Presenting the first three chapters of the revised and expanded 2024 digital edition of WYSARD, now available at most online retailers along with LORD BROTHER, the second part of the Ryel Saga duology.
WYSARD
Part
One of the Ryel Saga
by
Carolyn Kephart
Revised
2024 Third Edition
Readers
and The Ryel Saga
“Intricately
layered and exotic” — Robin
Hobb
“Masterful
fantasy by an extremely talented author”
— In
the Library Reviews
“Carolyn
Kephart may not be a great in name in fantasy, but she should be! — Dark
Moon Rising Magazine
“To
run your eyes over each word is a grand event by every definition of
the word grand. Let it capture you, let it overwhelm you. Once you
reach the end, you'll understand that you've undergone something
rare, something beautiful, something you might only see two or three
times in your life. — Journal
of Always Reviews
“A
well-written, intelligent fantasy with a beautifully crafted world.” —Crescent
Blues Book Views
___________________________________________________
WYSARD: Part One of the
Ryel Saga
Lord Adept Ryel Mirai leaves
the great Art-citadel Markul to rediscover the long-lost spell that
will release his mentor from the wraithworld of the Void, but a
malignant sorcerer likewise imprisoned has enlisted the aid of Ryel’s
strongest rival to find the spell first. Amid dangers, joys and
temptations, Ryel encounters unlikely allies and unforeseen enemies,
and learns that he may well gain all that he wishes...although
perhaps not as he wished it.
Chapter One
The Shrouded Citadel
Markul the Best and Highest
rose in sharptoothed towers eternally enmeshed in mist, a bristling
walled island of black and green and gray that surged up from the
flat sweep of the Aqqar Plain as if the continual damps had spawned
it overnight. In the skin-smooth, horizon-vast steppe this citadel
was the sole interruption. It had dominated the plain for a thousand
years, and Ryel had lived within its walls for nearly half of his
birth-life. By the reckoning of Markul he was twelve years old, a
mere child; by the reckoning of the World he was twice that and two
years more.
He stood on the western
wall, scanning the gray-brown mist-obscured monotony of the land.
Night was coming on, he knew, although in Markul one seldom perceived
the transition from day to darkness, so thick were the fogs. One
might never discern the sun was setting, but for the faintest hint of
radiance on a horizon only guessed at. Far beyond the endless
overcast lay the Inner Steppes, Ryel’s homeland, and countless
times he had stood at this place on the wall, remembering the
World-years of his boyhood. But now though his eyes were again fixed
on the uncertain dusk, Ryel’s contemplation roamed not to vast
lands and swift horses. His thoughts made his eyes burn, and his
breath come painfully.
Edris had been dead almost a
month, now. In the reckoning of Markul he had died young, on the
threshold of his thirtieth year. Even the World would have deemed him
dead too soon at fifty-eight. His body had been carried in state to
the jade tower at the joining of the western and southern wall, where
among the most illustrious of the City’s lord adepts Edris lay as
an equal.
Ryel
drew his cloak about him against the cold—Edris’ great mantle of
dark scarlet. You
are great in death as you were in life, my teacher,
he thought,
his
sorrow heavy within him.
But I cut that life short. With my pride I killed you, dearer to me
than father. All because overreaching ambition would not let me rest,
driving me to seek knowledge beyond reason or my own desert. And now—
A stifling oppression drove
the thought from his mind and the breath out of his body, even as an
alien voice arose from some chartless place within him, murmuring at
the base of his brain, making him sweat. But though it answered his
meditations, it was not the voice of Edris.
Fool,
it
sneered.
Fool, to mourn that lumbering botcher, and squander your sweet young
life and limit your Art among these graybeard dotards. To have wasted
your self’s substance in this desolate place, when the World and
all its pleasures has waited for you. To have never had a woman...
Ryel put his hands to his
temples as he labored to breathe. He stared about him, wildly.
Uselessly. “Who are you?”
An
insinuating snicker in reply. You’ll
learn. But no enemy, young blood. Far from it.
The air lightened, and Ryel
could draw breath again. Sharp wind struck him full in the face,
pushing back the hood of his cloak, chilling the sweat that had
sprung upon his cheeks, prickling the nape of his shaven head,
thrusting icy fingers into the rents of his robes. Those few who also
stood on the wall had turned toward him in astonishment when he cried
out to the air, and now they whispered among themselves. Hushed
though their voices were, Ryel heard them.
“No,
Lord Ter,” he said, resigned and weary, to the one who stared most
fearfully at him. “I haven’t gone mad…yet.”
Lord Ter paled yet more, and
ran a trembling hand through his ragged white beard. “I never
thought you might, my Lord Ryel. Lord Wirgal and Lady Haldwina and I
were merely remarking our pleasure at seeing you in health, and
unmarked by your late ordeal.”
“Unmarked.
Yes. In every place but one. And Ryel turned to face them, meeting
their eyes with his. They recoiled, huddling back against the stones
of the wall.
“Yes,”
Ryel continued. Every word he spoke came lead-heavy. “Mine were
eyes you used to praise once, Lady Haldwina—a color that people who
have seen the World call sea-blue.” He gave a bitter smile. “You
do not praise them now.”
“You
looked upon forbidden things,” the lady replied, veiling her face
with a fold of her headdress. “For that you lost your eyes.”
“Not
lost,” Ryel said. His voice felt too tight for his throat, and each
syllable came forced. “I still see. But it seems that all of you
have gone blind. I assure you that I have not changed in any way
since—”
“Worse
than blind you look,” Lord Wirgal snarled. “All black. No white
or color in those accursed eyes of yours—only continued black. It
does not affright us, that have seen true horrors in our time; but it
marks you forever as an Overreacher.”
Ryel smiled. It felt strange
on his face, and probably looked so. “Is it not the aim of our Art,
to learn all that may be learned?”
“Our
Art is in the service of life, and the aim of our Art is Mastery, not
death-dealings,” Lady Haldwina said, her glance still averted. “You
attempted the cruel Art of Elecambron, and in forsaking the true path
have been justly punished.”
Ryel shook his head in cool
negation. “The adepts of Elecambron are our brothers, my lady. And
do not forget that the First Ones of this City all attempted the
Crossing, notably Lord Garnos who learned the secret of immortality
thereby.”
“And
died of it,” old Wirgal hissed. “I will not speak of Lord Aubrel,
who returned from the Outer World raving mad according to the Books,
and committed the foulest crimes before his miserable end. And what
did you gain from the folly that deformed you? Nothing, by your own
past admission—nothing save the death of Lord Edris, rest be to his
lost soul.”
The others shrank back in
terror lest Ryel avenge Wirgal’s hard words with some malign spell.
But the wysard only abruptly turned and without reply moved to
another part of the wall, flinching at the burning pain in his eyes,
that no tears would now ever cool.
Forcing his thoughts away
from intruding voices and rancorous adepts, Ryel again drew his hood
over his head and faced away from the night-blurred plain to survey
the city of Markul with what was left of the light. Yet again he
admired the straight tall sides of the myriad many-angled towers, the
intricate mosaics of the streets, the great windows opening to the
mist-veiled moon and nebulous sun: all of it wrought in black marble
and muted green nephrite, gray basalt and imperial porphyry and dark
gold, the cold stone softened by the lush redolent herbs that
wreathed the balconies and windows and trailed down the walls. Before
he had come to Markul, Ryel had never seen buildings of stone, and
what had amazed him at fourteen enthralled him still. He grew calm
again, and breathed deeply of the herb-scented mist.
“Of
all the Cities you are fairest,” he murmured. “Most high, and
best.”
There were four strongholds
of the Art, one at each quadrant of the compass: Markul to the east,
Tesba south, Ormala west and Elecambron far, far to the north.
Brilliant and gaudy Tesba was built of many-colored glass, drab dirty
Ormala of wood and brick and plaster. Great Elecambron towered coldly
pale as the icebound island it stood on in the eternal snows of the
White Reaches, constructed all of adamantine rock that was neither
marble nor alabaster, but something a hundredfold harder and utterly
flawless. Tesba and Ormala were cities of the flesh, Markul and
Elecambron those of the spirit; and Markul was deemed the strongest
and best of the Four. Proud and haughty was Elecambron; but even
Elecambron deferred to Markul, with a respect that was entire,
however unloving.
The Builders of
Markul—Garnos of Almancar, Nilandor of Kursk, Aubrel of Hryeland,
Riana of the Zinaph Isles, Khiar of Cosra, Sibylla of Margessen—had
founded the first and greatest City of the Art. Shunned and
persecuted by the World of men, they had sought refuge in the barren
ruleless regions of the Aqqar Plain that drove a thin wedge between
the realms of Turmaron and Shrivran and the wide empire of Destimar.
Joining mind to mind as other men join hands, the Builders had
created massive reality from mere imagination, their visions of peace
and strong-walled security translated into the fortress of Markul.
Elecambron the cruel had
been created by malignant daimons of the Outer World, Ormala the vile
by human slaves, Tesba the gentle by beneficent spirits; but great
Markul had sprung solely from the psychic imagination of the First
and Highest, and in a thousand years had suffered no harm whether
from the passage of ages or the wrath of enemies. Such sublime Art as
theirs was known and honored as the Mastery; and since the passing of
the Builders none of the adepts of Markul had succeeded in equaling
their forbears’ glory.
Ryel ran a reverent hand
over the glass-smooth surface of the parapet, as with the same wonder
and awe of his first days in the City he beheld the beauty of the
place that had for almost half his life been his home. “Lovely you
are indeed, Markul the Good. Lovely even now that I am alone within
your walls.” As he embraced a porphyry column with one arm, his
robe’s wide sleeve slipped down to his bicep. In that moment the
air closed in around him, and the voice again intruded into his
thoughts, its soft insinuation laced with a connoisseur’s approval.
Most
impressive,
it breathed. A
warrior’s muscles, yours; tall and strong you are amid these
creeping hags and half-men. We’re far from the paltry tents and
stinking herds of the Inner Steppes, yes. But there are greater
cities than this, young blood. Fair cities with women in them fairer
still. And there’s more. Far more.
Ryel had at first stiffened
in anger at this new intrusion, but temptation warred with anger, and
won. The wysard pushed his sleeve down to his wrist and turned from
the city to the voice, slowly. “Show me more, then.”
The voice laughed. And then
it seemed that the nebulous gloom beyond the wall filled with
white-flecked blue, a living burning blue such as Ryel had never
known. The wind of the plain no longer howled and moaned, but calmed
to a steady breathing, each breath deep and deliberate as a
sleeper’s. Ryel clutched at the parapet, leaning out. And it seemed
then that the mists parted to reveal diamond-clear daylight, and the
sun fell full on the infinite azure that now rippled and tossed in
great waves, surrounding the city and dashing against the walls.
Ryel winced at the brilliant
light, his eyes burnt and smarting with salt. But only for a moment
before darkness again closed around him in drizzling mist, and a
harsh wind tried to claw away his cloak.
“Again,”
Ryel whispered, imploring the air. “Show me again.”
No voice’s reply, no sea’s
resurgence. Chilled and weary, Ryel pulled his hood forward against
the damp, then slowly descended the wall. As he made his way through
the several levels of the town to his dwelling, he passed here and
there small knots of mages in discussion, witches trading lore on
lamp-lit doorsteps. As he passed, they all greeted him with mumbled
formalities, low bows and downcast eyes, and fell silent until he had
gone. Reaching his house after many courses of stone steps, Ryel
entered and shut the door tightly.
Here was peace, and warmth,
and silence. The clutter and paraphernalia usual with a wysard’s
apartments were absent here, for Ryel’s learning had long surpassed
the necessity for outward Art-trappings. Thick-piled jewel-colored
carpets covered the dark stone floors, and deep cushions of soft
leather and figured velvet served as seats, for Ryel still used the
custom of his yat-dwelling people. Low tables displayed objects
chosen for their beauty, long shelves contained books and scrolls.
Flowers sprang from vessels of jade and crystal: straight slender
irises, purple-blue; crimson lilies whose petals curled like clever
tongues; the poppy of sleep with its pallid bloom scenting the air
with lazy fragrance, and other blossoms of rarer shape and hue that
Ryel’s caprice had formed and brought to life. The east room was a
chamber of repose, all soft browns and violets and greens, its walls
heavily draped with tapestries so worn by time that it was difficult
to discern their subjects, that kept out the equivocal half-light and
damp wind of the Aqqar Plain. Its wide bed was curtained with thick
silk, and the pillows were filled with fragrant herbs to induce
slumber, needful for Ryel who often spent entire nights and days rapt
in his study of the Art, until exhausted he fell on his bed unable to
sleep for the fevered racing of his thoughts; here he was lured into
a spice-scented oblivion, deep and dreamless.
He lay down and waited for
that deliverance which had never failed—until now. Sleep he could
not, and he dreamed with his eyes open.
*****
In the winter of Ryel’s
thirteenth World-year, Edris came to Risma. As the snow fell in the
night had Edris come, and as quietly.
“The
only problem with a yat is that there’s no door to knock on.”
At the sound of that voice,
so deep and ironic, Ryel started about. A stranger stood framed in
the yat’s inner portal, without a trace of snow upon his great
scarlet mantle, although yet another blizzard howled outside. The
mantle’s hood shrouded his face save for a white gleam of teeth, a
keen glint of eye.
Ryel’s father leapt to his
feet at the sight of him, his hand on the knife at his side. “Who
are you? How did you get past my guards?”
A laugh, warmly resonant, in
reply. The stranger threw off his cloak and now spoke in the dialect
of the Inner Steppes, although his first words had been in
Almancarian. “Well met in this rough weather, twin-sib.”
Yorganar took a step
backward. “By every god.”
The newcomer was clad not in
Steppes gear, but in rich outland robes of somber colors. Hulking
tall he was, with dark hair cropped short around his head, skin
strangely pale, and shaven face; yet Ryel saw that were his hair long
and his skin sunbrowned and his face lined and bearded, he would be
the exact image of Yorganar. But the greatest difference lay in his
eyes and his expression, both wonderfully subtle and acute. At the
sight of him Ryel had heard his mother give a soft half-terrified
cry, and felt her shrink close to his side; and he had put his arm
about her shoulders and held her as a grown man would, proud and
strong. Yet he too was afraid of the stranger in the yat-door, whose
long dark eyes burned his face as they studied him.
“By
every god,” Yorganar said again. His voice trembled for the first
time in Ryel’s memory. “Edris.”
The stranger nodded,
unperturbed. “You live well in this weather, brother. I had
forgotten how warm are the yats of the Triple Star when the wind
blows wild.” He gazed around him, noting everything with cool
approval. “You’ve done well. Rich in goods you always were—richer
still now, in a fair wife and a strong young son.”
“I
do not know you,” Ryel’s father at last replied, rough and harsh.
Edris smiled. Shrugged.
“Then give me welcome as your people do for the least of wanderers.
That much is mine by right.”
Ryel’s mother rose and
came to them. She looked up into Edris’ face as Ryel had never seen
her look into Yorganar’s, and it troubled him.
“Enter
and rest, my husband’s brother,” she whispered. Yorganar glared
at her, but she withstood his displeasure unflinchingly, and spoke
ever in her soft way, but now with an edge of defiance. “Whatever
else our guest may be, husband, he is your closest kin, and was at
one time your dearest. Let him enter.”
Ryel’s father frowned.
“Woman, this is not your concern.”
Mira put her hand on
Yorganar’s arm, lightly but urgently. “He has traveled far. The
night is cold. I pray you let him warm himself by our fire.”
Yorganar did not look at
her. “You know what he is.”
Her voice was always gentle,
but never with this pleading note. “Whatever else he may be, he is
your closest kin, and at one time your dearest; I well know that you
loved each other, once. Let him enter.”
Yorganar said nothing; but
after a long moment he moved aside, and let his brother pass.
Together they sat on the
floor’s carpets, amid cushions. Edris looked about him and smiled.
“I’ve missed being in a yat. And it’s warm in here, thanks to
that stove; far warmer than it’d be with a hearth-ring, and cleaner
too.”
“Yes,”
Mira murmured. “Many other households do the same, now, in Risma.”
Edris nodded. “I remember
how greatly you disliked the smoke and grime of the hearth. This is a
pleasant change.”
Yorganar grunted.
“Almancarian nonsense. I prefer fire, as do all men of my people.”
Following Steppes custom,
Ryel’s mother poured out wine for her guest, choosing the finest
vintage she had, pouring it brimful into a bowl of gold. Edris took
the wine with a nod of thanks, and his hand for an instant closed
over hers. Slight and brief as the contact was, Ryel noted it and was
angered. Mira saw that anger, and her smile faded.
“I’ll
leave you now,” she said, and would have stood up to depart. But
Edris’ deep voice stayed her.
“Wait.
I have not yet drunk your health, Mira. Nor would I have you withdraw
as a Rismai yat-wife feels she must, but keep the custom of Almancar,
and remain to grace a stranger’s welcome. Yet in truth we were not
always strangers to one another, you and I.”
Ryel had never in his life
heard any man other than his father call his mother by her name. It
was unfitting, as it was unfitting for a married woman to remain in
the presence of an newcomer after the first greetings were done, or
oppose her husband in anything. But his mother was not of the
Steppes, and had kept the ways of her city. What shocked Ryel even
more was that his father had not ordered her to withdraw, nor rebuked
her for her presumption. He felt confused and uneasy at so much
law-breaking.
Edris saw Ryel’s emotions,
and threw an ironic glance at Yorganar. “You’ve trained your boy
well in the ways of the Steppes, brother. I came almost too late, it
would seem.” Turning from Ryel and Yorganar, he again addressed
Mira. “What else has become of the brat, sister? Has he grown up
unlettered and ignorant, like every other horse-breeding lout of this
tribe?”
“I
made sure he did not,” Mira answered with quiet pride, glancing
tenderly at her son. “Ryel reads and writes fluent Almancarian,
both the common and the palace dialect.”
Edris’ dark brows lifted.
“Ha. Impressive. The latter is damnably difficult.”
“Ryel
learned it easily,” Mira said. “And he has come near to mastering
two of the Northern languages.”
“Good,”
Edris said, clearly pleased. “What of mathematics? Philosophy?
Music?”
“I
have caused the best masters to instruct him...”
“—fetched
from afar at great cost, and for no good,” Yorganar growled. “What
need has a horseman of the Steppes for such foolery?”
Edris studied his brother
with far more pity than contempt. “A natural question for you to
ask, my brother, that have never looked with right understanding upon
anything on earth, no matter how marvelous.” And his dark eyes
moved to Ryel’s mother, resting on her face yet again. “No matter
how fair. But I tell you that this boy will never be a warrior as you
were in your youth, nor a breeder of horses as you are now.” He
leaned across the fire to Ryel who sat opposite, and looked long on
him; and when he spoke it was in Hryelesh, one of the Northern
tongues Ryel had learned, one that neither his mother nor his father
understood, one that enwrapped him with his uncle in a bond half
feared, half desired.
“You’re
tall for your age,” Edris said. “And you’ll soon grow taller,
but you’ll never be as overgrown as I am, lucky lad. In all else
you favor your mother—girl-slender, maiden-faced, white-skinned and
pale-eyed. I don’t doubt the other lads mock you for it.”
Ryel dropped his hand to his
dagger-hilt and lifted his chin. “No one dares mock me. I’ve
fought and beaten Orin, son of Kiamnur, and he is two years older,
and bigger. At the last horse fair I raced with the grown men and won
this, that the Sovranet Mycenas himself bestowed upon me.” He
pulled the dagger from his belt, and the steel flashed in the
firelight.
“Ah,”
Edris said, not in the least impressed. “Mycenas Dranthene, brother
to great Agenor, Sovran of Destimar. And what was an imperial prince
like Mycenas doing among the Elhin Gazal?”
“He
came to buy horses.”
Edris glanced at Mira, who
averted her eyes. “Is that all?”
Ryel knew what Edris meant,
and was angered by it. “If you’re talking about the lies my
mother’s old nurse Anthea likes to babble, forget them. Mycenas
Dranthene isn’t of our blood.”
Edris laughed. “What makes
you so sure they’re lies, whelp?”
Ryel felt his eyes
narrowing. “Don’t call me that.”
Edris’ grin rivaled the
blade’s glint. “You’re damnably arrogant. What else are you,
lad? Come here and let me see.”
Half against his will Ryel
went from his mother’s side and knelt before Edris, who looked long
on him, so long that Ryel wished very much to look away, but could
not. Edris’ next words made him uneasier still.
“Are
you still maiden, boy?”
Ryel lowered his head, and
his long black hair fell around his suddenly flushed face.
Edris persisted. “What do
you not understand—the language, or the question?”
Ryel felt his face burn and
sweat. “I understand both,” he muttered.
“Then
answer.”
Ryel blushed deeper, and
made no reply.
Edris laughed. “A few
kisses with the girls, then? Some toyings and foolings behind the
yats?” He savored Ryel’s confusion awhile. “Well, that doesn’t
mean ruin. Good. Your innocence will add immeasurably to your power.”
Ryel lifted his head despite
himself. “What do you mean?”
