Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [276]
"The tale! Your tale, the boy on the island, cursed to live forever."
"Hyacinthe," I said, taking a deep breath.
"Even so. The Prince of Travellers!" Semira said, remembering. "I wept to hear it. It was a true story, was it not?"
"Yes," I said. "It was."
"And you have yet to face the angel Rahab?" she asked shrewdly.
The Sacred Name surged against my tongue. I kept my mouth shut and nodded, afraid.
"Ah, well." She patted my cheek. "We will pray for you, and tell your story."
Although I had not expected him to, Hanoch ben Hadad came to his sister's house before we departed. It was an uncomfortable meeting. We sat across from one another at Yevuneh's table, and Joscelin positioned himself behind my chair, his bandaged hands resting lightly on his daggers. There was no more talk of his going unarmed in the city. Hanoch stared at me with bloodshot eyes. These last days had not been easy on him. I waited him out with a growing sense of pity.
When he broke the silence, his voice was stiff. "I acted in accordance with our law."
I nodded. "That is understood, my lord captain."
"You had no right to do what you did." Anger surged in him, and bewildered frustration. "No right!"
"I know," I said gently. "But I had great need."
He looked away, and there were tears in his eyes. "Do you know how many years we have wasted? How long we have needlessly hidden?"
"Yes." I swallowed. "Hanoch ..."
Hanoch shook his head. "Adonai's mercy is revealed to us, yet I ...I have set myself against His will because of you," he said. "I do not understand."
To that, I had no answer, or none he would hear. "I am sorry."
After a moment he rose, issuing a rigid bow. His bronze armor gleamed softly in Yevuneh's lamplit kitchen. "May your journey be swift and your gods protect you," he said tonelessly. "You spoke the truth, lady. I will be glad to see you go."
"Name of Elua!" Joscelin muttered when he had left. "If that was an apology, it was sorely lacking."
"No." Remembering the pattern I had seen in the temple, I knewof a surety that if Hanoch had not sought to prevent us, if I had not been so filled with fear on Imriel's behalf, that I would never have found the place within myself where the self was not. Even in their mercy, gods can be cruel. Hanoch had done what he believed right; no more, no less. "Ah, poor man! He has cause to be bitter."
"I'd spare him more sympathy if I'd not seen his sword at your throat," Joscelin said dryly, taking a seat at the table. "But he's right about one thing. It's time we were gone."
Thus passed our final days in Tisaar, the city beside the Lake of Tears in fabled Saba. On the morrow, the Council of Women gathered at the gates of the city to bid us farewell. Gifts of parting were exchanged on both sides and Yevuneh gathered Imriel in one last embrace, weeping openly. He returned her embrace without fear, pressing his cheek against hers, and despite the sorrow of parting, I was gladdened to see it.
Then it was done, and we turned our faces toward home. We passed through the gate, and in a short time, the city of Tisaar lay behind us. If not for the incessant thunder in my head, our departure was little changed from our arrival, save that it was Eshkol ben Avidan and a company of men who escorted us to the Great Falls, and they were as pleasant as Hanoch had been surly. It seemed a miracle that we were all together, and no lives had been lost.
For my part, I was struggling still to learn to live with the Name of God.
Betimes it was quiescent, a slumbering seed lodged in my brain, and I could nearly forget I carried it. And then something would set it off—the fecund odor of soil, a bird on the wing, or the Falls; Blessed Elua, the Falls.' And then it would fill me like the sound of trumpets and I would be lost in reverie, staring, witnessing life as if it were created anew on the instant, over and over. When we reached the Great Falls, I stood on the verge of the opposite cliff gazing down into the roaring, mist-wreathed abyss for ages, watching tons of water moving