Chapter 12
Before trifecta training begins, Yabghu hands me a pearl and crimson martial mask and takes me to the eastern quarters accessed by the outer brass gates.
The mud-brick communes vary according to status; the lowest-ranked warriors are in segregated groups of fifteen while the Fourth-Slashes get rooms of two.
A bone-stone wall partitions off the western quarters of Za’skar; a separate fortified enclave housing a taxonomy of retired warriors, senior officers, scholars, the Sepāhbad, his Alif warriors and the most senior Fifth-Slashes.
With a tight chest, in my communal room, I change into martial uniform, the same linen clothes as Katayoun: an ochre tunic, a sleeveless embroidered amber vest and dark baggy trousers with a raven-feathered hem, and a tawny shawl kept at the hip, to don for the hottest days.
There are outer robes only required in classes.
A part of me is in disbelief that I am here, in the empire’s capital.
Through quivering hands, it takes two tries to tie my mask on my waist cord.
The mask, hanging limply on the hemp string, reflects their lore; Sajamistanis claim the third face of their Heavenly Three-Headed Raven was in fact a she-wolf.
Evident by a blend of wolfish and raven features on the mask.
A tremor brushes up my spine. Surrounded by enemies, I must do this alone.
‘You are not alone.’
I jump and glance around the room, empty of other initiates. My stomach spools a thread of knots. Then I see it. Inside the hearth, the black shadow rests.
From years of observing it, fear does not race through me. That is, until the shadow shifts, from a gangly form into – impossibly – a ghoulish young . . . girl?
‘Peace upon you,’ she greets.
She has a white, bloodless face with pupil-less eyes. Her body is thin, translucent skin stretched over knobby skeletal bone, webbed in black lines like cracked porcelain. Her eyelids carved in blood red gawk at me. Her mouth parts, a tongue flickering out to wet her thin lips.
‘You spoke,’ I say in disbelief. The shadow that has accompanied me my entire life has never spoken.
‘Peace,’ she repeats. ‘Upon. You.’
I flinch but her voice is cool, like crystalline river water. I must be going mad. This thing cannot speak. It should not speak.
‘I can,’ she puts in, as if hearing my thoughts.
This could be a jinn. The Divine save me, I mentally pray. I seek refuge in you from the Unseen.
‘Stop that,’ the shadow snaps. My pulse is a moth’s tremor. Her voice is light, but unwanted, tangible and too powerful to ignore. No prayer can fling such a thing away.
‘Am I cursed?’ I grip the khanjar, hard enough that my fingers strain. ‘I’ve seen it all my life and it has never once spoken.’
‘I speak now because you’ve decided to need me, only at this moment,’ the thing retorts.
This is my end, I realise. I wish I could believe that she is an angel but I doubt angels look as sickly as she does, nor do angels have the free will with which she moves.
‘Perhaps this form is bad.’ She glances down at herself. ‘But I cannot change myself. I only took a form because is this not how one greets a companion?’
‘Companion?’
‘Yes, a companion of what you fear, desire and lust after. I’m you and you are me. I’m nothing and everything. Corporeal and spiritually immaterial.’ She shrugs. ‘You decide.’
My head begins aching at the nonsensical words like I’m reading sutras. Like my time-blanking.
‘All living things have names. If you are real, you should have a name,’ I speak slowly and my voice is uneven.
The shadow stiffens. ‘I am not a living thing. What is my name?’ She speaks like a child and with that, a sliver of my fear disappears.
The emperor once told me names hold power, for they grant one an identity, make one no longer a possession. My father resisted naming me. He’d stopped others from bestowing a name on me because no one should have power over me separate from his own.
This girl-creature does not need an identity. She does not need power.
She is simply a manifestation of my madness.
When I meet the creature’s expectant stare, I put force into my words. ‘You are a creature of no name. And that is it. You are nothing and no one. Only a curse.’
She watches, so childlike. ‘You’ve named me No-Name?’
I blink. ‘What? No, that’s not a name—’
‘No-Name,’ she repeats and smiles. ‘A fitting name.’
‘Usur-Khan?’ Katayoun’s voice breaches the room.
‘Coming!’ I tie my robe, strap on both of my khanjars and flee past No-Name as she grins.