Burying the Shadow Read Online Free PDF

meant we would have to be more open with them than I
felt was wise.
    ‘Don’t fret,
Gimel,’ Beth said, as we travelled towards the town where he had
decided our search would begin in earnest. ‘I have devised a
strategy.’
    I stared
glumly out of the carriage window, watching our manservant, Ramiz’
booted foot swinging from the side of the driver’s seat. We
followed the coast road, and although the sunset flinging colour
across the sea was breathtaking, I could take little pleasure in
it.
    ‘A strategy?
Don’t be absurd,’ I said.
    My maid,
Tamaris, who sat beside me, reached out timidly to touch my hand.
Clearly, she sought to bestow reassurance. I uncurled my fingers
from beneath the sleeves of my black lace and velvet travelling
coat and squeezed back gently. Tamaris is such a loyal girl.
    Beth laughed.
‘It is very simple,’ he said. ‘After we have secured lodgings in
Lumeza, Tamaris and Ramiz can scout around for lone soulscapers.
They can arrange meetings in discreet locations. There will be very
little risk.’
    ‘I feel you
have no grasp of the reality of the situation,’ I replied. ‘What
happens when we meet these people? Do we tell them everything and
trust they are sympathetic? It is a stupid plan!’
    ‘Of course we
don’t tell them everything!’ Beth said scornfully, idly unravelling
one of the tassels hanging from the window curtain. ‘We will induce
them to enter our soulscape. Once they have bonded with us in that
way, we can employ our usual methods for subjection. It can’t
fail.’
    ‘Really? Why
do you speak of ‘they’, in that case? Surely we shouldn’t have to
do this more than once.’
    Tamaris
pressed against me more firmly; she hated it when Beth and I had
cross words.
    ‘Gimel, be
sensible,’ Beth said. ‘Soulscapers are familiar only with the human
soulscape, and we are not human. I am convinced it will take an
especially puissant individual to withstand the inner landscape of
an eloim! This might take several meetings, but don’t worry, if we
are lucky, the first may well be suitable.’
    His optimism
and cheerful anticipation did not reassure me.
    Lumeza was a
small, untidy community. We took accommodation in a fohndahk, at
the edge of the town, where chickens ran about in a yard outside,
gossiping noisily, and dust from the coast road furred all the
appointments in the guest-rooms. I stood dejectedly in the middle
of my room, which was barely furnished, while Tamaris made soft
sounds of outrage, and dusted the spotted mirror with her sleeve.
The windowsill was cluttered with dead insects and the air smelled
fusty, like decaying corn. The floor, the door and window-frame and
the wooden beams of the ceiling, looked dried out and splintery.
From this miserable base, my brother and I would begin our vital
quest.
    Tamaris and Ramiz went
out into the night, while Beth and I sat out in the dusty yard of
the fohndahk to wait for their return. We drank orange wine in the
heavy dusk, and did not speak. I was aware of the beating of my
heart; I was nervous. Perhaps our servants would not find a
soulscaper. Perhaps some unseen agency would save me at this final
moment. Something would happen so that we could go home.
    The moon
sailed up the star-shot sky and the air cooled towards the
graveyard hours beyond the midnight, chilling my skin through my
lace stole. ‘To bed, I think,’ I said, putting down my glass,
rubbing my fingers together for the sweet wine had made them
sticky. I stood up, and pulled my wrap tightly around my shoulders.
Beth was a pale shape before me, slumped back in his chair, dappled
by moonlight coming down through the ilex trees in the yard. I
could tell he was annoyed. Somehow, I had achieved a minor victory.
And then there were low voices coming towards us through the night,
and I recognised the bubbling sound of Tamaris’ laughter.
    ‘Why don’t you
sit down?’ Beth said quietly, but I remained standing.
    The
soulscaper’s eyes and his teeth