At that moment six of Atlan's votaries entered the sanctuary as the music slowed: three men and three women magnificently formed, clad in little more than jewels—slaves of the rarest beauty, from distant lands. The women were a tall Northerner with great masses of electrum mane barely held by threads of diamond; a shaven and tattooed Zallan so black that her pearl-draped skin had a bluish luster; a russet-crested Sindrite amazon whose emerald-set baldric divided breasts of surpassing beauty. The men Ryel recognized as a warrior of the Kugglaitan Steppes, golden-hued and densely muscled, with slant silvery eyes; a harsh Wycastrian with the heavy tawny hair and aggressive symmetries of form and face by which his people were known; a slim youth clearly from the Uskan Islands, his skin like copper satin, his gilded eyelids and vivid lips half-parted with voluptuous pleasure as he moved. All were between twenty and thirty years of age, all accomplished dancers; all drugged with mandragora, to judge from the fluid abandon of their gestures, their languorous lost eyes. Their bodies slid and twined and enlaced in ardent exaltation of the flesh, seconding the ever-accelerating music with rhythmic clicks of gems. Ryel felt his eyes dazzle, and his mouth dry; he glanced over at Priamnor, and wondered how the Sovran's masked gaze could be so clear and searching, studying the dance with complete dispassion.
The music died, the dancers dispersed, the rites ended. Ryel released the breath he'd been holding and sank back on his cushions, his wits unsteady, his blood in riot.
"Most edifying. Most awe-inspiring," came the Sovran's voice, controlled and amused, at his side. "Can you walk?"
"Not very well, probably," Ryel muttered.
Priamnor laughed. "Religion has its uses. The sacraments of Atlan are wisely designed to put the worshipper in the correct frame of mind to worthily enter paradise." He stood up, and helped Ryel to his feet. "You seemed suitably impressed.
"Is it always like this?"
Priam considered. "The choreography and the celebrants vary. Every denizen of the Diamond Heaven is of Atlan's order, qualified to officiate at her rituals. I hope your Rismaian sensibilities weren't shocked by the occasionally inventive pairings—and groupings—during the ceremonial. They are meant to honor the three sectors of the Diamond Heaven."
Ryel gave a disbelieving half-laugh. "There are only three?"
"In Almancar love between men and between women is not recognized as perversion, ilandrakis," said Priamnor. "But cruelty is, and the maltreatment of children, and indeed all misuses of the flesh that degrade the spirit. Such enormities were never tolerated by any of the rulers of this city, nor will they be by me. But come, Heaven awaits us."
Heaven it was indeed, to the wysard's already dazzled eyes. Amid the throng of revelers come from every corner of the World, rich litters borne by liveried slaves conveyed indolent glittering favorites to assignations, while in the meandering canal that divided the Jewel Path, lovers reclined at amorous ease in gilded shallops, or pleasure-parties sang and played in lighted barges, scattering flowers in the clear water. Rows of fragrant trees aglitter with lamps lined and lit the broad avenues of inlaid marble and the fair canal, and wandering couples now and again stopped for rest or coquetry at the vine-secluded benches set under the branches. Ladies leaned from the roof-galleries of splendid mansions, trading wit with the passersby below, and often tossing down flowers with artfully folded notes tied to their stems.
Ryel gazed about him, overcome, and gestured to the brightly-lit buildings lining the canal. "What are all these places?"
"Jewel and silk and perfume shops," the Sovran answered. "Gambling dens. Music rooms, chal houses, wine taverns."
"And on the upper floors?"
Priamnor gave his rare grin; it flashed beneath his mask's edge. "Wonder and peril, my friend."
As if the Sovran's words were a summons, a thrown rose softly struck Ryel's cheek. He bent and gathered it, and as he did, female laughter pealed from on high. Looking up, Ryel and the Sovran saw that several masked ladies clustered at a railing on the gardened rooftop of a splendid mansion.
"Come taste our wine!" one called. "It will cost you nothing but a sweet look from your fair eyes, my lords."
"That I rather doubt," Priamnor wryly murmured.
