‘We’re afraid that we must.’
‘Then. …’
‘But we don’t know this yet. All we have, at this time, is our own personal understanding of what Ede’s Infinite Program requires of us.’
‘Truly?’
‘We haven’t dared to interface the Eternal Computer seeking knowledge in these matters.’
‘Because you were afraid … of what you might find?’
‘No, because it wasn’t time. Doesn’t the Algorithm say that when hope is darkest, then like a star falling out of the night, a sign will be given? We’ve been waiting for such a sign, Pilot.’
Danlo did not like the way that Harrah was searching his eyes just then, so he looked down to where his fingers silently pressed the holes of his flute. ‘What … sign?’ he finally asked.
‘We believe that your coming out of the stars might be this sign.’
‘But it might not be, yes?’
Again Harrah smiled and quoted, ‘“One day, when you are near to despair, a man will come among you from the stars. He is a man without fear who will heal the living, walk with the dead, and look upon the, heavenly lights within and not fall mad”.’
‘But surely,’ Danlo said, ‘the congruence between this prophecy and what occurred between Elder Janegg and myself was pure chance.’
‘You’ve just spoken heresy, you know. All that we do occurs according to Ede’s Infinite Program. It’s a grave error to believe in chance.’
‘I … am sorry.’
Harrah bowed her head as if forgiving him his error, and then she continued quoting from the Algorithm: “‘In a dark time, he will be a bringer of light, and like a star he will show the way toward all that is possible”.’
‘Do you truly believe … that I am a lightbringer?’
‘All people are lightbringers insofar as they are part of Ede’s Program to illuminate the universe. But are you the Lightbringer, out of the prophecy? We should like to put this to the test.’
Danlo, remembering too well the ways that the Entity had tested him on the Earth that She had made, was not eager to agree to Harrah’s suggestion. He sat gazing at her as he silently fingered the holes of his flute.
‘If you passed these tests,’ Harrah said, ‘this would be a sign that we might interface the Eternal Computer and seek a divine understanding of the programs that we’ve discussed.’
‘I see.’
‘We believe that it would also be a sign that the Church was entering a new era – perhaps even the Last Days before the Omega Point. We believe that almost all Worthy Architects would regard it this way.’
‘I see.’
‘It’s possible that we could make the greatest changes. Perhaps we could even send our children to Thiells to train as pilots.’
‘The impossible … is truly possible, yes?’
Harrah smiled quickly, betraying a rare moment of impatience. And then she asked, ‘Will you agree to be tested, Pilot?’
Danlo closed his eyes as he blew a low, almost inaudible note upon his flute. In his mind’s eye, he could see the future sweeping toward him all white and wild like the inevitable advance of a winter storm.
‘To be tested … how?’ he asked finally.
‘The first test is already done,’ Harrah said. ‘A man without fear who will heal the living. We’ve all seen this in you, Pilot. Your fearlessness, as well as your compassion in curing Elder Janegg of his madness.’
‘But this, was an accidental test, yes?’
‘As we have said, there are no accidents.’
‘But your other two tests – you must have a format for these.’
‘Indeed we do.’
‘Please tell me.’
‘“A man without fear who will walk with the dead”.’
Danlo suddenly felt his heart beating hard inside his chest, and he asked, ‘But what can this mean … to walk with the dead?’
‘It can only mean one thing.’
‘And what is that, then?’
Harrah looked nervously down at her tea. ‘It can only mean that the Lightbringer is he who will interface an eternal computer. One of the computers that holds the souls of all dead Architects who have been vastened.’
‘You are asking me to face a space into which dead minds are carked?’ Danlo would almost rather have been buried alive in a mass grave full of old corpses.
‘Only if you are the Lightbringer. Only if you would walk with the dead.’
Danlo blew another note on his flute, this time long and ominous. He said, ‘This is very dangerous, yes?’
‘Indeed, it is dangerous.’
‘Not even a master cetic of my Order would interface such a space.’
‘Nor would any Architect of our Church. You would be the first.’
‘I see.’
