Host

I t was dawn, and the sky in the east was a metallic gray. Darkness hadn't come. I was filled with relief, safety, a false sense of security brought on by the rising sun. It wasn't real, but it felt pretty good.

Outside, the footsteps of sentries crunched through old, crusted snow. A rooster crowed. Inside, the buildings were silent, almost a hundred humans finally asleep, no crying babies, no whining toddlers. No preteen girls giggling in the hallway.

I should've been asleep, but I was cramped and miserable. To one side, Rupert snored softly, little puffs of sound. He slept on his side, his healing back held clear from the mattress. I still smelled blood and worried about that, but he needed sleep more than he needed a pesky inquisitive mage poking around on him. To the other side, Audric lay like a dead man, breathing so shallowly his chest didn't seem to rise and fall, only his body heat proving him alive.

Though the dream of seraphs killing me hadn't intruded on my rest, I hadn't slept well with two big men in bed with me. Notwithstanding the rare mage fantasy, and my few months as a married woman aside, I liked sleeping alone. It had been different when I was injured, weak, too exhausted to roll over, too feeble to get to the bathroom alone. I had needed them then, and welcomed their combined warmth, but I had been really happy when they left me and returned to the loft apartment across the way. Now the bed was crowded, and the mingled scents of human, half-breed, and mage were strong, almost unpleasant. I wanted my bed to myself again. I wanted my life to myself again. If wishes were horses.... Yeah, right.

I sat up and crawled down the middle of the bed to the floor, and padded to the bathroom on bare feet. After I relieved myself, hidden behind a screen I had put in place the night before, I dressed in clean underwear and socks, yesterday's jeans and fuzzy sweater, my amulets around my neck. Audric and Rupert slept on.

Silent, I paced from window to window, watching the morning's activities in the street. Black rings had burned through the snow to the cracked asphalt beneath, and charred remains of logs still smoked. Men and women who had spent the night watching stretched and walked off night terrors and doldrums, exchanging words as they passed. I spotted Cheran Jones striding away in the distance, and an idea formed.

I left a note on the kitchen table for Audric to make a quick trip north if possible, and before I could change my mind, turned off the ward on the lofts and shops, grabbed boots and a jacket I hadn't worn in a while, and slipped out the door. Stepping over girls snuggled into a thin down mattress, around a woman on a cot, I went downstairs and into the frozen morning.

As I left the shop, I hung the Apache Tear over the doorknob and activated an identity glamour I had used before. To the world I looked like a middle-aged woman, plain, nondescript, unmemorable. The conjure was a two-parter, the glamour and a second conjure, less strong, less well defined. It simply made people forget they had seen me. Her. Whatever.

Miz Essie lived across the street and up a ways, in a small two-story house wedged in between two others of similar Post-Ap design. The house was at least fifty years old, constructed of sturdy rock and brick with functional solar panels lining the roof and white-painted trim. It had been built after the start of the ice age, and the front door was up ten steps, on a narrow stoop. A little more than ten feet separated the houses to either side, sloped lanes where snow and ice collected when it melted off the roof and ran down the hill behind, refreezing along the way.

Right now, because there had been no snow accumulation for two weeks, the collected ice was only a few feet deep, but it was slick and solid, and I could see fine cracks radiating through the foundations of all three houses from the constant varying pressure of ice.

I climbed up the front steps as if I belonged there and entered the house. I had never been in Miz Essie's home, and immediately I saw dozens of pictures hanging on the walls. Eli as a baby, as a toddler with two other children, as a young man, with a beautiful Cherokee girl, both laughing, the girl with black hair blowing in a spring wind, arms bare to the bright sunlight. Other children, some that looked like him, were in even more photographs. The stairway was also lined with prints, and as I climbed, I upgraded my estimate of the numbers of photos to hundreds. Every vertical square inch was covered. Where there weren't photos, there were embroidered plaques, cross-stitched homilies, and embroidered winter scenes, a dizzying panoply of images.

Voices and the smell of frying bacon brought back my mission and I hurried quietly up the stairs and paused at the top. I hadn't known for certain that I would be able to spot his room, but number two glowed weakly with mage power. I ran my hands over the jamb and spotted two telltales, little conjures that would keep humans out. I had never deactivated any conjure but my own, figured I didn't have time to try, and so I took a chance and opened the door. Nothing happened. The telltales appeared unchanged, and I slipped inside. I was a mage. He hadn't prepared a secondary conjure to keep mages out. I closed the door behind me.

