The Broken God (39 page)

'It's too bad,' Bardo declared. 'It's a pity, ironic and pitiful, but no one is to blame but Pedar himself.'

'Shantih,' Danlo whispered. 'Mi alasharia la shantih.' He looked at Hanuman, who was still staring at Pedar. There was neither blame nor compassion in his friend's pale blue eyes. There was nothing but death.

'I think he hated himself,' Hanuman said softly. 'At least he won't have to suffer himself any more.'

Just then Bardo sighed and ambled over to Danlo. He bent his head low so that only Danlo would hear what he said. 'I must speak with you soon, Danlo wi Soli Ringess. Perhaps tomorrow or the day after,' he turned to look once again at the stairs of Perilous Hall and muttered, 'Ah, too bad.'

A couple of journeyman cutters arrived with a sled then and took Pedar's body away. Arpiar Pogossian and his friends brought out mops, buckets and solvents which would disassemble and digest the bloodstains from the floor – this was one very personal piece of work they didn't intend to foist off onto the first year novices. Bardo reminded everyone that there would be a requiem the following evening in the Sanctuary, and he sent them off to bed.

That night Danlo did not sleep. Beneath sheets and blankets as soft as snow, beneath the black, oppressive silence of the sleeping chamber, he lay awake repeating in his mind Master Bardo's words: There is no one to blame but himself.' But Danlo did blame. He, of all the novices, cutters, and masters, was sure he knew the genesis of Pedar's death.

Shaida is the way of the man who kills other men, he thought.

Once, on a night of despair much like this night, as he lay waiting in his bed for the slap of Pedar's boots against the stairs, he had envisioned him slipping and falling like a stone into the black, icy ocean. He had willed his death. It was the oldest and most basic of principles: the songs that one sings inside the heart correspond and resonate with the greater world outside. One single time he had broken ahimsa, harmed Pedar in his thoughts, and now the boy was dead.

Shaida is the cry of the man who has lost his soul.

For a long time he wept silently into the dark, and he was glad that Hanuman was asleep and couldn't see the blankets quivering with each sob and spasm of his belly. Hanuman was sleeping, he thought, and so there would be no more sharing of agony that night. But after a long while, sometime near dawn, Hanuman began crying out in nightmare, 'No, no, Father, please no!'

Danlo whispered, 'Hanu, Hanu,' and then he got out of bed, leaned over Hanuman's sweating, stricken face and covered his mouth. 'Shantih, be quiet now, or you will wake the others.'

He thought that Hanuman, too, must have suffered over Pedar's death. He stood barefoot in the dark draughty chamber, looking down at Hanuman. He listened as the wind howled outside the dormitory and gusts of air beat against the clary windows; their rattle almost drowned out Hanuman's muffled cries. He touched Hanuman's forehead; he felt the heat of his friend's skin and the burning of his own wounded forehead. And then, deep inside, he knew the truth. Hanuman suffered not for Pedar but for him. Anashaida, twisted love and compassion – this is what Danlo's deep self cried in the very centre of his being.

'Shhh!' he said softly. He bowed his head, pressed his hand over Hanuman's lips and whispered, 'Shantih, my brother, go to sleep.'

What is language but a mirror of the natural world allowing us to define, discuss and understand the events and relationships of the elements of the world? If mathematics is seen as a refinement of the natural languages – a crystallization of language's metaphors, concepts and relationships into a symbol system of great logical precision – then what is mathematics if not the progressive polishing of this mirror? I would like to speculate as to the process and purpose of this polishing. I believe we must learn the infinite subtleties and the deepest logic of language. I believe we must become true speakers of the Word. When we have learned to speak of all possible connections between all things, then we may extend the metaphors of language into an infinite number of new relationships and forms. Only then will we be able to make a new mathematics. Only then will we create a perfect mirror in our words and thus make a grammar for all nature that will be truly universal.

– from the diary of Omar Narayama

According to the Order's canons, the body of Pedar Sadi Sanat should have been buried in an icy grave with the other deceased novices in Borja's main cemetery. But Pedar had family who lived in the shabbier districts of the Farsider's Quarter, and this family – his father, mother, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces – was harijan. They took his body away to be burned in one of their barbaric, secret ceremonies. They also lodged a formal petition demanding a deeper investigation of Pedar's death. As harijan, of course, they had no power to petition or make demands of any sort. Or rather, they had only one real power, which was universally feared: They were wont to riot and mutilate themselves when ignored or treated unjustly. Occasionally, at times of crisis, in public places such as the Great Circle outside the Hofgarten, harijan soak their robes in their holy sihu oil and set each other afire. They do this to bully and shame the Lords of the Order into allowing them certain privileges. And so this melodramatic sect is despised as the lowest of humanity: a poor, dreamy, displaced people who come to Neverness seeking the easy drug satoris or the simulated realities of the computer spaces. It was ironic that Bardo the Just, who regarded most men as his social, moral and intellectual inferiors, had always had a strange sympathy for the harijan. Too, too ironically, as Bardo would say, Pedar's family blamed him for allowing Pedar to die. Because the harijan petition accused Bardo of malfeasance, he was kept busy defending his actions (or lack of action) to the College of Lords when they met to discuss the 'harijan problem'. He was very busy, too busy, in fact, to see Danlo during the cold, confused days following the tragedy in Perilous Hall.

