Burying the Shadow
Storm Constantine
Stafford, England
Burying the Shadow
© Storm Constantine 1992
Smashwords edition 2009
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people, or events, is purely coincidental.
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PROLEGOMENON
‘Lift your head to me...’
His is the kiss of a timorous lover. Feel his inhuman lips on the throat, the heat of it. The bite, when it comes, is cold. Begin to sink as the blood flows into his mouth; it is almost soothing. No pain. No pain at all. His teeth grind into the muscles; ecstasy and torment. Life, the very being, is flowing out. Unholy nourishment. Holy nourishment. Drained slowly.
The trauma of it feels like being torn, but it is no more than suddenly having the ability to experience reality in a different way. Waiting for the end... for what? Cannot foretell. No longer flesh, no longer blood. Soul. Free.
Canto One
Section One
Gimel
‘…and this dire change, hateful to utter…’
Paradise Lost, Book 1
A renegade burned out among the stars last night.
My brother and I were visiting the open air theatre in the Avellan zuko with the Di Corboran family, for the opening night of the new Zamzummim production. The play, as is usually the case with Zamzummim confections, was the light in the centre of a jewel; coruscant. As well as the noble families of Sacramante - humans all - many members of the artisan eloim throngs were present, including Miahel Shahakim who was being brought out by his elders for a second cycle. This inevitably caused a stir among the patrons. Miahel had been confined to the atelier courts for over forty years; now he emerged, fresh as a dew-heavy bud, sleekly fed and quivering with unspent energy. His presence was almost as gratifying as the Zamzummim play. Almost.
Beth and myself were alone in representing the Metatronim throng that night; our father was incubating a new epic lyrica at the time and needed the support of his kin around him. We had always been somewhat estranged from our family throng; Metatron’s creative parturitions barely touched us nowadays.
During the interval, all artisans present in the audience, together with their patrons from the great families of the city, repaired to the salon above the stage for refreshment. Here, long windows were thrown open to the night, and the balconies were festooned with heavy swags of woven flowers, oozing a frenzied perfume. The night was alive, as only a late summer night can be.
Below us, in the zuko square, the rank and file of the city milled in a great crowd, queuing at the essence-blenders’ stalls to buy their cocktail cordials. They were not permitted within the theatre itself (indeed could not afford it), but dressed up in their best clothes to celebrate, in their own way, outside. Occasionally, they’d be brave enough to glance up at the balconies, hoping for a glimpse of a famous eloim artisan.
For several minutes, I leaned upon the rail, gazing out across the city of Sacramante, breathing in its riot of scents; the hot flesh-smell beneath me, the flower haze above. In the room behind, Oriel Zamzummim bashfully courted praise for the first half of his production, nervously pointing out that, as yet, the praise was undeserved. What if no one liked the second act? Nevertheless, he accepted the congratulations and kisses of his admirers; none of it was undeserved, in my opinion. I had no fears for the second act.
Spreading out my arms along the balcony rail and leaning backwards, I showed off the precise lines of my new velvets while, just inside the room, my brother, Beth - as ever a potent charm in black and gold lace - grilled Oriel for information about his current work in progress. Beth is an artist; I knew he did not really care what Oriel was doing. Exhibiting interest was simply a political move. I raised my head and watched him with a faint smile on my face, waiting to catch his eye. So beautiful, my brother Beth - I love no other more. Just as our glances collided through the throngs, our glasses raised in delicious complicity, a terrible sound came from outside: a cry, a wordless shout.
At that moment, everything went utterly still, but for the light shooting from jewelled throat to jewelled throat, from candelabra to chandelier. Nobody spoke, because the sound, so immediate in its intensity, told the artisans present all we needed to know. We felt it too, felt it deep and hard beneath our skins. As one, the silent gathering slid out onto the balcony, human patrons in quick pursuit. Below us, all the eyes of the crowd were raised in the direction of the atelier courts. The high, dark tower of the campanile could clearly be seen, with its baroque crown of stone lace, so intricately worked. Something moved there, something that generated a hiss within each throat and sent fingers flying to open mouths. A figure clawed at the fragile lace of the bell tower; a tiny, stick-like figure at this distance. I saw the gleam of cloth of gold, the gleam of golden hair; white hands and face like little marble stones. I felt Beth behind me; he entered my mind through the door that is privately his. ‘Who? Who!’ I felt behind me for his hand, clutched it until my fingernails bit flesh.
‘They have closed all doors,’ I informed him. ‘I cannot tell.’
Another play was being enacted on the campanile, but we were too far from it to discern the details of its drama. There was movement, jerky movement, and time hung suspended like an iron sword. Then the wind of flight was in my blood, in the blood of all of us, and the figure fell. For a brief instant we were permitted ingress through the splintered doors of a ruined mind; I felt the body arch, felt the hurricane of impending destruction in my flesh, felt... nothing.
