The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  The Sovranel spoke again, but only with visibly painful effort. "It is difficult for me to speak of," he said. "It goes against all that I have become. For the past several years I have sought to rid myself of delusion. I worship no gods. I put no faith in charlatans or fakirs. I scorn all belief in the supernatural. Thus it appalls me to think that my sister's madness is the work of a daimon, but I can believe nothing else." His fine features were very calm, but his voice shook when he replied. "I have seen it glaring behind her eyes. Have heard its voice shrieking the foulest abuse, words my sweet sister would never understand, much less utter… "

  "But such is common with madness," Ryel said.

  "Perhaps," the Sovranel said. "But I have also seen…horrors. Unspeakable, inexplicable horrors…" His voice broke, and for a moment he turned away to the garden, gazing on the sunlit flowers until he was again calm. "Forgive me," he said, turning back again. "But it is an appalling power, my sister's captor."

  Ryel ventured a question. "If the Sovrena Diara is indeed held captive by a daimon, would not a wysard be her best physician?"

  At once Priamnor shook his head. "As I said, I have small liking for sorcerers, and no trust. I deeply regret that we can do nothing for my sister until those vile Ormalans have been tried. But at present she is in the sleep-state that mercifully falls upon her from dawn to sunset, and I would not disturb it even if I might."

  "Nor would I," Ryel replied.

  The Sovranel looked away. "Her captor uses her vilely. She needs must lie in dirt and rags, because no one can come near her; she claws and bites any who dare. Whatever food is offered to her she either flings about or smears all over her body. I loathe the way her tormentor shames her…" He fixed a troubled gaze on the uncertain future, and sighed. "This night may prove long. I would have us approach it rested and forearmed. I always swim at this hour, when the sun is high—join me, and we will talk of any subject save the one that has saddened us so far."

  The prince's words were an unequivocal command, but so disarmingly couched that Ryel accepted with thanks. Together they passed through the palace's rooms and courtyards to the rooftop. Before them stretched a marble terrace extravagantly abloom, and a great circular pool roofed with a trellis of flower-laden vines that scattered and sweetened the relentless sunlight. At one end of the pool was a statue in life-size of a young man, his arms swung upward as if readying for a dive. The sculptor had fully understood and realized the strong curves and projections of the shoulders and biceps, the flexed tension of the legs, the lithe inbreathing upstretch of the waist, the deep indentation dividing the taut muscles of the back. The polished bronze glowed like wet skin in the warm light.

  "Finally." The Sovranel Priamnor threw off his fragrant robes with no more self-consciousness than he'd have shown if peeling an orange, and stood naked at the edge of the pool, stretching for pleasure of the sunlight. Ryel could not keep himself from first stealing a glance, then staring. For now the wysard saw the bronze image come to life, giving itself up to the sunlight.

  On his arrival at the Eastern Palace he had admired all of the Sovranel's exquisite works of art, but the sculptures especially. Some were of strange shape, fantastic extrapolations of natural forms, others of animals and birds; but most were of beautiful human beings, clothed or nude—the first Ryel had ever seen, for such art was shunned in Rismai, and of no utility in Markul. But in the same moment he remembered another sculpture, one he had seen in the Sovranel's atrium—a statue of pure marble delicately tinted, wrought to the dimensions of life in the semblance of a water-nymph dreamily contemplating the smooth reflection of her slender nakedness, lifting back her dark hair from either side of a face soft with revery. It was that statue the prince had gazed on as he spoke.

  Ryel had at first looked away from it abashed, but its transcendent beauty had drawn him back to admire and wonder, until the only shame he felt was for his dullard prudery. Yet now as he remembered the pale quiescence of the marble nymph and looked upon the living bronze of Priamnor Dranthene, he saw that the two resembled each other in ways no variance of gender could disguise—the same graces of proportion, the same serene intimation of strength, the same classic beauty of feature.

  Then with a start of shock Ryel realized that his wraithlike vision in the desert and the atrium's water-goddess were identically formed, and that the masterpiece of Priamnor's audience-chamber represented none other than the Sovrena Diara, all her beauty unveiled for her brother's private contemplation.

