Kushiel 03 - [Moirin 01] - Naamah's Kiss

by Jacqueline Carey

  I swallowed hard.

  Those inhuman eyes regarded me with curiosity. What are you?

  “Moirin,” I whispered.

  His lips stretched in a smile. What is a Moirin?

  “A child of the Maghuin Dhonn.”

  Ah. The boy looked past me. I do not know of this Maghuin Dhonn. But there is a vast presence attendant on you.

  It made my heart hurt. “You see Her? Can you reveal Her to me?”

  He shook his head. She is not mine to command.

  “Oh.” I was disappointed. “Well, thank you for telling me nonetheless. It’s a comfort.”

  The boy smiled again, wider this time. His teeth were very white and pointed. You are welcome. For your courtesy, I will do you a kindness. Be careful, Moirin of the Maghuin Dhonn. We are not all so benevolent.

  “Thank you,” I repeated.

  Indeed. His goat’s eyes were oddly compassionate. Now go back to your companions.

  He made a sudden violent gesture.

  I found myself thrust out of the twilight, stumbling over my own feet. The lamps flared with golden light. The dizziness came crashing back in full force, my knees turning to water. Raphael caught me and steadied me. In the center of the six-pointed star, the boy was an ordinary boy in a white tunic again, except for the fact that he was etching flaming letters on the air. He lowered his hand and said something unintelligible in his sweet, fluting voice. I squinted at his wavering figure.

  “What did he say?” Denis de Toluard demanded.

  “That the doorway’s closing and—”

  The world went black.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Conversation swirled around me as I surfaced to awareness.

  “—then what’s the use of that highly trained memory?” someone grumbled.

  “I’m a poet, not a linguist!” Lianne said in sharp frustration. “Who knew he would write the spell in Habiru?”

  Another voice, soothing. “We’ll have pen and paper next time to capture it.”

  “If there is a next time.” A tart voice. “Will the witch live?”

  “Shut up, Claire.” There was the sound of skin rasping against skin, palm against palm. One of Raphael’s hands rested gently on my brow, the other over my heart. That blessed sunlit warmth sank into my skin and suffused my body. “Moirin? Can you hear me?”

  I managed a tiny nod.

  “Elua and Eisheth be praised!” he breathed. “I knew it. I knew you could do it!”

  With an effort, I opened my eyes. I was lying on a couch in Denis de Toluard’s parlor, Raphael kneeling beside it. His face was hovering inches above mine, filled with a mixture of concern and relief.

  “Was it worth it?” I asked faintly.

  A cacophony of squabbling broke out.

  “Yes.” Raphael pressed his lips to my brow. “It is a far, far greater beginning than any we’ve known.” His strong arms slid beneath my body. “And I am putting you to bed. Denis, have you given us my usual chamber?”

  “I have.”

  I let Raphael cradle me in his arms, glad of his strength. My head lolled against his shoulder as he carried me up the stairs. In the guest-chamber, he laid me on the bed and undressed me. His storm-grey eyes gleamed.

  “Moirin…”

  I closed mine. “Now?”

  “I love you.”

  It wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t true. But I was very tired, very young, and very far from home. And I didn’t know what the Maghuin Dhonn Herself wanted of me, only that Her diadh-anam beat so strongly in Raphael’s presence. So I gave myself to him, let him take me. As he breathed hard and labored above and inside me, charged with unwonted urgency, I saw flashes beneath my eyelids.

  Jehanne.

  The spirit Valac, his yellow goat’s eyes glinting.

  Bao.

  It was the last that startled me into coming. Raphael groaned, his chin grinding into the hollow between my throat and shoulder. And that was the last thing I remembered before I slid back into the embracing darkness.

  I woke to midday sun. Raphael was dozing in a stuffed chair facing the bed. He startled awake when I pushed myself upright against the pillows. His eyes were bleary and there were shadows under them.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Tired.” I tried to swallow and found my mouth was horribly dry. “Thirsty.” He came over to pour me a cup of water, and I drank gratefully, putting it down at last with a sigh. “You didn’t sleep?”

