The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  "Comfortable, sweet eyes?"

  In answer Ryel wearily held up the irons on his wrists. "Don't you find chains and dungeons rather elementary?"

  Dagar thinly giggled. "Those were my slave's idea, not mine."

  "Your slave, is he. But I thought Michael was in Almancar."

  The corpse tsked. "That was your downfall, young blood. He's served me well, has Michael. He not only stole your little spell-book, but learned from it. Everything it held, he learned. The hidden language of your City he knew long ago thanks to me, and he had no trouble reading—and fixing in his memory—every one of Lord Garnos's Masteries. His first action was to embody me."

  Ryel grimaced. "I can't say I'm impressed."

  "This form was all that was available at the time. My servant found it in the crypt of this place, along with many other remains in conditions far less well-preserved. But it hardly matters, since I'll soon be wearing your lovely warm body." The eyeless sockets studied Ryel's nakedness with cold concupiscence. "You have been much in the sun. But I hated the light of the sun, when I lived in the World."

  "I believe it."

  "I was more beautiful than you. Hair of white gold. Eyes like sapphires with stars in them, white-blue— " The dual abysses contracted in sudden observation. "I sealed you as mine. Who dared take away my mark? Who turned your eyes back to what they were?"

  Ryel had no answer. But Dagar's stunned him.

  "That bitch again," the lipless grimace hissed. "That meddlesome slut. But you've never been without some woman to save you. Let her try to stop me. Let the witch try."

  Ryel forgot both danger and pain. "Who is it you mean? Serah Dalkith? Srin Yan Tai? Gwynned de Grisainte?"

  The grimace widened in scorn. "A greater than any of those old whores, sweet eyes. Greater than you dream." A stinking skeletal hand pressed its pronged fingertips against Ryel's mouth, quelling any attempt at conjecture. "Don't bother to guess, beauty. It won't do you any good even if you get it right." The hard phalanges traveled spiderlike to the wysard's cheek, and Ryel could not dissemble a shudder. "We should have known each other in Elecambron. We would have been lovers." And the fleshless reeking death's-head thrust itself close, pressing its rotting grin to Ryel's lips.

  The wysard jerked away and spat. "What could you have ever known of love, corpse-stealer?"

  Dagar giggled. "I've seen what fools it makes of men. How weak it made Michael—but he's been cured of it. Perhaps you remember the visit paid you by his mistress? I had plans for you, beauty. But this way is quicker."

  The wysard resisted the useless urge to lunge for Dagar's throat, and snatched at a chance instead. "Michael's form would be much better suited to your aims."

  The corpse considered this. "Perhaps. But I am somewhat fastidious, and have a dislike of red hair. He's a little too large for my taste; too sinewy. I prefer graces more supple. Charms more lithe." And Dagar's osseous forefinger trickled from Ryel's shoulder down his arm.

  "Where is Michael?" the wysard asked as he twitched away from that loathsome touch.

  "Making sure that no interloper mars our communion. He has proven himself very useful, has Michael; witness the ease with which he captured you." A whining titter welled behind the daimonic rictus. "How I will enjoy myself in your form, in ways your queasy rectitude flinches from so much as imagining. And you'll feel it, beauty. Part of your consciousness will survive—just enough for every one of your undeveloped and deprived senses to experience my kind of pleasure."

  The wysard's guts revulsed. "Sooner would I kill or unman myself."

  "You haven't much choice in the matter, sweet eyes." The gaping orbits once more scanned Ryel's nakedness, unspeakably lascivious. "Tomorrow night I'll wear your smooth young body, and have my way with the World…starting with your little Dranthene princess."

  From some hitherto undiscovered source Ryel called upon strength that made him stand at his full height, and stare his entire scorn into Dagar's barren sockets. To his inutterable joy, the daimon took a staggering backward step.

  "To my last I'll fight you," the wysard said. "Were I nothing but dust, I'd choke you. Go and have your play with the World—but what will you do after you've broken your toy to bits? Cry for another?"

  "I need more respect from you, young blood." The undead thing reached out its mummied fingers; its long yellow nails, so long they curved outward, lightly clawed Ryel's temples. The wysard fought to evade the contact, uselessly. A hard dry agony sliced his brain into sections wonderfully thin and fine, and he heard the walls echo with his shrieking.

