Dave Duncan - West of January

Michael was not done yet. “Kettle, tell Gabriel I want a full report on that location. Two-green, you get one from Raphael on ordnance—and check it yourself. Uriel, you’ll administer the oath to Cherub Quetti? I want to hear more details from Knobil.”

The others scuttled around like beetles. I stayed safely in my chair, not yet trusting my balance on so uncertain a flooring.

As the door closed behind the others, the tiny man in the bulky white robe came around the table and turned to face me. By coincidence, the clouds were clearing on the skyline, and a smoky yellow light began to brighten the casement. Michael threw back his hood, and for a while the two of us just stared at each other.

His hair was silver, yet thick for his age. He was not as pale as Quetti had become in the spinster’s lair, but still unusually light, his skin roughened by long weathering. And his eyes were brilliant flecks of sky.

Then he smiled. “The promise from Orange made four,” he said, stepping close. “There was already a third token.”

I just nodded, gazing stupidly at him. Could I really remember? He was certainly much smaller than I would have imagined.

He held out two hands, as if expecting me to take them. “I never dreamed! They told me two wetlanders. When I heard your dialect, I knew you were never from Dawn… Then I realized that I had heard your name before… Knobil! After all this time!” He blinked rapidly.

“I remember you.”

“You do? I find that hard to believe. You were very small.”

“But you frightened me. I was not accustomed to seeing my mother used so.”

The offered hands were withdrawn. Michael studied me now with a hard blue stare. Then he hooked a chair to him and sat down, his feet between my outstretched legs. I am sure that my own gaze was no softer than his.

“It was an accident,” he said. “I’d been sent to tell the wetlanders that it was safe to move south again. I was told to go by the grasslands and estimate the herdfolk population. On my way home, by mere chance, I arrived at a camp I had visited on the way out.”

“And you broke your own rules by tumbling the same woman again.”

He pursed his ancient lips, thin lips, turning them white. “I really wanted to play with you, but you wouldn’t come near me. Do you know why angels have that rule?”

He reminded me a little of Jat Lon—a smarter man than me, seeking to mold me to his own purposes, and certainly very devious. I wanted a favor, a ride to the grasslands, and now I knew who made decisions in Heaven.

“I don’t think I care. Nothing could so justify the demeaning manner in which angels use women.”

“Indeed? So Uriel was wrong when he surmised that two imposters had been accepting that sort of hospitality?”

I dropped my gaze to the hummocky, whorled floor of scuffed snortoiseshell. “Mostly I left that part to Quetti,” I muttered.

“But not always, surely? Some resolutions are harder to keep than others… You must certainly have been invited.”

I nodded in bitter silence.

“And you had to stay in character for an angel.”

“Damn you! Yes—I did what they asked! And yes, I enjoyed it.”

“But yet you feel guilty? How curious.” Michael considered me for a moment in silence. “Few would. Well, so I bent the Compact. I gave your mother a token for you. I doubted that she would even remember it when the time came, and I certainly had no real expectation that it would ever reach Heaven. Even hope died a long time ago.”

“I did not exactly come by the fastest route.”

“Obviously! I want to hear your story, all your story—son!” He laughed. “How strange to say that word! I am very grateful that you did not speak of the token.”

“You’re not supposed to make angelbrats, are you?” I was recalling Violet then.

“We’re not supposed to recognize angelbrats!” Michael said. “The more we make, the better. But they’ll guess soon enough. I don’t usually condone my lads dying in mysterious circumstances. I saved your life just now, you know?”

“No.”

“I did. Uriel was going to take you both out and shoot you.”

I started to protest and he waved a thin pale hand, like a dead child’s. “Don’t be any stupider than you must. You and the other one killed Red—it’s quite obvious. I twisted Uriel’s neck to get that acquittal. They’ll gossip. They’ll guess. We have records. I was the only wetlander on the grasslands two months ago. Longer ago, maybe? Anyway, there are records, so they’ll know. I can offer you hospitality, son, but no more than that. The Great Compact…but let’s leave it to the saints. You can’t be an angel, obviously.”

The only reason I had not asked to be a cherub, as Quetti had, was that I did not want to be a cherub. Yet now I felt an irrational spasm of annoyance. So I would have been refused? Did he think that my disability disqualified me? I had already proved that I could do anything an angel could do, in chariot or elsewhere. Still, the last thing I wanted was to be an angel.

I had been staring absently at the dusty, sun-gilded casement. I turned a wary eye on the shrewd little spidery man before me, hunched in his white robe, gently rubbing his tiny hands as he watched my thoughts roll. If I antagonized this long-lost father of mine, I would not be able to collect on the debts he owed me.

“You look tired, and I expect you are hungry,” Michael said. “We’ll have to put you in with the cherubim, for we have no guest rooms. The food is plain, but plentiful.” He stopped, frowning. “But I forgot. You won’t be able to manage the ladders.”

“I can! I did! I may be slow on them, but I can manage.”

“You came up. Going down may be harder. If you fall, you’ll snap your pelvis for certain.”

“I’ll manage.”

Michael was not accustomed to argument. Anger flared in his wan cheeks. “Ice can build up on those rungs at any time, with no warning. Cherubim fall all the time, and angels, too. Broken legs are one thing, but a broken back—”

“I’ll manage,” I said flatly.

He scowled testily. “It’s your pelvis! But I don’t suppose you’ll be here long… When you’ve rested, we’ll talk again. You’re going to have many eager audiences during your stay, Knobil. And you will be very useful to one of my little campaigns…” He rose then. Chairs are difficult for me, but I eventually restored myself to vertical without having to ask for help.

“Angels cross the grasslands often,” Michael was saying while I struggled, “as you might guess. I’ve been trying to persuade them to hand out tokens there. They do it everywhere else! All those loners—such a waste! I could use them here. They’d certainly have enough heft to make good wood-chopping seraphim, even if their brains are too woolly for angels.”

I stared down at him in silence.

Despite his pale skin, he did not blush. He chuckled instead. “Ah! You see? Even I do it!” He reached up and squeezed my shoulder. “Accept my apologies, Knobil. Please? Then go and show my lads that herdmen are human, too.”

I trusted him even less when he tried to be charming.

MICHAEL LIVED AND WORKED in a building borne by a snortoise named Throne, which happened to be one of the smallest and therefore a fortunate choice for my first attempt at descending a ladder. While I was still wrestling with my borrowed furs on the porch, peering out at twilight fading before a gathering snowstorm, and wondering how I could find a bed, I heard a chorus of barking and shouting. Three dogsleds came into view, racing through the trees. Four young men scrambled up the steps and burst in upon me, armed with ropes and pulleys.