“If you die, I will die,” he said simply. “If you board that ship, I will stand beside you.”
“If you board that ship,” she said, “I will not go.”
“Fair enough,” he said, and his voice was relaxed, almost amiable. “I will go in your stead, if that means you will stay behind and live.”
“No!” she cried. “I will not accept that!”
“Your choice,” he said. “I sail with you, or without you if it keeps you safe. You will not leave for Ysral without me.”
“And I will not leave for Ysral with you,” she said grimly. “If you sail without me, know that I will find some other way to destroy myself. I can do it, you know—I can travel out to the Heldoras or the Corinnis and fling myself off some mountain peak. But I needn’t go that far! There are medicines, you can find them in Luminaux, that turn a long sleep into the longest sleep, that ease you painlessly across the threshold of death—”
There was a sudden sharp report; Caleb realized with a shock that Noah had slapped the angel. “Not another word,” he said ominously. “Don’t say that again, do you hear me? Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Death is your enemy, you ridiculous child. Don’t try to make him your friend.”
“He is my best friend,” she whispered, her voice muffled. Caleb imagined that she held her hand to her mouth while her wide eyes stared at the Edori. “And you cannot change that by wishing.”
After that, there was total silence, but Caleb was fairly sure that no one in the cave slept that night. Certainly he was unable to fall back asleep, and his companions stirred restlessly for the hours of darkness that remained. In the morning, they rose to a renewed onslaught of rain and skies colored an unrelenting gray. No one spoke as they broke camp and wearily clambered back into the Beast. There was nothing left to say.
So that had been the trip; and in the following week, Caleb had seen very little of either Noah or Delilah. Whether they saw each other at all, he did not ask. He did not know how to counsel either one, so he did not lay himself open to requests for advice.
The few times he went to Seraph, Noah was not present. Delilah’s repertoire had changed radically; the songs she performed now were upbeat, optimistic, adventurous, ballads about great deeds accomplished and victories won. She seemed, for the first time since he had known her, to be genuinely happy. It was hard to believe that this was the woman who had so forthrightly embraced the promise of death. But perhaps she was happy because she felt finally free—free of pain, of self-loathing, of despair. He could not quarrel with her means of achieving that freedom.
To find Noah, Caleb had to stroll out to the Edori camp and induce Thomas or Sheba or one of his other friends to invite him to dinner. Noah was usually there, invariably glad to see him, always interested in hearing about his engineering projects; but it was not the outgoing, cheerful Noah he had always known. This man was reserved, thoughtful, determined.
“You’re really going to go, aren’t you?” Caleb finally asked him one night when the two of them were the only ones left around the dying campfire. “You’re going to make the journey to sea.”
“To Ysral. Yes. I’m finishing up my jobs here and taking on no new commissions. I’ll be ready within three weeks.”
Caleb shrugged. “You know all my arguments.”
Noah looked at him and smiled. “And you know my reasons.”
“And if she won’t let you go—?”
“Nothing will keep her from boarding that ship. You know that. So I’m going, too. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll find the promised land.”
“If I could only know for sure—if you were alive or dead…”
“Who knows anything for sure? Sooner or later, Yovah brings all of us home. You, me, all of us. I’ll watch for you from the circle of Yovah’s arms.”
It was an Edori farewell; Caleb knew the proper response. “And till I arrive, whisper kindly of me in his ear.”
So he had had nothing to brighten his days until he came back to his apartment one evening to find a brief note from the Archangel. His heart made a clumsy pirouette under his ribs, knocking awkwardly into his bones; he truly forgot the simple requirements for breathing. Surely she must have come for some reason other than to see him. Not that it mattered. She was here.
And, as he learned later that night, she needed him. She could hardly have framed a request he would have refused, but this one intrigued him, and he was glad to agree to help her. However, the intervening six days were interminable, two in Luminaux and four on the road; he had not thought the hours could creak by at such an excruciating pace.
Of course, he had one brilliant memory to sustain him, and he relived it on a pretty much continuous basis for each of those six days. In fact, sometimes he thought he might have dreamed the kiss, hallucinated about it, invented it in his disordered brain.
But when he saw her next, would she allow a second kiss?
He and his borrowed horse arrived at the rendezvous a few hours before Alleluia. Caleb unloaded his mount and prepared a meal. The horse was an Edori mare and should not stray far from this point if Caleb wasn’t gone more than two days. So he had been told, anyway. He didn’t trust animals; they had minds of their own. A machine would be much more likely to stay where he left it.
Then again, a malfunctioning machine was what had brought him to this meeting place, so perhaps he should be a little less blithe.
He had just finished his meal when he caught a glimpse of movement on the western horizon. His traitorous heart started up again, performing its breathless gyrations. Yes, it was an angel; it was Alleya. She seemed to carry the sun on her back. Her blond head was haloed with light, and her wings seemed to brush color and glitter into the sky with every one of their downward strokes. It hurt to look at her, but there was nowhere else he could possibly turn his eyes. He practiced smiling, he reviewed all the dialogue he had laboriously constructed over the past few days. In the end, he just stood there stupidly as she touched her feet gracefully to the ground and walked toward him.
