Firesong

by William Nicholson

‘Who leads the song?’

  ‘He waits for us.’

  ‘Ah, moonface. Not for me. I left Sirene long ago.’ Albard’s voice sounded even lower. ‘The boy is ready for the final test. My work is done.’

  ‘Not quite all.’

  ‘I have no power left.’

  ‘The wind will carry you.’

  ‘Well, then.’ He squared his great shoulders and tossed his shaggy grey-haired head, as if defying his fate.

  ‘Boy,’ he said to Bowman. ‘Let me hold you in my arms.’

  Bowman went to him, and Albard’s great arms closed round the youth’s thin and bony back.

  ‘I loved you the first time I saw you. Did you know that?’

  ‘No,’ said Bowman.

  ‘No, nobody ever knows the big things. But so it was. I wanted to die, so you could live. Did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But so it was.’ He sighed, and kissed Bowman’s brow and cheeks. ‘Live for me, boy.’

  ‘But I –’

  ‘Tush, tush! Do as you’re told. If not from fear, because no man fears me now, then from pity. I was a Master once. I made a world.’

  ‘They wait for us,’ said Jumper.

  He hopped ahead, through the high doorless doorway, into the blackness. Albard followed. Then Bowman, and Kestrel, and the cat.

  They were given no warning. One moment they were stepping over grassy ground; the next moment, nothing. Neither Jumper nor Albard made a sound. When Bowman felt himself falling, he spread his arms, in some instinct of flight, which achieved nothing at all: and only then remembered what he had been taught. Taking control of his descent, he slowed himself down, and so was able to catch Mist, who forgetting everything, was dropping like a stone.

  Kestrel landed after him, as gently as if she had stepped over a threshold. Bowman was impressed. The cat wriggled, and leapt down from his arms, only to stop, back arched, bristling.

  They were in a cave, through which an underground river ran. Slowly their eyes adjusted to the glimmer of moonlight that fell from above. Ghostly in the deep shadows stood the Singer people, hundreds of them, with their arms folded before them and their eyes open, but a look on their faces that showed they neither saw nor heard. They wore coarse robes, and their feet were bare, and dust had settled on their heads and shoulders. Men and women, of all ages, all shapes and sizes, they waited for the moment that would awaken them and set them on their final journey.

  Albard began to tremble. He sank to his knees, and hung his head.

  Bowman gazed at the Singer people. As his eyes became used to the darkness, he saw more and more of them, stretching away into the vaulted shadows of the caves. There were thousands of them.

  ‘What are they waiting for?’

  ‘For the child of the prophet.’

  For me! thought Bowman. He understood very little of what was happening, but he felt no fear. Quite the opposite: he felt excitement. He felt, This is what I’ve been preparing for all my life.

  Kestrel sensed the joy in Bowman and she was glad, but there was no joy in her. She felt sad, achingly sad. The sadness was linked to the silver voice, which she felt all the time, hot against her breast.

  ‘Go to the tomb,’ said Jumper softly.

  There before them, surrounded by the silent unmoving throng of Singer people, rose the stone columns and the carved stone canopy of the tomb. Bowman and Kestrel threaded their way between the robed figures to the tomb’s side. At first it seemed to them that there was nothing there but the stone platform. But shortly, in the faint silver glow, they made out before them the shrunken corpse, the web of dried skin stretched over bones, the hands clasped over exposed ribs, the face that was a skull.

  ‘Your ancestor,’ murmured Jumper. ‘The prophet, Ira Manth.’

  Bowman and Kestrel stood on either side of the tomb, and stared at the bones of the prophet, and felt nothing: not reverence, not fear. Only Kestrel felt the burning heat of the silver voice, so hot now that surely it must burn a hole in her covering shirt.

  Bowman recalled the first line of the Lost Testament.

  A child of my children will always be with you at the time of the consummation. In this way, I live again, and I die again.

  He knew what he must do without being told. He reached out one hand. As he did so, he became aware that Kestrel was reaching out a hand, too. He was surprised, but glad.

  We go together, she said to him, without breaking the silence.

