The Broken God (66 page)

same substance as the father? You pray that he is not; you fear that he is. Fear is the quintessence of the soul. It shapes all that we do. If Danlo is truly fearless and wild, then what might he do? More precisely, what might he not do? Where will his wildness lead? You wonder this. Your thoughts are turning in circles. Turning and turning. Let me break the circle, then, and leave you with a new thought: which of us can match this wildness of Danlo's? And why should we want to?'

Hanuman ceased speaking and stood very still. He stared at Surya. It seemed that he was only waiting to lash out with his tongue again.

'Here, now, that's enough,' Bardo said. He moved over by Hanuman's side and laid his arm across his shoulders. He stood over him like a mountain, and his voice boomed out: '"Debate a cetic, hate a cetic".'

But Surya did not hate Hanuman, for all that he had said to her. She was enchanted with him. She, whose soul he had laid bare with his sensitive eyes and cutting tongue, looked at him as if he were a god, or rather, a superhuman man in personal contact with the realm of the godly. Her face fell from astonishment to adulation to embarrassment at having her thoughts uncovered. In an effort to hide her embarrassment, she turned to Danlo and began to lie.

'I wasn't really thinking about you at all,' Surya said. Her face was now an ugly reddish-black mask of misdirection and untruth. 'I don't know why your friend would say such things. The whole time, I was thinking about the recipe for curried chicken that my mother taught me. I've always loved curry dishes – I suppose this was cheating, to hold my thoughts this way.'

Danlo rubbed the scar above his eye, looked at Tamara, and then smiled. Although it took a great deal to embarrass him, Hanuman's strange soliloquy might have succeeded in doing just that if he hadn't been in love and overflowing with a marvellous sense of aliveness. He was embarrassed for Surya, however, even if he wished that she had remained on Summerworld with her curry dishes and her slaves. He bowed to her and said, 'As Hanuman has reminded us, there is no cheating in a game ... that has no rules.'

Hanuman gazed at him, then, with his compelling cetic's eyes. But Danlo was the one person that he could never stare down, and he finally broke eyelock and looked away.

Surya rubbed her neck and sighed. She seemed mollified by Danlo's last statement. 'I must tell you,' she said, 'I've nothing against your name. You can't help the accident of your birth.'

'We each have our own fate,' Danlo said.

'And we each have free will. Your father taught that ultimately, fate and free will are the same thing.'

'You seem to be a woman of... unusual will,' he said.

Surya's face came aglow and she smiled at him for the first time. Despite her thin lips and coffee-stained teeth, she had a beautiful smile. He saw that this difficult woman, but for her dishonesty and fear, might have attained a shibui beauty so rare among the people of the City.

'You're not afraid,' she said, 'of being kind to a difficult woman who hasn't been very kind to you. Perhaps you really are fearless.'

'No one is fearless,' he said.

'Hanuman was right about that, at least,' she said. 'We're all afflicted with fear – it's the human condition. But there's a way out, didn't you know?'

'If you mean my father– '

'When the Ringess was still a man,' she said in a rush of breath, interrupting him, 'he suffered from the great fear, just as everybody does. But he found a way out of suffering, a way to free himself.'

Bardo, who was obviously glad that the conversation had turned back upon matters more closely allied with his purpose, suddenly smacked his fist into his open hand. His rings clicked together, and his voice rang out, 'By God, that's the way of Ringess, to face the universe as a god and never look back in fear!'

'It's the way of Ringess,' Surya said, 'to find freedom from suffering.'

'Yes, the Ringess pointed the way toward real freedom,' Bardo said. His great voice dominated the room, and everyone looked at him. It was suddenly very quiet. He seemed delighted, and relieved, to be once again at the centre of an attentive audience. 'And the only real freedom is the freedom of a god.'

There was a moment of silence and then someone called out, 'And anyone can become a god.'

'Or God,' another person said.

'Give me a couple of sips of kalla and I'll see God.'

'Give me three sips of kalla and I'll be God.'

'But it's never that easy,' a plump woman standing near Bardo said. She wore the blue robe of an eschatologist, and her name was Kolenya Mor, Lord Mor, the Order's Lord Eschatologist. 'At least, the remembrances are never so easy for me. Why does it have to be so hard?'

