The Wild

Lord Nikolos faced Mer Tadeo in his open, reasonable way, and he said, ‘Our mission is to establish a new Order in the Vild. We shall be far from Neverness.’

‘But twenty years ago, far from Neverness, Mallory Ringess led a pack of lightships out into the galaxy. He divided the pilots against themselves, and there was war.’

‘But Mallory Ringess has disappeared,’ Lord Nikolos observed. ‘Perhaps he is dead.’

At this, Danlo drew in a breath of air and slowly let it out. He stood very still, letting his eyes move back and forth between Mer Tadeo and Lord Nikolos.

Mer Tadeo nodded his head. ‘Perhaps. But the idea of Mallory Ringess is very much alive. The ideal. It’s our fear that with the Order weakened, this ideal will divide the Civilized Worlds. And then there would be real war. War such as we’ve never seen since the Holocaust on Old Earth.’

Although Lord Nikolos must have dismissed Mer Tadeo’s fears as improbabilities and useless speculation, others did not. Kagami Ito and Valentina Morven and various merchants near them stood about discussing the War of the Faces and other wars that had left their mark on the Civilized Worlds. And then Mer Tadeo glanced down at a little colour clock set into the gold ring that he wore around his little finger. Quite abruptly, he clapped his hands and announced, ‘Pilots and Professionals, Ambassadors and Honoured Guests – it’s nearly time. If you would fill your cups I would like to present a toast.’

Just then, from across the lawns of Mer Tadeo’s estate, the music pools ceased playing their wonderful melodies and began booming out a huge sound as if they were nothing more than liquid, golden gongs. The cool air reverberated with this sound, and ten thousand people, all at once, looked eastward up into the sky. Then they began to crowd the various fountains in their haste to fill their wine goblets. Kagami Ito, the Sonderval, and the others near Danlo began to melt into the crowd, surging toward the Fountain of Fortune. In moments he was surrounded by people whom he did not know. Caught in this crush of bodies were servants carrying platters of food: cultured meats and cakes and fairy food, chillies and cheeses and cold vegetable compotes and the hundreds of exotic fruits for which Farfara is justly famous. Most of these servants, he saw, had red hair and fair skin and pale, blue eyes. They had been recruited on Thorskalle and brought to Farfara to serve the wealthier merchants. Of course, all the native-born of Farfara are merchants, but few live on estates, and fewer still in palaces as grand as Mer Tadeo’s. Many thousands of years earlier, during the First Wave of the Swarming, Farfara had been founded as a planetary corporation, each of its citizens holding an equal number of shares in the wealth of the planet: the computers, robots, and the information pools that they used to get their living from the rich, untouched lands. Over the millennia, numerous people for numerous reasons had sold their shares for too little recompense, and their reduced children had done the same. And their children’s children. By the time Mer Tadeo’s ancestors had built the Marar estate, perhaps nine tenths of the planet’s wealth had concentrated in the hands of the Hundred Families. By law, no merchant was permitted to sell or mortgage all of his (or her) shares, and so even the poorest people retained a fixed minimum ownership of the planet Farfara. This entitled the manswarms to live in the tent cities along the banks of the Istas River, or in huts in the mountains, or in tiny clary domes on the mud plains of Farfara’s three continents where once there had been lush green forests; it entitled them to drugs and the use of brain machines to distract their souls; it entitled them to clothing and the bowls of yellow amaranth with which they nourished their bodies – but little more. Even the poorest of the poor, however, still took pride in being shareholders, and they would not suffer themselves to serve on any of the Hundred Estates. And so Mer Tadeo and other merchants of his class sent to Thorskalle for their servants. They paid them not with planetary shares, but with money, so much money that each servant would return to Thorskalle rich enough to live like a prince and hire servants of his own. It might be thought that these fortunate youths – none was older than Danlo – would be grateful for such a chance, but they were not. In fact, they seemed resentful and sullen. With their frigid eyes they cast evil looks at any merchant so bold as to ask for a plate of pepper nuts or a mug of coffee. Now that Mer Tadeo had called for a toast, many of the servants bore trays of crystal wine glasses, which they took care to breathe on or smudge with their fingerprints before slapping them into the merchants’ outstretched hands. After Danlo had finally received his goblet, he made his way toward the fountain’s western quadrant where the crowd was the thinnest. And then, among the smells of flowers and wine, silk and sweat, he smelled the terrible quick essence of kana oil perfume. It was a smell with which he was utterly familiar. As if he were an animal in a dark forest, he froze into motionlessness and let the swarms of people push past him. He sniffed at the air, turning his head left and right. The scent of kana oil seemed strongest northward, upwind in the direction of Istas River. He drank in this memorable scent, letting the cool evening air fill his nostrils. He turned away from the fountain, then, and began moving toward the retaining wall at the edge of Mer Tadeo’s estate. Almost immediately, as the crowd thinned out, he saw a man standing alone by the wall. He was a warrior-poet dressed in an evening shirt and silk cloak of a hundred shimmering colours. And he reeked of kana oil; all warrior-poets. Danlo remembered, wore kana oil perfumes to quicken the urge toward life and death.

