The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  Roskerrek's courtesy made Desrenaud remember his own. "For your kindness I thank you, my lord. But I have no time to spare."

  "Nor have I," Ryel said. "Not with matters so much at risk in Destimar."

  "I wish I could set your mind at rest there," Roskerrek replied. "But no news has reached the North from Almancar in the past months, only hearsay and conjecture. According to the last rumor I heard before being imprisoned, the young Sovran's half-siblings have cabaled to overthrow Agenor's legitimate heirs, and will soon bring armies against Destimar."

  "Then I too must leave Hallagh tomorrow," Ryel said.

  Roskerrek seemed both disappointed and concerned. "But these have been hard days, and you have both suffered from them."

  "Well, I know I have," Desrenaud said. "I'll gladly accept of your entertainment this night at least, and revel with the Brotherhood. And did I dare presume so far, I'd ask for some of your music as well, for you're a better hand at it than any other I've heard—but I'm aware that this is no time for it."

  Roskerrek smiled in that sudden gracious way that had become his since his cure. "I'd be only too glad to oblige you. During my captivity I kept my wits by meditating on the most intricate pieces of counterpoint I could devise, although I never expected to live to play them. But first we must see to the Domina. I'll send for some soldiers to—"

  "No need." As he spoke, Desrenaud lifted Bradamaine up with only a little overt effort. "She's a strapping lass, but I can handle her for a way."

  "Stay a moment." And Valrandin came near, gently pulling out the long silver pins that so harshly confined Bradamaine's white-gold hair, until the tresses fell loose. "There. That is more like her."

  Roskerrek nodded agreement as he gazed meditatively upon her deep-slumbering features. "She always loathed music and often said so, until this night. Perhaps now she may learn to love it as I do."

  Desrenaud shrugged, settling Bradamaine more comfortably in his arms. "Who knows what she may come to love, my lord--or who. But let's go up. Slim as this lady may be, she's heavy in those long bones of hers. Speaking of which, some of your magics would come in cleverly now, enchanter."

  Ryel obliged with a word or two, and they left the Temple of the Sword; but the wysard lingered on the steep stone treads.

  "I will come back to this place," he whispered, closing his eyes to feel the timeless Mastery of the cavern's depths break over him like slow waves of the sea. "But I will not return alone."

  *****

  The next morning Ryel and Desrenaud rode south from Hallagh. They bore messages from the new Regent of Hryeland for the young Sovran of Destimar, and without need of seal-breaking Ryel knew what the letters contained: greetings and assurances of friendship, and promises of aid if need be, all written not in a scribe's smooth hand but in the angular upright script of Roskerrek himself. Ryel knew that Yvain Essern would rule Hryeland wisely and well, and was glad that Priamnor Dranthene had so strong an ally in the North. He could put at least one set of troubles behind him, now.

  They had ridden free of the boundaries of Hallagh, and were now in open country, under a sky intermittently beclouded. Ryel had led Jinn into a clump of woods at the roadside, and Desrenaud followed, but unwillingly.

  "We're wasting time, sorcerer. There's naught you might do here that you can't on the road, unless—"

  Ryel waved him silent. "Listen. There's something you must know before we arrive in Almancar. Something I had no time to tell you, and no wish, in front of the Count Palatine."

  "Then say it now, and be quick."

  Ryel said it, as briefly as he might given Desrenaud's interruptions and cursings. When he'd made an end, the Northerner was silent awhile, but not long.

  "Well, necromancer. Isn't this just what was needful—Dagar, Michael, and Meschante, triumvirately bad in one body."

  "Even so."

  "I should have killed Meschante long ago," the Northerner said after the wysard had made an end. "I had chances enough, and motives yet more. What a bullying coward he always was, and what a canting hypocrite bigot; and how he loathed everything that was brave and bright. Always seeking to thrust himself into Hylas' favor, so fawning desperate that the prince pitied him and suffered him to be one of the court, and even let him be among the entourage to Almancar, although Meschante had no qualities whatsoever to commend him for that high privilege. And all the while he was there, he did nothing but condemn the luxury and the whoredom of the city, although I could well see that he would have partaken liberally of both had he only dared."

