The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  The sweetest waters jet,

  Let me run clean as highland streams,

  As storm-tossed fire burn free;

  To make a bright unblemished path

  For darkest destiny.'

  "That's the way I wrote it when a lad, long before I ever knew I'd be one of the Sword Brotherhood." Desrenaud had unsheathed the wysard's blade, and now held it up to the candlelight, looking long upon it. "A sweet piece of steel, this," he said at last. "Good runes, too."

  "I didn't write them," Ryel said. "They were my father's work."

  "So you use his sword. That's not customary, but it'd be a rank shame to let a blade this fine lie idle. Who was your Adversary at the initiation?"

  "The Commander himself."

  Desrenaud gave a one-sided grimace. "You poor devil. And how badly did he cut you?"

  "He didn't."

  The Northerner gave a disbelieving frown more than half indignant. "Don't tell me you managed to deal Roskerrek a wound."

  "Why not? Didn't you?"

  "I scratched him, and he made me sorry for it. But then again, I didn't have Art like yours to keep my skin whole."

  Ryel met this with indignation. "What makes you think I used my Art?"

  Desrenaud filled his glass yet again. "You wouldn't be alive and unmarked otherwise." He gulped down the precious vintage as if steeling himself for a blow. "Enough of Redbane. Tell me about the Domina, since you move in such high circles."

  "She believes you dead," Ryel replied.

  The earl breathed in, then out, deeply. "Good. And what killed me?"

  "A border dispute in Wycast. You fell with many wounds, after fighting bravely."

  "That savors of Roskerrek's imagination," Desrenaud said after a long silence. "Poetical." The Northern earl took a glass of Ryel's golden Masir, and rolled a mouthful reflectively over his tongue. "He'd tell you that this wine is the essence of Almancar. Colored like the new-risen moon, and heady as the first kiss of a doomed love. I need some air." Rising up, he left the shelter. The wysard finished his glass of wine, and then went down to the water where Desrenaud stood facing the moon.

  "I understand what you suffer, Guy."

  Desrenaud hid his face in his Shrivrani cowl, but the moon glittered in his eyes. "Begone, warlock. Leave me in peace."

  Ryel would not leave. "You have not known peace for many years."

  "You lie. I have it now, for the first time in my life."

  "What you have is sickness fully as mortal as Belphira's."

  Desrenaud unveiled, and turned to Ryel. "Then tell me a cure, if you can."

  "She is your cure, even as you are hers. You've wasted far too much time here."

  Desrenaud gave a clipped laugh, harsh and scorning. "Here's where the fun is, sorcerer."

  "Fun like this?" Ryel took the Ormalan phial from his shirt, holding it up to the firelight. At once Desrenaud snatched it from him.

  "Exactly what I wished for," he said. "You're good, sorcerer, but I never dreamt you'd be this good."

  Ryel stared from the phial to Desrenaud. "I should have known it was a drug."

  The earl laughed low in his throat, inhumanly. "It's the best and the worst, magician. Mere men of a certain desperate stamp find it blurs the sharper edges of life, so that they no longer feel it when they cut themselves. It has the unfortunate effect, however, of disfiguring one rather severely."

  "By every god," Ryel breathed. "Xantal." Then, louder and sharper, "Give me that back. Hasn't it done enough to destroy you?"

  "Not nearly enough." Desrenaud held the drug-vial between his fingers, squinting through it into the firelight. "But there's sufficient here to save me."

  "It would kill you outright," Ryel all but cried, grabbing for the vial. "Horribly."

  Desrenaud met this news with absolute indifference, and held the vial well away from the wysard's reach. "That's the idea, conjurer."

  "But why?"

  "Several excellent reasons, sorcerer. You know one of them."

  The wysard felt a surge of anger at whoever had told that lie, and wrecked this life. "I spoke with Belphira Deva in Almancar not two months gone, and saw her in my Glass only days ago. Whoever told you she was dead lied, for no reason but to do you harm."

  Desrenaud made no answer, but bit his lip awhile, drawing blood at last. "It doesn't matter. Not any more. If you see her again, you needn't let fall that we met. Or how I died. It'd not make a pretty tale." As he spoke, he took the phial between his fingers, as if to break it.