‘Hello,’ Danlo called out as he approached the warrior-poet. ‘I think you have been watching me, yes?’

The warrior-poet was leaning against the stone wall, easily, almost languidly, and he smiled at Danlo in greeting. In his left hand he held a goblet full of wine; and the little finger of that hand bore a ring of fiery red. Astonishingly, a similar ring encircled the little finger of his right hand, which he held near the fold of his cloak as if he were ready at any moment to reach inside a secret pocket and remove a poison needle, or a drug dart, or the long, terrible, killing knife that warrior-poets always carry about their persons. ‘You are Danlo wi Soli Ringess,’ the warrior-poet said. He had a marvellous voice, strangely peaceful and full of an utter certainty. ‘May I present myself? I’m called Malaclypse Redring, of Qallar.’

Danlo bowed, as he should, and Malaclypse stood away from the wall and returned his bow, gracefully, with impeccable control. For the count of nine of Danlo’s heartbeats, Malaclypse Redring stood there looking at him. The warrior-poet seemed superbly calm, almost preternaturally calm, like a man who has magically transformed himself into a tiger and fears no other animal, especially not man. In truth, he had the look of some godly being far beyond man: impossibly wise, impossibly aware – of himself, of Danlo, of all the people and plants and things in the garden. Once before, Danlo had met a warrior-poet; physically, with his terrible quick body and beautiful face, Malaclypse might have been the other poet’s twin, for all warrior-poets are cut from the same chromosomes. But there was something different about Malaclypse, an otherness, an impossible aliveness, perhaps even a greatness of soul. With his shiny black hair showing white around the temples, he was at least fifteen years older than Danlo, which is old for a warrior-poet. Then, too, there was the matter of his rings. An exceptional warrior-poet might wear the red ring around the little finger of either hand. But no warrior-poet in all history, as far as Danlo knew, had ever worn two red rings.

‘Why have you been following me?’ Danlo finally asked.

Malaclypse smiled nicely; he had a beautiful smile that spread out over the golden lines of his face. ‘But as you see, I haven’t been following you – here I stand appreciating this fine view, these strange, alien stars. It’s you who have followed me. And that’s very strange, don’t you think? Most men flee our kind rather than seeking us out.’

‘It seems to be my fate … to seek out warrior-poets.’

‘A strange fate,’ Malaclypse said. ‘It would seem more natural for me to seek you.’

‘To seek me … why?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I do not know … if I want to know.’

Malaclypse held his wine goblet up to his nose and inhaled deeply. He said, ‘On Qallar, you’re famous. For two reasons. You’re one of the few ever to have defeated a warrior-poet – and the only one to have done so as a boy.’

‘I was sixteen when I met Marek in the library. I did not think of myself … as a boy.’

‘Still, a remarkable feat. If only you had been born on Qallar, you might have become warrior among warriors, a poet among poets.’

At this startling thought, Danlo looked straight at Malaclypse. He looked deep into his marvellous, violet eyes, which were so dark that he could almost see his reflection gleaming in their black centres. ‘I could never have become … a warrior-poet,’ he said.

