Kushiel's Dart (92 page)

"So," he said, taking a drink and smacking his lips, setting his glass on the polished wood with a solid thud, glancing around with his keen blue gaze. "We've a riddle to solve. Shall we pool our wits, and put to it, then?"

No one answered. I took a sip of cordial; it burned, sweet and agreeable, in my throat. Glass in hand, I rose, going to one of the windows, gazing out at the dark night, the invisible sea below. What had Delaunay trained me for, if not for this? To tease out the thread of a riddle and unravel it. They spoke the tongue of ancient ballads on this isle. I leaned my brow against the window, feeling the glass cool and smooth against my skin.

"You know."

Soft-spoken words in Cruithne. I did not turn to look at Drustan mab Necthana, but nodded, moving my head against the glass. I had read a thousand ancient tales, in D'Angeline, in Caerdicci, in Skaldi, in Cruithne. Translations from the Hellene, which I had scarce begun to master. I knew. These things have a pattern, a structure, and I was trained to see such things. I knew.

Drustan drew a sharp breath. "There is a price."

I laid my hand on the window, seeing its shape stark against the darkness. "There is always a price, my lord Cruarch. This one happens to be worth it."

He rose, then, and bowed; I turned around to meet his eyes. "Know that I will pay it if I can."

There was naught else to say, so I nodded once more. Drustan twisted the signet ring around his finger, dark eyes holding mine, then left.

"What did he say?" Quintilius Rousse asked, bewildered. "By the ten thousand devils ... I thought we were here to resolve a mystery!"

"Ask Phedre," Hyacinthe said, his voice hollow, raising his haunted face. "She thinks she has solved it. Ask her, and see if she will speak." He slid his hands blindly over his face, and let them fall, helpless.

"If this riddle is mine to answer in full, then I will," I said softly; his pain tore at my heart. "Don't begrudge me that, Hyacinthe."

He gave a choked laugh, then stood unsteadily. "Would that Delaunay had left you where he found you! I rue the day he taught you to think."

I'd no answer to that, either. Hyacinthe made me a mocking bow in his best Prince of Travellers style, the slashes in his sleeves flaring eloquently. Quintilius Rousse scowled at his exit, shaking his head.

"I like this not at all," he growled, picking absently at a tray of sweets. "If you've an answer, lass, share it! Let us put our heads together, that all may benefit!"

"My lord Admiral," I said. "No. If Anafiel Delaunay found this answer, he would not share it. Nor can I. If you come to it on your own, so be it."

Quintilius Rousse muttered something about Delaunay's folly. Joscelin moved, restless, coming to stand next to me, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out upon darkness.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" he said quietly.

I shook my head. "No."

He stared at the unseen sea until I laid my hand upon his arm. "Joscelin." He looked at me, then, reluctant. "Since the day you were assigned to ward me, I've been a trial to you. A thousand ways I've strained your vows, until your very Brotherhood declared you anathema. I swear to you, I'll only do it once more." I cleared my throat. "If we must... if we must part, you must abide it. You were trained to serve royalty, not the ill-conceived offspring of Night Court adepts. You swore your sword unto Ysandre's service. If you would serve her, protect Drustan. Promise me as much."

"I cannot promise it." His voice was low.

"Promise me!" My fingers bit into his arm.

"I do Cassiel's will! No more can I swear."

It would have to be enough; I could ask no more than I would give. I released him. "Even Cassiel bent his will to Elua," I murmured. "Remember it."

"Remember you are not Elua," Joscelin said wryly.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

I did not sleep well that night, in the Master of the Straits' fabulous four-posted ebony bed. My heart and mind alike were too full. Once I rose, opening the door of my chamber onto the tower landing, candle in hand, gazing at the closed doors of my companions' sleeping-quarters. I would have gone somewhere, to someone, then; but I knew not whom.

So I returned to my vast, lonely bed and dozed, tossing, waking in a tangle of linens.

I wished Delaunay were here.

