Paladin of Souls

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  He shrugged. "Once you return to the realm of matter, the protection I can offer you is limited, and its bounds, alas, do not exclude pain. This death is for you to choose. The next may not be."

  Her lips curved up despite themselves. "Are you saying I might find myself back at this same gate in another quarter of an hour?"

  He sighed. "I do hope not. I should have to train another porter. I quite fancied a royina for a time." The eyes glittered. "So does my great-souled Illvin. He's prayed to Me for you, after all. Consider my reputation."

  Ista considered His reputation. "It's dreadful," she observed.

  He merely grinned, that familiar, stolen, heart-stopping flash of teeth.

  "What training?" she added, feeling suddenly cantankerous. "You never explained anything."

  "Instructing you, sweet Ista, would be like teaching a falcon to walk up to its prey. It might with great effort be done, but one would end with a very footsore and cranky bird, and a tedious wait for dinner. With a wingspan like yours, it's ever so much easier just to shake you from my wrist and let you fly."

  "Plummet," Ista growled.

  "No. Not you. Granted, you tumble and complain halfway down the abyss, but eventually you do spread your wings and soar."

  "Not always." Her voice went lower. "Not the first time."

  He tilted his head in a sliver of acknowledgment. "But I was not your falconer then. We do suit, you know."

  She glanced away, and around the strange, perfect, unreal room. Antechamber, she thought, boundary between the inside and the outside. But which door was which? "My task. Is it done?"

  "Done and well-done, my, true, foster, laggard child."

  "I have come very late to everything. To forgiveness. To love. To my god. Even to my own life." But she bowed her head in relief. Done was good. It meant one could stop. "Did the Jokonans slay me, as Joen ordered?"

  "No. Not yet."

  Smiling, He stepped up to her and tilted her chin up. He lowered His mouth to hers as boldly as Illvin had, that afternoon—yesterday?—on the tower. Except that His mouth tasted not of horsemeat but of perfume, and there was no uncertainty in His eyes.

  His eyes, the world, her perceptions, began to flicker.

  Infinite depths became dark eyes reddened with frenzied weeping. Perfume became parched, salt flesh, then fragrance, then flesh. Sweet silence became noise and cries, and then silence, and then din again. Painless floating turned to a crushing pressure, headache, thirst, which melted in turn to bliss.

  I think He takes His foot to his cat and pushes her to decision. She had no doubt she might yet dodge around that boot in either direction. But just what direction He desired was plain. The unsettling Not yet did at least suggest He did not guide her back toward a body pierced with sword thrusts. The Bastard maneuvers me into this, blast Him. It felt very comfortable, cursing her god. He was a god she might always curse, and the more inventive the invective, the more He would grin. Well suited, indeed, to true Ista.

  The flickering slowed, stopped, on parched mouth, weight and pressure, din and pain. On dear, distraught, blinking, merely human eyes. Yes.

  And furthermore, my god cheats. He set out this bowl of cream before ever He held the door, and He knew it well. She smiled, and tried to inhale.

  Illvin pulled his frantically questing tongue from her mouth, and gasped, "She lives, oh, five gods, she breathes again!"

  The crushing pressure, Ista discovered, was Illvin's arms, wrapped around her torso. She stared up into tree branches, blue sky, and his face, bent over hers. His face was flushed with heat and furrowed with terror, and a thin spattering of blood droplets marked it in an angled track from side to side. She raised a weak hand and dabbed at the red beads, and was relieved to find they did not appear to be his.

  She whispered through dry, bruised lips. "What has happened?"

  "That is what I prayed you might tell me," said Foix's hoarse voice. She looked up to see him looming over them. He still wore his Jokonan mail and tabard, and stood in a convincingly menacing guard stance above his apparent prisoners. She and Illvin were seated on the ground not far from the green command tents. Foix's eyes were white-rimmed, but it seemed not to be the surrounding Jokonans that disquieted him.

  "You were marched into the tent," Foix continued in a lower tone. "You looked . . . ordinary. Helpless. Then suddenly the god light blazed from you, so brightly I was blinded for a breath. I heard Joen cry for your death."

  Upon her arm, Illvin's tight clutch tightened further.

