Jango

by William Nicholson

  The Nomana now stepped off the bridges onto the shingle and fanned out in a long line facing the mounted Orlans. Still the Jahan gave no signal for attack. He wanted them all before him, all at his mercy.

  His eyes glanced over the river at the ramp. How soon before it was finished? It must be almost ready now. The builders of the ramp could see that the battle was about to begin. All he had to do was be patient.

  Now all the Nomana were off the bridges and lined up on the shore. They formed a long shallow crescent. The Jahan guessed there were over a thousand of them.

  He sent one of his captains to within hailing distance.

  "Will you kneel to the Great Jahan?" he cried out. "Or will you fight?"

  He received no answer.

  The Jahan smiled a proud angry smile. He knew now they would fight.

  There came a slow ripple all down the line of the Nomana. They were raising their heads, looking up. Hundreds of eyes, very still, very intent. In the center of the long crescent of hooded men sat one who was in a wheeled chair. He too raised his old head, then fixed his gaze on the Orlan army.

  The Noble Warriors stood at the Tranquil Alert. They calmed their breathing and let the lir in them flow to a still, deep pool. They reached out to one another, feeding on one another's strength. Then they began to release their lir, letting it flow out of each one of them, to form a single massive charge of energy: the First and Last.

  They waited for the Elder to give the command.

  22 Lost in Whiteness

  THE DENSE MIST SEEKER WAS NOW BREATHING HAD NO smell and caused him no discomfort. If anything, he sensed a slight tang in his nostrils that was refreshing. The ground beneath his feet was sloping downwards. He only knew this because he could feel the soft pull of the slope. He could see nothing. All round him was whiteness. He could make out his own hand if he held it up before his face, but it was the hand of a ghost, veiled and insubstantial. He could hear the pad of his own feet on the earth, but even this sound was muffled and distant. He listened for other sounds, for the fleeing shuffle of the savanters, but he heard nothing.

  There seemed to be no features in this lake of cloud, no buildings or trees or walls. He knew no way to orient himself and no reason to choose one direction over another; indeed, he was barely able to distinguish any direction from another, when every way he turned presented the same vista of milky whiteness.

  It struck him then to wonder how he was seeing at all. What was the source of light? As far as he knew, he was still in the immense cloud-filled cave where he had met the savanters. But the soft cool light that filtered evenly through the mist on all sides had the look of daylight. He had descended into the cloud pool; but somehow in going down, he had found his way into open air.

  Such puzzles troubled him little. He was no longer concerned about finding his way. The killing of the savanters had changed him. He was filled with a new conviction that was more than the sensation of power. He felt that everything he did was right.

  "It doesn't matter which way I go," he told himself. "My way is wherever I am. I'm not the seeker any more. I'm the one who is sought."

  This made his task simple. All he had to do was move forward and be prepared to withstand attack. He no longer had any doubts about the nature of the savanters. They were a source of danger and evil to the Nom and to all people. He was walking ever deeper into the cloud pool to meet them. And he was the instrument of their destruction.

  Now ahead in the whiteness, he began to make out looming shapes. He walked on more slowly, his eyes searching the cloud. The shapes were clearer when he didn't look directly, when he glimpsed them from the sides of his eyes. There were many of them, one beyond another: they seemed to be high frames, like scaffolds or gibbets. Suspended from each frame was a shadowy mass that was the shape of a human body.

  His heart began to bump with fear. Was this some form of mass execution?

  He came nearer. Now he could see the dark outline of the frames and the way they formed a curving line disappearing away from him. The frames were not vertical like scaffolds, but at a slant. The gray masses hanging from the frames were indeed human forms—there was no mistaking the outspread limbs. But where were the heads?

  Seeker forced himself to keep moving, drawing closer to the leaning mist-shrouded scaffolds all the time, seeing more and more of the bodies that hung there, spread-eagled, headless.

  Not headless. Upside down.

