The Hallowed Hunt (Curse of Chalion) by Lois McMaster Bujold Read Free Book Online

had deliberately betrayed us, I never found out. I was not fit to inquire, just then.”
    “A sorcerer?” she echoed, leaning against a tree bole. “I saw no sorcerer with Boleso. Unless he had one hidden in disguise. If Boleso himself was demon-ridden, I saw no sign, not that I would. Well, you can’t, unless you are god-sighted or a sorcerer yourself.”
    “No, the Temple would have…” Ingrey hesitated. “In Easthome, some sensitive from the Temple must have detected it, if Boleso had caught a demon. If he’d caught it more recently, since his exile…he might not have encountered anyone with the gift to discern it.” But whatever had been wrong with Boleso had surely been going on since before he’d slain his manservant.
    “I cannot guess what powers his menagerie might have given him,” said Ijada. “I know things now that I do not see with my eyes. The leopard seems to give me a kind of knowledge or perception, but”—her hand clenched in frustration—“not in words. Why doesn’t your wolf help you so?”
    Because I have worked for a decade and more to cripple it, bind it down tight. And I thought I was safe, and now your questions frighten me worse than the wolf-within. “You said there was a thing, another…smell, not me or my wolf. A third thing.”
    She stared at him unhappily, her brows drawing in, as though she grappled for a description of something that had no relation to language. “It is as if I can smell souls. Or the leopard does, and leaks it to me in patches. I can smell Ulkra, and know he is not to fear. Another few men in the retinue—I know to stay out of their reach. Your soul seems doubled: you, and something underneath, something dark and old and musty. It does not stir.”
    “My wolf?” But his wolf had been a young one.
    “I…maybe. But there is a third smell. It is wound about you like some parasitic vine, pulsing with blood, that has put tendrils and roots into your spirit to maintain itself. It whispers . I think it is some spell or geas.”
    Ingrey was silent for a long moment, staring down at himself. How could she guess which was which? His wolf spirit was surely a kind of parasite. “Is it still there?”
    “Yes.”
    His voice tightened. “Then in my next inattentive moment, I might try to kill you again.”
    “Perhaps.” Her eyes narrowed and nostrils flared, as if seeking a sensation that had nothing to do with the senses of the body. As futile as trying to see with her hands, or taste with her ears. “Till it is rooted out.”
    His voice went smaller still. “Why don’t you run away? You should run away.”
    “Don’t you see? I must get to the Temple at Easthome. I must find help. And you are taking me there as fast as may be.”
    “The divines were never much help to me, ” he said bitterly. “Or I would not still be afflicted. I tried for years—consulting theologians, sorcerers, even saints. I traveled all the way to Darthaca to find a saint of the Bastard who was reputed to banish demons from men’s souls, to destroy illicit sorcerers. Even he could not disentangle my wolf spirit. Because, he told me, it was of this world, not of the other; even the Bastard, who commands a legion of demons of disorder and can summon or dismiss them at His will, had no power over it. If even saints cannot help, the ordinary Temple authorities will be useless. Worse than useless—a danger. In Easthome, the Temple is the tool of the powerful, and it seems you have offended the powerful.”
    Her gaze sharpened. “Who put the geas on you? Must it have been someone powerful?”
    His lips parted, closed again. “I am not sure. I cannot say. It all slips away from me. Unless I am reminded, I don’t even remember, between one time and the next, trying to kill you. A moment’s distraction on my part could be deadly to you!”
    “Then I will undertake to remind you,” she said. “It should be easier, now that we both know.”
    As he opened his mouth to protest, he