Archangel (46 page)

He had brought her directly to the Edori camp, and he waited long enough for Rachel to introduce him to Naomi, Luke and their brood. Naomi, Rachel could see, was surprised to learn that she would be responsible for bringing the angelica to the Plain of Sharon, but she covered her surprise quite nicely until the angel had left. And then she waited till she had heard every last word of Rachel’s escapades before she took up the matter of travel arrangements.

“A frightening, evil man,” was her grave pronouncement on the Archangel’s machinations. “It terrifies me to think he has for so long acted as the link between the god and men.”

“Jovah is gracious,” Rachel murmured, “to care for us still.”

“Gabriel came here—did he tell you?—looking for you,” Naomi said. “I told him what you’d said about Raphael destroying your village. And he believed me. And that’s when I got really scared.”

“He believed me, too,” Rachel said. “But I had stopped being scared by then, because at that point I was with Gabriel.”

“Which brings us to the most interesting question of all,” Naomi said. “Why aren’t you with Gabriel now?”

“Because he left this morning while I was still sleeping,” said Rachel coolly. “Leaving orders that I was to get to the Plain as fast as I could.”

“So why didn’t you go with that nice blond boy who brought you here? Or I’m sure one of the other angels would have taken you—”

“I’d rather go with you.”

Naomi leaned forward to try and read secrets in Rachel’s closed face. “Arguing with him again?” she said softly. “Or is it still? You can’t miss the Gloria, you know. You really can’t.”

“I don’t want to miss it. We’ll get there in plenty of time. If we start right away.”

“I liked him, Rachel,” Naomi continued. “He really is beautiful.”

“Very,” Rachel said dryly.

“He was so frightened for you. He seemed—when we realized where you were—he looked as if he had been stricken blind. He took my hand to help him keep his balance.”

“He
what
? He did not.”

“It’s true as Yovah’s mercy.”

Rachel shook her head impatiently. “What do you have left that needs packing? I’ll help you. We do have to leave within the hour.”

And she turned away to survey the neat tent. She pretended not to hear Naomi’s whispered words. “So you do love him. I thought you did.”

The Chievens made excellent time traveling to the Plain of Sharon. They were a small clan with few elders, able to cover ground quickly. It was a trip that normally took about four days, but they made it in three and a half, arriving the afternoon before the morning that the Gloria was scheduled to be sung. Rachel felt a certain amount of guilt for cutting it quite so close, but she had not missed the nearly omnipresent shadow of angel wings overhead during their entire journey. Gabriel had sent someone to watch over her, and if she had dawdled too long on the road, he would have had that someone carry her willy-nilly to the Plain. She couldn’t decide if the knowledge pleased or enraged her.

At any rate, early that afternoon, they crossed the low peaks that formed the southwest boundary of the Plain, and descended into the huge, bowl-shaped arena. There were already at least five thousand people camped in the wide, grassy valley, and their tents and standards made gay, colorful patterns against the luxuriant grass. The sun, canting just a little to the west, picked out the blue, violet and rose-quartz colors of the stubby mountains that formed a ring around the whole Plain. Only one peak possessed any claim to height, and that was the Galo mountain, tallest in Samaria, which hid the icy source of the Galilee River. The rest were easy grades, little more than foothills, slaty and amiable in the spring sun.

“Well, we’re here,” Naomi said as they picked their way through the thick grass. “Now everyone can stop worrying.”

But, as they shortly learned, even Rachel’s arrival could not alleviate the worries that had accumulated at the Plain of Sharon in the past few days.

G
abriel had been sound asleep when Obadiah and Nathan burst in upon him, Nathan clearly just startled from his own bed and Obadiah showing the unmistakable signs of a long hard flight. He knew there was trouble before either of them spoke.

“Gabriel, Raphael’s at the Plain of Sharon,” Nathan exclaimed before Obadiah could open his mouth.

“
And
most of his angels,” Obadiah said.

Gabriel swung himself out of bed, by sheer willpower overcoming his lingering exhaustion. “Did you speak to him? What did he say?”

“I saw him making the rounds of the Manadavvi camps. You know how he likes to spread his golden presence over all the landholders at events like this. Only, this time—”

“It’s not his event,” Gabriel finished.

“And we didn’t expect him there at all,” Nathan added.

