Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (59 page)

He gaped at me like I had gone lunatic. I flung an amethyst at him, though, and he knew it was worth something. Taking a fresh look at me, he hurried off.

The food and drink restored me some. Most of my hurts would heal themselves, more quickly as I regained strength; but I wanted help to set my arm. It dangled useless at my side, shooting pain like fire into the place where I was putting pain just then. I waited at the causeway to the Tower while Nixva grazed and kept his eye on me. The balmy rain had passed and sunshine stirred the city to new motion. Signs of my passage and that of Drudaen were easy to find. The walls lay crumbled for a hundred cubits and the gates sent up trails of smoke. The front of the Palace portico had cracked, and some of the halls were smoldering even after the light rain. The street was lined with the dead and their pickpockets. It pained me to see the damage I had helped to do to such an ancient place. But I walked to the walls anyway, and those who were roaming thereabouts paid no notice. Except for my broken arm I looked like the rest, scavengers in a nearly-empty city. From the acropolis on which Telkyii Tars stood, I could see the nearest streets, the edge of a distant market. Once I saw a company of blue-clad soldiers moving; another time a train of wagons rattled beneath the road, carrying someone’s possessions out of the city.

I could see, also, the gap in the city walls where the western gate had stood, until the Verm closed it against me.

The force of magic can stun even the maker of it. Incomprehensible to me, that so much destruction had visited this place so quickly. A city emptied of women and men, walls torn to shreds, an ancient house cracked, and carrion crawling over the dead. From Words I had said. The Verm love their lives too. I had killed today.

The soldier will tell you no battle without blood, the magician will tell you no different. The boy would have told you, that day, he had never killed before, except the Witch who murdered his family, and he scarcely knew what to make of it. Here I stood, looking for someone to help me set my broken arm, and around me spread the city on which I had feasted in my rage.

Is it any wonder people fear us? I remembered Pelathayn’s words in the council room at Inniscaudra,
Ten thousand or forty thousand, what does it matter?
No army of the world would ride here without my leave.

Yet I was a boy who once herded sheep on the Fenax hills, who had spilt his milk in his lap and gotten spankings for chasing the geese. My sister once gave me a licking for breaking her best arrows. My mother frightened me with stories of boogar bears in the night.

When the bedraggled boy found me I was teary, kneeling in the grass near the rent wall. He had brought a doctor all right, and she hurried behind him with her bag. She guessed I was crying from the pain but I tried to tell her I could hardly feel any of that. The pain I felt came from deeper, and I did not try to explain it.

She led me to the portico and the urchin followed, waiting for the hill of gold. The doctor told me her name, Evlaen daughter of Mrothe. I told her mine. She touched gentle fingers to the flesh where the break made itself evident. “It’s broken,” I said stupidly.

“I see.” She gave me a sidewise look. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was up there.” I pointed to the Tower and she looked twice in that direction.

“Up where?” she asked.

I pointed again, this time making the gesture unmistakable. She faced the High Place and then faced me.

Evlaen, skeptical, asked, “How did you get up there?”

“I broke down the gate and went up. Lord Keerfax broke my arm while we were fighting.”

She stopped dead in her work and looked to the boy, whose eyes had got wide. The boy said, in a small voice, “He did come out of the bottom. I saw him.”

She turned to me again, bit her lip and looked around for something to make a splint. “Just set it. I can do the splint.”

She refused to believe me, however, and found straight sticks. The setting took less time than I would have imagined. I was quiet through it all, and I think it was this that convinced her I might not be lying. Afterward, I handed the boy two rubies. “That will buy your gold for you. Put them away and run along.”

He was a child who knew the value of a stone. He slid the rubies into his pocket and I asked his name. Simishal, he said. He had no parents. I said I would remember him and he ran off. The doctor, watching this, stepped away from me and cast her eyes downward. “Who are you?” she asked. By now she had seen the jeweled brooches stuck to my tunic and the Necklace on the true silver chain.

“I told you that. I wasn’t lying. Don’t run away from me.” I was afraid if she did, I might start crying again. But she could not help herself, she was retreating. “I haven’t paid you yet.” But she started to shake her head. She backed away, keeping her eyes to the ground, and a fist of ache clutched my throat. I turned and ran myself, across the causeway into the base of Laeredon, where I hurled myself against Nixva and buried my face in his mane. He must have wondered what all the fuss was about.

Evlaen watched as I crossed disappeared into the Wizard’s Tower. I doubt she had ever been so close to it in her life. At least she knew I was telling the truth. I never saw the daughter of Mrothe again.

2

I ate more of the cake in the saddlebag, drank more cumbre and climbed to the High Place. Through the long afternoon and night I waited on the summit of Laeredon, my eye on the south road where Drudaen was traveling. By then I had rested and gained strength enough to enter trance, and from all the circles I could reach I watched and listened.

Soon I began to move power through the shenesoeniis, throwing a veil over the city and environs. The unfurling of the veil was quiet work, and I proceeded into afternoon and night with its making. By evening Drudaen had reached his stronghold in the southern mountains and his presence changed beneath shadow. He had climbed to his own High Place.

When I touched the Bane Necklace, I could hear neither singing nor voice. Maybe he walked his own Height with the same quiet as me, that evening. He must have felt the disturbance of me on all the planes, the newness of my voice broadcast from Laeredon. The fact that the Bane Gem had returned to haunt him must have disturbed him. If he had been me, his every thought would have been bent on scrying its use and learning its secret in order to finish him off. Maybe I would have been wiser if I had taken this course. But my thought that night was in other places. My veil deepened through the long hours.

