The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  He half-rose from the window-embrasure where he sat, but another thought made him return to his place, and lock his arms around his knees.

  "The voice wants that," he whispered. "Wants me to venture forth alone, and without doubt wishes me harm."

  He rested his chin on his knees, and stared as far into the fog as he could, and remembered his first years in Markul. From the beginning he had been fortunate in having his kinsman Edris as his teacher. No blood-ties united the celibate wysards of the City, and newcomers were by custom given shelter and instruction by whoever it was that first saw them from the walls—not always a fortuitous circumstance. The first year had been hardest. Ryel had been required to put away all recollection of his past, to force his mind and body into the complete calm and mental readiness requisite for the second year's learning—difficult enough for a grown man, but far harder for a boy. The second year he had begun to experiment with and inure himself to the many drugs used by the Art-brotherhood to channel concentration and heighten perceptual acuity. And he learned his first spells, those that would harness the servant-spirits of the Outer World, an urgently necessary but dangerous test of will that had ever proven the winnowing-threshold separating live lord adept from mere dead aspirant.

  Ryel had resisted this crucial step, but not out of fear. Even as a little child he had been deeply skeptical of those tales in which fakirs commanded the air for whatever they wished. What had seemed impossible to him then was in no way more plausible now. "It can't happen," he had said. And Edris had replied with the most contemptuously resonant of snorts.

  "Spoken like a hard-headed ignorant yat-brat. Look around you, boy. You know full well that none of this was brought here by mules and carts. But what if it had been? Would you have thought mules magical beasts?"

  Ryel shrugged as he blushed. "I'm only saying that it doesn't seem possible to create material objects from nothingness."

  Edris' scorn was profound. "You're a fool, whelp. When you threw off your clothes outside the walls, you were meant to strip your mind fully as bare. In Markul the possible and the impossible are one and the same. Yet even in the World everything is a miracle, if viewed closely—the wind in the air, the blinking of your eyes, a seed's progress to a fruit. The Mastery of Air is no more or less miraculous, no more or less commonplace. But apparently you were too dull in the World to wonder how the stars got into the sky—or how you got into your mother's womb."

  "I'm not as dull as you like to think," Ryel said, turning away at his kinsman's last words, remembering how from earliest childhood he would escape into the Steppes night while all else slept, running far from the yats into the deep fields, there to lie with his back to the breathing grass and his face to the flickering infinity overhead. As a child he had known no greater delight than those rapt communions that leapt to ecstasy at every touchstone streak of meteor. But as he grew older the joy ebbed, giving way to aching awe, ineffable hunger, solitude absolute and godless where each pinprick shimmer melded into a burning white weight just above his heart, intensifying with every star that fell.

  I have not known the stars in two years, he thought. The remembrance of everything else he missed seemed to envelop him like Markulit fog, chill and desolate.

  Rough gibing woke him. "Where're you woolgathering now, whelp?"

  "Far away from this place," Ryel replied, every word snapped.

  "I've been too easy on you. You're not learning fast enough."

  "I can't learn any faster."

  "You mean you don't want to."

  Ryel lifted his chin. "I know by heart the spells that tame srihs."

  "Then use them, fool."

  "They shouldn't work," Ryel replied, stung and angry. "Not by the World's laws."

  Edris snorted again, even more contemptuously. "Damn the dullard World. The Art takes imagination, lad—something you've shown precious little of, I'm sorry to say. You have to not only accept the impossible, but make it happen. That's what the meditations and the drugs of the first couple of years are for—to loosen your mind, open it up, free it from fear and doubt. You've learned all that, but you'll never move on to the next step as long as I keep feeding you. A few days' fasting, and you'd learn srih-Mastery soon enough..." To Ryel's deep perturbation and resentment, Edris' long eyes lit in mocking malice. "Now there's a thought. I'll just quit feeding you. Find your own dinner tonight, brat."

