Kushiel 03 - [Moirin 02] - Naamah's Curse

by Jacqueline Carey

  Once we passed the treeline, the path was clearer, windswept. Upward and upward we clambered, scaling the long ascent. I concentrated on Lady’s bobbing head, on her pricked-forward ears. When we gained the summit on the second day after the storm, a new vista unfurled before us—and my diadh-anam gave a clarion call I could not ignore.

  I drew rein, staring.

  The Path of Heaven’s Spear had led us along the shoulder of a low mountain peak. Now it would lead us downward, down a long, long descent. In the distance, I could see forests, and more greenery beyond them, a promise of a warmer, gentler clime.

  But opposite us, a higher peak towered.

  To be sure, I had seen higher; snow-capped peaks wreathed in mist. But those had been the Abode of the Gods, and no one human had dared set foot there, let alone dwell there. This, this was different.

  I forced my gaze to focus. Hidden in the high peaks and crags was a man-made structure, towers and crenellations challenging the sky. Humans dwelled there. The steep slope that led to the eyrie was a complex labyrinth of fissures and moraines, unnavigable to the eye at a distance, and doubtless even more confusing at close range. I remembered picking our way through the Stone Forest in Ch’in, and how we would have been hopelessly lost without the dragon’s guidance. This looked much, much worse—and infinitely more dangerous.

  Nonetheless, my diadh-anam blazed in exultation.

  “Bao!” I whispered.

  “So it’s true,” a neutral voice remarked. Manil Datar had come alongside me without my realizing it. When I reached for the twilight in unthinking panic, he raised one hand in a peaceable gesture. “Do not curse me. I mean no harm. You are god-touched. I did not know, or I would not have taken you as a passenger.”

  I was confused. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “It is bad business when gods fight.” He jerked his chin at the distant peak. “Kurugiri, eh?”

  I echoed the word. “Kurugiri.”

  Manil Datar glanced at me sidelong. “You mean to pit your magic against hers, Lady Dakini?” He made the term a subtle insult. “Against the Spider Queen Jagrati?”

  I shrugged, too. “Maybe.”

  His mouth hardened. “Bad luck for you. You have some tricks, yes. She has powerful magic.”

  “What do you know of her?” I asked him. I didn’t want to be beholden to the man, but all knowledge was worth having.

  Datar gestured. “She comes from the south, far south. She has stolen a great treasure there, and come to the one place where no one dares take it from her. With this treasure, she has bewitched the Falconer into marrying her even though it is forbidden, bewitched the men who serve him.”

  “What is this treasure?”

  He lowered his voice. “It is the kaalahiira that Lord Shiva made from the ashes of Kamadeva.”

  “What is kaalahiira and kamadeva?’ I knew Lord Shiva was one of the many gods of Bhodistan, but I didn’t know the other words.

  Manil Datar gave me a disgusted look. “You do not know the story? How can your gods send someone so ignorant?”

  I touched his sleeve. “Please?”

  He snorted, but he relented. “Kamadeva is the god of desire. When he disturbed Lord Shiva at his meditation, Lord Shiva burned him to ashes with his third eye. When Lord Shiva heard the grieving of Kamadeva’s widow, Rati, and learned that Kamadeva was trying to awaken him to fight against a demon, he squeezed the ashes, so.” He made a fist. “To make a hiiraka, the gem-stone that shines like ice. Only it was black because of the ashes, so it is called a kaalahiira.”

  “A diamond,” I murmured to myself. “A black diamond.”

  “It makes desire come, very strong desire.” Datar pointed toward the peak of Kurugiri. “So. The Falconer rules his nest, but the Spider Queen rules him.” He shook his head. “You are beautiful, yes, but no match for the kaalahiira of Kamadeva.”

  To be sure, I didn’t feel like it in my current state. “How did Jagrati steal it?”

  Manil Datar turned his head and spat. “She was nobody, a no-caste nothing, a collector of night-soil. One night, she profaned the temple where the kaalahiira was kept and took it. I do not know how.”

  Shivering beneath the bright sun, I stared at the stronghold. It was a harsh place, and I couldn’t imagine much grew there. “How do they live up there?”

