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January 3 - April 2, 2021
“But Lord Cazaril,” the judge broke in, “what is that terrible shadow hanging about the Royesse Iselle? That is no godly thing! Do you see it too?”
The curse
Actually, I’m not nearly lonely enough, he thought not much later as Dondo’s incoherent obscene bellows, released by their hour of ascendance, came roaring up to his inward ear.
Gods. Gods. What have I done? I haven’t freed Iselle. I’ve cursed Bergon.
“Your marriage”—he swallowed again, and forced his numb lips to speak on—“has not lifted the curse from Iselle as I’d hoped. Instead, it has spread it to you both.”
“No, no! But both Sara and Ista married into the House of Chalion, and into the curse. I thought it was because men and women were different, that it somehow followed the male line of Fonsa’s heirs along with the name.”
With the right to rule came the duty to protect—the privilege of receiving protection had to be left behind with childhood’s other toys.
“The goddess’s words were, a man must lay down his life three times for the House of Chalion.
“The divines say, when the gods instruct men in their pious duties, they mean women, too,”
Dy Jironal rode out of the Zangre before midmorning yesterday, none knows where.”
Surely no witness here in Taryoon would ever quite forget this time of hope; it would still linger in their eyes when they looked at an older Iselle and Bergon.
The weight of the curse was a secret burden dragging down all bright hopes.
How much frustration, how much corrosion could a loyal man endure before going mad, watching such a long slow drain of youth and hope into age and despair?
They would pour themselves until empty into children miscarried, dead, mad, exiled, betrayed
Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once?
Is this a prophetic vision for a later story.
Ghosts were exiles upon the wrong border, people turned inside out. Why didn’t it work the other way around? What would it be like to be an anti-ghost of flesh let loose in a world of spirit?
Marvellous philosophical speculation, a more concrete understanding of the universe in the world of the 5 God's? The human world is material and physical, whilst the God's exist in the spirit realm, what would it be like for a material human to experience the spirit realm?
If only it worked that way, it would be like seeing through a window into heaven.
Perhaps heaven was not a place, but merely an angle of view, a vantage, a perspective.
Interesting!
Death ripped a hole between the worlds.
The power of death, death is the vehicle that connects the material and spirutal realms.
What was the Golden General’s blessing-curse anyway, this exiled thing from the other side? What kind of portal had the Roknari genius opened for himself, what kind of channel had he been . . . ?
I hope there is more discussion about the Golden General in future books.
Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?
Submission to the will of the God's.
Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service.
The submission...
Until he recognized him as Teidez’s suborned guard captain—growing ever more expert in betrayal, apparently.
Three deaths and a demon all bound together. They flowed into a blue Presence . . .
Loved how this unfolded in the story. The demonic possession was complicated based on the lore and rules of this universe. The death demon, the two souls and the touch of the Godess...
A murmur of astonishment passed among the ring of watchers as the scent of celestial flowers from this exudation filled the air.
God touched, God blessed, a miracle experienced by the bystanders.
Neither Paginine nor the archdivine, nor Palli, knew the preamble about Dondo and the death demon,
If I had not died in truth, I could not have ripped open the wall between the worlds, and the goddess could not have reached in to take back the curse. Which was a drop of the Father’s blood, as nearly as I could tell, though how the Golden General came by such a gift I know not.
Will we learn more about the Golden General in future books?
“The Lady of Spring let me look through her eyes, and though my second sight is taken back—I think—my eyes do not seem to work quite the same as they did . . .”
God touched
In three days’ time his wounds stopped leaking scented fluid, closing cleanly,
This eager courtesy daunted Cazaril far more than Bonneret’s former superciliousness.
brown, orange, and yellow robes of the Holy General of the Son’s order,
When he tried to describe his gathering-in by the Lady, he became tongue-tangled.
“Well, it is a particular sin to permit grief for what is gone to poison the praise for what blessings remain to us.”
“I understand the poor ghosts much better now than when they first terrified me,” said Cazaril diffidently. “I thought their exile and erosion was a rejection by the gods, at first, a damnation, but now I know it for a mercy.
The actions in one's life determine the fate of one's soul. Evil people cannot bear the afterlife their souls remember the terrible life they led. Damnation is thus a mercy for the wicked, they forget themselves and drift as incorporeal spirits, loosing definition.
When the souls are taken up, they remember themselves
More wisdom from the god touched. Personal development in strides.
with nearly the terrible clarity that matter remembers itself. For some . . . for some that heaven would be as unbearable as any hell, and so ...
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“Forgetfulness. That smudged oblivion seems a very heaven to me now. I pray to be...
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“Yes. Iselle has told me of it, to the limit of her understanding, but I knew it when it happened.
There was nothing to see, nothing to hear or feel, but it was as though a fog had lifted from my mind. I did not realize how closely it had cloaked me round, like a clammy mist on the skin of my soul, till it was lifted.
“The curse’s lifting made my pain more clear, and yet more distant. It felt very strange.”
I realize now why I never saw saints, before. The world does not crash upon their wills like waves upon a rock, or part around them like the wake of a ship. Instead they are supple, and swim through the world as silently as fishes.”
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,
Can't wait to read more from Lois Macmaster Bujold. Excellent introduction to a complex world where religion defines all.
