Jango

by William Nicholson

  The teacher turned to the class.

  "What did I do?"

  None of them could answer. The teacher gestured to the Wildman to rise.

  "Did I use force?"

  The Wildman pushed the wet hair from his face and shook his head.

  "No," he said. Then, "Yes. I suppose so."

  Morning Star watched and listened intently. She could not explain what she had just seen any more than the rest of them, but she had an additional cause to be perplexed. She could always predict an act of aggression long before it took place. She could see the change in the attacker's colors. The faint aura that hovered round him would turn an angry red. But the teacher's colors had given no warning. It was as if he had made no assault at all.

  "Something I did caused you to fall," said the teacher to the Wildman. "Did you feel the effects of force?"

  "Yes. I think so."

  "What did this force feel like?"

  The Wildman shook his head. The questions confused him, and they made him feel stupid in front of the class.

  "I don't know."

  "Did it strike you like a fist?"

  "No."

  "Like a gust of wind?"

  "No."

  The teacher turned to the rest of the class.

  "Any suggestions?"

  Sweet-faced Felice spoke out, in her soft voice.

  "Your spirit struck him?"

  "No. That's not the answer."

  Jobal, the slowest-witted member of the class and the most good-natured, reached up his hand to speak.

  "You whacked him," he said. He swiped the air with one fist to demonstrate. "You whacked him so fast that none of us could see."

  Chance shook his head, smiling. Everyone smiled at Jobal.

  "No," he said. "I'm fast, but I'm not that fast."

  "Maybe," said Winter, raising one eyebrow, "he just got tired and wanted to sit down."

  Winter was the oldest of the novices and liked to tease his younger companions with wry and cynical comments. But this time, to his surprise, the combat teacher clapped his hands.

  "There!" he said. "Now we're getting there."

  Seeker picked up the clue and followed it.

  "You took away his strength?"

  "Go on. More. How did I do that?"

  "With your mind?"

  "Simpler, simpler. What did I do?"

  Seeker frowned and concentrated.

  "You looked at him."

  "Aha! Yes, I looked at him."

  He beckoned to the Wildman.

  "Come closer." To the others, "Watch closely. See if you can work out what I'm doing." And to the Wildman, "Hit me. Strike me with your open palm."

  The Wildman raised his right hand and struck.

  He missed.

  "Try again."

  He struck again and missed again. His blows either landed short or skidded off to one side. To the watchers it was as if the teacher was protected by an invisible shield.

  "Wildman," called Seeker, following his earlier hunch, "close your eyes and then hit him."

  The Wildman closed his eyes and struck. This time his palm caught the teacher square across his cheek.

  "Bravo!" cried Chance, rubbing his stinging cheek. "Enough."

  The Wildman stepped back and allowed himself a quick grin. It was the first blow any of them had ever landed on their teacher. Morning Star caught that mischievous smile. His long hair was swept back off his face, and for a moment he looked quite different. He looked older, with his high cheekbones gleaming in the rain-bright light.

  "I know!" cried Jobal, one step behind everyone else as usual. "You do it with your eyes!"

  "What do I do with my eyes?"

  The teacher looked up and down the line of soaked novices. He raised one hand and passed it through the air, from left to right. All down the line they jerked their heads to the right, one after the other, as if he had slapped them.

  "There," he said. "You all felt it. But what did you feel?"

  None of them were able to answer.

  "You."

  The teacher beckoned to Morning Star. She stepped forward.

  "Pay respect."

  Morning Star bowed. She braced herself for combat. "Stand," said the teacher.

  Morning Star adopted the Tranquil Alert stance. She studied her teacher's colors closely but could see only the soft blues of a quiet spirit.

  "Why don't you fall down?"

  "You haven't struck me, Teacher."

  "If I were to strike you"—he reached out a hand and pushed at her, but only gently—"you would harden your muscles against me. You would resist me. I would have to overpower your resistance with my force."

  "Yes, Teacher."

  "I am not doing that."

  "No, Teacher."

  "And yet you don't fall down. Why is that?"

  "Because I don't want to fall down, Teacher."

  "Ah, I see. So if you were to want to fall down, you would release the muscular tension that keeps you upright, and you would fall. I need do nothing. Is that so?"

  "Yes, Teacher."

  "Like this."

  She caught a flash of red and felt her legs give way beneath her. Unable to stop herself, she fell to the ground.

  "She falls," said Chance to the class, "because she wants to fall. Her body obeys her will."

  "And her will," said Seeker, "obeys your will."

  The teacher nodded, pleased.

  "That," he said, "is the secret skill of the Noble Warriors. The stronger will controls the weaker will."

  He gestured to Morning Star to rise and return to her place. Morning Star did so in thoughtful silence. In that moment of power, when her teacher had overwhelmed her, she had seen something curious. His colors had flowed out and embraced her. She had felt it as well as seen it. Never before had she known that the colors of one person could unfold like a cloak and embrace other people.

  She listened closely as the teacher explained.

  "When my friend here"—Chance indicated the Wild-man—"tried to hit me and missed, he was not failing in his aim. He was choosing not to hit me. I had control of his will. I made him not want to hurt me."

