Jango
THE SECOND BOOK OF THE NOBLE WARRIORS
William Nicholson
* * *
HARCOURT, INC.
Orlando Austin New York San Diego Toronto London
* * *
Copyright © 2006 William Nicholson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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www.HarcourtBooks.com
First published in Great Britain 2006 by Egmont Books Ltd.
First U.S. edition 2007
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nicholson, William.
Jango/William Nicholson.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The noble warriors; bk. 2)
Summary: Seeker, the Wildman, and Morning Star discover
that the mysterious warrior sect they had been so desperate to join is not quite what it appears from the outside.
[1. Self-realization—Fiction. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction.
3. Faith—Fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.N5548See 2007
[Fic]—dc22 2006019971
ISBN 978-0-15-206011-4
Text set in Bembo
U.S. edition designed by Cathy Riggs
First U.S. edition
A C E G H F D B
Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
The Nomana Catechism 1
THE FIRST STAGE: LEARNING 3
1 The Secret Skill 5
2 In the Glimmen 23
3 The Shadow of Noman 43
4 Blood and Ashes 59
5 Nothing Lasts 79
6 The Flying Onion 100
7 Power without Limits 112
8 Learning to Ride 128
THE SECOND STAGE: SEEKING 143
9 Back from the Dead 145
10 The Lords of Wisdom 162
11 Kneeling and Standing 177
12 Knock Me Down! 195
13 The Jagga 211
14 The Whip and the Feather 233
THE THIRD STAGE: DOING 247
15 The Land Cloud 249
16 The Door in the Wall 263
17 Bedtime 274
18 Preparations for War 283
19 The Spiker Army 294
20 Savanters 307
THE FOURTH STAGE: BEING 321
21 First and Last 323
22 Lost in Whiteness 337
23 The Battle for the Nom 352
24 The Traitor 362
25 Parting 377
26 Through the Door 395
* * *
The Nomana Catechism
Who is the All and Only?
The All and Only is the power that existed before the world came into being.
Did the All and Only make the world?
The All and Only shared itself into many parts. This sharing brought the world into being, and all its creatures, and you and me.
Why did the All and Only bring us into being?
To become gods.
Can I become a god?
Of course. Every one of us has within us the power of the All and Only.
Why do I not feel this power?
It's locked within you.
Why has the All and Only locked the power within me?
Because power can destroy.
Does the All and Only not trust me?
The All and Only has made you free. You must show yourself to be worthy of trust.
How do I show myself to be worthy of trust?
By taking the true way.
What is the true way?
That you must find for yourself.
Why does the All and Only not come before me in power and glory and show me the true way?
Such greatness would make you little.
So will the All and Only never come?
The All and Only is with you now.
Will I ever see the All and Only face-to-face?
You will.
When?
When you are a god.
THE FIRST STAGE IN THE TRAINING OF THE NOMANA
LEARNING
In which the novice receives the skills,
wisdom, and memory of the Community.
1. The Secret Skill
SEEKER ADOPTED THE COMBAT STANCE KNOWN AS THE Tranquil Alert: feet a pace apart and flat on the ground, arms loose at his sides, head erect, balanced and steady. He softened the focus of his gaze so that his eyes became sensitive to the smallest movement. He calmed his breathing until his breaths were slow and even. For a single brief moment he attended to the feelings in his bare feet: the prick of grit on the worn pavers, the slickness of water on stone.
A chill winter rain was falling steadily from the gray sky. It soaked into his hair and his tunic and formed puddles among the loose stones of the courtyard.
He heard his teacher's intake of breath and knew he was about to be given the first command. He exhaled a single long slow breath and slid into the attack stance called the Hammer and Nail. Two fingers of his right hand were the nail, tingling and still by his side. The entire combined force of his being, which his teachers called "the lir," was the hammer. He had chosen his weapon and his initiating strike.
"Pay respect!"
The scratchy voice came from his combat teacher, a short middle-aged Noma with a sleepy face. All his features—his eyebrows, his cheeks, the corners of his mouth—seemed to droop downwards, and his heavily lidded eyes were half closed. However, as Seeker well knew, he was far from sleepy.
Obediently Seeker bowed, first his upper body from the waist, then his head: paying respect. Only as he straightened up did he allow himself to see his opponent, standing a pace away from him in the rainy courtyard, beneath the shadow of the high dome of the Nom.
It was the Wildman: his friend and fellow novice, and the only one of their group of eight he had never yet defeated. In the course of nine months of training, during which Seeker had felt his body grow strong and the lir flow to his command, he and the Wildman had met in combat fourteen times, and he had lost every bout. He had never yet, facing the Wildman, achieved that sudden overwhelming strike which breaks the opponent's guard and shatters his concentration. With Jobal he could do it, and with Felice, but never with the Wildman.
