Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [334]
The harbor was as empty and tranquil as it had been when weentered it. Small figures clustered at the top of the stairs, lining the temple, but dared come no further. It was only the two of us.
"What now?" Hyacinthe asked softly. "We try to cross?"
Still sitting, I nodded. "You can cause the waters to bear us upon their surface?"
"Yes." He sat cross-legged next to me holding the case in his arms, an unlikely figure in centuries-old velvet and lace, a face out of my earliest, best memories and eyes like the bottom of the sea. "Unless we fail."
It had not seemed so fearful when the ship lay anchored just offshore. I looked up at the bright sky, the wheeling gulls. A day for beginnings, not endings. "We won't fail."
He smiled a bit. "Will you tell me, afterward, how you travelled through darkness and came to find the Name of God?"
"If you like." Our shoulders brushed, barely touching. We used to sit together just so, eating stolen tarts under the bridge at Tertius' Crossing in the City of Elua. "Will you tell me what it's like to command the winds and seas?"
"Yes." Hyacinthe watched the empty harbor. "There's no point in delaying, is there?"
I wished there was, now that it came to it. But there wasn't. "No."
"Then let's go." He rose, tucking the case under one arm; his turn, now, to help me to my feet. I kept hold of his hand as we walked to the very edge of the promontory. Water lapped at the rocks, clear and calm and most assuredly not solid. Hyacinthe released my hand to speak another charm in no tongue I recognized, forming his free hand into a fist and turning it palm-upward, then opening it.
The water continued to ripple gently, looking exactly the same.
My breath caught in my throat; I hadn't thought I'd be afraid to take the first step. "Did I ever tell you how I came near to drowning off the coast of La Serenissima?"
"Phèdre." Hyacinthe touched my cheek. "I am the Master of the Straits, and I have spent the best part of my youth in bondage to Rahab's vengeance taken on a woman long-dead, for the sin of failing to love him. You are my dearest, only hope. As long as your courage holds, I will not let you sink. Do you trust me?"
"Yes," I whispered. "I do."
Closing my eyes, I stepped onto the water.
NINETY-EIGHT
IT WAS hard, harder than I could have imagined, to take that first step off the shore. The geis that had bound me to the island struck like a blow the instant my feet left stone, driving the air from my lungs, doubling me over with pain. A yawning void opened in the waters before me, ocean-deep, dark and whirling, twisting my guts with fear. And at the bottom of it, something moved, something bright and awful.
All my brave words deserted me.
I forced myself upright and took another step.
The waters were churning, and I couldn't bear to think on what I stood. All around me, the calm harbor was roused to a threatening rage, wind lashing. I wanted to be on the island so keenly it ached, and the fear was like a knife in my belly.
I did turn, then, and saw Hyacinthe behind me, standing on the waters. He clutched the case to him and his face was ashen with terror, eyes stark with helpless power. Only his promise to me held him there.
Fear.
Pain.
Let it come, then. I faced it and let it wash through me, setting my raw nerves to singing with the piercing-sweet, inimitable chords of agony, gradually tinting my vision the hue of blood. I was an anguissette. What was this to the Mahrkagir's iron rod, to Melisande's deadly flechettes? No worse, surely. Only pain, only fear.
In a crimson haze, I took another step.
Before me, the maelstrom widened like a maw, and the flickering brightness drove away Kushiel's influence, leaving me with nothing to bolster my courage. What moved at the bottom of the abyss? Angel or monster? I had seen Rahab described as divine messenger and Leviathan alike in the Yeshuite writings. Something surged, a vast coil of flesh,bescaled and gleaming, green as jade. Pain wracked my bones like an ague. I bit my lip and on trembling legs, took another step. The winds rose to