War in Heaven (92 page)

"Mallory!" he cried out. His great voice boomed through the cathedral like thunder. "They told me you'd come back, but I didn't want to believe it until I saw you with my own eyes!"

Even as he swept forwards, Danlo came down off the altar to greet his old friend. For a moment Bardo paused before him and looked at him strangely. And then he fell weeping against him, at once shaken and triumphant, and pounded Danlo's back with such overflowing joy that many of the men and women standing close to them began to weep, too. The blows of his huge hand might have staved in the ribs of a lesser being, but Danlo wore the same body of an Alaloi man that Bardo remembered as belonging to Mallory Ringess. "Little Fellow!" he cried out again and again, forgetting all decorum. Once a time, in the intimacy of their friendship, he had thus addressed Mallory Ringess — and Danlo, too. "Little Fellow, by God, Little Fellow — I thought you were dead!"

But Mallory Ringess, it seemed, was still very much alive, and Bardo's acclamation of him convinced all but the most sceptical that here indeed stood the famous Lord Pilot who had proved the Great Theorem and brought back to Neverness the secrets of the gods. As if to underscore the sentiment sweeping through the cathedral, Kiyosi Telek finally returned, accompanied by Malaclypse and an old, grey-haired man whose skin was seamed with the marks of great age. Danlo knew him as Daghaim Redsmith, the Master of Records and a master pilot who had once tried to reach the spaces of the galaxy's outer core beyond the Morbio Inferiore. But that was long ago. Now Master Daghaim, who suffered from some kind of shaking palsy, had sadly left the piloting of lightships to younger men and women and had to content himself with recording the discoveries and journeys of others — and with verifying the identity of a plain black diamond pilot's ring.

"Master Daghaim," Bardo said. He broke off from embracing Danlo and watched the old man limp towards the altar. He couldn't have helped noticing that Surya Surata Lai and Lord Pall and many others were watching his approach as they might await the coming of a plague. "It's good to see you again — I know that it's hard for you to leave the college."

And then Bardo bowed deeply, and others did, too. All the pilots present knew Master Daghaim very well, and he knew all of them. Painfully Master Daghaim bowed to Lord Salmalin, Ciro Dalibar and Cristobel the Bold. And then, after bowing to Danlo, he looked at him in silence as everyone near the altar waited and looked, too.

Finally he spoke, his old voice quavering as he smiled towards Danlo and recited the ancient ritual. "Lord Mallory Ringess — have you fallen far and well? You've been gone seventeen years and three hundred and forty-eight days. What wonders have you returned to tell me?"

At this, five hundred people let loose a tremendous shout even as Bardo looked back and forth between Master Daghaim and Danlo in puzzlement. Then one of the godlings standing at Bardo's shoulder explained why Master Daghaim had been sent for. Upon hearing this, Bardo turned towards his cousin, Surya Surata Lai, and his face fell purple-black with great anger.

"Surya!" he said. His great voice growled out with such ferocity that those looking on from nearby tried to move away from him. "Surya Lai — of course he's Mallory! And you knew this from the moment you first saw him, didn't you?"

Surya, at last seeing that she had no hope of gaining control of the Way of Ringess, stared down at the floor in shame.

"Of course, he's Mallory Ringess," Master Daghaim said as he nodded gravely. He held a shining pilot's ring high above his head for everyone to see. "And this is his ring. It was made on the eighty-eighth day of false winter in the year 2929 and presented to Mallory Ringess at the convocation in the Hall of the Ancient Pilots."

So saying, he reached out to give Danlo the ring and smiled in satisfaction as he watched him it slip back on to his finger. And then hundreds of voices cried out as one: "Mallory Ringess! Mallory Ringess! Lord Mallory wi Soli Ringess!"

After waiting a moment for the din to die down, Bardo turned back to Surya, who had helped to usurp him in the church that he had founded and worked to defeat the Fellowship fleet in the war. "Surya Lai," his voice thundered, "you've betrayed me and every poor godling standing here, so you should be taken from this beautiful building that you've helped to ruin and — "

"Bardo!" A voice greater than even Bardo's rang out through the cathedral from window to window and wall to wall. For a moment, Danlo stood tall and silent as he looked straight at Bardo. Then he drew in his breath and went on, "Bardo, you have fought a great battle and led the Fellowship's pilots to victory, and we must all honour you for that. But it is not upon you to determine Surya Lai's fate."

