Slaves of the Mastery (16 page)

‘You were talking to a cat?’

Mist slowly turned his head away. He wanted nothing more to do with this dull youth.

‘Leave him to the cows,’ he said. ‘He seems to have their level of intellect.’

Dogface noticed the cows for the first time.

‘So they’ve put you to watch the cows?’

‘Yes.’

‘And are the cows grateful?’

‘Are they grateful? I’ve no idea.’

‘Ask them.’

‘I can’t talk to cows.’

‘Of course you can. You just haven’t tried.’

‘Spare me!’ said Mist. ‘Do we really have to sit here getting colder by the minute, listening to cows?’

‘It’s as good a beginning as any,’ said the hermit.

Bowman supposed this was addressed to him.

‘Beginning of what?’ he said.

The hermit fixed his good eye on the nearest cow, and spoke to it.

‘Wake up, my friend,’ he said. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you. The young man here would like a word.’

To Bowman’s astonishment the cow lumbered to its legs and came over to them. The big head swung down, close to where he sat, and he felt the cow’s moist breath on his face.

‘I believe you already know what to do,’ the hermit prompted.

Bowman had no idea at all how to begin, so he just looked into one of the cow’s big unblinking eyes, and let himself go quiet and empty inside, as he did when listening for Kestrel. After
a few moments, the cow trembled violently, and Bowman sensed a confused buzz of sound. The cow was frightened.

It’s all right
, he told the cow, not so much in words as in feelings.
I won’t hurt you.

Slowly he felt the cow grow calm, and the vibrating noises faded to a single slow pulse of sound:
oomfa – oomfa – oomfa
. The cow’s big wet nose pushed very close to him,
and he felt the suck of air as she snuffled at his face.

Then he found it. It was like that moment when you’re in a room full of people all talking at once, their voices mingling into a meaningless jumble of sound, and suddenly you catch a voice
speaking your own name. From then on, you hear that voice alone, and understand it, and all the other voices slip into the background. Only, the cow didn’t exactly have a voice. She had a
flow of observations. She had concerns.

Monster night stillness juice of grass don’t-trust always near calf smell of my own one no sudden moves monster sleep my own one pale monster in moonlight shivering . . .

‘I’m your friend,’ said Bowman aloud, so the hermit could hear too.

Friends move slow monsters jump . . .

It was the strangest thing. The cow wasn’t talking, but he received the answer, feeling by feeling, with perfect clarity. He had always assumed cows were stupid. He now understood that
they just worked more slowly than people.

He raised one hand to touch the cow, but deliberately made the hand move very slowly through the air.

‘I – can – be – slow,’ he said, also speaking slowly.

The cow contemplated him gravely.

Miserable monster no peace no rest sudden moves hurt stillness monster grieving
. . .

Astonishing! The cow thought he was the one with the problems.

‘Do you pity me, cow?’

Sad monster rush rush and odd stick creature jerky jerky go about and about ha ha ha
. . .

Now the cow was laughing at him! In her slow and wordless way, she found him amusing.

‘Laugh at me if you want,’ said Bowman, a little offended. ‘But you’re still afraid of me too.’

Ah monster hurt monster hurt all jerky jerky funny monster terror monster death monster and at the end ha ha ha
. . .

Bowman understood.

‘We monsters bring so much fear, what can you do but laugh at us?’

The cow gazed at him a little longer, with what seemed to Bowman to be a deep compassion, an acknowledgement that he had understood how she felt. Then she swung slowly away, and plodded off in
search of her calf.

‘There you are,’ said the hermit.

‘It’s so strange. I feel quite different about cows now.’

‘Wonderful,’ said Mist. ‘Can we go now?’

‘I’m not done yet,’ said Dogface.

Bowman was looking at the cat.

‘Does it work with all animals?’

‘Of course. And with plants. And even rocks, though you have to work very hard with rocks.’

‘How do you know these things?’

‘How does anyone know anything? I’ve been taught.’

‘Who are you?’

‘You mean you want to know my name? Names are greatly overrated. We can all manage perfectly well without them.’

He shivered as he spoke.

‘Why, you’re cold!’

Bowman pulled off his sheepskin cape and drew it over the hermit’s shoulders.