  He could make out one of them now. A man in a white robe, strapped on his back to a steeply sloping frame, his legs spread out at the top, his head at the bottom. A band of folded cloth was tied over his eyes. His mouth sagged open. And from his lips oozed a thick creamy white syrup.

  Seeker stopped and stared. The man seemed to be unharmed. But the sight of that white ooze trickling from his lips and over his cheeks to the ground was peculiarly horrifying. As the thick white substance dribbled down, it formed a puddle, and the puddle was steaming. White vapor rose from its surface and swirled up and away. Evidently on contact with the air, the dense ooze expanded and became a heavy gas.

  Seeker looked beyond this nearest victim and saw through the mist all the other scaffolds curving away in a wide circle. Each one holding a victim, each one dribbling out this same ooze. No doubt deeper in the mist there were other similar circles. All that ooze forming puddles on the ground; all those puddles rising up as white gas. This, then, must be the source of the cloud.

  Seeker had no way of knowing what the white substance was. Clearly it had no value to the savanters, because they allowed it to drain away and be wasted. It could only be the by-product of something they did want.

  The initial shock now past, he moved closer still, and saw that a thin tube ran from the suspended body, over the ground, into the cloud. He tracked the tube to find the point at which it was fixed to the man's body. It ended in a long fine needle, and the needle was inserted into the base of his neck.

  Seeker was so close now that he could see the slow rise and fall of the victim's chest. So he wasn't dead. He moved on, past other victims strapped in the same way to their high sloping frames, his eyes now on the slender tubes. Every frame had its tube, and the tubes converged on a central point. The arrangement was becoming clearer. A wide circle of victims, made up of a larger number than he had at first realized, were connected by tubes that snaked their way over the ground to the circle's center, which was lost in the mist. There, he presumed, he would find the remaining four savanters.

  Seeker padded cautiously through the whiteness, following the tubes. They led him to a long low cylinder; and beside the cylinder, a chair made of canvas and wood, like a garden recliner; and in the chair, an old man in a bathrobe, fast asleep. The cylinder that received the tubes from the victims was connected to the sleeping man by a single much thicker tube, which was fixed to the back of his neck. This tube was twitching as if it were alive. The old man's lips shuddered as he slept. A low humming sound came from the cylinder. At one end, there was a knurled wheel that looked as if it opened and closed an inner valve.

  Seeker watched the sleeping man for a few moments, and the anger in him mounted. By what right did he feed on the life force of so many victims? Seeker knew he had not been sent here to save the victims from their own folly, but how could he leave them to die like this?

  He stooped down and turned the wheel on the cylinder as far as it would go. The humming stopped.

  Then, moving rapidly, he went back to the perimeter of the circle, to the first scaffold, and pulled the needle out of the victim's neck. He untied the straps, holding the man's limbs, and helped him to fall to his feet. He wiped the thick ooze from his face and pulled his white robes down over his shivering legs.

  "There," he said. "You're free now. Leave this place."

  The rescued victim stumbled and uttered a dismal groan. Seeker moved on to the next, and the next.

  The one he had released first called after him through the mist.

  "Please, sir,
is this eternal life?"

  "No," said Seeker. "You have to go home now."

  "But we were promised eternal life."

  "You were tricked. You nearly died."

  They came limping after him, hands reached out to clutch him.

  "You took us down too soon. We were on our way. Why did you bring us back?"

  The scratchy querulous voices sounded all round him, tugging at him, as he hurried from frame to frame to set the victims free.

  "We never asked you to do this. You should have left us alone. Where's Mother? I want to be put to bed. I want my good-night kiss."

  They tried to take hold of him, but they were so weak that one impatient gesture was enough to send them tumbling to the ground.

  "I've saved you from dying."

  "No, no. We were the chosen ones. We'd been kissed good night. We were on our way to eternal life. You've woken us up. You've robbed us of eternal life. You've condemned us to death."

