Angel-Seeker

by Sharon Shinn

  When she was finished, she lay the plate aside and checked to make sure the baby was sleeping. Well, in fact, he wasn’t, but he seemed happy to simply look around the interior of the tent and wave his fisted hands at invisible visitors. She patted him on the cheek and rose noiselessly. Moving carefully, so as not to draw any attention to the wagon by making it creak or shudder, she crept to the front opening of the canvas. It was drawn shut fairly tightly, but there was still a roughly circular opening that overlooked the driver’s bench—which overlooked the campfire and the men collected before it.

  Luck was with her. Ezra, Simon, and Reuben sat together with their backs toward her. Jordan and Simon’s sons sat across the fire from them, heads bent over some contraption in Isaac’s hands. The bow, no doubt, though from this distance it looked nothing like a bow. It was long and thin and looked more like a slim stick picked up from the side of the road.

  Whatever it was, Jordan was fascinated by it and kept asking quick, excited questions. Isaac threw his head back and laughed at something the younger boy said, and Rebekah smiled in sympathy. Jordan was right; Isaac was a handsome man. He had straight dark hair that fell to his shoulders in a rather careless way, and his face was narrow and watchful. But not unkind. Thoughtful, rather, Rebekah decided. He was slimly built, but that didn’t mean much; good living and a fondness for food caused virtually every Jansai man to grow ponderous as he aged.

  Rebekah glanced at Simon. Now, he was not as fat as Hector or Ezra or most of the Jansai men she knew. So perhaps Isaac would take after his father and remain a reasonable size as he matured. For a moment she wished Simon would turn away from the fire and look in her direction, so she could see how time had restructured his face and guess from that what Isaac might look like in twenty years. But the older men remained engrossed in their conversation.

  She turned her attention back to the young men. Isaac’s brother had leapt up and was holding the thin stick up like a club, brandishing it in the air. That got everyone’s attention. Simon jumped to his feet and snatched it away from him.

  “Give that back to me! Who told you that you could play with weapons as dangerous as this?” the older man demanded, swatting his son with some force.

  “I’m the one who got it out,” Isaac said swiftly. That was good; he was quick to take responsibility for his own actions. “They wanted to see it.”

  Simon made a sudden move in Isaac’s direction, as if to strike this son, too, but merely growled and stepped back toward his place before the fire. “You boys leave this alone. It’s a man’s weapon, not to be put in hands like yours.”

  Reuben and Hector had come to their feet in a more leisurely fashion and stepped forward to look at the stick in Simon’s hands. Rebekah inched forward a little to try to see more, but it still just looked like a long, straight staff of wood. Or maybe metal. It was hard to tell.

  “What is that?” Reuben asked. “Doesn’t look like any weapon I ever saw.”

  “Firestick,” Simon said with some pride. “It can shoot a bolt a couple hundred yards and hit whatever it’s aimed at.”

  Hector grunted and bent over to look at it without getting near enough to touch it. “Where’d you get it?”

  Simon stroked the sleek barrel. “Belonged to my brother.”

  Reuben looked over at him. “The one who died on Mount Galo?”

  Simon nodded. “He got this from Raphael.” Simon shrugged. “Told me he wasn’t supposed to have it, but that the Archangel had a handful of them and wouldn’t miss just one. We were going to try to sell it, down in Luminaux maybe. After the Gloria.”

  There was a moment of silence. At the Gloria, Raphael had challenged the god, and Jovah had brought the mountain down. The mountain and everybody standing on it, which had included Raphael, and some of his angels, and dozens of Jansai and other followers. Simon didn’t have to explain that his brother was dead.

  He shrugged again. “So after that, I decided to keep it. Use it for myself, if I felt like it. It’s not really good for hunting game, though, because it rips too big a hole in a small creature, and it’s too bright if you’re hunting herd beasts. You might bring down one animal, but the others’ll run off as soon as you use it. A bow’s still better.”

