The Oathbreaker's Shadow (22 page)

He slipped through the curtain, trying to move it as little as possible. The water reflected a tiny amount of light back, enough for him to pick out the opaque shapes of the stepping stones. He skipped lightly across to the pagoda,
over the other side, and down the staircase they had climbed when they had first arrived. At every floor he paused, but there were no more signs of life.

At the ground floor, he stopped again. He had come to the huge, high-ceilinged room Puutra had led him through on his first day. There was more light here, from the dying embers of torches hung up against the walls. He pressed himself into the shadow against the wall.
What if there are more guards here?
Minutes passed, but still the silence dominated. He made his move.

He darted quickly across the stone floor, and headed straight for the door.

He pulled at the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. He felt around for a lock, but found nothing. He pulled again, using more force. Nothing. He was trapped inside the temple.

He resigned himself to going back to his room, defeated.

Then a noise sounded, a temporary settlement tI disappearfe like a pebble skittering across the ground. He rushed over to one of the pillars and crouched down behind it, his heart hammering in his ears.

Someone appeared at the far end of the room, but Raim couldn’t move his head to look up without risking being seen. He pressed his body close to the heavy stone base of the pillar, so close he felt dust from the stone fly up his nose. He held his tongue to the roof of his mouth to stop from sneezing and after what felt like an eternity, the figure moved away.

When he was sure the person was gone, Raim trudged back upstairs, trying to avoid feeling dejected about not being able to find her.

He passed through the water pagoda again, and that’s when he saw it: a round circle with a line through it, identical to the markings on Wadi’s pendant, carved into one of the wooden benches in the pagoda.

She had been there.

He returned to the pagoda every night to wait for her, learning the cycles of the guards, slipping out to wait just round the corner as they did their rounds. The days passed insufferably slowly, with either Puutra or Vlad – whoever had decided to torture him that day – moving on from meditating to focus on him and Draikh.

They were in the middle of a very simple task, based on what Draikh had demonstrated on the first day. Puutra had asked Draikh to move a chair from one end of the room to the other end, where Raim would sit down on it. At first, Raim tried to imagine what it would be like if he couldn’t see Draikh – how amazing it would look to see a chair fly across the room at his command. He could imagine Khareh’s delight, and Raim felt the sudden desire to run all the way back to Darhan to show him. But as the task dragged on, and Puutra banged his cane and said, ‘Again, again,’ the novelty quickly wore off. His late night
jaunts to the pagoda had made Raim feel more tired than usual. He felt his focus drift.

Where could they be keeping Wadi?

‘No idea,’ Druikh replied in his mind.

Also, I don’t see how getting you to prove you can carry a chair is really helping me figure out anything to do with my scar.

Draikh picked up the chair, which was now on the far side of the room from Raim. ‘It doesn’t help you at all.’

Puutra banged his cane into the ground. ‘Pay attention! You are not taking this seriously!’

Dumas stormed over now, anger in his voice. ‘Please, Puutra, he clearly doesn’t care about being a sage. But look, I have breached cooperation. Watch. Nava!’ He turned to his spirit, who slowly raised her pointed face in his direction. ‘Bring that scroll to me.’

She stared at him blankly.

Dumas’s eyes filled with desperation. ‘Nava, please, please, my sweet, my heart, the scrolls? Like you did before! I beg you.’

But the haunt remained motionless. right handebl. By the time he seco

Draikh, with Khare

Dumas turned a shade of red brighter than Lazar’s walls after witnessing Draikh’s display. Seeing he had lost
Puutra’s attention, he turned abruptly on his heels and stormed out of the room. A few moments later, Nava got up from her perch and sauntered out behind him.

‘You’d do better focusing your attention on him than me,’ Raim told Puutra. ‘He’s right. I don’t care.’

‘You and Draikh think you are so strong, but you have so much to learn before you realize your true power together!’

‘I don’t
want
to “realize my true power”. I just want to find out how to clear my name and then go home. For gods’ sake let me at least go outside and get some air.’

‘You haven’t noticed that it has taken Draikh almost ten minutes to move the chair across the room this time.’

‘That’s because we’ve been talking.’

Puutra raised one eyebrow. ‘Is it?’

