I’ve sworn not to drink beer any more, so I suppose I should find a woman. Someone plump and fertile – it’s been too, too long, and who knows if this will be the last time.’
Danlo waited for Bardo to stand up, but the huge man remained like a rock almost stuck to the earth.
‘Ah, the truth is, I don’t want to leave you now, Little Fellow. Who knows if this will be the last time I see you?’
As tears began to flow freely in Bardo’s eyes, Danlo smiled and laughed softly. He jumped up, then pulled Bardo to his feet. ‘I shall miss you,’ he said as he embraced him.
‘Ah, Little Fellow, Little Fellow.’
‘But of course we’ll see each other again,’ Danlo said. ‘Even though a million stars and all the lightships of Neverness lie between us.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Yes. It … is our fate.’
With that, Bardo thumped Danlo’s back one last time, bowed, and ambled off towards the academicians’ apartments to find his woman – probably some young journeyman whom he had met during the last few days. Danlo watched him disappear into the shadows; then he turned and waited for the sun to rise over the plains and the light-field to the east.
That morning most of the New Order on Thiells assembled at the light-field to bid the pilots farewell. Some nine thousand Ordermen lined the field’s main run for a mile on either side. Their formal silk robes, in amber, red, indigo, cobalt and violet, rippled like banners in the wind. Akashics, horologes, historians, cetics and remembrancers – it was their pride to honour the two hundred pilots who would risk war to protect them. And to protect the Order’s ancient dream of awakening a star-flung humanity to the light of reason and truth’s bright, ineffable flame. No one knew when these brave pilots might return. No one knew what might befall them – and the New Order – if they never returned, but it was also their pride to match the pilots’ bravery with their own, and so almost every face was smiling and bright with cheer.
Much of the city of Lightstone, as well, turned out to watch the spectacle of the pilots’ departure. There were some eighty-nine thousand of these people jostling and vying for position, craning their necks for a better view of the two hundred lightships shimmering in the early sun.
At precisely the first hour after first light, Lord Nikolos arrived at the field in a gleaming red sled and took his place on the middle of the run. There, in front of their ships, the pilots had been called together to receive his final charge and blessing. The Sonderval, as Lord Pilot, stood foremost among them, a great tree of a man nearly eight feet tall dressed in his formal black robe. The master pilots waited near him in order of precedence of the date on which they had taken vows. Helena Charbo, with her great shock of silver hair and her fearless face, was the first of these, followed by Charl Rappaporth, Aja and Sabri Dur li Kadir. Fifty other masters were arrayed in line, Veronika Menchik, Ona Tetsu, Edreiya Chu, Richardess, and others, as well as Peter Eyota and Henrios li Radman who had recently returned from the deepest part of the Vild. The last of the master pilots, of course, was Danlo wi Soli Ringess. He stood watching the sky with his deep blue eyes – and watching Lord Nikolos and all the thousands of men and women pressing up against the run from the east and west. He might have traded a few last words with Lara Jesusa and other full pilots drawn up behind him, but Lord Nikolos had called out to speak and was waiting only for the throngs to stop talking and cheering and fall into a proper silence.
Two other people standing on the run off to the side were not pilots of the Order. These were Demothi Bede, the Lord Neologician robed in ochre and, of course, Pesheval Lal, whom Danlo and everyone else always called Bardo. Once, this huge man might have stood in the Sonderval’s place, or not far behind, but no one had forgotten how he had abjured his vows and abandoned the Order. However, he was still a great pilot, if now a ronin, and his stolen ship, the Sword of Shiva, was lined up last with all the others. He too wore black, the dréadful black of nall armour and his swirling shesheen cape. If he had accomplished his purpose of the previous night, he gave no sign, for his face was as stern as any other. He traded serious looks with Demothi Bede, who would soon set forth as an ambassador and passenger in Danlo’s ship. In only a few more moments they would both leave this soft and beautiful world – Bardo to go to war and Demothi to journey to Neverness to prevent it.
‘Silence, it’s time!’ a red-robed horologe called out from a crowd of academicians waiting not far from Lord Nikolos. Others picked up the cry, and passed it voice to voice for a mile down the run: ‘Silence, it’s time.’
Then, in the sudden quiet, Lord Nikolos spoke to the pilots in his calm, clear voice. He began by discussing the meaning of being a pilot and reminding them of their vows, especially their fourth vow, that of restraint. For in the coming days, he said, they would need restraint above all other virtues, even courage and faith. ‘The Order was founded to illuminate the peoples of all worlds, not to make war upon them. We keepers of the ineffable flame are no warriors, nor shall we ever be. Nevertheless, it may be that we must act as warriors for a time. Therefore we must act in clear conscience of what is permitted and what is not.’
He then enjoined them above all else to avoid war if they could. Danlo, along with the Lord Bede, was to be given a chance to reason with Hanuman li Tosh. If a display of virtuosity and threat might bring peace, they were to use their lightships towards this end only. And if battle came to them howling on an ill-wind of fate, pilots were to fall in violence only against other pilots and ships of war. They were not to attack merchant ships, nor any world or peoples supporting Hanuman and the Way of Ringess. Specifically, Lord Nikolos charged them with upholding the Laws of the Civilized Worlds. They were not to arm their lightships with hydrogen bombs or other weapons of genocide. They were not to infect planetary communications’ systems with information viruses or disable them with logic bombs. The purpose of the war must be as clear to them as a diamond crystal: first, they were to stop Hanuman from using the Old Order to spread Ringism to the Civilized Worlds. If possible, they were to restore the Old Order to its original vision and age-old injunction against associating with any religion. And last, he said, at any cost to themselves in wounds or death, Hanuman’s Universal Computer must be destroyed. To this end, he asked them to pledge their honour and lives.
After they had made their vows, he reminded them that the meaning of the ancient word for pilot was ‘steersman’. He told them that they must always find their way between the hard rocks of pride and the whirlpool of self-deception to the truth shining always beyond. And so he led them in a prayer for the most essential of all the pilot’s arts, which was vision. And then he said, ‘I wish I could go with you, but since I cannot, I wish you well. Fall far, fall well, and return.’
He bowed to them, deeply, and the pilots returned his bow. Led by the Sonderval, they each walked up to their ships and climbed inside. It took some little time for Demothi Bede to enter the passenger room of Danlo’s ship and prepare for his journey. But when he had shut himself inside his sleeping cell and Lord Nikolos and everyone else had moved to safety, the Master of the Fields gave the signal for the pilots to depart. One by one, the lightships began rocketing down the run, where the swarms of the city formed a gauntlet on either side of them. Of course, the lightships, having no wheels, did not need to use the run to gain the blueness of the sky beyond. But the pilots wanted to make a show of their art, and so the Sonderval took his silver-black Cardinal Virtue roaring into the air. Helena Charbo, in the Infinite Pearl, followed his line of ascent only seconds behind, and then came the other ships, the Montsalvat, the Blue Rose and the Bright Moon, and the August Moon, the Sagittarius Bridge, and all the others strung out like diamonds on a necklace connecting earth to the heavens.
The Snowy Owl, with its long, graceful lines and sweeping wings, was only one ship among two hundred of these jewels.
