Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  3

  This time I was farther from my body than before, and the cold was absolute. I had a hard time breathing. While I had been unable to move for a long time, now I felt pain in my limbs like white fire burning. Fear did possess me then, and images formed in the void about me, horrible — my own body mangled, piles of lizards coiled round me, or Mikif with the soldiers on her, or the neighbor’s daughter Sergil watching her father gasp, falling into the loop of rope, his neck cracking and his feet kicking, kicking, and becoming still. My mother, hands tied behind her, gagged and bruised from beatings, mounted onto a horse with the help of a Blue Cloak. When I fought away one image another took its place. Even now I don’t like to remember everything I saw in that time.

  Finally a vague figure formed in the shadows, the voice of my dream taking shape, the one who had warned me he would never leave my mind. He missed me in front of him at first, and I thought this odd, since my presumption had been that these images were always focused on me, that their purpose, the reason for their creation, was my torment. This one was searching. He was not hideous, either. He had a handsome face; not young and fresh like Kirith Kirin but smooth, white as porcelain, opaque, a beauty like stone. A small scar on his temple, throbbing. Words began to travel from him, and the sound was odd, threading out from his mouth like a tendril. I began to understand. His black eyes flicked from side to side. He was aware of me. He was searching for me.

  Real fear grew in me, because I knew who he was.

  Distance would mean nothing to him, he had vast power. Wherever I was, this was a place he knew about, and if he found me here, there was no protection for me, no Woodland around me to baffle him.

  A measure of wakefulness returned. I fought to remember myself, my life that I was beginning to love, the light of the deniire lamp flowing in colors, the splendid bustle of camp, the beauty of Arthen. Some of the cold left me and the white pain ebbed from my motionless limbs; but at the same time the mist-draped image became more distinct, and the voice clarified. “Jessex,” he called, his voice tinkling like water over rocks, “son of Kinth, come to me, your strength become my strength, do not return to your body but join with mine...” His strong body became plain, became desirable; and I became lost in the motion of his lips forming the words, his restless gaze coming closer.

  He was in front of me, he waited. He was lovely, yes, but not lovely in the way of the living, not like Kirith Kirin. He lifted his white hand toward me and would have touched me, would have laid his cool fingers on my brow, except that I was warned by what had happened before, I said, “No, whoever you are, you may not touch me here.”

  “But you are longing for me.”

  “No, I’m not. I forbid you.”

  His smiled never wavered. “You’ve been calling for me ever since you were taken from Arthen. I heard your voice. Tell me where you are and I’ll come for you.”

  “I haven’t called you.”

  “Tell me where you are and I’ll come for you,” he repeated, and his eyes were shining.

  “I’m in the bottom of a snowdrift at the top of a mountain, the place where I want to be.”

  “You’re being held against your will by skillful women,” he said, “tell me where you are and I’ll find you.”

  “I don’t know you, why should I want your help?”

  “You know me, you’ve always known me,” his figure swelling in my sight, the cloud of him engulfing me, so that I foundered, the cold returning brutally, fiercer than before, a feeling of finality to it. “You’ll enter me one day and never leave me, and your strength will be my strength, and we’ll be more powerful than any, and all weather and winds and all forces of time and space will answer to us.”

  For a moment I was blank, and the sense of the brooding figure was overwhelming. But he was no more real than I was, here. Reality was far away for both of us: for me it was my body on a table in a wide, high chamber, beneath the scrutiny of three women. “I don’t want you,” I told him, “I don’t need you, I despise you, you’re my enemy, and my life will destroy your life. You’re Drudaen the White-Handed, and you’re very strong, but I’m not in your power and I never will be. If you could find my body you could kill me but I won’t tell you where I am. I’m at the bottom of a snowdrift on the top of a high mountain and eagles are my friends. One day we will meet and I will see you dead. Till then don’t trouble me.”

  It eased my fear to let my thoughts babble. I had no notion of any plan. But he was dismayed, I could feel it, and something born into me understood this was my gain. The cloud that was his presence was already re-gathering, however, and the cold held me more deeply each moment. When his face began to form from the cloud my heart sank. I could fight him while I was aware, but if sleep came over me I had no idea what would happen. Tattered thoughts passed in and out of my mind, phrases from Velunen, from Kimri. I closed my eyes and felt the cold rise, the darkness increase. “Yes,” he said, “that’s it, don’t fight it any more, there’s no need; so much cold and so much pain, for nothing. When you could be so warm. When my voice makes you warm even now. You are so far away from your body, why go back? Why make such a long journey, when you can be warm and happy here, with me. Since you won’t tell me where you are, sever the link yourself. One slender cord binds you to your body. Unfasten it. Let your spirit be free to fly from this place with me. Come with me southward. Let me take you to your mother —”

  Her image was more concrete than his, and I saw her bruised and battered as before, the rough-handed soldier dragging her onto the impatient horse. Anger scorched me and he withdrew again; and as he did another presence found us both, a pure light.

  “Hail to you, Drudaen Keerfax, prince of fools,” a voice said.

