The Shaman's Secret (Kalika Magic Book 2)

by Karen Hughes

  He turned to Jabar. ‘You may stay in your mother’s house with the prisoners tonight, but tomorrow you will fulfil your duty and ride to Ballyndor.’

  Jabar glowered at him. ‘I have no duty to you,’ he said.

  ‘You have a duty to your people,’ said Mugadi, his voice low. ‘I am your father. You will do as I say.’

  ‘My mother died –’

  ‘Because she disagreed with me. She insisted on travelling to Ballyndor when I forbade it.’ His face darkened momentarily and his eyes filled with pain. ‘Your mother disobeyed me,’ he said. ‘Do not make the same mistake.’

  He turned back to his people. ‘Tomorrow, the army of Moto will join us in the ride to Ballyndor. The King of Gort is dead. There is no one to defend the castle. It is time to take what is ours.’

  His voice was strong and his gaze hypnotic. The people stood in silence, staring back at Mugadi with empty eyes.

  Indie watched, numb. It was as if the green smoke had come back to clog up her eyes and her ears. She could see Mugadi’s lips move, she could see his bitter smile; but she could not understand his words.

  The King of Gort is dead. Was that what he said? The king is dead? The blood in her veins turned to ice. She remembered her father’s smile, his strong arms lifting her into a hug. She remembered how she had found him in the tower of Ballyndor, how they had saved each other from Aunt Sofia.

  My father. Dead.

  The world changed to black. It spun and danced around her. Kai caught her as she fell. She tried to tell him what she had heard, to ask him whether it was true, but the words would not come.

  chapter 10

  Shaman Yanti

  Jabar’s house, like all the other houses in the village, was built into the side of the mountain, resembling a man-made cave, with a domed mound of grass and reeds piled over the top. The front was hung with animal hides and there was a single window cut high in the sod, covered by a transparent skin.

  Inside it was warm and cosy and filled with colour. A fire danced at the back, its soft light reflected in the polished furniture, the silver bowls and the statues of pixies and sprites arranged around the room. Woven mats covered the floor; crystals hung from the ceiling; rugs of wool and silk lay piled against the walls.

  Kai gazed around the room, his eyes wide. ‘I didn’t expect a Dasa house to be like this,’ he said.

  ‘My mother was a gypsy from Moto,’ said Jabar. ‘She collected beautiful things. My grandmother always complained about the clutter, but now I think it is a comfort to her.’

  There was a noise in the passage at the back, and woman with apple cheeks and a back stooped with age shuffled into the room. She threw her arms in the air at the sight of Jabar and began speaking, very quickly, in the bubbling Dasa language. It was the sound of a stream running over rocks, the sound of water gurgling and singing.

  Jabar replied in the same langauge, and gradually the old woman became calmer.

  ‘She says terrible things have happened since I left,’ he said, turning to the others. ‘Mugadi has been training the boys to use spears, boys as young as eight or nine; he has travelled to Moto and made an alliance with the emperor; and he visits the shaman’s cave. She doesn’t know what he is up to, but she says it can’t be good.’

  ‘The shaman?’ asked Kai. ‘Does he live here?’

  ‘Further up the mountain,’ said Jabar. ‘Above the snow line.’

  ‘We must have passed his cave on the way down,’ said Kai, moving closer to the fire.

  ‘No,’ said Jabar. ‘We took an easier path. The shaman’s cave is difficult to reach. You have to climb the cliff.’

  The old woman was looking closely at Indie. Her face changed and a strange look came into her eyes. She waved her arms again, words bubbling from her lips.

  ‘She speaks of the king,’ said Jabar. ‘She says he fell.’

  Indie gave a startled moan. Kai leaned forward, his face grey.

  Jabar listened to his grandmother for a moment and then said, ‘She says he was climbing a snow bridge.’

  His grandmother’s voice became agitated. She shook her head and put her face in her hands.

  Indie realised she was holding tightly to Kai’s arm. She stood rigid, waiting for Jabar to speak.

  Jabar looked away. ‘My father boasted about it,’ he said. ‘He told the people that the king was weak, that he called out to his children as he fell.’

