Noman (30 page)

You pursued me for my power. Now receive my power.

One last desperate spasm of resistance lifted Seeker out into the air, and down again into shallow water. Then it was over.

He rose and walked slowly out onto the shore. The mourners fell back, afraid. Seeker turned to greet the Noble Warriors standing on the cliff top. He raised his weary arms in the Nomana salute. Their arms went up in answer.

He spoke to the mourners by the litter. "Take off the canopy."

Frightened hands fumbled to undo the straps. There in the dawn light lay the body of the one they called the Beloved. Seeker bent over the litter and took the dead man in his arms. He held him close and gently fed back into him the life force he had prematurely released. As the mourners looked on, a miracle took place.

First there came a slight twitch of the dead man's fingers. Then his lips parted, and he was heard to utter a sigh. Then his eyes opened. The Joy Boy had come back to life.

He looked at Seeker for a long moment, and those round him, astonished, hardly able to believe their eyes, kept utter silence. Then he spoke.

"Why?"

His voice was faint, thin, fragile as glass.

"Your journey is not yet over," said Seeker.

The Joy Boy raised one trembling hand and touched Seeker on the cheek.

"Must I go all the way?"

"We must both go all the way."

Seeker lowered him gently to the ground. The Joy Boy then parted from Seeker's embrace and stood alone. He turned to the band of mourners. Awed and fearful, they fell to their knees. "Beloved!" they cried.

He smiled at them. He looked across the beach to the boat with the white streamers. "Is the boat ready?" he said.

"Beloved! Don't leave us!"

He shook his head and did not reply. Instead he turned to Seeker. "Promise me you won't let the knowledge die."

"I promise," said Seeker.

The Joy Boy set off alone over the shingle towards the boat. As he went he released his borrowed youth and turned before the eyes of the watchers into an old man. By the time he reached the boat, he was stooped, shrunken, half blind, barely able to stand. There, leaning on the boat's side, he turned back and raised one hand to beckon to Seeker.

Seeker opened his arms wide. Out from where he stood there stepped a second old man, who was Noman. He turned and touched Seeker's cheek as the Joy Boy had done, and on his ancient familiar face Seeker saw the coming of a serene surrender. The old warlord was entering his time of peace at last.

He smiled at Seeker and turned his face towards the seashore.

"Wait for me, brother."

He too then made his slow way to the waiting boat. There the two brothers helped each other to climb in. There they lay down in each other's arms, in their final rest.

Seeker joined his outstretched hands together and streamed his lir towards them. The boat creaked on the shingle, then shuddered and slipped into the water. The wind caught its sail and filled it and drove it out into the open sea.

S
EEKER ENTERED THE LONG HALL WITH ITS CRACKED
mirrors and sat in the empty armchair, as he had done before. In the mirror before him he saw only himself, alone. He watched and he waited and time passed.

He saw the beams of sunlight falling through the long windows swing slowly by, picking out the knots and cracks in the old floorboards. He saw the cobwebs caught in the passing sunlight glow and then fade into the shadows again. He saw his hand on the arm of the chair, and the veins on the back of his hand.

Then at last he heard footsteps approaching, fast and light. Someone entering the house. The one he was waiting for hesitated in the entrance hall and then came on into the long room.

It was Echo Kittle.

She walked between the mirrors to where he sat, her slender form reflected in the broken glass. She came to a stop before him and met his gaze with those wide gray eyes.

"You know what I want," said Echo.

"Yes," he said. "I know."

"Just one last kindness."

She dropped down onto her knees before him.

"It's me who asks you, not the other one. But do it quickly, before she comes back. I can't bear to live like this. Set me free."

"I will," he said. "But not like this."

"She came from you. I kissed you as you slept. I'm well paid for my stolen kiss, don't you think?"

A spasm passed through her as she spoke. It began as a sad smile but then, for a moment, contorted her lovely face into something harder and older.

