West of January

A CIRCLE OF HUTS, A HALF-COMPLETED STOCKADE, a forest beyond—these denned the compound. As Um-oao jogged across the mud with my limp form draped over his shoulder, I realized that there were no pens in sight, only huts and more huts. The noises I had thought to be made by livestock were coming from the huts to which I was being taken—and now I knew what made those noises. A human throat can scream only so long before it stops sounding human.

The journey was so short that Um-oao had not bothered to cover me again, and the sun was warm on my bare skin. He reached his objective, pulled aside a drape, and ducked through into hot darkness. Then he expertly flipped me onto my back. I yelled, expecting to crash onto the ground, but I landed instead on a tightly stretched sheet of black silk. I bounced and came to rest, whimpering about my knees.

Um-oao grabbed my right ankle and began to tie it. I sat up and he cuffed me back like a child. In moments he had skillfully trussed me, spread-eagled and quite helpless. Ignoring my questions, he vanished out the door, returning to his mistress. Gloom became darkness as the curtain fell over the opening, and I was alone with the pounding of my heart.

My wrists and ankles had been bound with twine leading to the corners of the frame, but loosely enough that I could raise my head and peer around. There seemed to be four of these beds or stalls or sties or whatever I wished to call them. I could see, and smell, the stinking bucket under each, and I could feel the hole in the silk below my buttocks. Then I sensed that I was not alone.

“Who’s that?”

“Ing-aa,” said a voice from my left, a deep voice.

I tried to see him, but a naked black man on black silk was not very conspicuous in near darkness. And another—I could hear something on the bed across from me. Each breath was a bubbling whimper.

“Who’s that?”

“Don’t know his name.” Ing-aa’s tone showed little interest. “They call him Old Faithful. He’s been here a long time. Longer than any, I think.”

“He can’t talk?”

“No one can talk after being here a long time, wetlander. We endure until we can endure no more. Then we go mad, and then we die. Old Faithful just hasn’t died, that’s all. She takes crop after crop off him, and he just won’t die.”

I shuddered. The heat and stench were making my stomach heave again.

“You must have displeased my lady?” Like Shisisannis, Ing-aa seemed quite willing to be friendly, although either of them would joyfully have eaten me raw, had Ayasseshas suggested it.

“I have used that love potion before, so it did not work on me this time.”

“You are to be pitied. It is the memory of that glorious loving that makes all this worthwhile.”

“Worthwhile? Have you been…seeded?”

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?”

“They haven’t hatched yet. They only tickle at first anyway—so I’m told.”

My bonds cut into me if I pulled at them. They were silk, I supposed; thin but strong. “You’ve got muscles, swampman. Can’t you break loose?”

“I’m not tied.”

“What! Then…you’re just lying there, with…with whatever those things are…crawling on you?”

“I told you—they haven’t hatched yet. I have to lie flat until they’re big enough to hang on.”

Then light flared bright again, painfully bright, as an elderly man pulled open the drape. White hair gleamed above me as he inspected my bonds.

“I’ve brought a present for you, wetlander.” He wheezed a sort of chuckle and spread a large leaf on my chest. It felt cool and damp, but its coolness was not the cause of the shiver that convulsed me then. I looked over at Ing-aa. In the light from the doorway, I could see that there was a leaf lying on him also.

“Eggs?”

“Silkworm eggs,” the old man agreed. “Thirty of them. Try to rear as many as you can and please the lady. The more you carry to the end, the longer you get to heal afterward.”

I think I would have cursed him and Ayasseshas most roundly then, but another shadow blocked the light for a moment. It dropped its garment, and I recognized Quetti. His pale skin was scrolled with dark lines of raw flesh, as if his slender frame was wrapped in a giant fishnet. He moved to the one vacant bed.

“Help me, please?” His young voice quavered more noticeably than it had earlier. Assisted by the old man, Quetti managed to stretch out on the silk without damage to any of the vile parasites clinging to him.