"Ducky. Now what?" I asked myself. I stood in the unexceptional room, studying the multicolored handmade quilt and wrinkled sheets all rumpled on the old iron bedstead, the lumpy mattress beneath. There was a hooked rug that looked as if it had been made at the same time as the house, a small upholstered chair, ditto, a scarred table, a chest of drawers, and a closet. And a huge stack of luggage beneath the narrow window. I grinned at the sight, remembering Cheran's big plans to live in a consulate, waited on hand and foot by adoring humans. I wondered if he had been forced to clean the toilet yet.

Indulging in the mental picture, I opened Cheran's closet and went through the hanging and folded clothes. Fancy court stuff was on one side, several tuxedoes in fashionable shades - teal, black, and an oxblood brown - ruffled shirts, highly polished lace-up leather shoes. On the other side was business clothing and day-today stuff - wool suits, dress slacks, tunics in muted shades, shoes with textured bottoms to make walking in snow easier. There were also two pair of jeans and hiking boots. Most of the casual clothes still had price tags on them, all from local shops. The mage had been busy spending money I didn't think he had.

I ran my hands under the mattress, looked under the bed, and went through the chest of drawers. I found clothes and personal items, nothing that would tell me more about the visiting mage emissary. I eyed the neatly stacked bags, matched luggage, heavy-duty stuff with tough leather exteriors and locks. All were black except one, which was scuffed, worn, and lockless.

Long, wide, and only a few inches deep, it bore a suspicious resemblance to my own weapons case, except it was larger, older, and constructed of better quality leather. I pulled the case to the bed and after a quick inspection with mage-sight, I opened it. It was filled with socks, underwear, and several really nice silk scarves, but like mine, the case had a false bottom. I set the clothes to the side and found the hidden catch. With an unobtrusive click, the case opened.

Blades gleamed inside, really beautiful mage-steel blades, the superstrong, amazingly elastic steel made by steel mages. The cutting edges were microns thick, the tips so sharp they would damage flesh before the eye could see them touch the surface.

There were two matched sets of blades, each set meant for very different purposes. While each weapon was made from a single length of mage-steel from pommel to tip, one set was made for battle, the other for a different kind of fighting.

The battle weapons had silverplated handles over steel tangs. These blades were set with faceted stones around the crossguards, and the pommels - the decorative piece below each grip - were single faceted nuggets. There was a sapphire on a kris, emeralds on four throwing knives, matched citrines on two tantos, and a smaller knife that was too large to be a dagger but too small to be a kogatana, even for a mage - weapons that would be long-bladed knives for a human were shortswords for a mage. There was a spear in two parts, with decorative green tourmaline accents.

A single pink quartz nugget was set in the pommel of the longsword. Each stone glittered with ancient energies, wild mage energy, the energies gathered and used by the first neomages, the teenage children of human parents. That made the weapons old, maybe as much as eighty years old, and they were downright gorgeous. They were the kind of weapons that were passed from generation to generation, showpiece battle weapons, shaped and forged for a warrior of small stature. A battle mage. I studied the cutting edges. They were clearly well used and cared for. One was nicked and blackened where demon-iron had impacted it. My hands ached to pick them up and try the balance but I didn't touch them.

The other group of blades was different in style, smaller, neater, more easily hidden in clothing or boots or even a hatband. I remembered the ostentatious hat Cheran had worn when he arrived in town, and the pile of weapons Audric had taken from him. Those blades had come from this set, and the mage was likely wearing them still. There were vacant slots. A shiver of warning slithered down my spine. I hoped it wasn't a premonition.

These weapons had handles - the grip part, molded around the tang - shaped to the same grip, as if formed from molten steel and fitted for a specific hand, Cheran's hand. Half were made of crosshatched steel for a firmer grip, the other half were smooth metal, to allow the blade to slide from his hand easily. Throwing blades.

