Jango (2 page)

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 the 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.

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 ablaze 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.