The Alleluia Files (61 page)

Jared nodded. “Oh, yes. He would, if he could, destroy every last Jacobite on the planet.”

Tamar nodded once, but she still didn’t believe it. Oh, she
knew
it, the way she knew the sun would rise in the morning and no prayer of hers could prevent it, but she didn’t
believe
it. She could not imagine it happening. “How? Do you know?”

Again, that odd smile, distant and a little pitying. “I have my theories,” he said, but did not elaborate.

“And why the Plain of Sharon? Why not just do us all in right there in Chahiela?”

“The Archangel wants an audience. He wants to show anyone who might not realize how serious he is just how much he dislikes Jacobites—and anyone else who questions the existence of the god.”

“But will there be an audience? On the Plain of Sharon, I mean?”

Jared nodded again. “There’s a big fair going on this week. A cattle show, I think, or maybe pigs. Farm animals. But it’s not just your credulous yokels who show up for these fairs. Half the Manadavvi landowners are competitive breeders, and of course all the big farm conglomerates in Bethel are run by rich landowners. Most of the gentry of Samaria will be present. And all of them, I assure you, will get the message.”

“Are you afraid?” she asked before she could stop herself.

For the first time he appeared to look at her fully, and the depth and brilliance of his gray eyes momentarily made her forgetful. “A little,” he admitted. “It is no pleasant thing to face your own death and feel absolutely helpless.”

“They’ll let you go,” she said, the words again coming without her volition. “If you ask them to. If you tell them it was a mistake. Omar will let you go. Or Bael.”

He watched her a long time before he replied. “I stand with the Jacobites,” he said.

“But why?” she whispered. Now her body, like her mouth, moved of its own independent will. She had laid her hand on his arm before she was conscious of wanting to touch him. “Why did you not step aside?”

“You tell me,” he said.

She shook her head wildly. “Because I told you once—something I don’t even remember saying!—because I said there was nothing in your life worth dying for! But you are not a Jacobite—this is not a cause you have lived for your whole life. It should be not be something you die for, either.”

“Oh, I am not dying for the Alleluia Files,” he said lightly.

“Then why are you on this truck? Why did you come with us and follow us when you could have run?”

“I came for you,” he said, and his voice was completely steady. “You are the thing I will die for.”

The shock went through her like electricity, like violence. Every muscle in her body burned, every vein ran with acid. He had told her before that he loved her, but she had managed to hate him for saying it. She had not had much luck explaining that alchemy to herself, but she had used a great deal of energy believing it. But you could not even pretend to hate a man who would lay down his life for you.

“I wish you would not,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to die.”

He smiled, a little more cheerfully this time. “Well, to tell the truth, I don’t want to, either. And when darkness falls and I can be reasonably certain none of the Jansai can see me, I’ll attempt to contact some of my friends. Maybe they will be able to effect a rescue.”

“Contact—?” she repeated blankly. “Contact them
how
?”

“It’s a communications device. I believe the Edori invented it. It transmits sound to a designated receiver over a great distance. At least I hope it does. It’s been a while since I tried to use it.”

She felt suddenly eager. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

He regarded her again with that mysterious expression. “Yes. One thing.”

“Gladly.”

“Sit with me and wait for night to fall.”

That caught her by surprise, and she gazed at him doubtfully. She could not love an angel; he could not love her. The truth was so self-evident that there was no need to explain it, to herself, to him. Yet his face haunted her dreams and his voice spun through her mind during every waking hour; to him, though not aloud, she had explained every action of her life, recounted every adventure. If he was anywhere near her—in the same house, on the same ship, in the same city—she knew exactly where he was at every hour of the day. It was as if some magnetic core smelted within his bones exerted a powerful draw on her eyes and brain and heart. Were she to live a hundred years longer, she would not be able to escape the insistent drag of his presence, no matter how far away she ran, no matter if she never laid eyes on him again.

And yet, they would die in two days, and she did not even know what it was like to feel the weight and shape of his mouth against hers.

He smiled at her again as if he could read the thoughts like signposts in her head, and the kindness of that smile did her in. She crept closer and he stretched out his arm; she crawled beneath it as if it were the only haven in the world. His wing wrapped around her, light and silken as a kiss, and he took one of her hands in his.

