Noman (11 page)

"How old are you?" he said.

"I'm seventeen."

"I don't know how old I am. How old would you say I am? Fifteen?"

"Maybe a bit less than that."

"If you'll wait for me, I'll get older quite soon."

"Wait for you, Hem?"

"Then you can marry me."

"Oh, I see."

"Unless there's someone else you want to marry more." He avoided her eyes. "Which I expect there is."

"No," said Morning Star. "There's no one else at present. But even so, I think it's too soon, don't you?"

"I knew you'd say that. That's why I said to wait. I hate being young. It's not fair."

He got up and stomped crossly away.

Morning Star found this little exchange put her in a good mood. She took her tin plate back to the food tables, where everything was in the process of being packed away into the wagons. The Joyous was preparing to move on.

"Where are you going?" she asked the ox handlers.

"Just moving on," they said.

"But there must be somewhere you're going, or why move at all?"

"So people can find us."

This was the way the Joyous grew in numbers. For days now, the followers of the Joy Boy had been slowly crossing the land, drawing in their wake the people of villages and towns. This was a time of uncertainty, following the collapse of the old ruling power of Radiance. The army of the Orlans had broken up into rival bands, and no village was safe from their horse-borne raids. The roads were full of refugees driven from their homes by feuding bandits. At such a time, the vast throng that was the Joyous proved an irresistible draw to the rootless frightened people of the hills and the plains; and so it grew larger with every passing day.

Morning Star now found herself unsure what to do. She had left Spikertown thinking she could return home, but home for her meant her father and mother. Did she therefore propose to stay with them here in the Joyous?

At this point, she was approached by a smiling young woman who bowed politely to her and said, "The Beloved would like to see you."

Morning Star realized at once that she wanted this very much. She followed the young woman through the crowd, past people putting out fires and packing up belongings into kit bags, to the circle of favored devotees that had formed round the Joy Boy. He was kneeling on the ground, his head bent, while an older man poured water over him from a bucket.

Morning Star waited and watched. She supposed the water was to wash him clean, but the manner in which he knelt there, so humble and unresisting, made it look like a ritual of greater significance. As before, Morning Star felt both irritated and impressed.

He looked up now, face dripping, and smiled to see her before him.

"You came. I'm so glad."

The washerman stepped forward with a cloth and patted the Joy Boy's face dry as if he were helpless. Then, when the ablutions were all done, the Joy Boy rose and came to Morning Star. Once more she saw that he had no aura. This frightened her and excited her.

He looked at her with his smiling eyes but didn't speak. The silence was only awkward for a moment. Then she found herself held by those eyes. They seemed to draw her in and calm her thoughts. Then, still without speaking, something passed from him into her that caused a sweet melting sensation all through her body. Startled by it, she looked away and found that everything round the Joy Boy, the other people, the distant hills, the small clouds in the blue sky, had all become more intense, their colors more vivid.

"You see so much," he said. "Too much."

"Yes."

"I've been thinking about you, and why you've come to me now."

"I told you. I was looking for my parents."

"So you did." He smiled gently like a father who knows his child is lying, but sees no need to challenge the lie. "I've been thinking about your gift of feeling. I have a question to ask. Do you have the power to make one person feel what another person feels?"

"Yes," said Morning Star slowly. "I have done that."

"Can you do it with many people?"

"Yes."

"It's as I thought. You have a wide embrace. You're a unifier. That is the greatest gift there is."

Morning Star saw the brightness of the colors all round her and felt that something strange was happening to her. This plump-faced youth made the world fresh and new.

"You've done this before, I think," he said.

"Yes. With the spikers. I joined them into an army."

"An army? You used your gift to bring men together to kill?"

He spoke without sneering. He was puzzled.

"Yes," she said. She felt ashamed.

"You can do better than that."

"Tell me what I can do."

