The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic

by Carolyn Kephart

  "Tell me who you are. I know I've seen you somewhere."

  Desrenaud's voice, although uniquely pleasing as ever, was drawling and remote, and the green eyes wandered in blank distraction, with none of their wonted stern acuity. The wysard liked even less the unmeaning little smile that intermittently trivialized the earl's features.

  "You don't know me," Ryel said, heavy-hearted but unsurprised.

  That irritating smile again. "I'm not sure. Tell me what to remember."

  "Ormala," the wysard said, taking a step forward. "Slavery and pain."

  The smile faded. "I don't understand."

  "Hallagh. War, and poison, and a cruel queen's bed."

  The bright gaze darkened; the snowball fell unregarded to the ground. "I don't know what you mean."

  Ryel came nearer. "Almancar, then. Love that changed your life."

  Pallor at that, which Desrenaud turned away to conceal. "No. I can't recall."

  Kicking the snow aside, Ryel caught Desrenaud by the wrist. "Damn it, you're going to remember me, at least. Look me in the eye."

  Vaguely panicked, Desrenaud struggled. "I won't. Let me be, whoever you are."

  The wysard grabbed Desrenaud's hat and flung it down; seized the Northerner's head between his hands, holding fast. "One look. I command you."

  For ten seconds perhaps their gazes locked, and in that time Desrenaud's green eyes steadied, sobered, frowned. "That's enough, sorcerer," the Northerner said, bitterly breaking free. "I know you now."

  "What about the rest I spoke of? Do you remember?"

  Desrenaud momentarily considered, then shook his head. "I still don't know what you're talking about."

  You will, Ryel thought. "Tell me whose house this is."

  "A witch's." Desrenaud gathered up another snowball and hurled it at one of the figured pillars, spattering a slit-eyed god. "One who makes your magics look a paltry bag of tricks, warlock."

  "I believe it."

  "She's been keeping me like a pet."

  "So I see."

  Desrenaud gazed about him, pushing back his hair—rich clean amber hair in the highland fashion of Ralnahr, long and wild. "She's beautiful. A thousand charms she has—and uses them, believe me." He turned to Ryel, manifestly bewildered. "Am I enchanted?"

  "Yes," Ryel said after some deliberation. "You do seem to be, Guy."

  "I'm not surprised. Everything is, in this place." Desrenaud made his way to the gallery's edge, and bent to breathe the sweets of the incongruous roses that grew around there; drew off a glove, and between immaculate polished nails severed the stem of one, rolling the flower slowly between his fingers. Meditatively he warmed the bloom with his breath to release its fragrance, and touched his tongue to the perfumed snow that clung to its cream-crimson petals. "Yesterday there were only orchids in this spot. Orchids, and paradise-birds, and sweet vines, all under a cloudless sky burning hot. But I love cold weather best. Hard weather, snell and frore, as we say up North. This isn't the North. It isn't anywhere."

  Ryel might well have lost his patience, but Desrenaud was clearly straining to remember, and perturbed that he could not. "I want to know everything about she who lives here," the wysard said. "See that you leave nothing out."

  Desrenaud tucked the rose into a buttonhole of his coat. "I said she's beautiful." Reaching into his coat and then his shirt, he brought out a long chain of gold hung round his neck, holding up to Ryel its portrait-medal. "She looks no more than seventeen, but I know she is older. Hundreds of years older, it often seems."

  Ryel snatched the medallion from Desrenaud's hand, staring at the portrait. "But this is Belphira Deva."

  A female voice, amused and insinuating, broke in. "Are you sure, Ryel Mirai?"

  Turning to the wide stairs of the gallery, the wysard saw the lady he'd named standing there and smiling upon him. Not the Belphira of late-summer beauty paled by despair that he had met in the Garden of Dreams, but a girl barely eighteen, and glowingly lovely—the queen of Agenor's sindretin. As she had been then, she was gowned in myriad pleats of ivory silk, adorned with ropes of pearl and blue-tinged emeralds. Her amber-gold hair was dressed in the courtly fashion of Almancar, partly braided, partly flowing free. Despite her garments' filmy lightness she seemed oblivious of the cold.