“Oh, I expected him,” Gabriel said wearily. “I just couldn’t get there any quicker. He must have left Windy Point almost as soon as we did. Sooner, maybe. Maybe he doesn’t even know Rachel got free … Did you speak to him at all, Obadiah? Hear what he had to say?”

The blond angel shook his head. “I just took off for here. I didn’t want him to—well, I thought he might try to stop me. Not that I’m afraid of him.”

“Well, you should be afraid of him. We all should be,”
Gabriel said. “All right. Nathan, come with me. We leave for the Plain in thirty minutes.”

“I’m coming back with you,” Obadiah said.

“No. You stay here, sleep, follow us as quickly as you can.”

“Bring Rachel,” Nathan said.

Obadiah nodded. “Of course.”

Gabriel looked for a moment at the worn familiar floor. Rachel … If he did not wake her to tell her this news, she would never forgive him. And how could he leave her? During that long flight back he had marveled at how quietly she lay in his arms, as if she trusted him, as if she felt safe with him. He had thought of the hundreds of things he would tell her as soon as they returned to the solid ground and peaceful setting of the Eyrie. How fearful he had been for her safety, how greatly he regretted his angry words the week before she left, how she had come to mean more to him than he had expected, than he had thought possible … And then they had landed in the midst of a crowd and she had left with Hannah, and now he would be disappearing on a mission that he could not delay. But he knew Rachel. She would expect him to have delayed long enough to say goodbye.

“Bring Rachel,” he said softly, “if she’ll come.”

There were more than a few people already gathered on the Plain of Sharon. There were hundreds. Arriving around the noon hour, from the air Gabriel identified most Manadavvi clan standards, as well as banners from Jansai towns, the river cities and Luminaux. Edori camps with their distinctive dark tents were clustered on the northwest edge of the Plain; independent farmers and homesteaders banded together for companionship in small groups among the larger ones. More horses and caravans and wayfarers on foot breached the mountain passes from all directions even as he circled down for a landing.

“Now what?” Nathan said, touching down a few yards away. “Are you going to confront him? And say what? Anyone can come to a Gloria, you know. Everyone is welcome.”

“Ariel’s here,” was Gabriel’s brief reply. “First I’m going to ask her if she’s heard anything.”

They found the Monteverde pavilion easily enough, its gold and emerald flags snapping smartly in the light wind, Angels and mortals milled together in hopeless confusion, but one of the younger angels quickly located Ariel for them.

“Good, you’re here,” was Ariel’s greeting. “Did you bring Maga? Or is she still at the Eyrie?”

“I left her with Rachel,” Gabriel replied. “What’s going on here? Have you talked to Raphael?”

Ariel shook her head. “He won’t talk to me—and none of the Manadavvi will tell me what tales he’s been spreading among them, either. I know there’s something going on, because they’re all looking ruffled and secretive. But—what can he do, really? He can’t stop the Gloria, can he?”

“Is Josiah here?”

“Yes, and Jezebel and Ezekiel as well,” she said, naming the oracles who served Gaza and Jordana. “Why? Do you think they know something?”

“They know a lot of things,” Gabriel said with a faint smile. “Take me to them, please.”

The oracles and perhaps a combined dozen of their acolytes had set up camp in white tents directly in the shadow of the Galo mountain. Josiah, the eldest of the three, had the largest tent with the most lavish furnishings. Jezebel and Ezekiel, the angels found, were already with him.

“Gabriel. I’m glad you’re here,” was Josiah’s welcome. Gabriel nodded to him, then made a quick, formal greeting to the white-haired half-blind Ezekiel. He was a good five years younger than Josiah but far less able; he should have been replaced ten years ago, Gabriel thought. And then he grimaced. Clearly Raphael had not cared what sage served him, since he did not believe the seer had any useful function at all. Next, Gabriel shook hands with Jezebel, a solemn, dark-haired woman nearly his own age. Ariel had more than once called Jezebel the smartest person she knew.

“I couldn’t get here any sooner,” Gabriel said. The angels all settled as comfortably as possible on stools set out by the silent acolytes. “What have any of you heard? Why is Raphael here?”

“He does not believe in the god,” Ezekiel said in his thin, quavering voice. “He does not believe the god can punish him.”

“Yes, I’ve learned that,” Gabriel said. “But—”

“He does not believe the god can punish any of us,” Josiah said quietly. “And he wants to put his theories to the test.”

