Firesong

by William Nicholson

  She came up close before him, and he bowed his head, and they touched brows. Standing quietly in this way, as they had done countless times since they were very small, they let their fears and dreams join, and be shared.

  ‘I’ll never leave you,’ she said to him. ‘Feel me now.’

  He felt her, entering her mind with his, deep, deeper than he had ever done before, deeper than he had thought possible, and deeper still. She opened before him, and fell away, emptying herself even as he sought her, until he was lost in her mind, and still he had not touched her. He no longer knew where to look. She was gone. The form of his sister still stood before him, his hands could hold her, but she herself, all that he knew of her, was gone.

  ‘Kess! Where are you?’

  ‘Here, Bo. Here.’

  He turned like a fool, expecting to see her behind him, but there was no one.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’m with you!’

  He found her then: so close that he couldn’t see her or touch her or sense her in any way, except as part of what he saw and touched and sensed for himself.

  ‘Do you feel me now?’

  That was his own voice speaking, and yet it was Kestrel’s. He looked at her, smiling before him, and saw her dear face: only it was his own face he saw, and he was seeing with her eyes.

  ‘Yes. I feel you now.’

  ‘We go together,’ said her voice that was also his. And his voice answered, that was her voice,

  ‘Always together.’

  Hand in hand, they rose up into the moonlight, past the sheer rock walls of the cave, to the sloping hillsides of Sirene. Here the Singer people waited in their thousands, covering the slopes entirely, so that the island seemed to be formed of robed men and women, clustered close together. They looked west, towards the mountains of the mainland, and their song grew stronger all the time.

  While Bowman and Kestrel had been down in the cave, the night had slipped away. Now behind them the first light of winter dawn was glowing on the eastern horizon. Then as they waited and watched and sang their wordless song, a wind came rippling over the sea. The wind flurried their robes and clattered the leaves in the olive trees.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Jumper.

  All together, like some vast flock of birds, the Singer people lifted up into the air and letting the wind take them, flew west over the water. Kestrel and Bowman flew with them, and Mist the cat, following the long stream of robed men and women as they skimmed the roiling sea to the far shore. As they flew, they sang. The ever-strengthening wind blew their song away, but no one cared. They sang not to be heard, but to be changed.

  Bowman knew now he had no part in this. His life lay elsewhere. There were no more words to say. There comes a time in partings when all that is left to be done is to part.

  ‘Are you coming, Mist?’

  Bowman spun himself round in the air for one last look at Kestrel, one last salute, and then peeled away to the north, flying fast and straight like an arrow towards the mountain pass. Mist, taken by surprise, lagged behind for a while, mewling crossly as he paddled the air.

  ‘Wait for me!’

  The Singer people paid no attention to his leaving. The wind was come, they had begun their last journey, their eyes were on the mountains, their minds on their song. Only Albard, who had once been the Master, turned and watched Bowman all the way out of sight.

  18

  Into the beautiful land

  Bowman flew over the snow-covered plains, a little higher than the treetops, driving himself towards the mountains as fast as he could go. He never stopped to think how strange and glorious it was that he could fly, that the woods and fields, farms and villages, slipped past below him almost as soon as they came into view; nor did he think of Kestrel, who he would never see again. Instead all his attention was on his people waiting at the mountain pass, who needed him; and on the suffering of the land he was passing, the unknown world unrolling below him.

  This was the time of cruelty, cruelty beyond control, cruelty that fed on cruelty and begot cruelty. Village after village was burned and looted. Haystacks still smouldered in the snow-bound fields, and cattle lay dead, abandoned, prey to carrion birds. Here and there Bowman saw people moving through the ruins, but they were scavengers, not survivors, and even as he flew past overhead he could smell their violence and their fear. He passed over a large farmstead that had not been destroyed, and saw that its terrified owners had turned it into a fortified camp, and huddled within its walls, not knowing when the marauding gangs would attack again. Not far from this farm, a brake of trees was burning, a stripe of bright fire across the snow. Beyond the burning trees, some children were making their way up the high road, small children, no more than six and seven years old. Bowman felt the waves of panic that surrounded them, but he could do nothing for them. He flew on, knowing the misery below was too great for his own small powers, but he felt sick and angry at the waste of the world, and longed for the coming of the wind on fire.