  Ryel went hungry for three days. During that time he endured not only starvation, but Edris' taunts and wavings of food in his face, which he stonily ignored. However, by the dawning of the fourth day he knew by the lightness of his head and the famished tremor of the rest of him that he must either progress to the next step of the Art while he still had the strength, or submit to having his uncle throw him scraps and call him idiot. Goaded beyond all misgivings, he called up the last of his strength and strode to the book-table in the middle of his room, knocking aside the scrolls and volumes, cursing his stomach, the Art, Markul, Edris, everything. With peremptory exasperation he barked out the necessary mantra, then commanded a full Steppes breakfast with chal hot and strong. When these things appeared, he felt no astonishment, and scarcely muttered thanks to his unseen servitors as he grabbed a piece of bread and tore off a vengeful bite.

  "So, brat. You finally came round." Edris leaned in the doorway, grinning. "Good job, lad. " Uninvited he came in, examining the food with a critical eye. "Not very fancily dished, but everything looks fresh." He sampled the food with approval. "And not a trace of poison, either. You must have done it right. Srihs are like horses—if you don't show them straightway who's master they'll throw you. The only difference is you might survive a toss from a horse."

  Edris said that full-mouthed, and Ryel for a vicious moment wished his Art less, and his srihs venomous. "My thanks for your fatherly concern." He put a bitter stress on the adjective, one that made Edris stop chewing and swallow hard.

  "Listen, whelp." His two great hands clamped down over Ryel's shoulders, his dark slant eyes probed Ryel's like thorns. "I wouldn't want a hair of your thick head so much as frayed. Believe that. But you've got to learn, and fast."

  Ryel struggled to free himself, unavailingly. "Why should I hurry? Am I not to grow old here, like all the rest of you?"

  Edris' warning shake made Ryel's teeth clack. "Watch it, brat. I'm not so much a graybeard that I can't keep you in line. It may be that neither of us will stay here forever. It may be that your Art is meant for the World. But even if you end up flat on your back in the Jade Tower, you're going to learn everything I can teach you first."

  "I won't." Ryel wrenched himself from his kinsman's grip and kicked over the table, scattering everything. "I want to go home. I want to—to look at stars. I'm leaving."

  Edris only laughed. "Try getting the gates open."

  "I'll slide down the damned walls if I have to."

  "Not a chance, lad." The big hands caught him again, and tightened beyond any escape. "You're staying here. And you're learning. You're going to learn the Art faster and more cleverly than anyone has since the First built this City. I'll see to it." A long time he looked upon Ryel's face, for once without irony. "But you won't have to live under my roof or by my rules any longer. You've shown today that you can take care of yourself. Markul's full of empty houses—choose one for your own."

  Three days ago Ryel might have greeted that news with overt joy. Now he merely gave a curt nod, as one grown man to another. "I already have."

  Edris was amused, but for once seemed to make an effort not to show it. "Where?"

  "Close to this. It's the one built above the wall, looking westward."

  "Ah. Lord Aubrel lived there—and died there, out of his mind and by his own hand."

  Ryel shrugged away his shudder. "It's well-placed and large."

  Edris grinned. "Considerably larger than this, you mean. Well, I had elbow room enough until you came along, whelp, and I won't mind getting it back. You're welcome to Lord Aubrel's house—no one
's crossed its threshold since he was carried out lifeless over it, centuries ago. You needn't worry about its being haunted, but I'll wager the dust is a foot thick."

  Ryel shrugged again, confidently now. "My srihs will clean it."

  "Well said. That's what they're for. The First fully understood that learning the Art left no time for household drudgery. You can rely on srihs to provide all that you need to live—and they'll do so lavishly, if they respect you. But it's unwise to ask too much of them. Fatal, to some. Be careful."

  "I will be."

  "You're so damned young. Nothing but a boy, and yet—" For a silent while Edris seemed to brood, then, his eyes fixed not on Ryel's but someplace immeasurably far. "You're stronger than you know, lad. Stronger than I'll ever be." That grin again, more ferociously jeering than ever. "And too foolish by much to fear anything. So order us some fresh breakfast, and after it we'll go on to the next step."

