"No worry. It'll find me."
"Stay this night at least. I'll ready a bath for thee, and dinner. Nay, I'll hear no refusals; for all thy return to health, th'art weak from lack of food, and real rest."
They rose, and walked back to the house in silence. When Ryel at length emerged from Guyon's room, washed and dressed in his Steppes gear, Dame Gwynned glanced up from the fire and raised an eyebrow.
"A hero from one of my grandson's foolish tales of romance thou lookest in that rig, but it suits thee well—even better than Hryeland dress, in which thou art a complete gentleman. The table's set, and dinner readied; I've small doubt th'art hungered after three days' starving. That wee book can keep awhile longer yet."
Suddenly feeling famished, Ryel found himself unable to resist broiled fish of such delicacy, herbed and sauced and surrounded with new-gathered garden vegetables to a perfection only attainable by Art, any more than he could refuse a second slice of strawberry cake afterward—or another glass of pale golden wine deliciously reminiscent of the Masir vintage. The drink awoke memories, and again the wysard saw Priamnor Dranthene slowly pacing toward the altar at the side of Lord Michael Essern, robed in the mourning color of the imperial house of Destimar.
It was my death you mourned, Ryel thought. You, and your sisters . Diara next entered his memory, her night-colored hair rippling in the current, the snowy pleats of her gown now billowing about, now clinging to beauties only too well remembered; the wysard could not bear the sight of her, and fixed his recollection on Belphira. But the remembered face of the queen of the Diamond Heaven, its loveliness paled by years of inward despair, only gave him greater pain.
"Thou art recalling thy trance's sea-journey ?"
Ryel nodded in answer. "That journey, and the one to come. The one that cannot wait."
"Well I understand, my young lord," she replied somberly. "But fain would I harbor thee for as long as thou didst choose to tarry. " Setting her glass aside, the Markessa rose from her chair. "And now for that thing I promised thee."
Unlocking a cabinet, she after some searching moments took out an object wrapped in a silken scarf, handing it to the wysard. Untying the silk, Ryel found a little book not as big as his hand, bound in wrought silver embossed with precious stones of ancient cut, its pages written and illuminated in exquisite silver script on midnight-colored parchment, all the metal gleaming bright in defiance of the centuries.
"Beautiful," Ryel murmured. He cast a swift surprised eye over the first pages. "This book is indeed of Markul. It looks to be very old. I marvel how it came this far."
"And to end up in a church, no less," Lady Gwynned said with a wry head-shake.
"Is this the spell you used—Skiasos? Shadow Rescue?"
"It was. I presumed shamefully, I know. But I pray thee take the book, for 'twas wrought for greater skill than my poor own—for wondrous skill, such as thine."
"You are giving me too much to thank you for, Markessa," the wysard said, greatly moved.
"Thou wilt return me a thousandfold, young brother."
That night as he lay abed Ryel more closely examined Lady Gwynned's gift. The first half of the book was written in the common tongue of the Four Cities, and among its several spells Ryel found the healing Art that Lady Gwynned had used in his cure—a brilliant and dangerous incantation, surely far too difficult for a mere Tesba wysardess to successfully cast. This Mastery Ryel read carefully, committing it to memory, more than grateful to have found it.
But when he turned to the second half, he discovered marvels.
"By every god," he exclaimed, nearly knocking over the lamp.
Here, written in the pure elegant script of Markul, were the great Masteries of Lord Garnos, thought forever lost. Page by trembling page he read their titles— Translation, Or Thought Travel. Meditations Toward Invisibility. Daimonic Contagion: Causes and Remedies. Elemental Affinities. To Send The Spiritual Essence Into The Emptiness. The Joining of Bodily Form to Spiritual Essence.
"The Joining," Ryel whispered unbelievingly as he deciphered the argument of the last spell. After a long moment's amazement he lifted the book to his forehead in awed reverence.
He dared not read that incantation, because night had come on dark, and Dagar was abroad and in the fullness of his strength, at any moment able to invade the wysard's mind. Just now it was a distracted, stunned, euphoric mind, amazed at the turn of fate that had brought this inestimable treasure into his trembling hands; astounded that the spells were there for all the world to see, written with neat, controlled, almost insolent legibility by the hand of Lord Garnos himself, First and Greatest of the Best and Highest. Slowly Ryel gathered the book to his heart, feeling the hectic beating of his pulse against the smooth silver.
