Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

"Not the same princess, then," said Arhys. "The prince of Jokona has a pack of sisters. You mistook one for another, perhaps. Umerue's tongue was bold and witty."

  "Yes. She made bilingual puns. Yet unless she has a twin sister of the same name, I'd swear her for the same woman." Illvin sighed, then his brow wrinkled. "Catti went ripping up to the princess's chambers in a fury, and I went charging after her. I was afraid of—I knew not what, but I thought, if nothing else, I might somehow warn you, and prevent a scene."

  "My faithful flank man."

  "This went beyond the bounds of duty, I thought. You were going to owe me, and I meant to collect, too. I begged Catti to at least let me go in first, but she ducked under my elbow. Our tumbling entry could not have been more ill timed. Speaking of bold tongues."

  Dead men, Ista noted, couldn't blush. But they could at least look shamefaced.

  "Even I couldn't blame Catti for going into a frenzy," Illvin continued. "But if that over decorated dagger had been sitting at the bottom of that pile of gear instead of atop it, I might have grabbed her quicker. She went straight for the princess, screaming. Wanted to cut her face off. For understandable reasons."

  "I remember that part," said Arhys slowly, as if unsure. "It comes back ..."

  "You pushed the golden slut out of the way, I seized Catti's knife hand, and between us we might have saved the moment if you hadn't tripped, lunging out of bed. Were you in such a whirl of lust that you couldn't wait to undress? If I'd had such an opportunity—never mind. But the best swordsman in Caribastos, hobbled by his own trousers— five gods, Arhys! Catti wouldn't have had the strength to drive that big blade home if she had been trying for you, if you hadn't toppled into us with your ankles twisted up." His indignation faded, and his excited voice slowed. "I felt the blade go in. I was sure we'd done you, among us all."

  "It wasn't Catti's fault!" Arhys said hastily. "Oh, the look of woe upon her face—it was like being stabbed again. No wonder she . . . After that. . . after that, I don't remember."

  "You fell at my feet. The fool girl yanked the blade back out of you—I shouted, No, Catti! Too late. Though I'm not sure if leaving it in would have staunched anything, the way you spurted. I was trying to get one hand pressed to your wound and hang on to Catti's sleeve with the other, but she twisted right out of her over robe. Umerue was shrieking, climbing back over the bed to try to get to you—I wasn't sure why. Catti plunged the knife straight into her stomach. Umerue grabbed the hilt,

  then looked up and gave me the saddest look. And said Oh, in this lost little voice. Like . . . like her voice when first I ever saw her." His voice faded further. "She just said Oh. Catti's face took on a very strange air, and after that... I don't remember." He sank back on his pillows. "Why can't I . . . ?"

  Ista's hands were trembling. She hid them in her skirt. "What do you remember next after that, Lord Illvin?" she asked.

  "Waking up here. With my head buzzing. Dizzy and sick. And then waking up here again. And again. And again. And again. And—something must have happened to me. Was I hit from behind?"

  "Cattilara said Pechma stabbed you," said Arhys. He cleared his throat. "And Umerue."

  "But he wasn't there. Did he come in after us? And besides, I am not"—Illvin's hand went to his chest, beneath the sober linen, and came away smeared carmine—"ow! . . . stabbed?"

  "What was Pechma like?" asked Ista, doggedly.

  "He was Umerue's clerk," said Arhys. "He had a disastrous taste in clothing, and was the butt of her retinue's jokes—there's always one such feckless fellow. When Cattilara told me he had attacked Illvin, I said it was impossible. She said it had better be possible, or we'd have a war with Prince Sordso before the body was carted home. And that no one among the Jokonans would stand up for Pechma. And indeed, she proved right about that. She also said to be patient, that Illvin would recover. I was beginning to doubt, but now I see it is so!"

  Ista said, "You've eaten no food for over two months, yet you didn't wonder!"

  Illvin glanced up from his smeared hand to stare at Arhys, startled, his eyes narrowing.

  "I ate. I just couldn't keep it all down." Arhys shrugged. "I seem to get enough."

  "But he's going to be all right now," said Illvin slowly. "Isn't he?"

  Ista hesitated. "No. He's not."

  Her gaze traveled to the silent auditor of all this, half crouched by the far wall. "Goram. What did you think of Princess Umerue?"

