Paladin of Souls (45 page)

The demon's voice and language changed again. "She took
me
when I refused to be wed to a Quintarian bastard lord, and her eyes shone with triumph as she did so. All, all to do exactly as she said, always, down to the smallest detail. Except for Sordso, her golden cub. Oh, it cheers my heart even in this living death to know that she finally took my brother Sordso." Catti's—Umerue's—lips drew back in a fierce grin. "I warned him not to defy her. Did he listen? Of course not. Hah!" Cattilara said you were sent to suborn Porifors," said Ista to the demon. "Hence, I suppose, the inclusion of the courtesan . . ."

Illvin's expression, across the bed from her, was a study in surmise, a complicated amalgam of memory, regret, and horror. Ista wondered if these half-digested souls would all run together into one mind, in time—or would they always be a little separate?

"Was it Illvin or Arhys whom your mother instructed you to bind to yourself?" Ista asked. "Or both?"

The Umerue-lips' smile softened. "Lord Illvin. He seemed pretty enough at first. But then we saw Arhys . . . Why settle for second-best, for second-in-command, and all that complicated plot of usurpation and revolt to follow, when we might so simply and pleasantly take Porifors from the top down?" It added in Ibran, "Lord Arhys, yes," and "Arhys. Yes. Mm." And, sighing in no identifiable tongue,
"Ah."

"It seems it was unanimous," murmured Illvin dryly. "The servant girl, the princess, the courtesan, and I doubt not the scholar, too. All up in smoke at the first sight of him. I wonder if that bird was female as well? If so, it would probably have flown to his finger. And so Joen's plot was put in disarray by an altogether older sorcery than demon magic." His brow wrinkled half in amusement, half in pain. "Fortunately for me." All pain, now. For a moment, his deep underlying exhaustion floated very near his surface, as if the pull of the whole world bowed his back. Then his dark eyes glittered, and he straightened. "So how was this master demon released from its long prison? You said you knew, Royina."

"I guess, at least. It was the timing—do you not see it? Three years ago on the Daughter's Day, the Golden General's death curse was pulled from Chalion, and from my House: all his spilled, perverted god-gifts swept up and taken back by the gods through their chosen saint. And if all was retrieved that day—it must have included the power of the encapsulation."

Illvin met dy Cabon's eyes; the divine gave a reflective nod.

Ista mused, "I wonder, if Arvol and Ias and I had succeeded in breaking the curse twenty years ago, would Joen have been granted her demon two decades sooner? And which of them would have been ascendant then?"

Dy Cabon stared down at Cattilara with an expression of arrested theological curiosity.
"I
wonder if the actions of this same Roknari master sorcerer would account for the outbreak of elementals that Chalion suffered in Fonsa's day . . . ?" He shook off the distractions of historical theory, as it perhaps occurred to him that the outbreak they faced now was suddenly all too present and practical.

Why is the creature telling us all this?
Ista wondered. To create fear and disorder among her little company? To spread its own distress? She glanced around at Foix's stolidity, dy Cabon's thoughtfulness, Illvin's shrewd concentration. If that was the plan, it wasn't working. Maybe it had simply stolen enough humanity by now to enjoy complaining to an attentive audience. Maybe, with all hope of flight lost, at some last gasp and despite its preferred solitary nature, it sought allies.

The door opened; startled, Ista snapped around. Lord Arhys entered and gave her a respectful nod. She was glad to see he was mail-clad again. He, at least, would not be overheated by his armor. He was followed by maids with trays, a welcome sight, and Goram, considerably recovered, with a pile of Illvin's clothing and war gear.

Ista's party seized on the contents of the trays without ceremony. Arhys strode to the bedside and stared down at his wife, his face bleak. The demon looked back, but said nothing. Ista hoped that wasn't Cattilara's longing leaking into in its eyes. Then she wondered if her own eyes had looked like that, resting on him.

"Is she awake?" Arhys flexed his hand in puzzlement. "How then do I . . . ?"

"Cattilara sleeps," Ista told him. "We gave her demon access to her mouth, that it might speak. Which it has."

"What's arrived out there, Arhys?" demanded Illvin. He alternated downing bites of meat wrapped in bread and swallowing gulps of cold tea with being dressed by his groom.

