Praise for FIRESONG

‘The warmth of feeling and touches of comedy make the trilogy a triumph’

The Times

‘Powerful imaginative energy and emotional force’

Sunday Times

‘A gripping narrative and a questing intelligence’

Daily Telegraph

‘Nicholson’s achievement is worthy of acclaim and should mellow into a classic’

The Times

‘Our storytime reading of choice’

Scotsman

Praise for THE WIND SINGER and SLAVES OF THE MASTERY

‘Truly extraordinary’

Daily Telegraph

‘An original and striking read’

Melvin Burgess

‘. . . A gripping read . . . A beautifully narrated, warm thriller of a book, full of inventiveness, action and passion’

Guardian

‘Gloriously cinematic and completely enthralling’

Independent

‘Rich in characters . . . a gripping adventure’

Sunday Times

‘A journey that will leave you breathless’

Bookseller

Books by William Nicholson

The Wind on Fire Trilogy

The Wind Singer

Slaves of the Mastery

Firesong

The Noble Warriors Trilogy

Seeker

Jango

Noman

For older readers

Rich and Mad

First published in Great Britain 2002

This edition published 2011

by Egmont UK Limited

239 Kensington High Street

London W8 6SA

Text copyright © 2002 William Nicholson

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

ISBN 978 1 4052 3971 4

eISBN 978 1 7803 1212 5

www.egmont.co.uk www.williamnicholson.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Prologue: Bounce on, Jumper

1 The view from the sourgum tree

2 Drunkenness

3 Sisi’s kiss

4 Walking the storm

5 The winner chooses a bride

6 Farewell to childhood

7 The dying of the last fire

8 Fatness is happiness

9 Talking with pigs

10 Captain Canobius’s feast

11 Winter dawn

12 All my loves

13 The egg’s song

14 Pinto grows up

15 Bowman flies

16 Ira sees the future

17 The meeting place

18 Into the beautiful land

19 The wind on fire

Epilogue: A betrothal

About the Author

Praise for FIRESONG

Books by William Nicholson

About the Publisher

Prologue: Bounce on, Jumper

Albard lay undiscovered among the ruins for three days and nights. All this time he remained in a half sleep, a waking dream, too weak to move or call out. He saw the sun pass overhead, and then the stars. He grew cold, and colder. The flesh dwindled on his great body as he starved. He knew he was dying, and knew there was nothing he could do now to save himself; nor did he wish to. He was only puzzled that it was taking so long, and a little afraid about what would happen in that mysterious final moment when the dying, which is after all a kind of living, came to an end. So at last he composed his mind and prepared himself to sing the song all Singer people sing at the end, for the release of their spirit. Unlike most of the Singer people’s songs, this one had words. Albard’s lips did not move. No sound came from him. But in his mind, he sang:

Joy of my days, let me go

Days of my life, let me go

Life of my heart, let me go

Let me go, let me go, far away . . .

His own voice sounded sweet to him, and peaceful, and he thought he would sleep soon. The pain was all gone, and the ruined city around him was silent. He had no idea what time of day it was any more, or what time of year. It was for him the end time.

Heart of my life, let me go

Life of my days, let me go

Days of my joy, let me go

Let me go, let me go, far away . . .

Then as the song came ever fainter in his fading mind, he heard a new sound: the sound of footsteps approaching. They came in bursts, as if this unseen visitor was hopping and stopping, hopping and stopping. Through the fog of his own dying Albard heard a voice, a shrill chirpy voice that talked to itself.

‘Bounce on, Jumper!’ the voice said.

Leave me alone, said Albard in his mind. Leave me to die.

But it was no use. The newcomer couldn’t hear him, and would have paid no attention even if he had. He was getting closer. Any moment now he would stumble right onto Albard’s body.

‘He’s here somewhere, and I’m here, so when his here meets my here, I’ll find him. Bounce on, Jumper!’

No! cried Albard, deep within his fading mind. Not him! Not the jolly one! Now, death, now! Come quickly!

It was too late. Though his body was cold and his eyes long closed, stubborn life lingered in his core: and so the one who called himself Jumper found him, and cried out in joy.

‘Oh happy day! Albard! My dear companion, I have found you!’

Go away.

‘You don’t look at all well.’

I’m almost dead, you clot.

‘Never mind! We’ll soon have you up and smiling, eh?’

Drown yourself, moonface.

‘That’s the spirit! You know you can do it! Who’s let himself get cold? Dear oh dear! Rub-a-dub-dub! We’ll soon have you warm again.’

The little fellow set himself hammering over the dying man’s great starved wreck of a body, beating heat back into the icy limbs. Albard felt the tiny spark of life within him flicker and grow stronger.

His eyes opened.

‘Well, hello, stranger!’ beamed Jumper. ‘Welcome back to this wonderful world!’

Albard did not speak. He let his great grey eyes stare his outrage and his contempt.

‘You don’t have to thank me,’ said Jumper. ‘Making people happy is my reward.’

What a moonface clot it is, thought Albard to himself, as Jumper chafed his limbs. He felt the first painful thrill of returning sensation. And what sort of thing is he anyway? Is he man or woman? Or something else altogether, for which we need a new name?

You’re a blob, he decided. A silly smiling blob.

The creature was certainly human, though smaller and more short-legged and round-bodied than the usual sort. He was equipped with the standard number of limbs and eyes and ears, and had hair on the top of his round moonish head. But was the hair fair or dark? Long or short? The odd thing about Jumper was you couldn’t quite get a fix on any part of him, except perhaps for his ever-cheerful voice. Sometimes he looked like a little middle-aged man, sometimes like a ten-year-old girl. He was known as Jumper not only because of his bouncing, hopping manner of getting about: there was something jumpish about him altogether. No part of him ever came to rest, but was always changing, becoming something else. It was no use asking Jumper himself who or what he was, because he would only reply, with his eager-to-please smile,

‘What would you like me to be?’

To children he was an indulgent grandfather, to women he was a playful child, to men a willing friend. To Albard now, he was saviour, servant, and nurse. He scavenged food and drink for him among the ruins, and in the chill night he slept pressed tight to Albard’s body, warming him with his own life’s heat.

It was hard to complain. Above all, Jumper was so good-tempered. He was relentlessly, unstoppably good-tempered. As Albard returned to strength, he lay and plotted remarks that would offend him, but never with any success.

‘Believe me, Jumper, I would rather die than have to endure one more day of your baseless optimism.’

‘Oh, would you rather I was gloomy? I can be gloomy if you like.’

He hung his round head and turned down the corners of his mouth and shuffled about sighing to himself,

‘Sad and lonely, sad and lonely.’

‘And short and ugly,’ said Albard.

‘Sad and lonely, short and ugly,’ echoed Jumper.

‘And dull and fat.’

‘Sad and lonely, short and ugly, dull and fat,’ said Jumper, beating his breast. But then he spoiled it all by looking up with a radiant smile and asking, ‘Did you like that? Did I do it right?’

Very much against his will, and due entirely to Jumper’s devoted care, Albard recovered.

‘Thank you, Jumper,’ he said bitterly. ‘Thanks to you, my life, which has no purpose left to it, nor any prospect of happiness, will now drag on a little while longer.’

‘Oh no,’ said Jumper. ‘You’re entirely wrong. Your life does have a purpose. You’re to train the boy.’

‘What boy?’

However, Albard knew well enough. There was only one boy who mattered: the boy who was to rule after him. Of course he must be taught. The boy he hated and loved, the boy that was his enemy, his rival who had taken from him all his power, his successor who would be his inheritor. Albard envied him his youth and his future. He hated him for his victory over him. He loved him like the child he never had. He felt a wild pride in him. He longed with a burning desire to see him again, and just once, before the end, to hold him in his arms. So many emotions, and all so violent: and all because this moonface spoke to him about the boy.

Jumper, apparently knowing none of this, answered simply,

‘His name is Bowman Hath.’

‘And what am I to train this boy to do?’

‘To carry out his new duties.’

‘And why am I to do this?’

‘Because,’ said Jumper, beaming, ‘because you’re the best of us.’

‘I’m the best, eh?’

Albard knew what they said on Sirene. The best and the worst, that’s what they said of him. The greatest of all the Singer people ever to have kissed the Prophet’s brow, the one in whom the powers had been most perfected, and the only one ever to betray their calling.

‘Well, so I am. What of it?’

‘So you’re to train the boy. You see how it all comes out right in the end?’

‘In the end we’re all dead.’

‘That we are, and how glorious that will be!’

Albard sighed and gave up. There was no denting such wilful contentment.

‘Where is he, then? This boy?’

‘He’s on his way to the mountains, with his people. We must hurry. They’ve been gone many days, and the wind is rising.’

‘The wind is rising, is it? And will you be there at the end, little Jumper? Will you be singing the firesong, with the wind on your back?’