Raim looked at Draikh and for a moment was taken aback. Draikh’s form, normally so solid and clear, had taken on a translucent quality. Raim thought he could see through Draikh to the other side of the room.

Draikh, however, was defiant. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, and carried the chair the rest of the way towards Raim. Raim wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he saw the chair quiver in Draikh’s hands. When he went to put it down behind Raim, it seemed like he dropped it instead of the bored, deliberate movement he had been using earlier. Raim sat down.

And Draikh whipped the chair from out under him. Raim tumbled onto the floor.

Raim rubbed his sore tailbone. ‘See, Puutra? I think Draikh is fine.’

‘You are a fool if you believe that. You must train. Or else you risk losing that part of your friend’s soul for ever. Are you prepared for that responsibility?’

Raim suddenly looked horrified. ‘My friend’s
soul
?’

‘Yes! What did you think he was? Just an apparition from nowhere? No, Draikh – as you call him – is part of Khareh. A big part, as it was an Absolute Vow. And if you wear him out with your magic, that’s it. Gone. For ever.’

‘He won’t wear me out. I’m strong,’ said Draikh.

Puutra’s mouth set in a firm line, Draikh’s form quivered, and suddenly Raim wasn’t so sure.

By the time they were finished, Raim was weary to the bone and Draikh seemed even weaker, but he went again to the pagoda that night, over a week since the first night. The mark in the wooden bench was deeper than before; he had redrawn it with the sharpened end of a chopstick he had stolen from the Shan. He hoped if Wadi saw that, she would take it as a sign he was waiting.

He was almost ready to give up for the night, but a whisper reached him.

‘Raim?’

‘Wadi?-source
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‘Oh, thank Sola, I’ve found you.’

Wadi stood in the doorway, her face and hair covered in a fine film of red dust, red-orange streaks of handprints all over her once-white tunic and trousers. She rushed over to
him and buried herself in his embrace. He gripped her tightly in his arms, and they held each other in the centre of the pagoda.

‘Where have you been?’ he whispered into her hair. ‘Puutra said something about some tunnels . . .’

‘I’m so sorry.’ She pulled away from him slightly, and he brushed the hair from her face. ‘They caught me sneaking through here the first night, just after I made that mark. Tonight was the first night they left me alone – the person guarding me was called away. It sounded urgent, so I thought they might be a while. It was my only opportunity.’

‘Now you’re here, you’re not going back to wherever it is they’re keeping you. You’re going to stay here, with me.’

She smiled. ‘Raim, you don’t understand. I won’t let them keep us apart any more either, but for now I have to go back to what I’m doing for them. They need my help.’

‘Your help?’ His brow furrowed.

‘Yes, it’s all to do with my pendant.’ She took it off from around her neck and placed it on the floor so it lay next to the mark she had drawn in the dust. ‘It’s a pass-stone.’

‘You can use that to get out of Lazar . . .’

Wadi nodded. ‘Not only that, but they think there’s something special about the stone itself.’

It did look special. It was slightly luminous, more so than the small amount of light coming from the torches could account for. He touched it with his index finger, almost expecting a jolt, but it felt like cool stone.

Wadi leaned in closer as if someone could overhear them. ‘They think it’s able to hold a promise.’

Now Raim really was confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Like in Darhan. You knot your promises, but really what you are doing is sealing them inside the string. It doesn’t matter what the material is, the knot carries it. What if the same was true for stone, or wood, or any other material for that matter? What if you could somehow use it to bind a promise?’

‘Let me into those chambers. I need to see the Yun!’ Raim said to Puutra. He was prepared to stand his ground. Puutra had barred him from approaching the Yun straight away, and had enlisted Dumas’s help in restraining him – who was only too glad to help. Raim had sat down in protest outside Puutra’s door, not willing to move until he was granted his wish. But to his surprise, Puutra nodded.

‘Yes. It is time. But be careful. He has been through much these past few hours.’

Puutra led him to a part of the building he had never been before. It was reserved for those who were ill – physically and mentally – and was barricaded by heavy wooden planks and impenetrable-looking black metal locks.

Puutra stopped in front of one of the doors, took out a large set of keys and unlocked it. ‘As I said before, be careful. He is still . . . sensitive.’ He left Raim and Draikh to enter alone.