  "When I could see again," continued Foix, gazing away in guard-pretense, "all the demons in the tent seemed to be rushing into you, like hot metal being drawn through a form. I saw you swallow them all down, Joen's soul as well. It was all over in an instant."

  "Save one," murmured Ista.

  "Eh. Ur. Yes, there was that. I felt when you freed me from Joen's geas. I almost bolted from the tent then, but I got my wits back just in time. Prince Sordso and some other officers were drawing their swords—five gods, but the scraping seemed to go on forever. Sordso's knuckles were white."

  "I tried to get between them and you," Illvin said huskily to Ista. He rubbed at his nose and blinked.

  "Yes," said Foix. "Bare-handed. I saw you lunge—a lot of good that was going to do. But instead Sordso whirled around and hacked at Joen."

  "She was already dead by then," murmured Ista.

  "I saw. She was starting to topple, but his edge caught her just in ... time. Or something. He struck so hard, he spun around and fell backward off the dais. Half the freed sorcerers were running away, but I swear half the rest had the same idea Sordso did. There was one of Joen's women had a dagger out, and was going at the body even as it fell. I'm not sure she knew or cared that it was dead—she just wanted to get in her stroke. Everyone was jostling and yelling and starting in every direction. So I jumped in front of Illvin and you and shouted, 'Back, prisoners!' and brandished my sword."

  "Cursed convincingly," muttered Illvin. "I just about tried to leap on you. Except that I had my hands full."

  "You fell, Royina. You just . . . turned gray and stopped breathing and crumpled up. I thought you had died, for your soul was gone from my sight, like a lantern blown out. Illvin tried to lift you up, fell down, then scrambled up again—I dared not help—I let him drag you out, pretending to stand guard over him. Most of the Jokonans thought you were dead, too, I think. Slain in your sorcery, some kind of death magic like Fonsa and the Golden General all over again. So, um ... lie still for a minute, there, till we think what to do next."

  It was not a difficult suggestion to follow. Following any other instruction, now that would have been hard. Illvin was staring down into her face, looking like a man whose kisses had just brought his beloved back from the dead and was now too terrified to move least he shed unexpected miracles in all directions. Ista smiled up muzzily at his delicious confusion.

  "The demons are all gone," she reported in a vague, dreamy voice, in case they still harbored doubts. "It was what I was sent to do, and I did it. But the Bastard let me come back." To where she was now, it occurred to her—sitting on the hard ground in the midst of an enemy camp surrounded by several hundred very live and agitated Jokonans. Vile sense of humor. Hers had been a timeless interlude, but for everyone else, she realized, bare minutes had passed since Joen's sanguinary end. But however dismasted their high command, not all of the enemy officers were going to stay confused for long. It was hard to summon fear of anything, in her lingering bliss, but she managed a flash of mild prudence. "I think we should leave now. Right now."

  "Can you walk?" asked Illvin uncertainly.

  "Can you?" she asked, curious. Crawling, now, she would believe crawling of him, in his present interestingly debilitated state. He should be in bed, she decided. Hers, by preference.

  "No," muttered Foix. "Got to drag her again. Or carry her. Can you go on pretending to be a corpse for a little longer, Royina?"

  "Oh, yes," she as
sured him, and sank back gratefully into Illvin's grip.

  Illvin flatly refused to drag her, on the grounds that it would scrape her already-bleeding legs and feet further, but carrying her in his arms proved still beyond his strength. A short argument, in which Ista, as a corpse, declined to participate, resulted in Foix helping Illvin rise to his shaking legs with her butt-upward over his shoulder, her arms and legs dangling down in an appropriately lifeless manner. It reminded her of the ride on Feather. She tried not to smile in memory, on the grounds that it would be out of character for her part. Her white gown was even splashed with blood, a continuation, she suspected, of the same spray that had crossed Illvin's face. She could guess its source, and shuddered.

  They staggered away. "Turn left," Foix directed. "Keep walking." More Jokonan soldiers ran up to them; Foix pointed backward with his sword toward the command tents and cried, "Hurry! You are needed!" The soldiers sped away as their apparent-officer directed.

