Free The Hallowed Hunt (Curse of Chalion) by Lois McMaster Bujold Page B

my father’s fort on the west marches, and a student in the Bastard’s Order as well, pursuing both her callings—learning the fen folk’s wisdom songs, and treating what of their sicknesses she could, to draw them to the fort and our divine’s Quintarian preachings. When she was younger, of course. And me—I was the most gangling awkward child. Hallana, I still don’t know why you let me tail around after you all day long, but I adored you for it.”
    “Well, aside from my not being immune to worship—makes me wonder about the gods, indeed it does—you did make yourself quite useful. You were not afraid of the marsh, or the woods, or the animals, or the fen folk, or of getting thoroughly muddy and scratched or of being scolded for it.”
    Ijada laughed. “I still remember how you and that dreadfully priggish divine used to argue theology over the meal trestles—Learned Oswin would grow so furious, he would positively stamp out afterward. I should have worried for his digestion, if I had been older and less self-absorbed. Poor skinny fellow.”
    The sorceress smirked. “It was good for him. Oswin was the most perfect servant of the Father, always so concerned for figuring out the exact rules and getting himself on the right side of them. Or them on the left side of him. It always stung him when I pointed that out.”
    “Oh, but look at you—here, you must sit down—” Lady Ijada and the maid Hergi joined forces briefly to find the best chair, pad it with cushions, and urge Learned Hallana into it. She sank down gratefully, blowing out her breath with a whoosh, and adjusted her belly in her lap. The maid scurried to prop her mistress’s feet on a stool. Lady Ijada pulled a chair to the table opposite her friend, and Ingrey retreated to the window seat, no great distance away in the tiny room, where he could watch both women. The warden hung back, cautious and respectful.
    “Your double scholarship is a most unusual combination, Learned,” said Ingrey, nodding to the woman’s shoulder braids. Their pin was working loose again, and they hung precariously on their perch.
    “Oh, yes. It came about by accident, if accident it was.” She shrugged, dislodging the braids; her maid sighed and wordlessly retrieved and reinstalled them. “I had started out to be a physician, like my mother and grandmother before me. My apprenticeship was quite complete, and I had begun to practice at the Temple hospital in Helmharbor. There I was called to attend upon a dying sorcerer.” She paused and glanced shrewdly at Ingrey. “What do you know about how Temple sorcerers are made, Lord Ingrey? Or illicit sorcerers, for that matter?”
    His brows rose. “A person comes into possession of a demon of disorder, which has somehow escaped from the grip of the Bastard into the world of matter. The sorcerer takes it into his soul—or hers,” he added hastily. “And nourishes it there. In return, the demon lends its powers. The acquisition of a demon makes one a sorcerer much as the acquisition of a horse makes one a rider, or so I was taught.”
    “Very correct.” Hallana nodded approval. “It does not, of course, necessarily make one a good rider. That must be learned. Well. What is less well known, is that Temple sorcerers sometimes bequeath their demons to their Order, to be passed along to the next generation, with all that they have learned. Since, when a sorcerer dies, if she—or he—does not bear the demon back to the gods, it will jump away to the next living thing nearby that may sustain it in the world of matter. It is not a good thing to lose a powerful demon into a stray dog. Don’t smile, it has happened. But done properly, a trained demon may be directed into one’s chosen successor without ripping one’s soul to pieces in the process.”
    Ijada leaned forward to listen, her hands clasped in fascination. “You know, I never thought to ask you how you came to be what you were. I just took you for