Аннотация: An excerpt translated into English. Out of the second novel of the cycle, The Light in the Oasis. Отрывок на английский из второго романа цикла.
Suddenly, in a burst of vivid images, came a flood of memory that nearly blinded Manuel: the jagged towers of Granada on the hill; the knight falling from a horse; a hand dropping a sword. And Manuel himself, who completely changed the course of events just by wishing it so.
The hidalgo from Salamanca found it hard to catch his breath. It had really happened. Did it really matter that no one else remembered it? He actually did it! He hadn't dreamed it in a fit of madness, as he had made himself believe.
If Manuel was crazy, then he would have noticed it long before now. Why was he so afraid of his own gift that he chased away any memory of it, and ultimately even forgot about what happened?
It was, of course, because he knew that witchcraft is the domain of the devil, and that it could land him in a bonfire. But he, Manuel de Fuentes, had made no pact with devil. This he knew for certain. More likely those who burned people alive were the ones who had made pacts. And after all, was there anything reprehensible in saving a Christian knight from the hand of a Saracen?
Perhaps it was because a Muslim died as a result? But no, this was a deceptive thought. It was not Manuel de Fuentes who made the wars in this world. Someone in the duel had to die. And Manuel helped one of his own, not someone foreign to him. It was not because one side in the war represented justice and truth and the other was wicked and satanic. Both Christians and Moors were people, with all their spectacular interweavings of light and dark qualities.
Manuel simply acted as he did because in war, if you can't avoid it, you have to help your own.
Whatever the case, here, right now, on Hispaniola, there was no Inquisition that could accuse Manuel of heresy or divination. Here there were no bonfires of the auto-da-fИ. There were no alguacils or Dominicans. Here there was a spiny shrub. There was a rising wind that threatened to become another hurricane. There were storm clouds chasing across the sky, swelling with a desire to empty themselves onto the earth. There were the frightened calls of birds unknown to European ears, and there was the unending fire in his shoulder. There was the fear of being poisoned. There was a passionate desire to avoid punishment by the bloodthirsty Caribs, even if they weren't in fact Caribs.
"So now I'll find out if I dreamed it all near Granada," whispered Manuel. Closing his eyes, he imagined all that had happened and all that might come to be.
He had a strange feeling, as if something inexplicable and endless was passing through his mind, a connecting thread that was woven through everything, every fate and event, those that had already taken place and those that were still only potential. Manuel saw how everything would unfold if he jumped out from his hiding-place behind the boulder and ran to the left of the cactus thickets, not to the right. How he would move, in which part of the forest he would find himself, and where his three pursuers would be.
Numerous possibilities appeared at practically every turn - it wasn't two scenarios, it was a whole cavalcade of them. They intertwined with each other, and keeping track of one of them was both torturous and delightful. In one narrative his shoulder hurt, in a second he felt a fatal melancholy, and in a third there was no pain and a feeling of complete security.
And at the same time there was a certainty that he needed to hurry, and that because that first moment of choice - turn right or left from the cactuses - was receding into the past, the possibilities were ever increasing, and it was ever more difficult to seize one of them and disentangle it so that it could come into being.
A paradoxical thought came into his head: "There are ever more possibilities, but the possibilities are decreasing!" Manuel quickly fastened onto one of the scenarios, and it required an exertion of effort, though he would not have been able to explain in words exactly what this effort entailed. A plethora of tiny details began to fill his mind, threatening to flood it. But Manuel somehow managed to keep his attention on his chosen outline in the thread of existence...
...If only he could reach the big gray stone located half-way to the bush! This he managed to do. Trying to catch his breath, Manuel carefully peeked out from behind the boulder. People were still moving across the tops of the hills, but lower, among the pines, there was no one in sight.
On the path to his objective, right behind the boulder, were cactuses as tall as a person. He could run to the bush either to the left or to the right of them. But there was no time for contemplation, and Manuel, thinking now that all chance of success was lost, leaped up and dashed round the left of the cactuses.
He opened his eyes - and sighed with delight. He was behind the bush, but not in the same place as the first time.
There were no arrows in his shoulder!
There were no wounds!
There was no pulsating pain!
There was no Caribbean poison coursing through his body!
