The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  The wysard felt his hands growing slippery against the engrimed skin. "Come out. Take a man's form, and meet me as an equal—if you can."

  As if in answer the daimon with speculative malice regarded Priamnor, now regaining consciousness, and Ryel cursed himself; but then the thing sneered.

  "Some other time. I've seen what I wanted to see, and now I'm bored with this game. The girl's yours—do what you like with her."

  The empty eyes shut, and the bruised body toppled into Ryel's arms even as the stifling air thinned. Drawing a starved breath, the wysard put his ear to the Sovrena's heart, and found to his unbelieving joy that a pulse beat there, although with exceeding faintness. Too spent to lift her up, he dragged her to the bed and dropped her onto it, then called to her in the language of the Highest. The girl made no response, but lay motionless, all but unbreathing. Ryel again called to her, using every reviving word he knew from his study of the Art, but to no avail. He tried various stimulants he had brought, and others he recognized among the many bottles and phials left by previous unsuccessful healers, but to no effect.

  "Has it left her?" Priamnor Dranthene stood at Ryel's side, so pale that the wysard forgot the Sovrena momentarily, all his attention fixed on his friend.

  "Priam. Sit here, next to me. Are you hurt?"

  "Never mind that. How is my sister?"

  "Her tormenter's gone," Ryel answered. "She survived."

  The prince clasped the wysard's hand, his own fingers strengthless but warm. "My eternal thanks." He smiled, then, wanly. "I wanted to face the thing. Call it out and kill it. But I couldn't even look at it." With his silken sleeve the Destimarian prince blotted the Diara's face clean of its filth, infinitely gentle. "Little sister."

  At that whisper the girl stirred slightly, but did not waken. Priamnor called again, and yet again; but still Diara lay entranced.

  "I cannot wake her," he said, worn despair aching in his voice.

  Ryel felt all the burden of his weariness now, leaden in his limbs. He could not tell Priamnor, could hardly bear to remind himself, that every moment Diara remained unconscious put her ever deeper into danger. "She requires time to revive. Now it remains for me to heal the hurts she has received both in mind and body, while you see to your father." The wysard as he spoke inwardly winced as he recalled the way the Sovran Agenor had struck the wall, the thud of flesh and snap of bone.

  Priamnor nodded in resignation. "At last my sister is free. Will she remain so?"

  "I believe she will. Her captor has played its play, and obtained what it came for."

  With visible effort the prince stood up. "I must go to the Sovran. But I will return, ilandrakis."

  At that last word the wysard felt his eyes burn. "My thanks, Priam," he replied.

  "Tell me what else you require before I go."

  "I ask that you send away the courtiers waiting in the hall," Ryel said. "And I would have you summon a few of the bravest of the imperial guard, and command them to stand outside this door and guard it with their lives."

  The prince nodded. "I will. Good fortune be yours, Ryel."

  "And yours, Priam."

  Before he left, Priamnor summoned several of his escort and had the two dead Ormalans removed, to Ryel's entire relief. After all had departed, leaving Ryel alone with the Sovrena, the wysard drew a long breath and abruptly gagged on it. The room was foul with the stench of steaming dead guts and long-unwashed incontinent living flesh and heavy perfumes gone sour. Uncurtaining the windows, he threw the casements wide. A blossom-laden breeze from the Eastern Palace wafted in, and he closed his eyes as he breathed deeply of its sweetness. The air had lightened deliciously, as if from a sudden sweet hard shower of rain.

  Strengthened, Ryel returned to Diara and took her hand, then slid from her wrist to her arm. All her body was cold, and if she were not warmed she might yet die, he knew. His first thought was to use his Art to increase her heat, but his strength had already been overtaxed. Therefore he rose and looked into the rooms that opened out of the Sovrena's bedchamber, and soon found the one he sought—the princess' robing-room, with her dressing-table, her armoires and chests of gowns and jewels—and in another chamber devoted to cleanliness, a great alabaster bath. Two curious taps of wrought gold emerged from the vessel; Ryel pushed them, found hot water emerge from one, and cold from the other, and smiled at Almancarian luxury even as he blessed it. He blended the waters into the perfect warmth, then returned to the Sovrena.

