Dave Duncan - West of January

Haniana would be spying on me from behind the drapes.

After a moment, Yellow spoke again, the others apparently leaving it to him for the moment. “If you attack any more nests, then Heaven must act against you. All the rest of Vernier will expect it.”

I rubbed my eyes and straightened up on my throne. Could he be serious? “Heaven can’t stop me, sonny! My army is preparing to leave very soon, to inspect another mine, and there will be seventeen hundred mounted men, each with a spare mount, plus twelve hundred on foot—and they can travel very nearly as fast.”

The angels stiffened in shock and exchanged glances.

“Will you tell us where?” Yellow inquired quietly. He must have believed me to be even more senile than I felt—but I did not mind telling him.

“There is an iron mine down in Tuesday, east of here. Do you know it?”

“I know of it.” His tone was cautious.

“The ants keep slaves, so the traders tell me.”

The three angels all frowned, and then Yellow’s golden eyes began to twinkle. “The traders load up with the mine’s produce, then report on slaves to you, and so provoke you to attack—thereby driving up prices?”

“Absolutely right,” I agreed. “I suggested it to them…but if there are no slaves there, then there will be no violence started by me.”

The three men glanced at each other, and again they left the conversation to young Yellow. “If you proceed, then Heaven will lose all credibility unless it moves against you.”

“It would be a gnat moving against a woollie,” I said. “Do you have power to negotiate?”

“Some,” Indigo muttered.

I waved a hand in dismissal. “You are wasting my time. Go!”

The guard with the sword began to come forward.

“We have plenty of authority!” Yellow said sharply, earning a hard glare from his seniors. “Plenipotentiary authority if unanimous.”

Ah! I waved back the guard and smiled benevolently at my guests. Good for Quetti! “Then I must make you an offer, I think, since Heaven has nothing to offer me.” A lie, of course. The angels went tenser than ever, fists clenched, eyes slitted. They were the worst traders I had ever met. Thank you, Quetti!

“Do you defend these slave-owning ants in Tuesday?” I threw the question at the wolfman cub, who obviously had twice the brains of the other two put together.

“Of course not!” He flushed angrily.

“But you deny me the right to clean them out?”

“Yes. They are outside—”

“Then the answer is simple! You must clean them out before I do!”

“We would if we had the power!” he shouted.

“I’ll give you the power,” I said. “Three thousand men.”

My visitors almost jumped from their chairs, and again a warning ripple ran through the watching guards.

Indigo took over as spokesman. “You are serious? On what terms?”

“That they be used for that purpose and only for that purpose. That the Supreme High War Leader may withdraw if he feels that your orders are unwise and will cost too many lives—the Great Compact permits this.”

“Yes…yes, it does.” He glanced in disbelief at his two companions, then back at me. “You will place your army at Heaven’s disposal, to support the Compact? All of your warriors?”

“Gladly. Heaven knows, I have no other use for them.”

They laughed aloud, believing that I was joking. Certainly Heaven needed the power. That had been obvious all my life. Long ago Kettle had shown me the numbers—there were no more angels then than there were twenty cycles ago, while the rest of the population has surely been increasing as mankind grows more skilled at winning a living from Vernier. Heaven was undermanned, but now I held the center, and almost all the world was within reach of my warriors.

“And what do you want in return, Almighty Father?” Indigo asked.

“Call me Knobil.”

He glanced uneasily at the circle of guards. “Knobil, then.”

“Two things—firstly, a promise that Heaven will use my army and not let it rot, because there is much to be done and warriors lose their edge easily.”

Three heads nodded in quick agreement. Even Indigo could see what angels might achieve with an army behind them.

“Secondly, I want herdmen in Heaven… herdman angels.”

“What? That’s all? Why?”

“Ask Michael to explain when you get back,” I said wearily. Quetti had guessed. Quetti would not betray me, but others might, not yet, perhaps, but in the far future. Silence itself can kill. That was what his message meant.

The angels exchanged suspicious glances.

I sighed wearily. Heavens, but I was tired! Every time I blinked, my eyelids grated. “Herdmen have never been angels, until me. Yes, some herdmen angels will return to the grasslands and make a play for the throne—I’m sure that politics will be a bloody occupation among my people in future. Yes, a Heaven-trained king may be dangerous, but ex-angels are supposed to be civilized! Train them well, that’s all.”

“And in return,” young Yellow said eagerly, “the king of the grasslands will lead his army against Heaven’s enemies whenever the archangels call?”

Indigo objected: “He can’t promise—”

“I can put it in a psalm,” I said. “I have it ready.”

“And all you want from us is a guarantee that Heaven will accept herdman pilgrims?” They itched with suspicion. Apparently I must spell it out for them after all.

“That’s all. Just a fair chance, like any other youngsters. I think you’ll find they do pretty well.”

The angels glanced around the cordon of giants. Yellow uttered a juvenile snigger. “We’ll need bigger chariots!”

“Why?” Indigo demanded again. “Heaven would accept them now.”

“Would it?” I asked bitterly. Remember Silent Lover! “Would it really? And will it always?”

“The March Ocean?” Yellow was the fastest.

“Yes.” The throne room blurred without warning. The far views of grassy hills and steel-sharp lakes…the unbounded sky and the sprinkled jewels of the tents… I saw only a watery white blaze.

“I was there,” I said, and the memories were suddenly at my throat, choking me. “I saw the great dying. Two-thirds of my people starved, because they would not cooperate. Children. Beautiful women. Strong men. Now I have taught them cooperation…and I do not think they will forget…” My voice choked off into silence, into the sound of the wind and the faint thud of arrows, and somewhere children singing my praises.

“But they need the warning,” Yellow said softly, completing the thought. “With herdman angels in Heaven, Heaven can not forget to send the warning!”

I nodded, infinitely relieved that it was all out at last, and suddenly feeling older than the grasslands themselves. “I want…” I said. “I just want things to be different next time. No great dying, the next time the sun comes to the west of January.”

SO THERE YOU ARE, LADS. That’s the true story. Despite what your mothers taught you, I am not a god. I am even less of a man. I was always a coward. I slaughtered hundreds, yet I never fought a fair battle and I never bloodied my own hands.

No matter whatever else you may have heard, I was never an angel or even a cherub, only a hanger-on. A great killer, but never a hero. I was lucky, of course.

A contemptible man, really—a failure. I failed my mother and I betrayed my promise to Violet. I killed Pebble, my first friend, and Sparkle, whom I thought I loved. If I’d been there… And above all, I failed my adored Misi by not deceiving the angels properly and by telling the spinster about her… I betrayed my real father. I abused Quetti’s friendship.