“You
have the Art within you, asleep but strong,” Edris replied. “You
betray it in your every action. Having watched you closely since I
entered this yat, I have observed that you favor neither your right
hand nor your left, but are double-handed as I am. That’s a thing
rare among ordinary men, but a clear sign of capacity for the Art.”
Ryel felt himself enmeshed
in Edris’ eyes, that were a burning black in his pale face. Felt
himself drawn, and changed, and torn. “What is the Art?”
“You’ll
learn.” Edris reached out and laid both hands on his nephew’s
head, as if in blessing. His long fingers slid into Ryel’s hair,
and Ryel shuddered at the touch, but not because of fear; rather
because it seemed as if he had longed for that contact all his life.
He closed his eyes, giving himself up to it. Then he heard Edris’
deep voice whispering in a strange tongue, not words so much as a
continued murmur like the storm-wind outside. Ryel clenched his
teeth, shivering.
The fingers moved like
frozen slow currents through his hair. But suddenly they turned to
ice-knives, stabbing his temples so cruelly that his senses seemed to
reel, and the air to blacken before him.
Edris’ voice tore through
the blackness, still speaking the guttural tongue of the North. His
fingers slid to the back of Ryel’s head, seeking the nape. “You
were marked for the Art, boy. It found you, and left its stamp.
Forever.”
“No,”
Ryel gasped. “Don’t touch me. Not there.”
But Edris’ implacable
fingers had found the hard lump of scar tissue. “Remember how you
got this, lad. Remember all of it.”
At that command and that
touch, the light returned—bright sharp high-summer light. Ryel
found himself alone in a green infinity of grass, alone save for his
horse Jinn that grazed nearby. The air was searing hot, so achingly
ablaze that he winced at it, and sweated from crown to heel. But on
the horizon in every direction great dark clouds were gathering fast.
Shielding his eyes with his hand he watched the lowering masses with
increasing disquiet, wondering how it was that they seemed to center
on him. Slowly he turned round about, watching the clouds scud ever
nearer, the circle of light shrink around him until suddenly there
was no light left at all, only endless roiling black. And out of the
blackness flashed lightning, bolt after blinding rending bolt—
He would not remember more.
He would not relive what came next. He cried out until Yorganar
pulled him free.
“Ryel!”
Furiously his father turned to Edris. “What have you done to the
boy?”
Edris met his twin’s eyes,
broodingly now. “Nothing but looked within him, and seen what you
never could. He can remain in the Steppes no longer. His destiny must
bring him to me.”
“I’d
sooner see him dead.” And Yorganar forced Ryel to look away from
Edris and into his own eyes, which were so like to his brother’s,
and yet so unlike. “You know what he is. I’ve told you often
enough.”
Edris’ voice came deep as
the snow outside, and colder. “Have you indeed, brother?” He
turned to Ryel. “By all means tell me what I am, whelp.”
Angered and still in pain
from that terrible looking-in, Ryel rubbed the back of his neck and
replied insolently. “You’re a foul magician of the sorcerer-city
of Markul. A charlatan and a fakir.”
“And
you’re brave,” Edris said. But Ryel involuntarily trembled at the
cruel edge in the tall man’s voice. “Brave and stupid. Anyone
else using that tone with me would quickly regret he had, but to you
I will only give better instruction. A wysard of Markul I am, yes.
More accurately, a lord adept of the most powerful city in the World,
compared to which Almancar the Bright is a cluster of huts, and its
people simple savages—your pardon, sister. And I am Yorganar’s
only brother, born of the same womb in the same hour, no matter how
much he tries to deny it.”
Yorganar turned his face
away. “Dead have you been to me for fifteen years.”
Edris half smiled. “In
complete forgetfulness of the thirty years that went before, years
that we raced our horses together across the steppe, together
wrestled and sang and talked long into the night of wars…and of
women.” He gazed across the fire to Mira. “So like to one another
did we look in those days that not even the keenest eyes could tell
us apart.”
Ryel’s mother spoke after
a long silence, her sweet voice laden with anguish. “My brother,
surely you cannot—”
Edris nodded, and replied
gently. “I know your sorrow, Mira. Three children have you borne,
and of them only Ryel has survived infancy. But I can promise you
that in seven months’ time you will give birth again. For some
weeks you have known yourself to be with child, and you dared not
speak of it.”
Ryel had watched the
stranger as he spoke; had seen how those dark eyes dwelt on every
feature of his mother’s face, and was infuriated by it.
His father was angrier.
“This goes too far.” Yorganar reached for his sword. “You jeer
at her, and me. I will no longer—”
Edris remained unperturbed.
“Put up your tagh, brother. It’s a good blade, but mine’s
faster. Mira, you may tell him your secret at last.”
Ryel’s mother hid her face
in her hands. “I feel the child within me,” she whispered. Her
hands slid down to her waist, and joined together just below her
belt. “But I am afraid. So afraid.”
Yorganar turned angrily
first to his brother, then his wife. “How is it you knew her
secret? And woman, why did he know it before me?”
“Don’t
use that voice with her.” Edris’ own voice was dangerous. “What
I know, my Art has taught me.” He turned to Ryel’s mother.
“Little star.”
At the sound of that name,
uttered with such gentleness, Mira looked up, and never had she
seemed more lovely to Ryel than at that moment.
Edris’ eyes took hers
deeply, in a way Ryel knew Yorganar’s could have never done, and
the boy felt lost and alone as he listened to the stranger’s
prophecy. “You will bear a daughter fair as daylight, and she will
grow to beauty, and wed far above her fortune.” Edris darted a
glance at Ryel, then, and suddenly grinned in a broad white flash.
“But you’re mine, brat.”
Ryel leapt to his feet. “Get
out.” He felt as if his heart would burst for fury and fear. “Go
your way, and be damned to you.”
Ignoring him, Edris turned
to Yorganar. “Before I leave, first I would speak with my
sister-in-law alone.”
Yorganar stared, too amazed
for anger. “You know you cannot.”
Edris shook his head, almost
pityingly. “Your laws were never mine, my brother—nor hers.”
Reaching to where Ryel’s mother sat, he held out his hand.
“Farewell, little star.”
Mira said nothing in return,
and turned her face away at the name he called her. But she put her
hand in his, and Edris carried it to his lips and kissed it.
Ryel would bear no more.
“Don’t touch her!” Lunging forward, he forced Edris to face
him. “Touch her again and I’ll cut your heart out.”
But the look in Edris’
dark eyes made Ryel’s lifted fist fall helpless at his side. “You
fool,” the wysard said. “You beautiful young fool. We will meet
again, you and I, and soon, and you will ask my mercy on your knees.”
Ryel’s father shoved
between them. “Out of this place at once, warlock, or…”
Edris held up a dismissing
hand. “No threats, brother. This is the last that you will ever see
of me, I promise. I only ask that you bid me farewell as we used to
long ago, before we rode into battle together not knowing if we would
ever meet again alive.”
“I
forgot those days long ago,” Yorganar answered. But his voice came
tight and strained.
So did Edris’. “I never
could, brother. The reek of smoke, and the shouts, and the horses
shrilling, and the swords clashing, and you and I so young and wild.
The only thing I have forgotten is how many times we saved each
other’s lives, for they were countless.”
With a choked cry of
impatience, anger, sorrow, Yorganar caught Edris in his arms, and
crushed his cheek against that of his brother’s in the warrior’s
manner of salute and farewell, and kissed Edris’ temple in the
Steppes way between men of shared blood. Edris returned the kiss, and
for a long moment they remained hard embraced, until Yorganar thrust
free.
“There.
You got what you wanted,” he said, his words unsteady. “You
always did. Now go.”
Edris blinked for an instant
as if his eyes yet stung with battle-smoke. “I thank you, brother,
for remembering at last. Farewell.” He turned to Ryel, then, and
his infuriating grin flashed once more. “To you, whelp, no
goodbyes, for in a year’s time you and I will meet.”
When Edris had departed,
Mira stood dazed for a moment, then pushed past Ryel and Yorganar and
ran out of the yat, calling his name. Ryel would have bolted after
her, but Yorganar caught him.
“Let
her go, lad.”
“But
father, she—”
“I
said let her go.” He stood behind Ryel, holding him fast by both
shoulders. “She has a right. And when she returns, leave her alone
about this.” He shook him. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,”
Ryel said at last. “But it’s wrong. She—”
“She
is from another land than ours, with other laws. Even as he is, now.”
“I’ll
never be like him. I’ll die first.”
Behind his back Yorganar’s
voice—deep like his brother’s, but rougher—came musing and
still. “You say that now, lad. But he may be right—that you can
be mine no longer.” The great heavy hands released him suddenly,
with a terrible hint of a shove. “And perhaps you were never meant
to be.”
*****
A year later, Ryel stood
before the gates of Markul, and Edris looked down upon him from the
wall.
“So
you’ve come,” the deep voice rang. “Even as I said.”
Ryel encircled his mare’s
neck with a weary arm, shivering in the dank mist. “I’ve traveled
more miles than I can count, alone in this wasteland. Jinn’s nearly
dead with thirst.” Ryel himself was weak with hunger, but he was
damned if he’d ever let Edris know.
The hulking wysard uttered a
word in some strange tongue, and in that instant a spring of water
bubbled up out of the ground at Ryel’s feet. “There’s for the
beast.”
Ryel leapt away from the
water, and sought to pull his horse back from it. “No, Jinn! Don’t
drink.” But Jinn would not be kept from the spring no matter how
hard her mane was twitched.
“Let
your mare be,” Edris said. “The water will give her strength.
Take some of it yourself; I know you’re dry.”
Parched beyond bearing
though he was, Ryel would have sooner died than touch that water. The
effort it took to turn away from the rilling clear stream used up the
last of his strength. “And now what?” he asked, his voice rusky
and trembling with the struggle. “Now that I’m here at your
damned witch-fortress, may I not enter?”
The tall wysard shrugged.
“What are you here for?”
Ryel was far too spent for
rage. “That’s for you to tell me,” he muttered.
“I
didn’t hear you, whelp.”
Licking cracked lips, Ryel
repeated what he’d said. Edris seemed pleased. “Good. Such
humility becomes you, after your latter insolence. I will let you
enter here, lad. But only you. Not your horse, nor your clothes, nor
anything else you have with you. Naked and alone you must join the
brotherhood.”
Ryel clutched Jinn’s mane,
all his thirst and hunger and bone-weariness traded for this new
pain. “No. I won’t. My father gave me his sword that he wielded
in battle, and this horse, the best of his herd. She’s like a
little sister to me. I cannot—”
Edris was inexorable. “Throw
away your World-trash, brat. Unsaddle and unburden the animal, and
let it go.”
Ryel’s hand shook as it
stroked Jinn’s side. “But…I can’t.”
Edris made no reply, waiting
with folded arms. During the silence Ryel at last did as he was
commanded, because he had come too far to do otherwise. But he buried
his face against Jinn’s neck first, hiding his wet-eyed misery in
her mane.
“Good,”
Edris said, as Jinn galloped away from Markul and was lost in the
mist. “Now strip.”
A desperate blush burnt
Ryel’s face. He had from the first observed that scattered all
about in front of the towering wall were little heaps of belongings,
garments and satchels and saddlebags. He had not known why. And now
there were other watchers on the wall, some of them women.
“We
all came naked into Markul, lad,” Edris said, coolly merciless.
“You’ve nothing we haven’t seen before, believe me. Get on with
it.”
In furious haste Ryel
unfastened his clothes and let them drop, kicked them aside and fell
to his knees in the dust. Long he waited there with his head bowed.
Then he heard the groan of creaking iron as the great doors swung
open, pushed by unseen strength.
“Well?”
It was Edris’ voice,
nearby now. “I am here, even as you said,” Ryel whispered, hoarse
with wretchedness and exhaustion. “Make of me what I must be.”
Edris seized Ryel’s long
black hair, wrapped it around his hand and yanked it back, forcing
the boy to raise his head and show his face, now stained with dirt
and tears.
“What
shall be done with this young fool? Tell me, any of you.”
Edris spoke in High
Almancarian to the watchers on the wall, and was answered in the same
tongue. “Send him back. He is but a little child,” old Lord
Srinnoul had said. “No one so young ever felt the Art within him.”
“He
has felt it since his birth,” Edris replied. “I know this,
because I have watched over his growing. And as for his youth, all of
you remember that before him, I was the youngest ever to come to
Markul.”
“You
were more than twice the age of this boy,” Lord Ter had said. “Let
him go back to his mother.”
“I
say no.” Lady Serah’s voice had come strong and clear. “Let him
enter. We’ve need of new blood.” Her voice warmed and teased,
then, making Ryel heat all over with acutest distress. “He’s no
hardship on the eyes, is he?”
Standing at Serah’s side,
Lady Mevanda nodded entire smiling agreement, her silvered dark curls
swaying. “None whatsoever. Well-grown in every respect.”
But Lady Elindal at Serah’s
other side shook her head, stirring her gray-yellow braids. “I beg
you send him back, Lord Edris. We all of us came to Markul after our
youth was spent—after we had lived in the World, loved, borne
children, joyed and sorrowed. This poor lad is on the threshold of
manhood—let him know the pleasure and the strength of it.”
“He
will know both to the limit, my lady sister,” Edris said. “But
not in the World’s way. This brat was born to the Art. And he’s a
pure virgin, too—or are you still, boy?”
Ryel trembled for weariness
and hunger and rage and shame. “I am,” he muttered.
This news caused a sensation
among the watchers on the wall, who murmured among themselves. At
last Lord Srinnoul spoke, quavering and thin.
“If
it is as you say and he affirms, let him enter. But this place may
prove his death. Tell him that.”
Edris looked down into
Ryel’s face. “He knows.”
Ryel lowered his eyes to the
dirt, where his bare knees quivered. “I am at your mercy, kinsman,”
he whispered. “I have come to you empty. Whether life or death
awaits me, I no longer care.”
Edris again put his hand to
Ryel’s hair, but gently now. “Good,” he said, his long fingers
smoothing the wind-tangled locks. “That’s as it should be. Enter
and welcome.” For a moment Edris looked down at Ryel’s forsaken
World-gear, his wide underlip caught in his big teeth as he stared at
Yorganar’s sword. And to Ryel’s mingled anxiety and joy, he
reached for the weapon, unsheathing it to examine the perfection of
its making. “My brother’s tagh,” he murmured, revery mingling
with his admiration. “An uncommon blade. But heavy.” Then a grin
flashed over his face, and he shoved the sword back into its
lacquered scabbard, slinging it over his shoulder. “We’ll see how
it does against mine. Come on, whelp.”
Edris raised Ryel to his
feet, and they went into the City together. As soon as they had
entered the gates, Edris took off the great red-purple cloak he wore,
and wrapped it about his young kinsman, and led him to his house.
*****
How
well I remember that time,
Ryel thought as the memory ebbed. Remember
the wind of the plain, raw and cold on my nakedness, and the warmth
of Edris’ mantle as it enfolded me. But now…
He rose from his sleepless
bed, took up the cloak, drew it about him, and went out into the
night.
Never were the dead of
Markul buried or burned. They were taken to the great tower at the
southwest corner of the city, where they lay in rich robes, preserved
from corruption by consummate Mastery. Some had lain there for nearly
a millennium, yet to all seeming had died but that very hour. In a
rich chamber at the tower’s top, in wondrous state, were laid the
bodies of all the First of Markul—save for that of Lady Riana of
Zinaph, who had departed the City in secret, and gone no one knew
where. Every day since Edris’ death Ryel had climbed the many steps
of the tower, entered the cold room where his uncle lay, and stood
over the inert figure, wrung with meditation. He stood there now, in
the light of torches whose undying Art-wrought radiance seemed to
mock the lifeless forms it illumined.
Ryel pushed back the cloak’s
hood. The chill air shuddered across his naked scalp. “You would
approve, ithradrakis,” he said, using the Almancarian word that
Edris had never in life acknowledged, his voice a numb echo on the
stone walls. “I mourn you in Steppes fashion, head shorn and robes
rent.”
Edris lay unmoved. Half-open
were his slant dark eyes, half-parted his lips. In the wide mouth the
big teeth gleamed in something very like a grin.
I
loved you,
Ryel thought, staring down in numb anguish at the tall still form. I
would have died in your place. But it was I that struck you down.
Show me how to bring you back, because I am at the end of my skill. I
have attempted everything, even the forbidden spells of the First.
Ithradrakis, dearer to me than father—
And it seemed to Ryel that
he would die, too, from the intolerable burning and stinging of his
lightless eyes, the torment of unsheddable tears. He lifted Edris’
limp dead hands to his forehead, and after that gesture of respect
took his leave.
“I
cannot find your help in this City, kinsman,” he said to himself.
“I must ask Elecambron.”
Tesba and Ormala used the
Art for pleasure or for gain, but Elecambron and Markul were refuges
for those who, having dwelt in the World and grown discontented with
the common lot of their lives, sought a deeper wisdom. Both of the
Two Great Cities believed in the existence of the rai, the vital
force which animated the corporeal form; but Markul held that death
of the body inevitably meant death for the rai, while Elecambron put
full conviction in the rai’s immortality. The Markulit Art was in
the service of life, and to that end the adepts of that City made the
Mastery their chief concern; but for cold Elecambron the
after-workings of death were its focus of study, and the Crossing its
highest aim.
Among Worldlings, the
possibility of existence after the grave was a tenet of belief
devoutly held by the credulous of many persuasions, but the lord
adepts of Elecambron sought ascertainable proof. Endeavors to reach
the threshold of death and look beyond were achieved only through
great trials by the Northern brotherhood, and experiments with many
spells. So perilous was the Crossing that most attempted it only when
very old. Those of lesser ability died trying; those of the greatest
skill survived, though never without some cost to body or mind.
Markul’s wysards considered the Crossing more a dangerous game than
a worthy endeavor, and only a handful of that brotherhood had ever
tried it in all the City’s history. Ryel had known the risks, but
had expected that his youth and powers would have taken him safely to
that terrible bourne and back again. Never had he dreamed that Edris
would pay for that journey with his life.
“I
call Michael of Elecambron.”
Ryel spoke to the mirror
that hung in his conjuring-chamber, the reflectionless Glass. The
name he uttered was that of his great rival, Lord Michael Essern.
Once before they had met thus, and once only; it had been at
Michael’s instigation, and had not been a cordial encounter.
Long he waited, and called
again; and at last a face appeared, seeming more a mask than human
flesh—a mask of gray leather that had been left out in a harsh
winter, and crushed flat.
The mask’s lipless mouth
moved, proving it toothless as well. “Who dares this?”
Ryel stared, aghast and
amazed. “Lord Michael?”
The mask’s mouth quirked
upward at both corners, as if pulled by hooks. “Hardly. Michael has
left this City.”
Ormalan sorcerers routinely
trafficked with mere men, and the enchanters of Tesba on occasion
returned to the World; but so infrequently did those of the two
greatest Cities, scarce once in every decade, that Ryel was as much
perturbed as surprised. “Lord Michael has departed Elecambron? But
when was this?”
“Two
years ago, after attempting the Crossing, and returning with eyes
like yours. I was his instructor while he dwelt here, and assisted
him in the spell. Here, I am known as Kjal.”
Ryel bent his head in
recognition and respect. “I ask your pardon, Lord Kjal. Your
abilities are famed in my City, and perhaps I should have sought you
first.”
“Call
me only by my name, Markulit. I know you, even with your long locks
rased. The proud Ryel, that meddled where he shouldn’t have, and
sent a better than himself howling into the black beyond. Look at me.
I said look.”
Flinching at Kjal’s taunt
Ryel raised his head, revealing his empty eyes. The Elecambronian
laughed in a hyena’s hoarse cough.
“Did
you summon Michael for that? To show him how your pretty face has
changed?”
“No.
I came for help.”
“And
what help do you think Michael would have given? He scorned you. He
told me as much.”
Ryel felt his face growing
hot as he remembered his first and only conversation with Michael
Essern. “I seek any help at all. Edris was dear to me. He died
untimely. If there is any way I can bring him back...”
The hooks of Kjal’s mouth
twitched. “You cannot. Leave it at that.”
“No
one knows more than you about the ways of death. Surely your Art has
the power to...”
“Be
silent, boy.” Those cold words chilled Ryel mute, and after a long
while, Kjal spoke again, his voice a blurry weary wheeze. “There is
no resurrection. I have taken corpses and made them walk and talk.
Dog’s tricks. Mountebankery. Anyone with the stomach for it can
instill a srih of the Outer World into the dead, and have it animate
the body for as long as desired. We of Elecambron can all of us
animate a corpse in a crude way. The cleverest of us—myself and a
handful of others—can cause the srih to subsume the traits and
qualities of the dead man, or woman, and so cause a cadaver to seem
quite passably alive. But it never fools for long.”
Yet
I have been duped by it,
Ryel thought, feeling his stomach cramp as he recalled, for a
sickening instant, his fifth Markulit year and a beautiful woman with
a laugh like crystal when it shatters, who had come to him in the
night and...
