Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  “Or the child.” Imral turned to Karsten. “You were right all along.”

  “He means I never believed Kentha would kill her baby,” Karsten said. “Not when she went through fire and ice to have it in the first place.”

  I was washed white and numb. Imral handed me the locket and I studied the light within the gem, the strange writing inscribed on the back of the setting. “If she didn’t bury the child, what did she do with it?”

  “With him,” Karsten said. “His name was Aretaeo, I think. Don’t you understand? In Mordwen’s true dream, the one that brought you here, your lineage on your mother’s side is given, but not in the usual way: child of Sybil daughter of Fysyyn, Fysyyn child of Aretaeo. Aretaeo false child of Matvae.”

  “False child” is the phrase we use when the different-gendered parent does not acknowledge the child. So that a son would be referred to as the false child of his father’s wife when the real mother would not or could not acknowledge parentage. A thrill ran down my spine. I spoke so quietly I could hardly hear my own voice. “Grandmother knew this. When she was in her last sickness she told me her father’s mother was a witch. Not Matvae but the real one, she said. She wouldn’t tell me what she meant. I guess my mother knew, too.”

  Imral studied the stars for a time. “I suppose it would be unmerciful to waken Mordwen and Pelathayn even for news like this.”

  “The secret’s kept these generations, it can keep a few more hours,” Kirith Kirin said. He studied my face a long time, and I studied his for any sign of change.

  We sat quietly for some time listening to the fire. The necklace took heat from my palm and burned. It was hard to realize what I held, what it meant. This was the gem that Drudaen feared, the legend of which had kept him out of Montajhena since the breaking of the Towers. This was the reason he had killed my family — his own kin, as it turned out. When two lovers change gifts in this way, they make a vow that will never change. The gift is the sign of that. When one of them is a magician, to give a stone as that gift is to give a part of oneself, and such a thing in magic can always be used. There’s no defense against an object that carries such a vow. But even with my magic senses freed, I felt no stirring within the stone, no sign of whatever force it contained that could be used to harm Drudaen. In setting the stone into the metal, Kentha had bound the stone’s connection to Drudaen in some way. I studied it again, particularly the runes on the back. “What is this writing? Do you know?”

  Kirith Kirin took the locket and fingered the engraving. “These are priest-runes from Cunuduerum. Kentha was learned in their language.”

  I touched the gem again, breathed on it and listened. Not even a murmur of song emerged from its heart. “The writing disguises whatever power is in the gem. I don’t know what use it will be to me.”

  Kirith Kirin took the locket and tied it in the leather pouch again. “Don’t worry about that now. Time will show you what to do.”

  Silence as we watched the fire, the shimmer of heat over the roch-stones. Small sentences were traded. Kirith Kirin promised me a tour of Inniscaudra in the morning. Imral noted that the Army should arrive in Illaeryn soon; I told him the soldiers were at the edge of Illaeryn already and ought to reach the Three Hills by day after tomorrow. From the High Place I heard nothing of note. I let my thought linger there, drinking comfort, till Kirith Kirin stood and pulled me up by the hand. “We’re going to bed,” he said, and we did.

  9

  I brought my pack with me and followed Kirith Kirin into one of the rooms that opened onto the terrace. We were only a few hours from dawn. In the room, Kirith Kirin lit a tube-shaped lamp of a type I did not know, that cast off bright light better suited to early evening. Kirith Kirin dimmed it and the room took on a more pleasant aspect. The room was large and sparely furnished. Carved and painted screens hid a wash basin in the corner. Someone had already drawn a pitcher of water.

  We were alone together by our own efforts for the first time with the freedom to do as we chose. There were no more barriers between us except those within us: my ignorance and fear and his reluctance to frighten me, his reticence to touch what had not been touched before. When we had slept together in his tent the night before the ride to Jiiviisn Field, we had simply held each other and in fact had not even undressed. Tonight we had sworn to live within each other and we would do more. I stood over the water basin with water running out of the pitcher and let the rhythm of my breathing restore the calm that each moment threatened to dissolve in me.

  I was a boy again, a plain ignorant child. Nothing I had learned at Illyn Water prepared me for being naked with a man. What little I had picked up in camp through overhearing barracks talk had only added to my confusion. I found myself wishing for Uncle Sivisal, who was family and who could have explained some of this to me.

  Kirith Kirin took off his cloak and laid it on a table beside one of the folding screens. He pulled off his boots and I felt an unknown tide of heat rising in me at the thought that he would go on taking off his clothes. At that moment he did not, however. He returned to the basin wearing the tunic and leggings. His arms, corded with muscle, reached to lift the cloak from me. “Can one simply treat this like an ordinary cloak or does it need to be hung up?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered and tried to take it from him. He shook his head, smiling, and laid the cloak atop his own. The fabric, quiescent, merely glimmered.

  I knelt to unlace the thongs of my leather boots, feeling my heart begin to pound. Kirith Kirin was unrolling a bedroll on the bare bed. When I laid down the boots he watched me and smiled. His breathing had become more audible and I thought I could see the heart beating beneath the tunic. We watched each other. He reached for me, unclasping my tunic at the shoulders.

