Noman (22 page)

He looked into the night, his eyes scanning the nearer men and women among the kneeling masses. Their heads lay on their arms, making it hard to see their faces; but he caught glimpses of the white cream that trickled from their mouths, and he knew what it meant.

"Let these people go," he said to Manlir, "and I'll let you go."

"Too late," said Manlir. "Their lir is in me now. Their time is over."

"Give it back to them!"

"That would kill me. And I mean to live. I mean to live forever."

"I'll make you do it!"

"Your moment has passed, Seeker."

Manlir sounded like the Joy Boy again. His flesh was filling out. He had regained the Joy Boy's full-lipped smile.

"I fear now," he said, "that you are the one who must leave us."

Seeker felt the lurch within him of Manlir's renewed power. He struggled to resist it, but to his dismay he found he was helpless. The tide of lir had flowed once more to Manlir and was flowing ever more strongly all the time. Seeker tried to rise from where he knelt, but his muscles wouldn't obey his commands. He tried to do as he had done before and drink in Manlir's strength and make it his own, but the savanter was ready for him this time and was too strong for him.

"You grow in knowledge, Seeker," he said. "To know is to doubt. To doubt is to fail."

Seeker broke away from that penetrating gaze and hunted through the rings of people in the mist, looking in his desperation for any source of help.

Who do I seek? There's no one here with more strength than I have myself.

Then he saw a head he recognized. It was his father, kneeling in the night, singing the wordless song of the Great Embrace. How did his father come to be part of the Joyous? Was he too to be sucked of life? There on his outreached arms where his mouth pressed to his sleeve was the stain of white ooze, the residue of his lost lir. And there by his side was Seeker's mother, the lir trickling from her lips, too.

"Mama! No!"

His doubts vaporized in a sudden flash of fury. Gulping power as a drowning man gasps for air, he seized the savanter by the temples and overwhelmed his defenses with the sheer force of his rage. No thought, no hesitation: only the needed kill.

"No!" screeched Manlir, writhing in his grip. "You don't know what you're doing!"

"Die!" cried Seeker, crushing, suffocating. "Die!"

"Noman! Brother! Help me!"

"Noman wants you dead!"

"Don't—make—me—"

The words came choking from the savanter's mouth. His eyes were starting from his head in the intensity of his struggle to survive. But Seeker's rage did not abate. All his being was now concentrated on the kill.

"Die!" he cried. "Die!"

All at once he felt Manlir's resistance give way.

"My life is all life," the savanter whispered. "Not even you can kill all life. I will never die."

His lips twisted in a strange little smile. Then he opened his mouth and white ooze began to stream from between his lips. It slithered down his chin to fall in heavy drops on the ground between them. Seeker released his grasp. Manlir gave a choking gasp and a great gush of ooze came bubbling out. On and on it came, the lir pouring from within him, puddling in an ever-growing pool at his feet. A heavy vapor rose from the pool, which gave off a rich, sweet sickly smell.

Seeker looked on in horror. He had never seen a man expel his own lir before. It was suicide. There was no need for him to intervene. He saw the life fading in the savanter's eyes as the lir drained out of him. Then his head lolled, his body slumped, and he crumpled to the stained ground.

Round them the people of the Joyous were now emerging from their swaying trance. The humming song faltered and fell silent. The linked hands fell away as the people looked about them in confusion. Line after line disengaged, and the great merged network of lir broke up into a crowd of individuals once more.

Seeker looked down at the savanter, now forever young in death. It was the Joy Boy who lay before him, his head on one side, his cheek to the cream-drenched earth. His mouth was open. Out through his parted lips trickled the last of his lir. And so finally the flow ceased.

Then Seeker heard a deep sound, so deep that it was almost no sound at all, and he felt a shuddering in the ground on which he knelt. Seized by fear he looked again at the face of the dead savanter and leaned down close to feel if he was still breathing after all. But there was nothing. Manlir was gone.

Seeker rose slowly from his knees. On all sides the people of the Joyous were getting to their feet too, and asking each other what had happened to them, and if they had been made into gods as they had been promised.