He raised his head to look across at me. “Us wetlanders have to stick together, Knobil.” If that was humor, there was no joy in it; it might have been an appeal for comfort. He was holding three fingers over one eye. The silkworm slug had almost reached it. An oozing red stripe on his neck and cheek showed where it had grazed his skin on the way there. Another was progressing along his forearm, and there were two in his armpit. I retched and looked away without speaking. I had no sympathy to spare for Quetti.

He lay back with a sigh. “Othisosish? You’ll come and tie me soon, when it’s gone by?”

“That I will, lad,” the old man replied gently. The drape fell back behind him.

For a moment there was dark silence, broken by the mindless whimpers from the thing on the bed across from me and the animal-like wailing from the other huts nearby.

“How can you do that?” I yelled at Quetti. “Just lie there and be eaten alive?”

“They only take the top layer. It grows back. Hardly a scar. Except for things like nipples, of course.”

“But it hurts?”

“Oh yes, it hurts. Indeed it hurts. Especially when they get big like this…but they’ll start spinning soon, and then it’ll be all over.”

“Until the next time?”

“Until my lady asks me to pasture another crop,” he agreed.

I was drenched with sweat from the heat in that foul place, and yet my insides felt cold as death.

“The big ones are the worst?” Ing-aa asked in his deep voice.

There was no reply for a moment, while Quetti battled agony. Then he released one of the gasping sighs I had heard before and said, “No. The little ones. They burrow.”

“Burrow?” I wailed.

“Ears…and things. I couldn’t save this eye if this was a little one. It would get under my fingers. I’ve been lucky. I haven’t lost anything important yet.”

“But how can you just lie there and be eaten?”

There was a longer silence then, until he said sadly, “You still don’t understand? I love Ayasseshas. We all do.”

“But…”

“Who is this fat woman that Shisisannis has gone to fetch?”

“Her name is Misi.”

“So when Misi gets here, Ayasseshas will untie you. It’s best to be untied and walking around…healthier. Force-feeding is a lot of work, and dangerous. The mad ones usually die from choking while they’re being fed. They often manage to rub the babies off against the silk, too. It’s better to be up and free…and willing. Except for sleep. That’s why I asked Othisosish to come back and tie me. I might pull them off in my sleep.”

“Sleep? You can sleep?”

“I haven’t slept in so long… Yes, I think I’ll sleep.”

His voice choked off in a whimper of pain, but he had said enough. I could see how Ayasseshas would give me a choice: I must nourish her crop of slugs, or she would pasture Misi instead. Misi was huge and would be capable of feeding many silkworms, but her skin was darker than mine. Only wetlanders made water silk.

And when I went mad, then Misi would be trussed and cropped anyway. Even knowing that, I would not be able to refuse the spinster. I would try…but yet I was a coward. I did not think I could endure as Quetti was doing. Oh, Misi! I must not fail you!

“And it’s that potion that does it, isn’t it?” I said bitterly. “She gives you that and you copulate insanely, and after that you can refuse her nothing?”

“We worship her,” Ing-aa said softly. “We will do even this to please her. I only wish I were white like you, wetlander. The worms I shall feed will make black silk, of very little value, so I must try to endure much and give her many crops. But I am strong. I will bear anything to make her happy. Double-cropping—anything! She is my queen, my love.”

“Your love!” How could these deluded fools serve such a monster? I could guess now that Misi had trapped me in the same way as Ayasseshas had ensnared her army. I had not realized earlier that my feelings for Misi had sprung from that diabolic potion. And yet, even knowing it, I loved her just as much. Love, it is said, is blind.

My companions’ mindless obedience to the spinster seemed like inexplicable insanity to me. My love for Misi was a holy, joyous, precious thing.

Spread out helpless in the fetid dark, I lay for a long time, sorrowing for Misi, listening to occasional stifled sobs from Quetti and the rising, falling chorus of agony from other huts.

