West of January (39 page)

Nevertheless, I was free at last—or so I thought. Intoxicated by the sense of freedom, I floated amid rainbow dreams of being reunited with Misi. Had my throat not still ached so much, I might have burst into song. The only anchor on my euphoria was anxiety about what Shisisannis was doing. Our pace must be much slower than his had been, and so I fretted a little that we might arrive too late to stop the massacre—but only a little, for Misi at least would be safe. At every bend I twisted around in the hope of seeing a solitary canoe approaching, speeding my love toward the spinster’s lair.

Of course that canoe would also have contained Shisisannis himself and five or six young toughs. What would have happened then, I can only guess, but the problem did not arise. No craft appeared, and only the angel’s chariot tremored the reflections.

We ate. We slapped at bugs. We sailed on in silence down the tree-lined, tortuous river. Then the angel roused himself from a period of deep thought to scowl at his passengers.

“What’s wrong?” I asked uneasily.

“I’m just wondering what to do with you two. I have to get you out of the forest. It’s not safe for you.”

“Why not?”

His expression said that my ignorance was unbelievable. “Because silkworm eggs are easy to come by. Whiteys like you are just too tempting. You—Quetti? Where do you want to go?”

Quetti stared at him for a while and then just shrugged.

“Pilgrim, were you?”

“Yes.” Quetti turned his head away, looking sulky.

Red nodded. “Usual story, then. It’s a test. If you’re stupid enough to get caught, then you’re not smart enough to be an angel.”

Quetti’s blue eyes glinted. He muttered something that I thought was “Murderer!” Red would not have heard.

“You could have a fast trip home,” the angel said with a sneer. “Down this stream somewhere is the Great River. It’s flowing west at the moment, at maximum rate. It would be a hair-raising ride, but you could try it in one of the canoes.”

“He’d never get through the Andes!” I exclaimed.

Red shrugged, but he seemed surprised by my knowledge. “No, he wouldn’t, the shape he’s in. You’ll have to come north with me then, lad. The goatherds of the late desert are a hospitable lot; we’ll find a tribe to take you in until you heal. And you, cripple?”

“I want to be with Misi Nada…if she’ll have me. Wherever she is, that’s where I want to be.”

The little man curled his lip in contempt. Then he broke the news. The world fell apart. My mind seemed to die, and for a while his words made no sense at all. He had to repeat the story several times before I could understand.

As soon as Shisisannis had departed with me as his prisoner and the angel canoe in pursuit, then the rest of the angels had moved on the trader caravan. The men, predictably, had all fled on horseback. The angels had fined the other women a portion of their goods, which had then been burned, but Misi Nada and Pula Misi had been executed for slaving. Red had carried out the sentence himself, just as he had executed Ayasseshas, because no honorable leader would delegate so despicable a task.

I wept, my heart shattered into a million pieces.

Quetti studied my grief for a while and then remarked cattily, “Now you know how it feels!”

─♦─

That journey seemed endless. Red had not thought to bring food, and he dared not stop to catch any. Quetti curled up on the floor and seemed to go into a coma. I hunkered down in a silent agony of bereavement, my mind churning with regret as it strove to come to terms with the disaster. Red just steered and worked the sails, and grew ever more weary.

Certainly I had gone mad in the ants’ nest, for no sane man could have survived that ordeal for so long. Now, had anyone cared enough to ask, I would probably have said that my wits had been restored by Misi’s love and care. I can only suppose that my wits had been driven away again by the shock of losing her, for it was then, huddled in the bow of Red’s chariot on that smelly bug-infested river, that I made my great decision. No blinding flash of light or voice from Heaven announced the moment; it came slowly, imperceptibly…relentlessly.

Misi was gone, Sparkle an ancient memory. My children on the South Ocean would not even know my name, and anyway I could never find them. Heaven held no appeal. True, the angels’ coup against the spinster had won a brief twitch of admiration from me, but Red’s brutality had crushed it utterly. Murderer!

I had no desire to become an angel. So where could I go? What could I do?

