Ryel watched them until only their dust remained, inwardly thanking his Mastery as he blotted his brow with his sleeve. He had never felt more tired. Perhaps if he just rested a little while…
When he awoke, he had no idea how long he'd slept. Less than a couple of hours, from the look of the sun in the heavens, but much longer than that, from the way his body felt. His eyes were all but gummed together, his mouth felt like a cave full of bat droppings, and he was ravenously hungry. Jinn stood by quietly as always, giving him gentle nudges apparently meant to help as he sat up. Having forgotten to fill his chaltak while in Almancar, he had no water, but while searching Jinn's saddlebags he found a small silk bag containing a few pieces of lakh and a blessed little flask of frangin, surely tucked there in secret by Nelora. They made a delicious breakfast, and Ryel soon felt a surge of energy from the tart liquor and the sugary sweets. Inwardly thanking his little sister as he remounted, he began the ascent of Kalima, and the search for Srin Yan Tai.
The Gray Sisterhood loomed in silence, piercing the clouds in their height; deep green were their skirts, snowy and gray their heads. Roads leading to the jewel-mines ran along their lower slopes, already trafficked with carts and workers, but roads, mines and men were no more than stray threads, patches and specks in the hem of Kalima's many-folded robe. Save for the miners, the roads were deserted; clearly caravans and messengers were well-apprised of the mountain-bandits lurking in the heights, and sought paths less perilous—an avoidance that pleased Ryel well, for it would make his journey all the easier.
Taking care to make his way unobserved, Ryel cut across the winding roads until he had left the jewel-mines behind him. The road upward stretched forth deserted, and he might make as much use of it as he wished. But instead he steered Jinn into the trees, giving himself up to the woods. He had no desire to make use of his enchanted mare's swiftness. Instead he needed the solitude, the fresh unhindered growth, the shaded coolness, after Almancar's cloudless heat and endless stir of buy and sell. He needed silence and meditation after the violence of the night before. And most of all he needed fresh green hope after gray despair, for his soul's healing.
This was his first forest. All his life, both in the Steppes and in Markul, he had dwelt on empty land. Now he entered the woods with reverence, as if crossing the threshold of a temple. The trees of the desert surrounding Almancar had been dwarfed and ill-formed, but those of the mountains loomed free of any curse. The great-girthed trunks towered upward, mingling together their high boughs, while at their roots long needles covered the ground and cushioned Jinn's gait to muffled thuds. Fully a hundred yards high were those great trees, and between their first branches and the ground was room enough for a horse and rider to pass with many feet of space to spare. The early sunlight pierced the heavy foliage in glowing shafts, making dappled gold patches on the ground, and the still air breathed a clean wild fragrance of pitch. A brook tumbled past, shimmering in the light, and Ryel leapt down for a much-needed drink. When he'd finally quenched his thirst, he threw water on his face, wishing that he might as easily wash away the excesses and evils of the night before.
Huge formations of stone began to surge up among the trees, and Ryel dismounted and examined one of the outcroppings of rock, pulling himself up to its top and using it as a vantage-point, resting there for a time. Below him the younger sisters of Kalima lay in docile heaps, green save where rock-slides made balding patches on their slopes. Here and there a stream rilled down the heights like silver tracery on heavy green velvet carelessly cast aside. The wind moved among the treetops with the slow undulations of an invisible sea, turning the leaves over as it passed to create pale silvery streaks in the mass of darker green; and like the sea it roared and murmured.
All that day and the next Ryel spent among the trees. He began to climb more than he rode, testing his legs against the unaccustomed steepness of the slope. At night he sat in meditation, wrapped in Edris' cloak and clutching a hot bowlful of chal against the keen air of the mountains. Water was plentiful owing to the many snow-fed streams, and food he had enough, thanks to his mother's insistence—horseman's rations of savory dried antelope and thin wedges of grain-dense bread, only a little crumbled from being wedged into a corner of his saddlebags. Quietly he tended his fire, listening to the furtive scurryings of the night-feeders, the cries of owls, waiting for Dagar's loathed voice to invade his mind like some corrupt ooze. But it did not, and relieved at the deliverance the wysard turned his thoughts to Srin Yan Tai.
