War in Heaven (48 page)

"Ten thousand city disks
is
a heavy sum," Constancio continued. "But even that is not enough."

"What do you mean?"

"Look about my house and you will behold many fine things. But not as many as even ten days ago. I've had to trade three tondos and a carpet for an insultingly small supply of food. And soon, I'm afraid, very soon the price of even kurmash will shoot off towards infinity. In such times, it's never possible to have too much money, never, never."

"I have no money," Danlo said as he touched the precious blue stones of the table. "I never have."

Constancio looked at him in disbelief, and then continued, "I should have left the city when I had the chance. I was afraid this Ringism madness would lead to war."

"Why did you stay, then?"

"Because I thought that Neverness would be safer than anywhere else."

"But the universe is everywhere just the same, yes?"

"Just so. And that's why the only real safety is in things."

Danlo examined his fine coffee mug, blown from the rare ruby glass of Fostora. He said, "You have many things — do you feel safe?"

"I've prepared for this day all my life. I'm as safe as any man in the city."

"Have you many friends, then?"

"Once God betrayed me, and then my people betrayed me — now I put my faith elsewhere."

"I am sorry," Danlo said as a strange light came into his eyes.

But his compassion seemed only to anger Constancio, who said, "How could you hope to accomplish what you wish if you haven't any money?"

"I have brought something else."

"What, then?"

"
This,
" Danlo said, and he reached into the pocket of his furs. He drew out the silken pouch and untied the drawstring. Then, with a quick motion, he emptied into his hand a shimmering diamond sphere.

"My God!" Constancio said, almost gasping for breath. "That can't be real — may I hold it?"

Danlo gave him the sphere and watched as Constancio turned the flawless diamond between his sweating hands. Brilliant lights flickered beneath the sphere's curving surface with a many-coloured fire.

"A scryer's sphere," Constancio said. "How did you acquire it?"

"I ... cannot tell you."

Constancio looked long and deeply at him, then. After a while, he said, "You have unusual eyes. Such a rare, deep blue. Did you know that Mehtar once sculpted a pair of eyes such as yours?"

"Truly?" Danlo said, although he knew very well the story of how Mehtar Hajime had once sculpted his mother into an Alaloi.

"In fact, she was a scryer herself," Constancio said. "Her name was Katharine the Scryer — she was the sister of Mallory Ringess."

He went on to describe the sculpting of the members of the quest that Mallory Ringess had led to the Alaloi people. Katharine, he said, had once blinded herself as all scryers do during their terrible initiation ritual. And Mehtar Hajime had grown for her new eyes, which he had implanted into her newly sculpted face.

"Strange that you should have her eyes," Constancio said. "So dark, so blue — like liquid jewels."

Danlo suddenly looked down at the tabletop; he felt a spear of light stab through his left eye and burn through his head and face. He wondered if Constancio knew the story of how Mallory Ringess had fallen into love with Katharine — all the while unaware that the woman whom he would lie with was his sister.

"I had heard that Katharine died upon the quest to the Alaloi," Constancio said.

Yes
, Danlo remembered,
she died giving birth to me.

"I have also heard that a scryer's sphere is supposed to be returned to her sister scryers upon her death."

"Yes, that is their way," Danlo said.

"Well,
this
sphere, if it's not a counterfeit, was obviously never returned."

"It is not a counterfeit," Danlo said, still gazing at the blue tiles of the table.

"Danlo of Kweitkel," Constancio said. "Such a strange man with such strange and beautiful eyes. Why don't you remove your mask so that I can see your eyes more clearly?"

"No — I cannot."

"If Mehtar is to sculpt your face, much more than just your mask will have to be removed."

Danlo suddenly looked up; beneath his mask, his eyes flashed like blue fire. He said, "This sphere is worth ten thousand city disks, then?"

"That is hard to determine," Constancio said craftily. "But if it's a true scryer's diamond, I should think that it would buy a sculpting."

"I ... do not seek just any sculpting."

"But you've said that you wish to wear the flesh of an Alaloi man."

"Yes, truly — but not just any Alaloi man."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"There was a man whom Mehtar once shaped into an Alaloi. I wish to be shaped the same as he."

"And who was this man?"

Danlo paused a moment to take a deep breath, and then he said, "Mallory Ringess."

