The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  "I never thought I deserved it."

  "More now than ever."

  "Blessed am I in you." She gently moved away and took off Edris' cloak, settling it about Ryel's shoulders with the same care she had always used in his childhood. "I'll not need this again. The guest's yat has been made ready for you; sleep well." Touching her lips to his brow, she parted from him.

  But Ryel slept little that night, kept awake by memories of the day, and thoughts of the future. Almost as he expected, the air closed around him, stifling and silent, and the voice spoke, very sweetly this time.

  So. My brave lad has found out his father, and forgiven his erring mama. Now what will he do?

  "Return to Markul," Ryel answered in his thoughts. "As soon as possible."

  Oh? And what about Almancar?

  The wysard stiffened. "Nothing calls me there."

  Really? Not even pretty little Diara?

  Ryel did not reply. The voice persisted, sweeter still.

  Do you remember how in Markul I said the girls would go mad for you? I meant it. Even as we speak, all Almancar is bewailing the incurable insanity of its Sovrena.

  Ryel felt his chest constrict. "Damn you," he whispered aloud.

  The voice sneered and giggled. Yes, it hissed. Clear out of her mind she is. Tearing at her tender body with demented hands, besmearing herself with her own filth, shrieking obscenity and drivel. An interesting sight, should you care to see it.

  Ryel struggled up on his elbow. "You lie, daimon."

  Did I lie about your mother?

  "Is the Sovrena's madness your work—Dagar?"

  A shrieking peal of scorn in reply. Soon, sweet eyes. In Almancar.

  The air lightened and cleared before Ryel could speak again. For the rest of that night he lay motionless and open-eyed.

  *****

  The wysard knew the dawn when it came. In Markul the silence of the air had been complete save for the wind and the rain, but the Steppes were never still. Wild beasts and camp-dogs and babies had mewled and moaned and howled in the night, and now the birds were awake, crying far overhead. Ryel rose, dressed, and went out into the morning.

  The sky hovered between night and day, dark overhead yet glowing ever brighter on the eastern horizon. Some little distance from the yat his sister Nelora was sitting cross-legged on a rug with a trayful of chal and sweets at her elbow, her eyes on the gathering light. She was wrapped in a horseman's greatcoat, and her fair hair streamed out beneath a fur-lined riding-cap. Ryel approached, and sat down at her side.

  "A good day, sister."

  "If you say so." She smiled at him, but Ryel could see her cordiality was strained. He understood, and smiled back with more warmth, and a hint of play. Since they met they'd adopted the intimate form of the Rismai dialect, used among siblings and other close kin. He had always used it with Edris.

  "You're up early," he said.

  "Couldn't sleep," she replied, a little shortly. "I was thirsty."

  "You drank wine last night."

  She sighed. "Too much. My head aches like a stubbed toe."

  "It's most unseemly for a Steppes maiden to imbibe to excess."

  She tossed her head, then winced. "None of your lectures, brother. I only did it because I was so glad to see you. Have some chal—it's still hot."

  Ryel filled a cup with vaporing brew and wrapped his hands around it, glad of the warmth. But when he drank, he grimaced. "Agh. There's frangin in this chal."

  Frangin was the strong liquor of the Steppes, made by the Kaltiri Kugglaitai from the tart green berries of the thickets that covered part of their lands. The Rismai seldom touched it, save in times of great joy or great sorrow. "You're incorrigible," Ryel sternly informed his sister. But he drank again, finding himself actually liking the mingled savor of harsh and smooth. He next turned his attention to the chal-tray, and gave a little start of pleasure. "My krusghan!"

  "You're welcome to it," Nelora said testily. "I was going to play something, but it made my head hurt."

  Ryel set his chal-cup aside and reached for the Steppes flute, running reminiscent fingers over its polished ebony and joinings of carved jade. "When I was a boy, wherever I went this went too. A thousand songs I've played on it." And he lifted it to his lips, softly sounding a remembered tune. But at the first notes Nel gave a dismal dog-howl.

  "Don't, brother! You'll split my skull." She shuddered, pulling her cap down over her ears, closing her eyes tight. "Be a sweet tabib and heal me. The frangin isn't working."

