Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  Karsten turned and frowned at me. When I still refused to move she bent and whispered, “Come along Jessex. Kirith Kirin is waiting for you.”

  “I don’t want to go inside.”

  She touched my forehead sadly. “You don’t have any choice.”

  Mordwen paled, gazing into the stones. “Why is Kirith Kirin doing this?”

  Karsten spoke, without meeting anyone’s eyes. “What do you think? There aren’t so many uses for this place that we know.”

  Mordwen studied the motionless figure at the center of the shining pavement, the Seer looking as if he wanted to speak to the Prince, but deciding the effort would be futile, these changes plainly visible on his features. He knelt and spoke to me with tenderness that touched me. “You’re only being asked to walk across the granite circle. Once you’ve reached the place where Kirith Kirin is standing the test will be over.”

  “Test?” Anger flooded me suddenly. “Why am I being tested this time?”

  He started to speak but Karsten cut him off. “You’re not to tell him anything, Mordwen. Kirith Kirin’s orders.”

  “Naturally,” Mordwen said.

  “That’s enough talking.” To me she said, “Walk through these pylons and across the granite, Jessex. Say nothing, whatever happens.”

  I waited a moment for my head to clear. The talking had distracted me, and with the lapse of concentration came a resurgence of voices, a dizzying power,

  Traveler go no farther

  this is no place for a visit

  You who are lost in Words

  Enter with care and due precaution

  I could hear other phrases that cannot be translated, specific warnings about specific penalties to be imposed on the pretender to power.

  I could feel the barrier erected against the entry of one like me, and on my lips was the phrase to disarm the incantation, a request for entry and a pledge to do no harm to the holy place. But I could not say it without disobeying the injunctions of the women at Lake Illyn, I must never say Wyyvisar away from them, and on my obedience to this rule hinged the remainder of my training. I ascended the stone steps with my lips clamped shut, my mind under strict harness, every breath a concentrated effort.

  Beyond the first rank of pylons I could feel the change. The voices of warning changed to voices of menace, and since I spoke neither to challenge nor to placate the magic of the place, and yet was an initiate of the Circles, I had no defense. The possibility that I would be foolish enough to come to such a place as this had never occurred to the lake women. I reached the inner ring of pylons without suffering more than generalized dizziness, pausing before setting out across the polished circle. I suppose I must have looked tired. Kirith Kirin, awaiting me in the center of the circle, looked at me oddly, as if puzzled this was taking so long. Though to tell the truth I never studied his expression. Watching him would have made me angry again, and I had no time to spare for that.

  When I stepped onto the pavement, a new singing began, and the wind increased.

  The Prince was looking down at the pavement expectantly, but there was no change in the polished surface.

  The singing rose in power, but he was deaf to that. I bit my lips together, feeling a tearing pain like when I was in the dark place in the mountains. I kept walking grimly forward, feeling the wind blow harder, but in my mind was another vision, myself as a tiny image walking horizontally across the gray stone disk, bare to every power, my thoughts plain and undefended. I could feel awarenesses, Commyna and Vissyn momentarily, and another power to the south, the same image I had met in the fourth level trance. My enemy.

  I must have stood still sometime during this moment of confusion. I became conscious again when Kirith Kirin called me from the place where he was still standing.

  Laughter filled my inner hearing, and a long phrase in a language I had never heard. A power was reaching for me, knowing where I was. I stepped across the black granite ring to the place where Kirith Kirin stood.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, embracing me, “I’ve wronged you. There was no change in the stones.”

  His touch was cold to me. I pulled away from him. “In a moment I won’t be able to see you or hear you, If you don’t take me away from this place I’ll be killed.”

  He frowned at me, and started to speak again. But the voice from the south was already engulfing me, and my undefended spirit was weakening. “I don’t know why you brought me here,” I said, “but while I’m here I’m in danger.”

  “From what?” he asked, and then I couldn’t see him any more. I was aware of my body falling. I was no longer quite inside it, heeding the call of the singer.

  I could feel his arms when he lifted me from the stone. I could feel hands on my face as well, but I believe those were magical touches; Vella was singing in my ear. Wind blew on my face. I awoke in the grass, with Mordwen bending over me. “Thank the YY, there you are.”

  Wind lashed the trees behind his head, and clouds were gathering over the mountain. The wind was warm, out of season. The storm that was coming already had a fierce feeling; soon forks of lightning were lashing down like snake’s tongues from the sky. I sat up, watching the whole landscape, the violent clash of grays and greens. Karsten and Imral were watching too.

  Kirith Kirin was behind me. I could feel his presence.

  “Lie quiet for a moment,” Mordwen said, but I shook my head. I stood, letting the wind whip my face. Away from the stones I had less awareness of what striving was producing this storm, but the sickness filled me.

  “We need to get away from here,” I said.

  “We’ll leave as soon as the storm breaks.” Kirith Kirin spoke from behind me. “We can take shelter under the pylons.”

