The Wild

‘Then I must wish you well on your Mission,’ Kagami Ito said. ‘All of us, any who live on any of the Civilized Worlds – we wish you well.’

Lord Nikolos bowed a shade too low and said, ‘Your wishes are well received.’

‘We must wish you well,’ Kagami Ito repeated. ‘Once again, we of the Civilized Worlds must be saved by you of the Order.’

At this, the Sonderval stepped forward and said, ‘Perhaps you would rather save yourselves?’

‘And so we would do if we had lightships of our own and pilots to pilot them.’

‘The Order has never stopped anyone from building lightships.’

‘Nor have you shared your knowledge of this technology.’

The Sonderval shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Well, anyone can build a lightship.’

‘But not anyone can pilot one – isn’t that right, Master Pilot?’

‘It’s a difficult art,’ the Sonderval agreed. ‘One must have a passion for mathematics.’

‘Is it so difficult that the Order’s pilots have kept their art a secret for three thousand years?’

‘This is not true,’ the Sonderval said. ‘What of the Merchant-Pilots of Tria?’

‘You know they’re unworthy to be called “pilots”.’

‘We pilots,’ the Sonderval said, ‘train youths from every world.’

‘Yes, you bring our youths to Neverness and make them pilots of your Order. And then make them take vows of secrecy.’

‘But how not? Some secrets may be heard by only those with the genius to understand them.’

After an awkward silence, Mer Tadeo stepped between Kagami Ito and the Sonderval. He clapped his hands softly and spoke soft, soothing words to flatter both men. He cited Kagami Ito’s lifetime efforts to form alliances among the Civilized Worlds, and he extolled the valour of Mallory Ringess and the Sonderval and other pilots who had joined in the quest for the Elder Eddas. He turned to praise Danlo and the younger pilots who would face the Vild. In many ways, he was much more a conciliator and diplomat than any diplomat. As many merchants do, he valued peace as the greatest good; above all institutions or powers (even above the power of money), he valued the Order because it had brought a fundamental unity and vision to the Civilized Worlds for three thousand years. ‘These are difficult times,’ Mer Tadeo said to Lord Nikolos. ‘It seems that the Civilized Worlds are caught between two religions. From without, the Architects destroy the stars, and every year the Vild grows larger. And from within, there is this new religion called Ringism. Even as we speak, every lightship leaving Neverness must bear the news of this religion to every star, every world. You, of the Order, even if you are not missionaries, even if you do not wish it so – you must be bearers of this new ideal. Every man and woman may become a god! This is a powerful idea, no? I don’t think it’s possible to exaggerate its importance. Religion has been the genius and doom of humanity almost forever. It may be that this Way of Ringess will consume us long before the Vild destroys any of our worlds.’

Mer Tadeo’s greatest fear – as it must have been the fear of Mer Marlena Eva and Kagami Ito and almost every man and woman in the garden – was that the Order was dying. At the least, the Order was dividing into two halves, the best half (as he said) going to the Vild while the Old Order remained in Neverness.

‘If the Order divides against itself,’ Mer Tadeo asked softly, ‘what will become of our glorious civilization?’

Lord Nikolos faced Mer Tadeo in his open, reasonable way, and he said, ‘Our mission is to establish a new Order in the Vild. We shall be far from Neverness.’

‘But twenty years ago, far from Neverness, Mallory Ringess led a pack of lightships out into the galaxy. He divided the pilots against themselves, and there was war.’

‘But Mallory Ringess has disappeared,’ Lord Nikolos observed. ‘Perhaps he is dead.’

At this, Danlo drew in a breath of air and slowly let it out. He stood very still, letting his eyes move back and forth between Mer Tadeo and Lord Nikolos.

Mer Tadeo nodded his head. ‘Perhaps. But the idea of Mallory Ringess is very much alive. The ideal. It’s our fear that with the Order weakened, this ideal will divide the Civilized Worlds. And then there would be real war. War such as we’ve never seen since the Holocaust on Old Earth.’

Although Lord Nikolos must have dismissed Mer Tadeo’s fears as improbabilities and useless speculation, others did not. Kagami Ito and Valentina Morven and various merchants near them stood about discussing the War of the Faces and other wars that had left their mark on the Civilized Worlds. And then Mer Tadeo glanced down at a little colour clock set into the gold ring that he wore around his little finger. Quite abruptly, he clapped his hands and announced, ‘Pilots and Professionals, Ambassadors and Honoured Guests – it’s nearly time. If you would fill your cups I would like to present a toast.’

