Lois Bujold - Paladin of Souls

"Oh? Well, stay a moment, then. I have another task, which presses on me. Liss, please take my horse. Goram, come here."

Looking puzzled and wary, Goram obeyed, trudging up to her and giving her a daunted bob of his head. "Royina." His hands clenched each other nervously, and he shot a look of supplication at his master. Illvin's eyes narrowed in concern, and his glance at Ista sharpened.

Ista stared one last time at the hollow gaps in Goram's soul, placed her palms upon his forehead, and poured a sudden flood of white fire out of her spirit hands into those dark and empty reservoirs. The fire splashed wildly in its new confines, then slowly settled, as if seeking its proper level. She breathed relief as the unpleasant pressure in her head vanished.

Goram thumped down cross-legged on the cobbles, his mouth open. He buried his face in his hands. After a moment, his shoulders began to shake. "Oh," he said in a faraway voice. He started to weep— in shock, Ista supposed, and in other, more complicated reactions. Her last night's dreams had given her some intimations.

"Lord Illvin, brother, may I introduce Captain Goram dy Hixar, late of Roya Orico's cavalry via the service of Lord Dondo dy Jironal. More recently of service, if an involuntary one, to Sordso of Jokona, as sword master and horseman. In a sense."

Goram looked up from his sobbing, his face stunned. Stunned, but not slack: its shape seemed to tighten along with the mending mind underneath.

"You have returned his memories and his wits? But Ista, this is wonderful!" cried Illvin. "Now he may find his family and his home at last!"

"Just what it is, remains to be seen," murmured Ista. "But his soul is now his own, and complete."

Goram's steel-gray eyes met hers, and for a moment, did not look away. They were filled with amazement, and a roil of other emotions; she rather thought one of them was anguish. She gave him a grave nod, acknowledging it all. He returned a shaken jerk of his head.

"Learned," she continued, "you begged a gift of witness, and you have it. Please help Captain dy Hixar back to his chamber. He needs to rest quietly, for until he has time to put them back in order, his mind and memories will be very unsettled. Some spiritual comfort... may not come amiss, when he is ready."

"Indeed, Royina," said dy Cabon, signing himself joyously. "It will be my honor." He helped Goram—dy Hixar—to his feet, and led him off through the archway. Illvin stared after, then turned his dark eyes thoughtfully on her.

Dy Baocia inquired in a small voice, "Ista, what just happened?"

"Princess Joen, through her demon, was in the habit of stealing useful bits of other people's souls for her sorcerers. From, among others, prisoners of war. Prince Sordso was her greatest construct, and full of such fragments. When Sordso's demon passed through me yesterday, the god gave it to me to recognize and retain the portion of Captain dy Hixar woven among the rest, and to return it to him here. It is part of the task the Bastard has laid on me, to hunt demons in the world, pluck them from their mounts, and relay them to His hell."

"This task ... is now done, yes?" he said hopefully. Or, possibly, worriedly. He glanced around the shambles of Porifors. "Yesterday, right?"

"No, I expect it is only beginning. In the past three years Joen released a very plague of elementals. They have escaped all over the Five Princedoms and the royacies, though their greatest concentration is likely still in Jokona. The woman who had this calling before me was killed in Rauma. It is not an easy, not an easy... duty to train for. If I read the god aright—He delights in obscurity and riddles—I think He wanted a successor who would be rather better guarded, through what promises to be a, ah, theologically difficult period."

Illvin's eyes glinted, listening to this. He murmured, "Much becomes clear."

"He told me He did not want to train another porter," Ista added, "and that He fancied a royina for a time. His exact words." She let her slight pause emphasize this last. "I am called. I come." And you may either help, brother, or get out of my way. "I expect to form a traveling court, small and adaptable; the god's duties are likely to continue physically wearing. My clerk—as soon as I appoint one—and yours must deal shortly with forwarding my dower income, as I doubt my tasks will take me back to Valenda."

Dy Baocia digested it all for a moment, then cleared his throat and said cautiously, "My men are setting up our camp by the spring to the east of the castle; will you take your ease there, Ista, or return to your rooms in here?"

Ista glanced up at Illvin. "That will be for Porifors's chatelaine to decide. But until this fortress has had more time to recover, I would not burden it with my expanded household. I will rest in your camp for a while."

Illvin gave her a short nod in appreciation of her delicacy, and all that went unspoken in it: until after the dead are buried.

Her brother offered to escort her to his tents, as he was going in that direction, and Illvin gave her a formal bow of temporary farewell.

"My duties today are relentless," Illvin murmured, "but later I must discuss with you the matter of an appropriate guard company for this traveling court of yours."

"Indeed," she returned. "And other appointments as well."

"And callings."

"Those, too."

PEJAR AND HIS TWO SLAIN COMRADES OF THE DAUGHTER'S ORDER were buried outside the walls of Porifors that afternoon. Ista and all her company attended upon them. Learned dy Cabon had come to Ista in distress, earlier, for while he might officiate—none better, in Ista's view—he had no sacred animals to sign the gods' acceptances; those belonging to Porifors's own temple were overburdened and reported close to frenzied with the day's demands.

"Learned," she had chided him gently. "We do not need the animals. We have me."

"Ah," he said, rocking back. "Oh. As you are made saint again—of course."

She knelt, now, in the sunlight by each wrapped form in turn, laid her hand upon its brow, and prayed for their signs. In rites at major temples like the one in Cardegoss, each order proffered a sacred animal, appropriate in color and sex to the god or goddess it represented, with an acolyte-groom to handle it. The creatures were led in turn to the bier, and by their behavior the divines interpreted to the mourners which god had taken in their lost one's soul, and therefore where to direct their prayers—and, not incidentally, upon which order's altar to lay their more material offerings. The rite brought consolation to the living, support to the Temple, and occasionally some surprises.

She had often wondered what the animals trained to this duty felt. She was relieved when she experienced no holy hallucinations: merely a silent certainty. Pejar and the first of his comrades were taken up by the Daughter of Spring, Whom they had served so faithfully, she felt at once, and so she reported. The last man, she discovered, was different.

"Curious," she said to Ferda and Foix. "The Father of Winter has taken Laonin. I wonder if it is for the sake of his courage on Arhys's ride—or if he has a child somewhere? He was not married, was he?"

"Urn, no," said Ferda. He glanced at dy Cabon's whites and swallowed whatever embarrassment he might have felt on the dead dedicat's behalf.

Ista rose from the graveside. "Then I charge you to find out, and see that the child, if it lives, is cared for. I will write to Holy General dy Yarrin as well. It shall have a purse from me to maintain its infancy, and a claim on a place in my household when it comes of age, if it desires."

"Yes, Royina," said Ferda. Surreptitiously, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.