The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  "A wild wee handful he was awhile. It cost me much labor to break him of his swinish speech and behavior, and still more work had I to teach him that crabs and fishes and plovers are creatures to be wondered at, not tormented and terrified. Soap and hot water he loathed at first, nor did he take any care of the fine clothes I had made for him, clothes fit for a young lord; he much preferred to riot about the beach and splash in the sea, naked as a savage Zallan child. I treated him gently always, praising him when he by some miracle was deserving of praise, never speaking harshly nor lifting my hand to strike him no matter how much he deserved it, for too many hard words and blows he had already gotten at home; and in time I saw my methods work upon him. Then at last one day he came home from his beach-roaming carrying a cripple-winged bird he'd found, beseeching me to help him heal it. I believe that was the first time I felt like giving him a hug, and it was certainly the first time he allowed me to.

  "A gentleman's education I provided him, and my pains were not thrown away. Seeing that he took pleasure in tales of love and honor, adventurings and quests and other such nitwittery, I had him instructed in the high tongue of Almancar, the better to read the epics he loved. And to further his education, although I was loath to part with him, in his thirteenth year I sent him to dwell at the royal court of Ralnahr. My kinswoman Queen Amaranthe liked him well, as did King Niall—and Guy became sworn brothers at once with Prince Hylas, who was just his age. But the Prince was as sickly as Guy was strong, and died too soon, poor lad."

  "Yes," Ryel said. "I heard that unhappy story in Almancar."

  "Then thou knowest the rest, belike. About that trollop Belphira Deva, and that slandering ruffian Derain Meschante."

  "Unfortunately, I do. But you must not call Belphira by such a hard name, Markessa. She is a great and good lady."

  Dame Gwynned tossed her head and gave a scorning sniff. "That's as may be. But from what I last heard of my grandson, he left her to serve in the army of the Domina Bradamaine, and the Domina's bed too, then deserted both. Since then I've heard naught from him. Alas, that one so well-created should fall so low."

  Ryel had no wish to tell Dame Gwynned that her grandson might have fallen even lower still, in Ormala. "Did you instruct Lord Guyon in the Art?"

  "Only wee bits and scraps, for he was, after all, only a child when we met, and barely a man when we parted. If I ever thought he'd so vilely misuse what little he knew…" Her face grew somber. "I've sought him in my Glass, often and often, since he departed Hallagh. All in vain." For some time she was silent, rapt in gloomy misgivings. But at length she straightened, and made a valiant essay at a smile. "Sad talk has this been, young brother. Enough of my scapegrace grandson. High time it is that I show thee to thy chamber, help thee to a bath, and bid thee goodnight. Tomorrow thou shall tell me what thou'st dreamt."

  Although hardly of Almancarian or even Hryelandian luxury, the deep copperful of hot water sufficed for a thorough and much-needed wash, and the bright fire, heavily-napped towels and jasmine-scented soap made it a pleasure. As he bathed, Ryel looked round the room that had been Guyon's, finding the little foursquare space somewhat embarrassed by its lordly appointments, which in their turn sorted oddly with the ranks of raw oak shelving crowded with shells, coral, bits of rock and other sea-treasures. On another shelf, books ranging from boyish adventures to knightly romances to the histories of great lands and famous personages made a tattered dogeared show.

  Dame Gwynned's voice issued from behind the closed door. "Wouldst have thy clothes washed? I've a little maid comes in daily for the work of the house, a rare laundress who's never shrunk silk nor spoilt wool in her life."

  Ryel considered how his Almancarian love of cleanliness had suffered from days of dusty riding. "What would I wear in the meantime?"

  "Some of my grandson's gear," the Markessa replied. "At fifteen he was of thy height, and surely much of the clothing left in his press should fit thee."

  From among the folded garments Ryel chose a long shirt of fine linen only a little time-yellowed. Past the fragrance of dried thyme and roses Ryel detected an all but imperceptible trace of a wild scent, cleanly animal. The wysard drew on the shirt, and no sooner had he done so than the airless aching oppression that had drained him for weeks seemed to lift entirely, losing itself in the little room's rafters. An irresistible desire to sleep, the first such desire he'd known in many a day, gently but inexorably pushed him down onto the bed's edge. Never had he felt a bed so deliciously welcoming, sheets more caressingly soft and white, pillows more cloudlike.

