Angelica

by Sharon Shinn

  She ranged ahead of him to check on Amram, who sat quite determinedly in the saddle and swore he felt no fatigue at all. She interrogated him rather more closely, for she knew his father had not watched him all day, and she wanted to make sure he had gotten in no trouble and had fed himself a noon meal besides. But he answered satisfactorily, and even showed her some pipes and whistles he’d bought at a music academy, and so she concluded that he’d spent his day at least as profitably as the rest of them.

  She kicked her mare forward so she could ride with Keren for a while when Bartholomew, who was in the lead, pulled his horse to a sudden stop. Perforce the rest of them halted behind him. They were about an hour outside of the city by this time, and a thin twilight had washed the sky with gold, but visibility was not perfect. Bartholomew squinted a little and pointed with his left hand.

  “Campfire? Over there? Did we pass another campsite on our way into the city?” he asked.

  Susannah looked and, sure enough, she could see gray smoke rising up from a central point about half a mile away. It did not look like smoke from a campfire, she thought, though she was not sure why. Perhaps because it did not curl up in one smooth tendril, but seemed to rise from an area so broad that no one would build a campfire that big, not even at the Gathering.

  “Perhaps another clan arrived while we were in the city,” Eleazar said. “The Corvallas come this way sometimes in the summer.”

  “And the Chicatas,” Thaddeus added.

  “Good news, then!” Dathan said recklessly. “Let’s go invite them to our camp for the night. We have traveled alone for months now. It would be good to have some company at the fire.”

  It annoyed Susannah, just a little, that he would say such a thing; Dathan was never so happy as when he could meet a stranger. It was as if the familiar and the beloved were never quite enough for him. But she strangled her resentment and quickly added her voice to the general murmur of approval that ran through the group.

  “It might not be Edori,” Bartholomew warned. “It might be Jansai.” That silenced them a bit. The gypsy Jansai clans were almost as mobile as the Edori, though most of them returned from time to time to their single permanent settlement, a city called Breven, which was set up in the desert region on the far eastern edge of Jordana. The Jansai were merchant traders, and not always strictly honest, and they treated their women like rare possessions that must be hidden from all outside eyes. In general, the Edori could not fathom the Jansai and the Jansai lifestyle—and at times, for no real reason, the Edori feared the Jansai, just a little. The Edori were always wary when they came across the gypsies.

  “Even so, let us see who is camped here,” Thaddeus said. “If it is Jansai, we do not need to linger.”

  “But it is probably Edori,” Dathan said.

  “I would like to see the Chicatas again,” Keren said.

  They all began to move forward, a little north of their true route, to go say hello to whatever clan might be found camping here on the southern plains.

  But they never did learn what tribe the Edori were from, or even if the travelers were Edori and not Jansai. For when they got close enough, they could tell that there was indeed something amiss about the fire—and, closer still, they could tell that it was not a campfire at all.

  But it had, at some point, been a camp. And a fire.

  Silent, shocked, hardly able to credit what they were seeing, they came closer to the burning ground. A circle of tents or wagons had been formed here on the plains, travelers settled in the middle, horses no doubt tethered just outside. But all of that was gone. Now there was a great scorched circle of grass and canvas and bone, as if a sudden conflagration had erupted in the middle of a peaceful campfire and incinerated everything in seconds. There was almost nothing recognizable in the blackened remains, even now still flickering with remnants of fire. Here what might be a charred body—there the outline of a cart, crumbled into coals on the smoldering grass.

  They looked at one another in horror, several of them mouthing prayers to Yovah because they could not trust themselves to say the words out loud. Jansai or Edori, no one deserved to die like this. They still could not guess what could have caused a tragedy both so comprehensive and so contained. Nothing they knew of burned so rapidly that no one standing nearby could escape it—and then burned itself out, leaving a tidy circle of destruction behind.

