West of January (38 page)

—2—

M
Y DARLING
M
ISI
… At first I had been fooled by her habitual pretense of stupidity. Later, blinded by love, I had overestimated her cunning.

Silk raising goes on all the time. In nature, the silkworms are tiny parasites of a small burrowing animal called a ground pig. Something in human skin delays their cocoon stage and allows them to grow into the monsters I had seen on Quetti. The eggs can be picked up around any ground pig burrow. It is not difficult to tie up the human victim and seed him, so there is always a small supply of silk trickling into the trade routes.

But, as Quetti had told me, it is hard to restrain an unwilling subject so firmly that he cannot scrape the worms off. It is hard to feed him for long against his will. The key to successful silk production is the virgin’s web and voluntary pasturing. Male spinsters have been recorded, but they fare poorly, for any spinster is an unpopular neighbor, needing an army for both defense and recruitment. Female warriors are just not as effective as males.

Furthermore, black or dark brown silk is of low value, and lighter skin is rarely available in the forests. Ants are a passable feedstock, if their dark hair is kept shaved. They, and the wolffolk of the far north, yield a pale tan silk, but real profit comes only from pure water silk, and only wetlanders will produce that. Whenever these lighter shades appear or the overall supply of silk in the market increases, then the angels know that a spinster has arisen. It happens, so I was told in Heaven, once or twice in every cycle. All other tasks except the most urgent are then set aside as the angels move to track down this abomination.

When Black-white-red spoke to me at the angels’ roadblock, he knew immediately that I was not what I claimed to be. He knew that wetlander slaves, being very precious and yet not required to do physical labor, were usually crippled—a broken leg being more effective than shackles, and cheaper. A blue-eyed trader who could not walk did not fool Black at all. He knew also of the virgin’s web, although its use had never been recorded outside the high forests. Misi’s plot was unraveled right away.

So Misi and I had been allowed to proceed. The angels followed, letting the unwitting victim lead them to the spinster. To track a trader train is absurdly easy. To keep watch on one man within it and yet remain undetected calls for much skill and even more luck. Fortunately Misi, being unable to ride a horse and yet determined to view the transfer of wealth, had insisted on taking her train to the actual rendezvous. That was a breach of custom and a serious error. When the angels saw that one train had left the group, they could guess that the exchange was about to be made. When I was carried off in Shisisannis s canoe, they were watching.

They had even thought to bring a canoe of their own with them—small, light, and speedy. Paddlers, unlike rowers, face forward, and Shisisannis had failed to keep close watch behind him on his way upstream, while his men had all been too intent on playing tougher-than-you to look back at all. Thus the angels’ little scout craft had escaped detection. The rest of the force had followed more slowly, for sailboats do poorly on a winding river in a fitful wind, but they had all arrived at last near the spinster’s lair. By the time they had concealed their chariots and taken some well-earned rest, Shisisannis had departed again, and suddenly the game was easy.

─♦─

I had been asleep. I awakened with a start of terror. Quetti was still there, tied down. He raised his head, his pale face just visible enough to show the two crop markings that crossed it. He had saved his eye, at the cost of a little skin from his fingers, and the silkworm had vanished into his hair. Ing-aa had gone, his eggs having hatched. Old Faithful gurgled and moaned on the fourth bed.

My chest itched maddeningly. I tried to work out where the tiny horrors had got to. Not far yet…none near my groin, anyway…

“What was that noise?” Quetti whispered. His throat was likely as sore as mine, for he had screamed a lot in his sleep.

I thought back to what had wakened me. Before I could speak, the same noise roared again, several times.

“Guns!” I yelled. “The angels have come!”

Quetti wailed and began struggling against his bonds, but the silk cord was unbreakable. There were more shots and voices shouting. “They’ll kill her!”

“I hope so! I hope so!”

More shots…more shouts…running feet slapping mud, some close to the hut. I began to call for help, as loudly as I was able. Quetti cursed and moaned.

Again there was shooting and then a long, maddening silence.

At last I heard voices and decided they were coming closer.

And closer… So slowly!

