Noman

by William Nicholson

  Trapped by memories, trapped by the net of lost love, Seeker knew only that he must free himself. Enough now! No more failure, no more hesitation. Strike and let it be over. Strike and be free.

  His last and greatest blow exploded the Wildman up into the air, arms spread wide, body arching, golden hair flying, high up and over and down again, to land with a crunching crack on the hard ground. There he lay, unmoving, eyes gazing up, unseeing, into the darkness.

  "No-o-o!" cried Morning Star, throwing herself onto his inert body.

  "Die! Die!" shrieked Caressa, lashing at Seeker with her silver-handled whip.

  Seeker seemed not even to feel the blows. No one now stood between him and the bridge. In the valley beyond, kneeling in a night mist that covered the ground, the people of the Joyous swayed and hummed in the Great Embrace.

  "He's dead!" cried Morning Star, sobbing with grief and anger. "You killed him! He loved you, and you killed him!"

  18 The Great Embrace

  SEEKER MADE HIS WAY AS FAST AS HE COULD THROUGH the lines of people, stepping over outstretched arms, heading for the heart of the gathering. The humming had swelled to a full openmouthed keening cry, but the people still had their heads on their arms and their eyes closed. Then in the flickering light of the dying fires Seeker saw that from their mouths dribbled the white creamy ooze he had seen before in the land cloud. As it stained the nightcool ground it turned to vapor, forming the ghostly mist on which the ring upon ring of kneeling swaying bodies now floated.

  The nearer he got to the center, the more possessed were the people. The life force that flowed down the chains gathered strength like a river into which flows many streams; but the people themselves did not grow stronger. If anything, they seemed to become more lifeless, and from their mouths dribbled ever more white ooze. The ground mist grew deeper, rising now to waist height. The lines were shorter, the spaces between the kneeling people wider. Then at last there were four, then two. And then there was one.

  The Joy Boy knelt in the mist with his head bowed, his companions' hands vibrating on his shoulders. Seeker came round to stand before him, and as he did so, the Joy Boy raised his head and opened his eyes and smiled. He looked so young and innocent that for a moment Seeker hesitated.

  "Join us," said the Joy Boy. "Live forever."

  He reached out his hands. Seeker jerked back.

  "Don't touch me!"

  "What are you so afraid of, my friend?"

  "Let these people go," said Seeker. "This is between you and me."

  "Too late," said the Joy Boy. "They and I are one now."

  Seeker said no more. He stilled his mind and gathered his power.

  "So much pain," murmured the Joy Boy.

  Seeker struck. He felt the pulse of force leave him. He sensed it rippling like a shock wave over the Joy Boy. But it had no effect.

  "We're strong now," said the Joy Boy. "You come too late."

  Seeker struck a second time, with all the power he could command. This time he felt the Joy Boy give a slight shudder. That was all.

  "You can't kill me," said the Joy Boy. "So join me."

  He held out his hands once more.

  Everything in Seeker shrank from that offered touch; but as he looked on the Joy Boy's smiling face, he knew that this was the only way. He dropped to his knees in the mist. There, surrounded by the heartbreaking song of thousands of people giving up their life force in a cause they did not understand, Seeker bowed to the Joy Boy and let him lay his hands on his shoulders.

  "Let me share your joy," he said.

  He felt the surge of power flowing into him. He did nothing to resist it. One by one he threw open the gates with which he defended his own lir until he was at the mercy of the Joy Boy's torrent of force.

  Funny thing, strength. You can drink it in.

  His gaze remained fixed on the Joy Boy's plump smiling face.

  "There now," said the Joy Boy, "that's better, isn't it?"

  As the Joy Boy spoke, he gave a small tug, not with his hands but with his mind. Seeker felt himself tip and pour like a jug. He let the lir stream out of him until he was so light and empty that he barely existed any more.

  "There now," murmured the Joy Boy. "No more separation."

  Seeker could feel the flow of strength entering the Joy Boy from the Great Embrace. Now it was entering him, too.

  "I am you," he said.

  "Ah," said the Joy Boy. "You begin to understand."

  "No separation," said Seeker. "No escape."

  It was so easy after all. This was the limitless power he had been given: the power to absorb the strength of others. All that the Joy Boy had gained for himself, drained from the thousands upon thousands ranged round him in the rising mist, now belonged to Seeker.

