The first picture represented the androgyne Helat. It was crouched in a huge hole in the ground, perhaps the Sink itself, with its legs spread wide, delivering an obscene amount of infants into the world; they poured from between its legs in a torrent. Above it, figures that might have been angry spirits thronged the sky, shaking their fists and throwing down bolts of lightning. In the next few pictures, Helat’s spawn - clearly the creatures now known as the Host of Helat - were shown dispersing into the societies of mankind. They were much taller than the humans, and were depicted in a stylised way that again reminded me of Deltan art. Whereas humanity was shown as an active bundle of chaos, the Host were towering and rather sinister creatures, and even though they were only carvings, I detected a great sense of stillness about them, and focussed intention. The humans paid them no attention. Perhaps the Host were invisible to humankind. But no, further panels revealed members of the Host apparently teaching people; the science of medicine, the science of the stars, the arts. In most of these panels, the sky was represented as being full of boiling clouds and thunderbolts. Then, the pictures became rather more fascinating.
The first of this sequence presented a member of the Host leaning over a recumbent man in a manner suggesting the act of love. The Host creature was female; her breasts bare, the nipples clearly erect. Her hands clawed into the shoulders of the man, whose head was flung back, his face, even after centuries of weathering, wearing an expression of ecstasy. The next panel showed the Host-female and the man engaged in copulation, although now the female seemed to have been overcome by lust because she was biting her lover on the throat! The man, apparently helpless but enraptured beneath her, seemed to be a willing victim to her ravages. His face was still ecstatic. I was smiling to myself, wondering about Keea’s motive in wanting me to see this. I was just about to make a facetious remark, when the next picture I examined made me gasp. It depicted the unfortunate lover of the female-host lying dead in his house. His family were shown grieving around his bed, although the corpse was smiling radiantly. This was followed by a representation of the man’s funeral procession - the obsequy cart, the line of dancing mourners - but that was not all; every symbol, those on the cart itself, on the head-gear of the mourners, on the shroud of the deceased, were those of the Holy Death. This was the Holy Death! Copulation with a member of the Host while being preyed upon; sex as death. The symbol of the succubus was an ancient one, and quite common in the soulscape, but this was different. Succubae and incubi did not mingle with humanity; they attacked under cover of night. Here, the spawn of a god imparted great wisdom, all the sciences and arts, and then preyed upon the people to whom they had bestowed this knowledge. What allegory was this? I had never encountered it in the soulscape, which was not just unusual but impossible. All human mythology could be accessed through the soulscape, however ancient, so why not this? I knew that old religious symbolism was often a metaphor for historical facts. How could I interpret all this? Was there a shred of truth here? Had some ancient race preyed upon humanity in some way, so that certain conditions of death now echoed those old legends?
‘Well, are you impressed or not?’ Keea asked. I turned to look at him accusingly.
‘You know what this is?’
He merely smiled.
‘Keea, how did you know this was here?’ I demanded. ‘How could you have known? It hasn’t been touched for centuries?’
‘I didn’t know for sure. I just read it somewhere and had to come and see.’
‘Just read it somewhere?’ I could have hit him. Did he think I was so stupid? ‘Is this why you’re travelling with the nomads?’ I asked, gesturing at the walls. ‘Were you hoping they’d lead you to this place?’
‘Partly.’
I folded my arms. ‘So, the time has come for illumination! Come on, tell me what interest you have in all this. You know that I’m researching the cause of the non-death, and that I suspect it may be linked to the Holy Death, otherwise you wouldn’t have shown me this. You stroked it out of the shaman, I suppose. Well, it’s no secret. What I want to know is; why are you researching the same thing? How are you involved?’
‘Personally? Not at all,’ he said. ‘I’m in the service of someone else.’
‘Who?’ I was desperate to know.
‘Maybe you’ll find out,’ he replied. ‘Maybe you’ll meet them. One day.’
‘Your love of mystery is really quite tiresome, you know!’
He shrugged.
‘Do I have to guess? Is it someone in Bochanegra? Have the weird phenomena spread that far? Is that it?’
