Sharon Shinn - Samaria 2 - Jovah's Angel

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Jovahs Angel

Sharon Shinn

"Taut, inventive, often mesmerizing, with a splendid pair of

predestined lovers." --Kirkus Reviews

"Displaying sure command of characterization and vividly imagined

settings, Shinn absorbs us in the story ... an entertaining S-F-fantasy

blend that should please fans of both genres." --Booklist

"Excellent world building, charming characterizations and a sweet

plot.." a garden of earthly delights." --Locus

"The spellbinding Ms. Shinn writes with elegant imagination and a

steely grace, bringing a remarkable freshness that will command a wide

audience." --Romantic Times

"Shinn has created an enchanting world ... I recommend this [book]

without reservation." --The Charlotte Observer

Now, Sharon Shinn returns to the compelling world of Samaria in an

extraordinary novel of angels and mortals, music and mystery, science

and faith ... Ace Books by Sharon Shinn

THE SHAPE-CHANGER'S WIFE

ARCHANGEL

JOVAHS ANGEL

And Now Available in Trade Paperback

THE ALLELUIA FILES

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that

this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and

destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher

has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This Ace Book contains the complete text of the original trade

paperback edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface designed

for easy reading, and was printed from new film.

JOVAH'S ANGEL

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace trade paperback edition / May 1997

Ace mass-market edition / April 1998

Cover art by John Jude Palencar.

Book design by Casey Hampton.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or

any other means, without permission.

For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc." 200

Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

http://www.penguinputnam.com

ISBN: 0-441-00519-5

ACE

Ace Books are published by

The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc." 200

Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

ACE and the "A" design are trademarks belonging to Charter

Communications, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

To Ray,

who taught me the meaning of deus ex machina (and taught me how to

pronounce it).

SAM ARIA

CAST of CHARACTERS

In Bethel

ALLELUIA, the new Archangel

DELILAH, the fallen Archangel

LEVI, Delilah's husband

DINAH

SAMUEL

Asher [ angels of the Eyrie

TIMOTHY

GIDEON FAIR WEN a Semorran merchant

REBEKAH, the last oracle of Mount Sinai

DANIEL, an Edori engineer living in Velora

CALEB AUGUSTUS, an engineer living in Luminaux

Noah, an Edori engineer, Caleb's best friend

THOMAS

SHEBA members of the Edori tribe living near Luminaux

MARTHA

LABAN

JOSEPH, proprietor of a singing establishment in Luminaux

HOPE WELLIN, Alleluia's mother

DEBORAH, a young girl living in Chahiela

In Jordana

MICAH, the leader of the host of Cedar Hills

JOB, the oracle of Mount Egypt

MARCO, an Edori engineer living in Breven

In Gaza

JERUSHA, the leader of the host of Monteverde

MARY, the oracle of Mount Sudan

AARON LESH, Manadavvi leaders

EM MANUEL GAR ONE

Prologue

Everyone had said it was a bad idea to fly back that night. For one

thing, they had all had too much wine, and the Archangel herself was no

exception. For another, the storm, which had been brutal for the

entire weekend, had only let up marginally; there was still enough

power in one of those gusts of wind to slap a walking man off his feet.

Jovah only knew what one blast of that wind could do to an angel flying

high above the earth in the unprotected frozen streams of air.

But it was impossible to tell Delilah anything. "I am safer flying

back to the Eyrie than you are walking across the room," she scoffed to

Gideon Fairwen, whose guest she had been for the past two days. It was

to celebrate his daughter's summer wedding to one of the Manadavvi

landholders that Delilah and half the angels from her hold had been

sojourning in Semorrah until all of them, quite frankly, were sick of

the self-satisfied pomp. "I will be held in the hands of the god

himself."

"But surely--tomorrow morning--when the storms have abated somewhat and

the sun is out..." Gideon protested. Truth to tell, he did not want

to be the one to send a drunken Archangel to her doom on a moonless

night, though he was not averse to having fifteen fewer mouths to feed

at his breakfast table the following morning. Weddings were an

expensive business, not that he begrudged a penny, not if it meant

securing trading rights with some of the wealthier Manadavvi. And

entertaining angels was always such a strain, though it was said

throughout Samaria that Delilah required nothing more than good

companionship and free-flowing wine to be content. "Better for

everyone if you stay the night," he said.