The link to Ellebren was my concern, and as the veil took hold over Genfynnel and its environs, I reached out to that Tower again. My hand moved over the stone, as magicians say, and I made sure, as hours drew me toward morning, that my hold over Ellebren remained firm and strong. For a long time my eye hovered over both Towers, a hard feat that taxed my knowledge of fourth level vocabulary.

I made no attempt to see into Inniscaudra itself, or to find Kirith Kirin there. He would know, by my light on the High Place, that I was alive. To search him out would have disturbed the bond I felt with him. I can’t explain this; it isn’t forbidden. But that night, when I had at last tasted the full measure of what I had become, I had no wish to use these arts to find him and spy on him.

In fact, he came to me in his own way. Maybe he sensed my sadness, or maybe he was lonely. He appeared at Thrath Gate where my eye would find him. Anyone there would have drawn my attention, and he must have known that. He stood in front of the gate and breathed.

Some of the coldness left my heart. The sight of him healed places inside me where Drudaen had moved his hand. He studied the lights on the High Place, and their quiescence made him easy. I gave no sign I saw him, there was no need. He said nothing, sang nothing, merely watched. When he turned, someone joined him beyond the Arches. I made no attempt to see who was with him or to watch him as he departed. He would come to me in his body. It was enough for me to know that.

At dawn, when first light stirred in the heart of the muuren Eyestone, I sang Velunen. For this moment I had prepared in hidden ways, being wary. As day broke across the High Place, I reached into the Tower and sang in Words. In answer, the Tower burned like a second sun in the arm of two rivers, a light pierced the morning brighter than dawn, and a song went up into the clouds, heard on every level of magic known to me. Heard somewhat by human ears as well. Whether the voice was mine or Edenna’s hardly concerned me, and I have heard both claims made. Velunen rang out over the ranges of the north Kellyxa, echoing west into Trenelarth and north into Vyddn. The light of Laeredon pierced the sky and could be seen as far as Drii. I tore away shadow in all those places and true morning fell for the first time in days. Over the land, one by one, I set my wards and spoke my Bans.

Those who had fled Genfynnel saw the light, wherever they had landed in the countryside. I spoke to them when Velunen died away, and my words were meant for others as well. “I am he who stands on Laeredon High Place,” I said, and this time it was my voice, booming across the hills, “I have come to prepare the city for the March of the Successor out of Arthen. I have driven out the Master of Shadow and he will not return unless he can cast me down. You Verm and you soldiers of the Queen who served Drudaen Keerfax, get to shadow as fast as you can. At midmorning today I will ride out of Laeredon Tower and if I find you, you will regret it. You who fled your homes yesterday may return under my protection at noon, when I have cleansed the city of these people. Shadow won’t fall over Genfynnel while I’m here. Return to your lives and prepare for the coming of Kirith Kirin, who will be your King.”

3

At midmorning I kept my word, feeling safe to be away from the Tower. I rode as myself, in full awareness and not in trance, which would have dulled my feelings. This hindered me some, since I preferred to leave some part of me in the Tower to maintain watch on Cunevadrim; but I had already seen enough of what heedless magic can do.

I found the streets mostly empty, signs of departure where troops had been. Only a few of those who saw me understood I was the voice from the Tower, even though I changed my tunic for a clean one and lent fullness to the Cloak to make it seem more grand. I could have done more, and you will read tales that I coursed through Genfynnel on trails of fire with stars shooting from my fingertips.

The Verm had left wounded in barracks near the western gatehouse. I rode among them and they knew me by my smell. The change of fear is pitiful even in Verm, and some were badly injured. Maybe I had caused these wounds when I broke the walls. I dismounted and spoke to their officers to calm them. Verm nurses had stayed behind to tend the wounded, the nurses risking death with the troops when I found them. But I let them live, and told them I would guarantee their safety. Their language was the same as ours, only hard to understand when they spoke it.

I found Blue Cloaks willing to surrender and city militia wondering what they might do to help, so I let the first group surrender to the second. At first the militia hesitated to believe I was the one to whom they must listen; but when I darkened the veil over Laeredon, they understood.

I insisted the Queen’s soldiers give up their arms to the courtyard at Telkyii Tars. All morning the pile grew and the surrendering soldiers marched off in custody of the militia, while I scoured the streets on Nixva’s back. Soon it became clear I needed someone to take charge of the city; the numbers of troops in custody swelled quickly, since most of the Queen’s soldiers chose to surrender rather than face shadow. There had been a governor of Genfynnel appointed by the Queen, but she fled and never returned. Finally a militia captain brought a Finra who could take authority according to the city charter. We were in front of the High Place when the man was brought to me. I chose that place so he would not doubt me when he saw I was a boy. I told him what I wanted, which was really very simple. I wanted the Queen’s soldiers held until Kirith Kirin arrived, when he could decide what to do with them. I wanted the wounded Verm protected until they were well enough to return to their own country. I wanted order restored to the city without delay, which meant looting and scavenging must stop. I wanted the dead burnt, Verm and other. I wanted hay for my horse. Last, I wanted workmen to open Telkyii Tars and make whatever repairs were necessary, to make it fit to receive Kirith Kirin. If these things were done, I would return to the Tower and leave them in peace.

The Finra agreed that these were reasonable stipulations and asked if I would guarantee the safety of those returning to the city. I said I would. I could see his discomfort when he was asking me for this protection so I shook the Tower a little to make him feel better about it. His followers drew back but he held his ground like a brave man. He asked if shadow would return and I told him no, it would not, as long I held Laeredon. He asked where the Keerfax had gone and I told him the Wizard had withdrawn to his house in Antelek and I was watching him. When he asked no more questions, I turned Nixva and we rode across the causeway into Laeredon. By then the Lord believed me. He carried out my wishes and I remained in the High Place as I had promised. By afternoon, the roads were swollen with people returning to their houses in Genfynnel.