The Wild

by David Zindell

  I am not I.

  He realized that this was true, and yet the very fact that he could make this realization meant that his consciousness had not completely gone away. Strangely, he seemed to be more intensely conscious of himself than he had ever been. In some ways, he seemed to be more truly himself, like a flame that has found its home in a sun-dried forest. His purpose in journeying to Tannahill and finding a cure for the disease that was killing his people still remained. Or rather, he became aware that this purpose was only part of a greater cosmic imperative to journey to all places in the universe and to find the cure for the suffering of all things. A word came into his mind, then. It struck like a lightning bolt through him, and lit up the minds of Lieswyr Ivioss and Adal Dei Chu and the others who were part of the greater mind of Shahar. The word was ananke. This was a Fravashi term for the universal fate to which even the gods must yield. Of course, all beings rush toward their individual fates like moths into a flame, but this was not ananke – not unless a man had completely surrendered his life to the fate beyond fate. Only then would his purpose be one with the greater purpose of the universe. Only then would his true purpose (and himself) eternally remain.

  I am only I, Danlo remembered. I am always I.

  There was a moment of blinding light when Danlo died into Shahar and all the others of this Transcended One died into him. There was a moment when he knew that he was still alive and that he would always live. He knew other things, too. In giving everything to Shahar, he received everything in return. As if the lid to a treasure chest had suddenly been flung open, all that was in her mind was revealed to him. All at once there were silver cups and glittering gold rings, and he suddenly knew the minds of Atara ivi Chimene, Duncan Iviwich, Ordando Ede – and eight other Transcendental women and men. One of them – Ananda ivi Sitisat – knew precisely where in the Field’s information pools the location of Tannahill might be found. Each of the ones of Shahar were masters at delving through the Field’s information spaces. All the knowledge of the Narain people was Shahar’s; this was her collective memory, which she might access whenever she needed to solve a problem or contemplate the mysteries of the universe.

  I am a god.

  Danlo would never be able to tell how much time he spent merged with Shahar. It seemed almost like years. For countless moments he lived the life of a Narain god, and he suddenly knew that he could move about this cybernetic space completely at will. He had memories of these movements. He could visit any land of the golden plain at a thought, instantaneously, discontinuously, much as a lightship can fall from star to star without first passing along the line of endless empty space. Unlike the luminous beings who only visited Heaven in hopes of someday going beyond themselves, the Transcended Ones were unconstrained by any natural (or unnatural) laws. Indeed, Shahar and Abraxax and Manannan and Kane made the laws by which Heaven existed and was sustained. They made and remade the very substance of Heaven. This is what the gods of Alumit Bridge did for amusement when they weren’t busy thinking. They created impossibly high mountains and waterfalls and forests and butterflies and birds – all in the spirit of play. They played for the sake of play alone, and their only concern was the ultimate evolution of their game.

  I am Danlo wi Soli Ringess.

  Danlo remembered himself, then. Having accomplished the almost impossible feat of keeping true to himself while in full transcendence, he remembered that it was time to return to his existence as a man. And so, with all the force of his will, he separated himself from the brilliance of Shahar. It was almost the hardest thing that he had ever done. But as he had come, so must he go. He willed the sphere of Shahar to open to him, and like a hole puncturing an iridescent water bubble (or like a hole in his soul), an opening appeared. He willed himself to walk through this hole. To walk, to fly, to be expelled outward with all the terrible force of an exploding star – there was a terrible moment of confusion, separation, darkness, pain. After a while, when the pounding agony in his head had gone away and he opened his eyes, he found himself standing on a flat rock beneath the waterfalls of the great mountain. The forests around him were as green as emeralds, and the sky above him was a perfect blue that only a computer could paint. Standing on other rocks by the silvered pools were Katura Daru and all the other luminous beings such as himself. And, of course, there were Shahar and Abraxax and Maralah and all the Transcended Ones of Alumit Bridge. These lovely spheres floated above the pools like thousands of bubbles of light. In all the time Danlo had spent merged with Shahar they seemed not to have moved.