  He shrugged. “I do not know. The Falconer demands tribute for the services of his assassins.” He pointed again. “You cannot see it from so far, but there is a great pot that hangs on a chain from that plateau. People who wish to hire his falcons to kill someone put messages and tributes in it. So.” He gave me a mirthless smile. “Do you wish to go to Kurugiri? I will show you the way. You can send the Falconer a message or try your luck in his maze.”

  “No.” I shivered again. If I were a great heroine from the days of yore like Phèdre nó Delaunay, that was likely exactly what I would do; but I was too scared and miserable to attempt it on my own. “I will go to Bhaktipur to ask the Rani for help.”

  Datar raised his brows. “In eleven years, she has not found a way to defeat the Falconer and the Spider Queen. I do not see why one sickly dakini will change anything.”

  A coughing fit took me, loose phlegm rattling in my chest. I doubled over in the saddle, swallowing hard against the pain in my throat when the fit ended. “Well,” I said in a hoarse voice. “We will see.”

  “Why?” There was a rare note of genuine curiosity in Manil Datar’s voice. “Why do you care?”

  I touched my aching chest, where my diadh-anam called futilely to Bao’s—so near, and yet so far. “Someone I love is there.”

  “Bad luck for him,” Datar said wryly. “Or maybe not. Maybe he is happy there.”

  I shook my head, setting off another wave of dizziness, steadied myself against the pommel, and sneezed. “No. He’s not.”

  Manil Datar nudged his mount, moving away from me. “Bad luck for both of you,” he said over his shoulder. “Come, we are losing time.”

  Rounding the shoulder of the mountain, we began the long, perilous process of making our descent. By the end of the day, we were back below the treeline and the peak of Kurugiri was behind us. In our camp, I gazed at its silhouette surrounded by a nimbus of gold and crimson, the heights catching the light of the setting sun long after shadows had settled on the long, low slope we travelled.

  “I will find a way, Bao,” I murmured. “I promise.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  Sanjiv had called my ailment the mountain-sickness, and I’d hoped that as we left the mountains, I’d leave my sickness behind.

  Not so.

  It had sunk its claws too deep into me to let go that easily. Downward and downward we proceeded, travelling on a steep decline toward the valley that held the tiny kingdom of Bhaktipur. My eardrums strained and popped. Over and over, I swallowed against the pressure, even though it still hurt to swallow.

  The pockets of snow dwindled.

  The air grew thick and moist, and it seemed my head thickened with it. I could no longer breathe the Five Styles, forced to breathe through my mouth only.

  If not for my illness and the persistent yearning of my diadh-anam, I would have been glad. We were venturing into inhabited territory, and after the rigors of the mountains, I was pleased to see stone houses with thatched roofs, fields of reddish soil planted with sorghum and millet, farmers working in the fields. For once in my life, I’d had a surfeit of wilderness.

  As we worked our way downward, spruces and cedars gave way to more exotic flora, plants and trees I’d only seen growing in the glass pavilion in Terre d’Ange: poinsettias, oleander, towering ferns. There were forests of rhododendrons growing taller than I ever imagined they could. When they were in bloom, it must be a spectacular sight. Even on the verge of winter, the sense of lush greenery was overwhelming after the stark rigors of the mountains. There were unfamiliar gnarled trees with roots that crawled like great serpents above the ground, trees with thoughts as slow and ancient as any I�
��d encountered save Elua’s Oak.

  Birds with bright plumage flashed amid the branches, and agile little monkeys with ancient wise-man’s faces chattered at us.

  After so long in the heights, the kingdom of Bhaktipur seemed like a fairy-tale place, a charming city nestled in a green valley. I gazed around in wonder as we entered the narrow, bustling streets. Here and there, cows wandered untended, seemingly free to roam the city. The architecture was a mix of pagoda-style buildings familiar from Ch’in, and domes, arches, and minarets I guessed were a more traditional Bhodistani style. Folk clad in brightly colored garb made way for our caravan as we pushed through the crowded streets. We arrived at midday, and it was warm enough that I was sweltering in my thick woolen Tufani attire.

