Jovah's Angel

by Sharon Shinn

  “For the music school, wasn’t it?”

  “No, that was months ago! Where has your head been?”

  “Well, he was excited about that job.”

  “He’s excited about every job.”

  “Well, if he’s not at the music school,” Alleya said pleasantly, “is there somewhere else he might be?”

  “He could be anywhere, really,” the first woman said. “Wait for him. I’m sure he’ll be back tonight or tomorrow. Someone will be glad to give you dinner and a place to sleep.”

  Surely no one could seriously expect the Archangel to fly hundreds of miles merely to sleep on a cot in a crowded Edori tent. But not one of the women wore a smirk of irony; they all continued to smile in the most friendly way. “We’ve room at my tent,” the youngest said helpfully. “Although the baby still cries in the night.”

  They did not recognize her. That was the only explanation. For all her dislike of her position, it was still a shock to be found unfamiliar. “Thank you, no,” she said as politely as she could. “I’d much rather sleep in a bed in town. But if you don’t mind, I’ll just continue on into the camp and see if someone else might be able to help me.”

  “Thomas,” suggested the first woman. “He often eats at Noah’s campfire. He might know more.”

  “Thank you,” Alleya repeated, and parted from them.

  The campsite, which she wandered around in for a good thirty minutes, was overrun with dark-haired children and women, but fanatically clean and well-organized. Alleya supposed that they systematically buried their garbage or removed it and made everyone adhere to strict standards of personal hygiene. She could discern no order at all in how the tents were erected and where the campfires were built, and every adult in passing seemed equally likely to correct or comfort an errant child. No doubt she just happened to catch smiling faces and laughing interchanges, but the Edori she noticed looked universally happy and at ease.

  She only had to ask once for Thomas, because the cheerful woman she accosted patted a young boy on the cheek and said he’d take her right to Thomas’s tent. “He should be there,” she said. “His leg’s bothering him, so he’s been staying in the past few days.”

  And indeed, when her fleet-footed guide (running twenty paces ahead of her and chanting “Thomas, Thomas, Thomas”) showed her to the designated tent, the man she sought was already standing outside awaiting her. He looked to be in his late sixties, weathered and tired, but like the others he had a smile of welcome on his face and seemed prepared to offer Alleya a lifetime home.

  “Good afternoon,” he greeted her. “Are you looking for me?”

  “One of your friends, actually,” she began, but before she could go on he spoke again.

  “Have you had a long flight? Would you like water or wine? Here, these chairs don’t look very sturdy, but I made them myself and they will hold even a fat man.” He laughed.

  She smiled, but briefly. “A short trip, and I’m not thirsty or tired, but I understand your leg is painful—”

  “Yes, and it’s a good thing to sit in the sunlight and be lazy at my age,” he said, sinking down into one of the chairs. Perforce, Alleya followed suit, arranging her wings behind her as best she could. “Rest while you can, that’s my motto. Rest while you can. There is always plenty of work awaiting you when you rise again.”

  “All I want to know,” she said, “is where I can find a man called Noah, so I can find a friend of his and offer him a job.”

  “Noah’s in town working at the house of—the singer, what’s his name? He’s considered very fashionable now, but I don’t care much for the overtrained voices myself. I prefer simple tunes and some harp music now and then. You say you have a job for Noah?”

  “For his friend, actually, though I don’t know his friend’s name. He was recommended to me by one of the Edori in Velora—Daniel, maybe you know him—”

  “Of course! Daniel of the Calasinsas! A gifted man with his hands, very gifted. No patience at all with animals, but with machines—I never saw anyone more painstaking.”

  “Yes, well, I have a machine that can’t be fixed and Daniel suggested that this friend of Noah’s might be able to help me.”

  “Caleb? If he can’t fix it, it’s broken forever.”

  “So if you could tell me where Noah—Wait. You know his friend? What did you say his name was?”

