War in Heaven

Eli los shaida, Danlo thought. Shaida eth shaida.

Lord Pall lifted his finger slightly, and the cetic sitting at his side – a handsome young man with the blond hair and ferocious blue eyes of a Thorskaller – spoke in his place: ‘Have you fallen well, Lord Demothi Bede? Danlo wi Soli Ringess? We wish you well. We accept you as the legitimate ambassadors of the Fellowship of Free Worlds, though you should know that we do not accept the legitimacy of the Fellowship itself.’

‘Perhaps in time that will change,’ Demothi said.

‘Perhaps,’ Lord Pall said through his mouthpiece. But his little pink eyes betrayed no sign that he thought this might be possible. ‘Time is strange, isn’t it? We have so little of it. At this moment, the wavefront from the supernova is falling towards us at the speed of light. And perhaps the fleet of your Fellowship approaches even more quickly. And these aren’t even the most immediate dangers that we face.’

‘Of what dangers do you speak, my lord?’ Demothi asked.

‘That you will soon know,’ Lord Pall replied. He turned to look at a journeyman horologe standing by the doors to a second anteroom across the chamber. The horologe bowed his head, then drew the laser that he wore in a holster at his hip. He very warily opened the anteroom’s doors. Two men were waiting for him there, and, with a wave of his laser, he escorted them into the chamber towards Danlo and Demothi Bede and the two empty chairs.

‘No!’ Danlo suddenly said, forgetting all restraint. Then, realizing that he had spoken out of place, he held his head as still as a thallow as he locked eyes on these two men whom he knew too well.

‘I see that you’re acquainted,’ Lord Pall said. ‘But allow me to present our guests to the rest of the College: Malaclypse Redring of Qallar, and Bertram Jaspari of Tannahill.’

At the saying of this name, a hundred lords gasped as if sharing a single breath. From lost Tannahill, thirty thousand light years across the stars, Bertram Jaspari had come to Neverness even as Danlo had come. With his pointed, bald head and skin discoloured blue from the mehalis disease common to Tannahill, he was an ugly man – perhaps the ugliest whom Danlo had ever known. His mouth was as small and puckered as a dried bloodfruit and his eyes cold and dead-grey like rotting seal flesh. His whole face seemed set with a permanent sneer. And all these eye-catching physical features bespoke only the work of his surface self; his true ugliness went much deeper. Danlo knew him to be devious, vain, stingy, cruel and utterly lacking in grace. And worse, he had no care for any human being other than himself, and worse still, he liked using others in his lust to grab power. And perhaps worst of all, he was small in his spirit, small and twisted like a plant deformed by lack of water and sunlight. If he had competed with Lord Pall to see which one of them could best embody pure shaida, it would have been hard to judge the winner.

‘You are a liar and a murderer,’ Danlo whispered as Bertram Jaspari let himself down into the chair next to him. ‘A murderer of a planet and a whole people.’

Bertram Jaspari pretended that he hadn’t heard these soft yet fierce words of Danlo. He seemed afraid to meet Danlo’s blazing blue eyes. He just sat in his jewood chair, adjusting the folds of his kimono, the traditional garment of the Architects of the Infinite Intelligence of the Cybernetic Universal Church. Scarcely a year earlier, in the War of Terror which he had inflicted upon Tannahill, he had dyed his kimono a bright red as a sign of his willingness to shed blood. (Though as far as Danlo knew, he had shed only the blood of his fellow Architects and never his own.) All of the fanatical sect called the Iviomils now wore these same ugly kimonos. Somewhere in space, perhaps hiding behind a nearby star, Bertram’s fleet of Iviomils would be waiting to shed more blood or to accomplish a much more shaida purpose.

Next to him, above the remaining empty chair, stood a man who seemed his opposite. He wore a dazzling, rainbow-coloured robe and a single red ring on the little finger of either hand. Like all warrior-poets, Malaclypse Redring was physically beautiful. His skin was like burnished copper; his hair was black and shiny as a sable’s fur. Everything about him rippled with an intense aliveness, especially his eyes, all violet and deep and quick. He, at least, dared to meet Danlo face to face. While the eyes of every lord in the chamber nervously regarded him and wondered why he remained standing, he turned his head to look at Danlo and seek out his fierce gaze. As they had twice before, they locked eyes and stared at each other for a long time. The light streaming deep in Danlo’s eyes seemed to draw him like a fritillary to a star, and yet something he saw there must have unnerved him, too, for without warning he suddenly looked away. No one, it is said, can stare down a warrior-poet, especially only the second one in history to wear two red rings, and the hundred and twenty lords sitting safely behind their tables looked back and forth between Danlo and Malaclypse, afraid to believe the truth of what they had just seen. Malaclypse Redring, too, was afraid, though he had no qualms about letting his fear be known. Once more he looked at Danlo, and told him, ‘You’ve changed, Pilot. Again. Every time I see you, you grow closer to who you really are. And what is that? I don’t know. It’s something almost too bright. I look at you, and I see a terrible beauty. I’m afraid of you, and I don’t know why.’

