In my belt was a long, iridescent green flight feather. Barak’s gift. My necklace of amulets glowed softly. The seraph stone on my necklace, a gift from Zadkiel when he healed me, was glowing bright. I lifted it and it tingled through the gauntlets, an electric charge. I dropped the stone.
Something moved in the lavender air and brushed my cheek, softer than the breeze, feather light. I caught it and held a pale lavender feather. I managed not to curse aloud in surprise. I knew where I was. Saints’ balls. I was in Amethyst’s wheels. The knowledge jolted me, and I caught my balance on the smooth floor, a floor made of the same substance as the crystals in the metal box back in the stockroom. Where I still was.
The deep mellow crooning of the wheels changed timbre and softened as they noted my recognition. My heart beat. I was pretty sure I had been here three heartbeats. Three pulses that carried the venom into my body. I lost sensation back in my own reality. Earth faded away. Tears of Taharial. What was happening to me?
“I will honor the promises of my Mistress,” the words whispered into my mind. “Her promises and obligations. I will not let her sin by forgetting you. By forgetting her Watcher.”
Nothing else ensued and I raised my eyes to see Amethyst, the feathered and many-winged cherub, sitting in a gold chair, facing away from me, staring out over a low wall. Cherubs are nothing like the chubby babies on Pre-Ap Valentine cards. Cherubs have four faces on one head and eyes in weird places, like under their multiple wings, and hands in even weirder places, under their wings and along the outer edges, covered by downy feathers. They jutted from shoulder blades and from calves, fingers fluttering and gripping and grasping. The seraph face was looking out, the eagle face was toward me, its eyes closed, as if sleeping. Her primary hands were in the proper place, at the bottom of human-looking arms, and they rested on the gilt arms of the chair, lightly clenched, long nails like golden talons curled around.
Leaning against her was a young man dressed in skin-tight lavender, his long black hair loose and flowing. Malashe-el. Older than when I last saw him, as if he had aged years in the past weeks, he was still lissome and his face in profile was touched with a faint smile. A black beard and goatee sculpted his already sharp features into severe planes and angles. Both mistress and son were intent on something beyond the ship.
Fear was building beneath my skin, threading its way across my flesh. I should get out of here before they saw me, but I didn’t know how. I resisted the urge to draw the weapons I carried. It might not be the most politic thing to appear armed and ready to kill in the presence of a holy being.
Around me, the wheels were a glowing thing with a flat floor and low walls and protuberances everywhere. It was easier to see the oblong shape of the wheels from the inside, sitting in the innermost section of the ship, and it looked smaller somehow. Unlike the outside of the wheels, the inside had no eyes to blink and stare, but had an organic smoothness that threw back the light, like the surface of a pearl. And the entire ship pulsed. Like a rapid heartbeat, light emanated from one end and throbbed along it to the other end. With each pulse, something whipped by overhead, too fast to see, several somethings, some closer than others. Whatever they were they should have created a breeze or a vibration through the floor. They didn’t.
A single note caroled. Together, the former daywalker and his mistress leaned in and opened their mouths, joining other voices, singing in a pleasing tenor and alto. It was a hymn I knew from my youth, from Psalm 98. “O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvelous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.”
Hundreds joined in, thousands, the singers out of view beyond the walls of the ship. A verse out of order from the scripture was sung as a chorus. “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.”
A strange euphoria gripped me, raced through me. If melody and harmony could exist in a dozen parts, twenty parts, all on perfect pitch, this was the sound of the singing. The reverberation rose and fell, notes like bells and harps and oboes, tones so rich and intense they raised prickles on my skin. My knees felt weak and I put out a hand to steady myself.
Walking over the last notes, a single voice, a rich baritone, took over. “The LORD hath made known his salvation….” The one voice was so pure, so full, it throbbed through me, quaking in my bones. Tears gathered in my eyes and I leaned against the wall of the wheels, the amethyst smooth beneath my gauntleted hand. The lavender air I breathed changed odors, becoming the smell of honey and orange blossoms. The physical sensations of this place in the otherness, this here-not-here, were strong, overpowering. Mage-heat began to rise in me. The seraph stone on my necklace took on a brighter hue. The light from within it was a rainbow of colors, scintillating.