  Now as he flew he saw a column of mounted soldiers, and riding after them a ragged following of men on horseback. He saw them ride into a village, and torch the houses. He saw the hiding villagers come running out, and saw the horsemen ride them down, and heard their screams of terror as they fell. This was one of the free companies, the remains of defeated armies, that now roamed the land destroying all before them. Here was the horror of these times: that men killed and burned not for gain, not for power, not even for pleasure, but because they craved destruction. They had lost everything. Now they were determined that everything should be lost. If their lives were ravaged, let the world be ravaged. They who had received no mercy gave no mercy. As their victims screamed, so the killers screamed, until it was impossible to tell who was suffering the more.

  So Bowman passed over the grieving land, his sensing mind reaching down to embrace all the people below. He let himself feel not only the fear, but the hatred; not only the grief of those whose loved ones had been killed, but the passionate anger of their killers. He wept for those who suffered and for those, almost equally helpless, who inflicted the suffering. I understand you all, he called down to them. I am the guilty one who will be saved for you and with you, so that the world may start again.

  Ira Hath sat in her litter, framed by the V of hills, and looked out over the homeland. The red sky of dawn was gone. The snow cloud, with its flurry of slow-falling flakes, had blown by. But she had seen it, just as in her dream, and now she could go. It had been hard holding on for these last days. She had become so weak at the end she had not been able to eat, and she drank only because Hanno poured water over her mouth. Most of it trickled away down her chin, but some passed her lips. Now, as if her eyes had waited only to see the homeland, she found she was losing her ability to see. People’s faces were blurred, and although she knew the sun was rising, the sky seemed to be growing darker. She could hear, when Hanno spoke to her, or Pinto, but she could no longer speak in reply. She lacked the strength. How surprising to find that mere speech required so much work from so many muscles. So instead, to show she heard and understood, she gave a very slight pressure, with the tip of one finger. Hanno sat beside her, her hand in his, and he could feel her movement and understand her. The code they had established, without ever once discussing it, was this: a movement of her finger meant yes. No movement meant no.

  Ira felt her own dying very clearly now. She was not afraid. She had played her small part in life, and she was willing to go. Her body felt light, no longer under her control. She could not stand upright unaided, and even if she had been able to, this rising wind would have blown her away like a winter leaf.

  So it was come now. She too must sing her song to the end. It was hard to leave her dear Hannoka, and her children; but harder still to stay. And why linger? Her little ones were grown big, she must move aside, so that they could blossom into life. This is why we have children, she thought, smiling to herself. So that we can die gracefully.

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nbsp; Hanno saw that passing smile, and squeezed her hand.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  Pinto sat beside him, filled with a strange mixture of grief and excitement. Every time she looked at her mother, she wanted to cry. But every time she looked ahead, towards the homeland, she felt a fierce thrill of joy. She had never seen it before, but she recognised it. This is where my life will begin, she thought. This is where I’ll grow and be strong and do great things. This is where I won’t be a child any more.

  There was no way to reach the homeland. The cliff was too high, too steep. The rest of the Manth people sat in bewildered huddles, utterly defeated by this one insurmountable fact. Coming as it had, when they were so close to the end of the journey, when their hopes had risen so high, it was a crushing blow. But not to Pinto. She had no answer to the problem. All she knew was that the homeland was found, the prophecies were true, and her life lay before her.

  Her mother’s dying was all muddled up inside her with this final impassable obstacle, the cliff. There was no logic to the thought, but it seemed to Pinto that when the first impossible event occurred, the death of her mother, the second would follow in its course, and they would enter the homeland.

  She said as much to Mumpo.

  ‘Ma has brought us here. She’ll lead us the last mile. You’ll see.’