"I said I was bad inside. Do you remember? Now it's true."

"It's not you that's bad," said Seeker. "It's the one that's inside you."

"We're joined now," said Echo. "She'll never leave me." Tears filled her eyes. "She's told me so. She likes being me."

Her face contorted again, and her voice changed.

"You can't kill me, Seeker."

Now he was hearing the harsh mocking tones he had heard in the Haven, when the savanter had said to him, "You have strength, boy, but no love."

"If you kill me you kill the pretty one. And you don't want that."

Then Echo's true expression and voice returned.

"Do it, Seeker," she said. "Kill us both. Don't leave me like this. End the badness in me."

Seeker gazed at her, so lovely and so afraid. He had a promise to keep. He reached out his hands to take her hands.

"Stand up," he said. "Look at me in the mirror."

Echo did as he asked, turning to his reflection in the broken glass.

"I'm speaking to the other one in you now."

There in the mirror where Echo had stood, in Echo's clothes, weeping Echo's tears, was a shrivelled old woman.

"What do you want with me?" said the savanter.

"What do you want with her?" said Seeker.

"Her youth. Her beauty."

"For what?"

The old woman gave a dry little laugh.

"'For what?' he asks. Do you know what it is to grow old? Do you know what it is to see your own death approaching? I want to live, Seeker. I want to be forever young."

"And then?" said Seeker.

"Then? Then?" The old woman's voice became high and shrill. "There is no then. There's only life!"

"What of your mission?"

"Our mission is life! Noman charged us to seek truth without limits. We are to grow in knowledge forever. We are to challenge the stupid faith of the Noble Warriors."

"What you say is true. All warriors need a worthy enemy. Our swords grow rusty. You are the necessary enemy."

"Ah! You understand at last."

"But now you want to live forever. That was no part of Noman's plan."

"Knowledge has its own life. We have gained so much knowledge. Must it now die with us?"

Seeker considered this in silence for a few moments.

"Tell me your name," he said at last.

"Names come and go. Today I am Echo."

"No, tell me. When you set out on your journey, when everything was still new. You had a name then."

He spoke with an unexpected gentleness. The savanter too softened her tone.

"When everything was still new ... Yes, I remember it. Enjoy it, boy. It doesn't last. Is this a trick to weaken me?"

"No. I too seek the truth."

"I had a name then." She gave her dry laugh. "I was called Hope. We live long enough to see our names mock us."

"Have you no more hope?"

"My dear boy. You have seen what hope I have. I live on through others."

I too live on through others, Seeker thought, and others through me. The power of the Noble Warriors comes from the Community, living and dead, reaching back into the past.

Leave even one alive and it will all begin again.

If the seeds he planted so long ago show that they can renew themselves without him, the farmer will know that he has planted living corn.

"You don't need to fear that I'll kill you," he said.

"Oh, you won't do that," said the savanter. "You'd never kill the pretty one."

"Nor would I kill you. You still have work to do. The savanters, like the Noble Warriors, must be renewed."

"Oh, clever, clever." But the old lady no longer sounded bitter. She sounded interested.

"I won't kill you," he went on, "but your separate existence must come to an end. You must give your life to Echo. She will live on for you. The lord of wisdom will not die. She will be called Echo."

"And why should I do this thing?"

"You have no choice. If you live divided within her, the torment will tear her apart. You know what I say is true. You knew it when you entered her. The old must die for the new to be born."

Now the old lady began to weep her own tears.

"Manny promised us we'd be forever young."

"Manlir is dead. You are the last."

"The things we learned!"

"You're the memory of the savanters, Hope. You're the link in the undying chain. Through you the wisdom passes to the next generation."

"The next generation ... How I've hated them."

"But no more. You don't hate Echo. You love her."

"Why should that be?"

"Because you feel the pulse of her life like a child in your womb. This is your eternal life. There is no other."

The savanter wept as she looked at Seeker from the broken mirror.

