Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  “He’ll cross the gates. When he’s ready.”

  We were quiet again for a while. I thought of my mother lying on the cold stone. “The Tower was Yruminast,” I said.

  His face grew somber and he drew me against him. “Drudaen is apparently holding your mother there.”

  “Is she dead, do you think?” My voice trembled in spite of my attempts at self control.

  “Jessex,” he began, and stopped. I could feel the blood pounding in his veins. He drew a long, heavy breath. “If she isn’t dead, by now it would be better if she were. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you some easy lie but you wouldn’t believe it and I don’t want lies between us. Your mother hasn’t your training. Without it her time with Drudaen has been torment. Be glad she’s sleeping, if she is.”

  I heard Commyna’s voice from long ago, It would be better if she were dead. The pain I had been unable to feel in kei flooded me. I couldn’t remember when I had last cried for my mother and my family. Maybe I had been afraid. This time Kirith Kirin was there and I felt safe to let myself go. He set aside the jaka I had not drunk and rocked me in the breeze.

  Later we talked quietly. He questioned me about other parts of the vision. His astuteness made it plain he understood my work on the High Place, and when I remarked on that he simply said, “I’m trained to be King over magicians as well as other folks.” We finished the jaka and I wondered aloud, idly, where the others had gone. He smiled, lifting a note he’d found beneath the oet. “Imral says they’ve ridden to Immorthraegul to see the shrine. They’re leaving us alone for the day.” He was beaming and flushed. “So I can show you the House myself, without any distractions. Do you have to go up to the High Place?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “You’ll know if that changes?”

  “Yes.”

  He let himself smile, as if he could only now believe nothing would come between us and these hours of privacy. What kind of life did he have that a day’s quiet could seem like such bounty? Watching his face full of boyish happiness, I understood how scantly I knew him. I took his face in my hands. “Let’s get away from here before they change their minds and come back.”

  He looked surprised as if he had thought me too shy to touch him on my own. So I kissed him, laying my hands along the smooth, full curve between his shoulders and neck. He sighed and took my hands in his. “When I met you by the river I knew you were for me. I knew you were too young but I thought I could wait patiently, I thought it would be enough to have you near, to look at you and know you had been sent for me. I cared for you even though you were mortal, which is hard for us. Now I wonder how I ever lived.”

  I looked into his eyes. “When you saw me with the Sisters and became so cold, I thought I would die of sadness.”

  “I was afraid. I thought you or they had worked an enchantment on me. To make me care for you.”

  “Commyna told me that was how you felt.”

  It pleased him that I had talked to Commyna about him. “She thought I was foolish I guess.”

  “No. The Sisters love you very much, Kirith Kirin. Commyna said it was not for me to judge you, that I should simply go on caring for you and show you that I would never attempt to — to get you to care for me that way.”

  “Commyna was right. When the news from Cordyssa called me away from camp, I learned I wasn’t as cold to you as I thought. And when I found out Cothryn sent you gifts —” His face flushed dark with blood. “I wanted to call him out or whip him bloody. One can’t do that, of course, not to a person over whom one has power. I had to settle for banishing him to Maugritaxa, though Imral even tried to talk me out of that.”

  This raised a question I needed to ask, after the discussion of the night before. “Does Imral wish you’d have nothing to do with me?”

  “Lord no! Imral cares for you very much; we all do. He’s been trying to protect us both.”

  “Are people really likely to make so much fuss?”

  “You’ll see. It won’t be pleasant. There are some folks, particularly southerners, who don’t think men should lie down with men, or women with women. But we’re not going to think about any of that right now. I’m going to show you Inniscaudra.” A new thought brought a look of surprise to his face. “I can’t remember the last time I was alone with anyone here. In fact I can’t remember the last time anyone was alone in YYmoc.”

  “YYmoc?”

  “An old name for the house. It mean ’YY-written-in-stone.’ The Evaenym believed YY-Mother wrote the whole history of created places, all that was or is to be, in the foundations of Inniscaudra.”