‘Oh, yes! Of course I’ll be there! How blessed we are to be the generation that will know the wind on fire!’

‘Not me. I made my choice long ago. I’ve had my day, and now it’s over.’

He looked round him at the burned ruins of what had once been the most beautiful city in the world.

They didn’t deserve it. I gave them perfection, and they feared it. They loved their mess. Now they have it back.

‘Sirene sent you, moonface?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Sirene hates me. Sirene wants me dead.’

‘Not at all. You’ve played your part, like all the rest of us.’

‘Played my part!’

Albard let out a big bellowing laugh. That was rich! Albard the rebel, the traitor, the mutineer, had played his part in Sirene’s plans! No, he was the breaker of rules, the defier of authority, the one who had split away from the rest and forged his own world, where he alone had been the Master. Singer people never sought power in the world. Only Albard, the best of them, had broken the rule of rules.

‘I played no part in any plan of Sirene’s, little Jumper. They call me the lost one. I am Sirene’s failure.’

He spoke with a certain pride. What else had he left, now that his city was gone and he had not been allowed to die?

‘We must go,’ said Jumper. ‘Are you strong enough?’

‘Getting stronger all the time. But not what I was. You should have seen me in my day! I was immense! Now my skin hangs loose about me, and I rattle as I walk. Ah, mortality!’

‘But you feel your powers returning?’

‘A little. Yes.’

He looked round. There on the ground, near the hole into which he had crawled to die, lay a short sword. It had fallen from the hand of some poor fool who had died doing his will, and now lay beneath a layer of dust and stones. Albard fixed his mind on the hilt of the sword, and with great effort, he caused it to stir beneath the debris. More he could not do.

With a sigh, he stooped down, and scraping away the stones, picked it up with one hand. Jumper beamed his approval.

‘There! That’s a start, isn’t it?’

‘And if I were to cut your throat with it, that would be a finish, too.’

‘Oh, you won’t do that. I’m no use to you dead.’

‘You’re no use to me, Jumper. There’s nothing you can give me I want. There’s nothing you can do for me I need.’

He slipped the sword into the rope with which his plain woollen robe was belted, and turned his great beak of a nose northwards.

‘But we’ll find this boy, and set him on his path, and then what has been begun will be completed. Not because Sirene plans it, you understand, but because I choose it. Sirene has no control over me. I’m the lost one. I’m the one who goes his own way.’

Albard was facing the causeway across the lake, his gaze fixed on the hills to the north, and so he did not catch the look that passed briefly over Jumper’s round and foolish face. It was the indulgent smile of the parent who allows his wilful child the last word, knowing the child cannot choose but to obey.

‘So you are, if it pleases you,’ said the curious young-old creature, hopping along after him. ‘Bounce on, Jumper!’

1

The view from the sourgum tree

The column of weary marchers made slow progress. The land was rising, and the day was cold. The two horses pulling the heavily-laden wagon kept their heads down and held to a steady plodding pace, but everyone could see that they were growing thinner every day. The wagon’s driver, Seldom Erth, walked beside them to lighten their load. He was the oldest of the marchers, well over sixty years old, but he strode along as determinedly as the younger men, watching the track as he went for stones too big or ruts too deep for the wagon’s wheels. The ones who found it hard to keep up the pace were the children. Miller Marish’s little girl Jet was only six years old. From time to time Seldom Erth swung her up into the wagon, to sit with the cat on the pile of folded tent-cloth at the back, and rest her little legs.

There were thirty-two people of all ages on the march, as well as the two draft horses, five cows, and the cat. Hanno Hath, the march leader, had ordered that they must keep within sight of each other at all times, so the column proceeded at the pace of its slowest members. These were dangerous days. There were rumours of bandit gangs that preyed on travellers. Young men with keen eyes and ready swords loped ahead of the straggling column, watching for danger; but Hanno knew his people had little experience of combat, and had been marching for days on reduced rations. When he fixed his eyes on the horizon ahead, it was not only bandits he feared, but the coming of winter. They carried food and firewood in the wagon, but every day the supplies grew smaller, and they were crossing a bleak, barren land.

‘Have faith, Hannoka,’ said his wife Ira, walking steadily beside him. She used his childhood name to comfort him, as if she was his mother as well as his wife, knowing how great a burden he bore. ‘Have faith, Hannoka.’

‘I worry about the children. How much farther can they go?’

‘If they get tired, we’ll carry them.’

‘And you?’

‘Do I slow you down?’

‘No. You march well. You still feel it?’

‘I still have the warmth on my face.’

She would not admit it, but he could see how she grew weaker every day, and her pace grew slower. He adjusted the speed of the march so that she would not fall behind, pretending to himself he was doing it for the children. He hated to see her grow thinner, and quieter. She had always been a noisy woman, a woman of quick passions and short temper. Now she was quiet, conserving her energy for the long march.

Have faith, Hannoka.

He understood her well enough. She was telling him to believe they would reach the homeland, that one day they would be safe for ever. But she was not telling him she would join him there.

He shook his head, a quick angry jerk, to send the dark thought skittering away. No good to be had looking that way. His care and his diligence were needed now, today, leading his people over the cold land towards the distant not-yet-seen mountains.

Bowman, his fifteen-year-old son, strode along at the head of the column, with his friend Mumpo by his side. The time was a little short of noon, and the young men knew that soon now the march would be called to a halt, for a rest to weary legs, and a share of the dwindling rations. But Bowman’s sharp eyes were fixed on the near horizon, the crest of the rising land ahead. He could make out a straggling fringe of trees.

‘Trees!’

‘Not many.’

‘Could be nuts. Berries. Firewood.’

So little grew on these rocky plains that even a few lone trees gave hope. They quickened their pace, opening up the gap between them and the rest of the march.

‘We might see the mountains from there,’ said Mumpo.

‘We might.’

They were well out of earshot of the rest now, so as they strode up the sloping hillside Mumpo took the chance to say what he had been planning to say all day.

‘I talked with the princess again. She asked about you.’

‘She’s not a princess.’

‘She thinks you avoid her. She doesn’t know why.’

‘I don’t avoid her.’

‘You do. Everyone sees it.’

‘Then let them look aside,’ said Bowman angrily. ‘What has it to do with them? What has it to do with you?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mumpo. ‘I won’t speak of it again.’

They went on in silence, and so reached the trees. Their feet crunched on the stony ground. Bowman stooped to pick up one of the dark-brown husks that littered the earth beneath the trees. He smelled it: a sharp, unpleasant smell. Disappointed, he let it fall again, and followed Mumpo to the crest of the hill.

‘Do you see the mountains?’

‘No,’ said Mumpo.

Bowman felt the weariness close about him like a heavy coat. Standing at Mumpo’s side, he looked north and saw how the barren land sloped down, and then rose again, another in the series of endless waves that limited the horizon. They were crossing an ocean of rolling waves, forever denied a sight of the farther shore.

He turned to look back at his people. He saw his father and mother, walking as always side by side. Behind them a straggle of people, in twos and threes, his twin sister Kestrel with the one Mumpo called the princess. The wagon rumbled steadily along after them, drawing Creoth and his five cows in its wake. Behind the cows he could make out the plump shape of Mrs Chirish waddling along, and behind her, holding hands in a chain, his younger sister Pinto and the other small children. At the back came little Scooch and the lanky teacher Pillish; and guarding the rear, Bek and Rollo Shim.

Bowman felt Mumpo’s silence, and knew he had been too sharp with him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just hard to explain.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I think I’ll have to leave you. All of you. Someone will come for me, and I’ll have to go.’

‘Who will come for you?’

‘I don’t know who, or when. I only know why. There’s a time coming called the wind on fire, which will burn away the cruelty in the world. And I must be part of it, because I’m a child of the prophet.’

He knew as he said the words that they would mean very little to Mumpo. He felt for a different way to explain.

‘You know the feeling of not belonging?’

‘Yes,’ said Mumpo. He knew it well, but he was surprised to hear Bowman speak of it. Bowman had his family. He had Kestrel.

‘I think I was born not to belong, so that I can leave you all, and – and not come back.’

Mumpo hung his head in sadness.

‘Will Kestrel go too?’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know. The one who comes for me will say.’

‘Perhaps he’ll say I’m to go too. Like before. The three friends.’

‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘They need you here. Promise me you’ll protect them. My father and mother. My sisters. Everyone I love.’

‘I promise, Bo.’

‘You’re strong. They need you.’

The chain of small children had broken up, as they raced each other up the slope to the trees. The bigger Mimilith boys were there ahead of them. Before Bowman could stop him, Mo Mimilith had picked up one of the nuts on the ground and started to eat it.

‘Yooh!’ he cried, spitting it out. ‘Yooh! Bitter!’