"You ask me to let myself die, after all these years."

"You know you want it."

"If only Manny were here. He'd tell me what to do."

"He'd tell you to go further than you've ever gone before. He'd tell you to go all the way. There are no limits to your pursuit of wisdom."

"Oh, clever, clever."

"Choose the surprise."

The old lady's withered cheeks cracked into a smile.

"You're good," she said.

"And I'm right. And you know it. It's gone on long enough."

"Choose the surprise." She chuckled to herself. "Well, well. The girl's in for a surprise of her own."

"Do you need my help?"

"Certainly not." The savanter drew herself up in proud dignity. "I am capable of making my own exit."

With that she raised her bony hands to her withered face and covered it up. She stood like this for a few moments, as if hiding herself from fear or shame. Then she lowered her hands. There was Echo's young and lovely face staring out of the glass at Seeker.

He turned to her to look at Echo directly. She was blinking, unsure what had happened to her.

"How do you feel now?"

"I don't know. Strange. Has she gone?"

"Yes. She's gone."

"But it's not the same. I'm not the same."

"You'll never be the same again. You carry her life within you. Her long past, her memories, her deep knowledge."

"Why? What for?"

"Do you remember how you told me once you'd do something good and strong?"

"Yes."

"This is how it begins."

Echo looked frightened.

"Why me?"

"Because for you there's always more to want. You chose this when you leaned too far out of the tree to touch the first Caspians. You chose this when you followed me out of the Glimmen. You've chosen it with every decision you've ever made."

"So I have."

"Look in the mirror," said Seeker. "What do you see?"

Echo looked. There was her familiar face that others said was beautiful. There, her gray eyes. And in those eyes a new awakening.

There has to be more.

She began to breathe more rapidly, and a shiver ran through her body. She felt she was waking, but not from sleep: this was a waking from childhood; a coming out of a small dark room in which she had understood nothing to a new world of immense and brilliant space. Only the beginning, only the first step. But the adventure lay before her now, the seeking and the finding, the slow mighty building of the edifice of knowledge. She saw then how for all the rest of her life she would grow and multiply and embrace all things.

"You're to be a lord of wisdom, Echo. For you there'll be no limits."

She was stroking the little finger of her left hand. She blushed a little as she saw and remembered. But it felt different now. The badness in her remained, but no longer as a source of shame. She had cared too much for herself, and still did, but not because she was wicked. It was only a rawness in her, and a kind of restlessness that she knew she would never lose. She needed it, this worm of dissatisfaction that gnawed at her core, because this new world had so much to offer, and she did not mean to come to rest.

"Oh, Seeker!" she said, her eyes glowing. "I feel—I don't know what I feel!"

There were no words to express it, this overwhelming sensation of having crested a hilltop to find before her, like a giant landscape in the sun, her life to come, exciting, powerful, and mysterious.

"Go home," he said to her. "Say good-bye to your family and friends. Take nothing but the clothes you wear. And set out and find your life."

"And you?"

"I mean to do the same."

"Will I see you again?"

"I can't tell."

She took his hand in hers and held it.

"I wanted you to love me, Seeker. I wanted you like I wanted Kell: to have for myself. But I can't have you, can I? People can't have people."

"You wanted me to love you," he said. "But you never loved me."

He spoke without accusation in his voice. As she heard it, she knew it was true.

"No, I didn't. How strange."

"You don't love anyone."

"Is that bad?"

"Not everyone is a lover. Not everyone has to be completed by someone else."

"I'll just go on being me."

She had always known it, all her life.

I'm an explorer. I go alone.

"We're only just at the beginning," she said. "We're still young. I wonder when we'll meet again, and how we'll have changed. Imagine being old, and remembering today, and how I held your hand and said to you—"

She stopped, smiling at the absurdity of what she was saying.

"Said what?"

"I haven't said it yet. I was remembering it before the memory had happened."

She let go of his hand.

"You're the finest person I've ever known."