The building was ornamented all over with mosaics and sculptures of a nature that made the wysard first stare, then look away. "There's a paper tied to the stem," he said, dissemblingly indicating the flower.
"Of course there is." Opening and glancing at the note, the Sovran gave a short laugh. "Just what I expected." And he handed it to Ryel.
Scribbled with negligent grace across the spangled fragrant paper Ryel read aloud, "'The silver moon/ Though cold and high/ Falls melting-ripe/ Into a jeweled hand.' What does it mean?"
"You'll learn," the Sovran said, his smile ironic now. "Symbolism here is never too occult."
The ladies had not silenced. "Come up to us, young heroes! We have awaited you all this night. We have wine like nectar, and music like paradise."
"And beauty beyond mortal desert," Priamnor said, to approving coos. He bowed, and kissed the rose with a flourish as the ladies applauded. "My friend and I have errands elsewhere, my beauties," he said. "But we'll return."
"Promise!" one of the ladies called.
"You have my word," he said.
Another beauty gave an unbelieving laugh. "Ah, but is it good?"
"As good as if the Sovran himself gave it," Priamnor said.
Louder peals at that. "The young Dranthene is an anchorite worse than Michael!" cried the one who'd thrown the flower. "But were he here, I'd try his famous chastity."
Before Priamnor or Ryel could reply, another lady gaudier still, whose yellow curls owed nothing to nature and whose full-face girlish mask hinted at youth regretted and age concealed, looked down; and at the sight of two such well-clad young blades she waved.
"Well met, my lovely knights," she called in a throaty contralto that shook the creased neck-wattles just beneath the painted pink and white. "Such noble youth seek royal pleasures, surely; and here in my house you will find them, for the treasures of the Realm of Joy have been the more enriched by a radiant beauty only just arrived, her maidenhood yet in dawning bud, before whom the greatest in the world would bow down. You would think her the exact image of … but I will keep that a secret for your unrobing."
"Gladly will we meet this wonder," Priamnor said, "when we return."
After some other badinage—exceedingly polished and witty for an avowed recluse—the Sovran bade courteous farewell to the ladies of the Joy Realm and took Ryel's arm, leading the wysard further along the street.
"I've amazed you."
Ryel bit his lip at the Sovran's amused tone. "To hear the ascetic Priamnor Dranthene bandy words with bawds and harlots is something of a surprise, I must admit."
Priam endured the reproach calmly. "You see me as I was, ilandrakis. But now..." he looked around him, his mouth beneath the mask unsmiling, his eyes joyless. "I'll thank you to call me by my Heaven-name, if you would. It used to be Atlantion, but tonight it shall be Diomenor, in honor of the stern young god-hero of the epics. And what will yours be?"
"Redestens," Ryel answered, not so much to Priamnor's question as in remembrance of some words Diara had let fall.
At that answer, uttered without a moment's hesitation, Priamnor's jewel-blue eyes shone behind the mask. "Ah. Redestens the Desert-hawk, Prince Diomenor's comrade in arms with the magical powers. Excellent. You're well and aptly read, ilandrakis. If we're to be epic heroes, high time we found some adventure. Follow me—but first I must caution you that the ladies of the Garden of Dreams are the most beautiful and accomplished of all the Heaven. Unless times have greatly changed, they'll require an inordinate amount of gallant wooing. Can you bear it?"
"I can if you can."
They returned to the Jewel Path and paused at one of the many bridges that arched across the water, leaning elbow to elbow on the railing to admire the boats and their passengers.
"
Let's cross to the other side," Ryel said.
Priamnor glanced smilingly sideways at the wysard. "Why, Redestens, you astonish me. I had not thought your tastes so advanced."
"What do you mean?"
"Only that to declare a preference for the eastern side of the Jewel Path is to admit oneself fondest of … pleasures unsanctioned on the Steppes, let us say. But many are the devotees of Atlan who ply back and forth across the canal, and if you wish to be so adventurous—"
Ryel pushed away from the railing, glad that his mask concealed his confusion. "I need a drink. Let's go back."
