The Broken God (8 page)

In this manner, always facing the wind that was killing him, or rather, always keeping the wind to his left, to the frozen left side of his face, by the wildest of chances, he came to land at the northern edge of Neverness. A beach frozen with snow – it was called the Darghinni Sands – rose up before him, though in truth he could see little of it. A long time ago morning had come, a grey morning of swirling snow too thick to let much light through. He couldn't see the City where it loomed just beyond the beachhead; he didn't know how near were the City's hospices and hotels. Up the snow-encrusted sands he stumbled, clumsy on his skis. Once, he clacked one ski hard against the other and almost tripped. He checked himself by ramming his bear spear into the snow, but the force of his near fall sent a shooting pain into his shoulder. (Sometime in the night, while he was thawing his toes for the third time, he had set his poles down and lost them. It was a shameful lack of mindfulness, a mistake a full man would never make.) His joints clicked and ground together. He made his way over the wind-packed ridges of bureesha running up and down the length of the beach. Little new snow had accumulated on the island; the wind, he knew, must have blown it away. The bureesha was really bureldra, thick old ribs of snow too hard for skiing. He would have taken his skis off, but he was afraid of losing them, too. He peered through the white spindrift swirling all around him. It was impossible to see more than fifty feet in any direction. Ahead of him, where the beach ended, there should be a green and white forest. If he were lucky, there would be yu trees with red berries ready for picking. And stands of snow pine and bonewood thickets, birds and sleekits and baldo nuts. From somewhere beyond the cloud of blinding snow, Ahira called to him. He thought he could hear his father, the father of his blood, calling, too. He stumbled on in a wild intensity of spirit far beyond pain or cold or the fear of death. At last he fell to the snow and cried out, 'O, Father, I am home!'

He lay there for a long time, resting. He didn't really have the strength to move any further, but move he must or he would never move again.

'Danlo, Danlo.'

Ahira was still calling him; he heard his low, mournful hooing carried along by the wind. He rose slowly and moved up the beach toward Ahira's voice. Closer he came, and the sound drew out, piercing him to the bone. His senses suddenly cleared. He realized it wasn't the voice of the snowy owl at all. It was something else, something that sounded like music. In truth, it was the most beautifully haunting music he had ever imagined hearing. He wanted the music to go on forever, on and on, but all at once, it died.

And then, at the head of the beach, through the spindrift, he beheld a fantastic sight: a group of six men stood in a half-circle around a strange animal unfamiliar to Danlo. Strange are the paths of the Unreal City, he reminded himself. The animal was taller than any of the men, taller even than Three-Fingered Soli, who was the tallest man he had ever seen. He – Danlo could tell that the animal was male from the peculiar-looking sexual organs hanging down from his belly – he was rearing up on his hind legs like a bear. Why, he wondered, were the men standing so close? Didn't they realize the animal might strike out at any instant? And where were their spears? Danlo looked at the men's empty hands; they had no spears. No spears! he marvelled, and even though they were dressed much as he was, in white fur parkas, they wore no skis. How could these shadow-men hunt animals across snow using neither spears nor skis?

Danlo approached as quietly as he could; he could be very quiet when he had to be. None of the men looked his way, and that was strange. There was something about the men's faces and in their postures that was not quite right. They were not alert, not sensitive to the sounds or vibrations of the world. The animal was the first to notice him. He was as slender as an otter; his fur was white and dense like that of a shagshay bull. He stood too easily on his legs. No animal, Danlo thought, should be so sure and graceful on two legs. The animal was holding in his paw some kind of stick, though Danlo couldn't guess what an animal would be doing with a stick, unless he had been building a nest when the men surprised him. The animal was staring at Danlo, watching him in a strange and knowing manner. He had beautiful eyes, soulful and round and golden like the sun. Not even Ahira had such large eyes; never had Danlo seen eyes like that on any animal.

He moved closer and drew back his spear. He couldn't believe his good luck. To find a large meat animal so soon after his landfall was very good luck indeed. He was very hungry; he prayed that he would have the strength to cast the spear straight and true.

'Danlo, Danlo.'

It was strange the way the animal stood there watching him, strange that he hadn't fled or cried out. Something had cried out, though. He thought it must be Ahira reminding him that he was required to say a silent prayer for the animal's spirit before he killed him. But he didn't know the animal's name, so how could he pray for him? Perhaps the Song of Life told the names of the Unreal City's strange animals. For the thousandth time, he lamented not hearing the whole Song before Soli had died.