  “Why’d you bring it, then?” Hector asked in his usual blunt, nasal voice. Rebekah just hated to hear him talk.

  Simon lifted it to his eye as if to sight down the long, smooth stick. “Might find me something else to shoot someday,” he said, and his voice was calm and deadly. “Say the Archangel Gabriel flew into town some afternoon. I might try to set his wings on fire.”

  “Gabriel,” Reuben said, and spat to one side of the fire.

  “Kill an Archangel, and the god might kill you,” Hector suggested, and for once Rebekah had to agree with him.

  “I think I’d die happy enough,” Simon said. He glanced down at the weapon another moment, then said, “I think this goes back in the wagon.” He strode off to his own tent and the others redisposed themselves around the fire.

  Rebekah returned her attention to the younger set, but they had their heads bent over a game of chakki. The only expressions she could see on Isaac’s face were greed and calculation, and those weren’t designed to make him more attractive, she thought. Anyway, just then the baby gave out a hesitant, irritable cry, and she turned around and crept back to his side.

  “Yes, aren’t you the sweetest thing?” she crooned, holding him up in the dark tent and trying to catch the liquid shine of his eyes by the dim firelight that filtered in. “You’re not going to grow up to be a mean, harsh Jansai man, are you? Oh, no, not my little baby brother. I’ll see to that. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll kiss you every day, and I’ll love you so much that you’ll want to spread love everywhere you go.”

  She talked nonsense to him until he smiled and chortled at her in return. Truly, he seemed like the sweetest child. Jordan, who had been born when she was six, had been a dreadful baby, screaming at the top of his lungs any time he was hungry, dirty, or bored. Strange that he had become such a good-natured and easygoing boy now. She hoped this did not mean the baby, so happy now, would grow difficult and loutish as he reached his early manhood. She kissed him again on his soft, warm cheek and assured herself that he would never change.

  The next day was exactly the same, until shortly after their noon meal. They had not been traveling very long when there was an ominous crack from Simon’s wagon, and the whole back end tumbled untidily into the sand. Simon’s wife yelped and scrambled out the back, then hastily ran to conceal herself in the tent with Reuben’s wife. Simon brought the team of horses to a halt and jumped off the front bench to see what the trouble was. His sons reined in their mounts and circled back.

  Jerusha and Rebekah peered out through the front of the tent, gazing out over Hector’s shoulders. They were directly behind the fallen wagon, so they had an excellent view.

  “Damn axle,” Simon called from his hands and knees. “Broke clean in two.”

  “You got a spare?” Hector said.

  Simon backed himself out from under the wagon and stood up, looking disgusted. “No. Didn’t bring one. You?”

  Hector shook his head. Reuben, who strode over at that point, also replied in the negative. The three men stood together in a tight conclave, discussing options.

  “What do you want to do?” Reuben asked. “Go on or go back?”

  “I can make it to Catter’s Creek in about a day,” Simon said, naming the nearest stretch of land that boasted a body of water and a stand of trees. “A day to get back, another half day to plane the wood. You might not want to wait that long. We can fix the wagon and go home. You two head on.”

  Reuben looked over at Hector. “Hector? You’re the one with a delivery. I’m just selling.”

  Hector lifted his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “There was no exact date set. I’m in no particular hurry. We can wait here till the new pole is ready.”

  Such conversations
had happened on virtually every trip that Rebekah ever had been on. Something was always going wrong: A horse went lame, a driver got sick, a wagon fell apart. The Jansai were never in much of a hurry, and it was rare that some members of a caravan would forge ahead, leaving the unfortunate party behind. But the discussion always had to be held anyway.

  “I’ll leave my boys here to take care of their mother,” Simon said. “Make them hunt. Give them any chores you need done. Don’t let them sit around being lazy while others are working.”

  Reuben nodded. “You’ll leave now, then?”

  “I can make it to Catter’s Creek tonight or tomorrow morning. I should be back sometime tomorrow.”

