Kushiels Avatar

by Jacqueline Carey

Page 134

 

  The water continued to ripple gently, looking exactly the same.

  My breath caught in my throat; I hadn't thought I'd be afraid to take the first step. "Did I ever tell you how I came near to drowning off the coast of La Serenissima?"

  "Phèdre. " Hyacinthe touched my cheek. "I am the Master of the Straits, and I have spent the best part of my youth in bondage to Rahab's vengeance taken on a woman long-dead, for the sin of failing to love him. You are my dearest, only hope. As long as your courage holds, I will not let you sink. Do you trust me?"

  "Yes," I whispered. "I do. "

  Closing my eyes, I stepped onto the water.

  NINETY-EIGHT

  IT WAS hard, harder than I could have imagined, to take that first step off the shore. The geis that had bound me to the island struck like a blow the instant my feet left stone, driving the air from my lungs, doubling me over with pain. A yawning void opened in the waters before me, ocean-deep, dark and whirling, twisting my guts with fear. And at the bottom of it, something moved, something bright and awful. All my brave words deserted me.

  I forced myself upright and took another step.

  The waters were churning, and I couldn't bear to think on what I stood. All around me, the calm harbor was roused to a threatening rage, wind lashing. I wanted to be on the island so keenly it ached, and the fear was like a knife in my belly.

  I did turn, then, and saw Hyacinthe behind me, standing on the waters. He clutched the case to him and his face was ashen with terror, eyes stark with helpless power. Only his promise to me held him there.

  Fear.

  Pain.

  Let it come, then. I faced it and let it wash through me, setting my raw nerves to singing with the piercing-sweet, inimitable chords of ag ony, gradually tinting my vision the hue of blood. I was an anguissette. What was this to the Mahrkagir's iron rod, to Melisande's deadly flechettes? No worse, surely. Only pain, only fear.

  In a crimson haze, I took another step.

  Before me, the maelstrom widened like a maw, and the flickering brightness drove away Kushiel's influence, leaving me with nothing to bolster my courage. What moved at the bottom of the abyss? Angel or monster? I had seen Rahab described as divine messenger and Leviathan alike in the Yeshuite writings. Something surged, a vast coil of flesh, bescaled and gleaming, green as jade. Pain wracked my bones like an ague. I bit my lip and on trembling legs, took another step. The winds rose to shriek past my ears, and I dared not look behind me. It didn't mat ter if Hyacinthe faltered; only that I didn't. He would not let me sink.

  As long as your courage holds . . .

  I took another step.

  The depths of the maelstrom roiled, revealing glimpses of something changing and unnamable, born of the protean underworld. A tentacle, an impossible slitted eye, a neck maned and arching, a whale's flukes, a sculpted shoulder blade, a mighty wing . . . terrible beauty, formless and shifting, vaster than the mind can comprehend. I cannot say why, but it shook me to the marrow of my soul, filling me with awe and horror.

  Still I forced my legs to move, step by trembling step, to the very brink of the maw. And though Hyacinthe's control of the elements was faltering, though the waves raged around me and churned at the cliffs, though the winds flogged me and my garments were soaked, the waters bore my weight.

  "Rahab!" My voice was inaudible. I drew a breath choked with salt spray and called again, into the whirling pit. "Rahab, by the binding of your own curse, I summon you here!"

  The maelstrom shuddered, and a form arose from it—an outflung fin of water, sea-green and pinioned with foam, pointing to the egress and crashing back into the harbor, spume flying. I looked where it had pointed, and stifled a cry of despair.

  There, between the cliffs, came racing the ship Elua's Promise, storm-driven, every sail taut and straining, riding like a kestrel on the edge of the winds. Rahab's gaze reached farther than we had reckoned. Somewhere behind me, I heard Hyacinthe cry out with fear, and the churning water that bore me softened. I sank to my knees in water and lost my balance, wave-tossed, putting both hands down to catch myself and plunging elbow-deep. The steep walls of the maelstrom canted be fore me, threatening to pitch me into its maw. Salt water dashed my face and I fought for breath, terrified of drowning.

  If I went back all would be well.

  If I went back, my loved ones would be safe.

  Ah, Elua! It was unfair. I wanted to turn back, wanted it more than anything I'd known. I was afraid, for myself, for Joscelin, for Imriel— for all of us, everyone. But every patron, I thought, has sought to make me give my signale. This is no different. If I turn back, what then? I will have surrendered at last. And somewhere behind me, too near to be ashore, I heard Hyacinthe's voice, ragged, chanting the incantation he'd spoken before, keeping his promise. The water grew more buoyant, solidifying. I managed to scramble to my feet, tossing my sodden, tan gled hair out of my eyes, taking a deep breath.

  "Rahab," I whispered.