With the exception of a little dizziness after the maelstrom of experiences that had just swept through his mind, Manuel felt fine in every way.
And he could indeed change reality.
Or perhaps every person could, but they simply didn't suspect it? No, that was unlikely. If such an ability were universal, it would not have been a secret to mankind since ancient times. Greek tragedians and Roman poets would have written about it, and contemporary Florentine sculptors would have carved out wizards floating through the fabric of existence.
Manuel felt a rush of gratitude toward Alonso, who had told him, in the inner courtyard of his grandfather's home in Cordoba, that reality was like a dream. It was this thought that had pushed him into taking the desperate step near Granada that had saved Garcilaso. The well-read young Morisco was correct! Existence is like a dream, it flows past malleable and subject to the influence of thoughts.
If it wasn't for the conversation on the patio, Manuel would have lived out his years not even suspecting that he could change reality.
He was a wizard! It was really true. Manuel could deny his own gift, he could condemn it to oblivion for years. Or he could use it, as he just did.
It was thanks to his ability to change the course of events that he had just saved his own life. Even if the arrows weren't poisoned, would he really have been in a state to stick to his route to the fort through an unknown, overgrown and often impenetrable region, without knowing the specific path, with an open wound in his shoulder, which he could not even bind in order to stop the blood and prevent the risk of infection?
Manuel knew precisely where his pursuers were at that moment - he had seen them in the preceding scene of reality. Peering out from the undergrowth, he became convinced that he was not mistaken. The three Indians were already walking down along the open slope, approaching his hiding place.
He did not want to take anyone's life, but he knew that gunfire was the only way to stop his pursuers.
Manuel loaded his pistol, unafraid of giving away his presence with its metallic clang, and at that very moment thunder rang out. He carefully took aim and fired. An Indian fell to the ground, his arms outstretched. The other two scrambled back into the shelter of the pine trunks.
Manuel careered down the slope, ignoring the sharp twigs and branches that clawed at his face. He soon found himself in the forest, and just in time. Once again the earth was subject to a furious attack by a hurricane. The dense canopy and the thickly intertwined fat branches and long lianas created a tent that blunted the storm's force. True, water dripped and pattered from the leaves, but it was nothing compared to the raging of the elements on open patches of ground.
It seemed unlikely that Caonabo's warriors would continue their pursuit in such weather, and yet it would be best to move as far away as possible from where they lived. Manuel continued to move downward, holding to the course that seemed to him to be more or less correct.
He gave a start when, by the rocky terrace, he saw somebody's hand, with brown rainwater bubbling between the fingers.
As he crept a little closer, the Salamanca hidalgo grieved to find that Tallarte had not survived. There was a gaping wound in the Englishman's side.
The arrow itself was nowhere to be seen - apparently Tallarte had pulled it out before reaching the cliff.
Now there was almost no doubt in Manuel's mind that all the arrows used by Caonabo's "guards" were poisoned. He wanted to bury the murdered Englishman, but there was nothing with which to dig. And any delay could cost him his life.
Manuel continued to run, battling with the undergrowth and at the same time trying to think how he could help Tallarte. He realized how absurd this thought was. How to help indeed...
Suddenly a new understanding came into his mind, one that caused his breath to catch in his throat. Now that he had become aware of his gift, there was nothing absurd about it.
Not only could he bring Tallarte back to life, he could do the same with everyone else.
Manuel almost shouted for joy. All he had to do was reach a safe place where he could concentrate in peace and change the reality of the preceding days. He did not exactly know how he would proceed - he would have to carefully review every scenario and choose the best. But the fact that this was possible at all gave Manuel new strength. His exultant mind would not defer to his exhausted body.
When the forest finally came to an end, Manuel had already lost all sense of how long he had been running. The sea appeared before him, but the way to the water was blocked by mangroves that formed a swamp right on the shore. The wind died down, and the sun efficiently set about its work, successfully erasing any trace of the tropical rain that had only just fallen.
According to Manuel's calculations, the fort was located in the west. But he had absolutely no idea how far away it was. And it was impossible to proceed directly west because of the swampy terrain. He would have to return to the forest and somehow pick his way in the right direction from there.
Manuel sat under a canopy formed by a small hill and the trees that grew all around, on the very edge of the forest. Despite feeling overwhelmed by a thirst for action, his body was demanding a rest ever more loudly.