  I shook my head and said emphatically, “The storm won’t break as long as we’re near the holy place. We can’t take shelter here.”

  “Jessex, the road down would be murder in a storm.”

  I watched him calmly, feeling a power in me I had never felt before. “Yes, Kirith Kirin, I know, and I also know why it was made that way. You don’t know what you’ve done in bringing me here.”

  This touched his pride, and I could see his anger plainly. But he swallowed it back. “I had good reasons for what I did. The stones didn’t change. My mind is more at rest about you, or at least it was. Where did you learn so much about this place?”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  He would have answered but his voice drowned in a gust of wind, followed by the first sheets of rain. He looked round at the sky.

  The storm was awesome, crashing over the forest with thunder and lightning, wind hurtling across the treetops, breaking with force against the side of Mount Diamysaar. Unconsciously we drew closer together as the rain intensified. The force of the storm sobered the Prince. Imral and Karsten also drew close. “This is uncanny,” Imral said. “There’s magic in this.” He studied me with suspicion, rain running down his face. “But the stones didn’t change, there were no runes.”

  Karsten looked from one to the other, and said in a flat, even voice, “You both saw what happened when he reached the inner circle. If he says we need to get away from here, I’m inclined to believe him. It was his crossing the stone circle that triggered the storm.”

  “That’s an interesting theory anyway,” Imral said, and went on to say more that the wind drowned out.

  I turned away, shivering in my tunic. I was too close, my head was aching. Someone was calling me. I turned, blindly, to find them all watching me. My anger boiled at the sight of their stupid faces; “I can’t stay here,” I shouted, “I told you that. You had no reason to bring me here if you trusted me. If you have any sense you’ll trust me now and get down to your horses at once.”

  Even then they merely stood there, four of the blessed of the world, dumbfounded in the rain. Something changed in me, seeing them like that. I turned and ran down the path, pressing my hands to my ears as if that could help.

  The rocks were slip
pery, and I was already dizzy from staying too long on the summit. The rain increased, sometimes beating down so furiously I could not see two feet in front of me on the path. The wind was like a prey-bird trying to claw me from the rocks. I clung to the tenacious shrubs, when there were any to be had; otherwise I hugged the side of the mountain or got down on my knees and crawled.

  The storm continued, furious, a battering like nothing I’d seen since the morning I left my father’s farm. I found Nixva with his family, other daughters and sons of Keikindavii. Taking his bridle in hand, I told him we had to get to Illyn Water, and I mounted. I waited on his back for a moment, watching the path, empty still. Since I could do nothing else, I prayed for their safety.

  My own required that I get away from this place as soon as possible. Nudging Nixva with my heels, I headed him for the forest.

  We rode for some time through the resounding storm, and I began to wonder if we would find Illyn that day. Rain beat down in a thousand rhythms, leaf to leaf, drops and streams, an endless pulse receding in every direction. The sound was soothing. My heartbeat steadied and my head cleared as we drew away from Aediamysaar.

  We were heading east, toward low hills. The storm had followed us. Overhead trees lashed wildly, branches tangling and splitting. Nixva was surefooted as any horse could be, and cut through the rain and wind effortlessly. I lay my head in his mane for a moment, feeling safe and warm against him.

  When I sat up again we were at Illyn Water, where the storm was also blowing. Commyna met me, she on horseback, cloaked in a flowing gown, eyeing the heavens like a field marshal. “Thank the Eye,” she said, “I was worried sick. Tell me what happened.”

  I told her, quickly. She let me finish and reflected a moment. “That agrees with what we saw.”

  “You know what happened?”

  “Yes. The Sister Mountain is one of the places we monitor.”

  “Why did Kirith Kirin take me there?” I asked.

  “To test you. To see if you were a sorcerer. When an adept crosses the inner stone ring, bright runes appear in the pavement. In most cases.” She was smiling as if she had been very clever.

  I looked at the ground, suddenly bereft. “Why would it matter so much?”

  “Haven’t you guessed? He thinks you practice magic in camp. He thinks you’ve enchanted him. He thinks that’s why he’s fond of you.”

  For a moment even the storm made no difference, I heard nothing. I felt nothing. Finally I said, “And I can’t tell him any different without telling him about you.”

  “Certainly you can,” Commyna said, with lightning illuminating her features. “By the way you behave.” Seeing me still confused, she said more plainly, “Don’t judge him, or anyone else. You don’t know everything. You care for him, that’s plain. Let that be enough for the moment.”

  The storm grew fierce. I asked, finally, “Why didn’t the stones change on the mountain? Why didn’t the runes appear?”

  Commyna smiled. “My sisters and I prevented it. But that was also what awakened the power of the place, and what drew the attention of the Wizard.”

  I framed one more question in my mind, though by now I knew the answer. I asked, as we were heading through the gray rain for the lakeshore, “What power could you have over the stones on Sister Mountain?”

  “Can’t you guess?” Commyna asked in return. “We made the mountain and put them on it.”