  Kai frowned and stared into the fire. Indie stood beside him, watching the flames dance and the logs spit.

  ‘He’s not dead,’ Kai said. ‘I would know.’

  No one spoke. The room was very quiet.

  Then Indie lifted her head. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We would both know.’

  Kai turned to Jabar. ‘You said you would take us to the shaman. We trusted you.’

  Jabar paced the floor. ‘I was taking you there. I didn’t know the warriors were hiding in the tower.’

  Indie wanted to believe him. He had told the truth about his mother. And it was obvious that he hated his father.

  She watched as he picked up his grandmother’s scarf, running the knobbly wool through his fingers. He whispered urgently to his grandmother. She took off her cloak and passed it to him.

  He pressed his ear against the door. Outside two Dasa men stood guard. ‘Jabar is a prisoner as well,’ Mugadi had told them. ‘He must prove he can be trusted.’

  But he had said nothing about Jabar’s grandmother.

  It was dark when a hunched figure in an old cloak and scarf left the house and walked past the soldiers into the night.

  ‘I have to check on old Mother Yabana,’ the figure whispered when they stopped her.

  The soldiers nodded, and let her pass.

  Inside the house, Jabar’s grandmother led Indie and Kai to the passage at the back. It was filled with storage crates. She pointed to a large red box propped against the wall. They dragged the box away and stared at the tunnel behind it.

  Kai dropped to his knees and crawled inside. Indie followed. The air was so stale she could hardly breathe. She followed Kai blindly, bumping into the heels of his boots.

  It was very cold. The ground was hard stone beneath her knees. She crawled into the darkness, the way growing narrower, the roof lower, until she had to lie on her stomach and wriggle like a snake.

  ‘A light,’ Kai whispered, somewhere up ahead. ‘Ksik-si-num’.

  A faint glow filled the tunnel, but all Indie could see were black walls, slippery with ice.

  At last Kai stopped. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered.

  Outside there was a scuffle and a curse. A blast of ice-cold air hit Indie’s face. She crawled through a hatch and out onto the mountain. Below her the lights of the village shone in the darkness.

  Jabar helped her to her feet. He was still wrapped in his grandmother’s cloak, his knife in his hand.

  ‘Poor old Tommy,’ Jabar said, glancing at the boy at his feet.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ said Indie. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ said Jabar. ‘But he’ll wish he was when my father finds out we’ve escaped. Come on, this path leads to the shaman’s cave.’

  There was a sharp gust of wind, and Indie felt the touch of snow on her hair.

  ‘Hurry,’ said Jabar. ‘We have to get out of this cold.’

  The path to the shaman’s cave was steep, and it wound through sharp rocks to the base of a small cliff. Indie could see the cave opening above the cliff; she could smell the shaman’s fire and hear someone singing, very softly.

  ‘He’s not alone,’ she whispered.

  At the entrance to the cave stood a girl, her hair matted and her feet bare. In her hands was a rough straw broom, which she grasped like a weapon as she watched them climb the cliff.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Jabar. ‘I’ll talk to her.’

  He walked to the cave and held out his hand, motioning to the fire in the corner. ‘Nima,’ he said, through chattering teeth. ‘I … please �
�’

  She shook her head and pointed to the heap of skins beside the fire. The bundle moaned.

  The girl froze. ‘Sleep, Baba,’ she said. ‘It is only the wind.’

  A low snore came from the bundle, and she relaxed her grip on the broom. Her face softened. ‘Jabar,’ she said. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘You have to help us, Nima,’ said Jabar. ‘Kai and Indie are searching for their father. They are Kalika, from the forest. They have a gift for the shaman.’

  He stumbled forward, falling to his knees.

  Nima rushed to him. She was smaller than he, skinny as a bird, with brown skin and a mop of curly black hair.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come.' She knelt beside him, rubbing his hands. ‘You know this place is forbidden. If your father finds you here he will kill you.’

  Jabar grimaced. ‘Not if the cold kills us first.’

  Nima smiled. Her pinched little face lost some of its fear. She ran to get an old cloak, which lay in the other corner of the cave.

  ‘This is all I have. Your friends can wrap it around their shoulders and sit by the fire. When you are dry you should go. It is not safe here.’

