Seeker (3 page)

Seeker said nothing. He hated standing before his father like this. It was no use, for either of them. He just wanted it to be over.

"Did you want to get a low mark?"

Seeker gave a very small nod.

"Why? To be more like the others?"

That was a surprise. Seeker hadn't expected his father to understand any part of his feelings.

He nodded again.

"I thought as much."

His father lowered himself onto one of the hall benches and gestured to Seeker to do the same.

"Now tell me truthfully. Are you being bullied?"

"No..."

"Do they say unkind things to you?"

"Not exactly."

"What do they say?"

"That I'm cleverer than them."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"You are cleverer than them. You do realize that?"

"I don't want to be."

"You want to be the same as them?"

Seeker didn't speak.

"Very well. I think I understand now."

He stood up and pressed the palms of his hands together and gazed into the far distance. This was what he always did before making a speech. Seeker hated it when he made speeches.

"I do not propose to punish you," he said. "What you have done is a deliberate act of disobedience. But I don't want obedience alone. I want understanding. You're not the same as the others in your class, Seeker. Any more than I was the same as the others in my class when I was in this school. You have a first-rate brain. Just as I have."

He went over to the honors board and tapped it where his own name was painted in gold letters, as the top scholar of his year.

"One day your name will be written here, as my name is written. One day, or so I dare to hope, you will hold the position I occupy now. One day you will be the headmaster of this highly respected institution. That is why I will not allow the record to show that your test results ever failed to reach the highest levels. You and I, Seeker, do not fail. We have exceptional natural ability. We work hard. We are therefore the best. This desire you have, to be the same as the others, is a denial of your true self. You are not the same as the others. You are superior to them. That, I promise you, will bring its own reward."

"I just want to be—"

"What's that you say? Open your mouth when you speak. I can't hear a word you're saying."

Seeker knew he was mumbling. Whenever he tried to tell his father something important, he mumbled.

"I want to be—I want to join—the Nom."

"The Nom? What are you talking about? Do you mean you want to be a Noma, like Blaze?"

Seeker nodded.

"But you're not like Blaze. My dear boy, it's no use wanting to be something you're not. That's what dreamers do. Dreamers never get anywhere. And anyway, you would never be selected, even if you were to apply."

Seeker wanted to say, How do you know? But there was no point.

"You have different talents." Now his father was speaking more gently. "Fine talents. Talents I'm proud to claim as my own. Blaze will fight for justice. But you will seek after truth. What could be a nobler mission in life than that?"

Your mission, not mine, thought Seeker. Your name for me, not mine. But still he said nothing.

"Today is your birthday. Your sixteenth birthday. A suitable day, I think, to reflect on your coming responsibilities as an adult. I'm glad we've had this little talk."

There came a tap at the door. It was the school meek, a sweet old man called Gift.

"Visitor to see you, Headmaster."

"Just coming."

He turned back to Seeker and extended a hand for his son to shake.

"So we'll put this little incident behind us, shall we? No need to tell your mother. It shall be as if it never happened."

"Yes, Father."

His father dropped the torn scraps of paper into the wastepaper basket. They fluttered from his hand like falling blossom. Seeker's rebellion was at an end.

Outside, a silent Noma was waiting.

S
LOWLY, MISERABLY
, S
EEKER CLIMBED THE TWO HUN
dred and twelve steps from the school to the summit of the island. At each turn in the steep flights of steps he paused and looked down the terraces to the little port at the bottom, and the surrounding sea; then he looked up to the high walls and domes of the great castle-monastery, at the heart of which lived the one god with the many names: the Wise Father, the Loving Mother, the Lost Child, the Quiet Watcher, the All and Only. Seeker felt sick in his heart, a sickness deeper than hunger, deeper than tiredness. It was as if all color had gone out of the world, and all smell, and all taste, and the very air he breathed had turned stale. He felt as if he were already old, and his life had passed him by without surprise or joy. He had nothing to complain of, he was safe and healthy in a world where so many were in danger or in pain; but nor had he anything to make him rejoice. His life would unfold in the same familiar fashion, dull lonely day after dull lonely day, and one day he would see his name inscribed on the school's roll of honor, as his father's was; and one day he would point to it, and tell the sad little boy who was his own son to work harder, to achieve the same distinction.

