Firesong

by William Nicholson

  The barge cruised on down the wide river, sometimes out in mid-stream, sometimes carried by the currents to the snow-covered banks, but never quite striking the trees that grew there. The wheel in the wheel-housing jerked this way and that in the lantern-light, as if a ghost was in command of the rudder; but in reality it was the rudder that turned the wheel. The river had taken charge of the barge, and was guiding it on its way. Jumper had found the river’s song, and tuned the barge to its notes, and now he slept at his ease.

  What not even Jumper knew was that as the barge was carried down the river, a lean grey cat was running along the river bank, waiting for his moment. When at last a bend in the river brought the barge gliding almost alongside the bank, the cat jumped, and landed safely on the shallow-pitched roof of the hold. From there, he found a place of refuge inside a coil of rope, where he turned round and round, scratching a comfortable bed, and so lay down to wait for morning.

  ‘Wake UP!’

  The last word came out in a furious bellow, as if the sleeper addressed obstinately refused to do as he was told.

  ‘You slug! You lard-cake! You clod of dung! Up! Up! On your feet!’

  Bowman and Kestrel, ripped from dreams, confused as to where they were, blinked and struggled to wake. Albard stood over them, prodding at Bowman with a stick, himself only just up, to judge from his wild hair.

  ‘You empty snake-skin! I should have crushed you when I had the chance! Pity, that’s my vice. Too much damned womanish pity. Look at you! A wet-eyed child!’

  Bowman was now sufficiently awake to see the man called Albard clearly, and to recognise that booming bullying voice.

  ‘You’re the Master!’

  ‘What of that? The past is past, thanks to you. Please inform me’ – pointing his stick at Kestrel – ‘what is that?’

  ‘My sister Kestrel.’

  ‘Throw her in the river! Don’t want her.’

  Kestrel was as astonished to see the Master as her brother.

  Bo! What’s he doing here?

  I don’t know. I thought he was dead.

  ‘You died,’ said Bowman aloud. ‘I felt it.’

  ‘Oh? And do you feel this?’

  He hit Bowman with his stick, across his shins.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Not as dead as all that, eh?’

  Jumper now joined them, from the door into the forward section. He was carrying a tray of breakfast. Albard turned on him with a snarl.

  ‘Can’t do it,’ he said. ‘The boy’s a lump.’

  ‘You can,’ said Jumper mildly. ‘You’re the best.’

  ‘Grease, grease, grease. You think I don’t know what you’re up to, you little grease ball?’

  ‘Breakfast,’ said Jumper.

  The tray sailed gently from his hands to land on the cabin table. Once there, the mugs and plates and knives, the basket of eggs, the loaf of bread and jug of milk, the butter and the honey jar, all shuffled about until they were arranged for a sitting of four people. Albard watched this miniature display of mind power and let out a groan.

  ‘Once I ruled a nation. Now I can’t even move a plate.’

  Sighing, he sat down to eat. The others joined him. They ate and drank in silence, until they were done. Then Jumper said to Bowman,

  ‘Albard will teach you.’

  ‘But not her!’ said Albard, stabbing a butter-smeared knife in the direction of Kestrel.

  ‘You will do everything he says.’

  ‘Throw her in the river!’ added Albard.

  ‘You’ll find it hard. You must not give up. Do you understand? Whatever you feel, however great your distress, don’t give up.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Bowman. ‘But I don’t understand why he is to be my teacher.’

  ‘Nor I, boy,’ echoed Albard.

  ‘Surely the Master is the enemy of the Singer people.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Jumper brightly. ‘Albard is our brother. We love him and embrace him.’

  ‘Please!’ groaned Albard. ‘Spare me your embraces!’ Then turning to Bowman, ‘You remind me of a boy I knew, long ago. A boy who believed he was different from all other boys, and lived to prove it.’

  ‘Your son?’

  ‘Not my son, you earthworm! I have no son! I’m talking about myself. Did I not tell you, you will become me?’

  ‘Time is passing,’ murmured Jumper.

  ‘Oh, passing, is it? Well, well, well! There’s a surprise.’

