Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (64 page)

He acknowledged without answering, standing in the high-ceilinged room beside the chair where I had read his letter. Gaelex glanced at me and I nodded, very small. She withdrew with her soldiers.

When the door closed, I was alone with him, in a room where a warm fire was burning. I led him to the fire and he stood there looking at his hands, dazed. I took his face in my hands, kissed his mouth. We sat on cushions with the fire burning, I drew his head down to my lap, and he sighed. The weight of him, the texture of his hair, provided the same comfort as the locket before, to anchor me in my body. His face offered a different kind of gravity, always pulling me toward it. We sat in quiet with the crackling of the fire, with no need but to be there. We did speak after a while, almost in whispers, knowing so many folk stood guard around us, beyond every wall on every side. He laced his fingers through mine and turned to face me, his back to the fire. He lay a hand along my neck, fingertips on the throat. “Have you eaten? Are you hungry?”

I shivered, pulled him close. “I’m cold.”

He obligingly surrounded me, chuckling. “I like it when you’re cold.”

The closeness and heat of him made me understand how lonely I had been, and I said, “I missed you.” I said this quite simply, meaning no harm, but his response was to look at me dumbstruck, his eyes suddenly full, and then to hold me tight against him as though I were trying to escape. A sorrow poured out of him like wind. “Please,” into his ear, “I only meant I love you. That’s all.”

“I know.” He calmed, lay on the cushions again, and I listened to his breathing, his heartbeat. The fullness of feeling between us struck me like a sorrow too, that when I was with him I should feel such a sweetness, in a world in which I could hardly ever be with him. “I’m so very tired,” he said, “I don’t rest without you,” as though we had lain together for years. He needed sleep, more than he needed conversation with me. I drew him from the fireplace to the bed and tended him like the best of servants, taking off his boots, his leggings, his tunic, his ring of keys, the jeweled knife he carried, laying them all neatly on a ridiculously large chair near the fireplace arch. He watched, amused. We slipped into the warm covers on the downy mattress, and he sighed as I dimmed the lamp, easing against him. “I wanted to come for you earlier,” he said, “but the talking went on and on.”

“I spent a quiet night myself.” I could hear the question this raised in him and spared his having to ask. To tell the truth, I was relieved to find him curious. “Drudaen rode south days ago, before you signaled me from Vyddn. I don’t know what he’s doing or where he is.”

“There are only so many places he could have gone,” he murmured, his eyes already closing.

“He’s not in any of the Towers.” But I was already too late. Kirith Kirin sighed, curled around me, and fell fast asleep in hardly the time it took me to finish the sentence.

I had less need for sleep myself. What I needed was to have him there, to be a solid creature beside him, to feel the warmth spreading between us, to feel and smell his breath. What I needed was the slight moistness of his skin where it touched mine. Though after a while I did close my eyes, for the luxury of it.

When he woke me, early, the dawn soft on his face, I was startled I had slept so deeply, without dreaming. Sitting up, I did a check of the High Place and touched the locket. He laughed at me as he pulled me into the covers again. “Sleepyhead. I’ve been awake for hours.”

“You haven’t even been asleep for hours,” I answered.

He chuckled, stretching his arms. He stripped back the covers then, checked my arm to see that the bone had healed, as it had. “It looks fine. I was worried sick, you know. I still am.”

“Kirith Kirin –”

He set a finger on my lip. “Don’t waste your breath. I’ll worry as long as you’re you and I’m me.” After a while, looking down the length of the room, “At least my feet don’t hang off the bed, here.”

The memory of the farmhouse made me laugh. “I do miss the smell of the pigsty.”

“I gave our hosts there enough gold for a new bed.” He stroked the nape of my neck, drew me down along him. “I expect they kept the gold and the bed, though. It will be a nine-days wonder in the countryside, mark my word. The bed where I slept with my wizard.”

So close now, all I could see was his face. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He simply looked at me. “Do you really think you need to say it?”

“I want to say it.” I leaned over him, the locket resting on his chest. He slipped it over my head and lay it on the nightstand, easy as that, the enchanted gem on which all our futures might rest, and I never said a word. He felt no coldness in me that morning, though he tested every part.

2

I walked into the sitting parlor to find Imral Ynuuvil waiting there, winter light from the window on his silver skin. I had wrapped myself in Fimbrel, white and soft, to look at the day out the window. Fimbrel whispered music, an echo of the Sisters, as I moved to Imral, who embraced me loosely but most seriously. He handed me a cup from the oet. “I’m glad to find you here.”

“We have a roof over our heads, here, at least.”

One must learn to sense the pleasure of a Venladrii, one will never be told of it. Beyond the window catofars were calling, the winter song we call it, because in early winter the catofars pass from the mountains to the warm southern coast, singing the whole way. They rested this morning in the oaks in the park beyond, cleaning their wing feathers, flashes of black and green.

“Kirith Kirin is awake? Did he tell you he’s invited guests this morning?” He hesitated an instant, with a trace of discomfort.

When I turned, the white cloak whispered like the birds outside. He touched the fabric, closed his eyes, listened. “What guests?” I asked.

He stepped to the window himself, looking for someone, then turning to me sidewise, a sign he was uncertain. “My father has asked to meet you.”

“Not for the simple pleasure of making my acquaintance, I take it.”

Perhaps his father could also smile without moving a single muscle of his face. “No.”

Movement in the other room, Kirith Kirin stirring. He emerged from the bedroom toweling his face, nodding to Imral, asking, “Where’s Evynar?”

“Coming.”

