Jovah's Angel

by Sharon Shinn

  “It looks like this generation didn’t breed many sons,” Mary said, voicing aloud Alleya’s thought. She skimmed the list rapidly, tapping her finger next to a few of the names. “I know this boy—he’s a Manadavvi heir who is about eight years old. Not the one you’re looking for. And this one—he’s in his eighties, at least.”

  “But—perhaps that does not matter to Jovah. Perhaps the god does not think of age as a relevant factor, as it would be for those of us who are human—”

  Mary shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the screen. “He always considers the age factor,” she said. “We oracles have come to believe that Jovah makes all of his marriage selections based on some kind of genetic desirability that none of us has been able to understand. He never chooses a wife who is not of child-bearing age, never chooses a husband who is not from a virile line. That must be more than mere coincidence.”

  “Then if we eliminate those two—and I know that one. He’s an angel at Cedar Hills, and so is his brother. Clearly they are not eligible. But this man—I don’t know him.”

  “I don’t know him either,” Mary echoed. She touched her finger to a knob on the side of the screen, then drew her fingertip across the name of the man they had both failed to identify. To Alleya’s astonishment, a glowing grid formed around the name, then the entire list blinked away.

  “What did you do?” she exclaimed.

  “Hush. We can retrieve it,” Mary said absently. Even as she spoke, new words came to life on the blank screen and Mary read them out loud.

  “Paul, son of Abel, born in Castelana five hundred and eighty-seven years after the glorious day of the founding of Samaria… Why, he’s sixty-three years old!” she exclaimed.

  “Not my angelico?” Alleya asked.

  “Not even close.”

  “Who else was on the list?”

  Another touch on that peripheral button, and the original catalog of names reappeared. There was only one male name that they had not eliminated and could not identify. But when they checked the screen which carried personal information about his background, Mary made a small tsking sound of irritation.

  “He’s too old, is that it?” Alleya asked, for she was having trouble reading the small text over Mary’s shoulder.

  “Possibly not. He’s only fifty, although in general Jovan would choose a younger man. But it notes here that he had a son by an Edori woman thirty years ago.” Mary swung around to stare at Alleya. “Which would make him approximately your age.”

  “What’s this son’s name?”

  “It doesn’t say. Probably he was never dedicated. Edori children most often are not, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. But then how does Jovah know this man exists? I thought he was only able to track those who have been dedicated.”

  Mary nodded. “I suspect that an oracle who knew this man or met him one day simply supplied Jovah with the information. See, Jovah does not even list that son as being alive or dead, of even having a name. Jovah knows nothing about him.”

  “Except that he was born.” Alleya felt her voice come from a constricted, hollow place behind her heart. She should no doubt be feeling a certain blushing excitement at the thought that, with a little effort, she would be able to locate the man that her god expected her to marry. Certainly she was curious and she did not feel apprehensive, exactly, but she would have to identify her foremost emotion as reluctance. She was sure she would not like this unfamiliar Edori, this man so far removed from the god that Jovah did not even know his name. Actually, until Job had mentioned it, she had given no thought at all to the notion that she must marry, or at least find a man to stand beside her when she sang the Gloria in a few months. She did not want to marry, that was the truth of it, certainly not a stranger selected for her by another. Jovah could not know, he could not read her heart; how could he choose for her better than she could choose for herself?

  But that was sacrilege; that was a degree of doubt she could not allow herself to feel. He was her god, he loved her. He would not lead her astray. If she did not trust him to do right by her, there was nothing she could trust in her world at all.

  “What is this man’s name?” she asked, still in that small, scraped voice. “This man who mated with an Edori woman.”

  “Cyrus. And the woman is of the Cholita tribe of the Edori.”

  “I wonder where they might be found?”

  “You could wait till the Gathering and ask among all the Edori then.”

