The Shadow’s Curse (32 page)

He squealed, but Raim hardly heard any of it. He was too busy concentrating on Draikh. That was the key. When they held concentration together, they were stronger.

The flames danced around Raim in circles, Draikh chasing after the flames, laughing.

‘You know what this looks like, right?’ asked the spirit.

Like I control fire and shadow.

‘Have you seen their faces?’

It was then that Raim’s eyes
really
opened. To shock, to fear, to awe on every man’s face in the room.

His mother began to clap, in loud smacks that echoed around the throne room. ‘Now you have all seen what my son can do, go, leave this place. Spread the word: your saviour is here. Your Golden Khan.’

Mei signalled for the other Council women to pick up Lady Chabi’s chair again. They brought it to the far end of the throne room, past the men streaming the other way, all leaving to share the news of Raim’s arrival.

Raim followed behind the chair, trying to resist the urge to run, jump, skip, anything. Excitement pumped through his veins.
That was awesome
, thought Raim to Draikh.

‘I know, we can put on a good show when we want,’ the spirit replied.

That wasn’t just a show. That was real power.

The palanquin came to a stop in front of a gilded altar, with a top of rich black marble. Inlaid in the very centre of the tabletop was a round pendant, identical to the one Wadi had worn around her neck.

‘Hidden in plain sight,’ said Lady Chabi. ‘Clever.’ She looked over at Mei.

Mei stepped forward and prised the stone out of its setting in the table. ‘No one – not even King Song – knows what this is worth.’

‘Then it is a good thing we know better.’ She took the stone from Mei, and placed it around Raim’s neck. ‘This is yours now, my son. ‘Now where is the king? He needs to meet his khan from the North – and not a moment too soon.’

Back in Lady Chabi’s quarters, Raim was given his own room and a fresh set of clothes was laid out for him. They were in the southern style, cut close to his body but with vast sleeves that hung down to his waist, and fashioned out of expensive silk. Even as he pulled the soft material over his head, he felt gangly and out of place in the luxurious fabric.

Lady Chabi had requested to see him as soon as he had finished dressing, but he procrastinated in his room, staring at his reflection in the glass. It was the first time he had been able to look at himself without seeing shame. He was no longer scarred.

It should have been a proud moment. But now that he was dressed in the fine robe, edges piped with gold and inlaid with jewels, his stomach filled with dread.

‘You look like a khan,’ said Draikh. ‘Or a king, I suppose. You wouldn’t catch Khareh wearing an outfit like that – though I do like the jewels.’

‘I look like a fool,’ Raim said out loud. ‘I can’t fight in these.’ To prove a point, he drew his sword and almost sliced one of the flapping sleeves in two.

‘If you want to be seen as a king, you have to act like one. You have to play the part.’

Raim sheathed the sword and pushed the sleeves up over his elbows. They fell down again. ‘It’s no use,’ said Raim. ‘I’m not anyone’s king. I’m not anyone’s khan. Coming here was a mistake.’

‘But your destiny . . .’

‘Whose destiny?’ Raim turned his back on his reflection, not wanting to look at himself any more. ‘This woman I barely know told me I’m the descendant of a longago khan. So what? What about Khareh’s right to rule? All the warlords in Darhan bestowed it on him. He’s been training for his duty his whole life. He was
born
for it.’

‘That’s why you have me to guide you. I know everything that Khareh knows. I can advise you. That’s part of your destiny. King and sage in one.’

I did it, you know?
He didn’t want to speak out loud any more, in case some of Lady Chabi’s people were around. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he didn’t want her to know what he could do.

‘Did what?’ asked Draikh.

I released my own spirit. I healed myself. Just a small cut, but I did it.

‘That’s great!’ said Draikh. ‘If you can lend your power to mine, there will be no stopping us. You see? This is all part of it. This is all showing you that you’re right to rule.’

Draikh’s words were meant to fill him with confidence, and Raim puffed out his chest. But it still didn’t feel right. He couldn’t picture himself ruling a nation. Protecting a ruler of nations, yes. If that couldn’t happen, then the alternative life he saw for himself was rescuing Wadi, escaping to the steppes, and never returning.

