by Sharon Shinn
But not Raphael. The god alone knows how he spends his time, since he gives so little of it to his people.
“We need to find a place to stay or a place to camp,” I said to David as we arrived at the windswept and barren excuse for a town. “We might be here a few days before I am able to get to the hold.”
He surveyed the collection of carts and carriages and buildings huddled in the shadow of the mountain. “Camping might be the better option, though I suppose you’ll find that uncomfortable.”
I gave him a grim smile. “You’ll find that my standards are flexible.”
We found a spot on fairly level ground, a stone’s throw from a few Edori tents. I knew from past experience that there were public wells in the middle of the “town,” so I fetched water while David unhitched the horses and looked for firewood.
I took a circuitous route through the pitched tents and the makeshift buildings, and I strolled down the muddy road that served as the main street for this disreputable place, and I looked hard at every girl I saw. I may have passed a dozen of them, all very attractive, some fair, some dark, some who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, others camped on the outskirts of thirty. Most were buxom, but a few were slim as baby birches and wore their fragility like dyed exotic clothing.
What kinds of girls would the angels find most appealing?
My eye was caught by a young woman who might have been three or four years older than Sheba. She had rich auburn hair, thick and curly and falling past her waist. Her eyes were dark green, and her pale face was beautiful in an elegant, icy way. Among the blondes and brunettes she was strikingly different; I thought she would catch any angel’s eye.
I filled our water bottles at one of the wells, then retraced my steps. The redhead was standing outside the doorway of one of the few existing structures, gazing moodily up at the mountaintop. It seemed she had enough money, or enough charm, to secure herself a room here in a place where there were very few rooms to rent. Another point in her favor. She was willing to invest resources to obtain her desired result.
I stopped right in front of her and said, “I can help you get an angel lover.”
She instantly transferred her attention to me, assessing me for lunacy or genuine useful potential. No pretense about her—no shocked protestation that she had no interest in such a thing. She just said, “How?”
I waved in the general direction of David’s cart. “I have manna seed among my possessions.”
Her eyes sharpened, but her expression became skeptical. Everyone—or, at least, every angel-seeker—knew that ground-up manna seed was an aphrodisiac. If you fed it to the man you desired, he would instantly become smitten with you. But manna seed was extremely rare these days, so much of it gone to making love potions that none was left to sow new plants. I supposed in time there would be no manna left at all.
“Where did you get it?” she asked. “And how much would it cost me?”
“I bought it years ago in Luminaux when I thought I might have use for it. And it would cost you only a favor.”
“What favor?”
I gestured at the mountain hulking over us, jagged and unfriendly and just now darkening with the onset of night. “I want to go to Windy Point.”
She made a little sound, halfway between a laugh and a sneer. “So do we all. But I have been here four days, waiting for an angel to fly me up to the hold, and not one has come down off the mountain.”
Four days. Even by Raphael’s standards, that was lax. “Then surely an angel will appear in a day or two,” I said. “You want to be ready.”
“How do I know that you really have the seed?”
“I’ll show it to you. Will you recognize it?”
She nodded. Of course she would. “When will you give it to me?”
“When we are both inside Windy Point.”
She made an impatient motion. “Not intending any rudeness, but what would persuade any angels to welcome you to a hold?”
I tried not to laugh. It was a fair question. “Tell them I did you a kindness on the road. Tell them I am an accomplished cook. Tell them I will work hard for no wages, that all I care about is being around angels. Make up any story you like. But I have manna seed, and if you want it, you have to get me into Windy Point.”
“I want it,” she said, “if that’s what you really have.”
She accompanied me back to our campsite, where David eyed her with silent disapproval. He had taken a couple of tarps and rigged a tent over the back of the wagon, and it actually looked rather inviting. He’d also started a fire and laid out the meat and bread we had bought at the inn we’d left this morning. I found myself hoping some enterprising Jansai or Edori had food items for sale, or pretty soon we were going to go hungry.
“Who’s she?” David asked.
I looked at the young woman, realizing I had never asked her name. “Demaris,” she supplied.
“She’s going to help me get into the hold,” I said.
He warmed up a little at that. “Is she having dinner with us?” he asked.
I looked at Demaris, a question in my eyes, but she shook her head. “I’ve already paid for room and board. I want to get my money’s worth.”
“Let me show you the seeds,” I said. I climbed into wagon, under the tarp, and rooted around in my luggage for the wooden box at the very bottom of the bag—one of those items I had never bothered to toss out, even once my traveling days were mostly behind me. Sweet Jovah singing, I could remember a day when I hoarded these hard white grains as if they were diamonds. I had baked them into breads; I had ground them up and sprinkled them like salt over steaming dinner plates. Some people doubt their efficacy, but I had always had good luck with manna seeds. Every angel I shared them with became my lover, at least for a night or two. More than that you couldn’t ask of a potion.