"Where's the Beloved?" they said. "What are we to do now?"

Seeker turned and walked slowly away. He wanted only to be far from this place, far from the killing, far from the sickly smell of spilled lir.

Behind him he heard the cries as the waking people discovered the dead body in the mist.

"The Beloved is dead!"

Let others do what must be done, he thought. My work is over now.

Unnoticed by the increasingly agitated crowd, he passed among them and crossed the bridge over the river.

A small group was still gathered where the Wildman lay, the friend he had killed to do what had been asked of him. As Seeker approached, one of them rose from her kneeling position to scream at him.

"Murderer! You killed him! Murderer!"

It was Caressa, her handsome face contorted in grief and rage. Beside her, still crouched low by the dead body of his friend, knelt Morning Star. She looked up and saw Seeker, and her face too was streaked with tears.

"Killer!" screamed Caressa. "All you can do is kill! You kill all beauty, all hope, all love!"

Seeker came close to his dead friend. He looked down at his beautiful face, and heard in memory his ringing cry.

Heya! Do you love me?

Yes, Wildman. I love you. Take my life for yours. I don't need it any more.

"Let me hold him."

"Don't touch him! Get away from him!"

Caressa beat at him with her fists, punching in her frenzy as hard as she was able, but Seeker seemed not to notice. He forced his way past her, and stooping down, he took up the Wildman's dead body in his arms. As he did so, Morning Star followed him with silent grieving eyes.

Seeker held the dead body in a full embrace, his arms round the Wildman's back, his brow pressed to the Wildman's brow. In this way, eyes closed, body trembling with the intensity of his effort, he streamed the lir in him into his dead friend.

Live, Wildman! Take my life and live!

As the lir flowed out of him, he weakened and found it harder to support the Wildman's weight. But as the lir entered his friend, so the muscles began to stir. At first, without breath or heartbeat, the legs and arms of the dead man jerked and twitched, responding to quickening nervous impulses. Then there came a hoarse groan from the dead man's throat, and with a series of spasmodic choking noises, he began to breathe. Seeker kept tight hold of him and poured out his own life's lir and felt the sudden thump as the Wildman's heart began to beat. The legs stiffened beneath him and took his own weight, just as Seeker was finding the burden too great. The limp arms reached out and clasped Seeker as he was clasped. So as the lir flowed on and Seeker weakened, the Wildman began to support him in his turn.

Now the Wildman's eyes were open, and understanding was returning to his waking mind.

"Seeker," he said. "My friend."

"Forgive me," said Seeker.

He felt his legs give way beneath him. He felt the Wildman hold him, saving him from falling.

"We stand together," said the Wildman, "against the world."

Seeker folded in his arms, and his head fell forward on the Wildman's chest. He had given so much of his own life that he had too little left for himself. As his eyes closed, his last sight was of Morning Star looking on, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

R
AISED VOICES SOME WAY OFF.
T
HE FLICKER OF BRIGHT
light. Sunlight falling through a gap in the tent cloth. The cloth flapping in the breeze.

Seeker was alone in a bed of rugs. He heaved himself up into a sitting position and looked out towards the clamor. A noisy meeting was under way by the bridge. He saw Caressa and Sabin and the Orlan captains, and the Wildman and his spiker chiefs. He saw Morning Star standing apart from them all, her eyes on the Wildman, listening in silence. Beyond the bridge the immense crowd that had called itself the Joyous was broken up into smaller groups, and from every group came the sound of agitated voices.

I killed my friend, said Seeker to himself, and I gave him back my own life. Why am I not dead?

Now more than anything he longed to be alone. Once they knew he was awake they would all come pushing round him, blaming and pleading, looking to him for answers he did not have.

Nothing more for me to do here, he thought, watching Morning Star. Better that I go.

He rose unsteadily to his feet and stood still for a few moments, breathing slow deep breaths. He felt giddy, but he did not fall. The raised voices of the chiefs came to him through the tent walls. They were disputing over status.

"This is spiker land!" he heard the Wildman say. "None of your yabba-yabba can take that away!"

