Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  “Are you accusing me of being responsible for the loss of our men, Harik? Are you saying that I’m disloyal to the Tuatha or to my parents?” Kayne asked in fury, wheeling around with his fists balled. The man’s impertinence burned at him.

  “No,” Harik answered placidly. He stood his ground in the face of Kayne’s anger and his hand stayed carefully away from the hilt of his sword. “I’m just telling you what you need to know, because one day it will be you at the head of the gardai and then you can’t afford to be as ignorant as you are right now.”

  “You dare!” Kayne exploded and stopped at the look on Harik’s face.

  “Aye, I dare: out here where it’s only the two of us to hear. You’re a man, Kayne Geraghty, but you’re still a boy, too. I’m not a Riocha who has to be concerned with my holdings and keeping my place with the Ríthe. I’ve spent my whole life with the gardai, Tiarna, and I know how to handle troops. You know it, too, if you’d listen to your head instead of your heart and your wounded pride. You think we’re slinking home defeated and broken. You think that your da didn’t do all he could have done. But I tell you this: none of the men with him believe that. They saw that all the great armies of Céile Mhór haven’t been able to stop the Arruk. They saw that they had a commander who cared about them, who wouldn’t throw them needlessly into a hopeless situation for his own glory. They are coming home proud, because they’ve kept their word and their honor when others chose not to answer the Banrion Ard’s call. So, aye, I dare. And don’t you dare to dishonor the soldiers you’ve served with because you wanted your da to be some legendary hero, and you to be one, too. Tiarna Owaine’s a good man and a decent one, the best of the Riocha, as far as I’m concerned. I’m honored to have served with him; you should feel the same. I don’t care whether you’re his son or not, or whether you’re Riocha or not; you’ll be as respectful to him as any garda with us or you’ll answer to me the next time.”

  Kayne blinked. Harik was a man of few and simple words; he’d never heard him utter more than a few sentences at a time before. He wondered how long he’d been composing this speech in his mind. The presumption and unfairness of it made Kayne clamp his mouth shut. “Have you said everything you’ve come to say, Hand MacCathaill?” he asked.

  The man’s eyes glittered. The muscles in his neck flexed and the scar on his face pulled at his skin. “Aye, Tiarna Kayne. I’ve spoken my piece.”

  “Good. Know that if you ever speak to me that way again, you will need to defend your words. I tolerate your impudence only because of the service you’ve given Da. Do you understand?”

  Harik’s eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. “Aye, Tiarna. I understand very well.”

  “Then this conversation’s over. I’d suggest you return to the hall and your commander.”

  Harik’s mouth snapped shut and he turned. Without another word, he strode quickly back toward the town gate, leaving Kayne in his cold wake.

  Kayne stood outside, watching the sky darken and the first stars appear to the east. He stayed there for a half-stripe until the mage-lights came—earlier than usual, just before the last of the sun’s light left the western sky—snarling their bright tendrils around the zenith and touching the few clouds with color.

  The wind sprites lifted from the grass, drifting in a stream of glowing light around the keep and past the balcony where Meriel stood. She heard their high, thin voices calling and felt the plucking of tiny fingers and the brush of small wings. She laughed and brushed at the sprites with a hand, and they went spiraling off in a chattering of high protest, the wavering lines of them sliding down to flow along the slope of the twilight-wrapped mountainsides that bordered the harbor of Dún Laoghaire, their summits still brushed with the dying sun’s light. The wind sprites wound among the green hillocks that were the barrows of the most ancient Ríthe, back in the time when Talamh an Ghlas was broken into hands upon hands of tiny warring Tuatha, each controlled by a single clan. The barrows now were nothing more than shapes in the grass, the deeds and the names of those who slumbered there long forgotten. The flickering lines of the wind sprites flowed down the flanks of Cnocareilig, the Grave Hill, where the tombs of the more recent Ards lay—where, Meriel knew, her own body would one day rest.

  “See,” Meriel said to Ennis. He was staring, wide-eyed, at the last of the wind sprites as Meriel lifted him a bit so he could see past the balcony’s rail. As she looked at him, smiling, she saw again the lines of Owaine’s own face in Ennis’. Like his older siblings Tara and Ionhar—both of them currently away in fosterage with relatives—Ennis was undeniably Owaine’s child. He had the same hair: wavy, and so dark brown that it was nearly black, and pupils the color of the richest soil.

