Jovah's Angel

by Sharon Shinn

“What about your job?” Caleb asked. “Will they let you leave? I imagine a trip to Breven would take five days at least, each way.”

  She smiled at him. The first smile she’d bestowed on him. Even resisting her, he felt the brilliance of that smile scissor through him, slitting his flesh from brow to heel. “I’m not worried about finding employment,” she said very gently. “I’m worried about finding entertainment. I think this would be fun.”

  Caleb spread his hands. “Then you’re invited.”

  “If we go,” Noah amended. “I won’t know for a while.”

  “We’ll go, anyway. We’ll find a reason.”

  “Well, we’ll see. If it’s not Breven, we’ll go somewhere. We can vote.”

  “Semorrah,” Caleb suggested.

  “Gaza,” Noah said.

  “Somewhere in Bethel. I know—Velora,” Caleb said. “It’s supposed to be a little Luminaux.”

  But Lilah had turned her face away and Noah looked suddenly grave. “Not Velora,” the Edori said gently. “We’ll think of something.”

  So the fallen angel had ties to Velora, and not happy ones, either. Not that Caleb hadn’t already figured that out. Not that he hadn’t realized, very early into the conversation, just who this angel was.

  He did not have time either to apologize or pretend ignorance. They were joined at that moment by a slim, sleek, well-dressed man who dripped all over with gold and arrogance. He was attired with Luminaux elegance, but Caleb sized him up instantly as transplanted Jansai—one of the cutthroat, capitalistic ex-slavers from Breven who had flourished in the young industrial age of Samaria.

  “I see you gentlemen are enjoying yourselves,” the man said civilly enough, but something in the smooth voice instantly roused Caleb’s antagonism. “Something more I can get you before you leave? I’m afraid Lilah won’t be able to visit with you much longer. She needs her rest to maintain her voice.”

  The man stood directly behind the angel, and so he did not see the scornful smile that crossed her face; but she did not contradict him or even appear annoyed. Noah, on the other hand, contained his irritation only with an obvious effort.

  “I wouldn’t want to keep her if she’s ready to go,” the Edori said.

  But she was already on her feet. “Oh, I must. Joseph—this is Joseph, by the way, he owns this delightful establishment—is kind enough to look after me, and he knows I would stay out all night carousing if someone didn’t fetch me at the proper time.”

  “Carousing seems a little strong,” Caleb remarked.

  She smiled maliciously. “But I do like it.”

  Joseph had draped his arm across the angel’s shoulders, carelessly brushing his elbow against the heavy feathers of her wings. She seemed, but perhaps it was Caleb’s imagination, to shudder ever so slightly as he touched her, squeezing the ball of her shoulder with his thick, well-manicured hands. Caleb remembered suddenly, information gleaned from some source he could not recall now, that angels hated having their wings touched, except in the most intimate circumstances, and sometimes not even then. Perhaps that was all her momentary distaste signified.

  “Will you be singing tomorrow night?” Noah asked, coming to his feet. Caleb stood also.

  “No reason not to,” she said. “It’s what I live for, after all.”

  “Then I’ll probably be here tomorrow night. To see you.”

  “Good,” she said, but over her shoulder; Joseph had turned the angel and begun walking her away. “I’ll come by afterward to share a drink with you. Caleb—it was divine meeting you. I’m sure we’ll become best friends on our journey.”

  The two men stood silently for a few moments, watching the entwined figures fade into the room’s shadows. Caleb glanced at Noah. “I don’t suppose you want another drink,” he said.

  Noah nodded. “I do, but not here. Let’s go.”

  So it was to be a late night, after all. They left, then spent ten minutes walking the glowing streets of Luminaux, trying to agree on a tavern. They settled finally on Blue Sky, one of the few places with good food, no music, and service around the clock. They sat, and Noah ordered more wine. Caleb settled for coffee.

  “You’re fishing in troubled waters,” he observed, after a long moment in which neither spoke. “Be careful you don’t go tumbling in headlong and drown.”

  Noah laughed shortly. “Wouldn’t be hard to do,” he said. “She’s a siren. She could lure any man to his doom.”