  Mumpo believed her. He was learning to respect Pinto’s pronouncements. She was a special person, and it was his task to look after her for all of them. Also, she loved him, and that seemed to Mumpo to be a gift of great preciousness.

  Those among the Manth people given to forming opinions took a gloomier view. To Branco Such, and Silman Pillish, and Cheer Warmish, it was all too clear that their journey was over, and had ended in failure. Their prophet was on the point of expiring, and their leader had no answer to their dilemma. At the same time, there were plumes of smoke rising in the sky to the west, and the glow of unnatural fires. The world seemed to be ending, so they might as well sit on the cold hard ground, eat what was left of their food, and despair.

  ‘We should never have left,’ grumbled Branco. ‘No good ever comes of leaving.’

  ‘Never left where?’ said Silman Pillish.

  ‘Anywhere,’ said Branco, irritably aware that it made no difference where they were if the world was ending; and that the place he wished he had never left was the past.

  ‘Everything will work out. You wait and see.’

  This was little Scooch.

  ‘I won’t,’ responded Cheer Warmish. ‘I won’t wait and see. I’ve done enough. Why should I suffer? It’s someone else’s turn.’

  ‘Hush!’ said Lea Mimilith, nodding towards Ira Hath. ‘At least you’ve got your health.’

  ‘And for what?’ demanded Cheer Warmish. ‘What use is health when the world’s about to end? What have I done to deserve it, I’d like to know?’

  ‘I suppose,’ murmured Scooch, ‘that the world is about to end for everyone else too.’

  ‘Oh yes, go on, make it worse. I know I’m nobody special.’

  The young men, Tanner Amos, Miller Marish and Bek Shim, had gone off exploring the ridge to see if there was a way down the cliff further on. Now they returned with bad news. The sheer vertical face seemed to extend the full length of the mountain range. No doubt there was a way to the homeland back down the mountains, along the river, and round by the sea. But would they be given the time?

  The wind was rising. They all felt it now.

  Sisi remained apart from the others, even from Lunki. She was not concerned by the cliff, or the homeland, or Ira’s dying. She was listening. She had told Bowman she would wait for his return, and she was waiting. Sisi made no claims to prophecy, but she had a strong will, and she trusted her will. Bowman would come back to her because she wanted it so much. So she listened, and waited.

  She didn’t know that the Hath family were waiting for Bowman too: but both Ira, in her weakness, and Hanno, in his patience, understood that he would return. It was fitting, it was the only way, therefore it would happen. Both of them, faced by the immensity of death, had given up seeking to understand the reason for things, and were content with the lesser knowledge, of what was likely to happen. For Ira it presented itself to her in the simplest of terms: she would not die without saying goodbye to her son.

  The little children, unaware of the seriousness of their situation, were becoming over-excited. The sight of the cliff frightened and fascinated them. They took it in turns to creep to the edge, look over, and then run back screaming. As they became more confident, they developed the game. They took little runs at the cliff, as if to jump off, stopping short, with a sharp scream, a few yards from the edge.

  When Miller Marish saw what they were doing he was appalled.

  ‘Fin! Jet! Stop that!’

  ‘Why? It’s fun!’

  ‘Because you’ll go over the edge.’

  ‘Who cares? Everything’s blowing up anyway!’

  ‘I care! I don’t want to lose you!’

  ‘Everyone’s going to lose everyone. Look!’

  The little girl pointed to the sky. The smoke plumes were rising in the west, and shoots of bright flame fringed the horizon. There was a distant rumble of thunder, and a heaviness in the air. The children were half-intoxicated by the strange sensations, and by waiting for the end.

  Creoth sat with his three cows. No longer able to tell himself stories of the life he would lead in the homeland, he had fallen back on remembering the past.

  ‘You’ll never believe this, Dreamer,’ he told the cow. ‘I used to live in a palace, and eat chocolate buttons. Ah, how I loved those chocolate buttons! And yet, here’s the oddity, I wanted them so much before I popped them into my mouth – so much that I scrabbled, I gobbled – but once they were in my mouth, even as I was eating them, I found I didn’t really want them at all. What do you make of that?’

