Angelica

by Sharon Shinn

  Her eyes, at the moment, were also smoldering with fury. “I thought I told you not to interfere with my life,” she said the instant she stepped inside the room.

  “What have I—” Gaaron began, but Nicholas interrupted.

  “Don’t talk to Gaaron that way!” the young angel exclaimed. “He’s the one who—”

  “I can talk to him any way I want, and I don’t need you here to tell me what to say,” Miriam shot back. “So why don’t you just leave?”

  “I was here first! And I’m not done talking to him.”

  “Well, what I have to say is more important.”

  The weight of dealing with Miriam settled on Gaaron’s shoulders right on top of the weight of Nicholas’ hero worship. For a man who was still two years away from thirty, Gaaron thought, he was accumulating burdens at an exceptionally rapid pace.

  “Quiet. Both of you,” Gaaron said in his deepest, sternest voice, and even Miriam paused in her tirade to listen to him. Most people did, when he employed that tone. He tried to resort to it rarely. “Nicky, we’ll talk later. Go to the kitchen, get something to eat, and then go to bed. Miriam, why don’t you close the door behind him, and then you and I can talk in privacy—and, I hope, with some civility.”

  All these directions were followed in absolute silence. Gaaron crossed the room to the small table by the window, and pulled out a chair. Specially designed to accommodate angel wings, the chair featured a narrow back that he could lean his spine against while his massive wings piled on the floor on either side of him. Miriam closed the door with some force behind Nicholas and strode across the room.

  “If you think—” she began hotly, but Gaaron interrupted.

  “Civilly,” he said. “And rationally. Sit down. I’ll listen.”

  Unwillingly, Miriam sat, then crossed her arms like a pouting child. She had pulled her beautiful hair into a knot on the back of her head, but some of it had come loose and tumbled across her cheeks. To Gaaron, she looked very young and very beautiful. Two more ways in which she did not resemble him at all.

  “If you think I am going to spend the summer with the Manadavvi just so Neri and her angels can watch over me, you are quite mistaken,” she said in cold, precise tones. “I won’t go.”

  Gaaron raised his eyebrows. “Who told you that’s what I was planning to do?”

  She looked even angrier. “So it’s true?”

  Gaaron shook his head. “It’s true that Lucas Karsh did extend the invitation, and that Neri forwarded it on. But I had made no decisions one way or the other. I was going to ask you if you were interested.”

  “Why would I be?” she demanded.

  “Well, why wouldn’t you be?” he said somewhat humorously. “You’re not happy here. I thought you might enjoy a change of scenery.”

  “But at Lucas Karsh’s holding?” she exclaimed. “With Neri flying in and out every other day just to spy on me?”

  “I can’t imagine Neri would have time to spy on you more than once or twice a month,” Gaaron said evenly. Neri led the host at Monteverde in Gaza, and the demands on her time were just as taxing as those on Gaaron’s. “She’s pretty busy.”

  “Well, she and old Lucas are great friends, and I know she’s in and out of his estate all the time,” Miriam said sullenly.

  “She values his opinion, that’s true. I still don’t think she would be bothering you quite as often as you envision. She thought—I thought—and I’m sure Lucas Karsh thought you might enjoy a chance to get away from the Eyrie for a while.”

  “And what would I do there, anyway?” Miriam burst out. “There’s nobody there my age, except his daughters, and they don’t like me. I don’t like them. I don’t like Lucas Karsh, either, when it comes to that. Stuffy old man.”

  “Well, then, you don’t have to go,” Gaaron said pleasantly. “So how else have you been spending your time, besides eavesdropping on other people’s conversations just to find out things that will make you angry?”

  That, of course, was calculated to make her even more furious. “Eaves—I was not! Esther came up to me and was scolding me for being out late last night, and looking so smug and stupid that I wanted to hit her, and I said she couldn’t tell me what to do and she said, ‘Things will be different when you’re at the Karsh estate,’ and then I made her tell me the rest of it. And I don’t know why you have to talk about me with Esther, or anybody else, for that matter, when you don’t even talk to me about me.”

