Jovah's Angel (7 page)

“The east side of the Galilee River floods ten times more often
than the west side,” Alleya said, softly and immediately. “Fifteen miles farther down the river—even twenty miles—the land is so rocky that you could not pitch two tents side by side. Hardly ideal living conditions.”

“Hardly ideal traveling conditions,” Emmanuel retorted. “Those rocky ways make it difficult for wagons to pass, and we have lost more than one shipment as drivers tried to negotiate unfriendly pathways.”

“That is a hazard,” Alleya said sympathetically. “But if these are pathways you will be using for years to come, it might be worth the investment to build roads that your wagons can more easily traverse. So you have less risk of loss and injury.”

A brief expression of hatred tightened Emmanuel's lean features. “The cost,” he said gently. “The manpower.”

“Come now, you have manpower,” Alleya said. “I believe there are any number of idle tenant farmers who could be usefully employed in digging you a reasonable road to the river.”

“But the
cost
,” Aaron complained impatiently. “You can't realize—”

Alleya spread her hands again. “Charge more for your wine and your vegetables,” she said. “Isn't that how a merchant always covers his expenses? Besides,” she added, smiling good-humoredly, as if they were all in on a joke, “I happen to know your new harvesting equipment is saving you a fortune in labor costs and actual produce recovery. Half again as much yield in some crops, because the machinery is so efficient—isn't that right? So surely you can afford a little extra outlay, one-time only, to build your necessary roads. It's a business expense, is it not, gentlemen?”

She kept her expression mild and reasonable as she waited for them to refute her. They could not, of course. She saw a frown take shape on Aaron's face as he gradually realized she had too many points in her favor; Emmanuel was, as usual, way ahead of him.

The last person she expected to hear from at this juncture was Samuel, but now he spoke up. “There is another solution, if you're so set on shipping from the northernmost point of the river,” he said.

Aaron swung quickly his way; Emmanuel eyed him more warily. “What is it?” asked the younger man.

“Freight your merchandise through the Edori territory, and pay
them a passage fee,” Samuel proposed. “Don't you think that would work, Alleya?”

It was all Alleya could do to keep from laughing aloud. It was sensible, charming, and completely unpalatable to the Manadavvi. “I think the Edori would be quite interested,” she said. “They probably wouldn't charge much, you know. The Edori have no head for business.”

“Pay the
Edori
so I can take my wagons across their land?” Aaron exclaimed. “I'd rather walk it all the way to the ferry at Semorrah!”

“Well, that's your choice, too,” Alleya said smoothly. “Actually, I think you have any number of solutions to consider. All workable. Go back. Talk to the others. I'm sure you'll find that one or the other of these suggestions will be acceptable to everyone.”

After that, it was barely three minutes before the Manadavvi made the briefest of farewells and exited without a backward look. Just as well. They were scarcely out of sight before Alleya and Samuel began laughing so hard that they could not speak. Alleya felt the tears come to her eyes, and still she could not repress the hysteria.

“No head for
business
—” Samuel choked out once, and that set her off again. She was blinded by laughing; she didn't see him approach, and so his hug of congratulations caught her completely by surprise. But she welcomed it. She thought she deserved it. Her second victory of the day, and this one actually worth recording.

But there were still setbacks to contend with—namely, the failure of the music machine. Late in the afternoon, Alleya set out for Velora to see if, by chance, anyone there could give her advice.

Velora was a bustling, happy, cosmopolitan town nestled up to the foot of the imposing Velo mountain from which the Eyrie had been carved. The city had sprung up centuries ago specifically to accommodate the angels and the petitioners who visited them there, so it possessed a welcome, friendly air and a multitude of amenities. It was often compared to Luminaux (though it had no real hope of eclipsing that fabled city), and everyone who visited Velora fell in love with it.

Years past, the only drawback to Velora was that there was no easy way to ascend from the city to the angel hold on the mountaintop,
for the steep cliffs were impassable. Angels habitually ferried petitioners up to the hold—or, more often, glided down to the city limits to hear what their visitors had to say.

