The Wild (56 page)

Danlo wi Soli Ringess – you are truly a man who has gone beyond himself. We invite you to remain here with us in Heaven and be a mere man no longer.

Danlo smiled in amusement and vexation (and in a terrible longing to merge again with Shahar), but he just stood there and shook his head.

So it must be, then. Shahar has told us that you are a man of rare purpose. No one else has ever been able to give all of himself to a One and yet retain all of himself as well.

Danlo rubbed his forehead, and his fingers could feel no trace of a scar marking his luminous skin. He asked, 'How could I be other ... than who I am?'

But who are you, really, Danlo of Neverness?

'Who is anybody?'

What are you?

'I am a man,' Danlo said in a clear voice. 'Truly ... only a man.'

And then he closed his eyes, remembering: I am almost a man. Always almost ... a true man.

You are part of Shahar now. And she is part of you.

As Abraxax continued speaking, Danlo discovered that the Transcended Ones were confused as to whether he had merged with Shahar, or somehow – mysteriously, impossibly – she had merged into him. Not even El or Kane, the wisest of the Narain gods, could understand how a One could be absorbed into a mere man who was only one. But all were agreed that a remarkable transformation had overcome Shahar. In the conclave of the Transcended Ones, Shahar had extolled Danlo's goodness, truth and beauty, his love of love, his love beyond love – even his love of life. Wildly, boldly, playfully, and very uncharacteristically, she had persuaded even Aesir and Ninlil to embrace Danlo in all his liveliness and passion. And while the Transcended Ones could never quite condone Danlo's more painful emotions – his hatred so dark and deep that it was like a black rent in his soul – they were moved that in touching him from inside himself, she was moved so profoundly.

We're agreed as to what you may be told, Danlo wi Soli Ringess.

Danlo waited calmly on his rock, watching the interplay of lights among Abraxax and Shahar, Manannan and Kane. He smiled but said nothing.

We will tell you where Tannahill may be found.

Now Danlo bowed his head in thanksgiving for the efforts that the Transcended Ones had made on his behalf. He felt his heart beating with all the speed of a clock in quicklime, and he could scarcely keep himself from crying out in triumph.

Are you still willing to act as our emissary to the Church Elders?

Danlo smiled uneasily and nodded his head. 'Yes – if you'd like.'

Shahar has argued that you would be the ideal emissary.

With a strange foreboding, Danlo gazed at the sphere of light that was Shahar. It was almost like gazing at himself. In truth, he could now see himself as she saw him: soon he would meet the Old Church Elders and draw them into his consciousness as he had with her. With his sheer goodness and the strength of his truth (and all his wild beauty) he would win Harrah ivi en li Ede and all the Elder Architects to his purpose. Clearly, Abraxax and the other Transcended Ones shared this hope of Shahar's. But Danlo was full of doubt that touched on despair. When he closed his eyes and looked into the future he could see something dark and dazzling and deadly, something as terrible to behold as a black hole or a dying star. Sometimes, when he faced these faceless Transcended Ones, it was almost as if they had no future. To apprehend truly the glitter of their unreal forms was almost like trying to capture a light beam in one's hand. When Danlo opened his fingers and looked down through the whorls of time, he descried only nothingness and blackness, like the void between galaxies. Perhaps he had been too long in this computer-made surreality. Perhaps it was time to return to himself and leave his instantiated form as well as his sense of desolation far behind him.

Shall we show you the star to which you'll journey as our emissary?

Again, Danlo shook his head. 'Not ... yet. First, I would like to return to the meeting room.'

Do you know the way back?

'Yes – I know the way back,' he told Abraxax.

Then we must say goodbye now.

At these words, Maralah and Tyr and Manannan drifted through the air and took turns in passing in front of Danlo. And Aesir and Ninlil and Orunajan[12] and El – one by one, the four thousand Transcended Ones of Alumit Bridge passed by him in a great glittering parade of lights. Each One paused a moment to shine its full radiance upon Danlo's face. And then almost all the Ones were gone, floating like clouds up the mountain until they disappeared into the gleaming white layers of the real clouds – or rather, into those instantiations of cumulus clouds that were only as real as anything in the Field. The last of the Ones to leave was Shahar. She spent many moments simply hovering near Danlo, glowing inside herself with a lovely blue light the colour of Danlo's eyes. Then she flared brightly in making her farewell, and she too was gone.