‘Do you see the mountains?’ called Hanno.

‘No. No mountains.’

A sigh of disappointment ran down the length of the column. Hanno ordered a rest halt among the trees. Pinto came up, panting from running to the top of the hill, and took Bowman’s hand.

‘How much further do you think we have to go?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bowman.

‘I don’t mean I’m tired. I was only wondering.’

Pinto was seven years old, and had to make two steps for every one of Bowman’s, but she hated it if anyone took pity on her.

Now Kestrel joined them, beckoning Bowman aside for a word in private. Her companion, the young woman who had once been a princess, met his eyes and immediately looked away. She had always been proud. Now that she had nothing, now that even her beauty had been taken from her, she was still proud, but in a different way. Her great liquid amber eyes now watched the world go by saying, I ask for nothing, I expect nothing. But those scars! Those two soft mauve wounds that ran down her cheeks, two diagonal furrows from the cheekbones to the corners of the mouth, they fascinated Bowman. They changed everything in that once so sweetly pretty face. The man who had cut her had said, ‘I kill your beauty!’, but in its place had come a new beauty: harder, older, more remarkable.

Kestrel turned his attention towards their mother, who was just now reaching the resting place.

‘Look at her, Bo. She can’t go on like this.’

‘While she can walk, she’ll walk,’ said Bowman. ‘That’s how she wants it.’

‘You know what it is that weakens her.’

Of course he knew. The prophet Ira Manth had said, My gift is my weakness. I shall die of prophecy. This was the secret that all knew but none spoke. Ira Hath, their own prophetess, was dying of the warmth she felt on her face.

‘It’s how she wants it,’ said Bowman again.

‘Well, it’s not how I want it.’ Kestrel felt trapped and angry. She heard in Bowman’s voice the same note of resignation that now softened her mother’s words: as if they had both decided to suffer for the good of others, and so refused to do anything to help themselves. ‘I’d rather never get to the homeland than have her like this.’

‘I don’t think any of us have any choice.’

‘Then let it happen soon, whatever it is. Let it come soon.’

Dock! Dock! Dock! It was the sound of Tanner Amos’s axe ringing out over the cold land. He and Miller Marish were felling one of the trees for firewood.

Kestrel returned to the women by the wagon, where a fire was already burning. Mrs Chirish, rooting among the husks on the ground, picked up one kernel and after a short inspection declared,

‘Sourgum. These are sourgum trees. We can eat this.’

Branco Such had already tried.

‘Eat them? They’re vile! I shouldn’t be surprised if they were poisonous!’

‘You have to boil them first, don’t you? Strip off the husks and boil the kernels. That’s how you get the gum.’

‘The gum is edible?’ said Hanno.

‘Certainly it is. A rare treat, too.’

So Hanno set the children to gathering the husks and shelling them, while the biggest cook-pot was half filled with water and put on the fire to boil. The Mimilith boys spotted that here and there in the bare branches of the trees were other husky nuts that had not yet fallen, so they raced each other up the knobbly trunks to pull them down.

‘Be careful, boys! Make sure the branches can take your weight!’

‘Stand back! She’s coming down!’

Tanner Amos’s warning cry was followed by a long rending crash, as the tree he had been felling toppled at last. He and Miller Marish and Mumpo then set to work with axes and cleavers to cut up the branches into cordwood.

Mrs Chirish sat over the pot and stirred the sourgum kernels as the water seethed. Seldom Erth unharnessed the horses and let them join the cows, grazing the sparse wiry grass. A group of women found places round the fire where they could lay out their blankets and their needles and thread, and get on with the making of bedrolls against the coming cold weather.

Bowman stood apart, looking towards the group of sewing women, telling himself it was better for all of them if he kept his distance from her. The Johdila Sirharasi of Gang, once a princess, now plain Sisi, sat beside Lunki, the stout woman who had been her servant, and who still, despite the changes, insisted on serving her. Sisi held her back straight, her head bent over her work, and did not speak. Every day Bowman expected her to fail under the hardships of the march, but she proved him wrong. She bore more than her share of the tasks, ate less than her share of the food, and never complained. Bowman reflected on what Mumpo had said, that he seemed to be avoiding her. That was not right.

He crossed over to the women by the fire. For a few moments, as if warming himself by the fire, he stood near Lunki and her mistress. Sisi was stitching the heavy blankets with small tight stitches, working with care and concentration. He could see from the groove the needle made in her fingertip how hard she had to push to drive the point through the stiff fabric. He could also see the smooth curve of her neck, and the rise and fall of her breast as she breathed.

‘That’s good work,’ he said. ‘That’ll keep out the cold.’

She looked up, her eyes grave, questioning.

‘The tailor taught me,’ she said. ‘I’m doing my best.’

‘Hard on the fingers.’

‘Is it?’ She looked at her needle-finger as if unaware of the pressure she was putting on her soft skin. ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter.’

Bowman heard the clatter of falling nuts, and looking up saw that Pinto had joined the Mimilith boys in the sourgum trees. They had already stripped the lower branches of nuts, and were now climbing higher, each in an adjoining tree. He could think of nothing more to say to Sisi, who sat, head bent, steadily sewing, so he moved away once more. As he passed the wagon, Mist the grey cat uncurled himself from his bed on the tent-cloths, and jumped down to rub against his legs.

‘Well, boy,’ he said. ‘Are we nearly there?’

‘No, my Mist. First we must reach the mountains.’

The cat did not speak aloud, nor did Bowman answer him aloud. But they understood each other well. The cat asked this question every day, and every day received the same answer. There were never any mountains to be seen, so Mist had come to believe that Bowman chose to conceal their true destination. Mist knew that Bowman had great powers, greater even than his former master, Dogface the hermit, who had been able to fly. If the boy had such powers, he could not possibly be leading all these people with so much effort for so long, without knowing where he was going. Therefore their destination was a secret. So reasoned the cat, clever but not wise.

‘And on the other side of the mountains, your homeland.’

‘Yes. We believe so.’

‘It must be something very wonderful, this homeland.’

‘We shall see.’

‘Do the cats there know how to fly?’

‘I don’t know, Mist. I don’t know that there are any cats there. But if there are, I doubt if they can fly.’

‘I shall teach them.’

Bowman smiled and stroked the cat’s head. This annoyed Mist. It had always been his heart’s dream to fly, and just once he had made a jump that was so immense that it must have been flying. He had told the boy, and the boy had said he believed him, but the look in his eyes had shown that this was no more than a polite pretence.

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘If you say you flew, Mist, then I believe you.’

‘Well, I did fly.’

The truth was, he couldn’t be entirely sure. The time he had flown, it had only been a short distance. A short flight is very like a long jump.

‘Take care, Pinto!’

This was Hanno, calling out in warning. Pinto had seen a plump husk on a very high branch, and she reckoned she was light enough to reach it without danger. Looking across to the neighbouring tree, she saw that Mo Mimilith was also climbing, and he saw her. At once, instinctively competitive, they began to race each other.

Mo Mimilith was three years older than Pinto, and much heavier. At first his greater strength enabled him to outclimb her. But then he felt the branches bending beneath him, and realised he was at his limit. Pinto kept on climbing, her skinny little body easily supported by the upper branches; and so was the only one to reach to the very top of the tree.

She looked down and saw the wagon, with the horses among the cows, snuffling out what coarse grazing they could find. She saw the huddle round the fire, where the sourgum was being boiled, and she smelled its strange sharp-sweet smell. She saw her mother, seated on the ground with her father beside her, holding her hands and stroking them, as he so often did. Then she looked across and saw Mo Mimilith on his way down his tree.

I’ve won! she thought, exulting. I’m the highest one of all!

Only now, turning and looking up and ahead, did she think to take advantage of her high vantage point. There were the rolling hills, receding into the distance. But beyond them, far off, she could clearly discern through hazy low cloud a range of jagged white-capped peaks.

‘Mountains!’ she cried. ‘I can see mountains!’

No one else would be able to climb so high. She must be the eyes for all. She looked and looked, and memorised.

Some way off, the rolling land levelled out and became rocky and craggy: it seemed to be a huge desert of cracked and shivered land, a rubble of boulders and fissures. On the far side of this broken plain, where the cloud lay low over the land, there was a belt of dark forest running from side to side of the visible world. Within this forest gleamed a river; and beyond the river towered the mountains. They rose through the cloud, to rear their bare-toothed peaks all along the white horizon.

Bowman called up to her.

‘Can you really see the mountains?’

‘Yes! Far, far away!’

People were gathering below, staring up at her.

‘Be careful!’ That was her father, who could see how the treetop swayed under her weight.

She came scrambling down, a little too fast, showing off, and grazed one arm. She pretended not to notice. The marchers gathered round her, eager to hear what she had seen.

