LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

warrior-poets fear nothing in the universe, especially death, which they seek with all the concentration and joy of a tiger stalking his prey. For all Malaclypse Redring’s words about being afraid of Danlo, he was still very much like a tiger: beautiful and dangerous. In truth, he was no less a murderer than Bertram Jaspari. The horologe who had escorted him into the chamber waited only a few paces away with his laser targeting the back of his neck. He never took his eyes off this deadly warrior-poet; if Malaclypse should suddenly decide to assassinate Danlo or Demothi Bede – or even Lord Pall – the horologe stood ready to execute him instantly.

      ‘Won’t you please take your seat?’ Lord Pall said to him.

      Slowly, with exquisite control of every nerve and muscle, Malaclypse sat down next to Bertram Jaspari. But he ignored Lord Pall and everyone else in the room. Again, he locked eyes with Danlo, and this time he held his gaze for the count of twenty heartbeats.

      ‘I must apologize,’ Lord Pall said, ‘for not informing the College of these men’s arrival. But you must understand: a warrior-poet who wears two red rings and the leader of the Iviomil Architects who —’

      Here, Bertram Jaspari broke in, saying, ‘You may address me as the Holy Ivi of the Cybernetic Universal Church.’

      Lord Pall hated to be interrupted, but he showed little sign of his emotions. As he stared at Bertram Jaspari, his face remained as silent as a cetic’s. Only the artery of his throat, which Danlo could see jumping beneath his white, withered skin across thirty feet, betrayed his sudden and secret wrath.

      ‘Holy Ivi, as you say,’ Lord Pall said, speaking in his own voice, which hissed with venom like that of a Scutari seneschal. ‘The Holy Ivi has led a fleet of ships from Tannahill, and around which star they wait, no one knows. The Holy Ivi must soon send word of his safety to this fleet; if he does not – or cannot – he threatens terrible things. To ensure his safety, I have withheld the fact of his arrival from the College until now. Again, my apologies, my fellow lords.’

      Burgos Harsha, who had never supported Lord Pall’s rise to the Lordship of the Order, called out in his raspy voice, ‘What things does he threaten, then? Why weren’t we told of this threat?’

      ‘That you will soon know,’ Lord Pall said – this time through the mouth of his interpreter.

      ‘How soon, then?’ Burgos Harsha bellowed out with all the forbearance of a shagshay bull in rut.

      ‘Soon, soon,’ Lord Pall said. He began drumming his bony white fingers against the resonant jewood of the tabletop. This might have been a secret communication to the cetic attending him – or merely a sign that he was as impatient as Burgos Harsha.

      ‘What do we wait for?’

      ‘For Hanuman li Tosh to arrive,’ Lord Pall said. ‘I’ve asked him to attend this meeting.’

      This news, while exciting the hopes of Kolenya Mor and other lords who fairly worshipped Hanuman as the Lord of the Way of Ringess, did not please everyone. Vishnu Suso sat quite close to Lord Pall, and he eyed him suspiciously as he fingered the folds of his old, black skin. ‘Is this wise?’ he asked. ‘Is this a precedent we wish to set?’

      And Burgos Harsha quickly added, ‘He’s Lord of the Way, but no lord of the Order.’

      Eva Zarifa, an elegant woman with a rather quick and sardonic smile, reminded the lords, ‘Having abjured his vows five years ago, Hanuman li Tosh is no longer even of the Order.’

      For some time, the lords debated the proper relationship between the Way of Ringess (and Hanuman li Tosh) and the Order. Some lords, such as Burgos Harsha, argued for a strict separation between these two powers; while the Order might change its ancient rule against allowing its members any sort of religiosity and actually encourage the following of the Way, it would be wrong to identify the Order’s purpose too closely with this new religion. Others, however, pointed out that most Ordermen had already become Ringists. Their purpose was to become gods, and therefore the Order must evolve towards an exploration of how this great purpose might be achieved. They favoured an evolution of the Order to include the tenets of Ringism and a co-operation with Hanuman and his godlings in bringing word of the Way to the stars. But the Order, they said, must always remain the Order; and the power to decide the Order’s fate must remain in the hands of the College of Lords.

