Angelica (64 page)

Now Mahalah studied Miriam with that same close attention. “Perhaps he will,” she said slowly. “But perhaps you won't understand it as well as I do, or you—well, we will see. I need to talk to Gaaron.”

Miriam looked around the room, where Gaaron obviously was not. “Is he asleep, too?” she asked somewhat scornfully.

“Oh, no,” Mahalah said. “He's gone.”

Gaaron had left Mount Sinai mostly because he wanted to stay. When he had looked up and seen Susannah standing there, he had been suffused with the strangest sensation—his whole body had tingled with shock. It had taken him a moment to remember that he had been searching for her—and why he had been searching for her—and the circumstances of their last meeting. And then the pleasant, unfamiliar tingling sensation went away, and he felt leaden and stupid and cold.

He had found it hard to talk to her, which was strange, since for the past week all he had wanted to do was talk to her. When he did manage to speak, his words ranged from the commonplace to the accusatory, which made him believe he would have been better off not speaking at all. It had been a relief to go into dinner and be surrounded by all those histrionic girls.

And another relief to see Miriam drag Susannah away for what was sure to be a long conference.

He'd turned to Mahalah. “I have to go,” he said.

She looked up in surprise. She'd been giving instructions to one of the women who worked with her, and her mind was clearly elsewhere. “Go? Go where?”

“Back to the Eyrie.”

“You mean, right now?”

He nodded. “I'll leave Nicholas here for a day or two, in case you need to get word to me, or in case Susannah wants to return. But I'll come back when I can.” He smiled. “Because, at some point, we'll have to decide just what to do about Miriam's new friend—and about Miriam.”

“He has told me some appalling things.”

“Which I hope you will share with me.”

Mahalah meditated. “If I can. Some of them—I do not know how to explain this—there are some things the god has made it very clear that he wants only the oracles to know. But Jossis knows them. And if I repeat them to you—I do not know how that changes your relationship with the god. I do not know that I want to be responsible for changing that relationship. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that.”

“Has he told you yet how we can defeat his people?” The
look on her face was troubled, and he smiled somewhat grimly. “I thought not.”

“Jovah knows about his people,” she replied in a low voice. “And Jovah has a plan. But it—for him to carry it out—I am not sure how this can be accomplished . . .”

Too many secrets, too much hesitation and misdirection. Gaaron found himself edgy and restless. He must have action or explode. “You tell me what you can, when you can,” he said. “I'm off for the Eyrie.”

“Can you fly that far by night?” she asked gravely. “Gaaron, be sensible. You flew half the day today already.”

But he was already on his feet, and glancing around for any items he may have shed in this room when they first arrived. No, he had not been carrying much—besides Jossis. “It's only three hours, and I am wide awake,” he assured her.

“What will I tell Miriam? And Susannah?”

“I'll be back in two or three days. We'll talk then.”

And though she argued halfheartedly for a few more minutes, he was determined to go. She followed him down the still hallways, the hissing of her chair wheels making a faint counterpoint to the
shushing
sound of his feathers against the walls. He kissed her good-bye and then dove into the star-stained night.

After the warmth of the retreat, the cold outside was a shock against all his senses. The air was icy as river water against his skin; the wind smelled like snow. He felt both weightless and motionless, as if his wings merely ruffled the breeze for no purpose but decoration, and he hung suspended in a limitless black expanse of frigid night. It was too dark to see the landscape unfolding below him, too cold to gauge his progress by changing currents of wind against his flesh. He imagined himself just another small star pinned against the black ceiling of the heavens, fixed eternally in place and only intermittently visible.

And yet he flew west and south at a steady, confident pace, aware of the sweep and motion of his wings, the calm intake and exhalation of his breath, the slow but certain passage of time. It was an hour or so before midnight; he would make it to the Eyrie well before the arrival of dawn.

His muscles warmed up as the exertion of flying created
a pleasant heat along his veins. Now he could differentiate his body from the ambient air just by the variation in temperature, and he liked the way it felt. The night stroked cool fingers along his spine, ran diaphanous hands through his heavy hair. He glistened with sweat and starlight, phosphorescent against the night.

