Archangel (44 page)

It was perhaps an hour past noon. He would let himself rest four or five hours, and then be on his way again. Undoing Naomi’s careful knots and buckles, he removed the blanket and the
leather pouch from his shoulders and made a hasty camp. A few mouthfuls of food, two swallows of water, and he stretched out on the half unfolded blanket. Within minutes he was asleep.

His dreams were dark and violent, and prominently featured Rachel and Raphael. His wife was crying; the Archangel was laughing. Blending in with Raphael’s voice was a higher, sweeter laugh that he could not place, though he knew he recognized it. His dream-vision shifted and he was staring at the perfect heart-shaped face of Judith. She continued to laugh. He reached out huge hands to slap her across the cheek—once, twice, a third time. She backed away from him, smiling still.

With a supreme effort of will, Gabriel forced himself awake, disturbed by his dream and no longer interested in sleeping. It took him a moment to get his bearings. He was lying in a patch of sunlight, covered with a light sweat, and his hand was tangled tightly in the hem of the blanket. He had not been hitting anyone after all.

But perhaps the unconscious anger at Judith was not so misplaced, for hadn’t he left her alone with Raphael upon the occasion of the Archangel’s last, ill-fated visit to the Eyrie? It had been the last time he had seen Judith as well; Hannah had told him that she had left the mountaintop to reside, for the time being, in Velora, and he had not had it in him to feel even the smallest regret. But she might have done him a grave mischief before she left—she might have told Raphael, who had wanted to know, just exactly where Rachel was—

He sat up, shaking his head and stretching his cramped arms. A little tired still, but fine; ready to travel. He stood, flexing his great wings and feeling their smooth, oiled response. He could fly another whole day, and a day after that, if he had to, to get to Rachel in time… .

In time for what?

He glanced up, gauging time by the position of the sun. Two hours or a little less until sunset. Already the sun was gliding on down toward the horizon, which, in this part of the country, meant the jagged range of mountains just past the Caitanas. He needed to get to Windy Point before the sun went down. There was no way to explain his conviction, but he was absolutely sure. At sundown, the whole world would falter or disintegrate on its own… .

Shaking his head again (where were these absurd fantasies
coming from?), he took three running steps and flung himself aloft. Instantly, the wind took him. Northern Jordana was a tricky place to fly through at any time, and today, it seemed, the country was suffering from the tail end of a storm. Gabriel fought the errant currents, gained altitude and settled into a fast, mile-eating pace.

The sun flirted with him, dropping behind a mountain peak, then reappearing at some lower pass, molten and golden-red. The troublesome wind suddenly swirled once around him, then settled under his wings like a dog making itself into a footrest for his master. It was almost as if the breeze had been shaped by unseen hands, leashed, and brought to serve him. In any case, it made his flight easier and faster. He was over the stony terrain around Windy Point just as the sun dipped completely below the horizon.

He was so high that he had to drop sharply to get on a level with the fortress. Until this moment, he had not given a single thought to how to breach the hold—whether to fly to Raphael’s public landing space and announce his arrival, or try to land on one of the spiky turrets and make his entry in secret. Now, with the castle in view only a few hundred yards away, he decided to circle once or twice and see if any good ideas presented themselves.

It was then that he noticed the hard pressure building in his right arm. Merciful Jovah, what was happening to Rachel now?

He circled once, as slowly as he dared, eyeing each narrow window and grilled doorway with mounting frustration. Even if he set down on the roof of the highest corner tower, there seemed to be no easy way into the castle; and even if he was able to creep in with no one seeing him, how would he find Rachel?

On his second circuit, he saw a sight that stopped his heart.

A lone figure stood on the very last inch of a narrow, unpromising promontory that jutted over the ravine on the western face of Raphael’s mountain. Wind whipped at her hair, and her skirts flew wildly about her legs; by those features he knew the figure was a woman. By the way the faded light of the sun clung lovingly to the golden hair, he knew just which woman this was… .

“Rachel!” he shouted, but the wind was against him; it carried his voice away from her. He dove forward madly through the turbulent air, fanning his wings as furiously as they would go.
She stood there, on one of the highest peaks in Jordana, immobile, looking down at a sight guaranteed to make her ill. And then, as he watched, as he strained every feather and muscle to reach her, she closed her eyes and stepped off.