  As this sank into their fuddled brains, they set up a thin melancholy wailing.

  "We're going to die! You've killed us! Murderer!"

  Seeker struggled to control his anger.

  "Go home," he said. "Just go home."

  "Murderer! Who are you? Why do you hate us? What have we ever done to you?"

  It was hopeless. He had done what he could for them and must now leave them to go their own way. They began to drift off into the cloud, grumbling and lamenting as they went. He himself returned to the center of the circle.

  He found the old man awake, sitting erect in the low chair, and peering at his reflection in a small hand mirror.

  "I think there is a difference," he was murmuring to himself. "The sagging under the chin is reduced a little. And the skin round the eyes—yes, I feel a little plumpness returning there."

  He became aware that Seeker was standing before him.

  "Something has gone wrong," he said sharply. "The process has been interrupted."

  "Yes," said Seeker. "That was me."

  "It's very slow. Frustratingly slow. We need more. However—"

  His eyes returned to the mirror, irresistibly drawn to the reflection of his own face.

  "I do see a change in the right direction. And I do feel quite refreshed. But the wrinkles are by no means gone."

  He fingered the skin round his mouth, alternately frowning into the mirror and smoothing out his features.

  "I used to have a beautiful mouth," he said. "Everyone said so. An expressive mouth. Masculine, and yet also full. In a word, plump." He puckered his withered lips at the mirror. "It's the plumpness one misses."

  He turned his attention back to Seeker.

  "Did you say it was you who turned off the supply?"

  "Yes."

  "That was wrong of you. I wasn't finished. In fact, I'd only recently started, now that I remember. Why couldn't you have turned off Manny's supply?"

  "Manny?"

  "Manny. He's over there."

  He gestured vaguely behind him.

  "He'd very nearly finished. He was ready to go. Did Manny tell you to turn off my supply?"

  "No."

  The old man wrinkled his already wrinkly brows and glowered at Seeker, his anger slowly rising to the surface.

  "Then you're a wicked interfering boy. You've done a very bad thing. I'm going to have to punish you."

  He fixed his aged eyes on Seeker, and they burned with a sudden intense glow. Then, like the lash of a whip, came the bolt of deadly power. But Seeker was ready. He felt the savanter's strength flow into him. He gazed back unmoved. The savanter's eyes blazed again. Seeker breathed in slowly and saw the savanter blink in surprise.

  "You wicked, wicked boy!" said the savanter in a peevish voice.

  At that, Seeker unleashed a rolling wave of power of his own that smashed the savanter down into his reclining chair, crushing the chair beneath him, and sending both skidding backwards into the cloud. Enraged, he followed after him, ready to strike again, but there was no need. The savanter was spread out like a starfish, his head snapped back, dead.

  Once again there came a rush of heat through Seeker's body that left his skin tingling. He wanted to shout, to let out a victor's cry, a killer's cry. Restless, excited, he began to dance from foot to foot. He was light as the curling mist, and also massive, immense, overpowering.

  Show me who I must kill. I will crush them. One touch of one finger and their hearts will burst.

  Four savanters dead. Three to go.

  He set off into the dense white mist, striding fast, moving ever farther from the entrance to the cave. Somewhere ahead he thought he caught a glimpse of a figure, and he started to run. He ran easily, covering the ground swiftly, driven by his new strength. He saw the figure ahead once more, only now it seemed to have come to a stop and to be standing still. As he came up to it, he realized it was another of the slanting scaffolds, and on it was strapped another victim. To the left and to the right he could make out the ring of scaffolds vanishing into the mist. No time to release the victims. He ran on, into the center of the circle.

  There was the chair. There was the savanter, asleep, like the last one. No foolish chatter this time. Kill and get it over with. Kill and grow stronger. Kill and enjoy.

  He strode to the savanter's side. The sleeping figure was a woman. Her face was averted. But as he came up to her, she turned and looked at him with anguish in her tear-streaked face.