  *****

  Ryel had learned the next step, and the next, and all others after. He learned quickly, without particular effort. The hard part was overcoming revulsion and fear, emotions all too frequent in Art-dealings. His initiation complete, Ryel might have followed Edris' example and Markulit custom, and devoted all his study to the Mastery. But because he was young and still felt the pull of the World, he often escaped to the great library of the City to study volume after volume of art, music, travel, literature, customs of various countries, sciences, mathematics, history. He also learned the healing arts, since many of the adepts of Markul had been notable physicians in the World, and were glad to teach him. From them Ryel learned surgery and herbal medicine. He could at need set a broken limb, cure illness, counteract poison—and more.

  "You're the only male in this city still capable of delivering a baby," Edris had said, when Ryel was in his fifth Markulit year. "The men here who used to be doctors have long forgotten everything you've been learning from Serah and the others. It's that smooth face of yours—the sisterhood tell you things about their bodies' workings that the rest of us never had time to understand, and now have no use for. Never was a man—much less a mere boy—so deeply learned in women's lore. But you've got the best instruction, after all. Few women's minds are subtler and more keen than those of Serah, Mevanda, and Elindal, three of the greatest witches in the world."

  "Don't call them witches. They are like my m—" Ryel caught the word in his bitten lip, but Edris guessed it nonetheless. His dark eyes searched his nephew's face, unsmilingly now.

  "You still miss her."

  Ryel looked away. "Yes. And my father, and the sister I remember only as a baby just taking her first steps."

  He thought of them because he was in Edris' house, sitting on floor-cushions by the fireside as he would have on the Steppes. His own home by the western wall he had made ever more comfortable in the past three years, with Almancarian touches of luxury; but his kinsman's house was in all respects yatlike, its walls draped with leather hangings, its appointments rough and spare. One might almost walk outside into green miles of field, bright sun and blue sky and whipping winds.

  Edris stirred the fire, and poured them each more chal. "Serah Dalkith would willingly be something more than a mother to you. She's still a beauty."

  Ryel felt himself blushing, and made no reply. The thought had occurred to him many times before. "She's closer to your age, and I've seen the way you two look at each other."

  Edris shrugged. "We're good friends. But friendship between a man and a woman is never without a bit of spark. Makes it interesting."

  Ryel's thoughts stayed with the Steppes. "Do you never wish to leave Markul and return to the World?"

  "Never, lad."

  "Why?"

  "Because as long as you're here, I am. To instruct you. And time's running out." He tossed more kulm on the fire, watching the flames leap up. "Our Art's fading, lad. Most of this City think they're strong and clever because they can order about a srih or two. The First Ones built this place with their Mastery, but nowadays you'll not find many in all this City who can cobble together so much as a privy using their minds' power alone."

  "It's because everyone here is so old. Much older than you, even."

  Edris dealt Ryel a withering eye-glint. "It isn't just age, brat. They're being bled dry of their Art. But it's gotten worse. People have been dying too fast in this City, and not by accident nor the wear of years. Their srihs turned on them. We took Abenamar to the Jade Tower only a few days ago—he was far from a fool, and not ten years older than me. And not long before that, Colbrent and Melisende. Whenever one of our brotherhood dies, his srihs go on to serve other adepts, or at least that's the way it's always been, until lately. Now they simply disappear. I can feel it, as if the air were growing thin. Someone—or something—has it in for us."

  "I'll find out why. I'm young enough to learn fast, unlike the rest of you."

  Those words elicited a heartfelt snort. "You're as arrogant as you were when we first met, back in Yorganar's yat."

  Ryel stared into the fire, where his memories leapt. "They said in Risma that you were one of the best horsemen of the phratri. Do you never miss riding fast? Going at a full gallop in a game of kriy?"

  Edris was silent a long time, so long that Ryel stopped expecting an answer. But then he spoke. "You should have put those memories behind you long ago, whelp."

  "It is difficult to forget the World, kinsman."

  Edris grunted a half-laugh. "You barely had time to know you were alive in it before you entered this City's walls."

  Ryel bristled. "I was almost a man." A flash of anger burnt his heart. "You came here after you had fought in wars, and lain with women. But thanks to you I'll never—"

  "Shut up." Ryel felt Edris' hand under his chin, forcing his gaze away from the bright flames into darker fire a hundredfold more hot. "So what if I nearly got myself killed a dozen times? So what if I had my first woman at sixteen, and a hundred more after that, using myself up with witless lust? What is it you envy, brat?"

