'I am sorry.'
'As Master of Novices, I must ask you certain things. The College of Lords has charged me with this duty. Of course, it's unlikely you would know what must be known, but it's possible that the poet might have said some small thing that might be of help in solving this puzzle. Few people know this – this is something your father once told me – but the poets like to talk to their victims before they kill them.'
'I ... do not want to remember what the warrior-poet said.' Danlo looked down at his boots, which were now dry from the heat of the fire.
'No? You can't remember? Ah, how strange!'
'I was afraid ... for Hanuman's life.'
'But you weren't afraid for your own.'
Danlo lifted his head up and looked at Bardo, but he said nothing.
'You weren't too afraid to remember the poet's goddamned poem!'
'How do you know... I remembered it?'
Bardo's cheeks puffed out for a moment, then he clapped his hands together. 'How do I know? I shall tell you how. Do you think I haven't been to see Hanuman? Well I have. He couldn't tell me much, he could barely speak. But he remembered how you tricked the warrior-poet, how you took his place beneath the poet's knife. He admires your courage, as do I. And even more I admire your cunning. You used ahimsa as a weapon to make the poet let you recite the poem, and now the poet is dead. What irony! You defeated a warrior-poet, by God! Like your father – you must know that your father once defeated a warrior-poet, too.'
Because Danlo did not want Bardo to see his eyes just then, he covered them with his hand and dropped his head. 'I did not know ... that the warrior-poet would use his knife against himself.'
'Well, he did. You'd ruined his mission, and it was the only way he could fulfil his contract with the goddamned Architects.'
At this, Danlo dropped his hand away from his forehead and looked up.
'Ah, this interests you, does it? Of course, it must have been the Architects who hired the warrior-poet. Not the harijan, as some of the stupider lords believe. Of course it's true that the harijan blame both you and Hanuman for Pedar's death. You, because of your devotion to ahimsa. You resisted his barbarities, did you not? And you did so in a way that shamed him and made him all too aware of his baseness. You antagonized him wilfully, did you not? Ah, the angslan, this Fravashi game of inflicting holy pain. It's a sweet, sweet irony, but you tortured Pedar's soul more than he ever tortured you. And so you goaded him into climbing the stairs after lights out – it was almost inevitable that Pedar would drink too much wine one night and fall to his death. Or so the harijan say.'
Danlo stared down at his hands for the count of twenty heartbeats. And then he asked, 'But why blame Hanuman, too?'
'Well, Hanuman is your closest friend, isn't he? It's known that he antagonized Pedar whenever he had the chance.'
'Then some of the lords must think that the harijan contracted with the warrior-poets ... to murder both Hanuman and me?'
'Ah, and so they do. But there is a flaw in their thinking. Much more than either you or Hanuman, the harijan blame me for Pedar's death. If they had hired a warrior-poet, it would have been I who would have had to face the goddamned knife.'
This thought must have unnerved Bardo, for he suddenly rubbed his neck, belched and lifted up his mug, and then, in three huge gulps, drained it of beer.
'So, it must have been the Architects,' Bardo said. 'Since the day that Hanuman took his vows, I've known that he fled Catava before coming to Neverness. He told that there had been trouble, that his family had made enemies with the Architect Elders. His father, apparently, died under mysterious circumstances. I suspect assassination – these bloody-minded Architects are always killing each other. I don't know why they would pursue Hanuman so far, so relentlessly. What could he have done? Ah, well, it doesn't matter what he's done. Our Order is as old and rotten as Lord Ciceron's stinking teeth, but it's one of our virtues that we still protect our own. Hanuman could have sold his DNA to a slel necker or even have murdered his father – it wouldn't matter once he'd crossed the Academy gates and taken his vows.'
Although Bardo had spoken this last thought carelessly without innuendo or hidden meaning, Danlo held his breath as if a sudden cold wind had blasted his face. He dreaded hearing of any connection, however inadvertent, between Hanuman and the idea of murder.
'I ... do not know why the warrior-poet was sent to Neverness,' Danlo said. Indeed, the warrior-poet had never told him the true reason why the Architects had contracted to kill Hanuman. Although Danlo burned to know what this reason could be, he did not want Bardo to know of his concern. 'But the warrior-poet said a thing ... that I remember. He said there was a new rule for the warrior-poets. A new rule that is an old rule. He said the warrior-poets must kill all potential gods.'