‘No?’

Danlo let this question hang in the air, even as the gonging sound of Mer Tadeo’s music pools hung low and urgent over the lawns and fountains of the garden. He kept his eyes on Malaclypse’s eyes, and he said, ‘Have you come here tonight to avenge Marek’s death, then?’

‘You ask this question so blithely.’

‘How should I ask, then?’

‘Most men would not ask at all. They would flee. Why aren’t you afraid of our kind?’

‘I … do not know.’

‘It’s the greatest gift, not to fear,’ Malaclypse said. ‘But, of course, you needn’t have feared that we would avenge Marek. He died according to our forms, which we thank you for observing so impeccably.’

‘I did not want him to die.’

‘And that is the most remarkable thing of all. It’s said that you have taken a vow of ahimsa to harm no living thing – and yet you were able to help Marek on to his moment of the possible.’

Danlo remembered too well how Marek of Qallar had plunged his killing knife into his own brain and so reached his moment of the possible, where life is death, and death is life. He remembered that Marek, just before he had accomplished this noble act, had confessed that the warrior-poets had a new rule for their bloody order: to kill all gods, even all women and men who might become as gods. For six years, Danlo had shared this secret with only two other people, but now he said, ‘I know why Marek came to Neverness. The true reason. He told me about your rule before he died.’

Malaclypse smiled at this piece of news, which – strangely – seemed not to surprise him. ‘I’ve said that you’re famous on my world for two reasons. The second reason, of course, is because you’re the son of Mallory Ringess. Marek was sent to Neverness to determine if you’re truly the son of the father.’

‘Am I, then?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘How … would I know?’

At this, Malaclypse laughed easily, and to Danlo he said, ‘I’ve heard that you’re also famous for answering questions with questions.’

Danlo inclined his head, slightly, accepting Malaclypse’s criticism as a compliment. Then he said, ‘You have come to Farfara to complete this determination about me, yes?’

Again, as he often did, Danlo began to count his heartbeats, and he waited for Malaclypse to remove his killing knife from his cloak. But Malaclypse only looked at him, strangely, deeply, drinking in the wild look that filled Danlo’s eyes like an ocean. ‘I don’t know who you really are,’ Malaclypse said. ‘Not yet. In truth, I don’t know who your father really is, either. Mallory Ringess, this once Lord Pilot of the Order who everyone says has become a god.’

For a moment, Danlo looked up into the sky in sudden understanding. ‘You have come to find my father, yes?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Not just … to Farfara,’ Danlo said. ‘You would follow our Mission to the Vild.’

Now, for the first time, Malaclypse seemed slightly surprised. He regarded Danlo coolly and said, ‘I had heard that you were too perceptive for a mere pilot – now I see that this is so.’

‘You would follow us,’ Danlo repeated. ‘But follow … how? Warrior-poets do not pilot lightships, do they?’

The Merchant-Pilots of Tria, of course, did pilot ships: deepships and prayerships, and sometimes even lightships. They journeyed to Nwarth and Alumit and Farfara, but no Merchant-Pilot would ever think of taking a lightship into the Vild.

‘There is a man,’ Malaclypse said. He pointed along the curve of the retaining wall at a stand of orange trees some forty feet away. ‘A former pilot of your Order. He will take me where I need to go.’

As Danlo saw, beneath an orange tree laden with bright, round fruits, there stood a silent man dressed all in grey. Danlo recognized him as the infamous renegade, Sivan wi Mawi Sarkissian, once a pilot of great promise who had deserted the Order in the time of the Quest for the Elder Eddas. None of the other pilots whom Mer Tadeo had invited would bear the shame of talking to such a faithless man, and so Sivan stood alone, sipping from his goblet of wine.

‘And where is it that you need to go, then?’ Danlo asked.

‘Wherever I must,’ Malaclypse said. ‘But I’ve heard that Mallory Ringess has returned to the Vild. Somewhere. It may be that your Order’s mission will cause him to make himself known.’

‘And then?’

‘And then I shall know,’ Malaclypse said. ‘And then I shall do what must be done.’