But no longer. Nearly seventy-five years ago, the angels had approved a project to cut a massive series of shelves into the face of the mountain—steps shallow enough for a child to climb, but broad enough for a man to lie on comfortably with his head pillowed on the next stair up. The project was wildly popular with the merchants and the common folk of Bethel, who turned to the Eyrie when they sought divine intervention. The angels also were overwhelmingly in favor of the change, because for more than seventy years the Eyrie had been the only one of the three angel holds that was almost completely inaccessible.

Before that, only Monteverde in Gaza had been in easy reach of any petitioner who wished to speak directly to an angel. Windy Point, the hold that served Jordana, had been clawed from an inhospitable mountain range so bleak that no small community could gain a foothold close enough to cater to the hold's inhabitants. But the Archangel Gabriel had destroyed Windy Point 150 years ago—or asked Jovah to do so, and the god had complied. When the new angel hold, Cedar Hills, had been laid out in milder southern Jordana, its architects had followed the Monteverde plan. Thus a mortal merely had to walk up to the angel compound, request in hand, to receive a hearing.

Not wanting to appear so much more aloof than their brethren, the Eyrie angels backed the plan to terrace the mountain with a stairway to their doors. Velora merchants, always quick to capitalize on an opportunity, instantly set up carts and tiny storefronts along the serried rise, the result being that the climb up the mountain was a colorful adventure. Sweet hot cinnamon rolls, bright red headscarves, flashing jewelry bearing exotic designs edged in sapphires—these, anything, could be purchased on the slow ascent. It was the most sought-after real estate in Velora.

Although she could fly from the mountaintop to the city proper in about a minute, Alleya almost always chose to walk down. Back in her (so often rued) days of anonymity, she had derived a childlike pleasure from shopping through the splendid array of finery. Now that she was Archangel, and owed to her constituents some attentions, Alleya had found that her frequent treks down the great stairway gave her an opportunity to talk informally with the merchants, the petitioners, the buyers and the artisans, who thronged up and down the steps. Everyone always seemed pleased to see her—
which, genuine or not, was a rare enough occurrence that she always enjoyed it. Her pleasures were not so great that she could afford to throw the simplest ones away.

So, right after the sun slipped past its highest point, Alleya headed for the great stairway and made a roundabout descent. Though the weather was cold, the terraced marketplace was as busy as ever. “Angela! Angela!” voices called to her, pitched to carry above the murmuring of the crowd. Sometimes all that was required was a wave of recognition in return; sometimes nothing would do but that she must stop at some gaily striped booth and sample a new batch of candy or try on the finest lace gloves. Invariably, gifts were pressed upon her, which she had learned to graciously accept. Every broker wanted to be able to brag to his customer, “Well, the Archangel has a set of these, and she loves them.” The advantages to them outweighed their slight cost, and her embarrassment.

An hour later, sporting a gauzy new scarf worked in gold and silver, and munching a pastry from a bagful of goodies, Alleya stepped off the last stair and into the quieter region of Velora proper. Here, the real business of the town was done; merchants counted the inventory in their warehouses, and musicians taught students in a hundred schools. Brokers made deals, restaurateurs laid out their plates, and jewelers held dignified consultations with their most discriminating clients.

Alleya moved much more quickly once she had gained level ground, making her way to a small, crowded shop on the south edge of town. Hanging unevenly over the seamed wooden door, a worn sign simply offered “Repairs.” Alleya peeked through the glass, but no one appeared to be at work in the shop. She opened the door and went inside, anyway.

The place was a marvel of odd scents and unfamiliar objects, all jumbled together—metal, leather, oil, grease, and the hot smell and bursting spark of untamed electricity. Alleya stood in the center of the small, crowded space and did a slow pirouette, but she could not have described a use for any of the devices hanging on the walls or scattered across the floor. Some of the great mysteries of progress.

