“Where, then? What would feel like home to you?”
She raised a hand to brush it through her hair. She was not sure she was enjoying this part of the conversation any more than she had enjoyed the part about Edori beliefs. “Maybe someday I will feel at home in a place, maybe with a person,” she said. “And you? Where do you feel most comfortable?”
He shrugged. “I could live anywhere, I imagine. All I need is access to technology and an interesting project to divert me, and I’m reasonably content.”
She made the effort and smiled. “A project like wiring the Eyrie for electricity.”
He smiled back. “Wiring the Plain of Sharon for sound.”
“Oh yes! Recording the angels’ music.”
“Learning to fly.”
She shook her head. “You will die still wanting to accomplish impossible things.”
“Better than to die wishing I had not wasted my life.”
“I envy you a little,” she said. “Knowing what you want.”
“You’ll know it when you come upon it,” he said. “Everybody does.”
It was the longest, most satisfying meal Alleya remembered sitting down to in the past year—maybe five years. Maybe ever. She was sorry when she realized they had to go: The waiters were clearing away dishes from the other tables, all empty, and the quiet, pretty background music had stopped some time ago.
“I think it’s past midnight,” she said, appalled.
Caleb laughed. “Well past,” he said. “Time for all good angels to be sleeping soundly in their beds.”
She left him on the cold, empty streets of Velora and made the short flight to the sleepy compound high above the city. Even at this hour, sweet harmonic voices drifted through the stone warren, singing melodies of peace and contentment. As always, Alleya tried to identify the performers. Timothy, she thought, and a mortal girl who had just given birth to an angel child. The name escaped her at the moment. She retreated to her room, did the most cursory washing up and tumbled into bed. She was asleep in minutes.
The next two days, she left Caleb pretty much to his own devices as he scoured the city and set up a temporary workshop in the music room. She checked on him periodically and made sure someone brought him food, but her own time was fully occupied with visiting petitioners and residents who brought her domestic problems. And there was nothing she could do to speed Caleb’s progress, anyway.
The afternoon of the third day, he came looking for her. She was conferring with two Luminaux merchants who were eager to set up a trading arrangement with all the angel holds, when Caleb practically came bounding into the room.
“It’s not perfect, but I think you’ll—oh, I’m sorry. They just said you were in here—”
Alleya could not help smiling. He looked flushed with eagerness and obviously had good news. “I’ll be done here in twenty minutes or so,” she said. “I’ll come to you.”
So she agreed rather hastily to the merchants’ request and ushered them as politely as she could to the exit at the grand stairway, then hurried down to the music rooms to see what Caleb had wrought.
A low drone, interrupted at close intervals by a metallic coughing, guided her toward the chamber he had set up as his headquarters. Over that unattractive noise the magnificently twinned voices of Hagar and Uriel rose and fell in the Uvalde mass. The odor of hot oil drifted greasily back. Rounding the final turn in the corridor, Alleya paused at the sight that greeted her—a squat black contraption of wires, valves and mysterious protrusions sitting outside the open door of the music room. The singing apparently came from the repaired equipment. The chugging and whining and fuel smell came from Caleb’s machine.
But it did seem to be working.
Alleya stepped inside the room to find Caleb still tinkering with the faceplate on the wall. “Have you really achieved this miracle?” she asked, and her voice brought him instantly around.
He was beaming. He had streaks of dirt across his face and his forearms, and he looked like a little boy who had just discovered spiders. “I think so, yes,” he said, very excited. “Come in, come in. When you close the door, you can hardly hear the motor running outside—”
He actually took her by the hand to pull her in, shutting the door behind her. The thick cords along the floor kept the door from closing completely, but most of the outside noise was blocked out. In contrast, the sublime duet seemed to grow louder, purer. Alleya shut her eyes briefly, following the intricate ascent of the music. Caleb seemed not to notice he had lost some of her attention.
“I had to jimmy this wire, and the casing doesn’t fit properly, but that doesn’t seem to matter. As long as you keep the motor supplied with fuel and you’re willing to put up with its byproducts, you can run your machines. Actually, I think it’s strong enough to power two of the machines at once, but if you wanted juice for more than that, you’d need another motor.”
Alleya opened her eyes. “What kind of fuel does it require?”
“It’s a special kind of oil. Daniel can supply more when it runs out.”
“How does the motor work? How do I turn it off and on? Where does this special fuel go in?”
“Here, I’ll show you. It’s simple, really.”
So he led her back into the hallway and showed her the switches and the fuel intake valve and told her what she should not touch. She nodded because it really didn’t seem all that complicated. She motioned him back inside the soundproofed room and closed the door again so they could talk without shouting.
“So you think you understand it?” he asked.
“It seems clear enough,” she said. “But if the motor breaks down when you’re gone—”
Caleb grinned. “Daniel can fix it if there’s a problem. The motor itself is pretty straightforward. The trick was converting its power to the machine’s power.”
“But you did it.”
He couldn’t help showing how pleased he was with himself. “I did, didn’t I? I wasn’t sure I could.”
“I can’t tell you how profoundly grateful I am. Now, tell me what I owe you, and be assured I’ll recommend you to all my friends.”
