Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  We moved forward like a fire rushing across the grassland, beneath the broiling of shadow, and our freshness came from the trees of Arthen, from the stones of Inniscaudra, from the Ellebren Height. He could feel these forces around Nixva and me, and he longed for them himself. That was his first thought, even before he guessed my purpose, understood his own nakedness, and cloaked himself in protection. In letting me see so much, he made a mistake for which I could make him pay. If I lived.

  A moment later, when he began to move himself and I could feel the size of him, I felt my first wash of fear.

  I hid the feeling and set part of myself to watch him while other parts busied with other tasks. Even from Vyddn he could use Laeredon against me, and he did so at once. But when he did, I could hear the sound he made on the kei planes, the thread of song by which he controlled Laeredon, and I isolated it from all else that I could hear. I reached forward too, and began my deep-singing.

  Touching gems within the cloak, I rose up on Nixva’s back and gathered what sunlight I could find that trickled through the stuff overhead; I plaited Fire and Light and let the rings drift upward, I plaited Daylight Rune, Curved Swan, filling them with my fourth-circle voice, and the passage of these devices gashed shadow where they touched it. Blue sky opened overhead, and true sunlight reached me. The oppression and cold lessened, though these were only feelings of the body and could not be allowed to enter my thinking. The world of YY, above the clouds, caressed me and Nixva as we hurtled forward.

  Then the hand of Laeredon closed around me and all was darkness.

  I could not find his thought or hear his Words, nothing except the sound of his calling to Laeredon, so subtle was that first assault. Nixva cried in terror and might have stumbled except I soothed him. My breath became labored and my body’s pangs began to draw me back inside it, out of the kei-space, my eye no longer within and without; stones weighed on my limbs and my thought became confused. I had not understood, till I was out of Arthen, how much it had protected me, but now I did. But that thought brought another, a memory, Commyna’s voice in Jiiviisn Field. The Cloak will serve you well, especially outside Arthen.

  Gathering the folds around me, I raised the hood over my head and draped Nixva with it as well; we would ride by my eyes for a while, and I told him so. His panic eased and so did mine. The singing of Illyn surround us. Whatever he had sung from Laeredon could not touch me within the Cloak. Presently, when I restored my consciousness to kei, I launched myself anew on all levels.

  I sang to the distant Tower, against the current of the Wizard’s voice which even then I could not hear, except the one sound I had kept in the kei space, his song to the Tower. I called to the stones using a far song, which was the same as Drudaen was doing; I could feel the change in the presence of Laeredon in the fourth circle, as the Wyyvisar runes of the kirilidur stirred. It had been a long time since anyone had called that magic out of the Tower. The Sisters had been right. He had never been able to remove the Wyyvisar, or had feared Edenna Morthul too much to try.

  But his own power still moved in his rune-threads, and his Words were still hidden from me, except his calling-song to the Tower. Again came the crashing assault, as if he meant to smite me flat from the air, and without the sound of his Words I had no notion of what kind of attack he employed. The Cloak shielded me and I kept my seat on Nixva; but Drudaen’s strength seemed incomprehensible, to find me and reach into me so deeply. His hand on my heart, a tearing in my gut, sensations like fire and freezing cold. From all sides I could feel the kindling of him on the land, in every High Place south of Arthen, and overhead shadow began to close the tear I had made.

  In the kei space, in the small space, I pictured Ellebren, at the same time that my long vision focused on what I could discern of Laeredon.

  For a moment I was walking on Ellebren Height again, the wind in my hair…

  At once I felt the uprising of light from that High Place, and I found a resonance that let me throw off his touch, steer my thought toward Laeredon again. This light was not simply in my mind or on the planes; the brightness swelled at my back over all the landscape, and shadow dissolved not only near me but beyond. A road to Genfynnel opened, sunlight fell on those lands, and a rush of light poured down, warm and golden.