Just then, from across the lawns of Mer Tadeo’s estate, the music pools ceased playing their wonderful melodies and began booming out a huge sound as if they were nothing more than liquid, golden gongs. The cool air reverberated with this sound, and ten thousand people, all at once, looked eastward up into the sky. Then they began to crowd the various fountains in their haste to fill their wine goblets. Kagami Ito, the Sonderval, and the others near Danlo began to melt into the crowd, surging toward the Fountain of Fortune. In moments he was surrounded by people whom he did not know. Caught in this crush of bodies were servants carrying platters of food: cultured meats and cakes and fairy food, chillies and cheeses and cold vegetable compotes and the hundreds of exotic fruits for which Farfara is justly famous. Most of these servants, he saw, had red hair and fair skin and pale, blue eyes. They had been recruited on Thorskalle and brought to Farfara to serve the wealthier merchants. Of course, all the native-born of Farfara are merchants, but few live on estates, and fewer still in palaces as grand as Mer Tadeo’s. Many thousands of years earlier, during the First Wave of the Swarming, Farfara had been founded as a planetary corporation, each of its citizens holding an equal number of shares in the wealth of the planet: the computers, robots, and the information pools that they used to get their living from the rich, untouched lands. Over the millennia, numerous people for numerous reasons had sold their shares for too little recompense, and their reduced children had done the same. And their children’s children. By the time Mer Tadeo’s ancestors had built the Marar estate, perhaps nine tenths of the planet’s wealth had concentrated in the hands of the Hundred Families. By law, no merchant was permitted to sell or mortgage all of his (or her) shares, and so even the poorest people retained a fixed minimum ownership of the planet Farfara. This entitled the manswarms to live in the tent cities along the banks of the Istas River, or in huts in the mountains, or in tiny clary domes on the mud plains of Farfara’s three continents where once there had been lush green forests; it entitled them to drugs and the use of brain machines to distract their souls; it entitled them to clothing and the bowls of yellow amaranth with which they nourished their bodies – but little more. Even the poorest of the poor, however, still took pride in being shareholders, and they would not suffer themselves to serve on any of the Hundred Estates. And so Mer Tadeo and other merchants of his class sent to Thorskalle for their servants. They paid them not with planetary shares, but with money, so much money that each servant would return to Thorskalle rich enough to live like a prince and hire servants of his own. It might be thought that these fortunate youths – none was older than Danlo – would be grateful for such a chance, but they were not. In fact, they seemed resentful and sullen. With their frigid eyes they cast evil looks at any merchant so bold as to ask for a plate of pepper nuts or a mug of coffee. Now that Mer Tadeo had called for a toast, many of the servants bore trays of crystal wine glasses, which they took care to breathe on or smudge with their fingerprints before slapping them into the merchants’ outstretched hands. After Danlo had finally received his goblet, he made his way toward the fountain’s western quadrant where the crowd was the thinnest. And then, among the smells of flowers and wine, silk and sweat, he smelled the terrible quick essence of kana oil perfume. It was a smell with which he was utterly familiar. As if he were an animal in a dark forest, he froze into motionlessness and let the swarms of people push past him. He sniffed at the air, turning his head left and right. The scent of kana oil seemed strongest northward, upwind in the direction of Istas River. He drank in this memorable scent, letting the cool evening air fill his nostrils. He turned away from the fountain, then, and began moving toward the retaining wall at the edge of Mer Tadeo’s estate. Almost immediately, as the crowd thinned out, he saw a man standing alone by the wall. He was a warrior-poet dressed in an evening shirt and silk cloak of a hundred shimmering colours. And he reeked of kana oil; all warrior-poets. Danlo remembered, wore kana oil perfumes to quicken the urge toward life and death.

‘Hello,’ Danlo called out as he approached the warrior-poet. ‘I think you have been watching me, yes?’

The warrior-poet was leaning against the stone wall, easily, almost languidly, and he smiled at Danlo in greeting. In his left hand he held a goblet full of wine; and the little finger of that hand bore a ring of fiery red. Astonishingly, a similar ring encircled the little finger of his right hand, which he held near the fold of his cloak as if he were ready at any moment to reach inside a secret pocket and remove a poison needle, or a drug dart, or the long, terrible, killing knife that warrior-poets always carry about their persons. ‘You are Danlo wi Soli Ringess,’ the warrior-poet said. He had a marvellous voice, strangely peaceful and full of an utter certainty. ‘May I present myself? I’m called Malaclypse Redring, of Qallar.’