Hrarrh had known, of course. Ants knew more of Vernier than most races did, and his original tribe might even have dwelt within a forest. This was the vengeance he had wanted. Eventually some trader would come, offering water silk. Hrarrh would buy it for his wife, so she could have a bright-dyed gown to cover her squat ugliness. Every time he saw it he would savor his memories of me.

Hrarrh knew how my screams sounded. He could imagine the rest.

He would have his revenge in full.

Yet it was not the thought of Hrarrh that troubled me most. The blackness that choked me then was worse than anything he had done to me, worse than anything I had known in the ants’ nest. There, in the spinster’s pen, in the darkest moment of my life, I was faced with the terrible knowledge that my entire life was a failure. I had failed the mother I had sworn to avenge, failed to follow through on my promise to become an angel, failed the seawoman I had married, failed to escape from the traders when that had been my intention, and now I had failed to protect Misi. I had betrayed the woman I loved. Yes, I knew her faults—but no woman is perfect, and men must follow where their hearts lead them. I had betrayed Misi to the spinster. I had been unworthy of my beloved, and that is a man’s ultimate failure.

I wept for Misi…only for Misi.

My chest had begun to itch.

—2—

MY DARLING MISI… At first I had been fooled by her habitual pretense of stupidity. Later, blinded by love, I had overestimated her cunning.

Silk raising goes on all the time. In nature, the silkworms are tiny parasites of a small burrowing animal called a ground pig. Something in human skin delays their cocoon stage and allows them to grow into the monsters I had seen on Quetti. The eggs can be picked up around any ground pig burrow. It is not difficult to tie up the human victim and seed him, so there is always a small supply of silk trickling into the trade routes.

But, as Quetti had told me, it is hard to restrain an unwilling subject so firmly that he cannot scrape the worms off. It is hard to feed him for long against his will. The key to successful silk production is the virgin’s web and voluntary pasturing. Male spinsters have been recorded, but they fare poorly, for any spinster is an unpopular neighbor, needing an army for both defense and recruitment. Female warriors are just not as effective as males.

Furthermore, black or dark brown silk is of low value, and lighter skin is rarely available in the forests. Ants are a passable feedstock, if their dark hair is kept shaved. They, and the wolffolk of the far north, yield a pale tan silk, but real profit comes only from pure water silk, and only wetlanders will produce that. Whenever these lighter shades appear or the overall supply of silk in the market increases, then the angels know that a spinster has arisen. It happens, so I was told in Heaven, once or twice in every cycle. All other tasks except the most urgent are then set aside as the angels move to track down this abomination.

When Black-white-red spoke to me at the angels’ roadblock, he knew immediately that I was not what I claimed to be. He knew that wetlander slaves, being very precious and yet not required to do physical labor, were usually crippled—a broken leg being more effective than shackles, and cheaper. A blue-eyed trader who could not walk did not fool Black at all. He knew also of the virgin’s web, although its use had never been recorded outside the high forests. Misi’s plot was unraveled right away.

So Misi and I had been allowed to proceed. The angels followed, letting the unwitting victim lead them to the spinster. To track a trader train is absurdly easy. To keep watch on one man within it and yet remain undetected calls for much skill and even more luck. Fortunately Misi, being unable to ride a horse and yet determined to view the transfer of wealth, had insisted on taking her train to the actual rendezvous. That was a breach of custom and a serious error. When the angels saw that one train had left the group, they could guess that the exchange was about to be made. When I was carried off in Shisisannis s canoe, they were watching.

They had even thought to bring a canoe of their own with them—small, light, and speedy. Paddlers, unlike rowers, face forward, and Shisisannis had failed to keep close watch behind him on his way upstream, while his men had all been too intent on playing tougher-than-you to look back at all. Thus the angels’ little scout craft had escaped detection. The rest of the force had followed more slowly, for sailboats do poorly on a winding river in a fitful wind, but they had all arrived at last near the spinster’s lair. By the time they had concealed their chariots and taken some well-earned rest, Shisisannis had departed again, and suddenly the game was easy.

