Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  The gate opened when Athryn Ardfalla touched it with her hand. She gestured to us and we led the horses inside, where we found an inner courtyard, bright and full of light, where there were ample stables for the horses, and some bales of hay and fodder to feed them. Around the stables were various rooms, including what looked to be armories, and beyond, another courtyard where a fountain glittered and sang. Athryn opened a sealed door to reveal other rooms, all lit as if by daylight, when in fact we stood inside the mountain, with solid rock over our heads.

  Several chambers were clustered together, each opening onto the other, separated by pillars carved out of the native rock, twisting upward in precise spiral patterns, capped by bursts of leaves and branches that were marvels of stonework; the floors of marble and granite and chalcedony and other kinds of stone I could not name. Some of the walls had been worked to a perfect polish and smoothness and others had been shaped but not finished, so that the stone presented itself rough and full of textures; the vaulted ceilings rose up in graceful domes, mixed of gold-leaf and true-silver designs, interspersed with what the eye would have sworn were skylights. The chambers were neither grand nor large, and there were not so many of them; the place had a cozy feeling, being furnished quite sparsely in the central chambers, though the outer ones had cushions and chairs and carpets. I saw a stairway in one room, carved out of the mountain rock, descending to a level beneath ours, and in the smallest chambers fireplaces nested in the walls. Wood had been laid in one of these, and packs that I guessed contained more food, but these mundane objects appeared out of place, prosaic amid the gemlike beauty of the rest. I walked from place to place and drank the beauty into myself, as though it were some kind of restorative. As though it could make me feel gratitude, and a sense of belonging. The others were making a fire in the small chamber, and settling us in for the night, and I wandered away from the noise of that, down the stairway I had seen to the level beneath.

  The stairs spiraled down much farther than I had reckoned, and I passed through a library, or what had once been a library; the shelves bare. This room is important, I thought, pay attention, and it was the empty shelves I noticed most. The dust on each shelf contained outlines of books, I touched them, and I knew what the books had been. One of Jurel’s libraries. The Sisters had discussed the books he studied, their links to older knowledge from the River City. Some other of these objects were as old as that, including the stone worktables that stood here, a painter’s easel, some instruments used for navigating on ships. The room smelled of cedar. It had a tidy, compact feeling to it. Light entered from the ceiling, as in the upper chambers, fresh and bright, and I wanted to wander in it, to sit at the table, to lift the brass telescope. But the stairs continued downward and my curiosity drew me deeper, for something farther down was aware of me.

  At the bottom of the stairway stood a door, sealed, without apparent opening, and I knew it was sealed by magic, that it had not been opened in a long time, and I knew that it would open for me if I wished. I lay my hand flat on the stone. What was beyond took shape in my head, but I refrained from opening the door.

  When I turned to climb the stairs again, Kirith Kirin was there. I watched him calmly, no need to speak. His gravity, his presence, was like the tonic of the rooms above, I had only to be near it. We stood without moving.

  “I’ve never seen a more beautiful place than this.”

  He assented, though he continued to watch me fixedly. “The Orloc made the house as a gift to Jurel. It’s called Chalianthrothe, which means something in their language; ‘little jewel,’ or something like that.” He gestured to the door behind me. “This is a room they made for Jurel, that no one else has ever seen.”

  I touched the polished stone again, and closed my eyes. “I must have known it was here. Though I can’t say how or why.”

  “No need to say anything.” He wanted to reach for me, but at the same time he was afraid; I suppose he had been afraid of me all along, and I had not seen it.

  “You brought something else for me, didn’t you?” I took his hand, treasuring the broad bones, the tough skin.

  “Yes. It’s upstairs.”

  “I’ll need it later, when I open the door.” And led him up the narrow stairs, our shoulders brushing.

  3

  I stayed near him through the meal that followed, out of habit, I suppose, if one can be said to have habits after a century of separation; but also because, when I felt his presence, I found it easier to concentrate on the others, to hear their voices and take an interest in their speech. We had nested by the fire on cushions and rugs, and someone had passed round wine already. Karsten handed me a cup, a pretty thing of fine glass that must have been stored somewhere in the house; it would not have traveled well. “Exploring?” she asked.

  “Yes. I saw the library.”

  She understood what else I had seen, but we said nothing about that. “If I could live anywhere, I would choose to be here, in this place,” she said.

  “Have you seen any other Orloc buildings?”

  “Few people could claim to have done that.” She shook her head. “The story is that they made this place for Jurel because he did them a service, one time; but what it was, no one knows. The Orloc keep to themselves. Jurel kept that secret, too.”

