Jovah's Angel (3 page)

Under the blue streetlights he paused to get his bearings. Luminaux boasted more nightclubs and symphony halls than any other city in Samaria—there was no such thing as a separate entertainment district, so no telling where Noah's new singer might be. Something to do with angels. What could the girl have been talking about?

But two blocks of aimless walking led him by fortunate chance to his destination—a low, dark building with lightless windows and a door curtained over with black velvet. Guarding the door was a glass statue of an angel lit from within by a turquoise flame. Her crystal hands held a triangular pennant, white letters embroidered on a blue serge field, and the single word spelled “Seraph.”

Must be the place, Caleb said to himself, smiling, and pushed through the soft door to enter.

Inside, there was scarcely more light. Faint blue bulbs outlined a narrow stage at the far end of the room and traced the aisles between tables and doorways. Candles provided a touch more light at each table, but Caleb noted that the seated patrons leaned close together to get a better look at each other's faces. Servers made their way cautiously through the dark thicket of chairs and bodies, balancing trays and memorizing their steps between stations.

Someone was on stage, playing tentative-sounding chords on a magnificently tuned dulcimer. Must be the interim entertainment, Caleb thought, since it sounded more like background music than a headline performer. He had no musical ability himself, but it was impossible to live in Samaria and not acquire, effortlessly almost, discriminating taste and the ability to judge talent. Music flowed through Luminaux like electricity through the wire; it provided more wattage than the Gabriel Dam on the Galilee River. Luminaux would as soon paint itself crimson as forego its music—and this idle performer was not the one people had crowded into Seraph to see.

For the place was quite full, every table taken and two or three dozen patrons leaning against the uneven walls or standing by the stage in small, excited groups. It would be hard to find Noah in this shadowy place, peering past groups of strangers to search for the familiar face. Caleb eased his feet forward onto the dark pathways and made his way almost by feel from table to table, scrutinizing all the patrons as he passed.

He had traversed maybe three densely packed rows when he came across a small table jammed up against the east wall with an angled view of the stage and only one patron seated there. He could tell it was a man but couldn't see his face, so he said “Noah?” in a low voice and waited for a response.

“Yes, who—Caleb! Where did you come from? Are you with anyone? Have a seat!”

Caleb laughed and sat down. “I came looking for you. A couple kids back at the camp said you might be here. Once again, I commend the Edori on their group intellect, the ability to sense the actions and emotions of one of their tribe even though separated by a geographic distance that can transcend hundreds of miles—”

The grin was hard to see in the dark but unmistakable in the
voice. “I probably told someone where I was going. Why were you looking for me?”

“You said it couldn't be done—”

“No! You didn't get those damn wings to fly!”

“Yes—I, even I—lowly mortal that I am.”

“I don't believe it, not
fly
. You glided, am I right? You jumped off a mountain, came down, swirled around in the thermals a little, but you weren't self-propelled. You didn't have control, you didn't get distance. You weren't flying. Am I right?”

Caleb waggled his hands dismissively; a technicality merely. “I was airborne, that's what counts. I got the start, I got the
germ
of flight. Okay, so it lasted maybe ten minutes—”

“See, it has something to do with thrust. Liftoff. You don't have power—and you don't have the fuel source to supply you with power if you do figure out how much power you need.”

“Power—why are you so insane about a power source? Birds don't have any special thrust engine, angels don't—they have wings, they get lift. Why should I need some outside boost?”

“They have wings that have more strength, flexibility and rapidity than your poor little mortal arms can generate—and it has something to do with body weight, I'm convinced. Birds have those light bones.”

“Well, angels weigh as much as mortals do—more, most of them, because of that muscle mass—and it doesn't seem to slow them down.”

“I know. There's just something to the formula we haven't worked out yet.”

“But we will.”

“Hell, yes. If not us, nobody.”

A soft-footed waitress startled them both by materializing out of the inky darkness. “Would you like something to drink?”