“You must have traveled fast,” she said, an ordinary greeting, smiling at him but not as if it was causing her any great effort. “I thought I would certainly be here before you.”
He smiled back, and most of his dizziness left him. “Edori horse,” he said, and his voice sounded calm, quite reasonable. “Bred for travel.”
“Can we just leave it here while we go up in the mountains?”
“That’s the theory. I’ve been told she’ll be here when I get back. Are you hungry? I’ve got food left over.”
“Oh—not now. But once we’ve made the climb, I might be.”
It was easier and easier to talk to her; then again, it was what he had been born to do. “How high do we have to go, anyway?”
“Up the mountain. I think it takes several hours.”
“We’d better get started then. Can I carry anything for you?”
“Oh, no. I can manage. But thanks.”
So they turned their attention to the rocky slopes that formed the base of the mountain and, after a little study, determined where the trail must lie. Alleya led the way at a brisk but reasonable pace, and the exercise helped counteract the winter chill. The higher they climbed, the more defined the trail became, and within a few miles, it narrowed to a track no more than a couple of yards wide. Both sides were lined with rusting iron stakes, higher than a man’s head and ground to a point at the top.
“What are these?” Caleb finally asked, pointing.
She glanced behind her with a grin. “Didn’t I tell you about those? When Hagar had this place built, she made it as inaccessible to angels as possible. You can see that no angels could land anywhere along the path, because their wingspan is too great—their feathers would be pierced. Look,” she added, and came to a halt. She shook out her wings, which she had folded behind her for the hike, and let them lie on the path behind her. Sure enough, the trailing edge of each landed a few inches behind the perimeter of the slim rods.
br /> “As I understand it, all the grounds around the house are studded with stakes just like these. It would be folly for an angel to try to land there. Which was the point. Hagar didn’t want her husband or anyone else dropping in on her without an invitation. She liked the idea that Uriel had to come climbing up the mountain like any lowly petitioner if he wanted to see her here.”
“And did he ever make the effort?”
Alleya laughed and resumed walking. “According to the stories, he did. They were always arguing, and she was always leaving him, so he continually had to come here to fetch her.”
“I’m surprised he went to the trouble,” Caleb observed. “She sounds like a difficult woman.”
“Oh, by all accounts she was, but from everything I’ve read, my sympathies are with Hagar. Uriel comes across as hotheaded and selfish and domineering. Not an easy man to live with.”
“Why was he made Archangel, then, if he was so hateful?”
“Uncommon leadership skills. The ability to inspire men. You have to remember, they were the first people on Samaria. Trying to establish—everything. Do everything. Build cities. Build angel holds. Learn how to farm the land. It must have been very rough. You’d need someone a little autocratic to hold everything together.”
They didn’t talk much after that exchange; they needed their breath and their strength for the climb. The pathway narrowed still more as they ascended, causing Alleya to fold her wings back so tightly they trailed on the ground behind her. Walking a few paces behind, Caleb watched the gleaming white edgefeathers as they played through the dirt, skipped over exposed roots and dislodged tiny rocks. No mud and no debris clung to them; nothing dimmed their radiance.
They halted twice for short breaks, to take sips of water and catch their breath. The sun was quite low in the sky when they trudged up the final rise and broke through to a sort of clearing. Well, there was a house still standing and what looked like the ruins of two or three gardens, but the general undergrowth of the surrounding hillside had certainly encroached on what once was civilized ground. Scattered around the edges of the clearing, and dotting the gardens and the pathways, were more of the metal spikes. Angels not welcome here, indeed.
“Hagar’s Tooth,” Alleya said, stepping forward again after a long pause. “Let’s take a look.”
In the immediate grounds, there was not much to see, except cultivated flowers run wild, a cheerful little stream that wound its way tightly around the house and then bubbled away down the mountain, and one or two small outbuildings that may have served for storage. The door to the house was unlocked, and they entered cautiously.
“Spiders inside, I would guess,” Alleya said.
“Mice. Maybe rats. Snakes.”
“Mountain cats. Bears.”
“Too well-built. But I’ll bet there’s little creatures.”
There were no immediate signs of animals or rodents, though there were plenty of cobwebs clinging to the walls in the first room they entered. They moved from room to room to find each one covered with dust but seeming somehow pristine and uncluttered. Each room was sparsely furnished with a few tables or chairs, or a bed and an armoire; but everything looked lovingly chosen and precisely placed.
Alleya stood in the middle of one of the bedrooms and did a slow turn to take in the plain mirror, the single decorative hanging on the wall. “It’s strange,” she said softly, as if thinking aloud. “Obviously, this place has been neglected for years but it still seems—clean, and serene, and cared for. There’s something soothing about it. It’s almost like Mount Sinai—a place of calm and quiet, away from the rest of the world.”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way,” Caleb answered, “but I know exactly what you mean. I like it here.”
“So do I.”
