The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  "He will know both to the limit, my lady sister," Edris said. "But not in the World's way. This brat was born to the Art. And he's a pure virgin, too—or are you still, boy?"

  Ryel trembled for weariness and hunger and rage and shame. "I am," he muttered.

  This news caused a sensation among the watchers on the wall, who murmured among themselves. At last Lord Srinnoul spoke.

  "If it is as you say and he affirms, let him enter. But this place may prove his death. Tell him that."

  Edris looked down into Ryel's face. "He knows."

  Ryel lowered his eyes to the dirt, where his bare knees quivered. "I am at your mercy, kinsman," he whispered. "I have come to you empty. Whether life or death awaits me, I no longer care."

  Edris again put his hand to Ryel's hair, but gently now. "Good," he said, his long fingers smoothing the wind-tangled locks. "That's as it should be. Enter and welcome." For a moment Edris looked down at Ryel's forsaken World-gear, his wide underlip caught in his big teeth as he stared at Yorganar's sword. And to Ryel's mingled anxiety and joy, he reached for the weapon, unsheathing it to examine the perfection of its making. "My brother's tagh," he murmured, revery mingling with his admiration. "An uncommon blade. But heavy." Then a grin flashed over his face, and he shoved the sword back into its lacquered scabbard, slinging it over his shoulder. "We'll see how it does against mine. Come on, whelp."

  Edris raised Ryel to his feet, and they went into the City together. As soon as they had entered the gates, Edris took off the great red-purple cloak he wore, and wrapped it about his young kinsman, and led him to his house.

  *****

  How well I remember that time, Ryel thought as the memory ebbed. Remember the wind of the plain, raw and cold on my nakedness, and the warmth of Edris' mantle as it enfolded me. But now…

  He rose from his sleepless bed, took up the cloak, drew it about him, and went out into the night.

  Never were the dead of Markul buried or burned. They were taken to the great tower at the southwest corner of the city, where they lay in rich robes, preserved from corruption by consummate Mastery. Some had lain there for nearly a millennium, yet to all seeming had died but that very hour. In a rich chamber at the tower's top, in wondrous state, were laid the bodies of all the First of Markul—save for that of Lady Riana of Zinaph, who had departed the City in secret, and gone no one knew where. Every day since Edris' death Ryel had climbed the many steps of the tower, entered the cold room where his uncle lay, and stood over the inert figure, wrung with meditation. He stood there now, in the light of torches whose undying Art-wrought radiance seemed to mock the lifeless forms it illumined.

  Ryel pushed back the cloak's hood. The chill air shuddered across his naked scalp. "You would approve, ithradrakis," he said, using the Almancarian word that Edris had never in life acknowledged, his voice a numb echo on the stone walls. "I mourn you in Steppes fashion, head shorn and robes rent."

  Edris lay unmoved. Half-open were his slant dark eyes, half-parted his lips. In the wide mouth the big teeth gleamed in something very like a grin.

  I loved you, Ryel thought, staring down in numb anguish at the tall still form. I would have died in your place. But it was I that struck you down. Show me how to bring you back, because I am at the end of my skill. I have attempted everything, even the forbidden spells of the First. Ithradrakis, dearer to me than father—

  And it seemed to Ryel that he would die, too, from the intolerable burning and stinging of his lightless eyes, the torment of unsheddable tears. He lifted Edris' limp dead hands to his forehead, and after that gesture of respect took his leave.

  "I cannot find your help in this City, kinsman," he said to himself. "I must ask Elecambron."

  Tesba and Ormala used the Art for pleasure or for gain, but Elecambron and Markul were refuges for those who, having dwelt in the World and grown discontented with the common lot of their lives, sought a deeper wisdom. Both of the Two Great Cities believed in the existence of the rai, the vital force which animated the corporeal form; but Markul held that death of the body inevitably meant death for the rai, while Elecambron put full conviction in the rai's immortality. The Markulit Art was in the service of life, and to that end the adepts of that City made the Mastery their chief concern; but for cold Elecambron the after-workings of death were its focus of study, and the Crossing its highest aim.

