Kushiel's Avatar (Phedre's Trilogy #3)

Where a lone figure awaited us.

Even at a distance, I recognized him. My mouth opened to admit an involuntary sound, squeezed out by the unexpected, painful contrac tion of my heart.

Hyacinthe.

He lifted one hand and the wind went still. Our ship drifted, born on bobbing wavelets toward the shore. He lowered both hands and a shuddering ripple arose in the scant yards that separated the ship's planks from the rock shore, the water heaving and churning. And he stood there, very much alone, clad in breeches and doublet of a rusty black velvet, salt-stained lace at his breast and cuffs.

I made a choked gasp and he gave a rueful smile, his eyes, Hyacinthe's eyes, dark and aware in his familiar, beloved face, taut fingers outstretched at the churning waves. His hair still spilled in blue-black ringlets over his shoulders, longer than when I had left him. Tiny crow's-feet were etched at the corners of his eyes, always wont to smile; his eyes, Elua, oh!

"Hello, Phèdre," Hyacinthe said softly. "It's good to see you."

His eyes went deeper and darker than ever I had seen, his pupils twin abysses, blackness unending. And around them his irises constricted in rings, shadow-shifting, oceanic depths reflected in a thousand wavering lights. I heard Joscelin's cracked exclamation, saw those unearthly eyes shift.

"And you, Cassiline." Hyacinthe bowed from the waist, ironically. "My lord Drustan." His voice changed. "Sibeal."

"Hyacinthe!" I breathed, nails digging into the railing. "Oh, Hyas . . . name of Elua, let us come ashore!"

He shook his head, locks stirring, fingers still outstretched at the sea and a crooked smile quirked his mouth. "I can't, Phèdre, don't you see? I don't dare. You're the only ones I've let get this close, and I wouldn't if I didn't trust you. Once you set foot ashore, the geis is invoked." He bowed again, this time to Drustan. "Half the riddle is done, my lord Cruarch; you have wed Ysandre in love, Alban and D'Angeline united. For the rest. . ." He shrugged. "I will not ask any one to take my place."

I was weeping open-eyed, the tears running heedless down my cheeks. As if from a distance, I heard Drustan say, "There was a storm that was no storm, ten days ago and more. What does it betoken?"

"He is dead." Hyacinthe's voice was quiet, yet it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It had never been so, in my memory. "The one you called the Master of the Straits. What you have seen is the passage of power."

"Then come!" I caught my breath, regaining control of my voice, and spoke fiercely. "Come with us! Let it be ended."

Hyacinthe smiled, and his smile was terrible, not reaching the dark-ringed abysses of his eyes. "Do you think I can?" he asked, and relaxed his fingers, making to step onto the surging waves that bordered us.

All at once, the world lurched. I can find no better word to describe it. While we remained stationary, adrift on the waters, and Hyacinthe sought but to take a simple step, the very mass of the world itself shifted in a nauseating fashion. And in that few feet of water, something changed, opening; an abyss deeper and darker than aught in Hyacinthe's eyes, a bottomless, sickening void around which my world suddenly pivoted and in its depths, a radiant and dreadful presence moved, a defiant, destructive rage. I thought, for an instant, that he had done it, had completed the step and bridged the gap between us ... and then the world righted itself, and I found we were adrift still, the abyss and the presence gone and Hyacinthe bent over double on the shore, gasping for air. He raised his haunted eyes, and his voice, when he spoke, belonged to the Tsingano lad I remembered.

"You see?" he panted, sweat beading his brow. "It cannot be done. Merely to try is like dying. I ought to know, I've done it enough times." He straightened slowly, as if the motion pained him. "Let it be pro claimed," he said formally, "since you have come, that the Straits have a new Master. Let it be proclaimed that all who seek passage will be welcome. The Cruarch's truce holds. While Alban and D'Angeline find love in common, the Straits shall remain open."

"Hyacinthe." I felt Sibeal's gaze upon me and said his name like a desperate prayer. "Is there no way to free you?"

He looked up at me, almost close enough to touch, and the sorrow in his eyes was ocean-deep. "I have not found it, Phèdre. Have you?" When I shook my head in wordless denial, he gave his terrible smile, fine lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. "Then let all knowledge of my curse be buried and forgotten. If you love me, Phèdre, let them forget. For you see, I am still young enough and new enough at it to scruple at passing it on to any other. While my will holds, no vessel shall be allowed to land on these shores." Hyacinthe spread his hands. "But I am getting older, you see," he said softly. "The Master of the Straits was Rahab's get, on a woman who was first-born to Elua's line. I am not him, with three parts ichor in my veins to one part blood, to endure eternity unaging." He swallowed, then, hard. "Let them forget. Then, when all I have known and loved has passed from this earth, when I am a withered husk, then when my scruples give way, I will have less on my conscience."