  ‘It is not safe anywhere,’ said Jabar.

  Kai stared at the cloak. It was dusty and old but he could see it had once been purple, and there were gold symbols embroidered around the hem. ‘This is a Kalika cloak,’ he said to Indie, who huddled next to him. ‘Look, it’s the same as the one Brek wears.’

  ‘It was my mother’s,’ said Nima.

  There was another moan from the bundle in the corner. Kai could feel his heart thumping in his chest.

  The old man sat up and threw the furs to the ground. He looked at them with white, sightless eyes.

  ‘Baba,’ said Nima quickly. ‘We have visitors. They are only children. They mean us no harm.’

  The old man tilted his head to one side like a crow. He sniffed the air. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The boy is here.’

  He reached out with twisted hands and beckoned to Kai. ‘Let me feel your face,’ he said.

  Kai walked around the fire and leaned down to where the old man sat, trying not to flinch away from the stale smell of animal hide and unwashed skin. The shaman ran rough fingers across his face. Then he sat back, cackling to himself.

  ‘Sofia was wrong,’ he muttered.

  Kai started at his aunt’s name. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Sofia was wrong. When you were a baby, she thought she could poison you with berries and a spell. She thought she could take away your magic like she tried to take the kingdom from your father. But she was wrong.’ The old man shook his head and rocked back on his heels. ‘The magic is deep inside you. No one can take it from you. No one can destroy it.’

  He picked up the stick at his side and poked the fire so that it flared into a shower of sparks.

  ‘Fool of a woman,’ he said. ‘She had no idea what she was dealing with. She should have brought you to me at the very beginning.’

  Kai straightened his shoulders. Brek had told him to be strong, to get straight to the point – the shaman would respect that.

  ‘I have two things to ask of you,’ he said. ‘The first is that you help me find my father. The second is that you show us where the apiki flower grows. We need it to heal this land.’

  The old man laid his stick on the ground. For a long time he gazed into the fire, saying nothing. Then he turned to Kai and said, ‘You have brought something for me?’

  ‘I have Chief Wicasa’s book.’ Kai pulled the precious volume from his shirt. He unwrapped the oilcloth and lay the book open on the ground.

  The old man began to laugh again, his fingers gently touching the pages. ‘Such power,’ he whispered. ‘Such terrible power.’

  He picked up the book and dropped it into the fire.

  ‘No!’ Kai sprang forward. He grabbed at the flames with both hands, but the book shrivelled before his eyes. The pages curled into black ash. The golden letters rose with the smoke and vanished.

  ‘It was a gift,’ said Kai. He was almost crying. ‘Brek said that you would know where my father was. He said that you would read the book and help us.’

  ‘Read the book?’ The shaman’s lip curled. ‘I have no use for books, boy. I am blind.’

  .

  chapter 11

  The Medicine Wheel

  The prayer flags at the entrance to the cave fluttered wildly as the sun rose. The shadows danced, throwing their hands in the air.

  In front of the cave was an offering of melons, sweet and juicy; pomegranates bursting red and gold; butter-yellow quinces, hard and small and speckled with black.

  ‘Pah. What rubbish is this?’ The shaman ignored the whirling shadows and spat a mouthful of seeds onto the ground. ‘This melon is sour. Fetch me another.’

  Nima left the shelter of the cave and walked slowly toward the shadows. She kept her head bowed and didn’t look up, even when she was right among them. They paid her no heed, and she leant down quickly and snatched the closest melon in her small brown hands. Then she scampered back to the cave and sat beside the shaman.

  ‘Eat, Baba,’ she said, pushing the fruit into his fumbling fingers. His fingernails were cracked and yellow, his hands black with the dust of the cave. ‘There’s fresh bread too.'

  The shaman gazed at her with unseeing eyes, feeling the shadows all around him.

  ‘You must eat,’ she urged. ‘The food is good.’

  ‘The food is terrible,’ the shaman grumbled. ‘Every day, it gets worse. I must do something to scare those half-wits down the mountain. They do not respect me any more.’

