Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [188]
I was dozing when the footsteps woke me, a deliberate tread unlike Glaukos' soft-footed approach, and I opened my eyes as Kazan Atrabiades hunkered down on his booted heels beside me, back braced against the forecastle. The moon had risen, and I could make him out by its faint light. It gentìed his fierce features, picking out a tear-shaped pearl eardrop that dangled from his left lobe, casting a silver sheen on his topknotted black hair that was as coarse and thick as a mountain pony's.
All about us, the ship was quiet; four or five men manned the lines and rudder-bar, speaking in murmurs, while the rest caught naps where they might. The breeze was light, and our progress slow but steady, wavelets lapping along the hull. I sat silently, waiting for Atrabiades to speak.
Presently, he did.
"You cried out, you," he said without looking at me, low voice blending in with the sounds of the night-bound Ship. "When you awaked at sunset time. What did you see?"
I hesitated, then told the truth. "A creature, my lord; or so I thought. Like unto a serpent, but winged, coiled in the mizzen. It raised its head and hissed at me.”
"Yes." Atrabiades exhaled sharply. "With a tongue, like ..." He scowled, searching for the word in Caerdicci, failed to find it and thrust out three fingers, forked like a trident. "Like so?"
"Yes!" I sat upright, wide-eyed and wide-awake. "That's it, exactly!"
He nodded, mouth twisting wryly in the frame of his mustaches. "You do not need fear it, D'Angeline. This is what I come to tell you. The kríavbhog, it waits only for me. I am blood-cursed, I, Kazan Atrabiades. It will not harm you."
I rubbed my hands over my eyes, as if to erase the sight. "But my lord, I saw it."
"Yes." Atrabiades turned to look at me then, eyes glinting by moonlight. He wore a pearl eardrop in his right lobe, too; this one black, with a faint, iridescent glimmer. "You bear ... markings." He touched my blanket-shrouded shoulders, where my marque lay hidden. "I saw, today. I know what it means, I." I regarded him mutely; he responded with a fierce grin. "You think I am a, a barbarian, eh, who knows nothing of your fine ways? I was a warrior always, I, but my brother, he was a scholar, he studied in Tiberium. Daroslav, he knew D'Angelines there, they told him, ah!" He drew in his breath and clicked his tongue. "Men and women, sworn to your goddess of whores, eh, marked for pleasure. He swore to have one for his own, one day. I know what you are, I. The kríavbhog, it shows itself to make warning to your goddess, no more."
"Naamah," I said automatically. "I am a Servant of Naa-mah, my lord, and believe me, she takes no interest in your blood-curse."
"Maybe." He shrugged. "Maybe not. I find you floating in the sea like so, what am I to think, I? Do not tamper with the fate of Kazan Atrabiades, the kríavbhog warns. Your Naamah of the bedroom pleasures, she will be sorrowful"
I gave a hollow laugh, passing my hands through my salt-tangled hair. "My lord Atrabiades, I am Naamah's Servant and Kushiel's Chosen, which I think is betimes a curse to put your own to shame. I owe fealty to Asherat-of-the-Sea,who saved my life, and I am bound to cleanse her worship in La Serenissima by my own oath. I bear an ill-luck name, and of those who have aided me, more lie dead or ruined than live. I would caution you and your kríavbhog, whatsoever it may be, to steer as clear of my fate as you warn me of yours. And you might do that, my lord, by sailing to Marsilikos at all haste and claiming your ransom."
"Do not name me 'lord.' " He ignored the rest. "I am Kazan Atrabiades, I. And