  Among Worldlings, the possibility of existence after the grave was a tenet of belief devoutly held by the credulous of many persuasions, but in Elecambron one sought ascertainable proof. Endeavors to reach the threshold of death and look beyond were achieved only through great trials by the Northern brotherhood, and experiments with many spells; so perilous was the Crossing that most attempted it only when very old. Those of lesser ability died trying; those of the greatest skill survived, though never without some cost to body or mind. Markul's wysards considered the Crossing more a dangerous game than a worthy endeavor, and only a handful of that brotherhood had ever tried it in all the City's history. Ryel had known the risks, but had expected that his youth and powers would have taken him safely to that terrible bourne and back again. Never had he dreamed that Edris would pay for that journey with his life.

  "I call Michael of Elecambron."

  Ryel spoke to the mirror that hung in his conjuring-chamber, the reflectionless Glass. The name he uttered was that of his great rival, Lord Michael Essern. Once before they had met thus, and once only; it had been at Michael's instigation, and had not been a cordial encounter.

  Long he waited, and called again; and at last a face appeared, seeming more a mask than human flesh--a mask of gray leather that had been left out in a harsh winter, and crushed flat.

  The mask's lipless mouth moved, proving it toothless as well. "Who dares this?"

  Ryel stared, aghast and amazed. "Lord Michael?"

  The mask's mouth quirked upward at both corners, as if pulled by hooks. "Hardly. Michael has left this City."

  Ormalan sorcerers routinely trafficked with mere men, and the enchanters of Tesba on occasion returned to the World; but so infrequently did those of the two greatest Cities, scarce once in every decade, that Ryel was as much perturbed as surprised. "Lord Michael has departed Elecambron? But when was this?"

  "Two years ago, after attempting the Crossing, and returning with eyes like yours. I was his instructor while he dwelt here, and assisted him in the spell. Here, I am known as Kjal."

  Ryel bent his head in recognition and respect. "I ask your pardon, Lord Kjal. Your abilities are famed in my City, and perhaps I should have sought you first."

  "Call me only by my name, Markulit. I know you, even with your long locks rased. The proud Ryel, that meddled where he shouldn't have, and sent a better than himself howling into the black beyond. Look at me. I said look."

  Flinching at Kjal's taunt Ryel raised his head, revealing his empty eyes. The Elecambronian laughed in a hyena's hoarse cough.

  "Did you summon Michael for that? To show him how your pretty face has changed?"

  "No. I came for help."

  "And what help do you think Michael would have given? He scorned you. He told me as much."

  Ryel felt his face growing hot as he remembered his first and only conversation with Michael Essern. "I seek any help at all. Edris was dear to me. He died untimely. If there is any way I can bring him back—"

  The hooks of Kjal's mouth twitched. "You cannot. Leave it at that."

  "No one knows more than you about the ways of death. Surely your Art has the power to--"

  "Be silent, boy." Those cold words chilled Ryel mute, and after a long while, Kjal spoke again, his voice a blurry weary wheeze. "There is no resurrection. I have taken corpses and made them walk and talk. Dog's tricks. Mountebankery. Anyone with the stomach for it can instill a srih of the Outer World into the dead, and have it animate the body for as long as desired. We of Elecambron can all of us animate a corpse in a crude way. The cleverest of us—myself and a handful of others—can caus
e the srih to subsume the traits and qualities of the dead man, or woman, and so cause a cadaver to seem quite passably alive. But it never fools for long."

  Yet I have been duped by it, Ryel thought, feeling his stomach cramp as he recalled, for a sickening instant, his fifth Markulit year and a beautiful woman with a laugh like crystal when it shatters, who had come to him in the night and—

  Kjal’s shrug banished the memory. "The corpse eventually rots, and gives away the game rather nastily. You Markulits have your Jade Citadel to keep your dead fresh; we here in Elecambron have plenty of ice. But interestingly enough, Michael spoke of the Joining-spell not long before he left. That, and a voice which intruded upon his thoughts, giving him no rest."

  Ryel started. "A voice?"

  "Aye. Michael Essern is not one to hear voices, nor to obey when they command; but this one he gave ear to. It claimed to belong to none other than Dagar Rall."

