by Dave Duncan
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.
—11—
THE ANGELS
“LET’S BE SURE I’VE GOT THIS RIGHT,” said Black-white-red. “He opened a sack and stuck his head in it, and there was a python in there. It wanted to loop around his neck…so he let it?” He drummed long black fingers on the table.
“More or less,” I said.
“How much more? How much less?” His head was against the bloody glow of the window, his eyes almost invisible, and only the silhouette of his woolly hair was distinctive. He was coldly furious—with some justification, I suppose.
I sighed. “No more, no less. Yes, it sounds crazy when you put it in those words. But he was exhausted, remember. Neither of us was watching…maybe he tripped and fell on top of it. Accidents happen.”
“Accidents can be made to happen!”
I faked a little anger. “You’re accusing us of murder! What possible motive could either of us have had to harm him?”
“You’d both been imprinted, and he had killed your women.”
“If we had slain him, why would we have come here, to Heaven?”
Black-white growled low in his long throat and drummed his fingers faster. At my side, Quetti sat in silence, his right shin balanced on his left knee, impassively studying a thumbnail. Of course we had murdered Red-yellow, but if neither of us confessed, there was nothing the angels could do about it, certainly not after so long a time…or was there?
Sensing the anger around me, I was suddenly uncertain.
The room was very small and it was rapidly becoming stuffy. The walls and the low ceiling were curiously irregular, made of variegated slabs of snortoiseshell that creaked whenever the building moved. Features were hard to make out, for the only lighting came from a foggy casement directly behind Black and the two men flanking him.
Beyond that rattling window lay the nightmare landscape of Dusk—scabby hills tangled with dead trees and monstrous bloated fungi in bilious yellows and mauves, all lit by a baleful red twilight along the horizon. The clearings were buried deep in snow, drifted by icy winds that ran wailing under a dark sky. The snortoise browsed with monotonous crunching, and in the distance many others issued their weird roaring bellows. This was Heaven, but it was much closer to what I should have expected of Hell.
Since our meeting at the spinster’s lair, Black-white had gained promotion. In place of angel buckskins he wore a heavy green robe. The others addressed him as Uriel or Archangel.
On his right sat a leather-clad angel, a fairish man with tawny hair and yellow eyes. His stripes identified him as Two-green-red.
The man on Uriel’s left was older, portly, and swathed in a purple robe. He sported a coronet of snow-white curls and a friendly sort of face. This was, of course, Saint Kettle, of whom I have spoken earlier. He was there to represent his superior, Archangel Gabriel. Gabriel had a cold. Colds are common in Heaven.
There was a sixth man present also, sitting in silence in the corner behind Quetti and me, so we could not see him without turning. Uriel kept shooting him glances, but so far he had not spoken at all.
The snortoise roared deafeningly beyond the window and took a mighty lurch forward, rocking the building.
Kettle coughed.
“Yes, Saint?” Uriel asked.
“I’m curious to know how they escaped the forest.” Kettle shuffled through his notes on the table. I had been wondering what sort of game he was playing, having never seen writing done before. “Even with the spinster dead, wetlanders are precious goods in those parts, but these two evaded recapture. They somehow managed to sail that chariot, by land and river, out of the forest, and that in itself is no mean feat. They must have gained hospitality from the inhabitants or else lived off the land.”
He paused, thinking. “No. They must have done both, so they’re good hunters and damned good diplomats, too! They made their way north across the cold desert, then east through the dying lands to Heaven, but without any formal navigation, I assume. They evaded predators, two-eyed and three-eyed. All in all,” he added, rubbing a plump chin or two, “those are astonishing accomplishments for a couple of beginners, and one of them a cripple!”
Black—Uriel—nodded rather reluctantly. “I agree, but it’s taken them long enough. Heavens, I’ve been up to Sunday since then and over to February. How long is it?”
How long was what? I wondered.
“It’s been about three years” Kettle said.
I wondered what that meant, growing angry at such gibberish being spoken over my head. If they were discussing time, then it had been long enough for Quetti to grow from fuzzy-faced boy to a hard-faced young man with a heavy growth of golden stubble. That stubble—and my own—had been annoying Uriel since he first set eyes on us.
“Long enough that they must have talked themselves into every pretty girl’s bed from Friday to Tuesday,” he said crossly. “Shaving, masquerading as angels!” He fired one of his angry glances at the sixth man in the corner.
“No!” Quetti looked hurt. “Not just the pretty ones!”