Bardo nodded his head and he rubbed his hands together vigorously. He looked about the room to fix the eyes of his various guests, and in his huge voice he laughed out, 'It is hard, that's true, and this brings us again to our work. Or, I should say, to our joy. By God, everyone knows Bardo is the laziest man in the City, so if I can drink kalla and remembrance the Eddas, anyone can. Ah, it's past time. I invite any of you who haven't had a remembrance for ten days to come with us into the music room. Tonight we have a young cetic with us, and his friend, Danlo wi Soli Ringess. The son of the Ringess, who may become a god someday, too.'

Again, many people in the circle around Bardo bowed to Danlo, and he felt a heat wave of shame burning his eyes. He noticed Hanuman smiling at him both in mockery and compassion, and perhaps with an intimation of challenge, too.

As Bardo and the others began moving toward the door of the room, Tamara pulled at Danlo's hand and took him aside. Even though courtesans love to talk, she had mostly kept her silence during Danlo's discussion with Surya and Hanuman. But now she said, 'I think you should be careful of Hanuman li Tosh.'

'I am always careful of him,' Danlo said. 'Friends should always take ... careful awareness of each other, yes?'

'Please be careful in the remembrance.'

'Is remembrancing so dangerous?'

'Oh, it's dangerous enough,' Tamara said. 'The kalla drug itself is dangerous, but I think the greatest danger is attempting a remembrance when your soul is on fire. Don't let Hanuman poison you with his doubts. Or his despair.'

'Tonight,' he said, 'I am as far from despair as I have ever been.'

'I can't go into the remembrance with you,' she said. 'It's only been five days since my last one.'

'And you are not ready for another?'

'I'm not sure,' she said. 'But even if I were, Bardo believes the kalla should be taken as a sacrament. One doesn't partake of sacraments every day.'

'No, but perhaps they should,' Danlo said.

'I'm sorry.'

Danlo drew her hands up to his lips and kissed them. It was a shocking thing for him to do, in open sight of others. 'Then we should say goodnight, now,' he said.

'If you like, we could meet again in a few days.'

'Why such a long time?'

'After your remembrance, you'll want to be alone.'

'I can't imagine wanting to be alone.'

'Danlo, please be....'

'Yes?'

As people streamed by them, almost brushing their garments and trying not to notice their adoration of each other, Danlo touched her forehead, looking for her thoughts in the darkness of her eyes.

'Please be careful of yourself,' she said.

She kissed his lips then, and said goodbye to him. He left the room stepping so lightly he could scarcely feel his feet, and all the time he never stopped wondering about what she had said.

Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why; Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

– from The Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyam

Danlo followed a group of Bardo's admirers out of the sun room's north door. A river of silk and flesh swept him down a brilliantly lit hallway. He was aware, dimly, that most of the guests were being left behind. He heard many grumbles and moans and little arguments, tens of voices protesting Bardo's restrictiveness. Most thought that they should be allowed a remembrance at least as frequently as every three days; a few reckless characters – such as Jonathan Hur – called for a daily remembrance, or even a moment-to-moment, continual remembrancing of the Elder Eddas. But Bardo was clearly in control of events and master of his house, and so he allowed only a tenth of his guests to follow him into north wing. Including Hanuman, who walked by Bardo's side, there were thirty-eight of them, and their excited, buzzing voices made for a good deal of noise. Danlo found it strange the way this noise seemed to melt into the glittering walls and vanish abruptly. Everything about this hallway of organic stone was strange: the odd angles or absence of any angles at all, the luminescence of billions of tiny light cells embedded within the walls, the sudden silences that enclosed them and followed them as they moved deeper into the house. Danlo had an uneasy feeling that he was moving downward, though he could plainly see from the pitch of the floor that he was not. After he had walked on a way, past guest rooms filled with rare furniture and flowers, Bardo dropped back through his procession of followers and threw his arm around Danlo's shoulders. 'In a way,' he said, 'it's too bad this house was ever sold.'