Kjal’s shrug banished the
memory. “The corpse eventually rots, and gives away the game rather
nastily. You Markulits have your Jade Citadel to keep your dead
fresh; we here in Elecambron have plenty of ice. But interestingly
enough, Michael spoke of the Joining-spell not long before he left.
That, and a voice which intruded upon his thoughts, giving him no
rest.”
Ryel started. “A voice?”
“Aye.
Michael Essern is not one to hear voices, nor to obey when they
command; but this one he gave ear to. It claimed to belong to none
other than Dagar Rall.”
Ryel felt a shudder crawl
over him, but fought to keep his face calm. “All the Cities know of
Dagar. He was a monster. But he lived centuries ago, and even
monsters die.”
Kjal’s mouth twitched.
“You are sure?”
Ryel winced as his skin
crept. “Kjal, what do you mean?”
“I
think you understand. Your City teaches that death of the body is
death of the rai—death entirely. And we of Elecambron have for a
thousand years done all we could to disprove you, to no avail. But
nevertheless one cannot deny that many of the Art-brotherhood—you
and my student Michael the most recent—have stood on the edge of
existence, and sensed the shadow-land between being and unbeing. It
is my belief that Dagar could well be trapped there, seeking a way to
return to the World.”
“But
Dagar was slain by the entire population of your City, who banded
together to destroy him. It took all their Art to do so, and his body
was burned with fire so consuming that not even ashes were left. Even
were his rai able to escape, it has nothing to return to.”
Kjal just barely shook his
head. “There is a moment where body and rai part, on the edge of
death. In that instant, with the right Art, Dagar’s rai could
readily find a home again in another form.” Again the hooks
twitched upward. “Yours would suit him wonderfully. The irony of
it.”
Ryel felt Kjal’s eyes on
him like crawling pale slugs, and shrugged as if to shake them off.
“The Joining-spell you speak of was created by Lord Garnos of this
City, and lost long ago. No one of the Brotherhood now possesses the
Art to re-create it.”
“That’s
all as may be.” Kjal’s eyes finally blinked. “I didn’t think
I’d miss Michael as much as I do. He was young. Good to look upon.
Trouble.” The hideous mask hardened. “Existence is a curse, Ryel
Mirai. Do not call upon me again.”
The Glass darkened. Ryel for
a long time stood looking at the blank surface, and then moved to the
great chair that stood in the center of the room, and sank into it as
he buried his face in his hands.
But even amid the most
secret of his thoughts, the voice that had whispered to him on the
wall spoke again, out of a swelter of oppressive air.
Ah, sweet eyes. What good
to be greatest, if it be fool among fools? I that have shown you
water can show you the World. Look here.
Ryel looked up, and found
himself in a market-square of a city all unlike Markul. The buildings
and towers of this place were of pale stone, alabaster and sweet-hued
marble beautifully wrought. The wysard could smell fresh water, and
rare spices, and almonds; could see merchants’ stalls heaped with
rare goods, mosaic-lined canals alive with shimmering fish, throngs
of people hastening to and fro under a sun so brilliant and hot that
his eyes dazzled and his skin glowed. And he heard music, bells,
peremptory voices.
“Make
way for the Sovrena Diara!”
A long slender boat, airy
and graceful in the crystalline spangled blue of the canal, halted at
the steps of a temple—the House of the Goddess Atlan, as the
carving on the portals made clear. Half-naked slaves draped in jewels
plied the oars, while soldiers in golden mail and ladies gorgeously
clad guarded and attended a pavilion set in the midst of the deck.
Ryel could discern a human form behind the translucent hangings—a
woman’s form, surpassingly beautiful. And when the curtains parted—
The vision vanished.
“Show
me more,” Ryel said, leaning forward, fighting for breath. “I saw
her only for an instant.”
The
voice laughed. And
to what purpose? Are you not dead from the waist down, Markulit?
It was a strange voice, of
neither sex; its final words recalled Ryel to himself.
“I
am Ryel Mirai, son of Yorganar that was,” he said aloud. “A
citizen of Markul. The Art and my life are one. I heed no voices but
those that I myself call for; and I will no longer listen to you,
whatever you be.”
He rose, and would have left
the conjuring-chamber; but the voice came again at his back, burning
his bare nape.
Do
not listen, then,
the voice said. Look.
Only look.
All unwilling Ryel turned
again. Once more he was in the midst of pale lovely buildings, amid
music and brilliant light; and the curtains parted, and the Sovrena
Diara came forth. “Ah,” breathed Ryel; and beyond that he was
speechless.
Her body was veiled in film
upon dawn-tinted film of translucent silk, her face concealed by a
half-mask glittering with jewels, but Ryel could discern past these
coverings that she was far fairer than the riches that covered
her—more flawless than the pearls that hung in strings from her
diadem, with eyes more heaven-blue than the sapphires about her
delicate neck, and lips brighter than the rubies encircling her
wrists; and no stone drawn from any of the earth’s mines could be
precious enough to equal the beauty of her hair, that hung in loose
smooth tresses and gem-entwined plaits—hair like black satin rope,
heavy and gleaming.
Just
turned of eighteen,
the voice continued mercilessly. Beneath
her silks, all the answers to men’s riddles: nothing more slender
than her waist. Nothing softer and sweeter than her breasts. Nothing
smoother than her back, straighter than her legs. Nothing more—
“Enough,”
Ryel rasped, dry-mouthed.
It seemed, then, that Diara
looked directly at him, her gaze at once imperious and inviting. But
beyond that Ryel saw something else behind the mask, something that
disturbed him—a desperate pleading that froze out his desire. Yet
only for an eyeblink, until her jewels flashed and glittered under
the white sun with unbearable intensity, forcing him to close his
eyes. When he opened them again he was alone, in cold darkness
dispelled only by a single candle.
Aye,
the voice at his elbow murmured. Light
is hard to bear, after years spent in dank fogs and shadows. And lust
is even harder...or is it, eunuch?
“Leave
me,” Ryel snapped. “Leave me and never return.” And he said a
spell-word of dismissal, a strong one; but the voice only laughed.
I’m no srih-servant, to
be commanded. Nor can you so easily rid yourself of yourself, young
blood. But enough of visions. Time now to get your hands full of the
World. The World you have been locked away from for a dozen weary
years.
“I
cannot return to the World.” The wysard blinked burning lids,
thinking of the beautiful girl who could never look upon him save
with horror. “I cannot. Not with these eyes.”
The
World does not see with the Art-brotherhood’s acuity,
the voice replied, its sly whine laced with honey. It
will behold you as you once were.
Hope wrestled down
disbelief. “Explain,” Ryel breathed, clutching the arms of his
chair.
Only one learned in the
Art can discern an Overreacher.
Ryel leapt up. “How is it
you know that? Tell me!”
A long while he stood
waiting. But he knew by the quality of the air, by a sudden
lightening of the atmosphere, that whatever had spoken had departed
to whatever place it came from.
Chapter Two
Departure
Ryel slept little and badly
after that day. Even though the voice did not torment him again, it
had destroyed his powers of concentration and his desire for study.
The wysard found himself wasting that most precious of his
possessions, time. He would sit for hours at his great window that
opened onto the Aqqar, watching mist succeed mist, waiting for he
knew not what, anxious in his heart for reasons he could not explain.
No human form came out of the mist during his watching, nor did he
expect it; during the twelve years since his admittance into Markul
only three aspirants had emerged from the fog and approached the
eastern gates to petition for entry. One of them had been turned away
for a madwoman and another for a fool, and the third had lived only
months after entering the gates.
Our
numbers were ever few,
Ryel thought as he looked down at the ground just outside the walls,
at the scattered clusters of garments and belongings, most of them
wonderfully rich, left behind by those who had been taken into the
city. Some
hundreds of souls; never more than two hundred at any time. And save
for myself, all old, old—Lord Katen the oldest since Lord
Srinnoul’s death, with his century and a half, or two hundred years
if one counts by the reckoning of the World. In Markulit reckoning I
am but twelve, not much less than the age I’d attained in the World
when I came to this place; and now I feel as if I have lived both
lives in a void.
His impenetrable eyes rested
on the humblest of the garment-heaps, one made up of the common gear
of a Steppes horseman—a side-fastened shirt of heavy undyed linen,
embroidered in Rismai designs at the cuffs and collar and hem by his
mother’s hands; a long fawn-colored coat belted at the waist, the
skirts vented deep for riding; soft leather leggings, and supple
riding-boots that might be drawn up above the knee or downgathered in
folds around the calf. Next to these garments were Jinn’s
saddlebags, containing things Ryel had cherished or thought needful.
Such was the Mastery girding Markul that despite the eternal damp,
each of these objects was as whole and unweathered as the day he had
flung it from him, as indeed was everything left by others.
Were
I to believe what the voice said, I could don those clothes again,
Ryel thought. Belt
them about me, pull on those boots, toss that bag upon my shoulder
and leave this place even as I came. Leave behind the learning of the
Art, I that have already learned more than any man living, and take
up the World’s way. The world of clear light, and blue water, and
golden towers...
He half-rose from the
window-embrasure where he sat, but another thought made him return to
his place, and lock his arms around his knees.
“The
voice wants that,” he whispered. “Wants me to venture forth
alone, and without doubt wishes me harm.”
He rested his chin on his
knees, and stared as far into the fog as he could, and remembered his
first years in Markul. From the beginning he had been fortunate in
having his kinsman Edris as his teacher. No blood-ties united the
celibate wysards of the City, and newcomers were by custom given
shelter and instruction by whoever it was that first saw them from
the walls—not always a fortuitous circumstance. The first year had
been hardest. Ryel had been required to put away all recollection of
his past, to force his mind and body into the complete calm and
mental readiness requisite for the second year’s learning—difficult
enough for a grown man, but far harder for a boy. The second year he
had begun to experiment with and inure himself to the many drugs used
by the Art-brotherhood to channel concentration and heighten
perceptual acuity. And he learned his first spells, those that would
harness the servant-spirits of the Outer World, an urgently necessary
but dangerous test of will that had ever proven the
winnowing-threshold separating live lord adept from mere dead
aspirant.
Ryel had resisted this
crucial step, but not out of fear. Even as a little child he had been
deeply skeptical of those tales in which fakirs commanded the air for
whatever they wished. What had seemed impossible to him then was in
no way more plausible now. “It can’t happen,” he had said. And
Edris had replied with the most contemptuously resonant of snorts.
“Spoken
like a hard-headed ignorant yat-brat. Look around you, boy. You know
full well that none of this was brought here by mules and carts. But
what if it had been? Would you have thought mules magical beasts?”
Ryel shrugged as he blushed.
“I’m only saying that it doesn’t seem possible to create
material objects from nothingness.”
Edris’ scorn was profound.
“You’re a fool, whelp. When you threw off your clothes outside
the walls, you were meant to strip your mind fully as bare. In Markul
the possible and the impossible are one and the same. Yet even in the
World everything is a miracle, if viewed closely—the wind in the
air, the blinking of your eyes, a seed’s progress to a fruit. The
Mastery of Air is no more or less miraculous, no more or less
commonplace. But apparently you were too dull in the World to wonder
how the stars got into the sky—or how you got into your mother’s
womb.”
“I’m
not as dull as you like to think,” Ryel said, turning away at his
kinsman’s last words, remembering how from earliest childhood he
would escape into the Steppes night while all else slept, running far
from the yats into the deep fields, there to lie with his back to the
breathing grass and his face to the flickering infinity overhead. As
a child he had known no greater delight than those rapt communions
that leapt to ecstasy at every touchstone streak of meteor. But as he
grew older the joy ebbed, giving way to aching awe, ineffable hunger,
solitude absolute and godless where each pinprick shimmer melded into
a burning white weight just above his heart, intensifying with every
star that fell.
I
have not known the stars in two years,
he thought. The remembrance of everything else he missed seemed to
envelop him like Markulit fog, chill and desolate.
Rough gibing woke him.
“Where’re you woolgathering now, whelp?”
“Far
away from this place,” Ryel replied, every word snapped.
“I’ve
been too easy on you. You’re not learning fast enough.”
“I
can’t learn any faster.”
“You
mean you don’t want to.”
Ryel lifted his chin. “I
know by heart the spells that tame srihs.”
“Then
use them, fool.”
“They
shouldn’t work,” Ryel replied, stung and angry. “Not by the
World’s laws.”
Edris snorted again, even
more contemptuously. “Damn the dullard World. The Art takes
imagination, lad—something you’ve shown precious little of, I’m
sorry to say. You have to not only accept the impossible, but make it
happen. That’s what the meditations and the drugs of the first
couple of years are for—to loosen your mind, open it up, free it
from fear and doubt. You’ve learned all that, but you’ll never
move on to the next step as long as I keep feeding you. A few days’
fasting, and you’d learn srih-Mastery soon enough...” To Ryel’s
deep perturbation and resentment, Edris’ long eyes lit in mocking
malice. “Now there’s a thought. I’ll just quit feeding you.
Find your own dinner tonight, brat.”
Ryel went hungry for three
days. During that time he endured not only starvation, but Edris’
taunts and wavings of food in his face, which he stonily ignored.
However, by the dawning of the fourth day he knew by the lightness of
his head and the famished tremor of the rest of him that he must
either progress to the next step of the Art while he still had the
strength, or submit to having his uncle throw him scraps and call him
idiot. Goaded beyond all misgivings, he called up the last of his
strength and strode to the book-table in the middle of his room,
knocking aside the scrolls and volumes, cursing his stomach, the Art,
Markul, Edris, everything. With peremptory exasperation he barked out
the necessary mantra, then commanded a full Steppes breakfast with
chal hot and strong. When these things appeared, he felt no
astonishment, and scarcely muttered thanks to his unseen servitors as
he grabbed a piece of bread and tore off a vengeful bite.
“So,
brat. You finally came round.” Edris leaned in the doorway,
grinning. “Good job, lad.” Uninvited he came in, examining the
food with a critical eye. “Not very fancily dished, but everything
looks fresh.” He sampled the food with approval. “And not a trace
of poison, either. You must have done it right. Srihs are like
horses—if you don’t show them straightway who’s master they’ll
throw you. The only difference is you might survive a toss from a
horse.”
Edris said that
full-mouthed, and Ryel for a vicious moment wished his Art less, and
his srihs venomous. “My thanks for your fatherly concern.” He put
a bitter stress on the adjective, one that made Edris stop chewing
and swallow hard.
“Listen,
whelp.” His two great hands clamped down over Ryel’s shoulders,
his dark slant eyes probed Ryel’s like thorns. “I wouldn’t want
a hair of your thick head so much as frayed. Believe that. But you’ve
got to learn, and fast.”
Ryel struggled to free
himself, unavailingly. “Why should I hurry? Am I not to grow old
here, like all the rest of you?”
Edris’ warning shake made
Ryel’s teeth clack. “Watch it, brat. I’m not so much a
graybeard that I can’t keep you in line. It may be that neither of
us will stay here forever. It may be that your Art is meant for the
World. But even if you end up flat on your back in the Jade Tower,
you’re going to learn everything I can teach you first.”
“I
won’t.” Ryel wrenched himself from his kinsman’s grip and
kicked over the table, scattering everything. “I want to go home. I
want to—to look at stars. I’m leaving.”
Edris only laughed. “Try
getting the gates open.”
“I’ll
slide down the damned walls if I have to.”
“Not
a chance, lad.” The big hands caught him again, and tightened
beyond any escape. “You’re staying here. And you’re learning.
You’re going to learn the Art faster and more cleverly than anyone
has since the First built this City. I’ll see to it.” A long time
Edris looked upon Ryel’s face, for once without irony. “But you
won’t have to live under my roof or by my rules any longer. You’ve
shown today that you can take care of yourself. Markul’s full of
empty houses—choose one for your own.”
Three days ago Ryel might
have greeted that news with overt joy. Now he merely gave a curt nod,
as one grown man to another. “I already have.”
Edris was amused, but for
once seemed to make an effort not to show it. “Where?”
“Close
to this. It’s the one built above the wall, looking westward.”
“Ah.
Lord Aubrel lived there—and died there, out of his mind and by his
own hand.”
Ryel shrugged away his
shudder. “It’s well-placed and large.”
Edris grinned. “Considerably
larger than this, you mean. Well, I had elbow room enough until you
came along, whelp, and I won’t mind getting it back. You’re
welcome to Lord Aubrel’s house—no one’s crossed its threshold
since he was carried out lifeless over it, centuries ago. You needn’t
worry about its being haunted, but I’ll wager the dust is a foot
thick.”
Ryel shrugged again,
confidently now. “My srihs will clean it.”
“Well
said. That’s what they’re for. The First fully understood that
learning the Art left no time for household drudgery. You can rely on
srihs to provide all that you need to live—and they’ll do so
lavishly, if they respect you. But it’s unwise to ask too much of
them. Fatal, to some. Be careful.”
“I
will be.”
“You’re
so damned young. Nothing but a boy, and yet—” For a silent while
Edris seemed to brood, then, his eyes fixed not on Ryel’s but
someplace immeasurably far. “You’re stronger than you know, lad.
Stronger than I’ll ever be.” That grin again, more ferociously
jeering than ever. “And too foolish by much to fear anything. So
order us some fresh breakfast, and after it we’ll go on to the next
step.”
*****
Ryel had learned the next
step, and the next, and all others after. He learned quickly, without
particular effort. The hard part was overcoming revulsion and fear,
emotions all too frequent in Art-dealings. His initiation complete,
Ryel might have followed Edris’ example and Markulit custom, and
devoted all his study to the Mastery. But because he was young and
still felt the pull of the World, he often escaped to the great
library of the City to study volume after volume of art, music,
travel, literature, customs of various countries, sciences,
mathematics, history. He also learned the healing arts, since many of
the adepts of Markul had been notable physicians in the World, and
were glad to teach him. From them Ryel learned surgery and herbal
medicine. He could at need set a broken limb, cure illness,
counteract poison—and more.
“You’re
the only male in this city still capable of delivering a baby,”
Edris had said, when Ryel was in his fifth Markulit year. “The men
here who used to be doctors have long forgotten everything you’ve
been learning from Serah and the others. It’s that smooth face of
yours—the sisterhood tell you things about their bodies’ workings
that the rest of us never had time to understand, and now have no use
for. Never was a man—much less a mere boy—so deeply learned in
women’s lore. But you’ve got the best instruction, after all. Few
women’s minds are subtler and more keen than those of Serah,
Mevanda, and Elindal, three of the greatest witches in the world.”
“Don’t
call them witches. They are like my my—”
Ryel caught the word in his bitten lip, but Edris guessed it
nonetheless. His dark eyes searched his nephew’s face, unsmilingly
now.
“You
still miss her.”
Ryel looked away. “Yes.
And my father, and the sister I remember only as a baby just taking
her first steps.”
He thought of them because
he was in Edris’ house, sitting on floor-cushions by the fireside
as he would have on the Steppes. His own home by the western wall he
had made ever more comfortable in the past three years, with
Almancarian touches of luxury; but his kinsman’s house was in all
respects yatlike, its walls draped with leather hangings, its
appointments rough and spare. One might almost walk outside into
green miles of field, bright sun and blue sky and whipping winds.
Edris stirred the fire, and
poured them each more chal. “Serah Dalkith would willingly be
something more than a mother to you. She’s still a beauty.”
Ryel felt himself blushing,
and made no reply. The notion had occurred to him many times before.
“She’s closer to your age, and I’ve seen the way you two look
at each other.”
Edris shrugged. “We’re
good friends. But friendship between a man and a woman is never
without a bit of spark. Makes it interesting.”
Ryel’s thoughts stayed
with the Steppes. “Do you never wish to leave Markul and return to
the World?”
“Never,
lad.”
“Why?”
“Because
as long as you’re here, I am. To instruct you. And time’s running
out.” He tossed more kulm on the fire, watching the flames leap up.
“Our Art’s fading, lad. Most of this City think they’re strong
and clever because they can order about a srih or two. The First Ones
built this place with their Mastery, but nowadays you’ll not find
many in all this City who can cobble together so much as a privy
using their minds’ power alone.”
“It’s
because everyone here is so old. Much older than you, even.”
Edris dealt Ryel a withering
eye-glint. “It isn’t just age, brat. They’re being bled dry of
their Art. But it’s gotten worse. People have been dying too fast
in this City, and not by accident nor the wear of years. Their srihs
turned on them. We took Abenamar to the Jade Tower only a few days
ago—he was far from a fool, and not ten years older than me. And
not long before that, Colbrent and Melisende. Whenever one of our
brotherhood dies, his srihs go on to serve other adepts, or at least
that’s the way it’s always been, until lately. Now they simply
disappear. I can feel it, as if the air were growing thin. Someone—or
something—has it in for us.”
“I’ll
find out why. I’m young enough to learn fast, unlike the rest of
you.”
Those words elicited a
heartfelt snort. “You’re as arrogant as you were when we first
met, back in Yorganar’s yat.”
Ryel
stared into the fire, where his memories leapt. “They said in Risma
that you were one of the best horsemen of the phratri. Do you never
miss riding fast? Going at a full gallop in a game of kriy?”
Edris was silent a long
time, so long that Ryel stopped expecting an answer. But then he
spoke. “You should have put those memories behind you long ago,
whelp.”