  “Caleb Augustus. He was out here the other night. A brilliant mind for engineering, but too much doubt in his soul. Not enough faith. He’ll come to believe some day, though.”

  She had no interest, at the moment, in any man’s soul. “It’s his engineering talents I’m desperate for,” she said. “Do you know where I can reach him? Where he works or where he lives?”

  She had a fair idea of how the Edori operated by now, so she was braced for a vague reply like “in the city” or “my friend Ebenezer might know where he once spent the night.” Therefore she was delighted when the old man replied at once, “Oh yes. He has rooms above a bakery on Fortune Street. But his hours may be strange. I think he comes and goes as he pleases.”

  “Would that we all could,” Alleya said lightly, rising to her feet. “Thank you so much for your help.”

  He had not recognized her either, she realized as she wound her way out of the camp—carefully, so as not to be trampled on by any of the careering children—and took off for the city. Not so odd, perhaps—the Edori had never had much formal interaction with the angels. Unlike other mortals, the Edori never felt compelled to call on the angels for aid; they had their own prayers, which they addressed directly to the god, and their own ceremonies for worshipping Jovah. They even had an annual Gathering in which all the scattered tribes came together for a week of celebration, and during which they offered prayers to Jovah for safety in the coming year.

  Still, they had never entirely divorced themselves from the grandest Samarian ritual of all, the Gloria. For this event, held at the spring equinox on the broad, flat Plain of Sharon, people from all over Samaria gathered together to lift their voices to Jovah in song. It was a ritual as old as their society, performed first by the original settlers who had traveled here to escape their own world of violence and dissent. Because they had come from a place of such hatred, the colonists had vowed to make harmony their guiding commandment here in their new community—harmony among all people, at all times. So they had made a covenant with Jovah: They would gather every year to sing the Gloria, and among the singers would be angels, Edori, Manadavvi, Jansai, farmers, miners—representatives of every province and clan of Samaria. If the Gloria was not sung by sundown of the chosen day, the god would send a thunderbolt to destroy the Galo Mountain. If, three days after this, the Gloria still had not been sung, Jovah would send lightning to annihilate Semorrah, the principal river city. If it was not sung three days after that, he would destroy the world.

  It had almost happened once, back in the time of Rachel and Gabriel. Sundown had thrown its gaudy colors over the hushed plain where only silence had greeted the god’s listening ear. In that time, a few lunatics had come to doubt the existence of the god, and this was their way to challenge him. They had wanted proof, and he had given it to them in full measure, leveling the mountain that had once been one of the highest in Samaria. Today there was little left except charred rock and a ragged gap in the mountains circling the Plain of Sharon.

  And if she, the Archangel Alleluia, did not sing a mass with the son of Jeremiah at her side, the same thing could happen again this spring—the same thing or worse. That was a pleasant thought to take with her into the luminescent city where she was just now arriving.

  The people of Bethel had a saying: If you cannot be happy in Luminaux, you have forgotten joy. Alleya thought it was probably true. Even anxious, impatient, weighted with worries and baffled by responsibilities, she felt a smile settle over face as her feet touched those marbled blue cobblestones. There was such vibrancy in the air, such a sense of expectation and promise. Snatch
es of music curled around her head as she walked a few speculative blocks, looking for Fortune Street. Stately harps, laughing flutes, twinned voices in spiraling arabesques—the potential dissonances swirled gloriously together like melted ore. So too with the veritable feast of aromas—baking bread, spilled wine, cooking meat, delicate perfume—they blended together into one delicious scent. And everywhere there was color, motion, light, activity. The city itself seemed like a live thing in a celebratory mood.

  She eventually had to ask for directions, which were gaily given, and she finally made her way through the throngs of people downtown to the somewhat quieter residential district where Fortune Street was located. The bakery was not hard to find, and the young girl working behind the counter greeted her with a smile. Alleya resisted the urge to buy a dozen loaves of bread and eat them, one right after the other.

