David Zindell - The Wild

Go up to the lamb, Danlo wi Soli Ringess.

Out of the wind came a terrible voice, and the wind was this dark, beautiful voice, the sound and soul of a goddess. Danlo moved almost without thinking. It was almost as if the deeps of the ocean were pulling at his muscles. He came up close to the shelf; the lip of it was slightly higher than his waist. The lamb, he saw, was a young male and it was bleating louder now; each time he opened his mouth to cry out, a puff of steam escaped into the cold air. Danlo smelled milk and panic on the lamb’s breath; he was aware of the minty scent of his own. The lamb, sensing Danlo’s nearness, struggled to lift its head up and look at him. But the golden rope encircled him in tight coils, forcing and folding his legs up against his belly. Danlo reached out to touch the lamb’s neck, lacing his fingers through the soft wool covering the arteries of the throat. The lamb bleated at this touch, shuddering and convulsing against his bonds, and he lifted his head to fix Danlo with his bright black eye. He was only a baby, as Danlo was all too aware as he stroked the lamb’s head and felt the tremors of the animal’s bleating deep inside his throat.

Take up the knife in your hand, my sweet, gentle Danlo.

Danlo looked down at the long knife. He looked over to his left at the heap of driftwood and dry pine twigs. And then, for the tenth time, he looked at the lamb. How had these things come to be here, on a natural altar of rock uncovered by the daily motions of the sea? And somehow his house had been stocked with furniture and furs, with fruits and coffee and bread and other foods. Most likely, he thought, the Entity must be interfaced with some sort of robots who could roam the planet’s surface according to Her programs and plans. Above all else a goddess must be able to manipulate the elements of common matter; and so even a goddess the size of a star cluster must have human-sized hands to move sticks of wood and knives and lambs, and other such living things.

Take up the knife in your hand and slay the lamb. You know the way. You must cut open his throat and let his blood run down the rock into the ocean. I am thirsty, and all streams of life must run into me.

Danlo looked down at the knife. In the uneven sunlight, it gleamed like a silver leaf. He marvelled at the perfect symmetry of the blade, the way the two edges curved up long and sharp toward an incredibly fine point. He wanted to reach his hand out and touch this deadly diamond point, but he could not.

Take up the knife, my Warrior-Pilot. You must cut out the lamb’s heart and make me a burnt offering. I am hungry, and all creatures must rush into my fiery jaws like moths into a flame.

Danlo looked long and deeply at this impossible knife. Then from the sky, the late sun broke through the clouds and slanted low over the ocean to fall over the offshore rocks, over Danlo, over the knife. The blade caught the light, and for a moment, it glowed red as if it had just been removed from some hellish forge. Danlo thought that if he touched the knife his skin would sizzle and blacken, and then the terrible fire would leap up his arm and into his flesh, touching every part of him with unutterable pain, consuming him, burning him alive.

Is it your wish to die? All the warriors of life must slay or be slain, and so must you.

Danlo looked down at this lovely knife that he longed to touch but dared not. He looked at the altar, at the trembling lamb, at the Cathedral Rock and the dark ocean beyond. He suddenly realized that he was facing west, and he remembered a piece of knowledge from his childhood. A man, he had been taught, must sleep with his head to the north, piss to the south, and conduct all important ceremonies facing east. But he must die to the west. When his moment came – when it was the right time to die – he must turn his face to the western sky and breathe his last breath. Only then could his anima pass from his lips and rejoin with the wild wind that was the life and breath of the world.

Slay the lamb now or prepare to be slain yourself.

Danlo looked down and down at this warrior’s knife. He could not pick it up. Did the Entity truly believe that he would forsake his vow of ahimsa merely upon the threat of death? In truth, he could not break this deepest promise to himself. He would not. He would stand here upon this naked rock, for a moment or forever, watching the sunlight play like fire over the knife. His life meant everything to him and yet nothing – of what value was life if he must always live in dread of losing it? He would not pick up the knife, he told himself. He would stand here as the wind rose and the dark storm clouds rolled in from the sea. He would wait for the sea itself to rise and drown him in lungfuls of icy salt water, or he would wait for a bolt of lightning to fall down from the sky and burn his bones and brain. Somehow, he supposed, the Entity must command the lightning electrical storms of angry thoughts that flashed through Her dread brain, and so when She had at last grown vengeful and wroth, She would lift Her invisible hand against him and strike him dead.

You are prepared to die, and that is noble. But it is living that is hard – are you prepared to live? If you take up the knife and slay the lamb, I will give you back your life.

As Danlo stared at the knife pointing toward the lamb’s heart, the wind began to rise. Now the clouds were a solid wall of grey blocking out the sun. The air was heavy with moisture and it moved from sea to shore. Soon the sound of the wind intensified into a howl. It tore at the seaweed carpeting the rock; it caught Danlo’s rain robe and whipped his hair wildly about his head. Like a great hand, the wind pushed against the ocean tide, aiding its rush back to the land. The waters around Danlo surged and broke against the rocks. In moments the whole ocean would rise up above the edge of his rock and soak his boots. And then he must either do as the Entity commanded or defy Her with all his will.

There was a woman whom you loved. You think she is lost to you, but nothing is lost. If you slay the lamb and make me a burnt offering, I will give you back the woman you know as Tamara Ten Ashtoreth. Slay the lamb now. If you do, I shall tell you where you may find Tamara and restore her memories.

For the ten thousandth moment of his sojourn upon this rock, Danlo looked down at the knife. He looked at his long, empty right hand. How the Entity moved the world was a mystery that he might never comprehend, but it was an even greater mystery how anything might move anything. He himself wondered how he might move the muscles of his fingers and clasp the haft of a simple knife. Were not his sinews and his bones made of proteins and calcium and the other elements of simple matter? It should be the simplest thing in the universe to move these five aching tendrils of matter attached to his hand. He need only think the thought and exercise a moment of free will. He remembered, then, that his brain was made of matter too, all his thoughts, his memories, his dreams, all the lightning electro-chemical storms of serotonin and adrenalin that fired his blessed neurons. He remembered this simple thing about himself, and the mystery of how matter moved itself was like an endless golden snake, shimmering and coiling onto itself and finally swallowing its own tail.

This is the test of free will, Danlo wi Soli Ringess. What is it that you will?

Danlo looked down at the knife glittering darkly against the blackish seaweed of the rock. He gazed at the handle, the black shatterwood from a kind of tree that had never grown on Old Earth. He gazed and gazed, and suddenly the whole world seemed to be made of nothing but blackness. The black clouds above him threw black shadows over the inky black sea. The barnacles stuck to the rocks were black, and the rocks themselves, and the pieces of driftwood which the churning waters threw against the shore. Black was the colour of a pilot’s kamelaika and the colour of deep space. (And, he remembered, the colour of the centres of his eyes.) There was something about this strange, deep colour that had always attracted him. In blackness there was a purity and depth of passion, both love and hate, and love of hate. Once, he remembered, he had allowed himself to hate all too freely. Once a time, his deepest friend, Hanuman li Tosh, had stolen the memories of the woman whom Danlo had loved. Hanuman had destroyed a part of Tamara’s mind and thus destroyed a truly blessed and marvellous thing. Danlo had hated him for this, and ultimately, it was this wild hatred that he loved so much that had driven Tamara away and caused Danlo to lose her. And now he hated still, only he had nothing but dread of this blackest of emotions. He gazed at the black-handled knife waiting on a black rock, and he remembered that he hated Hanuman li Tosh for inflicting a wound in him that could never be healed. He ground his teeth, and made a fist, and pressed his black pilot’s ring against his aching eye.