"I have it," he whispered, his blood burning. "It is mine, ithradrakis."
He would return to Markul at once. Return, and reunite his father's body with his rai. Nothing else mattered, nothing. Let the World wait.
Testing the book's truth, Ryel slowly whispered the mantra that harnessed the element of air. Hardly had he intoned the last syllable when he felt himself gradually rising. He would have thought it a mere illusion, had he not bumped against the room's rafters, knocking his head against all too solid wood.
His heart battered within him, in awe and terror. Involuntarily he said the releasing-word too soon, and plummeted back onto the bed with a crash. A moment afterward he heard Lady Gwynned's concerned voice through the door.
"Is aught amiss, young brother?"
"No, Markessa," he called, rubbing a banged elbow as he spoke. "Everything's … perfect."
With greatest concentration and care he memorized every one of Lord Garnos' Masteries save the last. Then hugging the book close he fell asleep, expecting to dream joyfully.
But only scattered images drifted past, in ever more ugly succession. He saw a green plain studded with soft little hills and swift horses turn in an eyeblink to an endless field of molten rock, black cones vomiting fire, stampeding mad animals. He saw a beautiful woman beheaded and despoiled, her intricate dark-gold braids and tresses torn and stripped of their jewels, eyes gouged to raw sockets behind the butterfly mask. He saw a man burning silently in ardent fire, watched vacantly by a crowd of elegant loungers, many of whom either smiled or yawned. And he saw a dark-towered mist-enshrouded city with every one of its denizens rottenly dead. This last image Ryel entered, wandering the stinking streets. But the horrors he passed by or stepped over had no more effect on him than any of the sights that had gone before. Climbing the steps of a high tower, he entered a room where a man lay with half-open eyes, lips parted ironically over large teeth.
"Edris." Ryel rushed to his father's side, taking his hand. But to his untold horror, the hand detached from the arm. Recoiling, the wysard flung it down, but with that action Edris' entire body fell apart in a crawling welter of stench, the torso cracking open, the rotten limbs dropping heavily on either side of the stone bier, the head thudding to the floor and rolling until it stopped at Ryel's feet. And then the eyes opened—eyes without white or iris, empty black—and the wide mouth grinned in savage mockery, and a whining sneer issued from it.
"You won't get away from me, young blood. Soon. Very soon, now."
Ryel jolted awake, gasping. Dawn was up, red as his eyes felt. The design of the silver book's jewel-embossed cover was embedded on his chest where he had slept on it. Exhausted, he rolled over on his back and lay immobile as the memory of his dream again and again unfolded in his mind.
But the rising light gave him strength. He got up and readied for the road, keeping Desrenaud's shirt for the sake of the raw animal energy he felt within its cloth, wearing his Steppes gear over it. Between the shirt and his skin he thrust the silver book, shivering as the cold metal iced his flesh through its thin silk wrapping. After a last look round at the little room, he went out.
Early though the hour was, the Markessa was busy at the fire, her gray-gold hair wrapped in a kerch
ief and her strong form draped in a dressing-gown. She glanced round at him and smiled. "Good morrow, tall hero." Then she looked harder at him, frowned in concern. "Thou look'st bone-weary. Didst sleep last night?"
"Yes," Ryel answered shortly. "And I wish I hadn't."
"Come thee here by the inglenook and get warm, and take thee a cup of good hot chal, such as thy people drink. I have here some of the best."
It was perfect chal, strong and fragrant, the most delicious Ryel had ever tasted. Hands cupped gratefully around the bowl, he drank in long slow sips.
Dame Gwynned watched him approvingly. "It's a wholesome drink, is chal, and enstrengthening. I've taken the liberty of putting a few small things in thy horse's saddlebags, brother—food and drink for thy journey, and a flask of whisky from the Dryven lands. Have a care with the last, for 'tis wondrous strong."
"You are a good and great lady, Markessa," the wysard said. "I owe you infinitely."