As they strolled together he talked of little things, avoiding any mention of Hanuman's performance. He told Danlo something of the house's history. He explained that the Order had owned the house for two thousand years, but after the War of the Faces, with the Order in decline and nearly ruined, the College of Lords had found themselves suddenly impoverished. Consequently, various properties across the City had been sold off, including Bardo's house. It had since been owned by exemplars, by harijan trying to establish an unofficial embassy on Neverness, again by exemplars, and then by a wealthy family of astriers who had lived there for almost four hundred years while awaiting a fresh planet to colonize. Most recently a merchant-prince had owned the house, though he never occupied it and was very glad to sell it to Bardo.

'It's too bad for the Order,' Bardo said. 'But their loss is my gain, or, I should say, the good luck of those wishing to explore the possibilities your father discovered. Heretofore, the Order has made it difficult for true seekers, such as myself, too bad.'

'Perhaps the Order will come to support your work,' Danlo said.

'No, Little Fellow, that's unlikely, now.' Bardo tilted his head closer to Danlo's, and he dropped his voice low and deep. Danlo noticed immediately that the familiar aroma of beer was gone from his breath. 'Shall I tell you a thing about the remembrancers? It's a sad truth, but only a few of them have been able to fully remembrance the Eddas. And they have all but left the Order to live with me and train memory guides.'

'But what about the other remembrancers?' Danlo asked.

'They took a vote and a third of them decided that the Elder Eddas do not really exist, that your father was a liar. That he wanted to excite people to a belief in the ineffable. He did this only to revitalize our Order, they say. Ah, your Order, now, that is. Another third regard the Eddas as false memories, or myths, or universal archetypes, confabulations of eternal truths created by our goddamned brains.'

'And the other third?'

'They're undecided,' Bardo said. 'The Order, as a whole, is undecided about the secrets your father brought back to them. Barbarians, all of them. Ah well, most of them. The truth is, they're more concerned with this mission to the Vild. Obsessed with it. Everyone who's got any talent or vision is campaigning to be included in the second Order, when it splits off, as it inevitably will.'

Bardo paused to squeeze Danlo's shoulder and shoot him a pointed look. They were standing in the middle of the hallway outside the music room. As the others ducked through the music room's circular doorway one by one and took their places inside, Bardo said, 'I understand why you'll have to go to the Vild, Little Fellow. When I was younger, I would have gone, too. These are apocalyptic times, by God, but there's a lot to worry about other than exploding stars.'

'You must know what I worry about,' Danlo said.

'The Alaloi? It's been five years – you haven't forgotten about their, ah, predicament?'

'Forgotten!'

'Ah, no, I can see you remember very well. Perhaps too well. Well – I hope you find a cure for the plague virus, if you journey to the Vild.'

Danlo touched the lightning scar on his forehead, and he pressed his finger down until there was a pressure against the bone. He said, 'And I hope you find the Eddas.'

'Well,' Bardo said, 'Kolenya Mor was right, for most people the Elder Eddas are hard to remember, too bad.'

'Have you remembered them?'

'Ah, but you've always asked the hard questions, haven't you, Little Fellow?'

Danlo bowed his head and smiled. 'Do I?' he asked.

'In truth, I've remembered something,' Bardo said. He tapped at his massive head and then looked through the doorway of the music room. 'Something marvellous. Why else would I have gone to all the trouble and expense of buying this goddamned house if I hadn't remembranced something we might as well call the Elder Eddas?'

'Some might say ... can I be truthful, Bardo?'

'Must you? Ah, of course you must – it's the curse of your family.'

'Some might say that you had a taste for power. Or glory. Or even ... women.'

'Women? Well, it's true, women are always attracted to men such as I. Like moths to a flame. So, I enjoy beautiful women, who wouldn't? But I've a taste for other things, too. A taste for the miraculous, to put it plainly. Life is complicated, isn't it? Hideously complicated, as your father used to say.'

'And you are a complicated man,' Danlo said.

'A deep man,' Bardo agreed, 'a passionate man.'

'And men of passion ... must do passionate things, yes?'

'How well you understand!'

Danlo smiled at Bardo and inclined his head. As if a signal had been given, they both began to laugh. Again, Bardo embraced him and smacked his hand against Danlo's back and said, 'By God, it's good to see you again!'