West of January (43 page)

He sighed in exasperation and rose from his chair. “Well, I have enjoyed our chat. We’ll have time for lots more, I’m sure.”

Relieved, I levered myself away from the wall on my seat. “You’re coming… You’re coming along to lead the mission in person?”

“Eh? No, I’m not going! Who would I blame if it failed? I’m not going, and neither are you!”

I had been about to do my rollover and double-up maneuver. “I’m not going? But I’m the one—”

“A war party is no place for a cripple.” He folded his arms and was suddenly
big.
Partly it was a trick of the giant shadow dancing on the wall behind him. Partly it was his bulky white gown, and of course, I was sitting on the floor looking up, but the little man did look big, suddenly. I saw that I was not going to accompany the angels’ attack on Hrarrh’s nest.

“Damn! I can shoot as well as—”

“So I’ve heard. Uriel admits that you’re a better all-rounder than most of the cherubim and, he says, many of the angels. So’s your young friend, and I suppose you trained him.”

“Well, then—”

“He can’t be an angel until he can read and write. He needs some book learning, but in fieldwork he’s ready. Don’t tell him, though.” Michael had not moved. Only his shadow writhed and swayed.

“And me?”

That surprised him, and suddenly he showed caution. “You said you were not a pilgrim. Not a candidate, you said.”

“I wasn’t. But I want to go on this war party, and—”

“No.” He sank down on his chair again, which happened to put his face in shadow. “Don’t you understand, Knobil? Hasn’t Kettle explained?”

“Explained what?”

“Why you can’t be a cherub or an angel as long as I’m here in Heaven. You shouldn’t be here at all.”

“Because you’re my father.”

“Yes. But that’s not the scandal. Angels make bastards all the time. We encourage it! It spreads the genes around… I mean, it reduces the inbreeding, and that’s a bad problem in many areas. Groups don’t mix much, but seamen angels visit the deserts and treefolk angels the wetlands—the more angelbrats, the better! But we never know who they are. And—hasn’t Kettle explained the Great Compact?”

“He’s explained some. We’ve both been busy.”

“Of course.” Now he became kindly and gracious. “I could leave, of course. You’d make a good angel, and if you weren’t a cripple, I might even do that, so that you could become an angel. But that is an important factor, Knobil: you can’t deny that being a cripple makes a difference. And I think I’ll be a good Michael, given more time. As for going home… I don’t know what my arthritis would say to the wetlands now.”

I felt suddenly sorry for the little man and angry at myself because of it. “This is why there are no women in Heaven?”

“Talk to the seraphim if you get desperate. There are usually some trader wagons just over the hill.”

Anything’s negotiable.

“That wasn’t what I meant!”

He chuckled, then sat back to stare at nothing. “No. And yes. No women in Heaven! That’s what the Compact says. And no sons. No known sons. Because knowledge is power, and power leads to tyranny and oppression. You know how men feel about sons…son.”

“I know how herdmen feel about them. They kill them.”

He turned his blue-blue eyes on me without revealing anything. “I forgot again, didn’t I? Apart from herdmen, then? Most men favor their children over others. They will pass on their goods when they die. And their power, if they can.”

I had seen enough of traders’ customs and met enough village herd-men to be able to nod in agreement.

“So that’s the Compact! That’s why angels expect to be trusted with power—they have less temptation to abuse it. That’s another reason we get to tumble the women—because we can’t have any of our own.” We both sat in silence for a while.

Then he murmured, “Do you feel more guilty or less guilty now?”

I rolled over and jackknifed myself upright. Then at least I could look down on him. “I thank you for the hospitality.”

Michael might not have heard me. He was gazing dreamily at the misshapen wall opposite. “I often wonder about the firstfolk and those mysterious
goods
of theirs… How many trader wagons would it take to move Heaven, Knobil?”

“I don’t know a number big enough!”

“Ironic, isn’t it, that the answer was something as simple as snow? Those poor firstfolk, seeing all their precious goods destined to be destroyed by the dark—and then they discovered the snortoises. Nothing else can move a load like a snortoise can.”

I hesitated and was about to head for the door, but apparently he was still musing.