T
he plummet, the swoop, the shock of being snatched from the air. Crazed, tangled moments of falling and rising simultaneously, as great white wings lashed desperately to fight the hungry pull of gravity, Rachel had no breath to scream or speak. She was crushed to a wide bare chest, she felt the effort of every labored wingbeat, she felt the angel’s will overcome the earth’s. Slowly the angel’s strength lifted them back toward the mountaintop, back to safety and sure ground.

And they cleared the mountaintop without pausing and flew on, into the red heart of sunset; and flew on, and flew on.

Rachel did not know how long it was that she lay mindlessly in the angel’s arms, her eyes closed, her hands curled inward, aware of nothing except the speed of his movement and the heat of his body. It took her some time to sort out the fact that she was not dead, that she was no longer a prisoner, that she had been rescued. It was even longer before she realized that she was actually flying, at a great height over the earth, and that she did not care—she felt neither nausea nor terror. In fact, she felt almost nothing at all.

But she knew—had known, without even seeing his face, without hearing a word (for he spoke none)—who held her in his arms. Gabriel. Wherever they were going, however long the flight lasted, she was safe. Gabriel had come for her.

Hours passed; she knew by the changing colors against her closed eyelids. First gold, then scarlet, then indigo, and finally no
color at all, She felt the snowy play of starlight across her face, down the whole length of her body. Except where the angel’s arms passed around her shoulders and under her knees, except where she was pressed against his chest, she was frozen, she was no warmer than the stars. If he released her, dropped her to the earth, she would shatter into so many fragments of ice.

But he would not drop her. That was the only thing she was sure of.

It occurred to her more than once that she had been mistaken—she had not been rescued; she had plunged the whole distance to the stony ground, and now she was dreaming the strange, wistful dreams of the dead. For surely nothing could be less real than this, traveling changelessly, ceaselessly, on a windy plane between the moonlight and the earth, without fear, without thought, without feeling.

And then the steady forward motion altered; they slanted downward, slowing, almost seeming to reverse. Rachel shook her head and tried to focus. She opened her eyes and gazed below her at the dark patterns of the unlit ground, coming closer, growing larger with alarming speed. She watched almost idly as shadows resolved themselves into hillsides, trees and boulders, as perspective shortened and grew more familiar. Still, she was unprepared for the abruptness of the landing, the sudden cessation of motion, the dull heaviness of the stubborn earth.

Gabriel caught his balance first, and then he set her on her feet. His hands still gripped her shoulders or she would have fallen, pitched forward straight into him or backward onto the hard ground. She tried to collect her thoughts. Surely she must say something.

He spoke first—in a strange hoarse voice, accentuating each word by giving her a quick shake.

“What in the god’s name were you doing there?” he cried. “How could you be at Windy Point—how could you be so careless—and how could you, how could you, throw yourself off the mountain—”

She jerked her head from side to side, trying to force some sense into her mind, trying to remember, trying to think. “Gabriel—stop it—Gabriel—”

He visibly calmed himself, fighting for control. “Tell me what happened,” he commanded. “I know you left with Matthew and turned back for the Edori camp. What happened then?”

She took a deep breath. Even under the imperfect illumination of moonlight and starlight, she was afraid to look directly at him. He was too furious. He was too beautiful. “I was a few miles from where I’d left Matthew,” she said, speaking carefully, remembering as she said them how words were formed in a person’s mouth. “I heard—wingbeats. I looked up.” She shrugged against his grip. “There was nowhere to run to escape them. They carried me to Windy Point.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders; he knew how gruesome that flight had been for her. “And then?”

She felt some of her own strength coming back to her, or maybe it was feeding into her directly from his body, poured into her veins from his palms and fingertips. “And then they put me in a room where the wind blew all day. All night. You never heard anything like that wind.”

“I’ve been there. I’ve heard it. So—what happened? What did Raphael say? Why did he take you?”

