Dave Duncan - West of January

Blots was one of the largest of the snortoises, a small mountain of unimaginable age. For scores of human lifetimes he had hauled his great bulk along, lubricated by snow, munching dead wood and fungus, heedless of anything except the direction of sunset. His roars were mere belching, not communication. He had no enemies, and if he had offspring, they were of no more interest to him than the scriptorium he bore on his back. In all my time in Heaven, I only once saw a snortoise mating, a procedure that demolished the paper mill and tilted the bakery almost vertical.

On the way down I had time to reflect that, although this was far from being my first fall in Heaven, I had never fallen from the very top of a ladder before and had never had time to wonder what I was going to land on. Dead trees tend to break off in very nasty spikes. I wondered also about the resulting damage—broken hips seemed about the minimum for starters. The ladder was at the snortoises rear, of course, because the flippers can crush a man quite easily, and the snow there would be rock-hard after Blots had slid on it. Anything I hit would probably smash me to pieces.

But no. With the sort of perfect timing a man could not repeat in three lifetimes, Blots saved me. What Heaven usually regarded as a rare but highly unpleasant threat proved to be my salvation, and I came down into an explosion of snortoiseshit.

Quetti and the seraph sled-boy dug me out, cleaned me up so I could breathe, and then rushed me over to Nightmare, which happened to be close. I woke up lying on my own bed, in the largest and most comfortable cubicle of the whole dormitory building, one I had appropriated long ago.

“Just lie still,” Quetti said. “The kid’s gone for a medic.”

What kid? Why did my ankle hurt? Then I began to remember and also to discover a whole world of additional bruises. Oddly enough, although I had been stunned, my head did not ache at all.

“I think I survived,” I said. “What is that appalling stink?”

“You stepped in something,” Quetti said. He was sitting close by my bunk, and even the flickering lamplight showed the concern on his face. I felt rather touched.

“I’m okay, really.” I reached out to clap him on the shoulder and caught a glimpse of my arm. I suddenly understood my miraculously soft landing. “Oh hell! I won’t be okay when the cherubim come back here! The place will never be habitable again.”

“The important thing is that you’re alive!” Quetti said. “It had to happen eventually, I suppose. Those gymnastics of yours give us all the willies. Your luck had to run out eventually.”

“I’d say my luck did all right.”

He nodded and swallowed and did not speak for a moment. I counted bruises and scrapes, moving limbs gently. Nothing too serious.

“Knobil!”

“Mmm?” I opened my eyes.

“You’re drowsy! Stay awake till the medic comes.” Quetti looked even more concerned than before.

“Minor concussion,” I said. “Talk to me.”

“You talk to me. Tell me why you stay around here? A man with no knees shouldn’t be running up and down ladders all day long.”

“No wings.” I did feel sleepy, now that he’d mentioned it.

“You’re getting older, Knobil. How much longer can you manage those ladders?”

I wanted to drift away…without the stench if possible; with, if necessary. “Got no choice.”

“Be an angel! You’d be much safer in a chariot than climbing ladders here in Heaven.”

I shook my head, fighting to keep my eyes open, watching golden lamplight play over the crooked snortoiseshell ceiling.

Quetti’s voice rose as if he were angry. “You mean Michael won’t let you? You’ve asked?”

“Don’t want to be an angel. No good angel. Want to go home to the grasslands.”

“Oh, of course!” Quetti said skeptically. “Nothing like the roo-eat-roo life of the grasslands. And I suppose Michael won’t even give you leave to do that?”

I shook my head, my eyelids drooping in spite of all I could do.

“What?” He sounded startled. “Seriously? You’re a prisoner?”

“Can’t walk.”

“Then why not just bum a ride with someone and go?”

“Michael,” I mumbled. “Revenge.”

That—if I have remembered the conversation correctly—was where the misunderstanding arose. I meant that I was certain Michael had guessed my secret dream and would feel bound by his angel vows to hunt me down and stop me at all costs.

But Quetti said furiously that he was the best damned angel Heaven had, and Michael wouldn’t dare take any revenge on him, by Heaven, and the senile old bogmoth would likely be dead before he came back the next time anyway, and I could ship out quietly with him, Quetti, anytime I wanted.

At that point sheer terror should have snapped me wide awake—the realization that I could escape from Heaven at last and go attend to my sinister purposes—but all I can remember saying is “Thank you.”

THE MEDICS KEPT ME FLAT on my back until my ankle healed and I grew bored. Then I told them to go eat a snortoise, and I got up. But the long rest had given me time to think. As my dizziness passed, I began to see what had happened, but I was not seriously worried. Quetti would need time to prepare his departure, and during that time I would find some opportunity to tell him I had changed my mind. Ladders or not, Heaven was a much safer place than the grasslands, so there was no chance that a coward like me would ever find the courage to accept Quetti’s offer of escape.

Besides, I told myself sternly, to accept his help would be to abuse his friendship quite shamelessly. Like Michael, he was sworn to suppress violence. Like Michael, he would have to try to stop me if I moved to put my mad plans into effect.

I almost told him so. He had come to visit and was ready to leave when I started to fumble out the words: “Three-blue, you know how the herdfolk live. If I go back to the grasslands to become a herdmaster, then I shall have to kill someone.”

Quetti laughed. “Of course! But you’re a demon with a bow, Roo. I remember! You’ll own half the woollies on Vernier in no time.” Still chuckling, he stalked away. Obviously he had not believed me. He probably didn’t think I was man enough to kill in cold blood—and there I tended to agree with him, so why did it matter?

And yet…even though I never expected to find the courage to go, as soon as I was mobile, I found myself laying in a supply of arrows. Surreptitiously I made myself a pagne. I already possessed one of the best bows in Heaven. Everyone else was much too busy helping Quetti to notice what I was up to.

Only seven angels had rough-water sailing skill, and two refused the mission when they heard the odds. A couple of cherubim volunteered in their place. They were brothers, and fisherfolk, a scanty people who scrape out a narrow living on the rocky shores of the Ocean with the aid of trained birds. These two swore that they could handle sailboats in any weather. Uriel and I ran them through an abbreviated landside training, and Michael gave them their stripes. Seven it would be. They seemed very young to be so eager to die.

I was shoeing a horse when Quetti appeared in shiny new buckskins. He pushed back his hat brim and said, “Ready?”

My heart leapt into my throat, but my voice said “Sure!” before I could stop it.

Somewhere inside of me, another voice said, “Now you’re done it!”

I looked around for a seraph to finish the horseshoe I was working on. The smithy was deserted—which was odd. “Just a moment,” I said and quickly tidied up. Then I scribbled a note, threw the pony some hay, and lurched down the ramp to join Quetti.