Oh, no, she could not die now. Not if the angel loved her.

The trucks traveled on for another hour, until the light had completely failed. Once more, the prisoners were allowed briefly out, then shepherded back inside the truck, apparently to bed down for the night. With sunset, the air had cooled considerably, and the Jacobites watched with envy as the Jansai and the Archangel’s son gathered around a flickering fire.

“Lie together,” Conran instructed the Jacobites, moving carefully between the sprawled bodies and outspread limbs to check on everyone’s condition. “Find someone to sleep by and share your heat. It will be a cool night.”

Duncan grunted. “There will be no sleeping.”

“There had better be,” Conran replied soberly. “For you will need all your strength and all your cunning if you are to survive more than another day.”

Tamar, of course, had already found the body she intended to sleep beside. Jared, she had learned during the past hour, was
nowhere near as relaxed as he seemed; every muscle in the chest she leaned against was corded with watchful anticipation, and his arm was strung with tension.

“Now would be a good time,” she whispered. “While the Jansai are still laughing over dinner and will not hear you speaking.”

He nodded. “I agree. Sit so you block me from view.”

So she straightened her back and set her arms akimbo, while Jared slouched beside her and fumbled for something in a pack at his waist. A few minutes later she heard a series of sharp beeps, which drew the attention of every occupant of the truck. Of course, none of them was so indiscreet as to call out, “What’s that you’re fooling with, Jared?” Long before this, they had learned to rely on unlikely eventualities. But every head turned slowly their way.

Jared ignored them all. He seemed to be having some trouble getting his communicator to work, for the beeping sounds repeated several times, and twice he swore under his breath. “All right, then, Christian, let us see if another friend is home,” she heard him say, and the little chirps sounded again.

And, seconds later, Tamar heard a tinny, astonished woman’s voice float through thin air as if drifting down from a mountaintop. “Hello? Hello? Which one of you is calling me at this hour?”

Jared spoke in a hard, rapid voice. “Mercy. It’s Jared. Don’t ask questions. Omar and a band of Jansai have taken hold of me and a truckload of Jacobites—”

“Jacobites! Jared, what in the god’s name—”

“Listen to me! And they’re hauling us to the Plain of Sharon. I’d judge we’re in the vicinity of the Corinni Mountains right about now. We’ll be at the Plain of Sharon the day after tomorrow. Mercy, he plans to murder the lot of us. You have to—”

“
Murder!
Jared, stop, you have to explain to me—”

“There’s no time! You have to go to Christian, now, this instant. Tell him what I’ve told you. Tell him there’s to be an execution in two days—me and all the Jacobites. Go to him. Bring your angels. Bring the angels from the Eyrie and Monteverde, if they can be reached. Do not fail me. Mercy, my life depends on this. He will kill us all, he truly will.”

“I’ll leave now. What can we do to stop him?”

“I don’t know. My dependence is on Christian. Jovah guard you, Mercy. My life is in your hands.”

Abruptly, the connection clicked off; there was a sudden humming silence, so faint that it would have been unnoticeable to someone who had not been listening to the previous conversation. Jared snapped some switch, and even the humming ceased. The angel slipped the communicator back in his pouch. The Jacobites, who had all frozen in place, gradually relaxed.

“And do you think your friends will meet us on the Plain in time to do us any good?” Conran finally voiced the question in everybody’s head.

“I don’t know,” Jared admitted. “They’ll be there. That I can guarantee.”

“So if nothing else, they will witness our murders.”

“There is something to be said for an observed death,” Jared replied lightly.

“There is more to be said for a lived life,” Conran growled.

“I have done what I can for now. Let us all try to sleep.”

Jared stretched out, slowly and carefully, trying to avoid kicking Horace in the head. Tamar waited until he seemed completely arranged, and then she uncurled beside him, fitting her body to his. Again, his arm wrapped around her waist, comforting and warm; his wing settled lightly over her body, like lacy mist. She butted her head against the join of his shoulder and chest, just to feel those two inches of skin moving across her temple, gliding under the tangled silk of her hair. He bent his head, brushed his mouth across her cheek. She felt herself unknotting, disintegrating, in his arms. She could not remember the last time she had trusted someone else enough to sleep beside him.

