Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” she answered. “Give me another moment.” She turned to me again, as Vissyn and Vella returned to their earnest discussion with the others. “The traveling we need to do can only be managed at certain times. I need to hurry to tell you the rest. The cloak we made is yours. Wear it even though you haven’t reached your day of adulthood; you’ll need it. You never were a child while we knew you, anyway. The cloak should serve you well, especially outside Arthen where you don’t have the virtue of the Elder Shrines and Elder Trees to protect you. Remember that not everything has yet been revealed. There is another thing I want to tell you, though you won’t understand why.” Here she flushed slightly, embracing me with unaccustomed tenderness. “Long ago we Sisters were exiled from Arthen, though we love it dearly. The wrong done was mine. The lore is known to the twice-named and some others. Learn it. You’ll understand after a while.” She released me and we watched each other.

  I said, “I’ll never forget you. I hope I live to see you again.”

  She gave me the wry look with which I had grown familiar. “Maybe you will.”

  She set the cloak parcel in my arms. We descended from the shrine and she greeted the others while I said good-bye to Vella and Vissyn. Vella touched the top of my head, her hand weighed down with rings. “Commyna has been whispering in your ear a good while. I hope she remembered everything she was supposed to tell you.”

  “She told me a lot. If I can make sense of it all.”

  “We’ll miss you, boy. You be as careful as you can.”

  Vissyn leaned against me, thumping my back with her fist. “You won’t be able to be very careful, if I know you. We will miss you, Jessex. But it was high time we were rid of you. I don’t know how much longer we could’ve gone on pretending we were training you to be the magician’s apprentice.”

  The wind grew stronger, clouds darkening. Vissyn said to Commyna, “We should go now, Sister. We’ve many places to visit before we leave Aeryn.”

  Commyna nodded. “What do you say, Imral Ynuuvil, do you think we should tell your father first?”

  The Venladrii colored with pleasure. “He would be honored to receive you.”

  “I think that’s a lovely idea,” Vella said, mounting her horse. “I haven’t seen Drii in just thousands of years.”

  “Good bye,” Vissyn called, and Commyna and Vella echoed the words. Wind was blowing furiously and the sun had nearly vanished. The Sisters drew their cloaks around them and rode silently toward Wood’s End, till a shadow engulfed them and we could see nothing else.

  When they were gone I turned to Kirith Kirin, who stood some distance away and yet still watched me. I thought, I don’t know what it will be like to be free.

  No one spoke. The wind lifted my coat, sang in the treetops, swept the grass. I could feel a presence, the shadow of a hand in the southern sky. In the south clouds were darkening.

  “A storm is coming,” I said to the others, “sent from the south. If you’ll permit me, we’ll ride back to Nevyssan by a way I know that will enable us to beat the bad weather.”

  “I have a feeling I’m going to like this,” Pelathayn said, grinning. “You know Kirith Kirin, this may be just the thing.”

  “Like in the old days,” Mordwen said, and Kiril Karsten winked at me.

  Kirith Kirin beckoned, and I ran to him gladly. He took the bundle from me, tying it to Nixva himself. Our ride home was on a howling wind, riding in the ithikan unseen by any eye. We were in camp before the first drop of rain fell on us, after moving at impossible speed. I had never felt so alive. This was the beginning of my true art.

  Chapter 12: THAANARC

  1

  The storm was violent, lasting through the night and into the next day. Its main fury broke to the south, but enough strength remained to give Nevyssan and thereabouts a thorough drenching. The crash of lightning kept the horses skittish and made deadman’s watch a misery for the sentries.

  I was awake through it, having forsaken the comfort of my cot for a night’s wandering through camp and the surrounding hills. I had preparations to make, and the hours till morning were short.

  A storm that is the product of magic is not like other storms; it follows the same laws but its engine is independent of natural circumstance. There is a difference the trained ear can hear. I built a fire and filled my mind with the burning. The wind mounted in fury, bending the faris and stripping oak leaves from their branches, lashing the earth with rain. The drops stung my face as I sat before my fire, murmuring and gazing into the flames that continued to burn by virtue of my protection.

  I could hear the Wizard singing, his Words rumbling in my bones, his anger evident. The image of the storm changed from fireworks to darkness, and I could feel his power reaching out, full of malice. Once, for a moment, I sensed another presence near him, someone I knew, alone, frightened, full of pain.

  I meditated at the fourth level and felt him like scorching heat. This plane had been his playground for too long, he had needed no defenses here since Kentha died, and I could see him plainly. He was vast in the south like a dark shadow, tall, with eyes like wheels of fire, his face handsome and terrible, his mouth cruel, these features shimmering beyond the veils of his power. Words were pouring out from him, a sound like the baying of many wolves and the rending of flesh. Someone was crying in pain, someone I knew, and I understood that he had vented his anger on his prisoner.