  The noise he made in his throat sounded like a dog growling. "She was bad, that one."

  "How could you tell?"

  His face wrinkled. "When she looked at me, I was cold afraid. I stayed out of her sight."

  Ista considered his ravaged soul-stuff. I imagine you would.

  "I would like to think that Goram helped bring me back to my senses," said Illvin ruefully, "but I'm afraid that was just the effect of Umerue's inattention."

  Ista studied Goram briefly. His soul-scars were a distraction in this reckoning, she decided; they were an old injury, old and dark. If, as she was beginning to suspect, he'd once been demon-gnawed, it was well before this time. Which left. . .

  "Umerue was a sorceress," Ista stated.

  A brief, fierce grin flashed across Illvin's face. "I guessed it!" He hesitated. "How do you know?" And after another moment, "Who are you?"

  I have seen her lost demon, Ista decided not to say just yet. She desperately wished dy Cabon were here now, with the theological training to unravel this tangle. Illvin was staring at her more warily of a sudden, worried—but not, she thought, disbelieving.

  "They say you were seminary-trained in your youth, Lord Illvin. You can't have forgotten it all. I was told by a learned divine of the Bastard's own order that if a demon's mount dies, and the departing soul has not the strength left to drag it back to the gods, it jumps to another. The sorceress died, and the demon is in neither of you, I assure you. Who's left?"

  Arhys was looking sick. For a walking corpse, this ought to have been an improvement, Ista thought, but it wasn't. "Catti has it," he whispered.

  He wasn't arguing with her about this one, she noticed. Ista nodded approval, feeling absurdly like some tutor commending a pupil for getting his sums right. "Yes. Catti has it now. And her bidding is for it to keep you alive. Well, animate. In as far as its powers may be forced to work that way."

  Arhys's mouth opened, closed. He said at last, "But. . . those things are dangerous! They consume people alive—sorcerers lose their souls to them. Catti, she must be treated—I must summon the Temple theologians, to cast it out of her—"

  "Hold a moment, Arhys," said Illvin, sounding strained. "I think we need to think this through ..."

  A thumping sounded on the gallery outside: running feet. Two pairs. The door was yanked open. Cattilara, barefoot, in disarrayed riding dress, her hair wind-wild, tumbled through gasping. Liss followed, nearly as out of breath.

  "Arhys!" Cattilara cried, and flung herself upon him. "Five gods, five gods! What has that woman done to you?"

  "Sorry, Royina," Liss muttered to Ista's ear. "We were in the middle of this field when she suddenly cried that there was something wrong with her lord, ran for her horse, and galloped off. There was no diverting her with anything short of a crossbow bolt."

  "Sh. It's all right." Ista quelled a twinge of nausea at her trick on Catti, effective though it had been. "Well—sufficient. Wait by Goram, but do not speak or interrupt. No matter how strange what you hear may sound."

  Liss dipped dutifully and went to lean on the wall by the groom, who nodded welcome. She cocked her head dubiously at Lady Cattilara, sobbing in Lord Arhys's enfeebled grip.

  Cattilara grasped his hand in turn, tested its weakness, and turned her tear-stained face up to her husband's. "What has she done to you?" she demanded.

  "What have you done to me, Catti?" he asked gently in turn. He glanced at his brother. "To both of us?"

  Cattilara looked around, glaring at Ista and at Illvin. "You tricked me! Arhys, w
hatever they say, they He!"

  Illvin's brows went up. "Now, there's a comprehensive indictment," he murmured.

  Ista tried to ignore the distracting surfaces for a moment. The demon was as tightly closed as Ista had yet seen it, dense and shiny, as if, all other routes blocked, it was trying to flee inside itself. It seemed to tremble.

  As if in terror? Why? What does it think I can do to it? More: What does it know that I don't? Ista frowned in mystification.

  "Catti." Arhys stroked her wild hair, patting it smooth, absorbing her sobs on his shoulder. "It's time to tell the truth. Sh, now. Look at me." He took her chin, turned it to his face, smiled into her wet eyes with a look that would have made Ista's heart, she thought, melt and run down into her shoes. It had an even less useful effect on the hysterical Catti. She slithered out of his weak grip and crouched at his feet, weeping on his knees like a lost child, her only clear words a repeated, No, no!