  Ryel held out his hand, angrily imperative. "Give that back."

  "Not just yet." Desrenaud's fingers quivered, now. "There's a trick to breaking one of these, you know. A quick snap right at the top. That way it doesn't splinter—I've a dislike of glass-splinters in my xantal. Here's how it's done—"

  Ryel blurted a word, and the phial flew out of Desrenaud's fingers into the sand. "Let it alone, Guy."

  With a spat curse the Northerner raised his fist, but the wysard froze him in the act with a word.

  "You're not getting away that easily, Starklander." Taking up the xantal-tube, Ryel tucked it into the lacquer case in his journeybag. "You're in far more need of rest. Come with me." He helped Desrenaud back to the shelter, then made him lie down. The Northern earl thrashed and mumbled, his eyes shut but sleepless.

  "Calm." Ryel lightly pressed his fingertips to Desrenaud's brow close to the hairline, and said a word that smoothed the furrows, dried the sweat. "Tell me about Belphira."

  The Northerner ground his teeth. "I was in Hallagh. Just back from the wars. Ready at last to return to her, she that had never been an hour from my thoughts, and make her my wife. And then the news came that she'd died. Horribly, of some arcane clap or other called jirankri." He nearly laughed. "And I believed him. After all I'd endured from him over so many years, I still believed the bastard."

  "Who?"

  "Derain Meschante."

  Ryel recoiled. "But what could have made you trust him?"

  "A priest of the Unseen he was by then," Desrenaud said. "I thought him past all worldly deceits—the damned dirty liar. He even said he sorrowed for me, and that he'd send up prayers for her soul. I should have killed him long ago, that night we brawled in the Diamond Heaven."

  The wysard considered these words and all they implied. "I wish you had," he murmured. "It would have saved the World a great deal of trouble."

  Another barely-uttered word and Desrenaud sank back unconscious, but still fitful. Ryel covered the Northerner in Edris' cloak, then lay down in the sand, weary to his soul's core. The last thing he heard was Desrenaud's restless breathing, discordant above the deliberate rhythm of the sea.

  Dawn was fleeing the sky, harried by an insolent sun, when he awoke. Edris' cloak covered him, and Desrenaud was gone. At once Ryel searched his journeybag for the xantal, never expecting to find it. He was much astonished when he did. Shaking the sand from his clothes, the wysard went out into the daylight. A big man's footprints led down to the waterline, and a stick of driftwood lay next to letters written deep in the firm sand, still visible despite the gnawing tide—Gone Back. Guess Where.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ryel could not much more than guess which direction Desrenaud had taken. He bitterly wished that he'd had time to tell the Northerner of events enwrapping Hallagh. And he was more than a little perturbed that his Glass-fragment when consulted yielded no sight of either horse or man.

  "Something blocks them," Ryel said to himself. That same something watched him every night when he halted to rest; watched him with eyes half benign, it seemed. Every day occurrences Artwise strange made him wonder who it was that played with him. He would wake to find Jinn's mane and tail braided with bright ribbons, or to discover his chal already brewed, accompanied by squares of lakh. Unnamable flowers sprouted up in the midst of his path, and rabbits and squirrels spoke nonsense to him in the high nasal voices of children, giggling and scurrying away when the wysard questioned them. He wonde
red at the loneliness of his road, that was utterly void of houses or travelers. The same power that obscured his Glass and amused him with tricks and fancies undoubtedly had a hand in his continued solitude, and more than likely intended further manifestations, but of what nature he could only guess. He began to feel like a wandering prince in one of those Cosran fables where all the world is harmless, charming and just a little silly; but after the hardships and dangers of the past long while, the change gave him pleasure, although it did nothing to induce him to slacken his guard.

