Noman (32 page)

She remembered then how she had been unable to go close to the silver fence in the Nom, how she had felt the power streaming towards her and had known it would overwhelm her.

"It did terrify me," she said. "I did feel something."

"You felt the power," said Seeker. "Each of us feels it in our own way. I saw a figure of a man rimmed in dazzling light."

"And there was nothing there?"

"I was there. I saw what I put there. I saw myself. Just as you felt yourself. The terror you felt was real terror, but it was the terror that was already in you."

"It's gone now. Gone with my colors."

"Do you miss your colors?"

"I thought I didn't, but I do. I keep looking at people, expecting to know what they're feeling, and I don't. It's like being blind."

"So you don't know what I'm feeling?"

"Only from what you tell me."

"Well, then. I'll tell you. I've seen my whole life from beginning to end. How would you feel if that was you?"

"I'd hate it. It would feel like my life was over."

"I do hate it. I've done all that I was asked to do. Now I want to go back. I want to be surprised by my own life again."

"Is there a way?"

"Just the one way." He looked up at the cloudless sky. "I'm going to make it rain."

"Rain! But it hasn't rained for months."

"This will be my own rain."

She guessed then what he meant to do.

"No, Seeker! Not that!"

"Just enough to be young again."

"I don't want to have anything to do with it. I won't come with you. I won't watch."

"I'm not going anywhere, Star. It's going to happen right here."

He reached his hands over his head in the Nomana fashion, touching together his two forefingers and pointing them high into the cloudless sky. He looked up between his arms to his touching fingers and beyond. He drew a deep breath, and Morning Star saw his entire body start to tremble. Then he gave a low groan, and every muscle rippled upwards, and out from the tips of his fingers shot a stream of pure energy. It poured out of him up into the high blue sky, and as it streamed, it formed a turbulence in the air that thickened into mist, and then into racing clouds. The strands of cloud spiralled in the sky, and swelled and darkened, and built pile on pile into great towering thunderheads, rolling one above the other. A shadow like twilight fell over the land.

A violent flash split the gloom, followed by a crack of thunder so loud it shook the land beneath their feet. For one long heart-stopping moment all was still. Then the rain fell.

It came down in sheets, as if an ocean had spilled its shores among the clouds. Hard and heavy, hissing through the air, rain hammered the dry summer grass flat to the ground all round where they stood. The rain drenched them to the skin within seconds of beginning to fall.

The lightning flashed again and again, and the thunder boomed, and the rain poured relentlessly from the darkened sky. Seeker spread his arms wide and turned his face to the downpour and began to hum a low steady note. Morning Star found she was humming too, and she too exposed herself to the warm rain. It stung her skin and drove all thoughts from her mind. She began to turn slowly round and round with her arms extended, as they had danced in the Joyous. She saw Seeker spinning in the same way and heard him humming that low sound. The rain slicked her hair to her head and her clothes to her body so that she felt stripped bare, but she didn't care. The storm embraced her; she had no choice but to be drenched and deafened and blinded, and as the rain stripped her, so she let go of the little she had left and felt her hopes and fears stream away into the seething ground.

Seeker was crying out now in pain, his eyes closed, his mouth gaping. He was spinning in the rain, tormented by the storm. His cries were drowned by the downpour, his pain blanketed by rain. He had made the storm and now it was unmaking him.

The rain that cleansed him and stripped him took away even the pain at last. He was turning more slowly now. The storm was passing. The cloud mountains were breaking up. A lone ray of sunlight fell across the land, striking a clump of trees on the far hills, and the water-charged leaves sparkled and shone in the distance.

Morning Star lowered her arms and pushed the sodden hair from her eyes. The rain swept away like a curtain, and warm sunlight fell all round. The soaked land steamed. She looked at Seeker to see how he had changed, and cried out loud in her surprise.

All round him shimmered a faint blue glow.

Her colors had returned.

He saw her gazing at him and smiled at her.