How could he bear it?

He reached the top of the steps, where there grew the avenue of old pines. He stopped again, to catch his breath, and looked out to sea. There was a fishing boat passing far below, beating its slow way up the coast, trawling a long net. The little vessel seemed to him to be so brave, its sails spread to the wind, its net straining behind. A lonely life, the fisherman's, but at least the loneliness was part of the job. It was different at school. If you were lonely at school it was your own fault, and everyone knew it.

A peregrine came swooping up from the cliff, high into the air, cruising for prey. There were doves nesting in the pines, and the great falcons hunted them, especially at dusk, hovering silently above the trees before dropping like bolts for the killer blow. Blaze had shown him once how to stand still and watch. You didn't have to hide, just to stay still. "They only see you if you move." Once, standing motionless by Blaze's side, he had seen a kill. The peregrine's dive was noiseless, breathtaking, irresistible. "Now the eggs will go cold," Blaze had told Seeker. Such a strange yoking of thrill and pity.

He and Blaze used to skim flat pebbles over the water, down by the harbor where the barges and the riverboats moored. Back then Seeker couldn't skim pebbles, not really, though when Blaze wasn't looking he would pretend, crying out, "One! Two! Three! Three jumps!" Now he could do it, and suddenly, with a fierce ache, he wanted Blaze to be there to see. He wanted to go down to the harbor once more with him and show him how well he could skim stones. He wanted to tell him how much he missed him, how he had thought of him every single day for the last three years, how life was hard for him but he could bear it, because he had no choice.

He felt his eyes sting, and blinked to hold back tears. Only one place to go now, only one refuge. He hurried down the avenue of trees towards the Nom and the high arch of the Pilgrim Gate. This was the part of the monastery that was open to islanders and, on certain days, to pilgrims. This was the way to the holy of holies, the place where the god lived. And it was here Seeker always came when he was sad, to whisper the truth, and to find peace.

Two Nomana stood by the gate, but Seeker was familiar to them, and they nodded him through. He entered the first hall, a wide and dusky atrium called the Shadow Court. This and the two halls into which it led were designed to calm the spirit and prepare for the nearness of the All and Only. There was no one else here. On the far side, three sets of double doors stood open to the second hall, called the Night Court. This was a large, circular, windowless chamber, with a domed roof pierced with hundreds of tiny holes. The bright sunlight above pushed through these holes like stars and fell in pencil-thin rays of light to cast a pattern of bright spots all across the floor. Again, there was no one here.

Beyond the Night Court, through a further set of double doors, was the Cloister Court, the innermost chamber of the Nom apart from the Garden itself Here, in striking contrast to the Night Court, was a cool, light, pillared space, luminous with the glow of the white marble out of which the floor and the columns were made. The ceiling high above was formed of pearlstone, a translucent, milky stone that turned bright sunlight into tranquil day. The gleaming pillars stood close together, rank upon rank, so that many people could be present and yet remain unaware of one another's nearness. And at the far end, where the pillars ceased and the ceiling lay open to the blazing sun, was the Garden.

Seeker stopped here for a moment and prayed the entrance prayer. His eyes reached between the forest of pillars to the gleam of the silver screen that surrounded the Garden. Beyond those delicate and beautiful panels of pierced silver, within that sunlit glade, dwelt the Always and Everywhere.

"Wise Father, you are the Clear Light, you are the Reason and the Goal. Guide me in the true way."

