Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (44 page)
“Yes. It’s raining all the way from here to the sea.” The taste of the cake was fresh and sweet. Many rich smells drifted in the air: Karsten’s perfumed oil, the Prince’s smell of cedar, Imral’s ink and paper. “My lord Keerfax is busy, but I can’t tell what he’s doing. I’ve done what I can about the storm. We’ll see what effect it has.”
After my entry I listened to their talk a while , brooding on details and other news Kirith Kirin had learned from his scouts in Maugritaxa. Silver wolves and white wolves from the deep mountains had been seen in Pelponitur above Suvrin Sirhe, and also along Angoroe, raiding the hill-farms and howling through the night. From Drii had come word that Orloc shadows were stirring in Cundruen, wary of Drudaen’s presence south of the mountains. This was good news only to a degree. The Orloc could be expected to defend Cundruen against him, since they have been enemies with the House of Cunavastar since ancient times. But, as Kirith Kirin warned, one can never look to the Orloc for help.
Near the midnight sounding of the guard, Inryval the Marshal came to report camp ready for departure. The officers had sent the soldiers to bed. The poor fellow was caked in mud, so tired he could hardly prop himself up on his marshal’s staff. When he vanished, Imral said, “Sleep would be good for all of us, I think. We have a long day coming. I haven’t ridden in a wizard’s train in many a year.”
Kirith Kirin beckoned me to sit by him, and so I moved, judging that the audience and its attendant feeling of busy-ness were ended. “Will you sleep tonight? Or do you intend to sit by some watch-fire on a hilltop?”
“It would be good to sleep. I believe I could.”
“Mordwen’s gone home ahead of you.” Imral meant me, but he was watching Kirith Kirin. “Mordwen is one for a good night’s sleep before a ride.”
“So Mordwen has made room for Jessex?” Kirith Kirin asked. The room went quiet. Imral and Karsten were eyeing each other warily. “I was hoping no one had thought to arrange anything.” His eyes seemed very hollow. In the silence one could hear only the rain, whispering and calling from every leaf.
When Imral answered, he was cautious. “Prince Kirith, you can’t banish Cothryn for sending gifts to the boy and then turn around and do worse yourself. Jessex is six months from naming —”
“Yes, I know.” Kirith Kirin sighed.
I rose from my cushion in confusion. Holding my tongue, I said good-night to Kirith Kirin and Imral both, feeling sudden anger. “I’ll say good-night as well, Kirith Kirin,” Karsten said, rising, gathering her cloak around her shoulders. “Jessex, I’ll walk you to Mordwen’s tent. I have lamp-bearers with me, you won’t have to go in the dark.”
Imral Ynuuvil said good night without looking up, having resumed work on his parchment. Kirith Kirin said good-night and reached for the glass decanter beside him. I paused in the doorway, wishing he would call me back.
We went out into the darkness. In the rain there was not much need for talk. The storm had increased, wind pressing us from behind.
In my tent chamber I did a short meditation visualizing the watchfires, the lights in the darkness, helping them to burn strong. The storm resounded, and beyond it, the insistent murmur of voices in the south, the calls of strange birds, the sense of turmoil and veiled movement. To the north the storm was increasing, spreading toward the mountains.
I would have felt better if we were riding already. But since we weren’t, I would sleep.
But first I made a journey. Slipping on the Cloak, I spoke to it in a soothing voice, till the colors blended and flowed out like shadow, engulfing me and the room. I rode on mist out of the tent chamber, bypassing the doorway and the guard, hurrying through the forest unseen, moving between raindrop and wind. The soldiers on the night watch did not see me, the Prince’s sentries were deceived by me, his own bodyguard was oblivious to me. In the chamber where Kirith Kirin lay, I stepped out of shadow, let the cloak become cloth.
I only wanted to see him, to stand motionless over him, a moment before I slept. He lay quietly breathing, his arm looped over the coverlet, his face overlaid with care even while resting, as if tonight his dreams were full of toil. I watched, and set the mist about me again, and bent to kiss his mouth. He stirred, but I was gone before he awoke, if he ever did.