The drape was ripped from the doorway, tipping torrents of light into our eyes. A shadow blocked it, but it was not the outline of an angel in fringed buckskins. Quetti yelled with joy, and it was I who wailed in crushing despair, seeing another of the lanky black swampmen in a pagne, blurred against the brightness.

“Well, look who’s here!” a deep voice said. “My old friend Nob Bil! We meet again, trader?”

“Get me out of here!”

Chuckling, the newcomer cut one of my bonds and then caught my hand as I reached for the unbearable itch on my chest. “Don’t scratch them. Go out and let the sun do it for you.”

He had to help me rise, but in a few moments I was outside, leaning back against the side of the hut and sniggering idiotically as the tiny maggots fell from my chest, slain by sunlight. I was too choked with relief to speak, yet I wanted to sing. I shivered uncontrollably, but I felt like dancing. I gulped deep breaths of the dank forest air and thought it was the finest perfume in the world. I had been given back my life. God bless the angels!

For the first time I had a decent view of Ayasseshas’s log palace. It seemed enormous to me, and an impressive tribute to her power, but already flames streamed from the windows. Some of the huts had been torched now, also.

In a few moments Black-white dragged out Quetti, who struggled and screamed, trying to run back into the dark. But the slender young wetlander in his weakened state was no match for the tall swampman. Black just lifted him up and held him at arm’s length, helplessly suspended.

“She’s dead, I tell you!” he kept repeating. For a long time Quetti would not believe him and continued to kick and squirm and rave, desperate to save the silkworms he had promised to the spinster. I thought that Black should have let him finish a task so nearly complete. The silk would have made him wealthy, and surely he had earned it.

At last Quetti came to accept that Ayasseshas had been shot. Then he stood submissively. Tears trickled down his silver-fuzz cheeks as the slugs fell from him also, one by one.

Smoke was billowing through the compound in acrid, eye-stinging clouds. The sun burned hot one moment and was a pallid white disk the next. We were all starting to cough.

I could see a few dead men lying around. Angels more formally clad than Black were stalking around, appearing and disappearing like wraiths in the haze, all bearing guns and obviously alert for trouble as they inspected the huts. Most seemed to be of lighter races than our swampman rescuer.

“I am very glad to see you, sir,” I ventured at last. My wits were returning, my parasites had gone, and I had begun to wonder about clothes.

For a moment Black-white’s habitual mournful expression broke into a smile, although his eyes were streaming tears. “I was very glad to see you, wetlander. You led us here.” He sighed, poking the sobbing Quetti, who was still as bare as me. “Turn around and toast your other side, lad. We’ll have to find some oil or something for you.” He started to cough.

Quetti rotated obediently, in silent misery.

“You followed me?” I said, working it out.

“Right. Two-white and I work a mean paddle. We followed you, and the rest came after.”

“You scared me just now, when you came in—How
did
you get in, anyway?”

We were interrupted then, but I heard later how the angels had triumphed by sheer audacity. Black and Two-white-lime had donned local costume and walked brazenly into the compound, unchallenged by the few remaining guards. As soon as they had killed Um-oao and captured Ayasseshas, the war was over. Despite his melancholy manner, Black must have been feeling very pleased with himself.

Another angel had come strutting over to us, a small man whose sleeve proclaimed him to be Red-yellow-green. He was perky, cocky, and weather-beaten, and so reminiscent of Lon Kiv that he could only be of trader stock. He rested the butt of his gun on the ground and pushed back the brim of his hat to reveal a sweaty lock of white hair. He looked us over in silence, wincing at the sight of so much raw flesh on Quetti.

“Any more of you whiteys around?”

Quetti was not speaking, so I said, “No, sir.”

He seemed relieved, and he glanced at the tall swampman.

“We’d best get these two out of here fast.”

Black nodded. “You’re not going to wait and waylay the others when they return, Red?”

The little man shook his head. “They’re victims too. Let them be.”

Then I remembered where “the others” had gone. I had been so overwhelmed by my own release that I had forgotten the danger to Misi. Choking with the effort of forcing so many words through my aching throat, I told of the raid on the traders.

