Kushiels Avatar

by Jacqueline Carey

Page 136

 

  "Yes. " The lines of blue woad dotted on Sibeal's cheeks stood out against a flush of unexpected joy. "I will. "

  A breeze sprang up, rifling the ship's sails, swirling the folds of Hyacinthe's sea-faded cloak and the strands of Sibeal's shining black hair as he took her hand, momentarily obscuring them. Whatever words they spoke between them were lost in the rustling wind. I turned away that no one might see the fresh tears that pricked my eyes. It was a different pain that stung my heart, one I had never known before. On the shore, the folk of the isle pressed close on the landing, spilling halfway up the steps, pointing and staring in wonder at the wave-locked ship and the Master of the Straits upon it. They will tell stories, I thought, of this day.

  "Phèdre. " Joscelin leaned on the railing beside me, quiet and un demanding, a presence as familiar my own shadow. "Are you ready to go home?"

  Another question underlay his words, and I understood it unspoken. After so long, it hurt to let Hyacinthe go, to watch him join his fate to Sibeal's and to follow a path that diverged from mine. But I was an anguissette, and I understood pain. It is the price of living, and of loving well, and I did not doubt, then or ever, that I had chosen wisely. Gripping the railing hard, I took a deep breath. "Yes," I said, lifting my gaze to Joscelin's, smiling at the sight of his beloved face. "I'm ready. "

  "Good. " He smiled back at me, then raised his voice, shouting to Hyacinthe. "Tsingano! Do you wish to linger here, or can you raise a wind to bear us homeward?"

  "As you wish, Cassiline. " Stepping away from Sibeal, Hyacinthe gave a short bow. "With your permission, my lord Admiral?"

  Quintilius Rousse grinned fit to split his scarred face. "Man all po sitions, lads!" he roared. "Elder Brother's leaving his Three Sisters and blowing us home!"

  Cheers arose, Rousse's sailors—Phèdre's Boys—at last giving voice to wild, exuberant relief. I heard, later, tales of exactly how terrifying that day was for them, when Rahab's winds picked them off the open sea, drove them like a leaf before a gale back to the harbor, where the waves rose like towers and threatened to pitch them into the depths of the maelstrom. I heard many tales, later. Then, they merely shouted themselves hoarse with cheers, and Imriel's voice rang high above the rest, whooping as Hugues hoisted him up to perch on his broad shoul ders so he might watch the Master of the Straits perform the honors.

  With a swirl of his faded cloak, Hyacinthe obliged. His hands ges tured, his lips moved, and the wind came in answer like a faithful hound, filling our sails, setting the calm waters to rippling. Hugues, staggering under Imri's weight, set him down with alacrity. Rousse took the helm, and Elua's Promise turned her prow toward the egress, then leapt for ward on a course as straight and true as a cast javelin.

  We were going home.

  Now, at last, the bright remnants of the day fit the mood, and my spirits rose as the ship shot out of the narrow passage, canting hard to one side as we tacked with the shifting winds, doubling back past the isle of Third Sister to head for shore. Hyacinthe made his way across the deck, unperturbed by the speed of our passage.

  "There is one here I have not met," he said, inclining his head to Imriel.

  I stood behind Imri, hands on his shoulders. "Hyacinthe, Anasztaizia's son, Master of the Straits, this is my foster-son and Joscelin's, Prince Imriel no Montrève de la Courcel. "

  "Courcel?"

  The Master of the Straits' sea-mirror was blind beyond D'Angeline waters. I had forgotten. "Prince Benedicte's son," I said, feeling Imriel stiffen under my hands. "Born in La Serenissima, to Melisande Shahrizai. Oh, Hyas! There's a lot to tell you. "

  "So it would seem. " He bowed, bemused. "Well met, Prince Imri el. "

  Imri bared his teeth. "Imriel nó Montrève," he said, then reconsid ered. "My lord. "

  A glimmer of his old mirth resurfaced in Hyacinthe's sea-shifting eyes. "Forgive me, Imriel nó Montrève," he said, and to me, "I suppose you know what you're doing?"

  I shrugged and ruffled Imriel's hair. "Without this one, you'd still be on the isle, and I'd be pounding my hands bloody on the door of a temple of the One God in the farthest reaches of Jebe-Barkal. We owe a good deal to his courage, I daresay. ”

  Imriel looked pleased. Hyacinthe looked nonplussed.

  "You do have much to tell me," he said.