This entire set appeared to be new, maybe only a few years old, and I had a mental picture of Cheran dressed in the heavy leather apron of the steel forger, armor maker, and swordsmaster, sweating over an anvil, shaping a length of steel to his own specifications and requirements. Wild mage energies building around him.

I closed the case and set it aside, pulling the next case to the bed and opening it. It wasn't locked, none of the cases seemed to be, and it held clothes. Cheran Jones had brought enough to last a decade, or enough to last a full year as an emissary in a consulate posting. In each piece of luggage were different types of dress, some formal, made of velvet or lace or silk, the outerwear of wool and cashmere, finely woven. His pajamas were silk, his socks of silk-blend, and most of his shirts were silk. His loose tunic-suits were nubby raw silk. Even his boxers were made of charmeuse, and I wondered how he could sit upright in them.

One case was heavier than the others, and it was locked. I thought about trying to pick the lock, but I had never done that before and assumed it was harder than the Pre-Ap TV shows indicated. I had an incantation that would work, but using it would destroy the locking mechanism. No way would Cheran miss the tampering and he would know I had been in his room. Regretfully, I set it aside.

The smallest case, about twenty inches long and deep, and maybe half that wide, opened like my armoires, two swinging front doors and a one-piece back. Opened out, it revealed deeply padded red velvet on the doors and back. In little hoops, snugged down tight, were unmarked vials, twenty of them, all containing liquid. I carried the satchel to the window, which offered only wan light because it looked into the wall of the next house. I tilted the case back and forth. Some of the vials held clear liquid, like water. One contained an oily, silver substance like mercury. One was a blue so dark it looked black. One was the red of cinnabar.

There were measuring spoons and a small Bunsen burner, a flint, and a tiny scale. There were powders too, in little glass jars with strange-shaped lids. A pair of rubber gloves were rolled into one corner. Along the edges of the case, in pockets held closed with snaps, were syringes, needles, a ring with an adjustable bezel but no stone, and little cabochons shaped to fit. The bezel was formed so that when the center stone was removed, a small needle was revealed.

I stared at my find, a cold dread beginning to grow. As my trepidation increased, I searched my pockets until I found a scarf left there who-knew-how-long-ago. With it, I wiped down the case of vials and all the other luggage I had touched, replacing everything just as I had found it. Just as carefully, I wiped the dresser, closet, and anything else I might have touched. My unplanned jaunt had resulted in consequences I didn't know how to gauge, but I knew enough to be worried about them.

Standing at the door, I inspected the room. Other than the two sets of weapons and a small case of liquids, there was nothing to indicate why Cheran was here or what he was here to do. Or rather, who he was here to kill. Because a mage who traveled with poisons was on assignment. Cheran was an assassin mage. The gift was rare - and deadly.

Unnerved, I made sure my guise was in place, then slipped out of the room and down the steps, confident that no one would remember me. I was in front of Thorn's Gems, stopped by a long line of children and parents leaving, chattering about the night in the mage's den, before I heard Cheran's thoughts. He was approaching from the east, talking to two humans, whom he despised, thinking them stupid and traitorous. They were Elder Culpepper and his son, Derek. While I couldn't hear their words, I was able to follow Cheran's mind. Father and son were planning something against the town and against me, hoping to enlist Cheran's help. Before I learned what it was, Murphy's Law stepped in and the men were interrupted.

Inside my shop, I lifted the Apache Tear and almost put it back over my head. Instead, I carried the talisman to the workroom and dug into a box of snowflake obsidian. I found a nugget of roughly the same dimensions and a tiny shard of black jasper.

Quickly, I did a down-and-dirty incantation, filling the jasper with a simple conjure for heating bathwater. I then wrapped and strung them together, the jasper hidden in a wire knot, so the Tear looked like the amulet prepared by the Enclave council. Unless he did a deep inspection, the new, fake one, with the jasper so close they touched, would look like the original to a metal mage's sight, the conjure in the jasper providing the radiance of power. I hung the phony on my necklace; the real Tear went into the drawer at my worktable.

As I strung the fake Tear on, I noticed that one of my amulets was glowing, a small citrine nugget shaped like a pear with a nub of a stem and a small leaf, an amulet I hadn't made but had purchased at a swap meet. It was one of three wild mage-stones I owned, created in the time of the first neomages. I still didn't know what they did, but I had noticed that the citrine sometimes glowed when the wheels of the cherub Amethyst were around. On a hunch, I went to the metal boxes that stored the stone recovered from the wheel's crash site midway up the Trine.

