Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  “Why does that make so much difference?”

  “It’s a dreadful calamity, to love a magician.”

  “Be careful, sister,” Vella warned, running her hand through the lovely fabric she was weaving.

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope you do,” Vella said evenly. “There’s nothing to be gained from saying too much.” She went back to her weaving.

  “Don’t dwell on this too much, child,” Commyna said, her fingers moving briskly to tie off her thread. “He’ll make his peace with you in time.” She was tidying up her work area as if she meant to leave it for a while, and I guessed from her preparations she would be my teacher for today.

  When she beckoned me to follow her I did. Vella and Vissyn said pleasant good-byes to us, the sort that would serve as well if I did not come back for an hour or a year.

  To tell the truth, it would have been hard to say which was closer. I had thought my training stringent before. Now I began to understand just what the women meant when they talked about hard work.

  Sixth-level applications are different from seventh-level training, more difficult than the simple progression from the lower to the higher circle would imply. Many a respectable wizard never works out of the sixth level and much powerful magic can be done using the applications of this circle. My training began with fire.

  Commyna took me to a stone circle and sat me down. She turned away and spoke a Word, and before I knew it flame was rising all around me.

  I had learned to remove my body from harm in such a circumstance already, and did so quickly, suffering no more than a few singed hairs. I sat in the fire, tasting the feelings of it as I pleased. Commyna, from a place beyond the flames, watched me with keen interest.

  “Do you hear it?” she asked.

  “I hear the wind rushing through it,” I said.

  “There’s another sound, in harmony with the wind. That part is the fire. The fire is all music, all plucked strings. So are you. You’ll have to learn to hear it.”

  She tested me with fire in other ways. I walked over coals and even lay down on them, as I had already learned to do. She had to help with the new pathways for the fire, leading it through and around me, but when she did I could hold my place. Without ever questioning her I understood she was making sure I knew what I was doing, before we progressed to other phases of fire-work.

  Fire can be used to move power, to amplify Words, and when used for that purpose is referred to as a device. Moreover, the fire is a source of strength as well, due to the state of the burning matter, which makes a more violent music than a breath of wind. Other devices are more efficient as amplifiers or points of focus, like precious metals, gems, stones, and runes, but they are much harder to tap as sources of strength. They are made of music as well, but a harder sound to hear.

  I spent much time meditating, either near or inside fires; and this last practice, while it may sound arcane (considering that some nations are said to burn their witches, according to the Anynae, who come from elsewhere), is one of the most basic magic arts, since sitting inside fire offers a quantum of protection from other magical attacks. (The saying in Aeryn is, if you can burn the witch, you never had much to worry about in the first place.)

  Fire-magic was one of Commyna’s specialties and she taught me every use you can imagine, from dreaming in fires to bringing fire out of rocks, out of the ground, out of water, out of air. Before she was done I could call up fire from rain-soaked ground and make it swell high as a house; I could make smoke billow out in a cloud or make no smoke appear at all. Fire is a sound, and once I learned to hear it I could make it as well. I could dance-for-seeing around a fire, finding images in the flames. This seemed the most wonderful use of magic I had yet learned, once I learned to govern the direction of my far-seeing, once I could focus on an object and see it minutely.

  This was only the beginning, and my heart could feel it.

  I became infatuated with this new work I was learning, as any young person is apt to do. I became lost in the complex executions, the harsh physical disciplines, the inner listening and the stream of music that I found, that flows through every thing that is around us; and when I was not actually present at Illyn Water in those days, I was there on some level, meditating or singing under my breath, running through the steps of some spin-dance in my mind.

  In fact it is harder for me to distinguish between days for this period than any other, and it would be impossible to tell all that I learned unless I were to stop this story and write another text. The ride with camp to Suvrin Sirhe was long and tedious; my concentration was saved for the periods when I was with the lake women and I was dull company the rest of the time. I became used to the ordeal of being plucked out of real time and thrust back into it, taking up the moment of my return just as if there had been no interval at the lake, no long, nameless, divisionless time along the blue shore where I was learning such unimaginable arts. I encouraged few distractions on the ride and consequently received few in return. Kirith Kirin did not return to the column even after we were days out of the old campsite, and finally Lady Karsten, Lord Pelathayn and Prince Imral rode in search of him — as much out of boredom as concern, I thought. Gaelex had charge of the whole subsequent journey of the column and cart-train and thus had plenty to keep her busy. Mordwen was worn out by riding, which he did not like to do any more, since he claimed his bones had aged. He went to bed at sundown and slept till time for Velunen.

  I was young and adaptable. My new life, though unusual, was not without its ordinary moments, and after a few days the routine became comfortably familiar. I awoke, sang Velunen, ate a fast breakfast, saddled Nixva and joined the column. During the ride that followed I was patiently alert for the moment when I would be summoned out of real time to the world of Lake Illyn. I might be at the lake for any amount of time. But I knew that in the waking world not a heartbeat would pass, that I would return there to take up my life without break or gap.