'Ah, ahhhh – aha!' Bardo rumbled. The poet said this to you, did he? Is it true what he said? And if it is true, why should he tell you?'
'He asked me ... if I was the son of my father.'
'Ahhhhhh! I can't tell how this interests me. The warrior-poets had good cause to follow the career of your father. He began something, your father did. A man, a god – he pushed against the universe, and so the warrior-poets feel the heavens shake and they fear the stars must fall. Is this why they must kill all potential gods? And what do they mean by this word "potential"? Surely they can't mean they would kill all the hakras of the Cybernetic Churches – the heretics arise among the Architects like maggots out of a corpse. There must be millions of them. Surely the poet would have killed Hanuman for a reason other than his little heresies. Is there something about Hanuman I've missed? Could the poets think that Hanuman li Tosh would try to follow your father's path? That he could follow it? Ah, what a thought – I can't tell you how this makes me think!'
So saying, Bardo began pacing about while he stroked his beard and muttered a series of soft, rumbling sounds. Danlo stood before the flames of the fireplace, and he too began to brood about his thoughts and his memories. He remembered perfectly what the warrior-poet had said about Hanuman murdering Pedar. And he remembered that the path of his father had been one of hubris and murder: Mallory Ringess once murdered a man called Liam, and a warrior-poet, and three pilots during the Pilots' War, and finally, fatefully, he had murdered the entire tribe of the Devaki.
'Listen,' Bardo finally said to him. 'It wouldn't do for us to repeat mere hypotheses as to why the warrior-poet was sent to find Hanuman. Do you understand? Perhaps it would be best if you didn't tell anyone about this "new rule" of the warrior-poets.'
'I ... do not want to tell anyone.'
'Good. Perhaps we shall never know why the warrior-poet was sent. But here's another hypothesis: perhaps there was no contract with the Architects after all. Perhaps the poet came to Neverness because his masters on Qallar commanded him to do so. Perhaps the poet had calculated the events in the library to a nicety – he might have predicted that you would leave your cell and find him about to murder Hanuman. This bloody torture as a test – of you. Could this whole assassination merely have been staged as a test of your potential? Ah, Danlo, Little Fellow – are you the son of your goddamned father?'
With this thought Bardo looked deeply into Danlo's eyes, so deep that it seemed he was no longer looking at Danlo but at a reflection of himself.
'Ah, ah, ahhh – is it possible?' Bardo continued. 'Why haven't I thought this thought before? Have I blinded myself or merely been a coward? Is it possible? Is it possible that we're all as children of your father's murderous heart, his mad, marvellous soul? By God, who are you? Who am I? Who is anyone? Is it possible that others might follow your father's way? I've wondered about this every moment of every day for thirteen years. The question is: why didn't I know that I wondered? Ah, but now I know – and I know that I know, by God!'
Bardo laughed his deep-bellied laugh as if he were immensely pleased with the universe and all the things it contained, not excluding himself. Then he suddenly clapped his hands and said to Danlo, 'Although it's always a pleasure to talk with you, there's another reason I invited you here today. It's time I gave you what's yours.'
He ambled over to the fire room's central table and kicked aside a priceless chair blocking his way. On the table sat a box inlaid with little pearl triangles and squares of shatterwood. He picked up the box, carried it over to Danlo and dropped it into his hands.
'It is lovely,' Danlo said. The box was cool and hard to the touch. He looked up at Bardo and smiled. 'Thank you.'
'No, no, you misunderstand,' Bardo huffed out quickly. 'The box is mine – I paid a hundred maunds for it on Urradeth! What's inside belonged to your father. And mother. Open it, now, what are you waiting for?'
Danlo did as he was told. The lid swung open smoothly on gold hinges, and he immediately smelled the mustiness of old leather. Inside were two books, each as thick as a snow block, and a clear stone that looked like quartz. And other things. He ran his fingers along the inside walls of the box, which were furry with black velvet. Because the box's interior was deep and dark, it was difficult to determine all its contents.
'Well?' Bardo said.
Danlo stepped over to a priceless tea table and set the box down. He lifted out one of the books, opened it, and flipped through the dry, weathered pages. His eyes were wide open as he said, 'I have seen this before! I have touched it ... with my fingers, once, long ago.'
'What! How is that possible?'
