Noman

by William Nicholson

  Caressa never once looked at Shab. Her eyes were on the Wildman.

  "You handing this man over, Wildman?"

  "What happens if I do?"

  "Rope his ankles," said Sabin. "Hitch him to a horse. Drag him away."

  Shab went white.

  "Can't do that, Princess," said the Wildman.

  "Then you pay the price."

  The Wildman gazed up at her, and even as he was angered by her threats, he marvelled at her beauty. The rising sun was full on her face and glinting on her silver breastplate. She sat high and proud on Malook, the silver-handled whip in one hand, her army massed behind her.

  "More beautiful than ever, Princess."

  He caught a momentary flicker in her dark eyes, but she held her resolve.

  "I am the Jahan of Jahans," she said.

  So that was that. The Wildman understood the forces that drove her to this intransigence, because the same forces were at work on him. A leader never backs down in public. There was no way out.

  Then, from the body of the spikers behind him, there came a long high howl. Morning Star appeared, her arms reached above her head, her eyes staring like a madwoman, howling as she came. It was a tormented haunted howl, like the death cry of a creature from some other world.

  The men fell back, afraid. Caressa and the Wildman looked on in astonishment as Morning Star approached them, staring and howling.

  "Star!" cried the Wildman.

  She went to him, still howling, and gazing right through him, she struck him hard across the face. He staggered back. Then Morning Star swung round howling still and struck Shab, making him yell out with anger.

  "Let me spike her, chief!"

  "Leave her alone!" said the Wildman. "She's the spirit of the spikers!"

  Still howling, Morning Star went to Malook's side, seized hold of Caressa's foot, and heaved and twisted. Caressa went tumbling to the ground.

  "Rat child!" cried Caressa, jumping to her feet and raising her whip to strike.

  Morning Star moved right up close, her face in Caressa's face, and screamed at her. Caressa backed away in dread.

  "What does she want?"

  Morning Star now began to turn round and round, and her howling slowly lessened in volume, and everyone there could see her staring eyes and knew that she was possessed. When at last she came to a stop and her screams ceased, there was a dead silence all round her.

  She spoke then, in a voice that was strange and deep, as if some other being spoke through her.

  "I dream the Lost Child," she said. "I dream the one who cries in the darkness. Wake from your sleep and hear the cries in the night."

  The people in the crowd strained to hear her, and those further back called out, "What does she say?" The ones at the front told them to be quiet. "It's the little mother. She's in a trance. Don't wake her."

  The Wildman took her hand. She let him hold it, showing no awareness that he was there.

  "Tell me, Star. Do you have a message for us?"

  "I am the All and Only," said Morning Star in that chilling deep voice. "I am the Reason and the Goal."

  "What are we to do?"

  "Build me a Garden, where I can live in peace."

  Her words were passed back, echoing through the crowd, causing a sensation. "It's the god of the Noble Warriors come back to save us!" the people said.

  "Where are we to do this?" said the Wildman.

  "Follow me," said Morning Star. "Follow me."

  Then she faltered and began to shake. She covered her face with her hands, and her head jerked from side to side. A low cry of pain escaped from her lips. And so at last she was still. She let her hands fall to her sides. Then she looked about her in fear, not knowing how she came to be here. Her voice was soft and low.

  "Why do you all look at me?"

  "You've had a dream," said the Wildman.

  "Yes."

  "You dreamed of the Lost Child."

  "Yes. Did you dream it, too?"

  She looked from the spikers to the Orlans.

  "You were all in my dream. The Lost Child returned to watch over you all."

  Caressa listened with suspicion.

  "What has this hoodie dream to do with the Orlans?"

  "I don't know," said Morning Star humbly. "All I know is that you were there. All the Orlans were there."

  Caressa was far from convinced by this, but she could hear the excitement in the lines of Orlans behind her. She met the Wildman's eyes. Shab was forgotten.

  "What do you say, Wildman?"

  "I say we're going to build a new Garden."

  "And if we don't?"

  "We go back to killing each other."

  Caressa nodded at that. She didn't believe in Morning Star's dream, but she was no fool. She could see that this bizarre intervention offered them all a way out of the deadly standoff. So she turned to her army and gave the order.

  "Sheathe your swords! Break ranks! Let's all get ourselves some breakfast."

  The armies dispersed, and the moment of crisis passed. The Wildman beckoned to Morning Star and they walked away together down the riverbank until they could speak without being overheard.

  "So what was that all about, Star?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "That was an act, wasn't it?"

  "Was it?"

  "I've heard your dreams before, remember?"

  "It worked, didn't it?"

  "So no dream. No Lost Child."

  "There could be."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  Try me.

  She looked at him doubtfully, but what she saw in his face was not mockery—it was curiosity. This was the Wildman who had wanted to be a Noble Warrior, and had wanted to find peace. So she did her best to explain what she herself only half understood.

  "I realized something in the night that changed my ideas about gods. It's about the way round things go. With most things, you see something, like you see the river. You dive in, you feel the cool water, you know it's real, so you believe it's there. I thought it was like that with gods. You go to the Garden, you feel the power of the All and Only, you believe the god's there. But maybe it's the other way round. Maybe it starts with believing, and then the god comes."