One or two of her angels had added their voices to his, decrying the

lateness of the hour and the distance to be flown. But her husband,

Levi, as reckless as she, said, "Oh, don't be such cowards, it's only a

four-hour flight," and laughed at all of them. It was his laugh that

decided Delilah, for she loved the way he laughed, with his head thrown

back and his blue eyes glinting through half-closed lids. He was

always challenging her to something, daring her to back down; but she

had never backed down once from any proposition he made her in the

three years they had been married.

"Settled, then," she said briskly and glanced around the room to get

the silent acquiescence of her attendant angels. She turned back to

her host. "Gideon, you will send our belongings by cart in the

morning, will you not? Thank you. It has been a most enjoyable

stay."

Within minutes, the whole cadre was outside, on the roof of Fairwen's

magnificent palace overlooking the bridge that tied the city to the

Jordana shore. Besides Levi, there were two other mortals among the

visitors from the Eyrie, and it had to be decided which angels would

transport them for the first leg of the long flight. Delilah would

carry Levi, of course; no question about that. He was six inches

taller than she and a good seventy pounds heavier, but angels

possessed, in addition to their fabulous wings, an amazing physical

strength. It was one of the few points on which Levi conceded

Delilah's superiority--reveled in it, in fact--her ability to carry him

in her arms as she flew above the world.

So they assembled on the rooftop in the lashing dark, feeling the wind

half lift them from their feet and laughing at its dizzy power. "Race

to the Eyrie!" someone called out, but Delilah unexpectedly showed a

grain of caution.

"No--stick together," she said. "We want to be close in case someone

comes to grief in this storm."

They laughed at her but casually agreed, and then they all launched

themselves at once in a feathery explosion of speed and flight. Once

in the air, it was impossible to stay too close together, for with

wingspans topping twelve feet, they all required a great deal of room

in which to maneuver. Still, they fell into an informal pattern,

Delilah in the lead, and Dinah began singing one of the pretty folk

songs popular in the southern farmlands. The rest of them took it up,

adding harmony and descant, changing the lyrics to suit themselves, and

laughing because they knew--they all knew--it was tantamount to

sacrilege to be aloft and singing anything except a prayer to Jovah.

They were angels; they were supposed to carry the petitions of mortals

to the ears of their god, and he heard them better the higher they

flew. They were not supposed to be singing of broken hearts and

vengeful love as they swept across the heavens so high their wingtips

almost brushed Jovah's face.

In the lead, Levi, lying cozily in Delilah's arms, was the next one to

offer a song, breaking into a tavern ditty of dubious lyrics. He had a

fine, strong baritone which carried well to the angels following, and

the rest of them happily responded with the appropriate chorus after he

finished the verse. In the third stanza, he began making up lyrics,

each set more bawdy than the last, causing Delilah to laugh so hard she

almost lost her hold on him. He flung his arms around her neck in mock

alarm, wrapping his fingers in her dense black curls and pleading for

salvation.

"If I did drop you, you would deserve it," she told him. "Don't think

I didn't see you flirting with the bride's sister--what was her

name?--the tall girl with the bad hair."

"Laura--Logan--Lowbrow--some L name," he said with a groan. "She was

such a bore. I only talked with her because Fairwen seemed so fond of

her and it seemed a politic move. Can never be too friendly with the

river merchants, so you've always told me--"

"With the river merchants, I think I said, not their daughters--"

"Isn't it the same thing?" he said, and turned his face in to nuzzle

at the slim white column of her throat. She giggled and tossed her

head back, then threatened to drop him again.

And so the first two hours of their flight passed, and morning began to

make its tentative streaks across the horizon behind them. Before them

the sky was still black, blacker than it should be for what was almost

dawn, but then, the fist of night was still clenched around the storm

clouds of the past two days. As they flew higher, to clear the

currents over the northern edge of the Sinai Mountains, that fist shook

that handful of cloud like a child would shake a toy, and sent the

whole sky tumbling down around them.

Or so it seemed. One of the younger angels shrieked. All of them felt

the familiar air boil insanely about them, smash them together, throw

them apart, bat them from side to side till they were spun in circles.

Now there was a confusion of shouting, names called out, cries to

"Glide! Glide on your wings!" from someone who thought he'd mastered

the knack of flying in a gale. Another up-thrust of wind scattered

them like litter across the alleyway of the sky; and then a sudden,

deadly vacuum opened beneath them like a pit, and they all fell into

it.