  It was a quick matter to set him up with some provisions, make sure he had enough water for the journey, and hand over extra waterskins that he may as well fill while he was at the creek bed.

  “But there’s a waterhole not three miles from here,” Reuben said, “if we run low while you’re gone.”

  “I know the one,” Simon said. “Only weeds there, though. No wood for the axle.”

  “You’ll find what you need at Catter’s Creek.”

  In another fifteen minutes, he was ready to go. He’d unhitched one of the horses from the wagon and fitted it with a makeshift bridle and saddle pack. Not that he had a saddle, since Jansai rarely bothered with such amenities. Just his food, his water, some bedding, a bow—and his firestick, Rebekah noticed from the back of the wagon as she watched him ride away. He might be planning to bring down game after all.

  Once he left, the others got down to the business of making a more permanent camp. They would be here two days at least, so they arranged the more mobile wagons around the one that had broken down, and the boys began to collect tumbleweed and dung for a small campfire. The women gathered in Reuben’s tent to look over their food supplies and gauge how much more they might need now that they would be on the road another two or three days. All the males were sent off hunting, the men in one party, the boys in another.

  “Rebekah!” Jerusha called once the women were alone in the camp.

  She knew what was coming but did not feel like being cooperative. “What? I’m watching the baby,” she called back.

  “He’s sleeping. I just checked him. Come out here.”

  Mutinously, moving as slowly as possible, Rebekah climbed from the front of the wagon. “What?” she said again, in a most unencouraging tone.

  Jerusha handed her a fistful of waterskins, all on long straps that would fit easily over her shoulders. Over a long distance, a woman could carry a dozen skins more comfortably than two buckets, and bring home more water once it was all measured out. “Here. The whole camp needs water. You know where that waterhole is that the men were speaking of?”

  “It’s too far away,” Rebekah complained. “And it’s so hot. I’ll go when it’s cooler.”

  “You’ll go now.”

  “What, we don’t have any water at all? In the whole camp?”

  “Listen to me, my girl, we all have to do our share of chores, and your chore is to go fetch the water.”

  “I’m too hot.”

  Jerusha snapped her hand out and gave Rebekah a little slap across the cheek. “We’re all hot. Soon we’ll all be thirsty. You go bring us water.”

  Rebekah cast a sullen look at the other two women, half-expecting one of them to speak up. No, no, Jerusha, let the poor girl rest in the cool of the tent till the sun has gone down. But they both just looked at her expressionlessly through the veils they had not taken off even after the men left the camp. None of them would reprimand Jerusha for the light blow or the firm stance. In fact, they would have treated their own daughters the same way.

  Rebekah jerked the straps from her mother’s hand. “Where is it, then? This stupid waterhole.”

  Simon’s wife pointed. “Straight that way. East about three miles.”

  “And don’t you dawdle on the way back,” Jerusha said in a scolding voice. Rebekah had already made up her mind that she would linger at the oasis till the sun went down. She could find her way back blindfolded over three miles of desert; she would have no trouble in full darkness.

  “All right,” she said vaguely enough and leaned down to check her bootlaces.

  “And cover your face,” Jerusha added.

  Rebekah straightened and gave her mother a look of deep irritation. “All the men are gone. No one will see me.”

  “You don’t know what other travelers might be about, camped by the waterhole. Jansai or even Edori. You don’t know. Wear your veil.”

  “I’ll bring it,” Rebekah said. “I won’t put it on unless I have to.”

  Simon’s wife came a step closer and ran her fingers lightly down Rebekah’s cheek. “Such soft skin,” she said in a whispery voice. “You put that veil on, now. You don’t want to ruin your complexion in the sun.”

  “Keep yourself beautiful for your husband,” Reuben’s wife added.

  Rebekah divided a sharp glance between them. Had that been one of their topics of conversation while the women all gathered together after the meal? Who Rebekah’s husband might be? She was tempted to shock them all by saying something about Isaac, his face or his body, but she wasn’t supposed to even know what he looked like, let alone that he might be under consideration as her groom.

