Archangel

by Sharon Shinn

  “This is better,” Naomi promised.

  When he pulled back the flap and slid out the silver instrument, he was delighted and astonished. “A flute!” he exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted— This is so beautiful!” He held it to his lips, but pulled it away before blowing into it. “It is meant to be played, isn’t it?” he asked. “Or is it just ornamental?”

  “It’s not a flute, it’s a recorder,” Rachel said. “And yes, you can play it. It’s supposed to be relatively simple to learn.”

  He put his lips to the thin silver mouthpiece and breathed. The sound that filled the tent was sweet, eerie and wistful. Tentatively he moved his hands, breathed again; the new note was just as pure, as otherworldly, as true. He pulled it from his mouth and gazed down at it in happy disbelief.

  “This is—Rachel, it’s wonderful. Did I ever tell you how much I wanted to play a flute—or recorder, whatever? I’ll have to learn this right away.”

  She was smiling faintly. “You mentioned it once or twice,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I’m thrilled.” Then he realized that the silver chain should be slipped over his head so he could carry the recorder with him always, and he adjusted it around his neck and smiled even more broadly. “I wish I could play it now,” he said. “I’d play it for the god.”

  “Next year, perhaps,” Rachel murmured. And he looked over at her, wondering what would have happened—between them and to the whole world—by next year’s Gloria. Some of his happiness faded.

  There was a brief and awkward silence, but it was broken by voices outside. “Rachel?” a woman asked. “Gabriel?” a man called out.

  “Maga,” Rachel said.

  “And Nathan,” Gabriel added. “Time for us all to go.”

  Naomi threw her arms around Rachel’s shoulders. “Sing with your whole heart,” she murmured into her friend’s ear. “I will be with the Edori, singing with you. Pray for all of us.”

  She left the tent, the other two right behind her. “Don’t you look wonderful!” Maga exclaimed, pulling Rachel aside to admire her dress and her jewels. In the first faint light of dawn, Gabriel nodded over at his brother.

  “Is everyone ready?”

  “All gathered. Time to begin.”

  They stood in the middle of the Plain, more than six thousand of them, and watched the sun come up over the low eastern mountains. Rachel took her place in the center of the great, quiet crowd. Semicircles formed around her, first the angels with their massed white wings, then the Edori, then the townspeople and farmers and wayfarers gathered here to listen to her prayers and offer their own to the god.

  Gabriel stood beside her and took her hand, which she permitted, though she did not look his way. As the sun lifted over the edge of the mountain, she raised her face. Her eyes were closed but she seemed incredibly calm, completely focused, listening to some inner clock chiming the hours and minutes. In the infant light, her bright blues and golds faded, grew translucent; she seemed made of sun-colored mist just breaking apart over a freshly washed sky.

  When she began singing, the whole world fell silent to listen. Her voice ran before them like river water between wide, ancient banks, smooth and dark enough to seem both silent and motionless. Gradually the notes brightened, grew crystalline, as the song took her higher, into her truer range. Gabriel felt his blood pause in its accustomed race. His breath grew shallow, soundless. Her voice wrapped around him like arms twining about his neck; it dazzled the air with bursts of light; it flung him bodiless into the great empty sky and filled his head with music.

  He was so transfixed by her singing that at first he did not recognize the song. When he did, he was left dizzied by a succession of shocks, each more momentous than the last.

  It was the Lochevsky Magnificat immortalized by Hagar, a piece so demanding that most singers were forced to split its octaves between three voices. Yet she sang it as effortlessly, as beautifully, as the great angelica soprano.

  She had pitched it precisely in his key. Consciously or not— willingly or not—she knew his voice so well, she knew exactly what range he required, how to best show off his skill.

  She trusted him. Difficult as the female solo was, the tenor role was not much simpler. The parts were so interdependent that she could not have hoped to sing the mass unless she had utter faith in his ability.

  She had chosen the song for him.

  She loved him.