  A very young and radiantly imperial Belphira she seemed to the eye, but her voice was not that lady's. It was light and cool, with none of Belphira's warm vibrancy. Ryel had heard that voice in Ormala, laughingly exposing the secrets of his inmost self. From his earliest days in Markul he had heard and read of the woman now masqued in Belphira's form, but never had he dreamed of this moment.

  Desrenaud held out his hand to help the girl descend the stairs, but turned to the wysard as he did so. "How is it she knows your name?"

  "She knows all things," Ryel said slowly. As he spoke he sank down upon his knees and bowed his head, and spoke in the tongue of the Highest. "I never looked for this, Lady Riana."

  In immobile awe he knelt, there in the snow, remembering the dirt of the Aqqar under his naked knees, and Edris' long fingers ruthless in his hair. But this time the gates that loomed before him enclosed the last limits of wonder, next to which all his Markulit learning was as the first staggering steps of a little child.

  He felt her fingertips stroke the parting of his hair, a touch soft as the fall of snowflakes, hot as high summer. "Riana. Why do you name me that?"

  The wysard bowed until his forehead touched the smooth insteps of her feet. "All my life within Markul's walls I heard tales of Riana the One Immortal, Creator of the Best and Highest. Heard and believed, but never dared dream that my unworthy eyes might be granted the sight of her."

  She laughed, and her bare toes played hotly with his hair. "Such eloquence. Well, the only fitting place for a man is at a woman's feet, I know—but not here. Welcome to my house, brother." She raised him up, then turned to Desrenaud, speaking now in Ralnahrek. "Will you come in with us, Guy?"

  Desrenaud shook his head. "Long it's been since I've seen snow like this, my lady. I'll walk in it awhile." Taking the rose from his buttonhole, he gently slipped it into her plaited tresses as he glanced meaningly at Ryel. "Keep your eyes open, sorcerer."

  Riana watched the Northerner disappear among the white-laden trees. "And to think that less than an hour ago he was in my bed, eager and inventive. But I can hardly blame him—he will never love me, after all." She turned again to Ryel. "Well. We meet again, even as I said we would."

  "I never dared believe we might."

  Her lazy soft drawl grew laughing. "You knew me at once. That's quick."

  "Art-siblings never mistake one another."

  "Especially exalted ones, such as we are. It must disappoint you that I'm making light of this solemn occasion, not being lofty enough. But I'm only a girl child of seventeen, after all. And you undoubtedly approve more of this guise than the one I employed in Ormala—although the eyes are the same, are they not?"

  Ryel swallowed, remembering that flaunting gilded nudity, that jewel-blue shameless stare. "I would have been glad to see your true face, my lady."

  "Oh, you will; all in good time." Reaching up, she pushed a random lock of the wysard's storm-disordered black hair behind his ear. "But I'd never ask for any change in this shape of yours. You're a marvel. Just the right age, the right height; just the right mingling of classic and exotic in your face. Perfect muscularity." And she ran her hand down his shoulder to his bicep, then his forearm, then his fingers, which she enlaced with her own. "Your tall friend Guy is richer in sinew, but I'll wager that you're smoother." Her free hand slipped under Ryel's coat and into his shirt, running its seeking scorching palm over his breast. "Ah. I was right. Not a single hair."

  The wysard caught the errant hand and gently but inexorably coaxed its withdrawal; kissed it with a reverence not entirely free of admonition, and let it go. "I am honored that my appearance pleases you, my lady. But I had rather that you considered my Art's Mastery more consid
erable than my outward form."

  "Oh, fear not that I'm impressed. You did wonderfully well against Dagar; I saw it in my Glass, as well as that dashing duel of yours with Lord Michael—a most taking redhair he."

  Ryel bowed his head, as much to conceal chagrin as show respect. "I am delighted that our combat afforded you amusement, my lady."

  "Bah. I don't need to look into you to see that you're angry with me. No, don't deny it; you blame me for merely looking on whilst you were in difficulties, and never coming to your help. But I wished to view your strength, and see its fullest extent. And it has been impressive, that strength of yours; as when your swordplay nearly killed your father, or your mother lay dying of cancer, or Yvain Essern's blood-daimon was routed. All those things I saw."

  Overcome, Ryel could look nowhere but down, trying not to see those little rosy feet of hers. "I never knew you were so near to me, my lady."

