Kushiel's Chosen

This is his choice, I reminded myself, remembering the kríavbhog; if he has a chance to be free of it, 'tis not my place to gainsay it. Still, I feared for him.



There came then a great clash of bronze cymbals, and two torches were lit, great pitch-soaked logs stood on end. I could not help but remember La Dolorosa and my fall from the cliffs, Tito's massive torch spinning through the dark night above me; but betwixt them stood the Kore, and her presence drove out aught else.



The Maiden, it means, her title; and I daresay 'twas no more than that, for I had already gauged by the thickening of her waist that she had born children. No matter, for she was well and truly what she claimed by right of that title, the handmaiden of Mother Dia. She wore the ancient regalia for that rite, the flounced skirts sewn with ivory plaques, and the bodice that bared her breasts, nipples darkened with henna. A gold diadem was set atop her head, and her hair had been crimped with hot irons, falling in spiraling curls over her shoulders.



Although there were men and women alike among the initiates, here the Kore was attended only by priestesses. On Kriti, as in too many other places, the rule of law is given unto the province of men, but at the heart of matters, it is women who hold authority. So it was that while the Hierarch saw to the daily governance of the Temenos and oversaw the initiates in the ways of the mysteries, it was the Kore who sanctified them.



Flutes skirled and fell silent, and the revolving dancers came to a halt. The Kore spoke, then, and some trick of the acoustics of that place made her clear-spoken words resonate in every ear. "What do you seek, supplicant?"



Wavering but upright, Kazan made his reply, his tongue thick with thirst and garbling the memorized Hellene speech. "I seek to be cleansed of blood-guilt for the death of my brother."



"What do you offer in sacrifice?" Her words were measured out like pearls on a string.



"I offer my name, and my memory." Swaying, Kazan caught himself, and continued in a firmer voice. "I offer whatever you will take."



A pause, and then she spoke again. "It is enough."



Ah, Elua! I thought, as the Kore's priestesses brought forth water and grain, scarce enough to moisten his mouth to swallow. 'Tis monstrous unfair, that a man should be so beleaguered for a terrible accident. Kazan Atrabiades had not meant to slay his brother. And yet I had seen for myself how the curse had come home to him, fair or no. It was his right, to seek expiation, and not my place to protest the means of it. And who was I, to judge such a thing? I had sought atonement betimes myself, at the hands of Kushiel's priests; indeed, the Unforgiven of Camlach reckoned me the instrument of the same.



Still, it was something I understood, to purge one's memories in pain. It was somewhat else altogether, to offer the memories themselves on the altar of atonement. Mayhap the prospect would not have unnerved me so, had I not spent time in La Dolorosa, but I had seen madness at close hand there and come to reckon it a boon companion, and the thought of risking it voluntarily filled my heart with terror.



The Kore made a sign, and the drums started, and flutes and cymbals, while the Hierophant stepped forth to point the way to a path up the mountain. Initiates bearing torches moved ahead in pairs, pausing at stations along the path to light the way for the procession that followed. So we made our way up the mountain, a steep path and narrow, while the lights of the Palace dwindled below us.



Kazan walked alone, with priestesses before and behind him. More than once, he stumbled, but no aid was given him. Trailing at the rear, I straggled to see and yearned to help him, guessing without being told that it was forbidden. I was not sure he would make it, for the path was treacherous, but he did.



Some distance from the summit, we reached our goal; a cavern, dark-mouthed and vast, larger than those that I had seen lining the harbor walls. There was a little plateau before it, and it was there that the Kore halted. Torchlight cast weird, twisting shadows on the threshold of the cavern, but it was deep, and the rear of it remained dark and impenetrable.



With trembling fingers, Kazan divested himself of clothing until he stood mother-naked before the Kore, and she purified him with water and anointed his brow with oil. He knelt, and she cut a lock of his hair with a sharp little knife, tying a red thread around it and setting it on a tray, offering an invocation for his safety. Then she placed around his neck a single cowry shell on a leather thong, to dedicate him to Mother Dia.



It went on for some time, and I found myself blinking with weariness, half-hypnotized by the torchlight and the whispering music that seemed to come from the very mountain, for the initiates had scattered across the face of the rocks. At length, the Kore offered a final libation of wine and took a step back from the cavern.