She had no intention of becoming the Joy Boy's disciple, and she thought as she spoke that she would listen but not necessarily obey. However, the melting sweetness within and the vivid brightness round her made her less resistant. She wanted to please him now.

"You can use your gift to share the joy," he said.

This time the phrase that had so annoyed her sounded different. She heard it from his lips as a simple innocent statement of the obvious. Why would she not want to share the joy? What was to be gained by keeping herself apart and in pain?

"I know you're afraid," he went on in his gentle voice. "You have so little protection against the darkness. You're made of smoke and moonlight. You don't know where you end and others begin. But what you think of as your weakness is your strength."

Morning Star had never had anyone speak to her in this way. It seemed to her he read her innermost heart. "I fear more than you know," she said. "You fear the loss of yourself. It's what everyone fears. But you stand closer to the edge than others."

"I'm weaker than you know."

As she spoke, she thought to herself, Why am I telling this boy what I've told no one else? And she answered herself: because no one has ever known me as he knows me. Not even Seeker.

"So weak," he said, "that you have loved where you have not been loved in return."

So he knew that, too. She bowed her head.

"And so weak that you can never be a true Noble Warrior."

"Yes."

"What's the use of you, Morning Star?"

It was like her own voice, speaking outside her.

"Nothing."

"You've already failed. And yet your gift remains. How can that be?"

She looked up. She saw so much love and understanding in those dark eyes that in spite of herself she began to feel happy. What did any of it matter after all?

"I don't know," she said.

"Maybe whether you succeed or fail doesn't matter. Maybe whether you're strong or weak doesn't matter. Maybe you don't matter. Maybe all that matters is your gift."

"Yes," she said.

"Your gift and how you use it."

"Yes."

"You can remain alone, or you can share the joy."

"I want to share the joy." It was so simple after all.

"I told you before that I'm nothing. Like you, I have a gift. I come to make men into gods."

The claim was outrageous, but Morning Star heard it without surprise. She had recited the words of the Catechism often enough in her time in the Nom.

Why did the All and Only bring us into being?

To become gods.

"This will happen," said the Joy Boy, "when we overcome the separation that keeps us apart. We will become god."

"What am I to do?"

"Reach out to those who are the farthest away from joy. Use your gift to make them feel what they fear to feel. Bring them to join us."

"Am I to travel to other lands?"

"Not to other lands. To other minds. To those who have kept themselves so far apart that they have lost sight of others and become trapped in themselves."

"Who are they?"

"The Noble Warriors."

Morning Star shivered as she heard the words. It was a shiver of recognition. So her time in the Nom had been for a purpose after all.

"You are a bridge, Morning Star. Lay yourself down across the chasm that separates us, and let your brothers and sisters cross to joy."

"How am I to find them? The Noble Warriors are dispersed."

"There is one with greater power than the rest."

"Seeker!"

"Find him. The others will follow."

"Find Seeker!"

All her memories of her friend came flooding back. Of course she must find Seeker. There was nothing she wanted more. The Joy Boy knew her heart of hearts. He assigned her the task that was most special to her in every way.

"I know him well," she said.

"Bring him to us. Let him share the joy."

"Yes, Beloved," said Morning Star.

S
EEKER CROUCHED LOW AND CLOSED HIS EYES.
T
HE
giddiness had returned. He shivered and felt the sweat on his face. Then once again came the rising surge at the base of his throat and he thought he was about to be sick. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to vomit up the poison in him. But nothing came.

"Stay, then," he said. "You can't hurt me."

He rose to his feet once more and looked round him. The sea of grass extended on all sides as far as he could see. No roads, no tracks—not even the track he had made in coming here. The grasses had erased all signs of his passing.

"Very well, then," he said to himself. "Since I don't know which way to go, I'll go nowhere."

He closed his eyes and set off walking blind. He pushed his way through the long grass, not caring where he went, hunter turned wanderer.

Meet your plan like a stranger, so they taught in the Nom.