Day broke, and whiled onward; I found the library, that housed a hundred books believed lost, pages thick and stiff with their drowning, ink blurred, but still readable. There was a whole volume of poems by a famous Hellene poetess that I had never read entire; Maestro Gonzago would have given his eyeteeth to see it. I read slowly, trying to translate the words into D'Angeline, wishing I had pen and paper. They were beautiful, so beautiful I wept, and forgot where I was, until Tilian came to fetch me.

Noon was nigh.

They led us back along the broad, winding path; strange, how familiar it seemed. The Master of the Straits awaited us in his temple, open on all sides to the breezes.

I never understood, before, how sacrificial victims could go consenting. I thought of Elua, baring his palm to the blade. I thought of Yeshua, taking his place upon the wooden tree. No two sacrifices are the same, and yet all are, in the end. It is the commitment to belong, wholly, to that which claims one.

"Have you an answer?" the Master of the Straits asked, and his voice rose like the wind, all around us, his eyes the color of sunlight reflected on water. I shivered; enough of a coward, it seemed after all, to wait on another's response.

None came.

"Yes, my lord," I said, my voice sounding small and mortal. I raised my eyes to meet that sea-shifting gaze. "One of us must take your place."

I heard Hyacinthe laugh, despairingly.

The Master of the Straits looked at me with eyes full of thunderclouds. "Are you prepared to answer in full?"

Joscelin drew a long, hissing breath, his hands flexing above his daggers. Quintilius Rousse made a startled sound, and Drustan bowed his head, twisting the signet ring on his finger. He had guessed; Earth's oldest children. They are closer to the old tales, to the workings of fate.

"Yes," I whispered. "Yes, my lord."

"No."

I was not sure, for a second, who had spoken; it sounded so little like Hyacinthe. My Prince of Travellers, light-hearted and careless; no longer, not since Moiread's death. He gave a choked laugh and ran his fingers through his black ringlets. "You summoned me, my lord. I am here. I will stay."

The Master of the Straits was silent.

And I knew, then, that everything before had been but play.

"No," I whispered, turning to Hyacinthe. My hands rose, shaping his face, almost as familiar as my own. "Hyacinthe, no!"

He held my wrists gently. "Breidaia dreamed me on an island, Phedre, do you remember? I couldn't see the shore. The Long Road ends here, for me. You may have unraveled the riddle, but I am meant to stay."

"No," I said, then shouted it. "No!" I turned to the Master of the Straits, fearless in my despair. "You seek one to take your place; you posed this riddle, and I have answered! It is mine to answer in full!"

"It is not the only riddle on these shores." There was a sorrow in his voice, eight hundred years old. The sun stood overhead, casting the Master of the Straits' face into shadow as he bowed his head. "Who takes my shackles, inherits my power. Name its source, if you would be worthy to serve.

Joscelin turned aside with a sharp cry; I think, until then, he thought there was still a way he might answer. I raised my face to the sun, thinking, remembering. The library in the tower, the lost verses. Delaunay's library, where I had spent so many sullen hours, forced to study when I'd rather have entertained patrons; I'd have given anything, to have them back now. Alcuin, hair falling like foam to curtain his face, poring over ancient codices. Joscelin's voice, unwontedly light, a rare glimpse of the Siovalese scholar-lord's son he'd been born.
He's got everything in here but the Lost Book of Ra^iel. Can Delaunay actually read Yeshutte script
?

The pieces of the puzzle came together; I lowered my gaze, blinking.

"It is the Book of Raziel, my lord."

The Master of the Straits began to turn my way.

