The Alleluia Files by Sharon Shinn

white-robed woman to their table and helping her seat herself on his own stool. Then he and the girl with Jecoliah stood a few paces behind her, patiently waiting.
    “Jecoliah,” Bael said, his deep voice raised even a little more than usual, as if he spoke to a deaf woman. “We are pleased to see you here. Are you enjoying the Gloria?”
    “Very much,” she said. “Are you?”
    Bael missed the humor in the reply, for he went right on speaking, but Lucinda could not help a private grin. “Indeed, I am. Jecoliah, I wanted to introduce you to one of our young guests. Her name is Lucinda, and she has come in for the week from Angel Rock. Lucinda, this is Jecoliah, the oracle of Mount Sinai.”
    Jecoliah peered in Lucinda’s direction out of friendly, cloudy eyes, and Lucinda realized that the older woman was not deaf, after all, but nearly blind. “You must be David’s daughter,” she said instantly. “I am indeed pleased to meet you. You look something like him, though he was darker than you are. But you have his eyes.”
    Jecoliah was the first person in Samaria who had mentioned her father’s name, and Lucinda immediately liked her. She was delighted when, at that very moment, someone called out to Bael, and the Archangel and his wife left the table. Omar slipped quietly into Mariah’s deserted seat.
    “I know nothing about my father except what my aunt has told me,” Lucinda said. “And she does not talk about him much.”
    “Well, he was young, which made him rash, and he was in love, which made him ill-advised,” Jecoliah said with a sigh. “But other than that he was sweet-tempered and good-natured, and you couldn’t find a soul to say an unkind word about him. He was a good man.”
    “The oracle speaks, and thus every word is true,” Omar murmured.
    Lucinda ignored him. “Forgive my asking,” she said to the other woman, “but I am not certain what an oracle is. Or does.”
    Omar smiled, but Jecoliah merely nodded. “You would have no knowledge of us, there on Angel Rock. There are three of us, one in each province, and we serve as mediators with the god. We can speak to him—not directly, not by voice—but through special screens that allow us to ask him questions and receive his written reply.” Jecoliah smiled. “I do not see well at all—that is why I have one of my acolytes lead me around as if I were an old woman—but I can see well enough to read the script of Jovah’s hand.”
    Lucinda was fascinated. Gretchen had never talked about oracles. “And what sorts of questions do you ask the god?”
    “Lately, who will he Archangel, but he has not replied,” Omar said.
    “No, but he will,” Jecoliah said calmly. “He always does. And we ask him who will be angelica or angelico to the Archangel. And we report to him events that transpire so that he can interpret them for us—perhaps not for this generation, but forthe next one and the one that follows. We tell the god the details of Samaria, and he tells us how to live.”
    It sounded complex and mysterious to Lucinda, and she decided not to pursue it further. “Did you know my mother as well as my father?” she asked.
    Jecoliah shook her head. “Very little. Only well enough to see what everyone saw, that she was passionate and hard to hold. And to be angry that her life ended as wretchedly as it did.”
    “Old tales. Old wounds,” Omar murmured, but there was a warning note in his voice. Lucinda looked directly at him.
    “I know the story of how my mother lived and died,” she said. “Don’t be afraid of what she’ll tell me.”
    He smiled at her with a certain rue, and she liked him better than she had for the last twenty minutes. “Any tale of pain and betrayal stirs the emotions when it’s told, whether for the first time or the hundredth,” he said. “I’ve no doubt you’ll hear it more than once during your sojourn in Samaria. Just remember that it was long ago, and no one suffers anymore, and nothing you