The Complete Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “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 assured 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, overwarm 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.”

  “After walking that mile, riding a few more is nothing,” she assured him. “I feared the god had abandoned me, but it seems He’d only hid Himself within.” And left me to carry Him. It was one of the Bastard’s little jokes, she decided, that He had appeared to her before then as such an enormous man. Had He known? Even she, who had now met three face-to-face, could not guess the limits of the gods’ foreknowledge.

  “All dark, you were,” Foix said. “Makes sense. The Jokonan sorcerers would hardly have towed you into Joen’s presence looking like some holy fire ship. They weren’t that stupid. But when you lit up…” He fell silent. Foix was not, Ista thought, an inarticulate man; but she began to see why Lord dy Cazaril said only poetry could come to grips with the gods. Foix finally managed, “I have never seen anything like it. I’m glad that I did. But if I never see anything like it again, that will be all right.”

  “I could not see it,” said Illvin, in a tone of deep regret. “But I could see when things begin to happen, well enough.”

  “I am glad you were there,” said Ista.

  “I did little enough,” he sighed.

  “You bore witness. That means the world to me. And there was that kiss. It did not seem such a small thing.”

  He blushed. “My apologies, Royina. I was distraught. I thought to draw you back from death, as you once seemed to do for me.”

  “Illvin?”

  “Yes, Royina?”

  “You did draw me back.”

  “Oh.” He rode along very quietly for a time. But a strange smile crept across his face, and would not go away again.

  At length he looked up and rose in his stirrups, summoning some unimaginable reserve of energy. “Hah,” he whispered. Ista followed his glance. It took her a moment to discern the faint clear smokes of careful fires, marking a camp concealed in the watercourse that opened below them. The fires were not few. They followed the ridge around a slight bend, and yet more of the camp came into view. Hundreds of men and horses, more than hundreds—she could not count their numbers, half-hidden as they were.

  “Oby,” said Illvin in satisfaction. “He made excellent time. Though I thank the gods he was no faster.”

  “Good,” breathed Ista in relief. “I’m done.”

  “Indeed, and we do thank you for your work, without which we would all be dead in some hideous and uncanny fashion by now. I, on the other hand, still have fifteen hundred ordinary Jokonans to remove from around Porifors. I don’t know if Oby meant to wait for dawn, but if we struck more quickly…” His eyes glazed over in a familiar fashion, alternating shrewd glances summing the men below with staring off at nothing; Ista forbore to interrupt.

  A patrol galloped up to them. “Ser dy Arbanos!” cried its astonished officer, waving wildly at Illvin. “Five gods, you’re alive!” The riders formed around them in excited escort and swept them into the part of the camp, marked by tents in the shade, where their commanders had no doubt set up their headquarters.

  A voice rang from the trees, and a familiar form shot from the green shadows. “Foix! Foix! The Daughter be thanked!” Ferda ran toward them; Foix swung from his saddle to embrace his eager brother.

  “What are these men?” Illvin inquired of dy Oby’s officer, nodding toward an unfamiliar company of horsemen in black and green. The riders opened out to reveal a crowd of people approaching on foot, some running, some lumbering, some proceeding more slowly and decorously, all calling out to Ista.

  Ista stared, torn between joy and dismay. “Bastard spare me, it is my brother dy Baocia,” she said in a stunned voice. “And dy Ferrej, and Lady dy Hueltar, and Divine Tovia, and all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  LORD DY BAOCIA AND SER DY FERREJ LED THE RUSH TO ISTA’S side. The red stallion laid his ears back, squealed, and snapped his teeth, and both men recoiled several feet.

  “Five gods, Ista,” dy Baocia cried, temporarily diverted, “that horse! Who was mad enough to put you up on such a beast?”

  Ista patted Demon’s neck. “He suits me very well. He belongs to Lord Illvin, in part, but I suspect he may become a permanent loan.”

  “From both his masters, it seems,” murmured Illvin. He glanced across the camp. “Royina—Ista—love, I must report first to March dy Oby.” His expression grew grim. “His daughter is still trapped in Castle Porifors, if the walls hold as I pray.”

  Along with Liss and dy Cabon,
Ista reflected, and added her silent prayers to his. She felt the walls yet held, but in truth her only certainty was that Goram still lived; and she’d been mistaken before.

  “With the news we bring,” Illvin continued, “I expect his troop will ride within the hour. I cringe to think what rumors have come to him by now of my brother’s fate. There is much to do.”

  “Five gods speed you. Of your many burdens, I am one the less now. These people here will cosset me to distraction, if I know them.” She added sternly, “You spare some care for yourself, too. Don’t make me come after you again.”

  A grin ghosted across his mouth. “Would you follow me to the Bastard’s hell, dear sorceress?”

  “Without hesitation, now that I know the road.”

  He leaned across his saddlebow and caught her hand, and raised it to his lips. She gripped his hand in turn and bore it to her own lips, and nipped his knuckle secretly, which made his eyes glint. With reluctance, they released each other.

  “Foix,” Illvin called, “attend upon me. Your testimony is urgently required.”

  Dy Baocia turned eagerly to Foix. “Do I have you to thank, young man, for the rescue of my sister?”

  “No, Provincar,” said Foix, giving him a polite salute. “She rescued me.”

  Dy Baocia and dy Ferrej stared at him rather blankly. Ista became conscious of the bizarre picture they must present: Foix, gray with exhaustion, wearing Jokonan gear; Illvin a hollow-eyed, reeking scarecrow in the most elegant of court mourning; herself in rumpled white festival dress splashed with brown blood, barefoot, bruised, and scratched, her escaping hair completing the impression of general dementia.

  “Look after the royina,” Foix said to Ferda, “then come to Oby’s tent. We have strange and great tales to tell.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder and turned to follow Illvin.

  Temporarily unmenaced by Ista’s erratic steed, Ferda came to Demon’s shoulder to help her down. Ista was dizzy with fatigue, but she stayed determinedly upright.