The Complete Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The amusement drained from Ingrey, and he came alert. His blood—that blood—seemed to spin up like a vortex. Lewko did not bear the braid of a sorcerer, he did not smell of a demon, and yet Temple sorcerers answered to him…? Threw their most complicated dilemmas in his lap?

  Lewko laid his hand across the wax seal, and his eyes closed briefly. Something flared about him. It was nothing Ingrey saw with his eyes or smelled with his nose, but it made the hair stir at the nape of his neck. He’d felt a trace of this stomach-wrenching awe once before, from a stronger source, but with inner senses at the time much weaker. At the end of his futile pilgrimage to Darthaca, in the presence of a small, stout, harried fellow, to all appearances ordinary, who sat down quietly and let a god reach through him into the world of matter.

  Lewko’s not a sorcerer. He’s a saint, or petty saint. And he knew who Ingrey was, and he had seemingly been here at the temple for years, judging by the state of his study, but Ingrey had never seen—or was that, noticed?—him before. Certainly not in the company of any of the high Temple divines who waited upon the sealmaster or the king’s court, all of whom Ingrey had dutifully memorized.

  Lewko glanced up; there was not much humor in his eyes now. “You are Sealmaster Hetwar’s man, are you not?” he inquired mildly.

  Ingrey nodded.

  “This letter has been opened.”

  “Not by me, Learned.”

  “Who, then?”

  Ingrey’s mind sped back. From Hallana to Ijada to him… Ijada? Surely not. Had it ever been out of her possession, parted from her bosom? It had rested in that inner pocket of the riding habit, which she had worn…all but at the dinner at Earl Horseriver’s. And Wencel had left the table to receive an urgent message…indeed. Easy enough for the earl to overawe and suborn that warden to rifle Ijada’s luggage, but had Wencel thought to use some shaman trick to fool a sorcerer about his prying? But Lewko is not a sorcerer, now, is he. Not exactly. Ingrey temporized: “Without proof, any guess of mine would be but slander, Learned.”

  Lewko’s look grew uncomfortably penetrating, but to Ingrey’s relief he dropped his eyes to the letter again. “Well, let us see,” he muttered, and stripped it open, scattering wax.

  He read intently for a few minutes, then shook his head and stood to lean nearer to the window. Twice, he turned the closely written paper sideways. Once, he glanced across at Ingrey and inquired rather plaintively, “Does the phrase broke his chants mean anything to you?”

  “Um, could that be, chains?” Ingrey ventured.

  Lewko brightened. “Ah! Yes, it could! That makes much more sense.” He read on. “Or perhaps it doesn’t…”

  Lewko came to the end, frowned, and started over. He waved vaguely toward a wall. “I believe there is a camp stool under that pile. Help yourself, Lord Ingrey.”

  By the time Ingrey had extracted it, snapped it open, and perched himself upon its leather seat, Lewko looked up again.

  “I pity the spy who had to decipher this,” he said, without heat.

  “Is it in code?”

  “No: Hallana’s handwriting. Written in haste, I deem. It takes practice—which I grant I have—to unravel. Well, I’ve suffered worse for less reward. Not from Hallana, she always touches the essential. One of her several uncomfortable talents. That demure smile masks a holy recklessness. And ruthlessness. The Father be thanked for Oswin’s moderating influence. Such as it is.”

  “You know her well?” Ingrey inquired. Or, why does this paragon write to you, alone of all the Temple functionaries in Easthome?

  Lewko rolled the letter and tapped it gently on the edge of the table. “I was assigned to be her mentor, many years ago, when she so unexpectedly became a sorceress.”

  Surely it took one sorcerer to teach another. Therefore and therefore… Like a stone across the water, Ingrey’s mind skipped two begged questions to arrive at a third. “How does a man become a former sorcerer? Undamaged?” It was the task of that Darthacan saint to destroy illicit sorcerers, who were reported to fight like madmen against the amputation of their powers, but Learned Lewko had surely not been such a renegade.

  “It is possible to lay down the gift.” Lewko’s mouth hovered between faint amusement and faint regret. “If one chooses to in time.”

