Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars)

by Jim Grimsley

  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.

  Across north Karns were moving trains of wagons, huge many-wheeled things, dragged by enormous trains of oxen, accompanied by Verm soldiers on foot and horseback, and all moving in the same direction, toward the south, where our armies were headed. North as far as I could see the wagons were moving, and to the south, when I looked there, I guessed an army must be waiting already.

  I had my instructions and followed them. We were here to confuse the movements of these same soldiers, to create confusion in this country. Kirith Kirin had given me license to do this much, but wished me to stop short of killing, if I could. We had seen that the Verm could be turned from Drudaen. So as we were riding, even as early as the first moment I understood the Verm were moving, I began my work.

  As slowly as I had assembled the long-seeing trance, I extended my reach farther, into the deep mountains to trouble the winds, beginning the gathering of a storm there, moving quietly through that long day, alive on the four circles, while in my body I was riding Nixva in a party of soldiers through high country. One can make a small storm quickly but a big one takes time, takes a skill in gathering light, trapping heat, causing air to rise and mix, a feat I had learned so many ways I could picture it in my sleep, a feat I could perform at a long distance, even in a place I could see only with my mind’s eye. The slow engine of my nascent storm grew and I drew it down out of the mountains, clouds thick with moisture from the southern ocean, chilled by the arctic airs from the mountains and from the north, a long interface of energies that I had built, an almost perfect creation, fueling itself on natural and unnatural energies. A snow storm blew down, and yet it was dark as if the heaviest thunderdome were passing overhead, a vast thing, sung out of the ground, forked with lightning even as snow was falling, a breath of warm hot wind mixed with cold winds that cut like knives, a mist over everything and a lace of air. Hours and hours I spent at this, awake through the night with Fimbrel wrapped around me, sitting at a fire at the outermost edge of our camp, despite the fact that I made Kirith Kirin anxious in one way and the rest of the war party anxious in another.

  When the storm commenced, the one long wagon train shuddered and the Verm soldiers wondered what was happening. At first they struggled to keep moving but soon the storm fell fully on them and they scurried to dig themselves into some kind of shelter, even unloading and overturning the wagons in some places. They were destined to suffer for as long as I wished, since I could draw power down from the two towers that answered to me as long as I liked while Drudaen refused to contest my work.

  Even though I had sent the main force of the storm to the north of us, across all of Antelek and Karns, snow and wind passed over the skies where we were, and our party stayed battened in good Jisraegen tents through the whirlwinds and crashes of lightning that passed overhead that second day. We were in no danger as long as I remained in kei and held the storm in my hand, but that took all my concentration, and we could not travel in such weather without my aid. As for the Verm, their wagons were wrecked and their supplies scattered over the road or swallowed in the snows. Cold wind followed the storm, as cold as that country had seen in many years; not so much for a northerner like me, but to the Verm it was fearsome.

  After a while the storm went along without me, counted as a blizzard as far east as Teliar, where Evynar’s army took shelter. Evynar had anticipated its coming to the day. Long life will give you an instinct for things.

  I eased out of deep trance to find Kirith Kirin waiting near where I was sitting encased in the fire’s protection while he had only his cloak against the weather. This was near evening the second day. When I was in my body again he knew, and came close and helped me stand. I took off some of my rings and pocketed them. The fire had died to ordinary size, and unless I gave it protection it would soon vanish in the cold snow that was falling. “Ready to stop for a while?”

  “Yes.” Leaning on him, feeling the real weight, the real texture of him. Taking a long breath of clean, cold air.

  “We pitched tents. You gave me enough warning for that. Did you know you did? Do you know what your body does when you’re out of it?”

  “Not always. I could remember it in a certain way, if I needed to.”

  He laughed. Took my head in his hand. So deceptive, the clean, young feeling of him. “I’ve always wondered what that kind of magic would be like.”

