“No,” Gaaron said.
He did not speak particularly loudly, but everyone in the room heard him, and everyone else stopped talking. He came to his feet slowly, aware as he did so of how tall he must appear, rising like a troubled man’s conscience to a height too great to comfortably gaze upon. His wings arched behind him and spread out to both sides, till he was taking up more space than one man should, even one angel; he wanted no one in the room to be able to overlook him.
“No,” he said again. “If we seek out weapons, we betray our god, and we forfeit his faith in us. He brought us here to escape violence. He brought us here to help us learn again how to live with each other, despite our differences and conflicts. He has promised us that he himself will destroy us if we cannot live in harmony with each other. If we construct weapons and use them, we will not have to wait for our enemies to bring us down. Jovah will do it for them.”
“But, Gaaron, that’s unreasonable,” Neri objected. “Yes, Jovah wants us to live in harmony with each other, but he does not want us to be annihilated by—by strangers! He would want us to defend ourselves! If we are not turning these weapons against our own people—”
He gave her a grave look. “That has not yet been established.”
“Well, if one of my own people is trying to kill me with fire, then I am damn well ready to use fire to destroy him back!” one of the river merchants shouted.
Gaaron now turned the weight of his sorrowful stare on that speaker, who instantly fell silent and turned his gaze downward, as if counting the fingers of his own hand. “Such is the philosophy that led to the destruction of the world from which Jovah rescued us,” he said.
“Then we are to do nothing?” someone demanded. Gaaron could not identify the voice. “We are all to burn in our beds?”
“I believe the god will show us the way to deal with our enemies,” Gaaron said. “I believe we need to work toward identifying them—discovering who they are and what they want. I believe we can find ways to appease or defeat them. But I am not willing to authorize the first steps on the short road to our self-destruction. I am not willing to devise weapons that will destroy us as surely as they will destroy our enemies. If we do, I believe Samaria will be obliterated within a generation—by the god, who will have ceased to love us, or by us, as we turn our weapons against ourselves.”
Gaaron allowed himself to sit down, as slowly and impressively as he had stood up, and let the controversy rage about him for a few moments. Adriel was regarding him from the front of the room, her face expressing conflicting emotions; Neri watched him with a more considering look on her face, as if trying to gauge whether or not his will could be overcome. Moshe was the one who finally called a halt to the debate by standing and flinging his arms up for silence.
“Well, it hardly matters if Gaaron’s right or not, because in fact we don’t have any weapons, and as James said, we’re unlikely to develop anything useful in the next two weeks. So does anyone else have any ideas? About how we can protect ourselves from harm?”
C hapter F ifteen
The conference went on for another three hours, but nothing conclusive was decided. The merchants did resolve that they would meet with their fellows back in their respective cities and devise ways of combining their shipments, hoping that the larger caravans would be less likely to be attacked. Solomon was willing to urge the Jansai to travel in larger packs—“Though how do I know? That may only mean that more of them are killed at once,” he said cynically. All of them agreed to spread the news among the farmers and the small settlements: Until we have overcome this crisis, consider abandoning your land and moving to one of the cities, or throwing in your lot with others so that you are harder to overcome. Short of that, there seemed to be little they could do.
“Until we learn more, or until the god gives us the guidance Gaaron expects,” Moshe said with a sideways glance at Gaaron.
“We shall ask him for his help,” Isaac said.
They split up then, to pass a few hours until the formal dinner to which they had all been invited. Gaaron, who had not slept nearly enough the past two nights, headed back to his room to nap. This meant avoiding Adriel’s eye and pretending he did not hear Neri call his name as he stepped from the conference room and headed through the circuitous corridors back to his room.
He drew the curtains against the sunlight and stretched out facedown on the bed. Naturally, he couldn’t fall asleep. His mind played back fragments of the day’s discussions, the frightening recitations of attacks by mysterious strangers, the suggestion that weapons be fashioned to meet the crisis, his own impassioned speech, and the snippets of conversation that made it clear that all of them, even the most aggressive, felt helpless and afraid. He had not thought they would solve everything by this day’s convocation, but he had hoped they might leave the room with some kind of plan in mind.
But those reflections weren’t all that kept him awake. Windy Point had been named for the two elements from which it seemed to be composed—the sharp slaty rock of the mountain, and the wind itself. Gaaron had been too tired last night to hear it, but now, half drowsing and far from relaxed, he could not tune out the sound. First the wind rushed against the stone walls of the fortress with a battering fury; then it whined around the turrets and crenellations like a moping beggar. It would grow quiet for a few minutes and then sidle back again, hissing along the casements and tapping at the glass. Gaaron remembered now how many nights he had lain awake when, as a teenager, he had lived at Windy Point—how many nights he had imagined the wind as some malevolent, shrieking spirit howling against the injustice of a world that could build castles that would keep it out. He had gotten used to it then—had even come to enjoy its rattling rage and supplicating moans. But not today. Today he rolled to his side and put a pillow over his exposed ear, and willed himself to an uneasy sleep.