  “Is it not a wrench?”

  “I didn’t say it was easy. In fact”—his voice softened still further—“it takes a miracle.”

  What was this man? “I have served four years here in Easthome. I’m surprised our paths have not crossed before.”

  “But they have. In a sense. I am very familiar with your case, Lord Ingrey.”

  Ingrey stiffened, especially at Lewko’s choice of words: case. “Were you the Temple sorcerer sent to Birchgrove with the inquiry to examine me?” He frowned. “My memories of that time are confused and dark, but I do not remember you.”

  “No, that was another man. My involvement at the time was less direct. The inquirer brought me a bag of ashes from the castle, to turn back into a letter of confession.”

  Ingrey’s brow wrinkled. “Isn’t that what I believe Learned Hallana would call a bit uphill for Temple magic? Chaos forced back to order?”

  “Indeed and alas, it was. It cost me a month’s work and probably a year of my calling. And all for very little, as it turned out, to my fury. What do you remember of Learned Cumril? The young Temple sorcerer whom your father suborned?”

  Ingrey stiffened still further. “From an acquaintance lasting the space of an hour’s meal and a quarter of an hour’s rite, not much. All his attention was on my father. I was an afterthought.” He added truculently, “And how do you know who suborned whom, after all?”

  “That much was clear. Less clear was how. Not for money. I think not for threats. There was a reason—Cumril imagined himself doing something good, or at least heroic, that went horribly awry.”

  “How can you guess his heart when you don’t even know what his mind was about?”

  “Oh, that part I don’t have to guess. It was in his letter. Once I’d reassembled it. A three-page screed descanting upon his woe, guilt, and remorse. And scarcely one useful fact that we didn’t already know.” Lewko grimaced.

  “If Cumril wrote the confession, who burned it?” asked Ingrey.

  “Now, that is a guess of mine.” Lewko leaned back in his chair, eyeing Ingrey shrewdly. “And yet I am surer of it than many an assertion for which I had more material proof. Do you understand the difference between a sorcerer who rides his demon, and one who is ridden?”

  “Hallana spoke of it. It seemed subtle.”

  “Not from the inside. The difference is very clear. The gulf between a man who uses a power for his purposes, and a power that uses a man for its purposes, is…sometimes less than an ant’s stride across. I know. I rode dangerously close to that line myself, once. It is my belief, after the debacle that left your father dead and you…well, as you are, Cumril was taken by his demon. Whether despair made him weak, whether he was overmatched from the first, I can’t now guess, but I believe in my heart that the writing of that confession was Cumril’s last act. And the burning of it, the demon’s first.”

  Ingrey opened his mouth, then closed it. In his mind, he had always cast Cumril in the part of betrayer; it was uncomfortable to consider that the young sorcerer, too, might have been in some strange sense betrayed.

  “So you see,” said Lewko softly, “Cumril’s fate concerns me. More, it nags me. I fear I cannot encounter you without being reminded of it.”

  “Did the Temple ever find out if he was alive or dead?”

  “No. There was a report of an illicit sorcerer in the Cantons some five years ago that might have been him, but all trace was lost thereafter.”

  Ingrey’s lips started to shape the word Who…but he changed it: “What are you?”

  Lewko’s hand opened. “Just a simple Temple overseer, now.”

  Of what? Of all the Temple sorcerers of the Weald, perhaps? Just seemed scarcely
the word for it, nor did simple. This man could be very dangerous to me, Ingrey reminded himself. He knows too much already.

  And he was about to learn more, unfortunately, for he glanced down at the paper and asked Ingrey to describe the events at Red Dike. No great surprise; Ingrey had certainly guessed those at least would be in the letter.

  Ingrey did so, honestly and completely, but in as few words as he could coherently muster. Disaster was in the details, every spare sentence skirting a morass of more questions. But his stiff little speech seemed to satisfy the divine, or at least, questions about the restraint of Ingrey’s wolf did not immediately arise.

  “Who do you think placed this murderous compulsion, this strange scarlet geas, upon you, Lord Ingrey?”

  “I very much wish to know.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.”

  “I am glad of that,” said Ingrey, and was surprised to realize it was true.

