Breath of Angel (17 page)

As his footsteps faded down the hall, Melaia tossed her pack at the foot of the ledge. “Confound it!” she growled, aggravated that Jarrod would be her company all the way back to Wodehall. On top of that, she felt stuffy and trapped here. She missed the outdoor undercurrent of tree-thought. Rocks were obviously not her heritage. But what grated on her most was the prospect of returning to Wodehall empty-handed.

“The book has to be here somewhere,” she mumbled. She rummaged
through the storage niche where the Dom had set the lamp. A chipped pottery cup. A scroll containing a prayer. No book.

Jarrod leaned into the room, his horse tail of hair draped over his shoulder. “Come and see the stargazers.”

Melaia pressed her lips together, wondering if she should trust Jarrod. So far, her record of trust was less than stellar. She had trusted Trevin, and he had betrayed her. She hadn’t trusted Livia or the sylvans, and they had shown her only kindness. Jarrod confused her. She didn’t know what to think of him.

“Livia asked me to show you.” Jarrod huffed. “I’m safe. I snarl, but I keep myself on a leash. At least around those I’m supposed to protect.”

“All right then.” Melaia trudged to the door. “Who are the stargazers?”

“Follow me.”

Holding a lantern high, Jarrod led the way along the narrow corridor, deeper into the hill. Melaia wiped the sweat from her forehead and tried to imagine trees and fields. At the end of the corridor, they climbed stairs cut into the rock and emerged facing a starry sky over a bowl-shaped valley in the hilltop.

The night breeze cooled Melaia’s sweaty brow. At last under the wide, wide sky, she took a deep breath, her gaze held by the heavens. She had once seen a jeweled veil displayed among a merchant’s silks. The sky looked like a canopy of jeweled veils.

“Sit if you like. Or recline.” Jarrod already lay on his back.

As Melaia eased herself down to the stone, she noticed the stargazers scattered around the bowl. They appeared to be dwarfs, but unlike Gil’s bushy-haired race, their hair was dark and sleek, tied in tails or knots. Melaia recognized them as one of the angel races represented on the board game. Some of them lay on their backs like Jarrod, gazing up at the sky, their necks pillowed on stone supports. Others sat cross-legged at lap desks and held angular sticks to the sky as they eyed the heavens. Then they bent to mark on scrolls.

“Angels?” whispered Melaia.

“Angels,” said Jarrod.

Melaia lay on her back too and hardly breathed. She raised her hand as if to stroke the heavens. “The stars seem close enough to touch,” she said. “Stargazers must love it here.”

“Probably,” said Jarrod. “This is their work. They watch for the alignment of stars. At present, their foremost concern is the stars of this world’s beltway, which align only once every two hundred years.”

“That’s important?” asked Melaia.

“Very,” said Jarrod. “All worlds have beltway stars, receiving points for their stairways into the heavens. Once a stairway is received and established, the stars go their way, circling back from time to time to secure the stairway.”

“But our world’s stairway was destroyed with the Wisdom Tree,” said Melaia.

“Almost two hundred years ago,” said Jarrod. “Even if the Tree were already restored, the stairway won’t rise until the stars of the beltway are aligned. Which will occur soon.”

“How soon?” asked Melaia.

“The stargazers say we have maybe a year, no more than two, before our beltway aligns and the path is open to receive our stairway to heaven. How long the stars will stay aligned and the path open, no one knows. But if the Tree isn’t restored before the stars journey on, then the stairway is lost for two hundred more years.”

Melaia returned from stargazing frustrated. First, she had asked Jarrod if she could sleep under the stars, but he had said no, she needed to be in the cell the Dom had assigned her, which made it feel like a prison. Then she had very nicely asked if they might search his archives for Dreia’s book, and he had brushed her off, saying he knew the contents of his archives. And that was that.

What did he drink, sour wine?

She blew out the lamp and lay back on the thin mat. It smelled loamy and warm, and as she pulled her cloak snug, she thought of Benasin sleeping there
only a few weeks before. If only she had not gone to Redcliff, he would still be alive.

“The book,” he had said. “Get it.”

I would
, she thought,
if I knew where it was
. Her throat grew tight, and she squeezed her eyes closed.

How late it was when Melaia awoke, she didn’t know. She had shifted in her sleep and couldn’t get comfortable again. Through the thin mat, she felt every bump in the rock beneath her, especially under her right knee. She kept rolling over that spot every time she fell into a doze. Finally she reached into the niche above the bed and felt for the lamp, then shuffled into the hallway and lit it by the flame of a lantern.

When she returned to her mat, she flipped it back. The corner of a stone jutted out just where her legs lay. With the flat of her hand, she tried to press it back into place. Instead, the stone dislodged. As she slid it out, she caught her breath.

Dreia’s book lay beneath it in a small hollow.

She pulled it from its nook, held it in her palm, stroked the Tree carved into the cover, and felt the same life-pulse she had felt in the harp.

She set the lamp in the niche, settled back on the mat, and opened the book to the first page. Three words vined across it:
For My Child
.

Melaia stared at it, traced it with her finger, pictured Dreia writing it. “Mother,” she murmured, listening to the sound, tasting it on her tongue.

As she turned the page, a leaf of papyrus fell into her lap, its top and bottom edge curling in memory of its former scroll shape. “Now is payment due in full.” She shuddered and tucked the scroll into the back of the book.

Then she froze, her skin prickling. She was not alone. Jarrod?

She took a deep breath and looked up. On the other side of the chamber stood three mistlike spirits.