  But Albard accepted the implied instruction, and led Bowman out on deck. Kestrel followed, unasked. It was a cold clear morning. Bowman felt invigorated by the winter air, and by the prospect of the teaching that was about to begin.

  Kestrel was still bewildered by the presence of the man she had known as the Master.

  How can he teach you? He’s the one who made slaves of us all.

  I don’t know.

  Don’t you want to know?

  I want to learn how to be a Singer. Then I’ll know.

  ‘None of that!’ bellowed Albard. ‘I can’t tell what you’re saying, but I know you’re twittering to each other.’

  ‘You don’t need to shout all the time,’ said Kestrel. ‘We’re not your servants.’

  Albard glared at her.

  ‘You’d shout if you’d been through what I’ve been through,’ he grumbled. ‘He should have left me to die.’ This with a glowering look at Jumper.

  ‘Time is passing,’ said Jumper softly.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Albard turned on Bowman. ‘So, boy, vessel of my destruction – for it wasn’t you, don’t flatter yourself it was you, you were the channel for powers greater than either of us –’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You’d better know it, and more too. You’re to know you have no special abilities. No special powers. No special destiny. You’re nothing but the tool, the plaything of others. Do you know all that?’

  ‘No –’

  Smack! Albard struck him across the face with the flat of his hand. Not hard, but it brought tears to Bowman’s eyes.

  ‘I say yes!’

  His hand was raised to strike again. Bowman rallied the powers of his mind to resist the blow, but found his powers were gone.

  Smack! The second blow stung far more. Involuntary tears trickled down his cheeks.

  ‘Aren’t you going to stop me? Are you going to sit there like a whimpering puppy and let me hit you?’

  Smack! Bowman found he could do nothing, not even raise his arm, or move aside to escape the blow.

  Smack! Smack! Smack! Albard struck him and struck him, until the tears streamed down Bowman’s red and smarting cheeks.

  Kestrel watched in mounting anger. But just as she had determined to intervene, a voice spoke in her mind.

  Let him alone. Let him learn.

  Very surprised, she looked round and saw Jumper gazing at her. The look in his eyes had as powerful an effect on her as the voice in her head. She saw deep understanding there; and more, she saw that he knew why she was here, which neither Bowman nor Albard knew. So she remained still, and followed the teaching.

  ‘Beg my forgiveness!’

  Bowman stared back at Albard, wounded in body and spirit, but still defiant.

  ‘Kiss my hand!’

  Bowman did not move.

  ‘Still proud? What have you to be proud of? You have no power! You can’t resist me! You think because you’re the child of the prophet you have some great part to play in the world?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bowman.

  ‘Ha!’ Albard snorted with contemptuous laughter, his big belly heaving. ‘Ha! Don’t you see it? What a joke! You think because you’re the child of the prophet you’re someone special? Precisely the opposite is the truth! You’re nobody! You’re anybody! All that matters about you is that you have certain ancestors. You could be a cross-eyed cripple and still play your part. Don’t you see how that makes you so much less than everyone else? What are you, but a postman with a letter from the past?
You think because what you carry in your pouch has power that you are powerful?’

  He struck Bowman again, much harder. Bowman shook with the hurt of it.

  ‘Now kiss my hand!’

  ‘Is this necessary for my teaching?’

  ‘I give you no reasons! Only orders!’

  Bowman hesitated a moment more, then leant forward and kissed Albard’s hand. Kestrel’s heart ached for him as she watched. She felt his misery. Albard’s words had been well chosen, and were taking effect.

  ‘Ask my forgiveness!’

  ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘You stink of the Morah! What business have you in Sirene?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  Again Bowman hesitated, but this time he didn’t ask again if it was necessary. With trembling fingers he untied his belt, and drew off his clothes. When he was naked, shivering in the cold air, he looked so frail that Kestrel had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying.

  ‘Look at yourself! Look at your body! Do you like your body?’

  Bowman stood tensed against the cold, not sure how he was meant to answer.

  ‘Does your body like you? I don’t think so.’