All along the Jewel Path they stopped time and again to sip wine, sample delicacies, and applaud the songs and acrobatics of street entertainers. Many times they traded chat with other maskers—some of them Priamnor's former companions in revelry, as the Sovran later divulged. Courtly and suggestive and lively was that converse, most often concluding with an interlocutor holding out a pretty box of rich workmanship filled with gilded or silvered sweetmeats, inviting the two friends to take a few dainties by way of remembrance.
"What are these?" Ryel asked after the first such incident.
Priamnor tossed one in his mouth, savoring the taste. "Cimrist drops. Derived from mandragora, but not quite as strong or lasting. I'd forgotten how good they are. Go on, try them—it's considered uncouth to refuse."
In time Ryel found himself in a bodily state he'd never before experienced, one that alarmed him; and he was glad to feel Priamnor's arm linked in his, anchoring him to earth.
"I don't think I can stand anymore," he murmured.
"Then sit." And Priamnor gently pushed Ryel down into one of the shaded marble benches under the avenue of trees, and sat next to him. "Better now?"
"No."
Priamnor laid his arm across Ryel's shoulders, soothingly. "Rest, and watch the world float past."
"The world's not floating, it's spinning."
The Sovran laughed. Beneath the jewels of his mask his teeth were like yet another row of pearls, brilliantly white in his sun-bronzed face; beneath the silk his body was slim and strong and warm. The wysard remembered those words Priamnor had let fall about pleasure with males, and for a moment tried to envision the possibility of it—but he could not, any more than he could comprehend the pangs of childbirth that many of those worshippers in Demetropa's temple must have endured. But he could only too easily imagine pleasure with women, the delight Priam had known countless times. Kisses like the ravenous eating of ripe fruit, embraces that wrestled forth delirium and outcry—he knew it all. In Markul he had read every kind of book forbidden in the World, to train his senses; read coldly and with studious application, never surrendering to lust save in dreams, and even then only when he was at his weakest. But now the World wrapped him in seduction unbearably strong, and he longed to fling himself upon the night, clasp it in his naked arms, drive all of his being into it.
Priam's hand on his shoulder patted reassurance. "Cimrist is disorienting, the first time. But you'll get used to it."
"I've taken cimrist before," Ryel said, moving free of the touch. "I've taken every drug you can think of. Every drug there is."
"Then perhaps you'll better appreciate a different order of sensation. The Garden of Dreams awaits us; come."
"I'm not as hot for bed-sport as you think," the wysard replied, more roughly than he'd meant, and sorry just as soon; but Priam only laughed.
"Aren't you? I had not thought to be, either." His smile faded then, and behind the golden mask his eyes took on a glint Ryel had not seen before, a brooding look of revery and hunger. "But the Heaven has its ways." And without another word he rose, and made the wysard do the same, and the two set off down the Jewel Path once again.
They entered the Street of Sighs, and halted before a small but lovely house of pink marble, its columns amorously wrought. No ladies waited in flowery ambush on the roof, but Ryel could hear laughter and music, more sweet and enticing with every step he climbed.
Cool and pleasant it was on the rooftop of the Garden of Dreams, among bowers graced with rare blooms and voluptuous statuary, lush vines tendriling over silver trellises, and lamps glimmering like stars; ravishing harmony added further sweetness to the perfumed air. Ladies and gallants wandered together among the gardens, or whispered under the trellises, or half-reclined on deep cushions and carpets at low tables laden with porcelain dishes full of spiced dainties and rare fruit, crystal ewers sparkling with noble wines and liquors, silver bowls of massed flowers, enameled dishes heaped with cimrist-drops.
But richest of these sights was the bevy of courtesans that made a fragrant sparkling cloud of butterfly-winged masks and gossamer robes and flickering downy fans. The ladies' gowns were all but transparent, baring smooth shoulders and arms and otherwise disclosing exquisite voluptuous forms, nakedness all the more enticing for being veiled as if by filmy layers of soft-colored mist that a breath might dissipate. Their fragile elaborate masks were like ethereal wings hovering over their intricately-dressed hair and painted features, and their different races made an intriguing contrast of color and form, an exotic blend of mood and clime.