  "More than you know," I agreed. "Will you at least journey to the City of Elua before taking up a life in Alba? It would give us a little time to relive the last twelve years together. "

  "I fear mine are dull. " Hyacinthe turned out his hands, glancing at them with a wry smile. "You have seen the results; the telling doesn't bear hearing, unless you would hear of endless hours of study. But yes, I will come to the City. Sibeal will rejoin Drustan, and we will pass the summer there, returning to Alba in the autumn. And I will speak to the Queen and the Cruarch regarding the safekeeping of our bound ary waters, and to the baro kumpai of the Tsingani regarding Manoj's successor. And yes," he added, "I would hear of your quest to find the Name of God, and all matters that befell on the way, great and small, and every other thing that has passed in your life since I set foot on that forsaken rock. "

  "Good," I said, "because I plan on telling you. "

  With Hyacinthe's steady winds filling the sails, our return journey to Pointe des Soeurs passed swiftly, and as well that it did, for once the shores of Third Sister fell behind us, overdue exhaustion claimed me. I took shelter out of the wind, propped undisturbed against the cabin wall on cushions, and spread my skirts in the late afternoon sun to dry, wondering why I had not thought to bring a change of dry clothing. It seemed impossible that less than a day had passed since I had ridden out to the encampment at dawn.

  I felt a different person, almost—empty of the sacred trust I had carried for many months, the Name of God no longer an insistent presence filling my mind, crowding my throat, ever poised on the tip of my tongue. It was written still within me, etched in the deepest layers of memory that we cannot readily summon waking, wrought in bone and sinew and blood. This I knew; and yet I no longer heard it echoing in my skull, drawing me out of myself, immersing me in fearful wonder. In its place, beneath the weariness, beneath the mortal concerns of friends and loved ones, was something that might have been content ment, for I had never known its like.

  It was finished.

  For twelve years, every happiness, every joy, every pleasure I had known—and despite it all, they had been myriad—had been overcast by the shadow of Hyacinthe's fate. No more. And if he was not as he had been, who among us was? Not I, who had known the lowest depths to which I could sink in the Mahrkagir's bedchamber. Not Joscelin, who had confronted a hell worse than any he could have imagined, forced to stand by and endure watching. And ah, Elua! Surely not Imriel, whose childhood had been shattered in Daršanga, who found himself despised and feared in his own land for the accident of his birth. I grieved for Hyacinthe's lost years, for his lost self. But he would live, unchained from a fate worse than death. If the burden continued, still, the curse was broken.

  No more could I do.

  "You have earned your rest, Phèdre nó Delaunay. "

  I opened my eyes to see Eleazar ben Enokh seated before me, beaming as if he knew he had answered my unspoken thoughts. I smiled at him. "Eleazar. Are you pleased with this day's adventure?"

  "To behold a servant of Adonai Himself in the immortal flesh? To hear the Sacred Name tolling across the waters, such as no one has heard in a thousand generations?" He laughed with delight. "Yes, Phèdre nó Delaunay. I am well pleased. "

  "You heard it, then. " Curious, I sat upright. "Tell me, father. What did you hear when I spoke the Name of God?"

  "Ah. " Eleazar tugged at his unkempt beard, eyes sparkling. "I heard a Word, of such potent syllables as I could not fathom, sounds I have never heard shaped by mortal lips. Even at a distance, they buffeted my ears with great blows, and my bones felt weak, my knees like water, until I m
ust fall to kneeling upon these boards, while my spirit grew too great for my body to contain, fanned like a mighty fire, and I cried out for joy at it. And yet. . . "

  "Yes?" I prompted when his pause lengthened.

  "And yet it seemed to me, Phèdre nó Delaunay, that beneath the incomprehensible Word was a root-word which echoed in every sylla ble, the foundation upon which the Sacred Name was built. And that word, I knew. " He folded his hands in his lap, radiated contained joy. "Can you not guess it?"

  After a moment, I shook my head. The Name of God was too vast.

  "Awhab was the word I heard, but . . . " Eleazar lifted one finger, ". . . only I. I have spoken to others. Kristof of the Tsingani heard the echo of a word, too, but that word was madahn, and the Cruithne who accompany the Lady Sibeal heard the word gràdh. You speak many tongues, Phèdre nó Delaunay. " His smile broadened to a grin. "Can you guess what word the D'Angeline sailors heard?"

  "Love," I whispered.

  "Love!" Eleazar laughed aloud, his beard quivering with mirth. "Love!" His bony knees cracked as he levered himself to his feet, then stooped to kiss my brow with unexpected tenderness. "Though He is slow to acknowledge it, I believe Adonai Himself is proud of His son Elua, misbegotten or no," he said. "Perhaps it took one very stubborn mortal woman to prompt Him to show it. "

  Caught between disbelief and awe, I watched Eleazar ben Enokh take his leave, a ragged, blissful figure, walking with a rolling gait across the deck as though he'd been born to the sea. I shook my head in bemusement, wondering at the exultation he found in his faith, so strong it could embrace even heresy with open arms. Mayhap it was so; who could say? It is a matter for priests and priestesses to debate, and the gods alone know the truth of it. I had kept my promise and freed my friend, and we were alive, all of us here, to rejoice in it.