  A sudden cramp seized Bowman’s leg. He cried out, and bent down to soothe the pain. A second stab went through him, this time in one arm. Then his neck, his gut, his other leg, all began to scream with pain, as if knives were being thrust into his flesh. His throat began to burn and his bowels to melt. Frantically, he fell to the deck and tried to rub his agonised flesh, but all the time more pains burst forth, in his ears, in his wrist joints, in his lungs, even as he pulled in terrified gulps of air.

  ‘Your body hates you!’ cried Albard. ‘Your body is your enemy! Your body wants to hurt you!’

  Bowman started to scream. He couldn’t help himself. He writhed screaming on the deck. Kestrel could bear no more.

  ‘Stop!’

  But even as she moved forward, some unseen force met her like a soft impenetrable wall, and forced her back.

  Bowman fought the pain as long as he could, which was not long at all; and then he lost consciousness. It happened slowly, like a walking away from himself, and as he went he cried and reached out his arms and didn’t want to go, but there was too much pain.

  He woke in utter darkness. He moved one hand, to feel where he was, and met timber walls on either side, and a timber roof close above his head. He was lying down, wrapped in blankets, in what felt like a long box. He could hear only a low rushing sound all round him, a sound that absorbed all other sounds, and never ceased. The pain was gone: so far gone that with it had gone almost all sensation. He was naked, but for the covering blanket.

  No light, not even a crack. No sound, but for the one sound. No feeling.

  He tried to speak aloud.

  ‘Help!’

  His voice sounded strange, as if it belonged to someone else.

  Kess! Where are you?

  No answer. Was she no longer on the barge? Had she been sent back?

  Suddenly he felt very frightened.

  ‘Help!’ he cried. ‘Help me!’

  There was no answer. Nobody had heard him. He felt it himself, he was so completely sealed up that no one would hear him however loud he cried. So he must wait.

  ‘How long will you leave him?’ said Kestrel.

  ‘Until he gives up.’

  ‘But you told him not to give up.’

  ‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ Jumper spoke in an absent-minded voice, as he gazed out over the passing riverbank.

  ‘He’ll feel he’s failed.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he will.’

  ‘Do you want him to fail?’

  ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

  ‘All I know is you’re doing this to teach him. But I don’t see what you’re teaching him by leaving him alone in that hole.’

  ‘The teaching is still to come. This is the unteaching.’

  Bowman had no way of gauging how long he lay in the darkness. It might have been hours, it might have been days. After a while he thought perhaps he was dead. After a little while more, he thought nothing.

  Kestrel ate her supper with Albard and Jumper. Jumper had cooked them a dish of eggs with butter. She kept silent and listened as they bickered and grumbled. She too was learning, in her own way.

  ‘Why you, eh, Jumper? Why did they send me a dull blob like you?’

  ‘I’m sorry you find me dull. I’ll try to be more amusing.’

  ‘Please! Spare me.’

  Then after a few moments,

  ‘I’ll tell you why they sent you. Because they hate me. Sirene has always hated me.’

  He turned on Kestrel, as if glad for once to have a neutral audience.

  ‘Did you ever see my Mastery, girl?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kestrel.

  She remembered all too well how close she had come to death. It was this man, this Master, who had driven Ortiz’s blade to kill. But Albard seemed only to recall the glories of his rule.

  ‘Ah! My Mastery was something! That’s what the powers of the Singer people can do in the world! But they won’t do it. They’d rather stand aside, while the world burns.’

  ‘We conserve our powers for the one great task,’ said Jumper.

  ‘One great task!’ Albard appealed again to Kestrel. ‘These Singer people, you know what they wait for? You know what they train for, and give their lives for? Death! That’s their one great task! Death!’

  ‘You took the vow also, Albard.’

  ‘So I did. But why wait a lifetime, with such powers, when all around us the people are suffering?’

  Again, to Kestrel,

  ‘That was my crime! To use the powers I was given, to build a better world. For this they turned the might of Sirene against me. For this I was brought to what you see now. See?’

  He tossed a fragment of bread into the air. It fell to the table.

