It must have been clear to most of the lords that Bardo, purple-faced and bellowing like a musk ox, posed an immediate, physical threat to their persons. One of them, the Lord Imprimatur, sent the novice to summon the roving journeymen who policed the Academy. Other lords – and Chanoth Chen Ciceron was one of these – shrank back in their chairs and tried not to look Bardo eye to eye. In truth, it was the duty of all lords present to rise up and swarm Bardo, to subdue, restrain and chastise him for breaking his vow of obedience. This was the way of the Order. All of the lords, in their time as journeymen, had enforced the Order's canons and codes. It remained their duty to do so, but many of the lords were old, and it had been many years since they had touched another human being in violence. Only Lord Vasquez and Lord Nikolos, of the Tetrad, arose from their chairs to discipline Bardo. Rodrigo Diaz and a few other lords joined them, but all the others remained at their places.
'Wait,' Chanoth Chen Ciceron said. He had finally gathered up his courage. He stood and pushed his way to the front of the lords as they advanced on Bardo.
'Ah, piss on you,' Bardo muttered.
'You are no longer Master of Novices!' Lord Ciceron shouted.
'Piss on you!' Bardo roared out. And then he did an astonishing thing, unprecedented in all the Order's astonishing three-thousand-year history. He pulled loose from Danlo and opened the zipper at the front of his pantaloons. He removed his membrum. It was a huge tube of flesh, truly the longest and thickest membrum Danlo had ever seen attached to the loins of a human being. It was half-engorged and purple, like the membrum of a shagshay bull. In his huge fingers Bardo held this astonishing-looking appendage as he began to piss on the floor. Then he aimed the dark yellow stream at Chanoth Chen Ciceron and laughed as the Lord Pilot jumped back, nearly tripping over his own legs. Bardo whipped the stream of his piss back and forth in zig-zags, keeping the other lords at bay, and for a long time he continued to laugh his deep-bellied laugh. That night he had drunk much beer and was as full of water as an ocean. Danlo marvelled at the huge man's capaciousness. He watched as Bardo's piss flowed in rivulets over the black floor tiles and began discolouring the Fravashi carpet. The piss was deep amber, almost orange, and it stank of sugars and goatroot. Even though Danlo saw it would only be a matter of moments – or ounces – before the piss soaked through the carpet beneath his knees, he remained kneeling politely.
'Stand back now!' Bardo called out to the lords. 'Stay away!'
Despite the utter ludicrousness of the moment – perhaps because of its absurdity – Danlo couldn't help thinking of how his near-brothers and – sisters of the Devaki had lost their bladder tone and tightness in the time before death. His eyes burned with tears, and he watched Bardo waggle his membrum back and forth, and suddenly he was laughing, simultaneously laughing and weeping at the fundamental absurdity of life.
'By God, I'm almost done!' Bardo said. 'Stand back there's no need any longer for you to chastise me, I'm done, do you understand? Done with you barbarians and old fools, done with the Order.'
His words fell like thunder through the chamber. For a moment nobody moved. Then Bardo, neglecting to shake himself dry, zipped up the pantaloons of his robe and pulled the great black ring off his end finger. He held up his pilot's ring for everyone to see. 'With this ring, eighteen years ago, I took my pilot's vows. I now abjure them. Piss on the Order! Piss on all of you!'
So saying, he drew back his arm, and with terrific force, hurled the ring against a nearby pillar. The ring, made of diamond and stived with a unique signature of flaws, shattered. The sound of it breaking into pieces was terrible to hear. Danlo stared at the diamond shards glittering darkly against the black floor; he had always thought that the splendid pilots' rings were unbreakable.
'Farewell.' Bardo smiled at Danlo, reached down and laid his hand atop his head. Then he bowed to the lords, turned, and with surprising grace considering his huge mass and drunken state, sashayed across the chamber and out of the double doors.
Soon after this, Chanoth Chen Ciceron restored the convocation to order. He called for novices to clean up Bardo's strong-smelling emission. A new carpet was brought for Danlo to kneel on, and the stunned lords returned to their seats. And then, for a brief time, they continued to question Danlo. They asked him if he had ever heard Hanuman blaspheme against the god of the Architects, Nikolos Daru Ede; they asked him about Hanuman's reasons for coming to Neverness, and in slightly awestruck voices, they asked him why (and how) he had taken Hanuman's place as a would-be sufferer of the warrior-poet's tortures. When he had finished speaking, the lords conferred among themselves. Danlo knelt on his carpet listening as Lord Kutikoff proposed banishing all warrior-poets from the City, or at least forbidding any more of them to immigrate. Then Lord Vasquez observed that they should be glad that Bardo had abandoned the Order; his self-banishment, she said, should satisfy the harijan elders and put an end to the problems created when Pedar had taken his unfortunate – and accidental – fall. And as for Hanuman li Tosh, the lords absolved him of all blame.
