The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  The nothingness compressed, enveloping his spirit-sphere in black lead, and a mocking croon oozed out of it.

  "Spoken like a faint-hearted fool. I had expected better of you, Markulit."

  The spirit-bubble enclosing the wysard's rai spun on its axis a full revolution, fighting the pull of the lead, seeking the source of the voice.

  Who speaks? he demanded.

  The voice replied instantly, with the same insinuating smoothness. But now it issued from the other side of the chasm.

  "Why did you come here, if not to seek the life beyond death? And yet you hover on the edge in cringing terror, when you might float over it easily and without fear, unbodied as you are."

  Poised and yearning Ryel's essence listened. Who are you? it asked.

  "One who has been over and back. One who has watched over you with the most tender concern, ever since your birth. One who would teach you wonders. Miracles."

  The wysard's rai sparked sharply. Tell me what you are.

  "You will learn when you join me, here where immortality awaits you," soothed the voice. "Come. Learn what I have learned, and return to the World a god."

  Ryel's bright rai quivered, shimmering between fear and desire. I can't. I'll die.

  "You will not die," the voice assured, softly and with infinite seduction. "Come."

  The wysard's spark shot over the abyss, hovered above it.

  I will be as a god, it thought, trembling and gleaming. I will be—

  But at that moment the rai's bright bubble started to dissolve, suspended over the endless chasm. The horror that imbued Ryel surpassed even the dissolution's agony, and he threw himself at the Outer World not caring if it claimed him forever, longing only for release from fear. But he could not move. Immobile, he disintegrated, his iridescence eaten away by the corrosive cruelty of the abyss. And then he dropped.

  It was a long fall, long enough for him to yearn for complete death. But he kept falling. Falling and burning, shrunk to nothing but a single scream. All around rang laughter sharp as shattered flint.

  But then the laughter stopped, silenced by imperative thunder. "Ry! Get out. Come back."

  Hard hands plucked him out of the abyss like a pup out of water. Ryel's ethereal sphere solidified, and sprouted arms and legs. But death clung to him.

  "Move, whelp. Wake up."

  He was being shaken very roughly, enough to rattle his life out. Don't stop, Ryel thought. Please, please, don't—

  "You idiot brat." A brusque finger forced his lips apart, a hard heavy mouth clamped down and filled his lungs to bursting.

  Too late, Ryel would have said. Too late. But he was dying at last, and very happy.

  His joy proved momentary. With sick regret he awoke to his body's battered ache, his eyes' scorched throb. He could hear a woman singing, but could not tell if she was near or far. Cool fingers soothed his temples.

  As he opened his eyes, he heard a gasp, and beheld Serah Dalkith. "Sister?"

  Her face was drawn and ashen, but she made a trembling attempt at a smile. "So, brother, you return to us at last. We had thought—"

  Ryel ignored her. "I must see Edris. Bring him to me. Now."

  "Shh. Wait, young brother. Listen." And Serah took Ryel's hands in hers, and softly told him what had passed.

  She had found him in the great chair of his conjuring-room, lying across Edris' lap, caged in the frozen clutch of lifeless arms. Only her strongest spells had availed to free Ryel of that dead embrace. Instantly some of the brotherhood had said the needful mantras to preserve Edris' body, and bore it to the Silent Citadel while others carried Ryel to his bed, where Serah had kept constant watch over his unmoving form for nearly a week.

  "You attempted the Crossing."

  Serah's words were not a question. Ryel stared at her. "How did you—" But even as he began the question he knew its answer. Seizing her wrist that was covered with a wide bracelet of smooth silver, he used the metal as a mirror, and gave a cry.

  His eyes were gone. In Serah's struggling silver the empty orbs of a statue confronted him, black and vacant as the void he had hurtled through.

  He fell back, all his body cold.

  "An Overreacher," he whispered brokenly. "I am one, now."

  Serah reached out to him. "Ryel—"

  He evaded her. "Tell Edris I am awake, and must speak with him."

  She gazed on him with deepest pity, her eyes welling with tears. "Ah, Ryel…"

  "Tell him. I beg you, sister." He caught her hands. "Find him."

  "Ryel, no. Don't do this." She pulled free of his grip—it was easy, he was so weak—and cradled him like a child, and like a child he fought her ineffectually until he, too, wept. But out of his vacant eyes no tears fell. The pain racked him like acid, and he sobbed and thrashed, ever shrieking Edris' name, until Serah could hold him no longer and called for help.