I had even given some to Raphael once, though it was at his request and he watched me stir the white dust into his glass of wine. He had been particularly ardent that night, and both of us remarked upon it, though we never tried the experiment again.
I had never fed the drugs to Stephen.
I shook a couple of grains into my hand and climbed out of the wagon to show Demaris. David stood to one side, frowning, as Demaris inspected the seeds, rolling them between her fingertips and sniffing at them delicately.
“How much do you have?” she asked.
“About a hundred grains,” I said. “Have you ever tried manna before?”
She shook her head.
“You shouldn’t use more than ten grains on any one person,” I said. “If a man doesn’t react to that amount, he won’t react at all, so don’t waste them trying to increase the dosage. Just try them on someone else.”
“How many will you give me?”
I shrugged. “All of them.”
“You don’t want to keep any for yourself?”
I couldn’t keep from laughing. “No. Jovah’s bones. I’ve had enough of trying to better my life through the man I could catch by whatever means necessary. Here’s a secret: It never made my life better. My life didn’t improve until I started making sure I got what I needed.”
She gave a faint, disdainful shrug. “Maybe you didn’t catch the right man.”
“And maybe the kind of man who can be caught isn’t the kind of man anyone with any sense would want.”
“If you see angels come down from the mountain,” she said, “come find me. I won’t have time to go looking for you.”
I nodded. “I’ll do that.”
She didn’t linger; she had no interest in us. David and I ate in near silence, until we began discussing the state of our provisions and the best way to restock them. I turned over some of my cash to him and told him to bargain with anyone who had food to sell. I wouldn’t need money while I was in the hold, but it would be a different story once I arrived at Velora.
If I made it to Velora.
First I had to make it to Windy Point.
&
nbsp; It was two days before the angels came, and then there was a whole flock of them, fluttering down like great snowy birds. I snatched up my bag and ran for town. Everyone else was on the move, too, the dozens of us who had camped here patiently for days, everyone eager to secure an interview. I wove between clusters of farmers and groups of Jansai, detoured around the individual angel-seekers, and found Demaris pacing in front of the building where she had rented a room.
“Have you talked to any angels?” I panted.
“Not yet. But at least three of them saw me and made a point of smiling.”
“They’ll be back,” I said. “They’ll deal with the petitioners first and then start picking through the girls.”
She turned to face me, hands spread in a gesture that invited inspection. “What do you think? How do I look?”
I suggested she put on a bright scarf in purple or red—something flowing and colorful, something that would attract attention. I told her to wear her hair forward over her shoulders and muss it a little bit. Raphael had always liked long hair; most angels did. Other than that, not much needed enhancement. Demaris was a striking young woman.
We drifted toward the center of that little town—all the angel-seekers did—and soon there was a ring of pretty girls posing casually around a makeshift conference table set up right on the main dirt road. Angels sat in specially made chairs, with cutaway backs designed to support their spines without troubling their wings, while mortals took turns standing before them and airing their grievances. Twice while we watched, angels took wing, going off to handle some more immediate problem.
That still left about a dozen angels.
It took nearly the whole day for the angels to meet with all the petitioners. The sky was ever so faintly tinged with red when the last farmer nodded and stepped away. Almost as one, the angels came to their feet, joking and talking with each other. Almost as one, the angel-seekers surged forward, smiles on their lips, seduction in their hearts.
I wondered what Demaris would do to set herself apart, to catch an angel’s roving eye, but it seemed she had already done the trick. Two young angels whom I did not recognize—in their twenties, perhaps, both of them wickedly gorgeous—came straight toward her and laughingly competed for her attention.
“Do I have to pick just one of you?” she said, splitting a smile between them. “I don’t think I can choose.”
“I’ll share if he’ll share,” said the one who was taller and darker.
“I’ve always been considered a generous man,” said the other.
Demaris pouted. “But I have to ask a favor. I have a friend who wants nothing so much as to see an angel hold. She said she would work, she would clean, she would do anything, if only she could get inside Windy Point.”
The dark one glanced in my direction, wholly uninterested. “How important to you is this friend?”
Demaris gave him a slow smile. “Well,” she purred, “she taught me some—skills—that I think might end up seeming very important to you. So I think you’re the one who owes her a favor.”
Both men laughed raucously at that, eager and delighted. “Doesn’t matter to me,” said the shorter one. “I’ll carry her up to the mountain if you want to fly with Matthew.”
Demaris picked up her flowered canvas bag and held out her other arm. “That sounds perfect.”
And just like that, I was in an angel’s arms, flying up to Windy Point.
Six
I wandered the corridors of Windy Point for an hour, trying to find Sheba.
For the most part, the hold was exactly as I remembered. The gray stone walls seemed to have been hewn directly out of the bones of the mountain; here and there you could imagine you still saw the original fault lines carved by axe or chisel. The corridors, which were gloomy and dark, snaked and twisted around in no easily comprehensible plan. Newcomers invariably got lost, and there were stories of people who had starved to death trying to find their way back to a familiar room, though I had always suspected those tales were apocryphal.
