Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (45 page)
I started to tell them who the women were myself, but Pelathayn caught my eye and I understood to keep my mouth shut. Kirith Kirin was returning from the arch. He gave word to Karsten to order the ride recommenced, and she did so. I mustered ithikan and we passed into Illaeryn.
Later, when we had covered a good deal of road, we stopped at a creek and ate a light, quick meal of bread, cheese and creek water. The water was cool. Every wind had a bite of upland. I found Pelathayn standing alone and took the opportunity to thank him in sparse words for his warning at the Gate. He acknowledged it curtly and I asked, in a low voice, “Why are there only two statues?”
“The third lady is forbidden this land.” He was picking bits of leaf out of his beard. “The reason is told in a very old story that few folks know. Someday in better circumstances I’ll tell it to you.”
By mid afternoon we could see the dark mass of three hills rising farther west, at their crown a glittering pile of stone.
I had seen Inniscaudra before, in Vissyn’s company, but we had traveled there in the Sister’s sudden fashion, nothing like this sweeping ride across gently swelling green countryside, trees rising slender and fair. Mist dusted the bright colors with gray, subduing the red linvern leaves, the golden infith, the duraelaryn whose leaves blanch white when they die, floating to the ground like immense moths.
From the eastern road one can see only the narrow flank of the House, the mass of the two towers, Domren and Ellebren, standing so close they seemed fused. The High Place was very high indeed, seen from afar, its summit crowned with horns of silver. Domren, the Tower of Guard, rose but to Ellebren’s knee though it was much more massive, shining like a sun struck cloud while Ellebren was gray like rain. Closer and closer we rode as the sun descended, shadows lengthening behind us. The hills surrounded us soon thereafter and one saw the House only in glimpses.
From the south one can see the full breadth of the citadel, from the Deep Gate to the summit of the High Place, tower on tower rising as if out of earth’s heart. The road descended through Durassa’s Park, a garden-like valley through which the road traces its path before beginning the winding ascent around Lake Thyathe and Vath Invaths. We rode beneath the shadow of the hill with the sun sinking beyond the mountains that filled the new horizon. The summit of Ellebren was lost in clouds.
Day was darkening as the storm clouds renewed themselves. My hearing detected more, however. I felt eyes in the clouds, a circling vigilance, as if the road were watched. I felt the southerner brooding and stretching his thought toward me.
Alarmed slightly, I urged Nixva for more speed, touching the gem and singing intently, employing the cloak so that we rode hidden. We passed south of Vath Invaths, the riders exclaiming as the house unfurled itself like a marble banner, while I strained to detect whatever presences were watching us from above.
The veil over Arthen could not prevent a bird from seeing riders on the road, and if the bird flew under the will of Drudaen Keerfax, he would have news of our passage more quickly than I wished. We were riding beneath my own veil, however, no more visible than the blowing of air through the long grass. I could feel no sign that Keerfax was aware of me or of our passage, though I was certain he had kept watch on Inniscaudra all the years it had been closed. As we neared the vast house my apprehension increased.
We circled west and north and east again, beginning at last to mount the slope of Vath Invaths. We passed beneath Aegul Wall, a stade of towers and sheer smooth walls guarding the eastern approach to the hill. The road rose steeply but also broadened, and the horses made swift progress. We swept beneath the shadow of the Haldobran Cleft, the Deep Gate gleaming from shadow. The power of the House was slumbering, but I could feel it.
Kirith Kirin rode stride for stride beside me, eyes on the road or on the summit, his body lit from within as if power were kindling in him. He breathed the Illaeryn evening with keen delight, sitting straight as a scepter on the King Horse. He signaled to me to slow the ride and I did so, laying hands on the gem.
“Have you ever seen its like?” he asked.
“No, sir. A thousand giants couldn’t break down those walls.”
