Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  Doyle heard Rí Mallaghan’s voice now, interrupting Kayne. “We have enough clochs, and more,” the man said, his voice almost amused. “Two more now than we had when we came here, in fact.”

  “No!” The shout came from the Fingerlander woman Harik was holding, startling all of them. She fell from the horse—Doyle wondering whether Harik had just slit her throat—but then there was no time for thinking as the clochs erupted all around, as a quick burst from Blaze in Kayne’s hand struck the traitor Harik, killing him immediately. Doyle opened Snapdragon, but his eyes were on Padraic, not Kayne. His son was waiting, his hand hovering over Snarl but not touching the gem. Doyle understood the hesitation: all the time they’d spent together. The laughter, the games . . .

  Shay responded even as Padraic seemed to shake himself and start to take the cloch in his hand. In Doyle’s mage-sight, a glow enveloped Padraic, a brightness that collapsed around him suddenly and vanished in a whirling flare like a stone dropped into a bonfire. When the sparks were gone, so was Padraic. Shay O Blaca slid quickly to the back of the Riocha.

  You’ll never do what I’ve had to do, Padraic . . . I’m sorry, my son. I’m sorry, but I hope you’ll understand . . .

  The dragon roared as if Doyle’s sorrow were the fire that lived inside it.

  Kayne and the Fingerlander woman had already thrown up defenses against the power the assembled mages threw at them, but Doyle could see that the woman was mortally wounded from Harik’s blade. The Riocha besieged the walls of mingled ice and fire with mage-armies and lines of arcing, raw energy. Fleeting shadows brighter than those of the sun pursued each other over the landscape. Doyle allowed himself a moment of grudging admiration. Neither of the two were schooled mages and neither of them had held their clochs na thintrí for long, but the injured woman fought with a raw ferocity that compensated for her lack of skill, and Kayne . . . Kayne handled Blaze with a natural grace, the damnable Aoire elegance, the undeniable talent that his gram, his mam, and his sister had also possessed.

  But fury and grace would not be enough. Not here. That was obvious to everyone around them. Doyle watched their defenses weaken and bend under the assault and the cracks begin to appear. “Doyle!” He realized that Rí Mallaghan had been calling him for some time. “We need you—take Snapdragon to them. We can finish them now . . .”

  That was true, Doyle saw. Kayne and Séarlait had drawn back their defenses into a compact shell around them; with his true eyes, Doyle saw Kayne stumble backward toward the trees that bordered the road, dragging the woman with him. There were two mages of the Order there in their green clócas, and Doyle realized what they intended: it was what Doyle might have attempted himself—they would try to retreat to the woods. The plan was desperate and had no chance of success, but through the dragon’s eyes Doyle could see the woman gathering the remaining energy in her cloch.

  Doyle could have called out. A simple movement of their encircling forces would have been enough to forestall the attempt. He remained silent. He let them move.

  The Fingerlander put all her power into the attack, sending the mages between them and the forest reeling into unconsciousness. Doyle heard Rí Mallaghan scream in anger; the Riocha’s clochs attacked Kayne as one in all their manifestations, and the young man’s shield was tattered and broken. Doyle sent the dragon leaping forward toward Kayne with fire and claws and teeth . . .

  . . . and turned just in front of him, interposing Snapdragon between Kayne and the Riocha. For a moment, the mages halted in mid-attack, wondering what Doyle intended.

  A wolf howled—not a mage-wolf, but a living one—and then another, and what Doyle saw emerging from the forest made him laugh bitterly. Kayne has the Aoire luck, too . . .

  “Go!” Doyle whispered and the dragon roared the same word to Kayne from its cavernous mouth. “Hurry!” Doyle was the dragon now; he lifted himself up, claws extended, the fire drooling from his mouth and his great wings cupping air as he launched himself toward Rí Mallaghan. He didn’t look behind to see if Kayne obeyed; he didn’t dare. He saw only Torin Mallaghan and his own guilt and this one, final chance to assuage it; he felt only the need to lose himself in fire and take out the person who had lost him his wife, his children, and his self-respect. To burn away the guilt of a loyalty he should never have given and had held onto for far too long.

  I’m sorry, Edana . . . sorry, Padraic . . . sorry, Da . . .

