Kushiel’s Dart

"Here." At the bottom, he threw open a door. The stone-walled room beyond was lit and heated by another fire, and light washed over a bronze sculpture of Kushiel. Elua’s Companion stood raised on a dais behind an altar and offering-bowl, a stern look on his beautiful face, the flail and rod in his hands. I stood for a long time gazing at him. "Do you know why Kushiel abdicated his duties to join Elua?"

I shook my head. "No."

"He was one of the Punishers of God, chosen to deliver torments to the souls of sinners that they might repent at the end of days." Didier Vascon was a disembodied voice behind me. "So the Yeshuite legends claim. Alone among angels, Kushiel understood that the act of chastisement was an act of love; and the sinners in his charge too came to understand, and loved him for it. He gave them pain like balm, and they begged him for it, finding in it not redemption, but a love that transcended the divine. The One God was displeased, for He desires worship above all things, but Kushiel saw a spark he would follow in the spirit of Blessed Elua, who said unto us, ‘Love as thou wilt.’"

The breath went out of me with a profound shudder. No one had told me this, this story that was mine by birthright. I wondered how different my life would be if I had been raised and trained in Valerian House, and turned to Didier. "Is that what it’s like?"

He hesitated before answering. "No." When his answer came, his tone was flat with reluctant truth. "But it is how I get my pleasure. It is the service to which I was born and to which I trained. They say Kushiel’s Dart marks his true victims. Perhaps you will find it."

I understood, then, that he was envious. "How is it that adepts are trained to this service?" I asked him, wishing to change the subject.

"Come." He beckoned the torch-bearers and ushered me through a door on the far side of the room, continued talking as we proceeded down the broad stone hall. "It begins with the lesson of the spiced candies, of course; you know this? No? We do it with children of six. An adept explains that the pleasure of the taste is due to the touch of pain the spice provokes. Those who understand, we keep; others will have their marques sold. After that, it is a simple matter of consistency and conditioning. Never is a fosterling or apprentice of Valerian House allowed to experience pleasure without pain, nor pain without pleasure." He stopped before another door and looked curiously at me. "You have never received such training?"

I shook my head. He shrugged.

"It is Delaunay’s business, I suppose." He pushed the door open. "This is one of the pleasure-chambers. We endeavor to provide environments for all of our patrons' particular desires."

Servants moved about the room lighting the wall sconces and the brazier. I gazed about me and shuddered again. There were lush carpets in the center of the room, surrounded by aisles of flagstone. The walls were bare of decoration, but hardly unadorned; one held manacles and chains for the wrists and ankles, bolted into the stone, and another held a great wooden wheel, with clamps to hold one spread-eagled.

"We have a reciprocal agreement with Mandrake House," Didier Vascon said, watching me take in the accoutrements. "Sometimes we have patrons who take pleasure only in watching, so we might contract a flagellant and an assistant to perform the excruciation on one of our adepts. And of course sometimes Mandrake has clients who must needs observe an abasement performed to move them, for which we provide subjects."

His words echoed distantly in my ears. I moved to the center of the room, lightly touching a padded pommel horse and looking inquiringly at him.

"Here." He was dryly amused by my ignorance and, with a deft hand, pushed me down across its back. My cheek was pressed to the padded leather. "You would be lashed in place, of course. Some patrons have a particular fetish for the buttocks. The pommel horse provides good advantage for their indulgence."

I straightened, flushed, and snapped at him. "I’m not here to receive training at your hands!"

Didier raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands. "May your patrons have the joy of breaking you," he murmured. "I’ve no interest in it. But I’ve taken a fee to ensure you’ll not go to them in complete ignorance. Come here." He beckoned me to a cabinet and began pointing out items. "We provide all manner of accessories, of course; collars, blinds, gags, belts, whatever the patron might wish. Rings, pleasure-balls, aides d’amour, pincers-"

"I was raised in Cereus House," I reminded him, wondering if he thought I was so green I’d never seen a shaft-ring or a carven phallus.

"-pincers," he said, resuming as if I hadn’t interrupted. He picked up one of the spring-forced clamps and squeezed it open, raising his eyebrows again. "Often placed on the nipples or nether lips. Do they use these in Cereus House?"