"Mallory Ringess!"

For a long time the two men only stared at each other across the tea table, and neither of them said a word. And then Danlo finally spoke in voice that was almost a whisper, "I had hoped that Mehtar might have kept the holograms that he must have made of Mallory Ringess' face. I had hoped that he might still be able to work a new sculpting from these holograms."

"That's a rather long hope, isn't it?"

"Is it truly?" Danlo asked. From the way that Constancio's grey eyes suddenly hardened with concentration then, Danlo knew that he had guessed right: that a collector of valuable things such as Constancio would never have thrown away something so dear as a hologram of Mallory Ringess' face.

"Even if Mehtar
had
kept the holograms," Constancio said, "I don't understand why you would wish to look like Mallory Ringess."

"Is that so strange, then? Isn't this a time when almost everyone in the city dreams of becoming a god in emulation of Mallory Ringess?"

"But you're asking to be sculpted into the shape of a primitive man, not a god."

"But Mallory Ringess wore this shape just before he became a god, yes?"

"Well, everyone knows that he left Neverness wearing the body that Mehtar made for him," Constancio said, rather proudly. "But only the Ringists believe that he became a god."

Danlo was silent a while, and he felt Constancio's eyes burning into his like lasers.

"Are
you
a Ringist?" Constancio asked.

"No — just the opposite."

"You oppose Ringism, then? Well, that's good. Many in this district do as well. It will make your visits here easier."

"Then you believe that Mehtar will be able to make such a sculpting?"

Constancio carefully replaced the scryer's sphere back in its silken pouch. The pouch itself he dropped into a pocket of his robe. "If this sphere proves real, then I'm sure that Mehtar would be able to make the sculpting that you desire."

At the sudden disappearance of this diamond sphere, Danlo felt a burning hollowness in the pit of his belly. It was the only thing of his mother's that he owned, and he couldn't quite believe that he would never again hold it in his hands.

"There is one thing that I must ask," Danlo finally said. "No one must ever know of this sculpting."

"Of course, of course — you wish your privacy, as anyone would. As I wish for myself."

At that moment, Mehtar's eyes fell as grey as old snow, and Danlo couldn't tell whether or not he should trust him.

"I must ask that no one be told my name."

"There isn't a man in the city better at keeping secrets than Constancio of Alesar," Constancio said.

"If these requests are not honoured," Danlo said, "then I must ask you to agree that the price of the sculpting is forfeit and will be returned."

Constancio patted his bulging pocket then and said, "Your secrets are as safe with me as I will keep this beautiful sphere."

Danlo stared at this unreadable man for a moment and then extended his hand. Although Constancio must have regarded the touching of flesh against naked flesh as the most barbaric of customs, he clasped Danlo's hand in his to seal their agreement.

"When can we begin, then?" Danlo asked.

"Well, there are many preparations to make, drugs and tools that might be difficult to acquire. I should say at least twenty days."

"I had hoped that it might be sooner than that."

"The sculpting itself will take at least three times as long."

"I ... may not have so much time."

"Would you hurry the making of a great work of art?"

"No," Danlo said. "But sometimes the greatest art springs forth like a fireflower in midwinter spring."

"It
is
possible for a great cutter such as Mehtar Hajime to cut more quickly. But despite all pain blocks and drugs, such cutting would be much more painful."

"I see."

"There would be the shock to many of the body's tissues, all at once, the accelerated healings. The drills and drugs and lasers — it all burns so terribly, you know, and the nerves can stand only so much trauma."

"I ... see."

"Have I then persuaded you that a quick cutting would be both foolish and full of chance?"

Danlo closed his eyes at the sharp pain that always lurked just beneath his forehead. He felt his heart beating too hard and his blood pulsing through his brain. The ekkana drug still licked every tissue of his body with tongues of fire, and all his nerves from his toes to his head still writhed and burned.

"I ... would ask that Mehtar make his cutting as quickly as he could," he finally said.

"You have courage," Constancio said, taking a sip of coffee. He looked across the table and lost himself in depths of Danlo's eyes. "Great courage, I think. And you'll need all of it to become what you desire to be."

"When can we begin, then?"

"Return here in eighteen days. If chance falls well upon us, it should be possible to convert one of the rooms of his house into a cutting chamber by that time."