  “You know who she is, of course,” Caleb said.

  Noah nodded. “The Archangel. She doesn’t answer to her name, though. Won’t talk about it at all.”

  “Former Archangel,” Caleb corrected gently. “And I don’t know that I blame her.”

  “I keep thinking—I keep wondering—what exactly got broken. How the injury happened. Why it hasn’t been fixed.”

  “Well, she fell from the sky—”

  “I mean, there’s so many things that we know now that we didn’t know ten or even five years ago. Look at the Gabriel Dam. Ten years ago, people would have said it couldn’t be built. Now it supplies power to half the towns in southern Bethel and Jordana.”

  “What does that have to do with Delilah?”

  “There must be a way to fix her wing. What is it that’s broken? Can’t it be replaced? I know every medical expert in the country went to her after she fell, but maybe she should go to the scientists instead. They would look at the problem differently.”

  “Suggest it to her,” Caleb said, though he didn’t think she’d be particularly receptive. “You’re a scientist.”

  Noah raised his dark eyes to his friend’s face. “I thought maybe you could help her,” he said.

  “Me? Why me?”

  “You’re the specialist in building new wings.”

  That caught Caleb totally by surprise, although, adding it up swiftly, he realized that Noah had been pointed toward this proposal the whole night. It actually made sense, if he wasn’t the one expected to produce miracles.

  “I’ve built stationary wings—gliders—you described them yourself,” he said gently. “They’re complex and mobile, yes, but not independently powered. An angel’s wing—it must operate like an arm, on a series of muscles and bones. What do you think I could do?”

  “You could look. You could think about it. I’d work with you. It’s just that I have to try. If she’ll let me. I have to see if I can help her. Caleb, there’s no piece of machinery existing today that you and I couldn’t build by scratch and probably improve on, and the human body, you’ve said it yourself, is just a complicated piece of machinery. Surely there’s something we can do. If she’ll let us.”

  “I don’t know that she’ll ever trust anyone enough to let him experiment on her,” Caleb said. “She’s wearing heavy armor, Noah. She’s not going to let a lot of people through.”

  “She’ll get to know us, she’ll trust us, and we’ll take it from there,” Noah replied.

  “If she’s interested—” Caleb began, then paused.

  “Then you’ll try?”

  “I’ll try. If she’ll agree.” He had only met the angel once but Caleb was fairly certain she wouldn’t be interested in their speculative, exploratory help. He did not say so to Noah.

  The Edori nodded, smiled, and seemed to grow visibly happier in a matter of seconds. He sipped his wine, then looked up at his friend. “And I was right, wasn’t I?” he asked.

  “About what?”

  “Her voice. You loved her voice, didn’t you?”

  “She sings as if her soul were in flames,” Caleb said soberly. “I have never heard a voice like that in my life.”

  “They say the new Archangel can’t come close to her—in voice quality, I mean, I have no idea how she performs her other duties. They say the new girl—”

  “Her name is Alleluia,” Caleb interjected mildly.

  “They say her singing is just ordinary, compared to Delilah’s.”

  “Well,” said Caleb, “I would imagin
e that would be true no matter who they had picked. But they must have had their reasons for choosing her, even if she can’t sing.”

  “Still, she was the second choice,” Noah pointed out. Clearly he would champion Delilah against all comers.

  “And she must know it,” Caleb said. “It must make things very hard for her. I wonder what she’s like.”

  The Archangel Alleluia sat in one of the locked, soundproofed music rooms that lined the lower level of the Eyrie, and wondered why this was always the setting when she received bad news. Perhaps it was because, seeking solitude or silence, she often retreated to one of these rooms where, by custom, no one was supposed to interrupt. Perhaps it was because, lately, there was nothing but bad news.

