Dave Duncan - West of January

“Any more of you whiteys around?”

Quetti was not speaking, so I said, “No, sir.”

He seemed relieved, and he glanced at the tall swampman.

“We’d best get these two out of here fast.”

Black nodded. “You’re not going to wait and waylay the others when they return, Red?”

The little man shook his head. “They’re victims too. Let them be.”

Then I remembered where “the others” had gone. I had been so overwhelmed by my own release that I had forgotten the danger to Misi. Choking with the effort of forcing so many words through my aching throat, I told of the raid on the traders.

The little man nodded. “We guessed as much. It was lucky for us, though. And for you, sucker.”

“But you must save the traders!”

He glowered. “They’re slavers! They all knew about you. It will serve them right! Let the spinster’s men kill them off, or be killed themselves.”

“Angels prevent violence!”

“Why should I risk my men to save either side?”

I was stunned with horror, not knowing what to say, but Black remarked softly, “They have children, Red.”

Red pulled a face and grunted. He pondered, tugging his lip. “Well, I’ll go and try. If I can get there before the battle, I may talk them all out of it.”

“Now wait a moment, great one,” Black said. “You shot the spinster. If her men learn that, they’ll use your guts for bowstrings.”

“I’ll tell them you did it!”

“Seriously…”

“No argument!” Red had to crane his head back when talking with the gangling black man. “You finish up here. I’ll head back downstream and see what can be done.”

“Damn it, Red! Spinster’s men meeting an angel?”

“Ex-spinster’s men!” Red’s face was turning an appropriate color.

“They may not believe that.”

“They will! I’ll take these two dupes along as evidence.”

Black regarded him very oddly. He glanced at Quetti and me. “Is that wise?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

Black’s face went stiff. “You are, sir.”

“Right! And you move this job along as fast as you can. That smoke may bring trouble, so finish the cleanup here and then scram. We’re overdue already, and Michael will bust me to seraph if we’re not all back soon. I’ll catch up with you if I can, but don’t wait for me. Understood?”

There was no more argument from Black.

“I won’t go!” Quetti shouted. “I want to see her.” The palace was a thundering inferno by then. I could feel the heat from it.

“She’s dead!” Red insisted. “I blew her brains out myself. And you’ll do as you’re told, you ungrateful little idiot.” That last remark was not completely fair. Quetti was taller than he was.

Red-yellow-green had made a curious decision, one that was to be much debated and criticized in Heaven. His situation was perilous. He had a dozen angels, counting himself, and five chariots. The aggressive Shisisannis was somewhere in the area with upward of thirty followers. Warlike young men bereft of a beloved leader by an act of violence are prone to notions of vengeance.

Within the compound itself, now a choking mass of flame and smoke, were another thirty or so of the spinster’s victims. Most of them had been rescued from the pens, but, like Quetti, they were not necessarily grateful. They ranged from mindless husks like Old Faithful to fit and virile fighters like Ing-aa. In time, perhaps, most of them would recover their wits enough to head off in search of the families and tribes from which Ayasseshas had abducted them, and some might even resume a normal life again, but they were not yet ready to do so. The most hopeless cases were being quietly put out of their misery by grim-faced angels, although I was unaware of that at the time. Other angels, equally grim, were disabling the dangerous by breaking their throwing arms, a brutal but necessary precaution.

On the face of it, Red abandoned his troops in mid-campaign. He should have either ignored the trader problems or sent someone else to deal with it.

But the facts were less simple than that, and his thinking more complex. As I was to discover, Red’s intention was to save not the traders, but his own angels. He wanted to block any pursuit, and he had evidently concluded that the venture was too risky to delegate to anyone else. He took Quetti and me along as proof that Ayasseshas had been overthrown, and he may well have planned to kill us both if there was any risk of our falling into the wrong hands. Fortunately I was not smart enough to see that.

Soon I found myself sitting once more in the bow of an angel chariot. It was much more heavily laden than Violet’s had been, because it had been home to three angels, and angels tend to collect unusual personal things, like spare sets of clothes.

At my side, Quetti was hunched over in silent misery, listlessly applying grease to his welts. We were both wearing muddy fur pagnes, and mine was bloodstained. I worried that two light-skinned wetlanders might suffer sunburn, but the sun was too low in the sky to be very dangerous, and most of the river was heavily shaded.

Red sat amidships, steering the chariot as it floated down the oily water. The wind was rarely helpful, and he spent much time adjusting his sails.

Before we departed, he had ostentatiously laid his gun to hand and ascertained that we both knew what it could do. I could see why he might not trust Quetti, who was red-eyed and surly, but his attitude seemed to imply that he did not trust me either, and I resented that.

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?”