The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Um,” managed Cazaril.

  Umegat sat back and studied him for a time. Cazaril didn’t think the Roknari was looking at his flesh. So, tell me, what’s a renegade Roknari Temple divine scholar-saint of the Bastard doing disguised as a groom in the Zangre’s menagerie? Out loud, he managed to pare this down to a plaintive, “What are you doing here?”

  Umegat shrugged. “What the god wills.” He took pity on Cazaril’s exasperated look, and added, “What He wills, it seems, is to keep Roya Orico alive.”

  Cazaril sat up, fighting the slurry that the wine seemed to be making of his brains. “Orico, sick?”

  “Yes. A state secret, mind you, although one that’s grown obvious enough to anyone with wits and eyes. Nevertheless—” Umegat laid his finger to his lips in a command of discretion.

  “Yes, but—I thought healing was the province of the Mother and the Daughter.”

  “Were the roya’s illness of natural causes, yes.”

  “Unnatural causes?” Cazaril squinted. “The dark cloak—can you see it, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Teidez has the shadow, too, and Iselle—and Royina Sara is tainted as well. What evil thing is it, that you would not let me speak of it in the street?”

  Umegat put his cup down, tugged on his bronze-gray queue, and sighed. “It all goes back to Fonsa the Fairly-Wise and the Golden General. Which is, I suppose, history and tale to you. I lived through those desperate times.” He added conversationally, “I saw the general once, you know. I was a spy in his princedom at the time. I hated everything he stood for, and yet…had he given me a word, a mere word, I think I might have crawled after him on my knees. He was more than just god-touched. He was avatar incarnate, striding toward the fulcrum of the world in the perfected instant of time. Almost. He was reaching for his moment when Fonsa and the Bastard cut him down.” Umegat’s cultured voice, lightly reminiscent, had dropped to remembered awe. He stared into the middle distance of his memory.

  His gaze jumped out of the lost past and back to Cazaril. Remembering to smile, he held out his hand, thumb up, and waggled it gently from side to side. “The Bastard, though the weakest of His family, is the god of balance. The opposition that gives the hand its clever grip. It is said that if ever one god subsumes all the others, truth will become single, and simple, and perfect, and the world will end in a burst of light. Some tidy-minded men actually find this idea attractive. Personally, I find it a horror, but then I always did have low tastes. In the meantime, the Bastard, unfixed in any season, circles to preserve us all.” Umegat’s fingers tapped one by one, Daughter-Mother-Son-Father, against the ball of his thumb.

  He went on, “The Golden General was a tidal wave of destiny, gathering to crash upon the world. Fonsa’s soul could match his soul, but could not balance his vast fate. When the death demon carried their souls from the world, that fate overflowed to settle upon Fonsa’s heirs, a miasma of ill luck and subtle bitterness. The black shadow you see is the Golden General’s unfulfilled destiny, curdling around his enemies’ lives. His death curse, if you will.”

  Cazaril wondered if this explained why all of Ias’s and Orico’s military campaigns that he’d ever been in had fared so ill. “How…how may the curse be lifted?”

  Umegat sighed. “In six years, no answer has been given me. Perhaps it will run out in the deaths of all who flowed from Fonsa’s loins.”

  But that’s…the roya, Teidez—Iselle!

  “Or perhaps,” Umegat continued, “even then, it will continue to trickle down through time like a stream of poison. It should have killed Orico years ago. Contact with the sacred creatures cleanses the roya from the corrosion of the curse, but only for a little time. The menagerie delays his destruction, but the god has never told me why.” Umegat’s voice went glum. “The gods don’t write letters of instruction, you know. Not even to their saints. I’ve suggested it, in my prayers. Sat by the hour with the ink drying on my quill, entirely at His service. And what does He send instead? An overexcited crow with a one-word vocabulary.”

  Cazaril winced in guilt, thinking of that poor crow. In truth, he felt far worse about the crow’s death than Dondo’s.

  “So that’s what I’m doing here,” said Umegat. He glanced up keenly at Cazaril. “And so. What are you doing here?”