  They could not keep themselves from glancing from side to side, looking for the wounded child, the smoke-sick survivor. But nothing living remained here at this prairie campsite. Even the carrion birds, quick to scent disaster, had passed this place by.

  C hapter T wo

  Gaaron laid his voice against Esther’s pure soprano and held the tenor note so long she gave him a quick sideways glance. Smiling, he modulated down the required scale, note for note skipping under her voice by a series of minor thirds. The Argosy in F Major was not much of a showpiece for either of the singers, but it had been, after all, designed to display the woman’s part to its best advantage, and Gaaron needed to pay more attention to Esther’s styling and take his cues from her. He made a little grimace, intended to convey “I’m sorry,” since he could not pause to speak the words. She shrugged, and smiled, and lifted her voice in the octave leap that was the only impressive moment in the whole score.

  It was dawn, and only the really luckless would be awake to hear them mauling this sacred piece, but still. Whenever you raised your voice to Jovah, you should do it with as much skill and enthusiasm as you possessed. Here at the Eyrie, the angels and the mortals made a point of singing to Jovah every hour of every day, so that there was never silence in the hold, and the god knew they were thinking about him, raising their prayers to him, without ceasing. Naturally, at least two singers must be employed at a time, for the central principle of their lives was harmony. Only if the god saw that the races of Samaria existed in harmony would he continue to love and protect them—and harmony never failed here at the Eyrie.

  Only recently had Gaaron begun signing up for the very early duets, but he had discovered that he liked to be abroad at this hour. Almost no one was awake, and the whole stone complex was quiet. Here in the little cupola at the top of the Eyrie—the open-air chamber that had been constructed more than two centuries ago to suit just such singers as themselves—he could look over the whole complex, and half of Bethel besides. Situated at the very top of the Velo Mountains, the Eyrie was a vast and labyrinthine complex of beige-quartz stone that housed all the angels of Bethel and the mortals who resided with them. From this vantage point, the highest in the Eyrie, Gaaron could look down on the small town of Velora at the foot of the mountains, and at the summer-green plains that spread southward from the mountains as far as the horizon would allow him to see. Except for their singing, there was no sound in the world. The sky was a hazy white just now starting to deepen into blue. Everything seemed new-made, unused, sweet with possibilities.

  Esther finished off the Argosy with a pretty little “Amen,” then sent her voice down on a series of half notes till she hit a new key she liked. Gaaron only had to listen to the first few notes before he recognized the Fiat by Lochevsky, and he added the tenor underpinnings that would anchor the soprano notes in place. Esther was a polished though not particularly imaginative singer, a matronly mortal woman with high-piled white hair and a sharp-edged face that always appeared on the verge of a frown. Although Gaaron was usually a traditionalist himself, he preferred it when one of the younger residents of the Eyrie joined him on these dawn watches. They were more apt to try some of the more difficult contemporary pieces, which they sang with gusto even when they missed some of the more unlikely notes. Esther didn’t have much flair even on the pieces she had been singing since she was a child.

  But that was unkind. Gaaron was never unkind. He told himself to be more generous, and to pay more attention. When Esther’s voice tumbled from G-sharp to the tricky B-flat, Gaaron’s was right there on the F to bolster her up. She smiled
again, pleased at the ringing harmony. He smiled back.

  Bolstering people up was what the leader of the Eyrie’s angelic host was best equipped to do.

  They had made it through most of the Fiat before their replacements showed up at the cupola’s narrow door, yawning their way through their first sentient hour of the day. Zibiah and Ahio were both angels, both young—and both, Gaaron would have sworn, had been up fairly late the night before. Still, you never missed a harmonic if you had signed up for it on the previous day. No matter what adventures your evening might have led to, if you were expected just after sunrise, then you had better be prepared to sing just as the sky turned blue.

