The Broken God (28 page)

Early in the morning of the thirty-first day, Danlo was finally called to be tested. Unlike the Test of Patience, the next crucial tests were not public, and he underwent them alone. In a cold stone room of the Akashic's Tower, a jolly master akashic named Hannah li Hua placed a heaume over his head and tested the physical structures of his brain. She tested for other things as well, but she refused to reveal the nature of these tests to Danlo. When she bade goodbye to him, she never told if he had done well or ill, but simply said, 'I hope your petition is accepted, Danlo the Wild.' Over the next few days, Danlo came to know the Academy very well, for he crossed and re-crossed its lovely grounds many times. Upplysa, with its basalt arches and narrow, winding pathways, was the largest of the Order's colleges. There, the master eschatologist, Kolenya Mor, tested his knowledge of holism and the universal syntax; there, too, he was summoned before Thomas Rane and Octavia of Darkmoon, who, as Old Father had warned would happen, tested him to see if he was a man of shih. His last test was with a famous pilot, an exemplar named the Sonderval. At Resa, the pilot's college, the Sonderval posed twelve mathematical theorems to Danlo and then invited him to attempt proofs or disproofs. Danlo was able to prove only five of the twelve theorems, and he therefore concluded that he had failed this very important test. When he asked the Sonderval if this was so, he was told, The Master of Novices will inform you as to the results of your tests after the board convenes to decide your petition.'

'The Master of Novices,' Danlo said. 'This Bardo the Just – he is a just man, yes?'

At this innocent question, the Sonderval smiled arrogantly, then said, 'If you're accepted into the Order, then you'll learn about Bardo the Just.'

Altogether, 'Bardo the Just' had assembled a board of five prominent masters to examine the petitioners. As Danlo would learn, Bardo had chosen such an illustrious quintet to honour the petitioners. But it did not really require the skills and wisdom of famous masters to test petitioners. Bardo had inveigled his friends – Kolenya Mor, Octavia and the others – to participate in the Festival of the Unfortunate Petitioners for selfish reasons. In truth, he had pleaded with them to do him this favour; he had done this because he wished to honour himself. Some years before, he had been passed over for the lordship of the pilots. Chanoth Chen Ciceron had been made Lord Pilot in his place – or so the envious Bardo complained to any of his friends who would listen. And Bardo, who thought of himself as the finest and most able of the pilots to have survived the infamous Pilots' War thirteen years previously, had been made Master of Novices, a humble position with few possibilities for either power or glory. And so he liked to surround himself with the Order's most distinguished men and women, to share in their radiance, and all the while, secretly, he chafed and raged at the unfairness of life.

He was a vain man, yes, but ultimately his vanity (and his compassion) would accrue to Danlo's favour. After Danlo had finished his last test, he was summoned to the Novices' Sanctuary, a huge, forbidding building overlooking Borja's many dormitories. A novice met Danlo at the door of the Sanctuary and led Danlo to Bardo's formal chambers in the west wing. After Danlo knocked at the door, Bardo invited Danlo inside into a room decorated with rich furniture and rare works of art. 'Ah, it's the Wild Boy,' Bardo said. 'Danlo the Wild – are you really a nameless child, after all?'

Bardo led Danlo to one of the windows looking out over Borja. Almost at the foot of the window, set into the dark floor, were two rectangular stones all smooth and grey and slightly concave, as if a fine chisel had scooped out their centres. These were the famous kneeling stones of Borja. Bardo bade Danlo drop down on the kneeling stones, facing the window. He himself pulled up an immense, padded leather chair and positioned it at a right angle to Danlo so that he could see the side of Danlo's face. While Danlo gazed out at the Tycho's Spire, which overwhelmed Borja's lesser buildings, Bardo studied his face and finally said, 'By God, who are you?'

Although Bardo had warned Danlo not to turn his head, he had said nothing of his eyes, and so Danlo knelt there locked in thought, and his eyes flicked back and forth, straining to take in sights of the room. He could barely see Bardo, but directly ahead of him, Bardo's bearded profile and the shadow of his chair played against rich tapestries on the wall.

'You may speak when I've asked you a question.'

Danlo touched the feather in his hair as he thought of how Old Father would answer the question of identity. Because he knew it was unseemly (and foolish) to vex his elders, he tried to restrain himself, but finally, he couldn't help saying, 'Who are you, sir? Who is anybody?'

