"All right, then," he said simply. "Go ask him, Phèdre."
I let out a shuddering breath. "I will."
No one else moved as I approached the priest. He was neither young nor old, but somewhere in between, his closed mouth smiling amid an unruly black beard. A mortal man, no more and no less, a frail vessel to ward such unearthly power and bear the unbroken lineage of the One God's anger. His eyes were dark, like all Sabaeans, and the early heat brought a faint sheen of perspiration to his mahogany skin.
"I am Phèdre nó Delaunay de Montrève of Terre d'Ange," I said to him in Habiru, "and I seek to know the Name of God."
The priest smiled a little more and mouthed a word. There, he mouthed, pointing into the shadowy interior of the temple. In the cavity of his mouth I saw the truth of Sabaean legend, the stump of a tongue withered like a drought-stricken root. My skin prickled with nerves, and something else. I turned to face Hanoch ben Hadad.
"My lord captain," I said. "Will you gainsay my passage?"
He had fallen to his knees; all the Sabaeans had, arms discarded, bowing and rocking with murmured prayers. Only Joscelin and Imriel remained standing, watching me. Joscelin's daggers were sheathed and he held Imri close to him with one arm.
"Well," I said to them in D'Angeline, conscious of my own tongue and how it worked in tandem with my lips, shaping words, giving voice to my utterance. If these were to be my last words, I wished they were less banal. "I had better go, then."
Joscelin cleared his throat. "I suppose ... I suppose you'd better."
"Yes." I nodded like an idiot. "In case I can't tell you afterward . . . well. I love you.”
"I know," he said. "I love you."
"And you," I said to Imriel. "And you."
He gave a rough nod, not trusting his voice.
"Well, then," I addressed the priest. "Let us go."
And the priest of Aaron's line smiled and bowed low, indicating the way. I stepped across the threshold of the temple into the dark interior. I heard the door close behind us, blotting out the morning sun. I stood in darkness as he took up a single lamp, kindling a taper and lighting other lamps. My eyes adjusted slowly to the lack of sunlight.
It was a temple, no different in structure from the one in the city, save humbler, wrought of mud-brick. Only the adornments were splen did; fretted lamps, gilded sconces, shedding a rich golden glow through out the simple interior. The priest pointed at my feet and I stooped to remove my shoes. The floor of the temple was hard-packed earth, dry and crumbling in patches.
"Is it well?" I asked him. "I have brought ... I have brought no offering, my lord priest."
You, he mouthed, pointing at me, and the shriveled root of his tongue moved within the cavern of his mouth. You. And then he pointed at himself, touching his own breast. Me.
"Yes," I said softly. "There is that."
And I followed him, then, into the second circle of the temple of Kapporeth, understanding that he was like me; mortal, and marked all unwitting by the touch of a god. Kushiel, Adonai; does it matter, in the end? We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.
In the second circle there were treasures, more treasures, heaped upon the earthen floor; vessels of gold and silver, tribute dating back to Shalomon's day. And beyond . . . Elua! The Holiest of Holies, Han-och ben Hadad had called it. I stared at the opening of the inner sanc tum, veiled with curtains of scarlet and purple and blue, and shivered.
It was there, I thought. The Ark of Broken Tablets.
The Name of God.
Preserved in silence these long years, a millennium and more, shrouded by a goddess' grief. Who was I to breach it?
Hyacinthe.
Repressing my fear, I followed the priest as he circumnavigated the inner sanctum and approached the altar in its alcove. The altar was of solid gold, and a lamp burned upon it; the Ur Tamid, the light that is never extinguished. Even so is it in Yeshuite temples to this day. A large incensor sat upon the altar, gold on gold, the inner bowl darkened with years of offerings. Mouthing a noiseless prayer, the priest offered a generous handful, lighting the fragrant lumps of resin with a taper. Sweet, pungent smoke rose and hovered against the ceiling in a bluish cloud.
He turned then, and pointed to the sanctum, raising his brows in inquiry.
"What will happen, my lord priest?" I asked him, shivering despite the morning's warmth, the lamp-lit closeted darkness of the temple. "What will happen, if I do?"
He shook his head, his mouth closed on the mysteries of Adonai's wrath.
Hyacinthe.
"Let it be done," I said.
The priest of Aaron's line parted the curtains of the Holiest of Holies.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
WITHIN THE dim chamber, the Ark of Broken Tablets gleamed like a subtle sun.The priest moved soundlessly on bare feet, lighting the lampstands about it until the flames were reflected in the gold, sending shifting patterns about the mud-brick walls. I held very still and gazed at it. It was made of acacia wood, so the Tanakh claimed, overlaid with gold, and so I beheld it, still resting on the gilded poles once used to carry it; a mighty chest, that would take four strong men to bear it.