  I took heart and sang, threw off light and fire; with the hands of my body maneuvering gems, I pushed shadow farther and reached forward again toward Laeredon, focusing every thought on the Tower, on singing the ruling runes of the Tower awake. I spared not one moment or bit of consciousness on attacking Drudaen himself, as he had attacked me. It was the Tower I wanted, only that, and I raced toward it at a speed which soon led me round farm and forest to the place where two broad rivers rushed together.

  Now I could see Genfynnel as if I were high above it, a black-walled, fair-built city of many dwellings; over it rumbling the Height of Laeredon, fire flashing from her crown. The fireworks had frightened the people living there and evacuation was already underway. People were pouring out of the southern walls onto the plains; some were spilling over the bridges as well, heading into the countryside, most with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

  The High Place flashed and Drudaen struck at me again, finding me easily. Still I could not hear his Words or guess his strategy, and the hurts he caused me drained me of strength. I lost hold of Ellebren, could no longer see the High Place within the kei. He brushed the heart of my body again; quickly I returned there and fought him off, a victory for him, since from the body I could not see so far or so well. So now I was out of the dual state, and the Laeredon High Place flashed again and I felt pain and cold clutch me. He had reached Deep Magics now, and meant to kill me on Nixva’s back. The Cloak helped some but I was not yet well accustomed to its uses and without the hearing of his Words could not defend myself. The Tower struck again, flashes of pain like lightning through my body; my heart thudding to a stop, then starting again at my command; my breath came short and I clutched the place where my heart was laboring, his hand striving to reach it, to pluck me out of my flesh into his maw. He came close, and Nixva cried out in terror, feeling my distress; do not leave me, the horse said, and I could feel the love of the animal pour through me.

  I clutched the Bane Necklace in my palm and suddenly I could hear the Wizard’s hidden voice.

  A river of Words surrounded me, and I saw that he was traveling himself now, had encircled me with wards and had begun to say Bans to stop my journey before I ever reached the Tower. I kept my hand on the Bane and cleared my head. Now I knew where he was singing and could fight him, and broke his wards in the direction of Laeredon. Nixva streamed toward the city surefooted in the ithikan and I restored my breathing, calmed my heart and kept my hand on the Necklace.

  Entering the dual state, this time I pictured only Laeredon, seeing it from above as if I were flying high above myself, and seeing it also in the kei space, in the small; What you do in the mind space is real, Commyna had said. The mind space is as valid as any other. So I pictured the Tower encircled by a sphere of dissonance that would interfere with Drudaen’s calling-song. I began that work, and left it in the kei, returning to other parts of my awareness. I had stretched out the moment and moved almost at leisure. His circle of wards crumbled. His hold on Laeredon wavered and he knew what I was doing; this was what the attacking magician always attempted to do, there was no guesswork in it. But I had Edenna’s ring and sent my song through that, and sent that wave of stuff through the kei space, too, and the sphere I was building around Laeredon in that place grew more solid. Ellebren on the horizon swelled and pulsed; shadow ran from my approach, and as I crossed the Bridges leading to the city gates, the summit of Laeredon felt the kiss of sunlight.

  I sent out a shrieking that caused those on the bridge to huddle against either side of the span. Verm soldiers had closed the city gates but I broke them down with Words till they were smoldering ash and sections of the walls thereabouts fell smoking into Osar. Nixva rushed
through the gap like a dark wind and any Verm who pursued us fell in agony as I passed. I had reached the city ahead of Drudaen, though by how much I did not know and could spare no energy to learn.

  The Laeredon shenesoeniis rises over Telkyii Tars, a palace Edenna Morthul built here before the war with Falamar. The place has a graceful, country-house look, hardly martial, and its walls, to one who has seen Inniscaudra, seem low and puny. The Verm held that gate as well, and I will admit it was harder to break down; but Nixva did not have to slow his progress to wait for me to do my part. We rode over ruined stone and heaped Verm and soon we had traced a path to the base of the high, pale Tower that was the sole object of my journey.