It is said that warrior-poets fear nothing in the universe, especially death, which they seek with all the concentration and joy of a tiger stalking his prey. For all Malaclypse Redring’s words about being afraid of Danlo, he was still very much like a tiger: beautiful and dangerous. In truth, he was no less a murderer than Bertram Jaspari. The horologe who had escorted him into the chamber waited only a few paces away with his laser targeting the back of his neck. He never took his eyes off this deadly warrior-poet; if Malaclypse should suddenly decide to assassinate Danlo or Demothi Bede – or even Lord Pall – the horologe stood ready to execute him instantly.

‘Won’t you please take your seat?’ Lord Pall said to him.

Slowly, with exquisite control of every nerve and muscle, Malaclypse sat down next to Bertram Jaspari. But he ignored Lord Pall and everyone else in the room. Again, he locked eyes with Danlo, and this time he held his gaze for the count of twenty heartbeats.

‘I must apologize,’ Lord Pall said, ‘for not informing the College of these men’s arrival. But you must understand: a warrior-poet who wears two red rings and the leader of the Iviomil Architects who —’

Here, Bertram Jaspari broke in, saying, ‘You may address me as the Holy Ivi of the Cybernetic Universal Church.’

Lord Pall hated to be interrupted, but he showed little sign of his emotions. As he stared at Bertram Jaspari, his face remained as silent as a cetic’s. Only the artery of his throat, which Danlo could see jumping beneath his white, withered skin across thirty feet, betrayed his sudden and secret wrath.

‘Holy Ivi, as you say,’ Lord Pall said, speaking in his own voice, which hissed with venom like that of a Scutari seneschal. ‘The Holy Ivi has led a fleet of ships from Tannahill, and around which star they wait, no one knows. The Holy Ivi must soon send word of his safety to this fleet; if he does not – or cannot – he threatens terrible things. To ensure his safety, I have withheld the fact of his arrival from the College until now. Again, my apologies, my fellow lords.’

Burgos Harsha, who had never supported Lord Pall’s rise to the Lordship of the Order, called out in his raspy voice, ‘What things does he threaten, then? Why weren’t we told of this threat?’

‘That you will soon know,’ Lord Pall said – this time through the mouth of his interpreter.

‘How soon, then?’ Burgos Harsha bellowed out with all the forbearance of a shagshay bull in rut.

‘Soon, soon,’ Lord Pall said. He began drumming his bony white fingers against the resonant jewood of the tabletop. This might have been a secret communication to the cetic attending him – or merely a sign that he was as impatient as Burgos Harsha.

‘What do we wait for?’

‘For Hanuman li Tosh to arrive,’ Lord Pall said. ‘I’ve asked him to attend this meeting.’

This news, while exciting the hopes of Kolenya Mor and other lords who fairly worshipped Hanuman as the Lord of the Way of Ringess, did not please everyone. Vishnu Suso sat quite close to Lord Pall, and he eyed him suspiciously as he fingered the folds of his old, black skin. ‘Is this wise?’ he asked. ‘Is this a precedent we wish to set?’

And Burgos Harsha quickly added, ‘He’s Lord of the Way, but no lord of the Order.’

Eva Zarifa, an elegant woman with a rather quick and sardonic smile, reminded the lords, ‘Having abjured his vows five years ago, Hanuman li Tosh is no longer even of the Order.’

For some time, the lords debated the proper relationship between the Way of Ringess (and Hanuman li Tosh) and the Order. Some lords, such as Burgos Harsha, argued for a strict separation between these two powers; while the Order might change its ancient rule against allowing its members any sort of religiosity and actually encourage the following of the Way, it would be wrong to identify the Order’s purpose too closely with this new religion. Others, however, pointed out that most Ordermen had already become Ringists. Their purpose was to become gods, and therefore the Order must evolve towards an exploration of how this great purpose might be achieved. They favoured an evolution of the Order to include the tenets of Ringism and a co-operation with Hanuman and his godlings in bringing word of the Way to the stars. But the Order, they said, must always remain the Order; and the power to decide the Order’s fate must remain in the hands of the College of Lords.

Still a third group of these exalted men and women – led by Kolenya Mor – believed that the Order and the Way of Ringess were destined to merge as a single and gloriously powerful entity. Already, most of the peoples of the Civilized Worlds saw the Order as merely an arm of Ringism – or Ringism as a tool of the ancient and still mighty Order. Kolenya Mor told her peers that the sooner they exchanged their coloured robes for ones of gold, the easier would be the inevitable transition of the Order into a truly irresistible power.

‘We should all accept Hanuman li Tosh’s vision and leadership,’ she said. ‘Even if he isn’t technically a lord, he has earned the right to be called Lord Hanuman – no one more so. We should welcome him here today as if he is still of the Order. He never abjured his vows, as some believe. After all, he was forced to leave us only because of the injunction against the holding of religious office. This was the Timekeeper’s rule and has since been changed. Indeed, I propose that all such as Hanuman who have been unjustly driven from the Order should be allowed to renew their vows and —’

‘This isn’t the time for such a discussion,’ Lord Pall interrupted through the young cetic next to him. ‘I’ve asked Hanuman here today because events have moved to threaten all our lives. And Hanuman is involved in deciding how this threat must be met.’

