“But—you’d have to die.”
“That’s the way it works, aye. There’s more than one reason the Quadrenes call us Temple sorcerers necromancers. I wouldn’t volunteer to leave early, mind you.”
“You and I”—Pen nodded to Dubro—“both acquired our demons by accident, if not necessarily by mistake. Receiving one in a planned fashion doubtless feels a much stranger event when the donor-sorcerer isn’t a stranger.” Pen turned to Rede. “Because it wouldn’t just be Maska you’d be receiving. In effect, if the transfer was successful, your head would be haunted for the rest of your life by an image indistinguishable from Dubro’s ghost. And human images talk to you.”
“Maska communicates,” Dubro objected. “In his own fashion.”
Pen waved allowance.
“It wouldn’t be his sundered soul?” asked Rede uneasily. “Cut off from his god?”
“No, not normally. Although in certain botched transfers—well, that goes into technicalities that need not delay us here. Plenty of time to learn about it all later. I’ve never liked the term image for the shape a demon takes from its rider’s life, because that would seem to imply something static. Within you, the demon still lives and grows and learns and changes, and will bear all those memories to its next rider. After a few transfers, a demon becomes something of a layer cake. Underneath the ten women who make up Des, that first wild mare and the lioness that killed her still linger. They send me odd dreams now and then.”
Dubro nodded. “I get little fragments from the weasel and the quail, sometimes, though Maska looms larger. Dog dreams aren’t very colorful, but they smell amazing.” Dubro’s lips twisted. “I’ve no idea what Dubro-dreams would be like, though I wouldn’t wish some of mine on anyone else. I suppose you’d end up knowing more about me than my wife or mother ever did. But so would whoever inherited my demon. Maybe once your soul is gone to your god, you don’t care about embarrassment.”
“I think, at that point, the donor-souls have a vaster and stranger world to absorb them,” Penric agreed. “The recipient does have to get over the shock of the intimacy.” Des snickered. He asked her dryly, Anything to add from your position of expertise, here?
No, carry on, she said. You’re doing fine so far. But—layer cake, really?
I could come up with less appealing metaphors, but I’m trying to sell the idea, here.
Merchant of demons? Peddling demon-flavored cakes, ah, I see.
Stop. You’ll make me laugh, and then poor Rede will be even more confused.
She settled back to watching smugly.
“You have a while to think about it,” Pen told Rede. “Maybe years.”
Dubro eyed his knobby hands, dusted with age spots. “Or maybe not, eh?”
Pen tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Today would be merely a declaration of intent, a preliminary contract.”
“Like some peculiar sort of betrothal?” said Rede, which made Dubro, lifting a cake to his lips, snort a laugh, then cough on crumbs. He restored himself with a gulp of tea.
You have no idea, thought Pen. “More a betrothal on one side, a will on the other. But chances happen. It may be that some other Temple demon becomes available first. Or that this one might be lost, Bastard forbid. Although… the white god is the god of chances, good and ill. If He approves, he has unexpected ways of helping make things occur.” Pen surreptitiously rubbed the back of his left hand. “Sometimes very subtle.” And sometimes less so.
“There would be a spate of required theological study,” Pen went on, “which I doubt intimidates you. And Temple oaths, which cap all others. Including military ones, but if you undertake to go on as an army physician, there won’t be any trouble negotiating that. You’re already adept at balancing your oath to the Mother and your oath to Orbas. You really do have a calling in Her craft.”
“This seems a very direct solution to the shortage of sorcerer-physicians that I was complaining about,” Rede said ruefully.
“The only one I know of,” said Pen. “With the white god, you learn to be careful what you pray for.”
Rede puffed a laugh. “So it seems.” He set down his tea, took a breath, turned to Dubro, and extended his hand. “Well, Learned Dubro. If it chances so, then, I would like to try this.”
Dubro’s seamed face curved in a smile as he gripped back. “Master Rede. White god willing, so should I.”
