War in Heaven Read Online Free PDF

of black diamond and continued his story. He told of dead worlds burnt black in the fire of supernovas and ruined alien civilizations. And stars, millions of red or yellow or blue stars burning like flame globes in the long black reaches of space. Around a star named Gelasalia he had come across a great rainbow system of seventeen ringworlds from which the resident human beings had vanished in the most mysterious of ways, seemingly transcending their bodies, perhaps to live as beings of pure information (or light) as the Ieldra had done two million years before. He had followed this trail of transcendence deeper into the Vild where the radiations of exploded stars grew thick and deadly. On the world of Alumit Bridge just inside the galaxy's Perseus Arm, he had found a civilization of people who lived for the transcendence of the glittering cybernetic spaces inside their computers. They called themselves the Narain. They were, he said, a pale and wormlike people who wanted to be as gods. In truth, they were Architects in their lineage, heretics who had left Tannahill some two hundred years before in a bitter schism with the Church. "I ... made friends with the Narain," Danlo said. "They feared war with the Old Church and asked me to speak for them to the Holy Ivi. To journey to Tannahill — it was the Narain who pointed out Tannahill's star."
    And so finally after having crossed thirty thousand light years of blazing and broken stars, Danlo had come to lost Tannahill. There he had won the favour and friendship of Harrah Ivi en li Ede, the High Holy Ivi of the Cybernetic Universal Church. Because of him, she had installed new programs for her church, completely reversing the Architects' mandate to procreate wantonly and destroy the stars.
    There, too, he had won the enmity of the Elder Bertram Jaspari, Harrah's rival for the architectcy and a man who would kill for power like a mad sleekit ravening through a nest of its own family. Bertram Jaspari was also the leader of the Iviomils, a fanatical sect who preached religious purity and called for religious war. Bertram Jaspari would carry the burning torches of this facifah to other sects of Architects on Tannahill, and to the Narain on Alumit Bridge — and even out to the peoples of the Vild and beyond. "The Iviomils fought a war with the other Architects," Danlo said. "I ... became involved in this war."
    He stared up at the brilliant colours of the dome, and he did not explain how Harrah Ivi en li Ede — and billions of other Architects across Tannahill — had come to regard him as the Lightbringer foretold by their prophecies.
    Lord Morena Sung, sitting next to Lord Nikolos, turned to the Sonderval and sadly shook her head. Both these lords had known Danlo since his novice years on Neverness, and it was obvious to them that Danlo's involvement in this war had been neither accidental nor slight. The Hall of the Lords, so bright with dancing shards of light, suddenly seemed gloomy and grim, as if the mood of one hundred and twenty women and men could darken the air itself with their dread. No one liked all this talk of war. No one liked the pain they saw on Danlo's face or the presentiment of death burning in his deep blue eyes. Many remembered his mother, Katharine the Scryer, and they wondered if he, too, was gifted with visions of terrible moments yet to be.
    "Please tell us about this war," Lord Nikolos said gently.
    Danlo stood at the centre of his circle as he looked out upon many faces falling heavy with fear. He remembered that once, as a young man, he had wanted to journey to the centre of the universe so that he might finally see the true nature of all things. Although he had long since abandoned this quest as hopeless, he knew that it was his fate to bring a truth to the Lords of the Order. He was like a pilot unlocking a window to the dark and depthless spaces of the manifold, except that the opening he now showed these anxious lords was into his own soul. And