As if Lord Pall had given a cue, at that moment the doors to the first anteroom slid open and Hanuman li Tosh strode into view. Moulded to his shaved head was a diamond clearface, a glittering computer that enabled him almost continually to interface other and greater computers, perhaps, Danlo thought, even the Universal Computer itself. This symbol of his secret powers riveted the stares of Lord Pall and everyone else sitting at their little tables. Although Hanuman had grown no taller since he and Danlo had last parted, he seemed mysteriously to have gained in stature. Dressed as he was in a long and perfectly fitted robe of gold, with his dazzling smile, he was like a sun filling up the room. But it wasn’t just his charisma or other-worldly beauty that transfixed the lords. There was something deeper, an intense inner fire connecting him to the suffering of his own soul – and to the secret suffering of all those who came close to him. He seemed always to be looking inside himself at a fiery and terrible place that others refused to see. It was his pride that he could bear a burning that would destroy a lesser being. And burn he did, not only in his spirit, but in his body which moved as if each cell were being heated by a separate, tiny, red-hot flame. Danlo felt certain that if he could have touched Hanuman’s forehead, the skin would have been hot as with fever; watching Hanuman as he glided over the black floorstones, it was almost as if his eyes could see into the infrared and thus descry the waves of heat emanating from Hanuman’s hands, his heart, his nobly-shaped head. Strangely, little of this inner fire communicated itself through his eyes. Hanuman had cold eyes, hellish eyes, ice-blue like a sled dog’s. Shaida eyes, Danlo thought for the ten thousandth time, In Hanuman’s eyes were impossible dreams and cold, crystalline worlds devoid of love or true life – as well as a cold, terrible, beautiful will towards perfection. It was his will, above all else, that marked him as different from others. It was why even Lord Pall feared him. In all Hanuman’s life, he had met only one other man whose will matched his own, and that was Danlo wi Soli Ringess. Once, he had loved Danlo as his deepest friend, but now the hatred was there for all to see, filling up his eyes with a pale, cold fury.

‘Hello, Danlo,’ Hanuman said as he paused before his chair at the centre of the room. He spoke fluidly and easily as if he had happened to meet an acquaintance on the street. He took little notice of Bertram Jaspari or Malaclypse Redring and none at all of the hundred and twenty lords waiting for him to sit down. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again – but somehow I knew I would.’

‘Hello, Hanuman. I am glad to see you.’

‘Are you? Are you?’

Danlo tried to smiled at Hanuman but could not; he touched eyes with him, and it was as if two blue icicles were being driven into his brain.

I must not hate him, he thought. I must not hate.

‘I am glad to see … for myself what you have become,’ Danlo said. He gazed into Hanuman’s eyes, and he disappeared into a world of memory and pain.

‘You shouldn’t have returned, you know. But you always had to follow your fate, didn’t you?’

‘But, Hanu, it was you who always spoke of the need to love one’s fate.’

‘And you who wanted to love one’s life.’

‘Truly, to love life, itself … yes.’

‘Is that why you’ve returned, then, out of love?’

The strange turn of this conversation amused Danlo, but it also disturbed him deeply. He felt the eyes of a hundred lords searching his face for falsity or truth. From the chair next to him, Malaclypse Redring watched like a tiger for any sign of hesitation or weakness, and Bertram Jaspari stared at him as well. It was unseemly to hold such an intimate discussion with all the Lords of Neverness and the whole universe watching and waiting. But if his fate had truly led him to such a strange moment, then he would embrace it, wildly, with all the force of his will.

‘I still love you,’ he said to Hanuman without shame. In his marvellous voice there was an utter openness and truth. ‘I always will.’

This simple statement fairly astonished the lords. It astonished Hanuman, too. He looked at Danlo, and for a moment all the hurts and betrayals of the past years evaporated like ice crystals beneath a hot sun, and there was nothing between them except the truth of who they really were. For a moment, there was love. But then there was the other thing, too. Hanuman couldn’t bear the light in Danlo’s dark, wild eyes, and he wanted to look away. It was his hell that he could not. It was both their hells that Danlo always reminded him of the one thing in the universe that he feared above all else.

How he fears, how he hates, Danlo thought. And I have made him hate; I have made him who he is.

Without another word, Hanuman bowed to Danlo and then stepped over to take a seat at the table nearest Lord Pall’s. From this central position he could easily observe the faces of Danlo and the others sitting near him, or turn to exchange meaningful looks with Lord Pall.

‘We will now hear from the Holy Ivi Bertram Jaspari, as he calls himself,’ Lord Pall said. ‘And then I will ask the warrior-poet to speak. And lastly, the ambassadors from the Fellowship. I invite any lord to interrupt with questions as necessary. This may seem an unprecedented barbarism, I know, but these are unprecedented times. Never in our history have we held a conclave with so many different powers. And never – not even during the War of the Faces – has the potential for power to destroy us all been so grave. So then, Holy Ivi, if you please.’