  "It's better for you to suffer, and repent."

  Nelora glared through a wince. "You didn't say that to our mother."

  The wysard felt his smile slide away. "Enough. Take off that hat and lean your head toward me." And Ryel massaged his sister's temples with the tips of his fingers, gently combing her long fair tresses.

  Nelora dropped her head back and sighed. "By every god, that's good."

  "So. I find you've learned to swear," Ryel said, in no way approving. "That's what comes of gadding about with boys."

  "If you expect me to stay in the yat and weave, you're deluded. Ah. Rub the back of my head, too."

  Ryel slid his hands into the warm pale tangles of his sister's hair, combing the long strands out with his fingers. "Your hair's exactly like Jinn's mane. It's so thick I could hide an egg in it."

  Nelora's mouth-corner quirked. "I'd rather you didn't. But my thanks for the compliment."

  "I remember how folk came from far and wide to gaze upon you when you were a baby."

  She leaned into his touch. "You left before I could know you, brother."

  "But I remember you, little sister. The summer before I left, I used to carry you into the fields and watch you roll around in the flowers. I used to tickle you with buttercups, and you'd laugh so prettily…"

  The sweet memory silenced him, and Nel too seemed lost in revery. Together they sat quietly, his arm about her, and her head on his shoulder.

  "I missed you," his sister said after a time. "I've missed you for years and years. You should have stayed, and been my champion. My protector."

  "You seem fully capable of looking after yourself. But I believe Shiran would be proud to serve as your defender—if you'd let him."

  Nelora gave an impatient wriggle. "Let's not speak of that horse-breeding lout."

  "As your eldest brother I could compel you to marry him in a few years, if I so wished."

  "Bah. You're not so cruel, or so stupid, as to force me into that." At the little reproving tug Ryel gave her hair, she laughed, but not loudly. "I remember when I was nine years old, I asked our father if he had begun to look round for a husband for me, and he replied 'No, child, for you will choose better than I ever might.' Many times I miss our father. He understood me. Did he you?"

  "Not very well." As Ryel gave the pale wild locks a last caress, he could not help thinking of Diara Dranthene's night-black jewel-twined braids. "How's your headache now?"

  Nel cocked her head, warily considering. "I don't have one. How'd you do that?"

  Ryel smiled. "Magic."

  His sister smiled back. "I believe you. Here's your reward." She reached for one of the sweets on the tray, and popped it into his mouth. "Remember?"

  Ryel closed his eyes and let the delicious almond-sugar and apricot preserve melt on his tongue a little before answering, deep in recollection the while. "It's lakh. I used to steal it because I could never get enough, back when I was little."

  Nelora nodded knowingly. "Our mother tells me as much every time she makes a batch. That's why I brought some out here, just for you."

  "How did you know I'd be up so early?"

  "Were I home after being away for a dozen years, I'd not waste time abed, but rise early to see my charming sister. I was looking forward to a talk alone with you, because I've been on fire to hear of your travels. Tell me about the wide world, and everything you've seen in it. No one last night bothered to ask you a single question."

  "They
were too polite," Ryel said. "One never questions a traveler after a long journey."

  Nelora grimaced. "Bah. Steppes manners—I'm sick of them. I heard that Fershom Rikh is a wondrous city, almost as fine as Almancar. Tell me what it was like."

  "Some other time I will."

  "Damn it, why—"

  "Don't curse, sister. Please."

  She noticed his face, then, and her own became concerned. "You're pale, brother, and your eyes are sunken. It looks as if what little sleep you got was bad. You're shivering, too. Here, have some more chal."

  He drank and grew a little warmer. "I'd like it if you called me Ry."

  She smiled, entirely this time. "Then I will."

  The wysard looked skyward, into the waning stars. "We're up far before the sun."

  "Not much before, brother Ry," Nelora said as she pointed eastward. "Look, over there at the very edge of the world—light at last. It's just like what the poet says in the epic—'And surging up from the sea's bed, driving forth darkness, cloud-lathered sun-horses scorched the world-rim'."

  Ryel recognized the quotation, and nodded approvingly. "Alestria Maniskedes' Quest of Ghenris. You're remarkably learned. But I hadn't thought to find my little sister so manlike, in a horse-tamer's boots and breeches. Many another girl would fear the talk of the old women."