  ‘Oh, Baba.’ Nima stood up, took her broom from the cave wall and began to sweep the floor. She swept gently, so as not to stir up the dust, but still the old man complained.

  ‘I am trying to eat,’ he spluttered. ‘Now my mouth is full of dirt.’

  At the back of the cave the strangers slept. The girl with hair like fire huddled with her brother, the tattered cloak barely covering them. Jabar sprawled in the other corner, long and gangly, his arms flung above his head.

  Nima put down the broom. ‘They will wake soon,’ she said. ‘The sun is rising.’

  The shaman rubbed his hands together, singing softly to himself.

  ‘I have waited a long time for this,’ he muttered, poking his stick into the fire and filling the cave with smoke. He began to cough. Nima picked up a worn blanket and placed it over his shoulders.

  ‘The Kalika boy is strong,’ he said. ‘He will survive the journey.’

  Gathering the blanket around him, he began to sing again, rocking back and forth in the dust.

  Nima walked outside. Her eyes were stinging, and she didn’t want to listen to him. He had changed so much. He had grown old so quickly. Something terrible had happened to him and she didn’t know what it was.

  The shadows were gone. The sun cast its morning rays onto the rocks and snow. The shaman reached for his staff, took it in both hands and waved it at her. ‘Get in here and build up the fire. My bones are freezing.’

  *

  There was fruit for breakfast. Indie and Jabar took four pieces each, but Kai couldn’t eat. He stood beside the fire, wondering what the shaman would do next.

  ‘Bring me my medicine bag,’ said the old man.

  Nima went to the back of the cave and returned with a dusty brown bag. Beads ran in patterns across the soft leather; tassels hung from the edge.

  ‘Here it is, Baba.’

  The old man waited until she had dropped the bag into his hands, then he snatched it to his chest, cackling.

  ‘Boy?’

  ‘I am here,’ said Kai. ‘I am ready.’

  ‘Pah,’ said the old man. ‘You are not ready. You cannot find your father unless you know the path to tread, and you will not find the path without your animal guide.’

  He turned to Indie and told her to build up the fire. ‘You can collect sticks from the back of the cave,’ he said. ‘You must le
arn to work hard now, girl. The Dasa will not keep you if you cannot work hard for them.’

  Indie frowned and looked at Kai, but he kept his head lowered.

  Jabar stood. ‘I’ll help,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the shaman, absently. ‘Now sit beside me, Kai.’

  The shaman took four small objects from his bag. He drew a circle in the dirt with a stick and laid the objects around it, one by one.

  At the top of the circle he put a tiny wooden turtle. ‘Earth, element of the North,’ he said. ‘Ground us and keep us strong.’

  He held up a small velvet bag. ‘Take the totem out,’ he said to Kai, ‘and lay it at the bottom of the circle.’

  Kai felt inside the bag and pulled out a big yellow tooth. He turned it over in his fingers. ‘Tiger tooth,’ said the shaman. ‘Very powerful.’

  Kai put the tooth on the bottom of the circle and watched the old man place a feather on one side and a dry shrivelled claw on the other.

  The old man touched the tooth. ‘Water, element of the South. Let awareness flow through us.’ His hand moved to the feather. ‘Air, element of the East,’ he said, stroking the soft red and gold. ‘Help us search within.’ Then he closed his eyes and put both hands on the claw. ‘Fire, element of the West. Give us the passion and the strength of the great snow bear.’

  He threw back his head. ‘In this sacred space I call on you – the turtle, the owl, the tiger of the forest, and the great snow bear. Let the medicine wheel spiral into the earth.’ He swayed and his voice grew louder. ‘Let this boy know who he is and what he is here to do. Let him meet his animal guide.’

  Kai closed his eyes and watched the dark space behind his eyelids. It flooded with colour. He could see the medicine wheel spinning, the animals reaching out to him. The four energies swirled around him, so that he was the centre of the wheel. He could feel lightning in his toes, sparking up from the earth at his feet.

  He knew that he was still in the cave, with Indie and Jabar and Nima; but they were like a picture rushing through his head. He watched Nima walk across the cave and sit beside him and touch his arm, but he felt nothing and he sank down and down and far away from them, into the darkness.