  Then Lewko asked, “What do you think of this Lady Ijada?”

  Ingrey swallowed, his mind seeming to spiral down like a bird shot out of the air. He asked me what I think about her, not what I feel about her, he reminded himself firmly. “She undoubtedly bashed Boleso’s head in. He undoubtedly deserved it.”

  A silence seemed to stretch from this succinct obituary. Did Lewko, too, understand the uses of silences? “My lord Hetwar did not desire all these posthumous scandals,” Ingrey added. “I think he has even less than your relish for complications.”

  More silence. “She sustains the leopard spirit. It is…lovely in her.” Five gods, I must say something to protect her. “I think she is more god-touched than she knows.”

  That won a response. Lewko sat up, his eyes suddenly cooler and more intent. “How do you know?”

  Ingrey’s chin rose at the hint of challenge. “The same way I know that you are, Blessed One. I feel it in my blood.”

  The jolt between them then made Ingrey certain he’d overstepped. But Lewko eased back in his chair, deliberately tenting his hands. “Truly?”

  “I am not a complete fool, Learned.”

  “I do not think you are a fool at all, Lord Ingrey.” Lewko tapped his fingers on the letter, looked away for a moment, then looked back. “Yes. I shall obey my Hallana’s marching orders and examine this young woman, I think. Where is she being held?”

  “More housed than held, so far.” Ingrey gave directions to the slim house in the merchants’ quarter.

  “When is she to be bound over to stand her indictment?”

  “I would guess not till after Boleso’s funeral, since it is so near. I’ll know more once I speak with Sealmaster Hetwar. Where I am obliged by my duty to go next,” Ingrey added by way of a broad hint. Yes—he needed to escape this room before Lewko’s questions grew even more probing. He stood up.

  “I shall try to come tomorrow,” said Lewko, yielding to this move.

  Ingrey managed a polite, “Thank you. I shall look for you then,” a bow, and his removal from the room without, he trusted, looking as though he were running like a rabbit.

  He closed the door behind himself and blew out his breath in unease. Was this Lewko potential help or potential harm? He remembered Wencel’s parting words to him: If you value your life, keep your secrets and mine. Had that been a threat, or a warning?

  He had at least managed to keep all mention of Horseriver from this first interview. There could be no hint of Wencel in the letter; his cousin had not impinged on Ingrey’s life until after Hallana had been left behind, thankfully. But what about tomorrow? What about half an hour from now, when he stood in his road dirt before Hetwar to report his journey and its incidents?

  Horseriver. Hallana. Gesca. Now Lewko. Hetwar. Ingrey was starting to lose track of what all he had not said to whom.

  He found the correct direction and began to retrace his steps back to the shortcut through the temple, keeping the cadence of his footfalls deliberate.

  It struck him only then that in delivering Hallana’s letter to Lewko, he had also, without any need for spell or geas, delivered up himself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AS INGREY MADE HIS WAY UP THE CORRIDOR TOWARD THE side entrance of the temple court, a cry of dismay echoed along the walls. His steps quickened in curiosity, then alarm, as the cry was succeeded by a scream. Frightened shouts erupted. His hand gripped the hilt of his sword as he burst into the central area, his head swiveling in search of the source of the uproar.

  A bizarre melee was pouring out of the archway to the Father’s court. Foremost was the great ice bear. Clamped in its jaws was the foot of the deceased man, an aged fellow dressed in clothes befitting a wealthy merchant, the stiff corpse bouncing along like some huge doll as the bear growled and shook its head. At the end of the silver chain hooked to the bear’s collar, the groom-acolyte swung in a wide and stumbling arc. Some of the braver or more distraught mourners pelted after, shouting advice and demands.

  His voice nearly squeaking, the panicked groom advanced on the bear, yanking the chain, then grabbing for the corpse’s arm and pulling. The bear half rose, and one heavy paw lashed out; the groom staggered back, screaming in earnest now, clutching his side from which red drops spattered.