  "He has done great harm, and will do more and worse, with Dagar able to subsume his form."

  Desrenaud let out an expletive breath. "And now what? How do we fight them?"

  "I fight them," Ryel answered, his voice firm. "You'll have your hands full with the siege. I rely upon those military skills of yours."

  Desrenaud again muttered execrations, then shot Ryel an accusatory glare. "Then we've got to move faster, magus. Where's that precious Art of yours when we need it? Why isn't that horse of yours a magic one?"

  "She is," Ryel said, feeling more than a little irritation. "Jinn's as fast as the wind. Faster. But I don't think she'd put up with bearing double—especially when one of the two would be an overgrown highland crag-hopper."

  Desrenaud looked more wounded than angry. "You needn't insult, sorcerer. And you might show yourself more clever. In all the old tales, witches can translate themselves from one place to another in an eyeblink. Why can't you?"

  "I can," Ryel replied with a shrug meant to infuriate.

  It did. "Damn it, then we could be in Almancar this minute!"

  "I said I could get myself to Almancar," Ryel said. "I have my own skill to take me there. But how I'd get you there is another question entirely. I'd have to use the Mastery of Lord Garnos, which I've never tried before on another than myself. You might reach Almancar safely—and you might as easily be shredded into screaming rags."

  "I have the choice?"

  "I wish you didn't."

  "I'm taking it. Work your gramarye, warlock, and be quick."

  Ryel began the spell. Winds hurled together the clouds and covered the sun. The wysard shivered at a sudden thrust of cold, and halted the Mastery.

  Desrenaud's voice was colder yet. "Get on with it, conjurer."

  Ryel still hesitated. "This is more dangerous than you've any idea. I might kill you."

  The Northerner only shrugged. "I've been a long time dying, wysard. If you finish me off, so be it—but I'll not put Mywaren in danger." So speaking, he stroked the horse's night-black mane, and a moment pressed his forehead to the white star between its great dark eyes. "See that he finds his way to good people who will look well after him."

  "I will." Ryel swallowed. "Guy. This spell could be extremely painful."

  "It wasn't when Lady Riana sent me to Hallagh. Not much, at least."

  "I can't guarantee anything. If all goes as it should, you'll materialize within the Eastern Palace. But if not—"

  "Don't think of it. Work those arts of yours on me, and be quick."

  Never had Ryel felt more torn. "Forgive me if this kills you."

  A grunt of laugh in reply. "I'll be sorry if it does, magus." But Desrenaud fell silent a moment, and when he next spoke, his steady keen regard met Ryel's with complete trust. "Whatever befalls, know that I considered you a friend from the first, Ry." He held out his hand. "Good luck go with you."

  From a man seldom demonstrative, those words were much. The wysard met Desrenaud's hard grip with turmoil and regret. "I wish your heart wasn't set on this."

  "It is and you'll never change it, so stop throwing away time."

  Ryel drew a steadying breath. "Then stand where you are, and neither move nor speak nor open your eyes again until you feel the air warm around you."

  Desrenaud did as he was commanded, standing tall and steady with his arms at his sides, his face lifted to the shrouded sun. Slowly Ryel spoke the words of Mastery, Ri
ana's Art. Midway through the spell Desrenaud's brow broke into sweat, and through his clenched teeth came a low groan of agony, but he never trembled. Drymouthed the wysard continued, bitterly angry that he could not hurry the spell, which had to be enunciated with the most deliberate concentration. After a desperate infinity he came to the last syllables, uttering them furiously clear. As the vibrations of his voice ebbed he saw Desrenaud's form begin to blur and fade, until only his racked cry lingered on the cold air.

  The Northern lord's great black hunter pawed the ground, alarmed and nervous. Ryel caught the animal by the bridle, gentling its mane, shakily stroking its broad bright-starred forehead. And into a large flickering ear he murmured words that soothed the animal, and whispered words that made it turn about and head for the farmstead the wysard and Desrenaud had passed earlier. But he would not part with Jinn.

  "You're no ordinary nag, little one. I'm not about to lose you."

