Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (20 page)

At Illyn Water I began to grapple with that language, the one spoken in the meditation space, the movement across the inner tongue so strange, the logic so unlike ordinary logic. The spoken name of this language was Wyyvisar, a word that might be translated, “waves weaving.” The women also called it Hidden Speech, because it is forbidden for anyone to teach it or to reveal it without the wish of YY-mother, and the magician who does so assures that each Word taught will be forgotten afterward by the teacher, and will never be recovered.

Magic is the act of making a harmony that alters the underlying music that is the basis for the world we know. A wave is set in motion and that wave brings a change forward from the past to the present. On the most basic level of magic, this act consists of naming an object with conviction. Vissyn taught me this, the purest level of magic, practiced by village witches and local seers. Touch a knot of wood on a tree and say a word to it. Come every day and touch this knot of wood, speaking to the tree and naming it, in the same way, with the same degree of concentration, from the same state of mind if possible. Picture the knot as smooth and round. Over time, if the will is powerful, the tree will know you. The forest will know you. The place will give you a power you could not get another way. The knot will grow smooth and round.

In such a way my grandmother had worked at her craft, never leaving enough evidence to get herself hanged, never operating openly. In such magic, however, the path is patience, the power of place, and careful choice of object. Power is derived from earth, from herb and root, from lore and knowledge of the land gained over time. The powerful magicians of this genre are the oldest ones; these are the true witches, bearers of unshakeable knowledge. Even the powerful will not lightly face such a witch in his or her own terrain.

To enter a higher level of application, one must learn a language of command, or else invent one. This is the language of the small, to be spoken in the small space, in deep trance, in the place the mind makes for itself. That is as clear an explanation as I can offer without use of Words. There are few such languages to learn; Wyyvisar is one, and Ildaruen is another. The priests of Cunuduerum knew of a third and were destroyed because of what they made in it. Languages of command are hard to master, and teachers are scarce. I was the first student of Wyyvisar in generations, Commyna said. Kentha Nurysem had been the last. As for Ildaruen, no one taught it but Drudaen Keerfax, who had learned it from his father Falamar, who had learned it from his father Cunavastar, and pupils of Ildaruen were even forbidden to speak Words to each other. On pain of death.

An apprentice in kei-magic, Commyna told me, sits in the seventh circle of power. When I asked what a circle of power was, she told me it was simply a measure of skill, but of the deepest kind. A person progressed from one level to the next all at once, in a flash of insight or a moment of clarity, she said; the progress was never gradual. But I would not have to think about that for a while. In the seventh circle, when one is not practicing deep meditation, one is confined to simple constructions of magic like blessings or love charms or potions that heal wounds quickly. In many magics at this level actual objects are filled with a music that may give virtue or cause ill. The sound may or may not one that the ear can hear. The sound may manifest itself as a scent. Many objects can be made to carry such music, even crude ones like stones or sticks or flowers. Even animals or people. I made many such charms, some under close supervision and some entirely on my own; I made love charms that could drive a rabbit mad, using only a simple sprig of cilidur and holding it to my lips and whispering to it. Other small animals suffered from my new knowledge as well, but only at Illyn Water, and none were harmed that I know.

I worked as hard as the women asked and did as I was told without thinking, even when what they wanted seemed hard or impossible. I learned to trust them. Maybe pupils had given the lake women trouble in the past. I was determined they would remember me as one who had given them no trouble at all.

Vithilonyi drew near, the Festival of Lights, a holiday in all Aeryn but celebrated with special reverence in the north. For a night every house across the Fenax would have a candle or a lamp burning in every window, tax or no, and every house in Cordyssa would be the same, alight with tongues of flame, each windowpane shimmering. This was a holiday at Illyn Water as well. Even the Anyn peoples celebrated it, nowadays, and it was close to my name-day.

In fact I was troubled about Vithilonyi for some days in advance, from the moment I learned that the holy day also marked our last in this part of Arthen, for on the morning after Vithilonyi camp would be struck and moved to its summer home. How would I find Illyn Water from a place far away? I had heard we would be riding twenty days before we reached Suvrin Sirhe, the northeast part of Arthen, a valley nestled high in the foothills of the Pelponitur.

I was afraid to ask the lake women what to do for fear of what they might tell me. Suppose they said I would have to abandon camp altogether, living with them along the lake shore, wherever their house was hidden?

I finally did ask Vella, who was teaching me the hidden grammar and syntax of Wyyvisar beside the lakeshore, alternately whispering into my ear while I murmured sounds, then ordering me into a trance while she sang songs over me. When we were both tired she made tea on an open lawn near Illyn, spreading out her shawl, which grew to become a large wool blanket, big enough for both of us to sit on. She had brought an oet, a transportable jaka pot fueled by hot ifnuelyn wood, and she set it up on a flat stone, brewing a pungent, steaming tea. We had been in that part of her country for a day; I had slept the night before on the open lawn, with only Words to make warmth and comfort. I had eaten nothing but was taking in sustenance from the air. A magician must be able to sleep in ice or snow, if necessary, she said, and do without water or solid food for a long time. She was making the magic that caused this, it being beyond my skill at that level; my body must become accustomed to many new pathways and intersections before I could do the work myself, she explained.

She handed me a large cup of tea and a chunk of waycake. Vella was a gentler teacher than Commyna, more given to praise and kind words than to Commyna’s doses of sarcasm and scorn. Though in the end she was as harsh a mistress in what she asked for. When we were done with the tea, I sat in fire and in boiling water for her till end of day, as she showed me the pathway for carrying the heat of both around my body, for refusing to interact with the fire and the water, even for burning and healing again. All simple and easy when she was the one doing the work, all I had to do was open my mind and feel what was happening as fully as I could.