'We are sorry,' Lord Ciceron said to Danlo. 'We are sorry that the cold light of suspicion fell upon you and Hanuman. But obviously, Pedar's fall was as it seemed – a tragic accident. Obviously, neither you nor Hanuman are murderers. You are both fine young novices, and your courage in facing the warrior-poet was outstanding. We shall be happy to welcome you as pilots when the day comes that you take your vows.'
So ended the 'harijan problem' and the minor concerns of the lords of Neverness. Danlo was dismissed then, and he left the Lords' College the same way he had entered it. When he moved out into the frigid morning air, he immediately saw Bardo leaning against a cold flame column at the bottom of the steps. Although the Academy buildings were golden in the day's first light, the flame globes were still afire, bathing Bardo in soft colours. His face shone with indigo, violet and puce; his hand was thrown over his eye and the band of skin around his finger, where his pilot's ring used to be, gleamed like phosphorescent ivory. As Danlo descended the steps, he heard the huge, sad man addressing himself: 'Ah, Bardo, what have you done? It's over now, it is done, too bad.'
'Are you all right?' Danlo called out. At the sound of his voice, Bardo started and looked up at him. 'Bardo, Bardo - I am sorry.'
'Little Fellow, I'm sorry, I've failed you. But did you see the faces of those old lords? They won't forget this day, not even if they live three more lifetimes.'
'I will not forget... either,' Danlo said, and he drew up close to Bardo.
'Nor I. The last day of Bardo's life in which he tasted beer.'
'What?'
'I, Bardo – after today, I'll never drink beer again, I promise you, Little Fellow. When I'm old, I'll look back on this day and say, "Here lies the great divide of my life. Before, Bardo was weak, a coward and a drunkard. And afterward – ever after, I promise – a man of purpose, truth, and fate".'
'But what will you do?'
'What will I do? What will I not do. I will do something extreme. Something outrageous which will one day be called great. Ah, Little Fellow, as I look into your flawless eyes, even as I stand here blathering away, an idea is coming into this great, fat brain of mine. I will do something which will make all the Lords of the Order wake up and say, "We should have seen Bardo for what he truly is and listened to him when we had the chance."'
'Will you leave Neverness?'
'Perhaps. Perhaps not. Let us not discuss what I will do. The question of the moment is: what will you do?'
Danlo looked off into the Shih Grove below him. In the morning wind, the pretty silver trees were rippling like water. 'I should leave the Order, too,' he said.
'No, no, that is precisely what you must not do.'
'Why not?'
'You must become a pilot. Your father, before you, was a pilot, and you must be too.'
'Why?'
'Because there will be a second mission to the Vild. Someday. It will take five or ten years to organize, but there will be a mission. Ah, a great mission to the Architects of the Old Church. It was the goddamned Architects who created the plague, and it's said they know of a cure.'
The sky above Danlo was a blue-black dome, but in the east, where the sun was now rising, the ridgelines of the mountains glowed a deep crimson. He whispered a silent prayer to the sun, and then asked, 'Truly? A cure ... how do you know this?'
