Angelica

by Sharon Shinn

  Miriam looked aghast that Susannah did not know the exact date. “Yes! The spring equinox, to be precise. So you have plenty of time to learn one.”

  “But a mass—that’s formal music, isn’t it? All I’ve ever sung are camp songs and ballads. I don’t even—and I’m not used to performing solos—”

  “What part do you sing? Most angelicas are sopranos.”

  Susannah looked at her helplessly. “I don’t think so.”

  Miriam’s eyes went even wider. “You’re not a soprano? I don’t know—are any of the masses written for an alto lead? We’ll have to check. This makes it even more interesting.”

  “Maybe I can’t sing, then,” Susannah said hopefully.

  “You have to.”

  Before Susannah could reply, a winged shape threw its shadow over them and then resolved itself into a young man. He was quite beautiful in a careless sort of way, Susannah thought, with an easy, negligent smile and a magnificently modeled body. “Are you talking about womanly things, or may I join you?”

  “Ahio, are there masses written for alto leads?” Miriam demanded.

  Seeming to consider the question itself an invitation, he pulled out a chair and reversed it, sitting so that his arms rested on the chair back and his wings spread out on the floor behind him. “Must be,” he said. “I can’t think of any offhand.”

  “Susannah’s an alto.”

  He smiled over at her and she felt herself smile in return. “Congratulations.”

  “It seems to be a liability,” she said.

  He shrugged and his wings lifted and fell with a sweet sighing. “Rewrite the mass. Put it in a new key. Make the tenor part the descant. It’s not very hard.”

  “Well, since I don’t know any masses to begin with, it would be very hard for me,” Susannah said with some asperity.

  “Ahio is a composer. He’ll help you,” Miriam said.

  “I’d have to know your range, though.”

  Miriam jumped up. “Let’s go find out.”

  Ahio got lazily to his feet and Susannah more slowly rose. “You mean—go somewhere and sing—now?” Susannah asked.

  “Unless you don’t feel like singing,” Miriam said.

  Susannah hesitated just a moment. It was something to do, at any rate, and the more time she spent in Miriam’s bright company, the less time she would have to spend alone in her room. “Why not?”

  So they led her down through the winding, confusing corridors of the Eyrie to a small windowless chamber that was completely underground. The sensation of being buried alive pressed hard on Susannah; she found it a little difficult to breathe, here where no air could possibly reach. The room was well-lit and paneled on one wall with metal and glass cabinets that housed complex, indecipherable parts.

  “Those are the music machines, you use them to play the old masses,” Miriam said as Susannah moved closer to the wall to examine them. “They’re very strange, aren’t they? When I was a child, I was afraid to touch them, but apparently they’ve been operating for more than two hundred years and they’re impossible to break.”

  Susannah put a hand up to touch the glass, then the metal, cool and sleek and utterly foreign to her waking experience. And so unexpectedly familiar. “I’ve seen these before,” Susannah murmured.

  “Really? At Windy Point or Monteverde? I thought you’d never been inside a hold before.”

  Susannah shook her head. “In my dreams.”

  There was a polite silence behind her, and she turned to find Miriam and Ahio both looking quizzical. She spread her hands to indicate that she could not explain very well. “I have these—these strange dreams now and then,” she said. “I’m wandering through a place that’s all white and silver and glass. I’ve never seen anything that even resembled the place of my dream—except these machines. I know it sounds odd,” she added. “It seems odd to me, too.”

  “Well, maybe your mother brought you to an angel hold when you were a little baby, and you saw these rooms, and your mind never forgot it even though you didn’t really remember it,” Miriam said.

  “Or maybe somehow my spirit knew that someday I would be among the angels, and it prepared me for that moment with those dreams,” Susannah said. “That’s what the Edori would tell me.”

  “But it doesn’t matter,” Miriam said, already losing interest. “Let’s practice something. What can you sing?”

  Susannah named a few songs that they didn’t know, and they named a few that she had never heard of, but eventually they compiled a list of three or four popular songs that all three of them were pretty sure they could perform.