“So they saved their knowledge, their library. Ironic again—this is the worst place on Vernier to live, except Nightside itself. Do you see the problem?”

“Er…no.”

Michael was a curiously changeable character, but this dreamy introspection was both new and surprising. Then Throne uttered an enormous bellow, and I hastily lurched across the room to lean both hands against a wall while the building rocked.

Michael did not seem to have noticed. “Some people staying to guard the snortoises and the books and things, others spreading out all across Vernier…finding all sorts of ingenious ways of earning a living… I suppose at first they all sent their youngsters back here to be educated. Gradually the distances would become greater…so the girls wouldn’t come any more, because girls would be precious. Boys…well, it’s always nice to get the boys out of the compound when they get to a certain age—at least the rowdy ones. Send them off to learn, you know? Like the ghoulfolk still do?”

“Yes?” I straightened up cautiously.

“It’d be more restful.” Then Michael’s eyes flickered around to regard me, and he smiled his thin-cheeked, old man’s smile. I wondered if he’d been playing a part deliberately. “Then send off fewer and fewer boys, just the adventurous ones, and those would be sent back to advise and teach… That must have been how it all came about, I think: the start of Heaven and the angels. But maybe I’m wrong. It was a long time ago.”

—3—

E
VENTUALLY THE ARMY WAS READY
and it departed—forty-two men and nineteen chariots. I stayed behind in Heaven, and so did Michael. The commander was Three-brown, a heavy-jawed, long-armed slasher. He did not impress me. I thought better of his deputy, who had the typical yellow eyes and tousled hair of a wolfman. When I cheekily said so to Michael, he explained that wolfmen rarely made good leaders because they were always too eager to please, but they were infinitely loyal subordinates and dogged fighters.

An exhausted peace settled over Heaven. It lasted about one sleep, and then all the duties that had been neglected had to be caught up. Only a few aging angels remained, but the cherubim were still anxious for promotion, and thus I found myself instructing in everything from chariot driving to herb lore—at least the little I had picked up from Misi.

There was nobody heading out, to the grasslands or anywhere else, and without transportation, in Heaven I must remain. Of course, I could have stolen a couple of ponies and just vanished into a snowstorm, but that would have required a stouter heart than mine, for I knew I should find Loneliness out there waiting for me. Moreover, Michael could have sent angels to bring me back. Instead, I cravenly accepted the situation and settled down in Heaven for the time being.

Some of the blame belonged to Kettle, who managed at last to open my eyes to knowledge. I discovered that herdmen, or at least herdmen half-breeds, were not too stupid to learn to read. My penmanship was better than most—thanks to Misi’s embroidery lessons, I suppose. Somehow I found myself absorbing all the history and geography and sociology and biology and the myriad other things that cherubim must learn.

I had no real duties and no status. I taught cherubim. I exchanged lessons with angels—trader signals in return for navigation, for example. I copied archives for the saints, and I listened to their lectures. I played seraph at times, for I thereby learned skills I thought might be useful to me later. I sharpened knives, shoed horses, blended gunpowder, threw pots.

I visited with Michael often, drinking his sickly wine, arguing and swapping stories. We shared jokes, skirted sensitive spots—quarreling, arguing, probing, testing, stalking around each other like suspicious dogs.

Heaven was a seductive trap for a man who had a mission and a purpose elsewhere. It was safety after danger, and fellowship after loneliness. I had friends—even, I suppose, family.

I had sung in my childhood, and with the seafolk. I had sung when I was with my darling Misi, and even sometimes on my long trek with Quetti—usually while lounging by a campfire, in the company of a pretty girl or two. And in Cloud Nine I sang along with the cherubim.

─♦─

The war party returned, tails down, having found the mine long deserted. The tribe had formed itself into an ant army and vanished into the forest, undoubtedly heading for some better lode that their ancestral wisdom told them was due to emerge from the wetlands. Before leaving they had killed off many, or perhaps all, of their slaves. They may have taken the better ones with them or sold them to traders, although traders usually shun slaves in large numbers. Had Hrarrh sold me off to save me from enjoying a quick death?

The angels had failed me again, and I was not surprised.