  From Nixva’s back I set up wards of my own, and any Verm who crossed them perished, though I did not eat their souls. Proximity to the High Place was its own punishment; here it was as if I stood near to Drudaen, and the force staggered me. For a while I could not spare strength to dismount from Nixva, so hard did I struggle to follow Drudaen’s singing and to defend my wards. But while I held the Bane I could hear him, and while the Cloak enfolded me I could hear other voices too: Vella, telling me how to keep the channels of the body open; Vissyn, telling me that any door with a lock can be opened without a key; Commyna, warning me that the surest way to offend a Tower is to ignore the Runes that lead to the Gate. These were lessons I had learned at Illyn Water that returned to me now like a breath of breeze over the lake itself. My body obeyed me and dismounted from Nixva’s back.

  The horse quieted, tossing his head. Come back soon, he told me, and I said I would. In momentary clarity I surveyed the approach to the Tower Gate. One reaches the base rock of Laeredon by a causeway across a chasm, the causeway guarded by high horns of bronze, gleaming bright and inlaid with runes I could not read. I guessed these writings to be Ildaruen and this portal to be new, and therefore looked elsewhere. In Lady Morthul’s day the celebrant reached the Tower using different runes.

  Beginning the song of entry, the same with which I commenced the opening of Ellebren, I called to the older Runes of Place to light themselves; One of Power is here, I sang, and my Words are your Words.

  At that moment, when I was most vulnerable, listening for the answer from the Tower, Drudaen struck deep into my body again, using not only the Laeredon Height but all the southern High Places blended in song, mixed with malice and cold. I sank to my knees under the impact, but I could not stop what I had begun. In the kei I sang the sphere around Laeredon, using Edenna’s white-stoned ring; his control of the Tower wavered as the sphere grew solid in the small space. While I was occupied this way he closed his hand on my heart and stopped it again, and read my thought almost entirely; I could feel him, but not stop him. I held my Ward Circle intact from him and I kept my body alive; I focused on the kei space until his control of Laeredon was weak, his calling-song all but shattered. That was the only defense I could offer.

  The moment stretched, the attack continued. Agony coursed through me, pain of cold and fire, the jangling of the nerves, as if my body were exploding from within, one part tearing away from another. But my lungs pumped air and my attack continued as I sang to the Tower in Wyyvisar. The old stones heard my voice and finally knew me to be their ally. The pain continued, the coursing of his hand through my body, seeking the tiiryander; but this was a necessary part of the battle; if I could not live through it I was not the pupil who once hung by the hair three days over fire to please Commyna. I made my eyes see past their torment to read the runes along the causeway; I answered the Chain with a Chain. The ground and Tower rumbled as older magic asserted itself over the new. I reached for a gem with an arm that would barely obey me. Lifting the gem, I amplified my Words through it and focused on the runes which now appearing at the base of Laeredon, forming the frame of a gateway. These were runes I could read.

  His hand tightened on my heart and it ceased its beating. No matter. I sang the runes and was lifted to my feet. A flash of fire poured up from the pavement and the bronze horns burst from their roots. For a moment he was shaken but his hand closed round my heart again as I stepped forward over fire. The whole song of the place joined me. Through the death of my body I walked across the causeway to the Gate of Laeredon, and with my voice through the gem I said, “I am here. Yron is here. I am he who stands even now on Ellebren High Place, I am the friend of your Maker. Let me in, for I have come to take you back.”

  The runes became clear and I said their names. The place awakened in the old way and wrapped me round with some of its strength. The hand of Drudaen fell away from me and I drew breath. I stirred my heart from deep trance and numbed the hurts and pains of my body. Behind me, anxious, Nixva chortled.

  Above, along the sides of Laeredon, runes were glowing like fire.

  “Open,” I said, “I have no Key. Your key died in fire, and this Gate is not your Gate. Open yourself.”

  I lifted my hand and called out light from the white-stoned ring, and the Tower knew it and shuddered visibly. “See,” I said, moving my voice through the stone, letting Lady Morthul’s own voice be heard as well, “See, I have your ruling ring. I am the one who stands in Ellebren-on-High, I am the Witch of Arthen, as your Maker was. Open. I have no Key to give you, but I can bring your old magic back to you.”