They landed in a tangle of feathers and feet, some on top of each

other, some yards away. Instantly there was an outburst of

sound--piteous wailing, sharp questions, a quick inventory of

casualties. Samuel, the most senior of the angels in this troupe (and

one who, by his own admission, should have known better than to embark

on this midnight flight), was the first to find his feet and move from

body to body, ascertaining injuries and their extent. Despite the

weeping and the consternation, he was relieved to find most of the

travelers relatively whole. Dinah appeared to have broken her leg, and

Asher seemed dazed and stricken, but even the mortals had survived the

crash landing fairly well, though both their escorts confessed to

having dropped their burdens somewhere during the hazardous descent,

try though they did to hang on.

Delilah, the one Samuel had looked for first, was the one he found

last--and the first one whose condition caused his heartbeat to quicken

with apprehension. She lay on her side in a hazard of boulders, her

right wing bent crazily beneath her, her left stretched behind her like

a sail spread for drying. Her eyes were closed but she was alive, for

she cried out softly like a child praying fir succor. She did not

appear to be conscious or at least aware; and only the continuous

whimper betrayed that she was still, momentarily at least, breathing.

Levi lay in her arms--she of all the angels had not let go her

charge--but he lay even more quietly than she. Even from distance,

Samuel could guess the worst: The angelico was dead.

"Jovah be merciful," Samuel whispered, and though he whispered, every

other angel heard him, and ceased his own lamentations, and grew

afraid. "He is dead and she disabled. What will become of us if the

Archangel cannot fly again?"

It was more than a week before news of the disaster made its way around

Samaria, and that because Delilah herself refused to allow anyone to

speak of it. They had brought her, dizzy and in great pain, home to

the Eyrie, risking the flight because they feared she would die if they

attempted to carry her in by cart. It was through sheer indomitable

will that she resisted the comforting descent into oblivion, where

neither physical nor emotional anguish could follow. Instead, she

fought to stay alive, conscious, in control. No one outside the Eyrie

was to know anything, she decreed; not until she knew. Not until she

was positive that her wing was irrevocably broken, that she could not

be repaired, that all hope was gone.

She did not speak of Levi, and no one mentioned his name to her. It

was fascinating and a little frightening to watch this playful,

lighthearted girl--she was only twenty-five, after all; everyone

remembered her as such a delightful, wayward child--summon up all her

resources of strength to deal with every simultaneous disaster that

could befall her. Grieving was not a luxury she had at the moment;

survival was the issue. Could her wing be healed? If not, essentially

her life was over.

For a week, the secret held; then somehow--no one ever knew who broke

the silence or how the rumor spread--everyone in Samaria learned that

storms had capsized the Archangel, and disaster was in the offing.

Well-wishers and curiosity-seekers converged on the mountain hold,

though they were barred from ascending the great stone stairs that led

to the angel quarters. Angels from the other two holds were not so

easily turned away, however, and they swooped in from above to demand

answers and predictions. Could the Archangel be saved? Would she

live? Would she fly again?

Could she possibly continue her reign as Archangel if she had been

damaged for life?

These were not questions that could be answered in a week, although the

prospects from the outset looked grim. Physicians were brought in from

all over Samaria--from the wealthy Manadavvi enclaves, from the

sophisticated river cities, from Luminaux, where the best of everything

could be found--and none of them could offer the Archangel hope. The

wing had been broken close to the great joint that connected it to

musculature in her back; some essential artery or sinew or nerve path

had been severed, and not all their limited science could deduce how to

reknit the cut connection. She could not, of her own volition, unfurl

that wing; she could not feel an anxious finger sliding down the mesh

of feather and skin. Thus with men who had broken their spines--their

legs, their feet, became useless; these limbs could not be animated by

the will of the man who owned them. Thus it was with the Archangel's

wing.

But if Delilah could not fly--if Delilah could not soar through the

heavens, lifting her magnificent voice in prayer to Jovah--if she could

not quickly be summoned to any troubled spot in the whole of

Samaria--how could she serve the god or his diverse children? How

could she intercede for them, guide them, ask the god to chastise

them?

How could she be Archangel?

Of course, she could not. But who would be Archangel in her place?