  I am only Danlo wi Soli Ringess, Danlo remembered. He looked down at his blazing hands, at all the colours of his long, lightsome fingers. But I am also still a luminous being carked out into the Field.

  He had instantiated into the Field in order to face the Transcended Ones and ask them the whereabouts of Tannahill. This he had done. This he was still doing, standing on his rock and letting the light of the four thousand spheres fall upon his face. Just in front of him, Abraxax and Shahar and seven other gods still waited in a half circle. Because they burned almost as brightly as suns, Danlo again turned his eyes downward toward their reflections in the pool. He waited to see if they would tell him what he needed to know.

  Danlo wi Soli Ringess – what have you done?

  The powerful voice of Abraxax moved the air and drowned out the sound of the waterfalls. This was not a reproof, but rather a demand for simple information. Apparently, neither Abraxax nor any of the other Ones truly understood what had happened when Danlo merged with Shahar. Their only hint was what they had seen at the moment when Danlo entered full transcendence: Shahar had momentarily flared up through the colours of the spectrum, red into orange, blue into violet, until finally she shone with a pure white light more intensely than any other One.

  ‘What is it possible … to do?’ Danlo asked, answering Abraxax’s question with another question.

  For a moment, no one moved. There was a vast stillness above the pools, and even the waterfalls ceased their plunge down the mountainside. And then Abraxax spoke again.

  We will come together now to decide if Danlo wi Soli Ringess should be shown the star of Tannahill. We will come together here. Please cover your eyes.

  Danlo understood that Abraxax was speaking to him, to Katura Daru and to all the other luminous beings around the pools who still remained somewhat less than gods. He watched as Katura Daru and her friends threw their hands over their faces. And then Danlo did the same, pressing his palms against his eyes so hard that he saw stars where only blackness should have been.

  Please wait for our answer.

  There was light, then. Even through the flesh of his hands (the lovely, luminous flesh that ran with its own colours but wasn’t real) he sensed this light. It burned his skin and radiated through blood and bone. He might have kept his eyes covered as did the others, but because he was still in a wild way, he flung his arms to the sky and lifted up his head. He opened his eyes. And in the moment before the terrible light blinded him, he saw an incredible thing. Abraxax and Manannan and Aesir and Ninlil and Shahar – all four thousand and eighty-four of the Transcended Ones – these flaming scarlet spheres rose up high above the pools and came together as of a cluster of stars at the galaxy’s core. They merged into a single sphere as bright as Rigel or Alnilam. As bright as a supernova: there was a moment of wild, white light that burst through the air with so great an intensity that the forests and the sky and even the great, golden mountain vanished into its illumination. Danlo felt a terrible fire in his eyes then, and he should have been afraid. But he remembered that he was not really he. This luminous being who stood beneath such an impossible light was only a computer model carked out into the surreality of the Field. His true self, his real self, still sat on the plastic cushion in the meeting room. He remembered this self. Now that he was no longer merged with Shahar, he could almost feel himself panting and gripping his bamboo flute and sweating inside the black silk robes that covered t
he limbs of his real body. He remembered that nothing that occurred in the Field could harm this body or touch his true self in any way. Of course, it would be a simple thing for the meeting room’s computers to target nerve cells within its field, thus burning out the retinas of his deep blue eyes or destroying the visual centres of his brain. It would be simple, yes, but it would be criminal programming, and the Narain were not criminals. They were something other. Now that Danlo stood by a quiet pool looking up into the brilliant sky, he could finally see this otherness. In truth, this deep quality of the Narain was almost all that he could see for he was now completely blind. The beautiful light of the Transcended Ones had found his eyes and had melted them until they ran like liquefied jewels over his temples and neck. He stood on his rock as eyeless as a scryer, and like those self-blinded and farseeing women of Neverness – like his mother – he beheld a vision of the future. He finally understood the dream of the Narain people in all its hope and horror. Someday, farwhen, the Narain would fall across the stars and build great plastic cities like Iviunir to dwell inside. Perhaps on every world where it was possible for human beings to carve out a habitation. And here, in these plastic people mounds, the Narain would crawl into their trillions of separate apartments and lie down in darkness inside their separate cells. Their pale white bodies, like snowworms, would never know the touch of a real sun. They would breathe stale, conditioned air and close their eyes as they pulled silvery heaumes down over their heads. And then they would instantiate into cybernetic space. On each world they would program their great computers to generate a Field, millions of separate Fields sucking up the souls of the Narain people on millions of worlds. And someday, when they learned the secret of casting signals faster than light, they would interface all these separate computers to generate a single, omnipresent Field. This creation was their great hope, and they called it the One Field. Here all the common Narain – they who had not yet gone beyond themselves – would finally come together into many, many Transcended Ones, the hundreds or the thousands or even the seemingly impossible millionplexes. And then, in turn, like shards of glass fusing into a crystal ball, these Ones would merge into yet Higher Ones, on and on, until at the end of time every Narain man and woman was finally united in a single Transcended One. Their name for this One was God. Some called this union Ede, and this was the Narain’s deepest dream, to be united at last in Ede the God. The Narain thought of themselves as the true Architects of the Infinite Intelligence of the Cybernetic Universal Church, and as Architects it was their glorious destiny to come together and create the One they called God.