  Even more she was tempted to ask his mother, Is he a kind man? Have you raised him to be gentle? Or is he just another Jansai brute?

  But that would shock them all even more.

  “I’ll get the veil,” she said instead, and ducked quickly back inside the wagon. A quick kiss on the baby’s forehead, and she was outside again, taking up the packet of food her mother offered. In a very few moments, she was trudging east toward water.

  It was not so bad once she was in motion. Hot, yes, almost unbearably so, but that was a fact of life; it was always hot in the desert near Breven. And it felt good to be free of the wagon, free of the camp, of the gossiping women and the overbearing men. Her clothing was loose and comfortable, the outer jeska all white, the inner hallis that peeked through at the hem and throat a cool sage green. She was actually glad she’d brought the veil, for it shaded her eyes from the sun and kept her cheeks cool. But she would be sure to pull it off once she got near the Jansai camp again, just to annoy her mother.

  Moving at an easy, steady pace, she took about an hour to cover the three miles. Just as she thought she really might want to sit and rest for a while, she saw the shadow of green on the horizon before her and increased her speed a little. She had brought one full waterskin but had rather squandered it along the way, and now she was getting thirsty. She would take a good long drink before she made herself comfortable in whatever coolness the waterhole offered, lying down in the sand and drowsing away the hours till nightfall.

  But when she came a few yards nearer to the oasis, this admirable plan flew out of her head. There was already someone else sprawled before the small fountain of water, looking half-dead and half-drowned.

  An angel.

  Chapter Six

  Obadiah thought he was hallucinating when he opened his eyes to see the ghostly white figure bending over him.

  He was in a great deal of pain, and he had drifted in and out of consciousness for the last hour—or some considerable period of time. Maybe a day, or a lifetime. He couldn’t tell. It was possible he was now delirious. Or dead.

  And yet, he had always believed that Jovah mercifully erased your pain when he gathered you up into his gentle arms. So perhaps he was not yet dead, after all. In which case, this rather shaky apparition might be a living creature come on him by chance at the fountain of water.

  “Help me,” he whispered.

  For a moment, the creature did not stir at all, either to bend closer or to draw away. Then finally it dropped to its knees beside him and spoke in the voice of a woman. “What happened to you?” she asked.

  He tried to shake his head, but that did nothing but stir up water and sand. “
I don’t know. I was flying . . . home. Something burned me.”

  “Burned you?” she repeated, as if she could not believe it.

  “I know,” he panted. “Crazy. But it was like—fire touched me—twice. My leg—and my wing.”

  She was silent a moment. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can help you.”

  “I need—I just—I’m so hot—” he said, and then fell silent, too winded to talk.

  She sat there a moment, just out of arm’s reach, surveying him. Or so he assumed. Her face was completely covered by a mesh scarf—her whole body was draped in flowing robes that concealed her size and her sex. A Jansai woman, he guessed. The last person in the province who would be likely to aid him. He felt the last of his strength ebb away as he realized there was no succor here after all.

  “What do you have in your pack?” she asked suddenly.

  “A few shirts—all dirty,” he answered.

  “Any food? Any medicines?”

  He tried to smile. “Angels never need medicine.”

  “But they can carry it for others, can’t they? Or beg for it from the god?”

  “I don’t have—the energy—to sing,” he said.

  She nodded once. “Very well,” she said and rose to her feet. Without another word, she stepped away from him. The sun, which had been blocked from his face by the shape of her body, fell harshly into his eyes. He squeezed them tightly shut and wondered if it was possible he would die here.

  Ten minutes later she was back beside him, carrying the skeletons of three or four small, round bushes in her hands. They were gaunt and spindly even in the spring, when they shot up from nothing and flowered in the desolate landscape. She laid these on the sand a little to one side of him and knelt by his head. “Can you move back from the water a little?” she asked. “I don’t think it’s good for you to keep your wounds wet like that. And give me your pack so I can see what’s in it.”