Bardo belched, let out a huff of steam, and then thrust his hands beneath his armpits to keep them warm. He said, 'Once, when I was a young pilot, when the Timekeeper called his quest, I journeyed to Ksandaria. It's a dull, unenlightened place, devoid of skilled women, good food or beer, but the Ksandarian encyclopaedists keep the best library in the Civilized Worlds. And I penetrated it! Deep, deep, Little Fellow, deep into their inner sanctum where they keep their forbidden pools of knowledge. By happenstance – by pure good luck, as I admit – I learned almost everything there is to know about ancient religions and secret orders. And cults, sects and bizarre theologies. Ah, you wouldn't believe the lunacies people believe. So many, so many. And, while I admit that I have my failings, a poor memory is not an affliction I suffer. And the things I remember! I remember kithing a secret deposition made by a man named Sharanth Li Chu who was an underling of Edmond Jaspari. You've heard of Jaspari, this so-called "God's Architect" of the Cybernetic Universal Church? The high priest of the goddamned Architects. Well, as I was saying, Li Chu deposed that Edmond Jaspari ordered the engineering of the plague virus. This was in 1750, Neverness time, during the second year of the War of the Faces. The Old Church was losing the war and the Architects were desperate. And so they solicited the warrior-poets to create the god-cursed virus. But it mutated, of course, and nearly obliterated the Old Church – along with three quarters of humanity. Everyone knows this. It was Li Chu's claim, however, that Jaspari's engineers designed an inhibiting drug that could keep the virus dormant. The drug – if one believes Li Chu – was given to every surviving Architect. It enabled them to live, even though few of them would have inherited the so-called suppressor genes that protect the rest of us. Think of the Architects of the Old Church as a population as genetically distinct – and vulnerable – as the Alaloi. It's probable that they still must use this drug, to this day.'
As Bardo's basso voice died into the deeper sounds of the morning, Danlo did a curious thing. With his wrists together, fingers closed and pointing downward, he raised his arms toward the sky. He bowed his head to the sun. Then, having completed this most basic of daily Alaloi rituals, he jumped up three steps, smiled and jumped down again. And then back up. 'But, Bardo, if you knew ... this history, why didn't you tell the lords?'
'There are three reasons,' Bardo said. 'Firstly, it will be at least five years before the Vild mission is organized, another five before the first pilots return to Neverness. The Alaloi – I am loath to have to say this – could well be dead before then. Secondly, the Order, as I conceive it, as I used to conceive it, when I cared, the Order shouldn't have to go begging the barbaric Architects for a cure to this disease when it's possible our splicers could duplicate Jaspari's inhibiting drug. And thirdly, well 'Yes?'
'The third reason I kept this from the stupid lords is that they wouldn't have believed me. I who have told untruths only once or twice in my life. Chanoth Chen Ciceron, in his slippery way would have called me a liar. And then what would be left for me to do? Murder? Could I have killed him, as I should have done in the war when I had the chance? No, no, that's impossible, I couldn't even slap his barbaric old face, too bad.'
For a long time Bardo talked to Danlo, persuading him that if he wanted to help the Alaloi, he should become a pilot, and hence be selected for the second mission to the Vild. 'It will be your best chance,' Bardo said. 'The Order, I think, will divide in two, and the best pilots will go to the Vild. Maybe I'll build a lightship and go too.'
Danlo kicked at the icy steps and said, 'I am sorry ... I have caused you much sorrow.'
'You? No, no, it's not your fault. I was finished as Master of Novices before we ever entered the Lords' College. Lord Ciceron has been waiting years for this chance.'
'I am sorry,' Danlo said.
'Well, I'm sorry, too. Who will watch over my girls and boys now? You and Hanuman – especially Hanuman. He hasn't been himself since Pedar's accident.'
'No.'
'Ah, he's too damn sensitive. I think he can't bear the thought of death – anyone's death, even such a miserable boy as Pedar.'
'I think you are right,' Danlo said.
'And now this barbarous affair with the warrior-poet. Too bad.'
'He still suffers ... because of the ekkana drug, yes?'
Bardo nodded his head. 'Please take care of him while I'm gone, Danlo. He has a hundred admirers, but I think you and I are the only ones who understand him.'
'I will always ... be his friend.'
'Ah, nothing's harder than true friendship, as I should know.' Bardo spread out his cloak and rubbed his hands together. 'Don't give up hope, Little Fellow. These are strange times – anything can happen. Do you still have the ring I gave you?'
Danlo held his hand over his chest and nodded his head.
'Good. Please keep this ring in case your father returns. Someday he'll return, by God. Someday.'
Bardo embraced Danlo, and he made ready to leave. He patted his belly, belched, then said, 'Well, then, I'm off to the cafes. I'm going to drink twenty glasses of beer and become gloriously drunk – it's a glorious day, don't you think?'
'But ... Bardo,' Danlo said. 'I thought you just abjured drinking beer.'
'Did I? No, no, I did not. I said that after this day, I'd drink no more beer. Well, the day's not over yet, is it? By God, it's hardly begun!'
So saying, he bowed deeply to Danlo and then ambled down to the gliddery and snapped in his skate blades. The sight of Bardo fumbling about drunkenly might have moved Danlo to despair but strangely, at that moment, he felt nothing but hope.