Archangel by Sharon Shinn Read Free Book Online Page A

border of Jordana. He had always found the Edori willing to welcome strangers, and this time it was no different. The women greeted him with hot wine and offers of warm cloaks (for, as usual, he was wearing only his flying leathers, and to mortals these did not look warm), and the children ran around him in a frenzied circle, chanting out a verse. The men came forward more slowly, as befitted creatures of more dignity, and they nodded to the angel and waited for him to state his case.
    “I am looking for information on the whereabouts of a young woman,” Gabriel said, speaking slowly, looking from face to impassive face. “She once lived in a small village in Jordana,not far from Windy Point. The village is gone, she is gone. I thought perhaps Edori, who go everywhere, might know what happened to the people who lived there, and this girl in particular.”
    It was, as he had anticipated, a tortuous, tedious process. He was invited to stay for a meal while the most observant men and women of the tribe were called together to consider what he had to say. Could he describe exactly where the village had been? Did he know the names of any who had lived there? When had it been destroyed? What had destroyed it? His ignorance on most of these questions embarrassed Gabriel, but the Edori did not mock him or show irritation. Instead, with their help, he was able to sketch out a tolerably accurate map of the area—and, again with their prompting, he came up with clues that led to a more precise idea of when the destruction had taken place. For they asked him to name the grasses and the lichens he had seen on the boulders of the ruined houses: Was the mold brown with black spots or was it red with brown spots? Was the grass as high as his waist or only as high as his ankle and bearing seeds of a yellowish-green? With this information they deduced with certainty how long the site had been abandoned.
    “Eighteen years,” one of the middle-aged men had pronounced, and all the others in the group murmured agreement. “What tribe was traveling near the Caitana hills eighteen summers ago? Was it the Logollas?”
    “No, they were in the Gaza foothills that summer,” a woman said. “The Chievens, perhaps.”
    “They were with the Logollas.”
    “The Pandas?”
    “Not the Pandas.”
    “The Manderras, then.”
    “The Manderras.”
    “Yes, the Manderras.”
    Gabriel felt a stirring of hope. “And where might I find the Manderras?” he asked.
    The middle-aged man shook his head. He might have looked sad, but it was hard to tell; Gabriel found it impossible to read expression on any of the bronze faces. “The Manderras are gone,” he said.
    “Gone where?”
    “Scattered. Dead.”
    Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “Attacked by Jansai?” he asked sharply.
    Several of the Edori nodded. The others remained inscrutable.
    “Are they all dead?” Gabriel persisted. “All of them?”
    “Or enslaved,” a woman said dryly. “And if you can find them after the Jansai have dispersed them, you will have no trouble finding one lost girl.”
    Gabriel uttered a small exclamation that encompassed many things—frustration on his own behalf, rage on behalf of the Edori. “So there is no one left who might know—”
    “Naomi,” someone said.
    Gabriel swung around to identify the speaker. A young woman, in her early twenties perhaps, suckling a baby while she audited the conversation. “Who is Naomi?” he asked.
    “She was born to the Manderra tribe, but she followed a man of the Chievens,” the woman told him. “She was with the Manderras when they wandered through the Caitana foothills.”
    “Then she can tell me what happened to the village.”
    The young woman shrugged. “If the Manderras ever came upon the village. Who can say?”
    Gabriel struggled with his irritation. “And where can I find Naomi?”
    “With the Chievens.”
    “Yes, yes, I understand. Where can I find the Chievens?”
    The middle-aged man who seemed to be as