Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (53 page)

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 line 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 enough 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.

Last of all, Brun joined Karsten to sing one of the holy songs that had fallen out of use, “Kehan Kehan,” which means, “Dead of Winter.” I had never heard the song before, nor had I heard Brun’s rich alto blended with the soaring soprano of Karsten. She kept the song in the lower modes of our music, for Brun’s sake; the Anynae cannot sing or even hear the higher measures. The harmony seemed richer than could be possible from two voices only, and I wondered then, as I would again, whether Karsten knew magic herself. This thought was fleeting, however, and soon was overwhelmed by the tender beauty of the melody.

In older days, according to those who remember, we better understood the proper place of death in life better than we did now. Maybe that was the reason “Kehan Kehan” was no longer sung very often. But Karsten was not among those who had forgotten, and Brun’s life had taught her the place of loss. The song tells the story of a time when a shadow falls over the world, the beauty of the death of seasons, the decay of flowers, the final dying of the Mother herself, the light that will withdraw from all places and times. The words are so much a part of our thought and of the depth of High Speech itself that they cannot be adequately rendered into another tongue. “Kehan Kehan” speaks of the end of time as if it is only a moment away; the song almost rejoices in the notion. I, having recently gained so much, did not want to think of loss; but the song stirred me deeply. Maybe some of that came from the knowledge of shadow. Or maybe it was the vision of my mother, motionless on the white bier in Cunevadrim’s Tower.