  2

  Following my time at the Lake I was returned to a region near the Prince and the other Jhinuuserret, a few hours ride back of them on another of the cleared roads. Vissyn brought me to the place, actually riding along the road for a while, to make sure I had my bearings. This time I was not returned to the same moment that I had left, but emerged into temporal Arthen on the following morning, when the skies over Ym were country-clear and blue.

  Vissyn parted from me in the shadow of a sheer hill with a rocky slope, around the base of which ran the road I would follow. At the top of the hill stood a low ruin, stone walls distinguishable as fortifications as well as the time-wrecked base of a tower. I asked what the place had been and Vissyn answered, “This was one of the fortresses guarding the approach to Montajhena during the war between the Evaenym and Falamar. At he height of the war Montajhena commanded all the country from this hillside to the south Kellyxa.

  “Did it have a name?”

  Vissyn smiled. “Everything Jisraegen has a name. But I can’t read the name of this place from the stones.” She turned her horse to go. “Follow the road from here,” she said. “Kirith Kirin is ahead of you, you might catch him by nightfall, or at least by morning. He and his friends think you’re lost in the wilderness.”

  “I’ll tell them I found the road and followed it thinking they might have done the same.”

  She agreed this would be a good story. Bowing her head, she signaled her horse and vanished.

  I leaned forward and stroked the firm muscles of Nixva’s neck. He turned to eye me sidewise, making it plain he was ready to go. I said to him, “Teach me to be calm like you are.”

  He shook his head, the black mane shimmering. He seemed ready to laugh out loud. Sighing, I nudged him with my heels and he gladly galloped forward.

  The day passed in a kind of silence that had become rare for me. I spent the time in solitude, not a soul in sight, only Nixva and me under fair skies. I had some food in my saddlebag and stopped to eat it in a dense part of the forest where faris and oak were mixed, both nearly submerged under heavy nets of dark elgerath, the wildly colored varieties that grow in higher altitudes, blues like bolts of lightning, reds like rubies and oranges like fire. My thighs ached from riding. I ate strips of dried venison and drank cumbre from my flask while Nixva ate grass and sweet leaves. Though the glade was beautiful we did not linger.

  In the afternoon Nixva stretched his legs and maintained an awesome pace, eating up the road with his strides, but still we had not caught the others by sunset when we stopped. I found a rock promontory and sang the Evening Song. I had no muuren stone with me, and so had to guess the proper moment. I lit a torch the hard way, with ifnuelyn and tinder, and we rode beneath the light of that and the two moons.

  More hours passed, and still we found no camp, no horsemen, nothing but dark road and whispering trees. Finally we stopped for the night. I gathered a pile of wood and built a fire, meaning it to frighten away prowlers. My store of food was low but I had enough to settle the grumbling in my belly. I spread my blanket on the lush, springy grass and with the fire to lull me I soon slept.

  Twice I woke and built up the fire. Nixva murmured to me each time, telling me we were safe.

  In the morning I had no jaka and no bath either. I changed tunics anyway and began my ride quickly, singing Velunen from Nixva’s back. Once again the lake women never summoned me to Illyn. By midheaven I had not caught Kirith Kirin either, and was beginning to wonder if he had abandoned the road for another path.

  But in afternoon I found a camp by the roadside, near one of the obelisk markers. Mordwen was fanning a small flower of flame while Imral Ynuuvil set up a viis-tent beside one that was already staked in place. It was a marvel to watch him perform the task, neat-handedly, no wasted motion. No one else was in sight.

  I dismounted some distance from the fledgling fire and walked with Nixva’s reins in hand. Mordwen saw me coming and straightened, soundless, electrified. When he found his voice he said, “Look who’s here, Imral.”

  The Drii Prince turned. His pale eyes gave me a slight shock. He patiently finished tying the stake he was presently working on. Touching the unicorn necklace at his throat, he said, “Jessex. It’s good to see you. We were worried.”

  “I’ve been trying to find you since yesterday,” I said, swallowing. “I got lost in the forest around Aediamysaar. I’d almost given up.”

  “You frightened us half to death,” Mordwen said, “running away like that. You could have wandered around Ym for months before we found you.”

 
; Imral’s tone was matter-of-fact, “We spent hours searching for you before we realized there was too much country to cover. Kirith Kirin was very concerned.”

  “I’m sorry. I tried to tell you. I couldn’t stay there.”

  Imral considered this. Then he said, with evident feeling, “Why don’t we leave it alone? What happened on Aediamysaar is something I’d like to forget.”

  That closed the talk, and I was left to settle into camp. I unsaddled Nixva, leaving him to tell his kinfolk about where we had been while I made myself a pallet against a tall boulder, in a bed of abundant grass.

  The fire was crackling steadily by the time the hunters returned with their trophy, two lorus-hares shot through the skull. I was beyond the boulder out of sight, singing Kithilunen quietly, a whisper not even my shadow could have heard. Kirith Kirin asked if Imral would skin the hares and Imral answered that he thought I could probably do it as well as he could, and called me.