  In a square, Manil Datar called a halt. “Here, our path divides, Moirin,” he said, pointing south toward the far end of the valley where the mountain range rose anew. “We are continuing onward. You…” He gestured around, smiling with grim satisfaction. “You are in Bhaktipur. The debt between us is finished.”

  And that was that.

  Sanjiv accepted my thanks with a shy smile, ducking his head and glancing at me sidelong. “Take care of your horses, Lady Dakini.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  No one else acknowledged me. Manil Datar gave the order to continue, and the caravan began filing through the city, bound for the far reaches of the Abode of the Gods.

  Except for Sanjiv, I wasn’t sorry to see them go; and yet once more I found myself alone and friendless in a strange place, this time with my head aching and fever addling my wits. I fingered the purse of coin that Dorje had given me, hoping it was enough to purchase lodgings as he had promised.

  All I had to do was find them. Belatedly, I realized that my limited Bhodistani vocabulary did not include a word for an inn.

  Dismounting, I addressed the first person to smile at me, a slender young woman carrying a live chicken under one arm. “Hello,” I said politely. “Do you know where is a place and food for money?”

  She nodded cheerfully and gave me directions in a dialect that differed slightly from the tongue Manil Datar had taught me. I echoed them back to her haltingly, while she nodded encouragingly.

  When I had finished, she touched my face with slim fingers, her expression wondering. “You come from where?”

  I pointed westward. “Far, very far. Many seas.”

  It seemed to impress her. For my part, I was grateful to find the folk in Bhaktipur friendly and helpful, and my first encounter a productive one. I hoped it boded well for my time here. Right now, all I wanted to do was find the inn she had described, stable my mounts, then wash weeks of travel-dirt from my skin, fall into a bed, and sleep for days.

  Alas, either the young woman had misunderstood my question, or I’d misunderstood her directions. When I followed the course she had indicated along the narrow, winding streets, I found myself before a building that was unmistakably a temple of some sort—and outside the temple doors, a trio of men assaulting a young girl in rough-spun clothing.

  Even as I approached, they dragged her away from the temple, thrusting her roughly against a low wall. She cried out in fear and pain, dropping a rag bundle from which a tattered bunch of dried marigolds spilled, scattering gold and saffron petals. No one else on the street did anything to intervene.

  A cold anger rose in me.

  I unslung my bow without thinking, nocking an arrow. The swift motion made my head swim, and when I shook it in an effort to clear it, I made it worse. “Let her go!” I called in a tight, fierce voice.

  Turning, the men backed away from the girl and raised their hands. The girl dropped to a squat, tears on her cheeks, and attempted to gather the fallen flowers.

  “You do not understand,” one of the men said in a sullen tone. “She tried to enter the temple.”

  There was a ringing in my head like the sound of bells, and I had to concentrate not to see two of him. “So?”

  The man gestured aggressively toward the girl, who flinched. “She is nobody! An untouchable!”

  I focused on him, training the arrow. “I do not care. Let her go!”

  The sound of ringing bells grew louder. Gazing past me, the men’s expressions changed. All three of them bowed their heads, pressed their palms together, and touched their fingers to their brows. The girl pressed her forehead to the ground.

  “So! What is this trouble that passes here?” asked a new voice, a woman’s voice, musical and lilting.

  Nudging my mount with my knees, I turned slightly and beheld the Rani of Bhaktipur emerging from a palanquin. I knew at a glance it could not have been anyone else. A coterie of guards surrounded her. She was draped in an intricate garment of bright orange silk embroidered with bands of gold, vivid against her warm amber skin. There was an ornament of gold filigree twined in her black hair, a sparkling jewel hanging on her smooth forehead. Bangles jingled on her wrists, and anklets with tiny bells rang as she stepped forth onto a strip of silk cloth that two of her guards laid on the street so that her bare feet might not be sullied.

  Meeting my gaze, she raised her brows in surprise, and smiled with remarkable sweetness—and I fell a little bit in love with her.

  It wasn’t only that she was beautiful, although she was. Though she was younger than I had expected, having been a widow for eleven years, there was a sense of profound gravity and kindness that radiated from her. She stood poised on the street, her hands clasped before her in an unfamiliar gesture, two middle fingers steepled. It was oddly calming.