  Cazaril spread his hands helplessly. “Umegat, I don’t know.” He added plaintively, “Can’t you tell? You said…I was lit up. Do I look like you? Or like Iselle? Or Orico, even?”

  “You look like nothing I’ve seen since I was lent the inner eye. If Iselle is a candle, you are a conflagration. You are…actually quite disturbing to contemplate.”

  “I don’t feel like a conflagration.”

  “What do you feel like?”

  “Right now? Like a pile of dung. Sick. Drunk.” He swirled the red wine in the bottom of his cup. “I have this belly cramp that comes and goes.” It was quiescent at the moment, but his stomach was still swollen. “And tired. I haven’t felt this tired since I was sick in the Mother’s house in Zagosur.”

  “I think,” Umegat spoke carefully, “that it is very, very important that you tell me the truth.”

  His lips still smiled, but his gray eyes seemed to burn. It occurred to Cazaril then that a good Temple Inquirer would likely be charming, and adept at worming confidences from people in his investigations. Smooth at getting them drunk.

  You laid down your life. It’s not fair to whine for it back now.

  “I attempted death magic upon Dondo dy Jironal last night.”

  Umegat looked neither shocked nor surprised, merely more intent. “Yes. Where?”

  “In Fonsa’s Tower. I crawled over the roof slates. I brought my own rat, but the crow…it came to me. It wasn’t afraid. I’d fed it, you see.”

  “Go on…” breathed Umegat.

  “I slew the rat, and broke the poor crow, and I prayed on my knees. And then I hurt. I wasn’t expecting that. And I couldn’t breathe. The candles went out. And I said, Thank you, because I felt…” He could not speak of what he’d felt, that strange peace, as if he’d lain down in a place of safety to rest forever. “And then I passed out. I thought I was dying.”

  “And then?”

  “Then…nothing. I woke up in the dawn fog, sick and cold and feeling an utter fool. No, wait—I’d had a nightmare about Dondo choking to death. But I knew I’d failed. So I crawled back to bed. And then dy Jironal came bursting in…”

  Umegat drummed his fingers on the table a moment, staring at him through slitted eyes. And then he stared with his eyes closed. Open again. “My lord, may I touch you?”

  “All right…” Briefly, as the Roknari bent over him, Cazaril feared some unwelcome attempt at intimacy, but Umegat’s touch was as professional as any physician’s; forehead, face, neck, spine, heart, belly…Cazaril tensed, but Umegat’s hand descended no farther. When he finished, Umegat’s face was set. The Roknari went to fetch another jug of wine from a basket by the door before returning to his chair.

  Cazaril attempted to fend the jug from his cup. “I’ve had enough. I’ll be stumbling if I take any more.”

  “My grooms can walk you back to your chambers in a little while. No?” Umegat filled his own cup instead, and sat again. He ran his finger over the tabletop in a little pattern, repeated three times—Cazaril wasn’t sure if it was a charm or just nerves—and finally said, “By the testimony of the sacred animals, no god accepted the soul of Dondo dy Jironal. Normally, that is a sign that an unquiet spirit is abroad in the world, and relatives and friends—and enemies—rush to buy rites and prayers from the Temple. Some for the sake of the dead—some for their own protection.”

  “I am sure,” said Cazaril a little bitterly, “Dondo will have all the prayers that money can buy.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Why? What…?” What do you see? What do you know?

  Umegat glanced up, and inhaled. “Dondo’s spirit was taken by the death demon, but not passed to th
e gods. This we know. It is my conjecture that the death demon could not return to its master because it was prevented from taking the second and balancing soul.”

  Cazaril licked his lips, and husked fearfully, “How, prevented?”

  “At the instant of attempting to do so, I believe the demon was captured—constrained—bound, if you will—by a second and simultaneous miracle. Judging by the distinctive colors boiling off you, it was from the holy and gracious hand of the Lady of Spring. If I am right, the acolytes of the Temple can all go back to bed, for Dondo’s spirit is not abroad. It is bound to the death demon, who is bound in turn to the locus of the second soul. Which is presently bound to its still-living body.” Umegat’s finger rose to point directly at Cazaril. “There.”

