Turning to the faint voice that had spoken, Ryel found Lady Serah standing nearby. She wore a hooded mantle of wet draggled black, but he could discern that his Art-sister had known terrible times since his departure. Very sick and frail she seemed, her once fox-red tresses closely shorn and now entirely white, her keen-edged beauty lost to sudden age and long torment.
She bowed to him in slow painful obeisance. "Most gratefully welcome, Lord Ryel," she said, her voice faint and unsteady. "You have overcome our great enemy with Mastery as great as that of the Builders of this City. Of all mortals your Art is strongest."
Ryel stared, stricken. "Sister. My dear friend. What has happened here?" And he hastened to her, taking her thin cold hands in his own. "I never knew it had gone this far. I would have returned to help you."
"No, great brother," said Lady Serah, clasping her fingers about his with none of their old firmness. "Your work in the World could not be interrupted."
Ryel gazed helplessly into those eyes that had once held such bright deviling glints, and were now so weary and dull. "Come out of the rain to my house, my lady sister," the wysard said, very gently. "We'll talk long, as we used to."
Lady Serah faintly smiled assent; but then trembled with sudden fearful memory. "Ah, Ryel. There is—"
Ryel hushed away her consternation. "I know Lord Michael was sent here. Come."
With the wysard's arm steadying his Art-sister's steps, the two adepts ascended the levels of the City to the dwelling of gray-black granite that had been Ryel's home. As he crossed his threshold for the first time in nearly a year, Ryel felt the entirety of his Markulit existence enfold him as completely as Edris' cloak. The deep many-colored carpets underfoot, the air's warmth, the scent of flowers, the rigors and horrors and marvels of the Art—he had them back again. And he could feel, too, a pervasive presence like a vibration in the air.
Emanations of the rai, he thought—yours, Michael Essern. Strong emanations, indicating an overmastering impatience to return. You have not long to wait, my lord brother.
He gave Lady Serah hot chal and a good fire to warm her, and frangin to set her eyes alight in the old way, and Steppes sweets. Awhile they sat together by the hearthside and spoke of the changes in the City and the World. But after a time Ryel stood, driven against his will by the imperative presence in the next room.
Serah knew. "He is in your bed."
"Yes. Let's see him." And Ryel led the way to his bedchamber, throwing back the heavy curtains of the windows to let in the gray rainy light.
Lord Michael Essern lay as if asleep, save that no rise and fall of breath stirred his inert form. His body was clad in magnificent Markulit robes, rich flowing layers of dark violet and muted silver and night-black. The heavy scarlet skeins of hair that once grazed his shoulders had grown twice as long, streaming like blood over the pillow, but his face was smooth, and no change whatever lessened the forceful symmetries of his form and visage, save for the deep dreaming serenity of the motionless features.
"He became bearded," Serah said. "I used a spell to stop it. More handsome he is this way. I liked to come here and look at him, and comb those long red locks of his—and remember how flaming and flowing my own hair used to be." She seated herself at the bed's edge, all too plainly tired from her climb through the City's levels. "Well may you imagine my astonishment to find Lord Michael here, when I came as has been my daily wont to see that your rooms were as I'd left them. To expect only to arrange a few flowers, and find your bed taken by a Hryeland soldier to all seeming wounded to the death! But in another moment I recognized him, and healed his wound. Without a scar I healed it, I might add—I'd much regret to see him marked, for he is so good to look upon. I have made sure he is always warmly covered, although he surely cannot feel either heat or cold. Other than that he requires small looking after."
Ryel wasn't interested in Michael. Not now. "Tell me about the plague."
Serah Dalkith was silent awhile, and let out a long wearied breath before speaking. "A ghastly scourge it was, Ryel, without cure or relief. Many of our brotherhood died, and they say it was fully as bad in Tesba. Those who chanced to survive were marked forever after by it, as you have seen only too well from me. And once the dead were burned—for we needs must burn them, as they were too foully corrupt to be laid in the Silent Citadel—most of our brotherhood left the City forever, fleeing to their homelands. At last I alone remained."
"You are all that is left? Everyone else is gone?"