  Jumper had become still and grave. He watched the hands pass through the air, the fingers stretching for the touch.

  Nothing, thought Bowman, as his hand came to rest on the dry skin of the prophet’s arm. I feel nothing. Only the bones of a long-dead man.

  Kestrel too laid her hand on the bones, and felt nothing.

  Then it began. At first it was no more than a growing tiredness. Then Bowman began to feel weak. A dizziness passed through him. He tottered, and nearly fell.

  What’s happening, Kess?

  He’s taking our strength.

  She could feel it clearly: her strength was being drained out of her, slowly, pitilessly, unstoppably. Soon, if she didn’t remove her hand, and break the contact, the dead man would suck away all she had.

  He wants our life, she said to Bowman.

  I give it, replied her brother.

  Too weak to stand, he sank slowly to his knees, his hand remaining on the bony arms. His head fell forward, over the dead man. After a few moments, Kestrel too crumpled, and fell.

  Jumper looked on, not moving. The boy and the girl knelt motionless, their heads bowed over the skeleton as it lay on its stone bed. They were breathing, but very slowly. They were unconscious.

  One by one, the Singer people nearest to the tomb began to awake. Eyes blinked, and faces turned. One reached up a hand to scratch a cheek. Another shifted his weight from leg to leg. The rustling sound of breathing filled the quiet air of the cave. More awoke, and more. Then quietly, the first wakers began to sing. They sung a low wordless song that sounded more like light rain on a lake’s surface than human voices, a murmuring whisper of a song. Albard rose quietly from where he knelt, and joined in the song. As did Jumper.

  Before long the Singer people were awake, all of them, in their thousands; stirring and stretching, drawing deep breaths, singing.

  The sound of their singing gathered like the breath of life round Bowman and Kestrel. It pressed against their eyelids and eardrums, waking them from their sleep, pouring into them a power greater than the strength that had been taken from them, the power of the Singer people. Blinking, unsure what had happened, they stood up, on either side of the tomb, and looked round them. Thousands of faces looked back, without curiosity, without demands.

  ‘The time has come,’ said Jumper.

  His voice had changed yet again, but this time all who heard him knew this was the true voice. His eyes shone as he spoke, not with youth but with certainty. Albard, watching, singing, filled with a calm he had not known for years, smiled to see it.

  Ah, moonface! he thought to himself. So you are the first of us all!

  Dimly, as if recollected from a long-distant past, Albard sensed his own foolishness. But he was not ashamed. He cared nothing for the mistakes he had made in his life, for he felt now that the Singer people had watched over him, and he had done his duty in his own way. He was ready now for the release for which all Singer people train and wait, the firesong, and the storm of bliss.

  Mist the cat, all the hairs on his back bristling with fear at the changes taking place round him, stalked between the robed figures, seeking one he had known before. He found him at last, arms clasped before him, face raised, chanting the wordless song that flowed and eddied round the great cave: Dogface, the tree hermit.

  ‘So what’s all this about?’ said Mist, speaking to his one-time friend and companion.

  Dogface didn’t answer, and didn’t look down. As always, thought Mist, he had failed to hear him. But looking up at
that familiar ugly head, the cat felt a sudden wave of love. How did I fail to see it before? he thought. My hermit is beautiful.

  ‘Dogface,’ he called. ‘You’re beautiful!’

  The hermit did look down then, hearing the cat’s mewling cry, and without pausing in his song, he smiled. Mist flew up before him and circled him twice, showing off his new powers. Dogface followed him with his eyes, smiling and singing. Mist realised as he flew that this flying was no more than a party trick, and that something of far greater power was happening all round him, and Dogface was part of it. So he dropped gently to the ground, and behaving now like a common cat, he rubbed his body along the hermit’s legs, and twined his tail round him, and purred. It was a little demeaning to be reduced to such an ordinary gesture of affection, but it had the advantage that the hermit understood it. Mist was saying, with the press of his soft grey fur and his lithe long body, I was happy with you, all our years in the tree. And Dogface, reaching down a hand to stroke him, was replying, I was happy with you too, my Mist.