Heaven settled back into its ages-old routine. Now angels were heading out on missions all the time, even if only on routine patrols of neglected niches. It was time for me to go. Heaven was a snare. I was procrastinating, thinking of a million excuses to put off my departure. I had learned much and there was much more I could learn still, but if I tried to learn everything, then I would die before finishing. I could feel my courage ebbing away. I had begun to tell myself that I was dreaming impossible dreams, that I had been mad when I had first thought up my plan and now was sane again. Nothing argues more convincingly than cowardice.

I did ask. During one of our long chats, Michael started riding his hobbyhorse about herdfolk yet again, how he wanted to save the poor loners. This piece of hypocrisy always infuriated me. He wanted to use herdmen, but he secretly despised them. In his eyes they were merely muscular brutes. I suffered in silence for a while and then forced out the words: “It’s time for me to leave.”

He straightened in his chair, bristling. “To go where?”

“Home,” I said simply.

He looked surprised, then pleased. “Well, you’d never get into a kayak, but that shouldn’t matter. Did you know I had four brothers? The wetlands must be teeming with your cousins, if you could ever find—”

“Home to the grasslands.”

“What?” He threw back his head and cackled.

I glared in silence. I no longer needed to sit on the floor when visiting Michael. He had ordered a special chair made—solid, high enough to be easy for me, with a footrest. It was infuriatingly comfortable.

“Rot!” he said. “Decay and putrefaction! Why would a civilized being like you want to go back to live among those animals?”

“They’re my people. I don’t belong here nor in the wetlands. I want to go home. Everyone does in the end.”

That was not quite true. Some angels, like Michael, elected to live out their life span in Heaven, but most headed off eventually in search of wife and hearth and children. Michael, having considered the matter, was now openly suspicious. “No, you’re no child-killer. Why? You’ve got something else in mind!”

His insight stunned me, but of course, that was the key to his success at manipulating people. “No, I don’t! Will you let me go?”

“Not until I know why!” We were both shouting.

“I’ve told you!”

“No you haven’t!”

“Animals, are they?” I swung my feet down. “But the women perform satisfactorily?” I heaved myself upright.

Michael switched moods, a common trick of his. He stayed in his pillowed chair and beamed up at me jocularly. “Now what vast confusion is churning inside that blond head of yours, son?”

“Just that word:
son!
You took my mother like the loan of a blanket!”

“You ought to be glad I did, surely?”

“You made me a yellow-haired freak!”

He sniggered. “Your complaint is paradoxical. You display an unthinking lack of gratitude. Your mother was very grateful.” I screamed at him.

“Seriously!” he said blandly. “She told me she’d never realized it was supposed to be a pleasure.”

“Liar! Filthy liar!”

“No. And when I returned and found you…” He paused, eyeing me oddly. I was shaking with wild fury. “Lithion? That was her name, wasn’t it, Lithion?”

“Yes.” I took a lurching step toward the door.

“What happened to her? Did she have many more children after you? How many others?”

“Damn you to dark hell! I don’t want to talk about her!” I stepped for the door again, just as the snortoise lurched. Caught off balance, I staggered, missed a grab at a chair, and pitched to the floor. That was not the first nor the last spill I took in Heaven, but it was one of the worst. Throne must have felt my skull hit his shell.

The strange lights faded from my eyes. The building settled. I was lying on my back, listening to the rumbles of the world’s mightiest digestion. I struggled to sit up and discovered Michael was kneeling at my side, assisting me.

“Easy!” he said. “You took a bad knock. Easy, son!”

“Don’t call me that!” I flailed vainly.

“But you are my son. Mine and Lithion’s.”

“No!” I tried to shout but only groaned. Though my head was spinning, I knew I must go, and go at once. “I won’t talk about her. I killed her. Help me up—now!”

“Easy!” He tightened his grip, with more strength than I would have believed he possessed in his withered little frame. To stand up I must first lie down, and he was supporting me. I floundered like a child. My frustration made me start to weep.

“Tell me,” he whispered, hugging me tight. “Tell me what happened.”

I blurted out the story of Anubyl, or some of it, anyway. I don’t know how much I told, because I wasn’t listening to what I said. At the end of it, I buried my face in the collar of Michael’s coarse white gown and sobbed like a baby. He clutched me firmly until at last I snuffled away into shamed silence.