  Slowly the fingers withdrew. "You must be civil, pretty brother."

  "Death's whore," Ryel panted. "Spider."

  "You learn slowly." The curling nails slid down to the wysard's breast, and immediately Ryel felt his heart constrict, driving out the blood as if an inhuman hand had squeezed it dry. He fell, hanging by his wrists in the iron cuffs, seeing nothing before him but a wall of red that became black shot with sparks, feeling nothing but his heart's convulsive struggle to beat again. Then at last he could see, and breathe, and hear Dagar's voice falling around his ears like cold earth.

  "You were great in Markul. Great wherever the Art was known. And now you are mine. All mine." The fingers slid again until they reached the wysard's groin.

  Fire and fangs rent him, but only for the little space before the blackness wrapped him like a winding-sheet. When he came to he was alone. The iron galled his wrists, the floor froze his knees. Head, heart and groin burned and throbbed. The corners of his eyes were tight with caked salt, his lips cracked and dry. He stared into the darkness, shivering in the dank air, remembering the years spent in the perfection of the Art, the years with Edris, the months alone; of the colloquies with air-spirits and nameless beings of other stars; of the awe and fear he had commanded in Markul, diamond of wysard-citadels. He had been great.

  He remembered what he knew of Dagar. Dagar the brilliant, Dagar the dark light of Elecambron, Dagar the half-daimon androgyne. Dagar, brilliant in the Art, yet addicted past cure to the sense-madding drugs that bring on frenzy and phantasies; Dagar more beautiful than any other of the brotherhood, and a thousandfold more base. Death and the Void had burnt away the petty degradations, the niggling inhumanities; had burnt away, too, the beauty and the grace that had been another facet of its fame, until all that remained were the most refined of evils: lust and cruelty only, and those emotions no longer wildly driving deliriums, but things of cold and detached compulsion.

  He has squeezed me dry, Ryel thought. Now he toys with the shell, crumbling it into fragments.

  More time passed, how much he was unsure. Then again he heard approaching footsteps, but this time steady and swift. Ryel as he knelt saw not withered yellow-nailed feet shuffling amid dusty rags, but straight-kneed stark-muscled legs booted and breeched in cavalry black. His eyes straining upward in ever-intensifying hope, the wysard recognized the dark uniform and silver insignia of a high officer of the Hryeland army, worn by a tall man whose long hair fell to his shoulders in heavy straight masses. The corpselight caught the hair's color, strange blood-scarlet, and the pallor of the harsh-angled well-favored face.

  "You're fairly caught," Michael observed, his deep mockery reverberant against the cold stone walls. "Aren't you, Edris' bastard."

  Ryel made no answer.

  "Stand up."

  The wysard stayed where he was. With a muttered curse Michael hauled him to his feet, slamming him against the rough icy stones of the wall.

  "If you knew how much I want to cut your heart out," he said, his voice soft now with rage. "If only you knew."

  Ryel found his voice, croakingly. "But you were in Almancar. I saw you in my Glass. How— "

  "I left Almancar a month ago, at the summons of my Master," Michael replied. "We've been tracking you, He and I, and I've been waiting for you here. For I knew you'd come at last, tame as a mindless child."

  "But you were in Almancar only yesterday," Ryel whi
spered. "I saw you. In my Glass."

  Michael laughed. "That wasn't me, gypsy."

  "Then who was it? Who—"

  A ringing hard slap in reply. "You'll learn. That is, if you live long enough." The Red Essern seized Ryel hard by the hair and under the chin, forcing his face up, compelling a meeting of eyes. A long time did Michael's impenetrable regard lock with the wysard's. "So. Blue again. The blue of Almancar, token of your half-breed blood." Bending close he licked away the salt remains of Ryel's tears, drinking them hot-tongued, sweet-breathed and slow. "Delicious. I want more."

  Ryel endured it, lids shut tight. "Your own would taste better to you. The Art that freed me from Dagar's power would free you as well."

  Michael only laughed. His empty eyes dropped to Ryel's nakedness, narrowed in scorn. "Right. You certainly look free now."

  Ryel would not flinch. "I know the pain you endure. It became mine, when I healed your brother. How you could endure it all your life I cannot understand."

  "I require no cure of you, Markulit. Not as long as I can serve the Master."