I realized that one of its uses was to stop mage-heat. I snatched the stone from the cuirass and pressed it against the bare skin of my cheek. Mage-heat died as if plucked away. Well, well, well. I dropped the stone down my shirt and the heat vanished entirely.
The choir sang, “Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together.”
I forced my knees to steady and eased around behind the walker, more toward the sleeping face of the eagle, edging so I could look over the wall—railing?—gunwale?—and see out. Around me, the massive song continued, voices swelling, “With trumpets and sound of cornet, make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King!”
And I looked out over the site. My eyes were nearly blinded by a surging brightness in the center, directly below. Shielding my eyes, I looked to the sides. For a moment I couldn’t make out the confusing scene. As it resolved itself, I nearly fell.
Seraphs. Countless hundreds of them. Thousands. Millions, covering a square of land that stretched out of sight. My knees buckled and I fell against the wall, supporting myself, trying to take it all in. Some seraphs were in winged form, others appeared as whirling lights. Minor Flames darted through the throng, bright balls leaving plasma trails. Bursts of light flickered through, like heat lightning.
At the four corners of the square were the cherubim, each in her wheel, each wheel seeming composed of different gems the size of football fields, the living, breathing, seeing ships of the cherubim. The wheels were shaped like gyroscopes, the exterior wheels spinning, the interior one a platform with a being at the gold navcone, the navigation cone, the origin of the pulsing light. One wheel was like a ruby, one like an emerald, one like a citrine. Amethyst made the fourth. And each ship had eyes only for the brightness in the center of the square.
I looked up, overhead, to see a dome of light, a coruscating prism of light that seemed to look out on the center of a galaxy, glistening like a billion stars. I looked back down, still protecting my eyes from the brightness in the center of the square, to see a grid laid out, a grid of glowing gold. Between each of the lines of the grid I saw rectangles, tall boxes, and domes and—
My mind interpreted the images. The grid was streets, lined with buildings.
The euphoria that washed through me became a flood, a wild, tumbling torrent of motion and emotion. I was in a ship of a cherub, in a Realm of Light. The crowd below shifted, revealing the floor on which they stood. It was clear, like the finest quartz, or maybe diamond, etched with symbols and shapes my mind couldn’t interpret.
Visible through the floor was a plane of greens and browns and gold, like spring and autumn blending into one time and place, life and death. The thought vanished like a dream as I saw what ran through the plane. In a brilliant golden sweep, raced the river of time. At one end was a waterfall that threw off a dancing, swirling spray of mist. At the other was a volcano that erupted with a spray of golden water. Both fed the river, as did tributaries and streams, and the river emptied into a crystal sea, so still and placid that it reflected back the light like the face of the full moon.
Above the river, the bright light in the center of the square rose, levitating, lifting between the four cherubs, which set
tled lower, closer to the crowd below, a dizzying disorientation of movement. Below the bright light was a sapphire, a single faceted gem that rippled with energy. The bright light in the center undulated with amber and rainbow radiance.
The voices rose higher in pitch as if following the lifting lights, and I covered my head with my arms to block out the light and the noise, which was wondrous and splendid, so grand that no words I knew could define or explain it. My eardrums thudded like drums from the decibels. Dizzy with the sound, I fell, resting on the lip of the wheels, bruising the undersides of my arms. I was crying, tears drenching my cheeks. The volume finally fell and the descant changed key as the hymn changed. “Holy, holy, holy,” the throng sang, pianissimo.
I knew where I was. I knew. I was in a Realm of Light. Or worse. I was in heaven.
The song faded away to the final strains, the notes so pure even the air shivered with the beauty of them. Amethyst swiveled in her ornate chair, bringing her human face around. She saw me. Her eyes opened in shock. For a long moment, we stared at one another.
A tremor ran through her, and all the eyes on her many wings opened and focused on me.