  Illvin rolled his eyes ceiling ward, and rubbed at his forehead in exasperation with an equally weak swipe. He looked as though he would gladly trade what was left of his soul at this moment for escape from the room. He glanced up to meet Ista's commiserating gaze; she held up two fingers, Wait. . .

  "Yes, yes," Arhys murmured to his wife. His hand, on her head, gave it a soft little shake from side to side. "I command all here at Porifors; all its lives are in my hands. I have to know all. Yes."

  "Good, Arhys," muttered Illvin. "Stand up to her, for once."

  Ista pressed her hand to her mouth, for Arhys was speaking. Yes, better that this should come from him. She will not resist him, or at least, not as much.

  "What happened after you stabbed the ... sorceress?" Arhys asked. "How did you capture her demon?"

  Catti sniffled, swallowed, choked, and coughed. In a rough voice she answered, "It just came to me. I didn't do anything. It was either me or Illvin, and it was more afraid of Illvin." A grim little smile fleeted across her face. "It promised me anything if I would flee away. But there was only one thing I wanted. I wanted you back. I made it put you back. It still wants to escape, but I'll never let it, never."

  Will against will. The demon, Ista suspected, was experienced, strong with the consumption of more than one life. But on certain narrow issues, Cattilara was more willful. More than willful: obsessed. If the demon had mistaken Catti for a more tractable mount than Illvin, it had been in for an interesting surprise. For all her exasperation with Catti, Ista felt a certain dark satisfaction at the thought of the demon's dismay.

  "You do realize," Ista said, "that the demon is stealing life from Illvin to keep Arhys . . . moving?"

  Catti's head jerked up. "It's only fair. He stabbed Arhys; let him pay!"

  "Hold hard!" said Illvin. "It wasn't just me in that botch-up."

  "If you hadn't grabbed my hand, it wouldn't have happened!"

  "No, nor if Arhys hadn't tripped, or if Umerue had dodged the other way, or, or any of a hundred other things. But we all did. And it did." His mouth set in a flat line.

  "Yes," said Ista slowly. "Four persons combined to effect an outcome desired, I daresay, by none. I am not so sure about the . . . fifth party present."

  "It's true," said Illvin, "that demons thrive on misfortune and disorder; it is their nature, and the magic they lend partakes of that nature. Or so the divines always taught me." He turned against his pillows and studied his sister-in-law uneasily.

  "Well, this demon was sent here," said Cattilara. "On purpose. It was supposed to seduce Illvin, or Arhys, or both, and take Castle Porifors from within for the prince of Jokona. I stopped that from happening. As much as any soldier pushing back a scaling ladder in a siege." She tossed her hair and glowered, as if daring anyone to criticize this achievement.

  Illvin's lips pursed in a look of sudden enlightenment. Arhys's brows drew down in dismay.

  "And Lord Pechma?" prompted Ista.

  "Oh, Pechma was easy. The demon knew all about him." Cattilara sniffed disdain. "All I had to do, after I'd arranged Illvin and walked Arhys back to our bed, was find Pechma and accuse him, and convince him he would be hanged out of hand in the morning if he didn't run away. He did the rest himself. He's probably still running."

  The young woman had spent a busy night, Ista reflected. The artistic malice of Illvin's naked arrangement took her aback. A little revenge, perhaps, upon a man who'd remained steadfastly undazzled by his brother's choice of bride?

  "So none of this is Arhys's fault," Catti continued passionately. "Why should he be the only one to suffer?" She turned her angry face to Ista. "So, you—whatever you have done to bind him to this chair—you let him up!"

  Ista touched her lips. "Very many people suffer, who are not at fault," she said. "It's not a new condition in the world. I will—as you say, release—Arhys in a while, but all must speak freely first. The Temple tells us that demons work their wonders at a terrible cost. Just how long do you imagine you can keep this one going?"

  Cattilara's jaw set. "I don't know. As long as I breathe and have will! Because if the demon magic stops, Arhys dies."

  "If . . . that is indeed the alternative," Illvin put in suddenly, "perhaps this turn and turnabout is no bad thing. I can stand to share . . . half, say. Suppose half of each day should be Arhys's, and half mine?"

  And then he need not be a fratricide? Or even one-quarter of a fratricide? The rising hope was writ plain in his face. Cattilara brightened at the unexpected offer of alliance, and she looked up at Illvin with new speculation.

