Angelica (66 page)

“I will direct you.”

And so she went through the door, and down the hallway, and up the stairs, and down another hallway, and at last emerged into the room of white and silver with which she was most familiar. And here, look, the candle that had been in her hands when she arrived, marking the very spot where she had first stood. With a little cry, she ran the last few remaining steps and snatched it up. It felt like the only thing in this whole vast, alien place that was natural or real.

“Good. Stand where you are,” said the voice. “I will return you.”

“Should I close my eyes?” she asked, remembering how she had arrived.

“If you wish.”

“I will,” she said, and dropped her lids. The voice had not told her to count to fifty, but she began to tell off the numbers anyway, hoping that by the time she reached the highest one, this nightmare would finally be over. She was in the silent space between “nine” and “ten” when she felt the magic take her over again, rustling along her bones and turning her skin to silver.

She was on her knees and had forgotten to keep counting when she heard Mahalah's voice call her name.

“
H
ere, drink this. Yes, I know you think you aren't thirsty, but drink this anyway,” Mahalah insisted. The oracle had made no attempt to move Susannah from her crumpled posture on the floor, but wheeled over with a glass of wine in her hand and pressed it into Susannah's cold fingers.

“I can't—I think I'm still dreaming,” Susannah said. Her hands were shaking so much she didn't think she could get the glass to her mouth—and anyway, food and drink were always wasted in a dream.

“Yes—well—you've been sleepwalking, I believe,” Mahalah said quickly. Susannah had the impression that the oracle was improvising. “But you're awake now, I'm quite sure of it, and I think you'd better have the wine. It will help you sleep better once you get back to your own bed.”

“I'm not sure I want to sleep again if my dream will come back,” Susannah said with an attempt at humor.

“I don't think it will,” Mahalah said softly. “I think that is the last time you will be dreaming of that particular place.”

Susannah wondered how the oracle could be sure of that, but she didn't have the strength to ask. She could smell the wine, sweet and fruity; and when she finally put the rim to
her lips, she could taste the wine as well. So she was awake, at last, and she must have been walking in her sleep to have come this far from her bed. She drained the glass and put it on the floor.

It was then she looked beyond Mahalah and saw Jossis standing a few feet behind her. His dark face looked blank with shock. He had his arms wrapped around his chest, as though to ward off cold.

“What is he—why is he—Jossis—” Susannah managed to say.

Mahalah glanced at him over her shoulder and then returned her attention to Susannah. “Like me, he could not sleep,” she said gently. “We have much to talk about, Jossis and I.”

“But he looks—Mahalah, I think he has been crying.”

“Yes,” Mahalah said. “This has been a hard night for him as well. He has lost so much.”

None of it made any sense. Despite the taste of wine in her mouth, Susannah was sure she must still be asleep.

“I'm so tired,” she said. She thought, if she tried very hard, she might be able to stand. She put her palms against the floor and pushed.

“Yes. I think you should go to your room now,” Mahalah said. “Sleep well into the morning. We can talk then. You can tell me about your dream, and I can tell you that it means nothing. Only the mind sending out pictures and asking unanswerable questions.”

Susannah was on her feet now—shaky but, she thought, mobile. “Will Jossis be all right?”

“I will talk to him until he is,” Mahalah said. “But send Miriam to me in the morning. She will help me heal him.”

“Good night, then,” Susannah said. Her head spun a little, but her feet moved forward well enough, and she cleared the door with no mishap. Once in the hallway, she balanced herself against the wall with one hand and kept on walking. One corridor, one turn, another corridor, another turn, a few more steps, and she was in her door.

A few more steps, and she was in her bed.

Kaski stirred and moved over without waking up. Miriam's head came up from the pillow, ghostly blond in the
filtered moonlight. “Susannah?” she asked. “Where have you been? I woke up and you were gone.”

“Mahalah says I have been walking in my sleep,” Susannah said.

“You're so cold! Here, have my blanket, it's all warm.”