She shook her head vigorously. "Thou owest me nothing, my lord brother, nor ever will."
"You do not ask me what I dreamed," the wysard said.
"I do not dare," Lady Gwynned replied. "Thy cries and groans hinted at no soft repose."
Ryel quivered. "I dreamed terribly, Markessa. I never want to dream that dream again. Never as long as I live—"
He lowered his head, overcome. Lady Gwynned took the chal-bowl from his hands, and then gathered his head upon her shoulder, ruskily whispering.
"I know, dear lad, I know. It is a terrible task, thine; a stark battle thou must wage alone, against an adversary cruel beyond the ken of mankind. Would that I might aid thee."
"You have, Markessa." He felt the silver book against his breast, warmed now to his blood-heat. "You cannot know how much." Taking one of her sun-browned hands, he lifted it to his forehead; and she knew the gesture, and clasped his hand with hers.
Chapter Sixteen
He traced the shoreline southward, sometimes upon the hard-packed sand of the waterline, sometimes upon the crags. Save for fisher-folk, themselves not numerous, he met with no one. Now in health, he could at last take pleasure in the beauty of the sea. The luminous azure had neither beginning nor end, but lay before him limitless, horizonless, as if the sky had interfused with the earth to form an indissoluble bond of land and air. It was entirely too beautiful for haste; and despite his impatience for Markul he lingered a day, sure of his Art's strength, needful of peace. Stripping naked, he swam far out, then lay upon the water drifting as the tide rocked him and the sun warmed him. When the tide carried him landward he did not resist, but lay beached as the waters swept over him, digging his fingers into the sand to anchor himself.
He lay there until the sun had climbed high, then rose and walked along the beach, letting the warm winds dry him as he sought for wonders cast up on the sand by the prodigal tide—shells like plump Cosran turbans striped in gleaming pink and scarlet and violet, or blunt cones with markings like to some forgotten script, or long spikes swirled with delicate rainbow bands; pebbles worn smooth and satiny, that shone opalescent as jewels until they dried and dulled, their sea-born beauty unable to exist away form its source; tiny sea-creatures and shore-birds that scurried away on delicate legs at Ryel's approach; the white bones of fishes, seeming rings and rods of polished ivory; branches of trees stripped bare from the wearing of the waves, their wood gray-silver and smooth and fantastically twisted.
Night was quiet, with never a word from Dagar; too quiet. Ryel sat by his fire expecting any moment a tightening of the air, the whining whisper of that hateful voice; but neither occurred. Glad though he was of the complete peace made even sweeter by his deliverance from the blood-bane of the Red Esserns, the wysard could not help but wonder at his adversary's forbearance.
"You're waiting," Ryel murmured as he again halted Jinn and again looked seaward, where the waves flung themselves shoreward and were dragged back again and yet again by some immense unknown power that men were always trying to give name to, and by naming to understand; and like the sea, man's hopes rushed forth only to be pulled back again and yet again by doubt, disbelief, eternal unknowing.
"Soon. It will come soon." And it seemed to Ryel that his whisper rose far above the wrecking crash of the waves, all but deafening him. Grimacing, he reached for the priceless cylinder that had been Priam's gift to him, and let its fragrance overwhelm the salt rank leavings of the tide.
The day began drawing to an end, cloudy and threatening rain as the shrouded sun dipped ever closer to the world-rim, resignedly making way for the night. Ryel had all the day looked seaward; but now he turned, and faced the land. It came as no surprise that he should suddenly become aware of castle walls just visible behind a heavy veil of climbing weeds, lining the cliff-edge to the east.
There, he thought; and he could give no name to his emotions, that were mixed to the point of flatness. You're there.
He found a road cut into the rock that led from the beach to the clifftop. To judge from the untrodden grass and uncleared stones, no one had ridden or walked that path in a very long time. And when the wysard arrived at the gates, he found them flung wide in derelict abandon.
"My thanks for your welcome, Dagar," he said beneath his breath.