As the wysard and the Sovran admired the beauties around them, another lady bustled up, a lady no longer young but gaudily defiant of the fact, clearly the mistress of the house. Her overpainted eyes peered closely at Ryel and Priamnor through the slits of her virginal visor, assessing first their faces, then their garb. Although she seemed not sure of the former, the latter decided her to the utmost courtesy. "My honored lords, all the beauties of the Garden of Dreams are at your beck, impatient to entertain you. Shall I select your company, or have you some particular nymphs in mind?"
"We wish to speak only with Belphira Deva," Priamnor replied. "That is, if she is still an ornament of this house, and is not at present engaged."
The bawd—for so Ryel privately named her—gave a forced smile. "Lady Belphira indeed dwells in this place, my lord, and is its glory. I confess surprise that one so seemingly at home in the Heaven should be unaware. Perhaps it's best to further inform you that she is not one of Atlan's ardent votaries, but a tiraktia with the voice of an angel, and accustomed to the greatest courtesy—and generosity."
Priamnor inclined his head. "We will disappoint her in neither, Madame. I give you my hand on it." Which he straightway did, after first filling his palm with gold coins.
Pocketing the money with a profound curtsey, the lady of the house led Priam and Ryel to a private bower, and gave orders to her servants waiting in readiness. At her word a low table was instantly spread with candles, and wine, and spiced confections, and surrounded by silken cushions. Then with many compliments the lady departed to receive another party of masked adventurers.
Priamnor leaned toward the wysard's ear. "So. Are we in Heaven yet?"
Even as he spoke, the fairest of all the courtesans of the Garden of Dreams approached them, formed like a goddess and clad in purest white adorned with pearls and diamonds, her half-mask's snowy plumes trembling as she rested her eyes on Priam. Clearly her blood was Northern, to judge from the dark green of her eyes, the deep heavy gold of her hair. But the painting that colored her eyelids, cheeks and lips made Ryel think of the statue of Diara in Priamnor's atrium, of borrowed hues conferring feigned life on dead white marble.
Priamnor looked long upon her, and bowed deeply. "I am fortunate indeed to address Belphira Deva, the celebrated queen of the Diamond Heaven."
The lady gazed on him as if stunned, and her reply came slowly. "I am honored by your compliment, most gentle lord. And what am I permitted to call you?"
He did not reply at once, clearly rapt with the sight of her. "Diomenor, by your leave."
She tilted her head at that name. "Diomenor. I might have erred and called you Atlantion, my lord. I thank you for the correction. And what of your friend?"
Ryel bowed. "Redestens, my lady."
Belphira's delicate brows arched behind the mask. "Your name is most ill-omened,
" she said to Ryel. "Redestens was a sorcerer, my lord, as cold and reasoning as his friend Diomenor was unruly and insatiable. He would never have willingly entered this Heaven's gates."
Priamnor laughed. "I forced him to. Have we permission for more converse with you, my lady?"
"As much as you wish," Belphira replied. But it seemed her voice trembled.
They seated themselves, the men reclining among the cushions, and the lady sitting in the graceful attitude of royal ease. She poured out wine for them both, and Priam raised his glass before he drank.
"To all of your beauties, Belphira Silestra."
The lady bowed her head amid a quivering of plumes. "This is a glad meeting, my lord Diomenor."
Priam met her regard with equal tenderness. "I have traveled far to see you, my lady."
"You have indeed," she replied. "But that distance is not measured in miles."
Ryel had known from the first that Belphira was no ordinary woman. Looking upon her, he was keenly aware that the Art slept within her, very strong. Since his entry into the Diamond Heaven Ryel had felt an uneasy ambivalence, wonder warring with distaste. Much as he admired the beauty of Almancar's courtesans, his Steppes heritage would not allow him to forget that these women were, for all their opulence and sophistication, prostitutes who had lain with countless men, lavishing the same blandishments on all, yet loving none; soulless creatures who submitted their delicate bodies to the lust of the highest bidder. But Belphira was inviolate and immune, chaste as a white rose amid the sultry blooms of the Dream Garden. As she poured more wine and offered delicacies and daintily quartered fruits, Ryel noted her double-handedness, that proved his intuitions true.
The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic Page 24
