The Alleluia Files

  “Sing to me,” she had whispered in her sister’s ear as they hugged good-bye on the wharf. “I will listen for you.”

  “Be careful,” Lucinda had whispered back. “Don’t do anything too dangerous. And be kind to Jared.”

  That had made Tamar laugh shakily as she pulled away. “It is not in me to be kind to angels,” she said loftily, though she spoiled the effect by scrubbing away a few undisciplined tears.

  Lucinda held up two fingers. “Just me and Jared,” she said. “The rest you can scorn your whole life long.”

  Tamar held up one finger, then touched it to Lucinda’s cheek. “We’ll be back in a little less than three weeks, is what I think Conran said. I’ll see you then.”

  One more quick hug good-bye, then run up the gangplank onto the Edori ship. Then crowd along the railing with all the others, shouting out farewells and promises.

  Then turn back toward the main deck of the ship to find herself face-to-face with the angel Jared.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jared had not realized he had such a deep capacity for anger. He could not remember ever in his life feeling more than a quick flare of irritation that evaporated in a minute or two, no matter what the provocation. Well, in general not much provoked him. People didn’t go out of their way to throw obstacles in his path or show him small, annoying discourtesies. His hold was well run, and any minor problems that came up from time to time were things his mother and sister could deal with efficiently and gracefully. He was aware in a vague way that injustices existed in the world, and had he been present at any blatant example of one, he would have done what he could to correct it, but for the most part he was not a witness to suffering or cruelty or despair. And so, very little upset him.

  But this. Tamar’s incredible stupidity, ignorance, stubbornness, self-destructive willful blindness, had roused in him such a storm of fury that to contain it he had had to build an iron wall around his temper. He had had to construct an amiable mask land place it over his face; he had had to force himself to behave with all his normal charm and poise, or the anger would have swept over him like a typhoon and carried him away.

  This was the first time he had seen Tamar in two full days. She had obviously been at some pains to keep clear of him, and he had not made much effort to track her down. They would be aboard this ship at least six days, as the captain kicked up its speed to full power, and Tamar would have to talk to him sooner or later. He could bide his time.

  And the time had come.

  “You’ve grown quite close to Lucinda in a few short days, I see,” he began, civilly enough. “Have you thought how you will stay in touch with her once this adventure is over?”

  “I haven’t given much thought to anything beyond getting to Bethel and back,” she said warily. She had edged as far from him as the railing would allow. They had barely pulled beyond shouting distance of the shore, but already the Jacobites had scattered to other parts of the ship; they were virtually alone here on the stern of the upper deck.

  “You should not even be on this trip, you know,” he said conversationally.

  “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “Oh, I think you do,” he said, and though he kept his voice calm, he could feel that anger rising, boiling up, flaming through him like exhilaration or fear. “If you didn’t realize you had no business on this ship, you wouldn’t have gone to such great lengths to avoid me in the past two days.”

  “I knew you thought I shouldn’t go, and I didn’t feel like having an argument about it,” she said swiftly, in that tough, contemptuous voice he knew so well. “But I certainly consider my presence necessary.”

  “It’s not and you know it,” he said. “Even if they find these precious files—even if they are recorded in some arcane old language—even if you’re the only Jacobite in the whole damn pack who can understand the oracles’ words, you don’t have to go to Samaria to do it. Won’t they bring the files back to Ysral? Certainly Conran won’t leave them behind in Chahiela.”

  Tamar shrugged and turned away. “Unless the files are inscribed on some tablet that can’t be moved. Unless what we find in Chahiela is a map that leads us to the place where the files are really stored, and that map is written in the old tongue. There are dozens of reasons why I should go—but only one really matters. I want to go, and it’s my life. What you think doesn’t matter.”

  He had never in his life laid a finger on anyone in anger, but now he put a rough hand on her shoulder and jerked her around to face him. “It’s your life, but I saved it, and I have some right to it now,” he said grimly. “And I tell you at this moment that I refuse to see you waste it in some foolhardy stunt—”

  Her laugh was really a gasp of sheer amazement; she yanked herself away and stood there staring. “Foolhardy—! The search for the Alleluia Files? It’s the most important—and what do you mean, you won’t see me waste my life? What do you think you can do about it? You can’t stop me from going—you can’t stop any of us from going—”

  “I could, and I’m still thinking about it,” he said, his voice even harder. “I could snatch you up right now and fly back to Ysral, and there would be nothing you or anybody else could do to stop me. I could—”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I? To keep you alive? What do I care if you hate me, as long as you’re safe?”

  “Who in this world is ever safe? Are you?” she broke out in a voice as passionate as his own. “I can’t remember a day of my life that didn’t pass in some kind of fear. Fear of starvation, fear of discovery, fear of capture. Fear of death. You think I’ve only been in danger since the Jansai got my picture, but I’ve been in danger since the day I was born. So have you— so have we all. You could die of disease or a misplaced thunderbolt. You could die if a big transport truck came roaring down and you couldn’t get out of the way in time. You could die if a storm blew up unexpectedly when you were flying and you got thrown to the ground. Who is keeping you safe? And why do you think you have to guard me?”

