War in Heaven (44 page)

Danlo bowed and said, "Farewell, Benjamin." Then he bowed his farewells to each of the others and walked out into the hallway. The ringkeepers there opened the outside door to let him out on to the street.

I am not my father
, he thought.

As he skated down the sliddery into the heart of the Farsider's Quarter, he smiled beneath his dark, leather mask. Soon he turned on to lesser streets where none of the men and women passing by would see his face or know who he truly was.

Our first and last hope must always be to follow the way of Mallory Ringess and to behold his miraculous transformation even as we hold his image for ever inside ourselves.

— Hanuman li Tosh, Lord of the Way of Ringess

Nearly thirteen years before, Danlo had come to Neverness across six hundred miles of the frozen sea. Starving, frostbitten and alone, he had found his way on to the icy sands of North Beach where a Fravashi alien called Old Father had befriended him and offered him shelter in his house. And now, as he skated alone away from Benjamin Hur's apartment, he realized that he was very near the Fravashi District, where he presumed that the white-furred Old Father still guided his students in the daily Moksha competitions and the mystical art of plexure. His path took him along the Merripen Green and crossed the East-West Sliddery. And then it cut across the corner of the Fravashi District, where many old houses remain as a testament to the importance of the Fravashi in Neverness over the last three thousand years. Danlo very badly wanted to make a detour down the streets of these squat, one-storey dwellings and pay his respects to Old Father. But he feared that Hanuman's spies might keep a watch for his arrival. And so instead he turned on to a gliddery leading west through a neighbourhood of old tenements and whitestone hospices and he crossed on to a little red street leading directly into that part of the city where no one lived. This was the City Wild, a great expanse of yu trees, gentle hills and streams running through ravines untouched by the hand of man. The founders of Neverness, wishing to include in their great city a swathe of raw nature, had ordered these acres of forest to be left in their wild state. For three thousand years the city had grown across the tip of Neverness Island, and the various districts — Ashtoreth, Darghinni, Elidi and all the others — had been added one by one. As the pressure of too many people caused the building of huge tenements and towers, many had argued for the cutting of the City Wild's trees. But the Timekeeper had never allowed such a desecration; indeed, he had permitted the building of only a few paths through this cold and wild forest. Those wishing to experience the splendours of nature, he said, could brave the snowdrifts and steep ravines on skis. The more timid souls could always take solace in the Merripen or Gallivare Greens, those soft fields of flowering plants and carefully tended trees closer to the city's hotels and restaurants. And so, especially in the deeper parts of winter, the City Wild has always been a place of songbirds and solitude, where a man might lose himself for whole days and encounter no other human being.

Such distance from the inquisitive eyes of the city was exactly what Danlo desired. At one of the free shops just off the East-West Sliddery, he acquired a pair of skis, a stove, lamp, sleeping furs, saw, knife and other tools he would need to begin his time alone in the forest. But he found no food. It was strange, he thought, that the free shops had been almost totally emptied of food while they fairly bulged with furs, kamelaikas, skates, goggles, heated boots, lip balm and other necessities for living within a frozen city such as Neverness. He realized that the weakest part of his plan was that he would have to emerge from the City Wild at least twice each day to take meals in the free restaurants of the surrounding districts — that is, if the grain shipments ever arrived from Summerworld or Yarkona and the lords of the city kept the restaurants open.

He entered the City Wild along a green glissade that ran straight across the entire city, from South Beach to the Hofgarten. Here the ice was well kept and the skating easy. Here, too, were great yu trees rising up straight and greyish-green, and the even greater shatterwood trees that reminded him of his first home on the island of Kweitkel. In truth, much about this forest was similar to the wild forests on the islands far to the west of Neverness: the feather moss and fairy finger growing on the tree trunks, the snow apples and iceblooms and anda bushes blazing red and orange with fireflowers. Near where the glissade intersected a sliddery that cut through the forest from east to west, he found stands of snow pine and bonewood thickets uncommon to his home island but still familiar, nonetheless. He well remembered the names of these plants, as well as those of the few animals who lived among them. There was
Liliji
, the fritillary, and two species of loons that he knew as
Aditi
and
Liolya.
There was
Churo
, the sleekit, and
Aulii
, the snowworm who made their homes beneath the snow. Sometimes flocks of pilits or
kitikeesha
would find their way on to one of the City Wild's frozen lakes; but just as often, some clumsy farsider on skis would come crashing through the trees and drive these pretty birds away. Over three thousand years, almost all the larger animals had abandoned these little woods. Gone were the wolves and bears and mammoths who had once lived there. Gone too, it seemed, were the snowy owls. As always when Danlo entered the wild part of the world, he listened for the cry of these rare white birds who held half his soul. But the only sounds of the forest were the wind swirling through the trees, the tinkle of spindrift snow, and the far-off tapping of a tititit bird.