The boxes were in the stockroom, lined against the wall in a short stack. I had been lazy about getting things in the stockroom put away - my job in the business - and it had been easier to simply push them aside than to find a logical place for them. Where did one store shards from the wheels of a cherub?

I hefted one of the boxes to the floor and opened its keyed lock, peeled back the metal straps that held it closed, and raised the lid. "Son of a seraph," I whispered, swearing.

Inside were two double-fist-sized hunks of stone, vaguely flame-shaped. The last time I looked at them, they had been pale, nearly clear, and so empty of power that they could have passed for midquality quartz. Now the crystals were purple and lavender, rich shades of color swirling in vague curves. As I watched, one mutated, revealing a grape-toned iris and a pupil of deeper purple. The eye looked at me, pupil contracting, focusing, and the stone seemed to vibrate, a long, slow pulsation, half purr, half heartbeat.

Without thinking, I reached in and touched the stone. A faint electric charge tingled against my fingertip. Mage-sight came on with a snapping sensation and I jumped back as a lavender serpent undulated up from the stone, swaying in front of me. Its hood swelled open, cobralike, and a tongue so deeply purple it looked black tasted the air, menacing. Its body was composed of eyes, all watching me. Its mouth opened, tissues within bloodless and deadly, white fangs snapping down. I started to turn away.

The snake struck, demon fast, fangs buried in my throat, stopping my breath. I tensed and clawed my throat. But there was nothing tangible. Something - venom? poison?  -  pulsed into me, hot and burning. No, not demon fast. Seraph fast.

My heart beat, a single throb. Instantly, I was here, not here, eyes closed. Vertigo gripped me and I swayed on my feet, light-headed in both worlds as a whirlwind of voices filled my mind, singing a harmonious scale.

I opened my eyes to a place of dappled purple light. The world was shades of purples, but nothing in it made sense. The floor beneath my feet was a purple deeper, darker than wine grapes, to my sides were spiraling hues of lilac and violet, and overhead, a shade of delicate orchid. Even the air was a lavender mist, and if sound had a color, it too would have been purple. The note of the song changed, a dirge dying away, and I heard beneath it a crooning hum. I caught my balance and searched for a recognizable pattern in the purple world. My mind was free, floating, tethered to my body, which was still in the shop.

I had been in the otherness, a place not of Earth, before, and I knew how it worked, sort of. This was much like that place-no-place. A here-not-here. Time and reality were different. I could be wounded in one plane of reality and not in the other, time could be slower in one reality than the other, I could move faster than I could on Earth. But if I died in one reality, I was probably dead in both.

This place was different from the otherness I had visited before - a different otherness or a different location in the otherness, I didn't know which. More stuff I didn't know.

I breathed in and the soft air, slightly arid and tart, moved into my lungs, When I exhaled, the air was clear, moving through the lavender atmosphere like a pale stream before being absorbed.

My heart beat. It was a slow sound, like the slow-motion fall of a wave on the beach. I looked down and focused on myself. Though I had glanced at myself in the otherness, I had never found the time to study my spirit vision, as each time before, I had been in battle, dying. And I was...different. Very different.

I was still short and too slim, but here I wore scarlet armor and black chain mail, and boots that latched on with flat, black buckles. A full-sleeve, black chain-mail shirt lay against a scarlet silk knit tee. Warm on my skin, the mail was a heavy, pervasive weight that came to midthigh. An over-the-shoulder coif covered my shoulders, forehead, neck, and head, leaving only my face bare. Over it, buckled to my torso, I wore a scarlet cuirass shaped to my form, my amulet necklace strapped to the cuirass with links of black steel, arranged as if it was a decorative piece. Articulated gauntlets, leg armor, and a segmented girdle were scarlet metal as well, but my arms and shoulders were armor-free, sheathed in the black chain mail over heavy silk underclothes. The boots on my feet were soft bloodred leather, not steel. I carried a shield and two swords.