Serah inclined her head. "Everyone else, Ryel. And I must confess I never expected you to return. But I suppose you came for Lord Michael's sake."
"No, sister. For yours," Ryel said. "But there is another reason as well." And his sorrow lifted cloudlike as he spoke. "In my travels I learned that Edris is not dead—that I can restore him to life with the right Mastery. Tonight I will attempt to bring him back."
He expected Lady Serah to rejoice with him, to at least show some glad emotion. But she sat silent as if spelled into a statue.
"Sister." He found he could barely say the word, and had to force out others. "Sister, what has happened to my father?"
Lady Serah replied. "So you learned what he was. We always knew."
"Tell me!"
She sighed as if worn to exhaustion. "Not only the living suffered the plague, Ryel."
Numbing white horror seized him. "You…you burnt him? You destroyed his body?"
Serah clasped her hands. "We had to, brother. He—he stank. He was crawling with…" She turned away "I'll not tell you. Too dreadful it is to speak of."
Ryel could barely move his mouth. "You destroyed him." Unable to stand any longer, he sank down at the bed's edge. Serah Dalkith clasped him around the shoulders.
"Nothing else could anyone do, Ryel. Nor was Edris the only one in the Jade Tower who met that fate. All of the Builders save for Lord Garnos and Lord Aubrel had to be given to the fire, and many others."
He could not feel her embrace. "How could you." He had not enough strength to make the words a question. "How."
Lady Serah replied with a spark of her old energy. "Had we let him lie as he was, rotten even to pieces, would you bring his rai back to such a body? I think not. We did what we had to. There was no choice."
"I understand."
"But you do not forgive." The weak helpless tremor had come back to her voice, and she let go of him. "Ah, Ryel. I am sorry. So sorry."
After a long moment he took her hand, lifting it to his brow; released it lifelessly. "Yes. As am I. Leave me, sister."
Serah tried to catch his hand again. "Ah, Ryel—"
He would not be held. "Go. I beg you go. We'll meet again later."
She did so, wordlessly. A long time Ryel stood at the bedside, staring down at Michael's face, memory breaking over him like salt waves, searing his eyes.
You have lain here long, my lord brother, he thought. My father Edris lay even longer in the jade tower, awaiting the life I strove with all my power to give him back. We were going to be together as father and son, he and I. You will return from the Void to this young strong body of yours, but Edris—
Dazed with pain he rose, and with slow faltering steps left his house, seeking the tower of the dead. The rain fell harder, but he did not raise the hood of his cloak against it, unregardingly letting it stream down his hair and face.
The silent citadel was lightless. Ryel sharply commanded the torches to flare brilliantly aflame, and silently paced among the icy echoing rooms. Lord Aubrel lay intact as Lady Serah had said, as did Lord Garnos, and the beautiful silver-blonde woman whom Michael had loved and killed. But very many of the stone beds were vacant, most empty of all that which once held the lean massive form of Edris.
"Father." Strengthlessly he sank to his knees beside the great porphyry slab. He had not wanted to weep, had steeled himself against it with all the iron in his will, and not a tear escaped him. But grief and rage poured out in a stammering rush as he knelt first embracing
, then beating with both fists the hard chill rock, all his being racked beyond the power of thought.
He awoke cold and aching. At some point before unconsciousness he had stretched himself out upon the stone, and now he lay as Edris had, on his back with arms folded high upon his breast. The torches had dimmed, and night had come on loud with rain. Wrapping his cloak closely about him, he joined his thoughts with the downpour, letting the steady soft roar fill his emptiness.
For an unknown interval he listened unmoving to the rain, letting the dripping blackness fill him. Then he hoarsely whispered a word. An all but invisible plume of mist oozed from the foot of the bier, rising and widening and taking on form. In wraithlike indeterminability the srih Pukk wavered, its eyes of glowing amethyst unblinkingly and impassively fixed upon its summoner.
"Yourw ill?"
Slowly and with pain Ryel sat up. "Tell me what to do."
"Youknow," the srih replied.
"I don't. The body of my father no longer exists."
Pukk wavered shruggingly. "And?"
"Tell me how to bring him back."
