The Alleluia Files (6 page)

“Tell them I’m in Ysral, and to look for me if they ever go there. Tell them I’m safe and happy. That it’s what I wanted.”

There had been a girl in Luminaux whom Zeke had been involved with—a pretty girl with red-blond hair and a mild disposition. As far as Tamar knew, she had escaped the Jansai depredations. “Anyone in particular I should tell?”

“No. Conran. Anyone who asks.”

She had lost so many friends in the past few months that it was hard to lose one more, even one as unrewarding as Zeke. She was finding it difficult to say good-bye. He was one of hers, part of her circle; and that circle grew smaller every day. “Take care of yourself,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “Find new friends, and safety. Don’t lose your faith. Never forget us.”

“There’s the signal,” he said, and unexpectedly bent down to kiss her on the mouth. “Good luck to you, too. Watch me to
the ship, and I’ll wave as we pull away to freedom. I won’t forget. We’ll meet each other again.”

“Till then,” she said. “Till we find the Alleluia Files.”

He gave her a smile of rare, genuine excitement, and turned to hike at a brisk but reasonable pace toward the dock. She faded back into the shadow of the Varnet Building, watching as she had promised. She almost lost him once or twice in the press of people on the wharf, but then she caught sight of his tall, thin figure again, weaving through the crowd. And—the waters of the harbor were crowded, of course—but surely that was the dinghy that had cast off from
The Wayward
the instant the red blanket billowed over the rail? It picked its way past the sailboats and the outbound barges, taking a quiet, determined course for the dock.

“Free and safe,” she murmured, still watching. Zeke was on the dock; the shuttle craft was twenty yards away. “As you always wanted.”

And then four idle men in close conversation at the edge of the water turned with one motion and formed a phalanx around Zeke. Even from this distance, Tamar could see the astonishment on his face, succeeded quickly by comprehension and terror. Two of them grabbed his arms; one of them spoke to him in measured tones, informing him of his crimes; the fourth one pointed toward the water and shouted. But the dinghy had already reversed itself, heading rapidly back toward its mother ship, and there didn’t seem to be a patrol boat in the waters. The Edori appeared to be safe.

Not so Zeke. As she slumped against the wall, dizzier now than she had been at the angels’ singing, Tamar watched him struggle and protest and grow frantic with fear. One of the Jansai hit him, and he fell backward, kept upright only by the men who held his arms. Two of the other Jansai laughed. On their jackets, Tamar could see the sapphire crescent moon that was the badge of the Archangel Bael.

“Zeke,” she whispered. She had pressed one hand against her mouth, one against her stomach; she was afraid she would either start screaming or retching. She felt like a traitor, allowing him to go alone to an undetermined hell, but there was nothing she could do now to succor him. If Ezra had betrayed them, there was nothing she could do to save herself. She pressed her back as tightly as it would go against the cool white surface of the Varnet Building, and felt herself shiver in the meandering, dispassionate spring air.

J
ared tilted his head toward the sun and shut his eyes, hoping that if he merely concentrated on the music, and did not look at the performers, he would be able to appreciate the singing as he should. Both Bael and his angelica, Mariah, had exceptional voices, and their duets at the Gloria were generally considered outstanding; but Jared couldn’t stand either of them, and so it was hard to like their music. And at two hours for a standard mass, he had a long, hard wait ahead of him if he didn’t find some way to make the time pass pleasantly.

It was cool this year, this far north, and the weak spring sunlight did little to warm his cheeks, but it was still a welcome sunlight for all that. Gaza had experienced a long, bleak winter, and no matter how often Jared flew aloft to pray for sunshine, the clouds had always returned, full-bodied and sullen as a rejected mistress. But the Gloria signaled the start of true spring, the promise of gentle days, budding greenery, clear skies. It could not come soon enough for Jared.

Mariah’s thin soprano broke free of Bael’s powerful bass, and Jared opened his eyes again, his concentration broken. The years had been kinder to the Archangel than to his wife; every now and then on the highest notes, her voice showed the strain of age, a tendency to grow sharp, almost screechy. Nobody else had commented on it, at least in Jared’s hearing, but surely they had noticed. Well, she had been angelica for nineteen years, and she had been past thirty when she assumed that role, so perhaps he should not judge too harshly. It was a difficult task, this annual performance of the Gloria on the Plain of Sharon. Mariah still accomplished it with adequate grace.