  I had never felt so naked, my nerves on fire. His hands played at the edges of my linen drawers. He ran his fingertips down my bare torso and I gasped. I touched his face. He watched me, still playing his hands along my body.

  His beauty caught me in a fever, and in a rush of blood my thought dissolved, my heartbeat increased, my hands reached for the pins that held his own tunic in place. He had to help me with the unfamiliar fastenings. When the fabric fell away from him all my nerves began to sing.

  I had known he was strong and beautiful but this reality was beyond anything I had imagined. In the pale light his body was like moonlight made into perfect flesh. The strong neck descended to broad, round shoulders and a deep chest. Where my nipples were pink and soft his were dark and flat. My nipples made points only when he touched them; his were already pointed and firm. Silken hair dotted the cleft of his chest and the ridge of his abdomen, descending into the loose drawers. I touched him artlessly without thinking he would feel for me as I felt for him; I was beyond planning. But when I brushed my hands along his bare flesh he caught his breath and closed his eyes, and when I continued to touch him he pulled me close.

  We bathed one another standing at the basin. The linen drawers tangled around our ankles. I was familiar with my own erection but the certainty of his was awesome. Our bodies entwined with water streaming down us and we dried each other using the tunics we had shed. We walked arm in arm to the bed, a bigger bed platform than any I had ever seen, with our sleeping rolls on top of it, and in it we lay with one another, moving with a rhythm that rose up in me, I know, though I had no idea as to its origin, it came from so deep. For what teaching was needed words were irrelevant. I was awash in a world of sensation strange and wonderful as anything I had ever learned at Illyn Water. I made love to Kirith Kirin with my mouth and hands and with all my heart.

  I will have offended some by saying so much. While the Jisraegen are not prudish, Kirith Kirin was and is a legend among us. One does not lightly undress him. But that night in the strange bed in Inniscaudra’s lower reaches, the legend was naked for good. The dark prince and the lighthearted youth were the same. When we were done, lying tangled in newness with the first hints of dawn in the air, I
leaned up and looked at the man, the strength and beauty, the soft lips whose tension I had kissed away. Kirith Kirin lay with his arm loosely around me. His eyes were full of peace. I had used no magic art but magic had occurred between us anyway. We had said nothing to each other during this whole time but now I said, “I love you with my whole life. I always will.”

  “Me too, for you,” he said, and pulled me against him.

  I thought I was too happy to sleep. But his comfortable strong body drew me down into rest as easily as it had drawn me upward into pleasure. I fell asleep with his breath warm along my neck and the sound of the wind on the High Place echoing in my ears.

  10

  In the morning we went over all my lessons from the night before to make sure I had them by heart. Afterward we lay abed for a long time, later than I had ever slept in my life. No one disturbed us.

  One does not crow about one’s good fortune if one wants to keep it; so the proverb goes. When I leaned above Kirith Kirin in that ample bed with the makeshift bed-clothing tumbled over his arms and thighs, I knew I was watching my life. Love of him burned like an ache and a spacious loneliness.

  Seeing this morning sadness in my face, he drew me closer. His skin was smooth as viis. A strong heart sent its pounding into my ears. “I’m afraid to move,” he said. “I’m afraid all this will dissolve.”

  “Me too. But it won’t, will it? We’re pledged now, no one can change that, can they?”

  “No one. Not Queen, not Lord, not YY-in-Heaven.”

  I put my finger on his lips. “Don’t blaspheme.”

  His laughter shook me. “Not blasphemy. A great dare. It was her promise that brought you here. You’re mine now until I leave this world or until it breaks into pieces. I will hold my Lady Mother to that.”

  His eyes were closed. The corners of the lids were wet. I touched the trembling lashes and brushed my mouth on his. “Then I’ll hold you both to it. Now, if I’m any judge the sun is shockingly high in heaven and we had both better get up from this bed before Imral scolds us for scandalizing the lords on our first morning.”

  “Imral has had enough of scolding us, I think.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  “You don’t bear him any grudge, do you?”

  “No. He was right. But I was tired of waiting.”

  Kirith Kirin bounded out of bed. He crossed the sunlit room naked and dazzling. When I got back my breath I followed.

  We dressed one another. Kirith Kirin turned his nose up at my plain tunic and swore he would see me better dressed in days to come. “You’re in my court after all, you might as well look like a courtier.”

  “People will think I’m putting on airs.”

  “People will think you’re putting on airs no matter what you do. But people with discernment will know you’re dressing to suit your rank. No argument. Good clothes are just the beginning.”

  “Oh?”

  “Certainly. You must have lands, houses, jewels, silver, cattle, horses, soldiers, householders.” He walked up and down the room declaiming with a boot in his hand. “And titles of course, you’ll need a list of titles as long as your arm. You’re nobody without a lot of hereditary theses and thats to string out after your name.”

  “This will naturally endear me to the other nobles no end.”

