The Broken God by David Zindell

and Danlo couldn't make out what he said. It sounded like gobbledygook. And then, still more remarkably, the animal began to speak words. Danlo couldn't understand the words. In truth, he had never thought there might be languages other than his own, but he somehow knew that the animal was conversing in a strange language with the men, and they with him. There was a great yet subtle consciousness about this animal, a purusha shining with the clarity and brilliance of a diamond. Danlo looked at him more closely, at the golden eyes and especially at the paws that seemed more like hands than paws. Was he an animal with a man's soul or a man with a deformed body? Shaida is the way of the man who kills other men. O blessed God! he thought again, he had almost killed that which may not be killed.
    'Lo ni yujensa!' Danlo said aloud. 'I did not know!'
    The animal walked over to him and touched his forehead. He spoke more words impossible to understand. He smelled of something familiar, a pungent odour almost like crushed pine needles.
    'Danlo los mi nabra,' Danlo said, formally giving the animal and the men his name. It was his duty to trade names and lineages at the first opportunity. He tapped his chest with his forefinger. 'I am Danlo, son of Haidar.'
    The black man holding him nodded his head severely. He poked Danlo in the chest and nodded again. 'Danlo,' he said. 'Is that what they call you? What language are you speaking? Where did you come from that you can't speak the language of the Civilized Worlds? Danlo the Wild. A wild boy from nowhere carrying a spear.'
    Danlo, of course, understood nothing of what the man said, other than the sound of his own name. He didn't know it was a crime to brandish weapons in the City. He couldn't guess that with his wind-chewed face and his wild eyes, he had frightened the civilized men of Neverness. In truth, it was really he who was frightened; the men held him so tightly he could hardly breathe.
    But the animal did not seem frightened at all. He was scarcely perturbed, looking at him in a kindly way and smiling. His large mouth fell easily into a kind of permanent, sardonic smile. 'Danlo,' he repeated, and he touched Danlo's eyelids. His fingernails were black and shaped like claws, but otherwise his exceedingly long hands were almost human. 'Danlo.'
    He had almost killed that which may not be killed.
    'Oh, ho, Danlo, if that is your name, the men of the City call me Old Father.' The animal-man placed his hand flat against his chest and repeated, 'Old Father.'
    More words, Danlo thought. What good were words when the mind couldn't make sense of words? He shook his head back and forth, and tried to pull free. He wanted to leave this strange place where nothing made sense. The shadow-men had faces like his own, and the animal-man spoke strange, incomprehensible words, and he had almost killed that which may not be killed and therefore almost lost his soul.
    Shaida is the cry of the world when it has lost its soul, he remembered.
    The man-animal continued to speak to him, even though it was clear that Danlo couldn't understand the words. Old Father explained that he was a Fravashi, one of the alien races who live in Neverness. He did this solely to soothe Danlo, for that is the way of the Fravashi, with their melodious voices and golden eyes, to soothe and reflect that which is most holy in human beings. In truth, the Fravashi have other ways, other reasons for dwelling in human cities. (The Fravashi are the most human of all aliens, and they live easily in human houses, apartments, and hospices so long as these abodes are unheated. So human are they, in their bodies and in their minds, that many believe them to be one of the lost, carked races of man.) In truth, the men surrounding Old Father were not hunters at all, but students. When Danlo surprised them with his spear, Old Father had been teaching them the art of thinking. Ironically, that morning in the blinding wind, he had been showing