  Cazaril’s jaw fell open. He stared down at his aching, swollen belly, and back up at the fascinated…saint. Briefly, he was put in mind of Fonsa’s entranced crows. Violent denial boiled to his lips, and caught there, stopped by his inner sight of Umegat’s clear aura. “I didn’t pray to the Daughter last night!”

  “Apparently, someone did.”

  Iselle. “The royesse said she prayed. Did you see her as I saw her today—” Cazaril made inarticulate motions with his hands, not knowing what words to use to describe that roiling perturbation. “Is that what you see in me? Does Iselle see me as I do her?”

  “Did she say anything about it?” asked Umegat.

  “No. But neither did I.”

  Umegat gave him that sidewise stare again. “Did you ever see, when you were in the Archipelago, the nights when the sea was Mother-touched? The way the wake glowed green in the breaking waves of a ship’s passage?”

  “Yes…”

  “What you saw around Iselle was such a wake. The passage of the Daughter, like a lingering perfume in the air. What I see in you is not a passage but a Presence. A blessing. Far more intense. Your corona is slowly dying down—the sacred animals should be less enthralled by you in a day or two—but at the center there sits a tight blue core of sapphire, into which I cannot see. I think it is an encapsulation.” He brought his cupped hands together like a man enclosing a live lizard.

  Cazaril swallowed, and panted, “Are you saying the goddess has turned my belly into a perfect little annex of hell? One demon, one lost soul, sealed together like two snakes in a bottle?” His clawed hands went to his stomach, as if ready to rip his guts apart on the spot. “And you call it a blessing?”

  Umegat’s eyes remained serious, but his brows crimped in sympathy. “Well, what is a blessing but a curse from another point of view? If it’s any consolation to you, I imagine Dondo dy Jironal is even less happy about this development than you are.” He added after a thoughtful moment, “I can’t imagine the demon is too pleased with it, either.”

  Cazaril nearly convulsed out of his chair. “Five gods! How do I rid myself of this—this—this—horror?”

  Umegat held up a restraining hand. “I…suggest…that you not be in a great rush about that. The consequences could be tangled.”

  “How, tangled? How could anything be more tangled than this monstrosity?”

  “Well”—Umegat leaned back and tented his hands together—“the most obvious way to break the, ah, blessing, would be by your death. With your soul freed from its material locus, the demon could fly away with you both.”

  A chill stole over Cazaril, as he remembered how his belly cramp had almost betrayed him to a fall when jumping the roof gap at dawn. He took refuge from his drunken terror in a dryness to match Umegat’s. “Oh, wonderful. Have you any other cures to suggest, physician?”

  Umegat’s lips twitched, and he acknowledged the jibe with a brief wave of his fingers. “Likewise, should the miracle cease that you presently host—should the Lady’s hand lift,” Umegat mimed someone opening their hands as if to release a bird, “I think the demon would immediately attempt to complete its destiny. Not that it has a choice—the Bastard’s demons have no free will. You can’t argue with or persuade them. In fact, there’s no use talking to one at all.”

  “So you’re saying that I could die at any moment!”

  “Yes. And this is different from your life yesterday in what way?” Umegat cocked his head in dry inquiry.

  Cazaril snorted. It was cold comfort…but comfort still, in a backhanded sort of way. Umegat was a sensible saint, it seemed. Which was not what Cazaril would have expected…had he ever met a saint before? How would I know? I walked right past this one.

  Umegat’s voice took on a tinge of scholarly curiosity. “Actually, this could answer a question I’ve long had. Does the Bastard command a troop of death demons, or just one? If all death miracles in the world cease while the demon is bound in you, it would be compelling evidence for the singularity of that holy power.”

  A ghastly laugh pealed from Cazaril’s lips. “My service to Quintarian theology! Gods—Umegat—what am I to do? There has never been any of this, this god-touched madness in my family. I’m not fit for this business. I am not a saint!”

  Umegat opened his lips, but then closed them again. He finally said, “One grows more accustomed with use. The first time I hosted a miracle I wasn’t too happy either, and I’m in the trade, so to speak. My personal recommendation to you, tonight, is to get pie-eyed drunk and go to sleep.”

