The Oathbreaker's Shadow (19 page)

When the cliff walls parted, Raim tumbled out into the light and bumped straight into the back of Ryopi. All
the Chauk were standing and staring open-mouthed at a giant in the light. A giant made of red stone, his face twisted in agony.

They were in a circular courtyard. The gap they had come out of was the only place you could enter from, apart from a massive stone gate at the opposite side. At the centre of the circle was a large silver gong pocked with shallow dents and a mallet lying next to it on the ground. But the giant was unlike anything Raim had ever seen before. It was carved directly out of the rock, and so huge that if Raim stood at its base, he would have barely reached the height of the statue’s ankle. The giant stood guard on one side of the gate. There was another giant on the other side, his features distorted with grief. Raim looked around, and their expressions matched those on the faces of all the Chauk as they entered Lazar.

Old-maa stepped forward, picked up the mallet and struck the gong. The sound echoed off the steep heights and made the cliff walls tremble. She rang it twice before an answer came.

‘Who calls?’ The voice came from high above them.

‘Alashan! We hanging-indent-space-after
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‘Gola? Is that you?’ Then there was an abrupt silence, as if it hadn’t meant to display such surprise. ‘We thought your tribe had perished, it has been so long since you have journeyed to Lazar,’ it said.

‘No,’ Old-maa replied, her lips pursed.

‘And you bring nine to our ranks. How cursed we are
today. Do the rivers of Darhan run deep with deceit? Are the trees of Mauz rooted in betrayal?’

‘Sola enabled,’ Old-maa replied.

‘How terribly unfortunate for these wretches, that the desert did not take them all. It will be assured that they will hate it here, exiles as they are. Let us begin the examination.’

There was a loud creak and the stone gate slid across the ground. But instead of seeing the city, as Raim expected, the doors opened into another courtyard – a small square surrounded by tall walls. There were two doors at the far end of the square, each with a burly guard standing in front of it. In the centre, there was a man, dressed in a simple white garment, bareheaded but with a long white beard that was tied into a knot at his waist. He had the same air of stillness as a Baril priest, but behind him was the proof that he was an exile – his haunt, floating in the air.

As they moved forward into the square, the hairs on the back of Raim’s neck stood up. When he looked around for the source of such a chill, he saw eyes – hundreds, maybe even thousands of pairs of eyes, looking down on the group as they entered. The population of Lazar, peering out of holes in the rock. Raim thought back to all the stories he had heard of people being exiled, of those lost for ever. He had found them now. He was about to become one of them. His hands felt stone cold inside their bindings.

One by one, the Chauk were called forward. A young female Chauk was released from her bonds first, and she stumbled into the circle, her haunt hovering behind her. They stopped just before the old man.

All eyes in the place were fixed on the four figures. Two humans, two haunts.

The priest opened his hands, and addressed the haunt directly: ‘What say you, spirit?’

The haunt raised her head to the sky. ‘Forgiven,’ she said.

‘You are certain?’ the priest said.

The spirit nodded.

‘Then go forth, and return to be whole.’

Slowly, the haunt began to dissolve into the ether.

‘Mother?’ the Chauk cried out, her expression torn between horror and relief. When the haunt had disappeared completely, she outstretched her hand, stroking the air where the spirit of her mother had been.

The priest was gentle with her. ‘Come, child. You have satisfied the consequences of breaking your oath by coming here to Lazar.’

The exiled woman collapsed to her knees. ‘Is . . . is she gone for good?’

When the man nodded, tears began to stream down the woman’s face. But they didn’t look like tears of relief to Raim. The man directed her through the left-hand door.

The next six Chauk entered the square with the same results: the spirits stopped their tormenting and disappeared into the air.

But it wasn’t-source
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Wait
. He reached out to Draikh in his thoughts.
Are you leaving me?

‘No. I’m not. And if they try to make me—’

Raim’s attention turned back to Ryopi, whose face broke into a grin as the old man went through the speech with the spirit of his father.

But his relief came too soon.

