West of January by Dave Duncan

Author:Dave Duncan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

—7—

THE TRADERS

THE TROUBLE WITH THE ANTS, KETTLE SAID, was that they did not understand pain.

I disagree.

This exchange took place in a room known only as “Cloud Nine.” No one knew where so absurd a name could have come from, and Kettle claimed to have seen it mentioned in very old records. It was the recreation nook for the cherubim, just big enough for five tables and a tangle of mismatched stools and chairs. Dark and stuffy, cramped and loud, Cloud Nine was where the apprentice angels gathered for relaxation. There was singing there and arguing and much drinking of a brew that was given the courtesy tide of “beer,” although its progenitors were fermented fungi, not grain. Storms might rage in the darkness outside and icy gales might shriek; damp furs might often stink in heaps by the doorway and snow might eddy in around ill-fitting antique casements; but within its smelly squalor there was warmth and laughter and the rambunctious fellowship of young men bound by a common dedication and a purpose shared. Angels scorned the place, having their own establishment—angels usually regarded themselves as beyond consorting with mere cherubim anyway—but sometimes a saint would drop in, and once in a while even one of the archangels, although a presence so august tended to dampen the joviality considerably.

Saint Kettle was a regular visitor. A true scholar, was Kettle. He had studied more of the arcane lore than anyone, even Gabriel, his nominal superior. He was a wonderful teacher and great company. Knowing ten times as much as the curriculum required him to teach, he tried to teach all the rest anyway. He liked nothing better, even after a long session of lecturing, than to join a group of us around a table in a snug and shadowed corner of Cloud Nine and let us ply him with foam-capped steins of ale. Then the conversation would range over all of Vernier and all the wisdom of the ancients, while the gleam of lanterns painted fresh young faces on the circling dark.

Kettle’s own round, seaman face would wax ruddier and ruddier, the girdle constricting his voluminous purple gown would strain tighter and tighter, and his laugh would roll louder and louder and louder from the shadows; but he would still be booming out triple-distilled wisdom when all his juvenile listeners were much too befuddled to understand a word of it. I knew how to switch steins unobtrusively in the gloom, although the smart ones eventually learned that beer seemed more potent when they sat next to me.

It was in Cloud Nine that Kettle and I argued about the ants. With Kettle argument was always permissible, and in Cloud Nine he blatantly provoked it.

There were six of us on that occasion, squashed in around the table beside him—Ginger, Dusty, the Fox, and me, plus two young newcomers known as Ham and Beef. None of them were ants. Indeed, I only ever knew two ants in Heaven and both were angels, so I never heard their original names.

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