  He wound his arm around Jinn's neck, intoning the needful words, forcing them out past the self-sundering torment through gritted teeth. Then he felt the winds take him, and his body break apart like a ship in a storm.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Warm air surrounded him, perfumed with a thousand balms. Opening his pain-cramped eyes, Ryel gazed around him at walls of vine-grown marble enclosing a garden lovely even in the night—the private courtyard of Priamnor Dranthene, Sovran of Destimar.

  "I did it." He licked his lips, and tried again, and this time didn't croak the words. "I'm here."

  Close at his side Jinn whickered in bewilderment, and the wysard reassured her with caresses and whispers. "We're in Almancar, little sister. But are you all right?"

  She seemed no more harmed by the transmutation than she had been in Hallagh, and indeed Ryel himself felt far less disoriented and sick than had been the case his first time. "I'm going to look for Guy, little Jinn. Stay here and rest awhile; I've no doubt you need it."

  A word or two and the mare was asleep under a shaded gallery. Ryel stood awhile quietly, gathering his strength, searching for Desrenaud with ears and eyes. But he heard no scuff of boot-soles, saw no tall figure silhouetted amid the garden's foliage—only leaves and petals ruffled by the night wind, and rippling water, and the statue of the diver, its slim bronze muscularity aglow in the moonlight.

  "You had to have made it through," he whispered. "You had to."

  He couldn't allow himself to envision what might have happened to Desrenaud had the Mastery gone wrong. It was too terrible to contemplate—especially here and now, with so much to set right. He shook his mind free of horrors, his body free of pain, and made his way to the rooms of Priamnor Dranthene.

  Only a few guards patrolled the dimly-lighted halls of the Eastern Palace, and the wysard avoided them without incident. He overcame the two sentinels outside the imperial chambers with a mere sign of his hand, and slipped through the portals like the figment of a dream.

  On the threshold of Priamnor's sleeping-room he halted. a great glittering bed made entirely of crystal glass caught the light of lamps and candles, its tall winding posts enclosing intricate interlaced swirls of jewel-like strands. "Tesbai work," the wysard whispered to himself, dazzled by the sight. No one now lay in that bed, nor had recently, for its embroidered coverlet was still smoothed flat, and the cushions yet billowing in welcome. But from another room issued more light, and faint sound—smothered mutterings and low incoherent cries, so anguished that Ryel could almost not recognize the voice whose sweetness had driven to his heart from its first utterance.

  "Priam," Ryel breathed, cold vengeance gripping him by the nape. Drawing his dagger, he stole to the door of the chamber, ready for anything but what he saw. No one tortured Priamnor Dranthene, who sat hunched forward in the comfortless embrace of a straight-backed chair at a table strewn thick with papers, his head restlessly asleep on his folded arms—no one but the young Sovran himself, who even in dreams found no haven from his cares, nor refuge from the fate threatening his proud empire.

  "Kerai, ilandrakis." Softly entering the room, the wysard stood beside the Sovran of Destimar. He bent and touched his lips in the kiss of a Steppes kinsman to the fevered temple where the night-black hair now grown so long straggled in lank strands, and ran a grazing knuckle down the bearded cheek once as smooth as Diara's. "I've returned, cousin. Now we will be happy." But Priam did not awaken.

  The air of the room was close and thick. Going to the windows Ryel threw the heavy curtains wide, and at once drew back.

  The glass of the casement had been smashed, and the window-frame sealed with bars and boards, but through the interstices Ryel saw horrors. In the streets of Almancar men battled and plundered, and palaces once numbered among the world's wonders stood in gutted ruin, or burnt unregarded. The air throbbed with a hell-din of shouts and screams, and reeked with smoke and death. Out beyond the walls the black desert flickered with the watch-fires of waiting armies.

  A shout went up from the rabble surrounding the palace. "There he is! Shoot him!" At once a flight of arrows whirred forth, seeking the window where Ryel stood.

  He yanked the curtains shut and leapt clear as the arrows broke against the iron bars or bit into the wooden boards. Turning his back to the havoc and calling upon his Art he calmed himself by forcing his eyes to move in deliberate analysis from object to object in the chamber, fixing at last with wonder upon an object well known to him.