Now I am alone, Danlo thought.

But, of course, he was not really alone. Katura Daru and many of the other luminous beings standing about the pools came over to him. They touched their luminous fingers to his face almost as if he were a Transcended One and not just an instantiation of a common human being such as themselves.

'Goodbye,' Danlo said to her, and he bowed to the others.

Then he turned so that he stood facing away from the great mountain. He smiled once, and above the pool nearest him, wavering in the air, a rectangle of golden light appeared. This was his portal, his doorway back into the meeting room. Now that he knew the ways of the Field, he had no need to journey back over the endless golden plain as he had come. With a smile and a simple thought, he stepped through the doorway. There was a moment of humming, vibration, glittering lights. And then he was back, floating above the plastic floor of the meeting room. He looked down at his hands and his naked limbs and found himself still instantiated into his luminous body. His real self – his true self made of carbon and oxygen, breath and blood and wild dreams – sat crosslegged on the floor. Silently, this self held a long bamboo flute to his lips, and his long black hair spilled down across the yellow shaft. For a while he floated there staring at himself. He took note of his dark blue eyes so grave and deep. There was something strange about his eyes, the way that they were still locked open upon the infinities of the Field and yet sparkled with light and laughter as if greatly amused by the paradoxes of his dual existence. Looking at himself this way through the blue-black windows of his eyes, he beheld all the fires of his life blazing inside him. He knew then that he must always return to himself. There was a moment when he thought that the path inward would take him streaking like light through these lovely windows. And then he remembered that there was another way home. He gazed down to where his black silk robe stretched tightly over his chest. There, where his heart beat once each second with all the force of a pulsar – this was the way back into life. With this thought, a circle of golden light appeared over the centre of his body. Through its shimmer he could see his heart contracting, throbbing, quickening his true self with streams of lifeblood. Through this doorway he must pass if he would become himself again, and yet he hesitated a moment while he looked at Isas Lel and Lieswyr Ivioss and the seven other pale Transcendentals who sat on their robots watching him. He looked at the meeting room's chatoy walls which still ran with the scarlets and rubies of the sunset scene. There was a curious flatness to these colours as if the essence of redness had been sucked out of them. He remembered then that he was viewing this false sunset only through the eyes of his instantiated self. If he would see the meeting room just as it really was, he must leave the computer-painted mindscape behind him and return to his own true and blessed vision.

I am the door, he remembered. Knock and be opened.

And so, at last, he stepped through the doorway into his heart. Into himself – there was a moment of rushing breath, intense realness, the wild joy of life feeling itself so marvellously alive. At last he opened his eyes. That is, his eyes which had been dead to the room's curves and colours, suddenly came into full sight. He could see the seven Transcendentals watching him with all the awe that children of an artificial world might have for a real life tiger. He looked at them and smiled. Then he looked down at his fingers touching the holes of his shakuhachi. How vividly he remembered the print patterns on the palms of his hands! How good it was to feel the air currents falling across his real flesh again! With a clear and natural laugh he stood up suddenly, and strands of red showed brightly among his rippling black hair. He stretched his cramped arms, legs and back, feeling how good it was to feel the burn of muscles moving deep inside his body.

Pilot, are you back? Have you broken free of the spiders' web?

Danlo looked down at the devotionary computer that he had placed on the floor much earlier. The hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede was signing to him, frantically trying to determine his state of consciousness.

'You've broken interface, haven't you?'

This question came from Isas Lel who sat drinking from a plastic cup that his robot had given him. That he seemed unsure whether or not Danlo was still facing the Field seemed strange.

'Yes,' Danlo said with a smile. 'Now I am facing ... only you.'

At this, Lieswyr Ivioss tried to catch him with her lovely eyes. She returned his smile, and it was almost as if they could see the light of each other's thoughts.

'We'll show you Tannahill's star, if you wish,' Isas Lel said.

He was quiet for a moment, and the sunset scene glowing on the walls faded to darkness. Now, inside the meeting room, it was night, and the stars came out. There were millions of stars twinkling against the black chatoy dome. Danlo recognized Alumit Bridge's red sun and many others in the immediate neighbourhood of stars. One of these bright lights, he supposed, must be the star of Tannahill that he had sought for so long.