His friend was now also straightening up from the respect. Their eyes met, unseeing as strangers. Seeker tracked for clues over the Wildman's beautiful rain-streaked face.
The throat. He'll strike for my throat.
It was the Wildman's usual move. But he was so fast and so strong that knowing it was coming was not enough. Seeker's mind moved smoothly and rapidly, using the few seconds now left to him. When the teacher gave the second command, the combat would begin. It would last for one, or two, or possibly three strikes—no more. Trained Nomana did not require lengthy bouts. Each fighter had at his disposal a single devastating blow, the blow into which his lir was concentrated, like the force of a great river funneled into a narrow jet. If this win-all or lose-all blow was struck too soon, or fell wide, the fight was lost. Timing was all.
Seeker's web of feelings, instincts, and thoughts fused into a single bright blade of decision. Roll the attack, play the riposte, follow with the kill. His plan formed, he let his entire body hang loose, dangle in the rain, swing i
n the wind.
Don't think. Never think.
React into action.
Meet your plan like a stranger.
Surprise yourself.
So much teaching. So much training. "Know everything and then forget everything," their teacher told them.
To one side stood the line of silent novices, watching the combat that was about to begin. Morning Star, third in line, watched like the rest, hands clasped before her, silent in the rain. A thought flickered in Seeker's brain.
Who does she want to win? Me, or the Wildman?
On the other side rose the stone pillars of the cloister, and beyond, the great outer wall of the Nom. Slots pierced this wall at intervals, and through the slots could be glimpsed the sea, stretching away, horizonless, into the iron gray sky.
The voice of the combat teacher sounded as if from far off.
"Engage."
The Wildman struck first, for the throat, as Seeker had guessed. Seeker swayed back, outreaching the strike hand, and stabbed at the crook of the attacking arm, but only playing the riposte. If the Wildman went for the kill now, Seeker knew he would break him.
No time to hesitate. On he flowed, pouring his lir into the about-to-be-launched strike, begging the Wildman to make his throw now, at the bait moment, when he seemed so vulnerable, on the second strike, which had always been the Wildman's strike of choice.
But not today. With dismay Seeker realized he had committed, and the Wildman had not. His timing was off. In his frustration Seeker lost perfect concentration and felt the lir spreading from the two speeding fingers over his right hand and up his arm, dissipating his force. His blow powered through, hammer on nail, and caught the Wildman's left shoulder, rocking him back, but it was not enough to break him.
At once Seeker sucked back what lir was left and locked himself to the ground, but even as he did so the Wildman struck, the heel of his hand to Seeker's brow: the kill blow. Not all his power was in the strike, of course. Seeker was not killed. But he was broken.
He fell as he must, crippled by pure force and by shame. The Wildman had pulled his blow and had still broken him. The impact of the wave of power rippled from his stunned brow all the way down to his stomach, making him want to retch.
"Withdraw."
The teacher called the moves as if nothing of any significance had taken place. Seeker rose and bowed, a little shakily, and resumed his place in the line of silent novices, as did the Wildman. They stood still, hands clasped before them, maintaining the rigid discipline that had been drilled into them.
Their sleepy-eyed teacher now proceeded with the analysis, dabbing at his wet head with one end of his badan. His name was Chance.
"What did he do wrong? You."
He pointed at Morning Star.
"He committed too soon," said Morning Star.
"Could he have done otherwise?"
"Yes," said Morning Star softly, glancing towards Seeker. "He could have waited. But he knew his opponent had the longer reach. His decision to attempt a first-strike win was sound."
"Therefore predictable."
"Yes, Teacher."
The teacher nodded, then raising his hands above his head, he clapped twice. This was the signal for a break. The novices retreated into the shelter of the cloister—all but the Wildman, who stood apart from the rest, by one of the slots in the wall that looked out over the sea.
Morning Star came to Seeker's side. The last nine months had changed her greatly, as it had changed them all. In appearance she was the same, with her round face and her little button of a nose and her gentle blue eyes; but she seemed to Seeker to have grown older and more serious. Seeker found himself admiring her more each day.
"Almost won that time," she said.
"What do you call someone who almost won?"
"Loser."
He grinned. This was what made him feel so close to Morning Star. Their minds worked the same way.
But her attention was directed to the Wildman.
"Look at him," she said. "He doesn't smile any more. Why is he so unhappy?"
"Is he unhappy?"
Morning Star turned reproachful eyes on him. "You hadn't noticed?"
"I don't see people's colors like you."
"Yes, he's unhappy."
Seeker had noticed how silent his friend had grown and how he liked to stand apart from the rest, but he had put that down to the training. Before all else, the Nomana were taught the art of stillness. Now that Morning Star voiced her concern, he saw that she was right, and was angry with himself for not having seen it before.