‘You can’t do that,’ said Draikh. He floated at eye level with Raim, not allowing their gaze to separate.

‘I know that,’ said Raim.

There was a knock outside his door. ‘Yes?’ answered Raim.

‘The Lady Chabi is here to see you,’ said Mei.

Raim walked over to the door and opened it. Lady Chabi’s palanquin swept into the room.

She cast her gaze over Raim’s clothing. ‘Very good. The king will prefer to see you in Southern clothes, I think. Put me down now,’ she said to her ladies. They helped her over to a chair in the corner of Raim’s room. ‘Now leave us.’

When all the women were gone, Raim didn’t know what to say or do. His skin crawled as Lady Chabi stared at him intently. She lifted a hand to her forehead, and rubbed her temples. ‘I have been asleep for such a long time, Raim. Waiting for this moment. They tell me that my spirit has been with you for all these years. But I don’t remember any of it. Tell me, if you are no longer an oath-breaker, why do you have a shadow? If you were a sage in the same manner as Hao, you would not have a shadow like that, following you around. It would come from within.’

Raim swallowed. ‘I am not like Hao. You don’t remember anything from your time with me as a spirit?’

‘No,’ said Lady Chabi. ‘Spirits are not people, my son. They are sent out to guard promises, and if they are strong enough they can interact with the physical world. But they are a product of a single moment in time. That is why I am old and weak, and the spirit version of me you would have seen was young and healthy.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I miss that time. So tell me. How is it that you have this shadow?’

‘When I broke my vow to you – the vow
I didn’t know I made
’ – he was unable to keep the anger from his voice then. He took a moment to compose himself – ‘I was in the middle of making an Absolute Vow to my best friend. Prince Khareh.’

Lady Chabi’s knuckles turned white on the arms of her chair. ‘What?’

‘That is the reason your spirit said that she could not reveal herself to me. In case the spirit of Khareh learned your plans.’

‘Quite right too! I can’t believe . . . does that mean that he is here now? Khareh, blood of the usurper, is in this room with us?’ She stared wide-eyed at the shadow.

‘He is not Khareh. He is Draikh. He came to save me. He is my best friend and this is the part of him that would rather be with me than doing . . . whatever it is the other part of him is doing in Darhan. Khareh is not the same person I knew. Draikh is.’

Lady Chabi studied him intently. ‘But you are ready to do your duty. To fulfil your end of your destiny, and take up arms against Khareh.’

‘Yes. Except . . . I cannot harm Khareh myself.’

‘Why not?’ she said, too sharply.

‘Because something else happened out in the desert. The bird that follows me is a garfalcon. He swallowed my promise-knot to Khareh and made it permanent. I can’t break it. I can bring down his spirit-army. I can be a sage. I just cannot harm Khareh myself. No matter how much I might want to.’

‘Then it is a good thing we have an army behind us. Mei tells me that the Southern King has been preparing his army, but he is growing impatient. He knew he would need to wait the sixteen years from your birth for you to reach your Honour Age, but obviously there was a delay in getting you here. But no matter. You are here now.

‘And, my son, we are going to make you a khan, shadow or no shadow. Now rest. You will need all your strength for the journey ahead.’

They rode out of the city, and Raim surprised himself by how comfortable he felt, surrounded by the crowds of people. It was as if his mind no longer could be shocked by big changes. The magnificence of the palace made everything else pale in comparison.

His mother did not ride with the rest of the troupe. She travelled in a carriage – perhaps the only thing that Raim was not impressed by. Although it was gilded and richly inlaid with jewels, and clearly signalled enormous amounts of wealth, it did not compare in size to the great royal yurt drawn by seven oxen, which carried the Khan’s home. Still, the Khan had the steppes as his ‘road’, whereas here, they had to travel on narrowly defined pathways, barely big enough for the carriage itself, let alone if someone travelling the other direction needed to pass it. Not that they encountered many people travelling in the opposite direction. Most saw the Council’s convoy, and fled to get out of the way.