  "Dost dream, young brother?" came the Markessa's voice at the door.

  "Almost," he answered slurringly.

  Dame Gwynned's voice was close by, now. "I had this bed newly made up only yesterday, not knowing why— but thine eyes are already shut tight as rock-scallops! Here, get thee in."

  She helped him lie down, and lapped him warmly in the covers. "Good dreams be thine, my young lord brother."

  The wysard felt the imprint of a kiss, faint yet warm on his forehead, and heard whispered words, Art-words all of them but strange, unknown to him. He would have asked what they meant, but sleep rolled around him like a wave of the sea, pulling him down into deep green silence.

  *****

  The silence turned liquid, and he sleeked through it without need of air, moving neither his arms nor his legs. Clouds of fishes darted back and forth like showers of indecisive finned prisms, catching the diffused sunlight in a thousand hues. A great ray shuttled by in soundless undulation while striped and spotted eels mutely knotted and unwound their scaly skeins. Corals and anemones waved languid jewel-hued fingers as Ryel slid past. Here was the hulk of a ship, its cargo of ancient amphorae storm-jettisoned and forgotten lying in a heap, their precious vintages and oils and perfumes still sealed tight. Ryel broke open one of the amphorae, and red wine issued forth like blood-smoke. Into the smoke he swam, breathing it deep, tasting its heady strength with slow delight.

  Drunkenly he glided through waving fields of seaweed that stroked his naked skin with ragged ribbons of live green satin. Rounding a spar of rock, he discovered the ruins of a temple rising up from the white-sanded sea-floor in an ordered forest of fluted columns, roofless yet with its altar still intact. Some queen's megaron it must have been, daintily built for the soft forgiving religion of a sunlit sea-girt land now forever lost. Between the columns stood statues of pure marble, which Ryel swam around in slow circles. Never had he seen men and women so well-created; surely they were deities. One of the statues carried a shield of polished silver, and Ryel waved at the swimmer who floated with such luxuriant ease just inside the bright metal, night-black hair waving about his head and his naked shoulders in long smooth strands; and the swimmer waved back, his sea-jewel-blue eyes bright and lazy.

  Next the wysard observed that behind the altar yet another pedestal stood empty. This he swam to and stood on, nobly attitudinizing, playing the god. But when he tired of his posturing a moment later he found himself unable to move anything but his eyes. Bewildered, he would have struggled, but was suddenly aware of a procession entering the temple-portico. Two priests and two priestesses approached the altar with deliberate steps, the men trailing long copes of white damask over albs of the same, the women draped in myriad-pleated white silk that bared their shoulders and their arms, all their garments billowing in the deep current. Another moment and he knew them: Priamnor and Michael, Diara and Belphira. The two ladies were as he remembered them, both beautiful; but Priam's cheeks were shadowed with the beginnings of beard, and his close-cropped hair had grown. Even more changed was the Northern adept, whose once-shaven head was now covered with long locks that swung about his face in heavy scarlet masses, and whose eyes were no longer blank Overreaching black, but cold gray. On either side of the altar the four stood paired, awaiting the hierophant who came forward slowly, a great crimson mantle swathed close about him against the water's pull.

  That's my cloak, Ryel thought; an
d his heart leapt.

  The priest was hulking tall, long-limbed and unshod. The hood of his cloak shadowed his face, but the water blew it back, disclosing features large and harsh yet imbued with the deepest intellect, the profoundest compassion. Within his marble prison Ryel's heart battered. Uselessly he tried to shout. Wild with frustration he quivered and sweat, desperate inside the unyielding stone.