  “You start,” Susannah said. “I’ll come in on the chorus.”

  So Miriam, with complete unself-consciousness, opened her mouth and began singing. Her voice was high and sweet, pleasantly accented by Ahio’s deep tenor, which he joined to hers in the middle of the second line. It was a silly little upbeat song, but their voices were very fine, extremely well-trained, and absolutely on the mark. It was a pleasure to listen to them.

  Susannah dropped in as they swung into the chorus, harmonizing as she always did. It was as if her voice was a rich ingredient that she added to an appetizing stew, making the dish more flavorful, though the individual spices could not have been sifted out once they were all stirred together. To do this she always had to hear the other voices first, match hers to theirs, re-create their tones and rhythms with her own. It was as if her voice changed for every performance, became at least briefly an extension of someone else’s. It was as if she borrowed those other voices, and embroidered them, and returned them more beautiful and ornate than they were.

  She caught Miriam’s startled look when her voice settled under the soprano part, and Ahio’s smile. She didn’t know what it was that made them react, whether she sounded worse than they’d hoped or better. In any event, they all kept singing, through the second verse, the third, and both choruses. Miriam lifted a hand to indicate that they should all hold the final note a few more beats, though Susannah could not resist fooling with the harmony, changing the chord from major to minor and back again while the others held the octave. A single downbeat and they all abruptly cut off their notes. A moment of quiet, then the usual laughter and quick catches of breath that followed nearly any song.

  “But Susannah! What a beautiful voice you have!” Miriam exclaimed. “From how you talked, I was not expecting much, but—it’s simply gorgeous!”

  “Well, both of you are so much better than I am that I’m a little embarrassed—”

  Miriam waved a hand. “Classically trained. Not better. And what was that harmony you did?”

  “When?”

  “On the second chorus,” Ahio said. “Did you write that yourself?”

  She had to think back. “Oh. I was just playing. I thought it would sound pretty.”

  The others exchanged glances. “You just made it up right then? As we were singing?” Miriam asked.

  “Didn’t you like it?”

  “It was great, but—how can you do that? I can write harmony, but it takes me weeks to get it right,” Miriam said.

  “I don’t know. I just hear it in my head. It sounds right.”

  Ahio was grinning. “The natural musician. Music comes to you unbidden. It’s pretty rare.”

  Susannah shrugged. “It happens to me all the time.”

  “It comes to you in those strange dreams,” Miriam suggested.

  Susannah laughed. “I don’t think so.”

  Ahio was more intent on the music. “Let’s try the Galilee River song. Susannah, you lead this time.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t . . . I don’t like to hear my voice by itself.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to—”

  Ahio shook his head at Miriam, silencing her. “Not today. Let’s just see what else she can do.”

  So this time he led off. The piece was a little more demanding in terms of pace and rhythm, but naturally neither of the hold-
born singers missed a note and Susannah was determined not to, either. Ahio changed keys at every new verse, nudging them higher and higher until Miriam’s eyes grew wide with reproach, though her voice never faltered.

  “Stop that,” the blond girl said at the end of the fifth verse before Ahio could go up another half-step. “You’re making my throat hurt.”

  He gave her a lazy smile. “She can hit it, though,” he said. “Her range is as good as Adriel’s. Different octaves, but just as many notes.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Miriam said. “Now we just have to find the right mass for her, and she can practice for eight months.”

  “I’ve never heard one of these masses,” Susannah said somewhat cautiously, because the very word conjured up visions of grandiose and fabulously difficult musical arabesques. “You said you could play one for me? So I could hear it?”

  “How about the Lochevsky Magnificat?” Miriam said with a little giggle, but Ahio gave her a quelling look.

  “Something a little simpler, I think,” he said, advancing to the wall of machines and studying some mechanical display. “Here. The Orison. It’s a little tricky in spots, but she’ll get the general idea.”

