Noman (25 page)

"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.

"I thought the voice came from the Lost Child. It was a child's voice."

"How you hear the voice is up to you."

"But all the other times—"

"We're never far away. But it's better that we go unnoticed. We do the work that makes us invisible."

Seeker now blushed in shame at the memory of every meek he had ever met. He had paid them no attention. He had considered them to be of no account.

"I never knew."

"You didn't need to know. You have your task. We have ours."

"Tell me, Gift, truly. Are you Nomana, too?"

"No. We're meeks. We have a different mission from the Noble Warriors'. Though we all work to the same end."

"What end is that?"

"A kind of healing."

Seeker shook his head, ashamed and amazed.

"I never knew," he said again.

"I think you knew," said Gift. "But you have forgotten. You have more memories than you know."

"How, Gift? Make me understand. Am I older than I know?"

Narrow Path now came out of the hut, his cupped hands brimming with gold coins.

"There are hundreds!" he cried. "More than I can ever count!" Then his face fell. "I shall be robbed!" He turned in sudden anxiety to Gift. "How can we keep our gold from the robbers?
He
may be a robber."

This was directed at Seeker. Narrow Path clutched his gold to his chest as if Seeker might take it from him then and there.

"Throw it in the stream," said Gift. "The robbers will never find it there."

"Throw it in the stream! Of course!"

Narrow Path hurried to the stream bank and began to throw the shining coins, one by one, into the water.

"Go, master," said Gift to Seeker. "Find the True Nom."

Splash! splash!
went the golden coins as they sank down into the water. Gift nodded at Seeker, and Seeker knew that the meek had no more to tell him.

He went on his way.

As he reached the high road, he saw a flock of passing birds and heard their harsh cries. They were seagulls, far inland. Then, deeper than the cries of the birds, he heard the boom at the heart of the land.

My enemy is everywhere. I am no longer the hunter, I am the prey.

So let him find me.

"Here I am!" he cried aloud. "Why do you wait? Here I am!"

I am alive and not alive. I play my part in this long experiment without knowing what it is I do. This is a trial of all men through the trial of one man.

If he loses himself and finds the beauty round him; if he comes face-to-face with the All and Only at last; if he holds me in his arms and I see in his eyes that he has found the truth; then I will have my proof.

M
ORNING
S
TAR RODE IN THE LEAD, ALONE.
B
EHIND HER
rode the Wildman at the head of his army of foot soldiers. They marched along in groups and gaggles, no orderly force, but in high spirits and glad to be on the move. Behind the fighting men trailed their women and children, their beasts and chattels, to form a long dusty train moving across the plains.

Alongside the spikers and keeping pace with them rode Caressa Jahan and her Orlans. Smaller in number than the great spiker army, the Orlans kept to their ranks as they rode, proudly conscious that they were trained warriors. They too looked ahead to Morning Star, who was leading them to a new beginning.

Pico, loping along beside the Wildman, shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun and stared ahead.

"That's the lake," he said.

"We're going to the lake."

"Could be," said the Wildman.

"We're going to Radiance."

"Could be."

"But chief, that's no place for a god. Radiance is a ghost city."

"You afraid of ghosts, Pico?"

The two armies marched into Radiance as the day was ending. At first sight the city seemed to be abandoned. Goats foraged in the gutters, and the doors of the houses hung open on smashed hinges. Roofs stripped of tiles exposed bare rafters. The water in the troughs at the crossings was stagnant and slimy.

Spikers and Orlans alike fell silent as they passed down the looted streets, shocked by the devastation. Here and there a scurry of movement behind broken windows revealed that there were people hiding in the houses, but whoever they were, they stayed out of sight. Wild yellow cats, casting long shadows as they prowled, turned their slit eyes on the newcomers and slunk slowly away.

Morning Star led the armies into the temple square. Here beneath the towering shadow of the temple rock, a marketplace had sprung up, where looters spread out their wares on cloths on the paved ground. The old stalls in the arcades were gone, smashed and burned in the fires that were to be seen everywhere. The dealers who now squatted beneath the arches had pitifully few goods on display: here a row of three drinking glasses, here a string of onions, here a single pair of shoes.

The people in the square fell back as the armies entered, and huddled round the arcades—staring and curious. The Wildman looked up at the high rock and pulled a face.

"Smells of death," he said.

Caressa rode up beside him. She pointed with her silver-handled whip at the temple, with its imposing gates.

"That where the king used to live?"

"Yes," said the Wildman. "The king and the priests."

"Then that'll do for me."

She rode towards the broad steps that led up to the temple gates. The Wildman went after her.

"Not so fast, Princess," he said. "Who says the Orlans get to live in the king's palace?"

"I say."

"And I say this is a spiker city now. And I say spikers rule."

"Not me, boy. No one gives me orders."

"I don't give orders, Princess. I do as I please." Caressa dismounted and climbed the steps, gesturing to her men to follow her.

"Open these gates! Clear a way for the Jahan of Jahans!"

The Wildman too jumped off his horse and strode up the steps, shouting to his chiefs.

"Heya, bravas! Spikers to the top of the rock!"