‘There’s a river,’ she told them. ‘And a forest. But before that, empty land, for miles and miles, all full of cracks.’

‘Cracks? What kind of cracks?’

‘Like cracks in dried mud. Only much bigger.’

‘Did you see any people? Any houses? There must be people living somewhere.’

‘No. I didn’t see anyone.’

‘How far to the mountains?’ asked the teacher, Silman Pillish.

‘Miles and miles. Days and days.’

‘Days and days!’

‘And how far beyond the mountains?’

This question was addressed to Ira Hath. She was the prophetess, the one who knew the way to the homeland; though, as she told them again and again, she would only know it when at last it lay before her. She had seen it in a dream. They would find it on the other side of mountains, at the end of a path rising between steep slopes of land. It would be snowing. Ahead, the sun would be setting. Red sky, falling snow: and framed in the V of the hills, a land where two rivers ran to a distant sea.

‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ she said. ‘First we must get there.’

‘It’s just beyond the mountains,’ the people told each other. ‘The homeland!’

Even though the mountains Pinto had seen were so far away, this news gave everyone heart. They felt the end of their journey had been sighted. Their task now was to survive the getting there.

While Hanno Hath questioned Pinto more closely about what she had seen, Kestrel went up to Bowman.

‘It’s only mountains,’ she said, very low. ‘We don’t know the homeland’s on the other side. There might be a desert on the other side, or a swamp, and then more mountains, before we get to the sea.’

‘There might.’

‘So there’s nothing to get so excited about.’

‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘But people need hope.’

‘I don’t. I don’t want hope. I want what’s real. I won’t believe we’re getting to the homeland until I see it.’

‘You don’t really want to get to the homeland at all, do you, Kess?’

‘Of course I do.’ Kestrel was irritated that Bowman could think this of her. ‘I don’t want to be wandering about for ever, always tired and hungry. Why would I want that?’

‘I don’t know. I just feel that you’re frightened of the homeland.’

‘Oh, you feel. You’re always feeling. Why would I be frightened of the homeland? It’s the place where we all sit about being happy for the rest of our lives, isn’t it?’

Too angry to wait for his reply, she took herself off to the far side of the trees, where Mumpo and Tanner Amos were chopping wood. For a few moments, as she listened to the dock, dock, dock of the axe, she thought how maddening her brother could be, with his assumption that he knew her better than she knew herself. Then as she calmed down she realised he was right. She was afraid of getting to the homeland; and not only because of what it meant for ma. There was something else.

She tried to make out the shape of her fear. She could imagine the journey ahead, but when she tried to imagine the end of the journey, all she saw was a blank. It was like a book without the last few pages. All at once there was nothing. That was what she was afraid of: the nothing. But nor did she want the journey to go on for ever.

What is it I want? she thought, shivering. What’s wrong with me?

Tanner Amos and Mumpo between them filled the bed of the wagon with firewood. And now Mrs Chirish’s sourgum was beginning to set. She dipped a spoon in the sticky froth and drew out a scoop of the amber-coloured gum, and waved it back and forth until it cooled. Then she nibbled at it.

‘There it is,’ she pronounced. ‘Fetch some dishes.’

All the people round the fire had a taste. Some liked it and some didn’t. It was odd, both sweet and sour at the same time, and it got stuck in the teeth; but it was edible, no question about it.

Guided by Mrs Chirish, they spread the gum over all the tin dishes they had, and let it cool. It hardened quickly in the cold air. Then when it was hard, they banged the underside of the tin plates with spoons, and the gum cracked off in clear amber fragments. The fragments were then packed in barrels, with layers of flattened husks between them to stop them sticking to each other. By the time they had done, they had filled four barrels, and there were enough crumbs left for everyone to have a snack.

Hanno was quietly grateful to Mrs Chirish. Their supplies of food were running very low. Now he calculated they could survive on a barrel of sourgum a day, which gave them four days to find the next supply of food. Water was another matter. He checked the level in the big water barrel, and made another simple calculation. The people must drink; the horses and cattle too. No doubt they would find a stream soon. But just in case, it would be wise to save all they could.

‘From now until we find water,’ he ordered, ‘the ration will be two cups a day each. And no washing.’

‘No washing!’ exclaimed Lunki. ‘How is my precious one to keep clean?’

‘It won’t be for long,’ said Sisi. ‘We’ll find water soon.’

Hanno made his rounds, speaking softly to Creoth about the cows, and to Seldom Erth about the horses, saying nothing new, giving no instructions they would not have carried out for themselves, but showing a care for each person on the march. This was the nature of his leadership: not the shouting of orders, but the letting himself be seen as the link between all of them, the one to whom they all turned their eyes, so that as they went on their way, they went together.

Now he gave the signal to resume the march. The group round the fire put out the flames, stamping out the embers and rescuing the unburned faggots to be used again. Others bent down to lace up boots that had been loosened to ease their weary feet. Bowman moved to the front of the column as it formed, and took up his place as the lead watchman, his eyes alert for danger. So it was he who found the body.

It was not the first body they had passed on their long march. In these lawless times, the robber bands that attacked travellers on lonely roads often left their victims dead or dying; when what knives and clubs had begun was finished by the night cold. The Manth people could do no more than pause on their way, and cover the sad remains with stones, as an act of respect.

This was the body of an old man, lying face down on the ground, his hands raised as if to cover or protect his face. Bowman knelt down by his side, and gently eased the body over, to satisfy himself that there was no hope of saving him; though the utter stillness of the body told him that life was long gone. The hands remained clutched to the dead face, concealing the features. Bowman let his sensitive probing mind reach gently into that lifeless skull, and as he did so he felt for an instant that something was moving within it; then the moment passed, and all was still. He took hold of the dead man’s hands, and drew them away from his face.

The eyes were open, and unseeing. The old cheeks grizzled, unshaven. The dry lips apart, as if calling. But most shocking of all, the skin of his face, from brow to chin, was lacerated: scratched and torn into a hideous wreck, the blood dried black in the dead white skin.

Mumpo now joined him, and stood looking down at the dead man in silence.

‘What would do that to him?’ said Bowman.

‘He did it to himself. Look at his fingernails.’

Mumpo had noticed what Bowman had overlooked: the dead man’s fingernails were black with dried blood. For some terrible reason, as he was dying he had torn at his own face.

The rest of the marchers were approaching. Creoth came up to them, and looked.

‘Oh, the wretched man!’

‘Let’s cover him,’ said Bowman. ‘No need for the others to see.’

He scraped up handfuls of stony earth and began to sprinkle it over the corpse. Mumpo and Creoth did the same. Bowman hurried to cover up the torn face. He thought again as he let the earth drop over that dead open mouth that something moved: a brief flurry in the air that shivered the falling dust. He thought he heard a faint whine pass close by his head, as of some small flying insect. But then the wagon was rolling near, and with it his father.

‘Poor fellow,’ said Hanno Hath, kneeling down to help with the roadside burial.

When the body was entirely covered, a dusty mound that would not long resist the wind and the rain, the Manth people stood round the stranger and Hanno Hath rose to his feet to speak the customary funeral words.

‘We who are left behind watch you on your way.’

He fell silent for a few moments. No one spoke or moved. Then he went on with the old words in his quiet clear voice.

‘The long prison of the years unlocks its iron door. Go free now, into the beautiful land. Forgive us, who suffer in this clouded world. Guide us and wait for us, as we wait for you. We will meet again.’

He bowed his head, and they all repeated,

‘We will meet again.’

They could do no more. Hanno gave Bowman a quick sad smile, and turned to his wife. Bowman caught the faint whine he had heard before, and the quick shimmer in the air. He saw his father give a small start, and raise one hand to his throat. Bowman suddenly felt the close presence of danger.

‘What is it, pa?’

‘Nothing. Some little stinging insect. Nothing to worry about.’

He turned away, a little too quickly.

‘Pa, look at me.’

Hanno turned back, frowning with annoyance.

‘I’m alright, I tell you. We have to get moving. We’ve wasted enough time already.’

For the last time Bowman looked down at the long mound by the roadside, and wondered fearfully what would make a man tear at his own face. But now the column was reforming, and it was time to go.

2

Drunkenness

While the wagon had been stationary, Seldom Erth had loosened the horses’ harness, and Mrs Chirish had decided to wrap the cook-pots in an extra layer of cloth, afraid that the shaking of the wagon-bed would shatter them. The cows had drifted off in search of grass. Many of the people had sat down.

Now that it was time to move off again, Hanno Hath started to shout at them.

‘You! Cowman! If you can’t control your animals we’ll have them for dinner!’

Creoth was speechless with surprise. Hanno never spoke like that.

‘You! Old man! Did I say you could unharness the horses?’

Ira Hath, aware that something was wrong, tried to take him aside.

