War in Heaven

‘I see,’ Lord Nikolos said. ‘You didn’t by chance bear this body across the Vild in the hold of your ship?’

‘No, there were terrible events. I … was unable to recover it.’

Again Lord Nikolos sighed as if a weight had been taken from his shoulders. ‘Why don’t you finish your story, Pilot?’

And so Danlo stood within the circle of black diamond and continued his story. He told of dead worlds burnt black in the fire of supernovas and ruined alien civilizations. And stars, millions of red or yellow or blue stars burning like flame globes in the long black reaches of space. Around a star named Gelasalia he had come across a great rainbow system of seventeen ringworlds from which the resident human beings had vanished in the most mysterious of ways, seemingly transcending their bodies, perhaps to live as beings of pure information (or light) as the Ieldra had done two million years before. He had followed this trail of transcendence deeper into the Vild where the radiations of exploded stars grew thick and deadly. On the world of Alumit Bridge just inside the galaxy’s Perseus Arm, he had found a civilization of people who lived for the transcendence of the glittering cybernetic spaces inside their computers. They called themselves the Narain. They were, he said, a pale and wormlike people who wanted to be as gods. In truth, they were Architects in their lineage, heretics who had left Tannahill some two hundred years before in a bitter schism with the Church. ‘I … made friends with the Narain,’ Danlo said. ‘They feared war with the Old Church and asked me to speak for them to the Holy Ivi. To journey to Tannahill – it was the Narain who pointed out Tannahill’s star.’

And so finally after having crossed thirty thousand light years of blazing and broken stars, Danlo had come to lost Tannahill. There he had won the favour and friendship of Harrah Ivi en li Ede, the High Holy Ivi of the Cybernetic Universal Church. Because of him, she had installed new programs for her church, completely reversing the Architects’ mandate to procreate wantonly and destroy the stars. There, too, he had won the enmity of the Elder Bertram Jaspari, Harrah’s rival for the architectcy and a man who would kill for power like a mad sleekit ravening through a nest of its own family. Bertram Jaspari was also the leader of the Iviomils, a fanatical sect who preached religious purity and called for religious war. Bertram Jaspari would carry the burning torches of this facifah to other sects of Architects on Tannahill, and to the Narain on Alumit Bridge – and even out to the peoples of the Vild and beyond. ‘The Iviomils fought a war with the other Architects,’ Danlo said. ‘I … became involved in this war.’

He stared up at the brilliant colours of the dome, and he did not explain how Harrah Ivi en li Ede – and billions of other Architects across Tannahill – had come to regard him as the Lightbringer foretold by their prophecies.

Lord Morena Sung, sitting next to Lord Nikolos, turned to the Sonderval and sadly shook her head. Both these lords had known Danlo since his novice years on Neverness, and it was obvious to them that Danlo’s involvement in this war had been neither accidental nor slight. The Hall of the Lords, so bright with dancing shards of light, suddenly seemed gloomy and grim, as if the mood of one hundred and twenty women and men could darken the air itself with their dread. No one liked all this talk of war. No one liked the pain they saw on Danlo’s face or the presentiment of death burning in his deep blue eyes. Many remembered his mother, Katharine the Scryer, and they wondered if he, too, was gifted with visions of terrible moments yet to be.

‘Please tell us about this war,’ Lord Nikolos said gently.

Danlo stood at the centre of his circle as he looked out upon many faces falling heavy with fear. He remembered that once, as a young man, he had wanted to journey to the centre of the universe so that he might finally see the true nature of all things. Although he had long since abandoned this quest as hopeless, he knew that it was his fate to bring a truth to the Lords of the Order. He was like a pilot unlocking a window to the dark and depthless spaces of the manifold, except that the opening he now showed these anxious lords was into his own soul. And from the bright, black centres of his eyes and the deeper centre of himself came the memory of all that he had sensed and seen. Like the long, dark roar of a stellar wind it blew through the hall carrying the scent of hydrogen bombs and burnt flesh and stars exploding into light. And so Danlo told of how the Iviomils had slaughtered their fellow Architects, only to be utterly defeated in the end. Bertram Jaspari had assembled a fleet of the surviving Iviomils and had fled Tannahill into the stars. But before his disappearance into the galaxy’s wastelands, he had completed two acts. The first was the theft of Ede’s body. And the second was the destruction of a star.

