Burying the Shadow Read online

  The coliseum was a blaze of light when we reached it, and against this radiance moved the ravishing figures of the Sacramantan beau monde. Carriages jostled for position by the main doors, spilling cargoes of twittering socialites, who dripped with ropes of jewels and pearls, and were muffled in rich stoles of fur and feathers that glittered with marcasite sequins. A group of musicians played on a patio outside the foyer, and a young, female dancer stamped and spun before them, in a froth of crimson skirts. Her bare toes seized bright coins off the petal-strewn paving stones, coins that the crowd had flung to her. Without pausing in the dance for a moment, she flicked the coins into a shallow metal bowl behind her.

  Artisans were present in droves. They had a curious inbred look; all very tall and attenuated, their ice-white features delicate and aristocratic. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell which of them were men and which were women. Their clothes were exquisite; plain and classical, their jewellery discreet and simple. Those who weren’t artisans looked gaudy beside them. Livvy pointed out the most famous, and spoke the wonderful words of their family names: Sarim, Tartaruchi, Metatronim, Kalkydra. It seemed that artistic vocation was hereditary in Sacramante. I commented on this to Livvy. She smiled at me in a distinctly secretive way. Sacramantans were like that; secretive, and it seemed the secrets were of the most delicious kind.

  ‘Surely, creativity is hereditary everywhere, Rayo, dear,’ she said and, taking hold of my elbow, swept me into the crowd.

  The play was called The Thorn Path, and had been written by an artisan of the Tartaruchi dynasty, a man named Avirzah’e. ‘It is supposedly a controversial piece,’ Liviana said to me, as we took our places in the Tricante balcony. I was craning over the rail, gawping at everyone, and Livvy had to pull me back to my seat, so her parents could sit down. She handed me a programme of the event, printed in dead black ink on tissue-thin paper. Of the Tricante youngsters, only Agnestia and the cousins were privileged to have places on the front row of the balcony; Zimon and Almero came to sit with Livvy and myself behind.

  Zimon squeezed down beside me and pointed to my programme. ‘It is lucky you are here for this; it will be outstanding!’ he said. ’The principal lady is Gimel Metatronim, and the sets are designed by her brother, Beth. Both are gifted with genius.’

  Agnestia had overheard his remarks and turned round in her seat. ‘I, for one, am interested in this production for the simple fact that it is a Metatronim and Tartaruchi connivance,’ she said. ‘It is no secret there has been harshness between the two families.’

  ‘Frosh!’ Zimon declared. ‘You’re too full of intrigue, Aggie. The artisans are not swayed by the same base passions as ourselves.’

  ‘You talk as if they are a different race entirely!’ I said, voicing a thought that had been in my head since I had met Hadith Sarim. Neither of the Tricantes deigned to follow up my observation.

  The house lights dimmed, and a hush fell over the crowd. Musicians began to play the overture. The stage was a raised circular dais, far below, covered in humped, indistinct shapes. As the stage lamps were turned up, these shapes were revealed to be pieces of scenery; minimal, mere suggestions of forms. To me, they became a rocky land, devoid of moisture. As the music soared up into the theatre, a figure uncurled on the stage - it had looked just like a rock a moment before - and expanded ragged wings. The music fell in volume to a mere sobbing. On the stage, the figure dipped and swayed in birdlike fashion, accompanied only by a mournful fluted tune. I thought it would be too dark to read my programme, but the white page gleamed like phosphorescence, its black lettering as dark as if it had been burned right into it. ‘The soul, set free’ it said, in description of this first vignette. This confused me. Surely a freed soul could only be joyful and wild; this was a being filled with anxiety and dread. Presently, the figure jumped into the air and disappeared, presumably through one of the tunnel entrances that flanked the stage. Then there was a dreadful sound; not a cry, but a lamenting sigh. A woman appeared, clambering over the rough terrain, pushing her hair from her eyes, where it hung in damp, lank tresses. Her dress was torn, her body contorted as if wracked by terrible pain.

  ‘Gimel!’ Zimon hissed in my ear.

  I had begun to feel unaccountably sick. There was something too realistic in this performance, a promise of horror. I didn’t want to watch it anymore; I was sure it was going to distress me. It was like some soulscape terror being brought into reality, with no escape or return to normal awareness. My mother was sitting on the front row of the balcony among the older Tricantes; unreachable. Zimon was entranced, watching his heroine. The actress tottered to a stand. This was a person starving to death; emaciated and haggard. She stumbled, and the crowd drew in its breath.

