Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (40 page)

This horse was for me, I thought. It had not occurred to me I would be parted from Nixva.

The Sisters saw us on the bridge but did not hurry. They stopped their horses in the grass and dismounted without haste. Vella, who was wearing a sunhat, had a little trouble keeping it on her head but she soon set it right, also calming the wind that had disturbed it. She took the lead in approaching us, Vissyn pausing to untie the bundle from the fourth horse.

When the Sisters were near, the twice-named knelt, bowing their heads. Seeing this, I knelt also, and bowed my head as they did.

“Get up, get up,” Vella called. “Jessex, why are you kneeling, when you never did before?”

“A little courtesy is charming,” Vissyn said. “Kirith Kirin! How good to see you.”

“I ought to be glad to see you too,” Kirith Kirin answered, eyeing her with his jaw clenched. “But I don’t like your errand today.”

“We’re sorry for that,” Vella said, turning to help Commyna with her cloak. “But the boy took his lot in his own hands, we didn’t choose for him.”

“We do what we do,” Commyna said, eyeing me suspiciously. “What, has the child been complaining to you? Didn’t he tell you what he did?”

“I told them I broke my oath to you,” I said.

Vissyn spied my pack on Nixva’s back. “I see you’ve brought your belongings. There was no reason to. You may leave the bundle where it is.”

“Come, son of Kinth,” Commyna called.

She had tethered the riderless horse to the shrine and was ascending stone steps to the top. She waited for me to join her, and when I was at her side she lay her hand on my shoulder. Turning to those below, watching from the windswept field, she unsheathed the slender sword she wore. “Kneel here, Jessex.”

She had not even given me time to say good bye.

A mad thought possessed me, to say Words and escape, for it was clear now what would happen. But she was Commyna, Sister to YY, and I had always obeyed her. Slowly I knelt and bent my head. I saw the shadow of the sword as she raised it.

Wind stirred over Jiiviisn. I heard commotion on the ground.

“Prepare to be reborn,” she said, “as some humans are.”

The sword fell. If it touched me at all, I never felt it.

Vella lifted the bound parcel to Commyna. “Blessed be YY-who-watches.”

“Blessed be,” Commyna said. “Stand, Yron.”

When I did not stir she took my arm and lifted me. She was smiling, her face bright. She turned to those below. Kirith Kirin was watching in rapture. “So Kentha’s words are fulfilled, the stories have an ending and a beginning. The Witch has come to the Wood as she foretold. The mortal has died in order that a life in magic shall come to him. He is to be called Yron, by those who know him, and YY will judge him as his last judge.”

I was too stunned for thinking, I could only stare at them dumbfounded. I felt as if I really had stepped out of the grave. Kirith Kirin’s voice was full of warmth. “So you see, you’re not leaving us, Yron. Not for a long, long time.”

I couldn’t find any words. Commyna embraced me, laughing at my confusion. Vella said, “No, he isn’t going anywhere. He has a lot of work to do. So do you all. Now you have the help YY can give you. A fourth level adept that we trained ourselves. See you take care of him. It’s a certainty that since God sent him, he’ll be needed.”

Commyna knelt to me, saying more softly, “You’re much too quiet, boy. What happened to that tireless tongue of yours?”

“I’m surprised, Commyna. This isn’t what I expected. Can’t they call me Jessex any more?”

She laughed heartily. “You don’t understand, do you? Well you will, in time. And your friends can call you Jessex, if they wish; only those here will know your true name.”

“She called me a fourth level adept,” I said.

“So you are. Your combat with Julassa Kyminax was the test. The gem work you performed was from the fourth circle, and Julassa was undefended there. She hadn’t the skill to counter you. You saw through to the fourth plane in the fight, and you filled it and that’s how you won.”

“I wondered. It didn’t feel like anything I had ever done before.”

She gave me a serious look. “I’ve never praised you Jessex, but now I’m not your teacher any more. You have a skill that is beyond rare. Kentha was with us many years before she absorbed as much. But against Drudaen you’ll need more than talent. He’s a fourth level power too, and he has lifetimes of cunning you don’t have. Don’t fight him at Cunevadrim; that’s his stronghold and the stronghold of his family, a place where no one goes as a willing guest. Don’t think you’ve learned everything, or even a tenth part of everything. Magic is always unfolding. At the fourth level the adept can no longer be trained but must make a path. You have the cloak we made, which has in it all we know. There are lore books at Inniscaudra and others in Cunuduerum. Find them and study them. You’ll need magic to find them and magic to use them, for Inniscaudra we Sisters built, though we’re forbidden to go there, and Cunuduerum is a place of many enchantments dating from the time of the Praeven. But you’ll need all the knowledge you can gather in days to come.”

A wind was beginning to blow, and from below Vissyn called, “I believe it will be time to go shortly, Commyna.”

“Yes, I think you’re right,” she answered. “Give me another moment.” She turned to me again, as Vissyn and Vella returned to their earnest discussion with the others. “The traveling we need to do can only be managed at certain times. I need to hurry to tell you the rest. The cloak we made is yours. Wear it even though you haven’t reached your day of adulthood; you’ll need it. You never were a child while we knew you, anyway. The cloak should serve you well, especially outside Arthen where you don’t have the virtue of the Elder Shrines and Elder Trees to protect you. Remember that not everything has yet been revealed. There is another thing I want to tell you, though you won’t understand why.” Here she flushed slightly, embracing me with unaccustomed tenderness. “Long ago we Sisters were exiled from Arthen, though we love it dearly. The wrong done was mine. The lore is known to the twice-named and some others. Learn it. You’ll understand after a while.” She released me and we watched each other.