He smiled. “Maybe a thousand tried, those first days when even the rocks were young. These walls will stand until the last moments, it’s said.” He paused, gazing upward. “I want a little time. I want the House to get used to us.”
The slower pace did us good, I think. The others took deep breaths, as if wakening from sleep. Sounds of nightfall closed round us: calls of birds, wood crickets, the baying of hounds or wolves. When night was full, we lit torches at the base of the Tower of Guard. I could have made a better light by my art, but this would have been like a beacon to whatever eyes were watching the Vath Road. The veil I was maintaining over our passage was beginning to tax me after the day’s long work. The torch flames flickered, throwing faint light onto the foundations of walls and towers. We passed the bulk of Domren, our horses climbing the road that runs beneath the Aegul Wall toward Krafulgur Gate.
At Krafulgur the road passes between two immense horned towers whose sides rise smooth as polished glass from the rock of the hill. Krafulgur is no Gate at all to the eye, it appears to be a huge open arch spanned by a stone bridge. A portcullis that can be lowered is cunningly hidden within the stone. We rode beneath the towers, whose upper reaches were deeper shadows in the darkness. The horses’ hooves echoed beneath the broad arch. The road swung south in an ascending curve, and we climbed to the Syystren Gate.
This was the end of the journey. We stood holding our horses’ reins in the unbridled night, wind stabbing through our cloaks, an occasional raindrop on the cheek, a moment of moonlight awash in monkish cloud. Kirith Kirin was standing at the center of the cobbled road, turning a circle of dark metal over and over in his hand. He simply walked to the gate. Imral lit his path with a torch.
The Venladrii Prince halted below the outer pillars, and the flame of his torch sent shadows dancing against the walls, giving light for Kirith Kirin. The Prince strode to the side of the huge gate, and soon a blue light glowed. He spoke words I could not hear, and I knew by instinct I could not have heard them by my art, either. He was moving power himself.
He set the metal circle into the center of the light, which suddenly brightened.
As if the blood of a dead man became warm and began to flow sweetly in his veins, the power of the house began to move. Wind rushed up Vath Invaths from every slope, and above Inniscaudra the clouds were torn and the stars shone down on us, as if the night had never known storm or rain. From within the gate an age-old breeze stirred, sighed outwardly and kissed our faces. The outer gate split down the center and swung open. From within light was shining. On the high walls and in the towers of guard, one by one, watchfires began to burn.
The magic that preserves and guards the house becomes immanent when the Keeper of the Keys returns to the Citadel, but no one had bothered to warn me. All of Inniscaudra is built of magic of one kind or another. I stood there with the tatters of my spell of hiddenness fluttering around me. If there were indeed any watchers in the clouds, they had gathered the news for which they had been sent. The eye in the south would know we had entered the House of Winter.
At that moment, however, I hardly thought of Drudaen or spies or even of the others who were with me. I was struck dumb at the House, at the awesome energy I could feel moving within it. Eyes closed, listening to the singing that ran through the stones, a field of force in which the House was suspended. I could have stood there listening till all the moons rose together. We entered Inniscaudra with our heads craned this way and that. By the time the gates closed behind us, the Winter House was festooned with roch fire on every wall and parapet, and we who entered the Eldest House were singing from “Kimri,” “I am lighting the lamp that lights the lamps.”
2
The priests of Cunuduerum believed Inniscaudra to be the center of all worlds, and the House has many names in Jisraegen legend: House of Mur, Elder House, House that No Man Built, YYmoc, Mansion of Winter, Velyii, Mansion of the Fathers and Mothers, Sister-House, Edennavadrim and many more. Every Aeryaen people has stories of the House from as far back as their memories reach, including the Svyssn who call it the House of Light, and the Smiths in the Valley of Ice who remember the building of Inniscaudra, in which they participated. Even the Orloc helped to build the Deeps of the house and have songs concerning Inniscaudra, though few humans have ever heard them and returned to tell tales.