  ‘I can’t even command a piece of bread! He can.’ He stabbed a finger at Jumper. ‘This blob-faced man-woman can.’ He threw another piece of bread at Jumper. It stopped in mid-air, turned about, and floated back onto Albard’s plate. ‘See? But I, I who created the noblest city man has ever known, I can do nothing!’

  ‘Why must the Singer people die?’ asked Kestrel.

  ‘You’re the child of the prophet,’ said Albard. ‘You should know.’

  ‘I know Ira Manth began it all. I know the Singer people are the only power that can stop the Morah. But I don’t know why they have to die.’

  ‘Vanity!’ grunted Albard. ‘Makes them feel important.’

  Kestrel had addressed her question to Jumper. He ignored Albard, and responded with his own question.

  ‘What is the mor?’

  ‘It’s the desire for power, I think,’ answered Kestrel. ‘And wanting things only for yourself. And hurting other people to get what you want. And being afraid. And hating.’

  ‘The prophet understood that to control the mor, he and his followers must take the opposite path. Seek no power. Want nothing. Possess nothing. Take nothing. Give. Let go.’

  Kestrel quoted from the Lost Testament.

  ‘They will lose all and give all.’

  Jumper nodded.

  ‘There’s no end to it, once you’ve started down that path.’ His eyes held her very still. ‘The giving has no limits. Even life itself.’

  Kestrel understood. She understood the look in his eyes, the feeling in him, more than the sense of his words.

  ‘You ask why Singer people have to die. Why should they not? Why hold on to such a little thing as life?’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted Albard. ‘Vanity! Sheer vanity!’

  ‘You think death is the end? No. Lose your life, and find everything. The firesong is the sweetest song of all.’

  ‘You still end up dead,’ said Albard.

  ‘So do all living creatures. But very few know the wind on fire.’

  ‘The wind on fir
e.’ Kestrel felt she understood more than before, but hadn’t yet fitted the pieces together. ‘It destroys the Morah?’

  ‘It’s the only power greater than the Morah. The power of all the Singer people combined.’

  ‘And then the mor rises again,’ said Albard. ‘The Morah returns.’

  ‘As do the Singer people.’

  ‘Round and round,’ said Albard. ‘Makes you giddy. Makes you sick.’

  ‘There’s always the boy,’ said Jumper.

  ‘Yes, yes. There’s always the boy.’ Albard became a little less irritable as he thought of Bowman. ‘I wonder if he’s got what it takes.’

  ‘You’re the teacher, Albard.’

  Bowman heard him before he saw him. He heard a door open and close. Then footsteps. Then a voice.

  ‘Boy?’

  He tried to speak, but he found to his surprise that he had forgotten how.

  ‘Close your eyes, boy. The light will hurt you.’

  Bowman closed his eyes. He heard a rattling above him. Then faint light touched his eyelids. Hands reached down, and tied a scarf round his head, so that he was blindfolded. All this was done to him without his own help or hindrance. He had lost control over his own body.

  Now he felt the hands reaching round and under him. A sudden lurch, and he was lifted up in strong arms. He was carried over creaking timbers, and came out into light. He saw the light through the tiny triangular gaps where the blindfold was raised by the bridge of his nose. He smelt the sharpness of fresh air. He sensed other people round him, but he had no strength to wonder who they were, nor any desire to do so. In that dark hole he had lost more than his body. He had lost all sense of himself.

  Now he was being put down, on a makeshift bed. He lay there thankfully. There were sounds all round him: the river, the wind in the trees, the breathing of the people close by. He felt his hand lifted up, and a small object placed in it, and left there for him to hold.

  It was an egg.

  He felt the egg, heavy in his hand, and a surge of joy flowed through him. The egg was so smooth, and yet its smoothness was pitted with tiny grains. It was so beautifully curved, curved to perfection, and yet not a sphere. It formed its own shape, that obeyed no rules. He could feel now that the cool surface of the shell was absorbing the heat of his hand. He closed his fingers round the egg, sensing the space it occupied, and the way it resisted his grasp. He tightened his grip, delighting in the shell’s strength. He squeezed more tightly still, and kakakash!, the egg broke, and all was transformed. The smooth curves turned to spiky fragments, the full firm form vanished, and a cool balm spread over his hand.