar with, a woman of no particular note. I wondered whether these two were actually being coerced to stay with the Toors in some way. ‘You have been travelling on the plains long?’ I enquired.
Aniti shrugged. A while. Suddenly there is much to be learned from the Khalts, but we have found it tiring.’
‘Really?’
The boy nodded. ‘It is as if the Fear itself flits from person to person among the Toors. We drive it from some poor soul, only for it to manifest, moments later, in the being of another. The shaman is impressed with our ability; whereas we are unsure of our level of success.’
I had been tutored in how, among close communities, people could develop sympathetic soulscape discrepancies. What the children should have done was travelled deep into the collective soul of the tribe and rooted out the rot from there. All individual soulscapes are connected; it is merely a matter of perception, and use of a more potent fume, to enter a consensual scape. I told them this.
The girl took exception to my tone. Her face flamed a little. ‘We have tried that!’ she said indignantly. ‘It hides.’
I couldn’t repress a laugh. ‘Hides? Really, child. Those are not words I’d hope to hear a soulscaper say.’
‘You have not experienced it,’ she replied. ‘Perhaps you should - before you upbraid us.’
Her brother muttered a warning, but I did not take offence. Both of them looked bone-tired, muddy of face, and drawn.
‘The nomads seem to be experiencing a number of delusions,’ I said. ‘Soulscape hallucinations, maybe.’
‘If you are referring to the blood places and the un-beasts, they are not delusions,’ Juro said. ‘We have seen them or, perhaps you think we are suffering the same delusions?’
‘It is sometimes dangerous to believe the evidence of our eyes,’ I replied. ‘We are only human, after all. Use your art.’
‘Use our art? Are you blind, Mistress Rayojini?’ snapped the girl. ‘I am frightened. There is something happening, and it is beyond us. The nomad shamans consider themselves superior to soulscapers, yet now they turn to us in desperation. We cannot help them.’
‘There is an answer to everything,’ I said. My patience was beginning to fray. ‘We have only to gather up the clues. Now, the elders of both tribes are meeting and soon they will expect us to speak to them. I feel it is important we present some plan of action. I, for one, have no wish to invoke any negative assumptions the nomads might still have about us. Even if we are confused, we must not let them know that we are.’
‘You admit to confusion, then?’ Juro asked me, tartly.
I shrugged. ‘I feel I’m in the dark, yes, but panicking won’t solve anything. We must be vigilant. If I were you, I’d return to Taparak as soon as possible. The scryers must be informed of what is occurring here.’
‘You mean we should leave these people to their fate?’ Aniti asked. She was clearly an idealist.
‘Or leave them to you?’ added Juro, who was a cynic.
I declined to answer their impertinent questions. ‘Listen, we three will journey into the soulscape of Toor. Maybe you are right, and we will find nothing, but we can plant assurances, seeds of strength. This is what we shall tell the conclave of elders.’
Section Six
Rayojini
‘And when the sun begins to fling his flaring beams, me goddess bring to arched walks of twilight groves and shadows brown…’
From ‘Il Penseroso’, Milton
Q’orveh hosted the meeting of elders and, later, the young scapers and I were summoned to his tent. There was hardly any room to sit down, and I sensed that not everybody welcomed our presence. Ignoring any hostile resonance, I spoke confidently to the elders of both tribes, impressing upon them how strongly I believed that there was a simple explanation for all they had experienced recently.
‘The answer lies in the soulscape, I am sure,’ I told them. ‘The strange things you have seen and experienced might well seem very real, but they could just be the products of your imaginations.’
This caused a cacophony of angry denial. I raised my hands.
‘Please, let me explain. It is possible to create physical matter, or at least a convincing illusion of such, by the power of thought alone. For example, the virgin births; perhaps the girls concerned imagined they were impregnated, and believed it so much, because the illusion of coupling had been so real, that they created something that resembled a child.’
Juro and Aniti were sitting just behind me, and I could sense they thought I was speaking utter folly. I had no doubt this opinion was shared by everyone else sitting in the tent. Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut. Nobody actually contradicted me; they simply ignored my words. I had hoped for intelligent debate. I should have known better. These were nomads, not a select gathering of Tappish adepts.
One of the old Toorish women followed my remarks with an impassioned and ignorant sentiment of her own. ‘You could be making the problem worse with your meddling!’ She was an ancient, stick-like creature, whose lips had receded and tightened so much that her face strongly resembled a grinning skull.
I remained calm. ‘We do not meddle, madam, I assure you. We bring light to the places that are over-run with shadows.’ At that point, I could not resist flicking a glance at Keea. He was staring right back at me and smiled slightly when our eyes met. Incredibly, my face grew hot.
‘Some places are meant to be shadowed,’ the woman continued relentlessly, casting a narrowed eyed glance around the tent, seeking allies.
‘Of course they are. Notice I said ‘over-run’. Please don’t warp my words.’