  Some people would have thought this madness, I guess, and a philosopher might have argued that I never actually received any instruction, I simply dreamed the lake and the women. I might have harbored this same suspicion if my mind had not relaxed into, and grown to love, the work I was learning.

  I think my progress at the sixth level surprised the lake women some, though they never praised me. My study of Wyyvisar was progressing, and Vella had started teaching me to write Words as well, this being a whole discipline unto itself, with a thousand rules to remember. You can imagine the difficulty of the notion of writing a language that is not even truly spoken. The writing can be runes, though the runes are pictures and carry no power in and of themselves. Most often what is called writing involves something else, like the blessing of a ring to make a man able to speak to a horse. That is written Wyyvisar, and I had to learn it. As if this weren’t enough, each of the women told me stories, till I had learned a good sketch of the history of magic, from the deriving of Wyyvisar by YY-Mother to the making of Ildaruen by her Opposite, from the battles between the Evaenym and the Mountain Witches to the fall of Kentha Nurysem, the sorceress who loved Drudaen Keerfax and bore his child.

  I would ride from these lessons to the cart-train and the soldier column winding its way along the forest road, to Mordwen who often as not would drill me in High Speech grammar or writing or Jisraegen history along the way. On some of those nights none of the moons rose, and we sat by watchfires and sang songs by starlight, sometimes sharing brandy, sometimes listening to stories.

  Often I was so full I would lie in bed unable to sleep, thoughts chasing each other head to tail, and when sleep did come I dreamed of my work all night, lighting lamps and watching fires, sleeping in a damp cave or meditating while holding a smooth stone in my palms.

  Once I dreamed of Kirith Kirin. In the dream I was riding with the column as usual and felt, while no one else was in sight, the familiar lurch of departure, the summons of the lake women, only when I drew bre
ath again I was not at Illyn Water, I was facing Kirith Kirin. That dream image of the Prince was as vivid as if he had been facing me in real time. He was wearing buckskins, the creamy brown leather setting off his bronze skin. He was watching me as if he were very angry. I said, “Don’t you think I can feel a difference?” and the dream dissolved.

  We heard nothing from him for many days, however. Other news reached us, about bread riots in Cordyssa following the commencement of the new wheat tariffs, and the refortification of Ithlumen, the fortress guarding the approach to Cordyssa and the mines. Rumors were raising the walls by as much as forty feet, and estimates of the thickness of the stone were staggering. Some said Drudaen was finally ready to build a shenesoeniis there, a magician’s tower to secure his control over the north.

  Meanwhile Athryn Ardfalla and her Court were moving from Ivyssa to the palace Dernhang on the island of Kmur, where she often spent the summer. She would celebrate, in only a few weeks, the three hundred twenty-third year of her reign.

  Chapter 7: AEDIAMYSAAR

  1

  I turned fifteen on the ride to Suvrin Sirhe, late in the month of Khan.

  Uncle Sivisal remembered, and got permission from Gaelex to ride with me that morning. He had bought the fifteenth bead for my naming-necklace from one of the merchants who traveled with the camp, and he presented it to me with an awkward smile. I was surprised and touched; I had been planning to buy the stone myself, once I got someone to tell me how to get my money from the paymaster. (There was a small pay allowance for the kyyvi, same as the rest of the army.) I thanked Uncle Sivisal and we had a good time talking.

  Mordwen was riding close by, and when my uncle returned to his place in the column, the Seer wished me a happy naming-day. I showed him my stone, and that told him I was fifteen now, a year from adulthood, if he had not known it already.

  Later in the day a messenger reached us from Kirith Kirin. I saw the letter, since it was addressed to Mordwen Illythin and he was beside me. The Prince was in a country called Ym and he wanted Mordwen to ride to meet him at place called Aediamysaar. This means Mount Diamysaar; the Diamysaar were the first of created women. Diamysaar means “Sister to the Eye,” and the Eye is another name for YY, for Mother-God.

  My name was written at the bottom of the message in the midst of some other words I could not read. Mordwen saw me studying it. “Well, how much of it can you make out?”

  “He wants you to meet him at Aediamysaar. Where is that?”

  “Near where we’re going. It’s a very ancient place, a huge earthwork with a circle of stones at the top. The Diamysaar built it at the beginning of their war with Cunavastar. I think you’ll like it.”

  “Am I going, too?”

  “Couldn’t you read that? Yes, I’m to bring you with me.” He was intrigued and curious. He headed back along the column to find Gaelex, while I sat still. Why did Kirith Kirin send for me? Could it mean he wasn’t angry any more?

  Gaelex had provisions and a light tent issued us and we left the main column as soon as these were ready. Ym country was a full day’s ride east of the road, Mordwen said.

  Despite his complaining, Mordwen could ride as well as anyone, and our horses, being children of Keikindavii, could have galloped the whole day and night straight through if we had asked for that. We were content to ride till sundown. I pitched the tent following some instruction from Mordwen. Mordwen built the fire, painstakingly; I knew a harmony to make the wood burn, it would have been so easy to intone it in that place of my mind. He touched the roch to the ifnuelyn and the fire mounted upward, throwing sparks and blue streaks of smoke toward the upper branches.