“Thank you,” Susannah said, snuggling down between the other two and burrowing under the covers. “Oh, Miriam, I have had the strangest dream! I'll tell you about it in the morning.”

“Tell me now. You won't remember it in the morning.”

The heat, the relief, the sweetness of Miriam's concern were combining to make Susannah sleepy and relaxed. “I think I'll remember,” she said, closing her eyes. “I don't think I'll ever forget.”

In the morning, Miriam was the first one awake and too restless to wait patiently as the others sauntered yawning from their dreams. She leaned over to kiss Susannah on the cheek, patted Kaski on the head, and climbed out of bed. In a few minutes, she was washed, dressed, and out the door.

The acolytes, it appeared, had all gotten up before her, because the halls were full of their thin, tense figures and the echoes of their cries and laughter. She made her way to the dining hall, where the servants were already clearing away the breakfast dishes, but one of the cooks smiled at her and gave her a late meal. She ate slowly because she couldn't imagine what she would do with herself once the meal was over. She had no idea how anyone passed the time in an oracle's retreat.

She could find Jossis, though. Since he was a man, he had been assigned special quarters somewhere in this labyrinth, but he had been allowed to spend the night. She was pretty certain that, wherever he was bedded down, she would make that her own living quarters for the duration of her stay.

Before she had taken her last sip of juice, however, one of the acolytes approached her—a pretty girl, with the high, narrow cheekbones that bespoke a Manadavvi lineage. “Miriam?” the girl asked in a quiet voice. “The oracle has directed
me to look for you and ask you to come see her as soon as you have a free moment.”

This was much like being summoned by the Archangel; one really didn't delay. “Tell me where she is,” Miriam said. “I'll come right now.”

Mahalah was in the large, windowless interior room where she had been when they arrived. Once again, the older woman was seated before that flickering blue glass panel set into the wall, but she turned quickly at Miriam's entrance.

“You're awake early,” the oracle said.

“My brother often tells me I have too much energy,” Miriam said demurely. “It sometimes causes me to wake up before everyone else.”

“Well, good. I wanted to see you this morning to tell you . . .” The oracle hesitated, and her eyes searched Miriam's face. The younger woman waited with unwonted patience. “I wanted to ask you a little about Jossis,” Mahalah said at last.

Miriam felt a stirring of fear. “Is something wrong? I didn't see him after dinner last night. Is he sick?”

“Heartsick, I think,” Mahalah said. “And you can help him. But you—”

Miriam was halfway to the door. “Where is he? Where are the quarters for the men?”

“Miriam, sit down,” Mahalah said, and her voice was so firm that without even planning to, Miriam turned back into the room and seated herself before the oracle's wheeled chair. “I have much to explain to you before you go off seeking him, and a few things to ask you as well. May I have your word that anything I tell you will remain confidential between the two of us? That you will tell no one—not Gaaron, not Susannah, none of your angelic or Edori friends—what we are going to talk about?”

Miriam felt her whole face grow loose with astonishment. The few other people who had sworn Miriam to secrecy had been less than twenty years old and about to tell of misdeeds. She was not used to making solemn oaths to respectable elders. “Yes,” she said at last. “I swear I will tell no one what you say to me.”

Mahalah glanced at her bright blue screen, as if to check
that the god was still present in the room. “You know, because Jossis told me that you knew, that he comes from a different world. And that his ancestors are probably the same as ours—another branch of the same colonizing family that settled on Samaria.”

“The settlers who came to Samaria were brought here in Jovah's hands,” Miriam said automatically. She found herself instinctively using the allali pronunciation of the god's name when speaking dogma.

“Be that as it may, Jossis' ancestors took to the skies in machines that allowed them to move between worlds. And their goal, or so it appears, was to settle on as many planets as they could—maybe ten, all told, in the past two hundred years.”

Miriam felt the surfaces of her brain quivering; her skull seemed to be expanding and contracting as Mahalah talked. “Wait—these machines—and these other planets—how many worlds are there? Besides ours, and the one we came from, and the one that Jossis came from?”

