Dave Duncan - West of January

“Sir, I want to be an angel.”

He sighed and reached for the canteen that I had laid beside him when he first went to sleep. The drink seemed to revive him slightly, and he sat up, wiping his mouth.

“No. They’d never take a herdman.”

“I shall go and ask, anyway.”

“Then you still go south. Turn east at the Great River.”

I was already on my knees. For the first time I begged. “Sir—take me with you! Please?”

He stared at me glassily and said, “Not where I’m going.”

So he knew.

He unloaded his chariot and caulked the seams where the planks had dried out. Then he repacked it in seaworthy fashion, as he had been taught when he was a cherub.

He showed me surf fishing and clam digging, and there are few easier ways of gaining a living than those. He told me how to approach strangers, and he explained about doing work to earn charity and how to behave toward women. He talked of Heaven, but he still advised me to go west.

I helped him, and I practiced archery. I cooked our meals, doing what I could to be useful. We ate and slept and worked some more, while the sun glared murder from the sky, while the wind blew sand, while the whitecaps rolled unceasingly. In a sense he gave me a lecture as my father would have done, although he told of other things and it went on much longer.

Then he left me standing on the shore, wearing a pagne, as I had worn when he snatched me from the teeth of the tyrant. He had given me what I needed to survive—a rod and much line, bow and arrows, a hat, two water bottles. And a purpose. He turned his dead eyes away from me as he said, “Good luck, son!” I was the taller now.

“I’ll see you in Heaven!” I said, hoping my lip was not trembling too much. “That’s a promise.”

He nodded and shook my hand, and sailed away.

I watched him until I could not be sure of his sails among the waves. Then I turned to the south and began to walk, already beginning to hear the mocking whispers of Loneliness in the rush of waves and the sighing of the wind.

But in his last words to me, Violet had not called me “herdbrat.”

From the joyful moment of joining until the final tears of farewell, most men have only one father to give them life and show them their place in the world.

I had three.

THE GREAT ONES SAW ME FIRST, AN EMACIATED WILD MAN, burnt almost black by the sun. My long hair was bleached white; my beard hung halfway down my chest. I was without bow or rod or clothes, and I must have been very close to death.

The great ones told the seafolk. Pebble and some of the other men came ashore, and I fled in terror into the rocks. The men went and fetched the women, and Sparkle came after me alone, bearing food and water. Sparkle always had courage.

I do not recall that meeting or how she calmed my wild-beast soul. I do not even remember the subsequent journey, when the women had coaxed me at last into their coracle—which I called a chariot, to their great amusement. I should certainly never have entered it or stayed in it, had I observed how it was powered.

They took me out to the grove and put me in a bower, a dim wickerwork nest, fragrant and bright with trailing blossom.

At first my only companion was ancient Behold, gnarled and scraggy, the first truly old person I had ever met. Her dangling dugs made me think of tent flaps, but she was a gentle nurse and a resolute protector against those who would have pestered me.

A few meals, a few sleeps, and I began to take notice of my surroundings—an egg-shaped green shade, more spacious than a tent and much higher. The walls and floor were spongy with sea moss. Next to the water vines, sea moss is the most useful of the many plants that colonize a sea-tree grove. There was no furniture, but the floor was more comfortable that any bed I had ever known, rocking as waves ran through beneath it. The walls blazed with blossom—chains and bells and sunbursts of pure color—soaring to meet a roof where blue sky sparkled through leaves. Had I died? Could this be the Paradise that the Heavenly Father promised?

The sea tree is a curious vegetable. Far below the water’s surface it trails a single long root—for balance and to act as anchor if the plant drifts into shallows. It also spreads a shallow canopy of floating tendrils that lock together with those of other trees to build a grove. Upward sprout a multitude of thin trunks, barely thicker than canes. Wherever two come into contact, their continuous shiftings rub off the bark and they grow together, merging into a solid joint. Left to itself, a copse of sea trees would soon become an impenetrable jungle, twice the height of a man. The seawomen cultivate passageways, weaving walls and floors, and forming a single communal dwelling of enormous extent. Basketwork becomes solid grid, the leaves keep out the sun, and the whole network flexes and squeaks as the waves run beneath it and through it. It is cool and secure and comfortable.

The grove creaked and rustled all the time, and over that steady melody I could hear voices, both near and far, in song and talk and laughter. Sometimes I heard voices raised, but never in argument or quarrel, only in conversation—it was usually easier just to shout through walls than to go visiting.

Eventually I sat up, shakily. At once a man’s deep bass voice burst out near at hand, and I flinched with a wail of alarm.

“Are better, then?” said a voice.

With another start, I saw that I was not alone. Toothless old Behold was sitting cross-legged at the far end of the bower, braiding leather.

“Some,” I said nervously.

She grinned at me, her face a restless seascape of wrinkles. “Feel strong now?”

“Oh, very strong!” I said. “Like a horse.” I was joking, but Behold misunderstood. Chuckling, she rolled up her work, tucked it under one arm, and crawled across the billowy floor to a hole not much larger than a tusker burrow. I watched her depart with some apprehension. Had I somehow insulted her?

Still weak, I lay down again and tried not to tremble when those male voices sounded too close. If I couldn’t eat or drink, I could always take another nap, I thought. Then the light was blocked, and my eyes snapped open again. A woman was kneeling over me. Like Behold, she wore only a pagne. She was much younger and very close, and I did not think of tent flaps. Cool fingers brushed my cheek.

“Says are feeling strong now?”

I gulped. “A little stronger.”

She smiled and lowered her lips to mine.

I turned out to be stronger than I had thought—strong enough to accept what was offered, at least. I also decided that my suspicions were correct. I must certainly have died.

When I awoke the next time, there was another woman altogether lying at my side, just as inspiringly desirable as the first. Much of my recovery is a blur in my mind, but food, sleep, and loving care of that magnitude work miracles on a man. The dream girls appeared and ministered to me and then vanished, to be replaced by others no less lovely. With the third, I was capable of asking her name. With the fifth, I began to make conversation.

While I was still dallying gently with the sixth, a man thrust his head through the doorway and leaned giant fists on the moss. His arms and shoulders were as massive as a herdmaster’s, but smooth instead of furry. His hair was tightly curled and his brown woolly beard encircled a huge toothy grin.

“Am Pebble!” he said.

I manage a timorous smile, clutching tight to my companion, whose name was Flashing and who seemed quite unconcerned at being discovered in such revealing intimacy.

“I’m Knobil.”