The Shadow’s Curse (23 page)

Raim followed his gaze. It had been a surprisingly calm day – the blue sky seemed to melt at the horizon, so that Raim could hardly tell where the sky ended and the sea began. Shen had been right. He was even starting to enjoy his time on board.

Shen muttered something under his breath.

‘What was that?’ Raim asked?

‘I said, we’re never going to get beyond the Xel rocks at this rate. Bayan! To me!’

‘The Xel rocks? What are they?’

Shen’s eyes narrowed. ‘They’re home to the most dangerous creatures in this ocean, don’t you go listening to stories about sharks or jellyfish or any of that nonsense. If we’re not beyond the rocks when the storms strike . . .’

Bayan announced his presence by slapping down the mop he was carrying. It hit the deck with a resounding thwack. ‘Aye, captain?’ He still wouldn’t look Raim in the eye.

‘How fast are we going?’

‘Not fast enough. I’ve never known winds like this.’

‘Or
no
winds like this, more like.’ Shen cast an eye out to the sky, as if he could conjure the wind with a foul look.

Bayan shrugged. ‘Maybe this is the year we don’t make it. I told you bringing the Northeners on board was a bad idea. The god of wind has turned against us.’

Shen waved his hand impatiently. ‘That kind of talk is not helpful.’

‘Not a lot would be helpful, except wind.’

At that, Raim felt a gentle breeze on his cheek. ‘There’s a bit of wind around.’

Now Bayan turned to look at him – and so did Shen. They both looked at him like he was crazy.

‘Did you not just feel that?’ More gusts came, enough that Raim could feel his hair being lifted.

‘There is nothing,’ said Shen, but even he hesitated, looking at Raim.

Raim spun around, in the direction of the wind. He could see nothing – obviously, it was just air – but then he spotted Draikh, floating near the prow of the ship. He had a strange look on his face, one that Raim recognized all too well. He left Shen and Bayan to stare after him, confused.

Raim climbed the steps up to the prow, running his hand along the railings as he did so. They had once been painted and varnished, that much he could tell – every now and again there would be a patch of wood that was shockingly smooth, or marked with a splash of bright colour, like a bruise. Despite its rough, battered appearance, the ship had the feeling of longevity: it had been through a lot, and would suffer much more before it succumbed. It was comforting that the ship was old. Very comforting.

Draikh was on his own. Raim was glad. It had been too long since it had been just him and Draikh, alone.

‘Raim, when you used to hear stories of sages, what did you hear?’

Raim pondered for a second. ‘The usual. That they had powers that no one could believe: they could make objects fly, they could levitate, they could heal themselves. They helped destroy armies, they built tribes.’

Draikh made a non-committal noise, and tapped his finger against his lips. Raim knew that gesture. Draikh was on to something.

‘What is it? Why do you ask?’

Draikh flew closer to him, almost as if he was perched on the railing. ‘What if we had even more power?’

‘More power? What do you mean?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. It’s been something I’ve suspected for a while now. Look.’ Draikh seemed full of purpose now, and his excitement drew Raim closer. ‘Hold your hands out. Good. Now wait a second . . .’

Draikh shut his eyes for a moment, and tilted his head back. It looked almost as if he was praying. But who did Draikh have to pray to? It wasn’t as if he could talk to any gods. He wasn’t a person. He was a spirit. Draikh swirled his hands around in the air above Raim’s hands, but without making contact with them. It was strange, because Raim could see Draikh’s hands moving, but he could not feel the buffeting of the air against his skin.

Until suddenly he could. It wasn’t like he could feel the air being moved by Draikh’s hands, it was as if there was wind blowing all around his hands, like a breeze concentrated in that one area.

‘Are you doing this?’ Raim asked, astonished.

‘It’s the air – it has its own energy. Its own spirit. I can reach out to it and . . . join with it. Manipulate it.’ To prove his point even more, Draikh swirled his hands and the wind moved around Raim’s hands faster and faster, until a small tornado rested in his palm. It spun and spiralled as Draikh moved it, until he commanded it to die away.

‘That is amazing!’

Then without warning a fierce gust of wind nearly blew Raim off his feet. Draikh held his palms up, and Raim felt a surge of energy run throughout his entire body. For a moment, he felt his own spirit reaching out towards the air. He tried to focus on the sensation. Maybe this is what being the descendant of Hao meant. Maybe he could externalize his spirit, become a sage in his own right . . .