  Ryel shuddered. Among the Rismai, incest was an outrageous crime, punishable by death. The words of the horse-tamer Belar came back to him, joking mention of how incest improved the Dranthene bloodline. No, he thought, appalled. It can't be. They can't—

  "Is something wrong, Ryel Mirai?"

  The wysard looked up to find the Sovranel regarding him with bewildered concern.

  "Nothing," he answered, coloring at his lie.

  "Why are you standing there? Don't you want to swim?"

  "Yes, but…" Ryel bit his lip at this fresh reason for consternation. Never had he stood naked in the presence of another male likewise unclothed, neither in Risma nor in Markul. Even when splashing together in the lakes, boys of the Inner Steppes invariably wore some form of covering however scant, and upon reaching manhood never showed themselves to any but their gods or their wives. Ryel and Edris in their years together at Markul had kept the customs of their land, even as they kept its language.

  Priamnor understood, at least partly, but he did not sympathize. "Your modesty shames you," he said. "Half your blood is of this city, Ryel Mirai, and not the strait-laced Steppes—and at any rate, you and I are alone here." He smiled. "Besides, it's terribly uncomfortable, swimming with clothes on."

  Ryel did not agree. But lest he seem too hopeless a barbarian, he stripped as far as his shirt.

  Priam had walked round him, and now stood at his back. "I forgot to ask—can you swim? I've heard that few of your people ever learn."

  Enthralled with the beauty of the gold-spangled water, the wysard abstractedly nodded in answer to the Sovranel's question. "When a boy, I used to splash about in the ponds around the summer encampment," he replied. "But that was a long—"

  Suddenly he felt a shove, and water engulfed him. Taken utterly aback, Ryel at first scrabbled and thrashed in the airless realm. But in another moment he became used to the water and only too aware of his Steppes shirt, that trammeled his arms intolerably. He peeled off the hindering garment and threw it from him, then dove deep, feeling only pleasure as he gave himself up to this wondrous new element that absolutely enclosed him, lifting him free of earth. He had been the swiftest swimmer among his play-brothers, but never had he swum in water like to this—water not murky and weed-ridden, but clear as aquamarine crystal, shimmering with sunlit gold. And now he found to his delight that with the Art's help he could dart underwater from one length of the great pool to the other and back again and again without surfacing for a breath. It was like flying. Ryel looked down at the gold and many-colored mosaics that glistened like a fantastic far-off landscape, and at Priamnor's shadow moving swiftly past, and remembered the eagles he had envied as a boy.

  When he at last resurfaced, he found Priamnor lifting himself onto the edge of the pool and shaking the water from his face. "I knew you'd enjoy the water, if I could only get you into it," the Sovranel said. "But how could you hold your breath for so long, without your lungs bursting?"

  "I came up for air more than once," Ryel said, with all the matter-of-factness he could summon.

  Priam accepted the lie, but with clear bewilderment. "Strange. I never saw you. But come out into the light with me, and we'll talk."

  Amid the full heat of blinding afternoon they relaxed side by side, giving their bodies up to the unrelenting radiance. "Careful, or you'll burn," the Sovran said, glancing over at Ryel. "You look as if you've never been in the sun all your life."

  "For much of it I haven't," the wysard replied.r />
  "Ah. Because you were studying your art."

  Ryel froze. Suddenly it was deep winter, teeth-clenchingly cold. "My what?"

  "Your healing arts, I should say. Studies at Fershom Rikh are most rigorous, I hear. You must have come very young to that place."

  "Yes. I did."

  Priam seemed to wait for elaboration, but Ryel offered none. After a silence the prince said, "Tell me, is the temple district of Fershom Rikh as magnificent as I have heard it described? Many think it surpasses even Almancar's."

  "It is nowhere near as fine, in my estimation." The momentary cold forgotten, Ryel wiped a skin of sweat from his forehead. "To me, Almancar is the only city in the World."

  Priamnor smiled again, strangely now. "Is it?" He did not speak again for some time. "Do you not think we resemble each other, you and I?"

  Ryel shook his head in perturbed denial at Priamnor's wholly unexpected question, and evaded the Sovranel's glance. "I would never dream of flattering myself so far, most exalted."