  Sevei and Kayne, though, they were red-haired and green-eyed like Meriel, and the shape of their faces . . . They were not like Owaine at all.

  She smiled again and kissed Ennis’ brow, brushing back the hair from his forehead. Ennis was all the more precious for being so much younger than all the rest of his brothers and sisters, coming to her when she thought that perhaps she would have no more children.

  “They’re pretty, Mam,” Ennis said, “but I want to know how they fly.” He reached out with a hand as if he could touch them. Together, they watched the sprites vanish around the headland at the edge of the harbor. Ennis’ attention slid to the flickering lights of the city below them as it prepared for night, then to the sky’s drapery of sunset-touched clouds. Serious. His face is always so serious, like he’s trying to make sense of everything, like he sees something none of the rest of us can see . . .

  The sky brightened, a wash of red and searing orange flickering from the west and snaking overhead. “Mam, the mage-lights are coming.”

  “Aye, I see them,” she said to him, surprised. So early tonight . . . “Do you want to watch while Mam catches them?” Ennis nodded solemnly and she put him down near the doors to her chambers. “Stay there, then,” she told him and lifted Treoraí’s Heart on its necklace, sliding it from under the torc of the Ard. She closed her hand around the stone and lifted hand and stone toward the sky.

  Instantly, she felt the connection with the crackling energy contained within the mage-lights. She saw not only with her eyes but with the perception of Treoraí’s Heart. She was encased within its rough facets; she could feel its yearning and need to be filled with the mage-lights, and she and the stone called to them. A tendril of purest yellow light shot through with blue sparks responded, curling down from the sheets and flares of color overhead and wrapping around her upraised arm, touching the faint pattern of scars around her wrist. “Oh, Mam, they’re so bright tonight . . .” she heard Ennis say in wonderment behind her, and she laughed.

  “Aye,” she told him, gasping with the cold touch of the mage-lights, barely able to hear him through the hum of the mage-lights in her body. “Maybe one day you’ll do this, too.”

  “Will you send me to Gram, like you did with Sevei?”

  “Maybe.” He’ll be a strong one, this one . . . Meriel could believe that. She would be surprised if Ennis weren’t well suited to being a cloudmage. But not yet . . . He was still her baby, even if he were looking older with each passing day, even if she knew that the time was fast approaching when he’d be sent out to fosterage like his siblings.

  “When will Sevei and Gram be here? I want to see them.”

  “Not too long now, Ennis. The message bird your gram sent just came yesterday, and the note with it said that they would be leaving in another few days, but we’re still a long sail from Inish Thuaidh.”

  “Do you think Sevei will remember me? I don’t remember her, not really. What does Gram look like?”

  “You’ll know what Gram looks like when she gets here. And aye, your sister will remember you, I’m certain, though she’ll be surprised at how much you’ve grown. Now be quiet, darling, and let me do this . . .”

  It was difficult to concentrate on the boy’s conversation; the rush of energy swept into and throu
gh her, warm and comforting, nearly sexual in intensity and as insistent. She held the power, embracing it with her mind, letting it seep into every part of her and the stone. She sighed, holding the mage-lights. She’d used Treoraí’s Heart again today—it was a rare day when she did not—this time to cure a woman from Tuath Locha Léin with a growth in her belly, a fetus that was not a child but her own tissue gone mad. There were always far more supplicants every day than there was power in the stone to cure them: Dún Laoghaire sometimes seemed full of no one else. Over the past several years, Meriel had added a staff of a dozen retainers to the Hand of the Heart’s staff, whose task it was to help Siúr Martain evaluate those who came here to be cured of illness or injury, of defects physical and mental. Once filled with the mage-energy, Treoraí’s Heart burned to be used, filling her with an aching need to empty it once more.

