The Shadow’s Curse (13 page)

Nothing was that simple.

Up here in the mountains, it felt like he was glimpsing the magnitude of the world. Up here, he could see jagged crags spread out for miles around him. Those that looked small from this vantage point, he knew stretched for many lengths higher than where he was standing now. Here, tiny trickles spread and grew to great rivers. Here, flakes of snow amassed into devastating avalanches. Here, mountain lions could feast in caves, while just next door goats perched on cliff faces so sheer he would have thought them impassable to those on two feet, let alone four hooves. Life here was complicated, and dangerous.

And was it so different on the steppes, where he grew up? The terrain, perhaps, was simpler – but it was not simple. If anything, it was subtle. He had learned as a boy to tell the difference between the wind blowing through the grasses and the near-noiseless patter of a wolf making its way towards one of his goats. He learned which clouds brought life-giving rain, and which brought fierce tornadoes. He learned the ways of the steppes, and how to live on them; now he had to learn something else . . . the ways of people, and how to lead them.

Once again he thought:
Khareh is far more interested in this than me.

The night air blew cold against his fingers, and he stuffed them deeper into his tunic, where the pockets were lined with soft fur. Though his toes had turned numb in his boots, he wasn’t ready to turn in just yet. He let the wind sweep through his dark hair, blowing what felt like cobwebs from his mind.

The spirit of Lady Chabi’s words came back to him, along with the enormity of what she asked.
I need to remake my vow to her. Draikh, what have I agreed to? Can I even do it? What about my Absolute Vow?
He placed his hand on his chest, over the place where the mark of permanence was seared on his chest.

‘You vowed to protect Khareh’s life, not his throne. You can promise to fulfil your destiny as Hao’s descendant – as long as you aren’t the one who harms Khareh.’

So you won’t kill me if I try?

‘Only if you try to hurt Khareh.’

Raim nodded. After a few moments of amiable silence, Raim looked up at his spirit.
Draikh, I need to be alone. Completely alone. Just for a bit.

Draikh had taught him a trick back in the Cheren, something he hadn’t really thought would be all that useful – until now. It was the trick of how to block the flow of his thoughts from his spirit. It hadn’t seemed to matter when it was just him and Draikh. But now that he knew about Lady Chabi, it suddenly seemed much more urgent.

Even as he thought about doing it, Draikh tried his best to distract him. ‘Try blocking
this
out! How are you ever going to become Khan? You’ve never led a camel properly, let alone a nation. You’re just a lowly goatherder boy.’

They were all thoughts he’d had himself already, worries that ate at his brain. They were the perfect distraction – so he tried to focus on something else. He thought back to the one face that always kept him grounded: Wadi. He built her in his mind’s eye from the chin up, focusing on the details he’d had only such a short time to memorize. She was the first person who had really believed in him, and she’d had to see him through his scar.

Each piece of Wadi’s face that he built up in his mind was like a key to a series of locks closing his mind off from his spirit. As he moved past her dark brown eyes, to the smooth expanse of her forehead, he felt the last walls go up and suddenly he heard his mind go blank.

Or maybe – he
didn’t
hear was the point. He had been so used to having voices in his head, this sudden silence was like a new sound for him.
Draikh?
he said tentatively into the darkness of his mind.

There was no answer.

I renounce my blood and I’m going to run off this mountaintop right now – you won’t be able to stop me!

Nothing.

He was truly alone.

He let himself open his eyes. Draikh was still there, floating not far from him, and he looked uncomfortable.
Please leave me
, Raim said to him.
Don’t worry, I won’t do anything stupid.

‘You’d better not,’ said Draikh, but he floated backwards until he disappeared from view.

Raim was alone. He was free. He let out a loud whoop! And started running, feeling his feet pound across the mountain paths, dodging rocks and shrubs. When he had finally exhausted himself, he fell with a slump against a large rock, allowing the coolness of the surface to penetrate deep into his muscles. From his vantage point, it felt like he could see the whole world. He even imagined that far off on the horizon he could see where the green turned to gold – the start of the Sola desert.