‘The Iviomils hated the Narain people,’ Danlo said. ‘They called them heretics, apostates. They … had called for a facifah against them. A holy war to cleanse the Church of anyone who had betrayed it. So Bertram Jaspari led his Iviomils to Alumit Bridge. To the star that lights the Narain’s world. And they … destroyed it.’

Because Danlo’s mouth was dry, he stopped speaking for a moment. He bent over to place the devotionary computer on top of his wooden chest. Then, from a pocket sewn into the leg of his robe, he drew out a long bamboo flute. It was an ancient shakuhachi that his teacher had once given him. It smelled of woodsmoke and wind and wild dreams, and of all his possessions it was the most beloved. In silence he pressed its ivory mouthpiece to his lips and tongue, but he played no music. He let the soft coolness of the ivory touch off the flow of water in his mouth, and suddenly he found that he could finish his story.

‘In one of their ships, the Iviomils have a machine,’ he said. ‘A … morrashar, they call it. A star-killer – the Architects are masters of this technology, yes? They have at least one star-killer. Bertram Jaspari used it to destroy the Narain people. I … confirmed this crime. After I left Tannahill, I journeyed to where the Star, of Alumit Bridge should have been. But there was only the remnant of a supernova: radiation, hydrogen, glowing gases, light. And of Alumit Bridge, itself, only dust.’

Again, Danlo placed the shakuhachi to his lips, and closed his eyes in remembrance of Shahar and Abraxax and all the people and the great beings he had known among the Narain.

‘This is a terrible story,’ Lord Nikolos said as he stared at Danlo. Behind him, too, almost every face in the hall was turned towards the pilot who had brought such tragic news. Then, for a while, he and the other lords talked about another supernova, called Merripen’s Star, which had exploded near Neverness some thirty years before. At the end of the year 2960, less than two years hence, the radiation of the supernova was due to fall upon Neverness. It seemed that only the growth of the Golden Ring – a mysterious ecology of gases and new, golden life that had appeared in the sky above the city – might protect the peoples of Neverness from death. Supernovas everywhere blossomed among the stars like flowers of evil, Lord Sung observed, but on many worlds, ever since the disappearance of Mallory Ringess, these rings had mysteriously appeared in the heavens like protective bands of gold.

‘These are terrible times in which we live,’ Lord Nikolos observed. And then he turned back towards Danlo. ‘But it’s also a time of great hope, as well. You, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, have found Tannahill. And the Architects of the Old Church. And this man, Bertram Jaspari and the Iviomils have been defeated. And, it would seem the Architects’ Holy Ivi awaits the arrival of our Order’s emmissaries. Your accomplishment. Pilot, is of a magnitude beyond any—’

‘Please, Lord Nikolos,’ Danlo broke in. ‘There … is more.’

Lord Nikolos was unused to being interrupted by young pilots, but so great was the pain in Danlo’s voice that he did not chastise him.

‘I … made an enemy of Bertram Jaspari,’ Danlo said. ‘I believe that he blames me and our Order for his defeat in the war. I believe that he wishes for revenge.’

Now Lord Nikolos sat as still as stone. Next to him, the Sonderval did not move, nor Kolenya Mor, nor anyone else at their table.

Then Lord Nikolos asked, ‘It’s not possible, is it, that Bertram Jaspari might have learned the fixed-points of our star?’

Danlo would rather have cut off his own hand than give away such a secret, and so he smiled in grim amusement and then said, ‘No, I do not think that it is possible. But it is not only our Order here on Thiells that Bertram Jaspari blames and hates. It is the Order on Neverness. Neverness herself. I believe that the Iviomils would bring their facifah to the Civilized Worlds and destroy the Star of Neverness.’

And they would do this shaida thing, Danlo said, out of reasons other than mere vengeance. Danlo recounted how on Neverness only a few years before, a new religion had arisen to teach that men and women could become gods. They dreamed of following the example of Danlo’s own father, Mallory wi Soli Ringess, and thus they called their faith the Way of Ringess. Bertram Jaspari had learned of this new Way. For any Iviomil – in truth for any Architect of the Old Church – the teaching that any human being other than Ede could become a god was the worst of blasphemies. Any person who aspired to such transcendence was called a hakra, and it was the Old Church’s duty to cleanse them totally of such hubris; or to annihilate them. This, especially, was the program of the Iviomils, to annihilate the Ringists of Neverness before they spread their poisonous teachings to the rest of the Civilized Worlds and to the stars beyond.