"Thank you," Danlo said, bowing from his chair. Then both he and Constancio stood up and bowed more formally.

"And when you do return," Constancio said, "if you have trouble entering the district, you should say that you are a guest in my house. If anyone seeks confirmation of this, I'll instruct my guards to say that it's so."

"Thank you," Danlo said again. "Until then, I wish you well."

"And I wish
you
well, Danlo of Kweitkel. If the war doesn't annihilate us all, in a very short time you'll know the joy of becoming the man you wish to be."

I am not my father
, Danlo thought for the ten thousandth time.

As Constancio accompanied him to the door, he kept thinking of his father. He felt his father's design in his own long nose, his bold face bones, his long black and red hair. He looked inside himself, then, and saw the face of Mallory Ringess staring back at him. It was a face transfigured by the pain of countless sculptings: strong, wise and noble, and yet cut with an underlying savagery. In his proud countenance was written the story of man's primitive origins and the transcendent fate that awaited anyone who had the courage to become his true self. Although Danlo was not his father, and never could be, if he kept his courage then very soon this wild and beautiful face of his father's would be his own.

What is a child? A child is an instantiation of an ideal of our minds and the completion of our personal programs. We conceive a child, and the mother nourishes herself with elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen — and a child is born. We can say that it is the program of these elements to come together as a child, just as it is the child's program to grow into a woman or man. A woman
and
a man may make many children together — fifty is not too many — each child programmed to utilize ever more elements of the universe until every atom of every speck of dust around every star from the Milky Way to the Sagara Spiral finds itself subject to our programs. We can say that this whole, cosmic, creative process is the program of the universe. And so we come to the deeper answer to the question: what is a child? A child is the means by which our individual programs become one with the Universal Program; a child is the architect who will reshape all matter and remake the universe itself into a paradise designed for our children's children.

— from
The Principles of Cybernetic Architecture
by Nikolos Daru Ede

The days that followed were the grimmest of Danlo's life. As deep winter approached, the weather grew even colder. The occasional light, powdery snows of the season gradually gave way to relentless blue-black skies devoid of any cloud or particle of moisture. The air fell so dry and cold that breathing could be a torment of iced nostrils, coughing and frosted lungs. Twice, despite his mask, Danlo almost suffered the pain of freezing his face. Eating rich foods would have fed his body's fires, but he had much trouble finding restaurants that still served even watery bowls of kurmash. He might have kept to the relative warmth of his snow house in the woods, but he felt that he should search the streets and try to take at least one meal each day.

And then, on the 50th of winter, it seemed that the whole city suddenly ran out of food. As the Fellowship and Ringist fleets manoeuvred for what everyone prayed would be their final battle, the grain shipments from Yarkona and Summerworld were completely cut off. One by one, hour by hour, the restaurants began to close, the free ones first followed by most every private restaurant from the Hollow Fields to the Hofgarten. The next day, thirty thousand men and women of the harijan sects swarmed the Merripen Green to demand that the Order open their food reserves and feed the hungry city. But, in truth, the Order had no reserves. Lord Audric Pall sent a messenger to the Merripen Green to inform the harijan of the masters' and novices' pain and privation. However, the myth of the Order's buildings bulging with barrels of kurmash and bags of rice had infected the people's minds. No one believed this messenger — Lord Alesar Druze himself — and the harijan had rioted, pelting Lord Druze with snowballs studded with ice. The violence spilled over into the surrounding streets. The enraged harijan broke the windows of hundreds of shops and forced their way into the closed restaurants only to find them as empty of food as clam shells washed up on to a beach. They broke into the apartments of rich wormrunners looking for a little bread with which to feed their children; a small army of harijan even stormed Hanuman's cathedral to appropriate the supply of foodstuffs rumoured to be stored in the vast, underground crypts. Only with difficulty did Hanuman's godlings and guards drive them off. When the battle was over, two hundred harijan lay dead on the street outside the cathedral's western portal while many more nursed bullet wounds or flesh seared black in the fierce heat of the flashing lasers. Fifty-four Ringists died that day, too, and thereafter Hanuman li Tosh resolved to arm each of his would-be gods with lasers and close the entire Old City to anyone refusing to follow the Way of Ringess.