"About fifteen hundred Jokonan soldiers, my scouts estimate. Five hundred in each column. My two scouts who made it back, that is. Since the ring of besiegers is now closed around Porifors, I despair of the other dozen. I have never lost so many scouts before."

"Siege engines?" Illvin asked around a mouthful of bread, thrusting a leg into a boot of his own held by the kneeling Goram. The lost manservant's boots were tossed aside. Dead man's shoes? No telling now.

"None reported. Supply wagons, yes, but no more."

"Huh."

Arhys glanced at Ista. She did not know what expression was on her face, but he attempted reassurance. "Porifors has withstood sieges before, Royina. The town walls are secured as well—I have two hundred men of my own down there, and half the townsmen are former garrison soldiers. There are tunnels between us to shift reinforcements. What was it, Illvin, fifteen years ago that the Fox of Ibra sent up an assault of three thousands? We held them for half a month, till dy Caribastos and dy Tolnoxo—the present provincar's father—relieved us."

"I don't think it's siege engines that Jokona sends against us now," said Illvin. "I think it's sorcerers." He supplied his brother with a blunt synopsis of the demon's testimony. As he spoke, Goram, pale but resolute, expertly combed back his hair and bound it in a tight knot at his nape, then shook out his mail coat ready to don.

"If this madwoman Joen truly drags a dozen or more sorcerers on leashes," Illvin concluded, ducking into his mail, "you may be sure she means to let them slip against us. If not for revenge for her lost daughter, then for a blow against Chalion to turn the whole line of attack that Marshal dy Palliar plans against Borasnen. An early strike, and hard; and if successful, to be followed by a sweep into north-central Chalion before Iselle and Bergon's forces are properly mustered . . . that's the way
I'd
do it, if I were the Jokonans. I mean, if I were only mad, and not
stupid."

Arhys grinned briefly. "I can scarcely guess what Sordso's staff officers are like at present."

"Cooperative," said Ista blackly. "Of one mind."

Illvin grimaced, and at Goram's silent tap held out a forearm for the groom to buckle on his vambrace.

"Arhys," Ista continued urgently. "Despite your strange state, you have no inner sight, correct?"

"Nothing like what you describe, no, Royina. If anything, my sight seems less than before. Not blurred or dimmed, but drained of color. Except that now I see better at night; almost the same as in the day."

"So you did not see, did not perceive, the strike that Prince Sordso made upon you, when you clashed on the road?"

"No . . . what did
you
see?"

"That deep light that marks demon magic to my inner eye. A searing bolt of something. Or anyway, it was clear that Sordso thought it was going to be a searing bolt of something. But it passed through you harmlessly, as though you weren't even there."

They both looked to dy Cabon, who opened his plump hands in uncertainty. "In a sense, he isn't there. Not as live souls are, nor even as demons are. The true sundered ghosts are divorced from all realities, the world of matter and the world of spirit both."

"Is he, then, immune to sorcery?" began Ista. "And yet it is sorcery that sustains him now . . . Learned, I do not understand."

"I will give it thought—"

A tangled mess of violet lines of light abruptly appeared throughout the room, flared, and vanished. Foix jumped. A moment later, so did everyone else, as vessels of tea or wine or wash water tipped or cracked or shattered. Illvin's clay cup cleaved in his hand as he was lifting it to his lips, and he danced backward to avoid the splash down his gray-and-gold tabard.

"Joen's sorcerers are now in place, it seems," said Ista flatly.

Foix swung around in wide-eyed dismay; within him, his bear shadow was on its feet, snarling. "What was the purpose of
that!
A warning? If they can do
that,
why not burst our bellies or our skulls and have it over with?"

Dy Cabon raised a shaking hand. "Free demons cannot slay
directly
—"

"The Bastard's own death demon does," said Ista. "I have seen it do so."

"That is a very special case.
Free
demons, those escaped into the realm of matter . . . well, they
might
try to slay directly, but—death opens a soul to the gods. Whether the soul chooses to advance through that door at that moment or not is a matter of will, but in that instant it opens both ways. And the demon is vulnerable to recapture."

"And so they jump away when their
mount
is slain ..." said Foix.

"Yes, but using magic to slay also creates a link between sorcerer and victim. The effort and the backwash are supposed to be very hard on the sorcerer, as well." He paused thoughtfully. "Of course, if a sorcerer uses magic to stampede your horse over a cliff, or any other indirect method of accomplishing your death, the risk does not apply."