“It
is difficult to forget the World, kinsman.”
Edris grunted a half-laugh.
“You barely had time to know you were alive in it before you
entered this City’s walls.”
Ryel bristled. “I was
almost a man.” A flash of anger burnt his heart. “You came here
after you had fought in wars, and lain with women. But thanks to you
I’ll never—”
“Shut
up.” Ryel felt Edris’ hand under his chin, forcing his gaze away
from the bright flames into darker fire a hundredfold more hot. “So
what if I nearly got myself killed a dozen times? So what if I had my
first woman at sixteen, and a hundred more after that, using myself
up with witless lust? What is it you envy, brat?”
The hard light in those long
eyes dried up Ryel’s mouth, and he spoke with effort. “There
was...more than that.”
“There
was. But I was too much of a fool to understand. I came here. I’ll
die here.” Edris hesitated; scrutinized his nephew’s face more
closely. “You have Mira’s looks,” he said at last. “Her looks
and her ways, all unlike those of the rough Rismai.” His unwonted
revery gave way to a grin all too habitual as he reached out, grazing
a tough knuckle across Ryel’s cheek. “And you’re still
beardless, after nineteen World-years. Smooth as a girl.”
“Lady
Serah taught me the spell for it.” Ryel paused. “She uses it for
her legs.”
Edris grinned. “Her legs
and what else, boy? Yes, blush like the innocent you are.” He gave
the smooth cheek a stinging pat. “You’re getting too pleased with
yourself. For your better instruction—and to somewhat temper your
conceit—you’ve a rival in Elecambron.”
Indignantly amazed, Ryel
lifted his chin. “A rival? Who?”
“A
tall lad named Michael, a brash young wonder.”
“For
Elecambron, sixty is young.”
“Don’t
smirk, whelp. I’ll admit he’s older than you, but he’s not yet
thirty. He came to his City at about the same time you found your way
here.“
“Why
did no one tell me of him before?” Ryel asked, half in disbelief.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because
I only learned of him recently, and have never seen him myself. It
was his instructor, no less than Elecambron’s great Kjal Gör, who
informed me when we last talked by Glass some weeks ago. Michael’s
a Northerner out of Hryeland, a nobleman of one of the great families
there.” Edris half-smiled in ambivalent reminiscence. “His father
and I were friends, long ago in my soldiering days.”
Normally Ryel would have
wanted to hear more of those days, but not now. “Does Michael know
of me?”
Edris nodded, slowly and
with irony. “He does; and he’s not overly impressed, from what I
hear. Other things I could tell you about his ancestry, but they can
keep. You’d only feel more at a disadvantage if you knew.”
Ryel flushed. “If he and I
met face to face, he’d learn who was strongest.”
Edris was very far from
impressed. “Ah. Would he, now. He’s lived rougher than you’ve
any idea. Before coming to Elecambron—a terrible place so I hear,
compared to which this of ours is a paradise—he fought in some
notably vicious wars. You’ve been safe and snug here in Markul,
everyone’s darling boy. But had you remained in the World, I wonder
what you’d have become—a mollycoddle at your mother’s skirts,
or a rank dullard like Yorg—”
Ryel lifted his chin. “I’d
have been as you were. A proud wild warrior.”
“Oh,
indeed. As I was.”
But for all his tone, Edris now looked Ryel eye to eye, no longer
jeering. “Get your blade, boy, and meet me in the courtyard.”
Minutes later they faced one
another in cold mist, on chill flagstones, their robes and sleeves
tucked up and tied back for ease of action, their feet unshod for
surer movement. It was ever Edris’ wont to go barefoot even when
snow drifted thick upon the top of Markul’s wall, but Ryel had not
yet acquired that extremity of control over his flesh. To forget the
icy rough rock beneath his naked soles, the young wysard fingered the
hilt of the sword that Yorganar had given him in his thirteenth
World-year—a Kaltiri blade of great worth, that had drawn blood in
battle countless times. The Rismai neither made nor carried swords,
preferring the bow, the spear, and the dagger; but Yorganar had
wished that his son learn the warrior’s art of his homeland, and to
that end instructed him as thoroughly as he might in the little time
he had. When Ryel left for Markul a year later, Yorganar had given
him stern advice.
“Don’t
go soft in that sorcerer’s roost. Edris knows a sword’s use as
well as me, if not better. Make him teach you some of his skill.”
They spoke man to man in the
cold gray of dawn, for Ryel’s mother had retired to the yat with
Nelora, unable to bear the torment of parting from her only son.
Mounted and ready, Ryel twined Jinn’s mane in his fingers, trying
to warm them as he struggled for words, using the most formal of the
Rismai dialect. “You have given me great gifts, my father—this
horse that is the best you own, and the sword you carried in war..”
Little Nelora at that moment
escaped from the yat and ran staggering toward them, bawling with
baby abandon. Yorganar picked her up, hushing her with a tenderness
he had never shown Ryel.
“Hold
your noise, wee lamb.” And he tossed the child in his arms until
Nel quieted and smiled. Addressing Ryel again, Yorganar harshened.
“Those are not gifts. Nelora will grow up as a Rismai woman should,
and have no need of a sword. As for the mare, Jinn was yours from the
day of her birth, and I am no back-taker.”
It’s
better this way,
Ryel thought. I’m
glad he loves Nel, at least.
Reaching out, he stroked the child’s wealth of curls, marveling as
he always did at their bright gold gleam, so rare in the Steppes and
so praised; the touch felt like a blessing, as did the little arms
that stubbornly wreathed his neck until he gently urged them away.
“Farewell, baby sister.” He kissed her petal cheek, then turned
to Yorganar, all haltingly. “My father, I will miss you.”
Yorganar held Nelora closer,
not looking at Ryel. “Edris will take my place. Has he not
already?”
Ryel had no reply to that.
For the past year he had remembered Edris every night as he lay
awake, and dreamed of dark towers when at last he slept; had ridden
the plain and climbed the dead fire-mountains and played kriy and
wrestled with his play-brothers, knowing in his secret heart that he
would never grow to manhood among them; had been a devoted son to his
mother, and a loving brother to Nelora; had kept out of Yorganar’s
way, save when they fought with swords.
“Farewell,
Yorganar Desharem,” he said, then bent from the saddle and kissed
him for the first and last time in his life, on the temple in the
Steppes way between male kindred, swiftly lest he be pushed away.
Wheeling Jinn about, he sent her into a gallop with a touch of his
heel, and felt the sharp wind blow the tears out of his eyes into his
streaming hair.
*****
“Wake
up, whelp.”
Ryel blinked, torn from his
revery. Edris stood waiting, his own sword drawn and ready—a
Kaltiri tagh like Yorganar’s, slim and double-edged and
silver-bright, its hilt fashioned long for two-handed combat; like
Yorganar’s, but far richer and deadlier. Most wonderful of all, it
was incredibly light, as easily wielded as a willow switch.
Yorganar’s sword felt like a log of lead in comparison. Ryel had
been permitted to handle this exquisite weapon only once, but forever
after had coveted the way its hilt-ridges took his grip like a firm
handclasp, the fearful beauty of its glass-keen blade etched with an
inscription that Ryel could not read, and that Edris would not
translate.
“I
want your sword,” the boy-wysard said, feeling Yorganar’s great
tagh maddeningly clumsy in his hand.
Edris’ cropped head gave a
fierce scorning shake. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“You’ve
come close to being killed lots of times, from the looks of it,”
Ryel said, at once defiant and daunted. “You’re covered with
scars.”
“Grown
men gave them to me, boy.”
During his time in the
North, during the strength of his youth, Edris had become a member of
an arcane cult of elite warriors, and the inscription on Edris’
blade had been conferred by the order after deadly combat; that much
Ryel knew, but no more. “Tell me what those runes say.”
“Never,
brat. Come on.”
They squared off and saluted
in one of the Kaltiri ways—not the salute of enemies bent upon
death, nor of friends vying in strength, but of a warrior testing his
squire—a low bow from Ryel, and almost none at all from Edris, and
then blades lightly crossed once, twice, then drawn apart slowly—and
in that lingering last moment, battle swift and strenuous. Soon Ryel
felt all his blood grown hot, heard himself panting as he slashed and
lunged.
Edris was fully versed in
the formal style of Northern fencing, and had taught Ryel its rules
and rituals as an aid to concentration. But for sheer diversion he
and Ryel both relished the Eastern fashion of fighting with its wild
grace and headlong acrobatics, its yells and grunts and curses, its
savage slashings and hairsbreadth dodges. The Northern style relied
on cold skill, agile discipline and rigid punctilio, but the way of
the East was one of ruthless force and arrant treachery.
Although Edris had never yet
employed the latter stratagem, Ryel knew his kinsman’s strength
only too well. Fifty World-years had thinned and grayed Edris’
close-shorn dark hair, and deeply etched his outer eye-corners, but
none of those years had shrunken or softened the lean muscles that
clung to his hulking height. Now the disarray of combat revealed the
long stark-sinewed arms and legs, the broad chest, that the trailing
amplitudes of Markulit robes at all other times concealed, and at the
sight Ryel felt newborn weak and naked.
“Someday
I’ll beat you.”
Edris only gave a jeering
grin. “You’ll need Art for that, whelp. Go on, do your worst.”
Ryel had never forgiven
himself for what happened next. Murmuring a word that made his
adversary lose his balance, Ryel had lashed forward; and all at once
a great jet of blood burst from the base of Edris’ throat, and he
sank to the ground, clutching both hands against the gush.
Nerveless
with horror, Ryel dropped to his knees at Edris’ side.
“Ithradrakis—”
Edris tried to speak, but no
sound came save a horrible wordless rasp as he clutched at the wound.
Steaming in the cold, blood welled up between his fingers, spilled
down his chest, drained the bright battle-flush from his face.
Ryel forced his kinsman’s
hands away, replacing them with his own. The hot blood pulsed under
his desperate palms, leaving no time for anything but as many words
of Mastery as he could remember and rattle off lesson-like, terrified
lest none of them should work, knowing that he had no right to utter
any of them, that they were many levels above his learning, yet
knowing too that any mortal art was more useless still. And with
those words he mingled others of his own making, desperate mantras
never learned from books, but surging forth from that hidden place
within where his secret strength lay.
Only
when his tears trickled into his mouth-corners and made him gag did
he realize he was crying. He could smell Edris’ blood, there was so
much of it—a metallic savor of rust—and the fear-soured reek of
his own body; feel the chill damp stones gritting his bare knees, the
raw mist-laden wind freezing his face. Under his encircling arm Edris
was slipping, growing limp.
You can’t,
Ryel thought, all his own blood panicking. Not
this way.
Edris’ head lolled heavily
against Ryel’s shoulder, its eyes shut hard, its lips snarled in a
lifeless grimace.
No,
Ryel thought. Not
while I live.
And scorning that life he Art-willed his strength into Edris’ dying
body, uttering each word with such fevered concentration that when he
fell silent he could barely breathe for exhaustion. But his kinsman
remained motionless.
“Gone,”
Ryel whispered brokenly. “Gone—” he closed his own eyes, sick
with desolation. In his heartbreak he began to make the keening moan
uttered by the Rismai in their worst despair as he rocked back and
forth cradling his kinsman’s dead weight, a mourning-cry he’d
forgotten for years.
But in that torturing moment
he felt a stinging pat across his cheek as startling as a full-fisted
blow, and Edris’ heavy inert body give an impatient twitch. Ryel
started, looked down, cried out. Edris’ long dark eyes were open
and gleaming, and his wide mouth grinned, and his deep voice mocked.
“In
the name of All, quit squealing, brat. And hold still.”
Ryel had already frozen. He
was mute as well, but Edris didn’t appear to notice.
“Not
bad Mastery, whelp. Presumptuous, dangerous, and stupid, but good of
its kind.”
Ryel felt as weak as if half
his own blood had been drawn. He couldn’t speak, and didn’t want
to cry anymore, had no reason to now, yet the tears still fell. And
for the first time in their lives together he felt Edris embrace him
and hold him close, making him sob all the more.
“Shh.
Quiet down, lad.” Edris’ long fingers raked Ryel’s black locks,
and his lips touched the thudding wet-haired fever just above Ryel’s
left ear. “Well done. First kill me, which so many have tried to do
and failed, and then bring me back. Clever work.”
Ryel heard his voice leap
and crack. “Forgive me.”
“Hah.
Not in a hurry I won’t. You had to resort to the Art to give me
that cut—an unfair advantage.”
“Treacherous,
you mean,” Ryel muttered. “I despise myself.”
Edris shook his head.
“Don’t. I asked for it. I wanted to see how good you were in all
your skill, Art and swordplay both. You’re an indifferent fighter,
but I’ll have to admit you’re turning into a pretty fair wysard.”
Ryel felt his breath coming
fast. “You mean you let me wound you?”
Edris shrugged. “It didn’t
hurt that much.”
“But
my uncle. The cut was mortal.”
Edris gave a laugh. “Damned
right it was. I’d have died had your Mastery been less.”
Ryel trembled. “You’d
not have saved yourself?”
“I’m
not sure I could have, lad.” He gave Ryel an impatient shake. “Quit
sniveling. It’s unmanly.”
Ryel
quieted, and for some minutes he and Edris rested against each other
on the courtyard flagstones. Ah,
ithradrakis,
Ryel thought as he rubbed his wet cheek against the gore-stiffened
hair of Edris’ chest. How
could I love you with my entire heart, and nearly kill you—
“You’re
shivering,” Edris said. “It’s raw out here, and our sweat’s
grown cold and we’re reeking dirty. Come on.” He got to his feet,
and pulled Ryel to his.
Ryel stared at the place
he’d cut. “Are you in pain?”
Edris considered a moment.
“Not much. Hardly at all.”
“There’s
a scar.”
Edris fingered the place
where he’d bled. “Aye. A good big one.” He wiped his hands on
his clothes. “What was that name you called me? The Almancarian
one.”
Ryel bit his lip.
“Ithradrakis.”
Edris seemed not to hear as
he threw his cloak about him. “I need a drink of something strong.
Come on.” And he strode away, but Ryel watched him long before he
followed.
*****
Later that night, after he
had returned to his house and calmed his thoughts with a long hot
bath and steadying meditation, Ryel dressed in fresh robes and
settled in to study for the night. He had chosen one of the Books of
the First that gave the histories of the Builders of Markul, his
curiosity whetted by words Edris had let fall before their duel.
There in his conjuring-room,
as he read by lamplight during that endless interval between midnight
and dawn, he felt it—a stirring not of the air, but of something
beyond the air. It was wordless, yet it commanded him. Never before
had he been summoned to his Glass; Lord Aubrel’s Glass it had been,
large and richly framed, hidden behind a dark curtain broidered with
arcane symbols in silver and gold. Ryel had always kept it tightly
closed, but now he slowly crossed the room and drew aside the velvet
drapery.
At length a shadow floated
over the Glass, and fixed there; and the shape’s darkness took form
bit by bit, as if some unseen artist were painting an image upon the
matte silver surface. It began with the hair—startling hair of deep
blood-red, that spilled in thick skeins to broad shoulders. The body
next appeared, to the waist; a strong form clad not in wysard robes
but a black jacket such as Northern soldiers wore, with silver
insignia denoting an officer of high rank. The top buttons of the
jacket’s high collar were loosened as if for the wearer’s ease,
but as if cognizant of Ryel’s scrutiny the form’s hand reached up
and fastened them as the face filled in, starting with the eyes.
Those eyes would haunt
Ryel’s thoughts forever after. Never had he seen a regard more
cold, so icy that he caught his breath at it: eyes of pale gray,
wolfish and utterly unreadable under level lowering brows. The rest
of the face was forcefully handsome in a harsh, abruptly planed way,
every feature firm and unyielding. Ryel could not imagine that face
smiling, save in scorn; and even now the fine lips twitched, parting
to reveal teeth fiercely white, and a voice like deep still music
issued, akin to a great bell tolling at a far distance.
“So.
Ryel Mirai.”
Ryel inclined his head, but
just barely. He knew well with whom he spoke, and his Steppes blood
quickened in his veins, and his hand clenched at his side as if
around the hilt of a sword. “From all seemings, I address Lord
Michael of Elecambron. What would you want of me?”
“Only
to view for myself the boy wonder all the Brotherhood speaks of. How
old are you?”
“Five.
Nineteen, in World-years.”
Michael’s face made a
brief contortion of contempt. “My World-years number twenty-seven.
I’ve dwelt in this ice-hell for six of them.”
Ryel felt a twinge of pride.
“Then you’re only a year older than me, in Art-reckoning. That
isn’t much.”
Michael grunted disdain. “I
came here with well-trained wits and a battle-hardened body, studied
the Art with my entire attention and almost no sleep, and didn’t
throw my time away as I’ve heard you do.”
Ryel bristled. “And how
might you have come by that knowledge, Lord Michael?”
The red wysard waved away
Ryel’s words with offhand scorn. “I have my ways. I also know how
the Art found you. But if you think your little romp in the rain and
bit of a shock impressed me, think again. I was thrown alive into my
grave, Steppes gypsy. Stripped naked, smeared with pitch, bound with
chains, and tossed into a hole full of fire.” He made a noise
probably meant to be a laugh. “The Hrwalri didn’t like the color
of my hair, perhaps…not that they’re ever gentle with their
prisoners.”
Ryel thought of that fate,
and shivered. “You were a captive of the White Barbarians?”
“Aye,
a roving band of them. It was during the Barrier Wars. I don’t
think the savages expected me to crawl out of that pit unscathed, any
more than they could have imagined the death I dealt them afterward.”
His wolf-eyes prowled over every feature of Ryel’s face. “My
Art’s strength dates from that time. And my strength is greater
than yours, boy. Far greater, even if I chose Elecambron instead of
my forebear’s City. I have the blood of the First in my veins.”
Ryel blinked. “How is that
possible?”
Michael’s cold stare moved
past Ryel and fixed on the open book on the wysard’s desk. “Keep
reading that and you’ll find out.” He fell silent awhile, his
eyes brooding. “An accursed line it’s been; high time it ended.
My brother and I have made a pact to be the last.” He reached up,
thrusting back his strange hair as his teeth clenched in evident
pain. “Enough of this. I wanted to see you, and I have.”
“Wait.”
Ryel hardly knew what to say next, or how to say it. He’d suddenly
realized how much he’d missed talking to someone close to his own
age, and past Michael’s truculence he sensed a kindred isolation.
“If you ever wish to speak with me again, my lord brother, I’d be
honored.”
Michael grimaced, his face
taut. “I’ve nothing more to say to you.”
“You
seem to be suffering. I have some skill in healing, and if you
would…”
“Let
me be, damn you.”
Stung and angered, Ryel
would have replied, but the red wysard growled a word of dismissal
and his image faded into blackness.
When Ryel had regained his
composure, which took some time, he read further in the history he’d
begun, and learned to his amazement that Michael Essern was indeed a
lineal descendant of Lord Aubrel D’Sern, one of the most famed of
the First and Highest. Aubrel’s family had ruled in the North many
centuries gone, and as an eldest son Aubrel was marked for kingship;
but the Art called him to Markul. And for a long time he and the
other First Ones dwelt there harmoniously together, studying and
working the Mastery; but then Aubrel unwisely sought to explore the
boundaries between life and death. He survived the Crossing, but
returned infected with the malignant energy of the Outer World. It
drove him mad, and among his many acts of insanity he forced and
violated one of the wysardesses, Fleurie of Ralnahr.
She conceived by him, and
was counseled by the Brotherhood to take drugs to end the pregnancy;
but Markulit training and her own inner convictions would not permit
her to go against the service of life. She left the City and made her
way North, where Aubrel’s family took her in and cared for her.
Despite their every precaution, the birth killed her; but her son
grew to manhood, carrying his father’s infection in his veins, with
his outward form likewise tainted—colored strangely, blood-red of
hair and unnaturally pale of skin. He too died mad, but not before
marrying and begetting. From that time daimonic sickness established
itself among the male Esserns of the direct line. The unfortunates
who carried the curse invariably died raving witless after lives of
unremitting pain—short lives, mercifully, but not too short to
preclude procreation.
*****
“A
terrible legacy,” Ryel murmured, recalling yet again that encounter
from years past. “We never met again, and now you are out in the
World…perhaps lured by the same entity whose voice gives me no
peace.”
I
learned so much here,
Ryel thought as that memory, like the others, trailed away into the
mists. All
of my kinsman’s skill in battle, which was great, I learned as well
as I could. All of his Art, which was greater. And it has made me
strong, stronger than anyone in this City; but what good to measure
my strength against the nerveless impotence of these creeping
dotards? And what good to have learned the surgeon’s art to no
purpose, practicing on corpses? To have a birther’s skill in this
childless place? To know all the mysteries of pleasure—for I have
learned them, as thoroughly as any amorist—and never hold a woman
in my arms?
That last thought made him
clasp his knees more tightly, and press his forehead against them
until pain came to match that of his next memory.