  He tightened his grip on her hand as her first solo came to its sublime conclusion. His voice slipped in alongside hers, mellow and rich; the voices fell together like diving sea birds, then spiraled up again, arrowing skyward. Her voice steadied, held on one, sustained high note while his danced beneath hers, changing colors, changing keys. Then she faded away, dropped back, while his voice dominated in the first male aria.

  The words; it seemed he had never listened to the words before, “Though the whole world shun you, yea, I believe. Though you turn your face away, yea, I believe … What do I have if not my love for you? Though everything perish, still there will be my love… .”

  He sang for her; there was no way she could not know he sang for her. He saw the flame-colored light flaring through the sleeve on her right arm. His own Kiss burned with a painful heat. Although by now his hand was crushing hers, she still made no move to pull away.

  “For the world slows and the stars falter, and all that remains is you …”

  He was almost startled when the silent crowd suddenly sang its first choral response. “Yes, there is love … Yes, there is beauty … Yes, we believe in the wisdom of our god …” The voices rolled over him, like rain, like ocean water, vast arid eternal. He sang out his cry of belief again; and again the voices answered. “All that remains is you …”

  Now Rachel’s voice soared above the rest, and the other singers fell silent. Again, he was reminded of a bird, this time something wild and colorful, adorning the skies with its brilliance. This recitative was supposed to be an entreaty, a supplication, but Rachel’s voice was exultant, ecstatic. “And where shall we turn if not to you, our shield, our defender, our beloved and our god …?”

  Jovah would never fail to answer such a prayer. Truly the god had chosen well when he laid his hand upon this woman’s head.

  The mass lasted a full two hours. The sun was fat and yellow, the whole sky a rich, hard turquoise, before the formal music came to an end. Everything appeared more solid by this time; even Rachel had lost her ethereal look of the early morning. The piece ended on a series of dramatic “amens” performed by the whole crowd of six thousand, and then there was a moment of profound silence. Rachel hesitated, then slowly raised both her hands toward the blazing heavens. Gabriel’s hands, one still locked with hers, rose up simultaneously. Azure fire shot from about their wrists and made a jeweled tent over their heads.

  Rachel sang the last, long, sweet amen in a clear, exuberant croon. The crowd nearly drowned her out with shouts and cheers, and suddenly they were engulfed in bodies—angels, mortals, Edori, children—all pushing between them, tearing their hands apart, sweeping them into fierce embraces and laughing with delight. Gabriel let her slip away from him, returned the enthusiastic hugs, the playful, triumphant slaps across the arms and back. The cries sounded all around them: “Archangel!” “Angelica!” “Magnificent, angela!” “Marvelous, simply breathtaking!” “Rachel, what a voice!” “Straight to the god’s ear, Gabriel, straight to his heart!”

  His own heart was full. Surely the god had heeded this prayer. If no other voice on Samaria moved him, this one would have. While this woman lived to sing to the god, the world would survive forever.

  The mass was not the end of it, of course. The singing went on for the rest of the day. Angel choirs from Monteverde and the Eyrie had prepared their own pieces; soloists and orchestras from Luminaux, from Velora, from Castelana, even from among the Manadavvi, had requested permission to perform; and this year, for the first time in nearly two decades, several of the Edori clans
had offered their own joyful, primitive music.

  But the mass was the only piece in which they all participated. Now the great crowd broke up, and the Plain began to resemble a fairground. Cooking tents sprang up magically. Some ate while others sang and others listened. The sun tilted past the invisible line of noon and began its leisurely, contemplative descent. And still harpists strummed, trumpeters rejoiced, flautists called, drummers pulsed. And singers lifted their voices to the god.

  Nathan and Magdalena stood hand-in-hand and sang a duet so sweetly that Gabriel laid aside his evening meal (some Edori concoction of cornbread and onions) and pushed through the crowd to get closer. Like Rachel, Maga stood with her hand enfolded in her partner’s; her eyes were closed, her face was peaceful. The Kiss on her arm was a living opal, multicolored and unfathomable. On Nathan’s arm, his Kiss glowed with a muted, milky light.