Q’orveh raised his hands, clearly having little desire for individuals annexed to his tribe to argue in public. ‘Perhaps you have formed an opinion while speaking with your fellow Taps,’ he said, hopefully.
I shrugged. ‘Seems to me we should enter the tribal soulscape, and root out the problem from there.’ That the tribe possessed a soulscape of its own was clearly a new concept to the Toorish elders.
My original opponent slapped her gums together juicily and took up the sword again. ‘Blasphemy!’ she screeched. ‘The soulscapers intend to violate the gardens of Helat!’
I turned round and rolled my eyes at Juro and Aniti, who grimaced back. At that moment, I was glad to have fellow rational beings with me, whatev
er their youth and inexperience.
‘I think, if any soulscape is to be entered,’ Toortaki said, ’it should be that of the girl we attended this afternoon. Can more than one soulscaper work together?’
‘Of course,’ I said. Once within the girl’s soulscape, we could perhaps extend our consciousness to encompass that of the whole tribe.
‘Well, then, everything is clear,’ Q’orveh said. He turned to me. ‘Mistress Rayojini, you and the other soulscapers will enter the soulscape of the Toorish girl, and report back to us. Then we shall have the answers we need.’ His faith in me, even if it was only superficial in front of these others, was endearing.
It was decided that we would begin our work as soon as possible, so that it would be concluded long before the women’s rite was due to commence. I understood the mystery ceremonies were destined to take place just before midnight.
I asked the Toors to take the sick girl out of the wagon; it had a miasma of despair about it, in which I had no desire at all to work. Juro and Aniti helped me choose an alternative working-place among the trees nearby, where we would be screened from noise and the eyes of others. Q’orveh thoughtfully provided a company of young men - to stand apart, but who would keep curious people away.
We erected a canopy around the working area to contain the scaping fume, and then built a fire onto which we would cast the strongest of our scaping mixes. The sick girl lay comatose at our feet, oblivious of our preparations.
‘This is a waste of time,’ Aniti grumbled. ‘Believe me, her soulscape will be filled with happy spirits and sweet memories of childhood. There will be no fear to find, no shadows hiding.’
‘I leave no stone unturned,’ I said to her, quite sharply. ‘In the soulscape or outside of it. The Fear is there. It just hasn’t been recognised as such.’
Aniti stomped off to gather twigs for our fire. I appealed to her brother. ‘Whatever it sounds like, I don’t mean to be harsh. But having that attitude won’t solve anything. ‘
‘What if Aniti’s right?’ Juro asked me, carefully neutral in tone.
‘Then I’ll admit I was wrong, naturally, but I think the chance of that is very slim.’
When the fire was ready, Aniti cast a generous amount of my scaping-mix into the flames. The three of us arranged ourselves in sitting positions around the prone body of the Toorish girl, and linked hands. Breathing deeply, we began to suck the sweet smoke of the fume into our lungs. Aniti’s fingers gripped me tightly; I had a feeling she was not without fear herself at that time.
As Aniti had predicted, when we passed into the soulscape, we emerged into a landscape of exuberant radiance, where everything was gilded with light. Yes, I thought, this is indeed the summer land of childhood. Our presence was the only dark thing there.
Normally, when a scaper enters the soulscape, the Fear will come to flap around their head. Its guises vary; sometimes it is just a black wing of darkness, sometimes an ugly and malevolent apparition but, whatever its shape, the Fear is a senseless force. It has no consciousness and therefore lacks the instinct for self-preservation. To defeat it, a soulscaper has only to visualise weapons of a suitable nature. The material of the soulscape is malleable; it is possible to form anything you need there, simply by the power of thought, whether that is fire, or steel or ice. Sometimes, confrontation alone will expel a weak fragment of the fear; you can chase it away or simply visualise its evaporation, order it to depart. Conflicts vary. There is rarely any need for a scaper to roam a great distance into the soulscape, because the Fear will come hurtling towards them like a stupid, savage dog. However, in this case, it seemed Aniti might have been right in her assumptions. The Fear, if it was here at all, was in hiding, or at least disguised in some way. I felt uneasy with the implications in that. Could the Fear develop intelligence, a kind of survival instinct? Was that the new demon we were facing, Fear with consciousness? Would that explain all the strange phenomena occurring? I hoped not. If the Fear had evolved significantly, then soulscapers would have to develop a more puissant form of combat to defeat it.
I perceived Aniti and Juro as bright globes of white light beside me. It took them a while to assume a definite shape - which was a manifestation of their inexperience. I too had found it difficult to manipulate my own form in the soulscape during my first scaping range. Sending them a reassuring pulse of sympathetic thought, I concentrated on our surroundings. For a moment or two, I extended my consciousness outwards, hoping it would brush up against something suspicious, some core of condensed matter. I found nothing. There were spots of heat that suggested event-plays of some kind, but they held no taint of Fear. If anything, they were concentrations of pleasure. On an impulse, I changed tack, and advised the others to focus on these areas of ecstasy instead of trying to locate pockets of Fear. It was a gamble, and I disliked gambles in the soulscape, but we had nothing else to go on.