In the Illyn afternoon, when the western sky was salmon-colored, strung with tatters of cloud, she talked at length about famous magicians of the past, and about magic itself. Finally I got up the nerve to mention to her that camp was moving, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

“What do you mean, do about it? What is there to do but move?”

“But it will be hard for me to get here.”

“Oh.” A slow smile spread across her round features. “We’ll find you when we want you, Jessex. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“But camp is moving all the way to the eastern mountains.”

Vella looked very prim and reassuring. “Illyn Water will be there waiting for you. Stick close to Nixva and let him find his own way. Trust that hideous dog of yours, too. He has a good nose, despite its appearance.”

I felt stupid when I realized what she was telling me. I should have known better than to assume that Illyn Water was an actual place in my world, that could be found by anyone as easily as Nixva and I had found it.

The lake, the surrounding landscape, these were not illusions. Vissyn had drilled me in the differences. Illyn Water was a real place, always there, shifted slightly out of Arthen. A bubble they were making, out of sight.

We returned to my lesson in Wyyvisar. At the end of it I was aware of knowing no more than before, though Vella said I was making good progress. She would be leaving me here overnight again, now that the sun was going down. Tonight the weather would be colder. Did I need her to teach me the Words again, or did I remember them?

I remembered. She smiled with satisfaction and turned away, leaving me cake and tea and a packet of cheese wrapped in cool green leaves. By the time her figure vanished round the broad bend of the shore, the sun was in the last splendor of its setting and evening was closing round the world. I sang Kithilunen quietly. I had no lamp so I lit a small fire instead, using the local tinder for fuel, and as my spark I employed the Word I had known for many days, spoken at the tips of my fingers, springing from there to the wood and burning.

I was far away from the world, from any world of my memory. I sat by the glowing fire in the twilight, the lake sparkling before me, shimmering surface reflecting the emerging stars. The wind smelled of forest and decaying leaf, of flowers heaving out scent, of the season warming, seeds awakening. I though of camp and of my friends there. I thought of Kirith Kirin and sang Kimri, picturing his face. When I thought of him I felt a sense of foreboding. I carried the thought with me when I walked that night, brooding beneath the stars, mysterious Words whirling in my head. I was hardly conscious of my youth any more, I had become an old man through love of magic, this new work I was learning, this fire that sprang from the air when I moved a Word in the space I could make in my mind. I was fourteen, lying down with my love in the grass, saying the Word that would bring warmth to the air around me even while I slept, the Word that would comfort my body while it lay on the cold hard ground. Sleep came easily. I dreamed of riding with Kirith Kirin across an endless plain.

4

On the morning of Vithilonyi, in honor of the day, the kyyvi does not extinguish the lamp with the coming of sunrise, but lights two more, carries them one in each hand before the altar, and places them on stone pedestals. I managed this pretty easily and sang Velunen. Sun rose in perfect waves of color like a fire burning beyond the trees. I walked to the portal of the tent, watching Nixva stamping in the yard. A large crowd had come to the ceremony that morning; custom is to sing Kimri on festival morning, and most folks had come for that. I took up the first words of the song.

Of the festival mornings I’ve known in my life, that one is among the most enduringly beautiful. I sang “Light in the Darkness” for the birds in the trees, for the warm spring air, for the feeling that a change was coming, that light would be needed.

Holiness arose in the clearing at that moment, a fullness like the throbbing in the air at the end of music. We love music because it is the echo of God’s mind, we say, and we mean it reminds us that she is still there, somewhere, though silent. Everyone took up the song. I ran to Nixva and lead him past the fringes of the crowd. We rode away to the sound of singing.

Nixva carried me to the lake by a different route each day. That morning we rode through familiar country, the land of iron-hued trees, of grass like spun silver and flowers like bright jewels, Raelonyi, and my heart leapt. I said the name aloud and Nixva tossed his head, galloping between the dark tree trunks, pounding the earth with his sharp hooves. He ran like something full of fire. We passed around Hyvurgren Field, entering from the east.

Horses grazed round the shrine. Three figures were kneeling by the altar, singing in Wyyvisar, a hymn that raised the hair on the back of my neck. I knew the Words. They sang of renewing the Woodland once again, of the progression of seasons, of scales of time weaving in and out of scales of space, phrases I could understand but not connect in any way. I rode quietly toward them, listening to their sad, somber song. When they stopped singing, a good while after I arrived, they turned to me as if they had known all along I was in the field with them.

“Thank you for listening so patiently,” Commyna said. “We chose the Hyvurgren Shrine for our ceremony this year, since it is close to your camp, Jessex.”

“Do you do this every year?”

“Yes, every year on Vithilonyi. It’s necessary to us, to return here, though only a few people know it.” She smiled at me in the gentlest way. “All the creatures who were born in Arthen must return now and then, or they die.”

“Sister,” Vella called quietly, “please rejoin us. It’s time to continue.”

“Should we add Jessex to our circle?”

“Do you think that’s wise, Commyna? He won’t know what we’re doing.”

“All the better,” Commyna answered. “He will feel something from it. Yes, I think it’s a good idea. Take my hand, Jessex.”

Vissyn broke in very quietly. “There is a spy watching us, sisters.”

“A spy? In the forest?” Commyna looked all around.

“Yes. A most cunning man, known to us all.”