Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (67 page)
I said good-bye to Karsten before she headed to command her thousands. So peculiar had our time together been that it already seemed to me we were like old friends, and so it was hard to part. She was wary of the danger in Kirith Kirin’s strategy, fearing the Verm would box us in, but I reassured her it would cost them dearly even to try. She remained concerned, and I understood that the worry was for me, because I was young, a boy, but was riding in the war party of a prince.
“Be careful of yourself,” she said.
I promised I would try. “I’ll see you in Charnos. After Fort Pemuntnir has surrendered, and you have more soldiers riding with you than you know what to do with.”
“We can hope for a miracle like that, anyway.”
Time to go. Her entourage rushed her to her horse. Pelathayn was riding with her, his red head high above the heads of the rest. Around us the commotion of many other partings, Kirith Kirin three-deep in Nivri, with Imral beside him and King Evynar similarly surrounded. A fresh, cold day, but warmer than usual for that time of year. Not a cloud in the sky.
2
Our party rode due east from Genfynnel, heading toward Teliar. We were some one hundred picked guard, about half mounted archers and half mounted swordsmen, led by Kirith Kirin. Imral accompanied us. We made good progress on the first day, traveling at mortal speed, it being beyond my power, or anyone’s, to enfold so many people in ithikan.
We would need concealment on our ride, especially after we crossed the Narvos Ridge. To provide that kind of protection is a matter of less effort than making ithikan, but even this much magic can make a mortal horse, or a mortal, a bit unsettled. While we were still traveling across the Kellyxa, we moved mostly out in the open, under the sky, but when Kirith Kirin signaled, I passed a veil over us, and then lifted it, to drill the soldiers in what it was like to travel hidden, and to accustom the horses to it. The day passed in that way, and I rode mostly within my body, only occasionally entering the dual meditation that sent my awareness high into the air. Still, I was kei and distant from the others.
At times I moved outside of time, onto the fourth circle of my awareness, from which I could feel his presence without the need to see him. Even there he was hiding, and yet the undertone of him, the under-note to his singing, throbbed and subsided, rose and died again. I took a long, deep look at the world, moving on that circle without opposition, and on all the others, too. Near me was my tower, Laeredon, and farther west was Yruminast, broken and cold until her master should return to heal her hurts, to the north was Ellebren, a wheel of stars changing to a wheel of fire; and more, as I remained, as I drew out the moment, lingered in it.To the east the towers Goerast and Yrunvurst, wrecked these hundred years, a long time in my reckoning but not such a long time in the world, hardly a moment. After an interval I found the two towers in Ivyssa, Thoem still active and Karomast stripped clean of its ruling Wyyvisar and not much use to anybody, except that the Eyestone was somewhat in use; and last of all, Senecaur, rising out of the sea at the end of our journey.
Scouts had found us a campsite on a forested rise of land not far from the Teliar road, good high ground, and as we settled there I hid us from sight above or below. Drudaen could have found us if he searched from a High Place, but he was on the ground, as I was. With the evening cold we had hardly enough wood to warm ourselves, but this was something else I could remedy, not by conjuring wood but by extending what we had, Words to make the burning take a long time. The camp was laid with precision and a meal prepared out of stores we added to the fruits of a hunting party that had separated from the main body of riders in the afternoon. I wondered, noting the orderly unfolding of it all, what lay ahead of us, whether we would always manage so well.
We had a field tent now, small and cramped, about enough room for Kirith Kirin’s armor, Fimbrel, and our boots. The first night we lay together like that, I hardly slept, feeling him against me, lost in sleep, glad of the safety we had, being together. It was a wholly human feeling and it warmed me through, in spite of the work I was doing, in spite of my need to remain aware of whatever was around us, seen and unseen.
Many days like this came and went and we traveled across the Kellyxa Plain toward Teliar without incident, under clear skies, with the days growing colder and shorter, a murderous time of year for a march. But if we were successful and Kirith Kirin became King, we could take our time in Aerfax and ride north again in spring. If we were not, winter would hardly matter any more.