  He shook his head. “I went back downstairs. We were up all night discussing the incident. And I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Oh.” I rested my head against the pillows.

  “Moirin…” Raphael sat on the edge of the bed, not quite meeting my eyes. “What I did, pressuring you… I’m sorry for it.”

  “Why did you, then?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” He sounded miserable. “It’s like a fever comes over me and I can’t help myself. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “You didn’t hurt me. It’s just…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. I pulled my knees up beneath the bedsheets and wrapped my arms around them. “Raphael, he spoke to me.”

  He looked blank. “Who did?”

  I shivered. “Valac.”

  “Well, he spoke to all of us. But you couldn’t have understood. I speak only a bit of Habiru myself. That’s why we rely on Claire for the invocations; she’s the best—”

  “No,” I interrupted him. “Not like that. When none of you were looking, I called the twilight again. Only Valac saw me. And he didn’t need words. He spoke into my thoughts. And he looked different.” I took another sip of water. “Very different.”

  “Different how?” Raphael asked.

  I told him.

  “Elua!” He looked appalled and intrigued. “What did he say to you?”

  “He wondered what I was,” I said. “He’d never seen one of the Maghuin Dhonn before. And then he told me to be careful. He said not all of the spirits are as benevolent as he is. Then he did something that thrust me out of the twilight.”

  Raphael rubbed his chin. “Are you quite sure? You were beyond the point of exhaustion. The mind does play tricks.”

  I scowled. “Aye, I’m sure!”

  “All right, all right!” He put up his hands. “It’s only that Valac was there before us the entire time.”

  I was too tired to summon much of an argument. “Mayhap your there and my there are two different things.”

  “Mayhap,” Raphael agreed. He took my hand in his, tracing circles on my palm. Despite everything, it felt good. His fingertips drifted to the inside of my wrist, testing my pulse. Now he looked directly at me, his grey eyes grave and worried. The concern in them made my heart beat faster. “You do accept my apology?”

  I sighed. “I do.”

  “Good.” He raised my hand to his lips, kissed my palm. “The Circle would very much like to make another attempt in a few days’ time. No one expected the spirit to write the spell for revealing hidden things in such a fleeting manner. We were ill prepared.” Hope replaced the worry in his gaze. “Is it too much to ask?”

  “You’d summon Valac again?” I asked. “Not another?”

  Raphael nodded. “Only Valac.”

  I should have said no.

  Of course I should have said no.

  But it had felt so very, very good to hear Raphael tell me he loved me, even if it was a lie—and there was the pulse of my diadh-anam inside me.

  “All right,” I said. “Yes.”

  I slept on and off for the entire day. Come morning of the following day, I felt stronger. Raphael summoned his coach and we returned to the City of Elua with promises to return to the manor in three evenings’ time. That afternoon, I went to keep my appointment with Master Lo Feng in the gardens of the Academy.

  He looked disapproving. He sat on his mat and held a fan, which he wielded with every bit as much skill and elegance as Jehanne de la Courcel
. “Yesterday I waited. But you did not come.”

  I clasped my hand over my fist and bowed to him. “Forgive me, Master. My lord de Mereliot required my services, and I am in his debt.”

  Lo Feng pointed at me. “You are weak.”

  I blinked. “Your pardon?”

  “Your chi ebbs.” He clucked his tongue. “You must take better care of yourself, no matter what Raphael de Mereliot believes he requires.”

  Bao, clutching his staff, muttered under his breath.

  I stole a sidelong glance at him and flushed, remembering how his visage had flashed before my eyes at the moment I’d climaxed. He shot me a sour look in reply, and the memory faded. I must have been a little mad to imagine it.

  Master Lo Feng rapped my knuckles with his fan. “Would you learn?”

  I bowed my head. “I would.”

  He rapped them again. “Then attend.”

  I attended.