"Hei sinthe Void."
"I know that, you vaporing halfwit," Ryel said with weary forbearance. "But what if I were to instill his rai into a dead body? One freshly dead, and undiseased at death?"
"Theb ody willcon tinue torot."
The coldness of the stone filled Ryel's veins. "That cannot be true," he whispered. "Surely that is a lie."
Pukk whitened as his purple eyes slit to glowing lines. "I tisno t."
"But the Immortal Riana was dead when Lord Garnos—"
"Shew asn otdead. Herrai wa sinthe Void."
"Then what of Garnos? What of Aubrel Essern? Are they—"
"Theyd ied. Wi tho utthe Artofth isplace theywoul drot."
Ryel sickened with mute dismay. Pukk continued, ever impassive.
"Theb ody ofth eredha iriss trong. Ta keit."
At the absolute unemotion of those words Ryel's despair heated to rage. "Michael Essern still has his own chance at life. I won't rob him of it. Leave me, you babbling gas."
As Pukk leisurely dispersed, Ryel returned to his house and slammed the door behind him. With a taut command he caused the cold logs of the fire to leap into crackling fresh life, and tried to warm himself at it; gave up at last, and went into the room where Michael lay. By the wall near the bed was another fire-hearth, and Ryel ordered it alight as well.
"It's for you, friend," he said to Michael's unheeding form. "I wouldn't want you catching cold as soon as you came back."
But he was in no mood to bring the red wysard out of the Void just yet. Going into his bath-chamber he commanded the great crystal vessel to be lit from beneath and filled. Taking from his journeybag a gift of the Sovrena Diara, a vial very like the one Michael had brutally crushed underfoot in the ruined castle, Ryel scented the water with a drop of the perfume. Ineffable sweetness rose upon the air, each breath of it bringing yet another remembrance of his time in the World, and bodily ease. But neither remembered pleasure nor physical respite could solace his agony of mind.
"I've lost you," he said, his voice thudding against the tall surrounding shafts of mirror. "I have failed, ithradrakis."
A long time he spent in the water, wombed in its enervating heat. Sometime, somehow, he got out of the bath at last. Never once feeling the touch of the towel he dried himself, and returned to his bed, where he threw aside the coverings and lay next to his unmoving Art-brother, losing himself in oblivion as if sliding down into a solid white world of fog.
*****
A faint knocking awoke him. The fog that had swallowed him the night before now hung impenetrably nebulous outside the windows whose curtains Ryel had forgotten to draw the night before. Next to him Lord Michael lay ever trancebound, warm but unbreathing.
The wysard threw him a grim glance. "Good morning. At least you didn't talk in your sleep, or snore." He rose, pulled on a robe and went to his house-door, opening it to find his Art-sister standing there, a traveling-bag in her hand.
"The Immortal Riana appeared to me last night," Serah Dalkith said, before Ryel could speak. "She wishes me to join her. And having considered the matter, I deem it best that I go."
The wysard blinked, unable at first to understand. "When?"
"As soon as I give the word. I came here to say farewell."
He stared into her face, disoriented by regret. "But sister. We had only just met again."
Lady Serah shook her head with a pale sad smile. "You've shown me how much you desire my society. Nay, no apologies—I well understand. Aloneness you require now, and time to mourn."
"But that is no reason for you to leave."
The wysardess sighed. "Other reasons have I, young brother. Unwilling though I am to admit it, I am old, and the plague made me older. Very weary have I grown amid these wet windy barrens with never a sight of the sun. Riana has promised me warmth and light and peace, all of which I am more than willing to accept, especially since Srin Yan Tai will bear me company." Her mouth gave a quirk very like its old way. "And when such enticements are offered by the One Immortal herself, refusal is most rude—if not unwise."
The wysard embraced her, sorrowing to feel her so thin and infirm in his arms. "I wish you happiness in your new home, sister." He bent and touched his lips to hers. "Forgive my anger. It wasn't meant for you."
Bright color welled up in Serah's thin cheeks. "How I wish I weren't leaving you here alone, poor lad."
"I won't be alone for long."