  Miriam promptly plopped herself onto the floor, so Susannah followed suit, crossing her legs under her and preparing for a long stay. “We don’t have to listen to the whole thing,” Miriam whispered. “But just to give you an idea.”

  “How long is a mass?”

  “Two hours or more.”

  “Two hours! I can’t sing for two hours!”

  “Sshh,” Ahio said, turning away from the machine and coming to join them on the floor. He sat down with one effortless movement, his wings spilling out behind him on the polished floor like bolts of dropped silk. “Don’t miss the beginning.”

  And, indeed, seconds later, the chamber was filled with the eerie, disembodied sound of a woman singing. Her voice was so beautiful that Susannah was transfixed. It looped up and down the complex measures of the mass like a hand dashing color onto a canvas, and it was so gorgeous that it seemed to fill the air of the music chamber with additional layers of depth and texture. She was a soprano, but like no soprano Susannah had ever heard, and the Edori almost could not breathe for the first five minutes of the solo.

  When the male voice joined hers in a minor duet, Susannah felt the skin on the back of her shoulders tingle with awe. She actually pulled her knees up closer to her body and drew herself into a tight hug, to make herself into one small, unmoving, listening creature. She had never heard anything like this; she couldn’t imagine that such voices had ever existed. When the choral group came in on the first response, she actually gasped, and then she shook her head. She felt sated, as if she’d eaten injudiciously at a summer feast, and dizzy, as if she’d accompanied the meal with too much wine.

  Ahio stretched up and turned off the music as soon as the chorus came to its end. They had been listening for less than thirty minutes; could it be possible that there was another hour and a half of that sublime music still to come?

  “That’s just the opening movement, but it gives you the general feel of it,” Ahio said. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t sing like that!” Susannah exclaimed.

  Miriam laughed. “Well, of course you can’t. No one can. That’s Hagar and Uriel.”

  “The best voices of their generation, and, if you can believe the reports angels have left behind over the past two centuries, the best voices ever,” Ahio observed. “Even Gaaron can’t sing like Uriel, and I’d rather hear Gaaron than anyone I know.”

  “But I—I don’t even think I can learn the song, let alone deliver it right,” Susannah continued. “This is—I don’t think seven or eight months is long enough!”

  “You’ll pick it up a lot faster than you think,” Ahio said. “I’m not worried at all.”

  “Well, no, you don’t seem like the type who worries about anything!” Susannah declared, which earned a burst of laughter from Miriam and a grin from Ahio. “And you’re not the one who’s going to be standing up there making a fool of yourself in front of however many hundreds of people show up for this Gloria of yours.”

  “Thousands, usually,” Ahio said. “But we’ll find the right piece for you. Don’t fret about a thing.”

  And, indeed, over the next few hours, the next few days, Susannah found it easy to follow Ahio’s advice. From the music room they went to the common rooms in search of Nicholas, and he was just like the other two, Susannah thought—careless, happy, and easygoing. The four of them lounged in Nicholas’ far-from-clean room and talked the afternoon away, though later Susannah could not exactly pinpoint what their discussions had been about. Gossip about angels, living here or in the other angel holds—stories about trips they’d taken, weather intercessions performed, and small services rendered—shopping trips embarked upon, meals eaten, fashions mocked. None of it carried much weight. All of it seemed to elicit much hilarity. Susannah didn’t contribute much to the conversation, but she laughed a great deal, and she felt energized with happiness when they all finally made their way down to the dining area for the evening meal.

  Here they were joined by another angel, a soft-spoken dark-haired girl introduced as Zibiah. She was not nearly as flamboyant as Miriam, but just as relaxed and friendly as the others, and Susannah could instantly see how these four had become friends. At first Susannah felt a little shy, as if she was intruding on a circle of friendship that was already complete, but Zibiah seemed as happy with her company as Miriam and the men did, and so she quickly relaxed.

  “How’s your little girl today?” Nicholas asked as they toyed with their desserts, having eaten perhaps a little more than they needed to of the main courses. Susannah had eaten more than any of them, suddenly ravenous after her three days of near starvation, but no one had seemed to think that strange.