  We were trudging through snow that reached to mid-boot, deeper in places, toward the Jisraegen camp, nearly invisible in the snow. The sentries met us, shadows suddenly appearing. Our tent was heaped with snow all around, and inside a brazier was burning, the tiny space snug and warm. Around us a cluster of little warm spaces, not a single big fire, nothing wasteful. We ate waycake and some cheese Kirith Kirin got from somebody. A strong cheese, too; afterward his mouth tasted of it for a while.

  3

  We rested the horses another day, the snow melting so they could graze on the grass. Kirith Kirin sent riders to find Karsten and the eastern army, to report on what we had seen and what had happened. I have seen that letter, which reads in part, “We are perched in snow like we used to be in Cundruen crossing north to Drii, or like used to fall in the high streets of Montajhena. The Verm haven’t seen a snow like this in a hundred years. We’ll make good time along Itheil’s road.” This was the name of the road we were on, made by Itheil Coorbahl, lover of Falamar.

  Next morning, with the wind still scouring the high plain between the Narvos Hills and the Barrier Mountains, we broke camp, making a cook fire and drinking morning jaka with the sun rising and someone singing Velunen. In the night we had talked, Imral, Kirith Kirin and I, and Kirith Kirin told me what to do next. So the riding party mounted horses and headed south along Itheil’s road, and I descended the hills to ride on Nixva through the snowy country where the Verm lay scattered in the aftermath of the storm. That day I made more havoc, but still stopped short of killing Verm. I maddened the horses they were riding and the oxen pulling their wagons, sweeping along all the countryside I could reach, and when I was done most of the horses had bolted toward whatever direction seemed nearest home, and most of the oxen were fighting one another, snorting and stamping, or else rolling on their backs in the snow and gazing vacantly at the sky. Many of the animals died, I am sorry to say, but I did what was necessary.

  I rode as far north as needed to sweep that whole country with magic. By then I was no longer troubling to hide myself on any of the circles, and my song filled those places, noise and commotion. He would have seen what I was doing. But he let me wreck hi
s northern army of Verm without lifting his hand to defend them, and when I finally rode south again, after a whole day and night of travel, I was all that was moving on that landscape.

  This was orchestrated by Kirith Kirin, who had used magic to make policy before. Some of the Verm who joined Evynar’s army rode into the north Karns country with a written message from Kirith Kirin, that the Verm troops need only return to their homes to have their lives spared. “I have sent my wizard to ride along your lines,” he wrote, “and he has driven away all your beasts. Next time he rides, any of you who are not heading north will die. Those of you who return to your homes, you will earn mercy when I am King.”

  He had already said those words to me, and there would come the day when I killed because he told me to. But that was not the day, because the Verm took his warning seriously and withdrew from north Karns.

  I had a good look at them as they were trudging home in the snow, bony, massive creatures, skin the color of ash, the men so like the women it was hard to tell them apart. They made no distinction among the sexes, any more than the Jisraegen did, in dress or weaponry. They were Jisraegen, after all; were what we become under shadow; this was what happened to the people in Turis when Drudaen brought shadow there, after Kentha defeated him, after he killed her in such a faithless way. The Verm are larger than us, deep folds over the eyes, large pupils, amber irises, or sometimes irises the color of white ice or red blood, sometimes black so that the eye seems one enormous pupil; the changes in the eyes fascinated me as I studied them. They live short lives, no more than fifty of our years, and I have heard physicians say this is because they are so large the organs of the body cannot support the bulk of it. So they are stronger than we but prone to sickness and with joints easily dislocated and bones broken, because they are larger than they were designed to be. I could not tell all that by looking at them, of course, and am mixing in much that I learned later. But as I watched them marching northward, making the prudent choice to go home, tugging at their hair-braids under their helmets, or picking at their noses or sneaking a drink of wine, they became less frightening to me. A people like any other. Unfortunate enough to be ruled by Drudaen, and shaped by him, since it was his shadow that had caused their forebears to change.