  The song of the Singer people was changing now, growing louder, the rhythm a little faster. Now as Bowman and Kestrel stood stiff and silent, side by side before Jumper, the Singer people began to rise up. First one, then two more, then a dozen, they floated up out of the cave and into the moonlit night. Jumper had changed yet again, and now seemed to be very old, infinitely old, and wise, and full of love.

  ‘The time has come to sing the song to the end.’

  His voice was soft and sweet, as if it was part of the greater song that hummed around them. Bowman was filled with the sensation that he had heard all this before, that he knew what would be said to him, and what he must reply.

  ‘A child of the prophet must go with you.’

  ‘I see two children of the prophet,’ said Jumper.

  ‘I’m the one,’ said Bowman. ‘I’ve been chosen. I’ve been trained. Kestrel knows that.’

  Then at last Kestrel spoke, with a heavy heart, as the silver voice burned her skin.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Bowman misunderstood, thinking that she didn’t want to let him go.

  ‘This thing must be done, Kess.’

  ‘It must be done,’ said Kestrel, ‘but not by you.’

  ‘Not by me?’

  Bowman was shocked into a new alertness. He turned to Jumper. The little old man seemed unsurprised.

  ‘Tell her,’ said Bowman. ‘Tell her it’s me who has to come with you, into the wind on fire.’

  ‘One of you must come with us,’ said Jumper. ‘The one in whom the prophet lives again, and will die again.’

  ‘That’s me! It must be me!’

  ‘No,’ said Kestrel sadly. ‘Sorry, Bo.’

  ‘Sorry? What do you mean, sorry?’

  He spoke angrily, because he was confused and hurt. Why was Kestrel saying such things? She knew he had been preparing for this all his life. Why else had he been trained? Why else had he been given power?

  ‘Don’t stop me, Kess.’

  Of course! Why hadn’t he seen it before? She wasn’t trying to hold on to him out of love. She was jealous. She knew this coming wind on fire, that was called the storm of bliss, was the one true reward, and she sought it for herself. But he had the power. If necessary, for the sake of this great act for which all the Singer people had assembled, he would use his power.

  ‘Don’t stop me, Kess.’

  Oh my brother. Can’t you see?

  He caught the note of sadness, and of pity, in her mind’s voice, and it angered him. All his life he had been the fearful one, and Kestrel had been the leader. He had been the one who feels, she had been the one who does. Now, at the end, she couldn’t accept that he was the leader, and had the power.

  All round him the Singer people were floating up and away, hundreds and hundreds of them, as gradually the great cave emptied. The song they sang went with them, to sound from the air above, rising, falling, rising. There was no time to lose.

  ‘I must go now,’ he said. ‘They wait for me.’

  I love you, Bo.

  Her love angered him. Using the power of his mind, he reached out to push her back: not to strike her, or to hurt her, just to show her that they must be parted.

  He couldn’t move her.

  He pushed harder. She seemed heavy, impossibly heavy. He met her eyes. He saw it there: she was using her own power, such as it was, to resist him.

  Don’t make me do this, Kess.

  Let go, she answered him. Be still.

  I won’t hurt you, Kess. But I won’t let you stop me.

  He summoned up greater powers, and bore down upon her, to break her resistance. Under such an assault, he expected her to crumple to her knees, but she didn’t move by so much as a shiver. Then, to his shock, she struck back. The mind-blow made him stagger.

  Kess! Don’t fight me! I don’t want to hurt you.

  You can’t hurt me, Bo.

  Why are you doing this?

  To make you understand.

  She struck him again. Again he staggered back. Tears came to his eyes, not of pain but of distress. He turned to Jumper, and saw how he watched them with a look on his face that showed he had expected this.

  This must be it, Bowman thought. This must be the final test of my training. I must lose all and give all. I must even lose my sister, who is half myself. I must be free to do what I was born to do.