  Nelora swung her bright locks back from her blushes. "I care nothing for the clack of hags, brother. It's never been deemed a shame for a girl of the Three Stars to be a horse-tamer, if her spirit and her strength be equal to it. Speaking of such, can I borrow that mare of yours for a run? I swear I'll be gentle."

  The last thing Ryel wanted was for Jinn's inexplicable powers to be discovered. "You swear too much as it is. And Jinn's been wrung hard these past few days. Let her rest awhile."

  Nel made a face, that soon turned impish. "Did you come back to the Steppes to wed, brother? Shiran's sister Yalena is on the market again, now that her old husband's dead. Her big sheep's eyes were rolling at you all during the feast, and don't think I didn't see how she kept loading your plate with the best bits. You'd become fully as fat as she is, if you wed her."

  "Yalena was more slender than you, once," Ryel said, defending his boyhood sweetheart loyally, though without warmth. "A bit on the plump side now, I admit, but it becomes her."

  Nelora snorted. "Then her witlessness does, too. I suppose her many years are yet another attraction."

  "She's only twenty-four, evil imp."

  "Twenty-five. A hag, as far as marrying goes in this place." Her face flushed to rival the dawn. "I'll never wed in the Steppes. Never. I love elsewhere."

  "Indeed? Where?"

  "Almancar."

  Intrigued, Ryel smiled. "And what fortunate gallant of the Bright City claims your heart, little sister?"

  "The most handsome, the most noble, the most wondrous man in the entire world--Priamnor Dranthene, the Sovran Agenor's eldest son."

  Ryel gave a whistle. "You aim high, sister."

  "It is him, or no one."

  "The Sovranel used the be the most debauched rakehell in all Destimar, from what I heard last night, and a shameful malady nearly killed him. He was deformed by it, and is a recluse now. I'm not sure I approve your choice, sister."

  "Shiran told you all those lies because he's jealous." A storm overtook Nel's blue eyes, sudden and fierce. "We could be part of the court, Ry. We could be living in a great city, in the mansion where our mother grew up, instead of a tent in the middle of a sea of weeds. Don't you wish you were in Almancar this minute?"

  "No," Ryel said slowly, remembering with a twitch of loathing the lying words of the daimon. "I don't."

  *****

  The wysard firmly refused to believe the voice that had haunted him with tales of the Sovrena's madness. As if in compliance, it left him alone. The next two days the wysard spent in the encampment, enjoying being his mother's son again, and a brother to Nelora. He spent time, too, in currying Jinn until she gleamed like new gold, and fitting her with a saddle worthy of her beauty. Markulit gifts he gave to his mother, Lady Serah's richest jewels; but Mira took even more pleasure in the morning-glories he caused to twine in heaven-blue garlands around the yat-entrance. He vied with his play-brothers in contests of archery and wrestling and quarterstaff, and once again savored the perilous thrill of kriy, the Steppes game played on horseback at full gallop, sending a ball to its goal either through the air or on the ground by means of a scoop-ended stick and utter disregard of bodily harm.

  He also aided old Grustar in doctoring his people's various complaints, none of them life-threatening to his great relief. Healing his mother had taxed his Mastery far more than he had ever imagined it might, so used was he to having been the most powerful adept of his City. He had come to Markul very young, before his connection to the World was fully formed, and the many years he'd spent within its walls had further weakened that bond. Now that his mission had been fulfilled, he could return to Markul and live out the rest of his life amid its mists; and at the outset he had firmly expected to. But life was so pleasant here, under the sun with the wild grasses so green and high, where he could ride across the meadows with his mother, or joke with Nel and Shiran, or tell wondrous tales to an enthralled audience of wide-eyed little children.

  The third afternoon, however, he rode out alone. There was a place he had to revisit, a place he had shut out of his every memory, if not his dreams, for sixteen years.