  Sometimes it seemed that her only role was that of Healer Ard, that she neglected the rest of her duties as Banrion Ard. She knew that many of the Riocha felt exactly that way, especially since she made little distinction between Riocha, the half-blooded céili giallnai, or the common tuathánach when she used Treoraí’s Heart. At least, that was what she told herself, but she sometimes wondered if she did make distinctions, if she wasn’t more likely to help the tuathánach because they had so few chances to help themselves. She had to admit the truth of what Edana had said to her yesterday—she’d felt it without being told. Much of the progress made following the debacle of Falcarragh had been unmade in recent years.

  The common folk might call her the “Healer Ard” with affection, but it was becoming a term of derision among the Riocha.

  She knew it. She knew that she should pay less attention to Treoraí’s Heart and more to the politics in which she was necessarily embroiled, but it was difficult. The cloch didn’t want that, and the stone was more a part of her every day.

  She forced her thoughts away from politics, concentrating instead on the web of energy that flowed above her, letting her awareness drift upward through the mage-lights and outward, searching. She could feel Jenna with Lámh Shábhála—still far distant, her great cloch sucking greedily at the power above. Meriel let her mind drift eastward and smiled. Aye, there was Owaine with Blaze, and closer than she could have hoped. She felt the touch of his mind through the mage-lights, faintly, and for a moment the image of his face came to her. My love, she thought, wishing he could hear the words, wishing she could hear him . . .

  “Look, Mam—over there at the other tower.”

  Treoraí’s Heart was nearly full now. Meriel opened her eyes, allowing herself to withdraw from the cloch-sight. Ennis was pointing to where two more tendrils of mage-light snaked down to a balcony on the tower across the courtyard, snarling and fuming around each other. The mage-lights there were exceptionally luminous, far brighter than the remaining sunset glow, and Meriel knew they replenished Clochs Mór. One of the clochs would be Demon-Caller, held by Edana as the Banrion Dún Laoghaire. The second cloch with Edana must be Snapdragon in the hands of her husband Doyle. Her husband . . . Meriel always thought of Doyle that way: as Edana’s husband, not as Meriel’s half uncle—the latter wasn’t a relationship she cared to contemplate often. So Doyle had returned from the Order of Gabair in Lár Bhaile.

  “That’s Auntie Edana and Uncle Doyle,” Ennis burst out with the same realization. “Can we see Auntie Edana tomorrow, Mam? She promised me that Enean would show me what his Weapons Máister has been teaching him.” Ennis clenched both hands around the hilt of an imaginary sword and chopped earnestly at a foe only he could see.

  “You’re too young for that yet,” Meriel told him.

  “The blue ghosts show me that I’ll need to know how to fight,” Ennis replied.

  Meriel frowned at that—blue ghosts again—but Ennis pouted, his lower lip sticking out dramatically, and she finally had to laugh. “All right, I’ll have Isibéal take you over there tomorrow, if you like. But you mustn’t bother Enean if he’s busy with his studies or doesn’t want to see you. He’s a young man now, not a child.”

  “He’s not as old as Kayne,” Ennis insisted. “He still plays with me. Well, sometimes. Not as often as he used to,” he amended. Always serious. Always wanting to be right . . .

  “That’s good. But still . . .”

  The door to Meriel’s bedchamber opened and Isibéal peered in, her gray-streaked black hair caught in a colorful scarf. “Isibéal,” Meriel said, waving to her. “Please, come out here.”

  The Taisteal woman nodded, moving with unconscious grace and ease across the bedchamber toward the balcony. She stopped at the open doors and gazed up at the fading mage-lights. Her eyes, even in the starlight, were an odd light blue in her dusky face. “I came for Ennis, Banrion Ard,” she said. “It’s time he finished his studies for the day and then got to bed. I hated to bother you, but the hall garda said the boy was with you . . .”

  “Thank you, Isibéal. You’re right, of course. Ennis . . .”

  “Mam!” Ennis protested automatically, but Isibéal laughed and took three lithe and quick steps onto the balcony, sweeping the child up in her arms and spinning him around twice so that he finally laughed and squealed in delight. Meriel noted that Isibéal’s feet, as always, were bare.

  “It’s how I grew up,” she’d said to Meriel when they’d first met. “My soul feels trapped when my feet are all bound in leather.” Meriel had found herself more interested in the woman’s Taisteal background, remembering her own times with the itinerant folk. “My father was some handsome, smooth-talking clan wanderer, who came to my mam’s village and left a day or two later. One of the things he left behind was me in her belly, and I think I have more of him in me than her . . .”