  The maelstrom ceased its surging and went still, waiting, an im possibly deep well in the small harbor. The churning waves went flat, the winds dropped like a stone. Some thirty yards away, Elua's Promise drifted, momentum slowing. The surface of the sea quivered like a horse's flank.

  I took another step, edging around the maw. "Rahab. "

  In the depths, something gathered and flickered, a brightness coalescing. I took another breath, feeling light-headed and strange, walking on water as though it were dry earth. I have only given my signale once, and I would not give it now, not to this errant servant of the One God who had brought so much pain to someone I loved.

  "Rahab, by the binding of your own curse, I summon you here!"

  Brilliance erupted from the sea, gouts of water spewing into the sky, falling in shining cascades to shape a form so magnificent it made me want to weep, vaster and more noble than anything dreamt by mortal flesh. The Face of the Waters shaped by the Master of the Straits was but a pale echo of this form, which towered above the cliffs. Sunlight gleamed on its translucent shoulders as it inclined its massive head, sea- green locks falling about its face like rivers.

  Not his true form, not yet.

  I swallowed hard. "Rahab. In the Name of God, I summon you here. "

  And the world . . . shifted.

  It is said that among a hundred artists who saw them living, not a one captured the beauty of Blessed Elua and his Companions. I did not know, before, how such a thing could be. I have known the Scions of Elua. I spent the earliest part of my life in the Court of Night-Blooming Flowers, where they have bred for beauty for a thousand generations. I understood it, now.

  The angel Rahab manifested on the waters.

  His beauty was like a sword unsheathed, bright as sun-struck steel and twice as hard. It hurt to behold him. Every bone, every articulated joint, was shaped with terrible purpose. The span of his brow held all the grace of the moon's curve rising above the sea's horizon. In the hollows of his eyes were the shadows of grottos no human gaze would ever behold. Whether he was fair or dark, I could not say, for his flesh shone with a brilliance that owed nothing to our limited understanding of light, and his hair was at once like tarnished water, like kelp, like the corona of an eclipsed sun.

  "You have summoned me. "

  The words rang like silver chimes, piercing the innermost mem branes of my ears. If a voice could sound like the dazzle of sunlight on the waters, on all the waters of the world, refracting and multiplying a thousandfold, Rahab's did.

  If Hyacinthe had not stood behind me, I would have fled for dry land.

  "Rahab. " I licked my lips, tasting salt and fear. "I bid you to relin quish your curse. "

  Slow and inevitable, his head rose like the evening star ascending through twilight, chin raised in defiance. The shape of his lips was cruel and remorseless, formed by the dying utterance of every sailor ever drowned at sea. And his eyes—a
h, Elua! They were white as bone, and yet they saw, and saw and saw. When the One God ordered the seas to part for Moishe, when the whale swallowed Yehonah, those eyes were already ancient. In those eyes, Blessed Elua was a babe-in-arms.

  "My curse.

  On the waters, of the waters, the angel Rahab extended his arms. Manacles encircled his wrists, a heavy chain running betwixt them, wrought of granite, it seemed, or more; something more adamant than stone, more dense than any substance mortal hands might wield, each link forged and sealed by the divine alphabet. Rippling and shifting, Rahab's immortal flesh shone against those bonds, the only constraint to his power, confining him to the sea and the One God's will. He held out his hands toward me, showing his chains, the cruel mouth shaping words that rang with beauty.

  "For as long as God's punishment endures, so does my curse. I have sworn it. "

  The water grew soft under my feet, and I floundered again, sputtering. The waves rose once more, tall and raging, and seawater filled my mouth, salt as blood and more bitter. I lost my footing, and a great swell swamped me, turning me over until I could not say which way was up and it seemed the ocean would have me, hauling at the waterlogged folds of my gown with a tremendous force. Struggle though I would, the water's pull was stronger. My lungs burned, and I could not catch my breath.

  As if from a great distance, I heard a voice cry my name, high and clear and urgent. "Phèdre! Phèdre!"

  Imriel.

  Young and unbroken, his voice carried over the waters, as it had carried over the battle in the Mahrkagir's festal hall, over the thunderous clamor of the rhinoceros' charge, outside the doors of the temple. And I knew, then, which way lay life, and love. I found my feet in the sinking waters, and heard Hyacinthe, repeating the charm like a curse, filled with all the fury and defiance of the lost years of his life.

  I stood with an effort, dripping.

  "On pain of banishment," I gasped, "I bid you relinquish your curse!"

  The seas shimmered about Rahab, rising in columns, in towers, more water than the harbor could possibly hold, rising to threaten the very cliffs. Quintilius Rousse's flagship rode the crests, pitching steeply, drawn toward the epicenter that was Rahab. His bone-white gaze sought mine, and he seemed at once no taller than a man and vast as mountains. "You dare?" he asked, bringing his adamant chains taut with a clap like thunder, " You dare, misbegotten child of Elua?"