  “I hear no one, I hear nothing,” the cloud said.

  “You hear me, you know me well enough.” The other cloud shimmered and took form. A beautiful woman stepped forward, as if through a curtain of light, and I knew her to be the broad-shouldered woman, the one who had sent me here, whom I had thought to be my enemy. “The child is not for you. He is here through my neglect and I claim him. You have no power over him here, you can claim nothing.”

  “Jessex —”

  She spoke aloud awful words and light crackled from her, showers of particles of light, and a sound like music. “Listen Drudaen, I have news. Yron is coming. You know that name, don’t you? This child is a sign. Save your strength while you can.”

  Anger swelled out from him and the cold became so sharp I cried out. But he vanished and the woman returned to me. An overwhelming gentleness engulfed me, and her voice hovered just outside my ear. “Sleep a good sleep, a pure sleep this time, little singer. We only meant to test you, not to kill you. When you wake up you’ll be in a good place.”

  Why did I believe her now? I let the warmth she radiated lull me into rest, real rest, and knew nothing beyond that.

  4

  I awoke in my body, truly and at last, by the shores of a blue lake. Grass tickled the skin of my palms and a warm breeze blew over me. I was looking up into the branches of one of the great duraelaryn, and when I recognized the man-sized branches, the tiers of broad leaves rising toward the blue heavens, I sighed deeply. I had come home to Arthen.

  From nearby I heard women’s laughter and tried to sit up.

  A shadow fell across my face. “Not yet,” said a mellow voice, and a plump woman laid the back of her hand against my cheeks. “Be still, rest a while longer. You have a lot of strength to recover.”

  “Is he awake?” one of the women asked.

  “Yes,” said the gentle-faced woman, “finally. Bring him some tea, Vissyn. Bring one of the cakes too.”

  My head was clearing. Warmth had returned to my limbs. I recognized the woman bending over me as the second voice on my journey, one of the women I had glimpsed when I woke in the strange room. She was ruddy-faced, round, and ample, with the face of a grandmother. I started to tell her I knew her but her hand closed over my lips
. She was smiling and I realized with a start she knew what I had been thinking. “Yes,” she said, “that’s who I am, but you don’t need to say so. My name is Vella. My sisters are Commyna and Vissyn. Vissyn you know by name already, apparently.”

  The other women were joining us, their shadows passing over me. Vella lifted a cup to my lips. Someone slid a cushion under my head, and a moment later the broad-shouldered woman, the one who had rescued me, sat cross-legged at my feet, arranging her luxurious skirt in folds on the ground. Her black hair was piled on her head, fastened in place by pins adorned with small jewels. She wore a white blouse whose full arms billowed in the breezes. “Commyna,” I said hoarsely, remembering her name.

  She lifted her finger to her lips. Even now there was something forbidding about her, a sternness that endured despite her merry eyes and the smile that lit her face. “Welcome to Illyn Water, boy. For a while we were afraid you’d never get here.”

  “Don’t be in such a hurry, Commyna,” Vella said, breaking off the cake into my mouth. “He’s still weak.”

  The flavor of the rich, sweet bread flooded me, tasting of honey and spices. I took a deep breath. “Where is Illyn Water?” I asked.

  Commyna glanced at Vella in something like triumph. “This one’s strong,” she said. “Not too many questions boy, or Vella will make me go away. Illyn Water is our home when we’re in Arthen. It’s a hidden place, and few people have ever seen it.”

  I ate more of the cake and felt some strength return. “Where’s Nixva?”

  “Yonder,” said Vissyn, the blond woman. “He’s perfectly happy, grazing with our horses. Nixva is the son of an old friend.”

  “We were in a house,” I said. “When I woke up. Where was it?”

  They glanced at each other. Commyna sighed. “We hoped you would not remember that.”

  “You touched a jewel to my head.”

  She looked deeply into my eyes as her sisters murmured in that strange language.

  “You frighten me,” Commyna said. “Not many could retain what transpired in a sleep such as you were in. Yes, I touched a gem to your head. You had wakened when you were not supposed to waken, in our house far away in the mountains. We took you there for safety, to make sure you were the child we had been told to find and teach. As it was, our wish for safety nearly killed you. I can’t explain all that happened to you now, there isn’t time. But no mortal Jisraegen has ever seen the house you were in, and when you wakened there we had to return you to the trance quickly. The jewel I used sent you too far, and we were a long time finding you. Do you remember what happened?”

  I nodded. She smiled grimly.

  “How strange.” Vella helped me to drink more tea. “I had looked forward to returning to Arthen for so long. Now I feel afraid.”

  “The bad time is beginning in earnest,” Commyna said, “and we haven’t helped matters much with our bungling.”

  “Who could have guessed a novice would escape from fourth level sleep?” Vissyn asked. “We could hardly have done more.”

  “We nearly killed the boy before we started,” Commyna had not taken her eyes off me. “And we’ve alerted Drudaen to our presence besides. YY only knows what he suspects concerning the child.”