  As it had been in his vision, her hair was dressed in many braids, woven with ropes of pearl. But now the plaits were greasy and tangled, and the ropes broken and straggling. Ryel unknit the braids one by one, and cast the jewels to the floor. All the gems at her neck and on her wrists and fingers and ankles Ryel likewise removed and dashed to the ground, kicking them out of his way. Her tattered and stained garments, too, were fastened with many rich knots and clasps. Ryel drew his dagger and cut the knots, and with impatient fingers loosened the clasps. Next he slit the wide sleeves and the front of the gown from neck to hem, and then did the same with the shift, until Diara lay naked.

  Ryel had longed for this in some of his dreams, the waking ones he'd steeled himself against time and again. But what he now beheld inspired not lust, but rather desperate pity. Here was no ethereal vision. All the girl's body was mottled with bruises and seamed with red scratches, smeared and crusted with the vilest dirt. The skin was rough and taut with starvation, the flesh wasted. Ryel's eyes blinked and burned at the sight. Taking a little lapis flask from the lacquer case, he opened its coral stopper. Instantly a vigorous redolence wrought of a hundred hues of living green overwhelmed the tainted air, and the Sovrena fetched a deep eager breath. Wetting his fingers with the precious oil, the wysard anointed Diara's cold flesh, seeking the places where the living blood beats quickest—wrist and elbow-crook, throat and temple, lip and eyelid, the inner smoothness above the knee, the instep of the foot—and the girl murmured and stirred. Then he touched her hurts, healing them one by one; she struggled at first as one does in a dream, but then lay quiet save for an occasional flinch. Then, expending the absolute last of his forces, Ryel carried the Sovrena to the bath and lowered her into the water.

  Drawing upon his Mastery, the wysard uttered a reviving spell. Diara's eyelids fluttered, but did not open. Searching among the many precious flasks and vials gathered on a nearby tray, Ryel instinctively chose a lovely little carnelian cylinder. Opening it released the celestial fragrance that had imbued Priamnor's robes. The perfume was in solid form, and Ryel gathered some on his fingers, then dipped them into the bath, gently swirling the scent into the warm water.

  It worked like a spell. The Sovrena's cheeks colored a soft rose, and her eyes opened drowsily, meeting his amid the balm of paradise.

  "Keirai," Ryel whispered.

  "Keirai d'yash," the princess replied as she smiled with recognition. "It's you."

  From a source hitherto unknown Ryel gathered strength enough to speak. "Yes, my lady. We meet a second time."

  "But still not face to face. I feel removed. Here, and not here."

  "Because you are not fully awake, but in the dream-realm," Ryel replied, as calmly as he could.

  Her lovely eyes became puzzled. "Why?"

  "You were for some time not in your right mind," the wysard said. "I have put you in the dream-realm to soothe and heal your wits before you return to the World."

  "You're kind." She swallowed. "I'm very thirsty."

  "I'm sure you are." He brought her cool water, and she drank deeply, then lay back in the bath looking down at herself with bewilderment.

  "This can't be me. Why don't I hurt, when I'm so bruised and torn?"

  "One feels no pain in the dream-realm," Ryel replied.

  "Apparently one can feel very sticky, however." She scratched her head, then lifted up her hand, regarding it with mild despair. "My fingernails look like talons. And my teeth feel fuzzy."

  "We'll start on those," the wysard
said.

  When her nails were trimmed and her teeth clean, Diara thanked the wysard with a bright sweet smile. "Why am I not ashamed, here with you?"

  "You have no cause, in the dream-realm. Are you hungry?"

  "I'm sure I will be, soon. I look all bones."

  "Take this." And the wysard produced another vial from the lacquer case, pouring some of its contents into her water glass. Diara tasted, licked her lips in pleasure, and drank deeply, until the vessel was empty.

  "Mmm. Delicious. If I drank that every day, I'd be fat in a week."

  The Sovrena's wasted, famished body changed even as she spoke, filling out into delicate smooth curves and contours. The skeleton became a goddess, and the wysard trembled as he beheld the transformation.

  Fortunately, Diara failed to notice his emotion. "And now I'd very much enjoy some wine, if there is any."

