by Sharon Shinn
Back toward Bethel; on to Sinai.
As before, Alleya felt a certain peace descend upon her the instant she landed on the gray rock of Sinai. She moved with a sort of calm delight through the empty, echoing hallways, sparing a moment to wonder if she would like the place quite so well once it was tenanted again with petitioners and priests and acolytes. But she thought she would; the serenity of Sinai was imprinted on the very rocks and corridors. Voices were lost in that determined stillness; the soul’s turbulence was soothed away.
But when would there be an oracle and his or her attendants here again? Alleya sighed. One more problem to worry over, once she had the time.
She made her way finally to the main chamber, where the interface was situated, pausing at the threshold of the room to kneel and empty her backpack. There, in with the silver gown, was an item that might have raised Jerusha’s eyebrows: the book of translated phrases that the novice was to learn when he first began to use the interface to communicate with Jovah.
Well, she was a novice, and she was here to communicate. It still made her a little nervous to usurp the oracles’ function, but she felt as if she had no choice. She needed, as Deborah had suggested, to touch the face of the god.
Still, it was with a certain awe tinged with apprehension that she approached the glowing blue screen at the far end of the chamber. The last time she had been here, the messages on the interface might as well have been printed in gibberish for all she could make of them. Now, having studied the ancient tongue for so many weeks, would she actually be able to understand what the god was trying to say?
As before, there were hieroglyphics crowding together, dark blue against the sky-colored background. Alleya pulled up the chair and seated herself before the screen, reading even before she sat down. Yes, these were words and phrases she recognized, though the syntax was difficult and there were technical references that did not make sense to her. She throttled her leaping excitement and forced herself to remain cool. So much depended on this; she must think calmly.
“Welcome, user. Station One of the J/S ship/land Internet stands open and ready for commands. Press the Enter key to initiate program. If you are asked for your password, type it in; if you have no password, type in ‘new user’ followed by the password you wish to use. If in the future you need to change your password, you may do so, but you must activate the ‘change directory’ program to do so.”
She opened her book to the first few pages and skimmed them; yes, this was a standard screen, something the novice must read and respond to before going on. According to the instruction book, she must first press the square green key on the left side of the keyboard and then, when the screen emptied, type in her name. Not until then could she communicate with the god.
Cautiously, fearfully, she put her fingers against the square button, and gasped aloud when everything disappeared from the screen except a single blinking line. That’s what’s supposed to happen, she assured herself, but nonetheless, a momentary feeling of sickness threatened to overwhelm her. What if she did something awful? What if she unthinkingly destroyed this frail link to Jovah’s heart?
She would not. She would be careful. She had no choice.
She was now supposed to identify herself to the god. Painstakingly, because not all the symbols on the keyboard corresponded to the ones she knew, she picked out her message (“new user”) and then the letters of her name: A-L-L-E-L-U-I-A. Then she sat back in the chair and waited.
Nothing happened.
She glanced back at her textbook, worried again, but the mystery was soon solved. “Every time you wish to clear the screen or transmit a question, you must touch the Enter key,” the instructions said. Ah—the square button must be pressed again. Alleya complied.
Instantly, the screen dissolved into blackness and just as rapidly re-formed with a new message across the top of the glass. Alleya leaned forward and puzzled out the words.
“Welcome, Archangel Alleluia, daughter of the woman Hope and the angel Jude,” the god said. Alleya bounced in her chair, clapping her hands together like a child. He recognized her name! He knew her! She was right to have sought him out like this!
There was more, as the primer had told her there would be. “What do you wish to ask me?” was the brief question following the formal greeting.
She had more to ask than she could begin to formulate, and she wasn’t sure how many questions the god’s patience would endure. But she started with one of personal importance—it did, after all, have some bearing on the fate of the world.
“I must find my angelico,” she typed in slowly, hunting for each individual letter on the keyboard. “Can you name him?”
The answer was the one she expected. “Seek the son of Jeremiah.”
“Is the Archangel Gabriel the son of Jeremiah?” she asked.
“Yes,” the god replied.
“So I must seek one of his descendants?”
“No,” the answer appeared on the screen.
She had never been so taken aback. She stared for a moment at the single uncompromising syllable, then cleared the screen and restated her question.
“I am not to seek one of Gabriel’s descendants to be my angelico?”
“No,” the god said again.
“Then who am I to seek?”
“The son of Jeremiah.”
It came to her slowly, stupidly, the solution filtering into her brain like water sieving through sand: Jeremiah had had more than one son. To herself, Alleya said, Gabriel had a brother… and that would be… She knew this; every scholar knew this, but just for a moment her brain would not yield the information. “Nathaniel,” she whispered at last. “Gabriel’s half-brother. Who founded the angel hold at Cedar Hills, and, by divine dispensation, married the angel Magdalena…”
Her fingers curled into fists on either side of the keyboard, her eyes squeezed shut in an effort to slow the whirling thoughts in her head. “And they had six daughters, all but one of them angelic, and that mortal daughter was named Tamar…”
Her eyes flew open. And Tamar had a great-great-grandson named Caleb Augustus. Could it possibly be—?