I poured jaka for him, gave him the cup, sat down as one of the bodyguard escorted the Drii king into the room, no ceremony at all. Kirith Kirin took my hand. I stood when Evynar Ydhiil approached, and I bowed in politeness. Tall, pale, with eyes like white stars, he took my breath. An elegant figure, broad-shouldered but trim, his face clear and smooth, his hair the color of ice, he showed his age only in his gravity of bearing. He was dressed in a jacket trimmed with small white pearls, wearing gold and silver rings and bracelets, earrings and an earcup, so that he glittered when he moved. On him this finery sat like simple, homespun stuff, but I had never seen even Kirith Kirin dressed with so much gold, so many gems, and this before breakfast. “Sit down, boy, sit down,” he said, and eased himself into a chair with no formality at all.

“You slept?” Kirith Kirin asked.

“Not enough.” He looked around the room. Imral had knelt in front of the fireplace to stir the embers. When Evynar’s gaze rested on his son, something softened in his face. “Imral and I are sharing rooms opening onto the goldfish park. Did he tell you?”

Kirith Kirin laughed. “I know you don’t like Telkyii Tars very much, Evynar. But we’re only here for a day or two.”

“But I love goldfish, I always have. Especially in the winter when they’re all asleep at the bottom of the pond.”

“The rooms are fine, Kirith Kirin.” Imral turned back to us. “My father is very comfortable. Aren’t you, father?”

He chuckled but never answered. He looked at me, studied me for a long time. Kirith Kirin introduced us, and I bowed my head again, not knowing what else to do. He continued to watch me in silence. “They told me you were a boy but I didn’t believe it could really be true.”

“It’s not exactly my choice to be so young,” I answered.

“But you know your art well, I’m told.”

“I’ve had good teachers.”

A moment later he asked for jaka and, since Imral was busy with the fire, I poured it myself from the oet. He accepted the cup with something like a smile. I guessed the first part of the inspection had begun, and, to tell the truth, I felt rather gentle about it. Why would he not be skeptical of me? How many Venladrii had marched out of Arthen to help us? How many lives had he risked, on me?

In response to their questions, I told them all that had happened since we met in Maugritaxa, that I had held Drudaen pinned on Yruminast for many days, but that he escaped me when I came down from the Tower. He had vanished beneath his own veil. Since then I had glimpsed his presence in Ivyssa. Where he had gone from there I could only guess. I had some other news, too, including the notable lack of response to our march from any of the queen’s strongholds.

I watched Evynar closely as I briefed them, and he studied me with interest as keen as mine in him. He saw me clearly. When I was done, he bowed his head. “Thank you, young man. You explain what you’ve seen very well. But explain another thing for me. Why was Drudaen camped in Vyddn for so long?” The question surprised me some, and I must have showed this, because Evynar went on. “It became his folly to sit there, but he did it anyway. In Drii we watched him, and wondered what he could be seeking that was so precious. Because even to us it was clear he should move back to his strongholds when you first took your place on Ellebren.”

“The Sisters said it was because of this.” I held up the locket, passed it to them. “He thought the Bane Gem was in the ruins where Kentha fell. Or at least he thought so until I showed him where it really was.”

“What do you think?”

“I can’t see why he would believe Kentha died with the gem on her. She would have used it against him, that’s how he would see it. So I wonder if there’s something else.”

Evynar held the Bane locket, studying the stone’s careful faceting. “A kirin,” he said. “Tervan work, I’d guess. The Sisters could not read the writing?”

“I never showed them the locket. I didn’t know what it was in those days.” I leaned forward to take the necklace from him. “But Kirith Kirin told me what these letters are.”

“The language is called the Malei,” Kirith Kirin said. “The alphabet is called akana. Edenna Morthul gets the credit for inspiring the priests to work on it. In the earliest age, the Cunuduerum monks studied a way to make a magic language of their own, and Edenna helped them.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You should know the answer to that. Ildaruen can be taught. The Nameless Tongue can’t, or so I’m told.”

“That’s right.” I was surprised again to hear the words from his mouth so plainly.

“The Praeven were giving Edenna what she needed, a way to make magic that she could teach. When Falamar saw the threat this could bring, he made up the story about the song that frightened YY and put the monks to death. But all their lore books were closed up inside their libraries. You won’t find this history to be written down but we know it to be true.”

“The Sisters believed Kentha had found access to the Praeven books and that she was studying them,” I said.

“She was,” Kirith Kirin answered. “She had learned how to travel to the ghost city, she told us that. Her child was born there, I believe. And Edenna Morthul taught her the way to enter the libraries, which even Falamar could never do.”

“So Keerfax wants to learn akana himself?” Evynar asked. “That’s why he virtually besieged a ruined city for half a year? Has he figured all this out?”

I answered, simply. “Kentha built the Malei language into Ellebren Tower, to be controlled through the locket she made. He would have to know the Malei himself to defend against it.”

Kirith Kirin shook his head. “Maybe that’s part of it. But what he really needs is simply a way into Arthen.” He crossed to the window, flocks of catofars framing his head. “He’s always had that weakness. We all do, we who live a long time. Unless we return to Arthen we die like all the rest. He thought he had found a way around that for a while but he was wrong, apparently, or Athryn wouldn’t be sending for me to be King. If he’s looking for anything, it’s for a way home. Something to circumvent the magic that keeps him out.”

3

This interview ended and I left them in the room with a good fire going, to have whatever further discussion they might require. I would learn later that it is customary for the magician to withdraw, but I had no interest in staying for more talk, since Kirith Kirin would tell me whatever I needed to know. I climbed to the top of Laeredon and stood in the high wind.