"A bold device," the wysard murmured. "I expected no less, Guyon de Grisainte Desrenaud." With a swift caress to the horse's coal-colored mane, Ryel pushed open the door.
The air closed in around him and squeezed his breath from his body. For a panicked instant he thought Dagar had returned, but soon realized that what oppressed him was the narcotic fug of smoke that misted the rafters—fumes of burnt mandragora and celorn-root mixed with the reeking heat of too many fevered unwashed bodies, hovering over the din of shrieking laughter, curses and shouts. Groping for the Transcendence phial, Ryel took a covert breath of its rescuing fragrance as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and the haze, and his ears to the uproar.
Sputtering lamps set in wall-niches and a fire in the middle of the room were the only light. The oily gleam fell on a hell of fiendlike faces, brutalized and wasted, ringed like a circle of skulls about a woman that danced amid the yowling music and hoarse singing and hand-clapping. She was naked save for a gaudy scarf around her hips, and her nipples and fingernails were gilded; her hair hung down her dusky shoulders like dirty black fleece, and her body was lean and worn with excess. At the sight of her Ryel shuddered. She writhed like a guttering flame, hot and vicious, and suddenly her painted lewd eyes fixed on his—sea-blue eyes, Almancarian blue, purely clear as Diara's. Beholding his horror, she flung back her head and laughed; all of her teeth were gold.
The wysard turned his back on her, his heart pounding hard. He did not know how long he stood there, trapped in the noise.
Hot bare skin shouldered him. "You're rude. I was dancing for you."
Ryel glanced down at the gold-tipped breast insistently nudging his arm; looked away. "Leave me alone. Please."
"Not until I tell your fortune, tall lovely." Clearing a nearby table with a sweep of her hand, she dipped a gilded finger into a puddle of stale beer and traced a pattern on the greasy wood. "So. Do you see it, beauty?"
Dagar had called him that. Ryel thought only to get away. "If you want money—"
She waved away the offer, scorningly. "Not one dirty penny, sweetheart. For my own pleasure I'll evoke the powers arcane. There's adventure in that bold face of yours; high purpose in that comely form. This is no place for you, lovely. I'll find out where you've been, and where you're next to go."
The wysard had to smile, but only halfway. "That'll take Art."
"I have all Arts," she said. Her voice was light and cool, at once caressing and indifferent; soft as it was, somehow managed to overcome every other sound in that ear-splitting room. "Indulge me, bold warrior." The woman examined the random beer-scatterings with nonchalant interest, her brilliant eyes amused as she pointed from drop to drop with a gleaming forefinger.
"Look here. The past, first. Ah. Two that you love, he and she, highborn both, here." The long golden fingernail shifted to another splash. "A great enemy and cruel here, great enough to tear the World to pieces once, and still strong. Here, one taller than you lies lifeless in a high tower; or does he? Here..."
Ryel seized her wrist. "How can you know these things?"
Her beautiful eyes gleamed up at him, her gold teeth flashed. "Why, my Art, brother. My strong and wondrous Art." Shaking him off with an ease that mocked his grip's insistence, she continued. "The future, now. Wrongs righted. A life once lost found again."
The wysard swallowed desert. "Anyone could tell me such lies."
"Let them tell you lies, then, like to this." Her gilt-nailed forefinger tapped the midmost part of her strange random design. "Two realms imperiled. A red general and a white queen doomed in the North; to the South, a Sovran and his sister greatly endangered. And somewhere, the great Enemy undestroyed, seeking its strength again."
Ryel caught the woman's hand, roughly. "Who are you?"
She grinned goldly. "Why, a witch, sweet brother. The best of all. But let me finish." Again she idly peered at her design. "You can avert the harm, with help. Help like to this." With Ryel's unwilling hand clasped inescapably in hers, she indicated the final drop. "He fled you, but to no avail. You'll find him again. Soon. Now."
"Who is it you mean?"
The witch licked her lips savoringly. "The one that took you out of the fire."
Ryel caught her arm. "How could you have known that? Where is he?"
She shrugged him off, and obliterated her design with a careless swipe. "Listen."
At the nether reaches of the room a snarling uproar had broken out at a gaming-table, and one voice amid the brabble caught Ryel's ear and made it twitch. He knew that voice—dryly male, neither high nor low, pure highland Ralnahrian, unforgettable.