  “So I can wake in the morning both demon-ridden and with a hangover?” Granted, he couldn’t imagine getting to sleep under any other circumstances, apart from a blow to the head.

  “Well, it worked for me, once. The hangover is a fair trade for being so immobilized one cannot do anything stupid for a little while.” Umegat looked away for a moment. “The gods do not grant miracles for our purposes, but for theirs. If you are become their tool, it is for a greater reason, an urgent reason. But you are the tool. You are not the work. Expect to be valued accordingly.”

  While Cazaril was still trying, unsuccessfully, to unravel that, Umegat leaned forward and poured fresh wine into Cazaril’s cup. Cazaril was beyond resistance.

  It took two undergrooms, an hour or so later, to guide his slithering steps across the wet cobbles of the stable yard, past the gates, and up the stairs, where they poured his limp form into his bed. Cazaril wasn’t sure just when he parted from his beleaguered consciousness, but never had he been more glad to do so.

  14

  Cazaril had to allow Umegat’s wine this much merit—it did mean he spent the first few hours of the next morning wishing for death rather than dreading it. He knew his hangover was passing off when fear began to regain the upper hand.

  He found oddly little regret in his heart for his own lost life. He’d seen more of the world than most men ever did, and he’d had his chances, though the gods knew he’d made little enough of them. Marshaling his thoughts, as he sheltered under his covers, he realized with some wonder that his greatest dismay was for the work he’d be forced to leave undone.

  Fears he’d had no time for during the day he’d stalked Dondo now crowded into his mind. Who would guard his ladies, if he were to die now? How much time was going to be granted to him to try to find some better bastion for them? On whom could they be safely bestowed? Betriz might find protection as the wife, say, of a stout country lord like March dy Palliar. But Iselle? Her grandmother and mother were too weak and distant, Teidez too young, Orico, apparently, entirely the creature of his chancellor. There could be no security for Iselle until she was out of this cursed court altogether.

  Another cramp riveted his attention again on the lethal little hell in his belly, and he peered worriedly down under the tent of his sheet at his knotted stomach. How much was this dying going to hurt? He had not passed so much blood this morning. He blinked around his chamber in the early-afternoon light. The odd hallucinations, pale blurred blobs at the corners of his vision that he had earlier blamed on last night’s wine, were still present. Maybe they were another symptom?

  A brisk knock sounded at his chamber door. Cazaril crawled from his warm refuge and, walki
ng only a little bent over, went to unlock it. Umegat, bearing a stoppered ewer, bade him good afternoon, stepped within, and closed the door behind him. He was still faintly radiant: alas, yesterday hadn’t been a bizarre bad dream after all.

  “My word,” the groom added, staring about in astonishment. He waved his hand. “Shoo! Shoo!”

  The pale blurred blobs swirled about the chamber and fled into the walls.

  “What are those things?” Cazaril asked, easing back into his bed. “Do you see them, too?”

  “Ghosts. Here, drink this.” Umegat poured from the ewer into the glazed cup from Cazaril’s washbasin set, and handed it across. “It will settle your stomach and clear your head.”

  About to reject it with loathing, Cazaril discovered it to be not wine but some sort of cold herbed tea. He tasted it cautiously. Pleasantly bitter, its astringency made a most welcome sluicing in his sticky mouth. Umegat pulled a stool over to his bedside and settled cheerfully. Cazaril squeezed his eyes shut, and open again. “Ghosts?”

  “I’ve never seen so many of the Zangre’s ghosts collected in one place. They must be attracted to you just like the sacred animals.”

  “Can anyone else see them?”

  “Anyone with the inner eye. That’s three in Cardegoss, to my knowledge.”

  And two of them are here. “Have they been around all this time?”

  “I glimpse them now and then. They’re usually more elusive. You needn’t be afraid of them. They are powerless and cannot hurt you. Old lost souls.” In response to Cazaril’s rather stunned stare, Umegat added, “When, as happens from time to time, no god takes up a sundered soul, it is left to wander the world, slowly losing its mindfulness of itself and fading into air. New ghosts first take the form they had in life, but in their despair and loneliness they cannot maintain it.”