  Alleya shook her head, attempting to shake away some of her bleakness as well. “That is only weeks before the Gloria. I must surely find him before that. I suppose I could travel to all the sanctuaries, although some Edori never go there, I know—”

  “As I understand it, many Edori are meeting in Breven at the end of this week,” Mary said. “You could go there and see if he is present or if anyone could guess his whereabouts.”

  “Breven? Why there?”

  Mary shrugged. “Why do the Edori do anything?”

  Alleya smiled. “Maybe I should find out. Finding this son of Jeremiah seems as important as soothing the Manadavvi and outwitting the merchants, don’t you think?”

  “I think you have waited too long already to seek your angelico,” Mary said sternly. “It is clearly a matter of urgency. And, yes, I think Breven would be a good place to start.”

  Alleya spent the rest of the day with Mary, inquiring as artlessly as possible into the workings of the interface and the communication with Jovah. Mary obliged her by demonstrating a few more interactions with the god, and Alleya was quite sure she understood how the whole system worked. Simple, so simple, once you knew the language.

  “And Jovah always responds?” Alleya asked when they were done.

  “Always, although not always intelligibly,” Mary replied. “And sometimes more slowly than I would like. They say the interface at Sinai is the most direct link to the god and that Jovah communicates more rapidly with the oracle there.”

  “Why would that be?”

  Mary shrugged. “They say Sinai is where the first settlers learned to interact with the god. Some say Jovah actually stood in that room and spoke to the first oracle. Others say, no, the first oracle stood in that room and was swept up by Jovah’s hand to meet face to face with the god. But as far as I know, the god has never entered this room or the room in Mount Egypt.”

  “It concerns me that Sinai is still empty,” Alleya said. “Is that one of the tasks that falls to the Archangel—discovering the next oracle? I must confess I have no idea where to look.”

  Mary frowned slightly. “It should not be your task—it should not be anyone’s,” she said shortly. “Oracles reveal themselves. Often they are acolytes, and they feel the god’s call from the time they are very young. It is an inescapable call—it makes you shiver like plague, and pine like love. Anyone who feels it surely will be made miserable until he or she comes forward and identifies himself.”

  “What if someone claims to be an oracle but is not?”

  Now Mary smiled faintly. “To my knowledge, that has never happened. What would be the point? Who would lie or cheat to achieve this place?” She waved vaguely at the somber gray walls around her.

  “It is a place of honor,” Alleya said quietly.

  Mary nodded. “Indeed. But a place set apart from the rest of the world, dealing in mysterious and holy relics. Most people are afraid of such an odd life. Most people fear more than anything being estranged from their fellow men. No one who sought this life would be unfitted for it. Besides,” she added, now smiling almost naturally, “it would be fairly simple to tell if the candidate was an imposter. He or she would be unable to communicate with the god. Jovah would not answer. After a day or two of that, anyone would give up and go home.”

  “But doesn’t someone train the new oracles?”

  “After a fashion. There are some rules and procedures no one would be able to guess by intuition. But for the most part—” Mary spread her hands
to convey the inadequacies of speech. “If you are the oracle, you know. Already. The knowledge is in your head. I cannot explain it to you. There is no way to counterfeit it.”

  “And so you knew. When you were—how old?”

  “A child. Ten, maybe. I had been one of the children selected to serve as acolyte for two years—a high honor, mind you, and one that rendered me speechless for nearly a day. I had not been here a month when Peter—he was oracle then—called me into this room.” Mary looked around, as if seeing the stone chamber for the first time. “He called me over to the interface, and asked me to read the words printed on the screen. I did. The words said, ‘Mary will succeed me as oracle at Mount Sudan.’ I turned to him and exclaimed, ‘I thought so! But how did you know?’ And he said, ‘I know now. Because you could read the words on the screen.’ And only then did I realize they were written in the old tongue, the only language that the god knows.”

  “And had you been studying this language?”

  Mary shook her head. “Not then. Afterward, of course, Peter gave me all the textbooks he had learned from, and I studied very systematically. But it is considered the one true test, for only oracles can understand the old tongue.”