1
In the morning we set out for Inniscaudra.
We rode, as Imral had put it, on the witch’s wind. One needs a good touch with gems to do the ithikan well, but even the Sisters, who had praised me hardly at all, had occasionally remarked that I had a talent for gems and gem-magic, and in particular for this application.
The mist was heavy on the hilltops and a thin drizzle of rain still fell, somber birdcalls resounding from the interior forest. We mounted, a company of twelve, Kirith Kirin first and the rest afterward — me last, because I had to touch the ithikan gems to each of the horses. The royal horses were not troubled by the cool diamonds, nor by my singing, but the mortal horses had no memory of a magician’s touch, and so were skittish. The Finra Brun’s mare, a lovely palomino with golden eyes, tossed her fine head when I approached her, dancing away from my hand. But I called the horse by a name in Wyyvisar, and she heard me and stood still while I rested the jewel on the bone between her eyes. Brun was watching me with deep suspicion, and I was struck as always by the length of her chin, which was really extraordinary, forming almost a point. “I always thought you were a solemn boy. Now at least one knows what was on your mind.”
At that moment I could not speak, and backed away from her with a bow. To my delight, she returned the bow with an amused smile.
Many folks could tell you the names of the gentry who rode in that morning’s company. The poet who wrote “Kirithmar” takes that ride as her beginning point, the perfect moment between the victories at Anrex and Gnemorra and the long war that followed. The morning was pervaded with a sense of force gathering with us as we moved. Kirith Kirin rode, and Imral Ynuuvil, Kiril Karsten, Mordwen Illythin, Pel Pelathayn, Brun of the Finru House Tulun, Vaeyr of the Nivri House Diliar, Unril of the Nivri House Chalan, Kaleric of the Nivri House Yenmar, Idhril of the House InCossons, which is neither Finru nor Nivri, and Duvettre of the Finru House Shanz. I rode at the head of the party bearing the gems. Nixva galloped on the witch’s wind as if he were black flame. I could hardly believe the feeling of rapture.
We saw many wonders that day, but the appearance of the landscape was shifted slightly by the magic, so that all of it seemed surreal, even to me. The road to Illaeryn runs south along a gap between the Arth Hills and Nevyssan, the only passable part of that country. To the north runs Charnos Ridge, sheer and dark like a low range of mountains. We could have cut the ride even shorter had we headed straight across the ridge, but that is hard country for horses. With fewer riders I might have tried it. But neither mortal horse nor mortal rider was accustomed to riding in ithikan. The Jhinuuserret suffered the disorientation and blistering speed without much comment, but some of the others required help.
We rested once in the morning, in a dark ravine where the road runs beneath the flanks of old Shag Arth, the westernmost of the Arth Hills and one of the grandest. Autumn svelyra were in bloom as were groves of moonflowers waist high, running far up the hillside, along with a dozen other flowers I had never seen before, and ferns, greenberry bushes, shag oaks, vines like falls of emerald water. Under the swelling clouds the sides of the ravine rose over us like shadowy wings, leaf giving way to naked rock on the upper reaches of Charnos. The rain had broken for the moment, cool wind blowing from the west where the mountains hover. We noted this only when we stopped, since while we were riding the rain did not reach us. Lady Brun remarked, “The camp folk will be glad to see this,” and everyone laughed. I pricked up my ears, however, and did some listening.
The menace of the southern power seemed less. But this was not the result of any effort of mine.
We were close to Illaeryn, the High Forest, where the land rose sharply toward the mountains, a wild country of immense pines with haggard, twisted branches; of hemlock and junwort, faristae and cedar. Botanists say there are more families of trees and undergrowth, flowers and vines and other growing beings in Illaeryn than anywhere else in the world we know. In summer the smell of perfume and ripening fruit is staggering on the lower slopes, while upland the noonday is cool and brisk.