“I didn’t see him for days. And then he—there was this dinner he had me come to. It was—” She glanced at him, fleetingly, sideways. Even in this nonexistent light, his eyes were so blue they astonished her. She looked away. “He’s crazy,” she said, in a voice only slightly above a whisper. “Gabriel—that whole place. It was a scene of madness. Drunken and drugged and—and—terrible—”

“What? What do you mean?”

“The angels lay around, sleeping in their wine. There were women—angel-seekers, maybe, but some of them didn’t seem to want to be there—and it smelted like the incense the Jansai use when they’re trying for hallucinations—”

“Sweet Jovah,” Gabriel murmured. “I know he’s—but I hadn’t thought—So what did he say to you?”

“He says there is no god,” she whispered. “But Gabriel, that’s not true, is it?”

“No,” was the instant response. “It’s not true. But he’s said it to enough other people that some of them are beginning to wonder. He’s trying to—I don’t know what he’s trying to do! Destroy Samaria, I think. He does not want me to become Archangel, and he has done what he can to stop me. But taking you—it makes no sense to me. Why does he want you? What good could it do him to kill you?”

“He didn’t want to kill me,” she said in a low voice. “At least, not right away. Not this time.”

“This time?”

“He tried. When I was little. Raphael and his angels destroyed my parents’ village.” She glanced at Gabriel again, to see what expression of disbelief or outrage crossed his face, but he was merely watching her, grim and unsurprised. “There was so much fire. There was so much noise. And in the air—hundreds of bodies, wings, arms, hands, flinging things, grabbing at people. We ran, those who hadn’t been killed already—we tried to run. I saw angels swoop down on fleeing men and lift them and hurl them back down to the earth. I saw them toss children into the river, I saw them throw stones at women screaming on the ground … My father had grabbed me. He was a huge man and he could carry me, I was not so big. He had grabbed me and he was running, and I could see the shadow of angel wings form around us on the ground … I don’t know what weapon they killed my father with. He fell forward, and I was hidden under his body. I heard the screaming and the killing go on for hours and hours after that, but nobody came for us again. When it was quiet, I … pushed my father’s arms aside. I crawled out into the night. Everyone around me was dead. I ran away, and ran and ran until I came upon the Edori—”

“It was Raphael?” Gabriel asked quietly. “You’re sure of that? He led the angels who attacked you?”

“I saw him. All gold and beautiful. The sun fell on his face and on his wings, and I thought I had never seen anything so terrifying in my life. He knows I saw him. He looked straight at me and laughed. But my father grabbed me and ran before Raphael could even stretch out his arms and take me—”

“The god protect us,” Gabriel whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Who would believe such a story? Not even Naomi believed me. But it’s true. And he has tried to take me, or kill me, ever since.”

“But you said, this time he didn’t want to kill you. This time—”

“Yes. This time he just wanted to keep me prisoner in Windy Point.”

“Then why, Rachel?” he demanded, and his voice was suddenly
harsh. He shook her again, once, hard. “Why would you try to jump off the mountain? Didn’t you know I would come for you? You know what you mean to us—to all of Samaria! How could you try to kill yourself, throw your life away, when so much depends on you? What were you thinking?”

She wrenched herself free of him, at once blazingly furious. “I thought to kill myself to save all of you!” she cried. “He said he would keep me till the Gloria passed—so the Gloria could not be sung! I knew that as long as I was alive, no other angelica could sing beside you. But if I was dead, you could choose whomever you pleased and carry her to the Plain of Sharon—”

“Sweet god of mercy,” he breathed. He reached out a hand to her but she struck it aside.

“And you must have realized it, too!” she shouted at him, backing away. “You must have realized it, when you saw me leaping from the cliff! You could have let me fall, you could have been free of me—All the trouble and all the turmoil could have died with me at the foot of the mountain—”

Too quickly for her, he moved forward; he disregarded her flailing arms and gathered her into a smothering embrace. She struggled futilely against his tight hold, unwilling to be comforted, unwilling to be soothed, but her muffled cries and her beating fists had no impact on him. He merely pressed her closer, murmuring soft words into her tangled hair, warming her with his own body, supporting her with his own strength. She was so tired. She was so cold. She could not speak, or fight, or stand. She began crying helplessly and bitterly against his chest. His arms were the only thing in the world that were real.