Jango (32 page)

He stooped down and turned the wheel on the cylinder as far as it would go. The humming stopped.

Then, moving rapidly, he went back to the perimeter of the circle, to the first scaffold, and pulled the needle out of the victim's neck. He untied the straps, holding the man's limbs, and helped him to fall to his feet. He wiped the thick ooze from his face and pulled his white robes down over his shivering legs.

"There," he said. "You're free now. Leave this place."

The rescued victim stumbled and uttered a dismal groan. Seeker moved on to the next, and the next.

The one he had released first called after him through the mist.

"Please, sir, is this eternal life?"

"No," said Seeker. "You have to go home now."

"But we were promised eternal life."

"You were tricked. You nearly died."

They came limping after him, hands reached out to clutch him.

"You took us down too soon. We were on our way. Why did you bring us back?"

The scratchy querulous voices sounded all round him, tugging at him, as he hurried from frame to frame to set the victims free.

"We never asked you to do this. You should have left us alone. Where's Mother? I want to be put to bed. I want my good-night kiss."

They tried to take hold of him, but they were so weak that one impatient gesture was enough to send them tumbling to the ground.

"I've saved you from dying."

"No, no. We were the chosen ones. We'd been kissed good night. We were on our way to eternal life. You've woken us up. You've robbed us of eternal life. You've condemned us to death."

As this sank into their fuddled brains, they set up a thin melancholy wailing.

"We're going to die! You've killed us! Murderer!"

Seeker struggled to control his anger.

"Go home," he said. "Just go home."

"Murderer! Who are you? Why do you hate us? What have we ever done to you?"

It was hopeless. He had done what he could for them and must now leave them to go their own way. They began to drift off into the cloud, grumbling and lamenting as they went. He himself returned to the center of the circle.

He found the old man awake, sitting erect in the low chair, and peering at his reflection in a small hand mirror.

"I think there is a difference," he was murmuring to himself. "The sagging under the chin is reduced a little. And the skin round the eyes—yes, I feel a little plumpness returning there."

He became aware that Seeker was standing before him.

"Something has gone wrong," he said sharply. "The process has been interrupted."

"Yes," said Seeker. "That was me."

"It's very slow. Frustratingly slow. We need more. However—"

His eyes returned to the mirror, irresistibly drawn to the reflection of his own face.

"I do see a change in the right direction. And I do feel quite refreshed. But the wrinkles are by no means gone."

He fingered the skin round his mouth, alternately frowning into the mirror and smoothing out his features.

"I used to have a beautiful mouth," he said. "Everyone said so. An expressive mouth. Masculine, and yet also full. In a word, plump." He puckered his withered lips at the mirror. "It's the plumpness one misses."

He turned his attention back to Seeker.

"Did you say it was you who turned off the supply?"

"Yes."

"That was wrong of you. I wasn't finished. In fact, I'd only recently started, now that I remember. Why couldn't you have turned off Manny's supply?"

"Manny?"

"Manny. He's over there."

He gestured vaguely behind him.

"He'd very nearly finished. He was ready to go. Did Manny tell you to turn off my supply?"

"No."

The old man wrinkled his already wrinkly brows and glowered at Seeker, his anger slowly rising to the surface.

"Then you're a wicked interfering boy. You've done a very bad thing. I'm going to have to punish you."

He fixed his aged eyes on Seeker, and they burned with a sudden intense glow. Then, like the lash of a whip, came the bolt of deadly power. But Seeker was ready. He felt the savanter's strength flow into him. He gazed back unmoved. The savanter's eyes blazed again. Seeker breathed in slowly and saw the savanter blink in surprise.

"You wicked, wicked boy!" said the savanter in a peevish voice.

At that, Seeker unleashed a rolling wave of power of his own that smashed the savanter down into his reclining chair, crushing the chair beneath him, and sending both skidding backwards into the cloud. Enraged, he followed after him, ready to strike again, but there was no need. The savanter was spread out like a starfish, his head snapped back, dead.

