Mythopoeic Fantasy Award 2002, World Fantasy Award nominee 2002, Hugo Award nominee 2002.
In a dazzling display of invention and storytelling, the incomparable Lois McMaster Bujold offers us the razor-keen edge of a very different sword...
THE CURSE OF CHALION
On the eve of the Daughter's Day – the grand celebration that will
honor the Lady of Spring, one of the five reigning deities – a man
broken in body and spirit makes his way slowly down the road to
Valenda. A former courtier and soldier, Cazaril has survived indignity
and horrific torture as a slave aboard an enemy galley. Now he seeks
nothing more than a menial job in the kitchens of the Dowager
Provincara, in the noble household where he served as page in his
youth.
But the gods have greater plans for this humbled man. Welcomed
warmly, clothed and fed, he is named, to his great surprise,
secretary-tutor to the Royesse Iselle – the beautiful, strong-willed
sister of the impetuous boy who is destined to be the next ruler of the
land. But the assignment must ultimately carry Cazaril to the one place
he fears even more than the sea: to the royal court of Cardegoss, rife
with intrigues and lethal treacheries.
In Cardegoss, the powerful enemies who once placed Cazaril in
chains and bound him to a Roknari oar now occupy the most lofty
positions in the realm, beneath only the Roya himself. Yet something
far more sinister than their scheming hangs like a sword over the royal
family: a curse of the blood that taints not only those who would rule,
but those who stand in their circle. The life and future of both Iselle
and her entire blighted House of Chalion lie in dire peril. The only
recourse left to her loyal, damaged servant is the employment of the
darkest and most forbidden of magics – a choice that will indelibly
mark Cazaril as a tool of the miraculous... and trap him, flesh and
soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death for as long as
he dares walk the fivefold pathway of the gods.
"Fresh, intriguing, and as always from Lois McMaster Bujold, superb." – Robert Jordan