  Edris Desharem Alizai folded back the hood of his mantle, baring his cropped grizzled hair, his grave face strangely devoid of the ironical humor that had always lurked ready to spring at the corners of his wide mouth and long eyes. Those eyes moved somberly to first one, then another of his acolytes, each of whom bowed in silent reverence. Then deliberately as one unwilling he climbed the steps to the altar, where Ryel now observed a human form shrouded in white lay outstretched. Parting the waving folds of the winding-sheet, Edris revealed a young man not yet thirty, seemingly asleep. His hair was raven black, his naked skin warm golden white, and his visage of classic Almancarian cast, save that his closed eyes slanted upward, and one or two other subtleties of his features further betrayed the Steppes.

  Edris gazed long on the motionless face, his own face sorrowing. With a gentle hand he smoothed the dark sea-stirred locks, and bent to kiss the still white face upon the temple. Then he pushed back his blood-crimson cloak, unsheathing the weapon at his side, cleaving the water with its razor-edge.

  But that's my sword, Ryel thought, terror gripping him even harder than stone as his comprehension grew. That's me on the altar. Father, you can't—

  Holding the Kaltiri blade vertically with point down, Edris lifted the weapon high, his hands on the hilt inexorable. In that instant the swathed victim opened his eyes and stared at his executioner in pleading horror, but too late. The sword's point drove into the breast, rending the heart, and a cloud of blood erupted from the fissure.

  Instantly Ryel broke free of his stone Dagar, only to find himself stripped of his sea-magic, turned mere mortal in a world of water. Leaping upward with convulsive instinct, he clambered for the surface that now loomed impossibly far, gagging on the hot red haze swirling about him as he strove to rise, escape, breathe again. For a suffocating fraction of a second he glanced down to find the five celebrants gazing at him with wondering eyes, but even that instant was too much to spare.

  I'll never get there, he thought as his lungs began to collapse, his vision to blur. I'm going to die.

  He thrashed and choked, panicking in drowning horror, stretching out frantic arms to the unattainable air.

  I'm going to dr…

  *****

  The sheets were tangled about him like a net. He lay trammeled, looking wildly about him. Sunshine glowed bright through the salty windows of the little room, falling on familiar things, things of land and life. Never had colors seemed so rich, light so fair.

  "Let go."

  At his rapped command the sheets unwound, spreading out flat and tight. Ryel laughed softly. His blood vibrated, his body glowed like a fire-surge on the sun's surface. Too much in haste for the niceties of buttoning and tying, he flung one of his Almancarian robes about him and rushed from the room. Not finding the Markessa, he hurtled outdoors into warm brilliant noonday, racing barefoot down to the sea, impatiently rucking up his long silken skirts to plash through the cold hissing tidewater, reveling in his speed, laughing out loud, re-learning the sound of his joy.

  "Dame Gwynned!"

  The Markessa was walking the sands in her black barnacled cloak, her head lowered in profoundest meditation. Startled she whirled round, staring at him with wide eyes. "Ryel Mirai, is it thou indeed? Thou, alive?"

  The wysard caught both her hands, spinning her about with him in a crazy dance. "How could I not be? How, when life is this beautiful?"

  Joyously she danced with him, her cloak all a-clatter. But at length she forced him to stop, and caught his face in her silver-ringed hands. "Ah, young lord, how glad I am to see thee well. What fears I have felt for thee. What terrible— " meeting his eyes she went pale under her sun-brown, and her voice failed her.

  "But Markessa, why? I only slept late, nothing more."

  Her hands trembled. "Thou hast lain abed not one day, Ryel, but three. Lain unmoving and unbreathing, though warm. None of my Art did thee any good, and I was e'en at my wit's end. I have walked here the last hour in torment, not knowing where my help might come."

  For a moment his strength failed him utterly. He dropped to his momentarily nerveless knees in the sand, deafened by the shrieks of the gulls wheeling overhead. "Not one day, but three."

  "Three endless days, young brother," Dame Gwynned said as she slowly sat down beside him. "I had said spells for thy healing, but I never looked for thee to lie entranced so long. After the first day I became afraid that I had mis-said the words or otherwise spoilt the charm— for it was greatly beyond my skill, being of Markul's Art—and I spoke with Jeral Colquhon in my Glass; but he said that all was well and the spell would take, and to let thee lie."