  ‘I am hungry!’ she cried, and it sounded as if the words cut her throat like knives. She was bloodless; just a dry thing. I leaned towards Liviana.

  ‘This is horrible!’ I said, and just the act of whispering seemed to break the appalling spell somewhat.

  ‘Ssh!’ Liviana admonished. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘She is one of the best,’ Liviana hissed. ‘Just watch. It’s only a play.’

  I was not convinced of that. Still, it was unlikely the poor woman would starve herself into such a condition just for the sake of her acting. It was obviously makeup and lighting that made her appear that way. Partly comforted, I leaned back in my seat and took a few deep breaths, telling myself to be calm, and not so stupid. It was a play, and a great play; never again might I enjoy this privilege. Then the actress began to scream, and I closed my eyes.

  By the interval, I felt as if I had suffered some terrible trauma. We had sat for an hour, tortured by the sight of this demented female encountering, on her lone quest for her departed soul, all manner of peculiar hallucinations. She was devoured alive, burned, drowned, chased by hideous demons, which caught and raped her - although any graphic detail of this scene was hidden by a melee of cavorting actors, caparisoned in spikes and insect plates. I was not sure if I could bear to endure any more and clapped in grateful relief, more than appreciation, when the stage lights dimmed and the houselights flared up.

  ‘The artisans are not receiving during the interval,’ Almero said, consulting his programme.

  Liviana pouted in disappointment. ‘Why ever not?’

  Agnestia turned round. ‘I told you; it’s because of bad blood. I’d stake my life on it!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Cousin Voile said, in a supercilious voice. ‘Avirzah’e Tartaruchi made it known weeks ago the interval would be of short duration. The production is intense; he does not want any of us to lose the feel of it by socialising and gossiping! There’ll be plenty of time for that later.’

  Liviana went off with Almero to fetch us something to eat and drink, from the cordial-vendors downstairs. I could only slump exhausted in my seat, smiling inanely at Zimon’s chatter.

  ‘Such talent!’ he said. ‘My, what I’d give to be one of Gimel Metatronim’s patrons.’ He pulled a face. ‘Still, we have Hadith.’

  ‘Wasn’t she supposed to be in this play?’ I asked, wondering how on earth the scene she had described to us could be incorporated into such horror.

  Zimon nodded. ‘Yes. In the second half.’ He laughed. ’When it all gets damned jolly, I suppose.’

  ‘Will it do that?’ I could not dare to hope.

  Zimon grimaced. ‘Probably. Not even a Tartaruch could keep this up for a whole evening. We are simple folk, us Sacramantans. We need hope as well as despair for a good night out.’

  ‘Nothing simple in that!’ I replied earnestly.

  Livvy came back with clay cups of citrus drink and a bag of buns in crystal honey. Once I had eaten, I began to feel better. ’You looked quite green!’ Livvy said, grinning. ‘I suppose we’re used to this sort of thing, living here. The artisans like to make us work for our entertainment.’

  I resented the implications in her comment, as if I was some untut
ored, uncultured rustic thing without refinement or the ability to appreciate art.

  The second act was, as Zimon had anticipated, far lighter in comparison. The actress found an ally who could help her net her wayward soul and she travelled to a ruined city, where Hadith, as the breeze, sang sweet melodies that wooed the soul to earth. Reunited, the actress and her soul confronted the demon prince, who lived beneath the city, and exacted a revenge for the rape by his lesser imps. This was not the gory unpleasantness I feared, but a titillating seduction scene, during which the actress made the demon fall in love with her. As they embraced, the whole scene exploded into activity; shapes that had symbolised masonry and half-fallen buildings magically transformed into leaping figures, whose flesh was painted with luminous pigment. The finale was a burst of firecrackers, crashing symbols and the actress with her heel upon the groin of the demon prince. The lights swept down to blackness and the whole arena was on its feet, yelling and clapping. I had lapsed into a kind of daze, still not over the testing first half, and had to be dragged up by Liviana, who shrieked and jumped up and down at my side.

  All the company appeared on stage and bowed to their hysterical audience. Liviana grabbed my arm. ‘Come on!’ she cried. ‘We must get to the salon quickly!’

  ‘Why?’

  She did not answer.