Just then, one of the men turned to see what the animal was staring at. 'Oh!' the man shouted, 'oh, oh, oh!'

The other men turned too, looking at him with his spear arm cocked, and their eyes were wide with astonishment.

Danlo was instantly in shock. He could finally see that Soli had told the truth. The shadow-men's faces were much more like his own lean, beardless face than the rugged Alaloi faces of his near-fathers. And here was the thought that shocked and shamed him: what if the animal were imakla? What if these beardless men knew the animal was imakla and may not be hunted under any circumstances? Wouldn't the men of the City know which of their strange animals was a magic animal and which was not?

'No!' one of the men shouted, 'no, no, no!'

Danlo was ravenous, exhausted, and confused. Because of the wind and the spindrift stinging his eyes, he was having trouble seeing. He stood with his spear held back behind his head. His whole body trembled, and the spearpoint wavered up and down.

Many things happened all at once. Slowly, the animal opened his large, mobile lips and began making sounds. The man who had shouted, 'Oh!' shouted again and flung himself at the animal, or rather, tried to cover him with his body. Three of the others ran at Danlo, shouting and waving their arms and hands. They grabbed him and wrenched the spear from his hand. They held him tightly. They were not nearly so strong as Alaloi men, but they were still men, still strong enough to hold a starved, frightened boy.

One of the men holding him – remarkably, his skin was as black as charred wood – said something to the animal. Someone else was shouting, and Danlo couldn't make out what he said. It sounded like gobbledygook. And then, still more remarkably, the animal began to speak words. Danlo couldn't understand the words. In truth, he had never thought there might be languages other than his own, but he somehow knew that the animal was conversing in a strange language with the men, and they with him. There was a great yet subtle consciousness about this animal, a purusha shining with the clarity and brilliance of a diamond. Danlo looked at him more closely, at the golden eyes and especially at the paws that seemed more like hands than paws. Was he an animal with a man's soul or a man with a deformed body? Shaida is the way of the man who kills other men. O blessed God! he thought again, he had almost killed that which may not be killed.

'Lo ni yujensa!' Danlo said aloud. 'I did not know!'

The animal walked over to him and touched his forehead. He spoke more words impossible to understand. He smelled of something familiar, a pungent odour almost like crushed pine needles.

'Danlo los mi nabra,' Danlo said, formally giving the animal and the men his name. It was his duty to trade names and lineages at the first opportunity. He tapped his chest with his forefinger. 'I am Danlo, son of Haidar.'

The black man holding him nodded his head severely. He poked Danlo in the chest and nodded again. 'Danlo,' he said. 'Is that what they call you? What language are you speaking? Where did you come from that you can't speak the language of the Civilized Worlds? Danlo the Wild. A wild boy from nowhere carrying a spear.'

Danlo, of course, understood nothing of what the man said, other than the sound of his own name. He didn't know it was a crime to brandish weapons in the City. He couldn't guess that with his wind-chewed face and his wild eyes, he had frightened the civilized men of Neverness. In truth, it was really he who was frightened; the men held him so tightly he could hardly breathe.

But the animal did not seem frightened at all. He was scarcely perturbed, looking at him in a kindly way and smiling. His large mouth fell easily into a kind of permanent, sardonic smile. 'Danlo,' he repeated, and he touched Danlo's eyelids. His fingernails were black and shaped like claws, but otherwise his exceedingly long hands were almost human. 'Danlo.'

He had almost killed that which may not be killed.

'Oh, ho, Danlo, if that is your name, the men of the City call me Old Father.' The animal-man placed his hand flat against his chest and repeated, 'Old Father.'

More words, Danlo thought. What good were words when the mind couldn't make sense of words? He shook his head back and forth, and tried to pull free. He wanted to leave this strange place where nothing made sense. The shadow-men had faces like his own, and the animal-man spoke strange, incomprehensible words, and he had almost killed that which may not be killed and therefore almost lost his soul.

Shaida is the cry of the world when it has lost its soul, he remembered.

