Dave Duncan - West of January

“You’re weary!” he said, as if that had not been obvious for a long time. “I was hoping the weather would clear. Well, I can summon a dogsled—unless you’d care to stay here?”

I looked up at him blearily. “Would that be wise?”

He sulked for a moment. “No, I suppose not. There would be more gossip.” Then a flash of humor: “You make me feel like a maiden guarding her reputation!” And a pout: “Such pettiness!”

“Can they throw you out?”

The blue eyes narrowed. “Certainly not! Oh, it’s been done a few times—Michaels who became too old, or went mad, or became corrupt… I’ve done nothing to provoke that. But they can stop me from experimenting with new things that need to be done—like trying to enlist herd-men. No angel wants to be the first, in case it doesn’t work out.” He paused, thinking. “If we suffer serious losses against the ants, then they might pull me down, I suppose.”

He sighed in exasperation and rose from his chair. “Well, I have enjoyed our chat. We’ll have time for lots more, I’m sure.”

Relieved, I levered myself away from the wall on my seat. “You’re coming… You’re coming along to lead the mission in person?”

“Eh? No, I’m not going! Who would I blame if it failed? I’m not going, and neither are you!”

I had been about to do my rollover and double-up maneuver. “I’m not going? But I’m the one—”

“A war party is no place for a cripple.” He folded his arms and was suddenly big. Partly it was a trick of the giant shadow dancing on the wall behind him. Partly it was his bulky white gown, and of course, I was sitting on the floor looking up, but the little man did look big, suddenly. I saw that I was not going to accompany the angels’ attack on Hrarrh’s nest.

“Damn! I can shoot as well as—”

“So I’ve heard. Uriel admits that you’re a better all-rounder than most of the cherubim and, he says, many of the angels. So’s your young friend, and I suppose you trained him.”

“Well, then—”

“He can’t be an angel until he can read and write. He needs some book learning, but in fieldwork he’s ready. Don’t tell him, though.” Michael had not moved. Only his shadow writhed and swayed.

“And me?”

That surprised him, and suddenly he showed caution. “You said you were not a pilgrim. Not a candidate, you said.”

“I wasn’t. But I want to go on this war party, and—”

“No.” He sank down on his chair again, which happened to put his face in shadow. “Don’t you understand, Knobil? Hasn’t Kettle explained?”

“Explained what?”

“Why you can’t be a cherub or an angel as long as I’m here in Heaven. You shouldn’t be here at all.”

“Because you’re my father.”

“Yes. But that’s not the scandal. Angels make bastards all the time. We encourage it! It spreads the genes around… I mean, it reduces the inbreeding, and that’s a bad problem in many areas. Groups don’t mix much, but seamen angels visit the deserts and treefolk angels the wetlands—the more angelbrats, the better! But we never know who they are. And—hasn’t Kettle explained the Great Compact?”

“He’s explained some. We’ve both been busy.”

“Of course.” Now he became kindly and gracious. “I could leave, of course. You’d make a good angel, and if you weren’t a cripple, I might even do that, so that you could become an angel. But that is an important factor, Knobil: you can’t deny that being a cripple makes a difference. And I think I’ll be a good Michael, given more time. As for going home… I don’t know what my arthritis would say to the wetlands now.”

I felt suddenly sorry for the little man and angry at myself because of it. “This is why there are no women in Heaven?”

“Talk to the seraphim if you get desperate. There are usually some trader wagons just over the hill.”

Anything’s negotiable.

“That wasn’t what I meant!”

He chuckled, then sat back to stare at nothing. “No. And yes. No women in Heaven! That’s what the Compact says. And no sons. No known sons. Because knowledge is power, and power leads to tyranny and oppression. You know how men feel about sons…son.”

“I know how herdmen feel about them. They kill them.”

He turned his blue-blue eyes on me without revealing anything. “I forgot again, didn’t I? Apart from herdmen, then? Most men favor their children over others. They will pass on their goods when they die. And their power, if they can.”

I had seen enough of traders’ customs and met enough village herd-men to be able to nod in agreement.

“So that’s the Compact! That’s why angels expect to be trusted with power—they have less temptation to abuse it. That’s another reason we get to tumble the women—because we can’t have any of our own.” We both sat in silence for a while.

Then he murmured, “Do you feel more guilty or less guilty now?”

I rolled over and jackknifed myself upright. Then at least I could look down on him. “I thank you for the hospitality.”

Michael might not have heard me. He was gazing dreamily at the misshapen wall opposite. “I often wonder about the firstfolk and those mysterious goods of theirs… How many trader wagons would it take to move Heaven, Knobil?”

“I don’t know a number big enough!”

“Ironic, isn’t it, that the answer was something as simple as snow? Those poor firstfolk, seeing all their precious goods destined to be destroyed by the dark—and then they discovered the snortoises. Nothing else can move a load like a snortoise can.”

I hesitated and was about to head for the door, but apparently he was still musing.

“So they saved their knowledge, their library. Ironic again—this is the worst place on Vernier to live, except Nightside itself. Do you see the problem?”

“Er…no.”

Michael was a curiously changeable character, but this dreamy introspection was both new and surprising. Then Throne uttered an enormous bellow, and I hastily lurched across the room to lean both hands against a wall while the building rocked.

Michael did not seem to have noticed. “Some people staying to guard the snortoises and the books and things, others spreading out all across Vernier…finding all sorts of ingenious ways of earning a living… I suppose at first they all sent their youngsters back here to be educated. Gradually the distances would become greater…so the girls wouldn’t come any more, because girls would be precious. Boys…well, it’s always nice to get the boys out of the compound when they get to a certain age—at least the rowdy ones. Send them off to learn, you know? Like the ghoulfolk still do?”

“Yes?” I straightened up cautiously.

“It’d be more restful.” Then Michael’s eyes flickered around to regard me, and he smiled his thin-cheeked, old man’s smile. I wondered if he’d been playing a part deliberately. “Then send off fewer and fewer boys, just the adventurous ones, and those would be sent back to advise and teach… That must have been how it all came about, I think: the start of Heaven and the angels. But maybe I’m wrong. It was a long time ago.”

EVENTUALLY THE ARMY WAS READY and it departed—forty-two men and nineteen chariots. I stayed behind in Heaven, and so did Michael. The commander was Three-brown, a heavy-jawed, long-armed slasher. He did not impress me. I thought better of his deputy, who had the typical yellow eyes and tousled hair of a wolfman. When I cheekily said so to Michael, he explained that wolfmen rarely made good leaders because they were always too eager to please, but they were infinitely loyal subordinates and dogged fighters.