  Ryel felt a shudder crawl over him, but fought to keep his face calm. "All the Cities know of Dagar. He was a monster. But he lived centuries ago, and even monsters die."

  Kjal's mouth twitched. "You are sure?"

  Ryel winced as his skin crept. "Kjal, what do you mean?"

  "I think you understand. Your City teaches that death of the body is death of the rai—death entirely. And we of Elecambron have for a thousand years done all we could to disprove you, to no avail. But nevertheless one cannot deny that many of the Art-brotherhood—you and my student Michael the most recent—have stood on the edge of existence, and sensed the shadow-land between being and unbeing. It is my belief that Dagar could well be trapped there, seeking a way to return to the World."

  "But Dagar was slain by the entire population of your City, who banded together to destroy him. It took all their Art to do so, and his body was burned with fire so consuming that not even ashes were left. Even were his rai able to escape, it has nothing to return to."

  Kjal just barely shook his head. "There is a moment where body and rai part, on the edge of death. In that instant, with the right Art, Dagar's rai could readily find a home again in another form." Again the hooks twitched upward. "Yours would suit him wonderfully. The irony of it."

  Ryel felt Kjal's eyes on him like crawling pale slugs, and shrugged as if to shake them off. "The Joining-spell you speak of was created by Lord Garnos of this City, and lost long ago. No one of the Brotherhood now possesses the Art to re-create it."

  "That's all as may be." Kjal's eyes finally blinked. "I didn't think I'd miss Michael as much as I do. He was young. Good to look upon. Trouble." The hideous mask hardened. "Existence is a curse, Ryel Mirai. Do not call upon me again."

  The Glass darkened. Ryel for a long time stood looking at the blank surface, and then moved to the great chair that stood in the center of the room, and sank into it as he buried his face in his hands.

  But even amid the most secret of his thoughts, the voice that had whispered to him on the wall spoke again, out of a swelter of oppressive air.

  Ah, sweet eyes. What good to be greatest, if it be fool among fools? I that have shown you water can show you the World. Look here.

  Ryel looked up, and found himself in a market-square of a city all unlike Markul. The buildings and towers of this place were of pale stone, alabaster and sweet-hued marble beautifully wrought. The wysard could smell fresh water, and rare spices, and almonds; could see merchants' stalls heaped with rare goods, mosaic-lined canals alive with shimmering fish, throngs of people hastening to and fro under a sun so brilliant and hot that his eyes dazzled and his skin glowed. And he heard music, bells, peremptory voices.

  "Make way for the Sovrena Diara!"

  A long slender boat, airy and graceful in the crystalline spangled blue of the canal, halted at the steps of a temple—the House of the Goddess Atlan, as the carving on the portals made clear. Half-naked slaves draped in jewels plied the oars, while soldiers in golden mail and ladies gorgeously clad guarded and attended a pavilion set in the midst of the deck. Ryel could discern a human form behind the translucent hangings—a woman's form, surpassingly beautiful. And when the curtains parted—

  The vision vanished.

  "Show me more," Ryel said, leaning forward, fighting for breath. "I saw her only for an instant."

  Aha, the voice laughed. And to what purpose? Are you not dead from the waist down, Markulit?

  It was a strange voice, of neither sex; its final words recalled Ryel to himself.

  "I am Ryel Mirai, son of Yorganar that was," he said aloud. "A citizen of Markul. The Art and my life are one. I heed no voices but those that I myself call for; and I will no longer listen to you, whatever you be."

  He rose, and would have left the conjuring-chamber; but the voice came again at his back, burning his bare nape.

  Do not listen, then, the voice said. Look. Only look.

  All unwilling Ryel turned again. Once more he was in the midst of pale lovely buildings, amid music and brilliant light; and the curtains parted, and the Sovrena Diara came forth. "Ah," breathed Ryel; and beyond that he was speechless.

  Her body was veiled in film upon dawn-tinted film of translucent silk, her face concealed by a half-mask glittering with jewels, but Ryel could discern past these coverings that she was far fairer than the riches that covered her—whiter than the pearls that hung in strings from her diadem, with eyes more heaven-blue than the sapphires about her delicate neck, and lips brighter than the rubies encircling her wrists; and no stone drawn from any of the earth's mines could be precious enough to equal the beauty of her hair, that hung in loose smooth tresses and gem-entwined plaits—hair like black satin rope, heavy and gleaming.

