Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "You don't understand," said Cattilara. "It won't want to go back in, afterward."

  "I will undertake to hold it," said Ista.

  Illvin frowned curiously at her. "How?"

  "I don't think you can," said Cattilara.

  "It does. Or it would not fear me so, I think."

  "Oh." Cattilara's face screwed up in thought.

  "I think," said Arhys slowly, "this prisoner's interrogation could be a most important one. It touches on the defense of Porifors. Will you dare it, dear Catti—for me?"

  She sniffed, frowned, set her teeth.

  "I know you have the courage," he added, watching her.

  "Oh—very well!" She made a face and climbed to her feet. "But I don't think this is going to work."

  The young marchess watched with dismay as Goram, with Liss's assistance, dragged the half-paralyzed Arhys out of the chair to sit on the floor propped up against the side of the bed. Cattilara cooperated, though, plopping down in his vacated spot and laying her hands out on the wooden arms. Goram hastened to produce makeshift ties from Illvin's stock of belts and sashes.

  "Use the cloths," Arhys advised anxiously. "So they will not cut into her skin."

  Ista glanced at the scabs circling her own wrists like bracelets.

  "Tie my ankles, too," Cattilara insisted. "Tighter."

  Goram was overcautious, under the march's worried eye, but Liss finally achieved knots that Cattilara approved. The ties seemed more bundles than bindings by the time Liss finished.

  Ista moved her stool over to face Cattilara, very conscious of Arhys's strong, limp body laid out by her skirts. "Go ahead, then, Lady Cattilara. Release the demon, let it up."

  Cattilara's eyes closed. Ista half closed hers, trying to see those inner boundaries with her inner eye. It was not so much a case of letting, it seemed, as driving. "Come out, you," Cattilara muttered, sounding like a boy poking a badger out of its hole with a stick. "Up!"

  A surge of invisible violet light—Ista summoned all her sensitivity. On the surface, Cattilara's expression changed, the stiff anxiety giving way, briefly, to a languid smile; her tongue ran over her lips, lasciviously. She grimaced, as if stretching the muscles of her face in unaccustomed directions. The violet tinge flowed throughout her body, to the fingertips. Her breath drew in.

  Her eyes snapped open, widening in terror at the sight of Ista. "Spare us, Shining One!" she shrieked. Everyone in the room flinched at the sharp cry.

  She began to rock and yank at her bindings. "Let us up, untie us! We command you! Let us go, let us go!"

  She stopped, and hung panting, then a sly look flashed in her face. She sank back, closed her eyes, opened them again, returning to that stiff, blinking anxiety. "As you see, it's useless. The stupid thing won't come out, even for me. Let me up."

  The violet tint, Ista noted, still filled Cattilara's body from edge to edge. She waved back Liss, who had started forward with a disappointed look on her face. "No, the creature lies. It's still right there."

  "Oh." Liss returned to the wall.

  Cattilara's face changed again, dissolving into rage. "Let us go! You blockheads, you have no idea what you have brought down on Porifors!" She bucked and jerked with terrifying strength, rocking the chair. "Flee, flee! We must flee! All flee! Go while you can. She is coming. She is coming. Let us go, let us go—" Cattilara's voice rose and broke in a wordless scream. The chair began to topple: Goram caught it and held it as it thumped and scraped.

  The frenzied struggles did not diminish, though Cattilara grew scarlet with the effort, and her breath pumped in frightening rasps. Was the demon desperate enough to seek its escape through Cattilara's death, if it could arrange it? Yes, Ista decided. She could well picture it breaking its mount's neck by running madly against a wall, or flinging her headfirst over a balcony. Threatening pain to Cattilara's body was obviously useless, even if Arhys would . . . well, he'd have no choice but to sit still for it. But it was clearly a futile tactic.

  "Very well." Ista sighed. "Come back up, Lady Cattilara."

  The violet tide seemed to slosh back and forth within the confines of Cattilara's spasming body. The tint receded, but then flooded back. Cattilara unable to regain control? Ista hadn't expected this. Oh, no. And I promised her I would hold it. . .

  "Stay," said Ista. "I was sent by the god to cut this knot. Release Arhys, and I will release you." Would it believe her? More important, would the threat jolt Catti into ascendancy again?

