The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  The Sovranel glanced from the knife in his left hand to the pear in his right, clearly chagrined. "So I do. You're observant."

  Priamnor's answer had come reluctantly enough, but Ryel, who had made sure to seem exclusively right-handed since arriving at Almancar, pursued the subject. "Is ambidexterity a common trait of the Dranthene family?"

  "No. Only I and my sister possess it." As he spoke, the Sovranel's bronze hue turned copper, and he set down the knife, and the fruit. "In answer to your next question, I too have heard that such a skill denotes capacity for sorcery, and therefore have continually attempted to suppress it lest idle tongues noise it about. But doublehandedness is often as much a gift as an embarrassment."

  "I'm sure it is."

  They fell into silence that the prince broke hesitantly.

  "Your thoughts seem far elsewhere of a sudden. Do you think of the Sovrena?"

  The wysard shook his head. "I was remembering a sister of my own, and considering how greatly she would envy me my presence at your table."

  The prince seemed glad of a change of subject. "Ah, indeed? Tell me something of her."

  "There's little to tell. She's a wild young brat."

  Priamnor's smile seemed an envisioning one. "Ah. A Steppes tomboy, then?"

  Ryel laughed. "Not quite. Her Almancarian side is stronger. She spends much time poring over Destimarian epics, escaping the Steppes to journey among fantastic lands."

  "Does she read them in High Almancarian, or common?"

  "High."

  Priamnor gave an impressed whistle. "Doubtless she has many admirers."

  "More than she merits; but she scorns them all in favor of one she has never met, and can never know."

  The Sovranel tilted his head. "And who is this fortunate person?"

  "I have the honor of dining with him this very moment."

  At those words Priamnor's smile vanished, to Ryel's inner dismay. A long silence fell, broken softly and reluctantly.

  "In my life—no long one yet—I have enjoyed the best pleasure that can be bought," Priamnor said. "But never have I known the innocent love of a pure young girl. I cannot. There have been too many heartless beds, too many wasted nights."

  Ryel felt pity despite himself. "Have you not atoned for them, after five years of seclusion?"

  Priamnor shook his head. "Not yet. I sometimes wonder if I ever will."

  They fell into another silence that the prince broke hesitantly. "You say you have seen the temple district of Fershom Rikh. Are you also acquainted with Almancar's Temple of Atlan?"

  Ryel remembered the first vision of Diara sent by the daimon, and nodded in bewilderment at the sudden shift of talk. "I have heard and read of it. But—"

  "Then you doubtless know that from all over the world men make pilgrimage there to pray for lost virility, women for a change of lovers, rakes for fresh sport. I first entered that temple at sixteen, on my father's insistence. And that same night my first mistress came to my bed, likewise at my father's bidding—a beautiful Zinaphian slave, first of my many loves. I became passionately infatuated with her. I can still smell the spice-fragrance that impregnated all her skin, and her hair … " He darkened faintly, and seemed to breathe faster; calmed himself, and continued.

  "But the last thing my father wished was for me to become seriously enamored. She vanished, and I later learned that she had been sent away from Almancar. My heart was broken, but not for long. I consoled myself incessantly, emptily, until by rarest chance I found one whose beauty of mind fully equaled that of her outward form—Belphira Deva, the Diamond Heaven's queen at that time. She was a tiraktia, an entertainer rather than a courtesan, famed for her music and her singing, with the freedom to choose her lovers as she pleased. I hoped to be among that number, but she thought me too young and too wild. Another man won her heart and took her away from Almancar, after which I grew even wilder and more careless, until…"

  "Until?" Ryel prompted, when the Sovranel did not speak again.

  Priamnor stared into his wine as if some small loathsome thing swam there. "Until I became afflicted with a venereal malady that very nearly killed me; one of those slow scourges from the hot wet lands of the Azm Chak. For many months I lay between life and death. For many months I lay between life and death, fevered and delirious. To avoid scandal my father had it noised about that I had temporarily retired from the world, in emulation of my mother who had at the same time become a votary of Demetropa."

  Ryel remembered the shorn woman in rust and gold, her eyes so like to Diara's—and the Sovranel's. "Lady Calantha Diaskiros."