I had been asleep. I awakened with a start of terror. Quetti was still there, tied down. He raised his head, his pale face just visible enough to show the two crop markings that crossed it. He had saved his eye, at the cost of a little skin from his fingers, and the silkworm had vanished into his hair. Ing-aa had gone, his eggs having hatched. Old Faithful gurgled and moaned on the fourth bed.

My chest itched maddeningly. I tried to work out where the tiny horrors had got to. Not far yet…none near my groin, anyway…

“What was that noise?” Quetti whispered. His throat was likely as sore as mine, for he had screamed a lot in his sleep.

I thought back to what had wakened me. Before I could speak, the same noise roared again, several times.

“Guns!” I yelled. “The angels have come!”

Quetti wailed and began struggling against his bonds, but the silk cord was unbreakable. There were more shots and voices shouting. “They’ll kill her!”

“I hope so! I hope so!”

More shots…more shouts…running feet slapping mud, some close to the hut. I began to call for help, as loudly as I was able. Quetti cursed and moaned.

Again there was shooting and then a long, maddening silence.

At last I heard voices and decided they were coming closer.

And closer… So slowly!

The drape was ripped from the doorway, tipping torrents of light into our eyes. A shadow blocked it, but it was not the outline of an angel in fringed buckskins. Quetti yelled with joy, and it was I who wailed in crushing despair, seeing another of the lanky black swampmen in a pagne, blurred against the brightness.

“Well, look who’s here!” a deep voice said. “My old friend Nob Bil! We meet again, trader?”

“Get me out of here!”

Chuckling, the newcomer cut one of my bonds and then caught my hand as I reached for the unbearable itch on my chest. “Don’t scratch them. Go out and let the sun do it for you.”

He had to help me rise, but in a few moments I was outside, leaning back against the side of the hut and sniggering idiotically as the tiny maggots fell from my chest, slain by sunlight. I was too choked with relief to speak, yet I wanted to sing. I shivered uncontrollably, but I felt like dancing. I gulped deep breaths of the dank forest air and thought it was the finest perfume in the world. I had been given back my life. God bless the angels!

For the first time I had a decent view of Ayasseshas’s log palace. It seemed enormous to me, and an impressive tribute to her power, but already flames streamed from the windows. Some of the huts had been torched now, also.

In a few moments Black-white dragged out Quetti, who struggled and screamed, trying to run back into the dark. But the slender young wetlander in his weakened state was no match for the tall swampman. Black just lifted him up and held him at arm’s length, helplessly suspended.

“She’s dead, I tell you!” he kept repeating. For a long time Quetti would not believe him and continued to kick and squirm and rave, desperate to save the silkworms he had promised to the spinster. I thought that Black should have let him finish a task so nearly complete. The silk would have made him wealthy, and surely he had earned it.

At last Quetti came to accept that Ayasseshas had been shot. Then he stood submissively. Tears trickled down his silver-fuzz cheeks as the slugs fell from him also, one by one.

Smoke was billowing through the compound in acrid, eye-stinging clouds. The sun burned hot one moment and was a pallid white disk the next. We were all starting to cough.

I could see a few dead men lying around. Angels more formally clad than Black were stalking around, appearing and disappearing like wraiths in the haze, all bearing guns and obviously alert for trouble as they inspected the huts. Most seemed to be of lighter races than our swampman rescuer.

“I am very glad to see you, sir,” I ventured at last. My wits were returning, my parasites had gone, and I had begun to wonder about clothes.

For a moment Black-white’s habitual mournful expression broke into a smile, although his eyes were streaming tears. “I was very glad to see you, wetlander. You led us here.” He sighed, poking the sobbing Quetti, who was still as bare as me. “Turn around and toast your other side, lad. We’ll have to find some oil or something for you.” He started to cough.

Quetti rotated obediently, in silent misery.

“You followed me?” I said, working it out.

“Right. Two-white and I work a mean paddle. We followed you, and the rest came after.”

“You scared me just now, when you came in—How did you get in, anyway?”