I was half armored for battle. No helmet, no mace, no spiked flail, no battle hammer or ax. Which was a weird thought as I had never practiced with the heavier weapons. In my belt was an eagle-headed Damascus blade dagger I had never seen before, my longsword in its walking-stick sheath, and the Flame-blessed tanto, weapons of Middle Eastern, English, and Japanese origins, at all odds with the medieval-style armor.

In my belt was a long, iridescent green flight feather. Barak's gift. My necklace of amulets glowed softly. The seraph stone on my necklace, a gift from Zadkiel when he healed me, was glowing bright. I lifted it and it tingled through the gauntlets, an electric charge. I dropped the stone.

Something moved in the lavender air and brushed my cheek, softer than the breeze, feather light. I caught it and held a pale lavender feather. I managed not to curse aloud in surprise. I knew where I was. Saints' balls. I was in Amethyst's wheels. The knowledge jolted me, and I caught my balance on the smooth floor, a floor made of the same substance as the crystals in the metal box back in the stockroom. Where I still was.

The deep mellow crooning of the wheels changed timbre and softened as they noted my recognition. My heart beat. I was pretty sure I had been here three heartbeats. Three pulses that carried the venom into my body. I lost sensation back in my own reality. Earth faded away. Tears of Taharial. What was happening to me?

"I will honor the promises of my Mistress," the words whispered into my mind. "Her promises and obligations. I will not let her sin by forgetting you. By forgetting her Watcher."

Nothing else ensued and I raised my eyes to see Amethyst, the feathered and many-winged cherub, sitting in a gold chair, facing away from me, staring out over a low wall. Cherubs are nothing like the chubby babies on Pre-Ap Valentine cards. Cherubs have four faces on one head and eyes in weird places, like under their multiple wings, and hands in even weirder places, under their wings and along the outer edges, covered by downy feathers. They jutted from shoulder blades and from calves, fingers fluttering and gripping and grasping. The seraph face was looking out, the eagle face was toward me, its eyes closed, as if sleeping. Her primary hands were in the proper place, at the bottom of human-looking arms, and they rested on the gilt arms of the chair, lightly clenched, long nails like golden talons curled around.

Leaning against her was a young man dressed in skin-tight lavender, his long black hair loose and flowing. Malashe-el. Older than when I last saw him, as if he had aged years in the past weeks, he was still lissome and his face in profile was touched with a faint smile. A black beard and goatee sculpted his already sharp features into severe planes and angles. Both mistress and son were intent on something beyond the ship.

Fear was building beneath my skin, threading its way across my flesh. I should get out of here before they saw me, but I didn't know how. I resisted the urge to draw the weapons I carried. It might not be the most politic thing to appear armed and ready to kill in the presence of a holy being.

Around me, the wheels were a glowing thing with a flat floor and low walls and protuberances everywhere. It was easier to see the oblong shape of the wheels from the inside, sitting in the innermost section of the ship, and it looked smaller somehow. Unlike the outside of the wheels, the inside had no eyes to blink and stare, but had an organic smoothness that threw back the light, like the surface of a pearl. And the entire ship pulsed. Like a rapid heartbeat, light emanated from one end and throbbed along it to the other end. With each pulse, something whipped by overhead, too fast to see, several somethings, some closer than others. Whatever they were they should have created a breeze or a vibration through the floor. They didn't.

A single note caroled. Together, the former daywalker and his mistress leaned in and opened their mouths, joining other voices, singing in a pleasing tenor and alto. It was a hymn I knew from my youth, from Psalm 98. "O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvelous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory."

Hundreds joined in, thousands, the singers out of view beyond the walls of the ship. A verse out of order from the scripture was sung as a chorus. "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise."

A strange euphoria gripped me, raced through me. If melody and harmony could exist in a dozen parts, twenty parts, all on perfect pitch, this was the sound of the singing. The reverberation rose and fell, notes like bells and harps and oboes, tones so rich and intense they raised prickles on my skin. My knees felt weak and I put out a hand to steady myself.

Walking over the last notes, a single voice, a rich baritone, took over. "The LORD hath made known his salvation...." The one voice was so pure, so full, it throbbed through me, quaking in my bones. Tears gathered in my eyes and I leaned against the wall of the wheels, the amethyst smooth beneath my gauntleted hand. The lavender air I breathed changed odors, becoming the smell of honey and orange blossoms. The physical sensations of this place in the otherness, this here-not-here, were strong, overpowering. Mage-heat began to rise in me. The seraph stone on my necklace took on a brighter hue. The light from within it was a rainbow of colors, scintillating.

