Jovah's Angel
Authors: Sharon Shinn
Praise for Sharon Shinn and
A
RCHANGEL
“Taut, inventive, often mesmerizing, with a splendid pair of predestined lovers.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“Displaying sure command of characterization and vividly imagined settings, Shinn absorbs us in the story⦠an entertaining SF-fantasy blend that should please fans of both genres.”
â
Booklist
“Excellent world building, charming characterizations and a sweet plot⦠a garden of earthly delights.”
â
Locus
“The spellbinding Ms. Shinn writes with elegant imagination and a steely grace, bringing a remarkable freshness that will command a wide audience.”
â
Romantic Times
“Shinn has created an enchanting world⦠I recommend this [book] without reservation.”
â
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
â¦
              Â
J
OVAH'S
                     Â
A
NGEL
Ace Books by Sharon Shinn
MYSTIC AND RIDER
THE THIRTEENTH HOUSE
DARK MOON DEFENDER
READER AND RAELYNX
FORTUNE AND FATE
ARCHANGEL
JOVAH'S ANGEL
THE ALLELUIA FILES
ANGELICA
ANGEL-SEEKER
WRAPT IN CRYSTAL
THE SHAPE-CHANGER'S WIFE
HEART OF GOLD
SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN
JENNA STARBORN
QUATRAIN
TROUBLED WATERS
Viking / Firebird Books by Sharon Shinn
THE SAFE-KEEPER'S SECRET
THE TRUTH-TELLER'S TALE
THE DREAM-MAKER'S MAGIC
GENERAL WINSTON'S DAUGHTER
GATEWAY
   Â
Sharon Shinn
      Â
                Â
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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
Copyright © 1997 by Sharon Shinn.
Cover art by John Jude Palencar.
Book design by Casey Hampton.
All rights reserved.
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EISBN: 9781101554852
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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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.”
To Ray,
who taught me the meaning of
deus ex machina
(and taught me how to pronounce it)
.
AMARIA
of
CHARACTERS
In Bethel
A
LLELUIA
, the new Archangel
D
ELILAH
, the fallen Archangel
L
EVI
, Delilah's husband
G
IDEON
F
AIRWEN
, a Semorran merchant
R
EBEKAH
, the last oracle of Mount Sinai
D
ANIEL
, an Edori engineer living in Velora
C
ALEB
A
UGUSTUS
, an engineer living in Luminaux
N
OAH
, an Edori engineer, Caleb's best friend
J
OSEPH
, proprietor of a singing establishment in Luminaux
H
OPE
W
ELLIN
, Alleluia's mother
D
EBORAH
, a young girl living in Chahiela
In Jordana
M
ICAH
, the leader of the host of Cedar Hills
J
OB
, the oracle of Mount Egypt
M
ARCO
, an Edori engineer living in Breven
In Gaza
J
ERUSHA
, the leader of the host of Monteverde
M
ARY
, the oracle of Mount Sudan
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 surelyâtomorrow morningâwhen 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 superiorityâreveled in it, in factâher 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.
“Noâstick 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 knewâthey all knewâit 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 sisterâwhat was her name?âthe tall girl with the bad hair.”
“LauraâLoganâLowbrowâsome 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 meâ”
“With the river
merchants
, I think I said, not their daughtersâ”
“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 upthrust 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 soundâpiteous 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 lastâand 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 for 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 armsâshe of all the angels had not let go her chargeâbut he lay even more quietly than she. Even from a 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 girlâshe was only twenty-five, after all; everyone remembered her as such a delightful, wayward childâsummon 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 somehowâno one ever knew who broke the silence or how the rumor spreadâeveryone 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 Samariaâfrom the wealthy Manadavvi enclaves, from the sophisticated river cities, from Luminaux, where the best of everything could be foundâand 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 spinesâtheir legs, their feet, became useless; these limbs could not be animated by the will of the man who owned them. Thus with the Archangel's wing.
But if Delilah could not flyâif Delilah could not soar through the heavens, lifting her magnificent voice in prayer to Jovahâif she could not quickly be summoned to any troubled spot in the
whole of Samariaâhow 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.