  “What are you starting?” I asked.

  “Teaching you,” Vissyn said, twirling a blade of grass against her lips.

  “Teaching me what?”

  “Magic,” she said.

  The breeze returned. I watched the duraelaryn again, leaves streaming like small sails. I looked at Commyna. “You said you knew why I had come to Arthen, before, when I met you on the road. Is this why I’m here? To be taught by you? To learn magic?”

  She met my gaze calmly. “Yes.” Her face grew stern without her moving a muscle. “We had not planned for you to know so much so soon. But so be it, we’ll change our plans. You’re here to be taught. What you’ll learn is magic. A magician is coming, and you are to be his helper.”

  “Is the magician Yron? Is that his name?”

  Vella and Vissyn drew in quick breaths, and Commyna turned from one to the other. “He heard me say the name on the fourth level. You see what I mean? He remembers even that.” To me she said, “Yes, the magician’s name is Yron. Never say that name away from Illyn. Never, ever tell anyone that you’ve been here or that you have seen us. Never say our names. If you break any of these rules or reveal anything that we teach you we we’ll send you far into the mountains and you’ll never see this country again.”

  “You’re being very severe,” Vella said.

  “Hush Vella,” Vissyn said. “You know we’ve had trouble in the past.”

  “Thank you sister.” Commyna turned to me again. “Are the rules fixed clearly in your mind?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Commyna turned to Vella. “Is he well enough to travel?”

  Vella laid her hand along my brow, her warmth reminding me of the cold place. “Yes, for the moment. But when we return him to his own time the full sickness will hit him.” To me, she said “You have been to the fourth level without training. We can’t absorb the shock of it for you without dulling your senses to our teaching. You’ll be very sick for a time.”

  Commyna nodded. Then she sat up straight, with a look of listening. After a moment she said, “Nixva will know when you’re ready to return here, Jessex. In the meantime, rest well. You’ve been a long way, body and spirit.”

  “Finish this cake,” Vella said quietly. “We can’t keep you here much longer. Can you ride?”

  I wasn’t even certain I could stand. But I nodded anyway, and finished the cake as she had asked. Some sort of charm was in it; I felt much stronger when I had eaten the last crumbs. I sat up, and finally stood.

  Nixva was beyond, in the center of a broad meadow where golden sunlight was falling. When he saw me he tossed his head in greeting, cantering toward me. Vissyn handed me his bridle and when he was near I slipped it over his head.

  I mounted him, sitting as steadily as I could manage. I faced the three women, looking from one to the other. “Close up your coat,” Vella said, “you’ll be riding through a storm. When you get to camp, when you are in the worst of the fever, tell them to give you unufru. A doctor would have it but won’t necessarily think of it for an illness like yours. Remember, unufru. We’d give it to you here, but you have to drink it in real time.”

  The sky was perfectly clear overhead. But I remembered Vella’s words, When we return him to his own time and understood. Commyna smiled, knowing my thought, and said, “Precisely. You’ll be returned to the moment in which we first took you. For those you know in camp, you will have been absent only a few hours. Your time here is a bubble that we make, away from all the rest. Remember, say nothing about us, and above all say nothing about what has happened. If you can’t keep this secret your life is not worth a flake of gold.”

  “I can keep secrets.” But my head was spinning and I knew I would be lucky to keep my seat, much less remember not to talk out of my head. Nixva was impatient to go, and let me know it. The women turned their backs, and I nudged Nixva with my heels. He took off galloping across the meadow, the sky darkening with every stride. I felt no change. But suddenly we were riding beneath trees, and rain was beating down on us, and lightning flashed.

  Nixva reared as before, and came down gently to earth, and we were in Hyvurgren Field in a spring storm with the wind howling round us. I nearly lost my seat.

  Whoever the women were, they had been right. The sickness hit me at once, and it was all I could do to cling to Nixva’s back as he galloped. He must have understood that his rider was in a bad way. He covered the distance between the holy field and camp as quickly as he could. But I felt like I was dying just the same. When I reached Mordwen’s tent I tried to dismount but nearly fell, the groom Thruil catching me in his arms. Mordwen cried out in shock and, surprisingly, affection, and had me carried into his tent. Thruil lay me in cushions and someone threw a heavy duvet over me
. I lay watching them as if they were a thousand leagues away. I had a hard time realizing that this was, for them, the same morning I had ridden from the shrine, Kirith Kirin’s greeting ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 6: WYYVISAR

  1

  Someone changed my wet clothes for dry ones. A householder brought hot soup and mild tea. The tastes reminded me I was supposed to ask for something at some point but I was sick and drowsy and could not remember what. The cold had returned, and I shivered no matter how many coverings they piled on me and despite the braziers they ringed round me. Mordwen sent for a doctor from main camp and she came in a hurry. She performed many indignities on me that I tolerated only because I felt too awful to say anything. I was still trying to remember the name of the stuff Vella had told me to ask for when the doctor mixed a sleeping potion and poured the warm milky stuff down my throat.