He managed not to be tardy for dinner, though he woke up later than he expected, and he dressed himself carefully in the formal black-and-white attire that Adriel would demand. Entering the grand dining hall, he found, not to his surprise, that the Archangel had carefully arranged all the conference guests at tables set up in one corner of the room. He did pause to speak briefly to various Windy Point angels and mortals who were seated at other tables in the hall, friends from ten years ago, or allies now. There were a fair number; he had always gotten on well with the residents of the Archangel’s hold.
When he made his way to the more exalted tables, he found that Adriel had chosen his dinner partners with an eye to politics. Thus he had been seated with the wealthy Jordana landowners and the powerful river merchants, all of whom would be pleased to have this chance to speak somewhat privately to the man who would next be Archangel. Gaaron summoned his most pleasant smile and took his place at the table.
The meal lasted late into the evening and was followed by entertainment in yet another of the grand chambers that took up so much of the ground level of Windy Point. Most of the program consisted of music, of course—angel choirs, young soloists, a trio of flute players whose harmony was so unearthly and so fine that Gaaron felt a little shiver pass over his spine as soon as they began playing.
“You must bring them to the Plain of Sharon this spring,” he called to Adriel over the enthusiastic applause that followed their performance. “I am sure the god would like to hear them play.”
“Yes, I had thought the same thing,” she called back.
After the concert, there were more refreshments, and they all stood around munching on sweets and talking idly. Adriel loved to entertain—and, political creature that she was, she liked to make sure that every social opportunity also provided a chance for the country’s deal-makers and power brokers to exchange ideas and promises. Gaaron himself quickly reached his limit at events such as these. He was glad that everyone was planning to leave in the morning.
“I know you consider my flying too fast and too high, but I will moderate my habits for your comfort if you wo
uld like me to return you to Mount Sinai,” he told Mahalah as the party was breaking up. “I warn you, however, that I am interested in leaving as early in the morning as I can without appearing uncivil.”
She smiled up at him from the overstuffed chair where someone had deposited her after the concert. “I would be happy to entrust myself to you,” she said. “And I am willing to leave at dawn if it suits you. I do not do so well away from familiar things. I am eager to get home.”
Gaaron spared a moment to wonder if Susannah would be back by the time he returned. Possibly—probably. He hoped so. He took Mahalah’s frail hand and gave her a little bow, his wings sweeping back behind him to add even more courtliness to the gesture. “As are we all, oracle,” he said. “As are we all.”
It took two full days to fly in relatively easy stages from Windy Point to Mount Sinai. Gaaron would have cheerfully continued on his way to the Eyrie, since they coasted into Mount Sinai in the early evening, but Mahalah seemed so exhausted by the journey that he felt compelled to stay overnight. He dined with the acolytes, all those silly young girls, and felt older than the stones of the mountain itself as they giggled and whispered their way through dinner.
He slept pretty well, though, as he always did in Mount Sinai. As if in direct contrast to Windy Point, the oracle’s retreat was a place of almost tangible serenity. Peace drifted through its muted gray corridors like the scent of summer. It was so still it encouraged even his busy thoughts to stutter and stop. He lay on the wide bed and felt all his strung muscles go lax, all his worries and questions get absorbed by the deep and ample silence.
In the morning, he rose late, unable to bear the thought of another meal with that cluster of mirthful girls, but he was happy to find Mahalah still at the breakfast table when he made it to the dining room.
“You look much better than you did last night,” he said, sitting beside her once he’d filled his plate at the buffet. “I thought perhaps I should have taken the trip even more slowly than I did.”
“Nonsense, you were a most considerate travel conveyance,” she said brightly. “It is just that I look like paltry death whenever I grow tired. Isaac told me right before we left that I should start looking about me for my replacement. Who would be so rude? I told him I’d outlive him, though I wasn’t so sure last night.”
Gaaron took a bite and mulled that over. “I don’t even know how an oracle’s replacement is chosen,” he said at last. “Is that one of the tasks that will fall to me sometime during my tenure?”
She laughed at him. “Most likely, unless you think I’ll last another twenty years. Even Isaac won’t be around so long.”
“Then what do I need to know?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Mostly the god takes care of it,” she said. “Long before one oracle dies, it becomes clear who the next oracle should be.”
“Yes, but how does it become clear?”
She shrugged, clearly unconcerned. “Someone steps forward. One of the acolytes, perhaps, or a priest. Someone who has shown a fascination with the old language, an adeptness at learning it. Someone who feels a calling. Don’t worry, Gaaron, I have many good years left in me, and I am not at all concerned about finding my heir.”
He smiled and sipped from his juice. “Yes, but you’ll be safe and happy in Jovah’s arms, and I’ll be running around madly looking for able linguists,” he said. “I don’t think your insouciance reassures me at all.”
“Well, we could go this morning and ask the god if he has considered my successor, but I warn you, Jovah’s answers are sometimes not as direct as you might like.”
“No, I don’t think we should waste the god’s time on frivolous questions when we have something far more serious to ask,” Gaaron said.
Her thin white eyebrows rose. “Ah. What to do about our mysterious and violent visitors.”