"I'm not so different, am I?"

"I'm not sure," she said.

"It's done. It's over. I've no more power than you now."

"But you've not forgotten everything you ever knew?"

"No. I remember everything."

"Who am I?"

"You're Morning Star."

"What do you know about me?"

"You're my friend."

"Of course I am."

"And there's something else. But I seem to have forgotten what."

He gazed at her, wrinkling his brow, puzzled by the fading memory. He saw the blue flower she still held in one hand, now drenched and drooping. He turned to look back at the white house, as if seeking the answer there. Then his features smoothed into one of his rueful smiles.

"There. Whatever it was, it's gone."

But his colors were changing as he looked at her. She could read every shade of his feelings. What had begun as the pale blue of youthful hope was turning a deep soft red. Morning Star saw it and knew what it meant.

"One day I'd like to come back here," she said. "I'd like to live in this house."

"Me, too."

"We could live in it together."

"We will," said Seeker. Then, wondering why he had said such a thing: "That is, I mean, I'd like to."

"When we're older."

"Yes. That's what I meant."

He was looking at her so sweetly, his anxious eyes ready to turn away at the smallest rejection.

"You think we'll be together when we're older?" he said.

"Yes," said Morning Star. "I do think so."

It was easy for her to speak this way, because she knew what Seeker was feeling.

"I do love you, Seeker," she said.

"Do you?"

He sounded stupid with surprise.

"Yes, I do."

"But—that's all I want," he said.

"I know."

Morning Star bowed her head. A slow warmth was stealing through her body. This was more than joy. It was rightness. It was the life in all things being rightly lived.

"You really truly mean it?" he asked her, still not daring to believe it could be so.

"Yes. Really truly."

"Then that's just—enough."

She looked up. The happiness was growing with every passing moment. It dazzled her and flooded her.

Seeker was beaming at her like a fool. He took her in his arms and held her close and still, cheek to rain-soaked cheek. Words formed in his mind, words from long ago or from some time yet to come; words that he did not speak aloud, because there was no longer any need.

My one and only love.

T
HE
W
ILDMAN RODE DOWN THE RIVER PATH, HIS
golden hair streaming, urging his Caspian to ever greater speed.

"Go, Sky, go!"

He was racing Caressa on Malook. He could hear her close behind him, but he did not look back. The Wildman had become a fine rider, but he knew Malook was the stronger horse.

"Go, Sky! Don't let me lose!"

"Hey, Malook! Hey, hey!" cried Caressa, almost in his ear.

They reached the reed beds neck and neck. Lacking a clear finishing post both reached their hands in the air to claim victory.

"Mine!"

"Mine!"

"Not a fair start," complained Caressa, panting. "You took off first."

"Never said it was fair," retorted the Wildman. "Just said I won."

"Cheat!"

"Loser!"

The hard fast ride had done wonders for their spirits. Both were glowing with exhilaration. For all their insults they were grinning at each other like monkeys.

"Good to get away," said the Wildman.

"Heya!" cried Caressa, realizing for the first time that they were alone. "Let's never go back!"

"Know where we are, Princess?"

"Don't know. Don't need to know."

"We're in the reeds."

"What's in the reeds that I should care?"

"Jump down. I'll show you."

They dismounted, and leaving their Caspians to graze untethered, they pushed their way into the tall clicking reeds.

"Water ahead," said the Wildman. "You mind getting your legs wet?"

"You mind getting your face smacked?"

Shortly they were wading through knee-deep river water. A shape loomed before them. The Wildman strode on between the reeds and struck the high timber sides softly with his hands.

"She's still here," he said. "Waiting for me."

It was the
Lazy Lady,
the riverboat that had carried him on so many raids in the old days.

"I remember this!" exclaimed Caressa. "This is your pirate boat!"

The Wildman hauled himself up onto the deck, and Caressa followed. A litter of dead leaves lay over the pale boards, and birds had nested in the rigging, but to the Wildman's eyes she was all she had ever been.