  Ingrey drew his blade and ran forward, skidding to a stop before the maddened beast. From the corner of his eye he could see Prince Jokol, grasped in a restraining hug from behind by his companion, struggling toward him. “No, no, no!” cried the red-haired man in a voice of anguish. “Fafa only thought they were offering him a meal! Don’t, don’t hurt him!”

  By him, Ingrey realized, blinking, Jokol meant the bear…

  The bear dropped its prize and rose up. And up. And up… Ingrey’s head tilted back, his eyes widening at the snarling jaws, the massive shoulders, the huge, outspreading paws with their wicked ivory-tipped claws, looming high over his head…

  Everything around him slowed, and Ingrey’s perceptions came alight, in the black exultation of his wolf ascending, seemingly pumped from his heart up into his reeling brain. The noise in the court became a distant rumble. His sword in his hand felt weightless; the tip rose, then began to curve away in a glittering back-swing. His mind sketched the plunge of the steel, into the bear’s heart and out again before it could even begin to react, caught as it was in that other, more sluggish stream of time.

  It was then that he felt, more than saw, the faint god light sputtering from the bear like sparks off a cat petted in the winter dark. The light’s beauty confounded him, burning into his eyes. His heightened perceptions reached for it in a desperate grasping after the fading god, and suddenly, his mind was in the bear’s.

  He saw himself, foreshortened: a doubled image of leather-clad man and moving blade, and a vast, dark, dense wolf with glowing silver-tipped fur spewing light in an aureole all around him. As his heart reached after the god light, so the bear’s astounded senses reached toward him, and for an instant, a three-way circle completed itself.

  A laughing Voice murmured in his mind, but not in his ear: “I see my Brother’s pup is in better pelt, now. Good. Pray continue…” Ingrey’s mind seemed to explode with the weight and pressure of that utterance.

  For a moment, the bear’s dazed and wordless memories became his. The recent procession into the Father’s court, with the other animals all about. The distraction of the groom, the stink of his fear, but the reassurance of the familiar one, his smell and his voice, providing a link to calm in this disordered stone world. Voices droning, on and on. A dim comprehension of movement, positioning, yes, there had been food not long ago, when he did this, and let them lead him over there… And then his bear-heart swelled and burst with the overwhelming arrival of the god, followed by the happy certainty of a rocking amble toward the bier. Then confusion and pain; the small man hooked on the end of his chain was pulling back, yanking, punishing him for doing this thing, frustrating his happiness. He lunged forward in an attempt to complete his god-given task. More of these puny creatures ran about getting in his w
ay. A red rage rose in his brain like a tide, and he grabbed that cold odd-smelling lump of meat and lumbered off with it toward the laughing light Who called him, Who was, confusingly, everywhere and yet nowhere…

  The monstrous creature gave a snarl of pain and wrath, towering like a fur avalanche above Ingrey’s head.

  Ingrey seemed to reach deep into his chest, his belly, his bowels, and brought out one word: “Down!” The command flew through the air with the weight of a stone from a catapult.

  His sword tip circled once, then fell in a silver arc to the pavement before his feet. The bear’s snout tracked it, following it down, and down, until the great beast was crouched before Ingrey’s boots, pressing its jaw to the tiles, its paws drawn in close to its head, its massive haunches bunching up behind. The yellow eyes looked up at him in bear-bewilderment, and awe.

  Ingrey glowered around to find the groom-acolyte scrabbling away on hands and knees nearby, white robes bloodied, eyes now more huge on Ingrey than they’d been on the ice bear. The claws had merely grazed his ribs, else he might have been disemboweled. The bear’s rage still boiled up in Ingrey’s brain. Letting his sword fall with a clang, he advanced upon the man. He scooped him up by the front of his robes, jamming him against the plinth of the holy fire. The man was as tall as Ingrey, and broader in the beam, but he seemed to float in Ingrey’s grasp. Ingrey bent him backward over the licking heat. The groom’s flailing feet sought the floor, without success, and his squeaking strained up beyond sound into silence.

  “What did they pay you, to thwart the god’s blessing? Who dared this execration?” Ingrey snarled into the groom’s contorted face. His voice, pitched low and vibrating, snaked all around the stone walls like a rustle of velvet, and back into his own ears like a purr.