Dave Duncan - West of January

He growled. “No. Are you hungry?”

“Yes sir.” I was always hungry.

“Then eat now. Drink. Then keep down while we’re in their camp. No one will know you’re here.”

“Thank you, sir!” Soon I was gulping down handfuls of delicious smoked woollie. The angel watched me in nauseated disbelief.

The chariot came to a halt again. Children were shouting in the distance. I had vacated the pile of furs and was now stretched out at a lower level on a much less comfortable collection of spars and oars and other hard things. The angel lowered his sails.

“Remember: Keep down!” he warned. He began moving toward the rear, and now I heard and felt the sound of hooves approaching.

Then the angel paused, turned back to rummage among the loose junk near his seat, and straightened up with one of the tyrant’s claws in his hand. Scraps of bloodstained fur clung to one end of it. He sent me a cryptic and disagreeable smile, and then resumed making his way to the back. As he climbed out, a deeply masculine voice hailed him. I shivered nervously and tried to wriggle lower in my bone-breaking wooden nest.

I assume that Violet was feasted and that he tried to explain to the herd-master about the catastrophe building in the grasslands. He would have had to accept the hospitality of a tent and the woman who came with it. I soon decided that I could safely move back to the more comfortable bedding if I lay flat there. I arranged a sunscreen and then slept some more. I ate again, having decided that my angel would not grudge a few more strips of woollie flesh. I had the sense not to drink, but long before Violet at last returned, I was frantic to relieve myself, a deprivation I had never before experienced.

I heard voices. Violet came into my view as he clambered to the little platform at the back of the chariot. Someone handed up a bundle, which he tossed in. Then he was passed a bow and quiver, and he placed those more carefully. Farewells were spoken.

Sails went up, the brake came off, and the chariot began to pick up speed down the slope. The bouncing was torture. It was impossible to speak over the squealing of the axles and the rattling, but I put an expression of agony on my face and pointed at my groin. The angel scowled angrily—having just made a good start, he would now have to again find another leeward slope to stop on. He probably did so as soon as he could, but it seemed a long torment to me.

“I traded your claw,” he announced as I gratefully raised my pagne over the side.

“Sir?”

“I was going to let you have one of the tyrant claws. I traded it for this bow instead. The herdmaster is very puzzled as to why I should want one, but he dared not ask. And he is very cocky about the claw.”

A bow was a wonderful gift. I thanked him sincerely. He looked even more disgusted than ever.

More bouncing…

As I was now well rested, I sat up and watched the country go by, enjoying the experience, savoring the sensation of being an angel. This marvelous chariot was faster than a horse, I concluded, and it did not tire. An angel was not bound to a herd; he could go anywhere. Had I had a chariot like this, I could soon track down my enemy, Anubyl. I probably assumed that two or three tries with that bow would make me an expert archer.

Then, unexpectedly, Violet spilled wind from the sails and the chariot rolled to a halt at the top of a long slope. I saw what he had seen—open water.

It was only a small puddle in the middle of a wide dry flat, but there were trees around the edges and no woollies in sight. I turned to look at him. He was snarling in silence.

For a healthy man to survive alone was a challenge; for a cripple, an impossibility. How could I even learn archery if I could not retrieve my arrows? Memory of terrible loneliness crept back, and my dreams scattered in the wind. Yet somehow I knew that pleading with this surly old man would be worse than useless, and I suppose I had pride.

“Do you want me to get out, sir?” I asked.

“I don’t owe you anything, do I?”

“No sir.”

“Then…goodbye and good luck, herdbrat!”

I struggled to my feet and began to make my stiff-legged way to the back, clutching the mast or anything else handy to keep my balance. Getting down to the ground was torture, for my left knee hurt badly and even to put weight on my other leg sent spasms of agony through my whole body. Sweat seemed to explode from my skin. But I made it and he passed down the bow, the quiver full of arrows, and then the other bundle.

“That’s more of your filthy burnt woollie.”

“Thank you, sir. You have been very kind.” I meant that. Yet, as he had said earlier, it might have been a greater kindness to have let the tyrant eat me than to abandon me here in the grasslands as he was doing now, even with a bow.

“Can you walk?”

I loaded myself up with the new gear and tried. The answer, in truth, was no, but I managed a couple of limps and said, “Yes sir.”

“Wait!”

He pouted at me, hesitating. “Come here.” He fumbled in a pocket and brought out a leather packet. As I retraced my two lurching steps, he opened this and took out a small triangle. “I’ll give you one of these,” he said, “just in case.”

He poked at it briefly with a short stick that had also come from his pocket and then dropped it to my hand. The rough side was marked by more of the black squiggles, the smooth side dyed in three colors—a violet strip along the edge, a dark blue triangle, a smaller red one…the colors of his chariot.

“Keep it in the dark,” he said, “or the dyes will fade away. Then it’s useless. They’re not supposed to outlive you. You know what it is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s an angel token. Take it to Heaven and they’ll let you in.” He laughed. “Or you can show it to another angel if you need help. It’s a mark of approval. I liked the way you tried to draw off the tyrant, herdbrat. Angels give these out, sometimes.”

“I already have one, sir.”

I laid down my burdens and fumbled in my pouch. By the time I had produced the triangle my mother had given me, Violet had clambered down and was regarding me with a very angry expression. It grew even more furious when he saw what I had.

“So I was right? Green-two-blue?” He inspected the rough side. “West of January, Wednesday? Of course! Well, well… Tell me.”

So I told him.

He shook his head. His pink jowls quivered when he did that. “You have a strange effect on angels, herdbrat.”

“Sir?”

“It’s against the rules to give you a ride in my chariot—although that one gets broken often enough. It’s much more against the rules to go back to a woman. Did you know that?”

“No sir.”

“You don’t know anything, do you? An angel is supposed to enjoy a woman once and never go back to her. If he visits the same tribe, he should choose another woman. Your father must have gone back to your camp, or he could not have known about you…and he certainly could not have passed her this unless they were alone in her tent again.”

Now I was recalling a vague image of a yellow-haired man with no clothes on, playing romp with my mother. I could just remember it, I thought. Or remember being able to remember it once. Or was I making it up? I said nothing.

“It’s supposed to be a mark of approval!” The angel’s face was turning redder than ever. “How old…big…could you have been when he met you?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Green-two-blue?” he repeated. Violet spoke to himself a lot. He was a bitter, sour old man and more than a little crazy, which is not uncommon among angels.

“Do you…know my…father…sir?”