  The demon-Catti froze in its fight, staring through wide eyes. The soul-stuff in the conduit gushed back toward Illvin. Abruptly, the horrified expression drained from Arhys's face, to be replaced with—nothing at all. A slack, pale stillness. He toppled over on his side like a rag doll falling. Like a corpse collapsing. Porifors's brilliant champion turned to a carcass, a mass of dubious meat it would take two men to drag away.

  But his spirit was not uprooted in the white fire Ista had seen in the dying before. His ghost merely drifted apart, shifting from the locus of his body but scarcely otherwise changed. A shock of horror raced through Ista. Five gods. He is sundered already. His god cannot reach him. What have I done?

  "Mmmmmm PUT HIM BACK!" Cattilara raged up to full control of her body like an unleashed mastiff taking down a bull by its nose. The violet light snapped closed into a tight, defensive ball, the channels reappeared, the fire flowed again. Arhys's breath drew in with a jerk; he blinked and opened his jaw to stretch his face, and pushed himself back into a sitting position, looking half stunned.

  Ista sat shaken. The ploy had worked on Cattilara as her impulse had guessed, but had revealed . . . something she scarcely understood. No more ploys. I have not the stomach for them.

  Cattilara hung wheezing in her bindings, staring malignantly at Ista. "You. You horrid old bitch. You tricked me."

  "I tricked the demon, too. Are you sorry?" She signed to Goram and Liss, and they began cautiously unwinding the marchess's restraints.

  Illvin, who had been peeking worriedly over the side of his bed at his brother, leaned back again and stared in disquiet at Ista. "How are you doing this, lady? Are you perchance a sorceress, too? Are we to trade one demon enemy for a stronger one?"

  "No," said Ista. "My unwelcome gifts stem from another source. Ask Catti's ... pet. It knows." Better than I do, I suspect. If possession of or by a demon made one a sorcerer, and the hosting of a god made one a saint, what ambiguous hybrid did one become in the hands of the demon-god?

  "God-touched, then—you claim?" he asked. Neither believing nor disbelieving yet, but watchful.

  "To my everlasting sorrow."

  "How came this about?"

  "Some suffering bastard prayed to a god too busy to attend to him, and He delegated the task to me. Or so He feigned."

  Illvin sank down in his sheets. "Oh," he said very quietly, as her meaning sank in. After a moment, he added, "I would speak more with you on this. In some, um, less busy hour."

  "I'll see what I may do."

  Arhys moved his nearly nerveless hand to caress his wife's ankle. "Catti. This can't go on."

  "But love, what shall we do?" She rocked her head to favor Ista with a heartbroken glare. "You cannot take him now. It's too soon. I will not give him up now." She rubbed at the red marks on her arms as her ties fell away.

  "He's already had more time than is given to many men," Ista chided her. "He accepted the risks of his soldier's calling long ago; when you bound yourself to him in marriage, you accepted them, too."

  But what of his sundering? Death of the body was grief enough. The slow decay of the ghosts, souls who had refused the gods, was a self-destruction. But Arhys had not chosen this exile; it had been imposed upon him. Not his soul's suicide, but its murder . . .

  Ista temporized. "But no, it need not be today, in hasty disarray. There is a little time yet. Enough to put his affairs in order while he can still command his wits, if he does not tarry, enough to write or speak his farewells. Not much more th
an that, I think." She considered Illvin's dangerously emaciated fragility. This tangle is far worse than I first guessed. And even second sight does not yet see a way out.

  Arhys shoved himself upright. "You speak sense, madam. I should call the temple's notary to me—review my will—"

  "It's not fair!" Cattilara lashed out again. "Illvin slew you, and now he'll gain all your possessions!"

  Illvin's head jerked back. "I am not destitute. I do not desire the dy Lutez properties. To avoid that taint, I would gladly give up any expectations. Will them to my niece, or to the Temple—or to her, even." A twist of his lips indicated his brother's wife. He hesitated. "Except for Porifors."

  Arhys smiled, staring down at his boots. "Good boy. We do not yield Porifors. Hold to that, and you shall serve me still, even when my grave has swallowed all vows."

  Cattilara burst into tears.

  Ista levered her exhausted body upright from her stool. She felt as though she had been beaten with sticks. "Lord Illvin, your brother must borrow of you for a little longer. Are you ready?"

  "Eh," he grunted, without enthusiasm. "Do what you must." He glanced up at her and added with suppressed urgency, "You will come again, yes?"