Those present in the cathedral shouted in agreement with what Danlo had said, and their cry spread from lip to lip as it passed out of the doors into the streets outside: "Lord Mallory! Lord of the Order! Lord of Light! Lord of the Way of Ringess!"

After bowing deeply, Bardo smiled at Danlo and said, "Ah, Mallory, what have I done? You're the Lord of the Order, of course, not I."

And Danlo returned his bow and spoke to Surya. "Princess Surya Surata Lai — you were born a princess of Summerworld, and you will be taken from here and returned to your world. Bardo will see to it that a ship is prepared for your journey."

Again Bardo bowed as Surya glared at him and ground her teeth in rage. But she said nothing in protest of this sentence of banishment.

"And the ronin warrior-poets," Danlo said, "those who aided Hanuman in his terror and torture — they will be returned to their world, too."

For a long time, as the sun rose higher and bathed the cathedral in its golden light, Danlo stood as a god among the peoples of Neverness, and he gave what commands he could to restore peace to the city. At last, he turned to Lord Pall, who stood near Lord Kutikoff and Vishnu Suso as he silently regarded Danlo with his pink, albino's eyes. If he suspected Danlo of miming Mallory Ringess, he gave no sign. With his bone-white skin hanging in folds from his horrible face, he looked older than death.

"Lord Pall," Danlo said, "I must thank you for acting as Lord of the Order in my absence, but now you will have much time to turn your mind to the contemplation of consciousness and other concerns. You will remain in your tower and rest while the new Lord Cetic takes over your duties."

And so Danlo, before the greatest lords and masters of the Order, before harijan and ringkeepers and godlings, debased Lord Audric Pall and banished him to a life within the Cetic's Tower. And Lord Pall, suffering greatly from exhaustion and shame, closed his eyes in defeat. Lord Vishnu Suso must have thought that he should protest this peremptory dismissal of his lord and master, for he suddenly opened his mouth in anger. But when he looked upon the dark lights flashing in Danlo's eyes, he kept his silence for fear that he would be debased as well.

"Mallory Ringess! Mallory Ringess! Lord Mallory wi Soli Ringess!"

Lord Salmalin, however, for all his prudence was still a great pilot and therefore graced with a much greater degree of courage than Lord Suso. As he fingered the black silk of his pilot's robe, he faced Danlo and said, "As Lord Pilot I must say that it's most improper — "

"No," Danlo said, interrupting him. His eyes now blazed like hot blue double stars. "No — I am sorry but you are no longer the Lord Pilot."

"What?" Lord Salmalin stared at him almost as if he didn't understand the simple words that Danlo had spoken. And a hundred other pilots stared at him as well.

"We all must honour you for your decision to lead the Ringist fleet against the Fellowship," Danlo said. "But much murder came from what you did, and the Order, no less the Civilized Worlds, almost perished as a consequence. It is time that a new Lord Pilot should be chosen."

"And who is this new Lord Pilot to be, then?" Salmalin asked.

"His name is Pesheval Sarojin Vishnu-Shiva Lai," Danlo said. Here he smiled and turned to Bardo. "All of you know him as the master pilot, Bardo."

While Bardo's face glowed with fulfilment and pride, Lara Jesusa and Sabri Dur li Kadir and other pilots whom he had led bowed deeply to him and rapped their pilot's rings against the altar's brass rails to acclaim his elevation. Salmalin the Prudent, though, shook his head and half-shouted, "But he's not even a pilot of the Order! He abjured his vows years ago and became a ronin pilot!"

And here Lord Vishnu Suso finally found his courage. After clearing his throat several times, he ventured to observe that in the three thousand years since the founding of Neverness, no one who quit the Order had ever been allowed back into the halls of the academy.

"Truly, they have not," Danlo said. "But these are new times, and there will be a new rule for our Order — and for other Orders as well. If he wishes, Bardo will take new vows and take his place as Lord Pilot."

Now it was Bardo's turn to smile at Danlo, and then he bowed his head and called out, "By God, but I do wish it! I think I've never wished anything more. Thank you, Little Fellow, thank you!"

And Danlo said, "You are welcome. I think that you will be a truly splendid Lord Pilot."

Danlo's honouring of Bardo in this way proved to be immediately popular, for many of the pilots and godlings standing near him began to shout out: "Lord Bardo! Lord Bardo! Lord Pilot of the Order!"