We were interrupted then, but I heard later how the angels had triumphed by sheer audacity. Black and Two-white-lime had donned local costume and walked brazenly into the compound, unchallenged by the few remaining guards. As soon as they had killed Um-oao and captured Ayasseshas, the war was over. Despite his melancholy manner, Black must have been feeling very pleased with himself.

Another angel had come strutting over to us, a small man whose sleeve proclaimed him to be Red-yellow-green. He was perky, cocky, and weather-beaten, and so reminiscent of Lon Kiv that he could only be of trader stock. He rested the butt of his gun on the ground and pushed back the brim of his hat to reveal a sweaty lock of white hair. He looked us over in silence, wincing at the sight of so much raw flesh on Quetti.

“Any more of you whiteys around?”

Quetti was not speaking, so I said, “No, sir.”

He seemed relieved, and he glanced at the tall swampman.

“We’d best get these two out of here fast.”

Black nodded. “You’re not going to wait and waylay the others when they return, Red?”

The little man shook his head. “They’re victims too. Let them be.”

Then I remembered where “the others” had gone. I had been so overwhelmed by my own release that I had forgotten the danger to Misi. Choking with the effort of forcing so many words through my aching throat, I told of the raid on the traders.

The little man nodded. “We guessed as much. It was lucky for us, though. And for you, sucker.”

“But you must save the traders!”

He glowered. “They’re slavers! They all knew about you. It will serve them right! Let the spinster’s men kill them off, or be killed themselves.”

“Angels prevent violence!”

“Why should I risk my men to save either side?”

I was stunned with horror, not knowing what to say, but Black remarked softly, “They have children, Red.”

Red pulled a face and grunted. He pondered, tugging his lip. “Well, I’ll go and try. If I can get there before the battle, I may talk them all out of it.”

“Now wait a moment, great one,” Black said. “You shot the spinster. If her men learn that, they’ll use your guts for bowstrings.”

“I’ll tell them you did it!”

“Seriously…”

“No argument!” Red had to crane his head back when talking with the gangling black man. “You finish up here. I’ll head back downstream and see what can be done.”

“Damn it, Red! Spinster’s men meeting an angel?”

“Ex-spinster’s men!” Red’s face was turning an appropriate color.

“They may not believe that.”

“They will! I’ll take these two dupes along as evidence.”

Black regarded him very oddly. He glanced at Quetti and me. “Is that wise?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

Black’s face went stiff. “You are, sir.”

“Right! And you move this job along as fast as you can. That smoke may bring trouble, so finish the cleanup here and then scram. We’re overdue already, and Michael will bust me to seraph if we’re not all back soon. I’ll catch up with you if I can, but don’t wait for me. Understood?”

There was no more argument from Black.

“I won’t go!” Quetti shouted. “I want to see her.” The palace was a thundering inferno by then. I could feel the heat from it.

“She’s dead!” Red insisted. “I blew her brains out myself. And you’ll do as you’re told, you ungrateful little idiot.” That last remark was not completely fair. Quetti was taller than he was.

Red-yellow-green had made a curious decision, one that was to be much debated and criticized in Heaven. His situation was perilous. He had a dozen angels, counting himself, and five chariots. The aggressive Shisisannis was somewhere in the area with upward of thirty followers. Warlike young men bereft of a beloved leader by an act of violence are prone to notions of vengeance.

Within the compound itself, now a choking mass of flame and smoke, were another thirty or so of the spinster’s victims. Most of them had been rescued from the pens, but, like Quetti, they were not necessarily grateful. They ranged from mindless husks like Old Faithful to fit and virile fighters like Ing-aa. In time, perhaps, most of them would recover their wits enough to head off in search of the families and tribes from which Ayasseshas had abducted them, and some might even resume a normal life again, but they were not yet ready to do so. The most hopeless cases were being quietly put out of their misery by grim-faced angels, although I was unaware of that at the time. Other angels, equally grim, were disabling the dangerous by breaking their throwing arms, a brutal but necessary precaution.

