The Wild

by David Zindell

  ‘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 p
ossible.’

  ‘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 …

  There was a moment. For a moment the sky was just the sky, and the stars went on twinkling forever. Danlo thought that perhaps the Sonderval’s calculations had been wrong, that no new star would appear that night. And then this endless moment, which lasted much less than a second, finally ended. Above the eastern horizon, above the dark mountains, a point of light broke out of the blackness and quickly blossomed into dazzling white sphere. Its radiance swirled about an infinitely bright centre, and flecks of fire spun out into the farthest reaches of space. It was almost impossible to look at, this wildflower of light that hurt Danlo’s eyes, and so he turned to see ten thousand people squinting, grimacing, standing with their hands pushing outward above their eyes as if to shield themselves from this terrible new star. It almost seemed that there should have been a great noise to accompany this event, as with a fireworks display, some searing hiss of burnt air or cosmic
thunder. But the sky was strangely silent, as ever, and the only sounds in the garden were the inrush of many people’s breaths, the chirping of the evening birds, the splash of water and wine falling in the many fountains. The merchants of Farfara (and even the many ungloved servants) were obviously hushed and awed by what they saw, as if they were witnessing the birth of a new child. Danlo remembered, then, that this supernova was no new star being born, but rather a doomed star that attains its most brilliant moment in dying into light. It was all light, this beautiful star. It was all alpha and gamma and waves of hard radiation that men had freed from matter in their frenzy to remake the universe. It was photons breaking through the night, burning the sky, onstreaming through the universe without end. Although Danlo had waited only a moment for this light to fall upon the garden, men on other worlds would have to wait millennia to see it. At the speed of light through vacuum, it would be some twenty thousand years before the supernova’s light crossed the galaxy and rained down upon the city of Neverness. But there were other stars, nearer and more deadly, and Danlo remembered very well that twenty years ago, one named Merripen’s Star had exploded very near the Star of Neverness. Almost all his life, a wavefront of light and death had been advancing through the black drears of space upon Neverness, and soon, in only six more years, the people of Neverness would see the Vild for what it truly was. And this was the true reason that the Order had sent a Mission to the Vild. The Vild, Danlo thought, was an inferno of murderous light and broken spacetime that existed wherever human beings were so mad as to destroy the stars. And so the men and women of the Order must go to the Vild before the Vild came to them.