‘Hanno –’

‘Not now, woman. Come along, everybody! We’ve wasted enough time!’

Kestrel heard him, and reached out for Bowman with her mind.

What’s wrong with pa?

I’m not sure. Something bad’s happened to him. I need to feel him.

Come on. I’ll help you.

Kestrel knew what her brother meant when he said he wanted to ‘feel’ their father: he wanted to enter Hanno’s mind. For that he needed close physical contact, preferably brow to brow. But Hanno was moving fast, never staying in one place for long. The twins didn’t want to alarm everyone by making a direct attack on their father.

‘Pa,’ said Kestrel. ‘Before we set out again, let’s have a wish huddle.’

‘No time,’ said Hanno.

‘Please. It won’t take a moment.’

‘Ma! Pinto!’ called Bowman. ‘Wish huddle!’

Hanno turned on them, eyes blazing with anger.

‘I am the head of this family! You heard me say we have no time! How dare you disobey me!’

Pinto had come running.

‘But I’d like a wish huddle, pa –’

Smack! He struck Pinto across the face with the flat of his hand.

‘You will do as I say!’

The blow hurt. Pinto bit her lip to stop herself crying, not understanding how her gentle father could hit her so hard.

‘I’m sorry, pa.’

Hold him! Don’t let him move!

Bowman and Kestrel hurled themselves forward in the same moment. Bowman got his arms round his father’s chest, pinning his arms to his side, while Kestrel wrapped herself round his legs. Hanno struggled, and fell to the ground, but Bowman did not let go. He pressed his head to his father’s head, and summoned all his power to force his way into his father’s mind. He found it at once, felt its shape without seeing it: it was like a grub, curled up tight, with a thick and slimy skin. He tried to grasp it, but it was slippery, and it wriggled out of his grip. It was strong, and growing stronger, feeding on its host that was his father.

Bowman set about flooding his own mind into his father’s mind, filling him up, leaving the grub no room to breathe. None of this was apparent to the others, who saw only that Bowman and Kestrel had fallen to the ground with their father in their arms, and were holding onto him. They crowded round, not sure what to do.

‘Leave them!’ said Ira.

Bowman found his father’s brow at last, and pressed his own brow against it, and the force pulsed from him in waves.

Out! Out! Out!

Suddenly he felt all resistance cease. His father’s body gave a juddering jerk, and went limp. The creature was gone.

Hanno Hath let his head fall. Bowman released his hold. He took his father’s face and turned it, so he could see it. It was mottled with pink blotches, and beaded in sweat. Bowman gathered up his loose sleeve and wiped his father’s brow. Kestrel let go of his legs, and moved to his other side, resting his head on her lap. Ira sat down close by, as did Pinto. Hanno’s eyes opened. He looked dazed.

‘Are you alright now, pa?’ asked Pinto.

‘Yes, darling.’

Bowman stood up, to reassure the anxious crowd.

‘He’s alright. Nothing serious.’

As he spoke, he looked round all the watching faces, searching for signs of any others who had been attacked in the same way. But everyone seemed as they had been before.

Hanno got up off the ground, shaking his head and smiling.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what that was all about.’ His eyes fell on Pinto, whose cheek still bore the red mark of his blow. ‘Did I hit you?’

‘Yes, pa.’

‘I didn’t mean to, my darling. It wasn’t me that did that. I’d never hurt you.’

‘I know, pa.’

Hanno smiled at the staring faces all round.

‘I’m not as strong as I thought I was.’

‘What was it?’ they asked him. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I seem to have been stung by some kind of poisonous insect. There may be more of these insects in the air around us, and they may sting you.’

The people began to look nervously about them.

‘They’re too small to see. Even the sting is tiny. You hardly feel it. It’s like an itch.’ He touched his throat.

‘What does it do, Hanno? Will it harm us?’

‘It doesn’t exactly do any harm. What it does is bring on a kind of drunkenness. I don’t know how else to explain it.’

‘Drunkenness!’

The younger men laughed, and nudged each other. Rollo Shim waved one arm in the air and called out,

‘Here I am! Sting me!’

‘It’s not pleasant,’ warned Hanno gravely. ‘Please, if you think you’ve been stung, go to my son Bowman. He has a way of dealing with it.’

A sudden gust of icy wind reminded them all that this was no time of year to stay still, for those with no sheltering homes. So the marchers prepared to set off once more. Before taking up their places in the column, Hanno and Bowman exchanged a few brief words alone.

‘I think whatever it was came out of the dead man,’ said Bowman.

‘You saved me, Bo. I do know that.’

‘It made you shout, and give orders. Not like you at all.’

‘No. I’m happiest in my own small quiet world, aren’t I? With my family and my books. I don’t want to make people fear me. I’m only leading our people now because I believe in Ira’s gift. Nobody is obliged to follow me.’

Bowman could hear the puzzled note in his father’s voice, and realised that he was not as sure as he wanted to make out.

‘They follow you because they respect you.’

‘All I mean to say, Bo, is I don’t set myself up as wiser or more important than others. Who am I, to tell them what to do?’

‘You’re our leader, pa.’

Hanno gave him an odd smile. Bowman reached gently into his father’s mind, and was surprised by what he found there. He heard a chatter of thought-voices saying, What an absurdity you are! Go back to your library, librarian! Nobody pays you any attention. Speak more softly or people will laugh. But deeper than these sounds, like a steady beat below the cackle of interference, he caught another voice, that whispered, I do know more, I am wiser, they would do well to follow me.

What is this fly that came from a dead man’s mouth? Bowman asked himself. What does it do to us? How can it reach such deep and hidden passions?

He remembered then how he too, long ago, had been touched in just such a way. In the halls of the Morah, when he had looked into those eyes that were the eyes of a multitude, he had felt the stirring of wild desires within himself, and he had been changed. Was this stinging fly a creature of the Morah?

He felt a sudden lurch of fear.

I’m not ten years old any more. I have powers of my own.

The Morah comes from us, he told himself. The Morah is ourselves. This stinging fly has no poison; unless it takes poison to discover to ourselves our own hidden passions.

This last thought was almost the most frightening of them all. What if all of us are quite different inside? What if some tiny insect, with a momentary scratch, can transform us into this alien self? My gentle father becomes a shouting dictator. And I, I become a killer –

He shook his head. Better not follow that path. Whether the insects came from the Morah or not, he was the only one who could protect his people from their poison, and that was his task. That was all he needed to know.

As the march was resumed, Hanno Hath’s strange drunkenness was on everyone’s mind. The people looked out for the flies, slapped their own arms and faces every time they imagined something had settled on them, and watched each other for evidence of strange behaviour. Mrs Chirish complained that the pace of the march was too rapid, saying, ‘It makes my legs jabber.’ Was that a sign of drunkenness? Creoth answered her, ‘If the cows can keep up, madam, so can you.’ That seemed unnecessarily harsh, coming from the kindly Creoth, the very man who had helped to carry Mrs Chirish on the slave march. Had he been stung by the invisible flies? Then young Ashar Warmish started to giggle, and couldn’t stop; but it turned out that she and her friend Red Mimilith had been making moonish faces at the Shim brothers, and it was this that made her laugh.

Little Fin Marish, who was eight years old, took advantage of the general excitement to run ahead to the front of the column to march by Mumpo’s side. She adored Mumpo, as did all the smaller girls, because he was tall and strong and slow in his speech, and believed everything you ever said to him.

‘Mumpo,’ she said, ‘did you know you talk in your sleep?’

‘No,’ said Mumpo. ‘What do I say?’

‘You say, “Pooa pooa Pinto! Hubba hubba Fin!”’

‘Do I? Do I say that? I wonder why.’

‘Because you hate Pinto,’ said Fin, ‘and you love me.’

Miller Marish came looking for Fin, and scolded her sharply for leaving her place in the column. Fin responded by pointing an accusing finger at him, and crying out in a shrill high voice,

‘My papa’s become a horrid monster! I think the flies have stung him!’

The effect of so many false alarms was that quite quickly they all became tired of the matter, and stopped believing the young people with their games. After the first hour on the resumed march they had forgotten that they were to watch out for each other’s behaviour. No one else had been stung, and their spirits were high. The going was easier than it had been for some time, because they were making their way down a gentle slope; and now that the mountains had been sighted, there was a general feeling that the long trek would one day have an end after all.

So the wagon wheels crunched on over the stony ground, and the horses clop-clopped along, and each of the marchers fell into their own private dream of the life they would make for themselves when at last they reached the homeland. Creoth, feeling he had been a little sudden with Mrs Chirish, chose to tell her of the farm he planned to establish.