‘NOT forgiven! Ha! Think I would let you off this easily? You are a pitiful fool and a coward and your punishment is not over. See these exiles? They are Chauk but you are worse than them because you still have me!’ The spirit let out a stream of maniacal laughter.

Ryopi fell to the floor, and retched the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

This time the priest pointed to the right-hand door, but Ryopi didn’t move. In fact, he stood up and started to bolt back the way they came. On cue, the Chauk guards who had been standing in front of the doors came rushing forward, catching Ryopi by the arm. They dragged him back and through the right-hand door, with his spirit following, still ranting and raving. The noise level had increased within the square too, all those pairs of eyes suddenly turning to their neighbours, clearly discussing what had just happened to Ryopi. Raim wondered if it was a rare occurrence.

That’s what we have to do
, thought Raim.
Pretend you hate me. And be convincing about it.

‘I don’t think you have to worry about that,’ chuckled Draikh.

The priest beckoned to him, the last and final Chauk to be evaluated.

As Raim stepped forward into the square, Draikh swooped in front of him, preparing to play the role of ultimate torturer to the most extravagant degree.

‘You are the most awful human being alive!’ said Draikh with a flourish. ‘Traitor! Spawn of earthworm, lowly as a hyena’s backside, blacker than a Chauk’s soul . . .’

But he didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. From behind Draikh came a yell and the screech of swords being drawn. Two other Lazarite guards appeared in the doorway. Between them, kicking and struggling, was Wadi.

‘We caught this one in the passage, trying to sneak in.’

Old-maa, who was still standing just inside the second gate, stood stock still. Raim surged towards Wadi, but the two guards who had taken Ryopi were back to grab him.

‘Let her go!’ he shouted. ‘She’s not Chauk!’ But they weren’t letting go – if anything, their grip was tightening.

‘She is not Chauk, but she is a thief,’ said the old man.

‘I’m no thief!’ Wadi said through laboured breaths, struggling against her guards’ grip.

‘Then explain how you have one of our pass-stones.’

Wadi’s pendant was dangling freely around her neck, and Raim was shocked to see it looked as if it was glowing
slightly. ‘This is mine! My father gave it to me!’ she protested.

One of the guards backhanded her across the head, and Wadi tumbled to her knees.

‘That’s it!’ Rad beneath his

Through the gate, Raim’s jaw dropped. Lazar sprawled in front of them in undeniable beauty. Buildings exploded out of the mountainside, shadowy openings gaping like mouths out of the orange-red rock.

‘My name is Puutra,’ said the old man as the door closed behind them. The sound of the lock bolting across their only exit made Raim jump. ‘I am the leader of the Shan, who govern this city.’

Puutra prattled on, but the man’s voice faded in Raim’s ears as the city came alive around them. The place was a hubbub of activity, so different from the miserable portrait painted by the elders in Darhan. Back home, they never told of a bustling city but of a slum, dirtier and more rundown than the poorest Darhan camp. Though it
was
dusty. Already, Raim’s shoes were covered with a film of orange talc, finer than the sand on the dunes outside. But there was a sense of order to the way the city was designed, as if
every inch had been carved and crafted with a specific purpose. It was supposed to be a place of deceit, treachery and repulsive shadow and none who lived in Lazar were supposed to live for very long. What it was not supposed to have was culture, activity and light.

And plants! These weren’t the sparse shrubs of the desert but blooming greens that someone had obviously given precious water to help them thrive. It was an impossible thought after the strict rationing of water he had just experienced. He felt his mouth actually fill with water at the sight of all the green, and he had to restrain himself from taking a bite out of one of the more succulent looking leaves, purely for the desire for something fresh.

He could see the Chauk who had been led through before him being herded away like goats by some Lazarites. They shuffled their feet, looking dazed – bewildered. He started to move towards them.

Puutra threw his staff out in front of Raim’s feet so he couldn’t move any further. ‘No, please follow me.’

‘But . . . where are they taking them?’

‘To their new homes,’ he said, but didn’t elaborate. Instead he led him in the opposite direction, and Ryopi and another Chauk, who introduced himself as Dumas, soon joined them.