  The day had started fair, but by noon the sky began to darken with clouds, and now from afar off Ryel's quick ears could hear the deep growl of a coming storm. The noise made him quiver with an emotion part expectation, part unease. Markul's weather had been always the same—eternal fogs and mists and drizzles unrelentingly chill, the seasons distinguishable only by their extremes of rain or snow. But the Steppes were notorious for wild winter winds, and devastating spring storms. The storms were the worst: to be split in two by lightning was no unusual death among the Rismai.

  Ryel sniffed the air. It was full of danger. How often as a small boy he had huddled in the yat when the great tempests shook the grasslands, feeling helplessly unsheltered in his frail tent. But as he grew, he learned to love the lightning-bolts in all their terrible forms. The shattering straight rods, the delicate branching fire-veins streaking out in all directions, the dragon-leaps of light high up, now hidden in the clouds, now flashing forth—these he had watched for, and thrilled at.

  But now he had reached the fire-mountain he'd sought—a little grass-covered cinder cone that thousands of years past had been a volcano spurting liquid fire. It was named Banat Yal, after the Rismai god of the air. Reining in, Ryel dismounted, then began the brief ascent to the top. Every step became increasingly difficult, not so much from the climb's steepness as from the weight of memories. The wind was rising, and the sky's blue had been utterly effaced by clouds dark as night. Under that rumbling shadow Ryel stood on the rim of the fire-hill, looking out to the endless sweep of green.

  The air became heavy with storm-threat. Harsh winds tore at Ryel's clothes, and the wysard clutched Edris' cloak tighter about him lest they strip him bare. And then a great brand of blinding light shot down from the darkness, hitting another fire-cone not at all far away. Ryel winced, waiting for the thunder-clap. At once it sounded, with deafening force.

  Only a fool would stay out in such weather, but Ryel put his faith in the old saying about lightning. It couldn't hit him again—not here. Accordingly, he stood his ground. But recollection, not the storm, made him tremble.

  Fourteen years ago a storm identical to this had shook the Risma plains, and Ryel had come to this same fire-cone drenched and breathless, hoping to shelter in its bowl. But the lightning had blasted down all around him, and the electricity in the air had lifted his hair from the back of his neck. He'd only managed to struggle to the hillock's rim when something hit him from behind with a tremendous shove, sending him hurtling down the bowl's shallow slope into the pit. Over and over he
tumbled, never feeling the glass-edged cinder-rocks tearing his clothes and skin. His only sensations were the rending throb at his nape, and the agony rattling in his spine. But then he became aware of the wind, so strong now that he felt himself pulled into the air, caught up in its terrible whirl. His clothes whipped about him, flew off in rags, became part of the spinning debris. With blank horror Ryel realized that the next thing torn to pieces would be his body.

  When he discovered he was still alive, he was lying naked, stretched prone in a pool of mud. The storm had subsided to cold needles of rain. He had never hurt worse. He put his hand to the back of his neck, and with sick dread felt throbbing warmth oozing under his fingers. When he touched the gaping lips of the lightning-wound, he fainted yet again.

  Then he dreamed a very beautiful dream. In it a tall figure swathed in long robes came to where he lay, and lifted him up out of the mud, and carried him away from that place of pain, singing all the while some lovely quiet wordless song. Ryel had never felt more sheltered and safe, or more grateful for his deliverance. Tears of joy warmed his cheeks.

  "Thank you," he whispered. He never expected any reply, but one came.

  "It was meant to happen, whelp. Now rest, for you need it." The voice was vibrantly deep, like thunder, but Ryel wasn't afraid any more. Not when the voice was so sorrowing, and so gentle. He only smiled, and felt darkness steal over him again like a soft enveloping blanket.

  When he again awoke he was home in his yat, his mother and Yorganar bending over him in an anguish of worry. He couldn't have been asleep long, because he was still covered with mud, still bleeding, still naked. But the terrible wound at the back of his neck had somehow closed up as if cauterized. All that remained was a knot the size of a sparrow-hawk's egg that the tabib Grustar diagnosed as a bad bruise. Ryel had decided never to tell anyone the truth, which he himself was far from sure of. In time the knot's swelling subsided to a mere lump not much bigger than a hazelnut, which Ryel's long hair hid from view. It never went away, nor for a long time did the pain. Even now, fourteen years later, Ryel winced at the memory-prodded twinge deep in his nape.