‘I believe that Bertram Jaspari might want to become a power among the Civilized Worlds,’ Danlo said. He listened to his voice carry out over the tables of the lords and fill the sun-streaked spaces of the hall. ‘He has a star-killer. He has deep-ships full of missionaries. He has dreams. He has … much hatred.’

Lord Nikolos stared unblinking at Danlo, and then said, ‘What you’ve told us is terrible. But I think we need not fear that these Iviomils could ever find the Star of Neverness. Even though its fixed-points be known, they could never find their way across the Vild. Thirty thousand light years! Even our finest pilots have failed in attempting such a crossing.’

‘But some … have succeeded,’ Danlo said softly.

‘Only you. Pilot, and it’s not—’

‘Not only I,’ Danlo said. He gripped his bamboo flute. ‘On Farfara, before we entered the Vild, I met a man. In Mer Tadeo’s garden just before the supernova lit the sky. Malaclypse Redring of Qallar – that was his name. A warrior-poet. He … wore a red ring on each hand. He, too, sought Tannahill. It was his intention to follow our Mission into the Vild.’

‘A warrior-poet, by himself?’

‘He was not alone. A ronin pilot had brought him to Farfara. Sivan wi Mawi Sarkissian, in his ship, the Red Dragon.’

The Sonderval rapped his black diamond ring against the tabletop. ‘I knew Sivan well before he became a renegade during the Pilots’ War. Other than myself, and perhaps Mallory Ringess, he had no equal as a pilot.’

The Sonderval’s arrogant observation did not please Aja, or Helena Charbo – or any of the other master pilots sitting by the wall. It did not please Lord Nikolos, who bowed to Danlo and grimly said, ‘Continue your story.’

Danlo returned his bow and said, ‘Malaclypse and Sivan followed me into the Solid State Entity. Across the entire Vild. They … pursued my ship to Tannahill. They became involved with the Architects’ war, too.’

‘It seems that this was a popular war,’ Lord Nikolos said drily.

‘Malaclypse Redring allied himself with Bertram Jaspari,’ Danlo continued. ‘Truly, it was he who enabled the Iviomils to fight as long as they did.’

‘Warrior-poets allied with Architects,’ Lord Nikolos said, shaking his head. ‘This is not good.’

‘It is Sivan in his Red Dragon who leads the Iviomil ships. Sivan and Malaclypse.’

‘This is bad,’ Lord Nikolos said.

‘The Entity believes that the Silicon God is using both the warrior-poets and the Architects in His war,’ Danlo said. ‘She believes that the Silicon God would destroy the whole galaxy, if He could.’

Or possibly the whole universe, Danlo thought.

He went on to speak of Bertram Jaspari’s dream of establishing his Iviomils in a new church somewhere among the stars coreward from Neverness. Like the fanatical Architects they were, they would continue destroying the stars in their God-given program to remake the universe.

‘I am afraid … that they could eventually create another Vild,’ Danlo said. ‘Or worse.’

And what could possibly be worse than the creation of a new region of dead and dying stars? As Ti Sen Sarojin, the Lord Astronomer, observed, if the Iviomils began destroying stars among the densely-packed stars of the core, they might possibly set off a chain-reaction of supernovas that would explode outward star by star and consume the galaxy in a vast ball of fire and light.

‘This is very bad,’ Lord Nikolos said quietly. Throughout the hall the lords sat at their tables in deathly silence. Never in living memory had the calm and cool Lord Nikolos used the words ‘very’ and ‘bad’ together.

‘I am sorry,’ Danlo said.

‘Religious fanatics and facifahs and star-killers and renegade pilots and gods! What a story you bring us. Pilot! Well, we can do nothing about the wars of gods, but it is upon us to —’

‘Lord Nikolos,’ Danlo interrupted.

Lord Nikolos took a quick breath and said, ‘What is it, then?’

‘There is something that the Entity told me about the Silicon God. About all the gods.’

‘Please, do tell us as well.’

‘The Entity believes that we ourselves hold the secret of defeating the Silicon God. We human beings.’

‘But how can this be?’ Morena Sung, the Lord Eschatologist broke in.