      Still a third group of these exalted men and women – led by Kolenya Mor – believed that the Order and the Way of Ringess were destined to merge as a single and gloriously powerful entity. Already, most of the peoples of the Civilized Worlds saw the Order as merely an arm of Ringism – or Ringism as a tool of the ancient and still mighty Order. Kolenya Mor told her peers that the sooner they exchanged their coloured robes for ones of gold, the easier would be the inevitable transition of the Order into a truly irresistible power.

      ‘We should all accept Hanuman li Tosh’s vision and leadership,’ she said. ‘Even if he isn’t technically a lord, he has earned the right to be called Lord Hanuman – no one more so. We should welcome him here today as if he is still of the Order. He never abjured his vows, as some believe. After all, he was forced to leave us only because of the injunction against the holding of religious office. This was the Timekeeper’s rule and has since been changed. Indeed, I propose that all such as Hanuman who have been unjustly driven from the Order should be allowed to renew their vows and —’

      ‘This isn’t the time for such a discussion,’ Lord Pall interrupted through the young cetic next to him. ‘I’ve asked Hanuman here today because events have moved to threaten all our lives. And Hanuman is involved in deciding how this threat must be met.’

      As if Lord Pall had given a cue, at that moment the doors to the first anteroom slid open and Hanuman li Tosh strode into view. Moulded to his shaved head was a diamond clearface, a glittering computer that enabled him almost continually to interface other and greater computers, perhaps, Danlo thought, even the Universal Computer itself. This symbol of his secret powers riveted the stares of Lord Pall and everyone else sitting at their little tables. Although Hanuman had grown no taller since he and Danlo had last parted, he seemed mysteriously to have gained in stature. Dressed as he was in a long and perfectly fitted robe of gold, with his dazzling smile, he was like a sun filling up the room. But it wasn’t just his charisma or other-worldly beauty that transfixed the lords. There was something deeper, an intense inner fire connecting him to the suffering of his own soul – and to the secret suffering of all those who came close to him. He seemed always to be looking inside himself at a fiery and terrible place that others refused to see. It was his pride that he could bear a burning that would destroy a lesser being. And burn he did, not only in his spirit, but in his body which moved as if each cell were being heated by a separate, tiny, red-hot flame. Danlo felt certain that if he could have touched Hanuman’s forehead, the skin would have been hot as with fever; watching Hanuman as he glided over the black floorstones, it was almost as if his eyes could see into the infrared and thus descry the waves of heat emanating from Hanuman’s hands, his heart, his nobly-shaped head. Strangely, little of this inner fire communicated itself through his eyes. Hanuman had cold eyes, hellish eyes, ice-blue like a sled dog’s. Shaida eyes, Danlo thought for the ten thousandth time, In Hanuman’s eyes were impossible dreams and cold, crystalline worlds devoid of love or true life – as well as a cold, terrible, beautiful will towards perfection. It was his will, above all else, that marked him as different from others. It was why even Lord Pall feared him. In all Hanuman’s life, he had met only one other man whose will matched his own, and that was Danlo wi Soli Ringess. Once, he had loved Danlo as his deepest friend, but now the hatred was there for all to see, filling up his eyes with a pale, cold fury.

      ‘Hello, Danlo,’ Hanuman said as he paused before his chair at the centre of the room. He spoke fluidly and easily as if he had happened to meet an acquaintance on the street. He took little notice of Bertram Jaspari or Malaclypse Redring and none at all of the hundred and twenty lords waiting for him to sit down. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again – but somehow I knew I would.’

      ‘Hello, Hanuman. I am glad to see you.’

      ‘Are you? Are you?’

Скачать книгу