War in Heaven (46 page)

Sumi smiled as she nodded her head. "It's a strange place to find a cutter, I know, but I'd heard that he no longer practises his art."

"But you kept track of him all the same, yes?"

"I'm afraid I did — I suppose I always hoped that he might be able to help me someday, when I needed a last return."

"I see," Danlo said touching eyes with her.

"But this is just the foolishness of an old woman. Even if he would agree to do a sculpting, I could never afford his services, now."

For a long time, Danlo simply looked at her, and something passed from him to her, something warm and fluid as water and yet bright and blue as starfire. "You do not need his services," he said.

"Thank you for saying that," Sumi said. "Thank you for your furs."

"Thank
you
," he said, bowing.

She returned his bow with surprising formality, and then smiled at him. "Would you like to return to my rooms with me? It's very cold."

"I am sorry, but I cannot."

Her eyes clouded with sadness as she sighed, "I'm sorry, too. But I wish you well, whoever you are."

"I wish you well," he said. And then he whispered, "
Halla los li devani ki-varara li ardu nis ni manse.
"

"What does that mean?"

"Beautiful is the woman who touches the heart of a man."

With that he smiled beneath his mask and bowed one last time. And then he skated off down the street, past all the wormrunners and procurers and other women who whistled at this strange man in the black kamelaika and long, flowing black hair. The wind pierced this single garment like ten thousand icy needles, and he should have been very cold. But strangely, for the first time in many days, he felt the sweet liquor of hope warming him deep inside. Hope touched his heart; it was as beautiful as a woman's smile and as terrible as the fires of the sun. All the way back to his house in the woods he kept dreaming of the future as it still might be, and he never minded for a moment that he had given his furs to a cold and lonely woman.

The next morning he awoke to a new covering of snow over the woods and blue cold air, the
kaleth ri-eesha
as he had once called this biting coldness after snow. Without his furs, the making of his piss-upon-arising was an agony of chattering teeth and shivering belly. He was hungry, too. He well knew how the body, devoid of the fires of food, could quickly fall into hypothermia and frostbite. And so his first task of the day would be the procurement of new furs. He made his usual journey through the trees into the city; only this time the cold chilled his limbs so that he could barely move his skis. In truth, the cold nearly killed him. Three times, he felt the terrible temptation just to lie down in the snow and let the dreamy confusion of cold carry him over to the other side of day. But then he remembered his purpose, and he clenched his teeth to halt the painful crack of enamel against enamel. He skied as quickly as he could to burn what little glucose remained in his muscles. And then, when he had snapped in his skate blades and reached the glidderies just to the east of the City Wild, he ducked into a private restaurant just to drink in a few draughts of warm air. Because he had no money, he soon had to leave this heaven of roasted breads and cinnamon coffee that he longed to taste. But he found other restaurants and shops, and even a warming pavilion just off the Long Glissade. In this way, he worked his way east along the streets near the Gallivare Green. There, in a neighbourhood of fine obsidian blackstones four storeys high, he finally found a shop stocked with much good — and free — clothing. He might have picked out a new parka of spun plastic, but instead he chose a great, hooded shag-shay fur, as brilliantly white as the snow. This had been worn by other men; it was stained with wine and smelled of old sweat and smoke, but he liked the deeper warmth of fur, the silky, natural feel of it. In such a marvellous fur, he thought, he could survive even the worst of deep winter's cold.

He ate no breakfast that morning. He crossed the Old City Glissade and hurried north through the evenly-spaced purple streets of the Pilots' Quarter. Soon enough, he found the Tycho's Street and followed it towards the Sound where it intersected the North Sliddery. There, on the corner of these two streets, in a neighbourhood of lovely white granite chalets, he found the house that Sumi Gurit had told him belonged to Mehtar Hajime. But when he knocked at the door, he found it instead occupied by a rich wormrunner named Kaloosh Makovik. This suspicious old man rather rudely informed him that yes, a Mehtar Hajime had once owned the house, but that he had sold it to Kaloosh himself several years before. He told Danlo that he didn't know where Mehtar might be found; and then he ventured to offer Danlo a bit of advice: "You should keep to your house, whoever you are. I've heard the harijan are robbing anyone they find alone. This is no time to be wandering about the city looking for the services of a retired cutter."