  Ryel would not flinch. "Dagar will destroy you, Michael."

  "Let the Master do as He will with his servant, as long as His purposes are fulfilled."

  "Your brother will mourn you."

  Michael's abysmal eyes blinked once. "I have no brother."

  "You and Yvain are doubly brothers, by blood and by the Fellowship of the Sword," Ryel said. "And you and I are doubly brothers as well."

  "By the Art and what else, Edris' bastard?"

  "Call me by another name," Ryel said. "Call me Ruhkt Avràl."

  After a wiredrawn moment Michael pushed Ryel from him, and harshly snarled a word into the air. The chains dropped from Ryel's limbs, clanging to the stone floor.

  "Here." Michael materialized a Steppes journeybag, and thrust it at Ryel. "Get dressed."

  The wysard threw on his Rismaian garb. "Where is my horse, and my sword?"

  "Your horse ran off. I'll take you to your sword."

  "Where is the spell-book you stole?"

  Michael gave a jeering grin. "Safe from you. Come on."

  He gripped Ryel by the arm, leading him out. Through long corridors and up many stairs he led him, until they arrived at the room where the corpse had lain. Chill salt wind and lowering gray dawn issued through broken windows once draped in rich cloth, now in colorless rags. Shrouded and faint though that sunrise was, it made Ryel's eyes dazzle. The light seemed to fill his veins. He felt neither hunger nor thirst, weariness nor weakness, cold nor pain. He felt invincible.

  Michael discerned this. It amused him. "You feel your Art's strength returning, blue eyes? I gave it back to you. Enjoy it while you can. Between the hours of sunset and dawn the Master rests, drawing to Himself the power of the Cities, the energy of the Outer World. You He will take this night. But for this space of daylight you will feel your Mastery in all its force, that you may contend with me."

  "Where is Dagar?" asked Ryel.

  Michael looked about him contentedly, breathing deep. "Everywhere." Crossing over to the wrecked and fireless mantelpiece he took down the two swords that lay there, and tossed one to Ryel. "It's been a long time since I fought blade to blade."

  Kaltiri hilt inexorably in hand, the wysard stepped back and squared off. "I feel all my strength, brother."

  "That isn't much of a warning," Michael sneered. "And don't call me brother, bastard. Call me Droth Hrâkon."

  "Havoc Holocaust," Ryel translated. "It fits."

  The Elecambronian drew his sword, a great Ralnahr claymore. All down the double-edged blade, bright runes glinted in the dawn. Michael gave a wolf's grin. "So where did Yvain cut you?"

  The wysard lifted his chin. "He didn't."

  The wolf's eyes slitted. "Then I will."

  Ryel looked deep into those slits, seeking any trace of humanity. "Do you really wish my death?"

  Michael's white teeth snarled fierce affirmation. "More than you've any idea."

  "I doubt your Master will approve."

  "The Master requires me," the red wysard replied. "With you gone, He will assume my form. My life will be eternal, devoted to His service."

  Ryel only smiled. "I may not be as easily killed as you imagine."

  "Let's find out." Michael lifted his great heavy sword with an easy hand. "Now I have you as I wish. Steel to steel, and skill to skill, and my sought vengeance satisfied at last."

  Ryel shook his head, bitterly impatient. "This is no time for quarrels. We should be joining our forces against Dagar—we'll never have another chance. Together we embody the Elements, and our combined strength would be invincible."

  "I'm invincible on my own." Michael snarled a word, and his sword's blade glowed quivering white with heat. "Match that, Steppes beggar."

  Ryel might have, and easily. But he would not. Instead he bowed in the Steppes warriors' way of equal to equal. "Good fortune be yours in our fight, my lord brother."

  To Ryel's salute Michael barely inclined his body, and spat on the stones afterward. "Damnation take you, and your blue eyes. Come on."

  Theirs was a battle out of an epic, fought an entire day's sunrise to sunset, a two-man war between the elements of fire and earth, water and air. Throughout the ruined halls and rooms they warred, dealing terrible wounds that the Art's help knitted up as soon; and they said spells that kept their blades at white heat. Ryel reveled in his strength, delighting in combat so equally and rampantly matched. Even his fear was pleasure to him. With Edris, Priamnor, Roskerrek, he had been debarred or deprived of the Art, but not now. Now he was at his best, with all of his strength blazing in his veins.