  The Sovran fell silent a moment. "We have the same eye-color. The same shape of face, and many of the same features."

  The wysard bit his lip. "I had not observed."

  "But you have considerably more muscle. I wonder how you got it, pent up as you were studying medicine for so many years."

  Ryel felt his nakedness clear to the core of his soul. "A doctor has as much need of his body's strength as his mind's, very often. I never forgot that."

  "You'll need all your strength tonight, I fear," Priamnor replied. He looked down with sudden discontent at his own smooth form. "My sister has visited the Steppes, but I have never left this city in all my life. None of my playfellows dared mock me lest they be banished, nor strike me even in jest, on pain of death. Only at sixteen was I permitted to handle a sword or mount a horse, and even though I have since trained almost daily with great masters, I have no real skill of either horsemanship or arms. Your phratri's braves would jeer me as a weakling."

  "They might. When I was a boy, the others would mock my blue eyes and pale skin, and call me a weakling; and I had no choice but to fight, or be despised."

  "And you won."

  "I had to." Ryel hesitated before speaking again. "Should you ever wish to visit the Steppes, I hope you will permit me to accompany you."

  "I would like that very much; and I hope my sister will be able to join us. Speaking of family, do you have any living here?"

  "I'm not sure. My mother often told me of her brothers, but always said they were great travelers, seldom staying long in one place."

  "And your mother still dwells among the Rismai?"

  "I wish she did not," Ryel said, remembering dusty winds and teeming yats.

  "She has never once returned here?"

  Ryel shook his head. "Her marriage made my grandfather furious, and he closed the doors of his house to her. My grandparents divorced soon afterward, and my grandmother became a priestess of Aphrenalta Goddess of Wisdom, bequeathing my mother her house and all her other property."

  Priamnor's brows lifted. "A house? Where in the city is it?"

  "In the Street of the Wisteria Fountain."

  Priamnor nodded in recognition and some surprise. "That's not far from the palace. Your maternal grandmother must have been of the noble class, not the merchant's."

  "I believe she was," Ryel said.

  "And her surname?"

  "Hireus, most exalted."

  The prince's surprise sharpened noticeably. "Your heritage grows ever more complex, Ryel Mirai. The Hireus family has long provided the Dranthene with its ablest counselors—most notably Lady Parisina, whose wise advice more than once averted calamity two centuries ago."

  "Did it indeed?" But despite his pleasure at the Sovranel's news, inwardly Ryel regretted that the most significant part of his personal history, the Markulit part, had to remain untold.

  "I hope your mother will someday choose to live in this city," the Sovranel continued. "What could make her wish to remain with the Elhin Gazal? Does she love the Steppes so well?"

  Ryel looked away. "It is my father's memory she loves."

  "He must have been an extraordinary man."

  "He was. More than I ever knew, until recently."

  A silence fell, not broken soon. "I trespass," said the Sovranel at last. "Forgive me."

  "Yours is no trespass, Priamnor Dranthene," Ryel replied; and he meant it. "I'm grateful for your concern at a time when your own trouble is so great."

  "Others share that trouble, Ryel Mirai. All Almancar prays for my sister's deliverance—you have seen the temple district, and heard the name of Diara on every lip. No one is so hard of heart that he does not sorrow with me—save perhaps Michael the prophet, as pitiless as he is mad."

  The name chilled Ryel like a drench of ice water. "Michael? You know of him?"

  "Worse. He and I have met." The Sovranel's face reflected faint disgust at the memory. "When he first came to this city several months ago, I learned of him, and was shocked hear of his poverty, a thing unknown and intolerable in Almancar. At once I had gold sent to him, but later learned that he had thrown it away and still lived in utter destitution, begging his food and sleeping in corners, with only a single robe of black rags to cover him. His reputation for spiritual insight roused my admiration, and I summoned him to the palace for an audience, in the hope that I might benefit from his wisdom. But all I found was a ragged and unwashed madman—a highly intelligent madman, yes, and an undeniably compelling one, but nonetheless hopelessly deranged. The Master he claims to serve is hardly a deity fit for this city, much less the realm." The prince's gentle features hardened, then. "Michael's insolence and his pride repelled me, yet I bore it out of pity. But when at last he began to let fall insinuations regarding the Sovrena that no man mindful of his sister's honor could bear, I had him taken and whipped."