  "Yes." She moved her hand, released her ligature.

  Illvin sank back. Arhys rolled to his feet, a picture of strength again. "Ah!"

  He enfolded the weeping Cattilara in his arms and led her out, murmuring comforting endearments.

  Yes, Ista thought bitterly. You caught her—I'll bet you didn't even try to dodge—you deal with her . . . And he would, she felt sure. What less would one expect from a man with soap in his saddlebags . . . ? Her temples were throbbing.

  "Liss, I'm going to go lie down now. I have a headache."

  "Oh." Liss came promptly to her side, offering her arm in support. As a lady-in-waiting she had her limits, but Ista had to allow, she was one of the best courtiers she'd ever encountered. "Would you like me to bathe your forehead in lavender water? I saw a lady do that, once."

  "Thank you. That would be lovely."

  She glanced back at Lord Illvin, lying silently, emptied of life and wit again. "Take care of him, Goram."

  He bobbed a bow, gave her a look of inarticulate frustration, and abruptly dropped to his knees and kissed the hem of her skirt. "Bles't One," he mumbled. "Free him. Free us all."

  Ista swallowed aggravation, produced an unfelt smile for him, extracted her skirt from his grip, and let Liss usher her out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A PALL WAS CAST OVER PORIFORS THAT EVENING. THE CASTLE'S master and mistress withdrew into private conclave, and all the planned entertainments were abruptly canceled. Ista could only be relieved to be left in her chambers. Toward sunset, Liss reported, a few of Arhys's key officers were called to him, and exited much later looking very grim. Ista hoped the march had mustered the wit to leave the original story of Umerue's death intact and devise some other tale to cover his impending—or was that retroactive?—lethal illness. But given that the truth implicated the marchess for the Jokonan princess's murder, Ista couldn't picture Cattilara rushing to, nor Arhys permitting, public confession.

  Ista's dreams were untroubled that night by gods or visions, although made unpleasant enough by murky, erratic nightmares involving either disastrous travel on broken-down or dying horses, or confused wandering through crumbling, architecturally bizarre castles for the repair of which she was somehow responsible. She woke poorly rested, and waited impatiently for noon.

  She sent Liss to help Goram and warn him of her visit, then watched for the meal tray to be brought up. It was handed in at Lord Illvin's door by the maid; shortly afterward Liss emerged and strolled across the gallery to Ista's chambers.

  "Goram will signal by opening the door when he's ready," Liss reported. She was subdued, still unsettled by yesterday's evil wonders and increasingly worried for Foix, for all that Ista had assured her that he must be in the hands of the archdivine of Maradi by now. Liss had been more consoled by Ista's pointing out that Lady Cattilara had hosted a more powerful demon than Foix's for over two months without visible deterioration. Ista only wished her own heart could share in the reassurance she ladled out.

  At last the carved door on the gallery opposite swung open, and Liss escorted Ista across.

  Illvin was sitting up in bed, dressed in tunic and trousers, hair brushed back and tied at his nape.

  "Royina," he said, and bowed his head. He looked both wary and shocked. Goram or Liss or both had presumably finally informed him of Ista's rank and identity, in the little time since he had returned to consciousness. "I'm sorry. I swear I prayed for help, not for you!"

  His speech was slurred again. Ista was reminded that while she'd had a day to digest the developments, Illvin had only been granted an hour. She sighed, went to his bedside, and stole the white fire from the lower half of his body to reinforce the upper. He blinked and gulped.

  "It's not that—I didn't mean to insult ..." His words trailed off in embarrassed confusion, not slurred now, just mumbled. He attempted to shift his legs, failed, and eyed them with misgiving.

  "I suspect," she said, "that royina is not the capacity in which I was called here. The gods do not measure rank as we do. A royina and a chambermaid likely look much the same, from their perspective."

  "You must admit, though, chambermaids are more numerous."

  She smiled bleakly. "I seem to have a calling. It is not by my choice. The gods appear attracted to me. Like flies to blood."

  He waved one weakened hand in protest at this metaphor. "I confess, I have never thought of the gods as flies."

  "Neither have I, really." She remembered staring into those dark infinities. "But dwelling on their real nature hurts my . . . reason, I suppose. Saps my nerve."

