"Alva. Your turn to speak."
The Jahan's second son stepped forward.
"My father has asked you," he said to Echo, "to choose not from duty, but according to your own wishes. Name any quality that a woman seeks in a man, and all the world knows I am superior in that quality to my brothers. I am the tallest. I am the strongest. I am the most handsome. I say this not to boast, but to tell you honestly what you can see for yourself. Take my older brother out of duty if you must. But if you follow your own desires, as my father has ordered you to do, you will take me."
The Jahan smiled at this, amused by his son's strutting confidence.
"Ah, Alva," he said, patting him on the back. "I was just the same at your age."
Echo looked on, expressionless and silent, stroking the little finger of her left hand.
"Sabin!"
The Jahan's third son stepped forward.
"My lady," he said, bowing respectfully towards her. "I have no empire to give you. I am the least of my brothers. But I've watched you since you came among us, and I think I know you better than they do. I've seen how you're afraid, but brave in facing your fear. You anger quickly, but you're wise in controlling your anger. You love your horse, and your horse loves you, and that tells me that you're a true Orlan, in spirit if not in blood. I know you want none of this marrying. I know you'd run away if you could. But my father has spoken and must be obeyed. Since you must choose one of us, choose me, and I will do my best to make you happy."
The Jahan laughed out loud.
"What a boy!" he cried. "Where did that all come from? Did you get that from the cook?"
"No, Father," said Sabin quietly. "It's from me."
Echo was gazing at him in some confusion. She had prepared herself to endure arrogance and indignity; she had not been ready for kindness. She found herself touched almost to the point of tears. But she felt the Jahan's eyes on her, and she steadied herself and revealed nothing. Here, years of habit came to her aid. She pushed the troublesome thoughts out of her mind.
Just don't think it.
The Jahan himself now rose and stood before her.
"So, Princess. My sons have spoken. Now you must choose."
Echo was ready. She had made her plan in the long sleepless hours of the night gone by.
"Great Jahan," she said. "Your first son asks me to choose him out of duty. Your second son asks me to choose him out of desire. Your third son asks me to choose him for my own happiness. But I want to do my duty and to follow my desire and to be happy, all at once. I want all three."
"Maybe you do," said the Jahan, "but you must choose one."
"I can't."
"Then am I to choose one for you?"
"You? Yes!" The idea seemed to come fresh to Echo, as a way out of her dilemma; though in fact this was just the plan she was working towards. "You are their father. If you were a younger man, I would choose you."
The Jahan blushed with pleasure, as Echo had fully intended.
"But since I can't choose you, you must choose for me. I ask only that you choose the one who is most like you."
"If I must," said the Jahan, well pleased, "then I choose—"
"But not here. Not now."
"What else? What are you talking about?"
"I would like you to show me the son who most deserves to take your place."
"How am I to show you that?"
"In the Orlan way," said Echo. "In the jagga."
"The jagga!"
"Whichever of your sons throws you to the ground deserves to take me as his wife."
"The devil!" cried the Jahan in admiration. "What a girl! You hear that?" He turned to his sons, his eyes shining. "There's an Orlan answer if ever there was one!"
His sons showed rather less enthusiasm.
"But Father," said Sabin, "you know I can't beat you at the jagga."
"Why not? You're half my age, boy."
"So you mean to do this?" said Sasha.
"Certainly! The girl's got it right. Let's see who deserves to take my place, the Orlan way!"
He turned back to Echo with a beam all over his powerful ugly face, swelling with pride.
"It makes me feel like a young man again just thinking about it!"
He lashed the air with his whip, making it crack, and turning to the priest-king of Radiance, he spoke.
"Three days of feasts and games, eh? You'll never have seen sport like the Orlan jagga!"
12. Knock Me Down!
SEEKER AND MORNING STAR FOLLOWED THE GREAT River as far as the first crossing point and there joined a cluster of other travellers waiting for the ferry to the west bank. The travellers stared at their gray clothing and their badans and whispered among themselves until at last one woman plucked up the courage to speak to them.
"Please," she said, "are you Noble Warriors?"
Seeker nodded an affirmation. It seemed too complicated to explain that they had not completed their training. The woman dropped to her knees and tugged at the hem of his tunic.
"Help me!" she said. "The invaders have burned my home. They've taken our cattle and our grain. How are we to live?"
"Be patient," said Seeker. "These times will pass."
"I have five small children, sir. How am I to feed them? The invaders have taken everything. And I'm left to hear my children crying in the night."
The ferry drew in to the landing stage, and the travellers boarded. Throughout the short river-crossing the unhappy woman continued to plead, turning now to Seeker and now to Morning Star. At last, to calm her, Morning Star answered.
"Trust in the All and Only. The invaders will be driven away soon, now."
Once they were on their road again, and alone, Morning Star spoke.
"Was I wrong?"
"We do what we can," said Seeker. "We can't do everything."