Two months after Delilah's fall, the two living oracles of Samaria met

in the abandoned holy place of Mount Sinai to ask the god that very

question. They were even more solemn than they might ordinarily have

been, being forced to approach the god with such a question. No oracle

had ever had to go to Jovah to ask him to name an Archangel while the

Archangel still lived, and this was a grave and grievous task. But the

fear in their bones went deeper still, for they were not sure Jovah

would answer their questions or listen to their petitions.

These two months had seen an unprecedented surge in violent weather

from northwestern Gaza all the way to the lower coastline of Jordana.

Along the coasts, hurricanes sprayed venomous water into the marine

cities, leveling a few of them, rendering one or two unlivable. In the

deserts near Breven, continuous rain had turned the sandy miles into

virtually impassable swampland; and nowhere were farmers assured of

receiving appropriate amounts of rain for their specific crops. The

angels, who had always successfully petitioned Jovah for more snow,

less rain, gentler winds, these days sang to him in vain. If he

listened, he did not care. If he answered, it was with more storm.

They had no certainty that he would view this new request with any more

interest.

The oracles had chosen to meet at Mount Sinai not only because it was

midway between their own retreats but because it was the oldest and

most venerable seat of holy power on Samaria. Here the original

settlers had first communicated with their god; here were the archives

(in texts now mostly unreadable) that described those earliest

encounters among divinity, angel and mortal. Here, they hoped, Jovah

might still pay attention to the crises of his people.

They arrived almost simultaneously, young Mary from Gaza and ancient

Job from Jordana, and together entered the cool, echoing stone hallways

of Mount Sinai. Rebekah had died a year ago and no one had come

forward to replace her, and the remaining oracles were at a loss.

Their own callings had become clear to them in unmistakable visions,

but if anyone in all of Samaria was dreaming of the honor of becoming

oracle, no one had stepped up to claim the position. They had each

asked Jovah for guidance, but he had failed to respond to either one.

Ghostly gaslight from eternally burning sources lit their way through

the pale granite corridors, and they followed the familiar turnings to

the central chamber, where they could summon the god. Here, a glowing

blue plate was set into the stone wall with a rolling chair even now

placed casually before it; this was where the oracle would sit to

commune with the god. They could almost believe Rebekah had just this

moment stepped away from her seat there to stretch her stocky legs;

both of them wished she was here now to consult with them.

"Mary, would you care to lift our petition to the god?" was Job's

formal invitation, but he was the elder and this was delicate work, and

so she yielded the place to him. He sat with a certain reverence

before the pulsing screen, running his hands experimentally over the

strange hieroglyphics on the shelf before him. When he touched a

symbol, it would appear on the face of the blue plate, forming words in

a language so old only the oracles could learn it; and when the god

responded, he did so in the same forgotten tongue. They called this

bright screen the "interface," though it was a word that had little

meaning to them. So did the oracles before them name the device, and

the oracles before them, back to the founding of Samaria.

Job worked slowly, as he always did, because this alien language did

not come easily to him and he did not want to err. He constructed his

first message, a simple greeting, merely to confirm that Jovah was

awake and ready to hear petitions. He was relieved beyond measure when

the reply came quickly back in navy letters laid against the glowing

screen.

The second part of the message was complex and had to be carefully

worded, so he read it aloud to Mary before touching the key that would

signal to Jovah that his thought was complete. "The Archangel Delilah

has been irretrievably injured and can no longer fly in your exalted

service," he quoted. "It grieves us to say we believe a new Archangel

must be chosen, so that all your wishes may be promptly carried out.

Are we correct? Must a new Archangel be selected?" Mary nodded, and

Job sent the message to Jovah.

There was a long pause before the interface wavered and reformed, new

letters marching across its screen. "If the Archangel cannot fly, she

cannot be Archangel" was the uncompromising response. "She cannot

serve."

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JovahsAngelbySharonShinn"Taut,inventive,oftenmesmerizing,withasplendidpairofpredestinedlovers."--KirkusReviews"Displayingsurecommandofcharacterizationandvividlyimaginedsettings,Shinnabsorbsusinthestory...anentertainingS-F-fantasyblendthatshouldpleasefansofbothgenres."--Booklist"Excellentworldbuildin...

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Sharon Shinn - Samaria 2 - Jovah's Angel

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