  He leaned close enough to make her eyes widen in alarm, close enough so that his wings, falling forward over his shoulders, made a white wall on either side of her, though not a single feather touched her skin. “Because I can,” he said softly. “Make no mistake, you are only on this journey as long as I consider it relatively free of hazard. The instant a Jansai ship pulls into view, or a Jansai caravan heaves over the horizon, I will seize you and carry you back to Ysral. I don’t care if every one of your comrades goes down in flames or dies with a Jansai dagger in his back. You will survive this quest.”

  “Just because you saved my life?” she said in that sarcastic, disbelieving voice. “You think you own me, because of that?”

  “Because I love you,” he said.

  It was as if he had struck her a blow across the mouth. The words startled him almost as much as they had startled her, and the well of his anger in a single pulse transformed to an inferno of white-hot fear. Because I love you and you could die. The most primitive of all emotions, and the most powerful. He had used a smiling face to disguise his anger from the world, but he had used anger to hide his love even from his own heart.

  He said it again, this time aloud. “Because I love you and you could die.”

  He was not surprised when she had no reply for that. Straight-armed, she shoved him in the chest and ducked outside the protective circle of his wings. In two running steps, she had reached the doorway that led belowdecks and disappeared. It seemed unlikely that she would speak to him again for the rest of the trip.

  Jared spent the next six days in the air. Even though The Wayward was traveling at a rate about twice its usual pace, Jared was still faster; he could easily catch up after ranging twenty or thirty miles away to check for unwanted company. He spotted Jansai ships more than once, and returned to the Edori vessel to advise Maurice on how to avoid the raiders.

  “Wish I had a lookout like you every time I s
ailed this ocean,” the captain said the second time Jared came back with a warning. “If you ever get bored with your Gloria and your sacred masses and all your other angel duties, you just come on over to me and I’ll sign you up as a member of my crew.”

  “Could happen,” Jared said with a smile. “I’ll let you know.”

  He would have patrolled the waters in any case, on this journey, with this frail human cargo, but since the argument with Tamar, the Edori boat seemed too small to comfortably hold both of them. For himself, he felt stifled and starved for breath during those few waking hours that he stayed on board the ship; and anytime his feet touched the deck, Tamar disappeared to the rooms below. He could only imagine how claustrophobic she was beginning to feel.

  To make matters worse, it was a small ship, with nothing resembling privacy. All the crew and all the Edori had cabin mates, sometimes crowding three to a room, and no one could walk across the deck or down to the galley without tripping over half a dozen fellow passengers. Only when Jared was soaring above the ocean did he have a moment to himself.

  Although, in one sense, he was never alone, since thoughts of Tamar were with him constantly. In his mind, he said it better, phrased it more romantically, explained to her how through impossibly small degrees she had become ingrained in his heart, part of its shape and rhythm. In these conversations, she listened sympathetically, shyly spoke of reciprocating sentiments, then melted into his arms and lifted her face to be kissed. Despite the fact that he had never yet seen Tamar in a tender moment (except possibly when she was hugging her sister farewell and even then she had seemed fairly fierce), this scene seemed quite realistic to Jared; he imagined it on an hourly basis for the whole six days of the trip.

  How his friends would smile, if they could see him lovesick for a wild young Jacobite. How Isabella Cartera would stare, then laugh and laugh until she had to sink into a plush, overstuffed chair, drained by hilarity. His mother—his sister—everyone who was used to treating his light romances with amusement and tolerance—all of them would gape with astonishment to see the careless and insouciant Jared snared by a rebel siren.

  He couldn’t think what to do about it. Impossible to imagine her tamely tending to hold matters back at Monteverde. Impossible to picture himself setting up household with her in some stone cottage on the edge of Sahala, debating religious philosophies with Conran and the other heathens.

  Impossible to imagine life without her.

  Well, he would finish out this adventure and then he would force a reckoning with Tamar, and then … well, Jovah alone knew what then. All Jared knew was that it would not end here.

  They dropped anchor at midnight in a rocky cove that was no more a harbor than Conran was an angel. The Wayward was a small ship, but too big to ease close enough to the shoreline to throw down a gangplank, so Maurice and two indistinguishable crew members lowered a dinghy to the water by the light of three small lamps. Not enough light to see by, of course, but that was the point. They didn’t want to draw attention from anyone on land or sea.

  It took two trips to ferry everyone from the ship to the soil although Jared needed nobody’s transport. He would have offered to carry one of the Jacobites to the shore except he was pretty sure they all would have declined with loathing. Well, Tamar would have, he knew, and she was the only one he really wished to carry in his arms. So he just took care of himself, and awaited the others on the dark beach.

  Maurice had come briefly ashore with Conran. “We’ll wait a few miles off the coast for three days. Send the angel back to get us, and we can be here in an hour. If you’re gone longer than three days, you’ll have to find another ship home, because we can’t hover in these waters too long without drawing attention.”

  The Jacobite leader shook hands with the ship’s captain. “You’ve done a great deal for us already,” he said, adding some phrase in a language Jared couldn’t understand. Probably that godless Edori tongue again. “Do not endanger yourselves. With any luck, we’ll see you again in three days—or a few weeks, back in Sahala.”

