Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [190]
So, I thought dully, that is how it is done. I am to be strangled, if I fail. Well, there are crueler deaths.
And then there were no more couples, and Gashtaham raised his arms once more, his face flushed and triumphant beneath his skull-helm. "Angra Mainyu," he crooned, "Father of Lies, I summon your best-beloved, your death-begotten son-on-earth to stand before you and make the vahmyâcam. I summon the Shahryar Mahrkagir!"
The men cheered, shouting and banging their mugs; from the corner of my eye, I saw Jolanta startle and nudge the nearest woman with her elbow, circulating once more with the laced jugs of drink. The other women responded with alacrity, and the warriors drank, Drujani andTatar alike, cheering their lord. Jagun the Kereyit was shouting, Imriel's presence at his side forgotten. The Mahrkagir got to his feet, bowing in acknowledgment, savoring the moment, his smile dazzling in its joy.
"Come, îshta," he said to me, extending his hand. "It is time."
I took his hand and rose, and together we walked the aisle to the dais, where Daeva Gashtaham and the others awaited. I would have faltered, I think, if not for his hand on my elbow, a firm cold grip, guiding me as he smiled lovingly down at me.
"So beautiful," he whispered beneath the noise. "You look so beautiful, my Queen!"
Together, we mounted the dais.
Gashtaham laid one hand atop our shoulders, the black rod in his left angling behind the Mahrkagir's neck. I felt a faint surge at his touch and my flesh recoiled; the presence of Angra Mainyu intensified. I felt terribly naked and exposed under the priest's searching gaze, shivering so fiercely I could feel the ruby ear-drops tremble against my skin, terrified that the Ch'in combs would give way, sending my tresses tumbling, the ivory hairpins clattering to the floor of the dais, that any instant Gashtaham would see through my pathetic attempts at deception to the even more pathetic plot they sought to mask.
He didn't. His interest lay in the Mahrkagir, his pride and joy, the gateway of the god.
"My lord," he said, his voice as intimate as a lover's, "is it your will to make of this woman the vahmyâcam?"
"It is," the Mahrkagir replied, squeezing my hand.
"And do you love her?"
He smiled down at my upturned face, a world of adoration in his shining black eyes, all the glory of Blessed Elua. "I do."
"Angra Mainyu," said the priest, profoundly satisfied, "is pleased." He turned to one of his comrades. "Daeva Dâdarshi, bring me the sacred girdle of Arshaka."
The old man struggled, pitiful to behold, as the Âka-Magi cut the filthy cord from about his waist. I had not known, before tonight, that it was a part of their sacred regalia. Gashtaham held the cord in his hands, contemplating it. "I used my own girdle, that you tied about my waist with your own hands, old fool, to string my father's finger-bones," he said to the defeated Magus. "Yours, and your life, I have held in reserve, hoping and praying that this day might come. Now it is here." Raising the cord to his lips, he kissed it, then laid it reverently across the Mahrkagir's outstretched hands. "Take it, my lord, and her life withit. I will go with you myself, and stand watch outside your door. And when it is done ... ah, my lord, you have served your life in apprenticeship to this moment. Angra Mainyu will wait no longer. When it is done and you have laid open her breast and consumed her still-warm heart, you will truly be the avatar of darkness." Gashtaham released the cord and bowed, his face suffused with deep emotion. "And Drujan shall conquer the earth!"
A roar of approval answered his final words; those, they had heard. The Mahrkagir accepted the cord. "You see, îshta!" he said, exalted, letting me in on the