For a moment Jared studied the singer and the angel waiting motionlessly beside her. As always, they looked to him like prophets culled from the ancient pages of the Librera. Bael— with his pewter hair, full beard, flowing blue robes, and broad silver wings—looked as if at any moment he would fling out his arms and speak pronouncements handed to him directly from Jovah. Mariah seemed no less possessed. Reed-thin, black-haired, dramatically dressed in a slim red sheath, she delivered her solo with passionate, writhing conviction. Her eyes were shut tightly, her hands were clenched and drawn up to her heart, and she produced every note as if it were the word of the god himself.

Jared sighed infinitesimally and looked away. He should not mock them, not even silently and to himself, but their blind zeal had stirred up no end of trouble during the past two decades, and he for one would be glad to see their tenure ended next year. But who was to follow them? That was a troubling question indeed. Even when the oracles asked Jovah that question directly, the god did not reply. No successor had been named, so no successor had been groomed, and for the first time in more than seven centuries, Samarians blankly faced a future in which they had no idea who would be their spiritual and political leader.

Jared had no doubt that Bael was willing to continue his rule for another twenty years, and it worried him that some of the other angels might agree to such a solution. Surely a council of angels, river merchants, Jansai, and Manadavvi would be convened to consider their alternatives if such an eventuality arose—if Jovah never spoke—but Bael was a powerful man with a horde of influential friends. If he wanted to keep the job, failing divine intervention, it might be impossible to wrest it away from him.

Jared’s eyes wandered from Mariah’s contortions to the face of the young man standing just behind her. Well, not so young as all that—at thirty-five, three years older than Jared and far more ambitious. Bael’s son by a liaison outside his marriage, Omar was an intense, intelligent, and highly focused individual. It had been the tragedy of Bael’s life that his only child had been born human, not angelic. Omar’s tragedy, too. For nobody doubted that Omar would have been willing to take his father’s place as Archangel if mortals had been allowed to ascend to that
position. As it was, Omar would appear to be out of luck.

Even had Omar been angelic, such a bequest would have been unprecedented. In the annals of Samarian history, the title of Archangel had never gone from parent to child. In fact, most often it rotated between the three angel holds in Gaza, Bethel, and Jordana—Jovah’s way, most likely, of making sure no one family consolidated power too great even for the god to balance. But then, it was unprecedented that Jovah had waited so long to choose his next Archangel.

Jared knew that he himself was considered a contender for the post of Archangel. As leader of the host in Monteverde, the angel hold in Gaza, he held a position of some authority and respect. And the Archangel before Bael had come from Cedar Hills, the hold in Jordana. Bael himself was from the Eyrie in Bethel. Thus, it was Monteverde’s turn to produce the next leader. But Jared felt he was unlikely material. He lacked the single-minded dedication to power that Bael had evinced for all nineteen years of his reign; he lacked the desire to bend others to his will. It was hard for him to work up a real rage, or even an unshakable conviction. And, at least to judge by Bael, an Archangel must be able to do all that and more.

Now, suddenly, Bael’s voice was joined to his angelica’s again, and the two voices rose in scrolling harmony. This time when Jared closed his eyes, it was in a moment’s pure pleasure; ah, that was a nice turn, that shifting melody, that leaping octave. When Bael’s voice broke free of Mariah’s to commence with the second male solo, Jared allowed himself to simply enjoy a few moments of excellent music. Despite his opinion of the man, Jared had to admit that Bael could sing.

It was another half hour before the mass concluded, and during that time Jared had found his thoughts drifting off again and again. Everyone else seemed rapt and overawed by the performance, but Jared could only pay attention for isolated measures. Still, he politely joined the wild applause, and nodded when an Eyrie angel murmured in his ear, “What a voice the man has! Surely Jovah listens!”

“He listens to us all. Or so we hope,” he answered piously, and earned a puzzled look. He gave the angel a lazy grin and turned to find Mercy standing beside him.

“Where exactly do we fall on the schedule?” she wanted to know. “Do we sing next? Last? Did you bother to ask?”