Danlo bowed, as he should, and Malaclypse stood away from the wall and returned his bow, gracefully, with impeccable control. For the count of nine of Danlo’s heartbeats, Malaclypse Redring stood there looking at him. The warrior-poet seemed superbly calm, almost preternaturally calm, like a man who has magically transformed himself into a tiger and fears no other animal, especially not man. In truth, he had the look of some godly being far beyond man: impossibly wise, impossibly aware – of himself, of Danlo, of all the people and plants and things in the garden. Once before, Danlo had met a warrior-poet; physically, with his terrible quick body and beautiful face, Malaclypse might have been the other poet’s twin, for all warrior-poets are cut from the same chromosomes. But there was something different about Malaclypse, an otherness, an impossible aliveness, perhaps even a greatness of soul. With his shiny black hair showing white around the temples, he was at least fifteen years older than Danlo, which is old for a warrior-poet. Then, too, there was the matter of his rings. An exceptional warrior-poet might wear the red ring around the little finger of either hand. But no warrior-poet in all history, as far as Danlo knew, had ever worn two red rings.

‘Why have you been following me?’ Danlo finally asked.

Malaclypse smiled nicely; he had a beautiful smile that spread out over the golden lines of his face. ‘But as you see, I haven’t been following you – here I stand appreciating this fine view, these strange, alien stars. It’s you who have followed me. And that’s very strange, don’t you think? Most men flee our kind rather than seeking us out.’

‘It seems to be my fate … to seek out warrior-poets.’

‘A strange fate,’ Malaclypse said. ‘It would seem more natural for me to seek you.’

‘To seek me … why?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I do not know … if I want to know.’

Malaclypse held his wine goblet up to his nose and inhaled deeply. He said, ‘On Qallar, you’re famous. For two reasons. You’re one of the few ever to have defeated a warrior-poet – and the only one to have done so as a boy.’

‘I was sixteen when I met Marek in the library. I did not think of myself … as a boy.’

‘Still, a remarkable feat. If only you had been born on Qallar, you might have become warrior among warriors, a poet among poets.’

At this startling thought, Danlo looked straight at Malaclypse. He looked deep into his marvellous, violet eyes, which were so dark that he could almost see his reflection gleaming in their black centres. ‘I could never have become … a warrior-poet,’ he said.

‘No?’

Danlo let this question hang in the air, even as the gonging sound of Mer Tadeo’s music pools hung low and urgent over the lawns and fountains of the garden. He kept his eyes on Malaclypse’s eyes, and he said, ‘Have you come here tonight to avenge Marek’s death, then?’

‘You ask this question so blithely.’

‘How should I ask, then?’

‘Most men would not ask at all. They would flee. Why aren’t you afraid of our kind?’

‘I … do not know.’

‘It’s the greatest gift, not to fear,’ Malaclypse said. ‘But, of course, you needn’t have feared that we would avenge Marek. He died according to our forms, which we thank you for observing so impeccably.’

‘I did not want him to die.’

‘And that is the most remarkable thing of all. It’s said that you have taken a vow of ahimsa to harm no living thing – and yet you were able to help Marek on to his moment of the possible.’

Danlo remembered too well how Marek of Qallar had plunged his killing knife into his own brain and so reached his moment of the possible, where life is death, and death is life. He remembered that Marek, just before he had accomplished this noble act, had confessed that the warrior-poets had a new rule for their bloody order: to kill all gods, even all women and men who might become as gods. For six years, Danlo had shared this secret with only two other people, but now he said, ‘I know why Marek came to Neverness. The true reason. He told me about your rule before he died.’

Malaclypse smiled at this piece of news, which – strangely – seemed not to surprise him. ‘I’ve said that you’re famous on my world for two reasons. The second reason, of course, is because you’re the son of Mallory Ringess. Marek was sent to Neverness to determine if you’re truly the son of the father.’

‘Am I, then?’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘How … would I know?’

At this, Malaclypse laughed easily, and to Danlo he said, ‘I’ve heard that you’re also famous for answering questions with questions.’

Danlo inclined his head, slightly, accepting Malaclypse’s criticism as a compliment. Then he said, ‘You have come to Farfara to complete this determination about me, yes?’

