boy – his name was Hanuman li Tosh – must have overheard what Danlo said, for he turned and bowed his head politely. He had the oldest young face imaginable, smooth like new white ice and indecently unmarked even for a fifteen-year-old. At the same time, he seemed strangely jaded, as if he’d lived a thousand times before, and each life full of disappointments, boredom, anguish, madness, and desperate love. With his full, sensual lips, he smiled at Danlo; it was a beautiful smile, at once shy and compelling. In many ways, he was a beautiful boy. There was a delicateness to his finely-made face bones, an almost otherworldly grace. Danlo thought he must be either half an angel or half demon. His hair was yellow-white, the colour of an iceblink, and his skin was so white that it was almost translucent, a thin shell of flesh that could scarcely protect him from the coldness and cruelties of the world. Except for his eyes, he was really too beautiful. His eyes were a pale blue, vivid and clear like those of a sled dog. Danlo had never imagined seeing such eyes in a human being. There was too much sensitivity and suffering there, as well as passion and fury. In truth, Danlo instantly hated the sight of those hellish, shaida eyes. He thought of this strange boy as the ‘Hell-eyes’, a pale fury he should either flee from immediately or kill.
But the circle of chattering boys surrounding Hanuman pressed close and caught Danlo up in civilized conversation; he was caught, too, by Hanuman’s silver tongue and his charm.
‘I’m Hanuman li Tosh, off Catava. What does this word “shantih” mean? It’s a beautiful word, and the way you say it – beautiful and haunting.’
How could Danlo explain the peace beyond peace to a civilized boy with eyes out of his deepest nightmares? Hanuman was shivering in his sandals and his robe, looking at him expectantly. Despite the seeming frailty of his long neck and naked limbs where they stuck out of his robe, he bore the cold well. There was something about him that the other boys lacked, some inner fire or intensity of purpose. He had his fist up to his mouth coughing at the cold air, but even in his pain, he seemed very determined and very aware of Danlo looking at him.
‘Shantih,’ Danlo said, ‘is a word … my father taught me. It is really the formal ending to a prayer.’
‘And what language would that be? What religion?’
Danlo had been warned not to reveal his past so he evaded the question. ‘I have not presented myself,’ he said. ‘I am Danlo.’ He bowed his head and smiled.
‘Just … Danlo?’
He didn’t want to tell him that he was Danlo, son of Haidar, whose father was Wicent, the son of Nuri the Bear-killer. He felt the other boys staring at him, whispering, and he blurted out, ‘They call me Danlo the Wild.’
Behind Hanuman, a muscle-fat boy with a cracking voice and a pugnacious face began to laugh. His name was Konrad and he called out, ‘Danlo the Wild – what kind of name is that?’
And someone else said, ‘Danlo the Wild, the nameless child.’
Danlo’s neck suddenly hurt and his eyes were burning with shame. He stood there breathing deeply and evenly, as Haidar had taught him, letting the cold air enter his lungs to steal the heat from his anger. A few of the boys laughed at him and made jokes about his strange name. Most, however, hung back and kept their silence, obviously doubting the wisdom of baiting such a tough-looking boy. With a feather stuck in his hair and his deep blue eyes, Danlo did in fact look uncivilized and not a little wild.
Hanuman coughed some more, great racking coughs that tore through his chest and brought tears to his eyes. When he had caught his breath, he asked, ‘Which is your birth world?’
‘I was born here.’
‘You were? In Neverness? Then you must be used to the cold.’
Danlo rubbed his arms and blew on his fingers to warm them. A man, he thought, should not complain about things he can’t change, so he said, simply, ‘Can one ever get used to the cold?’
‘I certainly can’t,’ Hanuman said as he began coughing again. And then, ‘So cold – how do you stand it?’
Danlo watched him cough for a while, and said, ‘You are ill, yes?’
‘Ill? No, I’m not – it’s just that the air is so cold it cuts the lungs.’
After another round of coughing, Danlo decided that Hanuman was very ill. Once, when he was a young boy, he had watched his near-brother, Basham, die of a lung fever. Hanuman certainly had the pale, haunted look of someone who was contemplating going over. Perhaps a virus was eating away at his lungs. He seemed to be burning from deep inside. His eyes were sunken into dark, bruised flesh; the contrast of the light blue irises against the dark hollows made them seem more hellish by the moment. There was a fear in his eyes, a frightened, fey look almost as if he could see his fate approaching like a dark storm that would ice his heart and steal his breath away. He coughed again, and Danlo could almost feel the spasm tearing through his own chest. He was afraid for Hanuman. He was afraid, and that was seemly, for a man to fear another’s dying, but of course it was very wrong that Hanuman should be afraid for himself. Hanuman’s fear made Danlo sick. He had keen eyes, and he could see that this frail, ill boy was trying to hide his fear from all the others, perhaps even trying to hide it from himself. Someone, he thought, should feed him bowls of wolf-root tea and bathe his head with cool water. Where was his mother, to care for him? He would have placed his hand on Hanuman’s burning forehead to touch the fever away, but he remembered that he was not supposed to touch others, especially not strangers, especially not in sight of a hundred other laughing, joking boys.
Hanuman moved closer to Danlo and spoke in a low, tortured voice, ‘Please don’t tell the novices or masters I’m ill.’
He coughed so hard that he doubled over and lost his balance as his foot slipped on the ice. He would have pitched face forward, but Danlo caught him by the armpit and hand. Hanuman’s hand was hot like an oilstone and surprisingly strong. (Later Danlo would learn that Hanuman had trained in the killing arts in order to harden himself. In truth, he was much stronger than he looked.) Danlo gripped Hanuman’s hard little hand, pulling him to his feet, and suddenly they didn’t seem at all like strangers. There was something between them, some kind of correspondence and immediate understanding. Danlo had a feeling that he should pay close attention to this correspondence. Hanuman’s intenseness both attracted and repelled him. He smelled Hanuman’s fear and sensed his will to suffer that fear in silence no matter the cost. He smelled other things as well. Hanuman stank of sweat and sickness, and of coffee – obviously he had been drinking mugs of coffee to keep himself awake. With tired, feverish eyes Hanuman looked at Danlo as if they shared a secret. Hanuman shook off his hand, gathered in his pride and stood alone. Danlo thought he was being consumed from within like an overfilled oilstone burning too quickly. Who could hold such inner fire, he wondered, and not quickly go over to the other side of day?
‘You should rest in your furs and drink hot tea,’ Danlo said, ‘or else you might go over.’
‘Go over? Do you mean die?’ Hanuman spoke this word as if it were the most odious and terrifying concept that he could imagine. ‘Please, no, I hope not.’
He coughed and there was a bubbly sound of liquid breaking deep in his throat.
‘Where are your parents?’ Danlo asked as he combed back his long hair with his fingers. ‘Did you make the journey here alone?’
Hanuman coughed into his cupped hand, then wiped a fleck of blood from his lips. ‘I don’t have any parents.’
‘No