The man-animal continued to speak to him, even though it was clear that Danlo couldn't understand the words. Old Father explained that he was a Fravashi, one of the alien races who live in Neverness. He did this solely to soothe Danlo, for that is the way of the Fravashi, with their melodious voices and golden eyes, to soothe and reflect that which is most holy in human beings. In truth, the Fravashi have other ways, other reasons for dwelling in human cities. (The Fravashi are the most human of all aliens, and they live easily in human houses, apartments, and hospices so long as these abodes are unheated. So human are they, in their bodies and in their minds, that many believe them to be one of the lost, carked races of man.) In truth, the men surrounding Old Father were not hunters at all, but students. When Danlo surprised them with his spear, Old Father had been teaching them the art of thinking. Ironically, that morning in the blinding wind, he had been showing them the way of ostrenenie, which is the art of making the familiar seem strange in order to reveal its essence, to reveal hidden relationships, and above all, truth. And Danlo, of course, understood none of this. Even if he had known the language of the Civilized Worlds, its cultural intricacies would have escaped him. He knew only that Old Father must be very kind and very wise. He knew it suddenly deep in his aching throat, knew it with a direct, intuitive knowledge that Old Father would call buddhi. As Danlo was to learn in the coming days, Old Father placed great value on buddhi.

'Lo los sibaru,' Danlo said. Unintentionally, he groaned in pain. All the way up to his groin, his legs felt as cold as ice. 'I'm so hungry – do you have any food?' He sighed and slumped against the arms of the men still holding him. Speech was useless, he thought. 'Old Father' – whatever the incomprehensible syllables of that name really meant – couldn't understand the simplest of questions.

Danlo was beginning to fall into the exhausted stupor of starvation when Old Father brought his stick up to his furry mouth and opened his lips. The stick was really a kind of long bamboo flute called a shakuhachi. He blew into the shakuhachi's ivory mouthpiece. And then a beautiful, haunting music spread out over the beach. It was the same music Danlo had followed earlier, a piercing, numinous music at once infinitely sad yet full of infinite possibilities. The music overwhelmed him. And then everything – the music, the alien's strange new words, the pain of his frozen feet – became unbearable. He fainted.

After a while, he began to rise through the cold, snowy layers of consciousness where all world's sensa are as hazy and inchoate as an ice-fog. He was too ravished with hunger to gain full lucidity, but one thing he would always remember: astonishingly, with infinite gentleness, Old Father reached out to open his clenched fist and then pressed the shakuhachi's long, cool shaft into his hand. He gave it to him as a gift.

Why? Danlo wondered. Why had he almost killed that which may not be killed?

For an eternity he wondered about all the things that he knew, wondered about shaida and the sheer strangeness of the world. Then he clutched the shakuhachi in his hand, closed his eyes, and the cold dark tide of unknowing swept him under.

The Dark God feared that the Fravashi might one day see the universe as it really is, and so might come to challenge him. Therefore, he implanted in each one an organ called a glaver which would distort his perceptions and cause him to mistake illusion for reality.

'How effective is the glaver?' asks the Unfulfilled Father.

'Go look in a mirror,' answers the First Least Father, 'and you will see the effectiveness of the glaver.'

– Fravashi parable

In a way, Danlo was very lucky to encounter Old Father and his students before any others. The Unreal City – its proper name is Neverness – can be a cold, harsh, inhospitable city to the many strangers who come to her seeking their fates. Neverness is roughly divided into four quarters, and the Zoo, where Danlo came to land, is the most inhospitable of them all, at least for human beings. The Darghinni District and the Fayoli Flats, the Elidi Mews – in which of the Zoo's alien sanctuaries or strange-smelling dens could he have hoped for succour? While it is not true that the Scutari, for instance, murder men for their meat, neither are those wormlike, cannibalistic aliens famous for goodwill or aid to the wretched. Had Danlo wandered up from the Darghinni Sands into the Scutari District, he would have found a maze of cluster-cells. And in each cell, through translucent wax walls as high as a man, the many waiting eyes of a Scutari clutch staring at whatever passed by. Danlo would never have found his way out of the confusing mesh of streets; there he certainly would have died, of neglect or cold, or, if hunger further deranged his wits and he dared to break open a cluster-cell with his spear, he would have suffocated in a cloud of carbon monoxide. And then the Scutari would have eaten him, even the toenails and bones. Those peculiar aliens believe that meat must never be wasted, and more, they avow that they have a holy duty to scavenge meat whenever fate offers them the chance.