Alleya unfurled her fingers above the keyboard, ready to ask this most momentous of questions, but before she could begin typing, the colors on the screen swirled and went blank. She sat motionless, her hands frozen in position, afraid of what she might see next. And indeed, the image that formed on the glowing glass sent a chill from her shoulders to her heels. Two words, each three or four inches high, stacked on top of each other. She remembered the last time she had been here, watching in apprehension as the screen changed to flash her just this message, before she knew how to read it. Even then, the words had filled her with an indefinable dread; now she was washed with a helpless sense of terror.
“SEND HELP,” the god was saying.
Three days of hard travel had brought Caleb to Velora, exhausted but determined. He arrived in the bustling little city in the morning and considered tying his mount up at the bottom of the grand staircase and immediately charging up the steps to look for Alleya. But he was famished, and dirty from three days of riding, and his long-suffering mare deserved a little better treatment than that. So he found an inn, stabled the horse, had a late breakfast and cleaned himself thoroughly. Then he was ready to seek a conference with the Archangel.
It was not such an easy thing as it had been the first time, for there were throngs of people gathered in the open plateau of the Eyrie, having come for exactly the same purpose. Caleb overheard a group of farmers grumbling, and edged closer to listen.
“Wasn’t this way when Delilah was Archangel,” one of them said. “You could count on her to be here on public days. Not flying off to the river cities and Breven and such. She serves in Bethel, she should stay in Bethel.”
“Well, I heard they’ve got rain in northern Gaza,” one of his companions was saying. “She’s got to take care of things everywhere. That’s why she’s Archangel.”
/> “Well, all I can say is, she should be here when she’s needed.”
Caleb drifted away, now frowning deeply. Was Alleya gone, then? Had he traveled all this way for nothing? When would she return? He was suffused with a violent impatience, totally foreign to his nature. He did not think he could wait another week or more to speak with her.
Half-a-dozen angels formed a crescent on the far end of the plateau, apparently taking complaints and offering what assistance they could in the Archangel’s absence. Caleb pushed through the crowd till he arrived at the side of a young, handsome angel with a sulky expression on his face.
“I’m looking for the Archangel,” Caleb said without preamble. “It’s important that I talk to her, but I understand she is not here?”
The angel gave him a haughty, considering look and shook his head. “She left an hour ago for other duties.”
An hour ago! Caleb knew his face registered dismay. “And where did she go? Can I find her somewhere else?”
“I am not free to repeat such details,” the angel said.
“One of those men over there—I heard them say something about Gaza. Is that where she’s gone?”
“The Archangel travels many places. Gaza may be one of the sites she plans to visit.”
Caleb wanted to strangle him. “Do you know—can you tell me—when she’ll be back at the Eyrie?”
“It is impossible to tell when the Archangel will return. If you are having problems with weather or plague, one of the other angels will be happy to hear your complaint.”
“No, I must talk to Alleya.”
The angel gave him a sharp look when Caleb used the familiar name. “If you wish to leave a message for the Archangel—” he began stiffly, but he was suddenly interrupted by one of the older angels standing nearby.
“You’re Caleb Augustus, aren’t you?” the second angel asked.
Caleb turned to him eagerly. “Yes. I’m sorry, do I know you?”
The older man waved his hand. “I’m Samuel. I was the one who directed you to Alleya last time you came. To fix the machines.”
“I need to talk to her.”
Samuel nodded. The younger angel stood listening, protest written in every line of his body, but Samuel took Caleb by the arm and drew him aside. “Asher’s a little protective of the Archangel, but he means well,” Samuel said with a slight smile. “She can do with a few protectors.”
“Yes,” Caleb agreed instantly. “Can you tell me where she is? I want to go to her.”
Samuel gave him a quick, appraising glance, but it was clear he had already made up his mind, or he would not have circumvented Ashen “She’s in Gaza at the moment, or on her way there,” he said. “But she plans to go to Sinai when she’s through with the Manadavvi.”
“Sinai! Did she say why?”
“She can be most evasive,” was Samuel’s dry response. “I believe she’s looking for information.”
Caleb was frowning. “So—how long do you think she’ll be gone?”
“A day there, a day to Sinai—” The angel paused. “Do you have transportation?”.
“A horse.”
“If you leave now, you could get to Sinai at about the same time she will.”
Caleb nodded. “Yes, I think I’ll do that. Stop for some more provisions before I leave Velora, and ride straight for the mountains.”
“Do you know how to get there? Do you need a map?”
“Thank you, I know the route. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help—”
Samuel smiled. “A guess only,” he replied.
“A guess?”
“I think she’ll be glad to see you.”
Caleb held out his hand and was pleased when Samuel shook it firmly. “Thank you again. If she’s happy to see me, I’ll tell her you sent me. If not”—he laughed—“I won’t mention your name.”
