Angels of Darkness

“Let’s go a little farther out. I want to see if there’s another point I can find once I make it this far.”
    I wasn’t positive this was a good idea, but I saw the look of concentration on his face and decided to keep quiet. Corban took a moment to assess something—the feel of the wind, maybe—and then drove his wings down hard enough to gain altitude. I could still see the road from this height, which kept me somewhat relaxed. He leveled out and began flying steadily in a more or less northern direction. I kept my eyes trained on the ground, looking for landmarks, which were mighty sparse in this rocky, sandy, barely habitable stretch of northeastern Samaria. Corban drifted slightly to the west, which was fine by me; we crossed over the northbound road, but it was still visible on my right. I knew that as long as I never lost sight of it, we could always find our way home.
    We had been flying for perhaps twenty minutes when Corban began turning his head from side to side like a hunting dog trying to catch an elusive scent. “Something’s changed,” he said.
    I listened as hard as I could, but I couldn’t hear anything except the rhythmic sweep and gather of Corban’s wings. “You must have the sharpest ears in the country,” I commented.
    â€œIt’s not a sound, it’s a—temperature. And a change in air density.” He jerked his head toward the left. “What’s over there?”
    I slewed around in his arms to peer at the western horizon, which was dense with unrelieved night. “Nothing. Just darkness and shadows and—oh! The mountains!” I squirmed, trying to get a better look at the solid blackness. “We’re almost at the Caitanas. That’s why the air feels different.”
    â€œThe Caitanas,” he repeated, sounding pleased. “I could follow them all the way up to Windy Point. I’d know where I was then.”
    Windy Point was an old angel hold that Gabriel had destroyed shortly after the god had brought down the mountain. It certainly must have been exciting to live in the days when Gabriel was Archangel. “It doesn’t exist anymore. How would that help you?”
    â€œThe hold was leveled, but pieces of it remained intact when they were blasted off the mountain,” Corban said. “You know why it was called Windy Point, don’t you? Because it was this drafty old cave and every time the wind blew, you could hear it moaning through the walls. Even now, if you’re right over the peaks where the hold used to be, there’s a constant whistling and shrieking. Really spooky the first time you hear it.”
    â€œSounds unnerving,” I agreed. “But Corban, it has to be sixty or seventy miles from here. I’m not sure you have the strength to go that far in one trip.”
    I felt his muscles cord with silent dissent, and then he made a little sigh of agreement. “You’re right. It’s too far, at least right now. But maybe in a few days—”
    â€œOr a few weeks.”
    â€œWe can try it.”
    â€œIt’s a good goal,” I said. “But I just realized something.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” he asked. He had dipped his wing down again and was making a long, lazy loop to turn us back in a southerly direction. I was impressed; he seemed to have accurately gauged where the mountains were and how to retrace our route.
    â€œYou need to live in a place where there’s a steady, dependable source of sound so you can always find your way home. Right?”
    â€œWell, I don’t want to live in the wreckage of Windy Point, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
    â€œNo. But there is a hold in Samaria you could always get back to if all you needed was music.”
    He was silent a moment. “The Eyrie,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
    I had lived at the hold for nearly a week as I awaited my trial and went exploring its curving gaslit hallways. There was an open central plateau where someone was always performing music—an angel singing a solo, a small choral group offering harmony, a few flautists trying out a requiem someone had written just that morning. Apparently they all signed up for shifts to ensure that there was never a moment of perfect silence at the hold. I had expected to find the incessant music annoying—just another example of angels flaunting their