  *****

  "Ryel Mirai. Ryel, awake."

  The wysard bolted up as if out of drowning water. "Ithradrakis. I remember. All of it, even to the last breath—"

  "You speak to someone else, Ryel Mirai."

  The wysard's eyes still ached, and he could not open them straightway. But he knew that voice, utterly unlike Edris'.

  "I heard your cries—they were terrible," Priamnor's voice continued. "Was it the daimon?"

  Ryel blinked and winced. "No daimon sent my dream." Even as he spoke, the wysard felt strength well outward to his extremities as if his heart were a sun—invincible force. "I have it. All of it."

  "All of what?" Priamnor asked, perturbed. "Can you stand?"

  "Stand? I can probably fly."

  Too relieved to smile, the Sovranel only nodded. "Excellent. But the hour advances. Here, I had clothes of my city found for you. Your Steppes garb, although admittedly picturesque, is somewhat too warm for this climate."

  Ryel thought of the elaborate robes in his journeybag, but willingly forgot them again as a servant entered bearing a number of fresh rich garments, muted in hue and plainly fashioned as the Sovranel himself was accustomed to wear. One of the robes by chance was of storm-gray, the mourning color of the Inner Steppes; this Ryel instantly chose and drew on. A loose sleeveless over-robe came next, of the near-black purple considered most powerful in Markul and used there for conjuring-cloaks; a wide jade-clasped belt, closely cinched; and last, soft-soled boots of heavy black silk, loose around the calf.

  The garments' caressing rustle calmed and soothed like a sweet voice, but still more pleasing was the scent that seemed to be woven into the cloth, the fragrance Ryel remembered from the moment he and Priamnor Dranthene had first met. He breathed deeply, and strength surged in his blood as if he lived on air.

  You can't be dead, ithradrakis, he thought. Not when I feel your rai like light all around me—bright hot light. With that light I will destroy our enemy—burn it hollow, then crush it like the empty shell of some ugly insect. I will—

  "Ryel."

  The wysard turned to Priamnor, wondering at the wet salt in those sea-colored eyes when there now seemed so little to fear, or mourn for.

  "Ryel." The Sovranel blinked hard, and continued with strained effort. "I have other sisters and brothers, but Diara is dearest to me. We have the same mother, she and I. If anything should—"

  At that moment the door slammed open and a woman rushed in, one of Diara's ladies in waiting to judge from her dress and her manner. She had been running hard, evident by her flushed cheeks, panting breath and disordered gown; running and weeping.

  "Oh, sirs, you must come at once. She's dying. The sorcerers poisoned her."

  Suddenly the short distance separating the two palaces seemed infinite miles. Ryel gathered up his trailing robes the better to follow Priamnor, who proved breathtakingly fleet, and together they left the lady to join them as best she could.

  But thought's swiftness would not have sufficed. Bursting through the portals of Diara's apartments a few steps behind Priamnor, the wysard halted appalled by th
e loathsome fetor in the room, a stench only worsened by censers burning strong perfumes. Amid the miasmatic haze he could discern a bed exquisitely wrought of silver, but its linen torn to shreds and soiled. On this rich and vile couch lay a still figure pitiably frail, and at its side knelt the Sovran Agenor distraught even to madness, while gathered around them stood lamenting courtiers, their jewels shimmering in the last of the dusk. But the two Ormalans Rickrasha and Smimir huddled together gibbering in a corner, their glassy eyes desperately bulging as they sought the chance to flee.

  "Too late, my lord," another of Diara's ladies said to Priamnor between sobs. "Those foul sorcerers—guards! hold them!—envenomed her with some infernal bane, thinking to afterward instill her body with a feigning spirit that would make her appear healed."

  Ryel knelt, and took the Sovrena's hand. It was cold and heavy as marble, with lead-gray nails. Next he lifted one of the princess' eyelids, observing the pinpoint contraction of the pupil, and as a last confirmation of his fear put his face close to hers, scenting her breath. He smelled wet wood and rusting iron.

