The Ryel Saga: A Tale of Love and Magic Read online

  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 fac
e 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 th
e 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? Well-grown in every respect."

  Lady Elindal 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."