  When the little dinghy was once more in the water, moving soundlessly toward the ship, Conran gathered his band together. “We’ll camp here for the night and head for Chahiela first thing in the morning.”

  “Here?” Jani said with distaste, looking at the damp, shifting sand. Conran grinned.

  “No, not in this precise spot, mikala. Half a mile inland on dry ground, I hope. We should be safe enough, but just to be sure, we’ll all take a turn on watch. Anyone who’s not sleepy can take first shift.”

  Jared would have volunteered except, again, he didn’t feel like anyone in this circle valued his skills. Damned if he was going to offer any service that they would reject with disdain. Although he would never forgive himself if he was snoring away when the Jansai arrived … He shivered slightly. Maybe he would just take care to sleep very, very lightly. Close enough to Tamar to smuggle her out of harm’s way should it come roaring up in the middle of the night.

  They trudged up from the beach and found flat, dry land almost immediately. They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, miles from the trade road or any farming community; there weren’t even any memorable features to the landscape around them, at least by the light of the half-moon. Not that any of them spent much time looking. They were all tired and a little cross. The hothead Duncan demanded the first watch. The rest of them dropped where they stood, made whatever pallets they could from their duffel bags and cloaks, and fell instantly asleep. Jared waited long enough to note Tamar’s position, and then he closed his eyes.

  Morning came far sooner than he had expected, beating down on them with a merciless cheer that was infinitely irritating. Conran roused everyone by stalking through the camp and slapping his hands together briskly. “On your feet, time to get moving!” Even zealots, Jared observed from his own jaundiced eyes, found it hard to be enthusiastic after four hours’ sleep on a wretched bed.

  They ate fruit, dried meat, and bread rolls as they walked west, following the coast. Conran was in the lead, but Duncan, Horace, and Sal were only half a pace behind him. Wyman, who was probably the best built of the lot and could have outdistanced even Duncan had he put his mind to it, was loitering behind with the women to dally with Jani. Tamar made halfhearted conversation with Loa when she wasn’t skipping ahead to chat with Conran. Jared brought up the rear.

  What in Jovah’s name was he doing on this enterprise? Looking for the Alleluia Files in the company of criminals who would be executed by the Archangel if Bael could ever catch up with them? And despite the fact that Jared had been the one to suggest this site as a hiding place, it seemed wildly unlikely to him that the secret documents would really be there. Since it seemed wildly unlikely that they even existed.

  His mother and his friends wouldn’t laugh at this quite so merrily. Only Christian, who had sent him on this bizarre chase, would take him by the hand and say, “Well done.” Even Mercy, who had so reluctantly agreed to practice mild treason against Bael, would find this mad venture incomprehensible.

  Though she might forgive him for love. If everyone else in the world laughed at him for that, Mercy would not. That thought gave him a little comfort and allowed him to tramp on behind the others, mile after weary mile.

  Angels hated walking. Lucinda was the only angel he’d ever seen who would stroll down a city street rather than fly from end to end—but Lucinda, on so many counts, was hardly common. Most angels would rather forgo the most exquisite pleasure you could name than walk a block to see it. It was a game with them to compare the soles of their feet, tender and uncallused as a baby’s cheek. Jared was no exception. But he walked with the Jacobites. He did not want to be even three wing spans away from Tamar if the Jansai suddenly appeared. He was here to keep her safe and, by the god’s great grace, he would do it.

  At noon, bowing to the pressure of many complaining voices, Conran called a brief halt for lunch. It was more of the same and they ate quickly. The w
omen disappeared for a few minutes behind a stand of trees, though Duncan called after them, “Hey, girls, what are you hiding?” When they came back, Loa threw a rock at him, and everybody laughed.

  After this stop, they turned almost due north and walked about three more miles. They could see Chahiela half an hour before they actually crossed into it. It looked like any other small town on the edge of a trade route. There was a collection of squat new buildings lining the main road, and two distinct neighborhoods on either side of the highway, one belonging to the passably wealthy and the other devoted to the struggling poor. At the very western edge of the town stood a disorganized cluster of older buildings that had probably been there even before the road.

  Where now? Jared wondered. He didn’t think even Conran had the nerve to stroll up to total strangers and start inquiring after the Alleluia Files. For himself, he was stymied.

  But Conran kept on walking and the others straggled behind. The Jacobite leader bypassed all the new homes, all the recent warehouses, and headed straight for the original buildings that must have housed the school when this little community was first haphazardly put together. Even now, Jared realized, the school still existed: As they approached the older outbuildings, he saw young children leading others by the hand and older youths navigating the streets with the aid of canes and deep concentration.

  Conran came to a halt outside a large communal building and looked around indecisively. Jared, trying to reason like a Jacobite, wondered what he might say to the first person who approached and asked their business. The angel couldn’t think how anyone could frame the essential questions.

  He didn’t have long to speculate. Within three minutes, as the Jacobites stood in an uneasy cluster, a middle-aged woman with a pleasant expression stopped in front of Conran.

  “Can I help you?” she asked. “Are you looking for someone? Is someone in your group looking to become a student with us? I am Arla.”