'No,' Danlo said as his eyes flicked from one light to another. 'Please ... not this way.'

'What do you mean?' Isas Lel asked. He looked at Diverous Te then Patar Iviaslin and Kistur Ashtoreth, and it was clear that the Transcendentals were puzzled by Danlo's refusal to accept this immediate information.

That is, all save Lieswyr Ivioss were puzzled. Danlo saw that this elegant woman was still smiling at him. She bowed her head as she waited for him to say the words that she knew he would say.

'I ... would ask you a favour,' Danlo said. He bowed to Lieswyr Ivioss, and then in turn to Isas Lel and each of the Transcendentals.

'Very well,' Isas Lel said. 'And what would you ask?'

Danlo held his breath for a moment and listened to the sound of his heart. 'Outside this meeting room ... outside the walls of the city, it is night, yes?'

Isas Lel, who could instantly dive down into the Field's deepest pool in order to retrieve the daily weather records on Alumit three thousand years ago and other arcane bits of information, seemed almost stymied by this question. He closed his eyes, taking a long time to answer it.

'It is night,' he finally said. 'It's actually close to middle night.'

'And is it a cloudy night or clear?' Danlo asked. 'Are the stars out, then?'

'It's a clear night. But why would you ask?'

'I would like to return to the light-field now. To return to my ship.'

Danlo looked at the Ede hologram, which was busy making signs with its luminous fingers: Yes, yes – let's leave here while we still can!

'But why?' Isas Lel asked, genuinely puzzled.

'I ... would like to stand beneath the stars again. I was hoping that you could stand with me and point the way to Tannahill's star.'

'I suppose I could do that,' Isas Lel said, frowning. 'But what then?'

'Then I must complete my journey.'

'So soon?'

'I must take my lightship back into the stars.'

'You'd leave in the middle of the night before you've slept or rested?'

'Yes.'

Isas Lel paused a moment to look at the other Transcendentals. Information passed eye to eye and from brain to brain via the pathways of unseen cybernetic spaces. After Isas Lel had spent an unusually long time staring at Lieswyr Ivioss, he said, 'Very well, if that's your wish, we'll accompany you to the light-field.'

With this pronouncement he called for another robot to carry Danlo in comfort on their short journey to the roof of the city. Moments later, the doors to the meeting room slid open, and a bright yellow robot rolled through the room. It came to a stop directly in front of Danlo, who returned his flute to its pocket in his pants leg before bending to pick up his devotionary computer. 'Thank you,' he said, bowing politely. Then he sat down on the robot's red plastic seat, and was very glad to leave the meeting room behind him.

Their journey through the streets of Iviunir was short and memorable. Word of Danlo's departure had immediately spread through the Field's association space and men and women had broken interface to bid Danlo farewell. They had taken off their heaumes and left their thousands of separate apartments to swarm the city streets. There, along the broad boulevards, they lined up to watch Danlo and the Transcendentals in their shiny robots roll past them. The sound of their many voices cheering him along was almost deafening. They stood ten deep in their shiny white plastic garments, and Danlo counted ten thousand well-wishers before he gave up counting. It was then, looking out at these swarms of hopeful Narain, that he felt the full weight of being chosen as their emissary.

I must speak for all these people, Danlo thought. Truly, then, I must speak well.

At last, after many streets, corridors, and the crushing weight of the gravity lifts, they returned to the light-field. There Danlo found even more people on either side of the long run where his ship lay like a silver-winged bird waiting in the night. The robots rolled down the run between these rows of people, right up to his ship, before stopping suddenly. Because Danlo was very glad to see the Snowy Owl once again, he fairly jumped out of his robot. He stood looking over his ship's lovely lines, the way her diamond skin shimmered in the starlight. As Isas Lel had said, it was full night and there were many stars. For a moment, Danlo gazed up into the heavens. He drank in the radiance of Medearis and the Trao Double and Valda Luz and many other stars that he knew. He drank in as well the clear, natural air and all the scents of the forest far below the city. For the first time in many days he became aware how good it was just to stand beneath the sky breathing deeply the dreams of the night.