Burying the Shadow Read Free Page A

rite,
changes of heart in later life were rare.
    I was to be
chanted into the future, by none less than my mother’s
guild-scryer, Vasni. Vasni was an extremely powerful individual
and, even while he still lived among us, a legend among the Taps.
At fourteen, he had castrated himself and had consequently
experienced extraordinary visions; most of which had prophesied
specific events, all of which had come to pass. He was not only a
scryer but also a superlative soulscaper in his own right. Now, he
was getting old, so his travelling days were over. In Taparak, work
is slim for a soulscaper - there being so many of us - which is why
we travel so widely. Since his retirement from active range-guild
service, Vasni had to content himself with scrying, but he still
held a high position within the guild as a mark of respect for his
talents.
    Ushas dressed
me in new trousers and shirt for the occasion, neatly embroidered
with the symbols of our family and of the family profession. I was
allowed to rinse out my mouth with bitters-root solution - a
terrible taste - but it dyed my teeth and tongue a beautiful
cyclamen pink colour with indigo shadows. This was the ceremonial
mouth decoration of the soulscapers in our trunk-community and,
when I smiled, everyone was sure to know that I too shared this
honoured occupation. I had known for some time that my life would
begin to change after this event, and had begun to prepare myself
for it. The days of play would be past, and I must discipline
myself to a deep, and often incomprehensible, education. Naturally,
even though I was aware of the hard work required of me, I looked
forward with pleasure to the new status I could enjoy. Even
trainees in the craft were accorded respect in Taparak - from those
outside the soulscape, as well as from those within. Because most
of the city’s population had some connection with soulscaping,
(even if they were not fully fledged scapers) I did not expect
instant elevation to a higher position within the community, but I
would no longer be treated as a simple child. Also, I would have
access once more to companions who had already undergone this rite
of passage. The lovely Heromin, for example, had recently knelt to
the scry, and I missed his company.
    Ushas marched me out
into the main root thoroughfare, striding along in her brightly
dyed, layered skirts, telling anyone who paused to greet our day
that she was taking her daughter, Rayojini, to Vasni the scryer.
‘Her distance is to be endowed this morning,’ she said, a ritual
phrase. As a response, people pinned shards of polished bark into
my hair.
    Our beliefs
might seem strange to those who hale from other lands, where it is
understood that no person has one future alone. It might seem
primitive or wayward that, in our society, a person’s life is
chosen for them at the age of eight, when so many (an infinity in
fact) of possible futures await them. Much later in life, one man
was to say to me (a lover, so he was frank) that it is as if the
Taps cut away all but a sliver of their children’s lives, and that
to condemn them to one future alone was a torment worse than slow
murder. He was a foreigner, of course, and what he said might have
been true in the mindscapes of foreign folk, but to us, it is the
way, and no scryer ever blew out a future that caused a parent to
break down in despair. Vasni and his kind are compassionate as well
as wise. My mother and I were happy enough, swinging along through
the morning; me with my bright, beautiful smile, and Ushas with her
news for everyone.
    Vasni lived
high in the city, on the seventh of the central trunks, no less,
and two tiers down from the aesthetes. Ushas and I walked the
thoroughfare from Great Root to Spiral, where we entered a pulley
carriage and were drawn aloft. The young man tending the pulley
made bright and hopeful remarks to my mother, but she just smiled
and said, ‘I promise you my daughter instead, when she’s a
mind.’
    I