‘A man without fear, Pilot.’
‘Assuming that I was alive afterward, what is the last test, then?’
‘A man without fear who will look upon the heavenly lights within and not fall mad. You must be able to see yourself as a reflection of God and not let the light destroy you.’
‘I … see.’
‘Do you?’
Danlo considered this a moment as he put down his flute. He said, ‘No, truly I do not.’
‘There is a ceremony that we Architects make,’ Harrah said. ‘We call it the light offering. This is a simulation of one’s mind. Of our selfness and soul. We paint a picture of the mind with a hologram – with a billion sacred lights. An Architect wishing to make a light offering displays the patterns and the programs of himself for all to see. If he is worthy, he will have purified himself of his negative programs. And he will have written new ones. This makes for a beautiful offering indeed. The light, the colours – all the colours of consciousness. There’s no greater beauty than a consciousness focused on the splendour of Ede the God.’
‘Then you wish me to make such an offering, yes?’
‘Only if you would do so freely, of your own will.’
‘And you wish me to look upon the display of lights? These … heavenly lights within.’
‘That would be the essence of the test.’
‘This, too, is dangerous, I think.’
‘We’re afraid that it’s very dangerous, Pilot.’
‘Others have viewed the models of their own minds, then?’
‘They have.’
‘They viewed their own minds … at the same moment that their minds were engaged in this self-viewing?’
‘Indeed, they tried to see the reflection of the infinite in their own light.’
Gazing at the bright black sky, Danlo remembered, you see only yourself looking for yourself.
He blew a single, high, piercing note on his flute, and his dark eyes filled with the fierceness of his will toward the unknown.
‘But there are dangerous feedbacks,’ Harrah said. ‘Depersonalization, loss of identity – the nausea of pure existence. The deep programs of the mind, itself. To see what makes oneself run can be a terrifying thing.’
The terrible fires of the self that burn and blind, Danlo thought. He played a strange and deep song upon his flute, then. He played and played while Harrah stared into the deep blueness of his eyes.
‘All who have attempted to look inside this way,’ Harrah said, ‘have fallen mad.’
Danlo put down his flute for a moment and asked, ‘Then why should you hope that I would succeed where others have failed?’
‘If you are the Lightbringer, then you will succeed.’
‘And if I succeed … then I am the Lightbringer, yes?’
‘Indeed.’
For the count of nine of his heartbeats, Danlo held his breath and stared at the dark mirrors that were Harrah Ivi en li Ede’s eyes. Like a sword suspended on a silken strand above his head, all time seemed to hang upon what he said next.
‘I will take your tests, then,’ he told Harrah. The easiest decisions, he thought, were those in which one had no true choice.
<
br /> ‘We hoped that you would.’
‘I will take your tests, only …’
‘What is it, Pilot?’
Danlo turned and pointed out the window, far below the zero level of the city – down to where the ocean broke against the beach in great waves of water and foam. He said, ‘You must promise me that if I, too, fall mad, I will be taken down to the sea. You must leave me there, alone.’
‘But you’d be in danger of drowning!’
‘Yes.’
‘You’d have no food, no drink. And the air is bad to breathe – you’d die there, we’re afraid.’
‘Yes, possibly I would,’ Danlo said. ‘But it would be far worse to be shut away in one of your hospices down on the thirteenth level of the city. I’d rather die … beneath the stars.’
This talk of death obviously distressed Harrah, for she wrung her hands together and smiled at Danlo in terrible sadness. For any Architect, the fate that Danlo proposed he might suffer was the worst possible: to die the real death alone, violently, painfully, without any hope of being vastened in an eternal computer.
‘Is this what you really wish, then?’
‘Truly, it is.’
‘Very well. But you must promise us that you won’t dwell upon this future. You must think only of success.’
‘I … promise.’
Harrah bowed her head in honour of the promises that they had made to each other. Then she reached behind her neck and undid the clasp of the necklace she wore. For a moment, she held the steel chain between her fingers. The little black cube of the devotionary computer swung back and forth, describing a lovely arc through space.