  Alleya would have liked to dispute that, but caution won the day. “Well, then, have you examined any of your acolytes to see if one of them might be suited for the role at Sinai?”

  Mary shook her head again. Her expression was one of faint disdain. “They are all Manadavvi lordlings who are here because it adds prestige to their parents’ houses,” she said. “They behave well enough, but they have no calling. None of them will go on to be priests. And none of them is suited to be oracle.”

  “Perhaps we should widen the pool, then,” Alleya said, smiling a little. “Offer the posts to the farmers’ children and a few of the Edori.”

  Mary did not look amused. “The acolytes must serve the highest and the lowest citizens of Samaria, who come with questions,” she said. “They must be versed in all courtesies. I hardly think Edori or serfs’ offspring are suited for the roles.”

  Alleya raised her eyebrows, for she hadn’t expected to evoke such a response. She tilted her head to one side, more carefully examining this intense, cloistered woman who had given up the outside world to be a servant of the god’s. Yes, there were the telltale high cheekbones, the delicate, long-fingered hands. How could she have overlooked such obvious clues? “So, you were born Manadavvi,” she said softly. “Indeed, you have given up much to serve the god.”

  The slightest blush of color heightened the contours of those perfect cheekbones. “I have given up nothing,” Mary said haughtily. “And I have gained all.”

  It was late by the time Alleya and Mary finished their dinner, so the angel elected to stay the night. She had never slept anyplace so still. Compared to the Eyrie, of course, any venue seemed quiet, but at Mount Sudan, the silence seemed absolute. Alleya loved it. She would have stayed a week if she could.

  But she had promised Samuel she would return within a day and, really, there was little to occupy her here. So she left early the following morning and made the lazy, easy flight back to the Velo Mountains and their tireless, bustling heart, the Eyrie.

  Where life was anything but still.

  She had made it to her private chambers without actually encountering anyone who wished to speak to her, which was good, but within five minutes, someone was urgently sounding her door chime. She opened the door to find Asher outside, ready to pounce.

  “Good. You’re back. I thought I saw you landing,” he said, greeting her with his usual impetuousness. “Angela, it’s disaster!”

  She held onto her temper; always the best course with Asher. “What is? What’s happening?”

  “The merchants, the Manadavvi—even the Jansai, I believe—are meeting in Semorrah to decide what to do!”

  “About?”

  He waved his arms, indicating the world, all it contained. “Everything! What to do about the angels, what to do about the storms, what to do about the Edori—”

  “I don’t suppose they can do anything about any of them,” Alleya said somewhat sharply. “Where do you get this information?”

  “You think I was spying, but I wasn’t,” he replied somewhat hotly. “Gideon Fairwen sent a message here, alerting you to the upcoming conference, and he—”

  “And if you weren’t spying, how do you come to know the contents of mail addressed to me?”

  Asher flushed, but Samuel’s voice answered her. “It became common knowledge almost instantly, the way such things do,” the older angel said. He pulled back his wings and brushed past Asher to enter Alleya’s room, so Asher immediately followed suit. “Gideon sent his message with a courier who was none too discreet. We knew what the package contained before we had broken the seal.” He handed a sheaf of folded pages to Alleya. “It seemed pointless to wait for your return, since everyone was already speculating wildly. It seemed better to know the worst.”

  Alleya nodded; she was already reading the text. It was couched in language that was both formal and hysterical (“And since this is a crisis of monumental proportions, affecting every citizen of Samaria from the smallest babe to the wealthiest landowner, we deem it extremely urgent to act with all haste and gravity…”) The meeting was scheduled to take place in three weeks. Alleya felt sick and fearful as she finished the letter and looked up at Samuel.

  “But what exactly do they think they can do?” she asked. “Divorce themselves from the protection of the angels? Is that really what they intend? How will that improve anything?”

