Archangel

by Sharon Shinn

  “Look,” Obadiah whispered again.

  As the sky turned black, the mountaintop turned golden. Raphael’s followers had taken their fire tubes and set the peak ablaze. In the brilliant orange light, one great shadowy shape leapt upward, a black silhouette of huge wings beating and long arms extended before him.

  The perfect acoustics of the Plain carried his words to all the shocked listeners in the field below.

  “I am Jovah and I am Lucifer,” he cried. “I am your leader and your king. Look at me and know that Raphael is your god.”

  And he flung back the shadow of his head and stretched his hands to heaven and dared anyone to contradict him.

  And the seam of the heavens ripped open, and a white light sizzled across the sky. The mountaintop exploded in a jagged blaze of fire. Thunder ricocheted from one stone peak to another in waves of crashing sound. Light flashed a second time, a great white sheet of it, suspended like a writhing wall between heaven and earth. Everything was visible in that single frozen frame of merciless light—screaming faces, tumbling rock, falling bodies. The third bolt fell before the thunder could sound again, and all that could be seen by that brilliant blaze was a gaping cavity of black.

  Then a deep-throated boom rolled across the Plain, gaining volume and momentum as it traveled. The earth heaved underfoot, buckled by the weight of that sound; the mountains themselves rocked forward and back. The tumultuous roar went on and on, so loud it absorbed all other noise and created a sort of silence.

  Then abruptly, there was no air. There was no light. There was no sound.

  Rachel staggered sideways as the earth stopped shivering. All that held her up was Gabriel’s hard hold on her wrist—Naomi’s hand had been ripped from hers, but Gabriel’s fingers had never relaxed their grip. Disoriented and terrified, she cried out, and he swung her into his arms, cradling her head against his chest, covering her blinded eyes.

  The winds came then, rushing across the dark Plain. Rachel felt Gabriel brace himself against one fierce gust, and then another. His wings wrapped themselves around her, and his back took most of the force, but still she felt the shudder and whine of the gale whipping around his head, razoring through his feathers, shaking the very foundations of the world.

  And the rain followed, sudden and soaking, a rain that would last forever. It lashed down with the force and fury of a river in full spate, driving them backward, turning the ground beneath them to swampland. Hail fell briefly but brutally, beating upon their heads and upraised arms. It hit the soggy earth with a sound like a hand slapping across a face.

  Then it slackened, and died away, and only the rain was left washing through the cool air like the tears of Jovah falling.

  Still cocooned within Gabriel’s embrace, Rachel heard sounds and voices begin to form again in the soggy dark. “Take shelter! Everyone, to your tents and your awnings!” “Build a fire if you can.” “Where’s Eva? Where’s Ariel? Has anyone seen Josiah?” The words, the very sounds themselves, seemed remote and tinny to Rachel, as if they were shouted from a great distance, or as if her ears had been permanently damaged, scarred by the impact of the god’s wrath.

  For he had struck the mountain and Raphael was dead. Yet they had lived, and Gabriel himself had kept her safe. Rachel did not even try, but she knew she could not break free of his hold. She did not want to.

  And then she heard her name again in that high, frantic voice. “Rachel? Rachel? Has anyone seen Rachel?”

  Gabriel’s arms loosened with a seeming reluctance, and his wings folded back. “She’s here. She’s safe,” he said, and Naomi ran over to take her in a tearful embrace. At the sound of his voice, all attention turned Gabriel’s way. Angels and mortals cohered around him, restless and stunned and hopeful.

  “Gabriel, what now? What next?”

  “The thunderbolt came, Gabriel. The mountain is down, it’s on fire. What do we do? When will the rain stop?”

  “Gabriel, do you think—”

  “Gabriel, do you know—”

  “Gabriel—”

  From the shelter of Naomi’s arms, Rachel turned her attention to him, too. They were all there, instantly materialized, Ariel and Nathan and the oracles. There was almost no light to see by, for the rain had extinguished even the stars, but someone had brought over a feeble torch and by that, and the white glow of Gabriel’s wings, they could see his face. It was the only thing to believe in.

