Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) (66 page)

That morning Kirith Kirin was alone, however, taking his morning bread, fresh from an oven now that we were in a city, in a well-staffed house, good fresh jaka from the Svyssn uplands, a sheaf of documents, billets, letters sealed and unsealed. He had been warned I was coming, though I had no idea how he could get news so quickly. Setting the papers aside, he dismissed my escort and pulled me near, unfastening the Fimbrel Cloak. We stood close together in the quiet hiss of the fire, nothing to say, till I sighed, and he asked, “Are you ready to sleep for a while?”

I slipped Fimbrel off my shoulders and stroked it with my hand till the fabric settled to a density something like good wool. The color never would be still, quite, a shimmering of deep purples, chocolate browns and ebony blacks. “I did what I wanted to do,” I said. “The Tower over Cunevadrim will be no good to him till he goes there to repair it. I couldn’t bring it down but I came close. So I think I can sleep for a while.”

“No sign of the Keerfax?”

“None. He chose to remain hidden and let me do as I pleased in his homeland. I don’t think he anticipated what I was able to accomplish, but even when Yruminast fell out of his link to the other towers, he kept hidden.”

“He’s ridden to Aerfax, I’d bet my good boots on that. He’s gone directly there for fear we would cut him off.”

“I expect you’re right,” I said. “It would be the place to defend. For all he knows we were planning to make a dash for Aerfax ourselves.”

“That wouldn’t have been a bad plan.”

“Too late now.”

“We’d have decided against it, anyway. The prudent course is the one we’re following, to secure the country at our backs and push south in stages.”

I patted him on the arm and yawned. “Better to have him there and know where he is.”

“Athryn will have moved to Aerfax herself, by now,” he said. “The court moves there for the ceremonies around the Succession.”

“They can keep each other company, how pleasant.”

“I doubt she cares much for his company any more.” He bussed me on the forehead and sent me off to bed.

A householder came to help me turn back the covers and take off my clothes, matters I’d always been able to handle by myself before. I sent him away, since he was frightened to begin with. I asked him to fetch a pitcher of water and he brought it back, and I drank nearly all of it and asked him to fill it again.

I could sleep easily for the first time in weeks, knowing my enemy had ridden far away. Later I would have to face him where he was, but not tonight. This soft down mattress, this warm comforter, this comfortable room with the householder pulling closed the curtains, I could lie here all day and rest.

Hours later I woke from a dream about my mother to hear a lot of commotion in the outer apartment. In the dream my mother had been standing on a road in a barren country, and I had the feeling the ocean was near; she simply stood there and beckoned me, calling me to her, dressed in a simple shift gathered at the waist, her hair clean and soft, her face easy, not a trace of suffering or pain. Never a sound or a movement beyond the gesture of welcoming, of beckoning, and when I tried to see the road behind her I could not.

But suddenly awake in the light with the dry taste of sleep in my mouth and the voices outside, Kirith Kirin and some other people, mid-afternoon light from the window. Enough sleep, I thought, and stood at the washbasin, bathing quickly, trying to make out what was going on in the other room, using only mortal means of eavesdropping. That was fair enough, I thought. But when I went to the door the room was full of soldiers in the blue blazon of Athryn, along with some of our folk. One of them was speaking earnestly to Kirith Kirin, thanking him for his mercy. Kirith Kirin made some kind of answer and the interview was over, the Blue Cloaks filed out of the chamber. This was all I saw of Nemort of Novris, who had been our prisoner since Fort Gnemorra fell, asking Kirith Kirin to allow the Queen’s troops to march with him, a changing of loyalties that remains a tale to this day. Nemort had already secured the agreement of all the soldiers we had taken captive, and he could deliver the body of five thousand to us intact, at once, to help us on our way. Kirith Kirin accepted the offer, and, indeed, I was told then and believe now, he had made Nemort’s captivity easy and mixed him with the other prisoners hoping to engender such a change of heart. Nemort had never been a supporter of Drudaen and now found a reason for showing his feelings openly. The Queen had sent for the Successor herself. Therefore it was the duty of the Blue Army to help him reach Aerfax, or at least this is what Nemort opined, under the Law.

I was glad enough to have missed the dull part, to have come into the room in time to find Kirith Kirin flushed with the news. He told me what had happened. We were alone for a moment, then Imral and Karsten came back, and after a moment Evynar Ydhiil as well. I asked him if he thought Nemort could be trusted, and he answered yes with no hesitation. “He has nothing to gain by supporting Drudaen. I expect the other southern commanders feel the same way.”

It was only when the others returned, in the confused conversation that followed, everyone excited, that I understood the urgency of this event. We were to leave on the march south next morning.

“Your Verm are coming too,” Kirith Kirin said. “The ones you spared. They asked to join the rest of the Queen’s army rather than return to Arroth. I said yes.”

“The Verm?”

“Can you believe it?”

“No, I can’t. How will people react?”

He laughed, and everyone else laughed with him. “They’ll be astonished. So will Drudaen.”

The Verm preferred to march with us than to return to their own country. Many people would interested in that fact. But the news that we would depart so soon meant I had much to do, and so I said my partings and put on Fimbrel, vanishing before Kirith Kirin could send somebody to fetch guards to escort me. I preferred to travel more quietly, and hurried to Laeredon to prepare the Tower for my departure.

5

So next morning at dawn we began the An Chaenhalii, the Long March to the Sea, the story of which has been chronicled by many people, poet and fool alike. There have been some good accounts and some bad ones, and the one you will get from me is likely to disagree with the good and the bad on some particulars. So be it.