No blinding flash…no carefully crafted logic…but when Quetti’s shout aroused me from my long reverie, I knew my purpose. I had made my decision. It is a sad commentary on a man’s character that, rescued from a horrible death and given back his life, he can think of no better use for that life than the pursuit of revenge. But revenge was my choice, and I even thought I could see how to gain it.

Of course, I had just been rescued from the spinster, so she and her methods were much on my mind.

And I was crazy again. That helped a lot.

So I chose my destiny. It would need superhuman luck and a lot more courage than I was ever likely to find, but I was in no mood then to consider those problems. I vowed that I would try, and I would let nothing stand in my way, not even Heaven itself.

—3—

I
HAD BEEN DREAMING
my mad dreams for a long time.

Quetti was sufficiently recovered to be sitting up and taking notice. He had yelled to draw Red’s attention to the canoes, cunningly buried under piles of brush. Red was still at the tiller, eyes blood-rimmed, cheeks haggard under a silver stubble.

“Grasslands!” I said. “I have to go back to the grasslands!”

“Then you can damned well walk!” the angel snarled. “Get that grapnel ready.”

─♦─

I have often wondered what thoughts went through Shisisannis’s head when he discovered the smoldering ashes of Misi’s train, which had also been her funeral pyre.

He must have known that he was seeing the work of avenging angels, for only they would have burned valuable trade goods. He must have guessed that he would now not be able to carry out his orders. Perhaps he feared that Ayasseshas in her fury would send him to the pens, for he did not take the news back to her right away. Instead, he left his canoes and led his whole troop off overland. Possibly he was clinging to the faint hope that the woman he had been sent to abduct was still alive and with the other traders, although he must have known how extremely slight that chance was. More likely he thought he was pursuing the angels. He had not seen them on the river, so he may have believed that he could run them down ashore before they found the spinster’s lair.

He probably caught up with the caravan. He may have had a battle. I bear the snakeman no grudge. I hope that eventually he found happiness again, but I do not know what happened to him.

What happened to me was that I arrived with a bone-weary Red-yellow-green and his other wetlander captive at a scrubby sand spit where the spinster’s canoes had been stowed. They were well camouflaged, and it was Quetti who saw them. There were no guards to challenge us as the angel grounded his chariot in the shallows. I tossed a grapnel into the shrubbery; he lowered sail. Then we all paused to stretch aching muscles and rub sore eyes.

Red scratched his chin and looked thoughtfully at his passengers—companions but not friends. He had won his gamble. He had evaded Shisisannis and could now destroy the enemy’s canoes, saving his own men from pursuit. But he was not such a fool as to trust Quetti or me any further than necessary. Shisisannis and his men were obviously absent, so we were not needed as evidence of the spinster’s death. Now what could Red do with us? He would have to sleep sometime. He had placed himself in a very dangerous situation. Black had foreseen this and warned him. And us.

Were he unscrupulous enough, Red-yellow might choose to dispose of us before either of us was tempted to dispose of him. He could shoot us or just abandon us in the forest, but he would be breaking his angel vows.

Of course, I did not see all this then. “Now what happens?” I asked bitterly. “Will you go after Shisisannis?”

The angel shook his head and bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “I never planned to. You stay here, cripple. You jump, boy!”

Quetti had hardly spoken since we began our voyage, his thoughts unreadable under his sullen pallor. He stared hard at the angel before rising and clambering from the chariot into knee-deep water.

I watched as he waded ashore and Red followed, carrying his gun and an ax. I watched, also, as Quetti was set to work smashing holes in upturned canoes. The angel went ahead of him, pulling away the shrubs that had been piled over them, but also staying on guard, keeping his gun at the ready and a watchful eye on both Quetti and the forest. No one emerged screaming from the trees to halt the vandalism.

To disable a fragile structure like a canoe is not difficult, and in short order the damage was done. It could be repaired, of course, but not soon enough for Shisisannis to lead his men in pursuit of the angels. Red had reached his objective, and now he came splashing back to the chariot with the ax. Quetti had been sent to retrieve the grapnel.

“Mission accomplished!” Red remarked with satisfaction. He tossed the ax into the boat—at the stern, out of my reach—and began to climb in after it.

Quetti yelled from the edge of the trees and waved. He was a long way from the grapnel.