  “The thunderbolt fell, as the god prophesied,” Jezebel was saying gravely. “Raphael and all his followers are dead.”

  “What next?” Nathan interrupted.

  “We sing in the morning,” Ariel said.

  Gabriel dragged a hand across his face. He looked unutterably weary. “The day after tomorrow, perhaps,” he said, and his beautiful voice was strained. “I heard the mountain come crashing down. Who knows what else it brought down with it? We must investigate the damage tomorrow. We can sing the next day.”

  “But Gabriel! The god is already roused to wrath—”

  “He will allow us three days,” the angel reminded them. “He gave us those three days for a reason. I think we will need one or two of them.”

  “And then? In three days? If we do not sing—”

  “The thunderbolt falls again,” Josiah said quietly. “So says the Librera.”

  “Falls where?” someone asked.

  “Does it matter? We will sing.”

  “But where?” the insistent voice repeated. “Where would the next bolt fall?”

  And suddenly Rachel remembered. She drew away from Naomi’s shoulder, where she had rested her head, and felt energy and power flow back into her muscles. The fitful torchlight gave off an uneven, half-lunatic illumination. Angel shapes and even mortal figures were weirdly distorted and surreal. Yet she saw distinctly now; her head was remarkably clear.

  Josiah was speaking. “The Librera says that Jovah will first smite the mountain, and then the rocks of the Galilee River, and then the whole world.”

  “The rocks of the Galilee River?” Ariel repeated. “What does that mean? Where is that?”

  But Rachel knew. And Gabriel knew, for he was staring across at her with eyes so blue they tinted the air between them. “Rachel,” he said, or maybe he just shaped the word with his lips, for no one heard him speak.

  “Semorrah,” she said in a voice that carried to the whole circle. “He will strike first the mountain, and then Semorrah.” And clenching her hands at her sides, she shocked everyone by laughing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Impossible as it seemed, the next day was worse.

  The night had been bad enough, for the angel pavilion had been swamped with terrified visitors begging for help or reassurance. Rocks from the falling mountain had shot into the far encampment, wounding twenty or more people, some seriously; the relentless rain was turning the whole place into a dangerous mud slick; and panic and desperation had done the rest. Gabriel had spent most of the night moving from campsite to campsite, offering comfort, bandaging up cuts that anyone else could have dressed with more efficiency, promising that the god’s wrath would be averted before the lightning fell again. He had seriously considered flying aloft and praying that the rain dissipate before they all drowned, but was stopped by the thought that it might be sacrilege.

  Rachel, of course, had disappeared.

  He went by the Chieven camp once during his rounds, thinking to talk to her, if only briefly, but neither she nor Naomi was there. Naomi’s two daughters were wide-eyed and silent, but, like most of the Edori children he had seen this night, relatively composed. Luke told him that the women were out on errands of mercy.

  “They both know a little of the healing art,” he said. “They’ve gone to the other camps to do what they can.”

  Which reassured Gabriel a little, but not entirely. For he knew, if no one else did, what Rachel’s strange, hysterical laugh had meant. It was not just a nervous reaction, as everyone else supposed, oh no. It was delight. I
t was exultation. It was the dizzy expression of the triumph one felt when the god answered one’s most heartfelt prayers.

  Gabriel worked until he was too exhausted to take another step or stretch his wings one more time; and still he worked, moving among his people, until there were no more pleading hands outstretched to him. It was far past midnight by this time—closer to dawn. He returned to his tent and slept dreamlessly for perhaps five hours. He might have slept forever if Nathan had not awakened him.

  “What?” he said, rolling instantly to his feet, knowing there was fresh trouble. “What’s happened?”

  “The mountain’s down.”

  “Yes, we knew that—”

  “And the river has flooded, pouring out of the hole in the mountain, like—like nothing I’ve ever seen. And the rain won’t stop—”

  “Yes?”

  “And they’re evacuating Castelana and the other river cities, but—”

  “Semorrah,” Gabriel whispered.

