Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [186]
I shivered. "This isn't helping."
"You asked," he reminded me. "After we have suffered all our punishments, we go before the tenth Yama King, who is in charge of the Wheel of Souls. This Yama King decides what form we deserve in our next life, a prince or a beggar or a lowly animal. There we drink the Broth of Oblivion and fall from the Bridge of Pain into the River of Rebirth to begin our journey anew."
"Does it ever end?" I asked. "Must everyone suffer? Is there no place for mercy and forgiveness?"
"For some," Bao said. "Only a very few, who have led lives without sin. They go to paradise to feast with the gods." He shrugged. "Also there is the Maiden of Gentle Aspect. If a person's good deeds outweigh the bad, she may take him from the God of Places and lead him straight to the tenth Yama King to be reborn."
"No punishment?"
"No punishment," he confirmed. "I am not looking forward to the punishment. But I told you, no one is dying today."
The ship pitched alarmingly. "You're sure?"
"Ahh… no." Bao braced himself around me. "What about your people? Where do you go?"
I leaned my head against his shoulder. "We pass through the stone doorway to join the Maghuin Dhonn Herself in the world beyond this one."
"That's all?"
"Aye." The memory calmed me. "It's enough."
"Everyone?" He sounded skeptical.
I shook my head. "No. No, the bad ones, they wander lost for a time that they might ponder their wrongs. And oath-breakers…" I fell silent, remembering Clunderry. The green mound in the field and the standing stones in the blood-soaked wood. Morwen, my ancestral almost-namesake, had died there. She had sworn an oath and broken it deliberately, offering herself as a sacrifice. Her spirit would be forsaken for ten thousand years, spurned at every turn. I touched my chest where the spark of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself burned within me. The thought of losing it was unbearable. "It's longer for them."
Bao was dismissive. "Doesn't sound so bad."
"No?" I twisted in his arms. "It's a different kind of hell, Bao. And I would rather have my tongue ripped out than my diadh-anam."
To that, he had no reply.
My cabin door crashed open. I yelped. A flash of lightning showed Master Lo Feng in silhouette.
"My pupils." Despite the raging wind tugging at his beard and whipping his robes around him, he sounded as tranquil as ever. "You may find this instructive. Come and behold the storm."
"Master Lo!" Bao protested.
Our mentor beckoned. "Come."
We went.
Stone and sea! It was terrible and it was awesome. We stood atop our deck, clinging to the carved railing. The waves surged around us, lightning forking overhead amid the dark, roiling clouds. I stared, agape, as our ship climbed up the slope of a wave the size of a mountain, teetered on the precipice, then plunged into the trough.
"The sea is like the Way!" Master Lo called above the cacophony. "Ten thousand things arise from it!" He released the railing, clasping his hands together. "Surrender and be at peace with it. Let go of your fear and breathe."
I closed my eyes and drew shallow breaths, my chest tight with fear, salt-spray lashing my face. I didn't dare let go of the slick railing. The ship crashed into the bottom of the trough, timbers groaning. Sailors' shouts pierced the din faintly, distant as bird cries. Water sluiced across the deck.
Bao angled himself behind me, bracing me once more. "I'm here," he murmured in a low voice.
The familiar words made my heart ache. I had left Jehanne because my diadh-anam had sent me here. The least I could do was try to understand why.
I let go of the railing and rode the plunging ship.
When Master Lo spoke of the Way, I understood only bits and pieces of his meaning. What was the Way? It was the force and essence behind all things, the one thing that gave birth to ten thousand things even as the sea gives birth to clouds and rain and rivers and lakes. And it was far, far too vast for me to grasp.
So I thought instead of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, who had led my ancestors south when