Kushiel's Avatar - Jacqueline Carey [335]
As long as your courage holds . . .
I took another step.
The depths of the maelstrom roiled, revealing glimpses of something changing and unnamable, born of the protean underworld. A tentacle, an impossible slitted eye, a neck maned and arching, a whale's flukes, a sculpted shoulder blade, a mighty wing . . . terrible beauty, formless and shifting, vaster than the mind can comprehend. I cannot say why, but it shook me to the marrow of my soul, filling me with awe and horror.
Still I forced my legs to move, step by trembling step, to the very brink of the maw. And though Hyacinthe's control of the elements was faltering, though the waves raged around me and churned at the cliffs, though the winds flogged me and my garments were soaked, the waters bore my weight.
"Rahab!" My voice was inaudible. I drew a breath choked with salt spray and called again, into the whirling pit. "Rahab, by the binding of your own curse, I summon you here!"
The maelstrom shuddered, and a form arose from it—an outflung fin of water, sea-green and pinioned with foam, pointing to the egress and crashing back into the harbor, spume flying. I looked where it had pointed, and stifled a cry of despair.
There, between the cliffs, came racing the ship Elua's Promise, storm-driven, every sail taut and straining, riding like a kestrel on the edge of the winds. Rahab's gaze reached farther than we had reckoned. Somewhere behind me, I heard Hyacinthe cry out with fear, and the churning water that bore me softened. I sank to my knees in water and lost my balance, wave-tossed, putting both hands down to catch myself and plunging elbow-deep. The steep walls of the maelstrom canted before me, threatening to pitch me into its maw. Salt water dashed my face and I fought for breath, terrified of drowning.
If I went back all would be well.
If I went back, my loved ones would be safe.
Ah, Elua! It was unfair. I wanted to turn back, wanted it more than anything I'd known. I was afraid, for myself, for Joscelin, for Imriel— for all of us, everyone. But every patron, I thought, has sought to make me give my signale. This is no different. If I turn back, what then? I will have surrendered at last. And somewhere behind me, too near tobe ashore, I heard Hyacinthe's voice, ragged, chanting the incantation he'd spoken before, keeping his promise. The water grew more buoyant, solidifying. I managed to scramble to my feet, tossing my sodden, tangled hair out of my eyes, taking a deep breath.
"Rahab," I whispered.
The maelstrom ceased its surging and went still, waiting, an impossibly deep well in the small harbor. The churning waves went flat, the winds dropped like a stone. Some thirty yards away, Elua's Promise drifted, momentum slowing. The surface of the sea quivered like a horse's flank.
I took another step, edging around the maw. "Rahab."
In the depths, something gathered and flickered, a brightness coalescing. I took another breath, feeling light-headed and strange, walking on water as though it were dry earth. I have only given my signale once, and I would not give it now, not to this errant servant of the One God who had brought so much pain to someone I loved.
"Rahab, by the binding of your own curse, I summon you here!"
Brilliance erupted from the sea, gouts of water spewing into the sky, falling in shining cascades to shape a form so magnificent it made me want to weep, vaster and more noble than anything dreamt by mortal flesh. The Face of the Waters shaped by the Master of the Straits was but a pale echo of this form, which towered above the cliffs. Sunlight gleamed on its translucent shoulders as it inclined its massive head, sea-green locks falling about its face like rivers.
Not his true form, not yet.
I swallowed hard. "Rahab. In the Name of God, I summon you here."
And the world . . . shifted.
It is said that among a hundred artists who saw them living, not a one captured the beauty of Blessed Elua and