The Curse of Chalion

Umegat put his cup down, tugged on his bronze-gray queue, and sighed. "It all goes back to Fonsa the Fairly-Wise and the Golden General. Which is, I suppose, history and tale to you. I lived through those desperate times." He added conversationally, "I saw the general once, you know. I was a spy in his princedom at the time. I hated everything he stood for, and yet... had he given me a word, a mere word, I think I might have crawled after him on my knees. He was more than just god-touched. He was avatar incarnate, striding toward the fulcrum of the world in the perfected instant of time. Almost. He was reaching for his moment when Fonsa and the Bastard cut him down." Umegat's cultured voice, lightly reminiscent, had dropped to remembered awe. He stared into the middle distance of his memory.

His gaze jumped out of the lost past and back to Cazaril. Remembering to smile, he held out his hand, thumb up, and waggled it gently from side to side. "The Bastard, though the weakest of His family, is the god of balance. 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 world will end in a burst of light. Some tidy-minded men actually find this idea attractive. Personally, I find it a horror, but then I always did have low tastes. In the meantime, the Bastard, unfixed in any season, circles to preserve us all." Umegat's fingers tapped one by one, Daughter-Mother-Son-Father, against the ball of his thumb.

He went on, "The Golden General was a tidal wave of destiny, gathering to crash upon the world. Fonsa's soul could match his soul, but could not balance his vast fate. When the death demon carried their souls from 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."

Cazaril wondered if this explained why all of Ias's and Orico's military campaigns that he'd ever been in had fared so ill. "How... how may the curse be lifted?"

Umegat sighed. "In six years, no answer has been given me. Perhaps it will run out in the deaths of all who flowed from Fonsa's loins."

But that's... the roya, Teidez—Iselle!

"Or perhaps," Umegat continued, "even then, it will continue to trickle down through time like a stream of poison. It should have killed Orico years ago. Contact with the sacred creatures cleanses the roya from the corrosion of the curse, but only for a little time. The menagerie delays his destruction, but the god has never told me why." Umegat's voice went glum. "The gods don't write letters of instruction, you know. Not even to their saints. I've suggested it, in my prayers. Sat by the hour with the ink drying on my quill, entirely at His service. And what does He send instead? An overexcited crow with a one-word vocabulary."

Cazaril winced in guilt, thinking of that poor crow. In truth, he felt far worse about the crow's death than Dondo's.

"So that's what I'm doing here," said Umegat. He glanced up keenly at Cazaril. "And so. What are you doing here?"

Cazaril spread his hands helplessly. "Umegat, I don't know." He added plaintively, "Can't you tell? You said... I was lit up. Do I look like you? Or like Iselle? Or Orico, even?"

"You look like nothing I've seen since I was lent the inner eye. If Iselle is a candle, you are a conflagration. You are... actually quite disturbing to contemplate."

"I don't feel like a conflagration."

"What do you feel like?"

"Right now? Like a pile of dung. Sick. Drunk." He swirled the red wine in the bottom of his cup. "I have this belly cramp that comes and goes." It was quiescent at the moment, but his stomach was still swollen. "And tired. I haven't felt this tired since I was sick in the Mother's house in Zagosur."

"I think," Umegat spoke carefully, "that it is very, very important that you tell me the truth."

His lips still smiled, but his gray eyes seemed to burn. It occurred to Cazaril then that a good Temple Inquirer would likely be charming, and adept at worming confidences from people in his investigations. Smooth at getting them drunk.

You laid down your life. It's not fair to whine for it back now.

"I attempted death magic upon Dondo dy Jironal last night."

Umegat looked neither shocked nor surprised, merely more intent. "Yes. Where?"

"In Fonsa's Tower. I crawled over the roof slates. I brought my own rat, but the crow... it came to me. It wasn't afraid. I'd fed it, you see."

"Go on..." breathed Umegat.