‘This belonged to my husband,’ she said. She placed it in Danlo’s hand, then, and smiled kindly. ‘Would you wear it?’
‘If you’d like,’ he said, even though the giving of this unusual gift astonished him. With a few deft motions of his fingers, he snapped the strand of steel behind his neck. ‘Thank you, Blessed Ivi.’
‘You’re welcome. Please wear it as a token of all the trust and hope that we have in you.’
Danlo bowed his head, then looked at Harrah in deep silence.
‘As soon as the tests are arranged,’ she told him, ‘we will call for you to come to the Temple.’
‘Until then, Blessed Harrah.’
‘Until then, Danlo wi Soli Ringess.’
Their breakfast having been successfully completed, Harrah walked him to the door and bade him farewell. All during Danlo’s return to his room, as he walked down the silent halls lined with paintings of the most famous Holy Ivis of the Cybernetic Universal Church, he brooded upon the nature of these strange tests and wondered what it would be like, once again, to walk with the dead and look upon the blessed light inside himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In The House of The Dead
From the unreal lead me to the real.
From the darkness lead me to the light.
From death lead me to immortality.
— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The communication of the dead is tongued with
fire beyond the language of the living.
— T. S. Eliot, from Little Gidding
For the next few days Danlo kept to his rooms, doing little other than eating, meditating and playing his flute. Sometimes, when he wished for conversation, he would turn to the devotionary computer which he had set out next to the facing heaume upon the room’s altar and talk with the imago of Nikolos Daru Ede – if such a tiresome and mechanical exchange of words could be dignified as true ‘talk’. More than once, however, this glowing ghost of the man who had become Ede the God surprised him. After plying Danlo with the usual questions concerning the recovery of his frozen body and warning Danlo of possible plots against his life, the Ede imago forced a smile to his luminous lips and observed, ‘These Architects have made a mockery of all that I once discovered. Of all that I once taught them. It’s enough to make me sick. If I could vomit, I would.’
The only real person with whom Danlo spoke during this waiting time was a man named Thomas Ivieehl, one of the many keepers of the Holy Ivi’s palace. Thomas was a spare, suspicious man, and at first his communications with Danlo were guarded. Every day he would appear in Danlo’s rooms after the evening meal to make sure that the altar and the tabletops and all plastic surfaces were spotless and that Danlo had every possible comfort. At first he wouldn’t deign to exchange more than a few words with a naman such as Danlo, but as the days wore by and Danlo always greeted him in generosity and kindness, his attitude softened. It was from Thomas that Danlo learned that Malaclypse Redring, the deadly warrior-poet, was a guest in another wing of the palace. Danlo learned something else as well. It seemed that Bertram had demanded the right to visit Malaclypse in his rooms, and Harrah Ivi en li Ede, out of fear of prematurely alienating the Iviomils and much of the Koivuniemin, had assented. Five times Bertram had called upon Malaclypse. What the two men discussed together, no one knew, not even Harrah, who refused to hide listening robots in Malaclypse’s rooms or otherwise spy upon him. This was her great weakness, that she always tried to display leniency and love, even toward her enemies.
One day, on a day of stale air and artificial lights much like any other day in the city of Ornice Olorun, Harrah sent word to Danlo that he should prepare himself for the second of his tests. Keepers escorted him through the palace, and a choche met him outside on the palace steps. The Holy Ivi met him at the foot of these steps and announced that she would ride with him in the choche. To share space with the Holy Ivi was a great honour, and the throngs of Architects lined up outside the palace cheered to see Danlo take his place by Harrah’s side. News of Danlo’s test seemed to have spread much more quickly than the choche could travel. Architects seemed to issue out of the nearby buildings like termites, a great swarm of pale men and women dressed in their pale white kimonos. When the choche rolled slowly past Ede’s Tomb and the Temple to the place where Danlo might live or die, the surrounding grounds for a mile in any direction were packed with people. All along their short journey through the city, Architects crowded the streets in order to view the astonishing spectacle of Harrah Ivi en li Ede sitting next to a naman who might very well be the Lightbringer. Danlo counted half a million of them before he gave up and concentrated on the building before him. This was a large black cube made of nall, a plastic so dense and hard that it was far stronger than steel. The walls of this building, it was said, were thirty feet thick. Thus had the Architects built their House of Eternity, to withstand the slow fire of time, no less the blast of hydrogen bombs. For the House of Eternity held the greatest treasure of the Church, greater than gold or firestones or Gilada pearls. In its cold, dark vaults were stacked many banks of cold computers, the Cybernetic Universal Church’s eternal computers that held the souls of all Architects who had ever died and been vastened. The Architects on the streets called this terrible building the House of the Dead, and dreaded it even as they longed to take their places in the cybernetic heavens believed to exist eternally inside.
