Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [264]
We did, Joscelin rowing with grim determination, the small isle emerging lush and green with the rising sun, exuberant with birdlife; fish eagles and kites and horn-billed ibis. The shores were thick with waving ferns, tall fronds untrodden by human foot. Our skiff edged along them, Imriel standing balanced in the prow, looking for signs of inhabitation.
"Nothing," he reported, gazing inland. "No path, no landing sign . . ." He looked back at me and turned pale. "Name of Elua!"
I turned to look.
It was a ship, of course; what else would it be? Looming in the distance, becoming visible in the dawn. I could barely make out twin banks of oars, four sets rising and falling. Someone had betrayed us, someone's faith had faltered, Hanoch ben Hadad's suspicions had been upheld . . . who knew? It didn't matter. It only mattered that they were coming for us.
"We can hide!" Imriel said, wild-eyed. "Go ashore, and hide! It's all overgrown, they won't find us!"
"No," I muttered. "It's not Kapporeth." Joscelin put up the oars with his bloodstained hands and watched me quietly, waiting. "Elua!" I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, thinking and praying. "It's not Kapporeth," I repeated, dropping my hands. "I was wrong, I shouldn't have doubted. We were on course, only slow. Joscelin, can you row?"
"Yes." The red stains spread on his bandages as he regarded me. "Phèdre, the stars have faded."
I stared at the brightening sky. It was true; the stars we had followed all night were paling, lost in the light of the rising sun. The Wheel was fading, its spokes already lost; Moishe's Rod grew invisible. I closed my eyes again, feeling for the direction we had faced. My near-brother Alcuin had been good with maps. I never had, not like him. But Anafìel Delaunay had trained both our memories.
Mine would have to do.
"That way," I said, pointing, not daring to open my eyes.
Swish, dip, pull.
We had to round the nameless island. I felt our course shifting, the skiff moving, and adjusted my arm accordingly. I dared not look, dared not lose the lodestone of my memory; not until I felt the open breezes blow, and our course align with my pointing arm. Then, I opened my eyes.
We were in open water and the skiff leapt forward with each pull of Joscelin's arms, drawing toward an unseen destination, a blur on the horizon. Swish, dip, pull. The rags tied round his hands were crimson with blood, blood smeared on the oar-handles.
It was a blur on the horizon. It was land.
"Go!" I shouted. "Go, go, go!"
Joscelin's face was blind and unseeing with concentration, his arms moving with relentless precision. I saw the muscles in his shoulders surge, his legs bracing and flexing. The skiff flew over the waters like a swallow on the wing. In the prow, Imriel knelt and looked backward,past Joscelin, past me, charting the progress of our pursuers. I saw the alarm reflected in his face. I did not turn to see why.
Ahead of us, the blur resolved into land; an island, small and unprepossessing, easily missed in the vast Lake of Tears. And it too was green and verdant, but it was marked, stamped by the footprint of mankind. I saw the shallow beach where the underbrush had been cleared, with a fishing boat on the shore and the structure on the hill above it; round, like the temple in Tisaar. I saw the path that cut like a blaze through the green, and evidence of a garden, a sown field, shapes too regular for nature.
"Kapporeth," I whispered. "We have found it."
SEVENTY-SÌX
WE SCARCELY beat our pursuers ashore.
Imriel leapt out of the skiff the instant our prow touched land, hauling on it. I scrambled to grab Joscelin's weapons, ignoring the rocking of the vessel as he disembarked. By the time I followed, tossing him the oilskin bundle, the Sabaean craft had landed.
It was a footrace, after that.
I caught a glimpse, as we raced for the path, of the soldiers who emerged from the Sabaean craft. To be sure, their armor and their weapons were ancient, of bronze and not steel, but the