  Illvin muttered through his teeth, "Foix, you may speak a glib camp Roknari, but I beg you will leave sentences of more than one syllable to me. That tabard can't cover everything."

  "Gladly," Foix returned under his breath. "Go right here. We're almost to the horse lines."

  "Do you think they're just going to let us walk up and steal horses?" asked Illvin. His wheeze sounded more curious than objecting. Ista peered upside down through slitted eyes to take in the guards loitering in the shade. Some of the men were standing and staring toward the uproar around the green tents.

  "Yes." Foix tapped his green tabard. "I'm a Jokonan officer."

  "You're relying on more than that," observed Ista, her tone almost as detached as Illvin's.

  "Yes, why are you so certain they will not stop and question us?" asked Illvin, a hint of nervousness entering his voice as a few heads turned to follow their progress.

  "Did you stop and question Princess Umerue?"

  "No, not at first. What has that to do with anything?"

  Ista mumbled from Illvin's hip, "I spoke imprecisely, before. There is one sorcerer left in this camp. He's on our side, however. Seemed a good idea. The god did not object."

  Illvin tensed, turning to stare, presumably, at Foix.

  "Two left," said Foix. "Or a sorcerer and a sorceress. If that is your proper classification, Royina. I am not sure."

  "Neither am I. We'll have to ask dy Cabon," she returned agreeably.

  "Right," said Foix. "Don't do anything that looks too exciting, though. I'd rather not attempt anything gaudier, and there are limits to mild misdirection."

  "Indeed," murmured Illvin.

  They trod on for a few more steps.

  "Well," said Foix, stopping before the lines, "have you a preference, horse-master?"

  "Anything already saddled and bridled."

  One choice was made for them. At the end of the line, a tall, ugly chestnut stallion suddenly lifted its head and nickered in excitement. It began shifting its haunches from side to side, disturbing the horses tied not-too-closely to it. Ears pricked, it practically danced as they neared, and raised and lowered its head, snorting.

  "Bastard's eyes, Royina, can you shut that stupid monster up?" Foix muttered. "Men are starting to stare."

  "Me?"

  "It's you it wants."

  "Set me down, then."

  Illvin did so, letting her slide through his arms to her feet, gazing into her face with a searching look that was, for an instant, as good as a kiss, and holding her upright on his arm. She was very glad for the arm.

  She approached the possessed animal, who lowered its head again and laid its face flat to her bloody bodice in what might be submission, love, or dementia. She looked it over in fascination. It still wore the bridle with the deep curb bit. A dozen cuts scored its body, but they were already starting to heal with unnatural speed. "Yes, yes," she murmured soothingly. "It's all right. Where he went, you could not follow. You did what you could. It's all right now." She tried to shake off her dreamy lassitude, saying to Illvin, "I believe I had better ride this one. If you don't want it following after us whinnying its heart out." She stood on tiptoe and glanced along the serrated ridge of its backbone. "Find a saddle, though," she added.

  Foix filched a saddle from a pile farther down the line, and Illvin tightened the girths while Foix picked out two more horses.

  "What is he called?" she asked Illvin as he cupped his hands to give her a leg up. It seemed a very long way to the ground, typical of his mounts. She disposed her skirts awkwardly in the military saddle, and let Illvin's warm hands guide her ankles to the stirrups. His fingers lingered unhappily over the bruises and cuts on her feet.

  Illvin cleared his throat. "I'd really rather not say. It's, um . . . crude. He was never a lady's mount. Actually, he was never any sane person's mount."

  "Oh? You rode him." She patted the snaky neck; the horse turned its head around and nuzzled her bare foot. "Well, if he is to be a lady's mount from now on, he'd probably better have another name, then. Demon will do."

  Illvin cocked his brows up at her, and a little grin flashed across his tense mouth. "Nicely."

  He turned to take his own horse in hand, hesitating briefly in order to gather his strength before swinging himself up into the saddle. He settled himself with a betraying grunt of exhaustion. By mutual, unspoken assent, they started off across the bordering field together at a staid walk. Somewhere back in the grove, something had caught fire; Ista could hear the muted roar of flames and men's cries for water. How much pent-up chaos, both natural and unnatural, had been released upon the Jokonans by Joen's death? She did not look back.