  At least he could take comfort that the danger wasn't Dagar. Stripped of his former power, the daimon no long held dominion over the air, and all the spirit-energy once subjugated to his will had been freed. Ryel could feel it with every breath he drew. The changeable coastal weather had given way to unbroken early summer that persuaded Ryel to doff his cloak and coat and tie back his hair; in the heats of the day he would strip off his shirt too, pleasured by the caress of sunlight on his skin. Now assiduous srihs fulfilled his lightest want with the lavish alacrity they had shown in Markul, making his evening encampments luxurious beyond any dream of Almancar—which the wysard accepted gladly, for he was taking a delight in his Art that he had never before allowed himself to feel. Lady Srin had thought the Markulit skill too precious to be wasted upon trifles, but she would never know his strength; she had valued the Art as a desert dweller prizes water, chary of every drop, whereas Ryel felt his Mastery within him like a great river tumbling into an infinite ocean. His enemy was distant from him, its energies concentrated elsewhere; now for a while at least the wysard might meditate upon Diara as much as he wished, without need to set a guard upon his dreams. Again and again he relived the wonder of ocean-blue eyes gently joining with his own, a voice sweet beyond any music, excellences of wit and spirit nobly gracing the nymphen form. Able to give his thoughts a loose at last, he again felt white skin smooth and firm as sun-warmed tide-packed sand under his hands, and silken tresses streaming through his fingers like long ribbons of sea-grass; held in his arms all the beauty of the World, and kissed its delicious lips again and yet again, until he half sickened with longing for more, for all.

  Indeed he had traveled far from Markul, farther than could ever be measured in miles. "I love you," he said aloud, a thousand times a day, laughing with the joy of it. He said it not only to Diara, but to Priamnor, and Mira, and Nel, feeling them in his blood and of his blood like an exultant intoxication. A thousand times he considered turning Jinn's head southward, forsaking cold Northland and Hallaghan turmoil for the delights of golden Almancar, and a thousand times he forced himself to mindfulness that although war among the Four Cities had been averted, the World was still imperiled by the machinations of Theofanu and Michael. As for Guyon Desrenaud, he had very probably taken the fastest road to Almancar, where Belphira Deva was. Ryel wished he knew.

  "Could that have been your only part in this play, Guy—to have dragged me out of the fire? I admit it's enough and I'm grateful, but..."

  He let his words trail. So lost in thought had he been, letting Jinn take her way as she wished, that he now looked around him and found himself no longer by the sea, but somewhere inland, amid fields and woods. The sun had climbed high and now shone with summer's heat, urging Ryel to take off his coat and roll up his shirt's sleeves. But as he did so, he felt a tremor of disquiet. He was being watched. He knew it, even though nothing of life moved anywhere around him. The same power that obscured his Glass undoubtedly had a hand in his continued solitude, and more than likely intended further manifestations, but of what nature Ryel could only guess.

  "You're near," he said to whatever it was that watched him. "And you're dangerous when you want to be, though on your best behavior now. Show me how strong you really are. I dare you."

  He waited until his wariness at length relaxed, allowing him to take slow savoring breaths of the air that bathed him in warm summer balm, and roll his shoulders in pleasure of the sunlight tickling his shoulders with voluptuous hot fingers. Coaxed by the heat, he took off his shirt, and tied back his hair. But in that moment something pricked him on the neck, making him start and swear. Slapping at what had to be an insect, the wysard glanced at his fingers afterward expecting to find them smeared with fly-slime. But all he found was a drop of clear water.

  Even as he frowned bewilderment, another sting bit into his forearm. Looking down, he saw a six-pointed flake of ice-crystal poised upon the sun-gilded hair just above his wrist. Another instant and it had melted, but another landed on the back of his hand, and another on his knee—and then tens, hundreds, uncountable millions more swept down out of an incomprehensibly brilliant noonday sky now freezing cold. Hissing an underbreath curse the wysard grabbed for his shirt and coat, yanking them on amid shudders, and flung Edris' cloak about him, pulling the hood over his head. In that moment a black wall of storm-cloud engulfed the sun, and the snow thickened into a blizzard so violent that Ryel was forced to dismount and take shelter against Jinn, who showed little if any perturbation at the sudden change of weather.

  "In the name of All—" the wysard tried to say aloud, but the wind carried away his words. He could only cling round Jinn's neck as the storm blew yet harder, and the air grew colder and darker, and the snow fell thicker.

  "You're good," Ryel whispered, thrusting his cold-cramped fingers into Jinn's warm mane. "Whoever you are, you're good." And he meant it.