We rode near Teliar and there I had a piece of work to do, for this city had been garrisoned by the Verm and was being defended by them as we approached, along with a sixth-level novice of Ildaruen, whose voice was weak but who nevertheless recognized me when our party came riding along the road; our party took a southern turn to avoid the city, but I rode to the gates and sat there for a while. Teliar was built by the Anynae. The walls had a rounded, wholesome look, and the gate towers swelled in the middle. The Verm had begun to ride out the gate when they saw me but I sent a wave of pure terror through them and they stopped. The one who was singing in Ildaruen, who was trying to trouble me with sixth-circle magic, was nowhere in sight, but I waited till he came, wearing a pale robe and carrying a staff, a device to hold his gems that he had worked so carefully. He walked toward me making that noise, and when he was close I spoke a Word and broke his staff, and Fimbrel spread around me drinking light. The Verm drew back inside the gate, and I sat there, my own song flowing out, deeply, and the acolyte fell to the ground. He lay there unable to see or hear, and I wiped his mind clean and stripped the memory out of him, which seemed more merciful than to kill him. I began to ride along the city wall near the bridges, lightning in the air, the song gathering a storm. People panicked inside the walls, spilling over the walls, some of them falling into the river, scurrying out of it wet into the countryside. But I only meant to bring down the walls, and not even that entirely, but to make big holes in them, so King Evynar’s army following us would have an easy time taking the city. Mortal walls are easy, since the stones are not magically bound, like the stones of a wizard’s tower, or like something the Tervan built. I made the resonance needed to break down Teliar’s walls, and I rode away from the city with smoke and dust rising up from the gaps I had made.
I had to ride a long way before I found our camp that night, and was met by one of the Finru lords serving as sentry, who took Nixva to the horse line and gave me a look of such open-faced respect, that I felt it all the way to Kirith Kirin’s campfire. Only later did it occur to me that I had handed off the horse to a high-born Finra as if he were my servant, or, even more accurately, because at that moment he was serving me.
My actions at the walls of Teliar had aroused some interest in the south, I could tell, and once I learned Kirith Kirin was still meeting with his officers and advisors, I went into deep trance to take a look. Shadow had changed, had grown taut with a new tension, perhaps because Drudaen was seeking to learn more of my whereabouts, having already discerned the magic I had done earlier in breaking Teliar’s walls. Before, the substance of shadow had shown itself as a softness, a rolling membrane over the landscape. Now he was drawing on his strength, which charged the shadow and gave it a different appearance. I stayed there until I had listened for the towers, all of them, until I could sense the note of music that was Senecaur far to the south; I listened in that direction most carefully.
We had news from scouts to the west, who had been posted some days ahead of us to cross Narvosdilimur. Verm supply trains were moving constantly southward, and an army of Verm was massing in Arroth, according to the reports, given by my old friend Trysvyn, one of the scouts. I had hardly seen her since we moved camp to Nevyssan, and now she had proven herself an expert intelligence gatherer, and my state had changed as well. She felt awkward until I spoke to her, wishing this were an ordinary ride and that we could stand around the fire and sing tonight. She grinned, and I saw she had broken a tooth somewhere, and she had a wound on her cheek, what had been a nasty gash, but healing these two months. She had been part of the army that marched to Cordyssa with Imral Ynuuvil, and afterward had force-marched south to Inniscaudra and then through Arthen with Kirith Kirin.
In the morning she rode with her companion to bring the what she had learned to King Evynar, along with the news that I had breached the walls of Teliar for him. Our party mounted and continued west, and the land rose sharply as we began to climb Narvos Ridge.