On the face of it, Red abandoned his troops in mid-campaign. He should have either ignored the trader problems or sent someone else to deal with it.

But the facts were less simple than that, and his thinking more complex. As I was to discover, Red’s intention was to save not the traders, but his own angels. He wanted to block any pursuit, and he had evidently concluded that the venture was too risky to delegate to anyone else. He took Quetti and me along as proof that Ayasseshas had been overthrown, and he may well have planned to kill us both if there was any risk of our falling into the wrong hands. Fortunately I was not smart enough to see that.

Soon I found myself sitting once more in the bow of an angel chariot. It was much more heavily laden than Violet’s had been, because it had been home to three angels, and angels tend to collect unusual personal things, like spare sets of clothes.

At my side, Quetti was hunched over in silent misery, listlessly applying grease to his welts. We were both wearing muddy fur pagnes, and mine was bloodstained. I worried that two light-skinned wetlanders might suffer sunburn, but the sun was too low in the sky to be very dangerous, and most of the river was heavily shaded.

Red sat amidships, steering the chariot as it floated down the oily water. The wind was rarely helpful, and he spent much time adjusting his sails.

Before we departed, he had ostentatiously laid his gun to hand and ascertained that we both knew what it could do. I could see why he might not trust Quetti, who was red-eyed and surly, but his attitude seemed to imply that he did not trust me either, and I resented that.

Nevertheless, I was free at last—or so I thought. Intoxicated by the sense of freedom, I floated amid rainbow dreams of being reunited with Misi. Had my throat not still ached so much, I might have burst into song. The only anchor on my euphoria was anxiety about what Shisisannis was doing. Our pace must be much slower than his had been, and so I fretted a little that we might arrive too late to stop the massacre—but only a little, for Misi at least would be safe. At every bend I twisted around in the hope of seeing a solitary canoe approaching, speeding my love toward the spinster’s lair.

Of course that canoe would also have contained Shisisannis himself and five or six young toughs. What would have happened then, I can only guess, but the problem did not arise. No craft appeared, and only the angel’s chariot tremored the reflections.

We ate. We slapped at bugs. We sailed on in silence down the tree-lined, tortuous river. Then the angel roused himself from a period of deep thought to scowl at his passengers.

“What’s wrong?” I asked uneasily.

“I’m just wondering what to do with you two. I have to get you out of the forest. It’s not safe for you.”

“Why not?”

His expression said that my ignorance was unbelievable. “Because silkworm eggs are easy to come by. Whiteys like you are just too tempting. You—Quetti? Where do you want to go?”

Quetti stared at him for a while and then just shrugged.

“Pilgrim, were you?”

“Yes.” Quetti turned his head away, looking sulky.

Red nodded. “Usual story, then. It’s a test. If you’re stupid enough to get caught, then you’re not smart enough to be an angel.”

Quetti’s blue eyes glinted. He muttered something that I thought was “Murderer!” Red would not have heard.

“You could have a fast trip home,” the angel said with a sneer. “Down this stream somewhere is the Great River. It’s flowing west at the moment, at maximum rate. It would be a hair-raising ride, but you could try it in one of the canoes.”

“He’d never get through the Andes!” I exclaimed.

Red shrugged, but he seemed surprised by my knowledge. “No, he wouldn’t, the shape he’s in. You’ll have to come north with me then, lad. The goatherds of the late desert are a hospitable lot; we’ll find a tribe to take you in until you heal. And you, cripple?”

“I want to be with Misi Nada…if she’ll have me. Wherever she is, that’s where I want to be.”

The little man curled his lip in contempt. Then he broke the news. The world fell apart. My mind seemed to die, and for a while his words made no sense at all. He had to repeat the story several times before I could understand.