  Weather-witching was a lost Art. Only the Highest had ever possessed that skill. Folk of the World believed that power over the weather was the commonest wysardry of all, even as they deemed shape-changing and thought-reading and mind-moving to be likewise common attainments among lord adepts of the Four; and nothing could have been less true. During the fight with Michael among the ruined rooms of stone, Ryel had commanded the elements, but that was in his rage and at his best, with his Art blazing in his veins. To rule the weather had for centuries been considered sheer impossibility by the Cities, and Guyon Desrenaud would have correctly deemed this snow-tempest rare and serious gramarye.

  "You've made your point," Ryel muttered to his invisible prankster after what seemed quite long enough a time, his shivering lips tickled by Jinn's coat. "I'm impressed. You can stop now."

  As if in mockery the snow thickened all the more, and the ice-fingered wind tore Edris' cloak from Ryel's shoulders. The wysard watched helplessly as the scarlet cloth rumpled and twisted high in the white air just beyond his desperate grasp. Another moment and it would be tossed far beyond his sight, past any hope of retrieval.

  "Damn you, stop it!" Ryel yelled, choking on snow. In bitterest rage he shouted into the storm, rebuking it with words of Art mingled with curses, giving his anger his all, quivering as much with rage as with cold.

  He fully expected the blizzard to halt. And obligingly the storm slackened its fury by degrees, until only the faintest diamond-powder wafted down from the leaden sky.

  "About time," Ryel muttered as he snatched up his cloak and shook it free of snow, snapping the cloth vengefully. Once again wrapped in its warm reassuring folds, the wysard looked about him, and his emotions smoothed to calm, then to quiet awe as he contemplated the lovely world around him.

  He stood in the midst of a forest of towering oaks and firs. Upon the evergreens deep-piled white furred the boughs, but the stark branches of the oaks were sheathed even to the frailest twig in glittering ice, and the undergrowth and grasses bent under the weight of the same glassy casing. Holly-berries gleamed like clusters of red gems. Profoundest silence hung on every limb of the great trees, soundlessness thick as the snow on the ground, clear as the air wafting the last spangled flakes of storm onto the wysard's upturned awestruck face. Of all the World's beauties he had known since leaving Markul, this moved him beyond expression. Open-mouthed he wondered, catching icy sweet sky-water on his tongue, hearing himself gasp as the clouds parted a moment and sunlight embued the ice with dazzling brilliance.

  The clouds covered the sun again,
and as they did Jinn gave that puzzled suspicious snort Ryel knew well, and the wysard turned about to find that thing which perturbed her.

  He blinked, looked again. The vision stayed.

  Off in the trees, not at all far, the lights of a house glimmered amid the crystal branches and slate-dark sky—a great house built in a manner not at all Northern, but in the style of the fragrant islands of the Western Seas: high-roofed delicate pavilions and pagodas raised up on broad galleries and ornamented with weirdly attenuated waves, flames, fantastic beasts and beings. Ryel recognized it as royal Zinaphian architecture of great antiquity, most strange to see in the rough wilderness of Starkland; its fittest setting would have been a sundrenched lagoon edged by a vine-draped flower-jeweled jungle, not this wintry woodland.

  "Gramarye," he murmured. And he shivered from more than cold as his heart raced to think whose house it might be. Snatching Jinn's reins, he approached the dwelling, making slow progress through the knee-deep snow. But then he was aware of someone behind him whistling a tune, and before he could turn around something struck the back of his head and exploded in soft disintegration—a snowball shrewdly aimed. Whirling about, he saw a man of uncommon stature, singularly well-made and well-favored, standing some distance away packing another white sphere—Guyon Desrenaud glowing with fresh health, and new-clad in the richest Northern fashion. Well-gauntleted hands his were, suitable to the rest of his garb, which was extremely fine; but the princely habiliments of grape-amethyst figured velvet and rich gray furs seemed the only wear for a shape so remarkable for its elegance of strength and height, even as the lush-plumed swagger-brimmed perfection of his hat could do no more than justly set off the cold-flushed beauty of his clear-featured fresh-shaven face and the tawny luxuriance of his hair. Singularly youthful beauty it was, too, of years no more than Ryel's own.

  "Well, I'll be damned."

  The wysard himself said that, to his somewhat abashed surprise; but it elicited no more greeting from Desrenaud than a smile well-suited to his flourishing new guise, utterly unbefitting the desperate man Ryel had known in Ormala.