'I've been to the Sanctuary five times,' Danlo complained to Hanuman one night before sleeping. 'Master Bardo is never there. How can he tell me the truth about my mother and father if he is never there?'

'You're the son of a man who became a god,' Hanuman said. He was sitting on his bed with his chess pieces spread out across sixty-four white and black squares. He had taken on both sides and was playing a game with himself, against himself. He seemed intensely absorbed in this game. Since Pedar's death, he had been withdrawn, yet even more intensely alive than before, in his secretive and anguished manner. 'Your father is Mallory Ringess – what more is there to know?'

Danlo bowed his head as he remembered burying his adoptive brothers and sisters in the snow above the Devaki cave. 'There is everything to know,' he said.

'Are you thinking of your people, Danlo? The Devaki people?'

'Yes.'

'You mustn't blame your father for what happened to them.'

'I ... do not want to blame him.'

'Nor should you blame yourself for what happened to Pedar.'

Danlo looked up suddenly and said, 'You know me too well I think.'

'It was his fate to fall,' Hanuman said. 'It was just an accident.'

'But the harijan do not believe it was an accident.'

'The harijan are free to believe what they want.'

'I have heard,' Danlo said, 'that some of the lords also do not believe it was an accident.'

From the corner of the board, Hanuman picked up the salt shaker that substituted for the chess set's missing white god; he slid it over one square, making his move. He appeared relaxed and nonchalant, almost uncaring. 'It's true,' he said. 'The Lords Jurasek and Ciceron are calling for an akashic's inquest.'

'The akashics, with their computers – they can look into any part of one's mind, yes?'

'Perhaps,' Hanuman said.

'Then Lord Ciceron might order us before the akashic courts. To see if any of us might know why Pedar died.'

'But you mustn't worry about this,' Hanuman said. 'Bardo has promised that he won't allow any novice to submit to the akashic courts.'

'I ... think I know why Pedar died,' Danlo said. He looked at Hanuman for a long time, and then bent his head as he rubbed above his eyes.

Just then Hanuman finished his chess game, and he tipped over the salt shaker in token of defeat. It clacked against the wooden board, and tiny cubes of salt spilled out of it and bounced across the black and white squares. He stared at these hundreds of salt crystals, then asked softly, 'And why did he die?'

In a quiet voice that would not carry through the dormitory and alarm the other novices, in broken streams of words heavy with memory and shame, Danlo told of how he had broken ahimsa and willed Pedar's death. When he was finished speaking, he picked up the salt shaker and began using its heavy bottom to grind bits of salt into white dust.

'But you must never regret what you willed,' Hanuman said. 'Or what you thought. A man's thoughts are his own.'

He went on to assure Danlo that there were no mind crimes in Neverness, unless, of course, one belonged to one of the Cybernetic Churches. 'You must know that in the Church's cleansing ceremony, akashic computers are used. To read one's thoughts, even the most secret parts of the soul. But there are always ways to evade such computers.'

'What ... ways?'

'Ways,' Hanuman said, and his eyes fell clouded and opaque as the salt dust covering his chess board. 'It's said that the cetics know ways to control any computer. The ways of the cetics, the mind yogas that they teach their students.'

'But we will never be cetics,' Danlo said.

'Whatever we will be or not, you mustn't worry about an akashic inquest. There's really no reason to worry.'

Danlo kept grinding grains of salt with the blunt bottom of the shaker. He nodded his head but said nothing.

'Just now, it is Bardo who must worry, not us,' Hanuman said. 'It's silly, but certain lords are blaming him for Pedar's death. The harijan blame him, too.'

'But why?'

'For allowing the Head Novice to assign you to submit to Pedar. For allowing the enmity between you and Pedar to proceed so far. And, of course, for allowing Pedar to climb the stairs every night to our room.'

'I am sorry ... that I have brought Bardo so much trouble.'

'Oh, no,' Hanuman said. 'It is Bardo who always brings himself trouble. Just as Bardo, being Bardo, will always find a way out.'

'But what if the Lords' College rebukes him? What if someone else is made Master of Novices?'

'What if some star near Neverness explodes into a supernova tomorrow and kills us all?' Hanuman said. 'You might as well worry about the harijan hiring assassins to avenge Pedar's death.'