She had rung a small doorbell when she entered, and it was only a matter of moments before she was joined by the owner of the shop. “Angela!” he greeted her, bounding out from an uncovered doorway and hurrying over to shake her hand. “It has been some time since I have seen you here.”

“Hello, Daniel,” she said, smiling up at him. He was a big, strongly built Edori, with the characteristic dark coloring in eyes, skin and hair. Like most Edori she had met, he was outgoing, eager to please, prone to digression and fascinated by anything mechanical. He was known as
the
man to go to if you needed a watch fixed or a newfangled piece of equipment fine-tuned, but his shop had never been particularly successful, financially speaking. Alleluia repressed a smile. No head for business. “How has everything been with you?”

“Good, good, couldn't ask for a better year.” Daniel beamed. “You've heard of the new steam-powered water systems that all the mighty-mighties have to install in their homes these days? Regular well water is not good enough for them—it has to be free-flowing water, it has to be hot, it has to be available in half the rooms of the house. So! Wonderful for me! Half the steam valves stick after two months, and if the hoses aren't connected just right—I can't tell you the tiny,
tiny
things that go wrong with these little contraptions, and the allali customers don't have the first idea how to fix them.” He glanced at her guiltily after using the uncomplimentary Edori term for rich, idle city dweller, then went on with his story.

“And of course, once they've had the advantages of hot, ready water they simply can't go back to their old lives, so the steam systems have to be fixed
right now
. It takes me, believe it, five minutes to put everything in order again. I can charge them what I like! I have fixed every steam system in Velora at least once, and I've been called as far away as Semorrah—although that one was a little more complicated, a big system and it had a number of flaws. But I fixed it. I showed one of their houseboys how it was done, so they'll never need to bother me again. I don't understand how something so easy can seem so impossible.”

Alleya smiled at him again. “It seems impossible to me,” she said. “I'd be bathing in cold water my whole life if someone didn't install these things for me.”

He laughed and threw his hands apart. “But then, you find it easy to fly—and me? I couldn't fly if the fate of the Edori rested on my back. So Yovah put us all here to accomplish different things, yes? And fixing little valves and engines is my task.”

It always gave her a start to hear the Edori call the god by their version of his name. It was so easy for her to forget that not everyone viewed Jovah exactly as she did. And what she had
heard of the Edori religion shocked her enough to keep her from investigating more closely.

“I have something I wish you could fix for me, but I don't think you can,” she said. “I've asked you about it before.”

“Ah, yes—those ancient machines that play music from Hagar's time,” Daniel said instantly. His failures were rare enough that he remembered them all. “I looked, but—”

“Now another one has broken. Only one is left,” Alleya said sadly. “I came to ask you—if you cannot help me, do you know someone who might? In Luminaux, perhaps, or even Breven. Although I have always thought you were the best.”

He laughed; no competitive spirit here. “There is always someone better, no matter what your skill,” he said comfortably. “Think! What are your great talents? There is someone else just as good somewhere in Samaria. It does not pay to be too vain.”

She was still trying to think of her most promising abilities. A mind for detail. An abiding faith in her god. These did not seem to make her unique. “I'm not vain,” she said, smiling.

“No, you're modest” was Daniel's unexpected rejoinder. “But that's not so bad, either. Angela, I may have a name that will help you. There is a man in Luminaux, another Edori, but he might not be the one, either. He has a friend whose name escapes me—they are said to be the best engineers in the country, though—how do I put it?—somewhat erratic. They are inventors, not good solid repairmen like me.” His laugh boomed out again. “They were both involved in the Gabriel Dam project—in fact, I think this friend was the chief engineer who took over when things were beginning to look like they would not go so well. He is credited with saving the project, if I'm thinking of the right man. Were I you, he is the one I would contact.”

“But you don't know his name?” she said gently.

Daniel grinned. “Well, Noah's the name of his Edori friend, and you can find any Edori in Luminaux by going down to the campsite.”

“Will he know your name? Can I tell him you sent me?”