  Only then did it occur to me, there by the fire, that the lake women had not summoned me the whole day. This was the first time I had missed my lesson at Illyn Water since the women first took me as a pupil.

  I found Nixva tethered to a faris sapling, and stroked his long face, his velvet muzzle. I had brushed him and thrown a blanket over him. He was peaceful and without any sign of trouble, and I reflected that getting to Illyn had never really been my job but was his. Mordwen and I ate dried meat and drank cumbre, a good meal if somewhat unvaried. He had brought a skin of wine too, and drank deeply. I slept peacefully the whole night, spring breezes blowing softly against my face.

  In the morning I woke before dawn, rising in time to sing Velunen, facing east, as new sunlight colored the sky, the first sun, a clear white light. Mordwen had brought an oet so we had hot jaka. We had a fair breakfast, way-bread and salted meat.

  In daylight one could tell we were in different country. Where along the road from Golden Wood I had seen every sort of tree, here one saw only faris, cedar, hemlock and fir. We had ascended into the foothills of the mountains and rode uphill. Soon, from the crest of each hill I could see Mount Diamysaar in the distance, a huge slab of rock on which trees had stubbornly grown and down whose jagged sides clear water streamed. I could see the stones at the summit, huge flat things, set out in rings.

  Mordwen told me something about the place, which was built by the Diamysaar during their war with Cunavastar, who had built an earlier stone circle within his fortress Cunevadrim. He used the circle as a device to focus his magic; to fight him, the Diamysaar caused a mountain to rise up in the middle of Arthen, and they built their own stone circle at its top. In the war that followed much of Arthen was destroyed — the forest, in those days, ran south to the present Cuthunre valley, and north to Thynilex and Svyssnam. Cunavastar brought Ildaruen magic into the world, the language of undoing and unmaking, and his success hinted at the existence of another power beyond the YY; but in the end the Diamysaar bound him and imprisoned him far beneath the mountains.

  One could see that the solitary mountain, rising so starkly above the hills, was no ordinary work of geology; the land thereabouts showed the signs of old, localized upheaval. Trees along one flank, torn up by the roots when the ground broke open, had petrified in the streams of water, lying in broken pieces in the shadow of the mountain.

  Aediamysaar rose too steeply for horses to climb. We tethered Nixva and Kyvixa with the horses of those who had arrived ahead of us. I recognized the Keikin and other of his offspring. My heart beat more strongly when I realized who would at the summit.

  Mordwen warned me the path was steep. I followed through a grove of twisted scrub-faris and a vine bare of leaves. The path had a winter aspect even on that warm morning, and I found myself wishing for a coat. We climbed in silence.

  I had wondered vaguely how the Prince would behave when we reached the top. I adopted an attitude Commyna would have approved, of respectful wariness. As we neared the end of the climb, with the wind screeching breakneck through the thin, twisted trees, I told myself over and over again, enjoy the scenery, you may get nothing but that.

  It would have been sufficient, I think. I had never seen anything like the view going up. We spiraled higher over the undulating rhythm of green and golden treetops, finally climbing so high one could see the eastern mountains. On a clear day one can see the walls of Drii from Mount Diamysaar. If I had been on horseback I would have fallen off at the sight.

  The top of the mountain was a broad table of flat stone. A flight of curved steps led up the sheer rock face on either side of this plateau — that is to say, from either the eastern or the western approaches, for one can reach the summit by either of two paths. On the rock table stood stone slabs set upright, some capped with capstones, forming a broad outer circle and a smaller, less defined, inner circle. One could see this much from a distance. One could also see cloaked figures standing in the circles. Karsten, came toward us. Wind blew through her hair.

  When I started to speak she shook her head, placing her finger against her lips. She took my hand and we walked toward the standing stones.

  A sound like music came from inside, the echoes of voices, but I knew this was nothing my ears were hearing. For a moment I felt what panic would be like. But my body remembered what the lake women
had taught me to do, and I breathed as if I were a bird slowly beating its wings. I savored each moment. We reached the shadows of the stones, ascending a shallow flight of steps, passing through the rock pylons.

  Beyond, past the second ring of stones, I could see the dull gray of the circular pavement. The light struck it oddly, not as if it were stone but as if it were the surface of a lake. A figure stood at the center of the pavement, a man, and I knew him long before I could distinguish any feature of his face.

  I had not seen him in days. Now, I knew the difference his presence made. I felt resonant with him, and expectant, and so full of feeling I was almost sad. The well of feelings was in fact so strong that I forgot my training, and as I neared him the voices returned, dizzying; songs of warning, in Words I knew.

  The songs were very powerful, and when I understood that their purpose was to warn me not to tamper with the magic here, I stopped in my tracks. The lake women had never told me what to do in a case like this, but had taught me something about entering magic circles and magician’s chambers; one does neither lightly. Here was a device for moving power built in the age of Cunavastar, and I was being led blithely onto the stone circle as if this were someone’s tent.