Noman

by William Nicholson

  "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.

  10 The Old Man in the Mirror

  SEEKER CROUCHED LOW AND CLOSED HIS EYES. THE 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.

  Seeker could not look away. He met the old man's eyes in the mirror and he saw there an intent probing intelligence, and a compassionate understanding, and an immense reservoir of latent power. The body might be crumbling, but the eyes showed that the force within was as vigorous as in youth. Seeker gazed into those eyes and felt that he was falling into them and that there was no end to his falling.

  He jerked his head away from the mirror to look directly at the armchair. It was empty.

  Stupidly, wanting to believe his eyes deceived him, he felt the armchair with his hands. Nothing. He looked back into the mirror. Nothing. He sat himself down in the armchair, assuming the position taken by the old man, one hand on the chair's left arm, the other hand on—what had the right hand been holding? He recalled the image. A stick. No, a sword. The right hand had held a long slender blade. Why had he not paid attention to that before?

  He arranged his own right hand as if he too held a sword, then looked up again at the mirror. There, gazing back at him from the armchair, sword in hand, was the old man.

  This time Seeker did not turn away.

  "Here I am," he said.

  The old man nodded in acknowledgment. Seeker saw now that over his shoulders he wore a badan, faded almost to white, and frayed down the sides, but for all that, a badan.

  "You're a Noble Warrior," Seeker said.

  Again the old man nodded.

  "And you are Seeker after Truth," he said.

  His voice was like his eyes: deep and clear and filled with power. It made Seeker shiver to hear him. He looked into his eyes as he listened, and he felt as if he were falling again, and his hands grasped the arms of the chair.

  "You've done well," said the old man.

  "No," replied Seeker. He had nothing to hide. Those eyes held him and penetrated him. "I've failed to do what I was sent to do."

  "There's little to fear in failure," said the old man. A sudden smile made sharp wrinkles in the dry skin round his mouth. "Failure is the end of one road and the beginning of the next. You've come a long way. You have farther to go."

  The more Seeker looked into the old man's eyes, the more he liked him. He felt the old man's gaze on him as a child feels his father's loving scrutiny. He sensed that he was known, approved, and loved.

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  "I am Noman," came the reply.

  Seeker now looked on that shrivelled face with awe. This was the only living being ever to have entered the Garden and come face-to-face with the All and Only. This was the man who had founded the Noble Warriors and written their Rule. This was the warlord who had surrendered all his power to live simply and in the truth, to possess nothing and to build no lasting home. Here at last he would find the answers he sought.

  "Tell me what to do," he said. "Tell me how to use the powers given to me. Tell me where to go. I can't go on like this, lost and alone."

  "Lost and alone?" The old man's eyes reproved him. "Am I not with you? Have I not always been with you?"

  "I didn't know it."

  "But now you know. And you know you have always known it."

  "Yes." So it was. The certainty that now came to him somehow included the past, as well as the future.

  "You have so much more knowledge than you know. It waits for you."

  "Tell me now. Make me understand now." Seeker heard his own voice rise in agitation even as he saw the old man slowly shake his head. "Why must I be kept in darkness?"

  "I can't live your life for you," said Noman. "This is your journey, not mine."

  "What journey?"

  "You must find your own way."

  "How? Why?" As Seeker understood that he was not to be given the commands he longed for, he gave way to a rush of disappointment. "How can I know where I'm to go? You say you've always been with me. Then, guide me. Instruct me. Order me. I'm ready to do all I can. I'm ready to obey, but how can I obey if I don't know what it is I'm to do?"

  He was close to tears and ashamed of his own weakness, but he couldn't help himself. He bit his lip to stop himself from crying, then fixed the old man with his pleading eyes.

  "Seeker," said Noman, "I don't want your obedience. I have known what it is to command men. Those who carry out my orders are no wiser than my own hands."

  He spread his frail bony hands before him.

  "My hands know nothing. My hands will die with me when I die."

  He looked up, and the brilliance of his eyes shocked Seeker once again.

  "You must live your own life and die your own death. Your life is an experiment in search of the truth."

  "What if the experiment fails?" said Seeker. "What if I'm not strong enough?"

  "You may fail. It has happened before. If you fail, I will know I have been wrong."

  "I have failed. I was sent to kill seven savanters. Five are dead. One I carry within me. But the seventh got away."

  "Then you will continue to search for him."

  "He got away on a boat. I saw the litter carried away. I saw the boat sail out to sea."

  "That litter was empty. It had been empty all along. The last savanter is here, now, in the old kingdom."

  Seeker heard this with amazement. So the hunt was
not over yet.

  "Where?"

  "He's at the center of a great gathering of people. He's getting ready to harvest their lives." Noman's voice took on a bitter edge. "His name is Manlir. You think you are the only one to have failed? Manlir was my first and greatest failure."

  "Manlir?"

  Seeker recalled the savanter in the land cloud, who had spoken of one of his fellows as Manny.

  "Manlir was the best of us," said Noman. "He chose the path of knowledge. I chose the path of faith. Both are necessary. It was he who discovered the force in us, the force in all living things, that he called lir. But as Manlir grew old and saw his own death approaching, he became angry and afraid. He dreaded death. He used the power of his knowledge to find a way to prolong his life. To be young again."

  "He takes the lir from others," said Seeker. "I've seen it."

  "He believes that if he can take enough lir into himself, he will become immortal."

  "Is he right?"

  "Possibly. No one knows."

  "And the people whose lir he takes?"

  "You say you've seen that for yourself. There's no life without lir."

  "And I am to stop him!" This was a clear goal. This was a purpose for his power. "And if I do, I'll have done what I was sent to do."

  The old man's eyes flashed with anger, and his voice cut like a knife.

  "You child!" he cried. "Can you only act when others give you orders? When will you be a man? When will you come out of the shadow and walk in your own light?"

  "If I'm a child," said Seeker, angered in his turn, "then let me alone! Let me grow up in my own time."

  Noman's ancient face stared back at him out of the mirror. Slowly, he nodded his head.

  "You're right. Old men lose the luxury of patience. I want to see the proof before I die. I have failed once. I want to see the experiment succeed."

  "And if I kill the seventh savanter, will you have your proof?"