  “And who shall we believe if not the god?” asked Rachel next to Gabriel, this time speaking, not singing, the words. The effect on his heart was much the same, however. “He knows and tells us, if we would but have faith.”

  He smiled down at her, though the expression on her face was somewhat severe. “I believe in him,” he said mildly. “Why would you think otherwise?”

  She nodded over at his brother and Magdalena. “It is the god who brought them together,” she said. “Josiah says Yovah does nothing without a purpose. I think it’s time to lift the ban on the intermarrying of angels.”

  He drew a deep, swift breath. “I know,” she hurried on before he could speak. “These unions before have resulted in monster children—terrible, pathetic things. But this time—I’m sure that this time it will be different. Yovah wants those two to be joined together. He could not say so any more clearly.”

  “Whether Jovah approves or not, there does not seem to be any way I can keep them apart,” he said softly. “And so, with grave misgivings, I am forced to agree with you. Besides, I need them. And I need them together.”

  Her eyes searched his face. “Need them for what?” she asked.

  “Someone must go tend Windy Point,” he said. “I don’t know if any angels are left there, or if they all perished on the mountaintop—but in any case, there must be angels in Jordana, and soon. That whole province has been desperately neglected too long. Nathan and Maga are the best we have to spare.”

  She studied him. It was nearly full dark now, and it was hard to make out her face. “So,” she said, “your first decision as Archangel meets with my approval. Will you be as thoughtful and wise for all your days as leader?”

  “Probably not,” he said. “I will look to you for guidance.”

  She turned away, not that he could read anything in her face, anyway. “I’m not very good at advising others.”

  “Well, I will listen,” he said, “when you have something to say.”

  She seemed to nod, then she seemed to shrug. It was too dark to really tell. “Wish them luck for me,” she said.

  So she had meant it last night. Of course, she had meant it. She always did what she said she would. “You’re leaving now?” he said as calmly as he could.

  She gave him one quick look. Again, he could not read her expression. “In the morning. Early.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Rachel—” he said softly.

  She took a step backward. “We made a bargain,” she said. The beautiful voice was edged with panic. “I’ll be here for the next Gloria.”

  He had to clench his hands in the silky folds of his black trousers to keep himself from reaching out to her. “Don’t make me wait a whole year,” he said, his voice very gentle. “Not that long.”

  “This is too hard,” she breathed. “Everything between us is too difficult. We are like noon and midnight, chasing each other from one side of the world to the next. Let it go—let the world spin on between us.”

  “If you want me, call for me,” he whispered. “I will hear you, though you call from the other side of the world. Yours is the only voice I hear. If you leave now, you leave me in silence.”

  “Listen to the silence,” she said. “Ask yourself if this is not peace.”

  “I don’t have to listen,” he said. “That silence is empty.”

  “No silence is empty,” she said. “Goodbye, Gabriel. Yovah guard you.”

  “Jovah keep you in his heart,” he replied.

  And he watched her walk away.

  Within seconds, she was lost in the crowd. Even her gold gown, her bright hair, turned to shadows in the darkness. His hands, unknotted now, half-rose of their own volition. Don’t leave me, he wanted to say. Stay with me. You love me. You left your heart behind; stay with me as well.

  But he knew better; he had learned. She could not be coerced, persuaded, convinced or changed, and to set his will against hers was to turn her more stubborn than stone. Still, it was all he could do to keep from running after her.

  Stay with me. Don’t leave. I love you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Gaza in spring was a glorious sight. They kept away from the northeastern reaches, where the lush Manadavvi farmlands would even now be unfurling their emerald banners under the watchful eyes of Yovah. Manadavvi had never been especially gracious to the Edori. Instead they wandered through the garden miles of the southwestern coastline, exchanging a few days’ work for food, selling their own trinkets and items they had picked up in Luminaux and elsewhere, living like the gypsies they were.