When Danlo stepped outside his choche, he was greeted with an immense cheer issuing from hundreds of thousands of throats. Twelve keepers from the House of Eternity greeted him as well. Two hundred grim temple keepers formed a cordon around Danlo and Harrah and escorted them up the House’s long, black steps. The fear of assassination hung in the air, as heavy as the smells of death and disease that Danlo found wherever he went in this endless city. It seemed that not everyone welcomed his arrival. Almost drowning out the voices of acclamation (and the sound of his own pulsing heart) were catcalls and jeers and demands that he should leave Tannahill forever: ‘Naman go home! Death to namans! Pilot man, die the real death in the House of the Dead!’
Along either side of the House’s steps, the keepers had set up a light-fence of blazing ruby lasers designed to keep back anyone so foolish as to attack the Holy Ivi. Behind this fence, at the very edge of the black, nall steps, stood Bertram Jaspari and Jedre
k Iviongeon – and Fe Farruco Ede and Honon en Ii Iviow and many other Elders. Although Bertram, with his sour little face and pointed head, remained deathly silent, he did not discourage any of the swarms of Iviomils standing behind him from casting threats at Danlo. Some of these desperate men even cast at Danlo rotten fruit or wads of spittle, which burnt up in the laser light in quick hisses of steam. Their blue-tinged faces were ugly, their mood bellicose, perhaps even rebellious. Danlo thought that in proposing his tests, Harrah skated a dangerous path along thin ice. While his survival today truly might empower her to make sweeping changes in the Church, the very act of suggesting that he might be the Lightbringer could give the Iviomils a cause for schism. Danlo well remembered how many billions of people had died when the Cybernetic Universal Church had last fallen into schism and war; he could never forget that as a result of this war, his people, the Alaloi tribes in the wilds west of Neverness, were dying still.
At the top of the nall steps, on a portico too narrow to accommodate very many people, the keepers had set up Harrah’s reading table – a massive thing of ironwood, inlaid with gold – from the Hall of the Koivuniemin. With slow, studied motions, Harrah took her place in the chair behind this table. Danlo stood before her clutching his shakuhachi in his left hand; on his right hand, around his little finger, his diamond pilot’s ring shone with a fierce, dark light. He wore his formal black pilot’s robes, black leather boots, and around his neck the little black cube of a devotionary computer that Harrah had given him. And he wore something else as well. Once a time, years ago during his passage into manhood, he had won the right to display the wing feather of the snowy owl. Once he had thought of this rare, white bird as his other-self, the magic animal which held half his soul. Now he was far from such primitive beliefs, but strangely, even so, he sensed the rightness of wearing this relic from the past. And so that morning while dressing he had fastened Ahira’s white feather in his long, wild hair. As he readied himself to enter the dark building before him, he reached up to touch the imakla feather. Silently he called to that part of himself that he had turned away from for too long. Ahira, Ahira, he whispered inside himself. Lo los barado. He stood before Harrah’s golden desk listening for the answer that he had sought for so long. There were no owls on the planet of Tannahill, nor even any wild birds, but even so there was a moment when he heard a high, deep cry. And then, coming to his senses, he realized that this sound was only the screeching of a hundred thousand voices calling his name. Or perhaps he was scrying, turning his face toward the future and hearing himself scream in madness and pain.
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