"I'll talk to him."
Seeker crossed the courtyard in the rain and touched his friend lightly on the arm.
"You win again," he said. "But I'll have you one day."
He wanted him to feel some pleasure in his victory.
The Wildman turned and looked at Seeker. It was clear from his face that he hadn't heard him. He gave an indifferent shrug.
"Yes," he said. "Why not?"
"They're saying you could be the best warrior ever."
"Are they?"
He shook his long golden hair, now dark with rain, and looked up at the high dome of the Nom. On the far side of the dome, invisible from this courtyard, lay the silver-walled enclosure called the Garden. In the Garden, at the heart of the great castle-monastery, lived the god of many names: the All and Only, the Always and Everywhere, the Reason and the Goal.
Seeker followed his friend's gaze, and he thought he understood. He knew how fervently the Wildman longed to enter the Garden. There, he had been told, he would find peace.
"You're tired of waiting, aren't you?"
"One day soon," said the Wildman.
"When we're ready."
"I'm ready now."
He spoke so quietly, so unlike his old bold voice with which he had cried out his heedless demands.
"There's so much we don't know," said Seeker. "We have to be patient."
"Like Noman was patient?"
He flashed Seeker a sudden grin, a glimpse of the old Wildman. Noman was the warlord who had come to Anacrea long ago, made curious by the reports of a child god who lived there. Noman had not waited for permission to enter the Garden.
"You think I can't climb that silver screen?" said the Wildman. "I'd be over it before they saw me move."
Seeker was appalled.
"What are you talking about? The Garden's defended in ways we don't even understand."
"Only one way to find out."
"Are you crazy? You'd be caught! You'd be—you know what they'd do to you."
"I'd be gone."
"Gone where? The doors are locked. There's no way out."
"There's one way."
"This is all wrong. This isn't how you're supposed to be feeling. Why haven't you said this before? You should talk to a teacher. Or talk to the Elder. He'd understand. He'd tell you what to do."
The Wildman turned his dark eyes back to the gray infinity of sea and sky beyond the wall.
"Why do you think I don't know?" he said.
"Don't know what?"
"They don't want me here. They never have."
"That's not true."
"Look out there," said the Wildman, as if Seeker hadn't spoken. "Down there, the open sea. One perfect dive, and I'd be gone forever."
Seeker looked down. Three hundred feet below, the waves smashed against the rock on which the great walls were built. Anyone who jumped would be dashed to pieces in that roaring surf.
"Impossible," he said.
"One perfect dive," said the Wildman again, softly, to himself.
The teacher returned, and clapped his hands, and the novices took their places in line in the open courtyard. The rain was still falling, and the air was filled with the sound of water gurgling down gutters.
Chance looked at his class from beneath his heavy drooping lids and was silent for longer than usual. They waited patiently, accustomed by now to their teacher's methods. The longer t
he silence before a class began, the more significant the teaching.
At last they heard the slow exhalation of breath that preceded speech.
"It has been my task," he said, his voice sounding weary, as if he grudged the effort, "my task and my duty, over these last few months, to teach you to fight. I have taught you to command the life power that we call lir. I have taught you to deliver that power in combat."
He then shook his head and let out a sigh.
"But you are not yet Noble Warriors. You do not yet possess the secret skill."
A tremor ran through the line of novices. Seeker stole a look at Morning Star. The secret skill! Every one of them knew it. For all their recently acquired strength and stamina, they had not yet learned to fight as the Nomana fought. The Noble Warriors in action rarely struck with their fists, and never with weapons. They felled their opponents without touching them.
"Remember," said Chance, "the Noble Warriors do not seek dominion."
He looked from face to face, to satisfy himself that each one had heard and understood.
"However strong you become, you will never seek to exercise power over others."
They all knew this: it was the fundamental teaching. Their vow called them to bring justice to the oppressed and freedom to the enslaved, and no more. The Rule of the Nomana was absolute on this point. The Noble Warriors were not, and never would be, a ruling class.
"You're cold," said Chance. "You're wet. You're hungry. You're weary of these long slow weeks of training. All this is as it should be. Now I am going to show you what you still have to learn."
He scanned their faces.
"You."
He pointed at the Wildman.
"Come before me. Pay respect."
The Wildman stepped forward and bowed to his teacher, first from the waist, then the head. "Prepare."
The two stood a pace apart, as earlier Seeker and the Wildman had done.
"Engage."
The teacher made no move of any kind. For a few trembling moments, the Wildman stood his ground. Then, abruptly, as if he had been hit with a club, he buckled and fell. He lay on the rain-soaked stones, curled onto his right side, breathing deeply as he had been taught, rebuilding his strength.
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