About half a mile into the Wild, he left the gliddery. He ejected his skate blades and put on his skis. He struck off north towards a little ridge he remembered cutting through the heart of the forest. In truth, he remembered almost every rock and tree of this almost-wild wood, for during his time as a student in Old Father's house, he had come here every day. He remembered the smells of the red yu berries and the pungent fragrance of the fireflowers; he remembered how good it was simply to slide his skis through the newly fallen
soreesh
snow. In little time, he found the place that he was seeking. This was a ridge of granite rocks running from southwest to northeast. He hoped that it might provide a shield against the west wind, that murderous wind of deep winter that he knew as the Serpent's Breath. Close to the ridge, on the south side, grew a protection of another sort: a copse of snow pine interspersed with bonewood thickets. It was Danlo's hope that this wall of vegetation would act as a shield against the searching eyes of anyone who might ski close by.

And so, on the narrow snowfield between the ridge and the bonewood thickets; he set to work building his house. From the pack that he had acquired in the shop, he removed a long steel knife. So keen were his memories of what Jaroslav Bulba had done to him with his killing knife that he was almost reluctant to touch it. For a while he held the blade gleaming in the sun of the late afternoon. How strange, he thought, that this brilliant thing could be used to cut out a man's heart as well as in the slicing of snow. But after all, the knife was only a knife, and today he would use it only for this latter purpose.

About a hundred yards from his house site, blown up against the ridge, he found a drift of snow. It was
kureesha
snow, as he had once called it: all wind-packed and hard and easy to work. Immediately, he began cutting snow-blocks the size of a man's chest. The dark blue sky wouldn't hold the sun much longer, and soon it would grow dark and very cold. As quickly as he could, he bundled these blocks into his furs and dragged them along the ridge to his house site. Many times he made this short journey, cutting blocks and then dumping them on the circle of snow that he had packed down with his skis. When he saw that he had enough, he began shaping the blocks with his knife, shaving off the sparkling ice crystals and planting the foundation blocks around the circle down into the snow. Working inwards and upwards, he set the next circle of blocks and then the next. It fairly astonished him that he could work so quickly, for it had been almost half his life since he had built similar snow houses out on the frozen sea. But his hands, much more than his eyes or mind, seemed to know just how to cut the curving blocks and to fit them together into a growing dome. Soon, it seemed, he was setting the last circle and then whittling away at the crunchy snow of the last block, the key block that he set into the highest part of the curving roof. Having completed the main body of the house just at sunset — the white dome was higher than his head — he spared not a moment to admire his handiwork. For he still had to build the tunnel, that long tube of snow that would serve as an entranceway and keep out the howling wind. He finished it beneath the light of the flame globe that he had set on a rock. The forest had fallen so dark that he could barely see the trees rising towards the starry sky. And it was very cold, almost blue cold — the kind of cold that could freeze the life inside a man's limbs and steal his breath away. He badly wanted to take shelter inside his new house, then. But the wind was up, blowing particles of spindrift against his facemask and driving through the chinks between the blocks of snow. And so, with numb fingers and shivering arms, in the deepening cold of the night, he went around the outside of his house packing snow into every chink that he could find. And when he had finally finished this brutal labour, he stood back on the cold, squeaking snow and lifted his face to the stars. "
Wi leldra pelasu mi shamli se halla, se kareeska,
" he prayed, calling for his ancestors to bless his new home. Despite the pain of his cold face muscles, he smiled at how easily he had fallen into his old ways. And then without further ceremony, he dragged his skis, furs, pack and all his possessions through the tunnel into his living space beneath the dome.