  "Xantal in its purest form," he whispered, feeling his blood run cold. "By every god…"

  Mere saffron dust, xantal; and barely enough of it to cover the wet tip of one's little finger would infallibly slay, without hope of antidote. But only a few grains and the sky became as a sea, and one's mind leapt across it from star to star. Only the Two Great Cities knew the true worth, use and peril of xantal; mere Ormalans were never meant to get their inept hands on such a powerful drug. Furiously Ryel considered vengeance on Rickrasha and her henchman, but before he could decide on how best to proceed the Sovran Agenor rushed forward, shoving him away from Diara.

  "Don't touch her, Steppes fakir! Guards, cut him down!"

  But the guards wavered. At once Priamnor beckoned to two of them, commanding them to restrain the Sovran. He was instantly obeyed. As Agenor wasted his feeble energies in struggle, Ryel turned to the other two sentinels.

  "Clear this place. Drive out everyone except for the Sovran and his son, and then return at once. Go." He next addressed Diara's waiting-woman. "Have lights brought—as many as might be found. There must be no darkness here."

  The soldiers and the lady in waiting obeyed without question, so sudden and strong was the authority that rang in the wysard's voice and darted from his eyes. Seeing their chance, the Ormalans would have bolted for the door, but Ryel shouted out a word and they froze entirely.

  "By the god Divares," Priamnor murmured, stunned into involuntary faith.

  The sun was setting, but branches of candles surrounded the bed against the gathering darkness. Each new flicker of light heightened both Diara's beauty and its outrage. It wrung the wysard's soul to find the girl so fair, despite the cruel vandalism of dirt, and self-inflicted blows and scratches, and fevered thinness mocked by heavy jewels and stained satin rags. Unable to look longer, Ryel rounded on the two Ormalan adepts, who cringed and mutely whimpered as they met the empty-eyed stare only they could see.

  "You gutter trash," he hissed. "Yes, well you may flinch at the sight of me, for you view me clearly, and know what I am. I promise you'll burn for this."

  The air tightened around him, dense and stifling, even as he spoke. And then the one named Smimir quivered violently, his face purpling, and flames spurted from his silently shrieking mouth and frantic eyes. Like a rotten tower set afire from within the Ormalan burnt, and a moment afterward the fear-maddened wysardess, both of them ablaze at their cores until they toppled at last. Out of a fold of Rickrasha's robes the fat chameleon dropped in a clump of staring dead cinders, and then the two Ormalans crashed to the paving-stones like fire-hollowed trees, their blackened ribs splitting open and spilling forth reeking embers and hissing clots.

  "You murdered them," Priamnor whispered, his lips white and taut.

  "It was the daimon," Ryel said, his voice fully as strained. "Get out, Priam. Go, at once."

  "I can bear it," the Sovranel said. But he spoke through gritted teeth out of an ashen face. "I will not leave her when—but look. Look there!"

  Diara sat upright, gazing around her. At the sight of the blasted corpses she began to howl and yelp with laughter. In her wasted face the eyes were entire black.

  You, Ryel thought, electrically aware. You the tempter, and the murderer. I know you, Dagar.

  "Stand clear of it," he said aloud, pulling the Sovranel away. "There's terrible danger here."

  Priamnor fought Ryel's grip. "Let go of me! My sister is alive!"

  "No," the wysard panted, his lungs crushed by the air's weight. "She is worse than dead. Have the guards take your father from the room, at once."

  But he spoke too late. Somehow Agenor broke free of his soldiers and rushed toward the bed, seizing Diara's usurped body in eager arms. The thing flung back its head and howled with laughter, and then clutched a handful of the Sovran's amulets and necklaces, yanking them taut and driving the jeweled chains deep into the double chins. And even as Dagar throttled the old man, he leered sideways at Ryel, his vacant eyes asquint with mockery.

  Clearly Dagar expected the wysard to counter with some spell, but in answer Ryel seized Diara's hair, wrenching hard. The daimon screeched in pain and loosed his hold, but with malicious spite he gave Agenor a parting blow that hurled the old man to the other side of the room.

  "See to the Sovran," Ryel commanded the guards, never taking his eyes from the daimon. "He's still alive? Good. Carry him out, and don't return. "

  Glad of their escape, the guards hastily bore their ruler away. Ryel next addressed Priamnor, lifting his voice over the daimon's obscenity and babble.

  "You can't stay here. He'll seek your harm next."

  Fiercely the Sovran shook his head. "I will not leave her, or you."

  Ryel motioned Priamnor back. "He's rising. Get out!"