Illaeryn is a corruption of an older name, YY-Laeren, “God Walks”, which has been the name for this land since before the building of Cunuduerum. In “Luthmar,” the poet speaks of YY descending from the mountains into Illaeryn after she made Arthen. She walked the length and breadth of the region for a day. According to the poet, she liked everything about Illaeryn except that it lacked a good high hill, and so she struck up Vath Invaths, the hill on which Inniscaudra stands, along with her sister hills, Immorthraegul and Kellesar. She made the foundations of the Winter House, delving the deepest parts before inviting her Sisters into the Woodland to see the work she had begun. The Praeven in old times went on pilgrimages here, to find her footprints.
Kirith Kirin was happy on the ride. The night’s rest had done him good. While he had not been conscious of my late visit, he had ridden close all morning. Calm, lost in meditation of his own, hardly aware of the ride, one thought. When we rested he stood apart, staring into the stream that tumbled down from Charnosdilimur. Karsten offered him cumbre and he accepted it. She left him to his peace and he remained beside the flowing water for a while, scanning the clouds beyond the tangled treetops and jagged horizon. When he returned, he gave Karsten the signal to mount, and as the riders were returning to their horses, he sought me out. “We’re close to a place where we must stop again — close by your way of traveling, I mean. Karmunir Gate. We can’t pass through it until I speak to the stones.”
“What kind of stones should I look for?”
“You’ll know them when you see them,” he answered, mounting the Keikin.
I swung myself atop Nixva and leaned forward, speaking softly into his ear. Holding the jewels to my lips and breathing warm breath over them, I reorganized ithikan and we rode through the clouded forest along the western road.
Beyond Shag Arth, the road sweeps upward with Charnos Ridge and the forest grows dense and dark, impassable beyond the road because of the undergrowth and rocky terrain. We swept along this high road like winter air, a line of horsemen riding at high speed in a country where even common horsemen had been a rarity for generations. One could sense the awakening in the land, as if the trees themselves were aware of the coming of a long-awaited day.
Karmunir Gate stands at the crest of the road where the western land flattens in a high plateau while Charnosdilimur mounts skyward to a crest of sheer gray rock. Trees grow right up to the road in that country, forbidding forest even in daylight, leaving no hope of passage except along the road. The gate flanks either side, two tall, carven women of stone keeping vigilance beneath the curve of a high rock arch. The women were seated on simple, high-backed thrones. At first I did not recognize the pair, being caught up more in their artistry, the cunning carving and gleaming blue stone. But on the backs of the thrones were written Words in Hidden Writing, “These are the seats of Vaela and Vaeissyn until the Breaking of the Worlds.” Vaela and Vaeissyn are alternate and more ancient spellings of Vella and Vissyn.
The mortal lords immediately dismounted, gazing raptly at the two monuments. Unril called to Vaeyr to follow her to the base of one of the stones, but Vaeyr, who was an older man, vigorously built and still accounted a powerful soldier, shook his head. “We should stay well clear of these fierce stone women until Prince Kirith Kirin gives us leave to approach them. At least this is what I guess if any of my father’s stories were true.”
“Your father’s stories were true,” Kirith Kirin said. “No one should approach the stones.”
As far as the eye could see, there was no gate. Beneath the arch and between the vigilance of the statues was only air and some hanging vine that had crept beneath the arch along one side. But the eye cannot see everything, as the Sisters say. Beneath the arch much power lay dormant, like that at Sister Mountain in the circle of stones. From a distance it was hard to tell the nature of the magic that protected the gate, but magic was here.
Kirith Kirin had drawn his cloak round him and walked slowly to the arch, pausing at the base of each statue. Lord Vaeyr whispered proudly, “My grandfather was with Kirith Kirin when the Prince spoke to the stones to close Illaeryn. Now I’m here to see the High Country open again. I never thought I’d be alive to see the coming of days like these.”
“Who are the women in the statues?” asked Countess Duvettre.
“The Nameless Sisters, perhaps. Though there are said to be three of them, and here we find only two.”