'Who am .'?'

Danlo smiled slyly, then asked, 'Have you ever seen me before?'

'No.'

'Then how do you know it is me?'

There was a long pause full of Bardo's raspy breathing, and then he burst out, 'Impolite boy! By God, how do I know it is you? Is this a Fravashi word game? You were a student of the Fravashi, weren't you?'

Danlo nodded his head while he looked out the window at the clouds in the sky.

'Well, listen, my funny boy: How do you dare play your impolite Fravashi games with me? Don't you know that I have to decide whether to make you a novice, or not? Don't you know that – stop it now! Stop laughing, or I'll have to dismiss you immediately!' And then he was addressing himself again, mumbling wearily, 'Ah, Bardo, Bardo, what have you done?'

Danlo couldn't help laughing because Bardo was a funny man, at once passionate and self-pitying, compassionate and slightly cruel. Finally, though, he restrained himself and said, 'I am sorry, sir. It is just that laughter ... is blessed, yes?'

While Bardo pulled at his beard, he cleared his throat and said, 'The truth is, there is something familiar about you. Where are you from?'

'If I told you where I was from, you might not believe me.'

'Test me, please; test my belief and tell me, who were your parents? On which world were you born?'

'I am not sure ... I should tell you, sir.'

'Ah, you think to keep secrets,' Bardo said. 'Well, at least you're not of Tria, nor have you had contact with the warrior-poets.'

Danlo was cold in his robe and sandals, though not nearly so cold as he had been during his day and night in Lavi Square. The bare floor hurt his knees. He brushed his knuckles against the grey stone, which thousands of novices' knees had worn smooth. He thought the kneeling stones must be very old, though he couldn't know that, along with all the other stones of the Sanctuary, they had been transported from Arcite at the founding of the Order long ago. 'How do you know I am not from Tria?'

'Are you?'

'No,' Danlo said smiling, 'I have never heard of Tria. What is Tria?'

From his side came Bardo's deep basso voice, 'By God, why must you answer a question with a question! You should know something right away, Wild Boy. It's impolite for petitioners – or novices or even journeymen – to question their masters. Unless they've first requested and been granted permission. Now, how is it you haven't heard of Tria? The merchant pilots? Ah, you know nothing of the warrior-poets?'

Danlo looked out the window to the north. He saw the rows of fine, old granite buildings – the boys' dormitories – and the Academy's north wall just beyond them. 'No, I have never heard of warrior-poets,' he said truthfully.

'Ahhhh,' Bardo said.

'May I ask you a question, sir?'

'Please, ask.'

'How did you know I am not a warrior and a poet?'

'You mean, a warrior-poet. Warrior-poets are assassins who kill people for money and for religious reasons. And of course you're not one of them. You're too young – they all have a certain look. What I know is that you've never had contact with one. Master Hua told me this.'

Danlo stared out the window to the south, at the girls' dormitories, which were arrayed in concentric circles, little white domes against the sparkling white of newly fallen snow. He had been afraid that when Master Hua examined his brain, she would discover everything about him. 'She can see my mind, I think.'

'Well, she can certainly read segments of your memory.'

'Then she must have told you where I was born.'

'Not true.' Bardo's shadow moved as if he were pulling at his beard; on the wall in front of Danlo, darkening a tapestry of many nude, dancing women, he could see a shadow hand against a huge, shadow face. 'Not at all true, Wild Boy. Master Hua is an akashic. She's been intimate with your memory. She must respect and guard confidences – the canons of our Order require this. I asked her certain questions about you. I was able to determine where you're not from. And that you're not a slel mime of the warrior-poets, nor a Trian spy, nor an Architect of the Old Cybernetic Church or of any other religion, order or cabal on the proscribed list.'

'The proscribed list?'

'Is that a question, Wild Boy?'

Danlo pressed his knuckles against the floor to take some of the weight off his knees. He hated the custom of kneeling because he thought it unnatural and unseemly for a man to so defer to another. 'I mean, may I ask you a question, sir?'

'Please ask.'

'What is the proscribed list?'

Bardo belched and licked his lips. 'It's the list of our enemies. The Order has survived for three thousand years, but not by admitting enemies into our halls.'