  So, without preparation, I began my own torrent of anger and song, my image rising up on fourth circle like a piercing light. From this distance, with no High Place on which to stand, I could do him no real harm. But my singing sent a jolt through him, coming as it did from the level on which he had moved unopposed till that moment. I could feel his anger and astonishment before he diverted wind and rain, raising veils so I could no longer read his features plainly. Soon he was a cloud in the south, same as his presence on fifth level, his purpose hidden from me. Try as I might I could not pierce his veil.

  I contented myself with other practices, building my own defenses, augmenting them with the magic inherent in Arthen, a long and devious application that had the effect of amplifying my voice and movement through the Woodland, so that no matter where I was, I would seem to be in all places at the same time. This was slow work, but when I stopped, near daybreak, I had lain the foundations of a matrix that would alert me to any change in Drudaen even if I were not kei. I could have done much more if I had the Sisters’ trick of looping a string of time out of the present moment, but this was an application of higher circles, and Drudaen could not manage it either. I could slow time for myself, though, and I did.

  Emerging from the long night’s meditation, I could feel Drudaen in the south like a brooding cloud, and the storm he maintained was rumbling in my ears. I withdrew my protection from the fire and watched the rain fall hissing onto glowing embers. Such was the rain’s force that an instant later the fire vanished. Drawing my sleeved coat closer, I hurried back to the shrine tent to prepare for Morning Ceremony.

  2

  I found guards posted at the shrine, one of whom halted me when I tried to walk through the clearing. The soldier recognized me and drew back in surprise. “You’re the son of Kinth, the kyyvi. I thought you were in the tent.”

  “That’s where I’m going.”

  She looked extremely uncomfortable. “I have orders to let no one pass. But I don’t think the Prince meant me to keep you out.”

  I laughed softly, at her innocence in thinking she could. “There’ll be no Morning Ceremony if you do. May I?”

  After a moment’s consideration she stepped aside to let me pass, giving out the birdlike call that let the other sentries I was coming.

  I checked the lamp wick out of habit, though it had only a short while left to burn. Axfel was sleeping in the shadow beside the bronze altar, and since the rain was still falling I didn’t have the heart to disturb him. I had caught him using this refuge before; YY-Mother never seemed t
o mind. I paused to scratch his fur where it tufted between the ears, murmuring his name.

  Someone was in my room. The sound of breathing. At the flap opening I paused, watching Kirith Kirin, his large frame dwarfing the cot, hair tangled about his head, tunic twisted half off his shoulders. I could see him clearly, and his innocence, his look of utter rest, closed round my heart like a hand. I sat beside him on the tent floor. At first I was afraid to touch him and tried to convince myself it would be impolite to waken him. But I could feel dawn coming in my bones. I traced a curl on his forehead, saying his name.

  He opened his eyes at once, seeing me and fighting his way upward from sleep. I gathered my bath coat and oil while he watched, blinking. “Where have you been?”

  “Working nearby.”

  “Don’t you need to sleep?”

  “Not always. What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to look in on you. Tired as I was, I couldn’t rest. When I saw you weren’t here I decided to wait.”

  “It’s close to dawn,” I knelt to get a clean tunic from the chest, “I don’t have much time.”

  “It’s still raining outside?”

  “Oh yes. We’ll have rain through most of the day I expect. Our friend to the south is not happy.”

  He sat up on the cot, running a hand through his hair. “This will be your last morning as kyyvi,” he announced while I was folding the felva. “Savor it, if you’ve enjoyed your time here.”

  This news stopped me cold, and I sat back on my heels, looking round the tent. “I suppose I should have thought of it.”

  “A magician can’t serve in the shrine. We’ll select a new temple servant today. As for you, you’ll have duties of your own, my dear.”

  “This will take some getting used to.”

  He stood close to me as he adjusted his tunic, watching me with affection and amusement. “Yes, it will indeed.”

  “How soon will the news go out?” I asked.

  “Today.” He was smiling with mischief, though I thought nothing of it at the time. “This is part of the custom. You’re in my court, now.” He was studying my face, seeing more in it than I wished. “You’re afraid.”

  “Yes, I think I am. I’m more afraid of the Nivri and the Finru than I am of Drudaen.”

  “You’ve charmed half of them already. You don’t need to worry.”

  He sent me off to the ritual bath with those words in my ears. The last instruction was that I should not ride suuren this morning, but wait behind the shrine for his instructions. If he thought the moment right, he would speak to those who assembled for Morning Ceremony. I was running behind, of course, having lingered too long to talk to him, and so I didn’t wonder enough about what he had in mind. One can’t think of what is to come and do justice to the bath ritual. I finished and returned to the tent as folks were gathering, with barely enough time to spread the lamp-cloth in the workroom.

  That morning’s was a good crowd, with many of the Nivri and Finru houses in attendance, and soldiers from the barracks tents and merchants who had been hardy enough to follow us to Nevyssan. But Velunen sometimes draws a good crowd anyway; what made that morning notable was the intensity with which they watched me, as if I had suddenly grown horns on my head. Only when the sun struck fire in the muuren stone and I extinguished the lamp did I understand.

