Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  Ennis realized that it was his own voice he heard.

  He huddled in the farthest corner of the doorless room that Kurhv Kralj had given him, curled into a fetal ball with his body shaking from the force of his weeping. The blue ghosts had vanished into nothing. He couldn’t see their dance and so he could be himself, but he was frightened and alone and terrified and he couldn’t hold the emotions back any longer.

  He wanted to be held. He wanted to be comforted. He wanted to be in his mam’s or da’s arms, or Sevei’s, or even Gram’s, who Kayne had said frightened him terribly the first time he’d met her. Ennis wanted to be with anyone who was like him and not one of the Arruk.

  But he couldn’t. Not even in this place, which the Daoine of Céile Mhór had built and then lost, and which reminded him too much of home.

  He wept, because crying was all he could do.

  Within the ball he’d made of himself, his fingers clutched at Treoraí’s Heart, because he could hear the voices within it—Isibéal’s voice, mostly, but at least she spoke Daoine and her tones reminded him of home, when Mam was still alive. The other voices—Daighi, Brett, Jantsk, Haughey, Brina, Noz Ruka, Svarti Gyl, all the ones he’d killed—clamored for his attention too, but he ignored them. “Do you want me to feel sorry for you, Ennis?” Isibéal crooned. “Do you want me to tell you that it will be all right? Do you want me to say I forgive you for killing me and taking the Heart from me?”

  “I want Mam,” he told her. “Let me talk to Mam.”

  “Is that what you want?” Isibéal asked, and her voice shifted, took on the familiar tones he remembered so well. “You can cry if you need to, my darling. It’s all right.”

  “But I’m . . . so scared . . . Mam,” he said between choking sobs. “I’m . . . all a . . . a . . . alone . . .” The last word was a wail, and then he could say nothing more, shaking as the weeping overcame him again. He closed his eyes until they hurt, trying to shut out the world around him.

  “I’m here, my darling boy. I’ll always be here . . .”

  “I’ve . . . I’ve done . . . bad . . . things . . . Mam . . .”

  “You only did what you had to do, my dearest one. All the rest of us are dead, but you stayed alive. Now you have to stay alive for all of us.” Her voice went deeper and huskier, and it was Isibéal speaking once more. “You have to punish them, all of them. You’ve been given power; now use it. Hush, now. Hush . . .”

  “What is that sound you’re making? Are you ill?”

  It took a moment for Ennis to realize that the voice wasn’t one of those in his head, but Cima, standing at the open doorway to the room and peering in at Ennis and speaking in his heavily-accented Daoine. Ennis sobbed again and sniffed, still huddled in his corner. He looked for the blue ghosts to tell him what to do, but there were none here and the voices in the Heart had gone quiet. He blinked, sniffing again and dragging the sleeve of his tattered, dirty clóca over his nose. “I’m not sick,” he said. “Just . . . leave me alone.”

  “Can’t,” Cima told him. “Kurhv Kralj told me to find you.” He paused a moment, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Ennis in the gloom. “Your face is leaking,” he said. “Are you broken?”

  “I’m just . . .” Ennis sniffed again, trying to control the sobs. “. . . crying,” he finished. “Don’t Arruk cry when you’re hurt or sad?” Cima had never told him the Arruk word for the emotion. Looking at Cima, he wondered if perhaps there wasn’t one.

  Cima gave the yawning hiss that was an Arruk negative. “Do you know the story of the Three Hearts?” he asked. Ennis shook his head, sniffling. “Then listen . . . It’s said that in the Oldest Time, three gods came to the Arruk, and each gave us their heart. There is the heart that is in our mouths which is the one we show to others, and that heart will say whatever is best for us. With that heart we feel nothing and show nothing. Then there is the heart in our chests that we show only to those we trust and love: our mates, our families, our closest friends, and with that heart we can show our feelings—though I have to tell you, Ennis, that Arruk do not spill water from their eyes when they are sad.”

  Cima was silent for a time then, and Ennis thought he had finished. “What about the third heart?” he asked.

  Cima gave a slow exhalation. “Ahh, the third heart. That heart is in the deepest part of ourselves, and it is open only to each Arruk alone, and that is where we keep our deepest feelings. That heart is the one we will take to the gods when we die, that They weigh on the scales of life to judge us. I can’t show you that heart, Ennis, but I will open my second heart to you, because I know the Perakli have only one heart and I see yours in front of me now.”