  He heard her laugh again. "I've been other places as well—places I shouldn't have been, some might say. Do you recall young Priamnor Dranthene—that delicious boy—telling you about the first woman he ever lay with? I must say he demonstrated finesse far beyond his years. I wouldn't mind encountering him again, now that time's improved him."

  The wysard looked on her amazed. "You were the Zinaphian slave that?"

  She nodded in serene recognition. "The very same—in my true shape, which he found irresistible. I was his for several extremely pleasant and creative weeks."

  "Weeks only?"

  Riana tauntingly smiled at Ryel's dry-toned question. "Had I stayed longer, he would have fallen madly in love with me—and I mean that quite literally. It would have been…inconvenient. But let's go inside. You're risking frostbite out here, and I would never wish you to endanger even the slightest of your remarkable members."

  Taking his hand she led him into her house, a place gleaming with soft brocades, bright gems, exquisite carvings, every luxury that might enhance languorous repose. Fragrant hot summer moved in the air, all the sweeter for music of unknown instruments invisibly sounded.

  Her fingers teasingly tickled his palm. "Do you like my door-guards?"

  The flame-arched volute they stood under was held up on either side by two caryatids carved of wood tinted and adorned—a god and goddess in seeming, not quite human, slim and all but naked. He was luminescently black, and delicate antlers of gold branched from his gold-maned head, and his great long eyes were golden. She had the tufted ears of a lynx, and a lynx's soft dappled pelt all over, save for her smooth breasts and winsome feline face.

  "Zinaphian deities," Riana said, answering Ryel's silent admiration. "Customary gate-wardens, conferring peace and pleasure: Hekrit and Dashrali."

  At the mention of their names they stirred, their wooden immobility metamorphosing into supple grace and seeming life. Descending their pedestals, they bowed low before Riana, who smiled at the wysard's surprise.

  "Srihs," she explained. "It amuses me to have them materialize thus, or in other charming forms. They will be your attendants while you remain with me."

  "I don't require them," Ryel said, looking away.

  "They are exceptionally well instructed in the arts of delight."

  "I believe it," the wysard replied. "But I have no need of such service."

  The One Immortal gave a slight pout. "Bah. You're no fun." A word of hers, and both fantastic beings bowed low again before resuming their pedestals and immobility. Entering the chamber and sinking into one of the cloud-pillowed couches, Riana with an indolent gesture created a lavish banquet upon a low table-top.

  "I doubt you've ever tried the favorite delicacies of old Zinaph; half the best things once enjoyed by my people a millennium ago are now either forgotten or extinct. Those birds used to fill the skies, once, and the sea teemed with those fish, and those fruits used to hang heavy on every other tree; no more. It is the same with the rice, much finer than that grown nowadays, and the spices and flowers, so rare now that men no longer bother to search for them among the mountains. As for the sweets, their composition has been lost for centuries, but I was mad for them when a girl." She took one of the little cakes and sampled its sugar lacework decoration. "I have no real need of food, but it passes the time. Here, sit by me." As she spoke, she filled two glasses with clear magenta liquid, handing the wysard one. Ryel lifted his goblet and took a mouthful, reflectively analyzing the flavor before he swallowed.

  "I don't recognize this drink."

  "No wonder. It is royal Zinaphian wine distilled from a variety of insects, nearly all of them now vanished from the earth. Do you like it?"

  Ryel smiled back, but without the lady's mischief. "Very much. But it is extremely strong."

  "There speaks Markul. Water it, if you like."

  Ryel did so, and made trial of the many dishes. The ancient rulers of Zinaph had no love for plain cookery, it appeared, but strove to blend a hundred spices and peppers and herbs in every dish, and mate fish with fruit, fowl with reptile, extremest sweetness with sharpest astringency, strangeness with strangeness.

  "What is this?" Ryel said, indicating one of the dishes.

  "Preserved lizard-tail wrapped in candied tree-fungus. I used once to adore it. What do you think?"

  "A little less fenugreek in the sauce might be an improvement."

  Riana laughed, a long brilliant peal. "You're wonderful, Ryel son of Edris. I remember that whenever Garnos tried my native cookery, all he did was complain about how unbearably searing and musky everything was; and whenever I told him the ingredients of what he'd eaten, he'd turn green as death. But you're far more adventurous. You even know how to use chopsticks correctly; Garnos never could manage them."