“Jovah guard you,” Samuel said. “Travel safely.”
A few short hours later, having taken a brief nap and restocked his supplies, Caleb and his sturdy mare were back on the road. He was chasing across the entire province after this particular woman. Not that he minded. He would cross the world for her.
The journey took him that whole day and most of the next one; and then there was the problem of the mountain. Well, the oracles expected company, so there was a path, but it was steeper than the one to Hagar’s Tooth and even rockier. Caleb stood at the base of the mountain and looked up as far as he could see, sighing a little. Oh, to be an angel and merely glide to the top of the peak on the most convenient spiral of wind. And this was clearly not a road he could expect his horse to climb, so he was back to his own two feet again.
“You did so well last time, let’s hope you can take care of yourself again,” he murmured to his mare as he unpacked his bags and set her free. Ground cover was sparse in this part of the world, but adequate, he thought; she should stay content enough for a day or two. If she was gone when he returned, well, he would walk back to Velora, or wherever Alleya had flown to next.
He settled his saddlebags over his shoulders, took one more measuring glance at the trail in front of him, then resolutely took his first step forward and started the wearisome climb.
For a long moment, Alleya stared at the screen, incapable of responding, unable to believe she was correctly interpreting the words that the god had spelled out. That was it, of course; she had misunderstood. Her book would explain what Jovah was really trying to say.
But she paged through the entire slim textbook, and nowhere did it offer an alternative definition of the words “SEND HELP.”
She pursed her lips, took a deep breath, and spread her hands once more over the keyboard. “You need assistance?” she asked the god.
The reply came back with unnerving swiftness. “Yes. Send technician immediately.”
Technician? “How can a technician help you?” she queried.
The reply made no sense to her at all, though she could pick out certain words: “repair,” “circuit board,” “malfunction.” None of these words appeared in her guidebook, either.
“How can I help you?” she asked when Jovah’s words came to a halt.
A one-word reply. “Teleport.”
As before, incomprehensible. She continued to ask questions as if they were reasonable, as if she were carrying on a logical conversation that she understood. “How can I teleport?”
This reply, at least, sounded sane. “Type in the word ‘teleport’ at the prompt, hit Enter, and within twenty seconds move to the inscribed pentagram on the floor in the center of the room.”
She glanced over to the middle of the chamber, but from this angle she could make out no sigils on the stone floor. She pushed the chair back, crossed the room and, bending low, inspected the floor. At first she could detect nothing through centuries of wear, but then, faintly, she was able to trace a star-shaped pattern that had been cut into the rock itself. She took a few moments to mark its five points with books snatched at random from the nearby archives. Twenty seconds was not long; she did not want to waste them seeking the pentagram again.
Although what would happen at the end of the twenty seconds, she could not even begin to guess.
Returning to the interface, she stood over the keyboard and typed in a message to Jovah. “I am ready,” she said. “Is there anything else I must do?”
“Only what I told you,” he replied. “Come quickly.”
She nodded, as if he could see her, and carefully keyed in the letters one at a time. “Teleport,” she wrote, then hesitated a moment, and touched the Enter key.
She ran to the pentagram, being careful not to disturb her books, and then stood there for the longest time, waiting for something indescribable to happen. Would a door open, would a voice speak, would the world around her magically change? But nothing moved or reacted. How long had she stood here—five seconds, fifteen seconds, forty-five? She should have begun a countdown when she first touched the keyboard. Perhaps nothing would
happen. Perhaps the interface was broken, perhaps even that method of communicating with Jovah had failed. She would stand here a moment longer, she would begin counting now. Once she reached one hundred and twenty, she would know something had gone wrong, and she would return to the interface.
She had reached the number five when two things happened at once. The air around her began to haze over with a glittering golden aura, and she heard someone shout her name. “The god is calling me!” she thought, a certain happiness cutting through the apprehension that had wrapped around her heart, and then the metallic, iridescent curtain drew taut around her.
She felt her body explode into a million tiny fragments, felt her hair and her fingertips and her toenails separately and distinctly detach from her body. She wanted to scream, but her throat had been ripped out; her heart clamped down and vanished. Something colder than ice, hotter than flame, washed over every inch of her body, and then her skin dissolved. In that instant, she once again heard a voice call out her name.
She could not tell how much time passed before she attempted to open her eyes again. She spent a good long time marveling over the fact that she was not dead, though she could not with certainty say she was alive. She seemed to be lying on some kind of cool, level surface, perhaps marble, perhaps not. She felt—odd—disembodied, as if she did not weigh as much as she should, as if she had been hollowed out and laid aside. As if her thoughts were no longer in her head. As if she had been disconnected from her body.
But she could flex her fingers and curl her toes; and her hands, when she put them to her face, found only the smooth contours of her spare cheeks and her closed eyelids. And she was breathing, and she could feel the galloping pace of her heart. And odd little hissing and gurgling noises were skirling past her ears, so she could still hear. So if she could still see, then presumably she was more or less whole.