  Danlo wi Soli Ringess.

  The voice of Abraxax fell like a nuclear blast over Danlo’s face. Danlo would have opened his eyes to look upon this Transcended One, but then he remembered that he had no eyes.

  Danlo wi Soli Ringess – although you have looked upon the unseeable, we give you back your sight.

  Danlo felt a burning near his brain, and then a wetness as if his eye hollows were full of tears. He began blinking away these tears, and he touched his fingers to his eyelids. Beneath these twin slips of skin he felt the resiliency and roundness of new eyes grown where moments before there had been only blackness and char and empty space.

  Danlo wi Soli Ringess – you may open your eyes if you wish.

  Danlo opened his eyes. He found that he could see again: streams and clouds and the sparkling spray of the waterfall crashing against the rocks. The trees were green, and the mountain was gold, and all the colours of this glittering world were his. Because the light above him in the sky was still blindingly bright, he stared down into the mirrored waters of the pool. And then he remembered something that he had learned while merged with Shahar. He remembered that he didn’t need Abraxax or the other Transcended Ones to give him sight or even to bestow upon him new eyes. Now, standing beneath the light of the gods, he knew the way to program changes in his luminous body. Miraculous changes: now, after a moment of will and thought, he lifted up his head and let his new eyes fall upon the Transcended Ones. He could see them quite clearly. A hundred yards from him, Abraxax and Shahar and their friends floated in the air, and they still shone, but now like common flame globes rather than suns. He could see that they had not, after all, merged in full union as might the starlight of a distant globular galaxy. In truth, they seemed more like fish eggs stuck together into a single, glistening mass. And even now, they were pulling apart, separating and arraying themselves above the pools into their Ones. Danlo smiled to see that he could look at each of the Transcended Ones directly, boldly, painlessly. He understood that they had come together only temporarily in conclave to decide what should be done with him. And now this conclave was at an end. Now Abraxax and Manannan and El and Maralah and Tyr and Shahar gathered again in a crescent just in front of him. When Abraxax spoke, it was with the voice of decision.

  Danlo wi Soli Ringess – you are truly a man who has gone beyond himself. We invite you to remain here with us in Heaven and be a mere man no longer.

  Danlo smiled in amusement and vexation (and in a terrible longing to merge again with Shahar), but he just stood there and shook his head.

  So it must be, then. Shahar has told us that you are a man of rare purpose. No one else has ever been able to give all of himself to a One and yet retain all of himself as well.

  Danlo rubbed his forehead, and his fingers could feel no trace of a scar marking his luminous skin. He asked, ‘How could I be other … than who I am?’