Uriel growled again; it was obviously a habit of his. I could have told him that Quetti had never needed the angel disguise—he had an astonishing ability to make girls want to mother him. That wasn’t true of me, though, so I stayed silent, hoping someone would change the subject.
It was Two-green who spoke into the silence. “I do
ubt that they could have done otherwise, Uriel. Who else drives a chariot but angels? They had to pretend to be angels or else abandon the chariot—and one of them can’t walk.”
“I can so!” I retorted. “But…but not that far, I guess.”
Uriel dismissed me with a shrug and looked to Quetti. “How did you manage?”
Quetti scratched his chin loudly with a knuckle. “I didn’t.”
Then he flashed me a sly grin out of the corner of his eye, and I saw what was coming. I cursed under my breath and glared back warningly. Quetti and I had been good companions on our long trek together, but never close. If fires burned within Quetti, he kept them well banked; no man could ever warm himself on Quetti’s friendship. He was self-contained and taciturn. Usually. But now, I could tell, he was winding up to make a speech that he had promised me he wouldn’t. Admittedly I had twisted his arm very hard to get that promise. I had almost dislocated his shoulder.
Quetti turned his grin on Uriel. “It was Knobil, all Knobil. I collapsed. I was a useless heap, crazy. He worked out how to sail the chariot. He brewed up some sort of dye from tree bark and colored us both brown, just in case. He did it all.”
“That’s not true!” I said quickly.
Idiot! Once he had recovered his health, Quetti had also recovered his ambition to become an angel, for his only real alternative was to head home with FAILURE written on his heart.
My case was different. I had my revenge planned in detail now, and all I needed from Heaven was a ride back to the grasslands. I had hoped to earn that favor by returning the lost chariot. Once we had arrived north of the desert, I could have dropped Quetti off to walk and then turned my course westward, but that would have been unkind, so I had agreed to sail to Heaven. Besides, the chariot was in bad disrepair by then. In any event, we had been intercepted by an astonished angel, White-gray-orange, and brought in under guard as murder suspects.
“It’s true!” Quetti said. “He repaired the wheels more than once—and the ropes, and the sails. He made traps and caught game. He’s a devil of a fine cook, too! He worked out where we were and which way we should go. I went right out of my mind and—”
“He’s out of his mind now!” I howled. “Don’t believe all this.” Yes, Quetti had been sick for a while in the forest—that was hardly surprising after what he had been through. I had warned him not to mention that, but he was not to be stopped…
“Knobil knew how the gun worked. He once held off three men in a canoe with it. He was bringing down birds on the wing by the time we ran out of those tube things you put in it.”
The snortoise roared, drowning out both my protests and Quetti’s tales, but he didn’t even pause for breath.
“…fished me out one-handed and brained the brute with an oar at the same time. And after that he kept me tied up until I got my head back. He fed me like a baby! He treated my wounds with herbs. He found out how—”
“Oh stop it!” I yelled. “This is nonsense! Quetti caught a fever—” What the angels thought of me was of no importance. I would not care if they believed I had been helpless dead weight on our journey. Quetti was the one who wanted to stay in Heaven, and by talking like this he was steadily ruining his own chances—but he was determined to spare me not a single blush.
“…grabbed its head in a way that paralyzed it, and I ran for the ax. So we ate snake until…”
I had never suspected that his cool, sane exterior hid this outrageous juvenile hero worship. I wanted to scream.
“…in trade for the snake’s skin, and used it to haul the chariot through the swamp. He knows all about horses, and later he sold it off to some sandmen. I tell you, Knobil could talk an anteater out of his sandals!”
“Quetti!” I yelled. “You needn’t go into all this!” It was intolerable.
“…treemen and hawkers and beekeepers…mends clothes—”
“I do birdsong imitations too!”
“…best shot with a bow I have ever—”
“You sound like Jat Lon selling a horse!”
“…catch fish without—”
“I also sing and dance!” I shouted. “Now will you shut up!”
“He’s the finest, bravest man I’ve ever met!” With that final outrageous untruth, Quetti stopped and sat back to leer at me.
Silence followed, broken by another roar from the snortoise.
“Obviously one of you is lying,” Uriel said acidly. “And I know Knobil is an expert at that, at least.”
Everyone else laughed. I choked between several angry retorts and eventually used none of them.
“Where did you learn all this?” Kettle asked me.
I shrugged grumpily. “I’d seen Violet-indigo-red drive a chariot on land and Red-yellow do it in the water. I’d watched Violet use a gun. Brown-yellow-white taught me a little about maps, so I could use Red’s. Black, here, told me about geography, and I had a few trader tricks. Quetti knew that Heaven was somewhere in Dusk, north of the deserts. As for the rest… Well, I’ve been a herdman, a seaman, a miner, an all-purpose slave, a trader—I just picked it up here and there.”