“I don't know. Fifteen? Twenty? Dozens? Just because Jossis and his people located and explored a few does not mean there aren't other worlds that other men might be living on—or creatures that are not men. But that is a discussion for another day! Jossis' people have taken their conquests and their wars to five or ten other worlds, and they arrived on Samaria about six months ago, intent on overtaking us as well.”

Miriam nodded, for that much she had more or less pieced together. “And they have weapons we don't have.”

“They have a great deal of technology that we don't have,” Mahalah said. “And they could have easily destroyed us. But we have destroyed them instead. They are all gone now—all but Jossis.”

Now Miriam's head was whirling again. Half of what Mahalah said made no sense at all. “How can you know that? We don't even know where they have been in hiding. They can appear and disappear at will—did you ask him about that? They may have disappeared for now, but they will show up again with their fire sticks aimed at us—”

Mahalah put up a hand and Miriam fell silent. “They have
been living on these machines I mentioned to you. Machines that can travel through the heavens. When they were not on Samaria, they were living in these machines above the earth. Last night,” she said, appearing to choose her words with exceptional care, “they attacked Velora. But Jovah was able to turn his thunderbolts upon their airborne machines, and he destroyed them all.”

“How do you know this?” Miriam whispered.

“Your friend Chloe arrived early this morning with a description of the battle, though she did not understand the story she told. But I knew it last night, because Jovah informed me as the action occurred. And Jossis, it seems,” she added, “has had, all along, a way to communicate with his friends. When I asked him to confirm for me that they were dead, he tried to reach them, but could not. He has been feeling some anguish as a result of this. I believe you know that he does not relish the life that his clansmen live—but he cannot help but care for some of them. And they are all dead now.”

Miriam nodded. She knew too well how easy it was to love someone who was not perfect. “I must go to him at once,” she said, but she stayed seated in her chair.

“Not only are all of Jossis' friends dead,” Mahalah continued, “there is now no way for him to leave Samaria. These traveling machines are destroyed, and his communications devices will not range so far as to allow him to contact anyone in his home world. He is here now for the rest of his life.”

“Poor Jossis!” Miriam exclaimed, although she was not really sorry. Sorry for whatever sadness he might be feeling, but otherwise feeling no regret at all.

“I believe,” said Mahalah, “that there is much he can do for us on Samaria, if he chooses to embrace it as his new home. And there are indications that, once his grief passes, he will be happy to settle here. He seems, at least, genuinely attached to you. I do not wish to pry into the secrets of your heart—”

“I love him,” Miriam said instantly. “I will never leave him. I knew I could not follow him if he chose to go back
to his own world, but for as long as he is on my world, I will stay by his side.”

Mahalah smiled and settled back into her chair. “Good. That is what I was hoping to hear. But such a decision will require some sacrifices on your part. For one thing, I do not think Jossis would do well in an angel hold. He—”

“We will live with the Edori,” Miriam interrupted. “The Lohoras will happily take us in.”

“That may do for now, for a short time,” Mahalah said meditatively. “But eventually, he must live in Mount Sudan. And in time, of course, he must live here.”

Miriam stared at her.

“There are things I know, as oracle, that no one else on Samaria knows,” Mahalah said. “As oracle of Mount Sinai, I know things that not even the other oracles have been taught. But Jossis knows these things. He understands them. And I want him to be the steward of this knowledge once I am gone.”

“How can he know these things?” Miriam whispered.

Mahalah waved a hand as if to convey that the answer was too complex to attempt to put into words. “He understands how to communicate with the god, for one thing,” Mahalah said.

“So do the other oracles!”

“Yes, but he—he knows things about the god that even they do not know,” Mahalah said. “About what the god is capable of. I cannot explain it any better than that. But I want him here when I am dead. And to learn to become the next oracle, he must study somewhere. And since
I
,” she said, displaying a small fit of temper, “have been forced to surround myself only with girls, I think I must send your Jossis up to Isaac for training. Where he can study among men.”

Miriam was rapidly making the corollary deductions. “So then I must go to Mount Sudan, too?”