And the wind. Jovah defend me, the wind.
It moaned up from the floors, hissed down from the ceilings. Even the big interior rooms of the hold seemed linked to narrow passageways that rattled and whined and screeched with wind. The sounds were inescapable, night or day. Some people claimed that, after they had lived at the hold long enough, they grew used to the wind—or stopped noticing it—or began to like its mistuned music. I always assumed those people were lying.
Nonetheless, eighteen years ago, I had been familiar enough with these groaning passages to find my way easily from one part of the hold to another. I knew where the kitchens were located, where the laundry rooms could be found; I knew the hidden passageways that led to Raphael’s private chambers and the back stairwells that climbed to the small rooms where servants and angel-seekers slept. Every time I came to a key turning, I would pause, consider, and make a choice. So far, I had been right every time.
But I still hadn’t found Sheba.
I first tried the kitchen, where harassed cooks and sullen girls worked to clean away remnants of the evening meal. I snatched up some bread and cheese, which earned me a burning glance from the woman I took to be the head cook, and crammed it in my mouth while I looked around. But Sheba wasn’t there.
She wasn’t in the laundry area, the huge steaming vat of a room where workers were busy around the clock washing clothes and linens for the residents of the hold.
I made my way with some stealth to the common rooms, particularly the huge dining hall with its high chandeliers and endless array of tables. Dinner was long past, but at least twenty people remained, drinking wine, laughing immoderately, and nuzzling whatever partner they had picked out for the night. I stayed well back, clinging to the shadows along the walls, trying to determine if Sheba was one of the girls wrapped in the arms of a drunken angel. She wasn’t, and I was unutterably relieved.
I moved on.
Not until I reached the cramped upper corridors did I actually speak to anyone. I passed the open door of one of those tiny rooms and heard two women inside bitterly arguing about someone called Jacob.
“Excuse me,” I said, peering in at their startled faces. “I’m looking for a girl named Sheba. Dark haired, about my height. Is she here?”
“What do you want with her?” one of the girls asked.
“I have a message for her. It’s very important.”
The other girl shrugged. “She sleeps in the room down the hall. The door with the big bare spot in the paint.”
I felt my heart beat a little faster. “Is she there now?”
A hunch of the shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Thank you.”
But she wasn’t in the room, which was so small it might originally have been designed for storage. A quick look through the possessions strewn around and I knew I was in the right place, for I recognized Sheba’s shoes and jewelry.
But if she was not here, and she was not in any of the common areas, she was no doubt in bed with some angel.
Even I did not have the courage to stalk through these hallways and burst into angels’ bedrooms at night, when most of them were probably engaged in some kind of sexual activity. With a sigh, I made room for my own suitcase on the floor next to Sheba’s, and I lay down on the bed. Not expecting to be able to close my eyes, I fell asleep within minutes. Even the wind could not keep me awake for long.
When I opened my eyes, Sheba was standing against the wall, staring at me. I made a little sound and scrambled to my feet, pushing my tangled hair back behind my ears. I wasn’t sure what time it was—there were no windows in this room—but by the heavy, exhausted way I felt, I guessed it to be an hour or two past midnight.
“Sheba,” I said.
I don’t know what I expected her to say when she first laid eyes on me. I had been so focused on getting here, on finding her, on wresting her out of Raphael’s cruel hands, that I had not bothered to wonder whether or not Sheba
wanted to be rescued. Certainly if any of my fond relatives had come to Windy Point twenty years ago to try to convince me to leave, I would have laughed in their faces.
But Sheba was not laughing. Her face was so set that I could not read it, but she did not look horrified or contemptuous or angry or amused. She watched me a moment in utter silence, and then she said, “I knew you would come for me.”
“I know you think the life of an angel-seeker is glamorous and exciting,” I said, wishing I had given more thought to what I would say in this particular speech, “but it’s not. It’s degrading and ugly and powerless and short. I want you to come home with me.”
“I want to come home,” she said, still in that careful, neutral voice. “But Raphael won’t let me.”
I felt a clutch of fear. “You asked him already? You told him you wanted to leave?”
She nodded. “After my very first night with him. He was—” She paused, shook her head, and went on. “I wasn’t a virgin, of course; I’m sure you knew that. But he—I found that I did not enjoy his company.” She shrugged, conveying a wealth of information, from a deep sense of revulsion to a lack of self-pity. “That did not seem to trouble him.”
“Raphael is a very depraved man.”
“So I told him I wanted to go home. And he laughed. And he said someday an angel might have time to carry me down from the hold, but it wouldn’t be any day soon.”
“We’ll leave tomorrow,” I promised.
She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “And I knew you would come for me, but I also knew it wouldn’t do any good. Raphael likes having people in his power. He will like having you in his power as well.”