  He never made it to Rí Mallaghan. Five or six Clochs Mór struck Doyle at once, from all sides. A pack of ethereal wolves ripped the dragon’s scaled side; lightning shredded the delicate tissue of the wings; a great, invisible fist batted him from the sky; a black tornado hurled him to ground; and he saw his da, standing over him with a sword in his hand.

  “You failed me, son,” his da said as Doyle lifted a futile hand against the upraised blade. “You always failed me.”

  The blade slashed down, and the dragon poured its burning blood on the grass.

  Kayne heard the wolves and he thought they heralded death, but the dragon cupped air overhead, landing in furious brightness between Kayne and the other mages, and its snout faced not Kayne but the others. The attack halted for a moment in confusion. Then the golden neck arched back and the deadly mouth opened. “Go!” the dragon hissed, a blast of heat buffeting Kayne. “Hurry!” With a beating of its wings, the dragon lifted from its victims and roared back overhead. Kayne watched it go, heard it bellow a challenge and rush at the clochs set against them.

  “Uncle Doyle . . . ?” he said wonderingly, but then he had little time. In his real sight, he saw arrows flying toward them and gardai charging, and mage-sight showed the clochs gathering to attack once again. Kayne used the last dregs of power within Blaze to send the arrows into flame and push them aside toward the gardai. Séarlait was silent and heavy in his arms.

  The wolves howled, and this time he saw their gray forms rushing out from the trees—a pack of two hands or more, nearly as high as his shoulders and panting like demons—and with them, a strange quartet: two Bunús Muintir, a man and a woman; and two entirely naked men with black hair and eyes as dark and pupilless as the Bán Cailleach’s and voices that sounded like the moaning of seals. The two Bunús Muintir staffs gleamed in mage-sight, and Kayne could see a glowing power deep inside the two Saimhóir changelings, as if they had swallowed Clochs Mór.

  He could feel the spells that the four unleashed, like the concussion of deep sound against his chest when as a child he’d been allowed to sound the ancient call-drum in the keep at Dún Laoghaire. The spells lashed outward toward the cloch Holders, even as the keening of a dying dragon lifted the hairs on the back of Kayne’s neck, even as the growling of wolves and the desperate shouts of gardai told him that the tide of battle had, impossibly, turned.

  He cradled Séarlait to his chest. He hurried into the brown maze of Tory Coill with the Bunús Muintir and the Saimhóir changelings.

  51

  A Holder Revealed

  SEVEI PACED along the shore.

  She and Issine had spent the day moving south along the western shore of Inish Thuaidh. Sevei had to admit that—strangely—the long slow walk with the Créneach had eased some of the pain of her body. The scent of the sea cleansed her lungs and the breeze was soft against her skin. There was no one around and Issine cared not at all about her nudity. Neither of them said much during the day, Sevei mostly trying to keep her mind away from Kayne, from what she’d felt a few stripes ago. She ached to do something, not just walk pleasantly through Inish Thuaidh.

  “There’s nothing you can do right now,” Gram said comfortingly. “I know how you feel, but until the mage-lights come again, you can’t go to him . . .”

  As the sun touched the horizon in the west, Issine walked down between the rocks to a narrow wedge of sand. The shore here was sheer with cliffs, and waves battered white against black, kelp-draped rocks to either side of them. “Ahh . . .” Issine sighed as his bare feet touched the sand. He seemed to be digging
deep into the sand with his toes, and Sevei wondered whether he were somehow eating the sand through his feet. Nearby, the relentless surf had scooped out an undercut cave, and Issine led her to the entrance as the evening darkened. Her white hair dripped with spray from the icy water and the wind off the sea was harsh, but she opened Lámh Shábhála just enough to warm herself. She stood at the entrance to the cave, staring up at the sky overhead to the night’s first stars. The voices of old Holders complained, though her gram was silent.

  “. . . there’s nothing here . . .”

  “. . . why do you waste your time . . . ?”

  “Patience . . .” That was Carrohkai Treemaster, as always placid and calming. “Wait . . .”

  Issine had settled down in the middle of the little room, his already small body compacting further with a sound like gravel crunching underfoot, as if he held himself together with sheer force of will. The stony torso glowed an intense yellow in the darkness. Issine’s long tongue darted from his mouth, sliding once over his chest as if tasting his heart. Sevei touched her own chest.