  “This one, highness,” the man who had spoken to me pointed at the girl, squatting with her arms wrapped around her knees, head bowed over the marigolds in her lap. “This nobody sought to enter the temple.”

  “Is that true, little one?” the Rani asked in her musical voice. “You may speak.”

  The girl nodded without looking up. “My mother is very sick. I thought…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence. “You wanted to make an offering for her,” the Rani said gently.

  The girl nodded again.

  I sneezed violently, barely managing to ease my drawn bowstring in time. The Rani’s dark, lustrous gaze flicked back to me, another smile curving her full lips. “And what do you say, young goddess?”

  “I do not know what the girl did, highness,” I said honestly. “But these men were hurting her.”

  “So.” The Rani’s graceful hands shifted into a different pose, middle fingers yet steepled, index fingers and thumbs bent to form the shape of a heart. She stood in thought, and all of us waited patiently for her to speak. “You know you must not enter the temple, little one,” she said at length to the girl. “Each of us must obey our own kharma, and it is as true for me as it is for you. But tell me, what is your mother’s name?”

  “Varnu,” the girl whispered.

  “Varnu.” The Rani repeated it. “I will see that an offering is made for your mother, Varnu. Is it well?”

  “Yes, great highness!” The girl looked up with a dazzling smile, then bowed her head three times, touching it to the ground. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Leaping to her feet, she dashed away down the street, scattering dried marigold petals in her wake.

  “Highness—” one of the men began in a protesting voice.

  She unclasped her hands and raised one, palm outward. It silenced him. “Do I need to remind you of honor? You have a duty to the less fortunate, and it is not to offer violence and harm, no.” She shook her head. “Never.”

  Humbled, he looked down, as did his fellows. “Yes, highness. Please, forgive us.”

  “Very well.” The Rani lowered her hand. “Go, and be grateful that you were prevented from doing harm.”

  They went, looking for all the world chastened and grateful to be spared the consequences of their own actions. I thought it was a rare gift to be able to move men’s hearts with such grace and dignity.

  The Rani beckoned to one of her guards and spoke to him i
n a low tone. I caught the word Varnu, the girl’s mother’s name. The man bowed and touched his steepled fingers to his brow, then hurried off to do her bidding.

  “So, young goddess.” She turned her attention back to me, curiosity and a spark of lively humor in her gaze, a smile hovering on her lips. “Who are you, where do you come from, and what in the world are you doing here?”

  I smiled back at her. “It is a long story, highness. I am Moirin mac Fainche of the Maghuin Dhonn. And if you are the Rani of Bhaktipur, also known as the Lady of Rats, I am here looking for you.”

  “The Lady of Rats!” She laughed, a sound like bells chiming. “Yes, I suppose so. And you are looking for me?” Her hands shifted into a contemplative pose I’d seen in effigies of the Enlightened Ones, cupped before her, thumbs folded over one another. As her bright eyes studied me, I fought unsuccessfully to contain another sneeze, and wished that I didn’t feel quite so feverish, dirty, and miserable. “Well,” the Rani said in a thoughtful tone. “Then I suppose I’d better take you home with me, Moirin mac Fainche, yes?”

  “Yes, please!” I agreed fervently.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Never, ever in my life had I been so glad to be ensconced in a man-made structure.

  I followed the Rani’s palanquin to her palace in a daze, unable to believe my good fortune. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt that mayhap the gods were smiling on me after all.

  Behind the high walls that warded it, the palace was a charming affair built in the Bhodistani style. Dismounting from her palanquin, the Rani gave orders that my horses were to be stabled and tended, and my belongings brought to a suite of rooms. Then she reached up to touch my brow with cool fingers.

  “And for you, I think, a physician.” A little furrow formed between her gracefully arched brows. “Even goddesses take sick in mortal form.”

  I smiled. “No goddess, highness. But if it is not too much to ask, I would like a bath first.”

  She cocked her head, steepling her fingers in a thoughtful pose. “D’Angeline, yes?”