He hit the deck of the ship with a resounding smack. He cracked one eye open, his head throbbing. He tried to sit up, but Draikh pushed him back down again. ‘I’d rest for a moment if I were you. You hit your head pretty hard.’

Raim did as he was told, keeping his eyes tightly shut as he waited for his vision to stop spinning.
What happened?
he thought to Draikh.

‘I’m not sure . . . you tell me?’

I think I almost released my own spirit.

Draikh was silent.

Do you think you could do that with other elements?

‘What do you mean?’

What you do with the wind . . . could you do it with water, or fire?
Raim opened his eyes, and Draikh’s spirit-form came into focus. He was chewing on his lower lip, exactly what Khareh used to do when he was in deep thought. His eyes were wide, like he was only just coming to terms with the magnitude of the revelation. ‘There’s no harm in trying,’ he said.

Raim struggled to a sitting position, and Draikh pulled on his outstretched arm to help him to stand.
If you can summon enough wind, we could get this ship moving, and save it from the Xel rocks or whatever the old captain is afraid of. Regardless, it will get us south quicker, so we can return north sooner too
. He eyed Draikh, full of nervous energy.
Are you up for it? Do you think you have the strength to do it?

Draikh nodded. ‘We’ve been training, haven’t we? What do you think we’ve been training for, if not for something like this? I can handle a bit of wind.’

‘I guess you have been blowing wind most of your life,’ Raim said, with a wink that belied his excitement.

‘Just don’t you try anything – don’t want you to hit your head again, you might lose what little brain you have left.’

Raim made a rude gesture with his hands, then he grimaced. ‘I don’t think I’ll be doing that again any time soon.’ He rubbed the back of his head.

Draikh swooped up to the top of the main mast, where each sail hung limply in the still air.

Raim ran to find the captain, whom he spotted at the enormous wheel. Shen had told him that in bad weather, it required at least three men steer it. Shen regarded him with an expression that mixed surprise with annoyance. ‘What is it, boy? This is no place for an inexperienced . . .’

But the words drifted away on the sudden wind – or maybe shock stole them away. Raim faced the sails and raised his arms, directing Draikh behind the largest. Immediately Druikh raised a wind, conjuring a gust so strong the sails snapped and the ropes whined in reluctance at having to stretch themselves to the full. The ship lurched into motion, picking up pace where before it had floated close to motionless.

Raim laughed as Draikh commanded the air, filled with a joy he could barely contain. His heart swelled as the wind swirled around him, the sails fuller than he had never seen them before. He had never felt like this before – like suddenly every opportunity in the world was open to him, his for the taking. His spirit was – literally – soaring.

The entire crew gathered on the deck. Shen gripped the wheel with white knuckles. They all stared at him. Tarik was there too. His jaw was open so wide, his chin could have picked up splinters on the deck.

Raim could imagine what they were seeing. His arms wide-stretched, controlling the wind. It looked like
he
was doing it, even though it was far from the truth. For a second, he could taste what Khareh obviously fed off of every day. The sweet – the intoxicatingly sweet – taste of power. He could feel his blood surge through his veins at the thought of it, like lightning through his body, hair standing up on end, his mouth dry with anticipation and fear – so much fear. But he closed his eyes, and lowered his arms. Draikh took it as a sign, and stopped his manipulation of the air. He was just Raim. He wasn’t yet the leader of anyone. Even this addition to his arsenal couldn’t change that fact.

He curled his fingers into a fist, but not out of anger. He wondered if he squeezed tightly enough, he could keep all that ambition, all that thirst for power, deep inside until he was ready.

Shen’s gruff voice cut through his thoughts. ‘That was you?’

Raim opened his eyes, reluctantly, and nodded.

‘Well, do it again, will you? We’ve got a lot of ocean to cross, and not a lot of time.’

Draikh’s trick with the wind set the ship sailing – and sent Raim’s esteem among the other sailors soaring. Even Bayan approached him with a very different sort of attitude, one that bordered almost on reverence. As they sailed through the night at a constant and secure speed, Shen muttered a kind of mantra under his breath: ‘We do not have people who can do
this
in the South.’

