Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [187]
In that moment, my people came to be what we were. And from that moment, our long history arose.
I thought about Naamah, lying down with a stranger for the first time—the bright lady surrendering herself to earn coin that Blessed Elua might eat. What had wandering half-mortal Elua known of love and desire and sacrifice before that moment? Nothing. Somewhere in that moment, the seed of the nation and the people of Terre d'Ange was engendered.
And a thousand years later, a Priest of Naamah laid down on the soil of Alba with a woman of the Maghuin Dhonn, and I was engendered.
Now I was here.
It felt like a revelation too large to encompass. I let it go. I let myself stop trying and breathed the Breath of Ocean's Rolling Waves, yielding to the moment. I was content to understand that the Way was as much bigger than my destiny as the ocean was our ship. Like the ship, my destiny would yield to it or break and be swallowed.
The knowledge gave me a strange sense of peace. Although I was soaked to the skin and my wind-whipped hair was lashing around my head, I was no longer afraid.
We stayed on the deck until the storm abated. Slowly, slowly, the waves dwindled from mountains to hills, from hills to hummocks. Lightning ceased splitting the heavens, thunder ceased to boom. The pelting rain diminished to a shower, then stopped altogether. The glowering bank of clouds broke apart, revealing a patch of blue sky.
"So." Master Lo Feng wrung out his soaked sleeves, then folded his hands into them. "Did you find it instructive, my pupils?"
Bao grumbled and banged the side of his head with his hand, trying to dislodge water from one ear. "Yes, Master."
I thought about my answer. I wanted to put my almost-revelation into words, but it was still too big and my understanding too imperfect. "Aye, Master Lo," I said at last. "I believe I did."
My mentor inclined his head. "Like the unborn chick scratching at the shell, you perceive the beginning of wisdom."
I sighed. "Just the beginning?"
Master Lo smiled. "It is a very good beginning."
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
We sailed and sailed. We sailed through an endless, narrow strait with green, fertile land on either side of it, land so close it made me yearn for earth beneath my feet and the scent of growing things. I nearly wept when it fell away behind us. We entered a new sea, turned north and set our course for the still-distant coast of Ch'in.
The more I learned about Ch'in, the more I learned I had to learn. I'd only begun to grasp the tenets of the Way and recognize the names and titles of myriad gods tangled up in Ch'in lore when I discovered that many folk followed a different path altogether.
Suyin gasped with shock when she discovered my ignorance. "You not know Sakyamuni? The Enlightened One?"
"No," I admitted.
She turned to Bao and conversed with him in her native dialect too quickly for me to follow. He protested; acrimony ensued.
"Come." Suyin grabbed my hand, leading me deeper into the women's quarters. "You meet him now."
She led me to a tiny chamber in which a beautiful bronze figurine sat cross-legged on a shrine, eyes closed, a peaceful smile on his face. The chamber was hazy with incense. Suyin lit another stick and placed it in the brazier, kneeling on a cushion before the shrine and pressing her brow to the ground.
"He was a prince in Bhodistan," Bao informed me. "He sat under a tree and meditated until one day…" He made an expansive gesture.
"He understood everything all at once. That's why he is the Enlightened One."
"Everything at once?" After my brush with revelation, it sounded overwhelming.
"Uh-huh." He nodded. "His teaching is called Dharma."
I gazed at the Enlightened One's face. Although it was youthful, the serenity in it reminded me of Master Lo. "How is it different from the Way?"
"Celibate