The memory of a moment on a spring roadside in the cantons drifted through Pen’s mind, curiously doubled. Let me serve you in your need, and, Accepted. He’d had much less notion than Rede what a wide new world he’d been getting into, back then.
You didn’t, no, Des agreed. I had much less than I thought. But One other guarded us both, I think.
And we’ve done all right so far, haven’t we, Des?
Aye.
“White god willing,” Pen prayed sincerely.
~ FIN ~
Author’s Note:
A Bujold Reading-Order Guide
The Fantasy Novels
My fantasy novels are not hard to order. Easiest of all is The Spirit Ring, which is a stand-alone, or aquel, as some wag once dubbed books that for some obscure reason failed to spawn a subsequent series. Next easiest are the four volumes of The Sharing Knife—in order, Beguilement, Legacy, Passage, and Horizon—which I broke down and actually numbered, as this was one continuous tale divided into non-wrist-breaking chunks. The novella “Knife Children” is something of a codicil-tale to the tetralogy.
What were called the Chalion books after the setting of its first two volumes, but which now that the geographic scope has widened I’m dubbing the World of the Five Gods, were written to be stand-alones as part of a larger whole, and can in theory be read in any order. Some readers think the world-building is easier to assimilate when the books are read in publication order, and the second volume certainly contains spoilers for the first (but not the third.) In any case, the publication order is:
The Curse of Chalion
Paladin of Souls
The Hallowed Hunt
In terms of internal world chronology, The Hallowed Hunt would fall first, the Penric novellas perhaps a hundred and fifty years later, and The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls would follow a century or so after that.
The internal chronology of the Penric novellas is presently
“Penric’s Demon”
“Penric and the Shaman”
“Penric’s Fox”
“Penric’s Mission”
“Mira’s Last Dance”
“The Prisoner of Limnos”
“The Orphans of Raspay”
“The Physicians of Vilnoc”
Other Original E-books
The short story collection Proto Zoa contains five very early tales—three (1980s) contemporary fantasy, two science fiction—all previously published but not in this handy format. The novelette “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” may be of interest to Vorkosigan completists, as it is the first story in which that proto-universe began, mentioning Beta Colony but before Barrayar was even thought of.
Sidelines: Talks and Essays is just what it says on the tin—a collection of three decades of my nonfiction writings, including convention speeches, essays, travelogues, introductions, and some less formal pieces. I hope it will prove an interesting companion piece to my fiction.
The Vorkosigan Stories
Many pixels have been expended debating the ‘best’ order in which to read what have come to be known as the Vorkosigan Books (or Saga), the Vorkosiverse, the Miles books, and other names. The debate mainly revolves around publication order versus internal-chronological order. I favor internal chronological, with a few adjustments.
It was always my intention to write each book as a stand-alone, so that the reader could theoretically jump in anywhere. While still somewhat true, as the series developed it acquired a number of sub-arcs, closely related tales that were richer for each other. I will list the sub-arcs, and then the books, and then the duplic
ation warnings. (My publishing history has been complex.) And then the publication order, for those who want it.
Shards of Honor and Barrayar. The first two books in the series proper, they detail the adventures of Cordelia Naismith of Beta Colony and Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar. Shards was my very first novel ever; Barrayar was actually my eighth, but continues the tale the next day after the end of Shards. For readers who want to be sure of beginning at the beginning, or who are very spoiler-sensitive, start with these two.
The Warrior’s Apprentice and The Vor Game (with, perhaps, the novella “The Mountains of Mourning” tucked in between.) The Warrior’s Apprentice introduces the character who became the series’ linchpin, Miles Vorkosigan; the first book tells how he created a space mercenary fleet by accident; the second how he fixed his mistakes from the first round. Space opera and military-esque adventure (and a number of other things one can best discover for oneself), The Warrior’s Apprentice makes another good place to jump into the series for readers who prefer a young male protagonist.
After that: Brothers in Arms should be read before Mirror Dance, and both, ideally, before Memory.