‘You should wear warmer clothes.’

‘I have to say I agree. But where I come from, it’s very much frowned on. If you’re cold, they say, sing the song against cold. Or accept the cold, and put it to use. Still,
you’re very kind. And you were most sensitive with that cow. I can see you’ll do a decent enough job when it comes to it.’

‘When it comes to what?’

‘What you asked for.’

‘I don’t understand. What have I asked for?’

Dogface rubbed at his bad eye with one hand and cast his mind back.

‘The power to destroy, I think they said. Not what I’d call a noble request. Nor a sensible one, really, given that you have the power already. More power than me, at any
rate.’

The cat heard this in surprise.

‘This boy has more power than you?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Dogface. ‘He was born to it.’

Bowman too was amazed, though for a very different reason. Could this truly be the answer to his cry in the night? And if so, who was this strange one-eyed man?

‘So he could fly, could he?’ said Mist.

‘He could do anything he wanted,’ replied the hermit. But after a moment’s reflection, he added, speaking now to the bewildered Bowman, ‘I’m not saying your power
will be enough, when the time comes. But you can always ask for help.’

‘When what time comes?’

‘The time to destroy.’ Dogface raised one arm towards the dark city on the lake. ‘You want to destroy all this, I take it?’

‘I – I – don’t really know.’

‘Oh, yes. I believe so.’ He spoke in the vague manner of one who recalls something he’s been told. ‘You’ve been sent to destroy and to rule.’

‘To destroy and to rule? There’s been some kind of mistake. No one sent me. I’m a slave. I was driven here against my will.’

‘Against your will, perhaps. Not against theirs.’

‘Whose?’

‘Sirene.’

Bowman stared at the hermit, once again reduced to silence. This time it was because of a name he had never in his life heard before, but which at once seemed familiar.

‘So you see, there’s no mistake. It’s like with the cows. You have the power, but you haven’t tried to use it yet. It’s just a matter of practice, and wanting it
enough.’

‘Just a matter of practice, eh?’ said Mist. ‘Just a matter of wanting it enough?’

Dogface nudged the cat off his lap, got up, and pulled the heavy sheepskin cape off his shoulders.

‘Thank you for your warmth. Now I must be on my way.’

He started up his humming once more.

‘But I don’t know what to do! You haven’t told me. You haven’t explained –’

The hermit stopped humming, and his good eye fixed Bowman with a severe look.

‘You really must get out of this habit of expecting other people to do everything for you. It’s not good, you know. You don’t learn anything that way. Think of the cows, and
try and do it for yourself.’

He reached out and took Bowman’s staff from him, and let it fall to the ground. Then he looked down at it and was silent for a moment. Suddenly the staff jiggled where it lay, lifted
itself up, and pushed itself back into Bowman’s still open hand.

‘See? Not at all hard, really. Now I must be on my way. Not much time left.’

With that, Dogface departed, shuffling over the grass in his bare feet with surprising speed. The grey cat ran by his side.

‘You say that boy has more power than you?’

‘Yes, poor lad. He’s a true child of the prophet.’

Bowman pulled the sheepskin cape close round himself once more, and stared after him. Even well wrapped, he found he was trembling.

Sirene
. . .

Why should the unknown name be so familiar? Why did it make him shiver? And could he really do what the one-eyed man had done?

He let his staff fall to the ground once more. He looked down on it. Feeling both foolish and excited, he tried to concentrate on the staff, saying to it with his mind,
Move
!

Nothing happened.

He stared at the staff for a long time, urging it in every way he could think of to rise up, but it simply lay there in the light of his lantern, showing no inclination to obey him.

After a while, he sat down on his haunches and glared at the staff, sensing that it could move if it wanted to, but was being stubborn. Just a matter of practice, the stranger had said. But how
was one to practise when nothing happened?

Bowman didn’t notice the grey cat return, and sit silently outside the pool of lantern-light watching him. All his attention was on his unmoving staff.

Just a matter of wanting it enough.