Ryel had never met Lady Srin, who had left Markul years before his arrival. Of her skill, however, he had heard and read much. Hers was deep thaumaturgy, dealings with the Outer World that went beyond mere summonings and commands. Like him she had seen the edge of the Abyss and been marred by it, and like his, her eyes were empty black. She was of the Steppes, even as Ryel, but farther to the east and north, in the Elqhiri Kugglaitan. Hers was warrior's blood, high and stark, and she had been in her youth, now long past, a redoubtable fighter. Equally accustomed to grimmest hardship as well as most flagrant luxury had she been, in those days: strong of will as of body, yet beautiful beyond telling, and fond of the delights of the flesh—of wine and mandragora, lovers and gold, dainty food and fine havings. But none of these had been able to satisfy her at any depth, and therefore out of sheer restlessness she had come to Markul in her fiftieth year, riding up in armor of bronze and steel to demand entrance.
Many had watched her from the walls, and one of them had been Edris, who had described the sight in his Book. "A voice like the booming of a bell she had, and black hair down to her waist, fantastically knotted. And when she stripped to enter the City we were all of us amazed, for hers was the body of a girl of twenty, but muscled and strong. Too strong for my taste—too much shoulder and not enough hip and buttock, and breasts like the wrist-shields her people use to ward away arrows, hard as the bronze of her armor."
I'll certainly know her when I see her, Ryel thought. Now if only I can find her.
On the second day the slope steepened even more, and when Ryel again came to the road, he found it shrunk to a mere path. Clearly few if any travelers had made use of the Kalima route for some time. But Ryel noted that a horse and rider had journeyed westward to only a day or so before, riding at a headlong gallop whenever the ground allowed. The imprint of the horseshoes bore a cipher, and Ryel knelt to examine it.
"A messenger of the imperial house of Destimar," the wysard murmured, feeling his voice catch.
He went back into the trees, fleeing the sight of those tracks and the memories they evoked, centering his thoughts on Srin Yan Tai.
"You know someone's looking for you," he said, his eyes shut hard in concentration. "That much I can sense. Now let yourself be found. I have to know—"
Jinn halted so hard she nearly threw him. Lurching out of his trance the wysard scrambled for balance, cursing energetically. Then he saw what Jinn had stopped for, and swore again, breathlessly now.
He had wandered into a hollow set in Kalima's side, into a wondrous place. A fair large green field stretched between two embracing arms of rock, and in the midst of this field was set a lake little more than a pond. In the midst of the lake lay a grassy flowery island perhaps fifty feet across, and in the midst of the island rose a single tree that seemed to Ryel a great slim-wristed hand holding aloft a bubble of cinnabar silk. Every color glowed brilliantly in the clear mountain sunlight of late afternoon, intensifying the scene's unreality. The deliberate fantasy of the place made Ryel smile, and he urged Jinn into the glassy water, that he might cross to the island. But scarcely had Jinn ventured a hoof than the water erupted as if a thousand snakes were fighting to the death therein, boiling hot as molten iron. The horse reared back, shrilling terror, and Ryel hurtled through a vivid swirl of blue and green and cinnabar before crashing into deep red darkness.
Steel, sharp and cold against his throat, choked him into consciousness. Squinting upward, the wysard found himself strad
dled by a tall broad-shouldered figure obscure against the sun, clad in the way of the Kugglaitana Steppes. One of its hands held his sword, the other his horse.
“Talk, you prying whoreson,” boomed his captor's voice. “And say it in three words, or die squealing.”
Ryel groaned. “Srin Yan Tai.”
The sword was tossed aside, the horse set free. Yanked to his feet by an inexorable arm, Ryel looked into empty black eyes set in a wonderful face.
The voice boomed again. "So. You finally showed up. What took you, whelp?"
Ryel stared. No one but Edris had ever called him that. "You know me?"
Lady Srin laughed at him. "Aye, inside and out. I've seen you naked as my hand, lad. But come on--it's time for food and fire. I speared a young boar this morning, and it's been seething ever since."
At those first words the wysard felt his face growing warm. "But—"
"Later, later. In good time. Follow me."