Again, as he often did, Danlo began to count his heartbeats, and he waited for Malaclypse to remove his killing knife from his cloak. But Malaclypse only looked at him, strangely, deeply, drinking in the wild look that filled Danlo’s eyes like an ocean. ‘I don’t know who you really are,’ Malaclypse said. ‘Not yet. In truth, I don’t know who your father really is, either. Mallory Ringess, this once Lord Pilot of the Order who everyone says has become a god.’

For a moment, Danlo looked up into the sky in sudden understanding. ‘You have come to find my father, yes?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Not just … to Farfara,’ Danlo said. ‘You would follow our Mission to the Vild.’

Now, for the first time, Malaclypse seemed slightly surprised. He regarded Danlo coolly and said, ‘I had heard that you were too perceptive for a mere pilot – now I see that this is so.’

‘You would follow us,’ Danlo repeated. ‘But follow … how? Warrior-poets do not pilot lightships, do they?’

The Merchant-Pilots of Tria, of course, did pilot ships: deepships and prayerships, and sometimes even lightships. They journeyed to Nwarth and Alumit and Farfara, but no Merchant-Pilot would ever think of taking a lightship into the Vild.

‘There is a man,’ Malaclypse said. He pointed along the curve of the retaining wall at a stand of orange trees some forty feet away. ‘A former pilot of your Order. He will take me where I need to go.’

As Danlo saw, beneath an orange tree laden with bright, round fruits, there stood a silent man dressed all in grey. Danlo recognized him as the infamous renegade, Sivan wi Mawi Sarkissian, once a pilot of great promise who had deserted the Order in the time of the Quest for the Elder Eddas. None of the other pilots whom Mer Tadeo had invited would bear the shame of talking to such a faithless man, and so Sivan stood alone, sipping from his goblet of wine.

‘And where is it that you need to go, then?’ Danlo asked.

‘Wherever I must,’ Malaclypse said. ‘But I’ve heard that Mallory Ringess has returned to the Vild. Somewhere. It may be that your Order’s mission will cause him to make himself known.’

‘And then?’

‘And then I shall know,’ Malaclypse said. ‘And then I shall do what must be done.’

‘You would murder my father, yes?’

‘If he is truly a god, I would help him toward his moment of the possible.’

‘If he is truly … a god?’

‘If he is still a man, I would only ask him to complete a poem.’

‘What … poem?’

‘A poem that I’ve been composing for some time. Only a man who has refused to become a god would know how to complete it.’

Danlo looked off at the Istas River gleaming in the starlight, but he said nothing.

‘I believe that you might know where your father is.’ Danlo squeezed his empty wine glass between his hands, but he remained as silent as the sky.

‘It may be that we share the same mission, you and I,’ Malaclypse said. ‘I believe that we’re both seeking your father.’

Was it possible, Danlo wondered, that Malaclypse’s only purpose in seeking the Vild was to lay eyes upon his father? He did not think so. The warrior-poets always had purposes within purposes – and often their deepest purpose was war.

‘You’re very good at keeping a silence,’ Malaclypse said. ‘Very well, then – let us listen to what our host is saying.’

As Danlo looked down at the dark forest far below the cliff face, he became aware of a voice falling through the spaces all around him. It was the voice of Mer Tadeo, convolved and amplified by the music pools, hanging like a silver mist over the lawns of the garden. Mer Tadeo had begun his toast, and Danlo looked away from the warrior-poet to concentrate on Mer Tadeo’s words: ‘… these brave women and men of the Civilized Worlds’ most honoured Order, who have vowed to enter the Vild and seek …’ Danlo became aware, just then, that his glass was empty. In his haste to seek out the warrior-poet, he hadn’t had time to fill it.

‘Pilot, you’ve no wine to drink,’ Malaclypse said. Quickly, easily, he moved over to Danlo and held up his wine glass as if he were showing Danlo some secret elixir. He tinked it against Danlo’s glass, and a clear note rang out. Then he quickly poured a stream of ruby wine into Danlo’s glass, halfway to the rim, spilling not a drop. ‘Won’t you drink to the fulfilment of the Mission?’ he asked.

Danlo brought his glass close to his lips, but did not drink. He breathed in deeply, smelling the wine. It had an effervescent scent that was almost hot and peppery. He wondered if Malaclypse would dare poison him in clear sight of ten thousand people. The warrior-poets, he knew, were notorious for their poisons: a thousand years ago at the end of the War of the Faces, they had engineered the virus that had poisoned the Civilized Worlds, and ultimately, had infected the Devaki people on Danlo’s world and killed everyone in his tribe except Danlo.

