Noman (14 page)

A last crash of the drums and it was over. The dancers were swept on by their own momentum, but with the rhythm gone, they tumbled and crashed into each other and fell laughing into a heap of bodies.

The Wildman felt himself pulled to his feet by friendly hands. He stood there panting, glowing, grinning like a fool, and all round him he saw happy, answering smiles.

"Now you're thirsty," said the Joy Boy, smiling at him. "You would like a drink."

"You must be a mind reader." The Wildman meant to speak mockingly, but the dance had filled him with such simple good feeling that his words came out as a sweet tribute.

The Joy Boy led him to the food tables, and they drank juice crushed from oranges and lemons, and it was the most delicious drink the Wildman had tasted in years.

"This is excellent!" he said. "You must teach me how to make it."

"Certainly," said the Joy Boy. "All you need is oranges and lemons and an eagerness to drink."

"Preaching again, boy."

"You're right. It's my vice. The temptation is so strong."

He sighed and then smiled affectionately at the Wildman.

"You preach to me," he said. "I would far rather learn."

"Me preach? I've nothing to say."

"Nothing? Has your life so far taught you nothing?"

"It's taught me that friends betray. It's taught me that pleasures fade. It's taught me that the best days of my life are over."

"What then do you live for?"

"Habit. Fear of death."

"I see."

The Joy Boy reflected in silence for a few moments, furrowing his brow.

"It seems to me," he said, "that almost anything would be better than that."

"Anything real. Don't trick me with dreams."

"What if the dreams are real?"

"No, no. I must see it. I must touch it. I must feel it."

"Like this?"

He was looking directly into the Wildman's eyes. A sudden intense spasm of pleasure shot through the Wildman's body, making him gasp. It was over as soon as it had begun, but it left him trembling, in shock.

"You felt that?"

He nodded.

"That was joy."

The Wildman shook his head in amazement and spoke slowly.

"I've never, ever had a feeling like that before."

"And yet," said the Joy Boy, "it is what you were made for. That is your natural condition. You were born to be joyous. You have learned to be unhappy."

This time the Wildman did not urge him to stop. The aftereffects of the shock of joy were still shivering through his nerves.

"You have chosen to be unhappy," said the Joy Boy in his soft steady voice. "You can choose joy."

"How?"

"Join us. Shed your armor. Let your anger fade. Let the bitterness drop away, and the cynicism, and the suspicion, and the fear. When a stranger smiles at you, smile back. When he holds out his arms, embrace him. When the music plays, dance. Share the joy."

"And after the smiling and the dancing—what then?"

"You become god."

"Ah, preacher. More dreams."

"Why not? That's the biggest dream of all." He looked round the ring of smiling faces that surrounded them. "They all believe it. And the people beyond them. And all the people beyond them who make up this great gathering that we call the Joyous. But of course they're all fools, and you know better."

The words were teasingly spoken, even lovingly. The Wildman found himself in a dilemma. His pride demanded that he walk away from this soft-spoken youth and have no more to do with his seductive promises. But he no longer wanted to go. That one touch of joy held him; that, and the memory of the bitter loneliness to which he would return.

What if they're all fools? he thought to himself. I've been a fool myself before and I'll be a fool again. What would I rather be? A lonely wise man or a joyful fool?

The Joy Boy understood his hesitation.

"Go back to your men," he said. "Live as you have lived. If your true place is with us, you'll know it and you'll return."

"If I do return," said the Wildman, "and if some of my men wish to come with me, will they be welcome?"

"They will be welcome. They are welcome. Every day they come from your camp and are welcomed into the Joyous."

"My men?"

"Of course." He looked round the crowd. "There. You see some of them."

The Wildman looked, and there indeed stood a band from his own spiker army, grinning foolishly, a little ashamed at being drawn to the attention of their former chief.

Shab then stepped forward.

"I want to stay, chief."

"You too, Shab?"

"I want to be here when it happens."

He looked at the Joy Boy, shy of claiming to understand the transformation they all anticipated. The Joy Boy supplied the words in his gentle voice.