And with that, he fairly slammed the door and left Danlo standing alone in the cold. Danlo might have abandoned his quest, then. He might simply have given up and enlisted the services of a lesser cutter, for he was very close to despair. But by a rare stroke of chance (or so it seemed), as he was skating back down the Tycho's Street, he suddenly came upon an old friend. He saw him coming out of a flower shop, and recognized him immediately: it was Old Father, with his great height, white fur, and large, golden eyes.

"Excuse me," Danlo said, skating up to him, "but aren't you the Fravashi Old Father who — "

"Ho, ho, indeed I am!" Old Father called out in a musical voice that spilled from between his marvellously mobile black lips. For a moment he eyed Danlo's black facemask and smiled in his mysterious, alien way. Then his voice dropped lower than the longest vibrating string of a gosharp, and he said, "Ah, ah — it is good to see you again, Danlo wi Soli Ringess."

"How," Danlo asked, his voice rough and thick with the cold, "how did you know who I am?"

"But who else would you be?" Old Father asked.

Danlo wanted to rush up and throw his arms around this friend from his past, but one doesn't simply embrace a Fravashi Old Father, especially not on a public street in the middle of the Pilots' Quarter.

"I missed you, sir," Danlo said softly.

"Ha, ha — and I missed you. I kept hoping that you might knock at the door to my house."

He said that he had heard the news of Danlo's escape from the cathedral. Indeed, he believed that for many days, Hanuman's spies had watched his house in case Danlo decided to seek shelter there.

"I was afraid that it would be so," Danlo said. "Otherwise I would have come to see you again as soon as I could. It has been more than five years."

"So, it's so," Old Father said. "And much has happened to you since then — I've heard the most incredible stories about you these past days."

Danlo looked about the street again to see if anyone might be watching him. "I should go soon, yes? I am afraid my being with you places you at risk."

"Ha, ha — yes it does, yes it does!" Old Father sang out. "But I never minded the risk of talking with you."

Old Father smiled in his Fravashi way, his lips pulling back to reveal his strong, flat teeth and his great golden eyes lighting up like twin suns. Danlo suddenly remembered how much he loved this old alien who had truly been like a father to him since his first days in Neverness.

"But
I
mind," Danlo said softly. "I would not want anything to happen to you. I am sorry."

"Ah, oh — then go if you must. Go, go, go! But, where will you go? I've worried that you've been wandering the streets since your escape."

"I ... have a place to live," Danlo said. "It is as safe as any place in the city."

"Good, good — then I can cease
my
wandering the streets knowing that you have a peaceful place to sleep."

Danlo looked at Old Father's long, white-furred limbs, and he remembered how he always moved quite slowly and painfully due to the arthritis that inflamed his old joints. "You have been searching for me? Thank you, sir, but you should not have troubled yourself."

"Oh, ho, but the universe is made of little else than troubles," Old Father said. "But never too many that I wouldn't want to help my favourite student."

"I wish that you
could
help me," Danlo said, remembering his utter failure to find the cutter named Mehtar Hajime. For a moment, his voice fell heavy with despair. "But no one can help me, now."

"No?"

"No — I am sorry."

Fravashi Old Fathers, he thought, helped their students to learn the language of Moksha or the art of plexure in which two differing realities are held together at once in the mind. They helped them learn to play the flute or that it is wrong to harm another living thing, but they couldn't possibly help to find a lost cutter who obviously didn't wish to be found.

"Ah, oh, aha — so many troubles," Old Father said. "Why don't you tell me what is presently troubling you?"

"I am looking for a cutter."

"Oh, ah — and not just any cutter, I think."

"No — his name is Mehtar Hajime."

At this, Old Father's eyes suddenly began to glow softly with a dreamy look as if he were remembering something.

And then he said, "Ah, yes, of course, Mehtar Hajime."

"You have heard of him?"

"I have. And what is more, I know where he might be found."

This astonishing claim caused Danlo to regard Old Father with something like wonder. "Where, then?" he asked.

"Look to the Street of Mansions in the Ashtoreth District," Old Father said. "I'd heard that, having grown very rich, he bought a house there."

