Penric and the Shaman (Penric & Desdemona Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

?”
    “Really, it was necessary. To keep all of her straight. She’s quite a complicated person.”
    In Oswyl’s theology, demons were not persons at all, but elemental forces of… un-nature. From the gods, or at least, from one god, but not by that reason holy. “I thought demons were fundamental chaos. Not capable of being anything.”
    “They all start out that way, it’s true. Not anything at first. Rather like a newborn infant. But like an infant, they learn . Or perhaps copy. They learn from the people and the world around them, and they carry much of that learning along with them as they cascade down through time from master to master. Everything about them that might be called either good or evil comes ultimately from their human riders.”
    Oswyl frowned at this novel view. “I thought they were inherently destructive, and dangerous withal.”
    “Well, so they are, but destruction need not be inherently evil. It depends upon how cleverly it is deployed. When Desdemona was the possession of Learned Helvia, who was a physician, she destroyed stones of the bladder, a very painful condition I am told, and warts, and sometimes even tumors.” He added after a distracted moment, “And worms, that were debilitating their victims. Though an apothecary’s vermifuge could do that task as well.”
    If sorcerers were rare, physician-sorcerers were rarer still. “I have never met such a practitioner.”
    “I gather they are kept rather apart by the Mother’s Order, to spare them for special tasks.” After a thoughtful moment, he added, “Their sex, too, is something demons learn. Desdemona has been possessed by some ten women over time—plus the mare and the lioness—so she’s grown quite feminine by now. She’s an exceptionally old demon. It’s rude to tell a woman’s age, Penric!” His hand flew to his lips. “Uh, sorry. That was Des.”
    “It… talks? With your mouth? And yet it is not ascendant?”
    “She. Yes, she does, and no, she’s not. They can get quite chatty, among the ten of them. So if I say something strange, ah… it might not always be me. I should warn you of that, I suppose.”
    A sudden change in demeanor and speech was supposed to be one way an observer who was not a Temple sensitive could tell if a demon had ascended, seizing control of its rider’s body for itself. But if the demon was leaking out all the time , how could it be discerned if such an emergency had occurred? Oswyl edged his horse slightly farther from the sorcerer’s.
    Penric piffled on, “Back at seminary I once sat down with a quill and paper and tried to work out her exact age, going back through all her riders one by one. Connecting them to some dated king’s reign or public event whenever we could.”
    Reluctantly fascinated, Oswyl asked, “How do you keep them all straight? Or do you?”
    Penric let his reins fall to his plodding horse’s neck, held up both hands, and wriggled the digits, as if pleased to find them in place there. “Ten ladies, ten fingers. Very convenient.”
    “Ah,” Oswyl managed.
    “The Temple had planned to gift their star demon to another physician when Helvia died, but instead it jumped to a senior acolyte named Ruchia, who was of Martensbridge here. Oh, I see”—Penric blinked absently—“Helvia was visiting Martensbridge at the time. I’d wondered about that. Anyway, the Bastard’s Order at Martensbridge not being slow off the mark, they promptly claimed Ruchia for themselves, and hurried her through the tutorials of a divine. In return, Learned Ruchia gave, er, extremely varied service to the Order and the Temple for the next forty years. She certainly seems to have traveled, in her duties. Which was how, when she had her fatal seizure of the heart some four years back, I came upon her on the roadside near Greenwell Town, and… here we all are.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Nineteen.”
    Making him all of twenty-three, now. He still looked nineteen. Or, Oswyl might