Something like a woman I
indeed embraced, that very night after my duel with Edris—a
creature more beautiful than any woman alive could hope to be…which
should have put me on my guard. But I had been hot with the knowledge
of my strength, and restless with hungers I had no name for, and—
He forced his thoughts away
from the memory of that night, but only to remember other beauty,
real and breathing beneath its jeweled mask and diaphanous silk.
Tormented, he hugged his knees harder, and ground his forehead
against them until he winced as much from his body’s pain as his
mind’s; and his memories drifted again, becoming part of the chill
mists enveloping the City’s dark walls.
*****
He was, by Markulit
reckoning, six years old; twenty more by World-count.
“You
called me.”
Often had Edris
srih-summoned Ryel to his conjuring-room, to impart some bit of lore
or other. But now for the first time he drew aside the curtain that
veiled his Glass. “Look hard here, whelp.”
The black matte surface of
the Glass shimmered and lightened. The world it disclosed, endless
green and blue, made Ryel’s heart leap. “Risma,” he whispered
with a pang of longing; but in another moment he felt unease. Many
times in his loneliness he had been tempted to make use of Edris’
Glass to look again on his mother, sister and friends, but Edris had
strictly forbidden him. When he spoke again, he was unable to keep a
hint of reproach from his voice.
“Kinsman,
you always told me that a Glass is not meant to be used to view the
World.”
“True,”
Edris replied with an offhand nod. “The Glass is for communication
with others of our kind, and—in the old days when the First
lived—for scrying into the future, or trying to. Nothing else.”
“Then
why—”
Edris indicated the Glass
again. “Look. You know that man, I think.”
Ryel looked, and saw a
cavalcade of horsemen riding at an easy pace over a great sweep of
flower-spangled grassland. The leader caught the eye and held it—a
tall man of some sixty years, with features most purely Almancarian,
dressed Steppes-wise in riding-gear of silk and gold; a man whose
eyes were like sky-colored jewels in his sun-dusked face, whose hair
streamed in black and silver almost to his belt, whose slim figure
had not yielded an inch to age; a man freely and unconsciously regal.
“I’ve
never forgotten him,” Ryel said, feeling his blood warm and quicken
as he spoke. “Mycenas Dranthene, brother to the Sovran Agenor. He
came to Risma when I was thirteen, and watched me during the races at
the horse-fair, and gave me my dagger.”
Edris’ voice held a grin,
one Ryel didn’t like. “Maybe you recall the rumors about your
grandmother Ysandra.”
Ryel shook his head
vehemently. “I’ll never believe them. They dishonor our house.”
“Hah.
Spoken like a true Steppes lout. That hearsay would make the Sovranet
your kin, and you an heir to the Dranthene dynasty, albeit by many a
remove.”
Ryel’s blue eyes flashed.
“It’s a vile lie.”
“Calm,
lad. Calm. Many in the World would give their skin to belong to the
imperial house of Destimar, however left-handedly.”
“I’m
not in the World. Remember?” Ignoring his kinsman, Ryel studied
Mycenas and his entourage and their wonderful horses. But then his
eyes fixed on one sight alone. “Tell me who that boy is, riding
next to the Sovranet.”
Edris seemed surprised.
“Boy? What—ah, I see who you mean. I don’t know, whelp. One of
Mycenas’ servants, probably. Some page or other.”
“He’s
dressed too well for that.”
Edris
grinned, all too meaningly. “Maybe he’s a special favorite—very
special.
Maybe the Sovranet’s tastes run to...”
“Don’t
say it.” Ryel waved away the enormity of the implication,
furiously. He’d discovered the truth, to his infinite relief. “It’s
not a boy, but a girl.”
“Ah.
Really. Enlighten me as to what makes you so sure, whelp.”
“Her
hair. It touches her saddle-bow, and some of it’s in braids. Braids
with jewels in them.”
Edris gave a great bay of a
laugh. “And what about those beckoning curves in her shirt and her
breeches? Don’t tell me you didn’t see them.”
Ryel had. But he’d never
let Edris know.
“I’ll
give the little wench this—she knows how to ride.”
Ryel nodded full assent at
Edris’ observation. She was admirably firm in the saddle, this
girl—firm and supple and fearless. Overly fearless.
“That’s
too much horse for her,” Ryel frowned.
“I
have to agree,” Edris said. “Those Fang’an geldings are as wild
as full-stoned stallions. Mycenas should know better than to put his
own niece in such danger.”
Ryel’s
eyes widened. “Niece?”
As if that word were a
malign spell, the horse curvetted and reared. A great outcry went up
among Mycenas’ entourage, and all rushed to the girl’s rescue,
but she kept tight in the saddle and impatiently waved away every
offer of help. The animal at last calmed, and the ride resumed.
“Strong
legs for a lass so young,” Edris said, coolly approving. “And
that Steppes rig shows them off uncommonly well, wouldn’t you say?”
Ryel ignored the question.
“She was afraid,” he said. “I could see it. But her pride was
even greater than her fear.”
“The
Dranthene are notable for pride, if nothing else.”
At that remark Ryel turned
about to accuse his kinsman. “You knew who she was. You knew all
along.”
Edris gave a bare nod. “And
now you do, finally. About time you had a sight of the peerless
Diara, old Agenor’s daughter. She’s visited Risma every year in
Mycenas’ company since she was twelve. She’s sixteen now.”
Ryel felt a surge of regret
and anger. “She and I could have met, had I never come to Markul.”
“No
doubt you would have,” Edris tranquilly agreed. “And you’d have
been an ignorant churl stinking of stable-reek, and she’d have
passed you by without a second glance. As it is—”
“As
it is I’m buried here,” Ryel muttered. He yanked the curtain over
the Glass, covering the image. “I didn’t need reminders.” And
he would have left the room, very swiftly, had not Edris blocked the
way.
“I
didn’t show you the Dranthene princess to torture you, whelp—much
though you may enjoy thinking so.”
“Then
why?”
“As
with everything else I show you. For your instruction.”
Ryel eyed his uncle
bitterly. “And what have you taught me, except to prove yet again
that I’m a prisoner here? I’ve been living in cold fog for half
my life almost, but it’s springtime in the World. The Steppes are
covered with flowers, and the sun is shining down on them, and a
beautiful girl I’ll never know is riding through those flowers,
under that sun. And laughing. I haven’t laughed since I came to
Markul, not once—but you wouldn’t have noticed.”
This Ryel said and much
more, as his kinsman stood listening with remarkable patience. When
he’d at last made an end, Edris calmly enjoyed the silence awhile
before speaking.
“Well,
brat. I can’t say it hasn’t been hard for you—and it’s going
to get harder, believe me. But if it’s any comfort, you’re very
likely not destined to end your days within these walls.”
“You’ve
said that before. Why not tell me what you mean?”
“You’ll
learn.”
Ryel had heard those two
words endless times during his years in Markul—long years full of
danger and cold and, very often, pain. He felt anger rising in him,
furious resentful rage, but the emotion was so familiar that he
despised it.
“I’m
going to try the Crossing,” he said.
Edris showed no sign of
interest. “Oh. Really. When?”
“You’ll
learn.” And Ryel flung out of the room, expecting Edris’ jeers to
embed his back like flung knives. But he heard nothing, and his
door-slam resonated in the hollow of utmost emptiness.
*****
The wysard’s musings
ranged far until a light hand on his shoulder made him start, even as
a voice he loved calmed him again. Once again he was at his window on
the wall, dressed in ripped mourning, his head shaven. But his sorrow
now had a sharer, and he reached up to clasp those gentle fingers.
“Lost
in dreams you looked, young brother.”
Lady
Serah Dalkith stood at his side gazing down at him, her face
unflinchingly kind. “Knock though I might, you heard naught. But I
made bold to enter—all the easier since your door’s never
locked.”
“Never
against you, my lady sister. I’m glad of your coming.” The wysard
took her cloak and uttered a command-tongue to the air, and instantly
a laden tray appeared at his side, with wine and the sweet delicacies
in precious vessels of crystal and gold.
“Always
the courtly host.” Lady Serah took a savoring sip of the wine, and
reached for one of the dainties on the tray. “Never do I eat these
almond-apricot things except when I’m with you. What are they
called again?”
“Lakh.
They’re Steppes sweets. I never got enough of them, when I was
little.”
“And
do you get enough now?”
“Not
really. No skill, no matter how magical, can equal that of my
mother’s hands.”
Together they gazed
companionably out at the mist as they enjoyed the wine and sweets,
and the heady Ghizlan vintage—the most excellent obtainable, as one
might expect to be offered by a srih-servant—brought on more
memories.
“Yon’s
the frock I threw off twenty years gone,” the wysardess said,
pointing a smooth bejeweled forefinger at one of the cloth-heaps
beyond the wall. “Purple silk and gold embroidery still unfaded and
untarnished. And I could still fit into it, I do assure you, were I
to wear it now.”
“It’d
become you well,” Ryel said, again admiring Lady Serah’s Northern
looks—beauty tall and fine-boned, hair like a fox’s pelt thrown
back from a high forehead and hanging over strong shoulders. The pelt
had silvered along the temples, but the lady’s form retained its
slender elegance, even as her face kept its bold hard beauty, its
vivid lips and brows. Instead of wysard robes she favored elegant
gowns cut in the Northern style, fitted to the body down to the
ornately belted waist, thence flowing in folds to the ground, in deep
colors and rich tissues. Today’s was midnight velvet and crimson
brocade. “You seem not to have aged since you left the World,
sister.”
Lady Serah gave that little
shrug of hers, that ironic smile. “The Art is kind to women.” She
rested her arms on her knees, her chin on her arms. “Even now, so
many years away, I well recall the nights I spent with men who loved
me; the children I birthed and suckled, the mountains I lived among.
But life is sweeter, here where the flesh has no hold on me. Here
where I can weigh and consider the causes and purposes of existence,
and look into what might come after.”
Ryel had always enjoyed the
lilting tang of Lady Serah’s voice, its Northern nuances—the long
slide of the vowels, the clipped gerunds, the burry r’s, the quaint
inversions. Whenever he heard it he envisioned places he had never
seen save in books and dreams—Serah’s native island of Wycast,
and its neighbors Ralnahr and Hryeland—cold lands of rough
moss-grown crags, towering pines and aspens, snow-fed streams and
waterfalls, wide skies of deepest blue and white-feathered clouds. To
hear more of it he said, “Among all the talk we’ve shared, my
sister, I wonder that I never asked what brought you to Markul.”
She gazed out deep into the
mists of the air. “The World drove me. Forty-five of its years had
I numbered. My children were either grown or dead, my lovers and my
husbands were all of them either dead or gone from me; the World’s
way had I lived, without a thought. And then I felt the Art stir
within me like a quickening babe, and came here to give birth to that
new life.” She gave a sly little laugh. “Greatly abashed you
looked when you stripped before the gates—even now you blush at my
mention of it. But I felt no shame when I disrobed, far from it.
Proud was I of my body, in those days; and I well remember how the
City flocked atop the walls to look upon me.”
Ryel smiled. “I’m sorry
I wasn’t here to witness that.” He offered his guest more wine,
which she accepted willingly; but after a sip she set down her glass.
“As
I said, brother, you greet your guests with Steppes courtesy; and
like a true bannerman of Risma you would never think of asking me the
reason for my visit. But do you not wonder? All the more since I know
the ways of your grassland home, that mourns in seclusion?”
Ryel shook his head. “We
have been friends a dozen years, Lady Serah. I know you well enough
to understand that when you speak of detachment, you are usually
agitated within; and I also know that you will sooner or later tell
me why.”
“Well,
the truth is that I myself had a visitor today.”
“An
unwelcome one, it would seem.”
“Srin
Yan Tai it was,” Serah replied slowly. “She called me to my Glass
this morning—rather earlier than I prefer. ’Twas of you we
spoke.”
Ryel had heard much of Srin
Yan Tai over the years, from Lady Serah and others. Lady Srin had
come from the Kugglaitai Steppes to Markul, but had left the City
many years past to dwell in the mountains overlooking Almancar. “How
could she know me?” he asked. “We never met.”
“All
your life she has known you,” Serah answered. “She charged me to
give you a message.”
Ryel waited, then prompted.
“And what was it, sister?”
After another silence Serah
replied. “Often she and Edris would confer together, when she dwelt
in this City; they shared a bond wrought deep, of kindred lands and
customs and language. After she departed and you found your way here,
he would speak with her through his Glass, asking advice on how best
to deal with you. She now wishes to see how you have grown up…and
to learn what you experienced during the Crossing.”
“I
remember nothing of it, sister.”
“Recall
it now.” Serah reached into the pouch at her belt, taking out a
malachite vial, and sprinkled some powder from the vial into her
palm. “Here. Breathe of this.”
Ryel wet his finger, touched
it to the powder, tasted; recoiled. “But this is quiabintha.”
“It
is strong, but you are stronger,” Serah said, quietly urgent. “Put
your trust in me. You know I would never harm you, dear my brother.
Breathe.”
Warm it was within the great
curve of the window, snug and dry behind the glass as chill rain fell
upon the barren land; silent save for the rain’s fall. Safe. Ryel
bent to Serah’s smooth fair palm, and inhaled deeply; closed his
eyes, tensing against the shock he knew must come.
Used as he was to
quiabintha, having learned its power early in his study of the Art,
he trembled as it snaked through his veins. “I have always loathed
and distrusted this drug,” he said; and his voice seemed as far as
the stars. “Only xantal is more vicious.”
Lady Serah’s voice seemed
to come from the same immense distance. “Do not think of the drug.
Are you ready?”
Quiabintha was quick.
Already Ryel felt its hold upon his mind and body, accelerating his
heartbeat and his thoughts. “Direct me,” he said. “I am
sightless until you lead.”
“Good.
Go back.”
“How
far?”
“Drift,”
Serah intoned, soothingly. “Drift until I stop you.”
Ryel stared out at the rain,
seeing nothing but gray emptiness as his memory slid away minute by
hour by year; time felt like a skin that his being slipped free of as
he moved ever backward.
Lady Serah’s voice
whispered like rain. “You are being born; you are before the walls
of Markul, naked as the moment you pushed out of your mother’s
womb.”
“I
am there,” Ryel said, marveling and dazed.
“As
am I, watching you,” Serah replied from someplace incredibly
distant. “Tell me what you see.”
“Edris
has opened the gates. Has come to me, stands at my side.” Ryel drew
a sudden breath, his heart quickening. “He’s pulling my hair.”
How
real it seems,
he thought. To
be here, and yet there; to be so cleanly divided, yet so completely
whole.
Serah’s voice seemed to
echo from afar. “Move through the gates, and deeper into the years.
Now you are no longer a boy, but a man, and more learned in the Art
than anyone alive in Markul. You have chosen the Mastery of Nilandor
for your Crossing spell.”
“Yes.
It is the quickest.” Fire leapt in the hearth of his house that had
been Lord Aubrel’s, and nearby a table stood ready with the things
needful for the coming ordeal. “I am there.”
“Enter
that place again. The emptiness.”
Sudden darkness enclosed
him, cold and opaque and seamless. “I cannot.”
“Only
try, brother.”
Urged by her pleading he
felt the glass, uselessly pushing. “I am trying with all my power,
sister.”
“Surely
you must sense something.”
Ryel quit fighting the
darkness, and instead pressed the lids of his lightless eyes with the
heels of his hands, drawing a weary quiabintha-drained breath.
“Nothing.” He opened his eyes to the warm familiar window-nook,
the gray rainy light, Serah’s intent concern. “It’s gone from
me. All I can remember is losing consciousness, and regaining it to
find you telling me that Edris had died giving his life for mine. And
then I believe I went mad for a time, until you healed me. Often I
wish you had not, my lady; very often, these days.”
Serah did not reply, but
took another vial from the bag at her belt, this one full of liquid.
When she removed its stopper, the fragrance of celorn made Ryel reach
for the little bottle, impatient for its deliverance.
“Only
a taste or two, brother. ’Tis potent essence, and will work
quickly.”
“Thank
all the gods.” Ryel drank, and almost at once felt the quiabintha’s
harsh grip on his mind first relax, then dissipate. As he closed his
eyes in gratitude, he felt Serah’s gentle hands on either side of
his head, and he leaned slightly forward, resting in her touch. “And
thank you, sister.”
“You
suffered much, dear brother.”
Ryel tried to swallow;
snagged on his dry throat. “I suffer more, now. It is an
everlasting shame to me. That I should have labored so hard, and in
vain; spent months in readiness, and risked my life to seek the
boundaries of death, only to come back empty. Worse than empty—bereft
of one dearer to me than father, whose greatness in the Art would
have far surpassed my own.”
Serah’s voice was always
soothing, always like music he loved, but never more than now. “Lord
Edris had been my friend from the moment we met. Often would he come
to my house, and we would speak of you. Difficult enough it is to
live in this City after passing one’s prime, but for a young lad it
is harder yet, and for a lad on the edge of manhood it needs must be
not only hard, but perilous.” She hesitated. “He told me about
the succubus that tempted you in your fifth year.”
Shamed blood burnt Ryel’s
cheeks. “I’ve tried very hard to forget that.”
“Nor
would I have spoken of it, but Srin Yan Tai suspects that the
creature was sent by none other than that hell-born miscreant Dagar
Rall…even as she believes that Dagar is responsible for the death
of Edris.”
Ryel
could not speak for a long time, and when he did it came out raw.
“But Serah, that cannot be. Dagar died long ago.” As he spoke, he
saw again Kjal’s lipless, hideous face, speaking the same
impossibility.
“His
body indeed perished, and horribly as was fitting. But Lady Srin most
adamantly maintains that his rai now dwells disincarnate yet vitally
malignant, in that chartless realm too terrible for you to now
remember. She believes that in these secret reaches Dagar’s power
is great, and is steadily increased by the energy it robs and takes
unto itself from those emanations we of the brotherhood harness for
our daily use. She is sure that Dagar is the cause of the decline of
our powers, and I am persuaded she is right. Furious and vengeful
Dagar ever was; and if he continues to draw its power from the Outer
World, I tremble for what might be.”
Ryel licked dry lips. “You
once told me that Srin Yan Tai was eccentric, and given to wild
imaginings. What can there be to fear, with Dagar trapped and
disembodied?”
“Much,
according to Lady Srin,” Lady Serah answered. “Much that she
would not tell me, saying it was meant for your ears alone.”
“Then
I will find her through my Glass, and speak with her,” Ryel said.
Serah contradicted him with
a shake of her fox-haired head. “You’ll not succeed. Quite
insistent she was that she would have a face to face encounter with
you or nothing.”
Ryel recalled the invasive
unknown voice, the vision of Almancar…and the daimon temptress of
his fifth year. He reached for Edris’ cloak that lay near, drawing
its warm scarlet cloth over his shoulders. “Then Lady Srin will
have to meet me here. I will never leave Markul.”
“Not
even were it for the sake of the fair Sovrena of Destimar?”
”Least
of all for her.” He would not remember. Not so much as a
jewel-gleam, an eye-glint. “It would take more than a woman to draw
me from my City. I will never return to the World.”
Serah shook her head, her
copper-tinted lids brooding over her beryl-green gaze, her face
somber. “If Dagar seeks ways to afflict that World again, you might
find yourself choiceless, young brother.”
Ryel stared at her. “Why
do you say that?”
“I
leave the explanation to Srin Yan Tai. Nay, no protestations; and I
will now depart, and leave you in peace. Time you require to consider
the matter of our talk.” She rose to her feet in a soft midnight
rustle of flowing skirts. “Might I visit you again? Fear not, we’ll
speak only of trifles, I promise.”
“Since
I have no intention of leaving, come whenever you wish, my lady
sister.” He stood too. “Your visit was a comfort to me. I thank
you for it.” Taking both her hands, he bent and pressed his brow
against their smooth backs.
“I’ll
miss you,” Serah said, her voice a whisper. “We’ll all miss
you…”
She departed swiftly, and
for a long while Ryel contemplated the door she’d closed after her;
but then he turned back to the mist, and reached for his empty
goblet.
“Again,”
he said in the command-tongue, and watched as the rich vintage welled
up from the whorled crystal stem like a ruby spring, dark and
fragrant. Seldom if ever did the wysard drink more than a single
glass of wine at a time, but his conversation with Lady Serah had
been taxing, coming so soon after his far less cordial talk with
Kjal. Unwillingly he remembered what he knew of Dagar Rall.
It was said that Dagar’s
very birth was in death—begotten of fatal forbidden lust in
Elecambron, by a wysard spirit-slain at the moment of climax, and a
sorceress daimon-butchered in her third month of pregnancy. Born a
miscarried half-formed fetus Dagar was, to be reared by srihs, during
those disordered terrible times so many centuries ago; born to live
and thrive against all odds, and to work every evil within his power.
And for a long time he worked evil; for a century and more, during
which time his beauty never altered, but stayed that of a youth
divinely fair. He was Elecambron’s scourge, his tyranny cruel and
ceaseless until at last the entire population of the City combined
all their Art to slay him, lest he escape into the World and afflict
it to annihilation. Dagar had summoned the daimonic legions of the
Outer World in retaliation, and the savagery of the ensuing battle
rocked Elecambron to its icy foundations; the echoes of it made even
the walls of Markul quiver. Many great adepts of Elecambron had died
in that struggle to protect the World they had forsaken forever. It
had been a noble sacrifice, one that Markul remembered with greatest
respect.