  Naturally, Gaaron did not approve of hitting anybody for any reason, but he was in accord with Miriam at this moment; he would have liked to slap Esther himself. “I try to talk to you about you,” he said, keeping his voice gentle with an effort. “Usually, you’re the one who is withholding secrets.”

  Now she looked guarded and alarmed. “What kinds of secrets? I don’t have any secrets.”

  “Then you haven’t been singing down at that little place in Velora—what’s it called? Sordid.”

  “I can go to Velora if I want,” she said belligerently.

  “I never said you couldn’t.”

  There was a moment’s silence while she stared at him, trying to read his thoughts. “Well, and I can sing at Sordid if I want to,” she said. “You can’t stop me.”

  He opened his eyes wide, exaggerating his sense of surprise. “Do you really think I can’t?” he said.

  She jumped to her feet and began pacing. He merely watched her. “Well, you shouldn’t, then! You shouldn’t interfere in my life! I’m old enough to know what I want to do and I—”

  “You’re nineteen,” he interjected.

  “And I can make my own decisions.”

  “If you made good ones, I might agree with you,” he said. “But singing at a place called Sordid is not a good decision.”

  “Nothing’s ever happened to me there,” she flung at him over her shoulder. “No one’s taken any liberties or tried to hurt me or—or any of the other things I guess you’re afraid of.”

  “And why do you think that is?” he asked.

  She came to a halt, staring at him. “What? What have you done?”

  He shrugged. “I’m leader of the host here. I’ll be Archangel in less than a year. I would expect that, if I were to talk to the proprietor of any establishment in Velora—or, indeed, any inn or tavern or club from here to Luminaux—he would pay strict attention to anything I had to say. And if I asked him to take particular care that nothing untoward happened to my sister—I would think he would do everything in his power to keep her safe.”

  Miriam whirled away from him and began pacing in even more agitation. “I hate you!” she cried.

  “I don’t understand why.”

  “Why! Because I—because nothing I ever do can be done away from you! Because you watch over me every single second! Because you’re always there!”

  And you should be grateful for that, since my being there is all that’s kept you alive more than once, Gaaron thought somewhat grimly. Some of the sternness of his thought was translated to his voice as he said, “And I expect I will continue to watch over you until I’m certain that you’re doing a good enough job of watching over yourself. So far, you haven’t convinced me that you can take care of yourself.”

  She glared at him from those deep, dark eyes, which right now looked like wellsprings of hatred. “I never will convince you,” she said, her voice low and intense.

  “I hope you do,” he said quietly. “Someday.”

  She glowered at him another moment, and then she spun away and stalked off. She slammed the door behind her as she left.

  Not so good, Gaaron thought, listening to the silence resettle in the room after the sound of her footsteps disappeared. Esther was right. I have to do something about Miriam.

  That afternoon, giving up hope of solving the problems he was having with his sister anytime soon, Gaaron took off for Mount Sinai. The day was sunny and fine—warm on the ground, but cooler the higher he flew, and he cruised at the upper a
ltitudes that his body could stand. Here, the cold was an actual presence, a pressure on his back and shoulders, an icy mantle laid over his outstretched arms. The air itself was thin, hard to breathe, and sharp; it was like inhaling razors. But Gaaron loved it. He loved the effort he could feel from each of his muscles as he powered through the resistant air. He loved the sweep and plunge of his great wings, the brief vacuum created by the forced upswing, the strength and energy in the hard thrust downward, so powerful it scattered the separate molecules of the wind before him. He was a big man, tall in stature and thick in body, and he was always aware of this when he stood on the earth. He tried, when he was near mortals or even other angels, not to take advantage of his size and never to strike an intimidating stance. But high above the world, alone on the currents of air, he could savor his sheer brute power. He could battle the cold and the wind and the ungenerous atmosphere, and he could wrestle out an exultant victory.

