Burying the Shadow Read Free

island that is a relic of some past
sub-terran flexing. It is but a vast table mountain, whose sheer
sides rise up out of the water without blemish. No person can scale
these cliffs; the only way up is through the heart of the mountain,
by way of the wide shafts and scramble routes. The mountain is
named Tapar. On its wide, flat summit lies an immense petrified
forest, and within this natural construction rears the city of
Taparak, home of the soulscapers. Taparak is a city of silicon and
stone, shaped as if by an artist’s hands. It was my home too, in
the beginning.
    Listen then,
for I am a soulscaper and have the gift of the story tongue. I am
Rayojini, daughter of Ushas, daughter of a skilled line. I have the
way of it; into the mind like a bat, I go, and out again, dragging
Fear in a net, for that is my profession. I was born in Taparak
and, for a long time, could imagine nowhere different. It is a hot,
dry place, but the Taps milk the sky-cloud of moisture, channelling
it down through the mummified claws of the forest’s hands. Inside
the mountain, below the city, there are lakes of icy water, clear
and fragranced with the cloud spirits’ soul-scent, and close to the
lakes are the sponge-root farms; terraces of pale, phosphorescent
fungus.
    As a child, I
ran through the bough-streets of Taparak, my imagination used only
for play. I, as had my playmates, had heard our elders speak of the
soulscape, but to us, it was a distant country. We visualised it as
a land of monsters and fabulous people - our childish ideas not too
far from the truth - and once, in our games, I was crowned queen of
this place. Pretty Heromin, son of Sarcander the Wanderer, became
my slave for a day. Our soulscape was a place that shimmered with
the inchoate buds of later carnal blossoming. As such, it was
instrumental in our development.
    Sometimes,
Ushas, my mother, would call me to her side from play, and I would
go clambering like a moth-grub from branch to branch, among the
higher reaches of the city, helping her to gather the sweet-clay of
scraper bugs - insects that live within the ossified bark - which
we took home to make into bread and cakes. Then a client might come
and blow upon our door-chimes, and my mother would send me outside
again, lighting the resin-bowl before I’d even left the hollow.
    Until the age of eight
years, I was a simple girl, with no more thought in my head than
the sun-gilded notions of a child at play. I was not insular,
having many friends, imaginative (though not excessively so) - as
was required of a budding soulscaper - and certainly not prey to
any sons of the Fear. All this changed on my eighth birthday. I
remember it clearly even now. Ushas and I had home-hollows
root-vicinity at that time; it was long before my mother gained
ascension within her guild. We often talked of the day when her
soulscaping accomplishments would secure us a more prestigious high
drey among the clouds, although our discussions were a game of
wishes rather than a real desire to move home. The hollow was more
than enough for our needs and, though a long way from the sky,
convenient for ground level amenities and dew-gathering. We lived
alone because my mother had never wanted to marry particularly - I
did not know who my father was - and for her, one child was
enough.
    Ushas roused
me early and I stretched into the morning knowing that today was
the day I would at last learn something of my mother’s professional
secrets. Today, I would step off the narrow, twisty path of
childhood, with all its secret haunts, and put one foot upon the
wide road of womanhood. It would be a long time, I knew, before I
advanced more than a few paces up this exciting, new road, but at
least it was a beginning. All potential soulscapers underwent a
ceremony when they reached a certain age. It was a confirmation of
our parents’ desires for us to follow in their footsteps, although
it was not irrevocable. However, because of the nature of the