Once again there came a rush of heat through Seeker's body that left his skin tingling. He wanted to shout, to let out a victor's cry, a killer's cry. Restless, excited, he began to dance from foot to foot. He was light as the curling mist, and also massive, immense, overpowering.

Show me who I must kill. I will crush them. One touch of one finger and their hearts will burst.

Four savanters dead. Three to go.

He set off into the dense white mist, striding fast, moving ever farther from the entrance to the cave. Somewhere ahead he thought he caught a glimpse of a figure, and he started to run. He ran easily, covering the ground swiftly, driven by his new strength. He saw the figure ahead once more, only now it seemed to have come to a stop and to be standing still. As he came up to it, he realized it was another of the slanting scaffolds, and on it was strapped another victim. To the left and to the right he could make out the ring of scaffolds vanishing into the mist. No time to release the victims. He ran on, into the center of the circle.

There was the chair. There was the savanter, asleep, like the last one. No foolish chatter this time. Kill and get it over with. Kill and grow stronger. Kill and enjoy.

He strode to the savanter's side. The sleeping figure was a woman. Her face was averted. But as he came up to her, she turned and looked at him with anguish in her tear-streaked face.

It was his mother.

"My son!" she cried out. "Help me!"

Not the false motherly face that had bent over him to give him a good-night kiss. His actual beloved one-and-only mother.

"Mama! Why are you here?"

"Take me away! Take me away!"

She reached up her arms, weeping. Seeker leaned low over her and let her clasp her arms round his neck, and he
swung her up out of the chair. She felt so light. She clung so tight.

"I've got you, Mama. You're safe now."

She gripped her arms tighter still and pressed her face to his shoulder.

"You can let go now, Mama."

But instead she squeezed her arms round his neck ever more fiercely, so that it began to hurt him. He tried to pull her away, but in her terror, her grip had locked rigid. He started to choke.

"Mama!" he gasped. "You're throttling me!"

He pulled at her body and twisted every way he could, but her grip tightened further. This was more than terror. His own mother was strangling him. His own mother wanted him to die. If he was to save his life, he must fight back. He must strike at the head that pressed against him. The head that had looked at him with his mother's face.

He was choking. He couldn't breathe.

He reached for the woman's neck, gripped the back of her neck with the fingers of his right hand. He had the power. He could snap this neck if he chose. Snap his mother's neck.

He closed his eyes.

This is not my mother. I am not killing my mother. I am killing a savanter.

He gave a brutal twist of his right hand, jerking back the woman's head. He felt the snap of bone. The choking grip fell away. The woman slumped in his arms. Gasping for air, he stood holding her for a moment longer. Then he lowered her to the ground.

There before him was the bony wrinkled face of a very old woman. Her eyes were closed. She no longer looked like his mother. She was dead.

The fifth savanter.

Now, for the first time, he felt tired. This last killing had not brought in its wake the rush of joy. But it had made him stronger.

Let it be done. Let it be over with. Two more to go.

On into the cloud.

Now as he walked, the light became brighter and the cloud became whiter. It was not a pleasant sensation. His eyes were tired. He blinked to rest them from the intensifying glare. Then he closed them entirely, for seconds at a time, without slowing his steady onward tread. What did it matter, after all, if he walked without seeing his way? His way would find him. It made no difference where he went.

Then he thought he heard a sound behind him. He turned, opening his eyes. It was the cry of seagulls, far away, thin and high and already disappearing. But even as the sounds faded, his weary eyes were making out a form in the mist. He stopped and peered back, trying to distinguish the faint shape that seemed to hang in the surrounding whiteness. When he gazed directly at it, it melted away. When he looked aside, he thought he could detect it out of the corners of his eyes.

He moved towards the shape. It moved away. With that movement, he saw that it was the figure of a man.

He stepped back. The shape moved nearer.

"Who are you?" called Seeker into the mist. "Are you Manny?"

No answer. His own words sank like stones.