  On a table in the Sovrena's bedchamber Ryel by wonderful chance found a cool crystal ewer full of the same Masir vintage he had shared with Priamnor. The wysard filled a glassful and held it to the princess' lips as she drank, until she gently waved him away.

  "Your turn, now." She wriggled deeper into the water, reveling in the warmth. "I want to get drunk, but you have to join me."

  The wysard decided he deserved it, and took a long swallow, and another, until the glass was empty. He refilled it and offered it to Diara, who drank it down and then leaned her head back, eyes closed.

  "That first meeting of ours in the desert, under the moon—do you recall it, Ryel Mirai?"

  "I never will forget, my lady."

  She looked up at the glass lacework of the ceiling. "But now it's day. Day, and I here. With you." Again she gazed at him, and her lovely eyes lit brighter than the dawn, although as softly. "I'm afraid you're going to have to bathe me," she murmured. "I don't have the strength."

  The sudden realization of her eyes, the soft sleepy music of her voice, both directed at him alone, had been hard enough to bear, and he had drawn upon all the asceticism of his Markulit Art to look upon her nakedness with dispassion. But now he was asked to lay hands upon it. This is too much, he thought, bitterly resentful. I realize that there are tests and tests, but this—

  "You hesitate," she said, coloring deep now, but far more with shame than wine. Tears gleamed in her eyes. "And no wonder. Surely such a request must be disgusting to you."

  "What?" Of all things he hadn't expected to hear that. "Oh, no. Never that, my lady. Never." And with the care of a mother, the calm of a physician and the thoroughness of a nurse Ryel made her clean. But first he poured milky blue balm into the water to render it opaque.

  She watched him bemusedly while she lifted and shifted as required. "How strange, to have a man giving me a bath."

  "I feel stranger yet, believe me," Ryel replied.

  "What a marvelous place, this dream-realm. Awake, I would never allow my women to do this much for me. How strange, to feel no shame."

  Ryel for a terrible moment remembered another woman, shameless in another bath. He replied brusquely. "Sit up and I'll get to your back."

  Diara did so, lifting her long black hair clear of her neck, arching at the wysard's touch. "Ah. That feels good. So good."

  Ryel could only think of the marble nymph, and the bronze diver. "The Sovran Priamnor will be glad to see you well at last."

  She smiled, and nothing in the world could have been lovelier. "I have missed my brother. He is my dearest friend, and has taught me so much."

  Ryel felt his heart catch on something sharp. "Has he. Such as?"

  Diara made a face; a pretty one, but wry. "I must admit that I horribly spoilt and uninstructed, when Priam and I first met. My governesses had taught me nothing; my only interests were clothes and jewels. Priam was appalled at my ignorance, and undertook my education himself. I would like this water changed, if you would."

  Ryel drained the dirt-murked water and refilled the bath again, his eyes averted; added yet more veiling essence, and perfume from the carnelian cylinder. "What did you learn?" He asked, half afraid to know.

  "Everything," Diara said. "Music, because Priam sings and plays with me. Languages, because he can speak six; I only know three as yet. Stars, which we observe together, up on the roof of the palace. History of all the world, which he knows as well as if he'd lived every moment of it. And best of all, poetry—I love reading Destimarian epics with him. He reminds me of one of the heroes—of Diomenor, the brave prince who had the sorcerer Redestens as his friend. Have you read of them?"

  Ryel drew a deep breath of relief, despite Diara's last remark. "Yes." He began to wash her hair, lathering the black tresses and massaging the scalp. The way the long black soap-foamed silk felt under his hands was indescribable. "What else have you been taught by your brother?"

  The girl reflected a moment. "The ways of ruling justly and choosing good advisors, in case Priam should fall ill again."

  "I didn't know a girl could assume the scepter of Destimar," the wysard said.

  She turned to stare at him. "I am not a girl but a woman, Ryel Mirai—and far from a foolish one."

  Her gemmy eyes held a terrible hint of freeze, and Ryel felt his face burning from a hundred abashed emotions. "Forgive me my rudeness, most exalted."

  "Some of Destimar's best years were when the Sovrana Lys ruled on her own. Clearly you have not read of her."