  Zimon was pushing me along the row of seats, urging me to move. We surged out of the balcony into a milling crowd, where I stumbled over feet and trod on people’s gowns, my arm in the merciless grip of Liviana.

  ‘Come on!’ she cried over her shoulder.

  Swimming through a tide of people, I was beached by the tireless Liviana in a large chamber, reached by a curving flight of stairs. Here, a host of people had already gathered, causing me to wonder just how many had slipped out before the end of the performance to guarantee themselves a prominent place in this room. Servitors in costumes of stiff black feathers, wearing feathered masks sewn with jewelled sequins, glided among the crowd, dispensing various refreshments. It was here that the celebrated company of artisans would gather for the edification of, and adoration by, their audience, although only patrons and their guests were allowed into this reception. Already an atmosphere of anticipation, rivalling that of before the play, was intensifying. I felt disorientated, pushed this way and that by eager people, all talking loudly and flashing their finery. My mother was nowhere to be seen and Liviana was too busy cooing, and fluttering her eyelashes at any passing male, to notice my discomfort. To steady my nerves, and appear as if I was at ease, I sipped continually from the glass that Liviana had thrust into my hands. Someone offered me a pipe; I sucked smoke, and a giddy feeling, as of a stormy wave crashing in my head, overwhelmed any unpleasant sensations caused by my coughing fit. Within a very short space of time, I had to lean against the wall for support; the ground beneath my feet swaying as if I was on a boat. In fact, it was more comforting to imagine that I was.

  Liviana pushed back through the crowd, having left me alone for a few moments. ‘The actors!’ she exclaimed in triumph. ’Come on, Rayo, come and see.’ She attempted to prise me away from the wall.

  ‘I’ll watch from here...’

  My protest was unheard. Suddenly I was lurching through indignant bodies, head aswim.

  Liviana sighed, apparently oblivious to my condition. She pulled me against her side. ‘Caspar Kalkydra!’ she breathed.

  A group of people had entered the room through a curtain further back. I recognised Caspar as being the actor who had played the part of the demon prince; his face was still daubed in gaudy makeup that, from the distance of the balcony, had seemed so subtle. He had fierce red hair, tied back in a scarf, and a face of flawless bony planes and angles. Other, lesser actors, (sprites and imps), came in his wake, preceding the more dramatic entrance of Hadith Sarim, who was dressed casually in a belted, silk robe, bare-footed and with a pale, scrubbed face. She floated to the Kalkydra’s side and linked her arm through his, nodding graciously at their admirers. Then, there was another flutter of interest as the great playwright himself sauntered into the room. Avirzah’e Tartaruchi; a prince of artisans. He was fearsome to look at; I saw a murderer’s soul, but perhaps that was only artifice on his part. His pale skin had a sallow tinge, causing him to stand out from his peers, and his abundant dark hair was threaded with a hint of deepest red. His mouth smiled in a lazy, sensual way, but his eyes were hooded and watchful. What is it about beautiful, effeminate men that women find so irresistible? To me, effeminacy seemed deceitful, or sly; I would never trust such loveliness. Here, I was alone in such feelings. The Sacramantans were virtually tearing the clothes from each other’s backs to reach Avirzah’e. I found all the fawning adoration rather sickening. Not even the most celebrated of our scryers back in Taparak were treated to such sycophancy. This was, perhaps, the dull side of Sacramante’s shiny coin; its glitter was but surface deep. With this in mind, I perched myself upon some elevated plateau of thought, looking down upon these eager fools drooling over their tinsel heroes. I was above all this. Miraculously, the smoke haze was beginning to seep out from the corners of my mind, leaving a sparkling clarity in its wake. I felt incredibly tall, and steady too. It was time to disengage myself from Liviana and seek my mother. She must also be finding this hysterical worshipping ridiculous.

  ‘Excuse me, Livvy,’ I said, ‘but I have to speak to Ushas.’

  ‘What?’ Liviana turned in irritation from her spectator sport, reluctant to drag her eyes away, even for a moment. People were now queuing up to tell the leading actors, and the author of the play, just how wonderful they were; a fact I was sure they were quite confident of already. Liviana, her family being a patron of Sarim, hoped to sidle up to Hadith and thus impose on the haughty, sneering Caspar. She was welcome to this behaviour; I wanted no part of it.