At first the interior of his snow house was very cold. But he set the plasma stove on a little rug at the centre of his single room, and the air warmed quickly. Indeed, soon it was so warm that he stripped off his furs and began building the shelf of snow that would serve as his bed. He worked to the light of the flame globe, and lovely lights of amethyst, turquoise and topaz suffused the curving walls of snow, causing each individual ice crystal to sparkle like a jewel. With his bed complete, he had only to spread out his thick sleeping furs to be ready for the night. In the morning, he thought, he could cut wood poles with which to make drying racks for his clothing and boots and otherwise make his house habitable.

He might have slept, then. He might have dived beneath his warm, silken shagshay furs and reflected upon the events of this remarkable day. Instead, he went outside to make his piss-before-sleeping. He put on his fur coat, walked out into the woods, and stood with his back to a pine tree facing south. A man, he remembered, must always piss to the south, sleep to the north and pray to the east. And die to the west. Soon, he thought, it would come time for him to make this journey: either to die the real death or to die to the man that he had always known. He stood there in the cold and almost silent night listening to the faint movement of the wind through the trees. He smelled snow and yu berries and death: the long, dark vapours of it were heavy in the air and almost as real as his steaming breath. Far above, out in the blackness of deep space, the stars shone like a billion bits of newly fallen snow. The stellar winds blew through the universe in a single, fiery breath, and he listened to this faint sound, too. He looked towards the Vild at the supernovas, the
blinkans
as he had once called these fierce blazing lights. He remembered that the radiance of one of these supernovas — Merripen's Star — would soon fall over Neverness in all its terrible glory and whispers of death. He feared the coming of this starlight; he feared the death of his world, and so he turned to the east for a while to pray. And there, as he looked towards the horizon just over the dark outline of the mountains, Attakel and Urkel, there in the east he beheld the glow of the Golden Ring. This great swathe of living gold coloured the stars amber and ruby red; it swirled and rippled and flowed with beautiful patterns and purpose — and for a long time he prayed that its purpose would be to shield his world from the Vild's killing light. But just as he took an icy breath and hope leaped in his heart, he looked straight up above the city. In near-space, across only a few tens of thousands of miles, Hanuman's Universal Computer loomed all black and huge as a moon. It blocked out the familiar stars, Shesakeen and Kefira Luz and others that Danlo had known since childhood. In truth it seemed to eat the stars like some vast black hole made by the hand of man. Seeing that the Golden Ring would not grow near the spaces of this monstrous machine, he nearly despaired. And when he thought of Bertram Jaspari's Iviomils waiting somewhere in spacetime — waiting to use their hideous
morrashar
to destroy the Star of Neverness — he felt something black and heavy and utterly cold gnawing at the soft tissues of his belly. He remembered his own purpose, then. He let the starlight fall across his cold, naked face, and he prayed for the courage to embrace the strange fate that he had chosen for himself.

Despite the sweet song of a panditi bird rilling up the forest, he slept badly that night. Sometime towards morning he began to dream his old dream, the one that had first come to him during his sojourn on the beach of the false Earth inside the Solid State Entity. In this dream, in the exotic and fevered land of nightmare, a tall grey man used steel scalpels, lasers and drills to cut at his flesh. The man sculpted his body and face, transforming him into a beautiful tiger. He always awoke from this dream, sweating and trembling, to scream and move; and the taste of blood filled his mouth. And on
this
morning of cold blue air and sunlight filtering through the domed snow blocks above him, he tasted a terrible hunger as well. He realized that he hadn't eaten since the morning before when Kiyoshi Telek had served him breakfast in his cell of the chapter house. And so he quickly put on his kamelaika, boots, furs and facemask, and went outside. He skied back through the forest towards the orange sliddery that ran through the trees. After leaving his skis buried in the snow behind a great shatterwood tree, he clipped in his skate blades and pushed off towards the nondescript district north of the Merripen Green. He saw only one other skater, a man dressed in hooded furs much as himself. In little time, he exited the City Wild via the green glissade that had no name. The cafes and restaurants of the Farsider's Quarter and the entire city of Neverness lay before him. He had only to choose one of the free restaurants to take his morning meal; then he could begin fulfilling his plan to bring down Hanuman li Tosh.