War in Heaven (57 page)

But I cannot let him die.

And so Danlo did not complete his final preparations to mime a god that night, nor the next day, nor even the next. Instead, he spent these precious hours hunting through the City Wild for any kind of food that he could find. Even as the Fellowship's fleet stole among the Fallaways from Karanatha to Veda Luz, manoeuvring to fight one last battle, and even as the gods themselves hammered the heavens with their cosmic weapons of war, Danlo gathered frozen yu berries and hacked off pieces of teartree bark which might be brewed into tea or pounded into a paste and eaten. He searched for new sleekit mounds as well. But the recent storms had covered the woods with a thick fur of new snow, making his quest almost impossible. Even though he searched the drifts from the Fravashi District to the Zoo (and even though he raided one mound with all the cunning and rapaciousness of a wolverine), his labours yielded no more than a few handfuls of nuts. And still it was not enough food. And still, hour by hour it seemed, Jonathan grew weaker. And so twice, on two bitterly cold nights with the first hint of the Serpent's Breath blowing in from the north, Danlo used his sharp flint spearpoint to open his veins and let a little blood flow into Tamara's teapot. Although not as rich as seal blood, this red elixir of life had been brightened by his lungs and moved by his heart through every part of his body. There was strength in it, as there was sweetness and vitamins in the yu berries that he crushed into the pot as well. A few spoonfuls of teartree paste completed the recipe for blood tea, which Danlo brewed and poured for Jonathan into a little blue cup. Jonathan might have sustained himself on such a power food almost for ever, but Danlo could not continue to let his own blood without enfeebling himself to the point of coma and death. It was the greatest agony of his life that as he watched Jonathan grow thinner and thinner and fade, the future faded as well and grew ever more tenuous and dim.

One night, after Jonathan had gone to bed, Danlo sat talking with Tamara over cups of hot water. The last of their tea had run out, along with all their food. It suddenly seemed that there wasn't a crust of bread left in the entire city. Tamara hadn't eaten anything for a day, nor had Danlo for two. Both of them were so weak with hunger that they could hardly hold up their heads, let alone hold a meaningful conversation. Danlo's belly hurt, and his wrists where he had cut them. In truth, his whole body still burned with the torment of Constancio's surgeries and the fire of the ekkana drug. And perhaps worst of all was the old pain in his head that flared into a flame whenever he thought about his starving son.

"I do not know what to do," Danlo said, rubbing his chest.

"Perhaps you should go ahead with your plan." Tamara, upon the first sight of Danlo's face after Jonathan had pulled off his mask, had guessed the whole of his plan to mime Mallory Ringess. Almost every night since then, they had discussed what Danlo might do once he announced himself as a man who had become a god. "What else
can
you do?"

"I do not want to leave you alone."

"We'll be all right. We have Pilar and Andreas."

"But you have no food."

"Oh, but no one does — there's not even any meat left to buy from the wormrunners."

"I ... did not know that any wormrunners had survived the riots."

"Few enough, it seems," Tamara said. "I think they'd be afraid to sell meat — or anything else — even if they had it."

"The poor wormrunners — I am sorry for what happened to them."

At this, Tamara shrugged her shoulders and said, "I've heard that the factories will soon begin harvesting food again."

"But this could be a rumour, yes? Only a rumour that Hanuman has begun."

"Well, I'm sure he doesn't want everyone to lose hope."

"I am sure of this, too," he said. "And I am sure that because of the desperation here, he will press for battle too soon, possibly to the disadvantage of the Ringist fleet."

"Then perhaps it would be best if you waited to announce yourself until after this dreadful battle."

"I cannot do that."

"But why?"

"Because we might lose the battle," he said. "And because if there is anything that I can do, I must not let this battle happen."

"But you — !"

"Then, too, Jonathan is starving, and that is another reason that I cannot wait. And you, too, Tamara — almost everyone."

"But I still don't see what you can do about that other than carrying through your plan."