  “Naturally. The more rich noble folk there are the better everybody likes it.” He had amused himself so thoroughly he sat laughing on the bed. I knelt to help him with the boot as an excuse to be near him, lacing leather thongs up his shapely calf. He ran fingers through my hair. “You know I’m not joking entirely, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m not joking either. There’s no need for you to go out of your way to offend people on my behalf.”

  “No one will be offended. I’ll be doing a lot of reordering. Karsten must get her estates back, and Pelathayn, and Mordwen. Athryn has confiscated land from all the minor houses and most of the great ones. I can’t do anything about the southern lands but the northern ones I can.”

  “Even so, you shouldn’t give me gifts I don’t need.”

  “Not gifts. You have claim to most of Kentha’s lands by birthright.”

  “Sivisal has the same claims. Give the stuff to him.”

  He stood, lifting me with him. He looked me in the eye, his expression both amused and stern. “You’ve said that sort of thing too many times to make me comfortable. You’re Thaanarc; Sivisal isn’t. I’ll see that he’s provided for but you are my main concern. I know you mean to be modest but it won’t help. You’re not a farm boy now. You’re my sworn companion. I would have had to do most of this even before we knew about the necklace. Now that we know about your lineage the job is both easier and harder. You are a descendant of two great houses, your kin include Cunavastar, Falamar, Edenna Morthul, Kentha, even Commyna herself —”

  “Commyna!”

  “She never told you that tale? Few folks know it. Falamar Inuygen was her son. Cunavastar was the father.” He smiled. “You’ve inherited the family looks, I think.”

  I had thought the revelations of the night before would put an end to surprises. Now this. I sat on the bed and blinked.

  “Come on,” he said, “it isn’t so bad having famous relatives.”

  “No,” I answered, “but it looks like mine tend to hang around longer than most.”

  “Long lives run in the family.” Kirith Kirin picked me up as if I weighed nothing and held me over his head. “I for one am glad of that.”

  From happiness we emerged into sallow daylight over an empty terrace. Chill wind swept down from the mountains. The sky was so pale it was almost white. Kirith Kirin walked ahead of me to the fire pit where an oet awaited us full of jaka; he passed beyond it and walked in a circle round the fire. “I don’t like the way that sky looks.”

  “Neither do I.” I poured jaka for us. He took the cup without a word. I sat with the heavy mug in my hands, watching curls of steam; I turned my eye inward and used the jaka as a fixing-point. Chanting softly, I relaxed into the dual state.

  I saw two things. At the center of a body of water, vaster than many Lake Illyn, an island rose as sheer as a High Place. On the rock-island sat a fair palace of dark stone. The surrounding land lay shrouded in darkness but the palace was bright. Within the palace, seated in an open window, an old woman sat with her hands folded in her lap. Three blue gems rested in the folds of her skirt. The gems glowed with weak light and the hands that occasionally stroked them were gnarled with age. The woman moved with difficulty and had a look of indescribable pain on her face. She was polishing the gems when the pain in her hands permitted the work. Through the window were ships approaching, flying blue banners.

  That vision faded and another took its place. At the spur of dark mountains a Tower rose above a fortress of Tervan-worked stone. The brightness of the tower was not comforting but forbidding, pale as death and white like a field of ice. Within were rooms whose contents I could not see except one small chamber at its middle height. On a flat stone table draped with cloth lay my mother’s corpse. I watched her with the dispassion one feels when one is kei; knowing she was my mother I still felt no grief. I could not tell if she were truly dead or if she were simply imprisoned within some enchantment the nature of which I could not discern. The vision was fleeting. Shadow fell again, and I returned to the terrace where the cup of jaka was still sending up its trails of steam.

  Kirith Kirin knelt beside me, hand on my shoulder. No more than a moment had passed. He knew what I had been doing and simply waited for me to understand. It was a wonder to me; I had never expected tolerance from him after the storm on Sister Mountain. I told him what I had seen. He was thoughtful and sat back on his heels, sipping jaka.

  “Was the first woman Queen Athryn?”

  He nodded. “In the palace Dernhang on Kmur Island. Shadow would not trouble her while she has the gems with her. You say they were dim?”

  “Yes. Like candles when they’re dying. What are
they?”

  He lay his hand in my hair. When he looked at me he tried to push the worry aside. “A secret known only to a few. Protection for us, from magicians.” He touched my hair tenderly to show he meant no malice. “The gems are called Karnost, and they’re the source of law. YY gave them to us both, Athryn and me, when she set down the cycle that the Queen would rule Aeryn, then the King would rule after. We take the gems to Aerfax when the time comes for the Succession, since they’re tied the Rock. But part of their strength depends on returning to Arthen, like nearly everything that comes from here. Like you and me.”

  I asked what he meant but he shook his head. “Not today. You’ve had enough strangeness. Today I want you to be as happy as you can be.”

  “But I never understood the Jhinuuserret could age. Athryn is old.”

  “We age for a time,” he said. “Then we come to Arthen, to this house, to be made young again. Then a time comes, as for Mordwen, when YY no longer allows the life to be extended.”

  “Mordwen will die?”