I said, “I’ll never forget you. I hope I live to see you again.”

She gave me the wry look with which I had grown familiar. “Maybe you will.”

She set the cloak parcel in my arms. We descended from the shrine and she greeted the others while I said good-bye to Vella and Vissyn. Vella touched the top of my head, her hand weighed down with rings. “Commyna has been whispering in your ear a good while. I hope she remembered everything she was supposed to tell you.”

“She told me a lot. If I can make sense of it all.”

“We’ll miss you, boy. You be as careful as you can.”

Vissyn leaned against me, thumping my back with her fist. “You won’t be able to be very careful, if I know you. We will miss you, Jessex. But it was high time we were rid of you. I don’t know how much longer we could’ve gone on pretending we were training you to be the magician’s apprentice.”

The wind grew stronger, clouds darkening. Vissyn said to Commyna, “We should go now, Sister. We’ve many places to visit before we leave Aeryn.”

Commyna nodded. “What do you say, Imral Ynuuvil, do you think we should tell your father first?”

The Venladrii colored with pleasure. “He would be honored to receive you.”

“I think that’s a lovely idea,” Vella said, mounting her horse. “I haven’t seen Drii in just thousands of years.”

“Good bye,” Vissyn called, and Commyna and Vella echoed the words. Wind was blowing furiously and the sun had nearly vanished. The Sisters drew their cloaks around them and rode silently toward Wood’s End, till a shadow engulfed them and we could see nothing else.

When they were gone I turned to Kirith Kirin, who stood some distance away and yet still watched me. I thought, I don’t know what it will be like to be free.

No one spoke. The wind lifted my coat, sang in the treetops, swept the grass. I could feel a presence, the shadow of a hand in the southern sky. In the south clouds were darkening.

“A storm is coming,” I said to the others, “sent from the south. If you’ll permit me, we’ll ride back to Nevyssan by a way I know that will enable us to beat the bad weather.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to like this,” Pelathayn said, grinning. “You know Kirith Kirin, this may be just the thing.”

“Like in the old days,” Mordwen said, and Kiril Karsten winked at me.

Kirith Kirin beckoned, and I ran to him gladly. He took the bundle from me, tying it to Nixva himself. Our ride home was on a howling wind, riding in the ithikan unseen by any eye. We were in camp before the first drop of rain fell on us, after moving at impossible speed. I had never felt so alive. This was the beginning of my true art.

1

The storm was violent, lasting through the night and into the next day. Its main fury broke to the south, but enough strength remained to give Nevyssan and thereabouts a thorough drenching. The crash of lightning kept the horses skittish and made deadman’s watch a misery for the sentries.

I was awake through it, having forsaken the comfort of my cot for a night’s wandering through camp and the surrounding hills. I had preparations to make, and the hours till morning were short.

A storm that is the product of magic is not like other storms; it follows the same laws but its engine is independent of natural circumstance. There is a difference the trained ear can hear. I built a fire and filled my mind with the burning. The wind mounted in fury, bending the faris and stripping oak leaves from their branches, lashing the earth with rain. The drops stung my face as I sat before my fire, murmuring and gazing into the flames that continued to burn by virtue of my protection.

I could hear the Wizard singing, his Words rumbling in my bones, his anger evident. The image of the storm changed from fireworks to darkness, and I could feel his power reaching out, full of malice. Once, for a moment, I sensed another presence near him, someone I knew, alone, frightened, full of pain.

I meditated at the fourth level and felt him like scorching heat. This plane had been his playground for too long, he had needed no defenses here since Kentha died, and I could see him plainly. He was vast in the south like a dark shadow, tall, with eyes like wheels of fire, his face handsome and terrible, his mouth cruel, these features shimmering beyond the veils of his power. Words were pouring out from him, a sound like the baying of many wolves and the rending of flesh. Someone was crying in pain, someone I knew, and I understood that he had vented his anger on his prisoner.

So, without preparation, I began my own torrent of anger and song, my image rising up on fourth circle like a piercing light. From this distance, with no High Place on which to stand, I could do him no real harm. But my singing sent a jolt through him, coming as it did from the level on which he had moved unopposed till that moment. I could feel his anger and astonishment before he diverted wind and rain, raising veils so I could no longer read his features plainly. Soon he was a cloud in the south, same as his presence on fifth level, his purpose hidden from me. Try as I might I could not pierce his veil.

I contented myself with other practices, building my own defenses, augmenting them with the magic inherent in Arthen, a long and devious application that had the effect of amplifying my voice and movement through the Woodland, so that no matter where I was, I would seem to be in all places at the same time. This was slow work, but when I stopped, near daybreak, I had lain the foundations of a matrix that would alert me to any change in Drudaen even if I were not kei. I could have done much more if I had the Sisters’ trick of looping a string of time out of the present moment, but this was an application of higher circles, and Drudaen could not manage it either. I could slow time for myself, though, and I did.

Emerging from the long night’s meditation, I could feel Drudaen in the south like a brooding cloud, and the storm he maintained was rumbling in my ears. I withdrew my protection from the fire and watched the rain fall hissing onto glowing embers. Such was the rain’s force that an instant later the fire vanished. Drawing my sleeved coat closer, I hurried back to the shrine tent to prepare for Morning Ceremony.

2

I found guards posted at the shrine, one of whom halted me when I tried to walk through the clearing. The soldier recognized me and drew back in surprise. “You’re the son of Kinth, the kyyvi. I thought you were in the tent.”