Uttering the needful Art-word Lady Serah slowly vanished, until only wet footprints lingered on Ryel's doorstep. The wysard after a moment's revery returned to his bedchamber, and awhile regarded the tall figure that lay as still as wrought marble beneath its opulent swathings. "At least you'll get your life back, Lord Michael," he said. "And without further delay."
Striding to the curtains, he pulled them shut and called for light. The great branch of candles by the bed instantly burned ardently, flames stretching high. Remembering Riana's silver book, the wysard envisioned once more the instructions therein, instructions he had indelibly committed to memory long since, and began his work.
It was really a very simple procedure, bringing a rai out of the Void. All one had to do was take oil of quiabintha and ritually encircle the eyes of the dispossessed body, then anoint the mouth and the ports of the ears, then speak a few Art-phrases. There was almost nothing to it. The only difficulty was that death might occur at any moment of the spell if the one performing it allowed his or her concentration to waver in the slightest. The least intruding thought, the merest notice of any extraneous occurrence would be the wysard's last.
On a table near one of the windows was a box of silver and pearl. In this box Ryel found a vial of quiabintha oil among the other drugs he had used during his learning of the Art. The flask was tightly stoppered, and the oil had kept fresh. The wysard closed his eyes and steeled his will, for the spell started with the opening of the vial. A twist of his fingers, and it began.
He never smelled the oil, although in less crucial times he had always partly enjoyed, partly disliked its sharp acrid redolence. He never saw the room around him, never heard the winds howling outside, never felt Michael's skin under his fingers; never heard the words he spoke. When blackness overcame him, he never even wondered what he had done wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Suddenly there was light, ten blurry bits of it—the candles, now burnt almost to nothing. Hard rain battered the windows. Ryel picked himself up from the floor where he must have fallen. Other than a bruise on his shoulder where he'd struck furniture, he'd sustained no harm. Getting to his feet, he steadied his thoughts awhile, then went over to the bed. Michael Essern lay as always, motionless.
Motionless…save for the rise and fall of his chest.
Ryel caught his own breath. "You're back. I brought you back!" Tearing Michael's silken robes open halfway to the waist, he pressed his hand over the hear
t, searching out the pulse beneath flesh that no more yielded to his touch than would white rock. Under his palm surged a steady beating like a call to war, inexorable and endless.
"I'm good," the wysard said softly, unable to resist a smile of purest delight in his Art. But then came the everlasting sorrow. "And you will never see it, ithradrakis." He moved his hand to the Red Essern's brow, speaking ever softly, but in a voice of command. "Awake."
Michael's deep-set eyelids twitched to disclose glinting slate-gray at first unfocused. But then the eyes found Ryel, and blinked hard. His lips parted after an effort or two, and he breathed deep; exhaled slowly. His breath was, as always, inexplicably sweet, but his voice came out gravelly and slow, with none of its wonted resonance. "Are we dead?"
"Not yet."
He coughed. "Then I could use some water."
Ryel brought some as Michael sat up very slowly, with many a cursing groan. He drank greedily, then looked about him and frowned. "Where's this?"
"Markul."
Michael pushed back his hair, and with that gesture observed the egregious length of his blood-colored locks. "Great Argane! How long was I in the Void?"
Ryel started, as much from the suddenly reverberant voice as its question. "You knew you were there?"
"Of course I knew," Michael impatiently replied. "But for how long?"
"Your rai has been separate from your body for more than half a year."
Michael murmured a stunned curse. "Half a year? But what's become of the World? What of Dagar?"
"Dagar is destroyed, thanks to you."
"And Meschante?"
"He died. Horribly."
"Good." A long hesitation. "And Destimar? The Dranthene princess?"
Ryel glanced away momentarily. "I'll tell you the whole story soon enough. Are you well?"
"I'll live, since it looks as if I have to." Michael rose from bed, but no sooner stood than staggered, the waking color in his cheeks suddenly draining white.
Alarmed, Ryel caught him. "What is it? Are you in pain?"
Michael seemed to consider, perplexedly. "Nothing hurts," he said at last. "I'm all right. You can let go of me." And he stood upright, although uncertainly. "Still, there's something strange. I feel...crowded."
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