“Dagar,”
Ryel murmured, the name bitter on his lips. “Dagar, most beautiful
and most base. He that no wysard of any City dared or deigned to call
brother.” You
died, monster,
he thought.
There’s nothing left of you. Kjal, poor eunuch, has lost what’s
left of his mind, up in that white hell of frost and ice.
He lifted his glass to his
lips, and drank to dispel those vile imaginings. But all at once he
was aware of a sudden oppression of the atmosphere, a stifling
heaviness of the air. He fully expected the ever-intrusive voice to
torment him yet again, but then he heard a sigh—not the voice’s,
but a woman’s, and not within his head, but behind him. Ryel
turned, and stared, and felt his fingers freeze around the goblet’s
bell. His unmoving lips whispered a word he had not used in a dozen
years.
“Silestra?”
A woman attired in a gown of
Almancarian fashion, her heavy black hair falling in mingled tresses
and plaits almost to her waist, stood in the middle of the room—a
woman neither old nor young, and agelessly beautiful.
Ryel leapt up, heedless of
the goblet’s crash. Although a dozen years had passed, he knew the
one he beheld, scarcely changed since the day he had left Risma. But
surely his mother would never have stood thus unseeing, unresponsive
to his voice.
Ryel dropped to his knees.
“My lady mother. I implore you to speak to me.”
She did not reply, nor even
look his way. Instead she paced distraught to and fro, clutching her
body with both arms as if entranced with grief and pain. Then she
caught sight of the wysard’s unveiled Glass in the other room. As
if gathering her resolution with great effort she swiftly approached
it. Ryel rose and followed, knowing now that it was useless to call
her.
Mira Stradianis Yorganara
stared into the Glass, and to Ryel’s astonishment her reflection
stared back. Ever keeping her eyes on the mirrored image’s, she
flung back her hair and began one by one to rip away the brooches
that fastened the front of her gown. Then with a desperate wrench she
tore apart the silken cloth. Ryel would have instantly looked away,
having never forgotten the Steppes law that demanded death from any
grown man who laid eyes on his mother’s nakedness. But the horror
revealed in that first eyeblink held him appalled. Next to the
reflection’s perfect right breast hung a bruised bagful of pus,
livid and foul. Ryel cried out in horror at the sight, but his mother
did not turn around. She only stared into the mirror, her beautiful
face now drawn and pale, her dry lips trembling. Then she hid her
face in her hands, and vanished.
The wysard stood numbed,
incapable of movement, crushed by the atmosphere’s weight.
“You
caused this,” he whispered into the stifling air. “You wrought
this lie.” And he waited in silence, but not for long.
I
do not lie,
the hated voice smoothly said. The
woman’s cancered. As you might have noted, she’s far beyond the
skill of any doctor—but perhaps not beyond the Art of the greatest
wysard of Markul. The greatest living, I should say.
Ryel remembered what Kjal of
Elecambron had imparted to him; remembered, and forgot to breathe.
“Tell me your name, daimon.”
The
voice laughed at him.
Patience, sweet eyes. Rather than rudely questioning, you should
thank me for giving you the chance to reach your mama in time. The
woman has, from the looks of her, a month of life left.
Ryel could hardly speak,
stifled with the heaviness of the air and the still greater burden of
his anger. “I scorn this ploy of yours, whatever you are.”
As
you wish,
the voice drawlingly replied. For
my own part, I hardly care whether the woman lives or dies. You’ve
already been the death of he that you so cloyingly called
ithradrakis, dearer than father; now’s your mother’s turn.
Never had Ryel felt so
helplessly enraged. “Go and be damned, slave of darkness!” he
shouted. As if in complete obedience the air lightened, and he was
again able to breathe freely. Drawing a starved draught of air, he
sank down in front of the Glass, that now reflected nothing.
He had never used his Glass
save in service of the Art, lest his powers weaken through contact
with the World. Always it was Edris who had sought to view the World,
and who would later tell Ryel what he had seen. But Edris was dead.
I
will prove you a liar, thing of shadow,
Ryel thought; and aloud he said, “Risma, the banner of the Triple
Star. The yat of Mira, my mother.”
The surface of the glass
shimmered and dissolved, until it seemed that Ryel looked through a
window into a circular chamber walled in thick hangings covered with
embroidered designs. On the low bed a woman lay—the same woman he
had seen before his Glass, in the same gown, her face drawn with the
same torment. At her side another woman knelt, an old woman with her
gray braids straggling from a scarf.
“Anthea,”
Ryel whispered. “My mother’s nurse, still alive.”
“Poor
lamb,” the crone said in a voice that quavered even more with tears
than with age, “I cannot bear to give you pain, but your dressing
must be changed.” And she gently began to unfasten the front of
Mira’s gown.
“No,”
Ryel whispered. But he kept his eyes fixed on the scene within the
Glass, his hands clenched on either side of the frame.
Mira gave a desperate gasp
despite the old woman’s tenderness; and in a throe of agony she
twitched away, and the bodice of her gown fell open.
Ryel cried out furious
denial, but nothing lessened the horror of his mother’s affliction,
more loathsome to his sight even than before. Sickened and stunned,
the wysard turned away; and when he at last regained the strength to
look back, the image in the Glass had vanished.
“Was
this another ruse of yours, shadow-monster?” Ryel shouted to the
air. But nothing answered him; and he beat his fists against the
steely surface of the unreflecting Glass, his eyes burning like red
fire, until he was bruised and breathless.
“I
can’t lose you, too,” he whispered. “I will not.”
He
had felt guilty sorrow two years before, when he had learned of
Yorganar’s death—a death such as every Steppes bannerman prayed
for, swift and without suffering and in the full accomplishment of
his years, his neck cleanly broken by a throw from an overspirited
horse. For Edris he had shrieked and thrashed until Lady Serah came
to rub his temples with oil of mandragora, uttering frantic spells
until he finally quieted and slept. And if his mother were indeed
sick, and died through his neglect, he would not be able to survive
his grief. “It will kill me,” he whispered.
The air thickened and
slowed.
Such
extravagance of sorrow,
the hated voice sneered. Such
filial devotion. Your mama would be proud.
Furious, Ryel did not reply,
but leapt to his feet and went to his bedchamber. The voice pursued
him, teasingly.
Ah, we are angry. We
refuse to speak.
Ryel clenched his teeth, and
stared into his mirror, and muttered a word. At once his shaven head
began to darken, covering itself with thick hair, straight and black.
When the hair reached well past his shoulders, Ryel said another word
that stopped the growth.
Very
good indeed, young blood,
the voice cooed. Much
better.
Still ignoring the voice,
Ryel uttered a word that faintly bearded his smooth face.
Excellent,
breathed the voice. Most
virile. Why this charming metamorphosis?
“You
know why.”
Where will you travel?
“You
know where.”
The
voice grew cloyingly, mockingly sweet.
The Aqqar is wide, and Risma far. You may not get to your dear mama
in time. But I could help you. I can—
Ryel spat at the Glass. “You
can go back to the hell you came from. I won’t need your help.”
A laugh, hysterical and
shrill. Then the oppression lifted.
*****
Naked one came into Markul,
and naked one was constrained to leave it. Ryel would be able to take
nothing with him that he had acquired in the City—no books or
talismans, none of his fine robes or other rich possessions, not even
the plain gold rings in his ears and on his fingers. Nor did he
greatly care. But it wrung him to have to part with Edris’ mantle,
and Edris’ sword. He gathered the cloak to his heart in a long
embrace, rubbing his cheek across the warm nap, remembering what his
kinsman had once said concerning it.
“Since
you keep badgering, whelp, I’ll tell you.” Edris swathed the
red-purple mantle more securely around him, for they stood together
upon the walls and the winter wind blew strong. His action was not
prompted by any reaction to the cold; the icy mist was hardening into
swirls of snow, but Edris could not have been less perturbed had his
bare feet been shod to the knee in fleece and felt. “It’s a
soldier’s cloak. It belonged to a Northern captain that the army
called Warraven, because he lived to fight and he was swarthy as a
crow.” Edris’ long eyes slitted with memory. “One of the
deadliest bladesmen in all the North—a fact I know only too well,
because my left ribs bear a deep remembrance of his skill. When I
arrived in Markul and learned to command the air, the first thing I
ordered my srihs to do was steal his cloak, just as I had them bring
my sword.”
Ryel smiled, remembering the
Steppes custom between warriors, how close friends would wear one
another’s clothes—most often a shirt, but frequently enough a
cloak—as a sign of their bond. Ryel himself had done so with his
play-brother Shiran, before leaving Risma. “You must have admired
this Warraven very much,” he said.
“I
did indeed. He damned near killed me.” Edris shot Ryel a suspicious
glance out of the end of his eye, wrapping himself inexorably in the
red-purple cloth less for warmth than for surety. “Don’t tell me
you want this too, as well as my sword.”
“Kinsman,
I never—”
“You’re
welcome to both when I’m dead and gone—but not before.”
“Then
may I wait forever.”
“I’ll
try to make sure that you do, brat. Go on indoors—you’re turning
blue out here.”
Ryel folded that memory
carefully into the tyrian web, and set the cloak aside; took up the
Kaltiri tagh and slowly unsheathed it, reading character by exquisite
character the words that ran like scrolled fire down the brilliant
double-edged blade.
Keener than lover’s
hunger,
Sharp as a king’s
despair,
Fell as a wysard’s
fury,
Coward and cruel, beware!
Turning to water the
wicked,
Heavy as haunted land,
Lighter than air am I
lifted,
Fire in a hero’s hand.
Those verses were Ryel’s
doggerel approximation of the distichs written in the hidden language
of the Fraternity of the Sword, a Northern cult of great antiquity.
Edris had become a Swordbrother during his years as a warrior, when
he fought as a mercenary of the Dominor of Hryeland against the White
Barbarians. In accordance with the Fraternity’s commandment he had
forever after kept its ceremonials and its speech a secret even to
Ryel. The young wysard had only divined the Fraternity’s language
by accident in his tenth Markulit year, while reading the history of
the first lords of Elecambron. To his surprise their ancient runes
had proven virtually identical to those on Edris’ sword. He would
have told his uncle of his discovery, but an inexplicable reluctance,
a dislike of admitting himself an infringer into hard-won privilege,
had continually prevented him.
Ryel raised the blade in
both hands, touching his brow to it. The cold steel stung like a
wound. Sheathing the tagh slowly, he lapped it in the cloak and laid
it at the foot of his bed. After a final mirror-glance at his new
self, he left the room and strode out of his house, leaving the door
unlocked, and swiftly descended the black stone stairs that zigzagged
level by level down to the western gate. A cold drizzle had begun to
fall, but he did not feel it. Softly though he trod, nonetheless the
quick ears of the Markulit brotherhood heard, and many looked out
their windows to watch the Overreacher pass. Some left their houses
and followed, sensing what was to come.
At the western gate Ryel
stood, and uttered the opening-spell. With a recalcitrant shriek of
metal stronger than any steel the great portals turned on their
hinges, and at that noise so seldom heard a throng began to gather,
watching for what would next occur, questioning Ryel to no avail.
Lady Serah was among the crowd, and she alone did not ask why he was
leaving.
“So.
You took my advice after all.”
At Serah’s words the
wysard shook his head. “When I declared earlier today that no woman
could draw me from this City, I erred. My mother is very ill, and
needs me.”
Others heard him, and many
were scornful of so slight and foolish a reason for abandoning the
life of the Art; but Ryel took no notice of them. He was only too
mindful, however, of Lady Serah’s questioning gaze and words.
“How
could you have known she was sick?”
“I
saw her in my Glass,” Ryel answered, not meeting his Art-sister’s
eyes, which could pierce when they chose. “Since I must take
nothing with me from Markul, allow me to present you with these, my
dear sister.” He unfastened the circlets from his ears and drew off
his rings, and gave them to Serah; then took her hands and touched
them to his brow. She twined her fingers around his own as her
beryl-green eyes met his, no longer with their wonted irony.
“It
is imperative that you speak with Lady Srin,” she said, her voice
low and urgent.
Ryel shook his head. “But
I cannot, sister. I make for Risma, not Almancar, and will return to
this City as soon as my mother has been restored to health.”
“Will
you? I wonder. But no matter what passes, good fortune be yours, my
lord brother. I will look after your house until your return,
whenever that may be.”
“You
have my thanks, sister.”
“Then
show it.” Cat-quick, Serah slipped her arms around his neck and
drew him down to her, kissing his mouth. “I’ve wanted to do that
for years.” Smiling with her old deviltry, she ran a swift hand
over his chin. “I like your new looks, by the way.”
Ryel smiled in return. Then
he began to ungird his robe, but paused abashed. Lady Serah at once
understood.
“Come,
you gawkers,” she said to the watching crowd. “We’ll climb upon
the walls and watch our young brother’s going, even as twelve years
ago we witnessed his coming.”
The Steppes modesty that
Ryel had learned as a boy he had never outgrown despite all the
knowledge he’d gained in Markul, and he blushed to strip before a
watching crowd. Thankful for Serah’s discretion, he waited until
everyone had begun to climb the many stairs to the ramparts, then
cast off his Markulit garb in haste.
He turned and passed through
the gate, naked as he had entered twelve years before. The endless
mist felt suddenly and unbearably icy on his bare skin as the wysard
stood outside his City for the first time in twelve years. But he at
once went to the heap of clothes that had been his, and opened the
saddlebags wherein were carefully folded other Steppes garments,
larger than those he had cast off so long ago.
“You
will grow,” his mother had told him when he left Risma as a boy of
fourteen. “Therefore I have made these clothes to fit the tall man
you will become.” And she had embraced him, and he had dried his
tears in her hair as he whispered that surely he would return to her
someday…
Shuddering with cold, Ryel
dressed as quickly as he might in the clothes he found still fresh in
the saddlebags. Shirt, leggings, long-skirted coat—everything fit
as if made to his measure, even the riding-boots that had been so
loose when he set out on his journey. Warmth of both home-loomed web
and remembered love enveloped him, but nevertheless he could not help
another twinge of chill. A Steppes bannerman of considerable means he
now looked, but a true Rismai brave went armed and cloaked, and he
was neither. His dagger lay yet unrusted in its sheath, and this he
hung on his belt. But it seemed little protection against the
predators of the Aqqar Plain, even as his coat seemed insufficient
proof against the rawness of the cold, Art or no Art.
Lady Serah, who for a time
had left the wall, now reappeared and spoke, somewhat flushed and out
of breath. “My lord Ryel! Among my goods nearby you is a purse full
of gold coin, which is yours as my gift. You’ll be needing it in
the World, believe me.” Then she gave that flashing grin of hers,
the one that made her look so young. “And these things, too you may
find use for, I’m thinking.” She tossed a mulberry-colored bundle
down from the wall. Ryel caught it, and with a thrill of joy found
Edris’ great cloak wrapped around his sword.
“That
was ill done, woman,” Lord Wirgal snapped to Serah Dalkith. “You
know the laws of Markul; the boy may take nothing of his from our
City.”
She tossed her fox-haired
head. “What I gave Lord Ryel were the erstwhile possessions of Lord
Edris, beloved and mourned by us all—or nearly all.”
Lord Wirgal glowered under
gray brows. “Equivocating female, how dare you—”
“Let
be, old fool,” Serah snapped back. “Never will you leave this
place, Wirgal, but die babbling in your bed.”
During their quarrel Ryel
slung the tagh’s belt baldric-wise over his shoulder in the Steppes
way, then donned the cloak. Gazing up at Lady Serah, he bowed low in
the brotherhood’s most reverent obeisance. “I will never forget
this kindness of yours, sister.”
“Thank
yourself rather, for never locking your door,” Serah replied
smiling. But now her lips trembled.
Suddenly others wished to
give Ryel parting-gifts, perhaps stung by Serah’s words to Lord
Wirgal. “Young lord, over there is the baggage I left more than
fifty years ago,” cried Lord Nestris, “and it is full of
Almancarian robes wonderfully rich, and of your measure, and still as
fresh as the day they were made. I pray you take as many as please
you.”
Lady Haldwina, too, raised
up her voice. “And among my havings are a case of medicinal balms,
and phials of healing essences—take them, and welcome!”
Unwieldy Lord Ter spoke
next. “Over yonder are my things. Bottles of water and wine and
brandy you will find, and food too, all unperished. Take them, and
spare your Art’s strength thereby.”
By this time the ladies
Elindal and Mevanda had arrived, and moved to stand on either side of
Lady Serah, who explained to them what was taking place, and why; and
they sorrowed with her.
Elindal lifted her voice.
“Alas, Ryel, that you should return to the World with all its
smallness and snares. But since you must, my things are over there,
under that green cloak. Pray take you the little pouch blazoned with
my crest, for it contains gems of great value.”
“And
in my havings nearby hers, find and keep the silver scribe’s box,”
Mevanda added. “The pens will prove unrusted, and the ink undried.”
Many other lords and ladies
of Markul offered Ryel whatever he wished to choose from the
possessions they had been constrained to relinquish at the gates;
only Lord Wirgal played the churl.
“Touch
nothing of mine, Overreacher!” he screeched. But he was scorned by
all for his meanness.
Soon Ryel’s saddlebags
were laden with gifts, and his pockets as well, but one last thing of
seemingly little use he also took: Jinn’s halter of gold-embossed
leather, that he wished to keep as a remembrance of his beloved mare
now forever lost. Thanking his many benefactors once again and bowing
a last time to Lady Serah, he shouldered his baggage and set forth.
When he was some distance from the City he turned about, and saw that
everyone still watched him, and he waved. Then he observed Lady Serah
reach into the purse hanging at her belt, and take out what seemed a
ball of amber. Breathing on it, she threw it far from the wall.
Midway in its flight the little sphere became a bright gold butterfly
winging its way toward Ryel like a windblown flame-flicker amid the
cobwebs of mist. As it flitted and played about him the wysard
smiled, and waved a last time to his Art-sister. Then he faced
westward again, and strode on.
Chapter Three
Risma
With Serah’s butterfly
playing about him Ryel trekked westward, until he knew that the City
at his back would seem only a somber child’s strange toy dropped
and forgotten. But when he next looked round, he found that Markul
had been completely engulfed by mist, and when he turned back again
he discovered that the butterfly had vanished. Alone in the biting
fog he stood for a time gazing about him, feeling most solitary and
bereft. He thought of the contemplative tranquility he was forsaking,
the long silent hours of study. Seen from the outside for the first
time in a dozen years, the great walls of the City seemed no longer a
prison as it all too often had in the past, but a sanctuary. Outside
those walls and beyond the fog lay a World whose pleasures and
dangers Ryel had read of in a hundred histories, and experienced
barely at all, and longed for constantly. But now the pleasures
seemed empty, and the dangers mortal.
“I’m
turning back,” he said, challenging the mist. But although he
waited for the atmosphere to thicken and the voice to speak, nothing
happened.
“You
lied,” he said. “She is well.”
Complete silence in reply.
Something in its inexorable density made Ryel murmur imprecations and
once again turn west, and walk.
No roads led to Markul, and
too few aspirants came there year by year for their trails to mark
the land. But those truly desiring to find the City never lost their
way. Ryel well remembered his own first traversal of the Aqqar, and
how much easier the actuality had seemed at fourteen than the very
prospect did now.
That
was because I had Jinn with me,
he thought. Jinn
to talk to as I rode and to watch over me over me as I slept, and
Edris, feared and beloved, awaiting me at the end of the journey. Now
only unknowns draw me on.
For a considerable while the
wysard walked untired, following the path of the fogbound sun. But
after several hours the saddlebags weighed heavy on his shoulder, and
he stopped to rest. Sitting down on a slab of rock and opening a
flask of brandy, he swigged and ruminated.
“There’s
got to be an easier way,” he said aloud, newly aware of how much
deeper his voice had grown since that first Aqqar journey, and how it
had never lost its Steppes tang despite all the years in Markul.
Hearing it emboldened him. “It’ll take me ages to reach Risma
afoot. What if I tried that spell of Lord Garnos, the Mastery of
Translation?”
But even as he spoke, he
laughed at himself. What if, indeed. Not until Ryel was very old in
the Art would he dare to attempt anything so risky as a
translation-spell. And at any rate, that spell of Garnos’ was a
lost one, like so many others of his. But a fool’s trick for
amusement’s sake could do no harm—a trick such as Ryel was fond
of trying in those days long past when he was a mere famulus…and
Edris wasn’t looking. Accordingly Ryel uttered the words to make
his saddlebags dance for him, which they should have done with as
much nimble alacrity as was possible in their packed state. But they
only shuffled listlessly a moment before sinking down again like a
fat skatefish on a sea-bottom. Feeling both sheepish and disquieted
Ryel once more uttered the spell, this time with complete seriousness
and concentration, but the saddlebags stayed sullenly put.
Something,
the wysard thought slowly, is
very wrong.