At first he moved hesitantly, fearing that he might stumble and lose his footing. But finding the ground remained firm beneath his feet, he gained confidence and strode along at a brisk pace. By shutting his eyes and therefore refusing to seek a single destination, he made all destinations available to him. He might end up anywhere in the world. If he could only keep his eyes shut long enough, he was bound at the very least to go somewhere new.

After some time, he felt that the grass was changing round him. He heard the croaking call of rooks. Where there were rooks there were trees. He stopped and opened his eyes. He saw the trees not so far ahead of him, and between the trees a building. It was not the house with the blue door; this was something far grander. The waving grasses now ceased altogether, and he found himself walking over what had once been lawn and was now an expanse of sun-parched weeds. Before him stood a veritable mansion. Colonnaded single-story wings reached out like embracing arms on either side of a two-story central block. He was approaching what must be the back of the mansion, a wide stone terrace onto which opened a line of five tall windows. In one of these windows, standing gazing out towards him, was an old man, thin and stooping, holding a long slender stick.

Seeker hurried forward, his hopes rising. The old man, he was sure, was waiting for him. He found the steps that gave access to the terrace. He saw now that all the glass in the windows was gone. Fragments of glass lay among the terrace weeds. The wooden frames of one pair of windows stood open, but the figure he had seen waiting there was gone. As he hesitated, unsure whether or not to enter, he heard an inner door open and close. A sensation of extreme urgency possessed him. He must find the old man.

The room he entered through the open casement was long and high, its five tall windows matched by windows on its facing wall. Between each pair of windows hung tall mirrors, many of them cracked, adding to the dazzle of daylight. The room was empty but for a single wing-backed armchair, set in the middle, and an empty wineglass on the polished floor at its feet. At the far end were double doors. One of these doors was slowly swinging shut.

Seeker strode down the room, catching glimpses of his own shivered reflection as he went, and opened the swinging door. Beyond, there was a smaller hallway, out of which rose a handsome staircase. At the foot of the stairs stood three large leather trunks, all open, all spilling out a jumble of clothing. Farther up the stairs lay evidence of looters long departed: a broken picture frame, a lady's shoe, a small blue-glass perfume bottle lying uncorked on its side.

Footsteps passed overhead.

Seeker bounded up the stairs and saw before him a long central passage with doors on either side, all closed. He tried one of the doors. It was unlocked. The room within had been a bedroom, but the looters had stripped it of all linen, leaving only the heavy bed-frame and the remains of a mattress. A mouse, startled by Seeker's entry, scuttled out of the slashed mattress and disappeared into the skirting board. The window was open, its latch broken.

Seeker made his way on down the passage to the far end, where a second staircase descended to the ground floor. Here he came to a stop and listened for the sounds of the man he had seen. He heard the buzz of flies and the cries of the rooks in the trees outside. He heard his own breaths. Nothing else.

Then from below there came a faint clink. At once into his mind there flashed the image of that solitary wineglass on the floor by the armchair. He ran down the stairs and back into the long mirrored hall. It was empty, as before. But the wineglass lay on its side, rolling slowly round in an arc.

Seeker stood still, looking round, trying to work out what was happening. The mirrors on the facing walls reflected him into infinity. He stared at his overlapping image, then spoke aloud.

"Here I am," he said.

No response.

Then his roving gaze caught something new reflected in the mirrors: the armchair, with its high back to him. On its arm, an old man's hand.

Seeker spun round to the armchair itself, took the few paces necessary to face it front on. It was empty.

He turned his back on the chair and looked into the mirror. There he saw himself, standing with the chair beside him. And in the chair sat a very old man.

It was not Jango. This old man was far, far older. His face seemed to be dried and shrunken with age, and he had no hair at all. The bones of his head, his brow and nose and cheeks, all jutted out like a grotesque mask. His neck was so thin you could see his windpipe and the two tendons on either side, all sharply distinct. But these signs of extreme age counted for nothing, because his eyes glowed with life.