Holy Amethyst lifted her head and screamed. Her screech ripped into the tapestry of music. The voices faded away. The scream echoed from the four corners of paradise.
Chapter 12
At the sound of her shriek, the wheels dipped and spun, throwing me flat. I landed hard and my training took over. Instinctively, I rolled to my hands and knees, but the ship dipped again and one shoulder rammed the wall. My right arm was instantly numb; pain bit in at my elbow and along my gauntlet-covered hand. The wheels steadied and I looked up to see Holy Amethyst standing at her chair, keening like a banshee, her eagle face lifted to the dome overhead, her beak open in a warning cry. Anger lit her narrow, feathered face and crackled into the air.
Demon bones. This can’t be good.
The singing stopped and Amethyst’s cry fell away. Her wings unfurled, two sets shaped like butterfly wings, a third set sweeping away from her body to reveal a downy, many-breasted torso and hips swathed in white linen. I caught a glimpse of her feet, which were rounded and hooved, like horses’, but shining like gold.
Above the railing, faces appeared. Faces of seraphs. I was in trouble.
Flames zipped into the ship and past me, trailing blue plasma so bright I closed my eyes, blinking hard. I rocked back on my heels and cradled my injured arm, my elbow brushing across my blades. The tanto sizzled with power, burning my flesh through the chain mail of my right arm, the blade issuing a high-pitched hum, a sensation like bees buzzing, crawling over me.
Rise, my mage visa said.
Not entirely certain that was a good idea, but not having any other ones, I stood. I had an instant to remember the serpent and the venom and wondered if it was still pumping into me. I no longer heard my heart beat. Perhaps I was dying. That seemed to happen a lot when I was in the otherness, the here-not-here. Hysterical laughter bubbled up between my lips and I swallowed it down hard, wiping away my tears.
Malashe-el, moving with the speed of its kind, was suddenly in front of me and caught me up in a hug that bruised my ribs. It smelled of brandy and lilacs, and its arms seemed to offer a measure of safety. Though we had once been mortal enemies, I clung to it.
The daywalker withdrew and brushed its fingers over the chain mail at my forehead, its labradorite eyes like blue-gray opals. It had been made of evil and holy matter, mixed and formed to follow its master’s call, shaped and bred to be a killer. I had wondered in past days if it had been built to destroy a cherub, yet the daywalker, the being of legend, had decided against the Dark. Light brightened its odd eyes. Behind it, Amethyst screamed again, but when Malashe-el didn’t flinch, neither did I.
“You are a warrior like your Raziel,” it said, acknowledging the significance of the scarlet armor. That thought had been in the back of my mind, and I agreed, touching my breastplate with a clink of metal. The scarlet steel was the same shade as Raziel’s flight feathers.
As seraphs gathered and hovered just beyond the rotating gyroscopic bands of the lavender wheels, the former daywalker lifted the seraph stone on my chest. Purple light played within, muted, but growing brighter. “Yet Zadkiel has placed you under his protection. He plays a dangerous game with divisive politics.”
Malashe-el’s tone made the words sound felonious and Holy Amethyst, Zadkiel’s mate, screamed again, this time in agony. She fell again to the gilt chair and covered herself with her wings, rocking like a grieving child hiding from a painful world.
The seraphs beyond the wheel walls swept hard with their wings, maintaining position, but several had drawn swords and more were congregating by the second. Emotions were gathering like an electric charge on the air and I had a feeling my window of safety was closing. I had so much to ask, and no time at all. “How did I get to a Realm of Light?” I asked, voicing the most useless question of all. “Mages are mortal. And soulless.”
“As am I. Yet, my place is here. And here there is no time.”
“Give her to me!” Amethyst begged, her voice like an owl’s. I had no idea who she spoke to, but whoever it was, it couldn’t be good. “Though I did much for her, the little mage has defied the sanctity of my wheel. This is blasphemy.”
I wondered what she had done for me, except ask dangerous favors that put my life at risk. At my thought, the cherub hissed and swiveled her lion face toward me. Exposing long fangs, she lifted black lips and growled like a jungle cat.