  Gently, almost tenderly, he drew the lir back towards himself. The Joy Boy felt the reverse of the flow, and shocked, stiffening, he tried to close down the channels between them. But he could not do so. He tried to raise his hands from Seeker's shoulders. But they were fixed there fast. He tried to look away but could neither turn his head nor close his eyes.

  "I've come so close!" he cried. "Why stop me now?"

  As the lir flowed out of him, the Joy Boy was changing. His plump young cheeks grew sallow and began to form wrinkles. His smooth black hair faded and became thin. His sweet voice turned husky.

  "Let me live," he cried. "For the love of Noman."

  "Noman has no love for savanters."

  At that, the Joy Boy's fast-withering face twisted into a bitter smile.

  "How little you know," he said. "Everything we have done has been done in accordance with Noman's will."

  "You may deceive others," said Seeker, never relenting for a second, sucking the lir from the dwindling figure before him. "But I know who you are."

  "And who am I?" said the Joy Boy.

  "You are Manlir."

  Kneeling before him now, helpless in his power, was an old man. With each passing second, he grew older still.

  "He told you that?"

  "You chose the path of knowledge," he said. "He chose the path of faith."

  "And did he tell you why I chose the path of knowledge?"

  "To live forever. To be forever young."

  "But before that? No, he never told you how it began, did he? Listen to me before it's too late. Don't you feel how close we are to you? We are Noble Warriors—like you. Noman himself created the order of the savanters, to protect the All and Only from the greatest enemy of all."

  "You lie," said Seeker.

  "And you are charged with the same duty. You've been called by the All and Only. You have heard the voice."

  Surely you know it's you who will save me.

  Manlir caught the moment of hesitation.

  "The Assassin is coming," he said. "The Noble Warriors must defend the Lost Child. The savanters are part of that defense."

  "You are our enemy."

  "We are the necessary enemy. We were created to make you strong. Did Noman not tell you? He is my brother."

  "You lie!"

  "And you—you begin to doubt."

  By now Manlir was shrunken to the form of a living corpse. Only the sharp eyes had energy in that skull of a face. Seeker tried to block the doubts, but once begun they multiplied within him. The powers of the savanters were similar to the powers of the Nomana, it was true. In his battles with them, just as in his battle with Manlir now, he found himself attacked by his own secret skills. Perhaps it was true that savanters were Nomana gone bad. All the more reason to destroy them, as Noman commanded.

  "Why has my brother let us live?" said Manlir. "Ask yourself that."

  "The powers of the Noble Warriors have limits."

  "But you have been given power without limits. Why you? Why now?"

  "The savanters have grown too strong."

  "The savanters were made to be strong. My brother said to me, 'Pursue knowledge without limits. Make yourselves lords of wisdom.' Why did he do tha
t, Seeker? Why?"

  The voice was faint and dry with extreme old age now, and the shrill tones bored into Seeker's brain. He realized with horror that he was losing his certainty, and that with it his strength was weakening. Manlir knew it, too. Like a fisherman drawing in his net, he began now to haul back the power that Seeker had taken.

  "We are all Noman's legacy, Seeker. We are all necessary for the protection of the All and Only."

  "No! I won't believe it!"

  "If you destroy the last of the savanters, you leave the All and Only to the mercy of the Assassin."

  "Noman has given me the power. I do as he commands."

  "You think your power comes from Noman? Think again, Seeker. Noman is mortal, just as I am mortal. The power you have been given has no limits."

  It was true. Seeker saw again the bright light shining from within the Garden and knew that this was the power that had existed before the world came into being. He heard again the voice in the Garden crying to him. Save me!

  The humming song of the Great Embrace had never ceased. Now he found himself too making small sounds, the beginning of the same song. He licked his lips and felt how dry they were. Manlir knelt before him, gazing at him, and little by little he was growing young again.

  "We need each other, Seeker. We each have our parts to play."

  Seeker found he no longer possessed the clear killing rage that had driven him across the land in pursuit of his prey. And if he was not to kill the savanter before him, what was he to do with him?

  End this charade. Put a stop to the Great Embrace.

  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 b
row 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.

  19 Go to the True Nom

  RAISED VOICES SOME WAY OFF. THE 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.