  “I’m looking for someone I believe lives here,” she said. “His name is Caleb Augustus.”

  The girl nodded. “Yes, angela. He rents the rooms upstairs, but he’s not here right now.”

  “Will he be back soon, do you think?”

  “Well, maybe. Sometimes he doesn’t return until late, after the bakery’s closed. Last two nights, he was here right at sundown.”

  It was probably an hour until that time; so Alleya had a wait ahead of her. But she could pass some of that time securing a hotel room. Samuel had suggested she stay with one of the wealthy merchants who liked to keep on cozy terms with the angels, but she’d decided she would rather be on her own for a night or two. No politicking, no forced graciousness. The prospect was actually heady.

  “I’ll come back in an hour or so then,” she told the girl. “If you see him before I return, could you tell him to wait for me? I would like to see him.”

  The girl was nodding. “Surely, angela. Who shall I say is looking for him?”

  It was unlike Alleya to feel such a spurt of temper, but it had been just a little irritating to go the whole day incognito. “Tell him I’m the Archangel,” she said shortly, and left without another word.

  She was somewhat placated when, at an elegant but unpretentious hotel a few blocks away, the manager instantly came forward to offer her his finest room. Like the girl in the bakery, he used merely the ritual courtesy title of angela; unlike the girl, he clearly knew whom he was addressing. The room he showed her to was high-ceilinged and pretty and obviously designed to accommodate angelic guests: The temperature was cool (because angels flew so much at cold, high altitudes, their bodies burned at a higher rate than mortals), and the chairs offered cutaway backs that would not restrict the great feathered wings. She flashed her sapphire wristlets at him, for all charges she incurred would automatically be paid by her hold. He nodded and left the room.

  Alleya took a few moments to enjoy the view from her window, wash her face and attempt to untangle her hair before she ventured back outside into the vivid sunset. Something else they said in southern Bethel: Every sunset in Luminaux is more brilliant than the last. Something else Alleya had never had a reason to question.

  Caleb had not arrived at Fortune Street when she returned, but Alleya accepted the girl’s offer to await him on the balcony. The view here was just as good as the one from her room, and she leaned on the railing to watch the sun-shot sky turn from vermilion to indigo. The splendid display made the wait seem short, but she was more than ready to proceed by the time she heard footsteps running lightly up the metal stairs. She turned her back to the embers of the sunset and waited for the engineer to appear.

  For a moment, Caleb could feel himself staring like a half-wit. He experienced a momentary thrill of danger, as if a vision stood before him, as if one of the fabled Librera angels had come to demand from him some impossible service for the glorification of the god. She looked, in fact, like the personification of one of those mythic angels, with her pure yellow hair, her perfect oval face, her flowing white tunic and her fanned lace wings. The fading glow of the sunset haloed her hair with gold, edged her wings in scarlet. He would not have been surprised had she opened her mouth and begun reciting prayers in the old tongue, invocations that would wield such power that he would, against his will, fall to his knees in supplication.

  When she did speak—mundane words in a familiar language—he was so unprepared that he missed the sense of her opening remark. “I’m sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “What did you say?”

  A quizzical look now made the solemn face look a little more human. “I said, I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought that girl would have told you I was here.”

  “Oh, she did. But she didn’t say it was you. I mean, she said it was an angel and I was expecting someone else… . I’m sorry. I’m not usually so incoherent.”

  She smiled briefly and unexpectedly, an expression that gave her face an immediate quaint charm. “I’m not used to having such an effect,” she said. “You needn’t apologize.”

  He smiled back. “I’m Caleb Augustus. Is that who you were looking for?”

  “Yes. I’m Alleluia, but no one calls me that.”

  “I would not be so familiar, angela.”

  “No, I meant—” She paused and shook her head, as if it was beyond her capabilities to explain. “It’s such an odd name.”

  “Is it? I think it’s beautiful. As if there was much rejoicing when you were born.”

