Jango (6 page)

"Wildman never told me," she said. He caught the slight tremor in her voice.

"But you saw his colors. You knew."

"I wish I didn't know."

"You have a great gift, Star."

"Do you think so? Most times I'd rather not know."

"I like your knowing," said Seeker. "I like not having to explain."

She looked at him closely then, and it seemed to him that she guessed.

"But knowing isn't enough, is it? I can't make the emptiness go away."

"No. But at least there's someone who knows what I'm feeling."

"You're lucky. I wish—"

He understood what she couldn't bring herself to say.

"You wish there were someone like that for you."

She nodded.

"There're so many things inside me I can't say."

"Yes, you can. You can say them to me."

But she shook her head.

"I can't. It's not that I don't trust you. You're my best friend in all the world. It's just that I'm ashamed."

"You? What have you got to be ashamed about?"

He looked so surprised, it made her laugh.

"There!" she said. "I knew it. You think I'm all pink and good and uncomplicated. But I'm not."

"What are you?"

"I'm dark and wicked and mysterious."

Then Seeker laughed too, because it was so absurd to think of her that way; and so they left the dormitory to join the others.

The meeting in the Chapter House lasted longer than expected, and twilight shadows were gathering when at last the members of the Community emerged. Miriander came to the waiting novices and told them there had been a division of opinion within the council.

"Some say we should help the villagers against this new warlord and his army. Others say our Rule forbids us to fight battles and win wars. We were not given our powers to rule the land."

"But the Noble Warriors can't refuse to help," said Morning Star.

"We do what we can," said Miriander. "We can't do everything. That we owe to the wisdom of Noman. Our powers have limits."

"All except for Noman," said Seeker. He didn't know why he said it, or how he knew it. It just came out.

Miriander stared at him.

"Yes," she said. "Noman alone came to possess power without limits. That is why he left us. He knew that unlimited power is a terrible thing."

Blaze now entered the courtyard of the novitiate, accompanied by a second Noma, called Arden.

"I've come to say good-bye," he said to Seeker. He embraced him. "We're off to meet this mighty warlord who calls himself the Great Jahan."

"What! Just the two of you?"

"Two's enough to do what's needed."

"Why not all the Noble Warriors? Why not drive the invaders back where they came from?"

Blaze laughed.

"That would be war," he said. "The Noble Warriors don't fight wars."

"Are we afraid of losing?"

"No," said Miriander. "We're afraid of winning."

Blaze and Arden left the Nom by the Pilgrim Gate. The crowd waiting outside raised a cheer. The novices heard that cheer with pride. The frightened villagers had perfect faith in the Noble Warriors. They believed that as few as two had the power to save them from destruction.

***

Miriander now addressed the novices.

"You have shared our memories. You have been admitted to our Community, past and present. You have felt our strength. Now you must be taught to accept that strength and make it your own. For that, all your present supports and comforts must be stripped away."

Seeker listened with the others, expecting with each passing moment that the teacher's eye would fall on him and that he would be asked to stand apart from the rest. But this did not happen.

"You will go now to the cell assigned to you and remain there entirely alone until the training is complete."

"How long is the training?" asked Felice.

"It's different for everyone. A day and a night, at the very least."

"A day and a night!" said Jobal. "Are we to be fed?"

"Yes," said Miriander with a smile. "There'll be food."

Morning Star said, "What will happen to the Wild-man?"

"That is for the Elder to decide. He has not yet been told of the incident. There have been more pressing matters to consider."

Seeker felt a mixture of relief and dread. So he was to go on with the training—but for how long?

"The meeks will lead you to your assigned cells."

The room was just wide enough for a plank bed, an upright chair, and a small table. The bed was made up with a blanket. Beneath it stood a bucket. There were no windows. The sloping roof above contained a single pane of glass, through which fell such light as remained in the darkening sky. On the table there was a candle, unlit, and beside it a basin, a jug, and a half-full glass of water.

There was nothing else.

Seeker lay on the hard bed and watched night come through the glass above. He saw some of the brighter stars appear, and then disappear again as clouds spread across the sky. After that he could see nothing.

Pictures, sounds, memories floated through his mind. He thought of the faint trembling image in the stippled air of the Night Court, the one glimpse he had had of Noman, his sword raised over his head, and the strange feeling that had come with it of familiarity. But Noman had lived and died generations ago.

He realized then that this memory, if it was a memory, came not from outside himself, but from deep within. He was not simply learning about the great founder of the Noble Warriors. He was following in his footsteps. He was embarked on the same journey.

My life is an experiment in search of the truth.

The warlord had gone into the Garden to seek the Lost Child and had come out changed utterly. Of course he was changed utterly: he had come face-to-face with the All and Only. He had seen the Clear Light. He had known the Reason and the Goal.

One day, Seeker told himself, whatever decision the Elder reached, he too would come to the end of his own journey, and he too would go into the Garden.

***

Morning Star lay on her narrow plank bed in the darkness, and she too was filled with thoughts of the day now ending. But where Seeker had found his way to a defiant conclusion, she was caught in unending turmoil. All she could see in her mind's eye was the sleeping face of the Wild-man, and all she could feel was the longing within her to lie down with him and fold him in her arms, and kiss him, and keep him by her forever.

Why this passion had come upon her, she did not know. It had caught her entirely by surprise. Always until now she had thought of the Wildman as amusing but stupid, like a cock pheasant. Now none of that mattered. His beauty alone was enough. His beauty made him fine and good, even though she knew him to be vain and selfish. She could only conclude that this groundless passion was yet another proof of her base nature. She was unable to look into the Garden for fear of drowning in her own confusions. And she had fallen in love with an unsuitable boy, solely because he was beautiful.

