War in Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

from the bright, black centres of his eyes and the deeper centre of himself came the memory of all that he had sensed and seen. Like the long, dark roar of a stellar wind it blew through the hall carrying the scent of hydrogen bombs and burnt flesh and stars exploding into light. And so Danlo told of how the Iviomils had slaughtered their fellow Architects, only to be utterly defeated in the end. Bertram Jaspari had assembled a fleet of the surviving Iviomils and had fled Tannahill into the stars. But before his disappearance into the galaxy's wastelands, he had completed two acts. The first was the theft of Ede's body. And the second was the destruction of a star.
    "The Iviomils hated the Narain people," Danlo said. "They called them heretics, apostates. They ... had called for a facifah against them. A holy war to cleanse the Church of anyone who had betrayed it. So Bertram Jaspari led his Iviomils to Alumit Bridge. To the star that lights the Narain's world. And they ... destroyed it."
    Because Danlo's mouth was dry, he stopped speaking for a moment. He bent over to place the devotionary computer on top of his wooden chest. Then, from a pocket sewn into the leg of his robe, he drew out a long bamboo flute. It was an ancient shakuhachi that his teacher had once given him. It smelled of woodsmoke and wind and wild dreams, and of all his possessions it was the most beloved. In silence he pressed its ivory mouthpiece to his lips and tongue, but he played no music. He let the soft coolness of the ivory touch off the flow of water in his mouth, and suddenly he found that he could finish his story.
    "In one of their ships, the Iviomils have a machine," he said. "A ... morrashar , they call it. A star-killer — the Architects are masters of this technology, yes? They have at least one star-killer. Bertram Jaspari used it to destroy the Narain people. I ... confirmed this crime. After I left Tannahill, I journeyed to where the Star of Alumit Bridge should have been. But there was only the remnant of a supernova: radiation, hydrogen, glowing gases, light. And of Alumit Bridge, itself, only dust."
    Again, Danlo placed the shakuhachi to his lips, and closed his eyes in remembrance of Shahar and Abraxax and all the people and the great beings he had known among the Narain.
    "This is a terrible story," Lord Nikolos said as he stared at Danlo. Behind him, too, almost every face in the hall was turned towards the pilot who had brought such tragic news. Then, for a while, he and the other lords talked about another supernova, called Merripen's Star, which had exploded near Neverness some thirty years before. At the end of the year 2960, less than two years hence, the radiation of the supernova was due to fall upon Neverness. It seemed that only the growth of the Golden Ring — a mysterious ecology of gases and new, golden life that had appeared in the sky above the city — might protect the peoples of Neverness from death. Supernovas everywhere blossomed among the stars like flowers of evil, Lord Sung observed, but on many worlds, ever since the disappearance of Mallory Ringess, these rings had mysteriously appeared in the heavens like protective bands of gold.
    "These are terrible times in which we live," Lord Nikolos observed. And then he turned back towards Danlo. "But it's also a time of great hope, as well. You, Danlo wi Soli Ringess, have found Tannahill. And the Architects of the Old Church. And this man, Bertram Jaspari and the Iviomils have been defeated. And, it would seem, the Architects' Holy Ivi awaits the arrival of our Order's emissaries. Your accomplishment, Pilot, is of a magnitude beyond any — "
    "Please, Lord Nikolos," Danlo broke in. "There ... is more."
    Lord Nikolos was unused to being interrupted by young pilots, but so great was the pain in Danlo's voice that he did not chastise him.
    "I ... made an enemy of Bertram Jaspari," Danlo said. "I believe that he blames me and our Order for his defeat in the war. I