The little man nodded. “We guessed as much. It was lucky for us, though. And for you, sucker.”

“But you must save the traders!”

He glowered. “They’re slavers! They all knew about you. It will serve them right! Let the spinster’s men kill them off, or be killed themselves.”

“Angels prevent violence!”

“Why should I risk my men to save either side?”

I was stunned with horror, not knowing what to say, but Black remarked softly, “They have children, Red.”

Red pulled a face and grunted. He pondered, tugging his lip. “Well, I’ll go and try. If I can get there before the battle, I may talk them all out of it.”

“Now wait a moment, great one,” Black said. “You shot the spinster. If her men learn that, they’ll use your guts for bowstrings.”

“I’ll tell them you did it!”

“Seriously…”

“No argument!” Red had to crane his head back when talking with the gangling black man. “You finish up here. I’ll head back downstream and see what can be done.”

“Damn it, Red! Spinster’s men meeting an angel?”

“Ex-spinster’s men!” Red’s face was turning an appropriate color.

“They may not believe that.”

“They will! I’ll take these two dupes along as evidence.”

Black regarded him very oddly. He glanced at Quetti and me. “Is that wise?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

Black’s face went stiff. “You are, sir.”

“Right! And you move this job along as fast as you can. That smoke may bring trouble, so finish the cleanup here and then scram. We’re overdue already, and Michael will bust me to seraph if we’re not all back soon. I’ll catch up with you if I can, but don’t wait for me. Understood?”

There was no more argument from Black.

“I won’t go!” Quetti shouted. “I want to see her.” The palace was a thundering inferno by then. I could feel the heat from it.

“She’s
dead!”
Red insisted. “I blew her brains out myself. And you’ll do as you’re told, you ungrateful little idiot.” That last remark was not completely fair. Quetti was taller than he was.

─♦─

Red-yellow-green had made a curious decision, one that was to be much debated and criticized in Heaven. His situation was perilous. He had a dozen angels, counting himself, and five chariots. The aggressive Shisisannis was somewhere in the area with upward of thirty followers. Warlike young men bereft of a beloved leader by an act of violence are prone to notions of vengeance.

Within the compound itself, now a choking mass of flame and smoke, were another thirty or so of the spinster’s victims. Most of them had been rescued from the pens, but, like Quetti, they were not necessarily grateful. They ranged from mindless husks like Old Faithful to fit and virile fighters like Ing-aa. In time, perhaps, most of them would recover their wits enough to head off in search of the families and tribes from which Ayasseshas had abducted them, and some might even resume a normal life again, but they were not yet ready to do so. The most hopeless cases were being quietly put out of their misery by grim-faced angels, although I was unaware of that at the time. Other angels, equally grim, were disabling the dangerous by breaking their throwing arms, a brutal but necessary precaution.

On the face of it, Red abandoned his troops in mid-campaign. He should have either ignored the trader problems or sent someone else to deal with it.

But the facts were less simple than that, and his thinking more complex. As I was to discover, Red’s intention was to save not the traders, but his own angels. He wanted to block any pursuit, and he had evidently concluded that the venture was too risky to delegate to anyone else. He took Quetti and me along as proof that Ayasseshas had been overthrown, and he may well have planned to kill us both if there was any risk of our falling into the wrong hands. Fortunately I was not smart enough to see that.

Soon I found myself sitting once more in the bow of an angel chariot. It was much more heavily laden than Violet’s had been, because it had been home to three angels, and angels tend to collect unusual personal things, like spare sets of clothes.

At my side, Quetti was hunched over in silent misery, listlessly applying grease to his welts. We were both wearing muddy fur pagnes, and mine was bloodstained. I worried that two light-skinned wetlanders might suffer sunburn, but the sun was too low in the sky to be very dangerous, and most of the river was heavily shaded.

Red sat amidships, steering the chariot as it floated down the oily water. The wind was rarely helpful, and he spent much time adjusting his sails.

Before we departed, he had ostentatiously laid his gun to hand and ascertained that we both knew what it could do. I could see why he might not trust Quetti, who was red-eyed and surly, but his attitude seemed to imply that he did not trust me either, and I resented that.