‘They are interested in the same subject as you, yes. There are questions to be asked.’
‘Do they know the history behind these carvings?’
‘The history is obvious, isn’t it?’
‘Is it? Keea, I really think we should be working on this together. We could help each other, exchange information. You must tell me all you know. It might save lives.’
He laughed. ‘What I know is more likely to end them!’
‘Keea!’
‘Work it out, Rayojini. The truth is there. Work it out.’
I had a thousand more questions to ask him, but he was already heading back for the doorway. ‘Wait!’ I called. ‘You can’t just leave! There’s so much more to see! What about the other walls?’
He did not pause. ‘No, there’s nothing more,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen it all.’
I stood there helplessly. Damn him then! I would investigate the rest of the place by myself. He paused in the doorway. ‘Your time has expired, soulscaper. The permit has been revoked. If you are wise, you will follow me out of here.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but could not utter a sound. Maybe Keea invoked something through the tone of his voice, or maybe a breath of the wind coming down through the cracks in the roof made it happen, or even the thundering of my own heart, maybe all of these, but suddenly the temple became a violently hostile place. For no apparent reason, all the birds swooped down from their nests, and subjected me to a vicious attack. Even as they were flapping and screeching round my head, veils of bats lifted from the high foliage and poured down around me in a great squeaking maelstrom. The air became chaos; leaves and twigs swirled up from the floor. Hitting out blindly with my hands, I felt claws and feathers snag in my hair. Panicking, and shielding my face, I could only crouch down and scurry out of the building as quickly as my legs would carry me.
Keea had waited for me a little way along the path, but he did not turn round as I emerged. I called his name, stumbling forward, and he began to trot ahead of me, slapping branches from his path. The air was full of the angry screams of birds, the whirr of their wings. I ran after Keea with my hands over my head, the birds seemingly in pursuit.
After a while, everything went silent; all I could hear was my own ragged breath and the rustle of foliage as I pushed it aside. My chest ached agonisingly, and I had to pause and catch my breath, or risk collapse. Keea did not wait for me. Perhaps he was more frightened than I was, or perhaps now that he had shown me the temple, he no longer cared what happened to me. I did not call him back. Later, I would corner him, and he would answer my questions willingly or have the information beaten out of him! What had happened back there? Had Keea made it happen? Gasping, I turned around.
Behind me, there was no evidence of anyone having disturbed the foliage, not for a hundred centuries.
By the time I emerged, groping, along the flanks of the statue of Helat, the glade was mostly in shadow, the sun having fallen into the embrace of the highest trees. There was no sign of Keea at all. Helat’s presence was very strong; I felt as if unseen claws were tweaking the nerves in my spine. Quickly, I crossed the open space without looking up at the statue, and plunged into the trees beyond. I wanted to find the camp as soon as possible; even Sah’ray in her most abrasive mood would be a relief after this! Luckily, the tribes were preparing for their evening festivities with a good deal of noise. My ears led
me back.
Sah’ray was indignant that I’d disappeared, having arranged several consultations for me with some of her Toorish friends that afternoon. As she had mentioned none of this to me, I could not understand why she was so angry. I suspected she must have planned to make a clandestine profit from these appointments. ‘You said you were just going to bathe, Rayo! Where have you been! You’re so... so secretive!’ she complained.
‘I went back to the sacred glade actually,’ I said. ‘I wanted to see it by daylight.’
A frown furrowed her brow. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s supposed to be unlucky, you know. Helat only allows people into the glade at sacred times. I hope you didn’t cause offence.’
‘I was most polite,’ I said. ‘I’m sure the god will forgive the blunderings of an uninformed foreigner.’
‘Hmmph!’ Sah’ray grumbled, unsure whether I was mocking her or not. ‘Why are you such a mess? What did you do there?’
‘I went for a walk in the woods and got a bit lost.’
‘Helat’s Eye, your hands!’
‘Had to burrow my way out at one point.’ I knew I sounded sheepish, but mercifully Sah’ray abandoned the interrogation.