  By the end of the day I could believe it. Ancient the Jisraegen may be; the halls of Inniscaudra, built to no human scale, make the Forty Thousand Mothers and Fathers seem young.

  We began in the Hall of Many Partings, which is also called the Hall of the Eldest, Jiivarduril, and the Hall of Last Days, Talhoneshduril. YY-Mother built this hall with help from the craftsmen from Smith country where the Tervan dwell in their city-in-the-mountain, Jhunombrae. The Tervan are not one of the created peoples but are much older, akin to the Orloc and the Untherverthen, having been born out of the roots of the Encircling Mountains when the living world was made. At the end of the war between YY and the Other, the Tervan came south from the mountains, leaving their city Jhunombrae empty for many ages, to live in Illaeryn and help heal the hurts of Arthen. They built the oldest parts of the House of Winter as a gift for YY. The high walls of Halobar Hall are built of many colors of stone. Immense tapestries hang between the tall, narrow windows. The hall was cold that morning; I wrapped myself in the Cloak and wished for a fire in the huge fireplaces that flanked the throne-dais and broke the long walls. These were so large that a company of soldiers could have stood inside each one. The mantles were decorated with stone carvings depicting the Tervan, Orloc, Untherverthen and Giants who were the Woodland’s first inhabitants. The stone was smooth and cool to the touch.

  One could not see out the windows; the sills were far above any human head. “Look how dirty,” Kirith Kirin said, scanning the impossible height of one of them. “We’ll be forty days and forty nights cleaning this place.” But he looked happy.

  The throne dais was enormous; in ceremony one could get most of the Nivri arranged on it alongside the throne itself, which was of oak and cedar, inlaid with gold and silver, globes of muuren on each arm. Set into the floor at the base of each side of the throne was a huge fire pot, with curved flues hanging overhead to catch the smoke, a marvel of engineering. Since Halobar is not a hall of formal audience, the throne is on a low dais and has no canopy. When we were standing on the dais, Kirith Kirin grinned at me and had a seat. He sighed with satisfaction and set his hands on the arms, surveying the whole sweep of the huge, soaring chamber. “I love this room. Don’t you?”

  I gaped at everything, wonder-struck at the beauty of the woodcarving, the stone heads of the Orloc kings and Tervan Empresses, the fall of golden light across the brilliant-colored tapestries. Kirith Kirin understood my awe and let me look to my heart’s content.

  What struck one about the room was its earthiness, its literal quality: hand carvings more primitive than the work of modern artisans, tapestries woven in a long ago age, before we had advanced in weaving. When Grandmother Fysyyn told me stories about Inniscaudra I imagined a glittering fairyland festooned with gems and gleaming with gold leaf. Halobar was wooden and warm, almost simple, but grand in scale and proportion. One could smell the age. The Mother of Worlds who had once walked in this room was not a remote goddess, distant from men: she was a crone, a wise woman, a brewer of herb teas and an artisan in thread and stone. Through me surged an ache for the long ago that I had never known. It was as if I had remembered this room in my bones, as if I could see her walking in it.

  With this feeling like a cloud around me, I followed Kirith Kirin into the Woodland Hall, Thenduril, expecting more wonders. The room so vast that a dozen of the squadron-sized fireplaces lin
e each of the long walls. But the chamber was empty and bare of ornament but for the throne dais where the Red Throne and the Blue Throne sat, each covered with gossamer cloth.

  “There are no tapestries,” I said. “And no carvings or glasswork.”

  “I had them removed a long time ago. We don’t use this hall any more.”

  “Why not?”