"But how?" Danlo stared for a moment at Old Father's fathomless eyes, and for the thousandth time, he thought that there was something very mysterious about this Fravashi alien whom he called Old Father. "How could you have possibly known?"

"Oho, you will be wondering if this is just a fantastic chance or happy fate. But what if it's neither? So, it's so: I've been in the city for a long time, and I hear many things."

Perhaps, Danlo thought, Old Father
did
hear many things. But certainly it was a far chance that they had met here on this little street today just when Danlo had almost given up hope of finding the cutter.

"Thank you, sir," he said. "It was good to see you again, but I should say goodbye now before it falls too late."

"But why are you looking for this cutter? Oho — why are you looking for a cutter at all?"

"I cannot tell you that, sir."

"I see, I see. Well, I suppose it has something to do with your quarrel with Hanuman li Tosh. Ho, ho — I'd heard that he tortured you."

"Yes, he did," Danlo said softly. He closed his eyes for a moment as he felt the heat of the glowing iron nail that seemed for ever lodged in his brain.

"And yet you seek a cutter and not revenge?"

"Never harming another even if he has harmed you. You taught me, sir."

"Ah, well, well — I hope I didn't teach you
too
well. It wouldn't do to let torturers such as Hanuman to go on harming others."

"No, truly it would not."

"Then you have a plan, ha, ha? You would use the
satyagraha
to oppose him, and this cutter Mehtar Hajime is part of your plan?"

"Yes."

"Ah, oh — so, it's so, then." Old Father fell silent. "But you must be very careful, I think. You've changed since I last saw you. In you the soul has grown very great, and you can't even dream what forces might come into your hand."

So saying, he bowed stiffly and awkwardly, all the while moaning at the pain of his grinding joints. And then he laid his hand upon Danlo's arm and smiled his sunny smile. "Your soul may be great, truly, truly, but dark times can dim the light of even the brightest star. Please promise me that whatever happens, you'll never give up hope."

"All right, then," Danlo said smiling. "I promise, sir."

Danlo bowed to Old Father, and his dark, wild eyes blazed with his promise.

"Oho, goodbye, then, Danlo wi Soli Ringess! I promise
you
that I shall see you again in better times when our souls can fly free."

And with that, Old Father moved off down the street leaving Danlo to wonder how this mysterious old alien always seemed to appear in his life just when he needed him the most.

The Face of a Man

Nikolos Daru Ede was the man born to be God. His human face was soft, round and full of light; his divine face is more brilliant than the sun. His human smile was like a light being turned on in a dark room; his divine smile is like the radiance of a billion billion stars. When his human lips, so full of life, laughed, a breath of sweet air blew through the hearts of those who loved him; when his divine lips let loose with laughter, the heavens themselves shake with joy. His human eyes were as bright and black as onyx stones; his divine eyes are as black and deep as all the infinities of space and time.

— from
The Birth of Ede the God
, 142nd Algorithm

It was later that day that Danlo found his way on to the Serpentine and followed it around the Winter Ring where it dipped south for half a mile before twisting yet again through the quiet neighbourhoods just above the Ashtoreth District. In fact, the Serpentine formed both the northern and the western boundaries of the Ashtoreth District, which spread out between this snakelike street and the cliffs of South Beach. Thus, of all the districts in the city, it was the largest, the most well-defined and contained.

It also proved to be the most difficult to enter. While it wasn't true that the whole district had been closed to outsiders such as Danlo, many streets, even whole neighbourhoods, were. The peoples of a hundred cybernetic churches made their homes on these broad, straight, tree-lined streets. And almost all of them opposed the rise of Hanuman li Tosh and the new religion of Ringism. If they had acted together, they might have posed the most powerful counterforce against Hanuman in the city; but of course the cybernetic churches could no more co-operate than different nest-groups of Scutari. The most they could do was to agree that no Ringist should enter their peaceful district. But even this was more a shared sentiment than a realized plan. Architects such as those of the Fathers of Ede patrolled some neighbourhoods as ferociously as snow tigers walking the bounds of their frozen territories; while elsewhere, in the neighbourhoods just off the Long Glissade, the gentler Cybernetic Pilgrims of the Manifold couldn't see the point of defending their isolated streets.