  If she wanted to say more, or ask more, she refrained, and we took our places near the fire, though the rooms were warm enough that we might have done without its heat. We ate our meal in relative peace, tired from the ride. Athryn and Sylvis had put out lamps, since the daylight, or whatever light it was that filled these chambers, had begun to wane. As usual, they withdrew from the rest of us. We were keeping up the pretense that I was not curious as to who they were. This is a Jisraegen way of saving face. I ate the good food and drank the wine Karsten poured and sat with Kirith Kirin.

  Imral and Karsten were waiting for me to speak. The thought came to me quite clearly as we watched the flames twist and turn, as we heard the fire sigh. They were watching me and wondering who I was, since it was clear I was no longer the child they had known so long ago. It was clear that something had changed. They had risked their lives to save me and they wondered what I had become. A feeling came to me then, a sadness, that I had no way to tell them anything, that I had no idea myself what had happened. I had only the instinct to sit there, as I had sat with them years before; I had only the need to be near Kirith Kirin; not even love for him, especially, at that moment, but the need to be near him. What good to try to talk? I knew why they had come to find me, I knew what they wanted me to do. I knew so much it had become like a whiteness in my mind.

  So I said hardly anything and they waited and despaired maybe and were too polite to say anything, and after all, we had shared affection for each other once, and owed each other something in the wake of that. We sat there till the hour was late, and Karsten fell asleep on Imral’s shoulder, and finally he led her off to the chamber where they had made a bed for themselves. We watched them go, and Kirith Kirin pulled me against him, and sighed.

  The question persisted and grew large, who was I and what had I become? And the answer was there, too, was waiting for me to find it. We sat there for a while till we felt alone with each other. Then we stood, and found the stairway again, descending in the soft light that poured upward from the steps. Below, in the library, I showed Kirith Kirin what I had learned about the books.

  He detoured to the worktable, where he opened a hidden catch and pulled open a drawer. He drew out a bundle, and I knew what that was, too, but I did not take it from him. We descended the steps to the narrow chamber in front of the door, and I felt what was beyond the door again, and Kirith Kirin stood close behind me, I could feel his breath along my neck. We stood there and breathed. If we waited the stone would open. We both knew that at the same moment. The stone panel in front of us dissolved. From the chamber beyond glittered pale light.

  What does it matter what the room looked like? What carvings decorated the floor
, what colors of stone lined the walls? What does it matter the shape, the vaulted ceiling, the flat expanse of the circles, what does it matter the workmanship, the beauty, of the place? What does it matter, the word, “magic”? We stepped into the room and I was flooded with joy, I knew what use it was made for, and I saw everything, and I held Kirith Kirin’s hand, and we were there together as the tide of feeling washed over us. I saw the world as it was outside the walls of Chalianthrothe, I saw a long way and deeply, that the roads were broken and mostly in ruins, that the houses had been burnt or broken or worse, I saw that Genfynnel had been flattened and completely destroyed, that Cordyssa burned, that the Fenax lay barren, I saw that people died, had been dying, that the ordered life of the past had utterly ended; I saw Drii battered by Drudaen and the Verm, as if there were anything left to conquer. I saw Arthen dying, because everything around her was dying. I saw all these things in a flood, and knew them, and had known them since I wakened, and I think I was crying by then, tears of joy to be feeling so much and then tears of horror at what I felt; for I was myself again, but what a world it was to be in. The whole numb weight of Drudaen, of what he had done, fell on me, and I stood there without moving, still seeing everything, knowing what must be done to finish this, seeing ahead, and holding Kirith Kirin’s hand. He was altogether inside me, we moved as if with one thought, and I would say that I loved him again except that it is such a paltry word for two people who have stood in that place. We saw the hundred years go past and we saw ourselves, two small, shivering creatures, standing in that room in Chalianthrothe. We remained there for a long time.

  The bundle rested in my hand. The outer cloth, woven by the Sisters, had hidden what was inside from Drudaen, but now I opened the cloth and shook it out, the cloak the Sisters had given me, Fimbrel, my first guide. The cloth shimmered and unfolded and was not cloth at all, or a cloak; it was a smoke dissolving before my eyes, it collapsed to a point of light in my hand, and all the Words that were in it, all the afternoons on Illyn Water, flowed into my palm in a stream of light. I understood the fabric as I had only begun to do when I wore it and the light glittered and faded into my palm; and sometimes, when I open my hand, I can see that light there still. Kirith Kirin was watching me and he was no longer afraid. He closed his hand over the place where the light had been, and we watched each other, and he sighed.

  “All right,” he said. “So now we know how it will end.”

  My heart was beating hard. Finally he nodded, giving his assent.

