Free Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) by Jim Grimsley Page B

isn’t anything you can do for them one way or another. If the Kyminax witch meant to find your farm she’ll have done so. If she didn’t have the time or the will, then nothing is wrong and nothing will happen.”
     
    “The Kyminax witch?”
     
    “Julassa Kyminax,” he whispered. “She’s the strongest of the southern magicians, all except Drudaen himself. That’s who was chasing us.”
     
    I had all but finished the wine by then. Uncle Sivisal studied me in silence, a more tender appraisal than usual. I poked my finger into the moist humus. We talked about camp a while and I tried to pay attention. I asked about the soldier’s training; many people on the ride had been at pains to tell me how strenuous a soldier’s first years could be, though I figured they wanted to frighten me for their amusement, as people do. Uncle Sivisal’s description was not much less grim, though he had faith from somewhere, he claimed, that I would do pretty well. He told me there were not often boys of my age in camp and to be careful, and when I thought he only meant I would have trouble making friends he did not press the point.
     
    Sivisal left me to talk to another friend and I went off for a walk. Beyond the fire circle the forest was dark but full of sounds. When I couldn’t see any trail ahead of me I gauged my best path by the sound of the creek flowing. By the time my eyes had adjusted to moonlight I had covered a nice piece of ground already and I kept walking till I found a clearing full of moonlight, bright as day.
     
    Above, stars wheeled slowly in patterns partly broken long ago by YY-Mother or by chance. In Aeryn the stars change from night to night, never in a regular way, so we are taught early how to recognize the ones we know when they appear. I said the names of a few of the ones I could see tonight: Fisth, Yurvure, Aryaemen, circled by the Four Hundred Boys. These were companions from my days leading the sheep through the hills of the lower Fenax, Aryaemen in particular, called also the Traveler’s Star, because she is most recognizable when she is there, surrounded by her veil, a dusty gold. We have a legend that when YY first grew angry with the world she broke the stars so that they no longer moved across the heavens in an orderly way, so that one night there is one white moon, and one night there is one red moon, and one night there are both, and we can tell they are the moons we are used to, but we can never count the days by their movements, as people once could, long ago.
     
    In the same way, in daylight, we have counted four suns, four kinds of light that fall on us, and so we are the land of four suns and three moons, which is the oldest name for Aeryn that we know.
     
    I heard footsteps on branches from the direction of camp and turned, expecting someone had followed me. I could see well enough to distinguish a tall, hooded figure near the curve of the creek. The figure drew down his hood. Kirith Kirin approached me timidly, moonlight coloring his face, outlining his shoulders. I was too surprised to react, I stood there stupidly. He said, “I watched you sneaking away. You passed my tent.”
     
    “I got tired of the party. I never saw a tent.”
     
    “No. I didn’t think you had.” He walked quite close, pausing behind me. I counted his slow, calm breaths. “Stars,” he said, in a voice tinged with reverence. “So many. One never sees them often enough.”
     
    “I was looking at them too. You can’t see the night sky from many places inside the Woodland.”
     
    He chuckled. “Yes, I know. There are clearings like this one but one must know where to find them.” He unclasped the cloak and let it fall to the ground, freeing his arms. He wore a light, spare garment beneath, cut like a tunic but draped more elaborately, fastened by jeweled pins at either shoulder and by a belt of silver loops at his waist. His arms and legs were bare. “Do you like the Woodland so