'I am no one's enemy,' Danlo said. He dropped his eyes down to the floor as he thought of what Pedar had said to him in Lavi Square. He wondered if his saving Hanuman's life could really cause two friends to become enemies. 'I am ... not even sure what you are talking about.'

'How astonishingly ... ah, that is to say, it's surprising that you could be so– '

'Ignorant, yes?'

Bardo belched again and coughed in embarrassment. 'I didn't want to say the word. And don't interrupt me, please. Well, you are ignorant, aren't you? You're different from the other petitioners. And then there is the matter of your hair. Black and red – like that of Mallory Ringess. And your face, hard as flint – you've the Ringess nose, too. And your damn eyes. Ah, I don't really want to discuss your eyes. Please tell me, you've been sculpted, haven't you? It's a common enough practice lately. Mallory Ringess becomes a goddamned god, and so it's natural enough that people would want to sculpt their faces and hair colour to look like him.'

No one had ever remarked upon Danlo's resemblance to Mallory Ringess. Bardo's observation pleased Danlo and added weight to his theory of his true parentage, but he didn't want to explain this theory to Bardo, so he said, 'This is how I was born. My hair is my hair, and my face ... a man must grow into his face, yes?'

'Ahhh,' Bardo said, 'you may keep your secrets if you must, but I must inform you, it won't aid your petition.'

Danlo stared out the window and said nothing.

'Well, then, perhaps you can tell me how you raised your metabolism so goddamned dramatically during your test? Your skin was as hot as a whore's breath! That's a cetic art – you've had cetic training, eh?'

'No, sir.' Danlo pressed the point of his finger against his robe where it covered his navel and said, 'There is a place in the belly ... the life fire, indwelling, and if you can envision it as a flame, then– '

'Stop!' Bardo called out as he clapped his hands together. He pushed himself to his feet, which wasn't an easy thing to do considering his immense bulk and the lowness of the chair. He stood in front of Danlo and above him. His face was full of perplexity and wonder. 'There's something strange about you. Who are you, by God? What you've just described – it sounds like the Alaloi practice of lotsara!'

It was as if Danlo had fallen through the ice into the sea, so quickly did he gasp for air and his muscles seize up. He knelt there looking up at Bardo the Just in amazement, and his belly muscles wouldn't stop quivering. How could this vain, ugly man know of lotsara? Had Hanuman betrayed him by telling of his origins and secret quest to find halla? Of course, had Danlo known more of the recent history of the Order, he would have heard the story of Bardo's journey to the Alaloi. But he never suspected that Bardo had accompanied Mallory Ringess on this disastrous journey. What he feared was that the akashic woman had read his deepest memories – either that, or somehow Bardo could read his mind. Didn't the men and women of the Unreal City possess many inexplicable powers? In truth, he didn't really believe that any human being could read another's mind without the aid of a shaida computer. (No matter how many times Danlo was to interface computers – and there would be many, many times – no matter how profound the experience, he would always think of computers as the most shaida of all mankind's inventions.) But, he mused, if Bardo really could see the thoughts behind his face, he had better be careful what he thought. And so, like a hunter passing into the open-waiting attitude of auvania, Danlo emptied his mind of everything other than immediate sensa: the sunlight streaming hot and low through the window; Bardo's sweetish, flowery scent overlaying the faint sourness of dried beer; and the slightly curved hollows of stone cupping his knees. His eyes, blue-black as twilight, focused on infinity, on the distant spires of the Old City shimmering in the west. There was a stillness in his eyes, a deep patience and clarity of vision.

'Danlo!'

'Yes?'

'Why this mystery?' Bardo huffed out. He grabbed his belly and bent over so that his face was nearly the same height as Danlo's. 'I've seen eyes like yours before – tell me, my Wild Boy, why are you so quiet? What's behind your flawless eyes?'

Danlo was silent for a long time, and then he finally confided his fear that Bardo could see his thoughts.

'That's silly!' Bardo exclaimed. 'Read your thoughts! By God, I can hardly read my own. Ah, what am I to do with you, Wild Boy?'

'I do not know,' Danlo said, too truthfully.

'That wasn't a question.'

'It wasn't? But, sir, it sounded like a question.'

'It was a rhetorical question, a question not meant to be answered.'