  I have two hearts, Ennis nearly said. I have my own, and I have Treoraí’s Heart too. But he said nothing as Cima came over and crouched in front of him. The Arruk reached out with one hand and stroked Ennis’ face, his claws fully retracted so that Ennis felt only the brush of soft scales against his skin. “I understand,” Cima said. “In my second heart, I am often sad, too. I wonder if we do the right thing here. I wonder if Cudak is really calling us to come to Him. Once, I was so sure. I believed He called to me personally.”

  Ennis wanted to cry again. He let Cima pull him in and cradle him in his strong, scaled arms. “I once held my own pups this way,” Cima whispered into Ennis’ ear. “My sons.”

  “You have sons?”

  “Six sons from my first Hatching,” he answered, “and one that my season-mate kept cool so that she would have a daughter to teach to bear more eggs, which is as it should be for the Arruk. My season-mate is far away in the place your people call Lower Céile, and should have borne a second Hatching by now to some other male. I enjoyed her company, that cycle, and I shared my second heart with her, too.”

  “I wish I could meet your sons.”

  “Maybe some day you will,” Cima told him. “But for now, Kurhv Kralj has called the Mairki and their Svarti here, and he wants you in the Kralj’s Hall by the time the Shadowlight rises. You’re to bring Gyl Svarti’s spell-stick with you.”

  The voices of the dead ones clamored in his head again, Gyl’s most loudly, and Ennis held his hands over his ears, trying to stop the sound of them even as Cima’s arms relaxed around him. “I don’t want to go to Kurhv Kralj,” Ennis said. “He’ll make me use the Heart again, but there’s too many of them inside already.”

  Cima blinked. His long throat pulsed under his snout. “This isn’t the time for second hearts, Ennis, but our first. I’ll tell Kurhv Kralj you’ll be there,” he said. He sat back, and touched his finger to Ennis’ cheek, seeming to marvel at the wetness there. “Whether you’re still leaking or not,” he said.

  Ennis knew that the other Svarti hated him. He could feel their enmity wash over him as he stood beside Kurhv Kralj. They glared at the spell-stick that he held, Gyl Svarti’s spell-stick, and they clenched their own staffs all the tighter. Their spinal frills were erect and flared, displaying the colors of barely-subdued anger.

  The four Mairki stood in a line before the dais, each with his chief Svarti arrayed behind him. The Mairki were naked except for the painted insignia of their divisions, but the Svarti all wore loin coverings with a tribal crest on the right hip, and the scales covering their left hips were marked with lines of brilliant green, blue, and yellow. Cima had told Ennis that each of the Svarti in turn had several Nesvarti, (who Ennis thought of as being like the Bráthairs and Siúrs of the Order of Inishfeirm) under them.

  The Svarti of the Mairki were ostensibly under the control of the Svarti of the Kralj—who was now, supposedly, Ennis. They didn’t look at him the way the gardai had looked at his da, or the way people had looked at his mam. There was no respect or even fear in the way they stared, only a sullen defiance. Even some of the Riocha who Ennis knew didn’t like his mam or da wouldn’t have dared stand in front of them this way; they would at least have pretended. In that, he thought, maybe even the Daoine have more than one heart.

  Ennis knew they all
hated him: Svarti and Mairki. He knew they hated that he was a Perakli, a bluntclaw who was their enemy; they hated that he’d struck down Gyl Svarti; they hated that Kurhv Kralj protected him; they hated him because each of the Svarti wanted to stand where he now stood.

  Ennis shivered. He wanted to go back to the room and huddle in the corner again. He wanted to cry. But he couldn’t. “You can’t show them weakness,” Isibéal’s voice whispered as he brushed Treoraí’s Heart with a shaking hand. “Cima said you must use your first heart, and he’s right. You must be brave, or else you’ll die . . .” Ennis looked for the blue ghosts, but though there were wisps of them around, everything was muddled, especially near the Svarti and their spell-sticks. There was no pattern into which he could fall. He wondered if he’d lost the future he’d glimpsed.

  “I am Kurhv Kralj,” his protector was saying to the Mairki and Svarti. Cima, crouching near the throne, translated for Ennis. Kurhv Kralj gestured to the head of Grozan Kralj, now mounted on a Daoine spear to one side of the stage. The stench in the room was foul and thick, but only Ennis seemed to notice it. “I claim the title. The Mairki will now show their throats to me or give me challenge.”