Then he moved slowly forward past the white pillars towards the dazzle of light that was the Garden. As always there were Nomana here, standing quiet and still. He could see two, but without doubt there would be more. Sometimes pilgrims became overexcited and tried to climb the silver screen and had to be removed. And always there was the threat that was told in the Legend, that had been present from the very first coming of the Lost Child, the threat of the Assassin. No one knew who or what the Assassin was, a man, or a band of men, or a god; but all knew that one day the Assassin would find his way into the Garden at last, because the dream of the First Brother had told them so.

Seeker came close to the screen. The holes in the fine lace of silver were in the shapes of diamonds and stars. Through them he could see a bright riot of growth shaded by a canopy of leaves: wool-white blossom in nests of deep green, scarlet petals of weeds speckling the butter-yellow petals of flowers, golden creepers lying down to rest in blue grasses, a wild jungle untouched by any gardener for two hundred years. Here there were ancient rocks overgrown with moss, and a spring of clear water bubbling up into a pool where dragonflies danced in the sun. Here were places to walk and places to sit, and peaches hanging ripe on low branches, and plums rotting richly in the grass unpicked, and here was deep violet shade. Here too, sometimes, there flashed a shiver in the grass, and you could swear you saw someone slip by among the trees. For this was the actual living home of the being who had made the world and who knew why all things must be as they are, even the bad things, even loneliness, even feeling old when you are still young.

Seeker heard a soft rustle nearby and, turning, saw one of the Nom meeks quietly sweeping between the pillars. The sound was comforting, like the gentle strokes of his mother's hand over his brow when he couldn't sleep. He slipped to his knees before the gleaming screen and sought comfort, not from the Loving Mother, not from the Wise Father, but from the Lost Child.

"You too have been lost and alone," he said, whispering softly but aloud. "You know how I feel, without me telling you. Be my friend. Show me you hear me. I'm so tired of being alone."

Now he slipped all the way down onto the cold white floor and spread himself out prostrate, as the pilgrims did.

"Save me," he said. "The sadness goes on too long. Show me a way out of the sadness."

After that he lay there in silence and felt the spirit grow calm within him, as it always did when he came to this holy place. His cheek pressed to the marble floor, he let himself drift into a half sleep, soothed by the distant swishes of the meek's broom.

Then he heard a voice. The voice was clear and real, but it was right in the middle of his head. It was the voice of a child.

"Surely you know," said the voice, "that it's you who will save me."

Surprised, Seeker rose to his knees and looked round. But even as he looked, he knew that the voice had been inaudible to others. There were the guardian Nomana, still as statues. There was the industrious meek. The voice had been a child's voice, and it had been inside him.

It came again.

"Surely you know," it said, "that where your way lies, the door is always open."

With that, Seeker heard the faint creak of an opening door. He looked round again. Some way off, between the pillars, he saw a small side door standing ajar. The door was in the wall on the far side of the Cloister Court, the wall that bounded the Community quarters. Such doors were only ever opened to Nomana.

He rose to his feet and looked at the watchful Nomana, who were either unaware of the open door or were not concerned. Seeker felt a sudden surge of intense excitement. The voice could only have come from the Lost Child. The door could only have opened for him. He hesitated no more. He padded quietly between the pillars to the door and pushed it open and entered the realm of the Nomana.

The room in which he now found himself was windowless, lit by glazed panes in the roof. All round the walls were racks from which hung white garments. Seeker recognized the garments as the ceremonial clothes worn by the Nomana on the great festival days. They were nearly identical to the Nomana's everyday clothes, but in place of the rough gray serge, they were made of a light white cotton. The Nomana wore very few garments: a pair of loose britches, tied at the waist and the ankles; a simple vest; a calf-length tunic with short loose sleeves, its skirt slit on either side from the waist down; and finally a broad scarf draped over the head like a hood. This last item, the badan, was unique to the Nomana. At each end of the long strip of material there was a net of threads holding a pebble. The two weighted ends of the badan were worn hanging down, one at the front and one at the back.

So this was a vesting room. Here the Nomana came to change into these clean light garments, which made them seem, when they entered the square in procession in their hundreds, on the day of the Congregation, like spirits from another world.