Kushiel's Avatar

ben Enokh had claimed the Name of God was the first Word spoken, the Word that brought all creation into being. Whether or not it is true, I do not know; no two nations hold the same story as to how it came to pass. We are Elua’s children, the last-born, and we took the world as we found it. But I know there was great power in that Name, and when it blazed in my thoughts, I beheld the world through different eyes.
    Imriel didn’t like it.
    I learned why, a week into our journey.
    It was the campfire that struck me that night, the glowing orange caverns of embers beneath the stacked branches, the flames leaping above and sparks ascending in a column into the black, black sky. How long did I watch it, marveling? A few seconds, I thought, though I daresay it was a good deal longer, until I realized my arm was being shaken.
    “Phèdre!”
    “Yes?” I inquired. “I’m sorry, I was thinking.”
    Imriel shook his head and looked away. “You weren’t,” he muttered.
    “Imri.” I waited until he looked back at me. “I’m trying. It’s like having someone shout in your ear, can you understand? When it happens, it’s all I can hear. I didn’t know it would be like this, or I would have told you. But there was no one to ask and no way of knowing.”
    “You look like you did in Daršanga ,” he said, half under his breath.
    “ What ?”
    “You look like you did in Daršanga.’” His voice rose, scared and defiant. “When you sat with the Mahrkagir, in the festal hall, your face-you looked the same, exactly the same!”
    “Really?” I asked Joscelin.
    He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
    It made me laugh. Elua knows why, but it did, and once I had started, I was hard-put to stop. All the absurdity of our long journey, the immensity of our task, the chaos that followed in our wake, the endless variations of the pattern I seemed destined to follow; it all came upon me at once. “Ah, Elua.’” I gasped, wiping my eyes. “Well, gods are like patrons, it seems. The shape of their desire may vary, but the manner of possession all comes to the same in the end.’”
    Imriel regarded my mirth with apprehension.
    “She’s fine,” Joscelin told him.
    He looked doubtful.
    “Oh, Imri.” With difficulty, I managed to gather my composure. “It’s nothing like Daršanga, I promise you. Listen, and I’ll tell you what happened.”
    I told them both, then, what had happened after I had entered the temple on Kapporeth, and it seemed my laughter had freed my voice to speak. I told them the furnishings were those described in the ancient writings of the Tanakh, and how the priest offered incense, then led me into the inner sanctum. And I told them of the Ark of Broken Tablets, and the cherubim atop it with faces like those of Elua’s Companions. I told how the priest and I had lifted the lid, and the silent rubble had formed a Name I could not read.
    And I told them how the tongueless priest had spoken it, and what had befallen me.
    They listened, the both of them, and Imriel was wide-eyed as any child hearing a tale of wonder, no longer fearful. What Joscelin thought, I could not say.
    “Do I really look like I did with the Mahrkagir?” I asked him later that night, lying against him in the tent with our cots pushed together.
    “Mm-hmm.” He was half-asleep, his arms around me. “And like you did at the bathing-pool, after I caught that fish.”
    “Where we made love?” I propped myself up on one elbow to look at him.
    “Yes.” His eyes opened in the dim light, amused. “And when that arrow grazed you and Imri put snakeroot on the wound, and in Nineveh, when you informed me we had to go into Drujan. Phèdre, I’m used to it. Daršanga was different, but this ... your wandering around with the Name of God in your head is just one more damned thing to get used to.”
    “Am I that hard to live with?” I asked.
    “Yes.” His arms tightened around me. “But it’s worth it.”
    Matters might have fallen out differently that night if Imriel had not been asleep in the tent with us; as it was, it merely made me think-and suggest to Imri with no especial tact that he might enjoy bunking with Bizan or Nkuku the following night, which he did with a good will, for any display of affection between Joscelin and I gladdened him. I may say that we made good use of the time, and I was well content with it. And whether it was the purgative effect of laughter, relating the story or our lovemaking, I cannot say,