For a long time, Danlo just sat there on Tamara's carpet, staring at the paintings on the wall. He had his spearpoint at hand, the one that he had used to cut his veins. With this long, symmetrical feather of flint, he tapped the back of his huge new knuckles. If he had been a careless man, the slightest touch of the spearpoint's murderously sharp edge would have left a line of blood marking his skin. But he was not careless. He tapped and tapped, stone against bone, in time with the quick, urgent beats of his heart. And then, after what seemed an eternity of contemplation and remembrance, he said, "There might be one thing that I could do."

"What, then?"

"I ... could hunt."

Tamara looked at him as if he had just told her that he would fly through space to Simoom without his lightship and return bearing a basket of bread.

"Oh, Danlo, what are you saying?"

"I could make a harpoon and go out on to the sea to hunt seals."

"I don't believe what you're saying. Your vow — "

"This one time, I could break my vow."

"But you told me that it's better to die yourself than ever to kill."

"Yes, but I am not sure that it is better to watch my son die than to kill. Truly, nothing could be worse than watching him die. Or you."

"But could you really
kill
a seal?"

"I ... do not know. I could try, couldn't I?"

"But when would you go?"

"The day after tomorrow," he said. "I could make the harpoon tomorrow and leave the next day."

But Danlo didn't leave two days later, nor the day after that. Although he quickly fashioned a harpoon from a piece of walrus ivory and a shatterwood sapling that he cut, he couldn't quite bring himself to venture forth when the time came. He persuaded himself that he should search the city one last time before wilfully killing a beautiful animal. And so he skated from the Ashtoreth District to the Bell, looking for an open restaurant, even an underground one selling dubious dishes. He approached the autists in the Merripen Green to see if they might have anything to share. But it seemed that Tamara was right, that Neverness was as barren of food as an ice desert. He thought to explore the private houses of the Fravashi District, perhaps even daring to knock at the door to Old Father's house itself. But when he returned to Tamara's apartment that evening, a new disaster caused him to abandon that plan.

"Jonathan, Jonathan," he said immediately upon opening the door. For there, in the fireroom, Tamara sat with Jonathan on her lap, soaking his feet in a bowl of warm water. He looked at Danlo and weakly smiled a greeting. Although obviously in great pain, he stared and stared as if he no longer cared how much it all might hurt. But Tamara had more than enough concern for both of them. Her lips were tight and almost bloodless with fear; her eyes sought out Danlo's as if to ask why God would want to visit such cruelties on an innocent child.

Without bothering to remove his mask or furs, Danlo crossed the room and plunged his hand into the water. He felt Jonathan's feet down near the toes; the skin was cold as ice and the muscles underneath as hard as frozen meat.

"What happened?" he asked.

And so Tamara told him about the unfortunate events of the day. That morning she had gone to the Courtesans' Conservatory just south of the Street of Embassies to beg for a little food. She had left Jonathan with Pilar and Andreas; with the air over the city having fallen cold, they had planned to stay inside doing nothing more strenuous than telling stories. But around midmorning a neighbour had knocked on Pilar's door to tell of a food shipment to be distributed later at the Winter Ring. And so Pilar had wrapped the children in their furs and joined the swarms of starving people who crowded this expansive circle of ice. They had waited almost motionless in the cold for hours along with thousands of others. But no food had ever arrived to be distributed; the rumour proved false. And so the manswarms — many of them harijan — had rioted. In this great crush of humanity going mad, Pilar had barely been able to keep a hold on Andreas. As Pilar later told Tamara, with much weeping and blame of herself, Jonathan had become separated. Although she and Andreas had searched the surrounding district until night came, they had not been able to find him. She hadn't thought that Jonathan had been one of the hundreds trampled and skived to death with sharp skate blades for she had searched the mounds of corpses around the Winter Ring to no avail. Finally, with the cold of night threatening to freeze their faces and feet, they had returned to tell Tamara the terrible news that her son was lost, perhaps wandering the streets alone.

Tamara's first impulse, of course, had been to throw on her fur and go out looking for Jonathan. But even as Tamara was lacing her skates, Jonathan had miraculously appeared at the door. He was shivering with the first touch of hypothermia, and the tips of his nose and ears had fallen white with frostbite. And far worse, his feet had frozen almost all the way up to his ankles.