“If in fact they come from somewhere outside our world,” he added.
“You seriously think they do not?”
“You seriously think they do?”
Mahalah spread her hands in an indecisive gesture. “I think the people of Samaria have deliberately chosen to forget everything they could about the universe outside their own backyards. And I think that universe is a pretty big thing to overlook. We know very little about where we came from—only two hundred and forty years ago. How much more will we forget as every generation passes? It is not just our dangerous technology we have chosen to put aside, but our history. I think people who choose not to acknowledge their past open themselves up to unpleasant surprises in the future.”
“We know enough about our past. We know it was bloody and destructive. We know that if we re-create it, we will all die. That seems to me a good enough reason to go forward without reference to our history, forging a new personality, if you will, for our new society.”
Her smile was a little crooked. “Fine, so long as there are not things you are ignoring that do not choose to be ignored,” she said. “The more I know, the less I agree with some of the decisions made by Uriel and Hagar and those other early settlers. But it is too late now to voice my opinions, I suppose. I will live within the constraints imposed.”
He laughed at her. “You’re talking nonsense, you know.”
She laughed back. “I wish I were. Come, then! Let us go question the god.”
He followed her chair through the narrow corridors, as always feeling his wings brush against both walls. It was so quiet that the two noises were easily distinguished, the hiss of her wheels on the stone floor, the shush of his feathers behind her. He liked both sounds.
They went to the central room with the glowing blue faceplate set into the wall. Mahalah headed directly there and began running her fingers along the knobs before Gaaron had even fetched a chair so he could sit beside her.
“What does the god say?” he asked, sitting down.
“He has not answered yet.”
“Well, what did you ask?”
“I asked what we should do about the marauders harming our farmers and traveling caravans.”
“Did you ask him who the marauders are?”
“What? No. I’ll ask that next. Now just be patient.”
Gaaron watched in fascination as the light behind the screen seemed to ripple and re-form. Patterns appeared magically on the surface of the glass, shaped like words and sentences, though they were indecipherable to him. He leaned closer, as if he could, by the sheer power of his will, translate the message.
Mahalah seemed a little puzzled. “Perhaps I did not phrase my question clearly enough.”
“What does it say?”
She put her finger to the screen, though Gaaron would have been afraid to touch it. “It says, ‘I have called her. When she comes, she will make all right.’ ”
“Who will? What will she make right? Is he even talking about the same thing?”
“Good questions,” Mahalah said, her fingers busy on the keys again. “I will ask him if he is aware that certain villages and campsites have been destroyed by enemies with fire.”
This time the answer came back a little more quickly and appeared to be a single syllable.
“He says yes,” Mahalah relayed. “I will ask him if he knows who these enemies are.”
A slightly longer wait, and a reply that made Mahalah sigh. “What?” Gaaron demanded.
“He says, yes, he knows exactly who they are,” Mahalah said. “Shall I ask him to name them?”
“You might as well. I am beginning to think the answer will not be very helpful, though.”
Indeed, it was not. Mahalah scanned the new text on the screen and said slowly, “ ‘Their names have not been offered up to me, but I can see their movements clearly. They have not identified me, but I am aware of them.’ ”
Gaaron sat back in his chair with a little thump. His wings flounced with the movement and then lay still. “If he does not know their names . . .” he said slowly. “That means, at the very least, that they never have been
dedicated. So, whoever else they are, they are not rogue angels and probably not ordinary farmers or miners. Because I have almost never come across a mortal, in any of the three provinces, who did not bear a Kiss in his arm.”
Mahalah was watching him. “The Edori are rarely dedicated,” she said softly. “And not all the Jansai. If you were looking for possibilities.”
“I cannot believe it of the Edori,” he said swiftly. “But I would not put such depredations past the Jansai! There is a race that has not entirely forgotten its violent past, mark my words.”
“Jovah knows who the Jansai are, and he did not point to them for these crimes,” Mahalah said.
“No, he did not tell us anything useful at all.”
Now she smiled. “Yes, he did. He said he was aware of the situation and that someone—some woman—will make all right. Not a very complete answer, I will admit, but it does give me some hope that the god is watching over us and will not let us be destroyed.”
Gaaron sighed and stood up, arching his wings and rolling his shoulders. “In any case, I appreciate you giving me the chance to ask,” he said. “If I think of any more questions to which I would like obscure replies, I will be sure to return.”
“Bring Susannah with you next time,” she suggested. “I would like to meet her. We all would.”
“Perhaps I should have a party,” he said, not serious.
“Perhaps you should have a wedding.”
He glanced down at her, startled. “We will. We just have not made plans yet.”
“And what have you been doing with your time instead?”
He laughed shortly. “Mostly, running behind Miriam, smoothing over disasters.”
“And how is your sister?”
He was silent a moment. “Well, I hope. I have allowed Susannah to take her to Luminaux to live for a little bit on her own. Susannah thinks that it is the great shadow of my wings over her that causes Miriam to behave, to some extent, as she does. Perhaps when she is free of attention, she will find her own way. That, or bring down the whole city of Luminaux in one blue cloud, I don’t know.”