Morning Star did not go with them. Her eyes had fallen on a small crowd huddled round a fire. There was a trestle table by the fire, on which were lined up many small clay pots. Two men stood at the table, crying their wares. Morning Star recognized them at once. They were Ease and Solace, the tribute traders who had seized her and sold her as a living sacrifice.

"Come with me," she said to the spikers nearest to her. "I'm going to need your help."

She crossed the square and heard the traders' cry.

"Treasured remains!" Ease was calling out, holding up a small clay pot. "Do you have a loved one murdered by the priests? Take home a relic of their sacrifice!"

"Respectfully raised from the lake," said Solace, raking with a fork in the glowing embers of the fire. "Purified by fire."

"The honored ashes of our beloved dead!" cried Ease. "Treasured remains! One gold shilling a jar!"

Morning Star pushed her way through the little crowd.

"Give me one of those," she said.

"Certainly, lady. You have a loved one who fell from the high rock? One shilling, lady."

Morning Star took one of the clay pots from the table, and holding it up for all to see, she let it fall to the ground. The pot shattered, spraying ashes onto the paving stones.

"Desecration!" exclaimed Ease.

"These men sold the living," Morning Star cried. "Now they sell the dead."

"Oh, you wicked woman!"

"Seize them!" said Morning Star to the spikers who had accompanied her. "Tie their hands!"

"For what? Is it a crime to honor the fallen?"

The spikers had the two traders by the arms and now proceeded to bind them with leather straps.

"You don't remember me," said Morning Star, "but I remember you. You tied me up, as you're tied up now, and you sold me to be thrown from the temple rock."

Beckoning the spikers to bring the captives after her, she strode across the square to the temple rock.

"Where are you taking us? What right do you have to do this to us?"

"You'll find out."

"Even if we've done wrong in the past," wheedled Ease, "you wouldn't want to lower yourself to our level, would you?"

Morning Star reached the base of the steps cut into the high rock and began to climb.

"No!" cried Ease. "Not the rock! I won't go up the rock!"

Morning Star stopped and turned to the spikers.

"These men are tribute traders. If they refuse to climb the rock, throw them to the ground and stamp them to death."

"I'm climbing," said Solace. "See, I'm climbing."

Morning Star continued up the steep steps, climbing flight after flight, and the spikers with their captives followed behind. Ease maintained a flow of whining speech all the way.

"Maybe we did make some mistakes in the time of the priests, lady, but if there were deaths, who was to blame for that? We never hurt a soul, not even your good self, your honesty compels you to admit that. Is it our fault if the priests were wicked and deluded? What a blessing it is that no one will ever inflict such cruelties again! Cruelty is a terrible thing, lady, as you know more than most. You know the horror and the wickedness of those monstrous sacrifices."

His words came more slowly as the exertion of the long climb began to take its toll, but he never ceased talking.

"What a blessing it is that power is now in the hands of those who have the most reason to be merciful. You being a lady, good lady, will have a natural tendency towards mercy. I know in my heart that where we were weak, you'll be strong. You'll show all the world what it is to have a noble heart."

As they reached the top of the rock, the spikers asked, "Where do you want them, little mother?"

"By the edge," said Morning Star. "Blindfold them."

"Little mother!" cried Ease. "He called you little mother! A mother doesn't hurt her children!"

"Why are we to be blindfolded?" said Solace, faint with terror.

The spikers tied cloths tightly round the tribute traders' eyes. When they were blindfolded, Morning Star ordered the spikers to walk them across the rock terrace.

"Mercy, little mother!" cried Ease.

"You shall have mercy," said Morning Star. "In my mercy I've blindfolded you. You can't see the drop. But I can see it." She stood on the western lip, where the tributes had been made to stand, and looked down. "It's a long, long way down to the water. You sold me to this death. Did you ever think what it would be like to fall from this rock?"

"Please, lady," said Ease, now sobbing. "Those were different times. We all make mistakes."

"Will your stomach melt as you fall? Will you be able to breathe with the wind whipping in your face?"

"I don't want to die!"

"And when you hit the water, do you die quickly, or do you lie broken in the water and drown?"

"No! No-o!"

Both of them were now convulsed with sobs of terror.

"Hold them by the edge!" ordered Morning Star. "Sacrifice them for all the innocent men and women they've sent to their deaths! Throw them down!"

They screamed as they fell, uttering terrible high-pitched cries of despair. But the edge over which they had been pushed was not the great drop down to the water. They fell no farther than one flight of the rock steps. There they lay, at the bottom of the steps, bruised and moaning.

"You should have made them take the big jump, little mother," said the spikers. "Scum like that don't deserve to live."

"I came close," said Morning Star. "So very close." She shuddered and moved away from the high cliff's edge. "Let them go now."

The shaken tribute traders were released from their bonds. Morning Star watched as they limped down the steps to the square below. Across the lake the sun was now setting, as it had been setting when she stood here a year ago, surrounded by the pomp and ritual of the court of Radiance.

***

Caressa and her men now emerged by the internal stairs onto the open terrace, followed by the Wildman and his spiker chiefs. They were still quarrelling.

"This is where I'll stand and greet my people," Caressa said. She went to the terrace wall and waved to the crowd in the square below. A cheer went up from the Orlans. "Jahan! Jahan!"