Moments later, a scream shattered the balmy night air; and again, and again.
I gasped and buried my head in the supple fall of my brother’s hair. His arm curled around me. It was over.
We were in the centre of a numbed ganglion of scratched nerves. Nobody spoke, but the breathing was loud. Then, quite nearby, the proprietor of the theatre summoned one of his people through the stunned silence. There was a whispered enquiry and the servant departed. There was no more fuss than this.
‘Perhaps it was a stunt,’ a Di Corboran woman said, brightly, fracturing the hush.
Beth’s arm tightened around me. ‘Perhaps,’ he answered, though I saw, reflected in his eyes, the same bitter-cold dread that was in his heart. In both our hearts. We knew that cry; it was the lament of a soul’s death, yet, at that distance, we could not identify the source, or put a name to it.
We, the eloim throngs, for whom death is but a far threat, (as is rare disease to men and women), were having to face the Dark Brother with increasing regularity. Death was not occurrin
g through decay or sickness, but through suicide; the ultimate, unbelievable obscenity. At first, we had thought the self-destructions a bizarre coincidence - freak events - or else a natural culling of defective spirits, but now... How many dead? Five, six? And in the space of only seven months. Was this condition confined to the city, or were other eloim, abroad in the world, suffering the same decline? Would it pass? Would the sardonic brother furl his wings once more and leave us be? What was engendering this terrible despair, causing eloim to seek the kingdom of their most feared enemy? So far, our elders, the Parzupheim, had refused to view these events with importance. Now, concern was growing among the throngs. Soon, surely, investigation must be made and action taken.
The theatre-master’s servant returned and whispered in his master’s ear. People were beginning to move back into the theatre for the second half of the play, discreetly holding on to each other - men, women and eloim alike - and trying to recapture the heady pleasure of the early evening. There was little point in letting whatever tragedy had occurred blight the performance. The performance is the life of the city, our life, and beyond all considerations of personal grief. Whatever information the servant had imparted to the theatre-master would not be discussed until the performance was concluded; it would be improper to do so before, and disrespectful to Oriel. Poor Zamzummim; I am sure he saw acute omens in what had happened. Yet the performers, as if driven to excellence by the shade of calamity, sailed through the rest of the play with exuberance and zest, clawing back the cowering spirits of the audience into the moment, and making them soar and ache with passion.
After the performers had left the boards, I made a point of visiting the eloim’s private balconies high above the stage, in order to applaud Oriel Zamzummim warmly for his efforts. He was an appealing figure, dark and intense of countenance, yet dwarfed by his overwhelming brethren of greater height and stature; I accorded them a brief, cordial glance.
‘Gimel,’ Oriel said, half rising from his seat as I approached. ‘Gimel.’ Just my name, so softly.
I leaned forward and briefly touched his hand. ‘Come to the house soon,’ I said. ‘And when are you going to create a part for me in one of your successes, hmm?’
He smiled vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t presume, sweet lady,’ he said, pressing the ends of my fingers to his brow.
‘Well, I request it!’
That cheered him up a little. ‘You honour me.’
I accompanied him to the astral dome above the balconies, where everybody was heading for liqueurs. I felt quite light-headed, and somehow drained, as if I had been weeping for hours.
Leone Di Corboran, the special patron of the Metatronim throng, sought me out and plucked me from Oriel’s arm. He had the news, of course, and it was only right my patron should tell me.
Leone had never denied himself any of life’s pleasures; he was a large and solid man, but for all his size not without his attractions. ‘Where is Beth?’ I asked him, as he opened his mouth to speak. Around us, everyone had gone into huddles and were speaking quickly, in low voices.
‘He begged me to give you his apologies,’ Leone said. ‘He has retired to the inner salon for a few moments alone.’
‘Without me?’ I was astounded.
‘Listen to what I have to say, Lady Gimel, listen. Then, you might understand why your brother needs a brief privacy.’
Calmly, he imparted the information that the figure we had discerned on the campanile tower had been none other than the celebrated sculptor, Tasha Rephaim. I was appalled; Rephaim, not yet in the full flowering of his first cycle, had been on the cusp of enormous popularity within the city. I could not understand why he should seek extinction. Leone spoke crisply, sensitive to my feelings yet eager to rid himself of the burden of information, of how Tasha had wailed into the bell - the sound that had alerted us - and then opened his throat to the wind. He had bled himself down over the stone, until weakness had caused him to slip and fall, to smash himself upon the rounded, well-trodden stones of the northern atelier court. It was not his scream we had heard after that, however, but that of his mistress, who had found him lying there. She was one of us, an eloim poetess. I knew her well, and her pain misted up my eyes over the golden brandy Leone slipped into my hand. I could tell that the lady’s pain was condensing hard within every eloim heart, as we smiled and nodded at our friends, talking, in voices that barely shook, of the capricious bent of the artistic soul.