He looked blank for a moment, as if he had forgotten that this was a skill he could be paid for, and then grinned sheepishly. “I’ll send you a bill,” he said. “It will take me a little time to figure time and parts. I—it will be expensive, I’m afraid—”
She laughed. “Worth it. Charge what you will.”
“And will you celebrate with me tonight? After I clean up, of course.”
She knew a moment’s extreme temptation, but she could not escape tonight’s schedule. “I would. I can’t. I have burghers from Semorrah and Castelana meeting me for dinner, and they’re none too happy with me as it is. I can’t abandon them a second time to Samuel.”
He looked as disappointed as she felt, which was a comfort, though he made an effort to hide it. “Well, then. When you have your next insoluble project. Think of me, and I’ll be glad to help. With anything.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Or if I’m in Luminaux again for any reason—to see Delilah or whatever…”
“Yes,” he said quickly. “Let me know. We’ll—we’ll have dinner or something.”
They both fell silent, she at least feeling awkward and stupid, he looking as if he had much more to say but could not frame the words. Outside, the motor churned out its ragged heartbeat; inside, Uriel’s deep voice modulated into the minor key of a sorrowful plea for mercy. Why was it so difficult to say a simple goodbye?
“Well, then,” she said, and held out her hand. “Till Luminaux, or later. And send me that bill.”
“I enjoyed working with you, angela,” he said, closing his hand over hers and holding it rather tightly. “I look forward to my next opportunity to serve you.”
She disentangled herself quickly, mostly because the warm, comforting clasp of his hand gave her so much pleasure. At the door, she turned back briefly. “Goodbye, Caleb Augustus,” she said
formally, then hurried down the hallway as fast as she could go.
It was not till the next morning, when she returned to the music room, that she found his gift, wrapped in a scrap of blue silk and left on top of one of the silver music disks, where she would be sure to see it. With it was a plain piece of paper on which “Alleya” had been carefully hand lettered. Unwrapping the silk, Alleya exclaimed at the pretty gold hair clip adorned with a single sapphire. She could not resist setting it at once into her hair, where it seemed to instantly restore a certain order to the usual unruliness.
Although she should not accept such a present, of course.
Although people were frequently bringing gifts of thanks to the Archangel and, indeed, any angel who had helped them.
Although, technically, he was the one who had helped her.
But she knew she would keep the gift, anyway.
Just to prove to herself that the miracle was still intact, that the magic had not evaporated overnight, she turned the ignition on the motor, flipped the switches on, and inserted Hagar’s secular music into the player. Delirious music instantly burst through the hidden speakers, filling the room with brilliance. Alleya closed her eyes, giving over all her other senses to the music, and swayed slightly to the slow, hypnotic beat. If she could sing like this, if anybody alive could sing like this…
Suddenly her eyes snapped open and she read again her name written in Caleb’s hand. It was the first time he had addressed her as anything except “angela.” She had not even been sure he remembered that her name was Alleluia. Who had given him this name, and why did it give her such a strange shiver, as though an intimate hand had passed over the inner feathers of her wings? She folded the paper into tiny squares, turned off the music, shut down the motor, and left the music rooms to address the urgent problems of the day.
Caleb stood silent for a good two minutes, staring at the monstrous vehicle that Noah had named the Beast. It was one of the unsightliest constructions he’d ever seen, and, in the course of his career, he had built more than his share of ugly but functional machines. This one blended the worst characteristics of anything Caleb had ever cobbled together: It was big. It was noisy. It was cumbersome. It produced a fearsome odor. And in no way did it appear to be something he’d care to entrust his person to if he had any notion of comfort over a long journey.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Noah enthused. “What I particularly like is the framework above the passenger compartment where we can hang a tarp if it starts to rain.”
“As it’s likely to, since the rain never ceases in Samaria,” Caleb responded somewhat absently.
“The steering principle isn’t difficult, but there’s sort of a trick to it. I figure you and I will take turns actually driving. I don’t think Delilah will want to do too much of the manual labor—”
Caleb wrested his fascinated gaze from contemplation of the Beast and asked, “Is she really coming with us?”
Noah nodded. “Oh yes. I asked her again last night, just to be sure. I thought she might change her mind, but—Anyway, I don’t think she’ll be doing any of the actual piloting. But you and I can split that up.”
“Oh, gladly.” Caleb finally found the willpower to move and began a slow circuit around the vehicle. It was as big as two Edori tents back to back and rested on a frame supported by six metal wheels. Each wheel was set with serrated spikes (“to dig into the ground in any terrain and keep the vehicle steady,” Noah had informed him). The front two wheels were on a cumbersome axle that could be turned from left to right, guided by a two-handled steering mechanism in what Noah referred to as the driver’s compartment. It took, Caleb surmised, a certain amount of physical strength to operate the two handles in tandem. Although there was a dilapidated barstool bolted down in the compartment, Caleb didn’t fool himself that the driver would be sitting down much. Mostly he’d be on his feet, hauling on the handles and swearing loudly.