M
elaia hugged Dreia’s book to her chest and stared at the three spirits. They didn’t struggle or contort like spirits of the dying. Instead, they wavered like wispy water plants in a peaceful pool.

“I’m Windweaver,” said a man with long white hair whose cloak billowed as though it were being blown by a breeze. He motioned to the spirit beside him. “This is Flametender.”

The dark-skinned woman with wild copper hair nodded.

“And Seaspinner,” he said.

The third spirit bowed, a woman with pale blue skin and short white hair like froth on a breaking wave. She said, “We’ve long awaited this moment.”

Melaia knew she had seen Flametender before, in the campfire at the hot springs, but she said nothing. Her voice seemed to have gone into hiding. She couldn’t even frame a question.

“We’re the Archae, guardians of the elements within your world,” said Windweaver. “Dreia was one of us, guardian of tree and flower, leaf and bough.”

“Guardian, too, of the Wisdom Tree,” said Seaspinner. “Livia requested that we come to you. To tell you about your mother.”

“We looked forward to the time when Dreia herself would introduce us to you,” said Windweaver.

“Which, of course, became impossible,” said Flametender. “So we took it upon ourselves.”

“We watched you grow up,” said Seaspinner.

“In Navia?” Melaia found a tentative voice. “I never saw you there.”

Seaspinner’s laugh was like a splashing wave. “We can make ourselves present but unnoticed by the untrained eye. In water—”

“And fire,” said Flametender.

“And wind,” said Windweaver. “Dreia swore us to secrecy, but we carried news of you back to her.”

“I never knew about her,” said Melaia.

“That was her plan,” said Seaspinner.

“To minimize the risk,” hissed Flametender.

“As for who Dreia was,” said Seaspinner, “she loved the changes of the seasons. She maintained the balance in nature.”

“What most don’t realize,” said Windweaver, “is that because Dreia was guardian of the stairway, she drew creative energies from the heavens into the world, which I was able to carry on the winds. Inspiration, you call it.”

“When the Firstborn killed her, he struck his first blow into the upper spheres of the Angelaeon,” said Flametender. “Now her spirit is trapped with the spirits of all the dead in the Under-Realm.”

“The realm of Earthbearer,” said Windweaver. “He is also one of us, an Archon, but reclusive.”

“Since the stairway collapsed, he has not deigned to meet with us,” said Seaspinner.

“He finds himself busy with the plots of the Firstborn, who has taken a liking to Earthbearer’s lair,” said Flametender.

“Can’t you free Dreia?” asked Melaia. “Surely Earthbearer can’t hold an Archon.”

“It’s not Earthbearer who holds the spirits,” said Windweaver. “It’s the Firstborn. Because he chose to eat of the Tree, his immortality gives him certain—”

“Responsibilities,” said Flametender.

“Which he perceives as rights,” said Seaspinner.

“The Firstborn is held responsible for the spirits of the dead until the Tree is restored,” said Flametender. “Then all are set free.”

“By breath of angel,” said Windweaver.

“Blood of man,” said Flametender.

Seaspinner laughed. “You’re everything Dreia hoped for.”

“Except for courage and wisdom,” said Melaia.

“We’re here to encourage you,” said Windweaver.

“And many will gladly share their wisdom,” said Seaspinner.

“If you will listen,” crackled Flametender.

“We’ll be near,” said Seaspinner.

“When we can,” said Flametender.

“We’re often present but unseen,” said Windweaver.

The spirits began to fade.

“Wait!” said Melaia. “What now? The payment of debt? The third harp? Where—”

But the Archae were already gone.

As Melaia stared into the shadows, footsteps sounded in the corridor. She quickly blew out the lamp and lay down, holding the book close. Jarrod stopped in front of the open doorway for a moment, then continued down the hall.

A firm hand shook Melaia from the depths of sleep.

“Up,” said Jarrod. “Malevolents.” He strode to the doorway and peered down the hall, his hand on the ebony hilt at his belt.

“In the scriptory?” Melaia scrambled out of bed and stuffed the book into her pack.

“Not yet. But approaching.”

Melaia joined Jarrod in the hall, where he grabbed a lantern and led her away from the front of the cave. Agitated voices echoed up and down the corridor behind them. A banging sounded on the front door, and a barking voice demanded entrance. Melaia glanced back. The Dom shuffled toward the mouth of the cave, bobbing his head frantically. Scribes darted in and out of rooms like bees in a hive.

Jarrod took Melaia’s arm and guided her through the kitchen into the larder. There he pulled aside a hide that hung on the wall. Behind it lay a gaping hole blacker than a moonless night. A dank smell wafted out.

“Our escape,” he said.

Melaia peered into the darkness. “Is it safe?”

“Nothing is safe.” Jarrod ducked into the hole and disappeared. Light from his lantern danced off the tunnel walls. Then he leaned back out, his horse tail of hair dangling over his shoulder. “Are you afraid to follow?”

“What about the scribes?” she asked.

“They’ll let the malevolents in, allow them to search the caves, and answer their questions. They’ve got nothing to hide once we’re gone.”

Melaia didn’t move. She felt rooted to the spot, paralyzed at the thought of entering such a narrow tunnel.

“You
are
afraid,” he said. “So was Dreia.”

“Is this your test of me, then?”

“I told you: it’s our escape.” He sighed. “When Dreia was here, she found it helped to think of the underground as the roots of your woods and forests.”

“You knew her well?”

“No one knew her well.” Jarrod slipped into the tunnel, obviously expecting her to follow.