‘Because this secret is part of the Elder Eddas,’ Danlo said. ‘And the Eddas are believed to be encoded only in human DNA.’

In truth, no one knew what the Elder Eddas really were. Supposedly, some fifty thousand years ago on Old Earth, the mythical Ieldra had written all their godly wisdom into the human genome. Now, millennia later, trillions of men and women on countless worlds carried these sleeping memories in every cell of their bodies. And it was through the art of remembrancing alone (or so the remembrancers claimed) that the Elder Eddas could be awakened and called up before the mind’s eye like living paintings and understood. Some experienced the Eddas as a clear and mystical light. Some believed that this wisdom was nothing less than instructions on becoming gods – and possibly much more. Danlo, who had once had a great remembrance and apprehension of the One Memory, sensed that the Eddas might contain all consciousness, perhaps even all possible memory itself. If true, then it would certainly be possible for a man – or perhaps even a child – to remember how the Ieldra long ago had defeated the Dark God and saved the Milky Way from annihilation. This was the grail that the Solid State Enity sought in Her war against the Silicon God, and it was possible that Danlo and the Sonderval and Lord Nikolos in his bright yellow robe – and everyone else sitting in the hall that day – carried this secret inside them.

‘I haven’t heard our remembrancers speak of any war secrets contained in the Elder Eddas,’ Lord Nikolos said. Here he turned to exchange looks with Mensah Ashtoreth, the silver-robed Lord Remembrancer who sat at a table nearby shaking his head. ‘As for the Neverness remembrancers, who knows what they have discovered in the years since the Order divided and our mission came here to Thiells?’

He did not add that the many thousands of converts to the new religion of Ringism sought remembrance of the Elder Eddas as well. Lord Nikolos could scarcely countenance an information so mysterious as the Elder Eddas, much less the possibility that some wild-eyed religionary on Neverness might uncover secrets unknown to his finest academicians.

‘And yet,’ Danlo said, ‘the Entity hopes that some day some woman or man will remember this secret.’

‘But not,’ Lord Nikolos said, ‘some god?’

‘Possibly some god,’ Danlo said. ‘Possibly my father. But most of the gods are nothing more than vast computers. Neurologics and opticals and diamond circuitry. They … do not live as a man lives. They cannot remember as we remember.’

‘And do you believe that the Solid State Entity would have us remember for Her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then She would use us – our Order – as the Silicon God uses the Architects and the warrior-poets?’

‘My father,’ Danlo said, smiling, ‘once wrote that the Entity referred to man as the instrumentum vocale. The tool with a voice.’

‘And you find this amusing?’

‘Truly, I do,’ Danlo said, looking down at the flute he held in his hand. ‘Because these tools that we are also have free will. And our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.’

‘What songs will we sing, I wonder, if we become involved in the gods’ wars?’ Lord Nikolos asked.

‘I do not know,’ Danlo said. ‘But if we could remember this secret of the Eddas, then in a way it would be we human beings who used the Entity to destroy the Silicon God, yes?’

‘Is this what you advise, Pilot? That the Order use its resources in helping the Entity fight Her war?’

Danlo suddenly fell into silence, and he gripped his flute so hard that the holes along the shaft cut into his skin. He said, ‘I … do not believe in war at all. The Lord Akashic must know that I have taken a vow of ahimsa.’

Never to harm any living thing, Danlo thought. Even at the cost of one’s own life, never to dishonour another life, never to harm, never to kill.

‘Well, I don’t believe in war either,’ Lord Nikolos said from his chair. ‘War is the stupidest of human activities, with the possible exception of religion. And as for the kind of religious war of which you’ve spoken today …’

Lord Nikolos let his voice die for a moment as he turned to catch the eyes of the Sonderval and Morena Sung and the other lords sitting near him. He shook his head sadly as if all agreed that religious war was by its very nature insane. Then he continued: ‘Nevertheless, it is upon us to consider this war that the Architects fought among themselves and would bring to other worlds. Perhaps we must also consider the wars of the gods.’

Danlo looked at Lord Nikolos then, and quickly bowed his head.

‘Pilot,’ Lord Nikolos asked, ‘have you finished your story?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I must ask you to wait outside while we consider these stupidities and crimes that you have brought to our attention.’

Danlo bowed his head. He knew of the rule that only lords and masters may attend the most serious deliberations of the Order. He stepped out of the black diamond circle and moved to pick up his wooden chest where it sat on the floor.