The Yun was crouched over a small brazier topped by a sizzling frying pan, sweat soaking through his thin white garment. His hair was long and matted with sand and dirt. The acrid stench of body odour mingled with cooking meat.

The man snapped his neck to the side so Raim caught a glimpse of the raw, blistering skin on his cheek. The man’s eyes never rested on Raim but constantly scanned the wall in front of him.

‘What do you want?’ he said.

‘Are you Yun?’

‘My name is Silas.’

A spectre slid through the wall, causing Silas to jump up and knock the frying pan clattering to the floor. The haunt was tall and cloaked in black, a deeper black than any Raim had ever known. On his face was the polished mask of Malog. And he didn’t carry a dagger as the other haunts did, but a sword. A Yun sword. It was pointed right at Silas’s throat.

‘What right do you have to call yourself that any more, wretch?’

Raim’s ears rang with the sound of that terrible, deep voice. His hands trembled, although the reprimands weren’t directed at him. Silas shook violently, as if an earthquake was concentrated beneath his body. Raim repeated to himself,
He’s just a haunt, he’s just a haunt, talk to the Yun, talk to him!
But he couldn’t work up the courage.

Draikh stepped forward, knowing what Raim wanted
to ask but couldn’t. ‘Tell us news of Darhan,’ he said, as if nothing was happening.

‘Khareh?’ said Silas, and his right handeblbuckseco shivering ceased. He stretched out along the floor like a cat, reaching as if to pick up the mess he had made. His fingers gripped the frying pan’s handle. Then he flung it at Draikh.

‘GET OUT!’ he screamed.

The frying pan passed straight through Draikh’s spectral form and thundered against the wall, but Draikh fled through the door anyway – Silas’s snarling face was enough to frighten even the ethereal.

‘Out, out, out!’ Silas picked a red-hot stone up out of the fire and hurled it after Draikh. The smell of burned flesh filled the air as it seared Silas’s palm. He didn’t seem to care. The stone cracked the floor as it landed.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Puutra rushed into the room. When he caught sight of the mess, he said, ‘I told you to be careful!’ and yanked Raim’s arm to lead him away.

‘No,’ said Silas. ‘Let him stay! I need to talk with him.’

Puutra stared from Raim to Silas and back. Raim nodded. ‘Fine,’ Puutra conceded, and he and his haunt left, the door snapping shut behind them.

Silas leaped up and began pacing in front of the now smouldering brazier, barely taking notice of his burned hand. He sneaked nervous glances in Raim’s direction, as if he was afraid Raim was another apparition come to haunt him. Raim shuffled on the spot, feeling awkward. It
didn’t help that every five or ten seconds, the monstrous spirit behind Silas would slap his giant sword against the stone, making both of them jump.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything!’ said Raim breathlessly, then thought better of it. ‘I want to know what’s happening with . . . the Moloti tribe.’ All he really wanted to know about was Khareh, but Silas’s reaction to seeing Draikh was enough to frighten him off touching that subject directly.

Silas shrugged. ‘Probably what is happening with all tribes. Forced into submission by the new Khan. Unable to continue their wanderings until all of Darhan is under his control.’

Raim was confused. New Khan? Unable to be nomadic? No Khan could enforce that upon his people. ‘There’s a new Khan?’

‘I would not be surprised if he had declared himself Emperor by now. Dictator! Tyrant! Despot! Those would be more apt descriptions. Yes, and you should hope that your tribe submitted easily. It is those who opposed him that I cry for.’

‘You should cry for no one but yourself,’ snarled the haunt. ‘How can you stand it, living with yourself after what you did, you stinking tyrfish, you treacherous leech, you disgrace of Sola . . .’ The name-calling continued in an endless stream.

Silas ignored the haunt and cast a studious eye over Raim. ‘I know who you are. How could any Yun forget?
You are the murderer of our leader and a traitor!’ Raim was about to protest, but Silas continued to speak as if his thoughts were spilling out in one uncontrollable stream of babble. ‘YOU should be haunted by him as well as me – but that’s right, you never made the promise to the Yun, you coward. And why isn’t that haunt of yours in here taunting you, torturing you, like mine does ceaselessly to me? In fact, why do you have Khareh as your spirit in the first place? He must have sworn you in as his Protector, didn’t he?’