"It is commenced," she said softly, her words pitched to echo in the cavern's mouth. "Go forth, Kazan Atrabiades, and seek to be free of it."



From where I stood, I saw Kazan hesitate, then square his shoulders.



He entered the cavern, and I saw him no more.



SIXTY



It is a long vigil the Kritians maintain during the thetalos.



For a considerable time, I stood with the others, waiting and watching, but I was leg-weary from the climb, and my body ached still in every part from the pounding it had endured aboard our storm-tossed ship. At length I gave up, and sat down in the hollow of a boulder, still warm from the day's sun. One can find comfort anywhere, when one is tired enough. The Kritians stood unfaltering, the Kore and her priestess on one side of the cavern's mouth, the Hierophant on the other, and agile initiates perching on crags like goats on a mountainside.



The music was muted to a thrumming murmur. The torches burned lower, sparking and crackling softly. Every now and then came the whispering sound of someone shifting-they were human, after all-but otherwise, nothing moved save the stars overhead and no other sound was heard.



Truly, I did my best to remain awake; it never occurred to me that I would fail. I was fraught with worry on Kazan's behalf and plagued as well by a thousand other concerns. I went over in my mind the speech I would make to the Archon of Phaistos, searching for the right words to present my plea. My rhetorical training was in Caerdicci, not Hellene, and I wanted to be as polished as I might when I entered "the wide harbor and the company of men," as the Hierophant said. They are ancient in the craft of statesmanship, Hellenes, and Kritians most ancient of all.



I polished my speech in my mind until it shone, and fell asleep in the process.



How long I slept, I cannot say. I awoke, once, and heard nothing but the thrumming music, the distant buzz of cicadas. It reminded me of being a child in Delaunay's household, and waking in my bed to hear the murmur of conversation coming from the faraway courtyard when he entertained into the small hours of the night. Taking comfort in the memory, I wrapped my mantle around me against the night chill and slid back into sleep.



It was the sound of my own blood beating that awoke me, a rustling sound, but near, not far; a soft, insistent tide that beat in my ears.



I knew that sound.



I opened my eyes to see the mountainside awash in a red haze, motionless Kritians, torches and all. With a sure sense of dread, I waited, but it was not Kushiel's voice that spoke.



Instead there came a cry, a great, wordless cry of horror, emanating from the mouth of the cavern. A ripple ran through the Kritians, and somewhere above me, an initiate drew in her breath sharply. Then the Kore raised one hand in a gesture of forbidding, and they fell still. The cry sounded again, ragged with terror; and again, and again.



Blessed Elua, I thought, is there to be no end to it! Tears stung my eyes, and I bit my lip to keep silent. I had heard cries like this before, in the endless nights of La Dolorosa, where the grieving sea-surge stripped away prisoners' sanity bit by bit. And I had seen, too, the results of that torment, the pitiable, half-human wretches I had released from confinement.



I could not live through it again.



Moving silently, I wrapped my dark mantle more tightly around me, drawing a fold over my head to shadow my face. I had been sorry to be at the end of the procession as we mounted the trail, but now I welcomed the luck that had placed me on the very outskirts of those gathered, for it enabled me to slip back into the darkness and circle around the watchers' perimeter.



It was not so easy as it sounds, for I needs must move silently in complete darkness, over treacherous and unfamiliar terrain. With grim determination, I timed my movements in accordance with Kazan's hoarse cries, working my way toward the mouth of the cavern. All the while, I wrestled with my conscience over the fitness of my actions. I trusted Pasiphae instinctively, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was power in this place, and she was rightfully invested in that power in her role as the Kore. But even so, there had been power in La Dolorosa, the awful power of Asherat's immortal grief, and it was human error that made it a place of horror.



The Kritians tell a different tale of my namesake's end; who is to say which is true?



For what had Kushiel compelled me if not for this?



I had no answers, save the one I had given Pasiphae earlier; I was D'Angeline, and could only follow the allegiance of my mortal heart. My actions had brought Kazan to this place. I could not bear to stand idly by and listen while it drove him mad.



There was a narrow gap that led to the left-hand side of the cavern's mouth. The Hierophant stood before it, some five paces forward. From the darkness outside the uneven ring of torchlight, I sat on my heels and surveyed my course. If I could get there, I could pass behind him easily enough, but there were two initiates between us, and no safe way of passing them.