  "A krusghan," he murmured, reaching for it. A shock of recognition ran through his fingers' ends. "My krusghan."

  Closely and in wonder he examined the Steppes flute that had been his constant friend from boyhood. Dusting it with his sleeve and seating himself on the edge of the table, he lifted the instrument to his lips and sounded a note. The pure wild tone thrilled forth, sweetening the air like Transcendence. Memory guided Ryel's fingers over the stops, drawing forth a snatch of an ancient song of his green homeland inspired by one of the great epic cycles of Destimar, learned by him long before he had ever known or thought of Edris and the Art.

  "With a voice that rang like sharpened steel, Diomenor foretold

  The doom of the lord of the Nasri, proud Ashok of the plain:

  'Call up your armies rank upon rank, summon your horsemen strong;

  I and my brave Redestens will rout them like wolves to the fold,

  Dearer than brother Redestens, he of the arts arcane,

  As lion and hawk against sheep and goats, so Redestens and I to your throng.'"

  For all its bellicose text the song's melody was pleasing, and at last Priamnor Dranthene grew silent as he slept. But as soon as Ryel made an end of the music, the Sovran fetched a broken breath, and opened his eyes. The wysard set down the flute, holding out his hand.

  "Ilandrakis."

  But the Sovran only stared with haunted eyes, and recoiled. "Go away. Get out."

  "But Priam—"

  "Will you never let me rest? Must every one of my dreams have you in it?"

  "I have returned, Priam," Ryel said, very gently despite the pain he was feeling. "And upon our kinship I swear I'll never leave you while you need me."

  Slowly and against his will Priamnor lifted his head, and looked into the face of his friend. But then all the weariness and despair faded from his eyes, and rising light came into them. He reached out, taking the wysard's hand into both of his own, gripping tight. "Divares be thanked. You're here. Real." He pressed his brow to the hand's back, and Ryel winced at the cold and the wet. "I never thought to see you again, cousin. Kerai."

  Ryel freed his hand, but only to lay it next on Priam's head, soothing the damp entanglements of hair. "Kerai d'yash, ilandrakis. I knew we'd meet again, but I never wished it thus. I'll help you in any way I can."

  "You're helping even now," Priam said. "My head ached enough to kill." He was quiet a moment. "I'll not ask how you got past the walls. You have your ways."

  "Ways enough at need."

  "All those ways will be called upon, I fear. As yet t
he palace has suffered no great privation from Michael's siege, but the city is enduring the cruelest hardships. I can do nothing to help them, nothing, trapped in siege as I am within these walls. Were that not enough, outside the gates of the city are encamped the armies of my so-called siblings of the Azm Chak, waiting until Michael has broken Almancar's strength and they can enter the city as rulers of Destimar. Much of the city army went over to the side of the Master, and it is taking untold time and trouble to levy other forces within the realm, Almancar being so far from any other city of size. Many fled the city in the past three months, but now the situation has grown too perilous for anyone to escape. Michael has promised Catulk that Diara will become his concubine, and brags that he himself will take Belphira Deva as his mistress."

  Ryel lifted his chin. "None of that will happen, while I live."

  "And you live indeed." Priam gazed long on the wysard's face until his next words. "When my guardsmen brought the body of my messenger down from the mountain I believed it yours, and nearly went out of my senses from grief and guilt. I can never forgive myself for that night in the Diamond Heaven. Never."

  "You were daimon-driven to what you did, Priam. In no way are you at fault."

  "I wounded you to the death. But how were you healed? Only your Art's help could have saved you."

  Ryel flinched within as he again felt Michael's torturing grip on his wound-raw flesh. "I couldn't have lived without the Art." He drove the memory out of his mind. "I hurt you, too."

  "It was nothing." Priam regarded his friend, and at last smiled. "You haven't changed, kinsman."

  Ryel smiled back, partly because of that observation's total inaccuracy. "But I hardly recognize you. Your hair grown long, and Steppes clothes—could that be the shirt I left behind?"