Morning Star despaired of herself. This next phase of her training would surely find her out as an unworthy candidate. Then she would be expelled, as the rebellious Wild-man would be expelled. First they would both be cleansed. Then, their minds as empty as babies, they would go out into the world and start their lives all over again, together.

To her shame, Morning Star found that she was smiling to herself at the thought.

A
LL THAT DAY, THE LONG LINES OF RIDERS CAME STREAM
ing out of the trees. They pitched their low dome-shaped tents in open farmland by the banks of a river, seized and killed all the cows, pigs, and chickens they could find, and lit fires. Their horses, set free to roam as they willed, formed into herds several hundred strong and grazed up and down the water meadows. By nightfall the tents and the campfires covered the land as far as the eye could see.

For Echo Kittle, everything in this new life was strange and frightening: the swarthy male faces that stared at her from all sides, the taste of the mare's milk she was given to drink, the stinging smoke of the campfires. Only the Caspian horse called Kell seemed to her to be a gentler creature, and a friend.

She hugged Kell's neck and pressed her cheek to his soft breathy nose and talked to him.

"You're not cruel, are you? You're beautiful and kind."

Kell nodded his head at this and looked at her in what she took to be a friendly way. This made Echo a little less lonely and afraid.

The Jahan set her a place before his own fire, to eat beside his sons, and for the night, he assigned her a tent of her own. He treated her with respect, which meant that his sons and his officers respected her, but he did not attempt to converse with her. Having forced her to accompany him, he seemed to want little more to do with her.

His three sons had evidently been told their father's plan that she was to be married to one of them, and when they got the opportunity, they stared at her with their dull shifty eyes. However, for the most part, they kept away from her, and she was glad of this. All three were as ugly as their father, but lacking his dynamic power and his outrageous swagger, they held no distinction for Echo. She could barely tell them apart. Sasha, the eldest, was the most self-important of the three. Alva, the second son, was the tallest. Sabin, the third son, was the only one she ever saw smile. On the whole, they were a miserable trio, always to be seen together but always bickering. It never occurred to Echo for one second that she would truly have to marry one of them, so she didn't trouble to ask herself which one she preferred.

That evening, in the flicker of the great campfire, she listened to their talk and tried to comprehend what sort of people they were. In some ways they were like her father and his friends, whom she had heard drinking and laughing and showing off to one another often enough. But Glimmeners had no desire to leave their treetop homes and make war on strangers. Did these Orlans not have homes of their own?

From time to time they would leap to their feet and hold their drinking mugs high and shout out a toast. These toasts were all about war.

"To the battle charge!"

"Blood and ashes!"

"To the conquest of the world!"

Why did they want to conquer the world? The army of the Orlans was so huge that it seemed to Echo nothing could stand against them. No doubt they would conquer the world. Then what would they do with it when they'd got it?

As for herself, she thought only of when and how she could run away. She didn't believe the Jahan would carry out his threat to burn the Glimmen. The great forest was behind him now, and his eyes were set on the imperial city of Radiance ahead. He wouldn't turn his whole army back on itself just to spite her.

She was not tethered, and as far as she could tell, she was not watched. The decision was not so hard: she would run away in the night. It would be a long walk to the forest, but she reckoned she would be back in the familiar world of trees by sunrise. Once high up in the slender branches, she knew they would never catch her.

She lay in her bedroll that night and waited until all round her the camp was silent. Then she rose and crept noiselessly out of the tent. Before her stretched the giant camp, its tents reaching into the distance, its fires burning low. Here and there bands of Orlans were still up, laughing softly and telling tales into the night.

She made her way slowly, not wanting to seem to be in flight, passing from campfire to campfire. The encampment was larger than she had realized. By the time she reached the last of the tents, the night was so dark she could not see her way beyond the pools of firelight. Then in the darkness ahead, she heard the low snuffling noise of a group of Caspians. She walked on in darkness until her outstretched hand touched the horses, and they gathered round her and pushed at her gently with their soft noses.

She stroked their hot smooth coats and ran her fingers through their straggly manes. She pressed her face against their necks and blew softly at them as they blew at her. She sensed in them just the same nervous energy that she felt in herself, and just the same untamed spirit. The Orlans rode them, but they did not rule them.

Echo longed to learn to ride herself. The Jahan had promised he would teach her. But he was cruel, and she hated him.

She looked ahead into the darkness and hesitated. She turned and looked back at the thousand twinkling lights of the great camp. The horses began to make their way towards the river, brushing past her as they went. Now she could make out their shapes outlined in the firelight, merging and separating as they went, picking their way with delicate hooves over the thistled ground.

Would he burn the Glimmen?

Suddenly she felt unsure. The Jahan was proud. What if he saw it as a matter of honor? It would not take so many men to set the fires. He need not turn his entire army back.

It came to her then with a terrible clarity that she could not run away. She longed to go back to her own familiar world, but she could not draw down on everyone she loved the threatened destruction. She saw them now in her mind's eye—her brother forever competing with her, maddening her with his taunts; her mother, with her clumsy efforts at matchmaking; her father forever planning new and unnecessary extensions to their house in the treetops; even Orvin Chipe's doglike gawping—and sharp tears pricked into her eyes. She had not known how much she loved them until she was taken from them. But this she knew: she would not let them come to harm on her account. She was not worth it.

A picture sprang into her mind, a memory of her father teaching her how to recognize the unsafe branches.

"Look," he said, snapping the branch, showing her the dry pulp within. "Nothing good left in it."

It was the same with her. There was nothing good left in her. This morning she hadn't known this. But between this morning and now had fallen a bright blade glistening with droplets of rain. That knife had cut her life in two.

With the fingers of her right hand she felt her left little finger, as she did all the time now.