Long before there was a Queen or King there was a Keeper of the Keys. Nowadays under the Law, the Successor in Arthen held the Keys to Inniscaudra; a treasure greater, in its way, than any to be had outside the Woodland, now that Montajhena was no more than a ruin in the mountains.
Beyond the Syystren Gate was a wide moat and stone bridge, and beyond the bridge the wide lawn before the Halobar, the Hall of Many Partings, which was the entrance to the House. We crossed the bridge leading our horses behind us. A few of the others stopped to light torches, the flames reflected on the still water. On the bridge the support pillars were carved to resemble bearded men and women with long braids, all with their eyes closed, and in the mouth of each venerable sir or madam a fire flickered, sending out wavering light. Moonlight poured down from a tear in the clouds and the lawn was flooded with silver. The entry road, a mixture of stone, coral and pink sea shell, wound beneath silver menumen with silken leaves fluttering and dense green hedges neatly trimmed as if gardeners had manicured them yesterday. Lady Karsten murmured a song I had never heard, something about the House of Many Names, as we approached the glimmering entry court.
When I had ridden here before, even from a distance I had been awed by the mass of the place. Riding toward the Hall beneath the sky torn with storm, I was struck with wonder at the intricacy, the delicate stonework, the soaring towers, the window glass of jewel-rich colors, and the outer walls of the towers and fortifications shining smooth as glass, dark as blood.
No enemy has marched on Inniscaudra since Cunavastar made war on the YY-Sisters and laid waste to the northern portions of Illaeryn. No enemy will march on her again until the breaking of the age and no enemy will ever take her until the breaking of worlds, whenever that may be. I had a sense of walking on a height even from within the walls, the wind from the western mountains blowing the roch-fires, light and shadow dancing across the encrusted road. We halted beneath the broad stair leading to the Halobar Doors. Kirith Kirin had climbed to the seventh step. “Let your horses wander in the lawn,” he said quietly, “we won’t attempt to open the stables or any of the lower holds tonight. You’ll find the mortal horses are wonderfully invigorated by a day’s grazing on this grass.”
He led the King Horse onto the lawn. The others followed. Everyone walked as if in a dream, turning this way and that, from the shining face of Halobar to the terraces that lead to the Under House, sweeping falls of stairs set with statues of grave-faced people of all the races we know. We turned from marvel to marvel.
The horses on the lawn called each other with eerie voices. Kirith Kirin spoke again. “For those who have not been here before, we’re at the Western Doors, and this is Halobar, the Hall of Many Partings. Beyond Halobar is Thenduril, the Woodland Hall, and beyond that is the Tower of YY. You’ve heard of these places before, in the stories your fathers and mothers told you. We won’t enter the house from this direction tonight. One should first see those sights by morning, in sunlight, and from the looks of things we may have clear weather tomorrow.” Here he smiled at the stars overhead. “For tonight, we’ll find places for ourselves in the Under House, along one of those terraces beneath Thenduril. Follow me and I’ll show you.”
Everyone shouldered as much baggage as she or he could carry and we followed Kirith Kirin along a bright path down a broad, coral-colored stair. We passed silent as shadows, cloaks sweeping the stone, torches flickering. From the walls, mute carvings watched us, reliefs depicting scenes out of history, some familiar but many not. I saw King Falamar entering the River City, the First Breaking of Yrunvurst, the slaughter of the Anynae, along with other sad moments from those times. Figures of slender beauty, strong-boned Jisraegen faces, mournful eyes.
The Under House descended beneath the north wall in a series of gardens and terraces that led eventually to a stairway at the foot of the wall and the towers. A wind swept up the stairway and I heard the whisper of a voice in it, a cold sound that made me shiver. We had paused on one of the terraces and I was leaning over the carved stone balustrade, the wind in my hair.
When I heard the sound again it filled me with dread. I gazed down at the far blue glow of the glimmering road. The wind blew from there and struck me with a peculiar tingling.