  Dagar leapt from the bed, still shrieking laughter and blasphemy, and fixed his empty eyes on the scorched remains of the Ormalan sorcerers. With an apelike bound he squatted beside what was left of the one named Rickrasha, thrusting his claws into the steaming entrails. Then he scooped out a dripping clutchful of charred guts and devoured it gruntingly, casting a sly sidewise glance at Priamnor as he smeared Diara's beautiful ravaged face with reeking filth.

  At that appalling sight the Sovranel gave a choked cry, then swayed and fainted. Ryel caught him as he fell, and faced the daimon with a rage that left no room for fear or even speech.

  Giggling and cursing the daimon staggered toward them, and darted his defiled claws at Priamnor's face.

  Ryel struck his arm away. "Damn you, let him alone."

  The daimon recoiled, baring its slime-caked teeth in a grin. "He's pretty. "I wouldn't mind playing with him, next."

  The wysard lowered Priamnor to the ground, and stood in front of him. "You'll never touch him while I live, Dagar."

  The daimon tittered. "Don't you love me anymore, young blood? Perhaps you prefer black women? Or yellow? Or green?" As he spoke, he shifted from color to color. "No? It's taking all my wiles to win your heart, sweet eyes. But resist these charms and graces, if you can."

  Rising up in the air as he tore open the stained bodice of the gown and lifted its bedrabbled skirts, Dagar threw Diara's battered and neglected body into a series of weightless contortions so inhumanly grotesque in their obscenity that Ryel's only care was to make sure Priamnor was still unconscious and unseeing. Then the wysard watched the daimon with all attention, lest goaded by his indifference it attempt still worse enormities. Weary at last of his posturings, Dagar sank to earth and stood unsteadily, wheezing and gasping.

  "Did you enjoy that, young blood?"

  Ryel gave a scant nod. "Enthralling. And so original."

  Dagar gave a malignant squint, then a scum-toothed grin. "This weak girl bores me. Perhaps you could suggest a clever way to kill her."

  Such overmastering hatred that blazed within him Ryel had never felt before. Unused he had ever been to that ev
il emotion, and the intensity of what he now felt for this nameless thing all but overpowered him, fused as it was with fear. Seizing Diara's body by the shoulders, he stared unflinchingly into the void of Dagar's eyes and closed his hands around the girl's slender neck, leaning both thumbs into the fragile cartilage barely guarding the throat.

  Dagar squealed in delight. "Ah! So you enjoy my kind of sport. That's good. That's very good indeed, young blood."

  "I will enjoy any torment that gives you pain," Ryel replied. "When I pulled her hair, you screamed; those airy gymnastics of yours wore you out. To lure and afflict me you have only weakened yourself, and made it easy for me to destroy you."

  The daimon was afraid; Ryel could smell it past all the other stinks. But still it sneered. "To destroy me, you must destroy this flesh you love."

  "I have no love for Diara Dranthene."

  The fear-stench grew fouler. "You lie."

  "Tell me if this feels like love." The wysard closed his hands around the girl's slender neck, leaning both thumbs into the fragile cartilage barely guarding the throat. "This will be no more to me than putting a sick animal out of pain—save that in this case I will rejoice in her rai's deliverance. Rejoice knowing there is one part of her you cannot reach to hurt or humiliate or destroy."

  The daimon gagged and twisted. "Fool. Death of the body is death entirely—did you not learn that lesson well in Markul?"

  "I've since found out the truth, Dagar."

  The dead black eyes narrowed at the name. "Thank me for it, then. Give me a kiss, young blood."

  Ryel tightened his grip. "You lured me to destruction, hell-born. You laughed as I fell."

  "Because I had you, beauty," the daimon panted. "Your body would have been mine—had your fool of a father not interrupted."

  Ryel forgot Markul and his mother's blood in a drench of Steppes vengeance. "You killed him!"

  "He shouldn't have gotten in my way," the daimon sneered. "His heroics did him no good, after all. They only slowed down the inevitable. You've seen that the Void can't hold me. I'll have you, sweet eyes." Dagar's empty black stare locked with Ryel's. "Yes. I marked you for my own, as I marked Michael, and my Ormalan friend Theofanu. We'll have fun, we four." He grinned as his voice dropped to a vibrant bass, eerie in the girl's mouth. "Soon all will know the name of the Master.