As soon as Shisisannis had departed with me as his prisoner and the angel canoe in pursuit, then the rest of the angels had moved on the trader caravan. The men, predictably, had all fled on horseback. The angels had fined the other women a portion of their goods, which had then been burned, but Misi Nada and Pula Misi had been executed for slaving. Red had carried out the sentence himself, just as he had executed Ayasseshas, because no honorable leader would delegate so despicable a task.

I wept, my heart shattered into a million pieces.

Quetti studied my grief for a while and then remarked cattily, “Now you know how it feels!”

That journey seemed endless. Red had not thought to bring food, and he dared not stop to catch any. Quetti curled up on the floor and seemed to go into a coma. I hunkered down in a silent agony of bereavement, my mind churning with regret as it strove to come to terms with the disaster. Red just steered and worked the sails, and grew ever more weary.

Certainly I had gone mad in the ants’ nest, for no sane man could have survived that ordeal for so long. Now, had anyone cared enough to ask, I would probably have said that my wits had been restored by Misi’s love and care. I can only suppose that my wits had been driven away again by the shock of losing her, for it was then, huddled in the bow of Red’s chariot on that smelly bug-infested river, that I made my great decision. No blinding flash of light or voice from Heaven announced the moment; it came slowly, imperceptibly…relentlessly.

Misi was gone, Sparkle an ancient memory. My children on the South Ocean would not even know my name, and anyway I could never find them. Heaven held no appeal. True, the angels’ coup against the spinster had won a brief twitch of admiration from me, but Red’s brutality had crushed it utterly. Murderer!

I had no desire to become an angel. So where could I go? What could I do?

No blinding flash…no carefully crafted logic…but when Quetti’s shout aroused me from my long reverie, I knew my purpose. I had made my decision. It is a sad commentary on a man’s character that, rescued from a horrible death and given back his life, he can think of no better use for that life than the pursuit of revenge. But revenge was my choice, and I even thought I could see how to gain it.

Of course, I had just been rescued from the spinster, so she and her methods were much on my mind.

And I was crazy again. That helped a lot.

So I chose my destiny. It would need superhuman luck and a lot more courage than I was ever likely to find, but I was in no mood then to consider those problems. I vowed that I would try, and I would let nothing stand in my way, not even Heaven itself.

—3—

I HAD BEEN DREAMING my mad dreams for a long time.

Quetti was sufficiently recovered to be sitting up and taking notice. He had yelled to draw Red’s attention to the canoes, cunningly buried under piles of brush. Red was still at the tiller, eyes blood-rimmed, cheeks haggard under a silver stubble.

“Grasslands!” I said. “I have to go back to the grasslands!”

“Then you can damned well walk!” the angel snarled. “Get that grapnel ready.”

I have often wondered what thoughts went through Shisisannis’s head when he discovered the smoldering ashes of Misi’s train, which had also been her funeral pyre.

He must have known that he was seeing the work of avenging angels, for only they would have burned valuable trade goods. He must have guessed that he would now not be able to carry out his orders. Perhaps he feared that Ayasseshas in her fury would send him to the pens, for he did not take the news back to her right away. Instead, he left his canoes and led his whole troop off overland. Possibly he was clinging to the faint hope that the woman he had been sent to abduct was still alive and with the other traders, although he must have known how extremely slight that chance was. More likely he thought he was pursuing the angels. He had not seen them on the river, so he may have believed that he could run them down ashore before they found the spinster’s lair.

He probably caught up with the caravan. He may have had a battle. I bear the snakeman no grudge. I hope that eventually he found happiness again, but I do not know what happened to him.

What happened to me was that I arrived with a bone-weary Red-yellow-green and his other wetlander captive at a scrubby sand spit where the spinster’s canoes had been stowed. They were well camouflaged, and it was Quetti who saw them. There were no guards to challenge us as the angel grounded his chariot in the shallows. I tossed a grapnel into the shrubbery; he lowered sail. Then we all paused to stretch aching muscles and rub sore eyes.