He settled down onto the earth, sitting cocooned in the thick cape, as he had been when the hermit had first appeared. He realised his thoughts were all in a racing tumble, from everything his
visitor had said. So for a little while he looked up at the sky, and followed the half-moon as it sailed over the world, forever moving, and yet never seeming to get anywhere. Then in a calmer
frame of mind, he returned his attention to his staff. He thought of how it had been with the cow. Perhaps this stick had feelings too, in its own way.

More respectfully, he reached out his mind towards the staff, and – what? Talked to it? That was ridiculous. Nobody talks to a stick. Instead, he attended to it. He felt gently all around
it with his eyes, and through his eyes with his inner senses. He found nothing unusual. It was, well, stick-like. It was quite a young stick, he found. There was still sap beneath its hide of bark.
The core of the wood had a pleasing density, in which there was no brittleness. The wood was in its prime. Round its smoothed top end he felt the impress of many hands, and he felt the
stick’s pride that those hands had clasped it tight, had leaned on it with great weight, and it had supported them. It hadn’t bowed, or snapped. This staff was reliable, and it knew
it.

He nudged it lightly, to see the underside, and it moved. Not much, just a half-roll, as he had intended. Only, his hands had remained buried deep in the warmth of the cape. He had moved it with
his mind.

He fought back the impulse of surprise, determined to maintain the quiet contact he had made. He nudged at it again, and again it shifted a little. It was rather like blowing on a leaf: all he
had to do was push with his mind, and the stick felt the force.

He held the smooth end of the staff with his mind, and gently levered it up. It rose, its other end still on the grass. He lifted it almost upright, and started to pull it towards him. But he
wasn’t quite strong enough, or practised enough, and it fell clattering back to the ground.

The cat saw, and was impressed. The boy did have power. That was all he needed to know.

He stood up, and stalked majestically into the light.

‘Hallo,’ said Bowman. ‘You’ve come back.’

‘Are you telling me?’ said Mist. The boy heard nothing, of course. The cat sat down and stared at him. ‘If you’ve got so much power, how about learning to
talk?’

‘Where’s your master?’

‘Oh, spare me!’

Bowman looked out into the darkness. There was no sign of the one-eyed stranger. The night was passing, and he had much to think over. He returned to the doorway of the hut and sat down there
with his legs crossed, his staff and his lantern by his side. Mist climbed onto his lap and curled up there and started to purr. Bowman stroked him.

‘I think you like me,’ he said.

‘Please,’ said Mist wearily. ‘You give me what I want, and I give you what you want. Let’s just leave it at that.’

That same night, Ira Hath dreamed again, the dream in which snow fell over a red sky, and the coastal plain with the two rivers lay before her, between the steep hills. She cried out loud in her
sleep, ‘Wait for me! Don’t go without me!’ This woke her up, as well as her husband. She lay in his arms and they whispered together about the dream.

‘I hate it,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair. I wish it would go away.’

‘No, my darling. It’s not fair.’

‘I don’t want to be a prophetess. It’s too tiring.’

‘The land you see in your dream. Is it a good land?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it our land?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you lead us there?’

‘Yes.’ She hugged him close and kissed his familiar face. ‘I’ll never leave you. They can’t make me.’

Hanno kissed her in return, and said nothing.

Bowman came back to the slave quarters at daybreak, and the cat followed him at a distance. At the first opportunity, Bowman took his father aside, and told him about the
visitor in the night.

‘Sirene!’ exclaimed his father. ‘That was the ancient home of the Singer people!’

‘I think he may have been one of them.’

‘I didn’t know they still existed.’

‘What are they, pa?’

‘I know a little. If only I had my books!’

‘They built the wind singer, didn’t they?’

‘Yes. They were a people who had no homes, no possessions, no family. They wore plain robes, and went barefoot, living off the kindness of strangers. They had no weapons, no armour,
nothing, and yet they alone had the power to resist the Morah.’

‘What kind of power?’

‘I don’t know. It was all written down once. But so much has been lost.’

He fell silent, deep in his own thoughts.

Bowman did not tell his father about the power he had discovered within himself. He was still unsure about it, and shy of exposing it to the scrutiny of others. For similar reasons, he did not
say that the stranger had told him,
You have come to destroy and to rule
. He only half understood it himself. What he did understand, and did tell his father, was that he now believed he was
part of some greater plan.