  "Turn left," Illvin told Foix.

  "Don't we want to circle out of sight over that rise to the north?"

  "Eventually. There's a gully along here that will hide us sooner. Go slowly, though, it's likely to be patrolled. That's where I'd put men, anyway."

  The counterfeit calm held. The sharpening noise of the camp fell behind them, and the empty countryside began to feign the air of some other quiet, drowsy, over warm afternoon, one not given over to war, sorcery, gods, and madness.

  "At the earliest chance," Ista told Illvin, "you must bring Goram to me."

  "Whatever you desire, Royina." Illvin looked over the ground they traversed, turning in his saddle.

  "Shall we attempt to circle back to Porifors?" asked Foix, following his gaze back over the treetops to the distant stone pile. A curl of dirty smoke still rose from somewhere in it. "I think I might be able to get us in, under cover of darkness."

  "No. If we clear the gully, I am going to try to win through to the march of Oby."

  "I do not know if the royina can ride that far," said Foix, clearly picturing not just Ista but the pair of them falling from their saddles at any moment. "Or do you think to meet him on the road?"

  "He won't be on the road. If he's where I suspect, we've less than ten miles to cover. And if he's not there yet, his scouts will be along soon."

  They dropped into the gully, where they found Illvin's predicted Jokonan patrol almost immediately. Between the unexpected direction of their passage, Foix's officer's garb and wit-fogging sorcery, their horses' Jokonan gear, and Illvin's crisp, arrogant court Roknari, they soon left the pickets bowing and scraping in their wake. Illvin returned the hapless soldiers the fourfold Quadrene sign, touching his thumb to his tongue in secret apology to the fifth god as soon as they turned again out of sight. They pressed their horses to a faster pace.

  Illvin led them onward, finding what cover the country afforded in low places, little watercourses, spinneys, and groves, angling ever north and east. They had gone some four or five miles before they even stopped to water themselves and the horses. Though multiple columns of smoke still smudged the clear blue air behind them, Porifors had disappeared from sight beyond some low, rolling ridges.

  "Can you still feel your bear?" Ista asked Foix, when he'd finished dipping his head in the stream.

  He sat back on his
haunches and frowned. "Not quite as I did before. Joen did something to us. I hope it was not vile."

  "It is my impression," said Ista carefully, "that you two have been pressed together by all these events more quickly than you would have grown on your own. Without either of you becoming ascendant or enslaved, you have merged. Because, I think, your demon did not steal your soul, nor did you plunder its power. You both shared freely."

  Foix looked embarrassed. "Always did enjoy feeding the animals ..."

  "Drawing you apart is beyond my present skills—or your present need. You have achieved a curious theological state, but not, I suspect, a unique one. I have occasionally wondered where Temple sorcerers came from. Now I know. I expect it was one of the saint of Rauma's tasks to judge who might carry this power without succumbing to it. You will need to take training from the Bastard's Order, probably. I am sure your own order will spare you, if I request it."

  Foix's face screwed up. "Me, a Bastard's acolyte? Don't think my father will be best pleased. Or my mother. I can just see her, explaining it to her lady friends. Ouch." He grinned despite himself. "Can't wait to see the look on Ferda's face, though ..." He glanced shrewdly at her. "And will you take training, too, Royina?"

  She smiled. "Tutors, Foix. A woman of my rank can demand tutors, to wait on me at my convenience. I think my convenience will be very soon, and possibly not too convenient to them."

  The reminder of Ferda and the hope of finding news of his brother overcame Foix's initial urge to coddle Ista, and it was he who marshaled the horses and boosted his companions back aboard.

  "Roll up that tabard and stuff it in a saddlebag," Illvin advised, settling into his saddle. "Bastard willing, the next scouts we encounter may well be dy Oby's. Baby Temple sorcerer or no, a mistaken crossbow bolt would not be good for your health."

  "Ah. Yes," said Foix, and hastened to do so.

  Illvin eyed his red stallion, carrying Ista with such exquisite care that she might hold a cup of water without spilling it, and shook his head in wonder, as if of all the marvels he had lately witnessed this was the most inexplicable. "Can you endure?" he asked her. "It's not much farther now."