His gaze fell on a stone that he had absentmindedly picked up when he sat on the ground. Smiling at its resemblance to a small frog, Manuel threw it with all his strength toward the shining water in front of him, and with a plop the stone sank in the mangrove swamp. He could almost hear it croaking.
Manuel was feeling better. He realized that he had lost his way. He also understood that seven colonists had been killed and that Caonabo would attack those who remained in the fort without delay. He knew that, under normal circumstances, he should try to reach his fellows as quickly as possible.
But the circumstances were not normal.
Manuel was a worker of magic, and he did not have to search for the fort. He did not have to tell Harana about the deaths of so many people.
Instead he had the ability to change the past.
And then everyone would remain alive.
Not only Escovedo and the six others who had been killed today under Caonabo's orders, but the Asturians and the Andalucians.
And those who had been struck down by fever. It was by no means inevitable that Gonzalo should die in his prime. Finally the time had come when it was possible to transform "if only" into "that's how it was." If the Santa Maria had not foundered on the reef that fateful night because of a mistake by the helmsman, then all of these people would now be alive. What's more all of them, including Manuel, could be back in Castile. Mother would no longer be worried about him. He would already have found his beloved Lola. Diego de Torpa and Pedro of Talavera would not have committed a fatally stupid action that stemmed from a lack of female affection.
If the Santa Maria had not broken up, everything would be so much better.
Manuel remembered the stone that he had just thrown into the water. He decided to try a little experiment, to simply feel again the pleasure of being an omnipotent miracle-worker.
He closed his eyes, dipped for a second into the fabric of being, quickly directed his mind to another scenario and opened his eyes again.
The stone that just a few seconds ago had been in the water was now in his hand!
And it did indeed look like a small frog. "Little frog," Manuel thought, and smiled quietly. He wanted to save this tiny witness to his first victories over unwieldy reality, and placed the "frog" in a pouch on his belt.
So the decision had been taken. None of the colonists had to remain in La Navidad fort and die. Even the fort itself did not have to exist because, in the reality in which Manuel presently existed, La Navidad was constructed out of the wreckage of the flagship.
If the Santa Maria did not founder, La Navidad fort would not exist!
Making himself comfortable, Manuel closed his eyes. At first he simply immersed himself in memories of the night when the ship hit the reef. Not long before this, the Pinta had been lost for a month and a half during a storm.
How could he change what had happened?
Manuel pondered.
He could, for example, speak to the helmsman during the night and convince him to stay as far from the coast as the second caravel, Niña. After all, it emerged unscathed.
Or, perhaps a better option, he could convince the admiral not to sail at night. Though perhaps that would fail: An old, experienced sailor such as Colon would not pay heed to the opinion of a person who was making his first-ever ocean voyage. It would be easier to make headway with the ship's boy at the wheel. If he began to argue...
Indeed, what would he do if the ship's boy had a backbone?
Manuel interrupted himself. Why did he need to guess about all of this?
After all, once he entered the necessary state, he could simply view the different turns of events and choose the best.
Entering the necessary state was not difficult at all, although there were no words to explain it to a person who had not had a similar experience.
Manuel began to investigate the unfolding of events beginning from that memorable night. There was a great mass of narratives, and his mind became confused, because he did not know how to fasten on to one of them and not muddle it with the others. In some threads, the owner of the Santa Maria, Juan de la Cosa, who valued his property greatly, managed to convince the admiral not to sail at night. In others, the ship's navigator, Peralonso Niño, personally stood by the wheel that night instead of delegating responsibility to the ship's boy. In a third set, the ship's boy managed to steer the ship without any problems. Each of these versions gave birth to a numberless variety of new ones.
Finally Manuel selected one concrete thread of events from the tangled skein. It began with the admiral simply forbidding sailing close to the islands at night because of the danger of stumbling onto the underwater reefs. Such a narrative did indeed exist. Now he had to try to fully separate this narrative from the rest, connecting its beginning with the present moment. If everything worked out, when Manuel opened his eyes he would discover himself in Casa de Fuentes. It was as if his mind now held by the two ends an empty stretch of time, nine months in length.