  Armed with this new conviction, he called up all the power he possessed, and hurled a blow at Kestrel that sent her flying across the cave, rolling and tumbling to crash against the rock walls on the far side. As soon as he had done it, he made himself go still, and quietly sang his own song, to restore the power he had unleashed.

  Kestrel stood up, and stepped softly back towards him.

  CRACK! An explosive force struck Bowman and lifted him up into the air, hurling him twenty, thirty feet up. He struggled to slow his fall, and gained control just before his feet touched the ground.

  At once he threw a mind-blow at Kestrel, and felt her meet it with a wall of power, and strike back. He brushed her strike aside, and hit again, and again, hammering at her defences. She was strong: much stronger than he had expected. He changed tactics, and focusing all his power into one narrow beam, he drilled into her mind, so that he could possess and subdue it. Instead of meeting this attack with a resisting mind, she gave way at once. He found himself tumbling into her mind, through curtains of longing and fear and ferocity and love, through the part of her that loved him, into a far place he had never known before, where there was a vast stillness.

  Here his attack ended. There was nothing to strike, no enemy to subdue, no prisoners to take. Instead it was his own furious power-driven mind that was subdued, and taken prisoner. He knew he could not compete against this, any more than he could sweep away the ocean, or hurt the sky.

  It has to be this way, my brother. Do you see it now?

  Gently, Kestrel released him from the fortress of her stillness.

  I’m the one who will go, she said. I’m the one who will die.

  Bowman looked around him. The Singer people were all gone, but for Jumper. He could hear their song still. They had not gone far. He tasted salt on his lips, and realised tears were streaming down his cheeks. He heard his own voice, saying, lost and afraid,

  ‘I would have given all I have.’

  So you shall.

  ‘What am I to do?’

  Go back to our people. They need you.

  Bowman wanted to ask, For what? But no words came. Then Jumper spoke, in his slow kind voice.

  ‘You’re the meeting place.’

  The meeting place? An odd thing to say, and yet familiar. He had never heard it before, and yet he understood it. The understanding broke through in a rush, like the shock of a suddenly-opened door that reveals an unexpected road ahead, a different road, a new vision of the future.

  Of course! There must be a meeting place. Was he not a child of the prophet, trained by the Singer
people? And had he not been touched by the Morah? He was the meeting place of the passions of mankind, of the hopes and the fears, the kindness and the cruelty. His destiny was not to be the saviour, but to be saved.

  In that flash of revelation, he saw the simple truth of his childhood journey into the halls of the Morah. That moment of ecstatic power and shameful weakness, that knowledge that had never left him since, that willed and guilty union with the Morah’s million eyes, that had been the entire and necessary purpose of his coming there. Not the saving of Aramanth, which had not been saved. Not the return of the voice to the wind singer, which had been burned. All that had endured from that perilous journey was the silver voice that Kestrel wore round her neck, and his own contamination by the Morah.

  He almost laughed out loud as he saw it all.

  Sirene watches over you. It was written on the old map. Oh, they were clever, these Singer people. They were hunting bigger game than an old wooden tower, built long ago. They had been preparing the next generation, that would build the world again, after the wind on fire.

  First you destroy, then you rule.

  ‘I’m the meeting place!’

  Jumper watched, and saw that the boy was ready now.

  ‘We have given you all we have to give. Use it well.’

  Kestrel had followed her brother’s tumble of understanding, and now she too understood. Her hand reached inside her shirt and drew out the silver voice. It burned her as she touched it, but she wasn’t hurt. This is what we found the voice for, she was thinking. Not for the wind singer. For now. For this. To lead me to the wind on fire.

  She looked up at her brother, and saw the gleam of tears on his cheek. She heard the song of the Singer people filling the air above.

  ‘They wait for me.’

  Jumper bowed his kind old head. Then silently he floated up into the air, and left brother and sister alone together beside the tomb of the prophet, to say their farewells.

  Now that the moment had come, Bowman found himself at a loss.

  ‘I can’t live without you, Kess.’ It wasn’t a plea. Bowman understood what was to happen. It was a statement of his own conviction. ‘If you die, I’ll die.’

  ‘But if you live, I’ll live.’