  The prince inclined his head. "You astonished my father—and me—very much when you mentioned her. Few save the greatest of the court ever learn the true name of the Sovrana of Destimar. Doubtless you have wondered that her concern has not brought her to the side of her stricken daughter. Believe me, she wishes it. But it the laws of this city enjoin strict seclusion for the votaries of its gods."

  "Could not the Sovran rescind those laws, in this urgent instance?"

  Priamnor Dranthene looked away. "He could. But he will not, for reasons I may not speak of now. But to continue with my tale. As I said, few of the court ever learn the Sovrana's name. And even fewer of the court, all of them sworn to silence, knew that in her despair at my sickness my mother had vowed to devote her own life in service of the Birth Goddess if I lived. Her prayers were heeded, to my family's infinite loss—although I have since heard it said that my cure was wrought not so much by divine favor as by the skill of a witch who dwells, they say, on the slope of Kalima. But several of my companions likewise stricken were beyond any intercession, including my dearest friend, my cousin Orestens Alistenates, Prince of Vrya—" he swallowed, and blinked rapidly for a moment. "I have never recovered from that illness. Bodily I'm sound, perhaps; but now I find that tears come very easily to me, and that the things I once considered pleasures now fill me with disgust. The last four years I have devoted to study and meditation, shunning the world."

  "I am sorry, Priamnor Dranthene," Ryel murmured. "It sounds as if you gave up a great deal."

  "On the contrary." Priamnor stood up, wrapping his silk—deep sapphire silk with a glossy sheen—closer about his body, and stared into the spangled crystal of the marble pool. "I am not made of stone, Ryel Mirai. The most beautiful women in the world have lain beside me, so beautiful that to ask for more would be folly; and I was incessantly reassured that my happiness was more divine than mortal. Yet even in pleasure's arms I felt emptiness, as if the beds I tumbled in and the banquet-tables I rioted at were surrounded by black infinity, cold enough to deaden the heart." The prince smiled then, somewhat bitterly. "Perhaps I let some opportunities slip, by fixing my attention exclusively on the female sex. Such stubborn partiality is virtually unknown in this city."

  Ryel glanced away, his memory flinching at remembered hearsay around the kulm-fires in his eleventh World-year, muttered hintings of an obscene attack on young Sareb, and Dinrulin's sudden disappearance, and weeks later the discovery of a shallow grave torn up by steppe-jackals, disclosing a faceless body gelded and flayed. Since coming to Almancar the wysard had witnessed a hundred instances of unreserved embracings between men at greeting and parting, and fervent camaraderie in the market-squares and chal-houses. But the freedom between men and women had astonished him far more.

  As Ryel considered these matters, his wine-bemused thoughts began to drift, moving from thoughts of pleasure right or wrong to the broad avenues of the Bright City and their treasures; then half against his will into the narrow lanes of the Fourth District where hardship and discontent marked both sexes with equal grimness, and goaded them to the quarrelsome drunkenness that seemed their only pastime. Had these unhappy people dwelt on the Steppes, they would have been contented at least, if not happy; but Almancar the Bright with its flaunting luxury and harsh prohibitions had made them restive, envious, hungry. And from those grudging debased faces Ryel's wine-slowed revery shifted
to the dusty tavern-square where Michael loomed like some cruel personification of inexorable destiny, black and wild and utterly without remorse.

  The prince reached upward to the lushly flowered trellis overhead, drawing to him a spray of glowing white orchids, breathing the rare fragrance awhile; gently and lingeringly released the blooms. "There has been one love I have kept innocent. It is Dranthene custom to keep fullblood siblings apart until they reach adulthood, and I will never forget how beautiful I found Diara when we met at last. But ours has ever since remained an entirely spiritual devotion."

  Ryel let out a silent breath. "I'm glad to hear it."