And it was sealed with a lid of gold, that is called Kapporeth, the mercy seat after which the island was named, upon which were two cherubim facing one another—strange creatures, with the hindquarters of a bull, the forequarters of a lion and wings like the eagle, and faces ... ah, Elua! Faces such as I had seen in the temples of Terre d'Ange, human, and more; stern and serene. There was Kushiel's justice, Naamah's passion, Azza's pride, Shemhazai's intelligence, Camael's ferocity, Eisheth's healing, Anael's bounty, Cassiel's loyalty.
'Twas all encompassed in their carven faces.
The priest bowed low before the Ark, and took from a waiting stand a breastplate of hammered gold, held together before and aft by twisted links of chain. This he donned over his robes, and on his breast winked four lines of gems, three across; sardius, topaz and garnet, em erald, sapphire and diamond; jacinthe, agate and amethyst; beryl, onyx and jasper, each gem inscribed with a name—one each for the Twelve Tribes of the Children of Yisra-el.
And I, Elua's child, watched and trembled.
He took then in his hands a crown, engraved with the words, "Holy to Adonai." And this he placed against his brow, binding it with ties of blue-dyed silk. So had Nemuel done, I thought, on the plains of Jebe Barkal. The priest stood waiting, sterner and taller in his regalia. I felt small, and tired. My muscles ached from the ordeal of rowing, and my hands were blistered and sore. There was no voice speaking between the cherubim, no presence of Elua; not even Kushiel to mark the way with his crimson haze.
"I don't know what to do, my lord," I said humbly. "I am only a supplicant here. All I want is to free my friend."
The priest laid his hands on two corners of the massive lid and looked fixedly at me, nodding at the opposite side of the Ark. The silent cherubim gazed at one another.
"The Name of God," I whispered. If it existed, it lay within the Ark. I reached out with trembling hands, curling my fingers beneath the corners opposite the priest. This was the transgression that had blasted Nemuel, and all his descendants. "I am scared, my lord priest."
He made me no answer, watching and waiting, not unkindly. The gems on his breastplate winked, naming the Twelve Tribes, silent prayers and reminders to an unresponsive god. If it was a transgression, this act, it was one for which the priest had already born a lifetime of punishment. Had he tried it already? I could not know. My mouth was dry. Did I transgress here? If Adonai was merciful, I would only suffer the same. I licked my parched lips, thinking of the tongues I had mastered in my day. D'Angeline, Caerdicci, Hellene, Skaldic, Cruithne, all under Delaunay's guidance; Habiru, Illyrian, Akkadian, Persian, Jeb'ez; even zenyan. The argot of Tsingani, the dialect of the Dalriada.
All of this, I stood to lose.
And Naamah's arts, the arts of love. I remembered how Joscelin had kissed me in the bathing-pool. That, I could not even bear to think of losing.
Oh, Hyacinthe, I thought. It is little, so little , compared to what you sacrificed. Forgive me my fear, that so ill becomes me. But I cannot help it, for it is so much of what I am, of what I have made myself. And I do not know what will become of us if I fail. With a silent prayer for forgiveness, I set myself and gritted my teeth, lifting with all my might. Terrified of succeeding, terrified of failing, I sought to raise the massive lid, my fingernails digging, bending beneath the weight of it. And on the opposite side, the priest of Aaron's line bowed his head and lifted too, sinews standing out on his forearms, "Holy to Adonai" engraved glimmering on his sweat-beaded brow.
We lifted together, and the lid rose. Inch by strenuous inch, it rose. My arms trembled. It rose. The space between the cherubim lay silent.
The heavy golden lid, the mercy seat, was raised into the darkling air.
Awkward and strained, I dared a glance inside the Ark.
And there I saw the Luvakh Shabab, the Broken Tablets; fragments, grey shards of stone battered to gravel, not even a single word of text remaining intact. These were the Tablets inscribed by Adonai's own hand? I would have wept, had I strength to spare. An empty chest with a heap of rubble at the bottom—such was the end of my quest. Such was the mystery Isis' grief had guarded. Such was the secret the Sabaeans had hidden from the Eye of God for more than a thousand years.
The rubble stirred of its own accord.
I caught my breath and held it.
My arms and back and shoulders ached with the strain of holding the lid aloft. Would that Joscelin were here! Truly, I had failed to reckon the cost of his labors. Two-thousand-year-old dust swirled in the gilded depths. The ancient rubble stirred, fragments of stone align ing, letters emerging; the Habiru alphabet, forming before my eyes to spell out the Name . . . Yod, Alef, Quf, Lamed . . . Nun? And, ah, Elua others among them I did not recognize! Kaf, Alef, more—too much, too fast, not even my Delaunay-trained memory could hold it, my facile tongue shaping the letters in vain, too slow, muscles trembling with the strain. Oh, unfair. A lost alphabet, letters I did not know, never etched by mortal hands. Twelve years' of study, gone to no avail. How could I utter a sound I had never heard? I sought to remember their shape, but they were gone, fleeting, before I could capture them. The emergent letters in the golden shadow of the lid spelling out an unpronounceable Name, half-glimpsed. Tears of despair stung my eyes, and I blinked in a futile effort to see.