The three men opposite me all looked up as the watcher in the corner chuckled wryly. He spoke up for the first time. “I always told you gentlemen that wetlanders make the best angels.”
Two of the three laughed enthusiastically, and I twisted around to stare at this cryptic onlooker. He was a small, slight man, well muffled in a white gown. He was sitting at an angle to the light and had pulled his hood forward to conceal his face, although I was sure he had been watching us earlier.
“Quetti’s a wetlander,” I said. “I’m a herdman.”
“I can tell.” He was old, his voice thin as a lark’s ankle. He did not turn toward me.
“The purpose of this meeting…” Uriel’s voice had fallen into yet a lower, sadder range, and I was uneasily aware that the proceedings were not the forgone formality I had been expecting. “…is to investigate the death of Red-yellow-green. Obviously we should have questioned these two vagabonds separately Does anyone believe their nonsensical tale about a snake? Kettle?”
“Certainly!” the plump man said. “I vote for acquittal.”
“What?” Outraged, Uriel turned to the angel on his other side. “Two-green? I can rely on you, surely?”
Two-green avoided his eye, glancing unhappily at the cryptic onlooker in white. Getting crosswise between two archangels was a Heavenly nightmare, but in this case one of the two was Michael, and that made his decision easy. “I lean toward acquittal also, Uriel,” he said miserably.
Kettle beamed. “Then shall I record the death as due to snake attack?”
Uriel uttered a growl that was almost a roar. “Michael! Red was a friend of yours! He was murdered!”
“It’s your inquiry. But I think you’re outvoted.”
Uriel sprang up, tall and black against the window, and also furious. “Do it, then, Saint! And may your ink freeze!” He leaned big fists on the table and stared menacingly down at Quetti and me. “We can discuss your future at a later time—”
“Let’s do that now,” said the quiet voice from behind my shoulder. The man in the white gown rose and walked around to the far side of the table. The angel jumped off his chair, and he ended up without one as Michael took the middle spot and Uriel angrily settled where Two-green had been, leaving him to lean back against the wall, fold his arms, and glower. The face of the little man in white—Michael, of course—was now against the light and no more visible than it had been earlier.
He looked up at Uriel. “Well? There are two pilgrims here. Have you no questions to ask the candidates?”
I was about to interject that I was no pilgrim. I might even have been rash enough to spit out a few of my opinions about angels in general as hypocritical, lecherous posers and of Heaven itself as callous and ineffectual, but I needed transportation back to the grasslands, so I would probably have managed to restrain myself. As it was, I caught sight of Michael’s han
ds on the table, and my thoughts suddenly began to jump in all other directions like a pack of roos.
Uriel was furious, his fists so tightly clenched that pale spots showed on the big black knuckles. “Very well, Holiness, although I’ve had no chance to interview them in private, as is the custom.”
“It is hardly the custom for pilgrims to arrive in their own chariot.” Michael was making no effort to soothe the tall man; indeed, he seemed to be trying to provoke him.
Five archangels rule Heaven. Gabriel tends the records and the ancient lore. Uriel trains the cherubim. Raphael builds and maintains the chariots and all the other equipment the angels need. Sariel attends to the housekeeping of Heaven itself—the feeding and housing of so many people, the welfare of the dog teams and the snortoises. Michael gives orders to angels.
The hierarchy is clearly defined. At the bottom are the seraphim, who do manual labor for Sariel and Raphael. They are mostly youngsters of the twilight ghoulfolk, who work off their adolescence in Heaven and then head home with a farewell gift of Heaven’s unique manufactures, such as nails and steel blades and certain medicines. With those, they can buy first-class wives.
Above the seraphim come the cherubim, future angels, followed by the learned saints who report to Gabriel—at least in theory they do; some saints have been lost in obscure research for so long that they have forgotten their own names, let alone his.
Above the saints come the angels, and the five archangels.
All archangels are former angels, accustomed to obeying Michael, and Michael appoints other archangels whenever there is a vacancy. In Heaven’s long history, there have been few instances of a Michael who could not get his own way in the Council of Five.
There was no question that pilgrims seeking admission as cherubim must be first approved by Uriel. The former Black-white-red was new to the post. He had not interviewed many candidates before Quetti and I arrived, but it was certainly his privilege to do so. His anger at Michael’s intervention was understandable, even if Michael’s own motives were not. And my own mind was already reeling at what it was beginning to suspect.