  "I'm sure you are, with those Steppes scruples of yours. But my feelings for my sister are compelled as much by politics as by inclination." The prince's soft voice tightened. "By law, Dranthene siblings cannot wed together if the prospective husband is impotent, or infertile. And my doctors have informed me that I may well be both since my sickness." With a gesture unwontedly fierce he waved away Ryel's attempt at sympathy. "It doesn't matter. When I consider that the Dranthene dynasty is on the edge of extinction, all I can think of is my little sister, tortured to the death by that evil thing within her." Keenly his jewel-blue eyes evaluated the wysard, with the profound appraisal of that first glance in the presence-chamber. His next words came almost sharply. "And you think to cure her? Do you not understand that you run the risk of death at my father's hands if you fail?"

  Truth time, Ryel thought. No more masks. "Your sister Diara made me aware of the risk—even as she foretold that you and I would meet."

  Priamnor started up. "But when was this? Where?"

  "Last night, in the desert outside your city."

  "But she was in my father's palace all last night," the Sovranel said, firm in his disbelief. "I was with her. I tell you she was there."

  "Her body was," Ryel said. "But not her spirit."

  The prince's sun-warmed color whitened. "Impossible. That cannot be."

  "Did you not yourself have a vision of your sister?"

  "It was no vision, but a dream."

  "And you put faith in it," Ryel said. "You will have to believe a great deal more, I fear, before your sister is healed."

  "What do you mean?" the Sovranel asked, his soft voice edged.

  "That you will have to put your faith in fate if you wish the Sovrena to live." More truth, the wysard thought. No masks, none. "Many and many a one that calls himself a wysard is indeed a charlatan, I will admit. But I am telling the truth when I assure you that I am far more than a mere Rismai tabib, Priamnor Dranthene. And it is your great good fortune that I am."

  Ryel had expected at least a flicker of fear at those words, but the Sovran was all anger, coldly reproachful. "Another mountebank, then. Yet I knew you for a liar when you spoke of Fershom Rikh. You could never have studied medicine there, for had you ever visited that city you would have known that it has no temple district of any kind, its people being strong skeptics. I was willing to overlook your falsehood, thinking you had some private reason for uttering it. But now I find that all this time you have mocked me, and taken advantage of my trust. I had heard that your kind were cruel, but this—"

  The prince's wrath, strong as it was, could not surpass the wysard's outrage. "Cruel? How dare you call me that, when I have given up my study of the Art and left my City to—"

  "Your Art." Priamnor all but spat the word. "Did you use your dirty conjurings to make your looks mimic mine, the better to endear yourself to me? Show me your true face, fakir."

  "I'm no shape-changer, Dranthene," Ryel retorted. "And even if I were, the last looks I'd choose to copy would be yours."

  Priamnor only glared, and never had Ryel seen ice like to those eyes. "So which foul enclave is your City, warlock? Elecambron? Or perhaps Ormala?"

  Ryel surged up from his chair, deadly furious. "I'm a lord adept of Markul, noblest of the Four. My Art is for healing, not harm."

  Priamnor's mouth twitched in its first ugliness. "Then heal this." The prince snatched up a knife, so violently that Ryel recoiled. But still greater was his shock to see Priamnor turn the blade on himself, gashing his arm deep on the underside beneath the elbow's crook. Instantly Ryel lurched forward, clamping his hand against the jet of vein-drawn blood as he blurted a word. When he let go, the wound was whole.

  Priamnor stared at the red-smeared seam, that even as he watched began to fade. "Incredible. I can't believe it."

  Ryel finally caught his breath enough to speak. "Never do that again."

  The Sovranel gave a short laugh. "I assure you I won't."

  "Are you in pain?"

  "None." The prince reached for water, washed the erstwhile wound, and looked again, more incredulous than ever. "Barely a mark. How is that possible? How—"

  "The Art healed you," Ryel said, still fighting to breath. "Be glad it did."

  "You could have simply let me bleed. I deserved it."

  Revolted nearly to sickness, Ryel made no reply. He leaned his head on the back of his chair, entirely exhausted, and closed his eyes. Then he felt Priamnor standing behind him, and one of the prince's hands resting lightly upon his shoulder.

  "Forgive me, Ryel Mirai."

  At that voice and that touch, both hesitant and remorseful, Ryel felt his strength return. "I blame you for nothing."

  "Truly you are powerful in this Art of yours," Priamnor said. "But it seems that my healing caused you harm."