‘A moment,’ the Sonderval said suddenly. He slowly stood away from his chair and stretched himself up to his full eight feet of height. ‘I would like to applaud the Pilot’s accomplishment in discovering so much and falling so far.’

So saying he rapped his diamond pilot’s ring against the table. Helena Charbo and Aja, sitting across the room at the master pilots’ table, knocked diamond against wood, as did Lara Jesusa and Alark of Urradeth. But none of the other lords and masters in the hall that day wore rings, and so they had to content themselves with clapping their hands together and bowing their heads in honour of Danlo’s great feat.

‘And now,’ the Sonderval said, ‘I would like to ask Danlo wi Soli Ringess to remain here with us today.’

At this unexpected presumption. Lord Nikolos turned abruptly and shot the Sonderval a puzzled and offended look.

‘I would like to ask him to remain as a master pilot,’ the Sonderval explained. ‘Can anyone doubt that his accomplishments merit his elevation to a mastership? I think not. And therefore, as Lord Pilot, I welcome him to the rank of master. We will hold the ceremony later in the Pilots’ Hall.’

For a long time Lord Nikolos and the Sonderval stared at each other like two cats preparing to spring at each other’s throat. True, as Lord Pilot, the Sonderval had the power to make new masters as he chose. But he was supposed to put the names of all candidates before a board of master pilots who would make their recommendations according to each candidate’s prowess and worthiness. And then by tradition, if not rule, the Lord of the Order himself would approve the elevation and make the first welcoming of the new master. Precipitous times often require precipitous decisions, but the Sonderval usurped Lord Nikolos’ prerogatives less from need than pure arrogance. Since the Sonderval thought that he himself should have been made the Lord of the Order on Thiells, he exulted in acting in Lord Nikolos’ place whenever he could.

‘Very well,’ Lord Nikolos finally said, forcing the words from his tight, thin lips. He turned to Danlo, who still stood at the centre of the hall watching this little drama between the most powerful lords of his Order. ‘Very well, Master Pilot, would you please remain here while we make our decision as to what must be done?’

Danlo bowed formally, then smiled and said, ‘Yes.’ Then he carried his wooden chest over to the table where the master pilots sat and took his place on a chair between Lara Jesusa and Alark of Urradeth. Alark, a quick, hot-tempered man who had once crossed the Detheshaloon solely as the result of a dare, embraced Danlo and whispered his welcome as he rapped his ring against the table.

‘And now,’ Lord Nikolos said, standing to address the lords, ‘we must reconsider our mission in light of all that Danlo wi Soli Ringess has told us.’

So began the great war debate in the Hall of the Lords. At first, it was more a personal argument between the Sonderval and Lord Nikolos. Although no one favoured full war, the Sonderval wanted to lead a group of lightships to the Civilized Worlds, there to intercept and destroy Bertram’s Jaspari’s fleet along the stellar Fallaways before they could reach Neverness. Lord Nikolos, however, a frugal man always concerned to husband his resources, pointed out that the New Order’s lightships were few in number, and every ship would be needed now that Tannahill had been found. For the Order’s mission. Lord Nikolos suggested, was still to the Architects of the Old Church. An embassy would have to be sent to Tannahill. The Order would have to provide the Architects with ships and pilots so that the Church’s missionaries could spread their new programs to every corner of the Vild. Architects everywhere must know that they were no longer permitted (or encouraged) to blow up the stars.

‘We must not become involved in these wars between religions and their sects,’ he told the assembled lords. And here he turned to smile at Danlo. ‘And as for the wars between the gods, unless one of us suddenly remembrances these war secrets of the Elder Eddas, then we cannot become involved, for there is nothing we can do to touch the gods or influence them in any way.’

Most of the lords accepted the logic of Lord Nikolos, but the Sonderval turned to him and asked, ‘But what of the Iviomil fleet that the warrior-poet and the renegade lead towards Neverness? Are we simply to abandon the world from which we came?’

‘Have you heard me speak of abandonment?’ Lord Nikolos asked.

‘I haven’t heard you speak of protecting our brothers and sisters on Neverness!’ the Sonderval said with great passion. Once, years before, he had lost his beloved when a comet struck her planet, and since that time he had never been with another woman. ‘I would hope this isn’t because you’re afraid of risking a few tens of lightships.’