  He was silent, remembering. His face impassive. “The last time I held audience in this hall, I learned Athryn planned to keep me shut up in Arthen forever. Drudaen had convinced her he could keep her young outside Arthen, but that hasn’t turned out to be the case for either one of them. That was when her sickness began. I thought she was sending a messenger to summon me south to make me King again. It was time. But the messenger she sent was Drudaen and the message he brought was that I would never be needed in Ivyssa. Now or in the future. So I exiled them both from Arthen and shut up this room and had all the pretty things taken out of it. We don’t even open Thenduril for feasts these days. I have vowed I won’t hold audience here again till the Summons comes.” He drew a long breath, looking around the airy room. “Nor will I, even if there’s no Summons for a thousand thousand years.”

  He headed out of the vast chamber and I followed, sorry for his hurt and anger. He meant to leave Thenduril directly, then changed his mind. “You must see this,” he said.

  We stopped in front of two enormous doors, large enough that a whole tree could have walked through without stooping. The doors were of polished duraelaryn, each planed and carved from the heart of a single bole. Except for golden nails and some pretty carved leaf-borders, they were unadorned. No scene of history was depicted on them. High above, the name of YY was carved into the lintel, along with the eye-sign.

  “These are the doors that lead to the Tower of YY and to the Deeps of Inniscaudra,” Kirith Kirin said. “They’ve been closed since YY brought up the Karnost Gems and gave the Law of Changes to the Jisraegen, after Falamar and Jurel were killed.” He reached to the smooth, polished wood on which no mote of dust had settled. “When these doors open again, the present age will be swept away. I believe so, anyway. No one’s tour of the House is complete without a moment here.”

  11

  To describe all that he showed me in the course of that day would require another volume of equal length to the one you presently hold. I, who now know Inniscaudra better even than he, have never felt such magic within its walls. Never again has there passed a day when two walked there alone. To have Kirith Kirin himself show me the house where he first awoke to life — this was a gift for which I will thank the Mother through all my days, now that he is with me no more.

  We ended the day as we began, in bed in the Under House, practicing those arts which he taught me and of which he seemed the perfect master. You may think it shameful that a boy uncloaked should revel in his debauchery but I make no apology to anyone. When I was called to Arthen to serve him I did not know what my fate would be, but even if I had known, I would have embraced it. When I met him in the Fountain Court in the ghost city, I knew him out of my whole being. If I had understood how to give myself to him, at fourteen, I would have. If I could find him now, aged and changed, I would give myself again. Maybe one day, in my last hours, when the World-Breaking is begun, he’ll find a way to cross the mountains again.

  That day, in the quiet of the dusty room in the Under House, his arm across my chest, he said, “Now I can live. Whatever comes.”

  I kissed the tough skin of his palm in answer.

  A wind blew through the room. To say something like that is to bargain with God, it is said.

  To silence him, since I could feel his sorrow mounting, I spread Fimbrel over us both; the shimmering song surrounded us, and we lay in peace. What he heard from that fabric woven of the Sisters’ love, I would not presume to say. As for me, there were within its folds many voices, some from the High Place, some from Illyn, some from other reaches. To those I added his voice, his sweetness, so that the Cloak would always carry this moment, the sum of this day.

  Till sunset we lay in peace, when the return of our friends roused us. He lay his finger on my lips and smiled into my face, listening to their noise. “All ages of peace come to an end,” he said, sighing, “even this one.”

  “We should join them, I guess.”

  The stillness within his face was like a light. “Unless you’ve learned to bend time for me.”

  I sighed and sat up in the bed. We found our clothes again, from the heap in which they had fallen, and dressed. At the moment before we returned to the terrace, to the sunset over Inniscaudra, he held me close, my hands on his chest. Nothing else made sound, only two hearts beating. Maybe this is the music from which the universe was born, throbbing through it still.

  12

  When we emerged into the air of sunset, I felt a little quaver of fear, not knowing what the others might make of the change between Kirith Kirin and me. We walked side by side to the place where Vaeyr stoked the fire, Pelathayn beside him skinning a shell-hen to roast for our supper. Grinning at us, Pelathayn said, “Well, Kirith Kirin, I know you don’t like me cooking on the fine stones hereabouts, but if you want to eat I guess you’ll give me leave.”