  "It seems to have worked my cure," Ryel said.

  Dame Gwynned's reply came slowly. "I think not; any more than it has worked another great change in thee, one I neither expected nor understand."

  Something in her voice unsettled him. "What do you mean, Markessa?"

  She looked away. "Thine eyes are no longer those of an Overreacher."

  For a long time Ryel sat quiet, feeling a little puzzled frown puckering just between his brows. Then he felt that frown dissolve in sweat, and heard his words come hoarse and slow. "Tell me again, Markessa."

  "They are changed, my lord brother. I never thought their true color might be so light, or so lovely. Look thou here." She unclasped the broad silver brooch of her cloak, and held it up to his face.

  Eyes of Almancarian blue met Ryel's in the mirror-bright metal. "This can't be," he whispered as he stared. "How— "

  Helplessly the Markessa shook her head. "Naught had I to do with it, young brother."

  "What spell did you use?" Ryel demanded.

  Lady Gwynned looked uneasy. "They were words beyond my skill, words I had no right to speak. Words from a book."

  "What book is that? How did you acquire it?"

  The Markessa reddened momentarily. "I ... well, to call it by its naked name, I stole it three years ago from the great church of the Unseen in Hallagh."

  "You what?"

  "There was naught else I might do, once I saw what it was. I had journeyed to celebrate the Blest Oranda's Day, the holiest of the year—'tis expected of the great folk of the land. After the rites, I lingered awhile to view the treasury, which is famed for richness. Behind a locked grating in the sacristy were great store of books all bound in gold and gems, and as a simple woman fond of pretty things I asked to see them, and of course as Markessa of Lanas Crin I was obeyed. They were all of them missals and breviaries of the Unseen—save for one wee volume that I knew instantly as an Art-book, to my great wonder and indignation. When the priest turned his back, I made bold to pocket it, lest some fool find it and wreak harm thereby. I found I could read some of its spells, but by no means all—for though some of the book was written in the common tongue of the Cities, most was beyond my poor understanding. Had the Lord Prelate Meschante known of my theft, matters would have gone ill with me, I do assure thee; but he never discovered it, thank luck."

  A premonitory shiver seized the wysard. "I must see this book of yours, Markessa."

  "Thou wilt, and welcome."

  The wysard looked out to sea. Never had he known a day more fair, a sky more heavenly blue, clouds whiter. The waves and rocks were so beautiful that he could not bear them. He felt his eyes fill with warm salt wet, then shivered as it spilled down his cheeks and was cooled by the wind.

  "You elude me," he murmured to the life-giving warmth. "Close as my skin, distant as a star. Were we together these past three days, you and I? Make me remember."

  The wysardess stared at him, still apprehensive. "To whom dost t
hou speak, great brother?"

  "My father." And slowly the wysard told Dame Gwynned what he had seen during his trance-state.

  After a long silence the Markessa gave a sigh. "Let an unlearned old woman make what sense she may of this, young Ryel. I do suppose that this vision, or visitation, or whatever it may be, has no evil in it, but great good. I have learned from Srin Yan Tai that thou art bound by destiny to the elements of water and air. Certainly those elements that have shaped thy fate have played a part in thy dream. And thy dream's meaning is thus: thy former self has been destroyed, thy new self freed."

  Ryel was not convinced. "But what of the appearance of the Dranthene siblings, and Michael their enemy among them?"

  The Markessa shrugged in Artwise acceptance. "It may mean that he is not their enemy, but their friend."

  Ryel saw again the tall Red Essern reaching out his hand to Diara that he might guide her up the altar-steps, standing next to her so close that his sea-tossed scarlet locks mingled with her waving black tresses like fire and smoke; and now Ryel remembered that Michael had made so bold as to bend to that lovely hand, and touch his brow to its back. Again he felt his heart stabbed and split by a poisoned blade. "He is no one's friend, now. Markessa, I must leave as soon as may be."

  "And where wouldst thou go?"

  He couldn't say Ormala. "I must take the road that leads to Dagar. At once."

  "And if thou canst not find it?"