Dave Duncan - West of January

“Of course you do,” he said. “But three angel tokens! I’m sure Heaven has never heard of such a feat. Let’s get up in the chariot where we won’t be disturbed. I want to hear this!”

So we clambered up and sat down opposite each other on the two chests near the rear. This chariot was a great deal tidier and smarter-seeming than Violet’s had been.

I told him my history, and all about my escape from the grasslands, and of my former ambition to become an angel. I confessed that I now just wished to remain with my family, and he assured me that he understood. Once or twice some of the seafolk sauntered over. The angel ignored them, and they wandered away again without speaking. He listened carefully, nodding, solemnly attentive.

When I had done, he sighed. “I knew Violet. He taught me how to drive a chariot. A plump stocky man?”

“Knew? He didn’t arrive?”

Sadly the angel shook his head. Of course, Violet was an ancient memory to me now, but I had not forgotten that I owed him my life and that in his way he had cared for me. I had promised to meet him in Heaven. I had often wondered if he even remembered the gawky blond herdbrat, but I had always assumed that he had driven safely home. And yet I had spared no thought for Violet in a long time.

After a moment’s silence. Brown said, “We… I mean Heaven—we lost many, many angels in the grasslands tragedy, Herdmaster. They are being replaced, but it takes so long… We are late in getting the message to the March Ocean—here, to the seafolk. Now, I’ll try to explain properly. Did Violet show you any maps?”

I shook my head blankly.

He shrugged and settled back, although I had thought he was going to open the chest he was sitting on.

“Well, I’ll show you later. The March Ocean was born before you and I were, back when the sun melted the ice—you know, of course, that the Dawn area is all covered with ice? The water is salt, because there is salt left behind when it dries out…”

I had no notion what “ice” was, but I nodded solemnly and did not interrupt as he continued speaking in a very man-to-man sort of way. I paid much more heed to the way he was addressing me than to what he actually said.

Later, when I reached Heaven, I was given the explanation again, and I listened better then. Every cycle is the same. Meltwater fills the basin, eventually overflowing to create the Great River. All the folk of Vernier must travel westward during their lives, but seafolk try also to find northerly bays or small seas, for those are warmer than the main ocean. Behold and her family—and many other families—had fought their way up the salty torrent of the Great River. They had found a paradise of calm, warm water.

Eventually drainage is diverted and the influx from the wetlands ends. As the water level falls, the Great River stops running. The approaching sun begins to evaporate the March Ocean. Partly because of the increased rainfall that this produces elsewhere, partly by accident of geography, the next portion of the cycle is marked by a rise in the South Ocean, which finally floods along the Great River in the opposite direction. So the door was now open again. The seafolk could escape from the trap.

But only if they went soon. The flow was increasing as the relative level of the two oceans changed. Rapids and waterfalls would multiply until even the great ones would not be able to swim against the current. People could still leave overland—if they wanted to and were shown the road—but the great ones would certainly be trapped. Like a true seaman, I was almost more horrified by the danger to them than by the risk for humans. Ultimately input from the Great River would be unable to keep pace with evaporation. The March Ocean would become a desolate salt flat.

The angel stopped talking then and stared along at the seafolk, who were beginning to gather near the bonfire. The feast was almost ready. “They are indeed your children, Knobil. Your tribe. Your herd. They do not know that, but you do. It is your duty to save them.”

“What must—what can I do?”

His steel-bright eyes came back to mine. The bony planes of his face shone with sweat, like mirrors. I sensed again that strange intensity.

“This happens every cycle. Usually there is a disaster. When there is not, it is because the great ones have been told. The records say that the great ones can speak to each other across the whole width of the ocean. You must warn them, and they will round up the seafolk.”

I stared at him in dismay. “I cannot speak to the great ones!”

He was surprised—and skeptical. “But you ride them? How can you hunt with them if you can’t speak their language?”

“Hunting is easy. Oh, I know some signals and a few words. I can understand a little of their song, but anything complicated, like what you want—that needs three people.”

“Why three?”

“To make the harmonies.”

He frowned, as if he should have remembered that. “Well, you could ask two other to help you, surely?”

As a callow youth I had cared nothing when I saw the herdfolk die, and there had been no way I could have helped them anyway; but these were my friends—and my children. I wanted to save the tribe, and I also wanted to please the angel. I watched the seafolk as they laughed and frolicked in the surf, then I turned away. I avoided the angel’s eyes and stared down instead at the bony shins protruding from his boots.

“I don’t think so, sir,” I whispered.

“Why not?”

“I can tell my mount to dive, or turn, or find seals or sunfish—but I don’t know any of the words you want. Not that they really have words—they speak in chords and in rhythm.”

“But can you not then ask three to speak for you?”

“I could ask…”

“So…?”

“I wouldn’t know what they said,” I mumbled, still glumly studying his feet. I could guess what sort of message would be passed—squirt Golden, dunk him, swim him around in circles… If the seafolk did not want to admit the truth of the angel’s warning even to themselves, they would certainly not tell the great ones.

“There must be some you can trust, Knobil? The women?”

I did not reply.

Brown turned again and studied the crowd on the beach. “Widows I can understand—I know their ways. But I see at least six pregnant wives over there. Obviously you’ve talked yourself into enough beds—”

“Not so! They talk me into it! I won’t go to a wife unless her husband asks me outright.”

Brown said nothing until I looked up. Not liking what I saw, I quickly dropped my eyes again.

“You are not exactly brimming over with tact, are you, herdman? You make them beg?”

“Ask! Just ask.”

He grunted. “I expect it feels like begging. Name of Heaven! ‘Please breed my wife because I’m not man enough’!? Couldn’t you have just settled for a hint or two? You don’t leave them much pride, do you? You think they can’t tell straight hair from curls as well as you can? Do you gloat much?”

He did not expect a reply, and I squirmed in silence. Then he sighed. “Well, I shall keep trying. There must be many other tribes, and perhaps I can convince one of them to tell the great ones in time. The records insist that it is the only way.”

I did not know who “the records” were, but obviously he listened to them and thought them wise.

“There is another possibility,” the angel said. “It is a faint chance. The Great River is not far from here—I think you could almost make it in one ride, without a sleep, because the great ones travel much faster than my chariot does. If you were to go upstream as far as the worst rapids, in the mountains, and then come down again… I think your mount might understand. They are very smart, you know. They could taste the better seawater coming in. You might have to do it twice—to show them that the flow was getting faster. It might work.”