"He wants to join in the Great Embrace. He wants to become god."

"What is this?" The Wildman asked because he wanted to know. Gone were his angry dismissive sneers. "When will it happen?"

"Very soon now, I think," replied the Joy Boy. "Every day more people join us. How can I turn any away? How can I deny to any who want it the chance to become god?
I long for the Great Embrace with all my heart. But I am like the captain of a ship at anchor in the harbor of a dying country. Soon I will raise anchor and set sail to a new world. But the people of the old world clamor to come aboard. How can I leave them to destruction and death? So each day I say, tomorrow we sail. And each day more people crowd aboard. As you see."

"And where will you take them when you sail? What is this new world?"

"A place where all men become one. And that one is god."

The Wildman shook his head.

"I can't understand that," he said.

"Of course not," murmured the Joy Boy. "To understand god you must be god. But all of us have felt, if only for a moment, what it's like to be god. We call it joy."

He smiled and bowed politely and left him to his own thoughts.

The Wildman called for his Caspian and swung himself up onto Sky's back. Silent and pensive, he rode back to the spiker camp, escorted by his men.

That evening he said to Pico, "There'll be no more lashes."

Pico nodded, to show he had heard, but did not speak.

"What would you do, Pico," said the Wildman, "if you had to choose between everything you've got and the one thing you want?"

"I'd watch my back," said Pico.

C
HEERFUL
G
LVER, HIS WIFE,
B
LESSING, AND THEIR TWO
boys tramped dismally back down the road towards Radiance. Cheerful Giver was silent, as he had been for many miles. Each day, he grew more weary. He still wore his winter coat, weighed down with gold shillings, but the true burden that stooped his shoulders and silenced his tongue was his loss of hope. He could see no future for himself and his family in this lawless world. He was still rich. He was still, in his own mind, a person of distinction. How then had he come to this? He was wandering the land like a homeless vagabond. He had become—the thought struck him with peculiar horror—he had become a spiker.

Blessing made quiet noises of her own as she went along. She was singing the song of the temple choir from the old days at Radiance.

"
O Radiance! O Radiance!
This life we humbly give!
Return to us! Return to us!
Through you alone we live!
"

Then in a high piping treble she broke into her solo.

"Receive our tribu-u-ute!"

Her boys groaned aloud.

"You're doing it again, Mum."

"Am I?" said Blessing, startled.

"You're going funny in the head, Mum."

"Husband, husband!" wailed Blessing. "What's to become of us?"

Cheerful Giver made no reply. He was staring down the road ahead. A man had come into view, a very big heavily armed man. He had a short-handled axe in his belt and a chain wound round his waist.

"Axer!" he cried.

His spirits lifted. The axers had been the imperial enforcers in Radiance. In Cheerful Giver's eyes they were the guardians of order and authority. He hurried forward to greet him.

"I am Cheerful Giver," he said, "formerly the Handler of the Corona to his Imperial Radiance! Thank the great sun above that we've found you! Please lead us to your captain."

The axer stared at Cheerful Giver and his family.

"Handler of the Corona, were you?" he said. "Heavy, was it?"

"Not so very heavy," said Cheerful Giver. He didn't like the way the big man was looking at him.

"These your sons, are they?"

The axer reached out one brawny arm and seized the oldest boy. The boy shrieked. The axer threw him to the ground and put one foot on his midriff. The boy screamed and struggled. The axer pressed down. The screams subsided into gasps.

"What are you doing?" cried Cheerful Giver.

"Call it an experiment," said the axer. "See if the lad can take my full weight."

"Stop! You'll crush him!"

"True. I might. So what are you going to give me so I don't?"

"Give you? I don't understand."

Blessing, who had been briefly shocked into silence by the turn of events, now found her voice.

"Give him your coat, husband! Your coat!"

"Your coat, eh?" said the axer, looking with interest at Cheerful Giver's coat. "Let's have a closer look at your coat."

"No!" cried Cheerful Giver, pulling his coat tight round him. "You can't have it!"

The axer applied more of his weight to the squirming boy.