  Within the first two days of the journey, Rachel had moved into her own tent, a spare that the Chievens had acquired when two small families merged into one. Naomi had protested, and the other Chievens had looked on in surprise, for the Edori liked to live cluttered and crowded together. It was virtually unheard of for a single woman to sleep alone, with no friend or family alongside her.

  “I have slept in your tent too long. You need to have privacy within your own family,” Rachel told Naomi.

  “You are my family.”

  “I will be your family in the tent pitched right beside yours. See? The canvases will touch.”

  “I don’t like to think of you lying awake, all alone.”

  Rachel laughed. “All right. Let your girls sleep with me a few nights. Will that make you happier? I will have company, and you will have your husband to yourself.”

  Naomi grinned. “I am always able to find time alone with my husband, thank you for your concern.”

  “I’ll take the girls anyway. For a few days.”

  But that was a concession to Naomi only. In truth, Rachel was dying to be alone, and she was glad when, several nights later, she was able to send the laughing children back to their parents’ tent. True, she lay awake a long time that night, in silence and in solitude, but hearing other sleepers breathing in the dark had not made the night hours pass any more swiftly. Nor did solitude give her the clarity she had desired. She curled herself as tightly as she could on the narrow woven mat, and willed herself to sleep.

  More than that, she willed herself to stop thinking. She could hardly have been less successful. Images rose to her mind in a constant, surreal montage, arriving and fading in no particular order, all carrying equal weight. Thus visions of Raphael flaming above the mountain were succeeded by a picture of Obadiah laughing at her in a Velora cafe. She remembered a day in Lord Jethro’s kitchen when she had spent three hours scraping at the verdigris on a hammered copper kettle. She lay in Simon’s arms, whispering, running her fingers around and around the smooth, lightless node of crystal in his arm.

  She stood wrapped in Gabriel’s wings on the Plain of Sharon, and he kissed her.

  It was as if every strand of her life lay scattered before her like so many threads awaiting the weaver’s skill, but she could not lift her hands and work them into a design. She had complained to Josiah that she had been given no choices, that she had been thrust violently from one hazard to the next—but here she was, free at last to follo
w her own inclinations, and all she could do was study her past and wonder what her life had prepared her to choose.

  She had thought once, in Velora, that she could make the abandoned children of the cities her life work—but now she had left them behind, under kind supervision, it was true, but still she had left them. Well, she had thought she would make loving Simon her life work, and that dream had dissolved as well. Perhaps there were no dreams substantial enough to live for; perhaps nothing could be trusted to last, not faith in the god, not commitment to a cause, not hope, not love.

  She stirred on her mat and turned over. But look at Raphael: He had schemed with a single-minded ferocity to retain his rank as Archangel, not caring who or what was destroyed in pursuit of his dream. He had slaughtered, lied, preached heresy and brought down the wrath of the god. It had killed him in the end— it had killed hundreds—but he had never lost his unshakable conviction, had never faltered or turned aside.

  And yet that was wrong as well. Surely any dream that heedlessly sacrificed the lives, the hopes, the beliefs of others was an evil one; to pursue it was to court damnation.

  Very well, then: Josiah. Now, his life was pure, serene and intensely focused. He passed his days in study and contemplation; he communed with the god; he believed absolutely in his work and in his master. No doubts, no moments of indecision. And yet he was kind, thoughtful, a beacon of wisdom and hope.

  Well, it sounded attractive, but she would go mad. She knew herself well enough to laugh at the thought of herself as an oracle. She needed more action, more interaction, voices around her and a way down off any mountain.

  She threw aside her blanket and attempted once more to arrange her bones in a comfortable position. The Edori lived what she had always considered the ideal life. Like Josiah, they believed in a personal connection with the god, and this belief made them gentle, welcoming and peaceful. Yet they were not locked in any stone prison. They wandered from the Gaza gardens to the blue granite streets of Luminaux to the Breven deserts. They were free.