Dave Duncan - West of January

Issirariss called that the imprinting effect.

MY GUESS HAD BEEN CORRECT. Heaven had set up a roadblock at a natural narrowing of the borderlands in the east of January, middle of Thursday. The angels were still there when Misi and Pula and I returned, long after my experience with the virgin’s web. Now I could walk, after a fashion, keeping my knees straight. We had detoured very far back westward, waiting on my recovery.

That was a strange journey. Misi and Pula had to trade in little settlements for food and even do the cooking. They were appallingly horrible cooks, both of them, never having cooked before. I was in great pain at first and could do little to help, but the thought of taking over the cooking myself was a big incentive for me to heal.

We were fortunate that no unscrupulous men or hungry animals took advantage of us, two women and a cripple wandering defenseless in the borderlands. Yet I remember that long loop west and then back east again as the happiest time of my life. I was with Misi, and nothing else mattered. I would have joyfully journeyed at her side forever—even if that meant continuing to eat her cooking.

Where a great spur of mountain reached close to the wide river, we came within sight of an encampment of four tents and three angel chariots. The landscape was spotted with thickets of white-trunked trees amid glades of the greenest grass I had ever seen. A soft rain was falling.

As our hippos munched their lazy way along the narrow plain, a solitary long-legged angel came stalking through the woods to meet us. His stripes showed him to be Black-white-red. There must have been others around, staying out of sight.

I was sitting on the bench, just inside the front window, with my feet out on the platform. Misi was at my side, driving.

Black was well named, being as black as anyone I have ever met. Most of the forest races are short, but he was very tall and very lanky. He wore no hat and his frizzled crown of jet hair shone with diamond sparkles. I was looking down at him as he strolled alongside the cab, which is why I noticed his hair especially. His nose was broad, but the rest of him was as elongated as a fishing pole. He wore the fringed leathers of an angel, and he carried a long gun. He was very young.

So even the angels looked young to me now?

He studied me carefully, peering up with deep black eyes that seemed to brim with melancholy. “May good fortune attend you, trader,” he said formally.

“May Our Lady Sun shed her blessing on you also, sir. I am Nob Bil.” I did not introduce Misi.

I was very nervous, and the angel’s steady scrutiny was rapidly making me more so. I was also in pain, for although my legs were stretched out before me, I could not keep them completely straight without looking unnatural, and they were howling at the slight bend I had imposed on them. Agony and fear together were soaking me in sweat. I could only hope that the rain was disguising that.

“You are brave to travel alone, trader.”

“There are four other trains right behind us, sir.”

That statement was true so far as it went, but the others were not associated with us and might even be unaware that we were now ahead of them. We had followed their convoy eastward and then outrun it with our single, and almost empty, wagon.

“And your horses are with them, Nob Bil?”

“They are, sir. I have twisted my knee and cannot attend to them myself at the moment.”

Black frowned glumly at that tale. Misi had coached me well, but I decided to take the offensive in the hope of diverting more questions. “And what brings you gallant angels to these parts? Not danger, I hope?”

The angel’s eyes continued to examine me morosely. “We have been passing a warning to traders. Have you heard of it?”

“No sir.”

He sighed. “You traders are as bad as herdmen!”

“I am told that herdmen slaughter one another on sight,” I said reprovingly. But I was remembering one of Violet’s old jeers, that herdmen smelled different. I was a herdman half-breed—had this angel seen through my disguise already?

“True. I only meant that traders do not cooperate at all.”

“Give away information, you mean?” I tried to sound shocked. Despite my pain and the quiverings of my normal cowardice, I was starting to enjoy the game. I wished I dared look at Misi.

“I suppose that sounds immoral to you? Well, here is the problem. You are between jungle and desert, of course, but the west end of the borderlands is now cut off by the Andes and the Great River. That’s an impossible barrier for traders. We can guide people and their livestock across the canyon, but not wagons. Or chariots. And the barrier is moving east, obviously.”

Jat had long since vanished from my life, but I could recall his geography lessons. “You mean we must head north, across the desert?”

Black nodded, sparkling all the jewel drops on his hair. “We have arranged a truce. And we provide escorts,” he added, before I could say whatever he expected me to say.

“How urgent is this?” I asked, worried about my inability to defend my beloved Misi and her daughter, recalling vague yarns about the fierce red-haired men of the desert.

“Not very,” the angel confessed. “You have time for a trip or two back to the mountains. Before you bounce grandchildren on your knee, though, you must cross the desert to the north borderlands. You may stay there or come south again across the grasslands as you wish—just don’t say you weren’t warned! And don’t wait too long or there will be no one left to trade with. We hear there is a spinster at work.”

My spine tingled. Black had thrown in that unrelated remark in the hopes of eliciting a reaction. Obviously I was supposed to know what a spinster was, but I didn’t. Was it dangerous? In all her lessons, Misi had not thought to mention spinsters, so they must be rare. I could not ask her for help, for she was playing moron again. But Misi was no moron. She had steered the team into a stand of small trees, heavier growth than she would normally have chosen. They slowed us, of course, but the noise of crunching was much louder than usual, making conversation difficult. Moreover, Black was being squeezed between the side of the cab and the sides of the cut we were making, and he had to constantly step over stumps and fragments of trunk. This made it harder for him to keep his eyes on me. The slash also made the cab bounce and lurch repeatedly, jarring hot irons through my knees.

But if hard work gains rewards, then I ought to pass scrutiny. Misi and Pula had made me a leather jacket and breeches in trader style. They had tried to use an old set of Jat’s, but I was much too large for those. My coat was unfastened to display the fine floral shirt that Jat had coveted—actually it was only the front, for Misi had taken it to pieces to fit my wider chest. The cuffs showed, although the top of the sleeves did not reach my shoulders. I sported the appropriate curved-brim hat; my hair and beard and eyebrows had been dyed, my face and hands darkened also. We had not been able to do anything about my eyes.

I looked like a trader—unusually large for a male, but a trader nonetheless.

Spinster? “Where?” I asked, playing for time.

Black’s expression grew even more lugubrious. “If we knew that we wouldn’t be here, now would we?”

“I suppose not.”

The conversation lagged for a while. The hippos continued to browse their noisy way through the trees, and Black continued to study me. I stared back down at him with all the confidence I could feign. I had promised Misi I would get her safely past the angels, and I was going to do everything in my power to keep my promise.

“You have seen no slaving, then?” Black asked suddenly.