  It was his mother.

  "My son!" she cried out. "Help me!"

  Not the false motherly face that had bent over him to give him a good-night kiss. His actual beloved one-and-only mother.

  "Mama! Why are you here?"

  "Take me away! Take me away!"

  She reached up her arms, weeping. Seeker leaned low over her and let her clasp her arms round his neck, and he swung her up out of the chair. She felt so light. She clung so tight.

  "I've got you, Mama. You're safe now."

  She gripped her arms tighter still and pressed her face to his shoulder.

  "You can let go now, Mama."

  But instead she squeezed her arms round his neck ever more fiercely, so that it began to hurt him. He tried to pull her away, but in her terror, her grip had locked rigid. He started to choke.

  "Mama!" he gasped. "You're throttling me!"

  He pulled at her body and twisted every way he could, but her grip tightened further. This was more than terror. His own mother was strangling him. His own mother wanted him to die. If he was to save his life, he must fight back. He must strike at the head that pressed against him. The head that had looked at him with his mother's face.

  He was choking. He couldn't breathe.

  He reached for the woman's neck, gripped the back of her neck with the fingers of his right hand. He had the power. He could snap this neck if he chose. Snap his mother's neck.

  He closed his eyes.

  This is not my mother. I am not killing my mother. I am killing a savanter.

  He gave a brutal twist of his right hand, jerking back the woman's head. He felt the snap of bone. The choking grip fell away. The woman slumped in his arms. Gasping for air, he stood holding her for a moment longer. Then he lowered her to the ground.

  There before him was the bony wrinkled face of a very old woman. Her eyes were closed. She no longer looked like his mother. She was dead.

  The fifth savanter.

  Now, for the first time, he felt tired. This last killing had not brought in its wake the rush of joy. But it had made him stronger.

  Let it be done. Let it be over with. Two more to go.

  On into the cloud.

  Now as he walked, the light became brighter and the cloud became whiter. It was not a pleasant sensation. His eyes were tired. He blinked to rest them from the intensifying glare. Then he closed them entirely, for seconds at a time, without slowing his steady onward tread. What did it matter, after all, if he walked without seeing his way? His way would find him. It made no difference where he went.<
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  Then he thought he heard a sound behind him. He turned, opening his eyes. It was the cry of seagulls, far away, thin and high and already disappearing. But even as the sounds faded, his weary eyes were making out a form in the mist. He stopped and peered back, trying to distinguish the faint shape that seemed to hang in the surrounding whiteness. When he gazed directly at it, it melted away. When he looked aside, he thought he could detect it out of the corners of his eyes.

  He moved towards the shape. It moved away. With that movement, he saw that it was the figure of a man.

  He stepped back. The shape moved nearer.

  "Who are you?" called Seeker into the mist. "Are you Manny?"

  No answer. His own words sank like stones.

  He raised one arm, meaning to beckon to his follower, and as he did so he caught an answering movement in the mist. It was almost too faint to detect, but it was enough for him to guess at what he was seeing. He raised both his arms. He saw his follower do the same.

  My shadow.

  He laughed. The light in the cloud pool was so dispersed that it had never occurred to him he could cast a shadow. But a moment's thought revealed that the light must come from the sun, far above, and so would come from one direction only. A shadow was inevitable. The mist was sufficiently dense to form a surface on which the shadow could be seen. There was no mystery here after all.

  This unseen sun, he thought, could give him a direction. So long as he kept his shadow behind him, he would be walking towards the light. At least this way he could be sure he wasn't walking round in circles.

  On he strode, and as he went, the light continued to grow imperceptibly brighter. From time to time he looked back at his shadow. As the light strengthened, the shadow took on more detail. It struck him then that there was something odd about his shadow, so he stopped once more to study it.

  He stood still, his arms by his sides. There was his shadow, faint in the whiteness before him, as motionless as he was. Nothing odd in that.