It only took them three days to reach the army outpost. Any spare moments when they stopped he divided between lessons from Mei and his mother on how to act in front of King Song and testing with Draikh the limits of their new power. Soon, Draikh could sustain a wind for over an hour, and could turn the smallest spark into a roaring fire. Not that they ever needed to camp. Every night they found a large enough town with an inn to house them. Raim wondered if there was anywhere in the South that wasn’t inhabited by so many people.

Late at night, when everyone was asleep, Raim blocked his thoughts from Draikh and practised his other skill. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere in unlocking his own spirit from inside his body, he either passed out or failed completely. He didn’t come close to healing himself again. On the second night, he cut himself deeply with his dagger, to see if the additional pain would force the spirit out of him.

It didn’t work. He had to break down the walls he’d put up and ask for Draikh’s help. Draikh didn’t say anything as he stemmed the blood flow and healed the wound, but he knew what Raim was trying to do.

Raim was snapped out of his daydreams by Oyu’s sharp cry in his ear. They were nearing the top of a vast hill, and he nudged his horse forward so he could see down into the vast valley below.

It was his first look at the Southern King’s army. Now, Raim knew the true meaning of awe. He looked down and saw a shimmering stain of iron and flesh mar the entire valley floor. Just beyond it, barely visible on the horizon, he saw seemingly empty space that glowed yellow: the desert.

Bright red standards – the colour of King Song – flew from the central column of soldiers, but there were others there too. Armies brought together from across the South, all joined in the campaign to conquer the North.

There was no way they would all get across the desert. Raim just could not imagine it.

Halfway down the path to the valley floor, there was a vast tent set up with a view over the armies. King Song’s military headquarters. It didn’t have the sturdy set-up of a yurt, but it would suffice. A soldier – one of the king’s guardsmen – came out of the tent and gestured to Raim. ‘The king has been waiting for you.’

‘He should have sent an entourage out to greet us,’ said Lady Chabi.

‘He wants to meet you on his territory,’ said Draikh. ‘Classic power establishment tactics. Don’t let him see you sweat, and don’t let his petty mind games get to you.’

Raim said nothing. He cracked his knuckles and readied himself. He didn’t know what to expect from his meeting with the Southern King.

He dismounted.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ asked Lady Chabi.

Raim shook his head in reply, and followed the soldier into the tent.

The inside was brightly lit with torches, and seemed bigger than it had from the outside. There was a large table in the centre, covered by an enormous map, with polished tokens on it representing the king’s different armies. There was a stretch in the centre that was painted gold representing the desert. There were almost no distinguishing features on the desert, not until it ended somewhere arbitrarily at the other end of the table. Above that, stuck on like an addition, was the North.

‘Do not bow to him,’ Draikh said in his ear. ‘You are his equal.’

The king stood observing the table, and only looked up when Raim coughed to signal his arrival. He stared at Raim for several long moments, his eyes scanning from the tip of Raim’s new leather boots to his dark blue tunic with its ridiculous sleeves and the gold-edged turban around his head. The Council had not spared any expense in dressing him for the occasion.

‘You are Raimanan.’ It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

Raim didn’t reply, but observed the king in turn. He was surprisingly slight, especially compared to some of the advisers Raim had met, and his face bore the lines of age – or of great stress. He had a long thin moustache, the ends of which drooped on either side of his small mouth and tickled his chin. It reminded Raim of the seadragon.

The king nodded, making his moustache shake. ‘I take it you have seen the army outside?’

‘Yes,’ Raim said.

‘And you are impressed?’

Raim raised an eyebrow. ‘I have never seen an army its equal,’ he admitted. ‘Of soldiers, that is.’

‘I have been building that army for sixteen years. Ever since I took my place as king. All I have been waiting for is the one who can show me a path across the desert. That one, I presume, is you.’ He craned his neck over his shoulder. ‘Since you are here, does that mean that the Lady Chabi is awake?’

‘She is outside,’ said Raim.

‘I am here,’ said a voice from behind them. Lady Chabi had managed to walk into the tent. She had been right – she was healing faster than normal. She moved forward and placed one hand on the king’s map table, to steady herself. ‘King Song, we meet at last.’

Raim noted that Lady Chabi didn’t bow to the king either.