He hadn’t packed that
heavily. The problem was too much Sindrite brandy, no doubt; the
drink which Lord Ter had given him was as good or better than any
srih-servant could have procured for him, and like all Steppes folk
he had small tolerance for strong spirits. Moreover, he had walked
for miles, and the day was beginning to darken; perhaps now was the
time to make camp.
The notion of building a
fire and sleeping in the open had great charms for him. During his
boyhood he would ride out with Shiran and his other play-brothers
during the horse-gatherings, to join the grown men working hard in
the saddle all the day, and resting around the fire at night before
bedding down bone-weary to sleep unshakably until dawn—a
blood-thrilling time for a lad eager for manhood and loving the feel
of his muscles strained to breaking, the rough savors of charred meat
roasted on dagger-point, and goatskin-bottled dark wine passed from
hand to hand; the face-scorching heat of the fire, the talk of horses
and heroes and women that he listened to silently, and the songs he
took part in, the warmth of his mother-woven blankets cushioning him
from the hard ground, his father’s abrupt hand on his shoulder
awaking him to a cold red dawn and a steaming bowlful of chal.
How
long ago that time was,
Ryel thought, sensing his isolation to the full. And
it can never come again, any more than I can now return to Markul.
But chal-powder I have, and water, and the wherewithal for making
fire, thanks to the gifts of my Art-brothers and sisters, and Edris’
cloak to warm me and his sword to defend me. It should be a pleasant
enough night, even if a lonely one.
But the Aqqar Plain was not
the Inner Steppes, as Ryel soon learned to his strong discomfort.
Here was unfriendly emptiness, and continual damp, and nothing with
which to keep kindled flame ablaze. Save for their scattering of
extinct volcanoes, Rismai’s steppes were fully as empty to the eye
as the Aqqar, true; but amid their vastness one might readily find
great deposits of concentrated plant matter, the remains of deep
swamps dried up in ages past, providing fuel that burnt hot, steadily
and long. A good-sized brick of kulm would warm a yat all night, Ryel
remembered; and weakening under the pressure of that thought he spoke
some command-words into the air.
“A
close tent with a dry floor; and a porch to the tent, with a large
fire under the porch.”
The items appeared, but not
quickly nor in such good trim as the wysard expected. The tent proved
cramped, drafty and dank with a leaky awning; the fire was both
meager and fitful. Used as he was to complete and lavish obedience to
his requests, Ryel was too amazed to feel anger; and he remembered
the poor success he had enjoyed with Lord Garnos’ spell earlier,
and sat ill at ease and baffled as he tried and failed to coax the
flames higher while dodging water-drip.
Surely
mere distance from Markul cannot be causing this,
he thought. Could
it be that Dagar has drained the spirit-energy from the air around my
City, as Serah Dalkith would certainly maintain? No, impossible; a
wild fancy. My Art would be strong whether in Markul or at some
inaccessible end of the World; no weakness of mine is to blame,
surely. I can prove that.
Gathering his saddlebags, he
stood up and walked away from the tent into the persistent rain;
lifted his face to its chill drip and yelled out a word that in less
frustrating times he would have whispered, and that carefully. To the
wysard’s intense gratification a wisp of fog whirled into a spiral,
and touched ground five feet from where he stood. The spiral
eventually took on a wavering man-form, featureless save for long
eyes like glowing amethyst, and spoke in a voice blurred and sullen,
now running its words together, now stopping short.
“Leavemea
lone.”
Ryel ignored the request,
and instead gestured to the empty ground. “Shelter. And make it
comfortable.”
A great soundless flash lit
the night, and subsided to reveal a yat fit for a wandering prince,
with a porch large enough for ten people, and a blazing fire under
it.
Ryel at once installed
himself amid the cushions heaped before the fire, and held his hands
out to the warmth. “Good. Very good, Pukk. Quite close to my
desire.”
The wraith quivered on the
point of dissolution. “Iwillg onow.”
Ryel lifted his hand.
“Wrong. Stay.”
A long hesitation. Then, “Un
usualre quest.”
Pukk’s
tone was emotionless and distant, as ever, but its words sharpened
the chill of the night. I
am alone and outside my City for the first time,
Ryel thought with a pang of disquiet. And
my powers are not what they were in Markul—a temporary weakening
without doubt, yet one that this daimon must not perceive.
But Pukk’s senses detected
every uneasy emanation, every prickle of human flesh. “Youf ear.
Andnowon der. I amstron ghere. May bestron gerthan you.”
Pukk was infallibly
insolent, and Ryel had always taken a tense pleasure in their
encounters. The most powerful of all the spirits of air, Pukk alone
was capable of semi-speech and quasi-embodiment. It had been the
death of at least a dozen lord adepts in both Markul and Elecambron.
But Ryel had never allowed himself to fear Pukk—never until now.
Steeling his self-command, he used all his Markulit training to keep
his skin from sweating, his heart from racing.
“You
don’t want to try me, Pukk. Since there’s no one else fit to wait
on me, I’ll trouble you for some dinner —grilled lamb, say, and
rice seasoned in the Rismai fashion, with a flagon of Wycastrian ale,
in honor of my lady sister Serah Dalkith.”
Pukk shimmered in fury. “Ic
ouldpoi sonyou.”
Ryel lifted his chin,
meeting the srih’s glowing eyes with its own empty ones. “I think
not. I might destroy you first.”
Silence, save for the
rain—far quieter, it seemed to Ryel, than his own breathing. Pukk’s
lambent violet eyes became slits, and then blinked. At that moment a
steaming trayful of delicious-smelling food materialized at Ryel’s
side. “There. Eatitan dchoke.”
The
palpitating moment had stilled, and the frisson of fear evaporated
like a rag of mist. I
have my own strength,
the wysard thought as his blood warmed again. My
inward Mastery, that owes nothing to the Outer World. Strong Mastery
that this srih senses, and fears.
“You’ll
never kill me with your cookery, Pukk,” Ryel said aloud, quite
coolly now. “You forgot the bones and the venom. My infinite
thanks.” Suddenly too hungry for fear, he turned all his attention
to the tray.
The amethyst eyes of the
srih glowed disdain and injury. “Iwillg onow.” And as Pukk spoke
it started to fade.
“Wait,”
Ryel said with his mouth full. “Tell me about Dagar first.”
With
a furious smoky shudder Pukk intensified, but did not reply.
Ryel, well pleased with
preternaturally exquisite Steppes cuisine, urged without asperity.
“He was a hard master?”
Pukk replied with more than
a shred of contempt. “Hard erthany ou.”
Ryel sat back, interested
and amused. “Where is he now, communicative and garrulous
servitor?”
“Dagard
well sinthe Void.”
“The
void?”
”TheVoid.”
Pukk’s emphasis on the last syllable was both weary and
contemptuous, but Ryel ignored the inflection in favor of the
information, recalling the words of Kjal of Elecambron, and of his
Art-sister Serah Dalkith.
“Do
you mean the shadow-realm of the Outer World, from whence come you
and the other servants of the brotherhood?” the wysard prompted.
“No.”
Startled by that rusky
monosyllable, Ryel leaned forward. “Then it is a place apart from
both the Outer World and this?”
“Yes.”
“What
else exists in the Void?”
“Otherra
is.”
“What
other rais?” the wysard demanded, his vehemence stark. “Rais like
Dagar’s, bent on harm?”
Pukk never admitted
ignorance. It merely said nothing—as now.
Unsettled as he was by his
servant’s silence, Ryel felt his blood heaten with hope never known
until now. “The rai survives the body after death,” he murmured.
“It survives.”
Pukk heard, and replied
almost immediately. “No.” Observing Ryel’s speechless
infuriation, it continued grudgingly. “Abo dycanb eseparat edfromit
srai. Bot hwills urv ive.”
“The
body, separate from its rai? But how can that occur?” Ryel
demanded.
Pukk made no answer.
“Dagar’s
body was destroyed,” Ryel said, angrily now. “Burnt to ashes in
Elecambron. I read it in the Books.”
Pukk seemed to incline its
head. “Yes. But therai ofDag arre mains.” Then slowly, softly,
alarmingly, Pukk whispered. “Dagar’sp ow erg rows. Hewill grows
trong er. Indark nesshedr awsst rength.”
For once Ryel was confused
by Pukk’s idiosyncratic syntax. “Dagar draws strength in the
darkness? Meaning that he is powerless during the day?”
Pukk gave a reluctant quiver
of assent. “Itwill notal waysb eso. Morew illcome. Soon.”
“Why
has Dagar not taken you?”
Pukk guttered under the
insult. “Iamstr ong. Stron gestof myk ind. Nottobe take nuntilall
elseistaken.”
Ryel felt his heart beating
too fast, and could not calm it. “And what if all else is taken?
What comes after?”
The
purple eyes blazed. “Itwill havey ou. As itss lave.”
In that last sneering syllable Pukk began to fade.
Ryel leapt to his feet. “I
command you stay! You feckless ectoplasm, if you dare—”
But Pukk had vanished, all
but its eyes. In another moment those eyes gave a malignant scornful
flash, and were extinguished by the rain. A few minutes later the
princely yat had dwindled to a miserable tent ubiquitously aleak, and
the ardent blaze had shrunk to flickering smoke.
“Damn,”
Ryel muttered, furious and alarmed. He hugged his cloak around him,
and listened hard. Only the lulling fall of skywater came to his
ears. At least he’d be able to sleep, if the rain held. The wolves
and night-serpents for which the Aqqar was universally ill-famed kept
to their lairs during wet weather.
“I’ve
roughed it worse,” the wysard assured himself aloud. But he knew to
his discomfiture that it had been very long since he last had.
Sheltering in the folds of Edris’ cloak he with great difficulty
found a dry spot inside the tent and flung himself down,
overmasteringly spent. But Pukk’s words kept him restless where
rain and cold could not.
*****
Uncertain sunlight woke him,
and he rose on an elbow, blinking. The tent was gone, and the fire.
Only a little heap of soggy cinders marked his erstwhile camp. But at
least it wasn’t raining.
Ryel sniffed, and groaned,
and cleared his throat. His breath vapored on the chill air. “Chal.
At once.”
None appeared.
Quite deliberately he asked
again, but with the same result. Dagar might not be powerful in the
day, but Pukk had been right: the spirit-energy of the Aqqar was
sucked dry. After last night’s colloquy Ryel was disinclined to
summon Pukk again, but he had no other servants in this place—only
his Mastery, meant for higher aims than the body’s needs, and his
own ingenuity, not particularly scintillating just now. Rolling onto
his back, the wysard contemplated the opaque grayness overhead as he
shivered under his damp cloak and wondered if he was about to catch
cold or worse. At that dire thought he redoubled his inventiveness,
and suddenly remembered the little chunk of kulm he’d wrapped up
with his flint and steel, stuck inside his chal-gear and thrust into
a corner of his saddlebags on the morning of the day he’d reached
Markul.
Some rummaging and
cold-fingered cursing later, he’d coaxed a spark and started a fire
under the chaltak; and after an interminable interval the water
bubbled hot enough for him to throw in a good big pinch of
chal-powder to make the strong brew he liked best. As soon as the
powder settled he poured the infusion into the chal-cup, warming his
hands around the bowl. The heat was an indescribable comfort, and he
gave a little groan of pleasure as his stiff fingers relaxed; and
when he put his lips to the bowl he shuddered as the chal, more
delicious than any he’d ever drunk in Markul, shed its stimulant
warmth into his ill-rested limbs. Since boyhood he’d loved chal,
brewed to a deep jade-color in the Almancarian fashion; the Rismai
and other steppe-dwellers in the realm of Destimar commonly drank it
much lighter. Every horseman of Risma carried a set of chal-gear,
neatly and compactly nested, in his saddlebags; most often the gear
was wrought of tough fire-resistant Semlorn porcelain, but richer
folks’ were of silver. Ryel’s chaltak and bowl were of
exquisitely wrought electrum and enamel fit for a wandering prince,
which his mother had had made for him as her parting-gift when he
left for Markul. The wysard had much missed them during his years in
the City, and it was sheer pleasure to have them back again. As he
savored that reunion, he thought of the land he had left so long ago,
and would at last behold again.
The realm of Destimar was
vast, comprising not only the Inner and Outer Steppes to the east and
south, but fertile lands reaching as far as the sea, west of the
towering jewel-teeming massifs of the Gray Sisterhood. The capital
city of Almancar lay emplained at the foot of the Sisterhood’s
eastern slopes, and within its walls Ryel’s mother had been born
and had lived cherished amid every luxury until the age of fifteen.
Much had Mira told her son of her native city and her family, and of
her two brothers who roved the World by ship and caravan in search of
treasures rich, beautiful and ancient. But she seldom spoke of her
parents, from whom she had become estranged when she chose to marry a
Steppes horseman rather than one of the several Destimarian nobles
who had sought her hand.
The
suitor she chose, Yorganar, had grown to manhood on the Outer
Steppes, and later moved to the Inner lands. It was the custom in
both Steppes for folk to dwell as phratria,
loosely-knit clans united and identified by their banner. The
bannermen of the Muk’hai, the Bostrai, the Bakatt Segred and the
Kaltiri—or the Red Moon, the Raincloud, the Nightwind and the
Grass-fox—dwelt in the endless green fields of the Kugglaitan just
west of Almancar, and were famed for their great flocks of sheep and
cattle; save for the wandering and warlike Kaltiri they were
town-lovers for the most part, nomadic only in summer. The people of
the Elhin Gazal and the Fang’an, or the Triple Star and the
Stormhawk, lived deep in the Rismai lands to the northeast, in
encampments they shifted four times a year; they were renowned for
the most excellent horses in the World. The Kugglaitai were close
friends of Almancar, but relations between Risma and the Bright City
were less civil, for the horse-folk of the Inner Steppes were haughty
of spirit, and scornful of town-life; and whenever the Sovran exacted
his yearly tribute of mares and stallions for his stables, he was
compelled to come himself to fetch them, or send his emissaries to
traffic at the great horse-fair held every year at springtide.
Long had the Elhin Gazal
horses been reputed the best of all the world, and those of the
Yorganarek breed descended from Windskimmer were deemed almost beyond
price, and sought after by the great and rich of every land. Ryel had
thus grown up used to the comings and goings of lords and princes in
his father’s yat, and as a boy of twelve had poured out wine for
the Sovranet Mycenas of Destimar, and been called a fine young lad;
but even then he knew that his family’s privileged status was of
very recent date. Yorganar had been born a Kaltiri, and his people
had raised cattle. But while young men barely out of their teens, he
and his brother Edris had forsaken their kinsmen of the Grass-fox
banner to become warriors in Destimar’s border disputes with
Shrivran; and they signalized themselves by valor that the Sovran
richly rewarded when the struggle was concluded in peace two years
later.
Having tasted the life of
the armed camp, the brothers found themselves more inclined afterward
to be horse-tamers than herdsmen, and accordingly shifted their
clan-allegiance to the phratri of the Three Stars, which was glad of
such brave and ardent new blood. With riches, skill and strength
gained from their warrior’s days the twin brothers together built
up the choicest stud in the Inner Steppes, and when Edris renounced
his share of it first to soldier in the Northland for the Dominor of
Hryeland, and then to spend the rest of his days in Markul, Yorganar
was thus made richer even than the Triple Star’s chieftains. But as
a new man under a strange banner, without kinsmen among the phratri,
wed to an outland wife and father of only a single son, Yorganar was
always somewhat distanced from the folk of his adopted clan; and Ryel
had grown up without that dense network of relations that signalized
the nomadic life of the Inner Steppes. Nor was his bond with his
father a strong one, which was likewise counter to Steppes ways. His
mother had been so much to him—nurturer, sister, friend, queen.
“I
would be with you now if I could,” he whispered to her in a
sleep-roughened voice unsteady with trapped and burning tears. “But
I have no way. And it’ll take long to reach you, every day bringing
you more pain. I wish I had the Art.”
As if to partly give him the
lie, a whickering snort issued from very close by; and Ryel started
up to find an animal grazing less than twenty feet away. Had it been
a fabulous monster all horns and warts, the wysard could not have
been more astonished; but it was a mare of the true Steppes breed,
neat-limbed and strong and lovely, worth its weight in matched
pearls.
“This
is a dream,” he whispered. The horse heard him, and lifted its head
to look his way with great dark wondering eyes. At that gesture, so
graceful and apt, Ryel caught his breath.
“Jinn?”
The horse’s ears twitched,
and its dark eyes assessed the wysard warily under thick-fringed
lashes, but without fear. Very slowly Ryel got to his feet. He was
trembling, but not from the dawn cold this time.
“Jinn.
I know it’s you. Jinn, little sister, do you not remember me?”
The horse hung back, its
four legs planted and its head lowered. Ryel took a step forward,
ever talking in a voice soft and steady.
“How
came your mane and tail so long, and so light? It becomes you. Your
coat’s all rough, but we’ll smooth it. And how is it you’re so
young? You should be old, old; not as fresh as the day we parted
before the walls of Markul. Can it be that the land around the City
kept you youthful, even as it kept my gear from perishing? But that
isn’t possible; surely you’ve escaped from a rich caravan, and
some proud young brave is now desolate because of you.”
By this time he had his hand
on the horse’s mane. Very gently Ryel stroked the pale shimmering
forelock. In doing so he ran a finger over the cocked left ear,
seeking a little nick at its base. He found it, and jerked back as if
bitten.
“No.
It can’t be.”
It couldn’t. Not after so
many years. But nevertheless the horse was warmly real, its breath
vaporing on the raw Aqqar air. Real, and undoubtedly fleet and tough
if her likeness to Jinn went further than mere semblance. Slowly lest
he frighten the animal away, Ryel went to his saddlebags and took out
the halter. “I never dreamed I’d have a use for this, here in the
wasteland. Could you get used to it again…Jinn?”
The name worked like a
spell. The mare stood motionless, giving only a snort or two as Ryel
tossed the saddlebags onto her back and fitted the halter onto her
head. Reaching into his pocket, the wysard brought out a bag of dried
fruit.
“Here,
little one. Apricots—your favorites, remember? They’re a bit on
the leathery side, and I’d say a word to freshen them, but it
wouldn’t work now. What, don’t you want them?”
The horse apparently did
not. After a tentative sniff, Jinn turned her head away.
“Very
well. I won’t force you,” Ryel said. “But let me do this, at
least.” And he stroked Jinn’s satin mane, and hugged her about
the neck.
Although he had not ridden
for a dozen years, the wysard vaulted without effort onto the mare’s
back and sat easily despite the lack of a saddle, his Steppes
horsemanship unforgotten.
“All
right, little one. Let’s have a run, and see if you’re as fast as
your namesake was.”
He touched a heel to her
side, and the mare leapt into a gallop that no whip in the world
could have prompted, and that surely no other mount in the world
might equal. Ryel felt his hair stream out behind him, and in the
fullness of his joy he began to sing a Rismaian ballad forgotten by
him until that moment, shouting the words to the wind.
The day passed in an
eyeblink—far too fast, in fact. Tirelessly Jinn raced across the
infinities of green, never slowing her pace for an instant. At last
Ryel forced her to a halt lest he kill her.
“This
isn’t right,” he said, more disquieted than pleased, now. “Miles
and miles gone by at a dead gallop, but you’re not lathered even a
fleck. You don’t seem to need to eat or drink—or satisfy any
other natural urges, for that matter. I’m starting to think you
aren’t real.”
Jinn gave a whinny that
sounded indignant, but Ryel was beginning to feel strong unease. He
expected in the next moment for the air to close in chokingly around
him, and the persecuting voice to shrill about his ears like an evil
bug, and the horse to transform into something unspeakably monstrous.
For several taut
heart-taxing minutes the wysard awaited the worst as Jinn watched him
with great questioning eyes. At last Ryel allowed himself to calm,
and put out a steady hand to stroke the mare’s bright mane.
“Someone
sent you,” he said. “ Someone who knows my memories. Someone who
wishes me well. But who could it be?”
Whatever Jinn’s arcane
powers, speech was apparently not one of them, and Ryel had no time
to ask whose Art-imbued agency had intervened so wonderfully in his
behalf. He remounted, and rode.
But even if Jinn never
tired, Ryel did. At sunset he made camp in the simple way of a
Steppes bannerman, with no other shelter than his cloak. By now he
was well out of the Aqqar. The mists had thinned, and now he was amid
open air. With a World-horse the journey would have taken many a
weary day, but Jinn’s swiftness owed nothing to earth, for which
the wysard was inutterably grateful. That evening Ryel looked up at
the sky and for the first time in twelve years saw stars glimmering
among the ragged clouds; and then the pale gold moon rose in silent
state, vast as it slid upward from the grasses, a vision so wondrous
that the wysard looked on in breathless awe. He barely slept that
night, but continually awakened to fix his eyes on the flickering
sparks and glowing disk. With hunger in his heart he dreamed of the
dawn, and awoke to find the sky alight as if on fire, and he turned
his head and saw the sun, and his eyes dazzled and burned.
That same day he found a
trail and followed it sunward, tracing the path to a caravan-road he
remembered well, riding ever southwest, joying in the brilliant blue
of the sky, the clear ardent light, the green infinity of grassland.