"Seems to me the boy's not got the solidity," he said.

Blessing screamed.

"Give him the coat!"

"No!" Cheerful Giver clung even tighter to his coat. It was all that remained of his former status.

"He'll kill our child!"

The axer trod down a little harder, peering down at the boy as he did so.

"All fat," he said. "No muscle. Fat offers no resistance at all."

"Husband!"

At just this point Morning Star came round the bend in the road, walking towards them. In desperation Blessing cried to her for help.

"He's killing my child! Give him the coat! Tell my husband!"

"That's right," said the axer, turning to the newcomer. "You tell him."

Morning Star raised one hand. The axer gasped and staggered as if he had been clubbed in the belly. Morning Star passed her hand from side to side in the air, and he toppled over backwards, releasing the boy on the ground. The boy scrambled away, whimpering with terror, to be clutched tight in his mother's arms.

"My baby! My little one! Are you hurt? Oh, the brute!"

She looked up to thank their saviour, and suddenly recognized her.

"You!" she cried.

Morning Star too had known her as soon as she had seen her. But now she wanted only to go on her way.

"Husband, look! It's the girl you brought us, who had the dreams! It's my own daughter!"

Morning Star shook her head.

"Not your daughter," she said.

"You're one of them," said Cheerful Giver, gazing at her clothing. "You're one of the smashers."

For a moment it seemed he would start shouting at her, but instead his voice cracked and began to tremble.

"Noble Warriors, that's what you are." His body began to shake. "You saved my son."

He looked from the stunned axer lying on the ground to his son sobbing in his wife's arms, and he dropped to his knees and began to weep.

"What am I to do?" he said. "Where are we to go? The world has gone mad. Save us all, Noble Warrior! Save us all!"

Morning Star heard the clinking sound of Cheerful Giver's coat as he fell to his knees, and she guessed at what it held.

"The axer tried to rob you of your coat?"

"My gold! All that I have left. All that I have."

"Not all. You have a wife and sons."

"My gold is to protect them."

"And yet it seems your gold makes you less safe, not more."

"How else are we to live?"

"Your sons are young and strong. Let them find a way for you all to live."

"My sons?"

Cheerful Giver stared at his boys. They looked back at him, and for the first time, the sullenness was gone.

"We can do that, Dad."

"Don't you worry, Dad. We'll get food and stuff."

Blessing hugged them both.

"There! Didn't I always say they were fine boys?"

"But," protested Cheerful Giver, "how—what?"

"Take off your coat," said Morning Star. "Hang it on a tree by the roadside. And follow your boys."

With that, she went on her way.

Blessing watched her out of sight.

"I know she was my daughter in another life," she said. "Whatever she says."

"Well, well," said Cheerful Giver, standing up and dabbing at his eyes. "Maybe she was."

Slowly he drew off his coat and hung it over the branch of a tree. He stood tall, no longer bowed down by the weight of the gold. He felt the cooling air on his skin. He looked down the road south. The land was in chaos. There was no order. But perhaps there was opportunity; if not for himself, then for his sons.

"Come along, my dears," he said. "We've nothing left to lose. Things can only get better. Lead on, boys."

They set off once more, stepping carefully round the insensible axer, and Cheerful Giver held his head high as he followed his sons.

Morning Star had already forgotten the encounter. She was moving fast, and she was moving in a state of fearful wonder. Ever since her meeting with the Joy Boy, the world had taken on an intensity of color she had never known before. The roadside trees trembled with blues and greens as if they strained upwards in prayer. Birds darted by, leaving orange trails in the air. Slow plodding oxen hauling heavy carts moved in dull yellow clouds, while beside them strode travellers wrapped in layers of maroon and turquoise. The very ground she trod on shimmered with a mist of shell pink, as if happy to bear her weight.

She was on her way to Seeker, even though she had no way of knowing where he was. Inspired by the Joy Boy, she now believed that this was her task and the purpose for which she had acquired her special gifts. She never doubted for one instant that she would find him. All she had to do was pass through this newborn world with her eyes wide open and she would reach him.