“In what possible manner?”

“He wants to suspend the Gloria,” Jezebel said. “To prove
to you—and us—and everyone, that the god does not listen, does not strike and does not even exist.”

Gabriel could only stare at her.

“How do you know this?” Ariel demanded.

“He summoned us to the mountain this morning,” Jezebel began.

“The mountain?”

“He and his host have made camp on the top of Galo mountain, the very place where the thunderbolt will fall if the Gloria is not sung—if indeed the god exists, and listens, and is willing to punish us for disobedience,” the Gaza oracle continued.

“And his plan—no, his offer, is this,” Josiah said, taking up the tale. “He and his angels will wait on the mountain until nightfall tomorrow. If the thunderbolt does not fall at sundown as promised, we—you, I, all of us—will admit there is no god, and we will cede to Raphael such power as he is able to take and keep over all the landholders of Samaria. The angels will disperse, the oracles will leave their mountaintops, we will give up all claims to divine connection. And all will know there is no god.”

“Sweet Jovah singing,” Ariel whispered.

“And if we don’t agree to this?” Gabriel demanded. “If we say, ‘This is a risk we are not willing to take’ and we sing? How can he stop us? We are hundreds of voices and he is but a few.”

“He has fashioned—weapons of some sort,” Jezebel said. “He demonstrated their power to us on the mountaintop. They look like long, hollow wooden tubes, except they are not of wood, and they throw fire a hundred yards away.”

“Fire!”

“And whatever that fire touches, burns. I saw Saul throw fire at a bush, at a rock and at a flying bird, and each thing flamed and disintegrated into ashes. It was frightening.”

“If we do not agree to his terms, he says he will turn the fire tubes onto the people gathered on the Plain for the Gloria,” Josiah said quietly. “He says if we are afraid of conflagration, we shall have it one way or another, if we do not do as he says.”

Gabriel sat staring at the canvas flooring beneath his feet. There seemed to be no way out—there was death and disharmony down any of these limited paths, and it was Raphael who had shepherded them to this bloody crossroad. How could he allow Raphael to turn strange weapons against helpless, trusting people? Yet how could he stand by, and let the god’s deadline pass, and
open the whole world to destruction? For when that thunderbolt struck the mountain, who could tell how severe its power would be, where the reverberations of its force might echo?

And if the thunderbolt did not fall—?

He looked up to find everyone else in the tent anxiously watching him. Even Ezekiel had his milky blue eyes turned his way. There was to be no debate, apparently. They waited for him to decide.

“We have no choice,” he said quietly. “We have to let the deadline pass. We will watch in silence as the sun goes down, and see if the god does indeed destroy the mountain—and Raphael and every last angel standing beside him.”

“Gabriel,” Nathan said in an urgent voice. “We could—you and I, a dozen of us—could fly to some other point. Hagar’s retreat, perhaps, where Jovah’s ear is sensitively attuned. Raphael would not hear us there. We could sing a small Gloria, loud enough to avert disaster—Jovah would understand—”

Gabriel shook his head. “It is the worst thing we could do,” he said gently. “For if Jovah heard, and spared us, he would be sparing Raphael as well. And the Archangel would believe for certain there was no god, and the people gathered on the Plain would believe Raphael, and all Samaria would fall into chaos and dissonance anyway.”

Jezebel was watching him with her calm dark eyes. “And if we wait on the Plain in silence, and the sun goes down, and no thunderbolt falls on Raphael? What happens to all of us then?”

“Then we will know,” Gabriel said simply. “And if it is true there is no god, and for five centuries we have worshipped nothing but a myth, then it is time we learned that.”

“If no thunderbolt falls, and Raphael declares himself ruler of the world, we have some grave problems,” the Gaza oracle continued. “For he is not the man to lay aside a weapon once he has discovered how to use it.”

Gabriel nodded. “Yes. I realize that. Even if we learn that there is no god, we will have to find some way to contain Raphael. At the moment I have no ideas.”

“But, Gabriel, the lightning will strike, won’t it?” Ariel asked, her voice very troubled. He thought it strange that she directed the question at him, and not at one of the oracles. “When we disobey the god, he will punish us—he will smite the mountaintop, he will cause the rivers to rage. He watches over us and
hears us and responds to our actions. I have believed that my whole life. Surely it is true?”