And then many others within the cathedral and without, responded to this chant with an even greater one that shook the very streets of the city: "Mallory Ringess! Lord of the Order! Lord of the Way! Lord of light!"

And so Danlo might have spent the rest of the day basking in the adulation of the manswarms and trying to heal all the wounds of the war. But then all that had happened to him since he had returned to Neverness overwhelmed him. Inside himself he had truly found the secret fire of life, but the flames had burned too brightly for too long. Although every cell in his body had come awake almost at once, the remaking of himself in this way required great amounts of energy. Kiyoshi Telek and other wide-eyed godlings might think that a god (or a man) could live off the radiations of the sun, but it was not so. As Danlo had had nothing to eat or drink since the morning of the preceeding day, he was quite weak. In truth, he was sickeningly, perilously weak, and he suddenly swooned and fell against Bardo. He almost lost consciousness, then, and he might have toppled to the floor if Bardo hadn't caught him in his huge arms and helped him to keep his feet.

"What happened?" a hundred voices cried out at once. "What's happened to Mallory Ringess?"

Bardo, who held Danlo tightly as the light gradually returned to his eyes, whispered to him, "Little Fellow, are you all right?"

And Danlo smiled as he nodded his head and whispered in return, "Yes — I am all right, Bardo. Now everything will be all right."

With a wave of his arm for people to move out of the way, Bardo began to help Danlo walk towards the apartments in the chapter house of the cathedral. His great voice bellowed out, "Please let us pass. Can't you see he's exhausted? Even a god has to sleep."

Yes, sleep
, Danlo thought. And then he said a silent prayer for that part of himself that would always sleep beyond the stars now:
Danlo wi Soli Ringess, mi alasharia la, shantih, shantih.

As Danlo moved alongside Bardo through the many-coloured sunlight streaming through the cathedral's windows, the people began to chant once again: "The Ringess has returned! Lord of the Order! Lord of the Way! Lord of Light!"

And in the silence of his soul and the deepness of his eyes, even as he move forwards and fell into sleep, Danlo answered them:
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Thy tears are for those beyond tears; and are thy words words of wisdom? The wise grieve not for those who live; and grieve not for those who die — for life and death shall pass away.

Because we all have been for all time: I, and thou, and those kings of men. And we all shall be for all time, we all for ever and ever.

— Lord Krishna to Arjuna before the battle of Kurukshetra

The next few days Danlo spent in recovering from his ordeal in the cathedral's sanctuary. Bardo appropriated the largest of the chapter house's apartments for Danlo's use, and Malaclypse Redring — along with various ringkeepers and godlings — stood guard outside the door. Even as Bardo ordered the Hollow Fields opened to massive food shipments from Yarkona, Askling and Larondissement and the city began to return to order, Danlo did little more than sleep and eat. The awakened cells of his body required great amounts of food energy. As a bear eats in midwinter spring, he devoured whole platefuls of dried bloodfruit, steamed rice, boiled ming beans and his beloved kurmash. From Audun Luz came a whole deep-ship carrying the carcasses of slaughtered sheep. With cultured meats from Askling readily available, few in the city were willing to eat this once-living flesh. But to the astonishment (and disgust) of such godlings as Kiyoshi Telek, Danlo wolfed down almost a whole side of lamb fairly dripping with red juices. When asked how a god could commit such a bloodthirsty and non-spiritual act, Danlo replied simply, "The word spirit truly means breath, This is just the breath of life, yes? This lamb that I have eaten would have drawn many millions of breaths, so many millions. What could be more alive than a lamb running through a field of grass beneath Askling's yellow sun? And where did all this life go when he was killed? Nothing is lost, truly. The lamb gave his blessed life so that I might live and breathe, too. So much life, so much spirit in flesh — and now it has all passed into me so that I might create yet greater life. What could be more spiritual than that?"

Such remarks mystified and dismayed the followers of Mallory Ringess, for they wished their god to be as they thought a god should be. But Mallory Ringess had never acted according to the sentiments of others, and neither did Danlo. Having quickly regained his great vitality, he fairly flew out of bed and set about the many tasks that lay before him. Against the objections of the godlings, he crossed the Old City to the academy, where he took up residence at the top of the highest of the two Morning Towers. Truly, he was Mallory Ringess, Lord of the Way of Ringess, he said, but he was also first Lord of the Order. As Lord of the Order he would live among the masters and journeymen of the Pilots' College, Resa, where he had once been a journeyman, too.