"This mission of yours—it's to do with the invaders?"
"No."
"Then may the Loving Mother comfort such poor abandoned people."
Seeker said nothing. They made their way down the road in silence. On either side stretched winter fields gray with corn stubble; above, the rolling clouds of the winter sky. For a little longer they would share this westward road, until they reached the fork. Then Seeker would go on to the great forest, and Morning Star would turn north towards Spikertown. If the Wildman had survived, it was surely there that he would go.
A flock of geese passed croaking overhead, beating the air in orderly lines, making for the unseen coast. A spatter of rain blew in on a gust of wind and then blew away again.
They were nearing the fork in the road when Morning Star broke their silence.
"I think you're ashamed of me," she said.
"Ashamed of you?" Seeker was surprised. "Why?"
"You go on a great mission. But I have no mission. I've left the Nom at a time of danger because—because I'm weak."
Seeker understood her.
"It's not weakness to go to the help of a friend."
"It is weakness," said Morning Star. "I don't go to help him. I go to help myself."
Seeker said nothing. If he could have chosen, he would have asked not to hear any more. But he could not choose.
"Seeker, I'm so unhappy. There's no one I can tell but you."
"Then tell me," he said quietly, and he fixed his eyes on the road ahead.
"I feel such a fool. I never thought much of him, you know that. With his boasting and his vanity and—oh, his selfishness. And all that stupid hair. But somehow, as we were spending so much time together, in the training, I started to look at him. Do you ever do that? Start to look at someone you know well, and realize you've not seen them properly before?"
"Yes," said Seeker, watching the puddles in the rutted track, counting the puddles. "I've done that."
"At first I just thought I was looking for no reason. But when you look, you start to notice—just little things. Then it changes. He started to be beautiful to me."
"He always was," said
Seeker.
"Yes, I know. But to me. It's different from looking at someone and thinking, There's a beautiful person. When you see all the little things that no one else notices, then he's beautiful in a secret way. I can't explain. I never meant it to happen."
"It's what people call being in love," said Seeker.
"How can I be in love with him?" said Morning Star. "I don't even like him."
"But you want to go to him. You want to find him again."
"It's the only thing I want."
Seeker heard the tremor in her voice. He knew she wanted him to comfort her.
"I hope you do find him again."
"Do you, Seeker? That's kind of you."
She slipped her arm through his in a comradely fashion.
"You're the only one I can tell. I can't even tell him."
"Not even him?"
"He won't want me. Not a girl with a sharp tongue and a face like a bun. Beautiful people want beautiful people."
"You don't know till you ask."
"If he's even alive to ask."
"But you think he's alive, don't you?"
"Yes," she said. "I'm sure of it. I don't know why."
They continued on their way, arm in arm, walking more slowly, and so came at last to the fork in the road, where they would part.
"Take care," said Seeker. "These are dangerous times."
"Oh, I'll come to no harm. I'm not important enough. It's you who must take care."
Seeker smiled and nodded and didn't speak. Morning Star looked at his colors.
"You're hurting. What is it?"
Seeker shrugged.
"I suppose I'm just afraid," he said.
"Oh, Seeker! What a bad person I've become."
"Why?"
"All I've thought about is myself. I don't know what it is you're going to do, but I'm sure it's dangerous."
"There is danger. But I've been given power, Star."
"So have we all."
"More than you. More than all the others. More than you can imagine."
She stared at him.
"What power?" she said.
It was the look in her eyes that goaded him: not a look of disbelief, exactly, but not belief, either.
"Look down," he said.
He pointed both his forefingers at a puddle in the ground before him and concentrated his mind. The muddy brown water in the puddle began to hiss and seethe. Then the ground itself erupted in a small spout of mud and stones.
Morning Star saw and was amazed.
"You did that? With your mind?"
"With my lir."
"And it hasn't made you weaker?"
"No. I never run out."
"How is that possible?"
"I'm taking the power from the land itself. I can take strength from all living things. My power—"
He shrugged, suddenly embarrassed to hear himself.
"I don't really understand it. I've been given it for a purpose. That's what I go to do now."
"To use your power—to kill?"
He looked away. "Yes."
"Who are you to kill?"
"They're called savanters. They mean to destroy the Nom."
"How do you know this?"
"I've been told."
She watched his colors and caught the faint shimmer of gold that hovered round him; but with it there was a rim of palest yellow that she had not seen on him before.
"I should come with you," she said. "You'll need help."
"No. They can't hurt me."
"But you—you'll hurt them. And then what will you feel?"
He looked up at that and half smiled. So like Star, he thought, to sense the true danger.
"I have to live with that," he said.
She too smiled, but now there was a sadness in her eyes.
"Dear Seeker," she said. "You've gone on ahead of us all."
"I didn't mean to."
"Don't go too far. Don't change too much. I like you as you are."
Seeker kicked at the mound of stones with his toes, as if to put back what he had caused to bubble up.