"It must have been hard for you to skate with your feet so cold," Danlo told Jonathan as he touched his forehead. The boy's ears and nose were red, and his skin quite warm with the flush of restored circulation. Danlo, who had once frozen his feet, too, knew that as the blood began flowing again through Jonathan's veins, he would feel an agony of burning as if his toes had been plunged into boiling water. "You are very brave."

Jonathan looked at him as if to say, "Thank you, Father." But his eyes had fallen glassy with his suffering, and for the moment he seemed to have lost the power of speech.

"It would be better," Danlo said to Tamara, "if a cryologist or cutter thawed his toes."

"Of course it would," Tamara said. "But there's a five-day wait to see the cryologists, and neither they nor the cutters have any drugs left anyway. What else could I do?"

"Nothing, then," Danlo said gently. "You are doing all you can."

Tamara looked at him for a long time, and it seemed that she very badly wanted to break down and weep.

"I don't want to go to a cutter," Jonathan suddenly said. "I want to stay here with Mother."

"It's all right; I won't take you anywhere," Tamara said, running her fingers through his thick black hair.

"And I want you to stay, too," Jonathan said to Danlo. "Won't you please stay, Father?"

Much later, after they had finished thawing Jonathan's toes and put him to bed, Danlo took Tamara aside and said, "There is something that I must tell you about frostbite."

"What is it, then?"

"Jonathan's toes were frozen very deep. Without drugs, it might be impossible for even the best cryologist to repair the damaged tissues."

"What are you saying?"

Danlo gently gripped her shoulder with his huge new hand. "It might be impossible to save his toes, you know. They were so — "

"No, I don't want to hear this," Tamara almost shouted as she broke away from him. She shook her head and stared down at the blazing stove. "I shouldn't have left him with Pilar today. Really, I shouldn't. Oh, Danlo, what are we going to
do?
"

At last, as she touched eyes with Danlo and he touched her face, she began to sob. And then they held each other, forehead pressing forehead, and after a while, he couldn't tell which tears were hers and which were his own.

"You did what you had to do," Danlo whispered. "And now I must, too."

"Please don't tell me that you're thinking of leaving now."

"I am sorry."

"But this really isn't the time. It's much too cold outside, and Jonathan will need you now more than ever."

"But he will need his strength most of all. It will be almost impossible for him to face what is to come without food."

"But I
have
food," Tamara suddenly said. She moved over to a cupboard, which she opened. She drew out a steel basket covered with a white cloth and showed it to Danlo. "Look."

Danlo gently peeled back the cloth to reveal three golden loaves of bread. Nearly half of one loaf had been sliced off, obviously eaten by Tamara and Jonathan earlier. But the other loaves were thick and crusty and smelled as if they had been freshly baked.

"One of my former sisters at the Conservatory gave them to me," Tamara said. "They still have food there, though I think this might be the last of it."

"She must have loved you very much to give you this," Danlo said. "But it will not last very long."

"I know," Tamara finally admitted. "I know."

"Jonathan will need something more sustaining than a little bread if he is to regain his strength. Which is why I have decided to hunt tomorrow."

"So soon, then?"

"I am afraid that I have waited too long. If only I had not waited these past days, Pilar might not have needed to take Jonathan out looking for food."

In truth, he had known that he shouldn't have waited. A deep voice, deeper than his belly or brain, perhaps as deep as the atoms spinning in his blood, had whispered that he must go out to hunt. Why hadn't he paid attention to this voice? Once, it had been his dream to become an asarya, a truly human being who might have the courage and compassion to say yes to all things. But he had always known that he must look at reality as it truly was before he could affirm it. And to behold the world through shimmering new eyes, he must first wake up and learn how to see. Why, he wondered, had he looked away from the truth of Jonathan's suffering? Why hadn't he simply picked up his harpoon at the first chance and hurried off into the wild to hunt his seal?

Because it is wrong to kill
, he thought. And then, as he stared at Tamara's soft, waiting eyes, came the deeper voice like the call of the
Snowy Owl
or the whispering of the wind:
Because I am afraid.