So the Wildman was himself again. And Morning Star had eyes only for him, as always. No need to stay and watch.

He untied the tent cloth at the back and eased himself out. The bright light of day made him blink. For a moment he felt too weak to walk, but he stood still and gathered his strength, and the moment passed.

He set off steadily, not looking back. Shortly he was over the brow of the hill and out of sight of the crowd. He strode on, trying to empty his mind of all the confusions of the day gone by. He made for the high road, hoping to find again the door in the wall and the Garden beyond. He wanted to be released from his powers now. He wanted to throw himself down before the All and Only and ask to be given his own life back.

Then, as he strode along, he heard once again the low deep boom that had sounded as Manlir had died. It was a little louder this time, though still more a vibration in the ground than a true sound. It sounded like the land echo of thunder in the sky, but there were no clouds.

Then came a sharper sound: the rapid click of hoofbeats ahead. Out of the roadside wood burst a riderless Caspian, running wild. He knew the horse at once from his markings: it was Kell.

"Kell!" he cried. "Where's Echo?"

As if in answer, Kell turned and trotted back into the trees. Seeker followed. There was a track through the wood, but no sign of Echo. Thinking she might have fallen and be lying injured nearby, he called to her.

"Echo! It's me—Seeker!"

There was no answer. But then he heard a rustle in the branches, and looking up, he caught a sudden rapid movement between the dry summer leaves.

"Echo? Is that you?"

"You think you've killed him, don't you?"

The voice was mocking and shrill. There, clinging to a high branch, was Echo—her eyes wild and staring.

"You can't kill him!" she taunted. "Manny's coming to get you!"

With that, she swung away with astonishing agility, from one high branch to another, and turning back to look down on Seeker, she called again, in the same harsh high mocking voice.

"Manny's coming to kill you!"

She sprang away, leaping from branch to branch, until she was high up in one of the highest of the tall trees. Here she came to a sudden stop, and crouching in the crook of a branch, she bowed her head to hide her face. Seeker followed to the foot of the high tree.

"Echo!" he called to her. "It's Seeker, your friend. I want to help you."

She raised her head then and looked at him with her beautiful eyes. She smiled a sad smile and spoke to him in her own voice.

"Too late," she said. "Good-bye, friend Seeker. I have to go now."

She released her grip on the branch and kicked with her legs so that she vaulted away from the tree and began to fall. Her arms reached wide as she fell, and she turned in the air, making no effort to save herself, meaning to dash her brains out on the ground and so end her torment. But her outstretched hands brushed against clusters of leaves, and instinctively snatching herself closer to the trunk as she fell, she found the elastic support of the branches once more, and so sprang back unharmed.

"No-o-o!" she cried. "Let me die!"

At once the other, harsher voice answered from her own mouth.

"We want to live! We want to live forever!"

Seeker watched in horror and pity as Echo flew back up the ladder of the trees and tried once more to throw herself to her death. Again she caught herself, and again she cried out in her wretchedness.

"Let me die!"

But even as she called with her own voice, the other within her was pushing to the fore, taunting Seeker on the ground below.

"Seeker's the one who's going to die! Can't escape Manny now!"

She was away again, swinging fast through the trees, gaining height as she went. Far off now, she dived once again from the treetops like a hawk on its prey, dropping almost to the ground before swooping up, helplessly secure in the familiar branches, hunting for death, unable to die. He heard her cries recede into the distance as she bounded through the trees, and Kell trotted over the woodland path beneath.

Haunted by Echo's piteous voice, Seeker returned to the high road. What had she meant? Manlir was dead. He was sure of that. Why then did he feel such dread at her words?

Can't escape Manny now!

When he reached the road, he found a bullock cart drawn up by the verge, as if waiting for him. The driver was a lanky youth with protruding eyes and a smile on his face. In the open cart lay a litter covered by a white canopy.

The driver fixed his gaping face on Seeker and, giving a nod behind him, said, "He wants to speak with you."

A hand reached from within the white canopy and drew it aside. Seeker approached. There in the litter, robed in white like a corpse, lay Jango. His deep-set eyes gazed out at Seeker.