  Nathan nodded. His own face was pale with fatigue. No telling how long he’d been awake or when he’d gone to bed. “The bridge washed out last night—or collapsed when the mountain fell,” he said. Gabriel momentarily envisioned that thin, spidery bridge. Yes, the dancing earth would have quickly sent that structure splintering down. “And the river is so rough they can hardly get a boat to the docks to take on passengers. Well, a few ships have loaded and made it safely to shore, but another one—went down… .”

  “Dearest Jovah. Sweet god of mercy,” Gabriel whispered. He closed his eyes. A vision of Rachel laughing rose before him. He opened his eyes again. “The angels,” he said. “We can carry them all to safety—”

  “Gabriel, there are thousands of people in Semorrah! There are perhaps a hundred angels left. We could not clear that city in less than a week, and even then—”

  “Maybe I can stop the flooding,” Gabriel said, his voice suddenly brisk. “I will ask the god. But there must be a way to get them all safely out of the city—”

  Nathan was staring at him. “Why? If the water goes down, they are safe enough there.”

  “That is where the next thunderbolt is to fall,” Gabriel reminded him.

  “Yes, but only if we do not perform the Gloria! You said yourself we have three days. We will sing tomorrow—”

  Whatever Nathan saw on his brother’s face stopped his voice. “Gabriel?” he said tentatively. “You do think … we can avert the god’s wrath, do you not? You do believe we can save Semorrah and ourselves?”

  God above, he was so tired. Every muscle, every bone, ached with its individual protest, but his heart was sorer than anything else. “If we sing, yes, I believe we can,” he said quietly. “But I am not sure that Rachel—I am not sure that, given a chance to see Semorrah destroyed, she would not take it. She hates that place with a passion you cannot even conceive of.”

  “But—why? And surely, even if she hates it—”

  Gabriel shook his head. “It would take too long to explain. You would have to understand Rachel. You would have to be Rachel. I think—I think she would let the city go.”

  Nathan’s face was a study in disbelief.

  “I’ll do what I can about the river,” Gabriel said. “You find Josiah, and tell him what I have just told you. And then find Rachel. She will probably be with the Chievens or with the schoolchildren of Velora. Bring her to our pavilion. Have Josiah talk to her. Perhaps he can convince her to sing tomorrow and spare the city. If not—” Gabriel spread his hands in a hopeless gesture. “We must do what we can to evacuate Semorrah.”

  And so he went aloft, his wings feeling heavy and sluggish as he beat them against the humid air. Within minutes, his black hair was plastered to his head; his skin and even his flying leathers were soaked through. It was a cold, steady, eternal rain. It could flood the whole earth in a matter of days. He lifted his face to it, closing his eyes, submitting himself to the god’s will. As Jovah chose, so be it.

  He flew higher and higher, aiming for the icy, dry air above the cloud line, but he realized after a while that there was no such place. The rain fell from the top of the heavens themselves; there was no getting above the storm. So he circled at this high, cold altitude, shrouded on all sides by the falling rain, and he meditated a moment. Then he began to pray.

  The falling water seemed to muffle his words, wash them down to earth, instead of letting them float upward to the god. He banked and altered his position till his body lay on an almost vertical plane, and he tilted his head back. Now his music rose from his mouth in a direct line up toward the god. His wings made rhythmic stroking passes through the sodden air. The sibilant hissing of the constant rain made a net of sound around his head.

  There were songs to disperse the rain clouds, even such clouds as these; songs to shift aside the laden air, dissipate the collected water. But he did not sing these. Who was he to try, with his frail voice, to countermand the will of the god? Instead, he lifted his voice in songs of entreaty and obeisance, prayers of faith and supplication. Deliver us, Jovah, from the outward symbols of your wrath. We have doubted you, we have turned away from you. But you are mighty, and you are merciful. God, do not destroy us now. Let us live to learn again to love you… .