My dream came back to me with terrible clarity; the gap, the wid ening void of water and Hyacinthe receding, his boy's voice crying out my name in vain. "What is it?" I made myself ask, forcing my voice to steadiness. "Hyacinthe, when you tried to step off the island, there was a presence, in the water. Is it Rahab?"

"Him, or an invocation of him. Yes." Hyacinthe went still. Our ship bobbed gently on the water, lines creaking, wavelets churning and milling. "You do know a way."

"Yes and no." I took a deep breath and gazed into the empty blue sky. "There is a word. The Yeshuites claim the One God is nameless and unknowable, but it is not so. Adonai, they call him; Lord, nothing else. But He has a name, and it is a word, spoken, that all His servants must obey. Even Rahab." I looked at Hyacinthe. "That much, I have learned. But," I shook my head, "the Name of God eludes me. I do not have the knowledge.”

Something moved in Hyacinthe's oddly changeable eyes; power, mayhap, stirring in the depths ... or mayhap only hope. "You can find it."

"Hyacinthe." His name caught in my throat. "I've been looking, for ten years! There are Yeshuite scholars who have devoted their lives to it, going back in an unbroken line since before Blessed Elua walked the earth. I will never, ever stop looking, I swear to you, but after ten years, I do not hold a great deal of hope."

Hyacinthe looked away.

"Tsingano." Joscelin's pragmatic voice broke the silence. "You have the dromonde. What does the gift of sight tell you?"

"The dromonde." Hyacinthe gave him his dire smile. "I see an island, Cassiline; I see wind and sea. What do you think? I have seen naught else since I came here."

"What of Phèdre?"

The question hung in the air between them. The intense black pupils of Hyacinthe's eyes blurred, losing focus. "Phèdre," he whispered. In the old days, he would never speak the dromonde on my behalf. "Ah, Phèdre! It is a vaster pattern than I can compass. There are branchings beyond which I cannot see, and each one lies in darkness. Kushiel bars the path, stern and forbidding, his hands outstretched. In one hand, he holds a brazen key, and in the other . . ." His gaze focused abruptly. "And in the other, a diamond, strung on a velvet cord."

I touched the hollow of my throat.

"It is my dream." Sibeal's voice spoke softly in Cruithne. "It is as I have seen."

FIVE

IT WAS a somber journey back to Pointe des Soeurs.We parted ways with Drustan mab Necthana and his entourage at sea; they would sail east, putting in at the harbor of Trevalion, where Ghislain and his wife Bernadette looked for their arrival. Evrilac Duré's men were in restrained good spirits, uncertain what had transpired, glad of their survival. I leaned in the prow and watched the water part before us, thinking.

"I know." I cut him off sharply.

What had Melisande to do with Hyacinthe's fate? Nothing. Of the many things for which I blame her, that is not one. Ill-luck, it was, a destiny laid down eight hundred years gone by, and my Prince of Trav ellers caught in it. I could not shake the memory of my final glimpse of him. Hyacinthe had raised his hands, and the seas had answered, a limpid, rising swell that caught our vessel and turned us, carrying us plunging through the narrow entry and into the open seas. I had seen his lips moving as he did it, uttering words of command.

How could he, who now held such power in his hands, look to me for aid? It had grown unreal to me in his absence, this role in which he was cast. Now, having seen, I doubted the measure of my own meager skills. In ten years, what had I found? A rumor, nothing more; a tale buried in legend. The Rebbe had told it to me long ago, before La Serenissima. Lilit, the first wife of Edom, had fled his dominion; the One God sent his servants to bring her back. She had laughed and spoken His name, sending them back.

Well and so; I had not lied, I have spoken with many Yeshuite scholars since first I heard that tale. There are branches of mysticism within the Yeshuite religion, and those that hold the five books of the Tanakh itself is but the Name of God written in code. To each letter of each word a value is ascribed, and the resonance of every word to words of like value studied endlessly. Yet I never met a one who claimed the Name of God was known.

Now, there are fewer Yeshuites in the City of Elua and elsewhere across the realm, and their thoughts turn ever northward. The exodus that began ten years ago has continued, and rumor comes from the far northeast that they are forging a nation in the cold wastes. Not all agree that it is this which the prophecies of Yeshua ben Yosef intended—my old master the Rebbe did not—but the dissenters grow fewer every year. What he feared has come to pass: The Children of Yisra-el are divided. Of those who remain, their eyes turn increasingly toward the future, and less and less to the past. And I ... I am D'Angeline. When the One God sought to bid Elua to his heaven, Blessed Elua and his Companions refused. I am a child of Elua, Kushiel's Chosen and Naamah's Servant, and I have no place in such matters.