  The hard light in those long eyes dried up Ryel's mouth, and he spoke with effort. "There was...more than that."

  "There was. But I was too much of a fool to understand. I came here. I'll die here." Edris hesitated; scrutinized his nephew's face more closely. "You have Mira's looks," he said at last. "Her looks and her ways, all unlike those of the rough Rismai." His unwonted revery gave way to a grin all too habitual as he reached out, grazing a tough knuckle across Ryel's cheek. "And you're still beardless, after nineteen World-years. Smooth as a girl."

  "Lady Serah taught me the spell for it." Ryel paused. "She uses it for her legs."

  Edris grinned. "Her legs and what else, boy? Yes, blush like the innocent you are." He gave the smooth cheek a stinging pat. "You're getting too pleased with yourself. For your better instruction—and to somewhat temper your conceit—you've a rival in Elecambron."

  Indignantly amazed, Ryel lifted his chin. "A rival? Who?"

  "A tall lad named Michael, a brash young wonder."

  "For Elecambron, sixty is young."

  "Don't smirk, whelp. I'll admit he's older than you, but he's not yet thirty. He came to his City at about the same time you found your way here."

  "Why did no one tell me of him before?" Ryel asked, half in disbelief. "Why did you not tell me?"

  "Because I only learned of him recently, and have never seen him myself. It was his instructor, no less than Elecambron’s great Kjal Gör, who informed me when we last talked by Glass some weeks ago. Michael's a Northerner out of Hryeland, a nobleman of one of the great families there." Edris half-smiled in ambivalent reminiscence. "His father and I were friends, long ago in my soldiering days."

  Normally Ryel would have wanted to hear more of those days, but not now. "Does Michael know of me?"

  Edris nodded, slowly and with irony. "He does; and he's not overly impressed, from what I hear. Other things I could tell you about his ancestry, but they can keep. You'd only feel more at a disadvantag
e if you knew."

  Ryel flushed. "If he and I met face to face, he'd learn who was strongest."

  Edris was very far from impressed. "Ah. Would he, now. He's lived rougher than you've any idea. Before coming to Elecambron—a terrible place so I hear, compared to which this of ours is a paradise—he fought in some notably vicious wars. You've been safe and snug here in Markul, everyone's darling boy. But had you remained in the World, I wonder what you'd have become—a mollycoddle at your mother's skirts, or a rank dullard like Yorg—"

  Ryel lifted his chin. "I'd have been as you were. A proud wild warrior."

  "Oh, indeed. As I was." But for all his tone, Edris now looked Ryel eye to eye, no longer jeering. "Get your blade, boy, and meet me in the courtyard."

  *****

  Minutes later they faced one another in cold mist, on chill flagstones, their robes and sleeves tucked up and tied back for ease of action, their feet unshod for surer movement. It was ever Edris' wont to go barefoot even when snow drifted thick upon the top of Markul's wall, but Ryel had not yet acquired that extremity of control over his flesh. To forget the icy rough rock beneath his naked soles, the young wysard fingered the hilt of the sword that Yorganar had given him in his thirteenth World-year—a Kaltiri blade of great worth, that had drawn blood in battle countless times. The Rismai neither made nor carried swords, preferring the bow, the spear, and the dagger; but Yorganar had wished that his son learn the warrior's art of his homeland, and to that end instructed him as thoroughly as he might in the little time he had. When Ryel left for Markul a year later, Yorganar had given him stern advice.

  "Don't go soft in that sorcerer's roost. Edris knows a sword's use as well as me, if not better—make him teach you some of his skill."

  They spoke man to man in the cold gray of dawn, for Ryel's mother had retired to the yat with Nelora, unable to bear the torment of parting from her only son. Mounted and ready, Ryel twined Jinn's mane in his fingers, trying to warm them as he struggled for words, using the most formal of the Rismai dialect. "You have given me great gifts, my father—this horse that is the best you own, and the sword you carried in war.."