  "He suffered it? He let you?"

  Priamnor blinked at Ryel's astonished alarm; and the wysard hastened to explain his reaction.

  "The man to me appeared very strong. I'm surprised he went quietly to his punishment."

  Smiling despite severity, Priamnor shook his head. "One man, no matter how strong or insane, has little say against six of the imperial guard. My father was of course furious with me, because Michael is said to be nobly descended from one of the greatest families in the Barrier lands, and is near allied to the Domina Bradamaine; but I could hardly have cared less. Since then the prophet of the Master has devoted a large part of his public discourse to insulting the Dranthene dynasty."

  "I've heard him," Ryel said. "He's dangerous. The Sovran should banish him at once."

  Priamnor lifted a smooth bronze shoulder. "What harm can one poor fanatical halfwit do my family or this great city?"

  "People in the Fourth District hang upon his words," Ryel replied. "The sole aim of his eloquence is to goad them to discontent, then rebellion."

  "I can sympathize with some of that frustration," Priamnor said. "True enough it is that the extremes of luxury and pleasure for which this city is far-famed are beyond their reach of the Fourth District."

  "Beyond reach by law, I understand."

  Priamnor bit his lip at Ryel's implied censure. "Those are bad laws, and must change. If fate ordains that I rule Destimar, I'll see to it that merit and ability are rewarded regardless of station. But the people of the Fourth want for none of the necessities of life, and no one goes hungry or dirty or ill-clad save the prophet Michael. Let's not speak further of that unwashed lunatic. You've been in the sun quite long enough—and we're both hungry, I'm sure."

  From among a number of fresh silken robes piled on a nearby chair he invited Ryel to choose one, and selected another for himself. Then the prince called for the servant standing in readiness outside the door, who disappeared only to return moments later with other servants bearing laden trays. These they placed on a table near the water's edge, then departed. Music began, played by unseen citherns and flutes. The third
air Ryel half knew.

  "That sounds like a Kugglaitai ballad," he said.

  The prince nodded. "I have a great liking for the music of the Steppes. What you hear is a Kaltiri herdsman's song that I altered somewhat." He smiled, then, as he passed Ryel the first of the dishes. "But concerning more solid pleasures, my father thinks I've altered our city's cookery for the worse. He never dines with me."

  Ryel tasted, and lifted his eyebrows. "He's missing a rare pleasure."

  "I'm glad you think so. But my father is hardly of your mind. As you can perhaps infer from his aspect, he is fondest of meat, and sugar, and spirits, and objects to their omission at my table. The Almancarian way of spice and garnishment I seldom taste, save when I must attend one of my father's state banquets." The Sovranel poured out two goblets full of gold-tinged wine. "I seldom drink anything stronger than water, but on occasions of importance I enjoy the vintage of Masir—and this is some of the best." He handed a glass to Ryel, and lifted his own. "To my sister's health."

  Ryel raised his glass so quickly that some of the bright drink spilled out. "To the Sovrena Diara."

  Never had Ryel tasted anything more delicious. Yet although he greatly savored the wine, so enjoyable was his converse with the Sovranel that the wysard hardly noticed what he ate, excellent though it was. But when the servants brought in the dessert, Ryel with a start recognized the sweets that he'd loved from childhood and shared with Nelora in the Rismai dawn.

  Priamnor smiled at the wysard's surprise. "You're fond of lakh? So am I. But try one of these, first." He reached for one of a half-dozen heavy fruits that filled a silver basket—fruits which Ryel had seen displayed in the market as great rarities, and for which vendors had asked the price of a silk robe apiece.

  "They're Eskalun pears," Priamnor said, his pleasure evident. "Fit for gods. Seldom do they reach Almancar in this state of perfection." Taking up a knife, the prince began to cut and core the fruit. Simple though the actions were, they made the wysard stare.

  "You have equal skill in both your hands," Ryel said.