  Zibiah shrugged. “Much the same. She’s eating, though, which is good, and she lets me leave the room for a few hours at a time, as long as Chloe or Sela or someone else is with her. And that’s very good.”

  “You have a little girl?” Susannah asked.

  The others laughed. Zibiah made a face. “Not mine. I’ve inherited her. A young Jansai girl we found on the road about a week ago. She’s terrified and she won’t speak, and for a while she wouldn’t eat, either, but she seems to be recovering a little.”

  “At first she wouldn’t let Zib out of her sight,” Miriam piped up. “Shrieked every time Zibiah would try to leave the room.”

  “And she hates Esther,” Nicholas said with a grin. “But I figure that’s a sign of her intelligence.”

  “How do you come to have a Jansai girl here at the hold?” Susannah asked. “They don’t let their women roam alone.”

  “Found her by a burned campsite,” Nicholas said. He made a big circle with his arms. “The whole place. Just ash and cinder. She’d apparently been out of the camp when the fire started, so she survived. But I guess she saw it, because—well, she’s traumatized.”

  Susannah felt her heart grow chilled. “A whole campsite—just burned to the ground? All of it?” she said in a small voice.

  Nicholas nodded. “Strangest thing I ever saw.”

  “Me, too,” Susannah said. “We—my clan and I—came across just such a burned site a few weeks ago. We couldn’t imagine what had caused such destruction.”

  Now Miriam and all three of the angels were staring at Susannah with sober alarm on their faces. “You mean—it’s happened more than once?” Zibiah said. “But how could—surely something like that was some kind of bizarre accident—”

  “Maybe it was the same site,” Ahio suggested. “Where did you come across it?”

  “A little north of Luminaux,” Susannah said. “Maybe ten miles.”

  Nicholas shook his head. “We were in southern Bethel, too, but closer to the Corinnis. Couldn’t be the same camp.”

  “But then—” Zibiah began, but Miriam cut her off.

/>   “Did you tell Gaaron?” the mortal girl asked.

  Susannah shook her head. “It didn’t occur to me.”

  The others were nodding. “Gaaron will want to know,” Nicholas said, and Ahio added, “We’ll tell him when he gets back.”

  Susannah flicked a look at Miriam, for surely this was confirmation of her earlier assertion that all the angels thought Gaaron could solve any problem. But Miriam was nodding, too. Clearly, no matter how she aimed to rebel against her brother, she also turned to him for support and succor any time the need arose.

  He must be a good man, Susannah thought, but even so she felt a dreariness coiled around the perimeter of her heart when she thought of trying to love such a man. She missed Dathan with his laughing ways, his happy manner, his easy charm. That was the only kind of man she could love, honor this Gaaron though she eventually may.

  She nodded at the others and picked up her fork. “I’ll tell him as soon as I see him again,” she said, and finished off her plate of pie.

  C hapter E ight

  That evening, true to her word, Miriam brought a small cavalcade of women to spend the night in Susannah’s room. In addition to Miriam and Zibiah, there was another angel named Chloe and a mortal girl named Sela. And a small Jansai girl who did not appear to have a name at all.

  Miriam, Chloe, and Sela were the first to arrive. Sela was quieter and Chloe livelier than the others; that was about the only difference Susannah could see, since they were all young and pretty and full of laughter. All of them came bearing rolls of bedding so big they could scarcely see over the tops, and they filled the room with a new range of giggles.

  “I brought wine from the kitchen. I don’t think Esther saw me,” Chloe announced, and the others squealed.

  “I was in Velora today and I stopped at a cosmetics booth,” Sela said in a soft voice. “So I picked up rouge and kohl and perfume—and this stuff—she said it would add streaks of color to my hair, but I don’t know, it smells pretty awful—”

  “Oh, I love that stuff!” Miriam cried. “My hair’s so fair it doesn’t do much for me, but it’s great. We’ll put some in tonight.”