  Today she had gone to one of the music rooms for a short respite from the squabbles of her daily life and to listen to one of the minor recordings left behind by the first angelica, Hagar. These recordings were a marvel of lost technology, providing perfect renditions of some of the most difficult masses sung by the most accomplished of the early settlers. The angel hold at Monteverde was equipped with similar rooms where the masses could be played and learned by angels planning to perform at the Gloria or some other function. (The machines at Windy Point had been destroyed 150 years ago and could not be replicated at Cedar Hills.) How to make the recordings, and how to build the listening equipment, were bits of knowledge lost hundreds of years ago when the early colonists made the decision to abandon the benefits of science—abandoning, at the same time, its destructive potential. And so future generations were bequeathed odd remnants of equipment that operated in what was to them a completely mysterious manner.

  It stood to reason that present-day mortals and angels would have no idea how to repair such machinery should it break down, and that was today’s catastrophe. There were twenty music rooms at the Eyrie, and the equipment in all but two of them had, in the past few months, completely ceased to function. None of the angels who poked and prodded at the unfamiliar dials could cause the divine music to once more come soaring from the hidden speakers. The singers were effectively silenced; and one more joy was lost to Alleya.

  Still, there had been two machines that continued to work—until today. While Alleya was listening to the Bardel requiem in C minor, the soprano solo abruptly halted in mid-ecstasy. No fizzle, no static, just sudden and complete silence. Alleya had crossed to the wall of knobs and switches and cautiously fiddled with one or two, but she knew it was hopeless. The machine was broken, and she did not have the skills to repair it. Perhaps no one did.

  With the air of one acquiescing to utter defeat, she spread her hands and allowed herself to sink slowly to the floor. Her shapeless blue tunic puddled around her; her wings spread and flattened against the stone tiles. She drew her knees up, crossed her arms upon them, and rested her head upon her forearms. It was very tempting to just completely give up.

  She had been in this very room three months ago when the first wave of bad news hit—although it might be inadequate to label as “bad news” the message that had completely and miserably reordered her life. The oracles Job and Mary had been ushered in by Samuel, who had temporarily taken charge of the Eyrie while Delilah lay immobile. They all looked grave beyond imagining; Alleya could only think that Delilah had died.

  “Alleya,” Samuel had said in an unwontedly kind voice. He was a serious, thoughtful man who did not give much rein to the softer emotions. “May we talk with you?”

  She had brushed futilely at her hair (no doubt a mess) and wished she had taken more time with her appearance that morning. It was not often she was asked to converse with the oracles. “Of course. I was just practicing. Here, let me turn the music off—”

  She was as nervous as if she knew what they had come for, but in fact, exalted company always made her a little uneasy. “It doesn’t matter,” Job had said, stilling her with a motion of his hand. “Hagar’s voice is always welcome.”

  So she turned and faced them, feeling strangely penitent, although she couldn’t imagine what she had done to earn their displeasure. No one spoke for almost a minute, and she realized with a shock that the oracles and even Samuel seemed almost as embarrassed as she.

  “Has something happened to Delilah?” she asked finally, just to break the silence. “I mean—something else—”

  Job shook his head. “The Archangel remains as she has been,” he said unhelpfully. “And that is—broken and irreparable. Jovah has decreed that a new Archangel must be chosen.”

  Alleya felt a rush of pity for the beautiful, fiery Delilah, so different from herself. Delilah had had it all, achieved the pinnacle and gloried in it; and now she would have nothing.

  “Does she know?”

  “She has just been told.”

  “Did she—what did she say?”

  “She was calmer than I expected,” Samuel answered. “The news did not come as a surprise. But I think she will be wretched soon enough. We must take care to treat her very gently.”

  Alleya nodded. No one spoke again for a minute or two. Hagar’s inexpressibly sad voice rose and fell behind them, lending the whole episode an air of sweet tragedy.

  “Of course, a new Archangel must be installed immediately,” Job continued. “It is Jovah’s will.”

  “That will be very difficult for Delilah,” Alleya said.

  “Difficult for the new Archangel,” Mary murmured.

  “We have been to Jovah and asked for his choice,” Job went on. “And he has surprised us all by naming… you.”

  It was a good twenty seconds before his words sank in, and even then, they did not make sense. Alleya found herself staring at the older oracle, whose lined, intelligent face and sober mien did not appear to lend themselves easily to a joke of this magnitude. “Jovah said—what?” she asked, her voice completely choked.