But of course, that wasn’t the entire world. It might have been his world, sure – but there was still so much he hadn’t seen. Somewhere, across the never-ending desert that did end somewhere, was Aqben. That was where his mother, the Council, Mhara, even Draikh wanted him to go. But how could he? He knew nothing about the South, and he couldn’t see how there was anything there for him. If he was supposed to be the rightful ruler of Darhan, then he was needed in Darhan. And the people of Darhan did not want an oathbreaker for a ruler.

‘Do you hear that, world?’ he shouted into the open air from the top of the mountain. ‘I am an oathbreaker. I can’t be your khan. Not yet.’

Just then he felt a sharp pressure on his mind. It was Draikh trying to work his way back in. Had he been listening all along? Did he know his plan?

Tentatively, he let the wall down, his resolve like Yun steel.

What is it?
he asked Draikh.

‘Mhara is coming to you. I think you should listen to her,’ he said, his voice gently insistent.

Raim spun around to see Mhara standing at the top of the path he had run down. She walked slowly down to meet him, joining him on his perch at the top of the world.

‘I still have this,’ Raim said, to break the silence. He held out her ring in his hand.

She took it from him and rolled it between her fingers. Then she threw it, as hard as she could, from the mountain. ‘A remnant of my old life. I don’t need it any more.’

Raim could keep it in no longer. ‘How are you here?’ he asked. Now that she was close to him, and they were alone, he could see the trauma of the scar across her face, saw the edge of it disappear down her neck and beneath her tunic. ‘I thought you were dead,’ he said. ‘I searched for you. For so long.’

Mhara turned to look at him, and the corners of her lips rose in a smile. ‘I know you did, Raim. The fall from the cliff . . . it did kill me. Or – almost.’ Her eyebrows knitted together in a frown. ‘My memory of the event is confused, as I know you can imagine. The pain was blinding, until it wasn’t. It felt like I had lain down in a deep patch of snow, even though I was on the edge of the Sola desert. I felt nothing in my limbs. I knew that death was coming to take me.

‘But I was lucky – if you can call it that. A passing Alashan tribe found me and took me in. They tried to heal me themselves, but I knew they did not think I would survive long. The agony was unbearable. In fact, I think they debated finishing me off. It would have been merciful of them. But then, somewhere far away in Darhan, Khareh was taking his place as the Khan – by killing Batar-khan. That was when Batar’s spirit brought me back from the brink of death, healed my wounds, so I could fulfil my Absolute Vow: to avenge his death. That is what I was sworn to do.’

Raim’s mind buzzed with questions, but he knew they would have to wait until later. ‘How did you end up here with the Council?’

‘Because of your mother. Because of our friendship. I had to leave the Alashan – I wasn’t going to get my vengeance from there. I knew that the Council would take me in and heal me to full strength. I was broken in many ways by that fall, Raim, not just physically. It took longer than I anticipated to rebuild, and Khareh was growing stronger by the day.

‘But when Aelina came back to the Council claiming she’d seen a young boy with a scar around his wrist he claimed not to understand . . . I realized it had to be you. And your predicament has haunted me for a long time. I had to find out if my theory was right. That it was Chabi who had forced that vow on you.’

‘She should never have done that,’ said Raim, pounding his fist into the rock. It hurt, but not as much as the knowledge that he had been used.

‘No, she shouldn’t. I don’t think she realized the consequences, either. Aelina has told me that when you find Lady Chabi, she will be nothing but a shell of herself. Her body lies there, unconscious. She gave up her entire soul by forcing that promise on you. I’m not sure she expected that. She is not the type to want to give up her spirit so easily.

‘You would think that a people who have to suffer so much from their broken vows would care more about the consequences, the boundaries. But fear is a powerful thing. Before all this happened to you, when have you ever thought to question what a promise truly meant? Have you ever questioned why the punishment for oathbreaking is so harsh?’

‘Never,’ said Raim. ‘Well, no, that is a lie. You told me to question. You told me to think before I made an Absolute Vow to Khareh. Now I wish I had listened to you.’ He laughed bitterly.

‘And now? Now what do you think?’

He thought of the people in Darhan who had to live out their lives away from their family because of one bad decision. No chance to beg for forgiveness. No opportunity to change their fate.