Kushiel, I prayed silently, I have gone where you bid me, and never refused you. If it is truly your will that I do this thing, lend me your aid.



No answer but silence; and then Kazan cried out again, naked fear in his voice. A sudden breeze sprang up from the sea, and the nearest initiate's torch guttered out. The other picked his way cautiously to his side, and they turned their backs for a moment, huddling against the wind to ignite the extinguished torch.



Well, I thought; that's clear enough.



I slipped like a shadow past the initiates, behind the Hierophant's unmoving figure, and into the mouth of the cavern beyond the range of torchlight.



It was black inside the cavern, lightless, impenetrable black, and once inside, I realized it was deeper than I had guessed. Kazan gave another fearful cry, the sound coming from beyond and a bit below, for the cavern floor slanted.



I put out both hands before me and moved blindly toward the sound. I could hear his breathing, now, hoarse and ragged, stirring echoes in the blackness.



Was it too late, even now? It might as well be, I thought, despairing. How many others lay slain or destroyed in my wake? An ill-luck name, I had told myself, with all the self-deceiving guile of a child. It was not so. I had set myself willfully on this course from the day Melisande Shahrizai's parcel arrived; I had taken her gambit, knowing it for a fool's move. Wiser heads had sought to dissuade me, from Thelesis de Mornay and Ysandre de la Courcel to Quintilius Rousse; yes, and Joscelin 'too.



And I would have none of it, heeding none of them, dragging Joscelin and my poor, dear chevaliers to their doom. Nicola, Nicola L'Envers y Aragon, had tried to show me my arrogant mistrust for the folly that it was, and I had been too proud to hear her, so pleased with my own cleverness, so certain that I was master of my game.



So clever had I been on Dobrek, concealing the truth of my situation from Kazan, concealing its weaknesses; oh, clever indeed, Phèdre! So clever that it led him to give me all unwitting to my enemies. What was the cost of death for that rescue, that I might live? One ship? Both of them? How many men had died aboard the Serenissiman vessel? And now Kazan lay screaming out his wits in torment at the back of a cave, thanks to my cleverness.



I fixed onto that thought and held it, forcing myself to take another step in his direction, and another, dimly aware in some part of my mind that there was somewhat unnatural in this flood of guilt that paralyzed me.



But it was true, it was all true.



And Kazan was the least of it. Oh, yes, I had gone reckless and heedless into danger, and I had taken my best beloved with me. Remy and Fortun, slain in cold blood, for the foolish sin of loyalty to one such as me. Ti-Philippe, who might be alive or dead, and Joscelin; ah, Elua, Joscelin! How many times over had I wronged him, how many cruelties had I subjected him to, straining the loyalties of his last remaining vow until either it broke or he did.



Worst of all, I'd taken pleasure in it. I'd driven him to lash out in cruel words, and I had taken an anguissette's terrible pleasure in the pain it provoked; the pain of a wounded heart, deeper and more exquisite than any torment of the flesh.



And if I thought I'd known pain then, it was naught to this.



I saw my flaws and follies revealed in all their hideous vanity, and the awful cost in mortal lives and pain that had resulted. I knew my soul laid bare and scourged on a rack built of my own deeds. Names and faces, too many to count, for it was not only in this venture, but nigh everything I'd done since I had no title to my name but that of Delaunay's anguissette. His man-at-arms Guy, foully murdered, a murder that might have been prevented had I not kept silent about Alcuin's plans. Alcuin, Alcuin and my lord Delaunay... I choked on the memory, remembering them in a welter of gore, and how I had concealed my slip of the tongue that revealed the depth of Melisande's knowledge; it might have saved them, had I not been too cowardly to speak, it might have given Delaunay the key to evade a deep-laid plot.



It went on, unending, and I struggled against the tide of it while Kazan's cries rang in my ears. I understood, now, why he screamed. In a sea of anguish, I made my way to the back of the cavern, until I heard his raw breathing and fell to my knees, feeling blindly.



He was there, lying on the cavern floor, his skin cool to the touch, but alive. "Kazan," I whispered, shaking his shoulder. "Kazan, it is not worth the price of madness. Kazan, come with me!"