And still the miles fell behind him like children too slow to keep up. Midnight approached and passed; the sky was still a layered, impenetrable black. Gaaron was almost sorry to think that he would be at the Eyrie within the hour. He felt strong enough to fly to Luminaux and back—to Ysral, if it existed—to the god's stronghold, so high above him that he could not guess the distance. He could fly to all those places in a single night, and then back to Mount Sinai, where his heart lay.

He was closer now—a few minutes from the familiar home mountain range—and he began dropping down to a more reasonable altitude. The closer he grew to the ground, the more his mind began to fill with earthbound thoughts. He needed to get word to Adriel and Neri about their acquisition of an invader; he needed to consult with Esther on the plans for the wedding (so soon now! And he and Susannah had not even discussed it). He needed to decide what in the god's name he would do with Miriam. And then there was the Gloria, scarcely two months away. He needed to consult with his own angels about how that event would be orchestrated, for it was more than a single mass sung under the shadow of Mount Galo. It was a whole day's worth of feasting and entertainment, and there was much planning that had to be done to make sure the event went smoothly.

But all these concerns went out of his head as he descended even closer to the ground. He was hovering a few hundred feet above the Eyrie and below him he could see—clearly delineated against the rich blackness of the night—that Velora was on fire.

S
usannah woke with a start in the middle of the night. Her heart was hammering and her breath came too fast. She must have been dreaming, though she had no memory of a nightmare. She sat up carefully, trying not to jostle her sleeping companions, and took in deep breaths of air.

But she still felt troubled and panicked, too restless to sleep. There had been times in the Lohora camp—and, before that, the Tachita tents—that she had been roused from sleep in the middle of the night, and always with some cause. The fire had grown mischievous, a child had cried out, there was some danger approaching on silent feet. Had there been a noise or a scent, here in the slumbering halls of Mount Sinai, that had jerked her awake and put all her senses on alert?

Shivering a little in the cold, she slipped out of bed and threw on a robe, then crossed to the door and stuck her head out. No sounds, no odors, nothing to rouse her to fear.

But something had wakened her.

She paused only long enough to add slippers and a lighted candle to her ensemble, and then she quietly left the room. The untenanted halls were ghostly and full of whispers, though there was no feel of menace in the dorm wards or
the women's halls, as Susannah made her way quietly through the living quarters. Nothing disturbing in the kitchens or the dining room. No aura of danger in the public chambers. No sense of trouble at all.

But when she glanced down the long corridor that led to Mahalah's workroom, she saw a faint light at the end of the hall.

Soundlessly, she stepped along the stone floor, using her hand to shield her candle flame from the wind of her passage. She listened intently, but she could hear nothing coming from the big central room—no voices, no sound of weeping, no noise of working. She paused a moment at the open doorway, and then stepped in.

Mahalah was sitting in front of the interface, making unreadable words appear on the glowing blue screen. There was no one else in the room.

Susannah had made no sound, but Mahalah wheeled her chair around the instant that she entered. The oracle was smiling. “Susannah,” she said. “What keeps you up so late at night?”

“I'm sorry,” Susannah said at once. “I didn't mean to bother you.”

“No bother,” Mahalah said. “I'm often up at all hours. But I usually have every inch of Mount Sinai to myself when it's this late.”

“Something woke me up,” Susannah said. “I thought I would check and see if there was anything amiss. But I've been through every hall and found nothing disturbed.”

Mahalah smiled at her kindly. “I think you might be dreaming,” she suggested.

Susannah put a hand to her forehead. Indeed, she felt strange, almost disembodied. She could feel her fingers against her brow, but they seemed disconnected from her body. “I think you might be right,” she agreed.

“But I'm glad you've come here tonight,” Mahalah said. “There's something I've been wanting you to see, and you can only see it if you're dreaming.”

That made no sense, but no one ever made sense in a dream. “What is it?” Susannah asked, stepping closer.

Mahalah gestured toward something in the middle of the
room. “Do you see that little box lying there on the floor? Go stand by it, and then wait for a few moments. I'll tell you when to close your eyes.”