  The ground trembled. The ring grew bright. In the kei space I pictured the Tower encased in a perfect sphere of light that drank all else. The Tower shuddered, the whole height of it. The Wizard knew, at the same moment as I did, that I would open it or bring it down. His dismay crossed all the planes, and for the first time since we began our contest, he began to doubt himself.

  Fire and lightning poured down from clear skies all around, striking the Tower Height at first, and then coursing along the sides. Eerie smokes and colors whirled around me. I calmed Nixva and kept my body motionless before the portal. A stream of fire poured down onto the portal runes, and lightning ringed them, and, groaning, the stone gate cracked, heated to hot red slag and poured down the chasm. When the Gate gave way, the shuddering ground shook the causeway and split the walls of Telkyii Tars. But I held the Tower intact in my mind, and so it remained in the visible world.

  Calling Nixva to me, I walked into Laeredon, singing as I went. Drinking the heat of the rock into the Cloak, cooling the gate.

  Now I had to ascend the Long Stair.

  When I entered the base vault, the domed ceiling glowed with inlaid silverwork. On the ceiling I read, “Celebrant, you are on the Base Rock of Laeredon Tower, raised up from the Depths of YY-Mur by Edenna Morthul when she was tired of war. We are in the heart of darkness. If you walk here, know my spirit and sing the song I love.”

  Whatever Ildaruen overlay this was invisible to me; but even so I must not leave runes here to welcome their Master when he came riding. So I spoke to the Wyyvisar and gave back the Words Lady Morthul had written. Something of her sorrow remained there, the dread of bloodshed. The feeling stirred me so that I felt physical tears.

  I sang her song for her, not the Ruling Song of the Tower, but the song she loved. “Heart of darkness” is another translation for “kehan kehan.” Reaching back to that night by firelight which now seemed centuries behind me, I sang what I remembered, The coming of winter is in deepest darkness, but there is no night so deep I cannot find you. Light is coming, but even light can hide you. I sang for her, simply, and the room quieted to my voice. Then I said, “Lady Maker, burn away the mark of the Wizard.” Calling out Words, my voice filled the room, and the Tower again shuddered. Light flooded the domed chamber. For a moment, within that radiance, I saw the outlines of Ildaruen Words, blues and violets dissolving.

  The Tower welcomed me and threw open its portals. The kirilidur was revealed, and so was the Long Stair.

  Hurrying across the causeway, I brought Nixva inside the Tower Base, leaving him waycake from the saddlebags to eat. He wished me luck. I began the ascent.

  I read the runes of the kirilidur through the intervening stones. What m
ade the task hard this time, as I mounted, was the voice of my enemy from the High Place, and my dismay at the fact that the sky outside had begun to darken. Shadow moved through the windows of the Tower as I climbed. Blue sky washed brown and then dun-colored, light thinned and birds ceased their singing. His voice grew strong. His riding brought him near the City.

  I put this thought away and mounted, stair on stair, singing without sight, returning the Wyyvisar to its rightful state within the kirilidur. Had Drudaen stood in his body on the High Place, I would have had to struggle with him for each step; had he known the ways the Sisters travel, he would simply have crossed space to stand there; but he was fourth circle, as I was, and he must cross the same ground I had crossed. While I sang the Ruling Song and mounted the Stair he drew closer, shadow thickening till there was no light except that of the torches I lit in the Long Stairway. Higher I climbed, breathing and singing, sinking deeper into trance and moving faster. Wrapped in the Cloak, with its murmuring to sooth me, I activated the kirilidur so that the Wyyvisar rune-lines fought with the Ildaruen overlay. As I reached the pirunaen, the stone veneer of the kirilidur crumbled and broke away, revealing the older runes beneath. From the deep shaft came the echo of rock crashing and falling. I could not pause to complete this work, however. Now I had to climb to the High Place and break him in the Eyestone, or all that I had done would count for nothing when he arrived.