  “It’s true—the clochs na thintrí, they were all once inside a living Créneach?”

  Issine trilled his answer. “Aye. And Lámh Shábhála was the first: Céile’s Heart.” His voice sent the echoes of birds chasing each other through the darkness. “We gave ourselves to the soft things. To the people who were like you.”

  “Why?”

  Issine didn’t answer immediately. He stood there, perfectly motionless though the cloch within him still glowed, and she thought that perhaps he’d gone to sleep.

  “Because you could accomplish more with the Hearts of the Créneach than we could,” Issine said when she’d nearly forgotten her question. “Because we thought you would also pass along the gift. As sometimes, rarely, you did.” Issine gave a long, trembling note, so high that it hurt Sevei’s ears. “As we walked, you were thinking of your own kind. Your brother.”

  Sevei nodded. “Aye, I was.” She tried to imagine Kayne, tried to feel him in the air and could not. “I have to go to him, Issine. When the lights come. I have to. And if he’s not there, I’ll find Mallaghan and Mac Ard, and I’ll kill them.” She spoke grimly. Firmly. The promise gave her satisfaction.

  “Is that what you’re destined to do? Is that why you took the Scrúdú?”

  “The Scrúdú gave me power. What should I do with it if not use it?”

  Another trill. “Indeed,” Issine said.

  As if in response, the first glimmer of the mage-lights— earlier and brighter than usual—flickered at the zenith near the constellation of the Winter Harpist. Sevei could already feel the eagerness of Lámh Shábhála to feed, even though the cloch was mostly full. She opened the gem within herself and fell into its emerald depths. Her vision expanded, the mage-sight placing its hues over her eyes. She could see Issine not as a Créneach, but a glowing being with his heart a bright illumination. He was the strongest connection, but she could sense the others beginning to respond: the faint threads of the numerous but weak clochsmion scattered everywhere, including a few close by on Inish Thuaidh; and the much stronger filaments of the Clochs Mór. A few of those were also close to them. Sevei could feel Scáil, held by Aithne MacBrádaigh no more than a few miles distant; a bit farther away, in Dún Kiil, there was Greada Kyle and Firerock; and not that much farther south, on Inishfeirm, Stormbringer was being raised, along with several clochmions.

  “Bán Cailleach . . .”

  Sevei could also feel the troubling presence of Treoraí’s Heart, with its hidden Holder, powerful and—again—nearer than it had been the night before.

  But that was not what she searched for in the web of the mage-lights. She looked for Blaze and Kayne, and she couldn’t find him.

  “Bán Cailleach . . . Sevei . . . I’m calling you. I need you . . .”

  There was a gathering of Clochs Mór far to the east, and Sevei knew that must be those who had attacked Kayne. They huddled together as if their numbers would protect them from her. She could feel her anger gathering, like a storm cloud looming and growing darker on the horizon, and she knew they could feel it as well. “I see you,” she whispered to them, almost laughing. “I can find you.”

  Issine warbled, high and shrill.

  “Bán Cailleach . . . Sevei . . . Please come to me . . . You must come . . .” For the first time, she let the voice intrude on her consciousness. It was attached to one of the Clochs Mór, and she knew the voice: her Aunt Edana, calling out to her through Demon-Caller, her voice desperate. “Sevei, please . . .”

  She could not feel Blaze at all, nor Winter. Strangely, Snapdragon was also absent. What’s happened? Is Kayne dead? And Uncle Doyle, too?

  There wasn’t an answer, only the insistent call. “Bán Cailleach . . . Sevei . . .”

  She yearned to go to the Clochs Mór, to burst among them like an avenging demon, all terror and wrath, and send them howling to their deaths, ripping away the stones from their dying necks. She could take the clochs back to Inishfeirm, give them to the new Máister or Máistreás in small payment for the loss of Máister Kirwan. She could make Inish Thuaidh the dominant Tuath. She could rule it in Gram’s stead; Greada would step aside and give her the throne.

  She could have everything. Everything her gram had gained, everything her mam had accomplished, all of it together.

  “. . . Aye!” Gram shouted within her, her voice shrill. “Aye, that could be yours, my darling one, and should be . . . All that I had and more . . .”