At his side the woman laughed. "There. He's yours—for now. Until our next, Ryel Mirai."
He turned to her, startled by the sound of his name; but she had vanished. The brawl had ended as quickly as it began, with one of the dicers limping from the room clutching his knife-gored side while another was lugged out motionless and the rest resumed their sport. Ryel could see nothing but bent heads and shoulders as the gamesters huddled over the table once again. But then one of their number straightened up to leave, having either lost all or won much. Very tall and straight he stood among that stunted rout, clad in the black uniform of a Hryeland cavalry officer, dustily worn and stripped of its silver insignia; for headgear he wore a Shrivrani cowl that concealed his every feature, save for the eyes.
"Guy Desrenaud," the wysard whispered. Instantly the tall man turned in his direction, and their eyes met. Ryel felt himself engulfed in the cold waters of a winter sea, turbulent gray-green. But only momentarily before Desrenaud flung on his threadbare dust-colored cloak, and shouldered his way past the crowd and outside.
Ryel followed. The street was empty and quiet, and the moon rode disdainfully aloof amid the dirty haze. Again he heard that voice known yet strange to him, now close at his ear.
"Listen."
Ryel stood still, and heard a faint furtive scurrying.
"I don't know how many of 'em there are," Desrenaud said, still in a whisper. "Back to back, quick!"
Ryel had barely time to unsheathe his sword when five men rushed at them from the black corners; but as they came nearer he saw that they resembled men only in that they stood upright. Loathingly through the darkness he traced their stunted twisted bodies, stony eyes, slavering slits of mouth. Two of them sprang ratlike at Desrenaud, daggers aflash in the moonlight, but at a yelled word of the Northerner's they dropped their weapons screaming, and as they fled Ryel saw that the knife-hilts were glowing hot. In his split-second of immobility the other three leapt on him, throwing him to the reeking cobblestones, their fingers like thorns in his face. But their crazed strength was nothing to his Art, and in three words' speaking two of them lay senseless; the other had been run through the back seconds earlier.
Desrenaud wiped the blood from his sword-blade on a corpse's cloak. "You killed those two?"
Ryel shook his head. "I used a stun-spell."
"That was stupid. They're not human; they're hardly even animal." As he spoke, he gave each of the unconscious forms a hard kick to the head, and Ryel heard their necks snap. But what most concerned the wysard was the magic he had witnessed.
"You know the Art."
Desrenaud shrugged. "Street tricks. Nothing special." Picking up some twigs from the gutter, he slurred something, and they burst into flame; holding the improvised torch to Ryel's face he shook his cowled head.
"You're torn up pretty badly. Lucky they didn't get to your eyes. Don't you hurt?"
Ryel put his hand to his cheek, and felt a row of punctures; rubbed dark wetness between his fingers. "A little."
"You run a strong risk of poison, so let the cuts bleed. Salt water's good for wounds--let's get down to the beach. I took a slice of my own athwart the back of my hand."
They rode through Ormala's reeling nightmare labyrinth down to the shore. When the town lay far behind them Desrenaud stopped, breathing deep of the salt air as if to drive out the smoke-choked din of the
gambling hell, and the teeming stench of the streets, and the rank unwashed reek of the men—or whatever they were—who'd attacked him.
"Finally—something clean," he said. "Come on."
They dismounted in the high grass, leaving their horses there as they walked down to the sands to the sea's edge and washed their wounds. Ryel flinched at the sharp brine on his torn skin, and smoothed away the injuries with the Art's help. Desrenaud watched enviously over the Shrivrani veil.
"Neat trick, that. Care to try it on me?"
He reached out his hand, and Ryel gave an involuntary start after unwrapping it. "By every god—you're cut to the bone."
Desrenaud snorted. "Aren't you observant. I think they even ripped a few tendons."
"How can you stand the pain?"
"Drugs, friend," Desrenaud replied. "Very good drugs, and a great many of them." Beneath the veil his mouth gave a twitch. "It smarts, though, I'll admit."
Ryel examined the wound with increasing unease. "You're bleeding like a river."
"I was rather hoping you'd take care of that, magus."
