West of January

by Dave Duncan

  “As you command, my Goddess, my Queen.”

  She clasped his big hand. “Be careful, lover, and hurry back. You will then be with me always.”

  “Lady!” I wailed. “Do not do this, I beg!” My throat burned with every word. “Spare the traders and I will do whatever you ask of me.”

  “Will you indeed?” Ayasseshas shook her head. “You will do what I want, yes, but only if I hold this trader sow as hostage.”

  “No!” I forced myself to sit up, although my belly squirmed with nausea. “I swear I will obey you, and be loyal, and serve you.”

  “But you don’t know what I require of my followers, do you, Knobil? You said you did not know.”

  “No, but whatever it is, I will do it, if only you will leave the traders alone.”

  “Quetti!”

  Men backed away uneasily. Shisisannis rose and stepped aside as the brown-shrouded figure floated forward.

  “Lady?”

  “Show him your babies, Quetti, my dear. Show him the little ones you bear for me. Teach this ignorant herdman how silk is made.”

  In silence Quetti opened his hood and threw it back to reveal his face. He stared wanly at me, and I thought that the shadow of pain around his pale blue eyes was even darker than before. There was a lump of white jelly adhering to his cheek, an ugly slug shape as big as a man’s finger.

  Seeing that I still did not understand, he smiled lopsidedly, unfastened his robe, and held it wide. Some of the other twelve silkworms he was pasturing were not visible, but I saw enough of them, and enough of what they were doing to him, to understand at last.

  Had my throat permitted, then, I am sure I should have screamed. As it was, I made a terrible scene, blubbering and pleading in a frantic whisper that changed nothing. My weeping continued even after Shisisannis and most of the other men had departed on their mission of death and pillage.

  Returning from her farewells at the door, Ayasseshas scowled at me in disgust. “Um-oao?” she said. “Othisosish said he should rest. Take him over to the pens and tether him. He is of no use here.”

  “And seed him, Majesty?”

  “Why not? Yes! He is pale enough to get started. And hurry back, big bull. I am much in need of loving.”

  —10—

  RED-YELLOW-GREEN

  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.”
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  “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 h
ad 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!