Exploring farther, they stumbled across a cedar closet which seemed to have been effectively closed against insects and small marauders. Inside were blankets and pillows and women’s clothes, all apparently unmolested.
“Someone was a good housekeeper,” Alleya observed.
“Something to sleep on tonight,” Caleb said.
They squandered their daylight hours investigating; it was full dark before they had finished looking over the house. “Which was stupid of us, since now we can’t start looking around for the thing we came here to find,” Alleya remarked.
“There’s always tomorrow morning,” Caleb said. “Anyway, it might take us days to find. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
“No,” she sighed. “Or what to do with it if we find it.”
The long day and the physical exercise had made both of them hungry, so they went to the kitchen and took stock of their rations. Each of them had brought enough food to last a couple of days, and they instantly agreed to share items so that there was more variety for both.
They worked together to clean enough of the kitchen to make it usable, building a fire in the large fireplace to heat their food. Alleya found candles in a range of sizes and, lighting them, placed them all around the small room. Their flickering opal light gave the room a festive air.
“You forget how nice candlelight can be,” she said. “At the Eyrie, of course, everything is gaslight.”
“And in the cities, it’s all becoming electricity,” Caleb said. “But I like a little candlelight now and then. More romantic.”
It had been a calculated remark. She threw him a warning look, but then her face softened to a smile.
“Now if we only had wine and soft music,” she said.
“I’ve got the wine,” he said. “And you could sing.”
“I’m not singing,” she said automatically. “You brought wine? All the way from Luminaux?”
“I thought we might need it.”
Another one of those looks, followed by a laugh. “Well, we might enjoy it,” she said primly. “But we won’t need it.”
It was, all in all, one of the pleasantest evenings Caleb had ever spent. They sat at the small table in the gaily lit kitchen, eating off dishes supplied by some long-ago angelica, sipping their wine without noticing it, eating their food without tasting it. They talked. Caleb recounted in more detail the tale of his trip to Breven and back. Alleya told him about her visit with her mother and then, naturally segueing to the topic, about growing up in Chahiela. That prompted Caleb to reminisce about his own childhood, learning scientific theory at his father’s side, learning simple human courtesies from his frail but determined mother. Their conversation was thoughtful, unhurried, built half of memories and half of observations, and Caleb had never felt so completely in tune with himself or another human being.
It was obvious that Alleya felt it, too, that she gave herself up to the pleasure of that conversation, but only for a couple of hours. He could tell when she realized that she must halt this intimacy or lose herself in it completely, for she gave him a bright smile and seemed to draw a polite veil across her face.
“Well! This has been delightful, I know, but after all we didn’t come here just to talk about our parents,” she said, rising to her feet and beginning to gather up the dishes. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. Why don’t I clean up in here, and you see if you can pick out some clean blankets to make up the beds?”
He wanted to protest, but he didn’t want to alarm her. They would be here much of tomorrow, most likely; he might even have another evening like this in store for him. A plea now would only put her more on guard for the duration of the visit.
“Very well,” he said instead. “Which bedroom do you want?”
“Oh, the one with the blue wall hanging, I think.”
“I’ll take the one with the big wooden bedstead. I’ll see what I can find for us to sleep on.”
In another thirty minutes or so, they were settling themselves in for the night and promising to wake early in the morning. Caleb waited for the sound of her door closing, then stretched himself out on his bed, wondering what odd sequence of events had led him to t
his place, this evening, this company. Not that he was complaining. At the moment he could not think of a place he’d rather be, a person he’d rather be with. He turned on his side, prepared to spend a wakeful night wishing he was closer to that same person, and fell instantly asleep.
Alleya was awake before he was in the morning, and he scrambled to catch up, eating and dressing as quickly as he could. When he joined her outside a few minutes later, he found her prowling through the ruined gardens. She straightened as he approached her and wrinkled her nose in a fatalistic smile.
“No listening device here,” she said. “I didn’t think there would be.”
“Where do you think we should begin looking?” Caleb asked.
She hesitated, and did one slow pivot, inspecting the grounds. It was a rare, glorious day; the sun, looking big and lazy, made just enough effort to spin a silken cocoon of warmth around them. Every rocky outcrop, every mossy log, looked rich with possibility.
“Well, we didn’t find anything in the house,” she said. “I’d say we start in the near gardens and work our way outward. See how far we get.”
“Has it occurred to you,” he asked, “that this listening device might be hidden or buried? Or someplace completely inaccessible?”
“Oh, it’s occurred to me,” she said wryly. “But all we can do is look.”
Look they did for the rest of the morning, moving in ever-widening circles around the perimeter of the grounds. Caleb had given some thought to what they were seeking, and he considered it unlikely that it had, in fact, been buried (because why stop up your artificial ears with rock and dirt?), though he assumed it must be in some protected place. And if it had been here since the founding of Samaria, some 650 years ago, it was unlikely to have been snugged under the protruding roots of even the most ancient tree (where Alleya persisted in looking). No, it was hidden in a small cave or installed in some stone housing, if it was here at all, and so Caleb turned his attention to rocky outcrops and tumbles of boulders.