  Kurhv Kralj hissed after he spoke, extending his clawed hand. Two of the Mairki had immediately raised their snouts to expose the pale, unscaled folds of their throat. A third followed, though the last in line did not move. “That one is Lieve Mairki, who Grozan Kralj put in Kurhv Kralj’s place,” Cima whispered. Ennis could hear the trepidation in Cima’s voice, but if Kurhv Kralj felt the same emotion, he gave no indication. He leaped from the dais to stand before the first of the Mairki. He grasped the Arruk’s throat, his claws digging so deeply into the Mairki’s skin that Ennis saw it dimple and turn pale. Ennis knew that Kurhv Kralj could kill the Mairki with a simple twist and pull of his hand. The Mairki’s eyes widened and he rose up on his feet to relieve the pressure, but otherwise he didn’t move. A breath later, Kurhv Kralj released him. He repeated the process with the other two Mairki until he stood at last in front of Lieve Mairki.

  Lieve Mairki still had not shown his throat. He stared at Kurhv Kralj, their faces level. “Should we make space, then, Lieve Mairki?” Kralj Kurhv asked him. “Do you want your head displayed next to Grozan’s?”

  Lieve Mairki’s eyes flicked over to the dead Kralj’s skull. Ennis saw the Mairki’s muscles flex in his arms, in his chest, and he was certain that the Arruk would hurl himself on Kurhv Kralj. But though his body trembled and his breath quickened, he held. Slowly, he raised his snout, and Kurhv Kralj’s hand flashed forward, grasping Lieve Mairki’s throat so hard and quickly that the Arruk stumbled backward. “How does it feel?” Kurhv Kralj asked him. “At least I gave you a choice, Lieve Mairki. I could have shamed you as Grozan Kralj did me. Look there . . .”

  Kurhv Kralj turned the Mairki’s head so that he was looking at Grozan Kralj’s mounted head. Blood drooled down Lieve Mairki’s throat to his chest. “That is what I do to my enemies. That is the fate of any who challenge my right to be Kralj.” He shoved Lieve Mairki backward, releasing him at the same time so that he fell into his Svarti standing behind. The Svarti’s spell-stick clattered to the ground and the Arruk mage pushed Lieve Mairki upright again as Kurhv Kralj strode back to the dais.

  Kurhv Kralj’s scales had brightened in satisfaction. Cima handed him his jaka and he slammed the end of the weapon against the dais three times. “I am Kurhv Kralj,” he declared again, his voice booming in the hall. “And now it’s the Svarti’s time to show their throats.” He pointed to Ennis. “This is Ennis Svarti of the Perakli, who defeated Gyl Svarti and who will stand beside me in battle. Svarti, step forward.”

  At Kurhv Kralj’s gesture, the four Svarti moved forward as the Mairki slid back. The line of spell-casters stared at Ennis, radiating their hate like the heat from the bonfires of the Festival of Méitha. He clutched the spell-stick with one hand and Treoraí’s Heart with the other. His clóca slid back, showing the scars of the mage-lights on his arm. “Don’t show them your fear . . .” Isibéal whispered, but Gyl Svarti’s voice hissed even louder. “They can smell the fear in you,” he said. “And it makes them hungry for your blood. But there’s fear in them, too—look, you can see it. They know what you did to me; they know that it was you who killed Grozan Kralj, not Kurhv Kralj. They look at you and they see only a stupid, helpless Perakli pup standing there, but they’re afraid to trust their eyes. They each want one of the others to challenge you so they can watch, but none of them are eager to be the one.”

  The spell-stick was absurdly long in his child’s grasp, and Ennis could see the end trembling as he held it; he hoped the Svarti couldn’t see it. “Show your throats to Ennis Svarti or challenge him,” Kurhv Kralj said. “Ennis Svarti . . .”

  Ennis realized that Kurhv Kralj was waiting for him to step down from the dais and go to each of the Svarti in turn to receive their obeisance. “Go on!” Cima hissed in Daoine. “Quickly!”

  The wisps of the blue ghosts shifted around him and he could see little of the patterns they made. He wished he’d never been born with a caul, even if that meant that he’d be dead now with Mam. He wanted to cry again, he wanted to hunker in the corner of his room again. He wanted to be home.

  But he couldn’t go home. That wasn’t his future. His future, if the blue ghosts of the caul still had one to show him, was here.