Komarr makes another alternate entry point for the series, picking up Miles’s second career at its start. It should be read before A Civil Campaign.
Borders of Infinity, a collection of three of the five currently extant novellas, makes a good Miles Vorkosigan early-adventure sampler platter, I always thought, for readers who don’t want to commit themselves to length. (But it may make more sense if read after The Warrior’s Apprentice.) Take care not to confuse the collection-as-a-whole with its title story, “The Borders of Infinity”.
Falling Free takes place 200 years earlier in the timeline and does not share settings or characters with the main body of the series. Most readers recommend picking up this story later. It should likely be read before Diplomatic Immunity, however, which revisits the “quaddies”, a bioengineered race of free-fall dwellers, in Miles’s time.
The novels in the internal-chronological list below appear in italics; the novellas (officially defined as a story between 17,500 words and 40,000 words) in quote marks.
Falling Free
Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior’s Apprentice
“The Mountains of Mourning”
“Weatherman”
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Ethan of Athos
Borders of Infinity
“Labyrinth”
“The Borders of Infinity”
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
“Winterfair Gifts”
Diplomatic Immunity
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
“The Flowers of Vashnoi”
CryoBurn
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
Caveats:
The novella “Weatherman” is an out-take from the beginning of the novel The Vor Game. If you already have The Vor Game, you likely don’t need this.
The original ‘novel’ Borders of Infinity was a fix-up collection containing the three novellas “The Mountains of Mourning”, “Labyrinth”, and “The Borders of Infinity”, together with a frame to tie the pieces together. Again, beware duplication. The frame story does not stand alone.
Publication order:
This is also the order in which the works were written, apart from a couple of the novellas, but is not identical to the internal-chronological. It goes:
Shards of Honor (June 1986)
The Warrior’s Apprentice (August 1986)
Ethan of Athos (December 1986)
Falling Free (April 1988)
Brothers in Arms (January 1989)
Borders of Infinity (October 1989)
The Vor Game (September 1990)
Barrayar (October 1991)
Mirror Dance (March 1994)
Cetaganda (January 1996)
Memory (October 1996)
Komarr (June 1998)
A Civil Campaign (September 1999).
Diplomatic Immunity (May 2002)
“Winterfair Gifts” (February 2004)
CryoBurn (November 2010)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance (November 2012)
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (February 2016)
“The Flowers of Vashnoi” (May 2018)
. . . Thirty years fitted on a page. Huh.
Happy reading!
— Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold
Photo by Carol Collins
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www.spectrumliteraryagency.com/bujold.htm
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Lois McMaster Bujold was born in 1949, the daughter of an engineering professor at Ohio State University, from whom she picked up her early interest in science fiction. She now lives in Minneapolis, and has two grown children. She began writing with the aim of professional publication in 1982. She wrote three novels in three years; in October of 1985, all three sold to Baen Books, launching her career. Bujold went on to write many other books for Baen, mostly featuring her popular character Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, his family, friends, and enemies. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Her fantasy from Eos includes the award-winning Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series.
Books by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vorkosigan Series
Falling Free
Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior’s Apprentice
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Ethan of Athos
Borders of Infinity
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
Diplomatic Immunity
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
CryoBurn
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
The Chalion Series
The Hallowed Hunt
The Curse of Chalion
Paladin of Souls
Penric & Desdemona
“Penric’s Demon”
“Penric and the Shaman”
“Penric’s Fox”
“Penric’s Mission”
“Mira’s Last Dance”
“The Prisoner of Limnos”
“The Orphans of Raspay”
“The Physicians of Vilnoc”
The Sharing Knife Tetralogy
Volume One: Beguilement
Volume Two: Legacy
Volume Three: Passage
Volume Four: Horizon
“Knife Children"
Other Fantasy
The Spirit Ring
Short Stories
Proto Zoa
Nonfiction
Sidelines: Talks and Essays
The Physicians of Vilnoc Page 14