  But who are you, really, Danlo of Neverness?

  ‘Who is anybody?’

  What are you?

  ‘I am a man,’ Danlo said in a clear voice. ‘Truly … only a man.’

  And then he closed his eyes, remembering: I am almost a man. Always almost … a true man.

  You are part of Shahar now. And she is part of you.

  As Abraxax continued speaking, Danlo discovered that the Transcended Ones were confused as to whether he had merged with Shahar, or somehow – mysteriously, impossibly – she had merged into him. Not even El or Kane, the wisest of the Narain gods, could understand how a One could be absorbed into a mere man who was only one. But all were agreed that a remarkable transformation had overcome Shahar. In the conclave of the Transcended Ones, Shahar had extolled Danlo’s goodness, truth and beauty, his love of love, his love beyond love – even his love of life. Wildly, boldly, playfully, and very uncharacteristically, she had persuaded even Aesir and Ninlil to embrace Danlo in all his liveliness and passion. And while the Transcended Ones could never quite condone Danlo’s more painful emotions – his hatred so dark and deep that it was like a black rent in his soul – they were moved that in touching him from inside himself, she was moved so profoundly.

  We’re agreed as to what you may be told, Danlo wi Soli Ringess.

  Danlo waited calmly on his rock, watching the interplay of lights among Abraxax and Shahar, Manannan and Kane. He smiled but said nothing.

  We will tell you where Tannahill may be found.

  Now Danlo bowed his head in thanksgiving for the efforts that the Transcended Ones had made on his behalf. He felt his heart beating with all the speed of a clock in quicktime, and he could scarcely keep himself from crying out in triumph.

  Are you still willing to act as our emissary to the Church Elders?

  Danlo smiled uneasily and nodded his head. ‘Yes – if you’d like.’

  Shahar has argued that you would be the ideal emissary.

  With a strange foreboding, Danlo gazed at the sphere of light that was Shahar. It was almost like gazing at himself. In truth, he could now see himself as she saw him: soon he would meet the Old Church Elders and draw them into his consciousness as he had with her. With his sheer goodness and the strength of his truth (and all his wild beauty) he would win Harrah ivi en li Ede and all the Elder Architects to his purpose. Clearly, Abraxax and the other Transcended Ones shared this hope of Shahar’s. But Danlo was full of doubt that touched on despair. When he closed hi
s eyes and looked into the future he could see something dark and dazzling and deadly, something as terrible to behold as a black hole or a dying star. Sometimes, when he faced these faceless Transcended Ones, it was almost as if they had no future. To apprehend truly the glitter of their unreal forms was almost like trying to capture a light beam in one’s hand. When Danlo opened his fingers and looked down through the whorls of time, he descried only nothingness and blackness, like the void between galaxies. Perhaps he had been too long in this computer-made surreality. Perhaps it was time to return to himself and leave his instantiated form as well as his sense of desolation far behind him.

  Shall we show you the star to which you’ll journey as our emissary?

  Again, Danlo shook his head. ‘Not … yet. First, I would like to return to the meeting room.’

  Do you know the way back?

  ‘Yes – I know the way back,’ he told Abraxax.

  Then we must say goodbye now.

  At these words, Maralah and Tyr and Manannan drifted through the air and took turns in passing in front of Danlo. And Aesir and Ninlil and Orunajan and El – one by one, the four thousand Transcended Ones of Alumit Bridge passed by him in a great glittering parade of lights. Each One paused a moment to shine its full radiance upon Danlo’s face. And then almost all the Ones were gone, floating like clouds up the mountain until they disappeared into the gleaming white layers of the real clouds – or rather, into those instantiations of cumulus clouds that were only as real as anything in the Field. The last of the Ones to leave was Shahar. She spent many moments simply hovering near Danlo, glowing inside herself with a lovely blue light the colour of Danlo’s eyes. Then she flared brightly in making her farewell, and she too was gone.