‘That soulscaper girl was here looking for you,’ she said.
I was not surprised.
I quickly wrote up an account of everything I had experienced in the Temple of Helat. Sah’ray insisted on looking over my shoulder the entire time, but fortunately, she couldn’t read Tappish. Well, at least I knew where I was heading now: Sacramante. I would have to interrogate Keea to find out where the libraries he had spoken of could be found. If only I could ascertain who his masters were. He was being most obstructive. It was obvious they’d want to know my findings as much as I wanted to know theirs. I considered what I’d learned: could the Host be a metaphor for a disease? Perhaps the Holy Death had been more common at one time and people had tried to explain it by anthropomorphising it. Yes, that made sense. Still, it was strange how Holy victims were always taken at night. What could that mean? Was it something to do with the temperature of the air changing at dusk? Holy victims smiled in death, as if they had welcomed it. Why? Hadn’t they known they were going to die?
Pleasurable nocturnal deaths would, in primitive minds, give rise to the idea of incubi and succubae perhaps. Now, how could all this possibly relate to the advent of miracles and inexplicable events? I tidied away my notes. More information was needed. The fright I had suffered seemed nothing more than the product of a feverish imagination now. Keea had scared the birds and bats somehow; quite effective. He was not just a showman but also an accomplished magician!
A night of drinking, eating and general wildness would be quite a fitting end to my partnership with the Halmanes. I was now in the mood for celebration. Soon, I would be alone again, alone with my thoughts and the sound of my own footsteps. I knew I should make the most of human company before this time. Perhaps even a final dalliance with sweet Aniti. I suppose I owed her an explanation, at least. Sexual partners who dropped you without a word caused the most horrible of self-doubts. I was also anticipating getting my hands on Keea; he would not evade my questions so easily again. In a way, I was excited and pleased that others were making investigations in the same direction as me. Realistically, it was inevitable that someone would be doing so; my intellect wasn’t unique.
I changed my clothes, and allowed Sah’ray to line my eyes with black kohl and tidy up a few of my braids, which had come loose in the scrabble through the wood that afternoon. She had forgotten her annoyance with me and, as we preened ourselves in the murky confines of her tent, happily babbled to me about who she intended to snare as a sexual partner before the night was over. We shared a few cups of thick, sweet wine to get us in the mood for celebration. Before the festivities, however, one of Q’orveh’s female acolytes appeared outside, and I was summoned to the shaman’s tent.
I anticipated our meeting might be rather embarrassing, but Q’orveh greeted me with casual friendliness, as if nothing whatsoever had transpired between us the previous night. Keea was nowhere to be seen; irritating that he should be invisible at the only time when I wanted to see him. I asked Q’orveh why he’d summoned me.
‘I want to discuss our approach to the Strangeling,’ he said.
I knew the Strangeling to be a wide area of ruins, inhabited by every kind of rogue imaginable. It hugged the border of the Bochanegran Empire; perhaps the ruins were those of ancient cities that had been abandoned by the Bochanegrans centuries before. The Strangeling was not a place regularly frequented by soulscapers, and it was certainly not somewhere I intended to linger on my way to Sacramante. ‘Oh?’ I replied, carefully.
‘Things will get more... bizarre, I feel. The Toors have come from the west and they say the incidence of strange occurrences is much more frequent back there. Also, Toortaki has told me of evil riders on the road, who have no faces. They inspire terror in the heart of anyone who sees them.’
More tribal fairy-stories! ‘What has this to do with me?’
He seemed puzzled by my coolness. ‘I thought you were interested in these things. I had hoped to help you. Also, I feel very strongly we will need a soulscaper among us in the western lands.’
‘I see. Do all the tribal shamans feel this way, Q’orveh? Since when has the soulscaper’s role changed from rival to saviour?’
‘Your bitterness surprises me,’ he said. ‘I think the strangenesses are things that we should face together, Taps and tribes alike. I supposed you felt the same.’
‘Yesterday, you spoke of prayers to appease your god, and no interference in divine activity. In fact, you reprimanded me. Now, I am essential. Your turns of mind confuse me, Q’orveh.’