Mortal and soulless, mages can’t call on the One True God, God the Victorious, for help. Prayer doesn’t work for us. Theologians insist that the Most High doesn’t hear us. Other theologians contend that if he doesn’t hear an intelligent creature, it proves he isn’t real and never was, but that was a theological argument for passionate believers and heretics. I was just in trouble, so I said a silent prayer, in case the One True God heard me. Just in case—the excuse for prayer when uttered by atheists and agnostics for millennia.
Malashe-el cocked its head almost as if hearing my prayer. “It’s not safe here,” it thought at me, arms tightening like steel bands around my waist. As if he’d been invoked by a magical charm, her seraph now stood beside Amethyst, holding her human-looking arm, his deep purple wings half-furled, his beautiful face expressionless as a block of marble.
“Go,” Malashe-el said. Ducking a shoulder, it rammed into my chest. Hard.
Not expecting the shove, my feet in improper position, I rocked back, hitting the wheel wall. Stunned, I plummeted over.
A moment of shock immobilized me and I tumbled past the hull in open air, buffeted by the strong turbulence whipping off the rotors. I had a single jumbled glimpse of the wheels rotating at sickening speed. The city spread out below me. Empty. The streets were all empty.
My heart beat. Far away. And again as fear slammed into me. My right arm and ankle impacted the nearest wheel with quick, hard cracks, spinning me toward the next wheel. Pain shivered through me. Heart ramming my chest wall, I fell.
Crack the stone of ages, I’m going to die. Desperate, I drew on stone, on all my amulets.
Instantly I was back in my body. Vertigo knocked me backward. My head banged hard, nausea rose in my throat as the world spun about me. Light flashed overhead. I was sprawled on the floor in the stockroom. On my chest was a two-handed fist of amethyst. It was looking at me, which was way weird, and it was humming, a faint vibration through my palms. I had drawn on stone. This stone. I had drawn on the wheel, using it to—what?—save me from itself? Themselves? Scripture used “wheels” and “wheel” interchangeably, and no one knew if the living ships were singular or plural. Either way, Amethyst would kill me for that. Another blasphemy.
Using my left foot and arm, I scuffed my way against the floor and into a sitting position, back to the wall. When I inadvertently moved my right arm and ankle, pain jolted through my limbs and I hissed.
“Shhh. They’ll find us,” a vo
ice whispered.
I jerked in surprise, which spiraled the pain higher and I bit down on a curse. To my left was a little girl, squatting down, arms tight around her knees. Mostly hidden under a shelf filled with racks of storage bins, she was little more than a shadow.
“Who are you?” I asked as I cradled my hand and pulled up my sleeve.
“Shhh,” she said again. “Kimmer is It, and he’s real good.”
“Hide and seek?” I asked, lowering my voice. My wrist and forearm were purple, as if from a hard blow. I was almost afraid to stress it, but I flexed my fist closed. The pain increased, though not as badly as I had feared, and I opened and closed my hand several more times, feeling intense relief.
Mages have brittle bones and a single hard blow can shatter them. Our broken bones don’t heal as quickly as humans’, either, and a bad break can mean permanent disability, even with healing incantations. I had survived a ruined left hand only after seraphic intervention and what I suspected had been Lolo’s far-reaching incantation.
“Hide, seek, and tag, and the winner gets a prize.”
I flexed my right foot up and down, easing my jeans leg up to view the ankle. It was in even worse shape, but I curled my legs under me and stood, forcing the foot to carry weight. Pain shot through me, bringing another surge of nausea. I leaned over the boxes of stone and dropped my head into my arms. I was still holding the amethyst, and the crooning grew louder.
“You’re the devil woman, aren’t you?” she said. When I grimaced, more from pain than from her question, she confided, “My daddy says you’re going to hell, but my mama says she’ll take sanctuary from the Dark Lord himself if it means keeping us alive.”
“Isn’t that just peachy,” I managed. I placed the fist of lavender stone back in its case. From the outer hallway, squeals erupted and feet slapped against the floor. “Tag! You’re it!” a young voice shouted gleefully.