  Liviana did not protest as I moved away. I no longer found the crowd intimidating, but rather pathetic; they too were just cavorting imps and demons on a stage. Ushas stood out because of her poise. She was standing among the fronds of an ornamental tree, as if backing away from the man who was leaning towards her earnestly, his mouth moving quickly in animated speech. Sensing me approach (it really was as if we were the only two sentient beings in the room), she raised her head towards me and, with a smile, shaped a direct thought-form and tranced it in my direction. Its touch was muzzy in that riot of busy egos, and without the strengthening effect of scry-fume, but I felt it faintly. Someone else, however, had felt it too.

  Even as I raised my foot to walk to my mother’s side, an imminence of query surrounded me; an unmistakeable intrusion in my mind. Ushas had turned back to her companion; she did not sense it. Sweat broke out on the back of my neck. What was this? I had never experienced such a positive touch outside of a working situation or a scrying rite. I quickly looked around, seeking the predator, but everyone was smiling, talking, laughing, pawing each other, intent on the artisans and each other. Could there be another soulscaper here, someone who had rashly filled their pipe with a scaping mix, which was now affecting me? Or were some Sacramantans making illicit use of Tappish mixes? Neither of these explanations was impossible. Many Taps came to Sacramante after all, and I was well aware of how our scaping mixes could sometimes escape Tappish control.

  With a mental shrug, I composed myself, cleared my mind of transmissive thoughts and wriggled over to the ornamental tree. People peeled away in front of me, talking feverishly, merely shuffling their feet to avoid the incursion into their space.

  Then I saw them.

  I saw them as a dark heart to sizzling brightness; gibbering, yapping fools all around. From the very first instant, I knew I was looking at people very different to everyone else in the room. One was male, one female, and they stood very close together; smiling politely, nodding their heads, slowly blinking in response to whatever inanity was being directed at them. I felt a great empathy with them, perhaps because they looked as unimpressed with the proceedings as I was. Artisans, clea
rly, but who? I had unconsciously edged closer, until I stood at the edge of the crowd around them. A thought nagged in my head, as if I should be reminded of someone, but wasn’t. I saw Zimon Tricante, just in front of me, craning over the shoulders of taller people ahead of him. I pushed up behind him and tugged at his arm.

  ‘Zimon, who are those people?’

  He gripped my arm, his hot, damp face radiant with pleasure. ’Metatronim, Rayo,’ he replied. ‘The Metatronim.’

  Metatronim. The name was familiar. Of course, the actress: Gimel. On stage, she had been a withered drab, but now... Obviously my assumptions about the makeup must have been correct. Her white skin fairly glowed as if lit by some inner fire. Her lips were the colour of red wine, purple in the shadows, and her eyes, like a cat’s, were oblique and dark. She wore a black robe; her obsidian hair slung over one shoulder in a thick rope of plait. By her side, taller, but only just, the man was her twin in all but the colour of his hair. He was obviously the brother, Beth, who had designed the sets for the play. I had never seen such magnificent people, and their magnificence came from inside them, I could tell, an innate beauty that eclipsed the self-conscious loveliness of Kalkydra and his kind. Although I wanted them to notice me, I had no inclination whatsoever to thrust myself forward with Zimon and try to speak with them. I did not want the Metatronim to equate me with all the others in the room. And yet, in some strange way, I felt as if the actress and her brother were well aware of my presence, even though they never looked in my direction once. The fact that I was a foreigner, and also that I was unaffected by the glamour of the occasion, must have been noticed. Perhaps they could tell I was a soulscaper. Perhaps Hadith had told these people that the Tricantes had soulscapers staying with them, and the Metatronims had seen me with Zimon or Liviana. Perhaps.... Perhaps... It was a fantasy. In the morning, I would doubt these feelings. They would not have noticed me at all.

  The ride home was a fitting end to the evening. Everyone was intoxicated in one way or another; songs were begun, rhythms clapped, even the stately Tricante matron joining in the fun. My mood of detached aloofness faded, and I was drawn into the atmosphere of it, although my heart was curled around the delicious memory of seeing the Metatronims. There was something special about them - special only to me. From the moment I saw them, I’d felt a deep sense of recognition, some tugging within me as if I’d met them before yet forgotten when and how. I was filled with an excitement that eclipsed even the feelings I’d had after meeting Hadith Sarim. I dared to hope I could meet them again, before Ushas and I returned to Taparak.