Burying the Shadow Read Online Free Page A

are dangers, they are those of ill discipline,
carelessness and pomposity. A dedicated, well-schooled soulscaper
would rarely accost something they could not handle. But... there
are always exceptions. It is important for you to apply yourself
diligently to your training.’
    How exciting
my future sounded! I would be trained to enter this subconscious
realm and work with the creatures found there. I would be a healer
and huntress. It seemed as if, one day, I would tread the soil of
my invented playtime worlds, for they existed within the soulscape.
All imaginative creations lived in this place, where myth was
tangible and could be experienced through all the senses. I
listened earnestly to everything Vasni said, wanting to please him,
to show him I was capable of following my mother’s path.
    He finished
his narrative with a closing gesture; hands spread out, palm
downwards, extended from breast to arm’s length. ‘Now, we shall
see,’ he said. ‘Lean forward, child.’
    His long, hard
fingers curled around the back of my neck. I was puzzled for a
moment and then, with unexpected force, he pushed my head down
towards the glowing embers at our feet. I remember that I
struggled. I remember the glow of the charcoals suddenly becoming
large and livid in my eyes, looming towards me like fiery boulders.
My mother, still slumped with her head upon her breast, didn’t even
look up. ‘Relax, child,’ Vasni said, behind me, in a sibilant
voice. ‘Trust me and breathe. Breathe deep.’
    Close to, the
smell of the embers was bitter and stifling; the heat scorched my
throat. My eyes began to sting, and I blinked them furiously, hot
tears falling down onto the charcoal; turned to steam, no doubt,
even before they met the heat. I coughed, and it seemed that my
whole body convulsed; the cough came from somewhere very deep
inside me. It was terrible. I was afraid that Vasni was going to
burn my face and that my ritual was to be one of scarring and
torment. Vasni was pinching the nerves in my neck so tightly, I
could not move at all. The only sounds I could make were
insignificant mews, barely audible.
    Just when I
was sure I was about to pass out, if not lose my eyes and skin to
the heat, Vasni yanked me backwards, right back, and thumped me in
the centre of my chest with his free fist. I gulped air, so
disorientated that I tried to swallow it, like food. Vasni pressed
me gently onto the floor, into the rough, gritty folds of his
perfumed sacking-mats. ‘Lie still!’ he commanded.
    I lay on my
back, trying to remember how to breathe properly. Vasni inhaled
loudly, and I could visualise great columns of smoke being sucked
off the fire and into his nostrils. His voice, when he spoke, was
full of the power of the fire, and the women nearby bleated
affirmatives between each slowly-intoned word. ‘Now,’ he boomed, ‘I
will scry for the child’s future and, as part of this ceremony,
invoke those who will watch over her in this life; the
guardian-pursuers.’
    The scryers
behind him began to keen in high, warbling voices, and I lay there,
with eyes squeezed tight, my fists clenched across my belly. My
head was full of the potent smoke; I had never felt so dizzy, and
my limbs ached in a strange way that was both uncomfortable and
pleasant. What would happen now? Who were the guardian-pursuers? I
had not heard of such people before.
    Vasni chanted
in ancient Tappish for a while and then slipped into the modern
tongue. His voice was perfectly pitched; no crack of age, no falter
of lips and tongue. ‘Heed us, unseen ones,’ he began, his voice
sonorous above the crooning of the women. ‘We bring to you a
fledgling soulscaper. May one of your number assign their soul to
hers. May they urge her to excellence in life, protect her from the
Fear, drive her ever to inquiry, fill her dark corners with their
shadow, be with her from this moment until she leaves the flesh and
crosses to the soulscape in body and mind. Hear us and