At least he was trying to change his. But it was so hard.

‘I think you were right,’ said Raim. ‘I don’t think I can do this.’ His voice choked as he made the admission to Mhara. ‘She told me to go to Aqben. To find her.’

‘Of course you can, Raim. You are Yun. What is past is past, and we make the best of what we have now. Just concentrate on what you can control. Concentrate on what is most important to you. Like getting rid of this.’ She picked up his wrist and placed it so that the scar was all he could see, all he could think about it. ‘While you have this, you cannot do anything else. You cannot save your friend. You cannot live in Darhan.’

‘And I definitely cannot be the Khan.’

‘Exactly. Now come back inside. We need to plan this route south.’

Raim’s ears pricked up. ‘We?’

‘Of course. I am coming with you. You think I would abandon you now? Never.’

Tarik had been led back into the room at the same time Raim and Mhara returned, looking worse for wear, a large lump rising on his shaved head. Aelina had wanted to send him straight back to Qatir, but Raim refused. ‘He knows too much now. If you send him to Qatir, he will be punished!’

‘He will kill me,’ said Tarik matter-of-factly.

‘And what about your wife?’ asked Aelina, her arms folded across her chest.

‘Solongal? She will have been informed of my treachery already. I am sure that they are preparing her to be moved to another monastery with, I assume, the rest of the Qatir faction. Have you taken Amarapura?’

‘Yes. We have control of this monastery now, and I am the leader of the Baril.’

Raim put a hand on his brother’s forearm. ‘I’m sorry, brother. For dragging you into this – literally.’

Tarik shrugged. ‘If you hadn’t dragged me from the cell, my fate would have been the same. At least here I can learn – and maybe, I can help. These people are telling you to go south. But do you know what you are even looking for there?’

Raim glanced at Aelina and Mhara. ‘I am looking for my mother, the Lady Chabi, who gave me this vow.’

‘And when you get rid of the scar, what will you do then? How can you hope to overthrow Khareh – you have no army, no weapons, and no support. You are just a boy and a shadow.’

Raim bristled at the word
boy
, but he couldn’t disagree with anything that Tarik said.

‘Not to mention the fact that you have to
get
south to begin with,’ continued Tarik. ‘A journey that is said to be nigh on impossible. Your ancestor Hao made sure of that by sealing the passage to Lazar. There is more than just a desert separating North from South. There are other things too.’ His eyes opened wide. ‘Monstrous things.’

‘How do you know all this?’ snapped Aelina.

‘My studies,’ said Tarik. ‘I have been studying the history of relations between the North and the South.’

‘Qatir may have led you to believe that he knew all things, but there is much that the Council has kept hidden. Firstly, we have a secure passage to the south: a ship.’

Raim stood up so abruptly he knocked over the bowl of food he had been given, sending it flying over the floor. ‘You mean – across the water?’ The only ships he had seen were the ragged collection of timber planks that made their shuddering way across Lake Oudo. They didn’t look like they were made to last for more than a day on a quiet lake – let alone a long journey across the fierce ocean. Not that Raim had ever seen the great salt water. He had never wanted to.

‘How have you managed to hide that?’ asked Tarik, picking his jaw up off the floor.

‘The ship anchors near the Temple of Bones.’

A shiver ran down Raim’s spine. The Temple of Bones was a legendary Baril temple, somewhere across an enormous wasteland that most people believed to be abandoned. Raim had never been there on his nomadic travels. Nor had anyone he knew. There was no pasture there for animals, no game to hunt or plants to harvest. Only death. Nothing lived in the desert, but this wasn’t the same. The Sola desert had raw, natural power. The Baril burned the land around the Temple of Bones to ash so that no one would have reason to travel there. It kept it isolated from the rest of Darhan – just as the Council wanted.

‘We need to get you there quickly,’ said Aelina to Raim. ‘The ship will leave at the next full moon – only five nights away. The captain only has a short window in which he can make the journey safely, before the storms become too dangerous on the open ocean.’

‘And when you get to the South, what then?’ said Tarik, like a dog with a bone he was unwilling to drop.