The ascent is not steep in the region of Teliar at the north, but the horses labored on the constant incline and we stopped to rest them frequently. A cold, clear wind was blowing from the Black Spur. We were close to Cunevadrim, and I was tempted, at moments, to ride there in my body, to see the place with my physical eyes; I had traveled to the place with Vissyn during my training, but to see in that fashion does not yield clear memories. I wanted to see that pile of rock, the house built by my ancestor Cunavastar. But that would have to wait for another day.
Kirith Kirin rode at the head of the party, picking the trail with Imral. When we reached the crest of the ridge, he signaled me to ride near him, and we looked over the valley beyond, wide and brown, the dry landscape of north Karns, home-place of Julassa, whom I had killed. “Not exactly a rich country,” Kirith Kirin said. “There are some beautiful marshes further south, where the land gets wetter, and toward the mountains are the moors south of Cunevadrim. Nothing as far as the eye can see but wind and heath.”
“Do people live here?” I asked, surprised at the look of desolation, and for a moment I must have seemed completely a child again.
“Yes, for as long as I can remember,” he answered. “People find a way to live anywhere and everywhere, I think.”
Behind us, Gaelex had begun to order our camp for the night, and I dismounted from Nixva’s back, slipping my palm along his muzzle. I slipped the bridle off his head and by the time I got that far someone was running up to take it out of my hand, to lead Nixva and the King Horse away to a place where they could find some grass for themselves.
We walked a distance down the ridge, in the shade of scrubby, twisted trees with leaves glossy and evergreen, and I felt the discomfort of riding in a country where one does not know the names of things, the names of places. Anyone will understand such a feeling, I guess, but for a Jisraegen it is distinctly uncomfortable; we are drunk with names, some people say. Kirith Kirin had no reason to draw me away from the others except that he wanted to, and that was fine with me. It surprised me that the others left us alone, though it may easily have been that Kirith Kirin signaled for privacy.
We stood in the shadow of a tall rock with some heather and broom-grass growing out of it; visible as far as one could see were the scrubby trees and rocks along the height of Narvos Ridge. “You own land out there, you know,” he said, after a while, idly, gesturing to that brown expanse beneath us.
“Do I?”
“Kentha’s holdings. They’ll be restored to you and your family.”
To me and Uncle Sivisal, he meant, since only we were left. I had not seen my uncle since he was sent with the soldiers to garrison Fort Gnemorra, not since I had become Thaanarc. The memory of him made me think of home, of my mother, wherever she might be.
“Maybe Uncle Sivisal will have some use for land. I doubt I will.”
He smiled. He started to say something, stopped himself. Finally he said, “Maybe you’ll find some use for it yourself, by then.”
We stood together in the wind. For the moment I ignored my magical senses, being close to him like that, a moment stolen. He was enough. Later it occurred to me that he had been talking about the future, a sign he felt some hope. But that was after we had returned to the camp, eaten our waycake and dried meat.
Our party was low on supplies, except for waycake, and Gaelex sent out a small party of scavengers and another of hunters; they would meet us south along the ridge, where we intended to ride most of that day. We were moving too fast for supplies to follow us from Evynar’s army, which was near Teliar by now.
The next day we moved at a more leisurely pace, south down the ridge along an old road marked with Jisraegen road-stones. The road, Imral told me, runs along the ridge , then down into the Cuthunre Valley, joining a conventional road there. It seemed odd to me that the Jisraegen would go to the effort of building a stone-marked road here, till I remembered that this was the country were Falamar’s lover was killed, and that a war had been fought here. The stones had kept the road mostly clear of new growth and would do so for as long as they stood, same as the stones that mark the roads in Arthen. Something comforting about the sensation of the quiet, old magic in the carvings.
While we were on the road it was a simple matter to hide us, using the road-stones and their magic to mask our presence; this left me with more energy for the other work I needed to do, searching out the movements of Verm troops to the east. So that day I rode in trance, out of the body, though I doubt anyone but the Jhinuuserret noticed the difference. From my fourth level presence I scanned the visible world, focusing myself through the gems in my possession and through Fimbrel, though quietly. At once a part of the landscape came into focus, then more.