  It took nearly three hours to fly to Mount Sinai, located about one hundred and fifty miles due east of the Eyrie in a mountain range of its own. Although petitioners could reach it by way of a snaking, narrow path up the mountain, Gaaron had it much easier. He circled once, to get a proper perspective, then eased down to land on the small stone apron at the entrance to the mountain retreat. He came down lightly, wings outspread to their fullest until he had reabsorbed all his weight on his feet. Then he folded the big wings back, ducked his head to enter the threshold, and stepped inside the corridors of Mount Sinai.

  It was a place of cool gray stone and calm silences, heavy with the accumulated prayers of holy people. Here, two hundred and forty years ago, when men and angels had originally settled upon Samaria, the first oracle had taken up residence. And every day since that day, oracles had lived here, communing with the god, consulting with their priests, training their acolytes, and guiding the spirituality of their people. Oracles also lived at Mount Sudan in Gaza and Mount Egypt in Jordana, but this was the oldest retreat, the first one established, and it had, or so it seemed to Gaaron, a special quality of piety and peace.

  An acolyte came up to greet him as he stepped into the common room where a handful of petitioners waited to see Mahalah. “Angelo,” she said in a low voice. “We were not expecting this honor.”

  He smiled at her and nodded his head. “I am content to wait until the oracle is free.”

  “She will want to see you immediately,” the acolyte said.

  Gaaron gestured at the four people already waiting. All of them recognized him, of course, and none of them looked prepared to resent the fact that his claims might supersede their own. “I will take my turn,” he said. “It will be a pleasure to sit quietly in a quiet place and listen to the clamoring of my thoughts.”

  She bowed her head. “I will tell the oracle what you have said.”

  Once she left, Gaaron glanced around the room and picked out the only chair that might suit him, a backless stool with sturdy legs. The three men and one woman sitting in the room glanced his way, nodded or murmured “Angelo,” and then returned their attention to their own concerns. Wherever else one might socialize while awaiting a service, the anteroom of the oracle’s chambers was not it; here, no one would approach him casually or stoop down by his chair to ask a favor. He had spoken truly to the acolyte: He would enjoy an hour or two to merely sit and think without fear of importuning or interruption.

  Actually, it was less than an hour before the anteroom emptied and another female acolyte came to fetch Gaaron for his audience with Mahalah. He followed her down the quiet corridors, hearing the shush-shush of his wings as they brushed both walls behind him. These hallways were smaller and narrower than the ones at the Eyrie. They were perfectly adequate, yet he always felt as if he should lower his head or hunch his shoulders more closely to his body, as if he was too big for the space or it might close up on him unexpectedly. It was something of a relief to make it to the large open chamber at the end of the corridor and step into the heart of the oracle’s world.

  Mahalah was sitting in a wheeled chair at a table near the center of the room. She smiled when Gaaron entered, but did not rise. Indeed, she could not rise. She was elderly and frail, and her bones would no longer support her. Gaaron had asked her more than once if she was in pain as well as being weak, but she had always dismissed that as a matter of no concern. He supposed that she was.

  “Gaaron,” she said, holding out her hand as he crossed the room. Her fingers were small, stubby twigs encased in loose, hot folds of skin. Her arms were covered in layers of flowing blue silk, but enough of the fabric fell back from her hand that he could see the fragile sticks that constituted the bones between her wrist and elbow. Her round, wrinkled face was wreathed in wispy gray hair, and the skin on her cheekbones was layered with age. Still, her eyes were a glittering black, snapping with intelligence, and there was some power in the pressure of her fingers. “An unexpected pleasure to greet you here today,” she said.

  “I have been meaning to come for the past few weeks,” he said, accepting the chair she indicated. She brought her chair closer, till only a small table separated them. “To inquire after your health, if nothing else. Are you as strong as ever?”

  She smiled; it was something of a joke. “I will outlive you,” she promised. She turned to the young acolyte and requested food and drink to be brought to them. The girl bowed and departed.