‘Not a great deal of land. I’m not as young as I was. Just a meadow or two for the cattle to graze, with the river on one side, and the sea on the other. I shall have a little house for myself, just the one room, and a nice shady milking parlour that looks out to sea. To the east, if possible. Then I shall watch the sun rise during morning milking. Beard of my ancestors! There’s a life to envy, eh, ma’am? The smell of fresh milk, and the light of the rising sun.’

‘You may sit and shiver in your shed, sir. I shall be in my bed.’

‘In your bed, eh?’

‘My bed will be such a bed! Up on each side, and down in the middle, and fluffy as a nest! I shall lie in my nest like an egg, and my poor legs will never ache again.’

‘Just lie there, will you, ma’am? And do nothing all the long day?’

‘I might get up and eat a little this and that around noon, and stand on the porch and nod to my neighbours, and wish them good day. Then it’s back to my bed.’

Silman Pillish, stumping along beside the wagon, told Seldom Erth about the school he would set up in the homeland. Seldom Erth showed no signs of wanting to hear this, but nor did he object, and this was permission enough for Pillish.

‘In my school, the lessons will be a service to the children, not a burden. They’ll come to me, you see, and tell me what they wish to learn – for example, a song to sing together – you never forget the songs you learn as a child, don’t you agree?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Seldom Erth.

‘I’ll say, Ah, I can help you there! Then I’ll teach them a song – perhaps “The Hen and her Chicks”.’

He sang a line of the song in an unexpectedly sweet voice.

‘Where have you gone, little chicks, little chicks? Oh! oh! and oh!’

These last exclamations were, it seemed, the lost chicks reappearing from behind Pillish.

‘So you see, they’ll come willingly to school. Yes, our homeland school will be a happy place. They’ll love their teacher too, don’t you think?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Seldom Erth.

Mumpo strode along at the head of the marchers, dreaming no dream of the homeland. The little girls had left him, and he must be alert, watching out for danger; and anyway, he had no dream any more. He glanced back down the line, and let his eyes rest for a moment on Kestrel, who was walking with Sisi. For as long as he could remember he had loved Kestrel. He knew every line of that agile high-boned face, every mood of those restless eyes. But Kestrel did not love him. He accepted this, feeling it to be natural and fitting. Who was he, that Kestrel should love him? But without her, what was left? It was as if a hole had been cut out of the future. So he went on his way in a kind of puzzlement, not grieving, but without any real hope of happiness to come.

Kestrel was unaware that Mumpo had looked back and watched her. She was concerned about Sisi.

‘You should be eating more,’ she told her. ‘We have a long way to go.’

‘There isn’t much food left,’ said Sisi quietly. ‘Let the children have it.’

‘Then you’ll get too weak to walk, and we’ll have to carry you in the wagon. That just makes more work for the horses.’

‘You can leave me behind.’

‘Oh, Sisi. We’d never leave you.’

‘I don’t see why not. I’m not Manth, like you. I’m not any use to anyone. I’m not even – you know.’

‘Not beautiful?’

‘Not beautiful. Not a princess. Nothing.’

‘You think people who aren’t beautiful princesses are nothing?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Everyone admires you, Sisi.’

‘Not everyone.’

Kestrel didn’t pretend not to understand her.

‘Bowman too.’

‘Has he said so to you?’

‘I know what my brother feels. He came and talked to you, didn’t he?’

‘I was sewing. He said I was doing good work.’

‘There you are, then.’

‘Oh, Kess, please! Don’t you start pitying me too.’

It was a flash of the old Sisi. Kestrel took her arm affectionately.

‘I like you better when you’re cross.’

‘No you don’t.’

But she was smiling.

‘Come on, Sisi, admit it. You’re not as good and humble as you make out.’

‘Yes, I am. I’m the simplest, humblest person in the world.’ She smiled as she spoke, making Kestrel smile too. ‘I’m the princess of simplicity. I’m grandly, beautifully, proudly, simple. I’m magnificently humble.’

She started to laugh, and couldn’t go on. Lunki looked round approvingly.

‘There, my pet. It does my heart good to hear you enjoying yourself.’

‘You’re very unkind, Kess,’ said Sisi when she had calmed down. ‘You make me say things.’

‘So you’ll stop starving yourself, will you?’

‘I’ll have what the others have.’

‘Good. That’s all I ask.’

‘But Kess, I truly don’t mind if I live or die. I’m not saying it to show off. Since I’ve been with your people, I’ve started to see everything so differently. It makes me ashamed of how I’ve been. You Manth people, you have such strong family feeling, and you’re so considerate to each other. You’re so serious, and thoughtful, and most of all, good. Such quiet, good people.’

‘I think you’re talking about one person.’

‘Maybe I am.’

‘He has his faults too.’

‘Sometimes I think he’s too sad, and keeps himself too much alone. But I don’t see any faults.’

‘Ask him. He’ll tell you.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t think of it!’

What Sisi didn’t tell her friend was that secretly she believed she could make Bowman happy. But even as this thought was passing through her mind, she remembered that she was no longer beautiful, and so there was no reason why he should choose her.

‘I keep forgetting. Everything’s different now.’

She reached up as she did a hundred times a day, and touched the scars on her cheeks.

By now, everyone had forgotten the fly that had stung Hanno Hath. The marchers were in better cheer than they had been for days. Some even sang as they marched, a song of the road that went back to the earliest days, when the Manth people had been a wandering tribe. Kestrel joined her mother and father, and tried once again to persuade her mother to ride in the wagon, for at least part of the way. But Ira Hath insisted on walking with the rest.

‘We’ll be stopping at sundown. I can last till then.’

Bowman and Mumpo, far ahead, kept watch over the bleak land. Once Bowman looked back, and saw Kestrel walking close by his mother, holding her hand. He saw Sisi too, walking steadily beside the wagon, her scarred face to the cold wind, her lustrous amber eyes gazing ahead at nothing.

Sisi never heard the faint whine in the air behind her. When there came a tingling itch at her throat, she reached up one hand to scratch it, and thought no more about it. For a little while afterwards there was a tender spot at the base of her neck, in the soft hollow between the collar bones.

3

Sisi’s kiss

The cracks were becoming more frequent, and wider. They ran in random zigzag patterns all over the land, as if the ground had been baked too long in some distant summer and had shivered like a badly-glazed plate. At first the cracks were only inches wide, and inches deep; but as the column of the Manth people marched on north, the cracks grew in size, until they were too wide to step over, and they had to find a way between them.

There was no made road, but the path taken by other travellers before them was easy enough to see. Here the tough grasses had been beaten down by the tread of men and beasts, forming a winding route that made its way through the cracked land. After a while the path began to descend, and so entered a natural groove in the plain, which seemed to be the bed of some long-ago dried-up stream. This path, no more than a dozen yards wide at the base, snaked its way here and there between the sudden fissures, descending all the time. The downward gradient was barely noticeable, but little by little the slopes rose up on either side, until they were higher than the travellers’ heads.

Hanno Hath didn’t like this stream-bed of a road. He sent scouts up the side slopes to look for some other route, Mumpo to the west and Tanner Amos to the east. The surface of the sloping sides was crumbling and littered with loose fragments of stone, which made them hard to scramble up. Every step kicked free a few of the loose stones, which skittered down in miniature avalanches, picking up smaller stones as they went.

‘What do you see, Mumpo? Is there another way?’

‘No,’ Mumpo called back. ‘The cracks are too wide.’

From his viewpoint on the west slope, Mumpo could see that the land-cracks had increased and widened and deepened in every direction. The dried-up riverbed was the only way through.

By mid-afternoon, when they stopped to rest again, the road had cut deeper still into the land, and was now running down a steep-sided valley. Mumpo and Tanner descended the slopes, picking their way with care, then taking it at a run, racing the rolling rocks to the bottom.

‘Still nothing?’

‘Just cracks, everywhere.’

Hanno Hath turned to his son. ‘Are we near water, Bo?’

Bowman shook his head. Sometimes he could sense the presence of springs or streams, but right now he felt nothing.

‘I can’t smell anything.’

‘My dear?’

This was to Ira Hath, who had sat down and was composing herself on the ground, her back leaning against a wagon wheel. She closed her eyes. Several times a day she repeated this process, in order to make sure that they were going the right way. It was a little like sensing the direction of the wind, only it wasn’t wind she felt on her upraised face, but warmth. The sensation was faint, but clear. It told her the way to the homeland. There was another part to the feeling, which was harder to describe: a sense of gathering hush, the prelude to a storm. Ira never spoke to the others of how much she feared this coming time. They could travel no faster than they were doing. There was no point in spreading panic. To herself and to Hanno, she called it the rising wind: every day, a little more every day, the wind was rising. They must seek shelter, they must reach the safety of the homeland, before the storm broke; or the coming wind would carry them away.

Her husband squatted down before her, and took her hands in his.

‘Are we getting closer?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Closer.’