The emptiness began to rapidly fill with a whirlwind of minor details that soon turned into a massive influx. Manuel remembered the day when he, still unaccustomed to storms at sea, learned what they were really about. The wave that lifted the ship onto its crest was as tall as the main cathedral in Salamanca. The feeling that the hidalgo experienced at that moment, clinging to the railings and looking down from an inconceivable height, was incomparable.
The flow of events and details that flooded into his mind had become like a gigantic ocean wave.
No, it was much larger - it covered the entire world, washing away the threads onto which he could have seized. Only now did Manuel understood the truth of his recent observation in the rainy forest: The greater the possibilities, the less it was possible to control them.
He should have considered this before he rashly dived into the depths of many months.
Now Manuel wanted only one thing: To end this attempt, to return to the reality of the mangrove swamp, to rest and start again from the beginning.
No, it was too soon to think of rest and fresh attempts. His one goal was to save his sanity!
To escape!
To survive!
However much Manuel tried to bring his attention to the feeling of his body falling to the ground, and to simply open his eyes, to again find himself in reality, he was utterly unable. His mind was caught in a titanic funnel of events that tossed him about like a wood chip until finally the darkness of unconsciousness began to descend, and Manuel rushed into it with the desperate hope of attaining salvation, even if only in oblivion.
Coming to his senses, he realized that he was alive, although the next faint was hovering somewhere nearby. Manuel finally began to feel his arms, legs and back, and nausea in the rear of his throat. How reassuring it was, he discovered, to feel the presence of one's body. Though this body was for some reason going up and down, slowly rocking to a measured splash of water. The reason for these movements was unclear.
Manuel realized that he had been unable to save those killed on the island because he had been too late in coming to their aid with his miracles. It was clear that changing a reality that occurred long ago was extremely dangerous, perhaps even fatal, for a miracle-worker.
With the thought that the fort was in danger and that he, Manuel, was the only person who knew about it, and had not made it there, he groaned in despair and with great effort he opened his eyes.
It was immediately apparent that he was not in Casa de Fuentes. He had already made peace with the failure of his rescue attempt. Though it was strange that he was no longer at the place where the rainy forest met the mangroves.
Instead he lay in a long canoe. Five young Indians, sitting with their backs to Manuel, simultaneously dove their paddles into the water, first right then left. With each stroke the narrow, elongated boat without any oarlocks sped easily ahead.
Evening was already approaching. The sun was somewhere behind. Manuel lifted his head with difficulty and saw, on the right, a long coastline. The outline seemed familiar to him. Yes, it was the coast of Hispaniola, as Manuel had seen it from the deck of the Santa Maria this past winter.
Manuel tried to find La Navidad, but soon realized that the fort was far to the west, and they were sailing to the east.
"Oh!" he cried with frustration, fighting fits of nausea.
The rower sitting in front of him turned round and smiled. He had a young face, unlined, only there was a small, conspicuous scar above his brow, and when he smiled it made the boy seem as if he was winking conspiratorially.
The hair of the natives sitting in the boat was shaved not only on the forehead but also at the back. It dangled freely at the sides. Manuel had seen Indians with this kind of haircut back when the admiral's small squadron had discovered island after island in this sea, but he had never come across it on Hispaniola, among the subjects of Guacanagari.
"I have to return there," explained Manuel, pointing to the west. He could barely move his lips.
His head throbbed, and the hidalgo tried to fight the faint that threatened to overtake him. He had to somehow explain this to the friendly Indian in the language of the Tainos, but Manuel could not remember a single world.
His heart was beating so fast that it threatened to burst out of his chest. It was hard to breathe.
His smiling neighbor handed him an earthenware jug covered with intricate designs and supported his head while Manuel eagerly sucked down water from the vessel.
Pointing a finger at his chest, the Indian said:
"Arasibo."
Then he pointed at Manuel.
He had probably said his own name and waited for Manuel to pronounce his.
The Salamanca hidalgo wanted to do so, but something strange was happening to him. He remembered in precise detail that he had once dreamed all this.
A long time ago. In Cordoba, it seemed, when he was recovering after a blow to his head. In his dream he was in a boat among these people, but he was not Manuel, he was someone else.
Yes, yes, they had called him Ravaka. Later he discussed the dream with Alonso.
"Ravaka," he said mechanically, trying out the strange name.