I realized that one of its uses was to stop mage-heat. I snatched the stone from the cuirass and pressed it against the bare skin of my cheek. Mage-heat died as if plucked away. Well, well, well. I dropped the stone down my shirt and the heat vanished entirely.

The choir sang, "Let the floods clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together."

I forced my knees to steady and eased around behind the walker, more toward the sleeping face of the eagle, edging so I could look over the wall - railing?  -  gunwale?  -  and see out. Around me, the massive song continued, voices swelling, "With trumpets and sound of cornet, make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King!"

And I looked out over the site. My eyes were nearly blinded by a surging brightness in the center, directly below. Shielding my eyes, I looked to the sides. For a moment I couldn't make out the confusing scene. As it resolved itself, I nearly fell.

Seraphs. Countless hundreds of them. Thousands. Millions, covering a square of land that stretched out of sight. My knees buckled and I fell against the wall, supporting myself, trying to take it all in. Some seraphs were in winged form, others appeared as whirling lights. Minor Flames darted through the throng, bright balls leaving plasma trails. Bursts of light flickered through, like heat lightning.

At the four corners of the square were the cherubim, each in her wheel, each wheel seeming composed of different gems the size of football fields, the living, breathing, seeing ships of the cherubim. The wheels were shaped like gyroscopes, the exterior wheels spinning, the interior one a platform with a being at the gold navcone, the navigation cone, the origin of the pulsing light. One wheel was like a ruby, one like an emerald, one like a citrine. Amethyst made the fourth. And each ship had eyes only for the brightness in the center of the square.

I looked up, overhead, to see a dome of light, a coruscating prism of light that seemed to look out on the center of a galaxy, glistening like a billion stars. I looked back down, still protecting my eyes from the brightness in the center of the square, to see a grid laid out, a grid of glowing gold. Between each of the lines of the grid I saw rectangles, tall boxes, and domes and -

My mind interpreted the images. The grid was streets, lined with buildings.

The euphoria that washed through me became a flood, a wild, tumbling torrent of motion and emotion. I was in a ship of a cherub, in a Realm of Light. The crowd below shifted, revealing the floor on which they stood. It was clear, like the finest quartz, or maybe diamond, etched with symbols and shapes my mind couldn't interpret.

Visible through the floor was a plane of greens and browns and gold, like spring and autumn blending into one time and place, life and death. The thought vanished like a dream as I saw what ran through the plane. In a brilliant golden sweep, raced the river of time. At one end was a waterfall that threw off a dancing, swirling spray of mist. At the other was a volcano that erupted with a spray of golden water. Both fed the river, as did tributaries and streams, and the river emptied into a crystal sea, so still and placid that it reflected back the light like the face of the full moon.

Above the river, the bright light in the center of the square rose, levitating, lifting between the four cherubs, which settled lower, closer to the crowd below, a dizzying disorientation of movement. Below the bright light was a sapphire, a single faceted gem that rippled with energy. The bright light in the center undulated with amber and rainbow radiance.

The voices rose higher in pitch as if following the lifting lights, and I covered my head with my arms to block out the light and the noise, which was wondrous and splendid, so grand that no words I knew could define or explain it. My eardrums thudded like drums from the decibels. Dizzy with the sound, I fell, resting on the lip of the wheels, bruising the undersides of my arms. I was crying, tears drenching my cheeks. The volume finally fell and the descant changed key as the hymn changed. "Holy, holy, holy," the throng sang, pianissimo.

I knew where I was. I knew. I was in a Realm of Light. Or worse. I was in heaven.

The song faded away to the final strains, the notes so pure even the air shivered with the beauty of them. Amethyst swiveled in her ornate chair, bringing her human face around. She saw me. Her eyes opened in shock. For a long moment, we stared at one another.

A tremor ran through her, and all the eyes on her many wings opened and focused on me.

Holy Amethyst lifted her head and screamed. Her screech ripped into the tapestry of music. The voices faded away. The scream echoed from the four corners of paradise.