"We'd better move on."
"Remember this?"
She raised her hand, palm forward. Seeker remembered. He did the same and their hands met, palm to palm. Then he turned quickly and strode away down the road to the west, without looking back. Morning Star turned north, towards Spikertown.
Seeker walked at great speed, thinking no thoughts of any kind, until he became aware of an ache in his stomach. He thought at first that it was hunger. But then he knew that it was the other kind of emptiness.
So I miss her already, he told himself.
Without intending it to, the image of Morning Star formed in his mind. Her eyes were looking at him intently, and her face was pretending to be blank, while in fact she was laughing. She had that sort of a face. People thought she was plain-looking, because they didn't see how she disguised her real thoughts. But he saw. He could tell from the crinkles in the corners of her eyes, and from the twitching of her mouth. Then out would come some pointy jabby little remark, which showed just how much she did understand what was going on—which was almost everything.
She's my friend. Nothing to be sad about there. She'll go on being my friend whatever happens.
But the ache got worse.
Nothing is dependable, he told himself. Nothing lasts.
So in a little while he was able to continue on his journey in a calmer frame of mind.
***
The line of ancient stones by the side of the road grew higher as he went, and in time took the form of a wall. The wall had evidently been substantial in some former age, for here and there its crumbling upper sections rose far above his head. Now brambles climbed over the granite blocks, and grasses grew from old mortar, and at the wall's feet lay strewn the rubble of stones that must once have been part of an even higher rampart.
Seeker paid little attention to the old wall, or to the door in the wall that now came into view ahead, because by the door, supported by some unseen means, sat an old man with long straggly gray hair, who was staring at him intently as he approached. The old man had a handful of small stones in his lap, and picking out one of the stones, he threw it at Seeker. Then he threw another, and another. His aim improved with each throw as Seeker came nearer, and the little stones now hit him on the legs.
"Stop that! Don't do that!"
The old man paid no attention at all. He went on throwing stones, not hard, but accurately.
"Why are you doing that? Stop it!"
"You'll have to make me," said the old man.
"Make you? How?"
Another stone came sailing through the air.
"Knock me down," said the old man.
"Knock you down? You're an old man."
"So it shouldn't be too hard, should it?"
He threw another stone.
Seeker stared at him. Everything about the old man was odd, from the way he sat on nothing to the long dark blue coat he wore. And yet there was something familiar about him.
"Do you know me?" said Seeker.
"I should hope I do. I've known you all your life. You're Seeker after Truth."
"How do you know me? I don't know you."
"Then you've nothing to worry about. Come along. Knock me down."
"Please stop that. I can't knock you down."
"Maybe you can and maybe you can't. That's the question."
"I don't pick fights with old men."
The old man threw another stone at him.
"What if old men pick fights with you?" he said.
"What do you mean by saying you know me? You've never met me in your life. You don't know anything about me."
"Oh, no?" said the old man, suddenly producing a gap-toothed grin. "I don't know how you used to wet the bed in the night when you were seven years old. And I don't know how you cried when your brother left home. And I don't know how lonely you were at school. And I don't know how you love Morning Sta
r."
Seeker stared at him, speechless.
"Such a lot I don't know about you, I'd say."
"Who told you that? Who have you been talking to? Who are you?"
"Just a nosy old man."
"Have you been spying on me?"
"You might say so."
"Why?"
The old man threw another stone at him.
"Maybe you should teach me a lesson," he said. "Maybe you should knock me down."
"I'm not going to knock you down!" The whole situation was absurd.
"Then I shall have to knock you down."
The old man stood up, revealing that he had been sitting on a stick with a seat for a handle. He dropped the remainder of the stones, brushed his hands free of grit, and looked into Seeker's eyes. Then he nodded his head.
Seeker fell over.
"Down he goes!" the old man chortled.
Seeker got to his feet in a more thoughtful frame of mind. There was only one sort of person who could knock him down like that.
"You must be a Noma."
"Of a kind," said the old man. "Will you oblige me now by knocking me down?"
Seeker stood before him with more attention than before. He allowed his body to become still, as he had been taught, and he let the lir flow through him freely. Then he met the old man's eyes with his own, reached out with the concentrated power of his will, and—
Fell over again.
He had collided with an immovable wall of power. This peculiar old man possessed more power than any of his teachers in the Nom.
"Who are you?"
"Do you mean, when am I?"
"I don't understand."
"Time changes everything, doesn't it? You say, Who am I? That may seem a simple question to you, but I'm one person when I get up in the morning—a disagreeable, bad-tempered sort of person, I'm sorry to say. Then I'm quite another person after breakfast. A little on the silent side, perhaps, but amiable enough. Then again, should you meet me after I've had a good dinner, and perhaps a brandy or two, you'll make a friend for life. And that's all in a single day. Now only consider myself when young, or middle-aged, or—"