Red scratched his chin and looked thoughtfully at his passengers—companions but not friends. He had won his gamble. He had evaded Shisisannis and could now destroy the enemy’s canoes, saving his own men from pursuit. But he was not such a fool as to trust Quetti or me any further than necessary. Shisisannis and his men were obviously absent, so we were not needed as evidence of the spinster’s death. Now what could Red do with us? He would have to sleep sometime. He had placed himself in a very dangerous situation. Black had foreseen this and warned him. And us.

Were he unscrupulous enough, Red-yellow might choose to dispose of us before either of us was tempted to dispose of him. He could shoot us or just abandon us in the forest, but he would be breaking his angel vows.

Of course, I did not see all this then. “Now what happens?” I asked bitterly. “Will you go after Shisisannis?”

The angel shook his head and bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “I never planned to. You stay here, cripple. You jump, boy!”

Quetti had hardly spoken since we began our voyage, his thoughts unreadable under his sullen pallor. He stared hard at the angel before rising and clambering from the chariot into knee-deep water.

I watched as he waded ashore and Red followed, carrying his gun and an ax. I watched, also, as Quetti was set to work smashing holes in upturned canoes. The angel went ahead of him, pulling away the shrubs that had been piled over them, but also staying on guard, keeping his gun at the ready and a watchful eye on both Quetti and the forest. No one emerged screaming from the trees to halt the vandalism.

To disable a fragile structure like a canoe is not difficult, and in short order the damage was done. It could be repaired, of course, but not soon enough for Shisisannis to lead his men in pursuit of the angels. Red had reached his objective, and now he came splashing back to the chariot with the ax. Quetti had been sent to retrieve the grapnel.

“Mission accomplished!” Red remarked with satisfaction. He tossed the ax into the boat—at the stern, out of my reach—and began to climb in after it.

Quetti yelled from the edge of the trees and waved. He was a long way from the grapnel.

Red scowled. “Now what?” But he splashed back to the bank and went to see what Quetti had discovered. He took his gun with him, so he may have been suspicious, or perhaps he just did not want to leave it near me.

When the angel reached him, Quetti pointed at something on the ground. Red bent over to peer at it. Quetti, displaying more strength than I would have expected, lifted a bulky sack and raised it high.

I took a deep breath—I have never been able to decide whether or not there was time for me to use it. Maybe there was. Maybe not. Had I called, then I might have distracted Red and given Quetti a better chance. Or I might have warned Red in time to avoid a very clumsy attack, one that should never have succeeded. I didn’t call. So was that another of my killings? I do not know. Does one more or less matter? A man is either a killer or he isn’t. I am.

Quetti tipped the bag over the angel’s head as he straightened up. Constrictors fall on their prey, and apparently they react the same way when dropped. Red made no sound. Either a coil went around his neck at once, or else Silent Lover squeezed all the breath from him before he could speak. The man in the bag fell down in the undergrowth. Quetti stood there and watched until the bushes stopped thrashing.

Then he came trailing wearily back down to the water’s edge. He waded out to the chariot and stopped. He stared up at me and I looked down at him, and for a long moment neither of us spoke.

The expression on his sallow face reminded me of my childhood. Many times I had seen one or another of my numerous brothers act naughtier than he had intended and then try not to show how scared he felt. Quetti’s young face looked just like that—defiant and unrepentant, but wary of what might be said next.

I reached down a hand to shake his.

“Well done,” I said.

Quetti took my hand, pale lashes blinking in surprise.

“I’m heading back to the grasslands,” I said. “Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”

He stared at me in bewilderment for a dozen heartbeats. Then he began to weep, tears pouring down his hideously grazed cheeks, sobs wracking his bony frame. That was what he needed. I hauled him into the chariot and then I held him for a while, until he regained some control and pushed me away in shame.

I could leave him then, leave him to work out his grief and guilt, while I went to get the grapnel.

Silent Lover had already departed in search of more prey. I could not bury Red-yellow, but I dragged his body to the water and sent it on its way. But first I retrieved his gun.

I was humming as I lurched back to the chariot.

Whatever you do, never expect gratitude.