‘Are you with us or not, Rayojini?’ he asked sternly.
I sighed. ‘Q’orveh, I am a healer. My vocation is to help people wherever I find them. In that respect, you have my commitment.’
My words seemed to satisfy him. ‘Go out and enjoy the festival,’ he said.
Section Eight
Rayojini
‘Nor uglier the night-hag, when called in secret, riding through the air she comes…’
Paradise Lost, Book II
After leaving Q’orveh’s tent, I sought out Aniti and Juro as I had intended. We sat together, with a group of Halmanes, and the evening passed in a pleasant haze of intoxication. We all drank the nomad’s vicious brews far too liberally and, at Juro’s insistence, he, Aniti and I had shared a pipe of our secondary scrying mix; dreamy illusions crowded the corners of my vision. I rambled on incoherently, to an equally incoherent Aniti, about the sacrifices I had made for my lone life’s path, which precluded all intimate relationships of a long-term nature. She accepted this without apparent upset, but asked me to look for her when I next returned to Taparak. This, I agreed to do without question, although I had a feeling it would be a long, long time before I saw my home again.
I had kept alert for signs of Keea but he made no appearance throughout the night. Before my mind fuzzed up completely with smoke and alcohol, I had made a cursory search for him, among the groups of celebrating nomads gathered around the campfires. No one, when asked, could remember seeing him since the morning. I was not permitted access to Q’orveh’s tent, because youths stationed outside informed me that a private rite was being conducted within. They did not think Keea was involved.
I did not disclose to the other soulscapers that I planned to resume my travels alone the following day. They themselves talked about returning to Taparak very shortly, and clearly assumed I would remain with the Halmanes until we reached the Strangeling. I did feel a little nervous about my proposed escape. Would Q’orveh come after me when he realised I’d abandoned his tribe? (Did some honest part of me hope that he would?) Was having a soulscaper around that important to him or, more worrying, would he see my flight as a sign of culpability in some way? I could only find out once the camp was behind me.
As the fires sank low, and pe
ople began to drift off into the trees, I saw Q’orveh come out of his tent. Perhaps it was no coincidence Aniti and I had chosen to sit quite nearby. The shaman appeared shaken, perhaps drunk; he was naked to the waist. I watched him stretch up his arms to the sky, extending the magnificent muscles of his lean body, letting his tangled mane fall back in a ragged flag to below his waist, and a brief pang crossed my heart. Should I go to him? Would I be rebuffed if I did? Aniti touched my arm. I looked at her sharply, expecting some provocative remark. But she was not looking at me. ‘Rayo, can you see that?’ she asked. ‘Look at his throat, just above the chest. What has he done to himself?’
‘A ritual cut,’ I said, glancing at the mark she indicated. ‘The nomads are like that.’
‘He looks... ill.’
‘Drugged. He has his acolytes in there with him.’
Aniti shrugged. ‘Are you going to speak to him?’
Q’orveh stood motionless, staring up at the moon. For some reason, at that moment I could not bear the thought of touching him again. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Some delicacies can only be sampled once.’
‘Am I one of those?’ she asked archly.
I patted her hand. ‘You are a Tap,’ I said, ‘a woman - not a delicacy.’
‘I admire you greatly,’ Aniti blurted.
I squeezed her hand. ‘I don’t deserve it!’
She sighed. ‘You are no longer touched by the magic of this place, are you?’ The disappointment in her voice tugged briefly at my heart, but I hardened it swiftly. Seeing Q’orveh had somehow choked the urge for intimacy, with anyone, from my body.
I shook my head, not entirely without regret, and Aniti gently pulled her hand from beneath my fingers.
At dawn, after a few hours sleep alone, I removed myself as quietly as possible from Sah’ray’s tent. A fog had come down, lying thickly in the basin of the Sink, so that the rock walls were invisible. Only the peaks of other tents showed as smudges in the immediate vicinity and I could hear the muffled tocking of the bells worn around the necks of the mules and goats, hobbled nearby.