  Ista hesitated, shaken in her certainties. Uncertainties, her bleak thought corrected. "I think," she said, "this cannot work, or cannot work for very long. However starved it is, the demon must be slowly consuming Catti, or it should have faded by now, or been unable to maintain its spell. Learned dy Cabon told me that the demon always turns the tables on its mount, given enough time."

  "So Arhys is saved, I will take the risk!" said Cattilara.

  Arhys drew a sharp breath of protest and shook his head.

  "Seems almost worthwhile to me," muttered Illvin darkly.

  "But it's not a risk. It's a certainty. And Arhys dies the same, and Cattilara is destroyed."

  "But when, how long, that's the question!" Cattilara argued. "All sorts of other things could happen before . . . then."

  "Yes, and I can tell you some of them," said Ista. "Illvin, I am sure, studied the theology of death magic in the Bastard's seminary. I had a closer acquaintance with it, once. Arhys isn't alive now. The demon captured his severed spirit and returned it to haunt his own body. A familiar, congenial abode, I suspect, in some ways. But he is cut off from the support of his god, and his spirit is equally torn from the nourishment of matter. He cannot maintain life, except by what is plundered from Illvin, nor increase it, nor engender it."

  Cattilara flinched, hunching her shoulders in protest.

  Ista felt her way further into the dark consequences. "So his fate must be the fate of the lost spirits. Slowly to fade, to blur, to grow unmindful of himself, the world, his memories—his loves and hates—to forget. It is a sort of senility. I have seen the blind ghosts drifting. It is a quiet damnation, and merciful—for them. Less merciful for a man still in his body, I think."

  "You mean he'll lose his wits!" said Illvin, aghast.

  "That's . . . not so good," said Arhys. "I have not so many to spare as you." He attempted to smile at his brother. The attempt failed miserably.

  Ista bit her lip and forged on. "I have a guess why the demon gives Illvin so little time, barely enough—no, not even enough—to eat. Why their shares are so very uneven. I think, when Illvin is awake, the demon . . . loses ground, maintaining Arhys's body. For every hour of waking life given to Illvin, the dead body decays a little more. In time, the rot shall start to be evident to the senses of others." It was evident to her heightened sensitivity already, now that she knew how to look. I do not love my new education. "Is that the fate you desire for your handsome husband, Lady Cattilara? A senile m
ind trapped in a decomposing body?"

  Cattilara's lips moved, No, no, but she did not speak. She hid her face against Arhys's knees.

  Gods, why did you give this vile task to me? Ista spoke on, relentlessly. "Illvin is dying too, being slowly drained of more life than he can replace. But if Illvin dies, Arhys will . . . stop, as well. Both their mother's sons lost together. Not her wish, I can assure you. Which end will come first in this evil race, I cannot guess. But that is the ultimate arithmetic of demon magic: two lives traded for one, then that one subtracted. Leaving, for all your pains, nothing. Do I have my tally theologically correct, Lord Illvin?"

  "Yes," he whispered. He swallowed and found his voice. "Demon magic—the divines say—invariably engenders more chaos than it ever produces order. The cost is always higher than the prize. Some who dabble in demons try to spread the cost to others and keep the prize for themselves. It seldom works for long. Although it is said that some very wise and subtle theologians, Temple sorcerers, can use the demon magic according to its nature, and not against it, and yet effect good. I never quite understood that part."

  Ista was very unsure about her next move, but it seemed the logical progression. She had a profound mistrust of logic; it was quite as possible to reason one's way, step by slow step, into a mire of deep sin as it was to fall into it headlong. "I have now heard depositions from all concerned here except one. I think this demon has acquired the gift of speech. One wonders from whom, if it can make ... bilingual puns, but anyway. I would speak with it. Lady Cattilara, can you let it come up for a time?"

  "No!" She frowned at Ista's look, and added, "It's not me that's the problem. It tries to get away. It will try to run off with my body, if it can."

  "Hm," said Ista. She didn't greatly trust Cattilara, but this assertion could well be true.

  "Tie her to the chair," Liss suggested laconically from her place by the wall. Ista looked over her shoulder at the girl; Liss raised her eyebrows and shrugged. She kept a detached posture, but her eyes were wide and fascinated, as if she were watching a play and wanted to hear the next act.