West of January (50 page)

A note of hope crept into the youngster’s voice: “Then you will now disband your army?”

“No…no, I can’t. Fighting seems to be the only thing that I can make them cooperate for—does not the Great Compact warn us that violence is a disease that breeds and spreads? I knew the danger, angel, but I saw greater evils than that. First we fought the herdmasters and united the people. Then we chased traders—and angels, for practice. Now ants—at last! But if I disband my troops they will surely start fighting each other. Then it will all collapse, and everything, all my life’s—” I stopped and took a deep breath. I was tiring faster than they were. I ought to wait until another time. They were weary, but I was twice their age. Three times as old as Yellow.

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.”

—4—

S
O 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.

I am not a god! The angels will question you hard about this if—when—you get to Heaven. Remember that—Knobil is not a god!

I shall prove it soon, I think. Meanwhile I can sit in the shade and snooze; waiting for my next meal of juicy roast dasher; remembering what might have been, dreaming what never was…

You are the first. You must set an example, every one of you. Heaven will judge the herdfolk by you. You are all big; try also to be great. Travel in groups if you will, but when the road divides, then make your own choices.

Remember always that every man must find Heaven for himself.

AFTERWORD

D
AVE
D
UNCAN
’
S EARLY NOVEL
is a complicated picaresque ramble across a faraway world, a world as full of strangeness and wonder as it is of familiarity and convention. The novel is a classic example of one of science fiction’s strongest motives: world-building.

In keeping with his arrival in postwar Canada, Duncan was acutely aware of the complexities of starting life in a new land, and the planet Vernier provides rich ground for his keen imagination. At first Vernier appears Earth-like, but it soon shows its alien qualities. The most dramatic of these differences is the measurement of time—and the motion of the planet about its sun is the methodically detailed central mechanism of Duncan’s book, from the title onward.

Since the original space-faring humans arrived and settled the planet long before the story begins, most of the technology and culture they brought has been lost. The world in
West of January
is one in which time and its passage are deliberately turned on their sides, and the peoples who inhabit this world must adapt their cultures and lives to survive.

The essence of true science fiction is its ability to speculate, and the heart of Duncan’s
West of January
is pure speculation. The essence of world building and what follows—the form of the cultures and societies that must accommodate that world—easily show the depth and scope of the imaginative talent Duncan brings to his work.

—J
OHN
R
OSE

BOOKS BY DAVE DUNCAN

Dave Duncan is the author of over thirty books of science fiction and fantasy. Born in Scotland, he attended the University of St. Andrews. In 1955 he emigrated to Canada and settled in Calgary, Alberta, where he worked in the oil industry as a research geologist and businessman. Dave Duncan began writing in his fifties and had his first novel accepted for publication just two weeks after a downturn in the oil industry left him out of a job for the first time in his life. He has never looked back. Dave Duncan first established his name by writing several fantasy series, including the highly regarded Seventh Sword trilogy. His most recent series, Tales of the King’s Blades, was an international best-seller and spawned the sequel series, Chronicles of the King’s Blades.
West of January
is among Dave Duncan’s stand-alone novels and is considered essential Science Fiction reading and one of his finest achievements.
West of January
received the Aurora award for outstanding achievement in Canadian Science Fiction.