Naamah's Blessing

me.
    Bedecked with flowers, clad in finery, the ancestors continued their slow descent from the gallery, bony limbs clicking and creaking. The black tide of ants gathered and rallied, swarming them to no avail.
    They could not stop the dead.
    The tempest raged in the doorway, raged through Raphael’s mortal flesh. Half the folk in the temple cried aloud in fear, pushing their way toward the doorway; half gazed in dumbstruck awe at the awakened ancestors. Ignoring the futile onslaught of ants, the Quechua ancestral dead continued their inexorable assault, ancient faces blank beneath their wrappings, war-clubs raised by crumbling fingers, petals falling all around them.
    It rained marigolds, garlands severed and petals shredded by the relentless mandibles of the ants. Yellow and orange and gold and bronze, the latter a deep hue like blood drying, like Cusi’s blood beginning to congeal on the stairway. I had fallen to my knees. Bits of cerement fell, and I caught glimpses of aged bone gleaming beneath tattered wrappings, bones gnawed in vain by Raphael’s unnatural army.
    I could not turn back the dead, either. But the storm that held Focalor’s essence was another matter.
    Lifting my head, I met Raphael’s eyes.
    In our different ways, we had loved and hated in equal measure, Raphael and I. Each other, Jehanne. My magic. Between his ambition and my youthful folly, we had left a trail of dead between us, beginning with poor, doomed Claire Fourcay and ending with my sweet, innocent handmaiden Cusi. Now he was drowning in Focalor’s essence; drowning, and unable to save himself.
    He grimaced, seeing his failure reflected in my gaze. There was enough of him left to recognize me. It was too late for Cusi, too late to halt the dead. It was not too late to banish Focalor. I prayed Raphael would hear me, for if he did not, the fallen spirit would be loosed unfettered on the world, and I did not think even the dead could stand against it.
    “Raphael,” I whispered. “Please…”
    He shut his eyes, his throat straining as he fought to force the words out past the influx of Focalor’s essence. “Close the doorway, Moirin,” he gasped, his chest heaving. “I was wrong. I erred. Forgive me if you can. Just… do it.”
    I did.
    It took strength, a great deal of strength. But I was not the foolish young woman I had been so long ago. Gathering every ounce of resolve that I possessed, I rose from my knees and faced the maelstrom I had unleashed. I was a child of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, and no one’s useful tool. The memory of Her acceptance lent me strength. Although thunder crashed, lightning crackled, and the wind howled in protest, I poured myself into the effort. I beat Focalor’s essence back into the spirit world and closed the doorway, releasing the twilight at last with a sigh.
    Shuffling across the temple floor on bony feet, the dead converged on Raphael, weapons raised. One by one, their weapons fell, bludgeoning him.
    There was blood, darkness, and flowers.
    And I shut
my
eyes.
    I didn’t want to see the end.

SEVENTY-TWO

    I n the aftermath, there was silence, broken only by the sound of a thousand indrawn breaths.
    I opened my eyes.
    Raphael de Mereliot’s body lay sprawled on the floor of the temple. The crown of the
Sapa Inca
had fallen from his head, and blood clotted his tawny locks. The desiccated figures of the Quechua ancestors swayed around him. One by one, they dropped their weapons and crumpled into motionless heaps of rag-wrapped bones bedecked with gold, feathers, wool, and half-eaten garlands of flowers.
    The ants fled, pouring through the temple door in an endless stream, joining throngs of their fellows in the streets. It was a considerable exodus.
    Atop the stair, Bao stooped and gathered Cusi’s body tenderly in his arms. He supported her head as carefully as though she were a newborn babe, so the gash that had opened her throat didn’t gape. Everyone in the temple watched, silent and wordless. There were no words for what had transpired here.
    Step by step, he descended. Cusi’s hair trailed over his arms. Despite the blood that stained her white garment, her face looked peaceful, a faint, impossible smile curving her lips. With tears of grief drying on his face, Bao laid her body on the altar, arranging her limbs with dignity.
    “Now it is done,” he said quietly. “No more.”
    I opened my mouth to agree, but it seemed the temple tilted sideways. I heard Bao’s voice