He dismounted to harbor Jinn under an archway paved with moss-furred cobbles, and approached the entrance-portal of the castle that led to the great hall of the dwelling. Broken windows admitted the last dark hints of daylight. In the hearth a few gray sticks still remained, and at a word of Ryel's they sprang aflame. Bunching some of them together to serve as a torch, the wysard continued his explorations
All of the many rooms were empty and wrecked, plundered long ago of whatever riches they might have boasted, and deserted by whoever had owned or stolen them. But if nothing living remained in the castle, something dead only too evidently did. Ryel's nostrils flinched as he neared the midmost room of the ruin.
"Human," he murmured, analytical even in disgust. "Human, and only too apparently unembalmed. I doubt you'll want to get too close to that, Dagar."
His first instinct, too, was to move far from that disgusting reek; but for some not readily explicable reason he sought the source of it. He doubted greatly that he'd find an enthroned mummy surrounded by fabulous treasure, but he cared nothing for that. What most drove him was memories of his Steppes upbringing. To allow the dead to lie above ground and unburied was a terrible crime among his people, and one was constrained by ancient custom and fear of divine retribution to perform death-rites for even one's worst enemy, if it were only to toss a handful of earth over the remains. Ryel had long ceased to fear the wrath of his people's many gods, but custom was strong. Steeled by Markulit training, he gathered up some dust from the floor and entered the chamber where the dead waited, muttering a workaday spell to mitigate the stench.
In the room's center rose up a long slab of rock, large enough for a recumbent figure of considerable size. But the corpse stretched out upon it could not have been a tall one even when fresh. Withered, shriveled and shrunken it lay, its skin clinging to its bones like scraps of badly glued time-dirtied parchment, its grim mortality wrapped in a tattered winding-sheet. Even the worms had all but finished with it.
"No signs of desecration," the wysard said to himself as he studied the remains. "No marks of wild beasts, or of pillage—"
But then he caught his breath, for another reason far more horrific than the stench. The dead man's face—for the corpse was male—was scarred upon the cheeks, and the scars were as fresh as the corpse was not. Holding his torch close to the skeletal face as he bent near, Ryel deciphered first a circle, then the rayed symbol set within it: the spark within the sphere. At that sight he stiffened wholly around his battering heart.
"You," he breathed. The corpse's eyelids fluttered over empty sockets, and instantly Ryel began to utter a protective spell; but in that moment arms like white steel wrapped him from behind, crushing the breath from his lungs, the words from his mind. A voice like
deep music burnt his ear. "Not fast enough, Steppes gypsy." The arms tightened inhumanly, and the last thing the wysard heard was a laugh like thunder, borne on breath transcendently sweet.
*****
He awoke to darkness. A smell of wet stone and molding decay hung on the brooding black air. Disoriented, he blinked his eyes, and as if by signal a faint light began to issue from the ground. Looking down, Ryel found that the floor was strewn with that phosphorus-dust called corpselight. Its pallid embers barely flickered, affording not so much illumination as a foil to the darkness.
The floor was intolerably cold. With that realization the wysard discovered that his feet were bare. A chill took his body, and he saw that he was naked. Alarmed, he took a step, and was pulled up short. His wrists were chained.
He made himself stay calm, think slowly. The word, the word, what was it— he remembered, said it, waited for the snap of broken metal. But none came. Angered, he said another word far more powerful, superfluously strong; and still the chains held fast. A thrill of sickness pooled in the pit of his stomach, but he ignored it, whispering carefully with painstaking enunciation a great word of freeing, a word that would make the very gates of Markul burst from their hinges. He closed his eyes, steeling himself for the shock.
None came.
Blinking and empty of any thought Ryel stared down at the corpselight, at his bare feet now numb from the icy stones of the floor. Licking his lips, he said a few more spells, almost playfully, as a child blasphemes—spells of earthquake and fire, words to bring the walls down around his head, melt the floor from beneath his feet. All to nothing.
An odor nastily foul stole into the room, dragged by a shuffling form only just recognizable as human. "Good words, young blood. But you need better." The shape drew nearer and stood before him, enveloping Ryel in ghastly miasma. The corpselight intensified, illuminating the bald scalp peeling away from the skull, the scar-gouged leathery cheeks hanging in creased folds, the gaping holes of the orbits.
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