A well-padded patron lady, who was eavesdropping, said to Leone, ‘Perhaps this hysterical temperament is only to be expected amongst these creative souls.’ She smiled at me and patted my hand. ‘But then you, my dear, are not like that.’
‘Indeed not,’ I replied, lightly.
‘Of course not!’ Leone said. ‘Yet maybe my bright goddess of the awning is sickened, nonetheless.’ He put a proprietorial hand beneath my elbow. ‘See, she is white, white as milk-ice.’ He leaned close to my ear and whispered, ‘Perhaps you would like some air, my dear.’
‘That is most thoughtful of you, sir. I am indeed feeling a little distressed.’
As we left the lady’s company, Leone added, ‘He was a friend of your brother’s, of course, this Rephaim.’
I nodded, speechless.
My patron took me out onto the star terrace that poked perilously above the city, and proceeded to woo me under the cover of concern. A light drizzle had begun to fall; the sky’s response to Rephaim’s death, rinsing the evidence of his atrocious act from the stonework of the campanile. My heart was bursting with Rephaim’s spilled blood; again and again, it tugged within my breast as I relived the sculptor’s last flight. I could barely fend Leone off.
Beth did not speak at all on the way home, and I laid my fingers over his in silence. Our carriage flew like a black prayer over the cobbles; Beth had ordered the flanking lamps to be doused, as a mark of lament. The great walls of the atelier courts were also unlit, and the gates opened in silence to let us pass. The narrow streets and modest plazas were empty of life and slick with rain, while above them the soaring ateliers brooded, their dark windows as blank as weary eyes.
Once in the house, Beth wept for a few minutes, and then walked like a sleeper into the brush-court, where he painted furiously for the rest of the night. In the morning, I found him there, slumped beside his easel, an empty philtre of bitter-oak in his hand. Oblivion then, I thought and looked at the canvas. Madness there, little other than I had expected, and grief and love, but mainly madness. I made a sound - without inflection - but a sound nonetheless.
Beth raised his head and looked at me through red eyes. ‘It has come, then, to the steps of our home,’ he said. ‘We are not safe.’
‘You and I are quite safe,’ I replied, though unsure of him.
He shook his head. ‘No. The evidence can no longer be ignored; it will not simply go away. We have contracted a sickness from the blood of our patrons. We must have!’
I opened my mouth to protest, but Beth would not let me speak.
‘Gimel, listen to me.’ He looked up at me with feverish eyes, urging me to remember a conversation we had had the last time one of our people had died. ‘It is obvious that the eloim have contracted a soulscape malady. There is only one cure. We both know that, no matter how much the elders want to deny we are prone to such afflictions. Perhaps we are not as different from humankind as we like to think.’
Beth had been incubating this theory for some weeks, which I had indulged to begin with, believing he simply needed some kind of frame on which to hang his fears. I did not want to believe he might be right in his assumptions.
‘You talk of evidence,’ I said, carefully, ‘but there is none to support your theory, Beth. I understand how the suicides make you feel - I too am horrified by them - but still think you should control your fantasies as to their cause.’
Beth ignored the criticism. ‘The only evidence I need is what my instinct tells me! I know I am not alone in reaching this deduction, Gimel. We cannot wait
any longer. The time for debate and discussion is past. We must travel, sister; it is up to us.’
I turned away from him, lacing my fingers into a constricted knot. ‘I don’t think so, Beth. We are too insignificant, too young. Let others take the lead.’
He scrambled to his feet, roughly pulled my shoulder, so I had to face him again. ‘No. I trust only myself - ourselves. We must travel and find ourselves a soulscaper, Gimel, a soulscaper suited to our needs. It has gone on too long, come too close. The sickness breathes upon our necks. I, for one, can wait no longer for others to act.’
His vehemence shocked me. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ I said, ‘but do you really think a human can help us? I am not convinced of it. Rephaim was your lover, Beth. Naturally, you are distressed by his death, but I still think we should wait.’ In truth, I did not cherish the thought of travel. I prefer to laze than move.
‘Then wait here without me,’ he said and left the court.
I sighed and sat down among the paints and canvases, sullying my skirts with pigment, grease and chalk. Later, I would go and pack. He knew I could not bear my life without him near me.
Section Two
Rayojini
‘…thou from the first was present, and with mighty wings outspread dove-like sat brooding on the vast abyss…
Paradise Lost, Book I
Above the continent of Lansaal is an inland sea, which the Lannish people call the Womb of the Land; the lands of Atruriey and Southern Khalt flank its northern shore. A short sea journey north of the famous Lannish port of Toinis lies an 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.