The Mammoth Book of Angels & Demons (37 page)

Curious, Rennie followed. “I don’t know what he’s seen, do I?” he snarled at a question. “I’ve not asked him yet.” He didn’t have to ask – the boy’s entire body pointed up at the flash of green light in the sky. “’Tis the
Fir Chlis
, the souls of fallen angels God caught before they reached earthly realms. Call ’em also the Merry Dancers – though they ain’t dancing much this time of year.”

When Tam scrambled up a ratline without either speaking or taking his eyes from the sky, Rennie snorted and returned to the beer barrel. John Jack had just lifted the jug when the first note sounded.

The pipe had been his before it was Tam’s, but Rennie’d never heard it make that sound. Beer poured unheeded over his wrist as he turned to the north.

The light in the sky was joined by another.

For every note, another light.

When a vast sweep of sky had been lit, the notes began to join each other in a tune.

“I’ll be buggered,” John Jack breathed. “He’s playin’ fer the Dancers.”

Rennie nodded. “Fast dance brings bad weather, boy!” he called. “Slow dance for fair!”

The tune slowed, the dance with it.

The lights dipped down, touched their reflections in the water and whirled away.

“I ain’t never seen them so close.”

“I ain’t never seen them so . . .” Although he couldn’t think of the right word, Rennie saw it reflected in the awe on every uplifted face. It was like . . . like watching angels dance.

The sails gleamed green and blue and orange and red.

All at once, the music stopped, cut off in mid-note. The dancers lingered for a heartbeat then the sky was dark again, the stars dimmer than they’d been before.

Blinking away the after-images, Rennie ran to the north rail only to find another man there before him. As there had been no mistaking the master’s silhouette, so there was no mistaking the master.

Tam lay stunned on the deck, yanked down from the ratlines.

Cabot bent and picked up the pipe. Chest heaving, he lifted his fist, the pipe clenched within it, into the air. “I will not have this witchcraft on my ship!”

“Master Cabot . . .”

He whirled around and jabbed a finger of his free hand toward the mate. “
Tacere!
Did you know of this?!”

Hennet raised both hands but did not back away. “He’s just a boy.”

“And damned!” Drawing back his upraised arm, he flung the pipe as hard as he could into the night, turned to glare down at Tam . . . “Play one more note and you will follow it!” . . . and in the same motion strode off and into his cabin.

Hennet barely managed to stop John Jack’s charge.

In the silence that followed, Roubaix stepped forward, looked down at Tam cradled in Rennie’s arms, then went after Cabot.

“Let me go,” John Jack growled.

Hennet started, as though he hadn’t even realized he still held the man’s shoulders. He opened his hands and knelt by Rennie’s side. “How’s the boy.”

“Did you ever hear the sound of a heart breaking, Mister Hennet?” The Scot’s eyes were wet as he shifted the limp weight in his arms. “I heard it tonight and I pray to God I never hear such a sound again.”

Cabot was bent over the charts when Roubaix came into the cabin. The slam of the door jerked him upright and around.

“You are a fool, Zoane!”

“Watch your tongue,” Cabot growled. “I am still master here.”

Roubaix shook his head, too angry to be cautious. “Master of what?” he demanded. “Timber and canvas and hemp! You ignore the hearts of your men!”

“I save them from damnation. Such witchery will condemn their souls.”

“It was not witchcraft!”

“Then what?” Cabot demanded, eyes narrowed, his fingers clenched into fists by his side.

“I don’t know.” Roubaix drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I do know this,” he said quietly, “there is no evil in that boy in spite of a life that should have destroyed him. And, although the loss of his pipe dealt him a blow, that it was by your hand, the hand of the man who took him from darkness, who he adores and only ever wants to please, that was the greater blow.”

“I cannot believe that.”

Roubaix stared across the cabin for a long moment, watched the lamp swing once, twice, a third time painting shadows across the other man’s face. “Then I am sorry for you,” he said at last.

He would have retreated again to dark corners but he couldn’t find them anymore, he’d been too long away. Instead, he wrapped shadows tightly around him, thick enough to hide the memory of the master’s face.

