Dave Duncan - West of January

A man can’t have everything, I suppose.

And yet I almost hope he is still alive, for I probably had taken his family. All the women and children were distributed among my men, along with the rest of the booty. So I had my revenge.

All news reaches Heaven eventually, and this time the debate was fiercer. I was already very unpopular with the angels, and I expect that the archangels considered using force against me. In the end they wisely decided to negotiate, as I had known they must.

An exhausted young runner swayed on his feet before me as he gasped out his news: chariots had reached the grasslands and a party of three angels sought audience. In my delight, I promoted the lad to Warrior Junior Grade on the spot, and also all of the previous bearers who had relayed that message on its long trip from the borders to my palace. None of those couriers had even been born when I left Heaven, and now, at last, Heaven was coming to me.

I sent back orders that the angels were to be brought in on horseback, without their chariots—and without their guns.

NOTHING IN MY LONG LIFE has ever amused me more than the expression on those angels’ faces as they were led into my palace. As always, it stood on high ground to catch the breeze, but that particular hill chanced to be especially high. The walls were open on three sides to show vistas of gold-green grassland rolling away forever into hazy distance. Clustered around the stabbing blue of nearby lakes, the myriad bright tents that always accompany the palace sparkled like spilled jewels. I do not know why my presence requires at least a thousand supporters in attendance at all times, but it does, and when the angels arrived there were probably nearer to three thousand—but that was not by chance.

Everywhere there was color. Herdfolk love color, and now we could afford the best dyes on Vernier. Overhead the sun glowed through the brilliant fabrics of the roof, which the wind ran in long billows, stirring colors in their welcome soft-hued shade. The thick rugs underfoot were alive with color, and the downy cushions on the chairs also. Color glittered back from polished wood, from silver goblets and shiny silver plates of sugared fruits from Thursday As the guests sank open-mouthed into their seats, maidens in scintillating dresses offered them refreshments.

There was brilliance even in the pagnes and headdresses of my bodyguard, the twenty-five young giants who stood around like trees enclosing a forest glade. Tall and rigid as the poles that supported the roof, each held a spear that could have skewered a horse. Ayasseshas would have approved of my audience chamber.

The angels seemed small to me, and old. Yet even the oldest, who was also their leader, must be young enough to be my son, or even grandson by herdfolk ways. Indigo-two-green he was now, but I thought I could remember him as a cherub—it had been so long since I left Heaven that I could not be sure. His stoop might be from fatigue, of course. He was a hook-nosed desertman, and in his youth his hair had been red. Now it was mostly white.

And so was his beard! My orders had been followed more strictly than I had intended. The visitors had been snatched from their chariots with nothing but the clothes they wore, buckskins now unbearably filthy and sweat-stained. Not merely guns, but razors also had been left behind at the borders of the grasslands, and herdmen had no razors to lend. All three men were thickly whiskered. They would certainly have been rushed along at the fastest pace they could endure, and the length of those beards brought home to me the huge extent of my domain. Sometimes even I forget how much land I rule.

Exhausted and travel-soiled, those angels were angry. They knew that I had deliberately flaunted my power to humiliate them. They were impressed as well as frightened, and they hated me for it. They must have been thinking that the Great Compact had failed at last. Never had a despot risen to such power before.

Their arduous trek along the herdline had brought them through half the population of the grasslands. They had seen a teeming, civilized people, a prosperous nation where they had expected only scattered bands of savages. At every rest stop—while eating, then falling into exhausted sleep in the little tent settlements—they would certainly have heard the singing. Some of my psalms would have shocked them greatly, perhaps as much as their glimpses of the first real army ever raised on Vernier. And if many of the troops they had seen ride by in the distance had happened to be the same troops going around in circles…well, I had been trained by one of the sharpest traders who ever chewed a paka leaf.

Stiffly upright on their chairs, my guests glared at me. I probably did not meet their expectations. My long white hair and long white beard would seem bizarre to them. So would my golden robe—not to mention my ugly bare feet resting on the embroidered footstool before the throne.

I have had long practice in overawing herdmen, time to develop a certain presence. Ayasseshas would say I had just grown more pompous, I suppose, but it works. The angels were impressed.

I let them gaze awhile. The wind thumped the roof, and a steady clinking floated up from the smithy halfway down the hill. Much nearer, the thunk! of arrows told of archery practice in progress.

“Tell me news of Heaven,” I said when the angels’ eyes began to wander. “Who is Michael now?”

Indigo thrust a hand in his pocket. Instantly twenty-five spears were aimed at his heart. He froze. I gestured, and the twenty-five spears returned to vertical, butts thumping the rug simultaneously.

The angels all turned very red.

“You do not trust angels, Herdmaster?”

“Sir, I trust you implicitly,” I said with total falsehood. “My lads here are a little nervous. Just don’t move suddenly, and I think everything will be all right…and be careful how you address me. Herdmaster is a relatively junior rank in my army.”

“How do you wish to be addressed, then?” Indigo inquired, his eyelids lowered in fury.

“My people call me—but you wouldn’t like that, I suppose. Choose one of my earlier names, for I have had many—Knobil, Golden, herdbrat, dross, Nob Bil, Old Man, Roo…and I suppose I was indeed Herdmaster, briefly—before my apotheosis. Please yourselves.” I smiled graciously.

“Knobil, then!” Gritting his teeth and moving slowly, Indigo drew a paper from his pocket. “Holy Michael sent this message.”

A sword-girt youngster twice his size took the letter and brought it over to me, kneeling as he offered it. There was no name on the outside. I broke the seal and found four words within. I had read nothing for so long that at first they were only squiggles, and blurred squiggles at that. I held the message out at arm’s length and forced old eyes and brain to work.

Shaky handwriting: Remember Silent Lover. Quetti.

I leaned back on my throne and thought about that. So my friend had survived the Great Flood, and I was glad. He had reached the top, obviously, which was not surprising. He didn’t trust his messengers, which was. He was warning me of treachery, and perhaps even admitting that he might have to betray me himself.

Heaven must be divided as never before. Had Quetti seen the same opportunity for treachery that I had, or was he worried only about my life, which was a trivial thing? He must be old now, I realized, and I was much older.

“I shall not attempt to pen a reply,” I announced. “Please inform His Holiness that I thank him for his greetings, and I wish him the long life and contentment he so well deserves.”

Indigo nodded his head warily. All three angels were as taut as bowstrings.