  "Perhaps the gods know what they are about. How did you know what I dreamed? I saw you three times, when I waked in my dreaming. Twice, you shone with an uncanny light."

  "I dreamed those dreams, too."

  "Even the third one?"

  "Yes." No dream, that, but she was abashed by that rash kiss. Though after Cattilara's performance, it had seemed such a small self-indulgence . . .

  He cleared his throat. "My apologies, Royina."

  "What for?"

  "Ah . . ." He glanced at her lips, and away. "Nothing."

  She tried not to think about the taste of his reviving mouth. Goram dragged the somewhat battered chair to Illvin's bedside for her, and put out the stool at the bed's foot for Liss, before retreating to stand at a hunched sort of attention by the far wall. Ista and Illvin were left staring at one another in equal, she was sure, bafflement.

  "Supposing," he began again, "that you are not here by chance, but by the prayers of, well"—he cleared his throat in embarrassment— "someone—it must be to solve this tangle. Yes?"

  "Say rather, uncover it. Its solution eludes me."

  "I thought you had agency over Catti's demon. Will you not banish it?"

  "I don't know how," she admitted uneasily. "The Bastard has given me my second sight—given me back, I should say, my second sight, for this is not the first time the gods have troubled me. But the god gave me no instructions, unless they are contained in another man I saw in my dreams." And vice versa. Upon consideration ... was dy Cabon's appearance, on the heels of the Bastard's mysterious second kiss, some sort of intimation of just that? "The god sent me a spiritual conductor, Learned dy Cabon, and I dearly desire his counsel in this before I proceed. He has studied something, I believe, about how demons are properly dispatched back to their Master. I'm certain he is meant to be here.

  But I have lost him on the road, and I fear for his safety." She hesitated. "I'm not in haste in this matter. I see no merit in releasing Arhys from his body only to doom him to the damnation of a lost ghost."

  He grew still. "A ghost? Are you sure?"

  "I saw it, when the spell was interrupted here yesterday. Nothing . .. happened, and it should have. There is a w
hite roaring, when the doors of a soul are opened by death to the gods; it is a huge event. Damnation is but a silence, a slow freezing." She rubbed her tired eyes. "And more—even if I knew how he might find his way to his god, I am by no means sure that Arhys can convince his wife to release him. Yet if he does not persuade her, who else could? Not me, I fear. And even if she would let him go ... the demon she has contracted seems skilled and powerful. If she no longer is sustained by the overmastering will to keep Arhys seeming-alive, if she collapses into grief—she will be very vulnerable to it."

  He vented a "Hm" of deepening doubt.

  "Has she much strength of character, in your observation?"

  He frowned. "I would not have said so, before this. Lovely girl, adores Arhys, but I'd swear that if she held up a lighted candle beside one pretty ear, I could blow it out through the other. Arhys doesn't seem to mind." He smiled wryly. "Although if such beauty had worshipped me so ardently, my opinion of her wits might well have risen higher upon the swelling of my head, or whatever, too. Yet—she resisted the cloud of Umerue's sorcery, and I ... did not."

  "I suspect Umerue underestimated her. And that's another thing," said Ista. "How could a princess of Jokona, a devout Quadrene, come by a demon in the first place? And keep it concealed, or otherwise evade accusation? They burn sorcerers there, though how the Quadrene divines keep the demon from jumping to another through the flames, I don't know. They must do something to tie it to its mount before dispatching them both."

  "Yes, they do. It involves much ceremony and prayer. An ugly business; worse, it doesn't always work." He hesitated. "Catti said the sorceress was sent."

  "By whom? The prince her brother? Assuming she had been dumped back into his household by her last late husband's heirs."

  "I believe she was, yes. But . . . it's hard to picture Sordso the Sot dabbling in demons for the sake of Jokona."

  "Sordso the Sot? Is that what the men of Caribastos call the young prince?"

  "That's what everybody calls him, on both sides of the border. He chose to spend the hiatus between his father's death and the end of his mother's regency not in studying statecraft or warfare, but in wine parties and versifying. He's actually quite a pretty poet, in a self-consciously melancholy sort of vein, judging by the samples I've heard. We all hoped he would pursue the calling, which looked to be more rewarding for him than a prince's trade." He grinned briefly. "My lord dy Caribastos would be glad to give him a pension and a palace, and take the burdens of government off his narrow shoulders."