  He sang for an hour, maybe two, his voice oddly deadened against the damp air, the swish of his wingbeats sounding as loud to his ears as the muted strains of song. Never had he worked so hard and felt so little response from the god. The rain still fell. The clouds still loured all about him, pressing in with an actual weight. He who was never cold began to feel a chill creep from his fingertips backward to his heart.

  Well, he had asked for forgiveness. He had prayed for mercy. He would be more specific, though it bordered on heresy: He would beg the god to stop the rain.

  Accordingly, when he sang again, he turned to the prayers that would shred the clouds and call forth the high, gusty winds. These were the prayers he knew best, the lyrics he could sing almost without conscious thought. These were the melodies that, from long familiarity, he loved the most. The god had always heard him when he sang these prayers. Surely the god would hear him now.

  Almost instantly, he felt a change in the saturated currents around him, though at first he was not sure what the shift portended. A sudden swift blast pushed him from his stable position. The rain was no longer falling straight down on his head; now it blew diagonally against his face. He banked sharply and regained altitude, feeling the icy hand of the wind butt into him again.

  And he saw the black fist of the cloud open its fingers and let the light of heaven seep through.

  He stayed aloft another half hour, singing the same words over again, but by then it was clear that his prayers had been answered. The rain thinned and petered out. The clouds shook themselves and fell to pieces. The sun was hazily glorious through the lifting mist.

  Jovah was still there, and Jovah still listened. The worst of Gabriel’s fears could be put aside. But he was haunted by terrors almost as bad.

  It was early afternoon before he landed, circling once over the whole Plain to assess the extent of damage. Big dark Galo was simply gone. A raw, blackened pass now broke the ring of the mountains. From the throat of this opening poured the glittering waters of the Galilee River, welling up from some underground source that had heretofore been partially stoppered by stone. Even now, from the air, Gabriel spotted a cadre of men throwing boulders into the great open mouth of the river, trying to dam its flow back to normal levels. It looked impossible.

  He landed a few feet from the blue awning that marked the Eyrie pavilion and looked for someone he could trust with a single, urgent question. Hannah was the first one who appeared.

  “Is she here?” he asked without preamble.

  “Rachel?” she said. “Yes, in her tent.”

  “Has Josiah been to see her?”

  “He’s there now. He’s been there a while.”

  Gabriel’s heart squeezed painfully down. If Rachel had been feeling r
ational on the subject, it would not have taken long to persuade her. “Thank you,” he said distractedly, and made his way as quickly as he could to the small tent he had had erected for her.

  Before he could get close enough to listen for voices, the flaps parted and Josiah stepped out. The old man looked tired and drained; the night had been as hard on him as it had been on the angels. He saw Gabriel and nodded, unsmiling, and crossed to the angel’s side.

  “Well? You’ve talked with her?” Gabriel demanded.

  Josiah nodded again. He looked weary enough, or disappointed enough, to weep. “I’ve talked with her. She has made up her mind, and there is nothing you can say to her that I did not. Go get some sleep, Gabriel. The world will not turn tomorrow without you.”

  Josiah gripped the angel’s arm, then left, stepping carefully and unsteadily through the camp debris. Gabriel stared after him, then turned around and stared at the tent. After a moment, he forced his feet to take him forward, and he pushed aside the canvas flap and went in.

  When, over her protests, Nathan had carried Rachel to the angel pavilion, she discovered that she had never been so angry in her entire life. Considering that she had spent a great deal of the past five years in a constant simmer of fury, that was saying a lot; but it was true. She would not speak to him after he deposited her inside the small tent that had been set up for her. She almost could not focus her eyes and take in her surroundings once Nathan left. So when Josiah arrived a scant five minutes later, he was unfortunate enough to find her on her worst behavior.

  “Good, you are here,” he said, ducking his head to enter and rubbing his hands to ward off the damp chill. “Nathan didn’t know how long it would take him to find you.”

  She swung round on him, and the wrath in her eyes caused his mild face to open up with a wary surprise. “I should have known,” she said tightly. “Gabriel expects the worst from me but does not have time to deal with me himself. Have you come to make me see reason?”