‘Have you ever tasted firewine?’ Malaclypse asked.

Danlo remembered, then, that the warrior-poets’ poisons are not always meant to kill. He remembered that a warrior-poet had once poisoned his grandmother, Dama Moira Ringess. This infamous warrior-poet had jabbed little needles into her neck, filling her blood with programmed bacteria called slel cells. These cells, like manmade cancers, had metastasized into her brain, where they had destroyed millions of neurons and neuron clusters. The slel cells had layered down microscopic sheets of protein neurologics, living computers that might be grafted onto human brains. And so his grandmother, who was also the mother of Mallory Ringess, had been slelled, her marvellous human brain replaced almost entirely by a warrior-poet’s programmed computer circuitry. As Danlo drank in the firewine’s heady aroma, he could not forget how the mother of his father had suffered such a death-in-life.

‘I cannot drink with you,’ Danlo said at last.

‘No?’

‘I am sorry.’

Malaclypse looked deeply at Danlo but said nothing.

‘As a pilot, I may not drink with my Order’s enemies.’

Malaclypse smiled, then, sadly, beautifully, and he asked, ‘Are you so sure that we’re enemies?’

‘Truly … we are.’

‘Then don’t drink with me,’ Malaclypse said. ‘But do drink. Tonight, everyone will drink to the glory of the Vild Mission, and so should you.’

Now Mer Tadeo had finished his toast, and the sudden sound of ten thousand glasses clinking together rang out through the garden. Danlo, who had once sought affirmation above all other things, listened deeply to this tremendous sound of ringing glass. It was like a pure, crystal music recalling a time in his life when he had trusted the truth that his eyes might behold. Now he looked at Malaclypse’s deep violet eyes, smiling at him, beckoning him to drink, and he could see that the wine was only wine, that it was infused with neither virus nor slel cells nor other poisons. Because Danlo needed to affirm this truth of his eyes at any cost, he touched his wine glass to his lips and took a deep drink. Instantly, the smooth tissues of his tongue and throat were on fire. For a moment he worried that the wine was indeed tainted with a poison, perhaps even with the electric ekkana drug that would never leave his body and would make an agony of all the moments of his life. But then the burning along his tongue gave way to an intriguing tingling sensation, which in turn softened into a wonderful coolness almost reminiscent of peppermint. Truly, the wine was only wine, the delicious firewine that merchants and aficionados across, the Civilized Worlds are always eager to seek.

‘Congratulations,’ Malaclypse said. Then he raised his glass and bowed to Danlo. ‘To our mission. To the eternal moment when all things are possible.’

Malaclypse took a sip of wine, then, even as Danlo lowered his goblet and poured the remnants of his priceless firewine over the grass beneath his feet. He had said that he may not drink with a warrior-poet, and drink he would not.

‘I am … sorry,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that it isn’t you who will be piloting my ship into the Vild.’

The warrior-poet’s sense of time was impeccable. Upon his utterance of the word ‘Vild’, the manswarms spread throughout the garden began calling out numbers. One hundred … ninety-nine … ninety-eight … ninety-seven … Following Mer Tadeo’s example, men and women all around Danlo began crying out in unison, and their individual voices merged into a single, long, dark roar. Now many faces were turned eastward, up toward the sky. Merchants in their silver kimonos, pilots and Ordermen in their formal robes – all lifted their faces to the stars as they called down the numbers and pointed at the patch of space where the Sonderval had promised the supernova would appear. Sixty-six … sixty-five … sixty-four … sixty-three … The warrior-poet, too, aimed his long, graceful finger toward the heavens. In his clear, strong voice, he called down the numbers along with everyone else, counting ever backwards toward zero. Twenty-two … twenty-one … twenty … nineteen … At last, Danlo looked up at stars of the Vild, waiting. It amused (and awed) him to think that these uncountable, nameless stars might somehow be waiting for him, even as he waited for their wild light to fill his eyes. Once, when he was a child, he had thought that stars were the eyes of his ancestors watching him, waiting for him to realize that he, too, in his deepest self, was really a wild white star who would always belong to the night. The stars, he knew, could wait almost forever for a man to be born into his true nature, and that was the great mystery of the stars. Four … three … two … one …