  "So we build a new Garden and the All and Only comes and lives in it."

  "Maybe."

  "And maybe not."

  "That's what we'll find out."

  "How are we going to find out?"

  "We're going to build the Garden, all of us, all the spikers, all the Orlans, because people need gods. If you have nothing to believe in, you have nowhere to go."

  The Wildman studied her face in silence. She did not smile.

  "You're quite something, aren't you, Star? Smooth as a feather, sharp as a claw."

  The slap of a sail in the wind drew their eyes to the river. A barge was just getting under way, sitting low in the water, its deck crowded with mourners. In their midst, beneath a white canopy, lay the body of the Joy Boy, now beginning his last slow journey to the distant sea.

  "You going to do it?" said Morning Star.

  "Just tell me where," replied the Wildman.

  21 A Bell Rings

  SEEKER FOLLOWED THE ROAD WEST. AS HE WENT, HE felt a deep rumble in the land and smelled a sweet heavy smell on the air. Whether these were true sensations or the product of his fear he could not tell. But it seemed to him that Manlir was following him, watching him, readying his revenge. But why then did he wait?

  Ahead lay the great forest; and beyond the forest, the land of crags and tines that marked the limits of his known world. He was retracing his own route, the track he had followed with such urgency and single-mindedness when he had been a hunter. Now he was racing against time to reach an unknown destination, trusting a memory he did not know he possessed.

  We have been there before, Jango had told him.

  From time to time he encountered other travellers on the r
oad, but they passed him by with no more than the usual greetings, and he did not accept their invitations to join them. He travelled faster alone.

  At a point where the road passed once more between trees, he heard the sound of a distant bell. It was a tinny clanging sound that he knew he had heard before. He stopped, and was at once so overwhelmed by memories that tears came to his eyes.

  It was the sound of the school bell on Anacrea. In his mind's eye, as clearly as if he was in the school yard again, he saw the children returning to their classroom at the end of morning break. There, already at his desk, gazing out of the window, sat the lonely pale-faced boy he had once been.

  He looked into the trees to see who had rung the bell. The ringing had ceased. He heard running footsteps. A man came bounding out of the trees, a thin man with a bald head and sunken eyes. He was waving and calling.

  "Come and look!" he cried.

  Seeker saw with a shock that it was Narrow Path. The high brow and the gaunt features were unchanged, but it was clear that he no longer recognized him. The sharp intelligence of those deep-set eyes had been replaced with a childish eagerness. Seeker knew at once that he had been cleansed.

  "A puzzle!" Narrow Path cried. "A mystery! Come and look!"

  Seeker felt a surge of anger at the Community that had ordered so terrible a punishment, and guilt because the punishment should have been his. Narrow Path had freed him from his prison in the Nom and had paid the price. Now he was tugging on his arm, drawing him away from the road. Seeker let himself be led into the trees.

  Narrow Path came to a stop before a tree. Pointing, smiling, wrinkling his bald brow, he showed Seeker a coat that hung from one of the branches.

  "That's a good coat," he said. "A fine coat. I'd like to have a coat like that, for the nights."

  Seeker felt a wave of pity.

  "Do you sleep in the open?"

  "Where else would I sleep?" replied Narrow Path. "I have no home."

  "You had a home once."

  But Narrow Path was only interested in the coat.

  "I could wrap it round me and lie down on the soft grass and I'd sleep like a baby."

  "Then take it."

  "But it's not mine. Someone left it hanging on this tree. I've been watching it since yesterday. No one's come back to get it. Don't you think that's strange?"

  "I think you should take it," said Seeker, wanting him to be happy. "It's doing no good to anyone hanging here."

  "Oh, no." Narrow Path shook his head several times. "I can't take it. It's not mine. If he were to give it to me, that would be different." He looked wistfully at the coat. "But I can't just take it."

  All through this absurd exchange Seeker was remembering the old Narrow Path, and was overwhelmed by sadness.

  "It's not your coat, is it?" said Narrow Path.

  Seeker looked away.

  "Yes. It's my coat. I left it there for you."

  "For me! You're giving the coat to me?"

  "Yes."

  "For me!" A smile of simple joy filled Narrow Path's face. "It's just what I want."

  A cloud of doubt swept away the smile.

  "But why would you give me such a good coat?"

  "Because I knew you once. You did me a good turn."

  "Did I?"

  It was enough. Narrow Path's curiosity did not extend to this shared past. The coat filled his mind. Carefully, reverently, he took it down from the tree.

  "It's so heavy!"

  Seeker wondered as he watched him if the cleansing process could be reversed. His power was very great. If he could give life back to the Wildman, why should he not be able to give Narrow Path back his memory of his own past?

  "You don't know who you are, do you?" he said.

  Narrow Path was trying the coat on now, feeling his thin arms into the sleeves.

  "Your name is Narrow Path. You were a Noble Warrior."

  "There!" he said, drawing the lapels close. "I thought it might be too big, but the length is just right."

  "Don't you want to know who you are?"

  He stared at Seeker.