  "I've dwelt in the World of men only a short time since leaving my City, and haven't yet grown accustomed to it," the wysard answered. "It's draining, this dealing with the body's hurts."

  Priamnor's voice had doubt in it, and foreboding. "But tonight you will need all your powers—unless the Ormalans my father chose prove effectual."

  "They are certain to fail. Only I can help the Sovrena."

  "How can you know that?"

  Ryel let out a long breath. "Because I alone am to blame for her torture." In the absolute silence that followed he continued. "The daimon has used your sister as a means to lure me here, seeking to embody itself in my form."

  "But why?"

  "For its greater pleasure. And you've seen what gives it joy."

  When the Sovranel did not reply, the wysard understood. He pitied this young man born to immense power, indulged in all things. But stronger than his pity was an emotion born of that first look, and strengthened ever since—a devotion more than fraternal, explicable only by the Almancarian word ilandrakia. "I'll fight the daimon to my life's limit," he said aloud. "But I must ask that you trust me entirely, and believe that I would sooner die than do you harm."

  A long hesitation. Then very quietly and utterly without fear the Sovranel spoke. "With all my heart I trust you, Ryel Mirai. A thousand questions I would ask, but it is time you rested, while time yet remains. Come, we'll dress and I'll take you to your rooms."

  Once they had arrived at the threshold of his chamber, Ryel would have bowed in farewell, but Priamnor forestalled the gesture.

  "I expect no deference from a lord adept of great Markul, Ryel Mirai."

  "I only show my admiration," the wysard said.

  The prince laughed, quietly as in all his ways. "By that logic I, too, should bow."

  "As yet you have no reasons. But I hope to give you some, this night." And Ryel took Priamnor's hands in his own, and held them for a moment against his brow, and bade farewell until evening.

  Chapter Seven

  The wysard did not sleep, but lay in meditation as the blazing gold of afternoon surrendered to dusky purple sunset. One might have thought him dead, or dying. He barely breathed, nor did his eyes, open and focused far, so much as blink a lid. All he had learnt in his youth with Edris he passed in review, weighing and considering those things which might be of use against his enemy. Daimon srihs he had met and quelled, rival wysards he had infallibly foiled. But the being now holding Diara Dranthene was stronger than either…and this was the World, not Markul.

 
; You killed Edris, Ryel thought, his rage icily controlled. Strangled him from within, and I helpless to prevent it. And now you torment another—not a strong man powerful in the Art, but a defenseless girl. I loathe you, Dagar. To my soul's core I loathe you. Come out of her helpless body, here to me. Face me in a man's form, and let me cut you to pieces.

  He felt his body heaten, his heartbeat quicken, his face sweat. And then suddenly night fell, bringing with it everything he'd hoped and feared to forget. Everything.

  *****

  There were several Crossing spells, but none was easy, and Ryel had chosen the quickest and most perilous. The philtres and the unguents to drug his body into absolute stillness had been long in compounding, and the incantations had taken days. But all the preparations ended in a single word. And in the night's silence, in the midst of the lamps and narcotic incense, he had lain down and felt the drugs turning him to stone, and whispered the crucial single syllable through stiffened lips.

  And then he died.

  It had to be death. Nothing else could be so black and empty, or hurt so much. He could not tell if he was suspended motionless in the icy void or hurtling downward. But he knew he was lost, and might never find his way back. Just as his terror was resigning itself to despair, poisoned claws seized and gripped him, pulling him into shrieking pieces before crushing him to dust; and the dust dispersed on a blast of fire.

  But something of him yet remained behind, in a place suddenly beautiful and strange. A little bubble of light he seemed, afloat in deathless peace, dissolved to a spark within a sphere.

  I've reached it, he thought. And he glittered with ecstasy.

  He was all thought, now. He had survived the unbodying, and had been stripped to his essence, his rai. On the edge of the Outer World he hovered, divided from that place of shadow by a chasm he sensed rather than saw. Beyond the brink annihilation roiled and leapt, but on the other side the spirit-realm of power past all the World's strength vibrated and beckoned.

  Everything I risked my life for is there, his rai sensed. There and waiting. But it's too far. I won't survive.