Paladin of Souls (The Chalion Series Book 2)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

“He was a great man. You have . . . something of the look of him.

A mature man of forty, pretending not to care for the grief of a young man of twenty.

Ferda dy Gura

A suave courtier, she decided, would never commit the blunder of admitting the existence of women more lovely than his current auditor,

Ista, with regret, forbore to scream. “Lord Arhys. Stop.”

But there is no lapse in his exquisite taste to explain away, for Arvol dy Lutez was never my lover.”

The clapping iron tongues of rumor and slander were not mine.

“But enough of the dead past. Tell me of the breathing now.

How like a man, to change from mask to mask like a player, concealing all intention, yet leave his heart out on the table, carelessly, unregarded, for all to behold.

feeling no need to find some special place to seek the gods; they seemed to press on her in all places, at all times,

Someplace they were guaranteed to not be, now that might be worth a pilgrimage.

when Porifors had been built to guard Jokona from Chalion and Ibra.

“My lord, my lord! Five gods be praised, you are come back safe!

No surprise that this castle had ghosts—all old fortresses did

The gods give no gifts without hooks embedded.

But the great courtier had made a point of claiming all his scattered progeny,

with regular prayers and offerings to the Bastard’s Tower for their protection.

It was not, she realized at once, a stink she sensed with her nose.

I do not know what this strange place is, but I do not name it safety.

Neither hot noon nor chill half-moon midnight, but still the same court as in Ista’s dreams, every detail identical, unmistakable, engraved on her memory as if with chisel and awl. Ista felt faint.

only the legacy of the Roknari stonecutters kept it from being severe.

You cannot lift so much as a leaf; bending iron or my will is a task equally beyond your capacities.

the god’s eyes glinted at her. Wider than skies, deeper than sea chasms,

their complexity bent inward endlessly, each layer a lamination of other layers, repeated into infinity, or the infinitesimal.

My Lord Bastard. Ista did not speak His name aloud, lest He mistake it for a prayer.

“Small, yet strong. I, as you know, cannot lift a leaf. Nor bend iron. Nor your will. My Ista.

Where were the gods the night Teidez died?

“The Son of Autumn dispatched many men in answer to your prayers, sweet Ista.

They turned aside upon their roads, and did not arrive. For He could not bend thei...

And so they scattered to the winds ...

“Lord Bastard, you bastard.”

She wondered whose prayers could have drawn her here.

All sorts of persons prayed to the Bastard as the god of last resort,

Might it be granted to her to perform a miracle of healing,

A life for a life, and by the grace of the Bastard, my sin is lifted.

The gods were parsimonious, Lord dy Cazaril had once remarked to her, and took their chances where they found them.

For however vast a god might be, it had only the width of one soul at a time to reach into the world of matter: whether door, window, chink, crack, pinhole . . .

Demons, for all that they were supposedly legion, were not vast, possessing nothing like the infinite depth of those Eyes,

Unless I open to You, You cannot lift a leaf. Unless You pour into me, I cannot do . . . what?

Ista swallowed, or tried to. And prayed, Ista-fashion: or made a prayer of rage,

So long as it was from the heart, the divines promised, the gods would hear. Ista’s heart boiled over.

Give me my true eyes. I want to see. I have to know. Lord Bastard. Cursed be Your name. Open my eyes.

A wholesome person had a soul congruent with the body,

In the present god-touched magnification of her sensitivity, Ista fancied she could perceive, not intellect or emotion, but the state of the soul itself.

Cattilara’s spirit was the darkest and densest, roiling with strain and secret distress.

The demon seemed much more tightly closed this morning than it had last night. Hiding? From what?

he had taken to adding a private detour for stimulation by his lover before he visited her chamber.

That the demon dared not show itself before Ista did not guarantee that it dared not show itself at all.

Ista had no idea of its powers and limits, yet.

His soul was bizarre in appearance, unlike any other that she had yet seen.