  "You won't win," he said, effortlessly thwarting yet another two-handed white-hot blow. "You'll never win against me, brother. Not this way."

  "I'm not your brother, bastard," Michael hissed. He lunged forward, slashing Ryel's chest across with razored incandescence. The wound's edges crackled with live flame.

  Ryel had no time for surprise or outrage—not even for pain. Instantly he willed the burning gash to heal, gasping at the pull of flesh, the closing of skin, the stench of his smoldering flesh. Furiously thwarted, the Red Essern shot forth a glare through his narrowed empty eyes, and the wall nearest Ryel crumbled, raining down rock. Ryel dodged the wreckage with Art-quickened dexterity, and cried out an inarticulate command. Instantly a great gust of wind hurled Michael backward into a window-ledge, and only by less than a hair's breadth did he save himself from tumbling out the window onto the raging sea far below.

  Advancing again in a furious rush, Michael wielded his great sword wildly. Every slash sent forth white fire-bolts, and every bolt wreaked destruction. Uttering the silver book's remembered flight-spell Ryel leapt upward into the air, dodging the fiery darts. With a snapped curse Michael echoed the spell, and for a time the two wysards battled in weightless space like god-heroes out of a myth. Gathering all his strength of body and of Art, Ryel parried Michael's blade-lightning and turned it back on his adversary, who reeled under the assault. At last Michael lowered his weapon and signaled for a halt, slowly descending to earth. Clearly he was blood-weary from warring in Ryel's element, but he laughed.

  "You've grown, gypsy. Now you're almost a challenge."

  They did not sheath their swords, not yet. But time had come for truce however temporary, and parley however brief. Ryel began it.

  "You saved my life in Almancar, Lord Michael. I thank you."

  Michael replied coldly. "I did nothing but the Master's will."

  "Then you're a rare lackey."

  The Red Essern's proud blood welled up in his cheeks, and he threw Ryel a glare. "All must serve something."

  "And who serves you? Who stirs up the folk of the Fourth District, now that their prophet is gone?"

  "I found a perfect instrument," Michael said with a grim reminiscent smile. "A fanatical puritan named Meschante, whose vehemence of rhetoric far exceeds mine—whatever he may lack in attraction. Luckily he we
ars my outward semblance, thanks to the Master's powers. His own is rather less impressive."

  Ryel stared at his adversary. "By every—Derain Meschante? That raving brute?"

  "Spare me your upright virtue, blue eyes. He's more clever than you know. He did to death Prince Hylas of Ralnahr some years back, using one of the subtlest of poisons. And Hylas was by no means his only victim."

  Instantly Ryel remembered what both Belphira and Dame Gwynned had told him concerning Guyon Desrenaud's guilt at Hylas' death, and Meschante's slanders. "The brute," he murmured. "The ranting, murdering brute ..."

  "You don't know the half of it, Markulit. Theofanu gave Meschante the drugs to concoct the bane."

  Ryel felt very confused. "But Meschante is a priest of the Unseen."

  Michael growled a laugh. "Oh, yes. So wholeheartedly devout." But he sobered, then. "Like me, he works the will of the Master. But I have done more. I gave the Master all that I had." The red wysard sheathed his sword with a violent shove and went to the window where he had nearly fallen, leaning out with his hands on the remains of the casement-ledge, careless of the shattered glass. "And the Master will give me back what I have lost. He has promised." A hesitation, long and cold; the salt wind tossed Michael's long hair, that now burned crimson in the dying light like threads of fire. "Her name—did you ever learn it?"

  "No," Ryel replied.

  Michael drew a long breath. "Good. I could not bear to hear it in your mouth." His lips tightened. "Did you enjoy her?"

  "I never lay with her, Michael."

  The red wysard spat out of the window into the sea. "Only because Edris kept you from it. He couldn't have stopped you from cutting her up, however. Your fool's fascination with anatomy was well known to the brotherhood. What became of her, after your butchering?"

  The Markulit wysard regarded Michael's profile, the dead-black eye leveled at the hazy sun that now floated within an hour of setting. All around that empty eye the skin was red and swollen.

  "It hurts," Ryel murmured. "I know how much."

  Michael turned like a hawk, giving Ryel his full face, angrily. "Never liken your pain to mine, Edris' bastard."