  He sucked in a breath that nearly sobbed and clutched harder at both Treoraí’s Heart and the spell-stick in his hand. Kurhv Kralj wouldn’t look at him. “Go!” Cima said. Ennis nearly jumped at the command, then stepped down from the dais. None of the Svarti had moved; not one of them had lifted their chins as the Mairki had to Kurhv Kralj. He went to the first of Svarti. Though the Arruk mages were smaller in stature than the muscular warriors, Ennis still barely came up to the bottom of the Arruk’s rib cage. He could smell the musk, could see the colored striations in the creature’s scales. The Svarti was looking down at him, an unblinking, unmoving glare. Ennis couldn’t have reached the Arruk’s throat with his hand as Kurhv Kralj had done; instead, he lifted the knobbed end of the spell stick and held it toward the Svarti.

  “You have to learn to control your gift,” Isibéal whispered inside. “Control it . . .”

  They were all watching: Kurhv Kralj, the Mairki, the other Svarti. None of them said anything or moved to interfere. “Kurhv Kralj has what he wants,” Gyl said from the taunting welter inside Ennis, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction in the dead Svarti’s voice. “He’ll let you die now, if that’s to be, and take one of the others as his Svarti. He has become Kralj. He doesn’t need you anymore.”

  “Control your gift . . .” Isibéal repeated, and he heard his Mam whisper the same words, far in the background over the welter of other voices in the Heart.

  “I’ll try, Mam,” he told her. He saw the Arruk in front of him flinch slightly at the Daoine words. Wisps of blue ghosts slid around him and he tried to find the right one, tried to find the pattern that he’d lost. Through Treoraí’s Heart, he could sense the magic stored in Gyl’s spell-stick. He felt the spells as if he could touch them and he could see how they were set in the wood and how they were held . . . “Cima,” he called out over his shoulder. “Tell them I captured Gyl Svarti’s spirit in the stone I hold. Through it, I can still talk to him.” He touched his own forehead as Cima began to translate. “I can force him to tell me things. I know the magic of the Daoine sky-stones, and now I know the magic of the Arruk spell-sticks. I know it better than Gyl Svarti or any of them do.”

  There was a distinct snort of disbelief from the Svarti in front of him as Cima finished, and the creature raised his own spell-stick, holding it so close to Ennis’ face that he could see the tool marks on the carvings that adorned it. “Tell the bluntclaw that I am Daj Svarti,” he spat out as Cima translated, “and I challenge him. Tell him that I’ll match my spell-stick and my skill with the pup’s.”

  The Mairki and the other Svarti were alrea
dy slipping back and away, and even Kurhv Kralj moved to the rear of the dais behind the comforting bulk of the throne. Daj Svarti took a step back from Ennis, slamming the end of his spell-stick down on the flags. The crack of wood on stone was like high thunder. Ennis saw the blue ghosts slide around him, most of them following a similar dance through the next few breaths. He realized that this was a ritual, like the ceremonies the Draíodóiri performed during the festivals, that Daj Svarti was waiting for him to mimic his motion and begin the challenge. But Ennis saw the pale outline of another ghost, the one he’d sought, the one where, at the end of this, his own ghost was still standing there alive.

  He let himself fall into the blue ghost’s embrace, locked himself to its movements. Ennis lifted his spell-stick as if he were about to bring it down hard, but instead he pointed the knobbed end to the side, away from Daj Svarti and the rest of the Arruk. He felt the magic caught in the carved branch, the power trembling and seething. He could find in Gyl Svarti’s mind the words to release them one at a time, but he didn’t need them. Instead, he released a bit of the power from Treoraí’s Heart and let it enter the spell-stick. “Let them all go,” Isibéal whispered, and the energy of the cloch leaped in response.

  The spell-stick nearly burst apart in his hand. A wild cor uscation flared, so bright that it tossed sharp-edged shadows about the sunlit room and left purple afterimages in Ennis’ sight. His ears were assaulted by a deafening, low ka-rump and a smell like old eggs.

  Where the mage-energy struck, the wall of the hall shattered, exploding outward in a dangerous, blinding shower of broken stone and mortar. Through the blinding screen of dust, there was the sound of an avalanche; as it slowly cleared, Ennis could see that not only had the hall been breached in a circle as wide as a hand of men walking abreast, but the walls of the rooms beyond had also been broken all the way through the corridor outside and an outer room beyond it, all the way to the outside. Dust swirled in a wedge of sunlight beyond three broken walls, each hole large than the one before. Small stones continued to fall in a harsh drizzle from around the yawning fissures.