  "I promise I will."

  That heavenly smile again. "Then you are forgiven. Please rinse my hair and then the rest of me, if you would be so kind."

  Once her hair was free of lather she allowed herself to be helped up, and stood innocently, maddeningly enjoying the water that Ryel poured over her. He was very glad when he at last could wrap her up in a great soft towel and have her sit at her dressing-table with her back to him as he continued his duties. It was more of an altar than a table, with candelabra on either wing of its tall triple mirror, and its dawn-hued marble top covered with gleaming arrays of ivory and tortoiseshell combs, silver implements for beauty's every exigency, gold and crystal containers and phials of color and ointment, exquisitely wrought boxes brimming with ornaments. But Diara's unadorned reflection mocked that splendor, shimmering in the glass like a nymph in a pool.

  Having massaged smoothing essence into Diara's hair—essence scented with the same celestial fragrance that had imbued Priamnor's garments—the wysard took up a comb and steeled all of his concentration on sliding the ivory teeth through the night-black tresses. He had no wish to meet her eyes again, even in a mirror. Her sea-colored eyes, the loveliest in the world.

  But she had other ways to torture him. "I remember you in the desert," she murmured, very softly. "Your body. Your arms." And as he watched dry-mouthed and amazed she slid his left sleeve up past his elbow, never taking her eyes from the glass as she delicately ran her fingers over his flesh. But suddenly she halted, tracing the thin seam that creased the upper flexor. "What is this?"

  He had to lick his lips to say it. "A scar."

  "From what?"

  "A sword."

  Meditatively her forefinger stroked the faint line. "Priam has no scars."

  Ryel swallowed, remembering the great marble bathing-chamber, the upswung arms of the bronze diver. "I know."

  "Did it hurt?"

  "Not at first. But very much later on." It had stunned him to feel that searing rip of pain, see the blood welling up like the spring Jinn had drunk from at Markul's wall, hear Edris' jeering shout—"Right! Gawk at it, fool, and get another one worse in the meanwhile!"—And then the clanging slam of blade hurling him back dazed with betrayal until rage seized on him and he no longer remembered the pain or where he was but only fought back with all he had, cursing and panting and feeling every shred of his strength pulled to its limit, drawn into ecstasy. That first fight had been like first love, terrible and sweet.

  Diara's hand rounded about his arm. "You're trembling."

  The wysard started. "Am I?"

  "Who wounded you?" she
asked, half whispering.

  Ryel met her eyes in the mirror, but looked far past them. "My father."

  Diara sighed, her beauty clouding. "Ah. So he hated you, as my father hates Priam."

  "No." And Ryel felt the truth in him like a sun. "He loved me beyond his life. He would have thrown himself in fire for me."

  "But he hurt you."

  "Only to make me stronger."

  "You seem very strong. And in so many things you resemble Priam." She considered him closely, with much of her brother's deep surmise. "Why, you could almost be his twin, save for your eyes' strangeness."

  He didn't want to hear that. Not now. "My Steppes blood makes them strange to you."

  She shook her head. "I didn't mean their slant. I meant their color. Blue like mine one moment, then black the next. All black." Her own eyes widened like flowers opening fast. "You are pale, Ryel Mirai."

  He felt so. It was ghastly, this trial; more than daimonic. Had she thrust a knife in his guts and laughed the while, he could not hurt worse. Untwining himself from her as if she'd sought to crush his life out, he stood clear. "Let's get you dressed."

  "But why?"

  He turned away. His heart was hurting his ribs. "Don't ask. Show me where you keep your linen."

  He helped her with her shift, then chose what dress he would have her wear—a light loose gown of pure straw-colored silk, as plainly made as her brother's wonted garb—and dressed her because she would not dress herself.

  "I would much rather wear nothing," she said. "The night is very warm, and my hair is all but dry. Look." She lifted her hands to the smooth night-dark heavy silk, pushing it back in a way that reminded Ryel now unbearably of the statue in Priamnor's atrium.

  He set his teeth. "Hold still or I'll never finish with these fastenings."

  When at last she was clothed, they faced each other again, at a distance Ryel deemed safe.