  “I give you leave,” Kirith Kirin said, with a deep note of peace in his voice.

  Vaeyr bowed his head. “We’ll give you both your pledge-meal, in that case.”

  “And be honored to share it,” added Lady Brun, smiling at me with warmth.

  Mordwen kissed my brow with a tenderness that said everything. To Kirith Kirin he said, “You chose the right thing.”

  “I know, I feel it.” Studying the fire-circle and the terrace, he asked, “Where are Karsten and Imral?”

  “Returning the horses to the lawn,” Mordwen answered. “Looking very much like the two of you look, I guess. Karsten has been dancing all day, she’s so happy to be in the High Country again.” He paused, his shaggy face full of emotion. “I feel it myself.”

  “Everyone does, I expect,” Kirith Kirin said.

  From the fire, Pelathayn started to sing a hunting song, his big voice booming against the stones; Kaleric and Vaeyr took it up with him, and Lady Unril joined the chorus too. Brun stepped toward Kirith Kirin and me with wine cups in hand. “This is a better gift than my singing would be, to one of you,” she said, as we took the cups. “Blessings of the day be on you both.”

  Kirith Kirin, touched, bowed his head to her. “Your kindness will be remembered.”

  “We’re all in magic today,” she answered, without the least affectation. “All this will be remembered, I think.” To me, with a twinkle in her eye, “I should have stayed up later, I guess. To witness this event.”

  Mordwen, deep-voiced, echoed, “Indeed. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to want rest.”

  “You’ll both be with us when we take the pledge again,” Kirith Kirin said.

  Brun acknowledged this, pleased. Mordwen would have expected as much; she felt the honor of it, coming from him. After, a look in her face made me sad. She and Mordwen led us nearer the fire, where we were pledged with full cups. Duvettre led another song, this one meant for the occasion, celebrating newly-pledged and gifted companions. For a southerner she had a fair range. Imral and Karsten arrived in time to gain cups and help the song.

  Whether the happiness and congratulations were genuine on the part of all was hard to say. Kaleric had his suspicions, I think; his could be a voice that might claim I gained the Prince’s bed through sorcery. Vaeyr struck me with his stolidity and grasp of custom and I respected his opinion more than the others. Unril I knew nothing about, and Duvettre was the sort to blow her thoughts this way and that, according to her audience. Whether they knew or guessed my age hardly seemed relevant. I wore the Cloak, and it had no sleeves. I wore the bracelet of the House of Imhonyy. No one could change that.

  While the hen cooked, Vaeyr made other treats for us. Our provisions included more variety than I had guessed, and he had brought e
nough herbs and gathered roots and other stuff to concoct a green stew and porridge. This took time and we passed the moments with drinking and singing.

  Beyond this peace, overhead, the Tower throbbed and cast off its weyr-glow, the silver horns flashing. That was our lamp tonight, I thought.

  At sunset we sang Kithilunen, silent in the moment, with the sound of the fire and the wind as accompaniment. From high above came other light, the glow from the High Shrine of Inniscaudra, which Kirith Kirin had pointed out when he led me to the Tower. YY-Mother moved amidst us, a palpable presence we could feel. At the end of the song, Kaleric said, “Maybe I’m learning our history now, Brun, by living it. I felt the Mother then.” We all agreed with him that she had come. Even the Anynae felt it.

  So we ate our pledge-supper in the open air of the empty House, and later Imral brought out a treasure he had found in his own wanderings, a Venladrii guitar. In the darkening of night, under the shifting light of my design, we sang songs and drank wine. Unril gave us a piece of “Luthmar” in her clear mezzo; Vaeyr offered some of “Last Ride;” Imral Ynuuvil sang a Drii song older than the mountain crossing; Karsten and Mordwen sang from another traditional song, a story of two lovers in Old Arthen, sweet and sad.