Dumas seemed to embody all of Raim’s immediate impressions of Lazar, both surprising and right handebl consequencessecoexpected. He had a haunt, of course, a young woman with listless blonde hair whom he called Nava. He seemed in good health, but
his clothes were worn and tattered. His sandals were made of quality leather, and yet in places they were patched up with careless stitching. This contrast – of new and old, of good and bad – was evident everywhere else in the city. There were elaborate stone carvings all over the walls and yet they were broken in many places. There were rugs of great intricacy thrown over balconies but they were full of holes.

Raim’s jaw ached from being held wide open.

‘Can you believe this?’ he said aloud, more to himself than anyone else.

‘No,’ answered Draikh and Wadi, simultaneously.

It was just so different from what he had been told. It was overwhelmingly so, like everything that had ever been said to him about Lazar had been a lie. Wadi nudged him with her elbow. She seemed just as enraptured as him, her neck craned, looking in every direction. He followed her gaze over to a group of Chauk children, who had obviously been watching their arrival. Children, in Lazar – unadorned with scars. Of course there would be children, Raim scolded himself. They were exiled, not castrated. The children were staring at them with big, wide-open eyes. One little girl cocked her head and smiled shyly, holding the corner of a blanket to her mouth and letting the rest of the fabric trail on the ground. Raim’s hand went to the scarf around his wrist and he felt a familiar pang in his heart for the sister he’d left behind.

They arrived in front of a building that was grander
than any Raim had seen in Kharein. It put the Rentai to shame. Four rounded columns stretched high into the mountainside, each carved with intricate figures that danced their way up in spirals. Red dust and grains of rock fell on Raim’s head as they waited for the door to open. He looked up and saw men suspended by ropes, tapping at the intricate stonework.

‘What are they doing?’ asked Raim.

‘They are making it right,’ Puutra replied. But Raim couldn’t understand. They were destroying it, eroding the details, obscuring the faces of the figurines and crumbling the stone.

‘They’re crazy,’ said Draikh, shaking his head.

‘We are Chauk, what do you expect?’ said Dumas, spitting onto the ground. ‘How can oathbreakers create anything of beauty and worth? That’s why every time we manage to make something that could be called beautiful, we destroy a part of it. We’re not worthy of it.’

The doors opened and they stepped into the heart of the mountain.

Raim’s hood slipped down as he stretched his neck back to look up at the enormous hall. Arched beams like long, spindly fingers gripped the top of the ceiling. The beams disappeared into darkness as they rose and came together. Even the light from the torches mounted along the wall couldn’t penetrate the upper reaches.

Puutra led them up curved stairs that wound up past the high, open balconies Raim had seen from the ground
when he arrived. As they climbed higher and higher, they passed through a series of workrooms used by artists and dedicated craftsmen. Raim stopped at a man who was diligently adding the finishing touches to a magnificent statue.

They had statues in Darhan but they were nothing like this one – theirs were simply crude, unwieldy representations of animals, commissioned a temporary settlement tI knowingfeespecially for the Khan. There were hardly any portraits of royalty, let alone statues. In their nomadic society, it was hard to find an artist willing to sit and work for months on a large piece of stone. In any case, it was difficult to travel with any piece of art that couldn’t be rolled up and transported by camel.

This Lazarite carving depicted a beautiful woman, with long hair that curled down her shoulders almost to her navel. A loose dress folded in pleats down to the ground and pooled like frozen silver. But it was impossimmediately fl

Without Puutra there to restrain him, Dumas drew himself up to full height and turned his steely-eyed gaze over Raim and Ryopi again. Although he barely looked older than Raim, his furrowed brow and grim-set jaw made Raim think that he took himself far too seriously. ‘I’ve been told I must show you the Shan quarters, where you’ll be living as apprentices. This pagoda indicates the beginning of the temple of the Shan. I hope you recognize what a privilege this is.’

Raim couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Apprentices? A temple? He wasn’t sure if he was ready to be apprenticed to anyone ever again, not after Mhara.