Stranger and stranger, but now that she knew she was dreaming, Susannah was at peace. Obediently she crossed the few yards to the spot that Mahalah had indicated. She stooped to examine the box, a small wooden container inlaid with rows of ebony. “What's in this?” she asked.

“The box means nothing. It merely marks the place,” Mahalah said. “Now, close your eyes and count to—to fifty, I think. That should be long enough. And don't be afraid. You will be quite safe.”

“I'm not afraid,” Susannah said, and closed her eyes.

She began counting, not very fast because she felt too sleepy and languorous to hurry through her numbers. Her skin felt alive with static, as if a storm was about to pass through, and her robe stirred around her as if there was a breeze in Mahalah's chamber. But she kept her eyes closed and continued counting.

Suddenly her whole body was seized with magic. It was as if her skin turned inward and her bones turned outward, as if her lungs shrank down while her head expanded. She kept her fingers curled around her candle, except she could no longer feel the candle; she could no longer feel her fingers, or her elbows, or her toes. Keeping her eyes tightly shut, she kept on counting, though it seemed she had been counting for centuries. When she reached the number fifty, she opened her eyes.

She was in a place of glass and ivory and silver.

Pivoting on one heel, she turned slowly to take in the whole picture. Oh, this was nothing new—she had been here hundreds of times before. There was the wide, blank screen with the flickering lines; there was the incomprehensible map laid across a translucent surface. At stations scattered throughout this brightly lit chamber were variations of the interface that Mahalah used in her own chamber, and that Susannah had seen so many times in her dreams. Even the chairs and the vents high on the walls looked familiar. Even the floor, tiled in smooth, unbroken white. Even the hallways that branched invitingly away.

“Mahalah was right,” she said aloud, though quite softly. “I am merely dreaming.”

She set down her candle, because there was no need of it in this well-illuminated place. Besides, the flame had gone out sometime while she was counting.

“I have been here so many times before,” she said. “I wonder what I am supposed to be looking at now?”

“Susannah,” said a voice so deep and resonant that she imagined it was what winter would sound like, but so well-known to her that it was almost comforting to hear it now. “You have come to visit me at last.”

She almost laughed. “I have come to visit you
again
,” she said. “Surely I have been here many times before in my dreams.”

“Many times,” he agreed. “But this time I can actually see you.”

“Is it Yovah who has sent me the dreams of this place?” she asked. “For I do not feel afraid, and yet this place is somewhat fearsome.”

“Yes, Jovah has communicated with you,” the voice replied. “For there is a task that must be done, and only you can do it.”

“I will be happy to do whatever the god wishes,” she said obligingly. “But why am I the only one who can perform this duty?”

“Mahalah is too frail, and everyone else too frightened,” he said.

She shook her head, for it seemed she would get no direct answer; but again, that was the way of dreams. “What would you like me to do?” she said.

“Do you see the corridor directly before you? The one with the triple lights at the end of the hall.”

She looked in two wrong directions before she spotted the markers he indicated, and then she stepped forward. The white tile looked so smooth and cool that she wanted to take off her slippers merely to feel it beneath her feet, but she wasn't sure where she was and she didn't want to be disrespectful, so she kept her slippers on. “What next?” she asked when she reached the designated intersection.

“Now turn to your left, and walk until you reach a door marked with a numeral two.”

Again, she followed his directions and came to the location he had described. “Go down the stairwell and exit through the door at the bottom.”

The stairwell was like nothing she had ever seen before, a single spiraling twist of open steps made of metal or glass or—what it really looked like—frozen foam. She kept her hand on the reed-thin railing and descended cautiously. She was relieved to step through the door and out into another corridor that was constructed and lit just as the hallways above were.

“And now?”

“Down this hallway before you, toward the row of blinking red lights. Stop when you get to the door marked with this word—” And he spoke something that she didn't understand. It came to her, in a quick fanciful thought, that Jossis might have used such a word. The arrangement of vowels and consonants sounded like the invader's speech, or what little she had heard of it.

“I didn't understand,” she said.

“Just walk slowly forward. I will tell you when to stop.”