“No, I thought you would,” he said, giving the answer that he knew would annoy her most. She bridled, and he couldn’t help laughing. He reached out a careless hand to squeeze her shoulder. Small, brown, and compact, she stood more than a head shorter than he; only her wings, just now folded primly back, gave her any stature.

“You’re such an easy target,” he said. “We sing fourth. I did inquire.”

She frowned at him, but it was impossible for Mercy to remain angry at anyone. “You’re such a trial to me,” she said. “I suppose you haven’t practiced your part, either, since I was in Monteverde three weeks ago.”

“Well, once or twice. Do you think it would be inappropriate if I just glanced over the music once more—?”

“I think I’ll do a solo, thank you very much,” she said. “I’ve been rehearsing one, just in case.”

“Hush,” he said. “Omar is about to sing. You don’t want to distract him.”

She gave him another expressive look—whether it was to signify her low opinion of him or Omar was unclear—but instantly fell silent and turned to listen. It was a comfort to Jared to know that Mercy had even less love for Bael and his family than he did. Which was odd in itself since Mercy, true to her name, cared for almost everybody. She had led the host at Cedar Hills for fifteen years, since her father died on her twenty-sixth birthday, and she had managed it well. Although she had never married, she had had three daughters, and more or less mothered everyone else who fell into her sphere, even Jared. He could not resist the impulse to tease her, but he liked her more than he liked anybody else he knew. Most people did.

Omar had a rich, brooding baritone that just now was driving back the tentative sunlight over the Plain. Jared had heard tales of the girls who swooned over the sound of that melancholy voice, but frankly, it had never appealed to him. This might be a man you would want to sing at a loved one’s funeral, but on a joyous occasion such as the Gloria, his voice seemed wholly out of place. Or perhaps it was merely the selection, a plaintive, mournful plea for guidance and salvation. Jared thought he actually heard someone behind him weeping.

“A little too affected for my taste,” he whispered in Mercy’s ear. She nodded emphatically but put a finger to her lips to
silence him. He grinned again, then stifled a yawn.

The next singer, however, was more to his taste, a young angel from Mercy’s hold singing a dizzyingly accomplished aria to the accompaniment of a flute. She was good enough to put him on his mettle, and so it was with a certain enthusiasm that he guided Mercy through the crowd to the central clearing where the other performers had stood. There was quite a throng gathered on the Plain this year, and the angels from the three holds stood at the heart of it. Around them, in widening circles, stood the Jansai, the Manadavvi, the rich river merchants, the corporate farmers, the lesser gentry of Samaria, and the curious, ordinary folk who made this one great annual pilgrimage to bask in the reflected glory of the realm.

“How many people would you guess?” he asked Mercy in a low voice as they waited for the audience to settle. “Six thousand? Eight?”

“Hundreds of thousands,” she replied. “Or did you forget? They’re broadcasting the Gloria this year.”

He glanced quickly around, for he had somehow overlooked the significance of the banks of microphones and strings of black cable. Well, for the past ten years the Gloria had been recorded through just such equipment, and sales of these recordings had been phenomenally successful, and so he had forgotten that this year the event would be carried live to any citizen who had a receiver.

“Now,
that
makes me a little nervous,” he said.

“Nothing makes you nervous,” she retorted.

The crowd had grown quiet, almost (or so it seemed to Jared) eager. He might not be Archangel material, but he did have his virtues: and one of them was a voice to please the heavens. He nodded twice at Mercy, to give her the beat, and they both burst into song at the same instant.

It was the Margallet Duet in D major, one of the most demanding and breath-stealing compositions in the sacred canon, a short but rigorous piece. Jared felt as if his whole body was singing it, his toenails, his wristbones, his scalp. The music rushed from his heart, driven by the same ecstatic beat; he was not aware of breathing in or alchemizing oxygen into song. He merely became the music, body and soul, and beside him, Mercy did the same.

He was almost surprised when the song came to its abrupt,
delirious conclusion. He took a quick step forward to avoid toppling over; it was as if some great contrary pressure had suddenly ceased to be exerted. The crowd was still clapping and calling out praises before he had completely recovered himself, but he looked down at Mercy with a smile.