Danlo looked up suddenly and asked, 'Do you worry about this, Hanu?'

For a while Hanuman looked down at his chess board, then laughed awkwardly. 'I think you know me too well,' he said.

'But the harijan don't hire assassins!'

'Once upon a time, it's said, a hundred years ago, they assassinated the Lord Librarian. When she forbade the harijan to use any of the Order's libraries.'

'I had heard ... that it was the Timekeeper who ordered the Lord Hinda's death. And then blamed this crime on the harijan.'

'Perhaps,' Hanuman said.

'But even if the harijan wanted to assassinate somebody, they are too poor to afford an assassin. They do not have any money.'

'Perhaps,' Hanuman said again. He bent his head down and pursed his lips as he blew the salt powder off his chess board. Then with quick motions of his little hands, he began setting the pieces on their squares in preparation for a new game. 'The truth is, I can't believe the harijan would assassinate Bardo – or anyone else. Now, would you care for a game before lights out, or do you intend to worry all night about these poor harijan? I'm sure Pedar's family won't ruin their sleep worrying about you or me.'

But even as Danlo and Hanuman played their game of chess on the fourth floor of Perilous Hall – and for many days previously – the family of Pedar Sadi Sanat had taken note of their names. With friends and far relatives, they had talked about the novices Danlo wi Soli Ringess and Hanuman li Tosh, and so in decrepit rooms and apartments in the Farsider's Quarter of the City, these two names came to be passed among many harijan who had no real interest in Pedar's death. But people can always find a way to enhance their self-interest out of others' misfortunes, and so Danlo's and Hanuman's names were eventually passed along to wormrunners and seekers of information who usually have few dealings with the harijan sect. Although these few hundred harijan could not have foreseen the results of their waggling tongues, it was this name-passing that led directly to the terrible incident (and to Danlo's terrible discovery) that occurred ten days later at the Academy's main library.

For Danlo, his visit to the library on the 81st of deep winter was no everyday event. Or rather, his reason for using the library was unusual and connected to what he had learned from Pedar in Lavi Square: he wanted to learn more about the galaxy's gods; specifically, he wanted to know if his father's ontogenesis from man into god was halla or shaida. Hanuman's reasons for accompanying Danlo that day were perhaps as deep, but he made a secret of his true purpose, and he would not reveal whatever mysterious information it was that he sought. As on other days, early in the afternoon, they skated over to the library, which lies between Borja and the dark, densely arrayed buildings of the academician's college, Lara Sig. The library itself is the darkest of structures. From its eastern entrance, where the sparkling red glidderies from different parts of the Academy converge, it looms as an almost featureless wall of grey-black basalt. In truth, it is an ugly thing, with its square-cut angles and exact rectilinearity. There are five floors to the library, but only the top floor of the west wing is graced with windows. The effect of this monolithic blackness is to make one feel small, to diminish one's vanity and conceit; it reminds human beings that their precious intellects are as nothing before the acquired wisdom of the ages. The novices, journeymen and masters passing beneath the massive doorway cannot forget that they must serve the vast edifice of Knowledge and, someday, if they are brilliant enough, add to it brick by brick. Although the doors – two massive, rectangular slabs of basalt hung in perfect balance – almost always stand open, the library is a forbidding place to approach and one does not enter it easily. Eighty-one steps lead from the ice of the main gliddery to the doorway. The steps, too, are all of basalt, a dense, dreary stone which can turn quite slippery when wet. For thousands of years, the lower steps have been carved with graffiti: parallel wavy lines, circles, pictographs, the interlocking triangles of the Solomon's Seal and other symbols. The many curlicues and grooves provide good traction for wet boots, but they had not been placed there so that academicians could climb more safely. Most of the symbols, in fact, are harijan signs. Throughout Neverness, across all the cities of the Civilized Worlds, the harijan sect have affixed their various signs to libraries, restaurants, hospices, shops and even private houses. There are hundreds of these signs, and they denote the kinds of information vital to any itinerant harijan: use of brain machines free and unrestricted; a good place for a meal, coffee and conversation; tortrix in use, beware!; free drugs available in exchange for services; and so on. If one is familiar with the signs, it is possible to stand facing the eighty-one steps and decipher the history of the relations between the Order and the harijan. The oldest signs mark the lowest steps; three thousand years of snow and ice (and the tread of leather boots) have worn them nearly smooth. Information free to all! – this is a typical invitation of the earliest and most blurred of chisellings. As one proceeds up the steps, the signs become more and more distinct, and progressively more chary of the possibilities to be found in the Order's main library. Many of the middling-old signs, which date from the time of the War of Assassins, warn that the library's information pools are heavily censored, or restricted to guests of the Order. On the highest steps cut with the most recent graffiti, the meaning is plain: Guarded information pools!; Outsiders forbidden!