Caleb glanced at Noah's glass. “Wine? The house drink. Whatever. And can I get something to eat? I'm starving.”

She took his order and as silently disappeared. “So was it wonderful?” Noah demanded. “This pseudo-flight. This almost-flying.”

“It was—” Caleb spread his hands. “Someday I'm going to meet an angel that I actually trust, and I'm going to have the nerve to ask him to carry me from Luminaux to the Eyrie or somewhere, and I'm going to know what it's actually like—but this came as close to fabulous as anything I've ever experienced. Like drifting down a river, except there's nothing, not even water
under you. Like levitating. Except you can
feel
the air. It
is
like the river; it pushes and gives with an actual pressure. I felt—” He laughed. Caleb was not a religious man, paid no respects to the god, but it was truly how he had felt. “I felt like I was in Jovah's hands. And they were ghostly but substantial.”

“You'll let me try them, of course.”

“Of course. If you'll take me for a ride in your monster machine.”

Noah laughed, with an edge of rue. He had, for as many years as Caleb had labored over his wings, struggled to build a self-propelled land vehicle. He had succeeded, more or less, but even he admitted that his large, awkward, noisy, smelly result was not an ideal means of transportation.

“We'll take a trip,” he promised. “I need to see how it holds up over distance. We can go out to Breven or maybe up to Semorrah. Make it a vacation.”

“Pick your day,” Caleb said. “Sounds like fun.”

The waitress brought Caleb's food and a bottle of wine, and he ate quickly. He was famished, the day's exertions having taken a physical toll. “So tell me,” he said around mouthfuls, “this is the place you've been raving about? With the singer?”

“You'll rave, too, when you hear her.”

“I'm not much of a connoisseur.”

“You don't need to be. And once you meet her—”

“Oho! This has progressed, then.”

“A few nights ago I introduced myself. I didn't realize—but wait till you see her for yourself. Anyway, she's been fairly friendly. More than I would have expected.”

“Tired of all that fawning from the elite Luminauzi intellectual circle, she falls for the simple good-heartedness of the earnest Edori boy.”

Noah laughed self-consciously. “Something like that. She's been knocked around a bit, is the impression I get. Acts sort of tough and worldly, but—oh, you know. Everyone longs for a place of quiet and ease. Anyway, that's how I read it. If you stay long enough, you'll get to meet her. She'll come over to the table after her last set. At least, she has the past couple nights. Well, this week.”

“I'll stay,” Caleb said, inwardly marveling. Noah was usually so offhand and cheerful about his numerous affairs, as all the Edori were. It was unlike him to seem so serious about a woman. “What's her name?”

There was, or seemed to be, a moment of hesitation before Noah answered. “Lilah.”

“And I take it she's not Edori?”

The faintest laugh. “No.”

“I can hardly wait, then.”

He did not have to. Even as he spoke, the dulcimer player finished his piece and rose to his feet. An odd sound ran through the crowd—more truly, it seemed as though an excited silence fell over the audience, creating a static charge. Wineglasses stopped clinking. Rustling ceased. Every listener faced the front of the room. A heightened light seemed suddenly to focus on the stage.

There the back curtains parted as if swept back by invisible hands, revealing the silhouette of a single figure standing mostly in the shadows. Little could be seen of her face, though in the uncertain light she appeared young; her pale oval face was framed by a mass of dark curls. She had her arms crossed high upon her chest, each hand resting on the opposite shoulder in an almost suppliant attitude. She was dressed in flowing robes that, because of her unmoving stance, fell around her like the marble gown of a statue. Behind her, folded tightly back, angel wings made their peculiar and beautiful rise and curve. She looked like nothing so much as an effigy upon a tomb, an eternal prayer to Jovah for mercy.

Caleb glanced sharply at his friend. “She's an angel? Or is that just an affectation for this place?”

Noah motioned him to silence, not answering, not taking his eyes off the performer. Caleb swung his attention back to the stage. Lilah had taken a step forward and swept her arms before her, palms upward, in another gesture of entreaty. From somewhere out of sight came the plaintive, disembodied sound of a single flute playing a melancholy scale.