Stepping-stones led to the island's shore—chunks of rock crystal, invisible in the transparent white-sanded water. Jinn hung back, and would not be persuaded to cross.
"Just as well," Lady Srin said. "I dislike the notion of my flowers being trampled—although at least with this horse there'd be no horse apples."
"How could you possibly have known—"
"I know everything, whelp. Let her be, and come on."
The boar stew simmered in an earth oven. Once unburied and uncovered, it sent up a delicious aroma. "Good," said Lady Srin, stirring it approvingly with her dagger. "Bring it and we'll eat."
Fortunately, climbing the tree was easier than Ryel had foreseen, even with the encumbrance of a heavy and bubbling-hot cauldron. Steps invisible to the casual eye accommodated him wherever he chanced to set his foot, and in a moment he had joined Lady Srin on the platform supporting the tent.
"It's fine weather. We'll eat here." And Lady Srin ducked inside the tent, emerging with plates and cups and wine. The plates were silver, the cups gold, and the wine red and strong. Besides the stew, there was fresh flatbread and greens. The two wysards filled their vessels and ate side by side, cross-legged on the platform. Too hungry for talk, Ryel fell to with grateful good will.
"An unusual mode of living for one bred on the Steppes, this of yours," he said after his pangs were blunted. "A tent in a tree, with mountains all about."
Lady Srin shrugged. "A yat's a yat."
"You say you know everything about me. How?"
"I helped your father Edris bring you into the world. I've seen you in my Glass on every one of your birthdays," Lady Srin answered, filling their goblets again with dark red wine, lifting hers to the wysard, and gave a wide flash of grin. "I'm your magic godmother, lad."
A shock of memory struck Ryel like a bolt. "Was it you that—"
"That saved you during a lightning-storm when you were twelve? The very same, lad Ry. But you'll hear the whole story in good time. For now, we eat—and drink."
Lady Srin must have been seventy years of age by now, but her face had barely a wrinkle. Folk in her part of the World kept their youth longer than did those of other places, and she had the advantages of Art to preserve her looks. Her smooth dark-gold visage was slant and heavy of eyelid, jutting of cheekbone, wide across the brow—a beautiful barbaric mask plundered for its jewel-inlaid eyes. Those eyes had been pale gray, like moonstones, according to what Ryel had read in the chronicles of Markul. As for the hair, it still hung in long narrow braids and loops, but now the lustrous darkness was streaked with silver; beads of jade and amber were woven into each plait. Her clothing was manlike and splendid: a slit-sided tunic of the richest and heaviest brocade, with a shirt of finest linen beneath; leggings of thick corded silk, and low boots of embossed leather jingling with silver ornaments. About her neck were many strands of jade and pearl, and around her waist—still slim and flat-bellied—was girded a wide belt of chased and jeweled plates of gold. Bracelets she had on both wrists, almost to the elbow, and more than one ring on every finger; around her brow was a band of silver shaped like a desert hawk with outspread wings, inlaid and fringed with coral and lapis lazuli. An outlandish and gorgeous figure she made as she sat in her silk-tented tree, spearing chunks of meat with her dagger-point and quaffing down her wine.
But picturesque as the wysardess and her home were, Ryel felt disquiet. "You don't seem too well protected in this place," he observed, looking from her to the land beyond, where Almancar lay glowing.
Lady Srin shook her head. "Few eyes indeed think of prying here—although now that I recall it, in the past a few over-curious interlopers were boiled alive in my moat. Since then I've made use of a strong spell-fence to keep undesirables out."
"I felt it. But I got through."
She only snorted. "You were meant to, whelp." She ran a many-ringed finger around her empty plate, licking it with relish. "Will you eat more?"
"I thank you, no," Ryel replied. "But it was excellent."
"It's the juniper berries and raw spirit makes it good; plenty of pepper, too." Gathering up the silver dishes, Lady Srin flung them into the water below. Before Ryel could question her action, he saw its purpose: instantly the water hissed and bubbled, swirling white sand finer than sugar, cleaning the tableware in a moment and polishing it to a brilliant gleam before casting it onto the soft grass.
"I hate housework," the wysardess nonchalantly observed. "Time for talk. Come, let's go inside and drink chal and breathe mandragora."