  Of course, thought Morning Star. The colors are more than just a picture of feelings—they're the force of those feelings. So maybe other people's colors can be changed.

  If it was true, it meant you could make other people do whatever you wanted. And then what? What sort of world would it be where everyone and everything surrendered to your desires? Morning Star shook her head, wanting to banish such wild fancies. It couldn't be so, she told herself. I don't want it to be so.

  Meanwhile Winter, thinking himself ahead of his teacher, stepped forward out of the line, a pretend-innocent smile on his face.

  "Make me fall down," he said.

  He shut his eyes.

  The combat teacher nodded approval.

  "Without eye contact," he said, "I can't control another's will. However—"

  He swept one hand through the air, boxing the side of Winter's head so hard that he staggered and fell to the ground.

  "People with their eyes shut can't see you coming."

  The class laughed. Winter sat on the ground and ruefully rubbed at his ear.

  "In the normal course of events," said Chance, "those who fear you will watch you. If they watch you, you can control them. But only if you have the stronger will."

  Winter rose to his feet and rejoined the line. The combat teacher surveyed the class with his heavy-lidded eyes in silence for a long moment.

  "For that, you need true strength."

  He made the class a formal double bow: the bow of farewell.

  "And for that, you need a new teacher."

  The novices entered the study hall, grateful to escape the persistent rain, and took their accustomed places on the semicircular bench before the fireplace. A novitiate meek came scurrying in to light the fire that was already laid. The dry kindling caught with a crackle. Soon the split logs were ablaz
e and a welcome heat was reaching out to the novices' chilled wet bodies.

  The combat teacher had not followed the class into the study hall, so they sat quietly on the bench and let their cold hands grow warm and waited for the promised new teacher.

  A resinous log caught fire and exploded in a series of small pops, sending out sparks. Morning Star, inattentively watching the fire, still absorbed in her own thoughts, caught a flicker of color in the air beyond. Looking up, she saw with surprise that there was a person sitting by the window. It was a young woman, in full view of them all, her tall figure outlined by the light from the window, on the far side of the room from the only door. She must have been there when they came in. Somehow they had not noticed her.

  She had short-cropped fair hair and wide-spaced dark eyes and soft smooth skin that was golden brown as honey. She met Morning Star's surprised stare with silent amusement. From her dress it was evident she was a Noma, about thirty years old, and perfectly, effortlessly lovely.

  Morning Star was about to speak, but the new teacher raised one finger to her lips. At that, all the class saw her, and all were as surprised as Morning Star. The teacher kept her finger to her lips, so no one spoke, but they all rose to their feet and bowed. The teacher bowed in return, from the head only, and made a sign for them to sit once more.

  The novices waited for the teacher to speak. They sat on the bench in silence and kept their eyes on her, and she sat with her hands folded on her lap and said not a word, half smiling, seeming to show interest, but revealing nothing. The firewood hissed in the grate, and the rain tapped at the windows, and nobody moved. They heard the cries of the gulls circling the dome of the Nom, and the rush and suck of the waves on the shore far below. They heard the humming of the wind and the changing rhythms of the rain, now sweeping over the tiles above like a soft broom, now drumming with a marching beat.

  So time passed.

  When at last the great Nom bell sounded noon, the new teacher spoke.

  "My name is Miriander," she said. Her voice was low, but they heard every word. "It is my task and my duty to teach you true strength."

  She met their eyes one by one, giving no more time to one than to another, but causing each of them to feel he or she was the object of her special interest.

  "Please prepare yourselves. In order to find your true strength, you will be stripped of everything that protects you."

  The bell's last deep boom sounded, and the vibrations slowly faded into the hiss of the rain. Through the high windows, the ocean mist was closing in.

  "This," she said, "will hurt."

  2. In the Glimmen

  THERE WAS A STRANGE NEW SOUND IN THE FOREST, A distant rustling and throbbing, coming from the west.

  "Wagon train," said Sander Kittle, swinging idly from his branch. "Wagons on the road."

  "It's not just the road," said his sister Echo. "Listen. It's all over. It's like a wind."

  "So, why aren't the treetops blowing?"

  "Maybe it's a ground wind."

  "Ground wind?" snorted Sander. "Whoever heard of a ground wind?"

  "Orvin has," said Echo. "Haven't you, Orvin?"

  This was unkind of Echo, but she was annoyed that Orvin had joined them there, high in the branches of the old beech tree. This was Echo's own special place, and Orvin should have allowed her some privacy. Also he had such a long face and such a gloomy way of gaping at her that sometimes it made her want to scream.

  "Yes," said Orvin. "I've heard of a ground wind."

  "Orvin doesn't count," said Sander. "He'd say up's down if you told him to."

  Orvin was known to be sweet on Echo. In this he was not unusual. Echo Kittle, seventeen years old, pale, slender, and beautiful, filled the dreams of most young men in the great forest called the Glimmen. But it was Orvin Chipe her parents encouraged, with the result that Orvin Chipe was the one admirer of them all that Echo found the most tiresome.