It was hard to tell exactly when the singer joined her voice to the flute's, for surely they exhaled two or five or seven notes in flawless unison, till the woman's voice broke free of the pipe's and climbed above it in a series of minor intervals. Her song was wordless, her voice as pure and uninflected as the silver flute, and the overall effect was absolutely unearthly. Caleb felt his heart twist with an inexplicable malaise, and he was swept by a wave of deep and unutterable regret for all the missed opportunities of his life, all the friends lost and years too easily wasted. It was a gentle sadness without the slightest hint of bitterness, but he was
shocked at its thoroughness. As the eerie voice soared higher, its sweetness thinning till it almost faded, he took a long, unsteady breath. So might a man feel who had spent the night sobbing over vanished love.

Simultaneously, both voices trailed to a breathless silence. There was no motion, no sound, from the stricken crowd. The singer, who had bowed her head as she finished her song, raised her chin and took a step forward to the edge of the stage. She surveyed the audience for a moment—and, unbelievably, laughed.

“Welcome once again to the unique entertainment you have come to expect here at Seraph,” she said, and in the dulcet voice was the unmistakable taint of sarcasm. She tossed her hair back and flicked her eyes around the room, assessing the expressions of her audience. Many, Caleb guessed, surely looked as he did—like coma victims coming to in a much stranger world than they remembered leaving. This was not the persona one would have expected of a woman with such a celestial voice. “I'm Lilah, I'm the one you came to hear, even if you don't know it yet. Don't bother writing down your requests, I just sing whatever I feel like. If I don't sing what you came to hear—well, feel free to come back tomorrow night and every other night until I've satisfied you all.

“Boys?” she added, without a pause or change of tone, and suddenly a hidden band broke into a fast-paced melody that Caleb found vaguely familiar. Some popular tune of the day; no doubt he'd heard it on some street corner or in a crowded tavern. When Lilah's voice came swooping down on the opening words of the first verse, he suddenly remembered that he liked the song immensely—it was his favorite; he had never heard anything he liked better. Not until he felt the sting in his palms did he realize he was clapping with the rhythm, as was everyone in the room. Had he known the lyrics, he would have been singing along.

“Who
is
she?” he found time to whisper to Noah between the end of this song and the start of the next, but Noah merely waved at him again and did not trouble to answer. And it did not matter. Lilah had begun singing again, something a little slower this time but just as upbeat, and actually, nothing at all mattered. Caleb grinned foolishly and let his heart be uplifted.

The concert continued well into the night, the mood of the crowd shifting as rapidly as the tone of Lilah's songs—although, after her opening number she stayed mostly in the cheerful range of emotions. In fact, from time to time she dipped straight into
rowdy, not to say risqué, and more than once her listeners were on their feet, stamping their heels, pounding their hands together, and echoing choruses back at her as she teased them from the stage. It was an exhausting performance, even for the audience; when she at last bowed good night after her third riotous encore, Caleb finally noticed that he was sore, tired, and filmed with sweat all the way to his hairline.

“Does she sing like that every night?” he asked, dropping into his seat with a sigh of exhaustion. “How does she have the strength?”

“Every night that I've been here,” Noah replied, sinking down beside his friend. “And I think it's harder on us than on her. She doesn't even seem tired at the end. Like she could do the whole set over and not notice the effort.”

Caleb drained his wine (forgotten for this hour or two) and then his goblet of water. “So tell me,” he said, “who
is
this woman? She can manipulate a crowd of Luminauzi socialites as easily as a child can charm his uncle. I consider myself pretty immune to persuasion, but I was dancing in my chair along with the rest of them.”

“Well…” Noah said hesitantly, “she's an angel.”

Caleb nodded. “So I gathered. No one but an angel could sing like that. What's she doing
here
? Kicked out of Cedar Hills for inappropriate behavior? Because you have to admit she crossed the line once or twice.”