Ryel made the Art staunch the blood, knit up the severed sinews, close the lacerated flesh, smooth the slashed skin. After the spell took, Desrenaud flexed his fingers in offhand approval.
"Not bad. A little stiff."
Ryel almost laughed. "It'll pass."
"This'll loosen it up. Here, sorcerer, have a drink." From his coat pocket Desrenaud produced a silver flask that Ryel at once recognized as the one given him at parting by the Markessa of Lanas Crin; drank deep, and passed it to the wysard. "This is your property, I believe. Thanks for the loan."
Since they'd left Ormala's boundary Desrenaud had been speaking in his native tongue instead of Hryelesh. It made him sound far less ignorant. Ryel reflected that not until Desrenaud had he heard the true highland accent of Ralnahr. It was a rough yet not unpleasing tang, clipped close in some places, drawn out long in others—wild if not savage, and doubtless at its best when chanting some grim saga of blood-feud and rapine, or giving tune to a stark ballad of fatal love. It occurred to the wysard that women might find it very attractive.
The liquid Dryven fire leapt in Ryel's veins. "It isn't really mine," he said, warmed now. "I had it as a gift of a great lady."
"Lucky man," Desrenaud said. "A rare taste in spirits she's got. I wouldn't mind making her acquaintance."
"You already have," Ryel replied. "Her name is Gwynned de Grisainte."
A silence. Then, slowly, "And how does my grandame?"
"She's well, save for her concern for you," the wysard replied.
"Hm." Desrenaud took back the flask again, drank, and thrust it into his pocket. "We likely need to talk, magus. Let's to my house."
They continued a little further down the beach, to a place where rocks towered in rough spikes and cones black against the moon. Desrenaud picked up a stick, and said the word to light it; failed and cursed.
"It's wet," he said, handing it to Ryel. "Here, make yourself useful."
Not too patiently the wysard turned the wet wood into a blazing torch, and found another branch of driftwood to devise one for himself. "Where are we going?"
"Here." Desrenaud indicated a great rock split long ago into two chunks of stone ten feet high, now drifted a dozen feet apart. Logs smoothed to pale yellow and cast up by storm and tide roofed and walled the split, their gaps thatched and caulked with flotsam. "We're home."
Wrapped in his—Edris'—cloak, Ryel watched the fitful leaping of the fire Desrenaud had kindled against the sea-chill. There was little else to look at; the hut was windowless, and contained almost nothing. He listened to the sigh of the tide-wind, and thought of his homeland's yats. "We both are far from the places we belong."
"I'm not complaining. Especially not now." Desrenaud yanked at the Shrivrani veil, baring his head. Ryel had already seen more than enough to sicken, and would have looked away. But he was astonished by a face compellingly fine, notwithstanding its residue of rash and blotches.
"Hah. Surprise, sorcerer," Desrenaud said, running both hands through tawny-gold hair now grown back thick, if greasily unkempt. "I woke up the other morning and wondered why my face itched so much. Crawling with fire-ants it felt. Then the skin began to peel, and I pulled it away like bark. Whole blistered waxy crusts of it. I didn't think I'd have a face left, and I never thought I'd get my nose back, or my ears. You're good, sorcerer. Really good."
After his shock had ebbed, Ryel observed that Desrenaud was indeed as Belphira Deva had described him, regardless of the passage of years. The eyes were still steady and subtle despite exhaustion, the brow yet clear, the mouth unweakened in defiance of Ormala's ravages. But despite these similarities to his former self, the Northerner's pallor held the waxen hue of the grave, and the hollowed places in his cheeks were the grave's. Ryel saw them, and was troubled.
"I did what I could to help you," the wysard said. "But you are not yet free, Guyon Desrenaud."
"What makes me your concern, sorcerer?"
"What made me yours, there in the castle?"
Desrenaud lifted a shoulder. "Even as I said. You lived. Had you not been breathing, I'd have left you there with your red-headed friend.
"No other reason than that?"
"It's enough, to my mind," Desrenaud replied. "I've a dislike of violent death."
"So I saw, back in the alleyway," Ryel replied, with not a little irony. "Those things we fought—what were they?"