"She's good," he said. "She'd slip away as sweetly as ever if I let her off the leash."

Caressa stood in the prow and looked through the screen of reeds to the open river.

"You getting itchy feet, Wildman?"

"You know me, Princess."

She returned to him and punched his right shoulder with the heel of one hand. Then she punched his left shoulder.

"What's that for?"

"So you don't forget. You don't go anywhere without me."

"Maybe you don't want to go."

"Maybe I do."

They looked at each other and saw there the same sudden longing. Then, at the same time, they both burst into laughter.

"What about the Jahan of Jahans?"

"Do I have to tell you?"

"Whoa, Princess! You bored with it already?"

"How's it feel being the spiker warlord, pretty boy?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said the Wildman. "Winning is good. Coming out on top of everyone else is good."

"You never came out on top of me."

"But after, when the winning's done, that's when I start to itch."

"Why's that?"

"Don't ask me, Princess. I know what I feel. I don't need to know why."

"I'll tell you why." She shook back her long black hair and touched his golden cheek with the fingers of one hand. "Because you're young."

"Could be."

"And me, I'm young, too. Too young for tomorrow to be the same as today."

"That's right, Princess."

"I still want to go places I've never been. I still want to do things I've never done. I want to live free as long as I can. There'll be time enough for settling down later. But when that day comes, I want to be sure to have some memories to light my fire."

The Wildman gazed on her with admiration.

"You just said it all, Princess."

When Seeker and Morning Star reached the city of Radiance, the streets were empty. It was like Radiance in the old days of the priests. They turned into the street that led to the temple square. At the far end they saw a crowd of people. The crowd was strangely silent.

"What are they doing?"

"Waiting for something." Morning Star could read their colors, even at this distance. "They're excited."

The closer they got, the bigger they saw the crowd to be. As they entered the square itself, they found they were faced by a tight-packed throng that filled the arcaded space to overflowing. And all of them, men, women, and children, were gazing towards them in utter silence.

A fanfare sounded: three rising notes from a horn. At once a great cheer burst forth. The people smiled and waved and cheered, moving back as they did so, opening up a broad path that ran across the square to the lakeside. Seeker and Morning Star blushed the same red at the same time.

"It's for us!"

They set off across the square, down a path strewn with fresh flowers, nodding and smiling for the cheering people as they went. At the far end, side by side on two raised chairs, sat Caressa and the Wildman. Behind them, standing on two barges rocking gently on the calm waters of the lake, a chorus of men and women dressed in white robes broke into song.

"
Our saviour! Our saviour!
Our thanks we gladly give!
Return to us! Return to us!
Through you alone we live!
"

It was the old choir of Radiance. Seeker and Morning Star recognized the song. Just as before, a high soprano voice now rang out above the rest.

"Receive our tribu-u-ute!"

Morning Star whispered to Seeker.

"They don't know any other tunes."

The cheering now broke out again as they came to a stop at the platform. Caressa greeted them with a grin.

"How's this for a party?"

The Wildman jumped up and cried to the crowd.

"Let's feast!"

Bands of men came streaming out of the arcades carrying tables and lanterns, and within a short time, as the light faded in the sky, the square was transformed into an open-air dining hall. A large fire was laid and lit. Cooks came filing into the square with pots of stew and baskets of cornbread. Flagons of wine were lined up on every table. Musicians took the place of the choir on the barges. As music played over the lake, the people settled down to party.

Seeker and Morning Star, the guests of honor, were seated at the raised table with the Wildman and Caressa. Here too came Seeker's mother and father, and Morning Star's mother and father. Sabin Jahan was at the high table, as was Shab, to Morning Star's amusement. His old resentments seemed to have melted away, and he was in excellent humor.

"That Joy Boy talked a lot of sense," he confided to Morning Star. "No fun being miserable. So now I just laugh."

And laugh he did, at everything.

Three small figures emerged from the milling crowd, their faces greasy with food.