“He spoke yet?”

“No.” Arms folded, Rennie stared across at the slight figure who sat slumped at the base of the aftcastle wall.

“Ain’t like he ever said much,” John Jack sighed. “You give ’im yer other pipe?”

“I tried yesterday. He won’t take it.”

They watched Cabot’s barber emerge from below and wrap a blanket around the boy murmuring softly in Italian the whole while.

John Jack snorted. “I’d not be sittin’ in Master Cabot’s chair when that one has a razor in his hand, though I reckon he hasn’t brains to know his danger.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of that talk.”

Both men whirled around to see Hennet standing an arm’s length away.

“And if ya stopped sneakin’ up on folk, ya wouldn’t,” John Jack sputtered around a coughing fit.

Hennet ignored him. “There’s fog coming in and bow watch saw icebergs in the distance. I want you two up the lines, port and starboard.”

“Ain’t never been near bergs when we couldn’t drop anchor and wait ’til we could see.”

“Nothing to drop anchor on,” the mate reminded them. “Not out here. Now go, before it gets any worse.”

It got much worse.

Hennet dropped all the canvas he could and still keep
The Matthew
turned into the swell, but they were doing better than two knots when the fog closed in. It crawled over the deck, soaking everything in its path, dripping from the lashes of silent men peering desperately into the night. They couldn’t see, but over the groans of rope and canvas and timber, they could hear waves breaking against the ice.

No one saw the berg that lightly kissed the port side.

The ship shuddered, rolled starboard, and they were by.

“That were too buggerin’ close.”

Terror wrapped them closer than the fog.

“I hear another! To port!”

“Are you daft? Listen! Ice dead ahead!”

“Be silent! All of you.” Cabot’s command sank into the fog. “How long to dawn, Mister Hennet?”

Hennet turned to follow the chill and unseen passage of a mountain of ice. “Too long, sir.”

“We must have light!”

The first note from the crow’s nest backlit the fog with brilliant blue.

Cabot moved to edge of the fo’c’sle and glared down into the waist. “Get him down from there, Mister Hennet.”

Hennet folded his arms. “No, sir. I won’t.”

The second note streaked the fog with green.

“I gave you an order!”

“Aye, sir.”

“Follow it!”

“No, sir.”

“You!” Cabot pointed up at a crewman straddling the yard. “Get him down.”

John Jack snorted. “Won’t.”

The third note was golden and at its edge, a sliver of night sky.

“Then I’ll do it myself!” But when he reached for a line, Roubaix was there before him.

“Leave him alone, Zoane.”

“It is witchcraft!”

“No.” He switched to English so everyone would understand. “You asked for light, he does this for you.”

The dance moved slow and stately across the sky.

Cabot looked around, saw nothing but closed and angry faces. “He sends you to Hell!”

“Better than sending us to the bottom,” Rennie told him. “Slow dance brings fair weather. He’s piping away the fog.”

Tam stopped when he could see the path through glittering green-white palaces of ice. He leaned over, tossed the pipe gently, and watched it drop into Rennie’s outstretched hands. Then he stepped up onto the rail, and scanned the upturned faces for the master’s. When he found it, he took a deep breath and jumped out as hard as he was able.

No one spoke. No one so much as shouted a protest or moaned a denial.

The small body arced out, further than should have been possible, then disappeared in the darkness . . .

The silence lingered.

“You killed him.” Hennet stepped toward Cabot, hands forming fists at his side. “You said if he played another note, he’d follow his pipe. And he did. And you killed him.”

Still blinded by the brilliant blue of the boy’s eyes, Cabot stepped back. “No . . .”

John Jack dropped down out of the lines. “Yes.”

“No.” As all heads turned toward him, Rennie palmed salt off his cheeks. “He didn’t hit the water.”

“Impossible . . .”

“Did you hear a splash? Anything?” He swept a burning gaze over the rest of the crew. “Did any of you? No one called man overboard, no one even ran to the rails to look for a body. There is no body. He didn’t hit the water. Look.”

Slowly, as though on one line, all eyes turned to the north where a brilliant blue wisp of light danced between heaven and earth.