  “I have never seen any but young women serving you here,” Gaaron remarked. “Is that because you find young men too rowdy and high-spirited, or because you think they cannot be trusted to serve the god with the attention he requires?”

  Mahalah smiled, then sighed. “No, it is because of a stupid decision made fifty years ago, and I would very much like to reverse it. It happened around the time I came to be oracle here and Isaac stepped into the post at Mount Sudan. Before then, all the oracles had accepted both boys and girls as acolytes, but there had been some trouble at Mount Sudan. Too much intermingling between the sexes, with the result that—well, there were some unwanted pregnancies and a few young people sent home in disgrace. I am not a prude,” she added quickly, “but two of those girls were barely fifteen. So Isaac decreed that he would only induct boys at Mount Sinai, to prevent such trouble in the future. And I immediately said that I would accept only girls here, just so the god did not perceive any favoritism among us. But I am a little sorry sometimes. I love my girls, but I miss the energy and chaos that boys can bring.”

  Gaaron grinned. “Take it from me, girls can bring just as much chaos if they put their minds to it.”

  She smiled back. “Which leads me to ask, how is your sister?”

  Now he grimaced. “Miriam is . . . Miriam. She is not very happy with me these days. I interfere too much in her life.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t interfere in her life at all. She would still be restless and turbulent. That is the nature of the woman who bears such a name.”

  Before he could reply, the acolyte entered again with a tray of refreshments. She set it on the table between them, bowed, and left the room soundlessly.

  Gaaron absently filled his plate; his mind was on the last thing Mahalah had said. “Her name has a meaning? I thought it was just one of the names from the Librera.”

  “As is mine, and yours, and everybody’s,” Mahalah replied. “But, yes, most of those names did at one time mean something. You, for instance. Gabriel Aaron. Your names mean ‘God is my strength’ and ‘mountain of strength’—so you see, you were very well named. Mine isn’t so clear in translation, some texts say it means ‘dancer’ and some say ‘harpist.’ And Miriam—well, the name means ‘rebellion.’ Of all of us, perhaps, she was the most aptly called.”

  “I thought the names were just . . .” Gaaron shrugged, then smiled. “A collection of pleasing syllables.”

  “Yes, we have forgotten much in the centuries since we have been on Samaria,” Mahalah said in a regretful voice. “We came to this place knowing a great deal—a
bout the world our people lived on before, about the way we arrived on this world, about the order of the stars and the planets above us. We’ve lost all that. We’ve lost our history.” She snorted. “We’ve even lost our language, to some extent. Can you read the Librera? Not one in five can. Maybe not one in ten. Our language has changed, and some of the words in the great book are lost to us. How much more will we lose as the centuries roll on? Two hundred years from now, what else will we have forgotten?”

  Gaaron listened, frowning. “But what have we lost? We know that Jovah carried us away from the world where our fathers lived because there was such hatred and dissonance there that he feared we would all die in a fire of self-destruction. And that he brought us here to Samaria, and bid us live in harmony—as we have done. And because technology brought about the weapons that led to the ruin of our old world, we have chosen to do without technology on our new one. What else is there to know? What important parts have we forgotten?”

  She leaned forward, her black eyes intense. “How did he bring us here? Through what method?”

  Gaaron sat back, perplexed. “He carried us here in his hands. So the Librera says.”

  “And can you read the Librera?” she shot back.

  “I—a few words—not whole chapters,” he said.

  “So you cannot translate the passage about how his hands wrapped about us and ferried us through the stars to this planet. But don’t you wonder about that? Just a little? How his hands held us? There were hundreds in that first settlement. Whose hands are big enough to hold that many lives at once?”

  Gaaron smiled a little. “Oracle, are you speaking blasphemy?”

  She settled back in her wheeled chair and shook her head. “No, I am sighing over the ignorance of the world,” she said. “I am a devout woman, but I have always had a lot of questions. It amazes me that more people do not have the same questions.”

  “Most people are too busy trying to organize their lives to trouble themselves with questions of theology,” he said.