‘And you?’

‘I’ll live to see the homeland. Haven’t I said so?’

He gave her the last of the bread that he’d saved from his own ration, together with a cup of milk. She ate a little and drank a little for his sake, but she wasn’t hungry.

‘You’re getting thin.’ He pretended to be cross. ‘You must eat what you’re given.’

She smiled and watched his anxious face and thought what a good man he was.

‘We each have our part to play, Hannoka. Then it will be time for us to go.’

‘Not yet,’ he said, like an order. ‘Not yet.’

‘No. Not yet.’

While the marchers rested, Sisi became more and more agitated.

‘Sit, my pet,’ said Lunki. ‘We have two more hours of walking before sundown. Take the ache off your feet.’

‘Lie down, I should,’ said Scooch. ‘Get your feet higher than your head. That’s the trick.’

‘Higher than your head?’ Lunki was mystified.

Little Scooch lay on his back on the stony ground and supported his heels on the wagon’s step-board.

‘Like this. It makes all the heaviness drop off the feet.’

Lunki lay down beside him, with her heels on the step-board alongside his.

‘Yes!’ she cried, amazed at the sensation. ‘I can feel the heaviness dropping off!’

She turned to urge Sisi to follow her example, but her mistress was gone. She was some way off, pacing round and round in restless circles.

‘What’s the matter with her? Why can’t she settle?’

‘Too thin,’ said Scooch.

‘Do you think so?’

‘No doubt about it. A body needs padding, or the nerves stick out.’

‘My poor baby! Her nerves do stick out, you’re right. She feels things too much.’

What Sisi was feeling was a sudden and insistent need to go to Bowman, and talk to him, and – and she hardly knew what, except that it would end in humiliation. Her pride held her in check, but the longing was becoming more powerful all the time.

Bowman was some way off, talking quietly with Kestrel. He was as agitated as Sisi, but for very different reasons.

‘I want it to be over,’ he said. ‘I want them to come for me, and for it to be over. Why don’t they come? Every hour that passes, I feel it, the wind is rising. They must come soon.’

‘They’ll come for you when they need you,’ said Kestrel. ‘I don’t want you to go before you have to.’

Kestrel knew her brother believed it was his destiny to join the Singer people, but she didn’t understand how they could be parted.

We go together, she thought. We always go together.

Bowman heard her thought.

‘I don’t want to go. But I can’t go on like this. You don’t know what it’s like.’

‘I feel it, a little.’

She could feel the turmoil in him, his spirit a field of endless battle. Bowman was so open, he could resist nothing, he was like the sky, he absorbed all things. The nomad dreams of the Manth people, the fierce power of the Morah, the sweet wordless songs of Sirene, all swept the horizons of his mind, chasing each other like wind-borne clouds.

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ he said. ‘But I must be with them, when the time comes.’

‘And after?’

‘There is no after. Not for me.’

‘Am I to go on without you?’

Don’t ask. Forgive me.

As Kestrel received these unspoken words, she felt a movement against her skin, beneath the fabric of her shirt. It was the silver pendant she wore on a string round her neck, that had once been the voice of the wind singer. She had worn it so long she had almost forgotten it was there. Now it stirred and pressed on her chest, and felt warm, as if it was part of her. At the same time, as she sensed its familiar shape and weight, a door opened in her mind, a door she had not known existed. Through the doorway she saw herself and Bowman together, just as they were now: but a little further away, in a time she knew had not yet taken place, she saw her brother without her, lost and heart-broken, calling her name.

He seemed so real, and so lonely, that she called out to him with her mind.

I’ll never leave you. Even if I seem to be gone, I won’t be gone. I’ll always be with you.

Bowman heard her and was astonished.

‘What do you mean, Kess? Why do you say this?’

‘These things that are coming,’ she said aloud, speaking slowly, finding the thoughts only as she formed the words, ‘these things the prophet has written, the time of cruelty, the wind on fire, these things are greater than us.’

‘Oh, yes. Far greater.’

‘We aren’t the makers and the un-makers of the world.’

‘No.’

‘Our task is only to play our small part, for our brief moment, in what must happen.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then we should neither hope nor fear. We must wait for the call, and then do what we must.’

‘Yes.’

She stroked his cheek lightly, tenderly.

‘It’ll come soon enough, brother. Don’t wish it any sooner.’

Sisi could control herself no longer. She must be with Bowman, whatever the consequence. Holding her head high, and looking before her with the distant imperious gaze she had so often used when she had been a princess, she stalked past the other marchers to where Bowman and Kestrel stood. Sisi knew that what she was about to do would shame her for the rest of her life, but the desire was too strong to be resisted. She would do it, and let the future take care of itself.

As she approached she saw both Bowman and Kestrel staring at her in surprise. Do I look so different? she thought to herself. Is it written on my face?

‘Leave us, Kestrel,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to Bowman alone.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Kestrel wonderingly. Bowman signalled her with his eyes, calling, Don’t leave me. But Kestrel was already on her way.

He was alone with Sisi. Her eyes were fixed on him so intently that he felt himself blush.

‘We’ll be moving on any minute,’ he said. ‘We should rejoin the others.’

‘Not yet,’ said Sisi.

To his astonishment, she laid one hand lightly on his arm. She had not been this bold since they had left the Mastery.

‘I know you can’t love me,’ she said, ‘since I’ve lost my beauty. But I can love you.’

‘Sisi, you mustn’t speak like this.’

‘Why not? All I have to lose is my pride. I’m tired of my pride.’

‘You don’t understand. Whether you love me, or I love you, it makes no difference. In a little while someone will come for me, and I’ll leave with him, and you’ll never see me again.’

‘Oh, in a little while. Who cares about that? Here you are, and here am I.’

She stroked his arm.

‘I don’t know what I can do for you, Sisi.’

‘I do.’

She made him meet her eyes: made him become still.

‘Just for now, just for a few moments, pretend you love me.’

‘Please, Sisi, I think this is –’

‘Touch my scars.’

He stared back at her, filled with confused feelings.

‘Do my scars disgust you?’

‘No.’

‘Touch them.’

So he raised one hand and touched one fingertip to the livid stripe on her cheek. He felt the residue of scar tissue, and the softness of new skin where the scab had crumbled away. He did it out of pity for her, and because her will was strong.

‘Now touch my lips.’

He felt her lips: so soft, and moist.

‘What do you want from me, Sisi?’

‘I want you to kiss me.’

The great amber eyes gazed at him unashamed. For the first time, Bowman stopped thinking about his own confusion, and attended to the change in her. Sisi would never make such a request, so directly. Something had happened to her.

‘Kiss you?’ He needed time. ‘Why?’

‘Because I love you.’

‘We’re not betrothed.’

‘I don’t care. Do you care?’

This was not Sisi speaking to him, he was sure of it. This was the passion fly within her. He needed closer contact, to reach into her mind.

‘Close your eyes,’ she was saying. ‘Then you won’t see the scars. The kiss will be just as sweet.’

He closed his eyes. He felt her come into his arms. He felt her lips reach up to his. As they kissed, he felt a shiver of delight go through his body, and for a fleeting moment he was aware that he’d never kissed before, not like this. There was a closeness to it that was both tender and eager. He felt her body press against his, and the feeling of her body was part of the kiss. He held her tight in his arms, and his hands felt the shape of her slender back, and his lips moved against hers, sharing secrets –

No! He jerked his mind free. He reached through the kiss, beyond the kiss, into her desire-possessed mind. As he pressed closer, she kissed him ever more passionately, ever more desperately, as if only in kissing him was she safe. Pushing, probing, burrowing into her, he found it at last, the creature curled within her. He seized it in a firm grip, and still holding Sisi in his arms, he dragged it, tore it, ripped it out of her. One last spasm of resistance, and it let go. He heard the whine of its wings as it flew away.

Sisi went limp in his arms. He held her weight, not wanting to cause alarm among the others. He looked towards them to see if any had been watching, and had witnessed the kiss. Everyone was up and preparing to continue the march. If they had seen, they were not showing it now.

Sisi awoke, in confusion.

‘What happened?’

She remembered, and blushed a deep red.

‘Oh!’

‘It wasn’t you,’ said Bowman quickly. ‘Something got into you. It made you do things.’

‘The stinging insect?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did it make me drunk?’

‘Yes. In a way.’

Sisi looked down, ashamed.

‘It made me kiss you, didn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s alright. It wasn’t you.’

Now the horses were being harnessed to the wagon, and the people were moving to their places in the march.

‘Did it get into you too?’

‘No.’

‘But you still kissed me.’

‘I needed to hold you close. To get it out.’

‘Of course. To get it out.’

There were several curious glances directed at them as they returned to the others, and Bowman realised they had been seen. He would have to explain.