I packed my own baggage, including devices from Laeredon and those I had with me still from Ellebren. Since Laeredon Gate had been destroyed, I ordered masons to wall up the portal with successive layers of rock and brick and stone. We accomplished this purpose in good time, and I stayed to lay enchantments in the vicinity, warning off those who might attempt to tamper with the place in my absence.

I met Kirith Kirin in our apartment, the last of our belongings headed for the baggage train. Even the short time we had spent here left me with sad feelings, and I closed off thoughts of what was to come. We stood together watching the catofars in the garden, all soon to fly farther south, as we were to do.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.

He looked around the chambers a last time. In his eyes glimmered the reflection of my own feeling, that we departed Telkyii Tars and all places like it, maybe for a long time. “On the road again. Let’s go.”

So, joining our party in the courtyard of the house, we mounted horses and rode out of Genfynnel. I would never see that city again.

1

We headed south along three different paths. One army, under the command of Kiril Karsten, moved along the eastern plain, securing the main road to Arsk and establishing a garrison to protect our flank from Fort Pemuntnir. Along with this force went General Nemort, who would be able to treat with the Queen’s troops in eastern Aeryn and perhaps enlist more aid for us, should it be needed. The second army, under command of Evynar Ydhiil, was to move along the Osar southward, securing Teliar and Ravenford and preventing any sorties from Narvosdilimur and the Hills of Slaughter. A third party, made up of picked guard, Kirith Kirin, Imral and some of the Nivri, very small and fleet, would ride west of the Osar and west of Narvos, under my protection, to see what we could of the enemy’s movements in Turis and Karns.

But that first day, while the armies were still relatively close, all the command staff rode with Kirith Kirin, and we had one more evening’s council by the banks of the Osar. Amri was with our party and sang the Evening Song by Kirith Kirin’s watch-fire, and we sat down in the open air, the Jhinuuserret, the Nivri and some of the Finru Houses, Nemort included since he was Finru by birth. It was at this session that Kirith Kirin’s strategy, and thus our hope, became plain, and we understood what we were about and took heart.

Athryn is on our side now, he said. Maybe he knew this through Nemort, I thought. Drudaen has become too greedy, and now she must turn to us for help. So the question becomes, can we fight our way to Aerfax? Because when we get there, we have won.

He went on: We know he is there, or will be by the time we arrive. We know he will use the High Place to try to keep us from reaching Aerfax at all. But when we reach the gates of Aerfax, when I am there, Queen Athryn will take Senecaur away from him, because the Change will have begun, and when the Succession has passed and I am King, I won’t give up Senecaur to anyone but Jessex.

Can we trust Athryn? Yes, we can. Because she has no choice, now. Drudaen’s magic has begun to fail her and she’s aging, and she has to return to Arthen or she’ll die.

So again he asked us, can we fight our way to the gates of Aerfax? Can we fight our way down the coast of Karns and along the murderous narrow of Kleeiom, the hair’s-width of road along the spur of the mountain? Can we fight our way that far? Because, if we can do it, we can win.

The words took my breath away, and maybe had the same effect on everyone. I studied Nemort, a pudgy, balding man with a sharp look to his eyes, and read only admiration for what Kirith Kirin was saying. I read more deeply into that face and saw he was telling the truth, that his change of heart was real. This was more than I should have done without anyone’s leave but I was not going to allow Karsten to march south with him unless I was sure he could be trusted. So I kept my eye on him that night, and read his reactions, touched the edges of his thought, enough to know he was telling the truth, he preferred the Succession take place as it was supposed to, now that the Queen had relinquished her crown.

The talking continued, the fires burned, the sentries circled us. “We can fight that far,” said King Evynar, “if that’s what we have to do. We can fight as well as any of our enemies, including the Verm, as long we can match Drudaen.” Evynar was watching me as he spoke, and only continued after a languid pause. “I think we have a chance to do that. Drudaen didn’t flee south for his health. And now that he has, our wizard has made him pay.”

I imagine this was a bit of theatre the two had worked out between them; they went on to relate together the news that I had crippled Yruminast, that neither of the armies faced shadow for a long way south. Few folk had heard this news yet. People were looking at me and I felt conspicuous; though I understood the need for the officers and the gentry to see me, to understand that I was real. I understood the need for them to inflate what I had done, a bit.

The news had people buzzing and they were heartened, as anyone could see. So we took our partings on that note and went off to our tents and sleeping rolls. I moved hidden to the tent I was sharing with Kirith Kirin and waited there, dozing, till he joined me. We slept in the open country wrapped round each other, prince and magician, embraced by two armies, charging toward an enemy we hoped we could defeat.

In the morning we woke to news that Amri was feverish. Kirith Kirin had planned to leave her in Telkyii Tars to ride back to Inniscaudra with the first party headed that way. She had become dreamy since her walk in the moonflower and that morning when we found her trying to assemble a lamp she was clammy, her eyes glazed, and she looked at Kirith Kirin and said, “I saw you in a boat. You were sailing across gray water.” She turned to me and said, “You were asleep in a room. I could hear the ocean outside. The dream went on and on.” She was out of breath, saying only this much. Shivering. Kirith Kirin had Gaelex find a doctor for her, and led the girl away.

We had no morning ceremony. Karsten said, “I suspected Amri had the dreaming eye.” But no one else spoke about it.

Our party split in three and we rode along our separate paths, to meet again at Charnos before crossing Ajnur Gap into Karns. The armies would be united again for the march down the coast of Karns and along Kleeiom. As was customary, however, the magician would ride separate from the rest of the troops, to draw any magical attacks away from them. We had taken this notion one daring step farther. Kirith Kirin would lead a party of picked soldiers that included me, and we would take a route that would lead us east of Narvosdilimur and the Hills of Slaughter. Drudaen’s Verm armies followed the same route south. I was to interfere with their travels.