He raised one arm, meaning to beckon to his follower, and as he did so he caught an answering movement in the mist. It was almost too faint to detect, but it was enough for him to guess at what he was seeing. He raised both his arms. He saw his follower do the same.

My shadow.

He laughed. The light in the cloud pool was so dispersed that it had never occurred to him he could cast a shadow. But a moment's thought revealed that the light must come from the sun, far above, and so would come from one direction only. A shadow was inevitable. The mist was sufficiently dense to form a surface on which the shadow could be seen. There was no mystery here after all.

This unseen sun, he thought, could give him a direction. So long as he kept his shadow behind him, he would be walking towards the light. At least this way he could be sure he wasn't walking round in circles.

On he strode, and as he went, the light continued to grow imperceptibly brighter. From time to time he looked back at his shadow. As the light strengthened, the shadow took on more detail. It struck him then that there was something odd about his shadow, so he stopped once more to study it.

He stood still, his arms by his sides. There was his shadow, faint in the whiteness before him, as motionless as he was. Nothing odd in that.

Once more he heard the distant cry of seagulls. He
shuddered. It was cold in the cloud pool. He should keep moving.

But just as he turned away from his shadow, he caught a movement that should not have been possible. He turned back. The figure before him had raised its right hand, to reveal that it was holding the shadow of a long thin rod. The shadow's right arm rose slowly, and the rod swung round to come to rest in a horizontal line above its head.

This is not my shadow.

For the first time since entering the cloud pool he felt a chill of fear.

"Who are you?" he said.

The shadow stood before him like a warrior readying himself for the strike. Slowly Seeker raised his own arm, to match the shadow's stance, even though he had no weapon.

I've seen this before.

Then he remembered. He was sitting on the floor of the Night Court in the Nom, listening to his teacher Miriander speaking of the great warlord Noman. And Seeker was seeing the memory of Noman in the darkness above, his sword raised over his head in just this manner, going forward alone into the Garden.

"Noman?"

The shadow made no answer. But slowly, his arm came down once more. Seeker found himself lowering his own arm, as if he were the shadow's shadow. The fear had not left him. If anything, it had grown.

He moved a step back, and the shadow moved with him. He moved a step forward, and the shadow retreated. He walked away, and the shadow followed.

Seized by panic, he turned and ran. He ran through the cloud until he could run no more. He came to a stop at last, breathless and panting, and only then did he look back. There was his shadow, bent over just as he was, clasping his knees.

He straightened up, and his shadow did likewise. He waited, not moving. His shadow waited before him.

"Please," he said. "What do you want of me?"

The shadow then raised one hand and beckoned, motioning back the way he had come.

"You want me to go back?"

Seeker felt himself break into a sweat. He heard the crying of the seagulls, only this time the birds were far closer. He looked up, expecting to see their outspread wings passing overhead, but there was only the omnipresent whiteness. He felt his own heart beating, too loud, too fast. He was exhausted and frightened and lost.

"Please—"

A song came into his head from nowhere. It came complete with a jaunty little tune, as if he had known it all his life; but it was entirely new to him. He started to sing.

"
Jango up, jango down
Jango smile, jango frown
Weep your tears, say your prayers
No man hears, no man cares
Seek a, seek a, seek a door
Open wide for evermore.
"

He sang it again, more loudly. Then he sang it a third time, shouting it out as loud as he could.

When he fell silent at last, he heard only silence all round him. The gulls were gone. And so was his shadow.

He shivered. Wind on his back.

He turned his face to the wind. It came from far away, but it tugged at him, calling him home. He heard laughter in the mist, thin and high and mocking and triumphant.

He started to run, running back the way he had come, running at a speed he had never known possible.

The Nom was in mortal danger.

T
HE
E
LDER LET OUT A SIGH.
S
LOWLY HE RAISED ONE
hand above his hooded head. The Noble Warriors, standing four deep on either side, fixed their gaze on the army of the Orlans arrayed before them, and their power gathered in the air like a thundercloud. The Elder dropped his hand. The line of Noble Warriors rippled from end to end. The storm broke.