The Broken God by David Zindell Page A

ivory into a likeness of the snowy owl. He told animal stories to the dogs; he explained how Manwe, on the long tenth morning of the world, had changed into the shape of the wolf, into snowworm and sleekit, and then into the great white bear and all the other animals. Manwe had done this magical thing in order to truly understand the animals he must one day hunt. And, too, because a man must know in his bones that his true spirit was as mutable as ivory or clay. Danlo loved enacting these stories. He was a wonderful mimic. He would get down on all fours and howl like a wolf, or suddenly rear up like a cornered bear, bellowing and swatting at the air. Sometimes he frightened the dogs this way, for it was no fun merely to act like a snow tiger or thallow or bear; he had to become these animals in every nuance and attitude of his body – and in his love of killing and blood. Once or twice he even frightened himself, and if he had had a mirror or pool of water to gaze into, it wouldn't have surprised him to see fangs glistening inside his jaws, or fur sprouting all white and thick across his wild face.
    But perhaps his favourite diversion was the study of mathematics. Often he would amuse himself drawing circles in the hard-packed snow of his bed. The art of geometry he adored because it was full of startling harmonies and beauty that arose out of the simplest axioms. The wind shifted to the northwest and keened for days, and he lay half out of his sleeping furs, etching figures with his long fingernail. Jiro liked to watch him scurf off a patch of snow; he liked to stick his black nose into a mound of scraped-off powder, to sniff and bark and blow the cold stuff all over Danlo's chest. (Like all the Alaloi, Danlo slept nude. Unlike his near-brothers, however, he had always found the snowhuts too cold for crawling around without clothes, so he kept to his sleeping furs whenever he could.) It was the dog's way of letting him know he was hungry. Danlo hated feeding the dogs, not only because it meant a separation from his warm bed, but because they were steadily running out of food. It pained him every time he opened another crackling, frozen packet of meat. He wished he had had better luck spearing fatfish for the dogs because fatfish were more sustaining than the lean shagshay meat and seemed to last longer. Though, in truth, he loathed taking dogs inside the hut whenever their only food was fish. It was bad enough that the hut already stank of rotten meat, piss, and dung. Having to scoop out the seven piles of dung which every day collected in the tunnel was bad indeed, but at least the dung was meat-dog-dung and not the awful smelling fish-dog-dung that the dogs themselves were reluctant to sniff. Nothing in the world was so foul as fish-dog-dung.
    On the eighth morning of the storm, he fed them their final rations of food. His food – baldo nuts, a little silk belly meat, and blood-tea – would last a little longer, perhaps another tenday, that is, if he didn't share it with the dogs. And he would have to share, or else the dogs would have no strength for sled pulling. Of course, he could sacrifice one of the dogs and butcher him up to feed the others, but the truth is, he had always liked his dogs more than an Alaloi should, and he dreaded the need for killing them. He whistled to coax the sun out of his bed and prayed, 'O Sawel, aparia-la!' But there was only snow and wind, the ragged, hissing wind that devours even the sun.
    One night, though, there was silence. Danlo awakened to wonoon, the white silence of a new world waiting to take its first breath. He sat up and listened a while before deciding to get dressed. He slipped the light, soft underfur over his head, and then he put on his shagshay furs, his trousers and parka. He took care that his still sore membrum was properly tucked to the left, into the pouch his found-mother had sewn into his trousers. Next, he pulled his waterproof sealskin boots snug over his