  “It gives them more power, for good or ill,” Samuel said.

  “What power? The power to disperse the storms? If that is truly what they intend to try, I wish them luck, but I cannot think that mortals will succeed where angels have repeatedly failed.”

  “I don’t think they expect to control the weather,” Samuel said softly. “I think they are merely looking to slip the angelic yoke. If you cannot get Jovah to respond as you bid, why should they honor you? They do not like some of the divine decrees. This gives them an excuse to ignore them.”

  Alleya nodded, then shook her head. “And I have only three weeks to come up with an argument so strong they must listen to me.”

  “You will go, then?” Samuel asked.

  “Let me come with you,” Asher said quickly.

  In spite of her turmoil, Alleya could not help smiling at the eager young angel. “If you like,” she said. “I shall need support.” She looked back at Samuel. “Of course I shall go. I shall inform Jerusha and Micah of the conference as well, in case their words are stronger than mine.”

  “Not Micah,” Asher said scornfully. “He’d just nod and hand Samaria over to the merchants on an engraved platter.”

  Samuel gave him a reproving look, then transferred his attention to Alleya. “I will help any way I can. I will go with you, if you like. Or stay here to control things in your absence.”

  “I don’t know—but thank you—I can’t think clearly right now. I don’t know what would be best.” She hesitated, still trying to find some order in her whirling brain, and then she cried the words that had leapt to her mind the instant she read Gideon’s note. “I wish Delilah was here!”

  Samuel nodded. “So do we all. But this is your task, and you must be equal to it.”

  Alleya would never forget the surprise she felt when Asher turned on Samuel with a sort of proud fury. “Alleya is as clever as Delilah! She is! She will know just what to do when the time comes!”

  Samuel looked just as astonished as Alleya felt, and then, though he hid it well, amused. “I’m sorry. You are absolutely right,” he said gravely. “I apologize to the Archangel. I believe she will handle this crisis with her usual brave aplomb.”

  Asher nodded sharply, then turned to Alleya. “You will let me come with you, then? Just tell me when you need me.”

  “I will certainly do that,” Alleya said, and watched him dash ou
t the door. Then she turned laughing eyes to Samuel. “Well! I see I have partisans! I would not have thought it.”

  “There is something of a cult surrounding you, actually. You were not aware of it?”

  “No! Around me? But why?”

  “Because you can stop the rain and no one else can, and because your quiet self-control appeals to some people who were not exactly fans of the exuberant Delilah.”

  Alleya couldn’t keep herself from laughing, but the laugh had a despairing edge. “I keep a sober look on my face most of the time to cover the fact that I am racked with terror,” she said. “But some people are actually impressed! This is even more unsettling than the news from Semorrah.”

  “But the news from Semorrah is grave, indeed,” Samuel said. “I think you’re right—you must inform Micah and Jerusha.”

  “And Asher was right about Micah,” Alleya murmured, “though I don’t like to say so.”

  Samuel nodded. “So I fear you will be the one who must win the argument, if the argument is to be won.”

  Alleya shook her head. “The god defend me, I do wish Delilah were here. Sometimes I even wish—” She stopped, shrugged. “I wish I could go to her in Luminaux and ask for advice.”

  “She might be pleased if you did.”

  “No. She was not pleased last time I wanted her opinion. Even if the world falls down around our heads, I don’t think she will help me calm the dissidents. But she could do it. I have no doubt of that.”

  Alleya sighed fretfully. When Samuel laid a hand on her arm she thought it was meant to be no more than a comforting gesture. But when she glanced up at him, there was a rueful look on his face.

  “Asher was right to chide me,” he said. “I did not mean to express doubt of you by wishing Delilah back.”

  She smiled at him. “You never make me feel as if you doubt me,” she said. “If anything, you make me believe in myself. I have always meant to thank you for that.”

  “I am like Asher,” he said. “I too believe you have a special place in the god’s heart. These days it is the only thing that gives me hope.”