  Zibiah joined her voice to Esther’s on the last chorus of the Fiat, while Ahio brought in the bass line just under Gaaron’s. The final few measures were done in a very robust three-part harmony that made the piece, briefly, seem truly sacred. As the four of them held on to the final notes, Ahio gave Zibiah three downbeats with his head. Then the two of them burst into a flurry of careless arpeggios that seemed to laugh the morning sun above the prairie. Gaaron could not help a smile. Ahio was a composer, of a sort, though you had to be an energetic and quick-witted singer to be able to romp through any of his pieces. Gaaron nodded a good morning at them, then followed Esther out of the cupola and down toward the main plateau of the Eyrie.

  Esther was shaking her head. “That girl’s as silly as they come,” she said. “As silly as any mortal girl come up to the hold to try to snare an angel lover. Some days I don’t know what to do with her.”

  Since Esther was the de facto steward of the entire hold, the one who handled most of the housekeeping problems and was everyone’s first ear to complain to when anything went wrong, she had some basis for saying that. But Gaaron frowned anyway.

  “Don’t do anything with her,” he said mildly. “She’s young, and a little flighty, but she always meets her responsibilities. Whenever I’ve sent her out to take care of a petition, she’s gone willingly and done a reasonable job. The farmers like her—all the mortals like her.”

  Esther snorted. “The mortal boys, maybe.”

  Gaaron smiled again. “Well, that’s not such a bad thing.”

  “And your sister, Miriam,” Esther pursued, as if he had agreed with her, “she’s another one. She’s even worse than Zibiah.”

  “I don’t think Miriam’s very happy these days,” Gaaron said.

  “She would be if she would just do as she’s told!”

  Gaaron tried another smile, but he could feel that on his face it looked sad. “I think she feels that if she does what I want her to do, she will be even less happy than she is now.”

  “But you know what’s right for her!” Esther exclaimed. “You know what’s right for everybody! You’re to be Archangel!”

  And that, Gaaron thought, was the root of the problem.

  “I certainly don’t know what’s right for everybody,” he said, still in that mild tone of voice. “And I’m often wrong in Miriam’s case.”

  “Since your mother died—” Esther began, but Gaaron cut her off.

  “Since longer ago than that,” he said. “Don’t trouble yourself about Miriam. I will deal with her.”

  It was a relief, after this, to enter the wide, well-lit tunnels and separate. Esther headed down to the kitchens to meddle in someone else’s life. Gaaron turned to the hallway that led to his chambers, hoping to escape to a few moments of privacy.

  It was a faint hope, and it died when he came to his room and found the door standing open. Nicholas was waiting inside, staring out the triple window, and toying with the laces of his shirt. He was dressed for flying, in leather trousers and vest, and his long, narrow wings fell to thin, elegant points on Gaaron’s blue rug.

  “Nicholas,” Gaaron said civilly, coming inside and letting the door stay open behind him. Nicholas was a tall, lean, restless young man who always made Gaaron feel even bigger and more solid than he was. For the older angel topped the younger one by almost a head, and his shoulders were twice as broad. And his wingspan—of which he tried not to be vain—was glorious, a lush snowy expanse of feathers and muscle that could unfurl to practically fill the room. Nicholas had said once that Gaaron was a mountain while he, Nicholas, was a spire, and Gaaron had never been able to forget the comparison. Though Nicholas had probably forgotten it as soon as the words left his mouth.

  “Gaaron! Lovely harmonics this morning. That was Esther with you, I take it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Impossible to mistake her voice,” the younger angel said irrepressibly. “Or her selection of music.”

  Gaaron crossed the room to pour himself a glass of water. The singing had made him thirsty. “I assume there’s some reason you’ve sought me out so early in the day?” he asked. “And made yourself welcome in my room?”

  Nicholas waved off the last remark. “I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I thought you were down south,” Gaaron said.

  “I was. Yesterday. Flew back all night.”

  Gaaron glanced over at him appraisingly. Ah, so then the flying leathers were a holdover from a night journey, and not a preparation for the activities of the day. He should have known; Nicholas was not habitually an early riser. “And did you solve the weather crisis by the Corinnis?” Gaaron asked.