Desrenaud grimaced a smile. "Why, Ormala's oldest citizens, sorcerer. The hidden aristocracy. Stay in the City long enough and grow fond of the wrong drugs, and you'll join it—turn from man to animal, living like a gutter-rat, sneaking out at night to scavenge and murder. Some say they acquire a taste for human flesh; now and again a corpse is found at dawn gnawed in places. Which reminds me—I'm starving. Since you're so great a magus, have a few of your ghost-slaves bring us some dinner."
Ryel laughed, but not long. "I had thought you might entertain me, since I'm a guest in your house."
"Very well. Remember, you asked for it." And Desrenaud brought down a basket from an improvised shelf, setting it before Ryel with a flourish. The wysard tried and rejected chalk-dense bread, rindy salty cheese; had no stomach for the cloying sticky sweets or the tainted wine or withered wormy fruit, and would not so much as touch the meat, which looked and smelled like very dead dog.
"When I asked for food, I expected something edible," the wysard said, wincing at the vile tastes in his mouth as he set the basket well aside. "Since you've provided shelter, I'll see to dinner. Ask for whatever you will."
Desrenaud wanted several things, all of them Northern and plain but choice, which appeared even as he called for them, dished in silver and crystal on a low table of Cosran lacquer draped with a cloth of white and gold damask.
The Ralnahrian blurted an underbreath oath as the food appeared, but recovered as quickly. "A neat sleight, conjurer." He touched the edge of a plate, satisfying himself as to its reality. "But I'll wager your spirit-cookery tastes like dust and ashes, for all its tempting smell—that is, if it has any taste at all."
Ryel smiled. "You're welcome to find out."
Desrenaud tried a sliver of salmon, a slice of grouse, some of the dressed fresh greens; took a sip or two of wine. "Now this suits me," he said, falling to without hesitancy now. "Of all Arts I envy this one most."
"It is the least of all," Ryel replied.
"Not when you're starving, sorcerer."
"You could learn such Art, with a little study. I've observed you're double-handed."
Desrenaud filled his glass with straw-gold Masir, tasted approvingly; shook his head. "I'm no scholar. What gramarye I know I had from my grandame the Markessa, or picked up bit by dirty bit in Ormala. But I've no desire to speak of that. Tell me what you're here for—you must want something, or you'd not have hunted me down. And I wouldn't mind knowing who you are."
"My name is Ryel Mirai, and I'm of the—"
"Steppes," Desrenaud said. "Rismai, from the sounds of you. I don't doubt your City's Markul—your Art's too clean and strong for anyplace else."
The wysard could not help being impressed. "You're an apt diviner."
"And what might you know of me?"
"That you have a complicated history, Guy Desrenaud."
"Yours seems to have twisted into it.," the earl replied. "That was a Red Essern that almost killed you."
"Yes."
Desrenaud nodded. "Singular looks, his; hard to forget once seen. There's but two in the world, and he was the younger one, the same age as me. I'd heard of him while in Hallagh, though we never met; he'd left the Barrier before I arrived, gone to study gramarye in Elecambron. It looks as if his Art proved the death of him."
Ryel inclined his head. "All too true. It's a long story."
"Then it can keep as far as I'm concerned." Desrenaud stirred the fire, regarding the coals. "It'll wring Redbane hard when he learns Michael's fate. Sibs are seldom kind to one another in the North, but those two were heart in heart, they say."
"You knew the Count Palatine well, I understand," Ryel said.
"Too well," replied Desrenaud. "That didn't make us friends."
"But you were brothers, nonetheless. Sword-brothers, I should say."
"And how might you have learned that, sorcerer?"
"Because I'm one of the Order."
Desrenaud's eyes kindled as his brows bent. "Tell me your name, then, and let's see that tagh of yours."
"Ruhkt Avràl," Ryel said, handing over the sword.
"Ha. Blood Storm. Mine's Trâgh Ran," Desrenaud replied. "Here, take this."
"Edged Tempest," Ryel translated, catching the heavy weapon the earl tossed to him. Drawing the blade forth from its scabbard, the wysard disclosed an elegantly severe Northern rapier, plain and stark and beautifully kept despite its many signs of long use. Down the blade its fair inscription ran, and Desrenaud translated it aloud.
"'As flame burns brighter for the winds
That have its light beset;
As from the highest harshest rocks
The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic Page 50