She could not remember the last time she had felt so safe.

The next day was hotter. Unseasonable for this time of year, especially as they traveled north through Bethel, but miserable all the same.

“We need water,” Jared had said imperiously to the Jansai who let them out a few hours after they had resumed their trip. The gypsy had laughed at him.

“You got no need for water, nor food, neither.” He had sneered, and just for emphasis he punched Wyman as he staggered down from the truck. Duncan made a sudden movement,
as if to leap for the Jansai and strike his own blow, but Conran caught his arm.

“Let it be,” the Jacobite leader croaked. Tamar had not seen him take a swallow of water since they were first thrown aboard the truck. Not Conran, not Jared. “Save your strength for battles you can win.”

Within fifteen minutes they were back in the cage, back on the road north. Now everyone but Conran, Tamar, and Jared lay prone on the floor of the truck, too hot, too weary, and too thirsty to waste energy in sitting or speaking. Bael would not need to tie them to stakes and torch them, if that was his plan; they would die wretchedly on their own.

The truck picked up speed, rocking a little wildly from side to side and causing Jani to spread her arms to keep from rolling across the floor. That was the moment that Jared chose to come to his feet. He steadied himself with a hand wrapped around one of the bars of the cage, and he tilted his head back to watch the merciless sky brighten above them.

And he began to sing.

The Jacobites all stared at him as if he had gone mad, even Tamar, crouching at his feet like a starving beggar. He had closed his eyes but kept his face pointing upward, sightlessly watching the hard blue heaven. He seemed to sing to the sky itself, to the sun, pleading with them to soften and darken and take pity on the poor traveling refugees. His voice, despite hunger, thirst, and fear, was untroubled and unfaltering, rolling through the heated air of the prison like a scented breeze.

Or perhaps the air itself was cooling. The vapors of the wind seemed to be imperceptibly coalescing even as the Jacobites watched. First the sky grew dimmer, as if the sun covered its face with a thin gray veil, and then an unexpected cloud boiled up from nowhere, directly overhead. Another cloud raced up beside it, angrier and darker, and suddenly the sky was nothing but clouds, nothing but temper. A streak of lightning sizzled to the ground, and the clouds exploded with applause.

Jared continued to sing, not once opening his eyes.

His voice sounded in Tamar’s head much as Lucinda’s had; she heard him not so much with her ears as with some receivers buried in her brain. She could not have said if his voice was rich or thin, powerful or pitiful, gorgeous or mistuned. But it shaped itself to her thoughts and desires; it snuggled into her
cortex and her vertebrae. Her heart molded its rhythm to his beat, and she turned over her existence to him.

And then the rain came, falling like jewels tossed from a king’s hand. Duncan yelped and scrambled to his feet. Sal yanked Horace’s canteen from his limp hand, unscrewed the lid, and held it out between the bars to catch the glittering water. The other Jacobites copied him. The tempo and force of the storm increased; within minutes they were all drenched, and still the rain poured down. Now the Jacobites (all but Horace) were on their feet, arms flung out for balance, heads thrown back, trapping the delicious water in their open mouths. The rain sluiced down, plastered their hair to their heads and their clothes to their skins, and washed away everything—thirst, dust, fear, despair.

As quickly as the storm had swept up, it dissipated. The clouds flattened out, wrung of all their water; the fractious wind skipped once more around the caravan, then sighed and lay down to rest. The furious sun, throwing a tantrum of its own, shoved aside the bleached clouds and glared at the sodden earth below. Slowly, sullenly, the air submitted itself again to that tyrant’s will.

But they were cooled, and they had water. When Jared, seeming almost disoriented, opened his eyes at last, he swayed once with the skidding motion of the truck and almost fell. Tamar caught his hand and drew him down beside her. He put his arm around her shoulders as if, even this low to the ground, he could not keep his balance. She leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. The whole universe paused in its eternal spinning; the very earth shook perceptibly with surprise. Jared’s arms closed around her, drawing her wet body tightly against his. If she had not been soaked to the bone, she would have sworn she had been set on fire.