They proceeded slowly down the bare hallway, very slowly because Drisana was very old and very slow. She shuffled along in her brownish-grey robe, taking her time. Like Old Father, she disdained bodily rejuvenations. Danlo had never – at least in his many days in the City – seen such an old woman. Her hair was long and grey and tied back in a chignon. Hundreds of deep lines split her face, which was yellow-white like old ivory. Most people would have thought her ugly, but Danlo did not. He thought she was beautiful. She had her own face, as the Devaki say. He liked her tiny round nose, red as a yu berry. He liked her straight, white teeth, although it puzzled him that she still had teeth. All the women of his tribe, long before they grew as old as Drisana, had worn their teeth down to brown stumps chewing on skins to soften them for clothing. Most of all, he liked her eyes. Her eyes were dark brown, at once hard and soft; her eyes hinted of a tough will and love of life. Something about her face and her eyes made Danlo feel comfortable for the first time since he had left his home.
She led them into a windowless room where Danlo and Old Father sat on bare wooden chairs around a bare wooden table. ‘Mint tea for the Honoured Fravashi?’ she asked as she hovered over her lacquered tea cabinet next to the dark wall. ‘And for the boy, what would he like in his cup? He’s not old enough to drink wine, I don’t think.’
She served them two cups of mint tea, then returned to the cabinet where she opened a shiny black door and removed a crystal decanter. She poured herself a half glass of wine. ‘It’s said that alcohol makes the Fravashi crazy. Now that would be a sight, wouldn’t it – a crazy Fravashi?’
‘Oh ho! It would be quite a sight indeed.’
Drisana eased herself into a chair and asked, ‘I suppose Danlo is here for an imprinting? A language, of course.’ She turned to Danlo and said, ‘Old Father always brings his students to me to learn a language. What will it be? Anglish? Old Swahili? New Japanese? The Sanskrit, or the neurologician’s sign language they employ on Silvaplana? I’m sure you’d like to learn the abominably difficult Fravashi language but that’s impossible. No one can imprint it. Eighty years I’ve been trying and all I can manage is a few whistles.’
Danlo was silent because he didn’t understand her. He tapped his forehead and smiled.
Drisana wet her lips with wine and whistled at Old Father. In truth, she could speak more than a few whistles of Fravash, enough to make her meaning understood: ‘What is the matter with this boy?’
Old Father loved speaking his own language and he smiled. He whistled back, ‘So, it’s so: he needs to learn the Language.’
‘What? But everyone speaks the Language! Everyone of the Civilized Worlds.’
‘So, it’s so.’
‘He’s not civilized, then? Is that why you call him “Danlo the Wild”?’ Such a name – I certainly don’t approve of these kinds of names, the poor boy. But he’s not of the Japanese Worlds, certainly. And he doesn’t seem as if he’s been carked.’
In truth, one of Danlo’s ancestors had illegally carked the family chromosomes, hence his unique, hereditary black and red hair. But it was too dark in the room for Drisana to make out the spray of red in his hair; it was too dark and her eyes were too old and weak. She must have seen clearly enough, however, that he possessed none of the grosser bodily deformations of the fully carked races: blue skin, an extra thumb, feathers, fur or the ability to breathe water instead of air.
‘Ah oh, I can’t tell you where he comes from,’ Old Father whistled.
‘It’s a secret? I love secrets, you know.’
‘It’s not for me to tell you.’
‘Well, the Fravashi are famous for their secrets, it’s said.’ Drisana drank her wine and got up to pour herself another glass. ‘To imprint the Language – nothing could be easier. It’s so easy, I hesitate to ask for payment.’
Old Father closed one eye and slowly whistled, ‘I was hoping to make the usual payment.’
‘I’d like that,’ Drisana told him.
The usual payment was a song drug. Old Father agreed to sing for Drisana after their business was concluded. The Fravashi have the sweetest, most exquisite of voices, and to humans, their otherworldly songs are as intoxicating as any drug. Neither of them approved of money, and they disdained its use. Old Father, of course, as a Fravashi believed that money was silly. And Drisana, while she had defected from the Order years ago, still clung to most of her old values. Money was evil, and young minds must be nurtured, no matter the cost. She loved bestowing new languages on the young, but she refused to imprint wolf consciousness onto a man, or transform a shy girl into a libertine, or perform the thousand other personality alterations and memory changes so popular among the bored and desperate. And so, her shop usually remained empty.
Drisana poured herself a third glass of wine, this time from a different decanter. Danlo smiled and watched her take a sip.
‘It’s rude,’ she whistled to Old Father, ‘how very rude it is to speak in front of him in a language he doesn’t understand. In a language no one understands. When we begin the imprinting, I shall have to speak to him. I suppose you’ll have to translate. You do speak the boy’s language, don’t you?’
Old Father, who was not permitted to lie, said, ‘It’s so. Of course I do. Oh ho, but if I translate, you might recognize the language and thus determine his origins.’
Drisana stood near Danlo and rested her hand on his shoulder. Beneath the loose skin on the back of her hand, the veins twisted like thin, blue worms. ‘Such a secret you’re making of him! If you need to keep your secret, of course you must keep it. But I won’t make an imprinting unless I can talk to him.’
‘Perhaps you could speak to him in Moksha.’
‘Oh? Is he fluent?’
‘Nearly so.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be sufficient, then.’
Old Father closed both eyes for an uncomfortably long time. He stopped whistling and started to hum. At last he looked at Danlo and said, ‘Lo ti dirasa, ah ha, I must tell you Drisana’s words as she speaks them.’
‘He speaks Alaloi!’ Drisana said.
‘You recognize the language?’
‘How could I not?’ Drisana, who spoke five hundred and twenty-three languages, was suddenly excited, so excited that she neglected to transpose her words into the Alaloi tongue. She began talking about the most important event that had happened in the Order since Neverness was founded. ‘It’s been four years since Mallory Ringess ascended to heaven, or whatever it is that his followers believe. I think the Lord Pilot left the City on another journey – the universe is immense, is it not? Who can say if he’ll ever return? Well, everyone is saying he became a god and will never return. One thing is certainly known: the Ringess once imprinted Alaloi – he was a student of bizarre and ancient languages. And now it seems that everyone wants to do the same, as young Danlo has obviously done. It’s really worship, you know. Emulation, the power of apotheosis. As if learning a particular language could bring one closer to the godhead.’
Old Father was obliged to translate this, and he did so. However, he seemed to be having trouble speaking. Alternately opening and shutting each eye, he sighed and paused and started and stopped. Danlo thought that he must be three quarters asleep, so long did it take him to get the words out.
‘Mallory Ringess was a pilot, yes?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Old Father said. ‘A brilliant pilot. He became the Lord Pilot of the Order, and then, at the end, the Lord of the Order itself. Many people hated him; some loved him. There was something about him, the way he compelled people’s love or hate. Twelve years ago, there was schism in the Order. And war. And the Ringess was a warrior, among other things. So, it’s so: a very angry,