So she traversed the corridor, which seemed lined with windowless doors that guarded who knew what collection of secrets. Many of the doors bore small placards that announced their names, or perhaps what lay inside, but Susannah could read none of the words.

“Stop here,” the voice directed. “Open the door on your left.”

She tried, but the door stayed shut. “I think it's locked,” she said.

“Do you see the flat metal plate above the handle?” he asked. “Lay your palm on that until you feel the metal heat up. Then lift your hand very quickly.”

Wondering, because this had never been part of the dream before, Susannah did as he bid her. The metal plate was as cool and smooth as she imagined the white tile would be, and she did not think the temperature of her hand would be enough to warm it. But sure enough, after she had stood there
less than a minute, she felt a fever surge through the flat metal, and she hurriedly withdrew her hand.

“Enter the room,” the voice said, and she did so.

Rarely had her dreams contained any vision like this, and for a moment she was afraid to step forward. It was as if she had skipped up a street made of moonbeams to come to rest on an avenue of stars. One quarter of the room was nothing but glass, and it all seemed to overlook the constellations. She felt faint and dizzy, as if she was on top of Mount Galo—on top of a mountain ten times higher than Galo—and as if she stood on the very peak of the mountain and looked up into the sky. She stayed very close to the doorway, where the floor and the walls were solid, and hesitated before asking for her next directive.

“Now what would you like me to do?” she said at last in a small voice.

“I need you to reposition my artillery.”

For a moment, Gaaron felt himself freeze into place above the mountain. For a moment, he could not actually comprehend what he was seeing. It was not the entire city that was on fire, but bits and pieces—the southern perimeter was completely ablaze, as well as most of the eastern bazaar. Here and there, a residential district was in flames, or a solitary building, or a low patch of land that might have been a park. But all the fires were growing, leaping higher, spreading out searching tendrils of flame to the next block, the next building. Soon enough, there would be nothing of the city left.

As he watched, still stunned, a fresh tongue of flame licked out and darted into the safe heart of the city.

Which was when he realized invaders were below, sending their bolts of fire into Velora.

A cry ripped from his throat, and he suddenly remembered to breathe. And, as suddenly, remembered how to work his wings, to dive closer to the ground so that he could see the marauders and gauge how many of them there were.

There appeared to be hundreds, their dark bodies illuminated by their own trail of luminous destruction. The whole southern half of the city was ringed by massed black figures, two and three deep. The Edori tents and Jansai wagons that
had stood here only a day ago were gone, leveled to ashes. The invaders marched slowly forward, fire sticks pointed before them, scuffing through the cinders of the ruined camps.

One of the strangers saw Gaaron's shadow against the night sky and shouted. Instantly, half a dozen fire sticks veered Gaaron's way. He banked sharply and then strained forward, hoping to escape the range of their venom. Heat licked along his bare arm but he saw no arrow of fire; the flame must have evaporated inches from his skin.

He darted deeper into the city, away from the advancing terror, desperate to see how matters lay. A few of the bigger buildings were on fire, burning with a frenzied intensity that promised to leap to the neighboring awning and the roof across the alley. By their light, he could tell that the streets were filled with milling, screaming people, everyone running for safety, everyone maddened with fear. Gaaron was close enough to see a small girl standing alone on a corner, eyes closed, fists clenched, her mouth open in a perpetual shriek. Even over the din of fire and shouting, Gaaron thought he could single out her thin, wild cry.

“Gaaron!” A harsh voice called his name and he wheeled around to see one of the Velora merchants waving both arms to him. The man was grimy and flushed; he looked as if he had barely escaped from the falling timbers of a blazing house. “Gaaron, do something!” the man shouted up at him.

“I will,” Gaaron called back, and drove his wings down hard against the hot air of the burning city.

He had not risen a hundred feet above the ground when rocks began raining down from the sky.

“Gaaron!” a new voice cried just as he jerked himself upward, beating his wings frantically to escape this fresh danger. Suddenly, the air around him was seething with the flexing of many angel wings. The currents were so rough from their random beating that it was hard to keep himself aloft.