A panting soldier in a gray-and-gold tabard burst through the door. "Lord Arhys! There is a Jokonan herald at the gate, demanding parley."

Arhys drew in his breath between his teeth. "Warning indeed. Notice. Well, they have all my attention now. Illvin, Foix, Learned dy Cabon—Royina—will you attend upon me? I want your sight and your counsel. But stay back below the battlement, out of view, as much as you may."

"Yes." Ista paused to release her ligature from Cattilara's neck and be certain the demon would remain quiescent. Foix watched silently, taking up station at Ista's shoulder as if to guard her. Liss had not been named in Arhys's roll, but she rose anyway, arms crossed and shoulders tucked as if trying to make herself small and unnoticed.

Illvin, striding for the door in Arhys's wake, suddenly stopped and swore. "The cisterns!"

Arhys's head swiveled; the two looked at each other. Illvin clapped his brother on the shoulder. "I'll check, and meet you above the gate."

"Hurry, Illvin." Arhys motioned all within to follow him out; Illvin turned aside on the gallery and ran.

THEY CROSSED THE COURT OF THE FLOWERS AND CLIMBED THE inner stairs after Arhys. Above the gate a projecting parapet thrust out. Arhys shouldered past his archers spread out along the sentry-walk, mounted to the top of the battlement, and stood spread-legged, staring down. Ista peeked out between the toothed stones.

To the right, where the road turned away toward Oby, she could see the Jokonans settling into camp in a grove of walnut trees, just out of bowshot or catapult range. Tents were being set up, and horse lines arranged. On the far side of the grove, some especially large tents of green cloth were rising at the hands of servants, some wearing the uniforms of the palanquin bearers. To the left, down in the valley along the river, another column was pouring in, threatening the town walls. At its rear, some soldiers were already driving a few plundered sheep and cattle into the arms of their camp followers, dinner on the hoof.

Beyond, the countryside looked deceptively peaceful—emptied out, Ista hoped; only one or two barns or distant outbuildings seemed to be on fire, presumably sites of some temporary, desperate resistance. The enemy had not—or not yet—fired the fields and crops. Did they anticipate being in secure possession of them by harvest time? The third column presumably was taking up position behind the castle, along the ridge.

The drawbridge was up, the castle gates closed. On the other side of the deep dry cleft that fronted the wall, the Jokonan parley officer stood, bareheaded. The blue pennant of his office hung limply from the javelin in his hand in the afternoon heat. He was flanked by two tense guards, sea-green tabards over their mail.

As the parley officer turned his face upward, Ista's breath drew in. He was the same translator she had met in the raiding column retreating from Rauma. So, was his new duty a reward or a punishment? He did not notice her, half concealed in the embrasure; but it was quite clear by the alarmed widening of his eyes that he recognized Arhys as the sword-wielding madman who had nearly taken his head off in that ravine. Arhys's stony expression gave no clue if the recognition was returned.

The Jokonan moistened his lips, cleared his throat. "I come under the flag of parley from Prince Sordso to Castle Porifors," he began, in loud, clear Ibran. He gripped the shaft of his blue pennant as a man might clutch a shield, and ground the butt a little harder into the dry soil by his boot. It was considered very bad form to shoot a messenger, likely to be coldly criticized by an officer's peers and commanders, later. Rather too belated a consolation from the messenger's point of view, to be sure. "These are the demands of the prince of Jokona—"

"Doesn't it worry you, Quadrene," Arhys overrode him in a carrying drawl, "that your prince has become a demon-ridden sorcerer? As a pious man, shouldn't you be burning him rather than obeying him?"

The guards did not react, and Ista wondered if they had been chosen for their lack of Ibran. By the grimace that flashed over the parley officer's face, he might have felt that his enemy had a point, but he returned sharply, "They say
you
are a man dead three months. Does it not worry your troops to be following a walking corpse?"

"Not notably," said Arhys. He ignored the slight murmur of his archers, clustered behind him. The looks they exchanged covered a range of expressions, from disbelief to alarm to revelation, plus one fellow who vented an impressed
Ooh.
"I can see how it might pose a problem for
you.
How, after all, can you kill me? Even a sorcerer must find it a troublesome paradox."