  Now the quizzical look altered to something a little more sardonic. “Not exactly,” she said dryly, and then instantly changed the subject. “I came here because I heard you were an engineer with a special gift, and I have need of that gift.”

  “I hope it is something I can help you with, then,” he said. All of a sudden he remembered his manners. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t keep you waiting out here! Come in, I’ll give you something to drink and one of these rolls. They’re really very good.”

  He opened the door quickly, before she could demur (as she seemed about to do), and then thought he might have acted rashly. His place had been more of a mess in the past, but it was not at its best even so; he would have preferred the Archangel to see his habitation in a more pristine state.

  But, “Too late,” he said aloud, and led the way in. She seemed amused rather than appalled as she stepped inside and glanced around the tangle of furniture and machine parts that constituted his main living quarters. “I’d like to say that it usually looks better than this, but—”

  “Someone cleans my rooms for me, or they would look much like this,” she assured him. “Only yours is more interesting.” She walked to a rotary arrangement of metal blades and spun them slowly with her fingers. “For instance, what does this do?”

  “It’s supposed to cool the air,” he said. “But it doesn’t. When you move it with your fingers, see, it creates a soft breeze.”

  “I can scarcely feel it.”

  “Right. Spinning it with your fingers doesn’t make it move fast enough. Plus, who wants to stand there pushing it around for hours? The idea is to make it move on its own. But so far, every motor I’ve built generates too much heat. No net gain of cool air. I’m still working on it.”

  She shook her head. “Where do you come up with such ideas?”

  He tapped his forehead. “They just appear in there fully formed. Like dreams.”

  “Whispered to you by the god.”

  He shrugged. “Well, maybe. So, would you like something to drink? To eat?”

  She seemed to debate a moment. “Yes, I believe I would. People have been feeding me all day, you see, more or less against my will, but I’m starting to feel a little hungry again. Can I sit on this?” She had moved to the backless stool that Delilah had used on her first visit. Obviously the only piece of furniture in the place that would accommodate an angel.

  “Certainly. I’ll be back in a second.”

  In the tiny kitchen, he poured juice and arranged the rolls on a tray, then carried it back to Alleluia. “This is the only food I have, so I hope you’re not too hungry.”

  “
This is perfect. Thank you.”

  He sank into a far more comfortable chair a few feet away and surveyed her. Even close up and after a few minutes of conversation, she still looked to him like one of those first angels set on Samaria, handcrafted by Jovah with extreme and loving attention. He voiced the thought that appeared (just like his inventions) fully formed in his head. “I believe I would have picked you for Archangel, too.”

  She paused with a roll halfway to her mouth, looking even more amused now. “Would you? I was Jovah’s second choice, and most would say a bad one.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  She tilted her head a little to one side to examine him. “You know nothing about why Jovah chooses his Archangels or what the role entails, do you?”

  “Very little,” he admitted. “I am going on looks alone.”

  That surprised her, for her eyes widened briefly; then an expression of cool poise settled over her face again, “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said. “But looks have absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  “I would guess the job is half negotiating with mortals and half praying to the god,” he said. “Which part do you feel un-suited for?”

  Again, the flicker of the eyes; she was not used to such plain speaking. “I am unused to dealing with powerful and stubborn men who know very definitely what they want,” she said carefully. “I do not have the—charm—that Delilah had. I do not know how to persuade people that they’re wrong without alienating them. Which Delilah was very good at. But I am fairly stubborn. And I’m learning.”

  He sipped his drink. “And your singing?”

  She smiled again. His imagination, surely, that the smile lit the room. “Some people like it,” she said modestly. “And the god hears me. So you could say I meet that requirement.”

  “I enjoy a beautiful voice,” he said. “Some day perhaps I can hear yours.”

  “Come to the Gloria,” was her instant response. “Or—I forgot—you are not a religious man, are you?”

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. “Not particularly,” he said. “But who told you that?”