Lady Srin's tent was much larger within than it seemed without, and its airy silk covering gave no hint of the solidity and warmth imparted by heavy tightly-stitched skins and draped hangings and deep-piled rugs. Furniture there was none, nor any decoration save an array of painted and gilded chests and strongboxes—and a brightly tiled Almancarian stove, which gave Ryel a brief but acute pang of homesickness.
"Yes," said Lady Srin, observing the wysard's interest as she filled a kettle with water and set it on the tiles. "Handy inventions, these."
"You might have heated your tent with the Art."
The wysardess' lip—still full despite almost a century of sneers—curled in disdain. "Bah. It sucks one's powers to waste them on piffling silly trifles. Have you perhaps noticed that the World is not Markul? Besides, I make better Kaltiri flatbread than any srih could."
"As you wish. Tell me about the storm when I was twelve."
"In time, in time. Impatient youth." Srin Yan opened the door of the stove and extracted some glowing coals, which she placed on brazen dish. "Fasten the tent-flap tight."
Ryel did so, and turned back to see Lady Srin throw a gray-green handful of crumbled herbs on the coals. Instantly a thick smoke arose and filled the tent with a provocative redolence somewhere between stench and perfume. Lady Srin knelt over the smoke, breathing deeply with her hands on her knees.
"Ah. Now we can talk as friends, easy and unforced," she said. "I trust my herb is to your liking."
"Seldom have I made use of mandragora," Ryel replied, a little misgivingly. "It's a mystic's drug."
"Bah. It's good for you." Lady Srin Yan opened a chest, extracting from it two porcelain bowls and a silver box. Taking some jade-dark powder from the box, she dropped it into the water on the stove. A subtle fragrant vapor mingled with the mandragora haze. Soon they were sipping excellent chal, and Ryel again asked his question.
"How did you know to come to my help, that day of the storm?"
"Premonition," Lady Srin said, tranquil with mandragora. "We of the Art, especially when advanced in years, sense things mere Worldlings can't. Edris was well aware when your mother was near her time with you. 'I must be at her side,' he said, in that hardheaded way he had. 'I must receive my child into my hands.' But he knew as well as I that in your savage country no man is allowed near a woman in labor. Therefore we disguised ourselves, your father and I, and went to your mother's birthing-yat as beautiful women of Almancar, richly clothed and carrying gifts."
"I had thought shape-c
hanging either a lost Art, or extremely difficult."
"No, no. Deception-spells and drugs are far easier, and take much less toll on the body. We came into your encampment saying we were midwives and distant kinswomen of your mother, and tossed some feia-dust around when no one was looking, and were believed. It was a hard birth, yours, but your mother took the pain bravely, because she knew that it was Edris who comforted her, whispering spells to allay and calm, until you emerged from the womb into his hands. I'll never forget the way he looked at you--the joy, and the awe. And, I have to admit, the regret, because he could never call you his son, and would never be there as you grew up."
"I missed that, too. Even in Markul, I never knew."
"He loved you more than you understood, because he gave up his own studies in the Mastery to further yours. He was a power in the Art, one of the greatest since the First, but he sensed that you would be stronger, and he was right."
The mandragora had spread over Ryel's brain like a thin tingling glaze. "It was a great sacrifice. Too great."
"We'll see," Lady Srin said, with stoic finality. "But let's consider the present. Tell me your news about the death of the old Sovran, and Diara's madness, and your brothel brawl with Priamnor."
Ryel dropped his chal-bowl, and the priceless porcelain shattered. Srin Yan Tai hissed a single syllable, and instantly the broken pieces re-knit. Lifting up the bowl, she examined it. "Good as new. But one has to say the word at once, or the cracks will show. You might be a little more careful with my crockery—it's Sulian ware, at least a thousand years old."
Ryel ignored the magic and the chiding. "How could you have known about my going to Almancar? By what Art—"
"It didn't take Art; just a Glass-chat with Serah Dalkith. You forget how we old witches like to gossip." Lady Srin leaned back, benign with mandragora, and smiled on the wysard as if about to reveal a most amusing secret. "By the way, did you know you're dead?"
The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic Page 28