  Word of Gnemorra had reached camp, even though the sentry with whom I had spoken was ignorant of it. They were no longer watching the son of Kinth, a farm boy dragged into Arthen at the behest of an oracular dream. They were watching the Witch of the Wood who had killed the Witch of Karns.

  I sang Velunen with that thought in mind, holding my head high, making certain I showed no fear. I believe I sang well, though I’d rather have given the song itself more attention since that was my last morning to sing it for the shrine. I lifted the warm lamp from its cradle and carried it to the workroom without a backward glance.

  I could hear the hubbub in the before-shrine even from there, the word “Gnemorra” from every side, along with “pirunuu”, “Karns,” and “Kyminax”. Accompanied by waves of anxiety.

  Humans fear magicians. The lake women had warned me in more ways than one; and anyway it’s to be expected. My task was to claim my place among these people. As I was thinking this, fingering the tasseled edge of the lamp-cloth, silence fell in the tent.

  I straightened, feeling the rush of anticipation, understanding that into this pool of quiet would drop Kirith Kirin’s voice. Wiping my hands clean of lamp oil, I hurried to the tent opening, paused there, and saw his shadow falling against the sheer hanging behind the altar. The mouth of the shrine tent had been opened wide, so that those who were in the clearing could see; the chamber flooded with rose wash from the east, the sun rising beyond violently colored clouds. One could hear the rain beating down on the leaves and in the clearing, so quiet were those assembled once it was clear Kirith Kirin would speak.

  “People of Aeryn and soldiers of the Woodland Guard, I ask that you listen a while.” His voice had a way of filling any space, and cut through the rain as if it were not there. Not a soul stirred. “As many of you have learned, Fort Gnemorra has fallen to us, General Nemort is our prisoner, and Julassa Kyminax has perished. These urgent events were the reason for my return to camp. Other events have prevented my addressing you directly until now. You will soon learn of all these things.

  “Those among you who are knowledgeable about the history and traditions of our country understand that we are at the beginning of a long conflict that has been prophesied for many years. Certain signs, known to the Evaenym and others, have been awaited as proof that the years are fulfilled and the time of disorder is on us. One of these signs was the coming of a wizard to Arthen, whose form would not be that of other wizards. As those of you who have heard the story of the battle for Gnemorra will understand, the magician has come, and indeed is the same the son of Kinth who has walked among us for many months.”

  The effect of this was electrifying: one could hear the collective intake of breath. I hurried quickly to my room, found the bundle in which the Diamysaar Cloak was still tied, quickly cutting the knots with my knife.

  The cloak fell out like shimmering starlight, a cool silkiness to my hands, shot through with color like bolts of lightning, smelling of the wind over Illyn and the fragrant tea brewed of sweet lake water. The scent hit me, rich and sudden, and stung my eyes since suddenly the lake seemed so far away, and I figured I would never go back. But another breath and that was gone. I shook out the cloak’s fullness, found the clasp.

  Kirith Kirin called me by name, his voice booming.

  I could feel the movement of power all around, a presence like nothing I had ever felt at Illyn Water nor on any of the lower circles of magic. The Prince of Aeryn is a magic thing in and of himself, and I could feel the protection of YY that guarded him now that I was able to use my full senses in the real world. I fastened the Diamysaar Cloak over my shoulders, noting, when I did, a slip of paper that fell onto the floor. I picked it up, not pausing to read it.

  The cloak hung round me like the singing of many voices. Wearing it, I felt the shadow of Commyna falling on me from behind. I could hear her voice plainly, saying, “Stand up straight boy, and look lively. Did we teach you all these years to have you shame us before the simpletons of Aeryn?” I stood up straight. With that voice in my ear I returned to the shrine.

  The gentry and soldiers had drawn back from the altar, and at the sight of the Sister-Cloak they gasped. I gave them something to talk about myself. I kindled a light from the cloak, colors that shot out like fire, as well as a wind that swept down cold and white from the highest clouds. At Kirith Kirin’s feet I knelt.

  He said, in the same deep-timbered tones, “Before all gathered here and all the worlds beyond I do affirm by my life and honor as Kirith Kirin, Prince of Aeryn and Lord in Arthen, that you have been rightly and truly taught, you who were once known as the son of Kinth, who will be called he
reafter Lord Thaanarc of Arthen, Ruler of Lands and Peoples that will be named hereafter, Defender of the Law of Changes. Keeper of the Keys to Ellebren Tower over Inniscaudra.”

  He had warned me of none of this, nor had anyone else. The words rushed over me like thunder, as if his voice and a hundred other voices were uttering the words. I felt the weight settle over me. I heard the echo of far-off singing. Kirith Kirin drew me to my feet.

  He sang a song I had never heard before, strange archaic forms of words, verses of great beauty powered by the strength of his voice, a part of Kimri not sung for ages, maybe. Heads were bowing throughout the clearing, and I bowed mine too.

  Here in darkness

  help is come

  marked by the Eye in Heaven

  light is breaking

  in a time of war

  shadow from horizon to horizon

  bringing night