Angelica by Sharon Shinn Read Free Book Online Page A

fact that his claims might supersede their own. “I will take my turn,” he said. “It will be a pleasure to sit quietly in a quiet place and listen to the clamoring of my thoughts.”
    She bowed her head. “I will tell the oracle what you have said.”
    Once she left, Gaaron glanced around the room and picked out the only chair that might suit him, a backless stool with sturdy legs. The three men and one woman sitting in the room glanced his way, nodded or murmured “Angelo,” and then returned their attention to their own concerns. Wherever else one might socialize while awaiting a service, the anteroom of the oracle’s chambers was not it; here, no one would approach him casually or stoop down by his chair to ask a favor. He had spoken truly to the acolyte: He would enjoy an hour or two to merely sit and think without fear of importuning or interruption.
    Actually, it was less than an hour before the anteroom emptied and another female acolyte came to fetch Gaaron for his audience with Mahalah. He followed her down the quiet corridors, hearing the shush-shush of his wings as they brushed both walls behind him. These hallways were smaller and narrower than the ones at the Eyrie. They were perfectly adequate, yet he always felt as if he should lower his head or hunch his shoulders more closely to his body, as if he was too big for the space or it might close up on him unexpectedly. It was something of a relief to make it to the large open chamber at the end of the corridor and step into the heart of the oracle’s world.
    Mahalah was sitting in a wheeled chair at a table near the center of the room. She smiled when Gaaron entered, but did not rise. Indeed, she could not rise. She was elderly and frail, and her bones would no longer support her. Gaaron had asked her more than once if she was in pain as well as being weak, but she had always dismissed that as a matter of no concern. He supposed that she was.
    â€œGaaron,” she said, holding out her hand as he crossed the room. Her fingers were small, stubby twigs encased in loose, hot folds of skin. Her arms were covered in layers of flowing blue silk, but enough of the fabric fell back from her hand that he could see the fragile sticks that constituted the bones between her wrist and elbow. Her round, wrinkled face was wreathed in wispy gray hair, and the skin on her cheekbones was layered with age. Still, her eyes were a glitteringblack, snapping with intelligence, and there was some power in the pressure of her fingers. “An unexpected pleasure to greet you here today,” she said.
    â€œI have been meaning to come for the past few weeks,” he said, accepting the chair she indicated. She brought her chair closer, till only a small table separated them. “To inquire after your health, if nothing else. Are you as strong as ever?”
    She smiled; it was something of a joke. “I will outlive you,” she promised. She turned to the young acolyte and requested food and drink to be brought to them. The girl bowed and departed.
    â€œI have never seen any but young women serving you here,” Gaaron remarked. “Is that because you find young men too rowdy and high-spirited, or because you think they cannot be trusted to serve the god with the attention he requires?”
    Mahalah smiled, then sighed. “No, it is because of a stupid decision made fifty years ago, and I would very much like to reverse it. It happened around the time I came to be oracle here and Isaac stepped into the post at Mount Sudan. Before then, all the oracles had accepted both boys and girls as acolytes, but there had been some trouble at Mount Sudan. Too much intermingling between the sexes, with the result that—well, there were some unwanted pregnancies and a few young people sent home in disgrace. I am not a prude,” she added quickly, “but two of those girls were barely fifteen. So Isaac decreed that he would only