Eventually they had sailed into a place where the wind blew strongly on its own, meaning Draikh could rest. It was like when they had first explored their sage powers back in Lazar – Draikh was not yet strong enough to sustain the manipulation of the wind for long, and they would have to train in this new skill to make themselves stronger. Raim felt himself drained of energy too, and he dragged himself down the wooden steps to the galley to find food.

As he ate, his mind drifted back to Darhan. He thought of Wadi, and couldn’t wait to show her this new discovery. But then he thought of Khareh, and wondered whether he had realized that the spirits could wield this strange and awe-inspiring power.

He doubted it. It had been Draikh who had made the discovery – Draikh, who was always pushing the limits of what they could do. He didn’t think his own spirit – the part of him that was accompanying Khareh – would be that inventive. Creativity had never been Raim’s strong suit, whereas Khareh had always been experimenting, ever since he’d been a little boy. As he looked over at Draikh, he found it hard to reconcile the spirit with the boy-turned-khan. The Khareh he’d known had been too intelligent for his own good. He’d had all the training and learning that Raim could never dream of as a simple tribesboy. Even as a Yun apprentice, he would never have been educated beyond the lessons needed to do his duty. Khareh had been a quick learner, and once he grew smarter than his teachers, he was never willing to obey authority – but he’d never been cruel. Draikh was never cruel, either.

Draikh is not Khareh-khan
, he thought.

‘No, I’m not,’ said Draikh.

Shen came down to join him in the galley. Raim rarely saw the man below deck – he guessed that part of the reason he captained this mad ship was because he was insane enough to want to keep an eye on it all the time. That was probably why they had survived so many journeys. He ladled soup into a crudely carved wooden bowl, and sat down on the bench opposite Raim.

Tarik stumbled in not long after, hanging a little too long in the doorway. His complexion had taken on a permanent green hue. Raim really hoped that the weather didn’t get any worse for him – he wasn’t sure that Tarik would be able to cope. He wished now that Tarik had stayed behind. He’d always been a better student than adventurer. He remembered the first time he’d seen his brother take up arms for a raid against an eastern tribe. He’d never seen a person shake so much.

‘How much longer until we reach the South?’

‘If this wind holds, maybe another two – three days at most. But we have the most difficult part of the journey ahead of us now. The Xel rocks. If I were you, I would get as much strength in your bones as possible. We’re going to need every hand on deck if we want to get through in one piece.’

‘I’m not sure how much help I will be,’ said Tarik. ‘Maybe I should just stay down here and keep a record of our journey . . .’

‘Nobody will be allowed below deck,’ said Shen. ‘Eat up.’

That night in his hammock, Raim couldn’t sleep. Something about the air had changed, become closer, more suffocating. There was a tension in the way the crew moved. A heaviness had set into Shen’s brow. Even Bayan didn’t seem to want to waste his energy in insulting Raim.

Two days. Two more nights, maybe three. And then he would be South. The place that had loomed large in his mind since he was a boy – but as the source of everything to be looked down on. If Lazar was the home of disgraced oathbreakers, Aqben in the south was the home of disgraced
people
. The legends told of a place where people worked the land until it surrendered, where they kept their animals confined no matter what the quality of the grass that surrounded them, where they refused to leave their homes even if the walls crumbled. One word stood out among all others when it came to Aqben, and the South in general:
lazy
. And if there was anything that Darhanians hated almost as much as oathbreakers, it was sloths. People who never moved.

On the steppes, if you were lazy, you died.

Yet Lazar had also taught him how wrong the old stories could be. He had seen some wondrous things that had originated in the South: like this very ship. He couldn’t let his old prejudices dominate. He had to keep an open mind.

Two days passed, and the tense atmosphere in the ship managed to lift.

Of course, that was their mistake.

It started with Raim being thrown from his hammock. It took his brain a few seconds to catch up with the events: at one point, he was asleep, safe, calm, peaceful – the next, he was on the ground. He tried to stand up, but as he did so he was thrown against the door. The weight of his body flung the door open and he found himself once again, on his knees on the hard wooden planks, but this time buttressed up against the opposite cabin. The door smacked shut again behind him, the slamming sound barely registering against the sudden clap of thunder overhead.