  Ryel dropped the gem-inlaid jade implements with a chiming clatter. "Tell me about Lord Garnos, my lady."

  "What would you hear? You already know the Books."

  "I have the greatest book of all before me, unread."

  She licked the rim of her glass, toying catwise as her azure-amethyst gaze dwelt unblinking on every one of the wysard's features, stopping at the mouth. "Open me, then. Ask whatever you like. Perhaps we should begin with this?" She held up a little book, its silver cover set with gems that sparked in the candlelight, and laughed at the expression on Ryel's face. "You recognize it, I see."

  "But…but it was in my pocket."

  "True. It was." The One Immortal idly riffled the pages. "Whether it was meant to be out in the World or not, this trinket has caused an awkward deal of harm. But in many ways it brought about good as well. With its help—and mine—that old Tesbai witch Gwynned cured you of an illness that would have been fatal in short order; and with its help the dashing bad Lord Michael was saved. The only real difficulty is that Dagar is still around to pester the World, having inconveniently acquired the Mastery of Coalescence ahead of you, thanks to the help of his flame-haired former slave. Luckily Michael's lovely tall body is safe in Markul protected by strong spells—my spells."

  "But another now wears his form. Derain Meschante, who preaches sedition against the crown."

  Riana frowned slightly. "Yes. A coarse dull monster. A puritanical bully and a thoroughgoing fool."

  Ryel started. "How is it you know Meschante?"

  "I saw him during my healing examination of Guyon's thoughts."

  Indignation supplanted astonishment. "Healing you call it? You took his dearest memories from him."

  Her beautiful exasperating eyes fluttered indolently. "Oh, come now. Not for long. I found him ragged and starving, half-dead less with hunger than with craving for the drugs that were killing him, all his body festering with xantal. Look at him now, and blame me if you can. I took away his pain awhile, nothing more. And his pain is deep and real, brother. It did no harm for him to forget it awhile, and lose the tormenting memories of those useless Northern wars, and his broils with the Domina, and the murder of his friend, which wrung him worst of all."

  Ryel's indignation became amazement. "You believe Prince Hylas
of Clarain was murdered?"

  "I know with certainty he was. Guy's thoughts of course informed me nothing, so I consulted my Glass—a Glass not like to yours in Markul that sees only the present, but which can view the past as well. And I found that the deed was committed by this sullen grudging fellow Meschante, whose low cunning in regard to poisons brought the act about."

  Ryel shook his head. "I suspected it. Given his evil nature and his motives for harm, he could be a terrible threat to Almancar."

  Riana gave a slow silken uplift of shoulder. "He has not a tenth of Michael's powers. We need not concern ourselves with him."

  "But what if Dagar—"

  "Dagar would never willingly return in a form so weak; not when he has the World and the Cities to choose from. He cannot re-assume Michael's body even if he wished to. It is far more likely that he would reappear in Theofanu's form. He marked her as his own, after all, and she would be delighted to have her Master inside her skin, although I doubt the feeling would be mutual. Theofanu is a hideous little woman from the Azm Chak, where so many dreadful things live and thrive."

  "But can his rai and hers co-exist in a single body?"

  "It is hardly a comfortable arrangement by any means; but yes, it is possible. Of course Dagar would eventually kill off Theofanu's limited and encumbering selfhood, the better to enjoy his powers to their fullest. It would seem that your services are still required in the North."

  Ryel's thoughts chilled. "But Lady Riana, your Art is so strong—a thousandfold greater than my own. Surely you could destroy Dagar with your merest word."

  "For your estimation of my powers I thank you, brother. But this is your struggle, not mine."

  "A struggle with the very World at stake, my lady."

  "Bah. The World has survived worse. But for your sake I'll send our highland friend Northward. He'll pave the way for you."

  Ryel didn't answer. But he reflected that unlike Michael Essern, Guyon Desrenaud had not embraced his pain—far from it. Nevertheless pain had made both men great, and without it Desrenaud could never have been the World's help, even as Lord Michael might never have been the World's harm. Amid these thoughts the wysard turned to regard the snow, feeling for the plight of all those naked deities entwined around the ice-filmed pillars. "I should return to Markul at once, and release my father and Lord Michael from the Void," he said aloud. "Their powers would aid me greatly."