Burying the Shadow Read Online Free

My mother sat with bowed head,
intoxicated by the fumes, although I did not know that then. I went
around to where Vasni was sitting and, at his direction, sat down
by his side. He smiled at me and, in the dim light, the indigo dye
on his teeth looked as brown and tarnished as old blood. For a
while he spoke to me of soulscaping, the history of our people, our
responsibilities and vocations.
    The Tappish
are descendants of the great Deltan Kings of ancient times, a guild
of healers who colonised the island. Being scholars and mystics, as
well as healers, our ancestors had sought to probe the secrets of
the human mind. They discerned two areas within the psyche, which
are very closely linked; the mindscape, which is the realm of
conscious thought and decision-making, and the soulscape - a
deeper, more inaccessible area - in which the hidden desires and
compulsions, the most esoteric symbols of the entire human race,
reside. ‘Within the soulscape,’ Vasni said, ‘dwell all the gods
that ever lived, all the thoughts that have ever been thought, all
the memories of the human race.’
    Perceiving
interconnectedness between all living things, the ancient Taps
believed that every individual was somehow linked through the
abstract country of the soulscape. By understanding the soulscape,
it might be possible to understand human motivation. The fortunate
discovery of the properties of certain herbs and their parasites
had been instrumental in developing the soulscaping craft. Through
prudent use of the mind-altering substances they had found -
burning the crushed wings of ‘scaper beetles’ - our ancestors had
been able to prove their theories to be correct. They had learned
how to expand their awareness and actually enter the soulscape
themselves. By doing this, they found they were able to have a
direct effect upon the soulscape’s reality: they could change it.
    The soulscape,
Vasni told me, can be visualised exactly like a vast city. ‘Your
personal scape,’ he said, ‘can be seen as a many-roomed house
within this city. Each of us has our own house there, and most
people never open their doors to look outside. They do not know how
to. Yet we Taps are able not only to go outside our personal
dwellings in the soulscape, but also to enter other people’s
dwellings too. We can travel wherever we wish to, on the streets
and in the parks of this place, always aware of each house’s
relation to the city, perceiving the greater picture. And, because
we can see the houses from the outside, as it were, it is easy for
us to discern where they are damaged and how to repair them.’
    Through
soulscaping, we can heal the human mind of most hurts and, because
the majority of illnesses are connected with the mind, we can often
cure the body of physical ailments as well.
    ‘But healing
is not our only task,’ Vasni said, raising a stern finger. ‘No. We
are hunters too.’ He spoke to me then of the great Fear that haunts
the minds of humankind, always lurking in the shadows, seeking for
weaknesses that are doors into the soulscape. Finding ingress, the
Fear breeds madness, hysteria and weird moon-cycle delusions. While
soulscapers travelled abroad, plying their trade, it was also their
duty to be alert for the Fear, to pursue it into the soulscape,
corner it and slay it.
    The alarm I
felt at this news made me confident enough to ask questions. ‘What
is the Fear? What does it look like?’
    ‘Nobody but a
soulscaper can see the Fear,’ Vasni answered, leaning towards me.
‘And they look for it in the eyes of their fellow creatures. A good
soulscaper can always see the Fear, looking out, if they have
trained themselves to recognise it. As to what it is, I can only
say this: it is a very old thing, perhaps a renegade fragment of
the soulscape itself that has escaped into the world. Once a person
is infected with it, only a soulscaper can drive it away.’
    ‘Is it ever
dangerous for us?’
    Vasni pondered
my query. ‘If there