  “Yes, but that was simple. A few prayers,” Nicholas said impatiently. “But Gaaron, I heard a strange thing while I was there.”

  “In southern Bethel?” Gaaron asked with faint humor. “They are all farmers and miners there. They don’t trade in strange things.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought, that’s what made it stranger,” Nicholas said. “And I heard it from more than one man—and they all looked sober as Esther at the crack of dawn.”

  Gaaron frowned at the joke but motioned Nicholas to continue. “What they told me—all three of them—was that they’d seen an unknown man in the fields one day. He was far enough away that they couldn’t really see his features, but none of them recognized him, and he didn’t have a horse nearby, and no one had seen him traveling in that direction, though the land’s so flat you can see a man approach from twenty miles. And they all said that his skin was very dark, darker than an Edori’s, black almost. And he was wearing strange clothing, very tight to his body, like an angel’s, only it looked like it was made out of a shiny material. And when one or two of them decided to approach him, to see if he needed something, he disappeared.”

  Gaaron waited a moment, but apparently that was the end of the story. Nicholas watched him with a blazing excitement in his eyes. He was blue-eyed and dark-haired, and any emotion painted a ruddy flush across his narrow cheeks. “He disappeared where?” Gaaron said politely.

  Nicholas waved his hands. “That’s it! Disappeared! To nowhere! One moment he was there, and then he was gone, and not one of them saw where he went.”

  “Well, I’m sure he—”

  “Gaaron, they took me to the place. It’s a level field of crops with no treeline, no hills, no little dips and valleys that a man could duck behind. I mean, you have to walk for half an hour before you’re out of someone’s line of sight. One moment he was there, and then he was gone. They all said the same thing.”

  Gaaron considered, but he could not think of any good responses. It seemed unlikely that a strange visitor really had disappeared from the full sight of three hardworking, no-nonsense Bethel farmers—but then, it seemed unlikely that any such men had banded together to make up this story just to confound the angels. “Had they ever witnessed a thing like this before?” he finally asked.

  Nicholas looked impatient. “No! And I’d be bound to say no one else has, either! Gaaron, a strange man just showed up on the Bethel plans and then un-showed up a few minutes later! Don’t you find that miraculous? Don’t you find that terrifying?”

  “Well, I don’t know what I can be expected to do about it, since he’s gone now,” Gaaron said placidly. “What did you want me to do?”
>
  “I don’t know,” Nicholas said with a black frown. “I just thought—you know everything. You would know what to do now.”

  “I hardly know everything,” Gaaron said. “But I can’t see what good it will do to get frantic over this, when we don’t know what it means, we don’t know if it will happen again—we don’t even know for sure what the farmers saw.”

  “Well—but you could go there, couldn’t you?” Nicholas asked. “You could fly out there today and see for yourself. Maybe he’ll appear again and you can talk to him. He’d hear what you have to say.”

  Again, Nicholas’ statement of utter belief in Gaaron’s powers. Gaaron felt a momentary weight settling across his shoulders, as he so often did in Nicholas’ company. “I could do that,” Gaaron said. “I need to go to Mount Sinai today or tomorrow, but after that I could head to southern Bethel if it would make you happy.”

  “Yes! But you should go now, first, and then go see Mahalah after you have returned,” Nicholas said eagerly.

  Gaaron could not help smiling. “I think the order in which I do things doesn’t matter so much,” he said gently. “But I will head down there in a day or so. You can even come with me if you like.”

  Nicholas started to reply, but before he had gotten a few headlong words into his next sentence, another visitor stepped through the open door. It was Miriam, and she looked stormy. As always, Gaaron was struck by how unlike him she seemed, both in temperament and looks. Nonetheless, they were full brother and sister, not half, like so many children of angelic descent. She was mortal, while he was angel—small-boned where he was big—a lustrous blonde, while he had short, light-brown hair of no particular style or beauty. All they had in common was bark-brown eyes, deep and still and watchful.