Kushiel's Avatar

are all these things, I thought, while the sun blazed in the sky and the ochre sands reflected its heat. Pride, desire, compassion, cleverness, belligerence, fruitfulness, loyalty ... and guilt. But above it all stands love. And if we desire to be more than human, that is the star by which we must set our sights.
    It is all we can do to try. It is enough.
    Such were the things I thought in the desert, and the journey passed quicker than I believed possible. It was only when we reached Majibara and the vast silences of open spaces gave way to the clamor of the marketplace and the babble of a half-dozen tongues, situated beside the broad expanse of the rain-swollen Nahar that I reckoned the cost of it, and knew myself to be exhausted and half-fevered with thirst, feeling gaunt, scorched to the bone and somehow purged by our desert crossing.
    We had reached Menekhet.
    “You worry even me, sometimes,” Joscelin said to me that night as we lay abed at the inn, listening to distant music from the caravans. “I half thought you might wander off and leave us, if I didn’t watch you.”
    “No.” I wound a length of his hair about my finger. “I was thinking, that’s all.”
    “Across a week’s worth of desert?” He smiled a little. “About what?”
    “Life,” I said. “Death, war, love ... the nature of humanity.”
    “Did you come to any conclusions?” he asked.
    “No,” I said, and lifted my head to kiss him. “None I didn’t already know.” And with that I told them to him, not in words, but in the language of the flesh, of lips and tongue and hands, of quickening breath and the leap of blood in the veins, the salt-slickness of desire. It is the same questions we ask of our existence, and the answer is always the same. The mystery lies not in the question nor the answer, but in the asking and answering themselves, over and over again, and the end is engendered in the beginning.
    That much, I had learned.
    We had scant difficulty in hiring a felucca to take us to Iskandria. The flood-tides were receding, and trade was brisk all up and down the Nahar. We spent a half-day in the harbor, hiring a vessel, a sturdy craft piloted by a good-natured Menekhetan sailor by the name of Inherit, who spoke a smattering of Jeb’ez and a few words of Hellene. It was nothing fancy, but it would suffice.
    After so many farewells, it seemed almost strange to leave Majibara, where we knew no one and had no ties. Our leavetaking of Mek Gamal had been a businesslike affair, the caravan-leader owing allegiance only to Ras Lijasu, pleased at a crossing safely made, eager to strike a deal for a profitable return.
    At dawn, we ventured to the harbor, paying bearers to carry our trunks and load them into the hold of the sturdy felucca. The rising sun turned the lake-sized harbor of the river to an expanse of hammered gold. We waited patient on the docks while Inherit offered prayers to the gods of Menekhet and most especially Sebek, the crocodile-god of the Nahar.
    Once he had finished, he beckoned us aboard, smiling cheerfully. We situated ourselves about the vessel as he raised the lateen sail. On the docks, a pair of loitering sailors aided him, untying the lines and tossing them aboard. Down the river, the burgeoning green banks of tamarisk and papyrus awaited us.
    We were on our way.

Eighty-Three
    OUR RETURN to Iskandria was swifter than our departure, for we travelled with the current and, although the Upper Nahar was calm, it flowed strongly after the rains. Inherit canted his sail hither and thither to catch the fitful breeze, but whether he succeeded or no, the steady current bore us onward. When the sail’s belly did swell with wind, the felucca swooped like a swallow on the broad breast of the river, causing Imriel to shout with glee.
    We passed the island temple of Houba, where I had offered a prayer to Isis.
    We passed countless plantations, greening in the bright sun, dotted with Menekhetans working hurriedly to make the most of the growing season.
    We passed crocodiles and hippopotami, and the many birds we had seen before. On that journey, Kaneka had taught us the names in Jeb’ez. This time, Inherit taught us in Menekhetan, pointing and naming as we went. Imriel played the game along with me, his facile mind quick to grasp new words; Joscelin merely rolled his eyes and took out his fishing gear, trailing a line in the water, catching little in the swiftness of our passage over the waters. In the evenings we