Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [263]
If it were only pain ... if it were only that, I could endure it. I rowed through the pain, feeling blisters rise and break, the pain so acute it brought on Kushiel's crimson haze. It set my nerves to sing on edge and, for a time, gave me strength. Yet even that waned, and my muscles grew dull with fatigue.
Swish, dip, pull.
The blades of the oars skittered over the surface of the water. The Lake of Tears, they named it; Isis' grief. Why was it always the goddesses who mourned? Dip. I willed the oars deeper, pulling hard. My arms trembled. Pull. The water seemed as thick as honey, the skiff moving in slow staggers.
"Phèdre. Phèdre!"
I leaned on the oars and stared blearily at Joscelin's face, only exhaustion altering my vision. His expression was fraught with concern.
"Enough," he said softly. "Let me."
"I can row." Imriel turned around in the prow, his face gleaming in the starlight. "For a while, anyway. Let me try."
And so we traded places again, and I resumed mine in the stern, Joscelin going to the prow. Water sloshed along the sides of the rocking skiff. Imriel settled himself in the oarsman's seat, his face grave and unchildish as he took up the cue of my pointing arm. I thought he would spend his strength in a rush, but he started slow and steady, getting the feel of the oars, more patient than any boy his age had a right to be. In the prow, Joscelin tore strips of fabric from the hem of his shirt, binding his raw hands.
Swish, dip, pull; swish, dip, pull.
He did well, did Imriel de la Courcel. He husbanded his strength, rowing at an even pace for longer than I would have reckoned. But the skiff was ideal for carrying two men, no more, and it was heavy work.
I cannot say how long he lasted, before his strength gave out. Between the two of us, I reckon we covered two hours.
Joscelin took over.
Less than an hour to go, by Nemuel's account; but we had not travelled so swiftly. Joscelin resumed his seat, and set to steadily, hauling on the oars. "Left," I murmured as his right arm outdrew its mate, "Left!" He gritted his teeth and adjusted, pulling ever harder. The improvised bandages around his hands darkened with blood. I thought about Kapporeth and wondered if we would reach it in time, and what would happen if we did. Who was I to seek the Name of God? Make of the self a vessel where there is no self, Eleazar had said, in perfect love. Love, I had known; but what is perfection? My lord Delaunay I had loved with a grateful heart, and Hyacinthe with youthful joy and adult sorrow. I had loved Joscelin and loved him still, with a depth and passion that words could not compass. Elua help me, I had loved Melisande Shahrizai, and there was a part of me which ever would.
And in all of these, there was myself, bound inextricably into the coils of love—by gratitude, by friendship, by guilt, by passion, by the fatal flaw of Kushiel's Dart. How could one put such a thing as the self aside? I knew only one path, the path I had found in the darkest hours in Daršanga. I did not think it led to the Name of God, and in my heart, I was afraid.
"Phèdre," Imriel called from the prow, pointing. "Dawn is coming."
So it was, the western horizon turning a leaden grey, the spokes of the Wheel paling against it. And in the rising light, I saw a hummock of land to the north of us.
"Look," I murmured. "Do you think?"
Joscelin rested the oars and stared. "Kapporeth?" he said dully. "It could be. It means we're off course. But with my arm . . ."
"It could be." I shuddered. "I don't know. I