There, we caught it; a fizzling radiance. Homing in on it was no difficulty. And this is what we found.
The soul-spark of the ailing girl was being embraced by a god-form, which clearly did not come from nomad mythology. They were copulating in a white shrine, surrounded by ivy trees, the sky a pale lemon colour above them. The girl was manifesting, quite typically, as a veil-clad female, although the draperies suggested an image I would expect to find in the land of Atruriey rather than from a Khaltish nomad girl. She appeared to lack awareness, to be drowsy in a sensual heat. It was obvious to me that she had lost touch with reality, perhaps even the very concept of it. There was not the slightest vibration of distress emanating from her. Perhaps there was no Fear to remove... and yet.
The god-form raised a heavy head, crowned with antlers, to peer at us with curious yellow eyes. Fortunately, these archetypal manifestations never possess intelligence. He had a large, red phallus, which was unashamedly erect, and dripping with fluid. His nether parts were those of a deer or goat. I realised that my theory concerning the virgin births might well be correct. Still, this was not a threatening image, and I knew I could remove it easily, by performing a thought excision designed to expunge any unwelcome phantoms. After I had directed this simple command, the god-form vaporised instantly, without a struggle, leaving the girl mewing and squealing with the horror of loss. Presently, her image faded and I guessed she had been sucked back to reality.
It was time for us to leave. I did not, at that juncture, wish to continue our journey into the tribal soulscape. Aniti had not been wrong, it seemed, but then, neither had I.
When we came back to our senses, the girl was curled into a foetal shape on the ground, sobbing piteously. I sent Juro to fetch the women of her family to attend to her, leaving me alone for a few moments with Aniti. There are some things that men must not be privy to - even soulscapers. Without discussion of what we had done, Aniti and I gently murmured a few relaxation mantras, straightened the girl’s limbs, and held her in our arms, crooning softly. Presently, her sobs abated to gulps, but there was no more we could do for her. The familiarity of her people would be more healing.
As we walked back towards where the wagons and tents were clustered round the lakeside, Aniti cleared her throat gruffly and said, ‘I have to stand admonished, Mistress Rayojini. You were right and I was wrong. I apologise for my arrogance.’
I put a hand on her shoulder, feeling altogether more sympathetic with relief. ‘No, you were not wrong. Neither of us were. What we discovered in that poor girl’s soulscape is not a completely unknown phenomenon, but it is very rare.’ I squeezed her fondly. ‘We have all been panicked recently, what with all these strange goings on. I don’t think any of us were sure of success when we entered the soulscape.’
Aniti shook her head emphatically. ‘No, you don’t have to absolve me. It was you who thought to look for the opposite signs, not me. I would never have thought of that.’
I shrugged. ‘Perhaps so, but don’t worry about it. You have learned something and, if it was a mistake, it won’t be one you’ll make again.?
??
‘Soulscapers shouldn’t ever make mistakes though!’ she said hotly, angry with herself. ‘We can’t afford to. Too much is at stake.’
‘Well, I can’t dispute that, but what’s done is done. Don’t be too hard on yourself.’ Her capitulation made me feel protective towards her. I was, in truth, feeling particularly high at that moment.
‘You were right in all you said,’ Aniti blurted presently. ’I shall return to Taparak, with or without my brother. Clearly, this is not a time for me to be practising my art afield. I need more guidance... more...’ She shook her head. ‘Where are our guardian-pursuers when we need them most? Where? Sometimes, I wonder whether they are real at all, and not just a dream put into our heads by the scryers!’
Her words cast a chill over my mood. ‘My guardian-pursuers are very real to me,’ I said softly. We had stopped walking, standing together in a shadow of the trees.
‘How do you invoke them?’ Aniti asked in a hoarse whisper. ’How do you commune with them? I can never feel them, never!’
‘I can’t answer your questions,’ I replied. ‘It’s too personal.’
Aniti chastised herself again. ‘I must be the only soulscaper who has never met her guardian-pursuers, never felt them near her, never communed with them!’
I did not answer. The truth was, I felt that her experience was the same as all other soulscapers, and that my ambivalent familiarity with my guardian-pursuers was distinctly unusual.
We ate beside the fires; the tribes mingling, children splashing through the shallows of the lake. Dogs roamed from group to group, seeking tidbits, musicians tuned their instruments for the approaching rites. At the appointed hour, everyone began standing up. There was no particular signal given; people just knew when the time was right. The remains of the meal were quickly cleared away, and the fires were amply stoked, so that they would still be smouldering when we all returned to camp. Older children, not yet of an age to participate in the ceremonies, had been instructed to guard the younger ones, and had stationed themselves importantly around the tents, brandishing knives.