‘The stinging insect is still with us,’ he said. ‘I’ve just taken it out of Sisi.’

‘My baby! Are you alright?’

‘Yes, Lunki, I’m fine.’

‘Be on your guard!’

‘To your places,’ called Hanno. ‘Lookouts, to your posts. We have an hour of daylight yet.’

The march set off once more.

Bowman marched in the middle of the column, and listened for the return of that telltale whining buzz. He heard nothing, and none of his companions were acting strangely. As the immediate danger faded, the memory of Sisi’s kiss returned, and troubled him. He told himself it had not been her who had kissed him, but the thing that had possessed her: but it had felt like her, like the most intimate part of her.

There came a patter of feet behind him, and turning, he saw Kestrel running up to join him. He blushed, and feeling the blush, told himself it was because he should have thought to reassure Kestrel about Sisi.

‘She’ll be alright,’ he told her. ‘I got it out of her.’

Kestrel looked at him curiously.

‘Will it come back?’

‘Yes, probably, but I can’t tell where. I’ve never even seen it. It’s as if it doesn’t exist until it stings someone. And then it’s like it’s a part of them.’

‘I saw how it made Sisi drunk.’

‘I had to touch her. To get it out.’

‘Yes, of course. You had to touch her.’

Neither of them called it a kiss. The word hung in the air between them, unspoken. There had never before been anything they hadn’t been able to say. Bowman felt his sister’s silence, and it made him miserable.

‘Something strange happened –’

‘Bandits!’

Mumpo’s urgent cry from the ridge shattered the private moment. Bowman span round just as there came a rumbling sound ahead, and what seemed to be half the hillside came sliding down, to crash into the riverbed in a cloud of fragments and dust.

‘Halt!’ cried Hanno. ‘To your weapons!’

Bowman and Kestrel ran back to the wagon. A second grinding roar, this time behind them: a second rock fall now cut off their retreat. They were boxed in.

‘Mumpo! Tanner! Come down!’

The lookouts came scrambling down the slopes to join the rest of the marchers, who were frantically taking out swords, hay-forks, and lengths of firewood, with which to defend themselves.

‘How many?’

‘A dozen. Maybe more.’

Within moments they were able to count for themselves. A figure appeared on the west ridge, tall, lean, and seemingly faceless; to be joined by another, then by three more. They stood looking down in silence, silhouetted against the white winter sky. They wore many layers of clothing, of many different kinds, like refugees who scavenge where they can. The loose garments were cinched at the waist and above the elbows and knees with ties of fabric. Round the shoulders and neck, round the face and head, each one had wound a long scarf, so that only the eyes remained uncovered.

‘Bandits, sure enough,’ said Hanno.

More and more were showing themselves along the ridges that walled the Manth people in. Bowman counted thirteen on the west side, and another eight on the east. They seemed not to be armed.

‘They don’t have swords,’ he said low to his father. ‘I think we can match them.’

But even as he spoke, one of the masked men drew a cord from his belt, and stooping, picked up a stone from the ground.

‘Sling shots!’ cried Rollo Shim.

The bandit swung the cord in rapid circles over his head, hissing through the air, building up speed at its weighted end. Then with a flick of the hand, he released the stone. It shot down into the valley and hit one of Creoth’s cows on the side of its head, with such force that the beast fell dead without a sound. The Manth people were struck with terror. Creoth cried out, and ran to the side of the lifeless animal.

‘Cherub! My Cherub!’

All along the ridges the bandits could now be seen to be holding sling shots at the ready. They neither moved nor spoke. Their posture of readiness said all that was needed.

Hanno made a rapid calculation. The bandits were above them on both sides. The horses and cows could not scramble over the steep landslides. They must fight or give in. If they fought, they could inflict damage on the bandits, but many of his people would fall as the cow had fallen.

‘Lay down your weapons,’ he said to the marchers.

He called to the one who had used his sling shot to such great effect, who he presumed to be the leader.

‘We are Manth people! We mean you no harm! What do you want from us?’

The bandits stared back in silence.

‘Do you want our cows and our horses? We have nothing else.’

The bandit leader signed to two of his men. At once they jumped over the ridge, and pushing small rock-slides before them, came skidding down to the valley floor. The rest of the bandits raised their slings, to show their readiness to strike should their companions come under attack.

‘Don’t move!’ Hanno called to his frightened people. ‘Stay still, until we know what they want.’

The two scarfed bandits now came among them, eyes glittering, and scanned the motionless marchers. One of them pointed to Kestrel, then to Sarel Amos. His companion took both by the arms and roped their wrists.

Mumpo growled a deep growl of rage.

‘Don’t move, Mumpo!’ hissed Hanno.

He saw, and understood that they would have to fight after all, whatever the cost: but he wanted to give his people their best chance. He looked round, to calculate how many of them could find cover beneath the wagon. Even so slight a movement of his head was enough to signal his intention to the keen-eyed bandit leader above, and his sling whirred. Bowman saw the stone leave the sling and hurtle towards his father. At once he reached out with his mind to shield him, and himself rocked under the stone’s impact, sending it glancing harmlessly to one side. Its force shocked him. He had enough strength to deflect a single shot, but he knew that if all the bandits were to strike at once he would be helpless.

The bandit leader, surprised that he had missed, was already reloading his sling.

‘Bo,’ said Hanno, ‘do we have a chance?’

‘No. They’ll kill us all.’

As he spoke, one of the bandits on the valley floor was roping Ashar Warmish. Her father Harman Warmish drew his knife.

‘Harman! Don’t!’

A snap, a crack, and Harman crumpled to the ground, his skull smashed. Bowman gasped aloud. It had happened too fast, he had caught the flick of the sling too late.

Now for the first time the bandit leader spoke, calling down into the valley in a harsh voice.

‘Must we kill every man among you? We’ve done it before.’

Harman Warmish lay unmoving on the ground, the blood bubbling from his head. His wife sobbed, but did not move. The bandit holding young Ashar Warmish pulled her, now limp and unresisting, to join Kestrel and Sarel. After her they picked out Seer Such, and Red Mimilith, and Sisi: all the girls who were no longer children, but were not yet mothers; though Ashar was barely twelve years old.

Kestrel allowed herself to be roped and led aside, because she understood exactly what danger they were in, even before the killing of Ashar’s father. Bowman was speaking to her.

Don’t resist. Not yet.

Sisi too understood that she had no choice. When her turn came she brushed the bandit’s hand away with contempt, and walked of her own free will, head held high, to join the shivering group. Lunki tried to go with her, but the scarfed bandit pushed her back.

When the six girls were all roped together in a chain, the bandits indicated that they were to climb the slope. Their mothers and fathers began to groan, so that Hanno had to command them.

‘Don’t move! Our duty is to live!’

It was a pitiful sight to watch, the manacled girls half-scrambling, half-pulled up the slope, dragged by the rope from above, slithering to their knees, kicking for a foothold on the loose scree. But then it was done, and the bandits on the eastern ridge were already loping away.

‘Don’t try to follow us!’ called the bandit leader. ‘We go into the labyrinth. You’ll never find us, and you’ll never find your way out again. We wish you no harm. Take this warning, and go on your way.’

He gave a sign, and the roped girls were led away. Mumpo watched, groaning under his breath, his whole body shaking with controlled rage.

‘I wish you harm!’ he said.

‘Don’t, Mumpo!’ said Hanno. ‘You’re no use to us dead.’

Bowman called silently to Kestrel.

I’ll find you. We can’t do anything yet. But I’ll find you.

One by one the bandits on the ridge slipped away, leaving only the gaunt threatening figure of the bandit leader. Then suddenly he turned and was gone.

At once Mumpo and Bowman, Tanner Amos and the Shim brothers, raced for the western slope. It was far harder to climb than they had supposed, watching the sure-footed bandits. Again and again their scrambling feet set off rock slides, which carried away the ground beneath them and sent those behind tumbling back down. Mumpo fell twice, and then took the entire hill at a run, hurling himself to the top by sheer force. The others, scrambling up behind him, called out to him.

‘Do you see them?’

‘No,’ said Mumpo, standing on the ridge where the bandits had stood, looking west.

One by one the others joined him, and understood why he had fallen silent. From the ridge to the far off western horizon the land was riven by a maze of deep cracks. Here and there the jagged fissures met, or crossed each other, in a crazy network that extended for miles. The cracks varied in depth, some no deeper than a man, some seeming bottomless. From the surface they all looked the same: shadowy slits without any distinctive markings, without any visible plant life, without the marks of human habitation. The bandits and their captives had vanished into the labyrinth leaving not even a trail of footsteps on the hard windswept plains.

Bowman closed his eyes and turned his face to the west. He was tracking Kestrel by other means.

‘They’ve not gone far,’ he said. ‘They’re moving fast. But I can find them.’

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