"Only pages." Hyacinthe's voice was like a hollow reed sounding. "Pages from the Lost Book of Raziel, that the One God gave to Edom, the First Man, to give him mastery over earth and sea and sky, and took away for his disobedience, casting it into the depths." The Master of the Straits stopped and considered him. Hyacinthe gave his desperate laugh, black eyes blurred with the
dromonde
, seeing at last. "A gift of your father, yes? The Admiral calls him the Lord of the Deep, and tosses him gold coins, for he is superstitious as sailors are. But the Yeshuites name him Prince of the Sea; the angel Rahab, they call him, Pride, and Insolence, who fell, and was cleaved and made whole, who fell, but never followed." The words came faster, tumbling from his lips, his blank gaze seeing down the tunnel of eight centuries. I remembered a blazing fire, the sound of fiddles skirling, Hyacinthe playing the timbales while an ancient woman cackled in my ear.
Don't you know the
dromonde
can look backward as well as forward
? "He begot you, my lord, upon a D'Angeline girl, who loved another. Who loved an Alban, son of the Cullach Gorrym, a mortal, one of Earth's eldest. Is it not so?"

"It is so," the Master of the Straits murmured.

Hyacinthe ran his hands over his face. "The Straits were still open then, free waters ... he took her here, to this place, this isle, the Third Sister, still untouched by the Scions of Elua, and she bore you here . . . though she loved you, she sang in her sorrow and captivity like a bird in a cage, until her song carried across the waters, and the Alban who loved her sailed the Straits to free her . . ." He fell silent.

"They died." The words rose around us, filled with the sea's deep surge, ceaseless and sorrowing. "The waves rose, their boat overturned, and the deep water took them. I know where their bones lie." The Master of the Straits gazed across the sea from his vast, open temple, the fluid shifting of his features fixed in grief.

"And the One God punished Rahab's disobedience, and bound him to His will," Hyacinthe whispered. "But for the heart of a woman he could not sway and his own lost freedom, Rahab took his vengeance, and laid a
gets
upon you, my lord. He brought up scattered pages, from the deep, to give you mastery over the seas, and he bound you here, that Alba and Terre d'Ange would ever be separated by the waters you ruled, until love daring enough to cross the breach was born once more, and-one came willing to take your place."

The Master of the Straits spoke with the finality of a wave crashing to shore, and I knew, then, that I had lost. "It is so."

Hyacinthe straightened; his face cleared and he laughed, a raw gaiety to it this time. "Well, then, my lord, will I serve?"

"You will serve." The Master of the Straits inclined his head, his eyes gone a dark and compassionate blue. "A long and lonely apprenticeship, until you are ready to take on the chains of my
geis
, freeing me to leave this earth and follow Elua's path, where Heaven's bastard sons are welcome."

"You have used us harshly, Elder Brother," Quintilius Rousse muttered darkly. "What's to become of the lad, then?"

"I have used you less harshly than fate has used me." The Master of the Straits turned an implacable face to him. "The sea has loved you, friend sailor; count it a blessing. Half your folk would have died in the crossing had I not taken you in hand. My successor will be bound to this isle, as was I. That curse will not be broken until the One God repents of my father's punishment, and His memory is long."

"What of the Straits?" Drustan asked in Cruithne; his brow was furrowed with the effort of following the proceedings, for Hyacinthe's words had been in D'Angeline. Enough, though, he understood. "Will the crossing remain forbidden?"

"You hold that key." The pale hand pointed once more at the gold signet on Drustan's finger. "Wed, and open the lock."

"Naught but twenty thousand howling Skaldi and the traitors of Cam-lach stand in the way," Quintilius Rousse said sardonically. "While we languish on a forsaken rock in the middle of the sea, with no army in sight."

"I promised my aid," the Master of the Straits said, unmoved. "And you shall have it." He swept his arm above the bronze vessel again, its waters rippling. "All that has passed in Terre d'Ange, I will show you. Your men and your horses and arms, I will bring safe to land. No more, can I do. Will you see it now?"

They looked at me; surprised, I looked back, and found I was trembling. Truly, there is a limit to what the mind can compass in one day. I'd risen prepared to chain my life to this lonely isle. It is a hard thing, to turn aside from so deep a path. "No," I said, shaking my head and struggling to keep my voice steady. "My lord, if it please you ... I would ask a little time, an hour, mayhap. Might we have that long?"

"You may. I will send for you an hour before sundown." He bowed, then turned to Hyacinthe. "This day, I give you. Only know that your feet will never again leave this soil."

Hyacinthe nodded, sober-eyed.

He understood.