  “He chose you to be Archangel in Delilah’s stead,” Samuel said.

  She swung her gaze around to his face. Samuel she knew would not make a mockery of her this way. “That’s not possible,” she said faintly.

  “It seems unlikely, on the face of it,” Job conceded. “But we asked more than once. He named the angel Alleluia, daughter of Jude and Hope. You are the only angel who answers to that description.”

  “But I—don’t you see?—I’m not trained for this, I don’t have the skills for this—I’m—surely I’m the last angel the god would choose for such an honor.”

  “Jovah has his reasons for every decision he makes,” Job said piously. “Even when those reasons are not clear to us—”

  “Yes, but—I can’t be Archangel!” she said desperately. “I can’t deal with the Manadavvi and control the river merchants and keep an eye on the Jansai—or, Jovah save me—lead the Gloria in front of all those people—”

  Mary and Job exchanged sharp glances. Alleya fell silent. “Interesting,” Job murmured. “Those are of course some of the duties of the Archangel. But there are more. You can, I assume, do a weather intercession as well as the next angel?”

  Now Alleya threw a panicky look at Samuel and crossed her arms stubbornly across her breast. “I suppose so,” she said.

  “In fact, did not three angels fly to the mine compound near Hagar’s Tooth, praying for the rain to stop, but to no avail? And did you not fly there once, and sing one prayer, causing the clouds to part and the rain to dissipate?”

  She did not answer, so Samuel spoke for her. “You did, Alleya. And that was not the only time.”

  “Luck,” she whispered. “The right time. The storms were ready to pass, anyway.”

  “The god hears you,” Mary said. “And where the god pays attention, can mortals and angels fail to listen?”

  “Easily,” Alleya responded. “I am not an intercessor with the god. I am not a mediator among men. I am—Samuel, tell them. I live here, I do the work I am asked to do—there is nothing about me that would cause the god to single me out. Ask him again. He has chosen wrong.”

  But they would
not listen. To all her protests, they replied, “Jovah has spoken” or “The god has called your name,” and nothing Alleya could say would induce them to change their minds. “We must make the announcement to the angels,” Job said finally, weary of arguing with her, and led the small procession from the music room toward the broad common plateau, where most of the other angels were gathered. Alleya trailed helplessly behind them, still protesting but not aloud, for basic human instinct told her that she would make herself look irretrievably ridiculous if she was caught bemoaning her new estate in front of all her peers.

  And so the announcement was made, and Alleya’s bewilderment was mirrored on the faces of all the other residents of the Eyrie, and those who looked at her did so with marveling, disbelieving faces. Others turned away to share their amazement with their neighbors. Alleya kept her eyes averted but not cast downward—no, she looked slightly above the rest of them at the rosy beige stone of the Eyrie walls. And she thought, This is the worst day of my entire life.

  Nor had it rapidly improved. Job and Mary stayed two more days at the Eyrie, holding private discussions with Alleya to go over some of her duties as Archangel, things she would be expected to do, things she would be expected to know. Samuel had kindly explained to her what he knew of political alliances throughout Samaria, the relationship between the Manadavvi, the river merchants, the Jansai—and now, the growing group of independent and increasingly wealthy landowners who owned either massive farming concerns or some of the southern mines.

  “But I am not a politician,” he apologized. “If you could talk to Delilah, you would get much better advice from her.”

  But there would be no help available from the deposed Archangel. Everyone had counseled Alleya to wait a few days, maybe a few weeks, before approaching Delilah with a mixture of regret, supplication and camaraderie—“I am so sorry that things happened this way, but since they did, won’t you help me as I know you can?”

  And Alleya, who had dreaded the meeting, had gratefully put it off another day, and another. It was not that she and Delilah had been hostile in the old days, when everything was as it should be—they’d just had very little to do with each other. Well, they were so different—Delilah so outgoing and sure of herself, brilliant at maneuvering people, gifted with a luminous beauty and an extraordinary voice. And Alleluia, shy, reserved and scholarly, owning a voice that was no more than pretty, and hopeless at managing people. They’d had no particular reason to be friends.