The Hallowed Hunt

earldoms for a Temple sorcerer and never thought of looking at Suttleaf. Instead, she had found him...

Could she sense his wolf? A Temple sorcerer had inflicted it upon him; later, a Temple divine had helped him learn to bind it. Might this woman have been sent—by whom or what, Ingrey did not wish to guess—to help bind Ijada’s leopard? Incomprehensible as the sorceress’s presence here was, it seemed not to be a coincidence. The notion raised all the hackles of his neck and spine. On the whole, Ingrey thought he would prefer coincidence.

He drew a long breath. 'I think Lady Ijada has few friends at present. She should be glad of you. May I escort you up to her, Learned?'

The woman favored him with a brief, approving nod. 'Yes, please, Lord Ingrey.'

He preceded the women into the passageway and indicated the stairs to the left. In the opposite direction, the be-pigged retainer was still down on the floor, shoving his head against the door and grunting.

'My lord, what should we do with him?' asked his unnerved comrade.

Ingrey turned to observe the scene for a moment. 'Watch over him. See he comes to no harm till his lesson passes off.'

The comrade glanced past Ingrey at the retreating sorceress and swallowed. 'Yes, my lord. Um... anything else?'

'You could feed him some bran mash.'

The sorceress, making her way up the stairs with hand to the rail and her maid close behind, glanced back at this, her lips twitching. She lumbered on upward, and Ingrey hastened after.

To his satisfaction, he found the door to Lady Ijada’s parlor locked. He rapped upon it.

'Who is there?' came her voice.

'Ingrey.'

A slight pause. 'Are you awake?'

He grimaced. 'Yes. You have a visitor.'

Puzzled silence for a moment, then the clink of the key in the lock and the scrape of the bar being withdrawn. The warden drew the door wide, blinking in astonishment as the sorceress and her maid swept within. Ingrey followed.

Lady Ijada, standing across the room, stared a moment in bafflement.

'Ijada?' said the sorceress, sounding taken aback. 'My word, child, how tall you’ve grown!'

Then Ijada’s face was swept by such joy as Ingrey had never yet seen illuminate it. 'Hallana!' she cried, and hurried forward.

The two women fell into each other’s arms with feminine shrieks of recognition and pleasure. At length, Lady Ijada stood back with her hands upon the shorter woman’s shoulders. 'How ever did you come here?'

'The news of your misadventure came to the Mother’s seminary at Suttleaf. I teach there now, you know. And then there were the dreams, of course.'

'And how came you there–you must tell me everything that has happened with you since—oh, Lord Ingrey.' Ijada turned to him, her face glowing. 'This is my friend I told you of. She was a medical missioner at 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 granted.'

'You were ten. All the world is an equal mystery then.' She shifted in her chair, not without difficulty, evidently seeking a more comfortable position. 'The Bastard’s Order in Helmharbor had groomed this divine, a very scholarly young fellow, to receive his mentor’s powers. All seemed to go as planned. The old sorcerer—my word, but he was a frail thing by then—breathed his last quite peacefully, all things considered. His successor held his hand and prayed. And the stupid demon jumped right over him and into me. No one was expecting it, least of all that lofty young divine. He was livid. I was distraught. How could I practice the healing arts when plagued with a demon of disorder itself? I tried for some time to be rid of it—even made pilgrimage to a saint reputed to have the Bastard’s own power over His strayed elementals.'

'In Darthaca?' inquired Ingrey.

Her brows rose. 'How did you know?'

'Fortunate guess.'

The flare of her nostril expressed her dim opinion of that quip. 'Well, so. We made the rite together. But the god would not take His demon back!'

'Darthaca,' confirmed Ingrey glumly. 'I believe I once met the same fellow. Remarkably useless.'

'Indeed?' Her gaze grew sharp again. 'Well. Since I was saddled with the creature, I needed to learn how to ride if I was not to be ridden, so I apprenticed myself all over again to the fifth god. I went to the border during a time of great frustration, thinking to try a simpler life for a while, and to search again for that sense of calling I had lost. Oh, Ijada, I was so sorry, later, to hear of the death of your father. He was a noble man in all senses.'

Lady Ijada bowed her head, a shadow crossing her face. 'Ours was not a high-walled fort for no cause. Angry, foolish men, an imprudent ride out to attempt reason at a time when tempers were running too high... I had