  The cow swung its head slowly away, to look into the trees.

  ‘Quite right. Foolishness, downright foolishness.’

  Mrs Chirish waddled over to his side.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Here’s a fine to-do.’

  ‘And nothing to be done, eh?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Things don’t stay the same, sir. Events, that’s the thing. They do keep happening. I say we wait for events.’

  In their different ways, they were all waiting for events. Only, for Ira Hath, time was fast running out.

  ‘Is it close?’ Hanno whispered to her.

  He felt the slight pressure of her fingertip. He leaned forward, and very softly kissed her sunken face.

  ‘I won’t hold you, my dear,’ he said. ‘Only your love. I’ll hold your love. And you take mine.’

  She pressed his hand.

  ‘I’ve loved you for half my life,’ he said. ‘The best half.’

  No movement from her finger. She refused to agree.

  ‘Don’t argue with me, woman.’

  A shadow of a smile formed on her face. Then the smile remained, but her eyes closed. Her hand lay still in his.

  ‘Ira?’

  No response. He leaned close to her nostrils, to feel if she was still breathing. Very faintly on his moistened lips he caught the movement of air.

  ‘Pinto,’ he said, looking up. ‘Call the others.’

  ‘No, pa,’ said Pinto, not thinking what she was saying, which sprang unbidden into her mind. ‘She can’t go until –’

  A sudden shiver went through them all. Creoth’s cows jerked their heads upwards. The children froze in their game. The grumblers fell silent, mouths gaping. Sisi looked up, feeling tall and strong and full of certainty. And Pinto said no more, her eyes staring above her –

  Bowman was circling them, high above, finding the precise spot for his descent. He had appeared so fast that to many he had come from nowhere. Now, treading air with his bare feet, he let himself drop gently down to the ground, by the side of his dying mother.

  As he touched her, her eyes o
pened again. She saw him, and smiled.

  ‘My brave birds,’ she murmured.

  Bowman took her from the litter, held her thin body in his arms, and kissed her face.

  ‘You waited for us,’ he whispered to her. ‘You knew we’d come back.’

  She looked on him one last time, and gave him her love, light now and faint, like the wind from a butterfly’s wing. Then her eyes closed for ever.

  At once, in angry exhilaration, still holding her warm in his arms, Bowman kicked up into the air, straight up, higher and higher. When he was as high as he could go he kissed her again, and said goodbye, and let himself cry, up there in the secrecy of the sky.

  Down he came, gently, gently, and gave her back to his father, her lover, her husband. Hanno took her and held her among her people. They were all still and silent, astonished by the two wonders they had witnessed, Bowman’s flying, and Ira Hath’s death.

  Pinto kissed her mother, weeping. Hanno did not weep. He had made himself ready for this moment.

  ‘We who are left behind watch you on your way.’

  He spoke the old words without ever taking his eyes from his dead wife’s face; as if he spoke to her directly, in the certain knowledge that she heard him. As he spoke, the others joined in with quiet voices.

  ‘The long prison of the years unlocks its iron door. Go free now, into the beautiful land.’

  He faltered, and fell silent. The others in respect fell silent too. For a few moments Hanno Hath remained still, his eyes gazing on his dead wife’s face. Then he lifted his head to meet Bowman’s eyes. He did not need to ask the question aloud.

  ‘Soon,’ said Bowman. ‘Very soon.’

  Hanno completed the words, his gaze fixed once more on his wife’s face.

  ‘Forgive us who suffer in this clouded land. Guide us and wait for us, as we wait for you. We will meet again.’ He kissed her. ‘We will meet again.’

  Bowman turned towards the cliff edge, towards the homeland far below. As he turned back, his eyes met Sisi’s, watching him from the back of the crowd of Manth people. Very slightly, he inclined his head to her, and very slightly, she inclined her head in return. It was enough.