“Fallen angels. He fell a little further than the rest is all; now he’s back with his own.”

Then the light went out, and all the sounds of a ship at sea rushed in to fill the silence.

“Mister Hennet, iceberg off the port bow!”

Hennet leapt to the port rail and leaned out. “Helmsman, two degrees starboard! All hands to the mainsail!”

As
The Matthew
began to turn to safety, Roubaix took Cabot’s arm and moved him unprotesting out of the way of the crew.

“Gaylor,” he whispered. “Do you believe?”

Roubaix looked up at the sky and then down at his friend. “You are a skilled and well-traveled mariner, Zoane Cabatto, and an unparalleled cartographer but sometimes you forget that there are things in life you cannot map and wonders you will not find on any chart.”

The Matthew
took thirty-five days to travel from Bristol to the new land Cabot named Bona Vista, Glorious Sight. It took only fifteen days for her to travel back home again and, for every one of those days, the sky was a more brilliant blue than any man on-board had ever seen and the wind played almost familiar tunes in the rigging.

Angel

Pat Cadigan

The angelic being in Pat Cadigan’s story lives in a universe that does not know good or evil, only less or more. Although “he” can speak, he and his human companion communicate telepathically. The idea of angels who can speak, but communicate through silence can be found in the writings of the great medieval Jewish philosopher and Torah scholar Maimonides. He called them
chashmalim
because “they are sometimes silent
[
chash
im]
and sometimes they speak
[me
mal
elim]
”. These angels rank slightly above midlevel in the angelic hierarchy and help convey human prayer by donning our thoughts as one would clothing, then passing them on to the next rank of angel until the prayer reaches God.

Stand with me a while, Angel, I said, and Angel said he’d do that. Angel was good to me that way, good to have with you on a cold night and nowhere to go. We stood on the street corner together and watched the cars going by and the people and all. The streets were lit up like Christmas, street lights, store lights, marquees over the all-night movie houses and bookstores blinking and flashing; shank of the evening in east midtown. Angel was getting used to things here and getting used to how I did nights. Standing outside, because what else are you going to do. He was
my
Angel now, had been since that other cold night when I’d been going home, because where are you going to go, and I’d found him, and took him with me. It’s good to have someone to take with you, someone to look after. Angel knew that. He started looking after me, too.

Like now. We were standing there a while and I was looking around at nothing and everything, the cars cruising past, some of them stopping now and again for the hookers posing by the curb, and then I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. Stuff coming out of the Angel, shiny like sparks but flowing like liquid. Silver fireworks. I turned and looked all the way at him and it was gone. And he turned and gave a little grin like he was embarrassed I’d seen. Nobody else saw it, though; not the short guy who paused next to the Angel before crossing the street against the light, not the skinny hype looking to sell the boom box he was carrying on his shoulder, not the homeboy strutting past us with both his girlfriends on his arms, nobody but me.

The Angel said,
H
ungry?

Sure, I said. I’m hungry.

Angel looked past me. Okay, he said. I looked, too, and here they came, three leather boys, visor caps, belts, boots, key rings. On the cruise together. Scary stuff, even though you know it’s not looking for you.

I said, Them?
Them?

Angel didn’t answer. One went by, then the second, and the Angel stopped the third by taking hold of his arm.

Hi.

The guy nodded. His head was shaved; I could see a little gray-black stubble under his cap. No eyebrows, disinterested eyes. The eyes were because of the Angel.

I could use a little money, the Angel said. My friend and I are hungry.

The guy put his hand in his pocket and wiggled out some bills, offering them to the Angel. The Angel selected a twenty and closed the guy’s hand around the rest.

This will be enough, thank you.

The guy put his money away and waited.

I hope you have a good night, said the Angel.

The guy nodded and walked on, going across the street to where his two friends were waiting on the next corner. Nobody found anything weird about it.

Angel was grinning at me. Sometimes he was
the
Angel, when he was doing something, sometimes he was Angel, when he was just with me. Now he was Angel again. We went up the street to the luncheonette and got a seat by the front window so we could still watch the street while we ate.