  For a moment, Sevei let the mage-sight fall away, even though the mage-lights still lashed her to the stars. Issine was regarding her solemnly, as if he could hear her thoughts. The Créneach’s deep-shadowed eyes were full of pity for her, and that stung her more than the lines of scars on her body. “Following your gram’s old path won’t return them to you,” Issine’s voice said in her head. “The past is gone. All you get to choose is the future. What you’re thinking won’t bring them back.”

  Wouldn’t bring back Mam and Gram. Wouldn’t bring back her da and Kayne, Ionhar and Tara, or poor little Ennis. Wouldn’t bring back Máister Kirwan or Dillon and his love, or all the others who had lost their lives.

  “. . . Patience . . .”

  Then, like a sunrise after a night storm, she felt Blaze open at last to the mage-lights, very close to the knot of Clochs Mór. The relief felt like a cool, cleansing rain. She could feel Kayne through his cloch, and she could sense great pain and anger within him, a sense of betrayal, danger, and worry. But he’s alive . . . he’s alive . . . She wondered why Séarlait didn’t open Winter, and she started to will herself to go to Kayne, but Edana’s voice intruded again.

  “Báá Cailleach . . . Sevei . . .”

  She hesitated. Issine was staring at her.

  “You must choose,” he said.

  “Sevei . . . It’s vital that I talk with you . . .”

  Blaze continued to feed upon the mage-lights but Lámh Shábhála was full. The sky was bright with their colors, the stars banished. Sevei gathered the mage-lights around her like a blanket of fire and let them take her away.

  “I’ve come, Aunt Edana.”

  Edana turned, dropping the parchment she was reading. She didn’t bend to retrieve it; she’d already memorized the words there, the words she was certain she would never forget.

  Sevei was a pallid, naked apparition on the balcony, staring in like a banshee through the open doors. In the moon-white face framed by silver tresses, the black eyes were twin voids caught in the glowing eddies of scars. Behind Edana, the chamber servants who were preparing her bed gave muffled screams, then drew in frightened breaths and fled with a pattering of feet.

  Edana realized that she was staring, with Demon-Caller held in her free hand as if to protect herself. She let the Cloch Mór drop as she brought her hand down, and averted her eyes as she gestured to the room. She picked up the parchment again, rolling it tightly in hands that were suddenly damp with sweat. “Come
inside, Sevei. Would you like tea? I can have the healer bring you an infusion of kala bark, if you’d prefer . . .”

  Sevei nodded and stepped forward into the room, padding onto the carpet in bare feet—Edana wondering how she stood the cold without clothing—and Edana saw then the deep weariness in her face. Sevei looked far older than her years. There were lines on her face that were not the scars of Lámh Shábhála, the pouched skin under her eyes made it look as if she hadn’t slept in days, and she winced when the curtains of the balcony doors brushed against her skin. “Will you sit?” Edana asked her, and Sevei shook her head.

  “It’s better to stand,” she said. “Why did you call me, Aunt? Because of Doyle? I already know that the Ríthe chose to defy me and that they betrayed Kayne. Did you want to plead for Uncle Doyle’s life, or for Padraic’s if he helped them?”

  She knows . . . Edana bit her lower lip against the curse she would have uttered. “I truly didn’t know they planned this,” she told Sevei. She could feel the tears flowing hot on her cheeks and couldn’t stop them. She wept for all of them. “I suppose it doesn’t surprise me, not with Mallaghan’s voice being so strong with them. If you intend to go after the Ríthe, then aye, I’d plead with you for Padraic’s life, as his mam. I wish he hadn’t followed his da, but he has, and I understand that even if I don’t like it or can’t change it. One day, you might understand it also, with your own children.”

  “Padraic, you need to be careful,” she’d told him before he’d left Dún Laoghaire to return to Lár Bhaile with Doyle. “I know you love your da, and I wouldn’t ever want you to lose that love, but to follow in his path . . .”

  “Mam . . .” He touched her face. His indulgent smile reminded her of Doyle’s, the same dimple forming at the corner of his mouth. “I love both of you. And I’ll be careful. But, Mam, you’ve always taught me about duty and honor. You’ve taught me well. I’ve given my oath to the Order of Gabair, and that’s where my duty lies. Didn’t you always tell me how I had to trust you, even when you were asking me to do something that I didn’t want to do or that felt wrong to me. You told me that sometimes we simply have to obey, because none of us can see the future or always know that what we’re doing really is the right thing . . .”