Red scowled. “Now what?” But he splashed back to the bank and went to see what Quetti had discovered. He took his gun with him, so he may have been suspicious, or perhaps he just did not want to leave it near me.

When the angel reached him, Quetti pointed at something on the ground. Red bent over to peer at it. Quetti, displaying more strength than I would have expected, lifted a bulky sack and raised it high.

I took a deep breath—I have never been able to decide whether or not there was time for me to use it. Maybe there was. Maybe not. Had I called, then I might have distracted Red and given Quetti a better chance. Or I might have warned Red in time to avoid a very clumsy attack, one that should never have succeeded. I didn’t call. So was that another of my killings? I do not know. Does one more or less matter? A man is either a killer or he isn’t. I am.

Quetti tipped the bag over the angel’s head as he straightened up. Constrictors fall on their prey, and apparently they react the same way when dropped. Red made no sound. Either a coil went around his neck at once, or else Silent Lover squeezed all the breath from him before he could speak. The man in the bag fell down in the undergrowth. Quetti stood there and watched until the bushes stopped thrashing.

Then he came trailing wearily back down to the water’s edge. He waded out to the chariot and stopped. He stared up at me and I looked down at him, and for a long moment neither of us spoke.

The expression on his sallow face reminded me of my childhood. Many times I had seen one or another of my numerous brothers act naughtier than he had intended and then try not to show how scared he felt. Quetti’s young face looked just like that—defiant and unrepentant, but wary of what might be said next.

I reached down a hand to shake his.

“Well done,” I said.

Quetti took my hand, pale lashes blinking in surprise.

“I’m heading back to the grasslands,” I said. “Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”

He stared at me in bewilderment for a dozen heartbeats. Then he began to weep, tears pouring down his hideously grazed cheeks, sobs wracking his bony frame. That was what he needed. I hauled him into the chariot and then I held him for a while, until he regained some control and pushed me away in shame.

I could leave him then, leave him to work out his grief and guilt, while I went to get the grapnel.

Silent Lover had already departed in search of more prey. I could not bury Red-yellow, but I dragged his body to the water and sent it on its way. But first I retrieved his gun.

I was humming as I lurched back to the chariot.

Whatever you do, never expect gratitude.

—11—
THE ANGELS

“L
ET
’
S BE SURE
I’
VE GOT THIS RIGHT
,” said Black-white-red. “He opened a sack and stuck his head in it, and there was a python in there. It wanted to loop around his neck…so he let it?” He drummed long black fingers on the table.

“More or less,” I said.

“How much more? How much less?” His head was against the bloody glow of the window, his eyes almost invisible, and only the silhouette of his woolly hair was distinctive. He was coldly furious—with some justification, I suppose.

I sighed. “No more, no less. Yes, it sounds crazy when you put it in those words. But he was exhausted, remember. Neither of us was watching…maybe he tripped and fell on top of it. Accidents happen.”

“Accidents can be made to happen!”

I faked a little anger. “You’re accusing us of murder! What possible motive could either of us have had to harm him?”

“You’d both been imprinted, and he had killed your women.”

“If we had slain him, why would we have come here, to Heaven?”

Black-white growled low in his long throat and drummed his fingers faster. At my side, Quetti sat in silence, his right shin balanced on his left knee, impassively studying a thumbnail. Of course we had murdered Red-yellow, but if neither of us confessed, there was nothing the angels could do about it, certainly not after so long a time…or was there?

Sensing the anger around me, I was suddenly uncertain.

The room was very small and it was rapidly becoming stuffy. The walls and the low ceiling were curiously irregular, made of variegated slabs of snortoiseshell that creaked whenever the building moved. Features were hard to make out, for the only lighting came from a foggy casement directly behind Black and the two men flanking him.

Beyond that rattling window lay the nightmare landscape of Dusk—scabby hills tangled with dead trees and monstrous bloated fungi in bilious yellows and mauves, all lit by a baleful red twilight along the horizon. The clearings were buried deep in snow, drifted by icy winds that ran wailing under a dark sky. The snortoise browsed with monotonous crunching, and in the distance many others issued their weird roaring bellows. This was Heaven, but it was much closer to what I should have expected of Hell.