  Just turned of eighteen, the voice continued mercilessly. Beneath her silks, all the answers to men's riddles: nothing more slender than her waist. Nothing softer and sweeter than her breasts. Nothing smoother than her back, straighter than her legs. Nothing—

  "Enough," Ryel rasped, dry-mouthed.

  It seemed, then, that Diara looked directly at him, her gaze at once imperious and inviting. But beyond that Ryel saw something else behind the mask, something that disturbed him—a desperate pleading that froze out his desire. Yet only for an eyeblink, until her jewels flashed and glittered under the white sun with unbearable intensity, forcing him to close his eyes. When he opened them again he was alone, in cold darkness dispelled only by a single candle.

  Aye, the voice at his elbow murmured. Light is hard to bear, after years spent in dank fogs and shadows. And lust is even harder...or is it, eunuch?

  "Leave me," Ryel snapped. "Leave me and never return." And he said a spell-word of dismissal, a strong one; but the voice only laughed.

  I'm no srih-servant, to be commanded. Nor can you so easily rid yourself of yourself, young blood. But enough of visions. Time now to get your hands full of the World. The World you have been locked away from for a dozen weary years.

  "I cannot return to the World." The wysard blinked burning lids, thinking of the beautiful girl who could never look upon him save with horror. "I cannot. Not with these eyes."

  The World does not see with the Art-brotherhood's acuity, the voice replied, its sly whine laced with honey. It will behold you as you once were.

  Hope wrestled down disbelief. "Explain," Ryel breathed, clutching the arms of his chair.

  Only one learned in the Art can discern an Overreacher.

  Ryel leapt up. "How is it you know that? Tell me!"

  A long while he stood waiting. But he knew by the quality of the air, by a sudden lightening of the atmosphere, that whatever had spoken had departed to whatever place it came from.

  Chapter Two

  Ryel slept little and badly after that day. Even though the voice did not torment him again, it had destroyed his powers of concentration and his desire for study. The wysard found himself wasting that most precious of his possessions, time. He would sit for hours at his great window that opened onto the Aqqar, watching mist succeed mist, waiting for he knew not what, anxious in his
heart for reasons he could not explain. No human form came out of the mist during his watching, nor did he expect it; during the twelve years since his admittance into Markul only three aspirants had emerged from the fog and approached the eastern gates to petition for entry. One of them had been turned away for a madwoman and another for a fool, and the third had lived only months after entering the gates.

  Our numbers were ever few, Ryel thought as he looked down at the ground just outside the walls, at the scattered clusters of garments and belongings, most of them wonderfully rich, left behind by those who had been taken into the city. Some hundreds of souls; never more than two hundred at any time. And save for myself, all old, old—Lord Katen the oldest since Lord Srinnoul's death, with his century and a half, or two hundred years if one counts by the reckoning of the World. In Markulit reckoning I am but twelve, not much less than the age I'd attained in the World when I came to this place; and now I feel as if I have lived both lives in a void .

  His impenetrable eyes rested on the humblest of the garment-heaps, one made up of the common gear of a Steppes horseman—a side-fastened shirt of heavy undyed linen, embroidered in Rismai designs at the cuffs and collar and hem by his mother's hands; a long fawn-colored coat belted at the waist, the skirts vented deep for riding; soft leather leggings, and supple riding-boots that might be drawn up above the knee or downgathered in folds around the calf. Next to these garments were Jinn's saddlebags, containing things Ryel had cherished or thought needful. Such was the Mastery girding Markul that despite the eternal damp, each of these objects was as whole and unweathered as the day he had flung it from him, as indeed was everything left by others.

  Were I to believe what the voice said, I could don those clothes again, Ryel thought. Belt them about me, pull on those boots, toss that bag upon my shoulder and leave this place even as I came. Leave behind the learning of the Art, I that have already learned more than any man living, and take up the World's way. The world of clear light, and blue water, and golden towers...