The Curse of Chalion (World of the Five Gods, #1)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Help me. Help me. Help me.

“Run to your lord with my prayer.” Sharp and quick, he let its lifeblood out;

Fly to your lord with my prayer.” A quick twist broke the crow’s neck.

“Lord Bastard, god of justice when justice fails, of balance, of all things out of season, of my need. For dy Sanda. For Iselle. For all who love her—Lady Betriz, Royina Ista, the old Provincara. For the mess on my back. For truth against lies. Receive my prayer.

A desperate prayer to the Bastard, desperate times need desperate measures.

“For your blessings, too, we thank you, god of the unseason,”

A kind of aura surrounded the roya, not of light, but of darkness.

The Curse of Chalion baby.

“Usually, a victim of death magic is burned before nightfall, to deny the body, the divines say, to uncanny things that might want to move in.

The unsettled souls of some haunt the land...

“I can add them to the collection along with the ones who think I rape girls. I suppose I need a third perversion,

It was the other garment, the shadow-cloak, visible-invisible twin to Orico’s, that tugged and twisted at his mind’s eye.

Teidez wore another such dark aura, blurring along with his steps down the cobbled streets.

Whatever the black mirage was, it seemed to ru...

to sign the god’s acceptance of the unacceptable, disdained, discarded soul.

A murmur of astonishment, disbelief, and dismay ran through the array of courtiers

“If no god has taken up Lord Dondo’s soul . . . then it’s still in the world. I mean, if it’s not there, then it has to be here. Somewhere . . .” An unquiet ghost, a revenant spirit. Sundered and damned.

Ordol’s Fivefold Pathway for something other than a prop to cover his naps;

If Dondo’s spirit had not been taken by the servant-demon back to its master, where was it?

The Roknari shone with a white aura like a man standing in front of a clear glass window

Second sight it's official magic & the supernatural do exist in this world.

“Do you know that you are lit like a burning torch?”

“So I have been told, my lord, by the few with eyes to see. One can never see oneself, alas. No mundane mirror reflects this. Only the eyes of a soul.”

“There was a woman inside who glowed like a...

Saints under the eye of someone with second sight.

“You are lit like a burning city.”

The Fivefold Pathway of the Soul. Ordol

More lore, I wonder how this develops across the series.

“You are an acolyte—no. You’re a divine. Aren’t you,”

was as an assistant Inquirer for the Temple investigating alleged charges of death magic.

“Or death miracle, to put it with more theological accuracy.

Death magic is actually a death miracle. I love this sense of divine justice in this world.

The true miracles were much more rare than their notoriety would suggest.

But I never encountered an authentic case where the victim was an innocent.

Death magic cannot work against innocents...

what the Bastard granted was miracles...

Another one for the bastard!

“That tabard is as good as a cloak of invisibility, you know.

“I’m a saint.”

“My lover was about thirty then. A man of keen mind and kind heart.”

I love the way this queer character was introduced in a matter of fact low key fashion. No drama or sensation, just a normal character with a male lover...

For obvious reasons, he was a secret Quintarian. We made plans to flee together.

“Do you understand what it means to be a saint?”

the issue isn’t virtue. It is will. Which is chisel and hammer.

“Men’s will is free. The gods may not invade it, any more than I may pour wine into this cup through its bottom.

“But have you really understood how powerless the gods are, when the lowest slave may exclude them from his heart?

for the gods may not reach in except through living souls.

If the gods could seize passage from anyone they wished, then men w...

Only if they borrow or are given will from a willing creature do they have a little cha...

Resonant with what manifests in the story later.

“sometimes, a man may open himself to them, and let them pour through him into the world.

“A saint is not a virtuous soul, but an empty one. He—or she—freely gives the gift of their will to their god. And in renouncing action, makes action possible.”

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

He was more than just god-touched. He was avatar incarnate,

“The Bastard, though the weakest of His family, is the god of balance.

Critical role of the Bastard. I like this god.

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 w...

The God's are in competition...

the Bastard, unfixed in any season, circles to preserve us all.”

The bastard had a critical role.

“The Golden General was a tidal wave of destiny, gathering to crash upon 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.”