And soon the endless jade sweep took on other colors, vivid patches
of citron yellow, glowing magenta, bright turquoise, deep
scarlet—colonies of flowers spreading in their millions, anemones
and roses and lilies in the height of their bloom, eagerly making the
most of the evanescent Steppes spring. Amid interfused fragrance and
color Ryel journeyed enraptured, feeling like a wandering prince in
some epic of Destimar; like Prince Ghenris when he rode up to the
throne of the Emperor of Rintala over a carpet that covered the
entire floor of the vast presence-hall of the fabled palace, a carpet
of the most precious silk dyed in a thousand hues, and pricelessly
perfumed—a paltry rug compared to this endless living tapestry in
which Jinn’s hooves sank to the fetlock in soft scented growth.
It was under bright midday
that he at last saw the banners of his people, deep blue with a
triple star of silver, fluttering and snapping above the horizon’s
curve. Beyond the banners stretched a soft green plain, immensely
vast, studded here and there with little conical hills. And far
beyond that plain the white peaks of a range of huge mountains, the
Gray Sisterhood, cut a jagged swath between earth and heaven.
My
land,
Ryel thought as his heart leapt. My
great green land.
Those far-flung little hills
had once been live volcanoes spitting fire, many thousands of years
gone. Each cinder-cone bore the name of a Rismaian deity, and in
their hollows the phratri sheltered their horses from the winter
winds, sure of divine as well as natural protection. The wysard had
grown up with legends of the Age of Fire, when all this earth was red
and reeking with fiery lava; his people deemed themselves sprung from
those flames. In the undulant slopes at the base of the volcano-hills
the Rismai on occasion found ancient bones of men, their weapons and
other goods; and the axeheads and arrowheads were highly prized by
warriors of the phratri, who deemed them full of power and good
fortune in the hunt. And the hunting was good, for antelope sheltered
in the rare thickets of scrub pine, and hares in the basalt
crevasses.
No river flowed through
Risma, but scattered spring-fed ponds and lakes reflected the
swift-changing clouds. At the edge of one of these stood the
springtide encampment of the Elhin Gazal, its scattered yats echoing
the shape of the cinder-cones, smoke rising from the pointed roofs as
if from live fire-mountains.
His blood thrilling at the
sight, Ryel would have driven his heels into Jinn’s sides, but
there was no need, for Jinn had seen the yats as well, and plunged
into a gallop that mocked all other speed she’d shown.
A sentinel had noted Ryel’s
approach, and now drew his bow. Well aware that only two words would
save his life, the wysard forced Jinn to a skidding halt and drew a
deep breath.
“Ryel!”
he shouted. “Ryel Mirai!”
The
wysard waited, his hands lifted clear of his weapons in token of his
peaceful intent, as the warrior overcame his apparent surprise,
returned his arrow to his quiver and his bow to its sheath, and urged
his horse to a canter. I
know you,
Ryel thought, his recognition growing all the more joyous and amazed
as the rider neared him. You
draw your hood about your face, but I know your eyes. Of all lucks, I
had not hoped for this.
They were now a spear’s
length apart. The hooded warrior spoke first, in the common
Almancarian that was the trade-tongue of the Steppes; and his keen
dark eyes surveyed the wysard’s every feature.
“The
name you shouted so proudly belongs to one many years gone.”
“Gone,
but now returned,” Ryel said.
“You
do not use your patronymic, if you are he.”
“I
follow the custom of our people. But I may call myself Ryel Mirai,
son of Yorganar that was. I greet you, Shiran.”
The warrior’s eyes
widened, but only for a moment. “Many of the Rismai are named
Shiran.”
Your
voice has changed,
Ryel thought. As
mine has.
“Shiran
is indeed a common name on the Inner Steppes,” he said aloud. “But
in all the Steppes there is only one Shiran Belarem Alizai, and he
and I once raced our first horses on this same stretch of ground. But
he used always to wear a bow-guard of heavy gold, a treasured
heirloom. Why does he not wear it now?”
Frowning brows at that, and
a searching stare. Then from behind the hood the voice came rough.
“Your eyes are strange.”
Ryel
felt the blood drain from his face like water into hot sand. No.
Oh, no. He sees it. Sees the blackness, and—
“Yes,”
the sentinel said. “Strange. Not like ours.” But as he spoke he
took his hand from his dagger-hilt, and his voice grew calmer,
sweetened with something like laughter. When he next spoke it was in
the Rismai dialect, although formally, as befit men newly acquainted.
“There used once to be a boy with such blue eyes, here in the
camp.”
Ryel blinked, but replied in
the same language. “Was there indeed?”
The sentinel nodded. “A
pale weakling he was. And I used to jeer at him, until he grew strong
enough to make me sorry.” The cowl fell free, then, to bare a brave
face all in smiles. “Many years, play-brother,” said Shiran,
holding out his hand in that frank way that had ever been his. “I’d
never forget those sky-colored eyes of yours, no matter how long you
kept away. How many years were they?”
“Ten
or so,” Ryel said, too weak with relief to contest the grip of
Shiran’s tough brown palm. “Not many.”
“An
entire dozen, play-brother, not one of them short.”
“You’ve
grown strong in that time.”
“And
you soft.” Shiran released Ryel’s hand after a last hard clasp.
“But tabibs’ hands are ever soft. For all that, I dare swear
you’ve cut up more corpses than I’ve yet slain, there in that
leech-school of Fershom Rikh. So, have you mastered your craft at
last? You should have learned by now to raise the dead, at very
least.”
Because
wysards were greatly feared and distrusted in the Steppes, Ryel’s
parents had explained his leave-taking by saying he’d chosen to be
a tabib—a
doctor—and had elected to study medicine at Fershom Rikh, a far-off
city of Destimar famed for its schools and its healers. Tabibs were
scarce in the Steppes and honored, so this news had met with the
phratri’s entire approval. Shiran’s questions made Ryel remember
Edris, and for a moment he looked away. “Somewhat less is my
skill.”
Shiran did not observe
Ryel’s emotion, for his attention had shifted. “Only a skilled
doctor could afford a horse like yours. She reminds me of Jinn—none
but Windskimmer’s get could cover ground so fast as this lovely one
does. But Jinn would be old now, and this one seems less than two
years.” He reached out and stroked the mare’s pale silken mane,
and his thoughts seemed to wander. “Your sister Nelora has grown up
while you were gone. Half the braves of the encampment are at each
other’s throats for her sake—which is just as she likes it.”
Ryel felt a little twinge of
pride, but still raised a brow. “Nelora is only a girl of fourteen,
if I reckon her years rightly.”
“Tell
her that. And she’s no cloud-witted child, believe me, but so
learned at her age that the elders marvel at her.”
Ryel leaned forward,
interested. “So she’s bookish, then, and gentle?”
Shiran flung back his head
and laughed. “Hardly. Did you see her playing at kriy a-horseback
with the boys—and winning—you’d think her neither. And with
that tongue of hers, she doesn’t need a dagger. Half wild she is,
and self-willed, and fair as one born of your mother must be.” But
then Shiran ceased smiling, and spoke the words Ryel had seen hiding
in his eyes all along, words the wysard had been dreading. “I do
wrong to throw away your time this idly, Ry. You should see to your
mother at once.”
Again Ryel heard the unnamed
voice. Its cruel taunting. “Then she is…”
“In
deepest need of all the physician’s skill you learned in Fershom
Rikh. I suppose you are here for that cause, but I wonder how you
knew—”
“I
can’t stay,” Ryel said abruptly, already turning Jinn’s head
toward the yats.
Shiran nodded understanding.
“May your doctor’s arts help her. And when we next talk, may I
hear of her cure.”
“You
will, ilandrakis.”
The word Ryel had used was
an eloquent, cherished one on the Steppes, meaning dearer than
brother. At the sound of it, Shiran reached out. “Let this be
greeting instead of farewell.” And he bent from the saddle and
caught Ryel about the neck, pressing his right cheek against that of
his friend’s. “Our faces were smooth when last we took leave of
each other, and now we meet again, grown and bearded. Long years,
play-brother.”
Ryel returned the
time-honored gesture with his whole heart. The two friends parted,
and Ryel rode on to the encampment. As he neared the yats, a
screaming crowd of dogs and children swarmed around Jinn’s legs,
but the wysard made no attempt to scatter them; the sight of shaggy
hounds and red-cheeked little faces was too much of a novelty after
petless, childless Markul. He merely quieted the urchins with a few
calming-words, to which his mare added some kicks that sent mongrels
scudding and shrieking in all directions. Because he had passed the
sentinel and was therefore a friend to the banner, Ryel was not
otherwise hindered as he rode through the encampment, although many
paused to scan his face or admire his horse.
They
think they know me,
he thought as he acknowledged their nods and waves.
The old ones who smile at me remember the lad who left to become a
physician and study with the great doctors at Fershom Rikh; but did
they realize that a lord adept of dread Markul rode among them, every
hand now raised in greeting would be hurling stones.
In his admiration of the
green infinity of steppe he had forgotten how rough life was among
the yats. Forgotten the dirt and the din, the compacted miasma of
meat seared by fire, of hot spices, horses, human sweat, the gritty
reek of dust and smoke. Markul had taught him the luxuries of peace
and cleanliness, however sparely he had elected to live there, and
now he could not help wondering why his mother chose still to dwell
among the Elhin Gazal when she might freely return to her native city
of Almancar, the fairest in the World.
Mindful of ancient custom,
he rode to the center of the encampment where the banner of the
Triple Star was fastened to a tall slim mast in the midst of a
clearing, its azure and gold silk straining at full length in the
brisk spring wind. At the foot of the mast a simple wooden shrine
held a burner of incense and various small offerings—wildflowers,
copper money, and delicate seashells and fishes made of stone. The
latter tokens were very rare, carefully pried out of secret places in
the rock by horseman’s knives. Bending from the saddle Ryel took up
one of the shells and studied its fanned ridges a moment, remembering
the old tales of his tribe. One told of how gods had carved the
shells in their long millennia of idleness before man was created;
another story even more fantastic, which none but the tiniest
children believed, spoke of a great ocean that had once covered all
the land.
Ryel turned the shell about
in his fingers, his eyes fixed on the infinite green of the Steppes
but his thoughts filling with another sea of vast and restless blue,
splashing and foaming against the walls of Markul; and then the
flashing glance of eyes bluer than any sea, azure with a live tint of
violet. At that last memory he flinched, and hastened to complete the
ritual of return, one performed by every bannerman after a journey.
Bowing his head to the flag, he waved some of the incense-smoke first
toward his face, then toward the four directions, invoking their
gods; then touched the back of his hand to his brow, murmuring the
ancient words of greeting to the protective deities of the phratri.
These ceremonies done, he straightened, and turned Jinn’s head
toward his mother’s dwelling.
He had recognized his
family’s yat-compound at once, pitched at some distance from the
rest of the encampment and looked after by servants working hard at
their various chores. Radiating from its central tent were five
pavilions that served as sleeping-chambers and storerooms, while
smaller yats for guests, guards, and servants stood somewhat further
off—an arrangement once unique in Rismai, but now much imitated by
those that could afford it. The yat-compound was but one of Mira’s
many successful attempts to confer at least a hint of her homeland’s
elegance to the uncivil Steppes. Other experiments were less happily
realized: Ryel noted the struggling rose-bushes on either side of the
yat’s main entrance, and he recalled the constant efforts his
mother had made to bring to this endless grassland some remembrance
of the bright gardens of her native Almancar: the little orange-trees
she cosseted to no avail in blue-and-white pots, the sweet herbs she
sowed in neat patches never strongly enough fenced against marauding
dogs and hares, the heaven-blue morning-glories she loved and ever
tried, with little success, to wreathe about the yat-door. The
memories distressed Ryel for the first time.
Constantly you sought to
soften this hard life, my mother. But the roses always died, and the
herbs never flourished, and the morning-glories would not bloom, and
you would sigh and remember the flowering vines and sweet teeming
greenery of your Almancarian girlhood, and my heart would ache for
you. Neither of us belonged here.
Still,
Ryel could never once recall her complaining of her lot, any more
than he could ever recall her spending her time idly. All of the many
books she owned, and which Yorganar deemed useless clutter, were good
and beautiful. Often Ryel would ask her to read aloud in her sweet
voice, or listen to her as she sang. Often he would sing with her;
and when she played the faldh,
the soft-toned cithern of courtly Almancar, he would accompany her on
his krusghan,
the Steppes flute known for its soft carrying tones. The skill of her
hands was marvelous, and her exquisite embroidery mingled Steppes
designs with Almancarian, creating mythical beasts, fantastic
flowers, unique ornament. No one else had the secret of those
delicate sweets she made, lakh and other rarities that seemed the
food of paradise.
Partly because she insisted,
partly because it amused him, Yorganar had taught his young wife how
to ride, and soon Ryel’s mother had become proverbial among the
Steppes for her bravery and skill on horseback. Although it was not
unusual for young girls of the Rismai to become avid horsewomen, that
activity virtually always ceased after marriage; and some of Ryel’s
most pleasant childhood memories were those in which he and Mira
galloped together across the endless plains, she in bannerman’s
gear with her black hair streaming behind her, her cheeks flushed
with the joy of exertion, her blue eyes glowing.
But now as Ryel neared his
mother’s yat, all he could remember was that Mira had never once
looked upon her husband with any feeling deeper than gentle
resignation. In the next moment he recalled the way she had gazed
upon Edris that winter’s night of so many changes, and the way
Edris had returned that gaze. Ryel felt a wrenching qualm of sorrow
for his mother, pity and regret for a delicate nature suborned to a
dullard husband, a rough people, a harsh land.
Then the wysard’s breath
came fast, for he saw that the largest yat’s entrance framed a
woman, tall and girl-slender. Like a queen enthroned she
half-reclined in a chair, instead of sitting upon a carpet in the
Rismai fashion. Her night-hued tresses, only a little touched with
silver, were arranged in the Almancarian fashion of many plaits and
tresses, and her garments were Almancarian likewise, heavy silk and
fine embroidery falling in a thousand narrow folds. She was more fair
than many another woman half her age, but her cheeks were pale and
her eyes and lips were taut with pain. She lifted her face to the
sunlight as if it were the last she would ever feel.
Ryel
flung himself off his horse and fell to his knees before her,
pressing the backs of her hands against his forehead to receive their
blessing. “My lady mother.” He kissed her fingers, that were
fully as cold as his own, and breathed the slightly bitter fragrance
that clung to them. You’re
drugged,
he thought. Drugged
strongly with hrask, which means that your pain is great, but your
doctors good.
At first she had recoiled,
breathlessly startled. But now she gazed down at him, uncertainty
giving way to recognition. “My little son,” she said wonderingly,
in the palace dialect of her native city, their shared and secret
language. “My boy-child, now grown so tall.” She reached out and
laid a hand upon his head, caressing his hair. But her fingers
trembled, and her voice was as faint as her smile. “Ah, Ryel, I
longed for this. At the sight of you my heart beat so strong—”
She paled, and swayed. Ryel
caught her in his arms. “My mother, you are grievously sick.”
“Not
now,” she said; but he could barely hear her. “Not now. My thanks
to every god that I saw you again before I breathed my last—”
“No,”
he said, whispering into the soft braidings of her hair. “No
words.”
“But
you must hear them. You must know that I am—”
Ryel would not hear. “You
are ill, yes. And I have come to heal you.”
“Too
late, Ryel.”
“I
said no.” And Ryel lifted her up and carried her inside the yat
before she could protest, finding his way at once to the curtained
chamber where her bed was; and in her bed he set her, and knelt at
her side.
“And
now, my mother, I will consider how best to cure you.”
Mira gazed upon him
tenderly, but shook her head. “I am beyond any physician’s cure,
Ryel. The doctors have done all they could, save cut me. I would not
let them.”
“Good.
But I know they drug you daily; your skin’s redolent of it. You
have cancer of the breast.”
She stared at him. “How
could you know that?”
“I
saw your malady in a vision. Because of it I am here.” A wave of
cold passed over him as he spoke, because he had almost chosen not to
believe that vision, sent by the voice; had almost not come to this
place, but stayed in his City.
“You
do not ask after Yorganar.”
Ryel had not thought of him
until this moment. “I am aware that he died three years ago. Edris
told me when it happened.”
“Edris.”
Mira’s pale cheeks colored momentarily. “Did you mourn for
Yorganar?”
“Should
a son not mourn his father? Did you not mourn your husband?”
Mira gazed long on her son;
yet her look was strange. “I never loved man but your father,
Ryel.” Again she put her hand to her breast; her beautiful features
contorted. “The drug’s power is waning,” she whispered.
“I
will give you more, and better.”
“Some
hurts there are that no medicines can touch, my own. You think my
cancer gnaws me, but a greater pain has fed upon my heart these many
years, years enough to number those of your life …”
Ryel bent near, alarmed.
“Let me only—”
She clasped her hands above
her heart, desperately. “Never. Have you not seen it already in
your vision—a loathsome growth, ulcerated and monstrous? I have
done great wrong in my life, yes; but it is hard to endure, this
rotting alive. This pain. This horrible pain—”
The wysard would have risen
and gone to search Jinn’s saddlebags for stronger drugs, but Mira
halted him. “No. No more. Only wrap me in your cloak, and I will be
well.”
“But
my mother—”
“Your
cloak. Only that.”
Ryel enveloped her in the
thick tyrian cloth, and she lay back strangely calmed and smiling.
“It’s warm,” she whispered. “So warm.” And she caressed its
heavy web, and lifted a fold to her face, breathing as if she scented
healing balm.
As her eyes closed,
instantly the wysard said a word that made Mira fall into sleep. Then
he fastened shut the hangings of the entrance, returned to his
mother’s side, and again knelt. All around was silence, for the
dense hangings and layered carpets muted every sound within the yat
and without. Ryel lit the lamps, and then, keenly feeling the chill
in the room, he piled more kulm into the little tiled Almancarian
stove, one of several that heated the various chambers of the
tent-dwelling. A moment he looked about him as he warmed himself to
readiness, and with enstrengthening pleasure contemplated the
embroidery that covered every visible vestige of cloth with glowing
designs that gentled barbaric Steppes angularity with soft
Almancarian grace—every inch of it the work of his mother’s
hands, begun when she came to Yorganar’s yat as a bride, increased
an opulent hundredfold over the twelve years of Ryel’s absence.
The wysard next threw in a
handful of dust onto the fire—feia powder, taken from Lady
Haldwina’s gifts—and at once a heady scent, not sweet but
redolent of summer’s earth, impregnated the air. In her sleep Mira
breathed deeply of it.
“Good,”
Ryel murmured. “Let it take you.” It’s
taking me as well,
he thought. Blocking
out the World, leading me deep into my mind’s widest reaches, to my
real strength.
Outside was strong daylight
with Dagar not yet abroad, if Pukk was to be trusted. But Ryel did
not greatly care either way, for he would rely on his Mastery to work
his mother’s cure, not the services of his srihs. He cradled both
his mother’s hands in his own and bowed his head over them,
pressing the cold fingers against his brow.
“Give
unto me the death within you,” he whispered. “The death that
thinks it owns you. Give it to me, and let me make it suffer.”
Closing his eyes he uttered
a word, and felt his being slip away from his body; and suddenly he
was slammed into icy blackness sharp as knives. Excruciating as the
pain was, it was yet worsened by Ryel’s realization that he’d
felt it once before. This was not his first time in the emptiness. He
had stood in the same place almost two months ago; and he had never
felt such horror or such fear before as then.
But
I’m not afraid now,
he thought. It
can do no more to me than it has done.
There in the echoing abyss
he stood on a narrow bridge that linked him to his mother body and
mind. Naked and unarmed he stood, knowing he must not look down, but
straight on into the blackness. In that moment he was mindful of the
half-mocking words of Edris.
“Here’s
a little rhyme for you, whelp—never forget it,” his kinsman had
said. “’If there be doubt, the Art will find it out.’ Any
flinching, and you’ll fail. Always. Either give it your all or
leave it alone.”
Half-mockingly spoken, yes.
But behind those dark eyes Ryel had seen a sternness that made him
tremble. “I will,” he had replied, firmly quelling his fear,
facing his kinsman with lifted chin and steady gaze. “I will.”
And now Ryel faced the
blackness with the same level defiance, with his entire
determination, his complete self committed to the fight. Swiftly and
boldly he spoke the needful spells, those that would destroy the
cancer and restore the corrupt flesh to wholeness. His words
reverberated a thousandfold before silence suddenly enclosed him,
heartlessly cold. He stood breathless, straining like drawn wire.
And then it came.
His skin—the invisible
integument of his disembodied being, not his shell of flesh now left
a million leagues behind—began to tingle, then burn. And then the
cancer engulfed him in a crawling swarm of fanged and clawed clots of
slime. Taken aback by the onslaught, Ryel struggled appalled.
I can’t fight this.
It’s too strong. By every god—
Strangled by overwhelming
doom he thrashed and writhed, but all in vain. The foul tusks and
fiery talons rent and tore him until he could no longer shriek, but
dropped throttled into the abyss.
_________________________________