  "Why would I want to know who I am? I want to know where I'm to find my next meal, and how I'm to pay for it. I want to know if strangers on the road will harm me. But as for who I am—I don't see what there is to know. Here I am, and that's all there is to be said about that."

  "Yes," said Seeker. "You're right."

  "What's this?" Narrow Path shook the coat. "There's something heavy in here. Why!"—he pulled out a gold coin—"It's gold!"

  "Better still," said Seeker.

  "But who does it belong to?"

  "The owner of the coat."

  "And who's that?"

  "You."

  "Me!" Once again his face lit up. "I have a coat! And I have gold for food! There's nothing else I need. What a lucky day for me!"

  He hugged the coat round him, turning from side to side.

  "I shall tell my friend. He'll be so happy! And you shall meet him, so that he can thank you, too."

  "No need. I must be on my way."

  There came again the sound of the bell. Narrow Path smiled to hear it.

  "There! My friend is calling me."

  "It's your friend, ringing that bell?"

  "Yes, yes. That's his way of calling me. Sometimes I get lost, you see."

  "Then I would like to meet your friend after all."

  Narrow Path's face lit up with joy.

  "Come," he said. "My two best friends will meet."

  He led Seeker through the trees. Not far from the road, by the side of a deep fast-flowing stream, there was a woodsman's hut, a small shelter built of brushwood. Before its doorless entrance stood a little old man with a bell in his hand.

  It was the school meek from Anacrea.

  "Gift!" cried Seeker. "It's you!"

  The meek nodded his head and smiled.

  "I heard you were on the road," he said.

  "Look!" cried Narrow Path, spinning in his heavy coat to make the tails fly out. "He's given me a coat!"

  "Heard from who?" said Seeker.

  "From the other meeks."

  "There's gold in the coat!" Narrow Path held his gold coin up for Gift to see. "We won't go hungry again!"

  "We've not gone hungry yet, my friend," said Gift.

  "Nor we have. But I shall get out the gold even so and count it."

  He went inside the hut.

  Seeker saw the way in which Gift was looking at him, as if he was searching to learn something.

  "So what brings you here, Gift?"

  "My friend." The meek nodded at the hut. "He needs a companion for now."

  "You didn't choose to join in the great gathering, with my father?"

  "No. But I hope to serve your father again soon."

  "You think he'll open another school?"

  "If the All and Only so wills."

  Narrow Path poked his head out of the hut.

  "Is your name, by any chance," he asked, "Seeker after Truth?"

  "Yes," said Seeker.

  "There!" Narrow Path was pleased. "My friend has spoken so much about you. You are the one who is to save us all. And you have given me this fine coat."

  He disappeared again.

  Gift had turned away and was fiddling about by the smoldering remains of a fire.

  "Gift," said Seeker. "What is this?"

  "Just the talk among the meeks."

  "I'm the one who is to save us all?"

  "Who knows, master?"

  "You know, it seems."

  He heard a new voice speak then.

  Surely you know it's you who will save me.

  He looked round, startled. But of course the voice was inside his own head, as it had been long ago.

  "We mustn't keep you, master," said Gift. "There's so little time."

  "You're right. I must go. Thank you for your kindness to this poor man. He doesn't deserve such punishment."

  "And yet he's as happy as any man I know."
/>   Seeker left him then and headed back through the trees towards the high road. As he went he thought over all that Gift had said, and he became more and more puzzled at the extent of his knowledge. Then he recalled how Gift had said, "There's so little time"—the very words Jango had used. On a sudden impulse, he turned and strode back through the trees.

  He found Gift now crouched over the fire, fanning its embers back to life.

  "I've been very stupid, haven't I?" he said.

  "How have you been stupid, master?"

  "You're not just a school servant. What are you?"

  "I'm a meek."

  "Then who are the meeks?"

  Gift went on fanning the embers. A flame flickered briefly and died.

  "We are the servants of the servants of the All and Only."

  "I remember you with a broom, sweeping leaves in the school yard."

  "We are sweepers, yes. And pan scourers. And water carriers. And fire lighters."

  The embers burst now into full flame. Gift fed the new fire with kindling.

  "Why do you do such humble tasks?" asked Seeker.

  "It's our service to the All and Only. We each of us have our tasks. You too, Seeker."

  Your life is an experiment in search of the truth.

  The voice spoke in Seeker's head. A sudden suspicion dawned. "Did you hear the voice I just heard?"

  "In a way."

  "Was it your voice?"

  The old meek looked up at him and smiled. "In a way."

  "You put the voice into my head!"

  "I did that time, yes."

  "How?"

  "Oh, that's part of our training. It's not hard."

  "Whose training?"

  "The meeks."

  Seeker gave him a long intent look.

  "Do it again."

  Surely you know that where your way lies, the door is always open.

  It was startling, uncanny. The words sounded in his own head like a thought spoken out loud.

  "Was it you all along? Putting voices into my head?"

  "Not me. Other meeks."

  Seeker thought back to the first day he had heard the voice, when he had thrown himself down in his sadness before the Garden. Yes, there had been a meek somewhere behind him. He recalled the rustle of the broom as he swept.