The unfortunate passengers were confined to an area about the size of an average kitchen table, where two small leather sofas had also been secured in place. There was very little room for their feet or personal belongings, although they could see out the open framework of the car to view the passing countryside. It was doubtful they’d be able to amuse themselves with idle talk, since the motor, situated in the back third of the contraption, made a commotion so loud as to drown out even the most determined conversationalist.
The motor was powered by steam generated by any kind of fuel the driver could scare up—firewood, coal, oil—and though there was a fuel storage container built into the vehicle, Noah had confessed that it wouldn’t hold enough of anything to take the Beast more than fifty or sixty miles.
“So I figure we’ll be stopping for firewood pretty often,” he said. “Which is why I configured the stove to burn anything. Who knows what we’ll come across for fuel?”
“Who knows, indeed?” Caleb echoed. “Maybe if we get desperate, we can burn our clothes.”
Noah grinned. “They wouldn’t take us very far.”
“Do you have to stop every time you refuel?”
“If you’re using oil, probably. But for wood and coal—see, the stove is close enough to the passenger compartment for the riders to feed in more fuel.”
“Oh, delightful,” Caleb said. “I’m sure that’s the job Delilah will want to volunteer for.”
“Well, I figured you and I—”
“Could take care of that part when we weren’t driving. I guessed that. But tell me, how were you planning to make this fabulous journey if I hadn’t agreed to go with you? Since clearly the Beast is a two-man operation.”
Noah grinned again. “Well, I would have bribed one of the mikele to come with me,” he said, using the Edori word that meant young boy. “He could have handled the refueling part, though I wouldn’t have let him drive. But once you said you’d go—”
“A little free slave labor.”
“Hey. All in the interests of scientific advancement. So what do you think? Are you impressed?”
“Dumbfounded,” Caleb said. “It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. And the noisiest—”
“You’re just jealous,” Noah replied, unruffled. “Because you couldn’t even begin to know how to put the whole thing together.”
“Wouldn’t have wasted my time on it.”
“Yeah, gone off and tried to make angel wings instead. That’s something that’ll get you far, trying to learn to fly.”
They bantered a bit more as Caleb continued to inspect the car. He had to admit, Noah had done an excellent job of selecting and fitting his materials, considering they were all cannibalized from other projects and never intended for use in a self-propelled motorized land vehicle. He asked a few more questions about parts and fuel and climbed throughout the interior to get a feel for the inside dimensions, but Noah was right: Caleb could not have improved on this particular project.
“So when do we leave?” he asked, descending cautiously. He could see already that getting in and out of the high compartment would take a certain amount of practice, at least to accomplish gracefully.
“I figure it will take us five days to get there. So maybe we should allow a week. In case of breakdowns or mishaps, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“The Edori conference is in twelve days. So we should leave early next week to allow plenty of time.”
“Have you got a route mapped out?”
“More or less. The difficulty is finding a way that offers water and fuel for the whole trip. I also want to stay away from the main roads, because I don’t think we’d be popular company. So we’ll be camping most of the way.”
Caleb nodded. “How often do you have to add water?”
“About as often as you add fuel.”
“That could be a problem. Unless you follow the coastline.”
Noah shook his head. “Seawater’s a last resort. The minerals clog up the steam lines. But in an emergency it will work.”
/> “Can we carry water with us?”
“Some. But once we run out of water—”
Caleb smiled swiftly. “We’ll have Delilah pray for rain.”
A quick frown crossed Noah’s dark face; then he decided to ignore the joke. “I’ve got half-a-dozen Edori who’ve agreed to follow us with extra horses. They’ve got my map—plus, it won’t be hard to follow our tracks. They’ll only be a day or two behind us. Worst case, we wait for them and go on by horse.”
“Sounds as workable as it can get,” Caleb observed. “I’m almost looking forward to it.”
“Hey, it’ll be the adventure of your dull life,” Noah said.
“That’s right. I keep forgetting that you’re doing me a favor by letting me come with you.”
They spent some more time discussing what food items they could bring (what there might be room for) and looking over the map Noah had drawn. Most of the land around Breven had always been a desert, but the recent storms had created marshy ponds in half-a-dozen previously dry gullies. Winter never came harshly to this quarter of Samaria, so they would be dealing with mud, not slicks of ice. “We should be all right,” Caleb decided, then shrugged. “If not—still a grand idea.”
“Dinner tonight at Seraph?” Noah asked as Caleb gathered up his backpack and prepared to go.
“Can’t. I’ve been gone too long and I have too much to do. Maybe later in the week.”
“All right. Till then.”
And as Caleb left for the short hike from the camp into Luminaux, he reflected wryly that Noah had not once asked him about his visit to the Eyrie. He wouldn’t have expected him to inquire after the health of the Archangel, but he had thought that Noah would be interested enough in the foreign technology to want to hear about that part of his visit at least. But apparently not.
Just as well. Caleb did not particularly feel like talking about it.
Half of his return trip he had spent castigating himself for the foolish, romantic gesture of leaving a gift for Alleluia; the other half of the trip he had spent wondering what plausible excuse he might have for returning to the Eyrie in the near future. None came immediately to mind. Surely something would occur to him.