  We stood there a while longer, then we closed the stone door and climbed the stairs to find our bed. We lay together as we had been doing since I woke; I undressed him tenderly and touched him till some warmth came back to him, spilled over into me, and we were lovers again, in the wake of what we had seen in Jurel Durassa’s room of three circles. The pleasure of love cut me like a knife, and the sorrow of what I knew, and the joy of living and feeling, all mixed together, and still, all in all, I moved at a great distance from the world, but understood it better, and Kirith Kirin moved beside me. We made love and slept and wakened to a fresh morning.

  Far to the north, encamped before the walls of Drii, my enemy Drudaen Keerfax knew me again that night, knew even my whereabouts, as though I had lit a bonfire on the horizon to show him where I was. He had been seeking me everywhere and now he knew where I was, because I wished he should. We had begun the end game, and now we would each play out our hands.

  4

  We lingered in Chalianthrothe another day, while Imral and Sylvis scavenged for supplies for our northward journey, and Karsten and Kirith Kirin scouted the northern border of the Onge. I was left along with Athryn, and I understood this to be by design, though I said nothing when the horses rode away.

  In the pleasant rooms Athryn avoided me awkwardly for a while, creeping about the smaller chambers, and this gave me some time to think. I knew she intended to talk to me, but was not quite ready yet, so I descended to the empty library to explore there. In that room among those ancient objects, I reflected on her face, on the feeling it gave me to be here with her, alone. When I finally returned to the upper levels she had laid out a lunch for us both, bread and cheese, and she had built a small fire to comfort us as we sat. She smiled at me in a shy way and would not look at me for very long. We ate our food in silence till we were nearly finished. “You’ve never asked my name,” she said, and stopped there, awkwardly, without meeting my eye.

  “I thought that was what you wanted,” I said. “But anyway, I know who you are. And I’m very grateful for your help.”

  No surprise showed in her face. She gave the fire a long, sad look. “I’ve hardly been help to anybody, I think.”

  “You gave me shelter.” She was puzzled, so I continued. “I don’t mean today, I mean a long time ago. You kept me safe in Aerfax.”

  The reference pained her. Athryn Ardfalla, now queen of nothing, made a show of laying a heavy log across the flames, her muscled arms moving with a surety that was familiar to me, the same as her brother, Kirith Kirin. She looked me in the eye. “I did so much to hurt people in those days, it’s almost painful to be reminded of a kindness.”

  “You saved my life.”

  She poured more water into her crystal cup, and wet her lips, and refused to look at me. “I was ashamed to leave you there.”

  “I remember. You stayed longer than you should have.”

  She was quiet for a while. “I got as far as here. These rooms. I got as far as this in six months of hiding and then collapsed.”

  She was asking for the acceptance that is the new beginning, as the old saying goes. That was a lot, if I looked at it one way, and not so much, if I looked at it another. Here she sat, the woman who had nearly ruined us all, who had indulged Drudaen in his wishes until it was too late to deny him his whims. Here was the queen who had led us into a war that lasted a hundred years. Here was the woman, the immortal, who had caused my family to be killed. Did the fact that she was merely human, and very sorry, make up for any of that? Did the fact that she had saved my life change any of that?

  We spoke very little more, but sat in each other’s company. As with Kirith Kirin, I felt no need to trade words with her when there was so much we each already knew. We sat in relative peace, and our spirits tested one another, and I understood that her heart had opened, that the sorrow she felt would never end, that she would never offer more apology than that. Maybe when I was as old as her. Maybe then. Meantime, here, the fire crackled. A smell, some strange pungent spice, drifted through the air, like clove but not quite. We had a moment of quiet together, and at the end of it I stirred as if to go, and she stopped me with a gesture. “You’ve made my brother come to life,” she said. “Seeing you again. I’m most grateful of all for that.”

  I felt a sudden catch at my throat, the memory of the night before returning in a flood, and that feeling rose up in me again. Bowing my head to her, I retreated to the chamber where Kirith Kirin and I had slept.

  5

  The scavengers returned with supplies, and later Karsten and Kirith Kirin rode their horses through the open gate, and we sealed it again, and closed ourselves in for the night. I had a fleeting thought, watching those smooth stone gates swing closed, perfectly balanced, that we could stay here, inside Chalianthrothe, and forget all the rest, all the outside world. It was a thought that blew like a breeze through my brain, light and insubstantial, and I looked at Kirith Kirin taking off his riding boots and stretching out his toes. Maybe he had heard me thinking or maybe he felt the peace of the moment, too. “If we live through all this, we’ll come back here, one of these days.” He surveyed the vaulted foyer, the filigreed columns and airy dome. “I do like the place.”

  Inside, we took supper, and when we were done, we sat near the fire with a sense of waiting, knowing a conversation would begin, since we were here and had completed the first stage of our journey. “I suppose,” Kirith Kirin said finally, “it’s about time we talked.”

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