  "You wouldn't say up is down, would you, Orvin?"

  "No," said Orvin.

  "But it is, you know. Up is down." She swung round on her branch so that she hung by her legs with her head dangling, long blond hair flying. "See. Up is down. Say up is down, Orvin."

  "All right. Up is down. I don't mind."

  Hanging there, feeling that she wanted to pull Orvin's nose till he squealed, Echo heard the strange sound again. It was coming nearer.

  She swung herself back onto the branch.

  "Let's go and see," she said. "Race you to the road."

  Sander grinned. A recent light rain still clung to the leaves and branches, creating just the perfect slickness for sliding down. Echo was older than him by two years, but they were evenly matched when it came to tree racing. Orvin, however, was slow and clumsy. This was Echo's way of getting away from him.

  "Ready when you are."

  "Go!"

  Off they went, swinging from branch to branch, and Orvin made no attempt to follow. They sprang from tree to tree, sliding down poles placed there for the purpose, scampering up notched stairways, running along bouncing rope walks. The dark network of high branches that stretched for miles in every direction was their familiar home, and their slight and slender forms slipped as effortlessly through the trees as fish swim in the sea. They raced past the homes of other Glimmeners, clusters of timber huts perched high in the branches, where friends and neighbors were to be glimpsed as they flashed by. They raced on into the uninhabited regions of the forest, some way apart now, seeking any and every advantage to overtake each other. Echo found a springer and, using the branch's bounce, sprang up high into the next tree, catching at fronds of leaves to guide her landing. Now she was sure she was above Sander—in tree racing, height gave critical advantage—but she didn't stop to look. The race was too close.

  On they hurtled from tree to tree at breakneck speed, leaving behind a trail of flying spray and tumbling pine-cones, racing each other through the permanent twilight of the Glimmen towards the wide cut of the road. They had both forgotten their original purpose and were entirely caught up in their contest.

  Echo lost sight of Sander in a pine grove, but as she came out on the far side, she reckoned she was a whole tree's reach in front of him. Ahead she saw the brighter light, where the high road wound through the forest and the trees were cut back to let the pale winter light fall on its stony ruts. She slowed herself down and swung panting into a high fork in an old yew, directly above the road. Here she braced herself and looked back, face glowing with triumph. But there was no sign of Sander. She looked all round and finally caught a slight movement ahead. It was Sander, dropping into the hide position, a good two trees in front of her. Somehow he had overtaken her. But there was no time to find out how. In the same moment she saw him, she heard once more the strange sound that now filled the whole forest.

  Not wagons. Not a wind. It was a low thundering roar, like the rolling of the sea.

  Echo hugged close to the yew trunk, also adopting the hide position. Then, barely moving, she shifted her head and shoulders until she could see round the trunk and into the road. She saw only trees, and the pools of light between the trees. But that sound! Ever closer, ever louder—she focused her attention and was sure she could hear the beating of many hooves. Could it be a bullock team? Only a thousand bullock teams could make such a roar. Whatever it was must be very close now, but the spreading foliage below prevented her from seeing clearly.

  She glanced ahead at Sander, guessing that his nearer perch would give him a better view. Sander had his eyes fixed on the road. On his face was a look that Echo had never seen before. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. It was a look of wonder.

  Echo turned her own gaze back to the road. Now it was her eyes that opened wide.

  A strange and beautiful creature came prancing into view down the track. On its back rode a thickset man with long dark hair, wearing a silver fur jacket and glinting armor. But the girl's eyes were not on the rider: they were on his mount. This was no bullock. I
t was a pale ginger color, its long neck fringed with strands of sandy hair, its prominent eyes set wide on a long narrow head. Its slender and muscular legs rose and fell in a prancing dancing rhythm that was beautiful to watch. From time to time the creature lifted up its elegant head and flared its wide fragile nostrils and made a sound like the wind in long grass. This, Echo thought, was how the wind would sound if it could talk. And as if to prove her right, there came from farther back down the road an answering sound, and another, and another. And all the while the great beating roar drew nearer.

  The rider did not look up. He was an outlander, that much the watching girl knew, and one who was clearly unaware that there might be people living in the trees above. Echo risked a quick silent swing from her tree to the tree where Sander was hiding.

  "What is it?" whispered Sander, his voice trembling.

  "I don't know. But I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life."

  The roar of sound was taking on a recognizable shape now, the sound of many hooves drumming on the worn stone of the road and on the softer ground between the trees, mingled with the strange breathy cries of the beautiful beasts. They caught sight of a second making its way between the trees, some way from the road. It was followed by a third, and then two more, and then many more. In a short time they had lost count. There were hundreds of riders advancing through the forest. Soon they had filled the road, in a stream of bobbing forms; and on either side, as far as the hidden watchers could see, there were riders swarming through the trees.

  They carried weapons in their belts: swords and coiled whips. They rode in orderly files, one behind the other. These were not travellers. They were warriors.

  As the riders advanced eastward along the road, Echo and Sander followed them, keeping pace in the trees above, fascinated by the immense array of beautiful animals on which the warriors rode.