Outside the window snow covered the glidderies and fields of Borja, and Danlo was reminded of another snow-field he had crossed long ago. The memory was faint, perhaps only a memory of a memory: once, just after his naming at his third birthday, he and Soli had sledded away from Kweitkel's shore to find an ikalu, a little hut of snow, flung up from the frozen sea. He had entered the hut alone. There, he had discovered the very book that he now held in his hands. Someone had taken the book away from him – he could still feel his anger at being dispossessed of it. And that was all he remembered. He, whose memory of his life was usually so clear, could bring to mind only these inchoate images and emotions. Because he thought it shameful and strange that his memory should so mysteriously fail him, he decided to say nothing more about it.
'Do you know what that is?' Bardo asked.
'Yes,' Danlo said. 'It is a book. Old Father had many books in his house. He ... taught me to read.'
'You can read? Ah, I confess that I've never learned these barbaric arts. I wonder why the Fravashi bother.'
'But it is so simple!' Danlo said. 'Much simpler than learning to kithe ideoplasts.'
'Indeed?'
'Truly ... Bardo. Shall I teach you to read? It is a blessed art.'
'Now? Here?' Bardo's nose was as purple as a ripe bloodfruit, and he had a strange, faraway look about his eyes. He was a man who fell through moods as easily as he might change clothes to go outside on a snowy afternoon. 'Perhaps some other time – if I'm to help you with your Alaloi problem, I've a busy day ahead of me.'
Danlo opened the book to its title page, and as he did so, the leather spine crackled and creaked. Aloud, he read, 'A REQUIEM FOR HOMO SAPIENS.'
'That was the Timekeeper's book,' Bardo said. 'A cynical history of the human race. Your father inherited it from him – or stole it, perhaps.'
After turning a couple of yellow pages, Danlo came to a passage that interested him:
'Homo Sapiens as a mystery of evolution: It is both mysterious miraculous that roughly the same intelligence necessary to flake a barbed spearpoint is sufficient to discover the theorems mathematics.
'In a different universe, it might have been otherwise.
'And so human beings would have been spared the tragedy of existing half as ape and half as god.'
He read these words to Bardo, who stood above him puffing out his fat cheeks.
'Ah, but the Timekeeper was a cynical man, wasn't he? Read this book at your own peril, Little Fellow.'
With a smile on his lips, Danlo bowed his head, then reached into the box to remove the other book. Its cover was of ancient brown leather embellished with gold scrollwork around the border. In many places, the gold had chipped or worn off.
'A collection of poems, as you see,' Bardo said. 'The Timekeeper once gave it to your father. As a present – we can be sure of that, at least.'
Danlo read through the first few poems of the book and said, 'I cannot understand these words. The way the letters are put together, the sounds ... make no sense.'
'Well, most of the poems are ancient,' Bardo said. 'Written in dead languages. Your father loved poetry – all poetry – as other men love women.'
'I shall have to learn these dead languages, then, to read this book.'
'If you wish. I, myself, have never had the patience.'
'Thank you for giving me these books, Bardo.'
'I have given you nothing.' Bardo stood next to the window, licking the rim of his beer mug as he looked out into the snow. 'I've merely held them in trust for your father, should he ever return. Now they're yours. The truth is, I'm glad to be rid of the responsibility.'
Danlo watched him sadly swigging his beer, and he thought that the huge man was not really glad at all. 'Thank you, anyway,' he said.
'Ah, well, I've been keeping more than books. The ring, of course. And the ball. Take it out of the box, Little Fellow.'
From the box Danlo removed a clear crystal ball. It was slightly larger than his fist and heavy as a stone. Indeed, it was the most perfect of stones, a scryer's sphere made of diamond without impurity or flaw. 'Oh, I think this is a blessed stone,' Danlo said. 'Imakla, like a thallow's eye.'
'It belonged to your mother,' Bardo said. 'These spheres – the scryers make them.'
'My mother ... was a scryer, yes?'
'She was one of the finest servers there's ever been.'
Danlo held the diamond sphere up toward the window. Its polished surface was brilliant with refracted colours; as he turned it between his hands, quick bronze and violet lights sparkled like tiny fireflies caught in ice. He looked through the clarity of diamond, deep toward the sphere's centre. There, all colour dissolved into a shimmering whiteness that dazzled his eyes. 'I have never seen anything ... so splendid or rare,' he said.