  That day, he taught me the Breath of Ocean’s Rolling Waves. I breathed in through my nostrils, breathed deep into the middle pit of my belly. I breathed out through my mouth. I breathed and breathed until I caught the rhythm of it—the slow-building waves gathering in the deep sea, building and building, surging toward the shore. Building and breaking; drawing back and reclaiming their essence, only to rebuild once more. Over and over, the rhythm repeated itself.

  I was almost sorry when Master Lo Feng declared an end to the exercise. I felt better than I had since the summoning. Bao helped his mentor to his feet, then busied himself with rolling the mats around his staff.

  “Why does he always carry that thing?” I asked, curious.

  “It is his weapon,” Lo Feng said calmly. “In Ch’in, peasants are not allowed to carry blades. Bao is very skilled with a staff.”

  “Is he your bodyguard?”

  “Among other things.” He smiled at Bao, who actually smiled back at him. “He assists me with preparing medicines and tonics. He serves as my eyes and ears and my strong right arm. He is quick to learn foreign tongues. Bao is my magpie.”

  I wondered if Master Lo Feng would ever speak of me with the same warm affection. “I’m sorry I failed you yesterday. I would have sent word if I’d known.”

  “Mmm.” He gave me a contemplative look. “What was this difficult matter you undertook for Raphael de Mereliot? Another healing endeavor?”

  “Ah…” I’d promised not to speak of it. “In a sense.”

  Lo Feng thrust his fan into the sleeve of his robe and steepled his fingers. “Raphael has great promise and great skill. I have enjoyed teaching him. But he is young and ambitious. Ambition untempered by caution is like a river in flood. It leaps from its natural channels to forge the shortest course, and it sweeps away all in its path. Do not get swept away, Moirin.”

  I kissed his cheek impulsively. “I won’t. Thank you.”

  His eyes crinkled. “In our culture, it is inappropriate to demonstrate affection in public thusly. But you are welcome.”

  The next few days passed without incident. I continued my lessons with Master Lo Feng. I began reading the Trois Milles Joies, the book Queen Jehanne had sent to me, and discovered that she had not, in fact, been teasing in anything she had taught me and that Naamah’s arts were even more extensive than I’d reckoned. On an evening when Raphael was closeted with the Queen, I accepted an invitation from Prince Thierry to attend the Hall of Games, where he and a handful of young peers took great pleasure in teaching me the rudiments of piquet and jeu de table. I enjoyed myself and wished once more that my destiny, whatever it was, were less complicated—because every time I thought about the forthcoming attempt at summoning Valac, dread crept over me. It wasn’t the spirit himself I feared so much as it was the way the process drained me.

  Still, I did it.

  On the appointed evening, we returned to the de Toluard estate, where I was greeted with a mixture of gratitude, appreciation, and resentment. Claire Fourcay and Orien de Legasse seemed particularly put out.

  “They’re jealous,” Lianne Tremaine informed me.

  “Why?” I asked. “This business isn’t exactly pleasant for me.”

  “They’ve worked harder than anyone else to master the language and the rituals,” she said in a pragmatic tone. “It galls them to have to depend on a young, untutored, half-breed bear-witch from the back of nowhere.”

  Balric Maitland laughed deep in his chest. “Especially a beautiful one.”

  “But not you?” I asked them.

  The silversmith shook his head. “I’m a craftsman,” he said simply. “I don’t reckon you’re after my trade.”

  “Nor mine,” Lianne said.

  “I’m not after anyone’s trade!” I said in frustration. “I’m not after anything.”

  Lianne smiled her foxy smile. “You’re after Raphael de Mereliot.”

  I gazed across the parlor at him. He was speaking solicitously to Claire Fourcay, soothing her ruffled feelings. Lamplight gleamed on his tawny hair. As though sensing my gaze, he glanced at me and gave me a fleeting wink. As always, my diadh-anam quickened. “I suppose.”

  Denis de Toluard circulated, pouring cordial. “Drink, friends! The hour is nigh. To knowledge!”

  “To knowledge!” we all echoed.

  Everything was the same. The sense of man-made stone closing around me. The robes, the hyssop-scented water, the medallions. The only difference was that this time the linguists had writing tablets and chalk with them. We entered the chamber and took our places. Raphael took my hand in his, entwining our fingers. His lips brushed my temple in a kiss. I wished it didn’t feel so comforting.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  This time I didn’t wait for his guidance. I knew what to expect. I saw the light-streaming doorway in my mind’s eye as soon as Claire Fourcay finished speaking the first conjuration. I summoned the twilight, breathed it around me, and pushed. A column of crimson light sprang from the flagstones and faded.

  Valac.

  I held on to the twilight. In the world a mere half-step away, a member of the Circle was speaking to the figure of a pretty boy in a white tunic. I was aware of it in the distance, like the sound of insects droning on a hot summer day. In the world I inhabited, a half-naked boy with raven’s wings and goat’s eyes grinned at me, baring pointed teeth.

  You again.

  “Me again,” I agreed. The distant droning sounded agitated. “Will you not give them what they want? They’ll let us both be if you do.”

  He shook his head. I’ve already done so. Having obeyed the injunction once, I am not compelled to repeat myself.

  “Is this a game to you?” I asked.

  His pointed grin widened. Yes.

  I sighed. “Good to know.”

  In the world behind me, the droning changed in pitch, sharpening. Someone was speaking harsh, irritated words of ritual dismissal.

  Valac laughed soundlessly. Good-bye, Moirin. And don’t be a fool. If they get what they want, they’ll only want more. They’ll use you up until you’re gone.

  He vanished.

  It was as though he took the greater part of my strength with him. I crashed back into the mortal world and fell to my knees, my hand slipping from Raphael’s grip.

  “Moirin?” He knelt beside me.

  “Here,” I said feebly. “Still here. Raphael… I think this is a foolish pursuit. It’s a game to them, nothing more. They mean to trick you at every turn.”

  His eyes darkened. “Well, we’ll just have to outwit them, won’t we?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I slept for a full day while the Circle of Shalomon debated and argued. I didn’t care what they decided. I wanted only to sleep. During my brief moments of wakefulness, I was glad I’d sent word to Master Lo Feng not to expect me.

  “They want to try again,” Raphael told me on the carriage-ride home.

  I leaned my head against the stiff cushions. “Valac says he’s already obeyed their injuncti
on. He’s not obliged to repeat himself.”

  “Not Valac.”

  I cracked my eyes open. “Who?”

  “Marbas,” Raphael said softly. “He’s another lesser spirit, I promise. But he holds forth the offer of the same gift. The revelation of things hidden. It may be we could complete the spell. And more, too.”

  “Oh, aye?”

  He nodded. “Diseases and their cure.”

  I studied his grave face. “That would mean a great deal to you, wouldn’t it?”

  Raphael swallowed hard. “It would.”

  I closed my eyes again. “Just not soon.”

  “No.” He pulled me into his arms and settled my head on his shoulder. “Not soon. So Valac spoke to you again? He admitted to playing a game with us?”

  “Aye,” I murmured.

  “What else did he say?”

  I was silent a moment. “He said if you get what you want, you’ll only want more. You’ll use me up until I’m gone.”

  His body stiffened. “That’s a damned lie!”

  “Is it?”

  “Moirin.” Raphael shifted me and took me by the shoulders. His grey eyes were stormy and intense. “I swear to you on my parents’ graves that I would never allow such a thing to happen. I’m a physician. It would violate my oath and every tenet I hold sacred.” His gaze softened. “Not to mention the fact that I’m passing fond of you.”

  “Oh?” I said. “The other night you said you loved me. But perhaps that was just the fever speaking.”

  “No.” His hands flexed on my shoulders. “Moirin… if you want to go no further, I understand. I can see the toll it takes on you. But you’re young and resilient and stronger than you know. Who will you choose to trust? Me, or a spirit who’s freely admitted to playing tricks on us?” His fingers tightened. “Fate brought us together for a reason. If we can win just one gift, one concession from one of them… the cure for just one form of pestilence, mayhap… we will have done something great and wonderful.”

  “And you would be content with that?” I asked. “One gift?”