  Isibéal had been sent by the Mother-Creator, in Meriel’s view. Theneva, the matron who had been in charge of the staff for Meriel and her children, had vanished not long after the Festival of Méitha, without notice or so much as a word of warning. The other servants, one of whom Meriel had hoped would take over Theneva’s role, seemed helpless and overwhelmed by the responsibilities of tutoring and caring for the Banrion Ard’s son. The head of Edana’s household staff had sent Isibéal to Meriel. Isibéal had references from Banrion Taafe of Tuath Éoganacht and was seeking employment; the serendipity had been compelling, as if Fiodóir, the Weaver of Fate Himself, had arranged things. And Ennis . . . when Ennis had been introduced to her, he’d fixed Meriel with that strange and serious look. “You need to hire her, Mam,” he’d said solemnly. “It’s important.”

  “How do you know that?” she’d asked him, laughing.

  “The blue ghosts told me,” he’d answered, then frowned when he saw that the response caused Meriel to clench her jaws in irritation. “I know, Mam,” he said then. “I just do.”

  That had been but a month ago. Already Meriel couldn’t imagine her household without Isibéal’s presence. “Now you come with me, young Tiarna,” Isibéal told Ennis, “and I’ll tell you a tale. What would you like to hear?”

  “Tell me about the haunts in the barrows!” Ennis answered. “I liked that one.”

  Isibéal glanced at Meriel with a grin and a sidewise roll of her eyes. “And have the wights chased you in your sleep?” she asked.

  “I’ll kill them with my sword,” Ennis declared, and he held out his imaginary weapon again. “See!”

  The women both laughed at his fierce scowl. “Even warriors must have their sleep,” Isibéal told him. “Let’s go and leave your mam to her duties.” Isibéal cuddled Ennis to her and caught Meriel’s gaze. “Banrion Mac Ard asked if you would care to take some refreshment with her and the Tiarna Mac Ard, and there was a rider from Tuath Airgialla just come in who has a message for you, also.”

  “From Airgialla?” Perhaps there’s word of Owaine and Kayne. They should be returning from Céile Mhór by now, and I feel Owaine so much closer . . . She went to Ennis and kissed him on the forehead, ruffling his hair. “Go on with Isibéal, darling. I’ll come see
you later, and make sure those wights aren’t bothering your dreams.” Isibéal’s gaze was on her, those odd light eyes. “Airgialla. It would be so wonderful to be with Owaine again after so long.”

  Isibéal’s smile widened. “I’m sure you will be,” she told Meriel. “Very soon.”

  “I hope you’re right, Isibéal.”

  Isibéal shifted Ennis’ weight on her hip. She kissed the boy where Meriel’s lips had touched him a moment before. “I’m certain of it,” she answered. “We Taisteal know these things.”

  6

  A Clochmion’s Use

  DILLON’S LIPS were warm and incredibly soft, and tasted slightly of the sweet milarán cakes that had been served for dessert. Sevei pulled back reluctantly from the long and lingering kiss, leaning her head on Dillon’s shoulder and enjoying the comfort of his arms around her.

  They were pressed into the corner of one of the small courtyards of the White Keep—the First Holder’s Wing. Sevei’s gram had created this section herself over the space of a week several years ago, crafting the rooms and corridors and sweeping great halls with the power of Lámh Shábhála. The stone was gleaming white, so pure that it seemed to capture the light of the sun and release it in a soft glow for hours after sunset. In the mage-lights, the smooth and slick walls glittered with the captured colors of the sky. Sevei thought that the First Holder’s Wing was the most delightful of all the spaces within the White Keep; the fact that it was her gram’s design only made it more special.

  Though there was still light in the western sky, she and Dillon cuddled in relative darkness, with Sevei’s back against the cold curve of a tower’s base. The fireworks display of the mage-lights had come far earlier than usual, just as they’d finished their supper, with the edge of the sun still visible over the horizon of the Westering Sea. For the first time, Sevei had lifted her own cloch to the lights, standing between Gram with Lámh Shábhála and Máister Kirwan with Snarl, both of them instructing her as the intense colors of the sky inundated them, banishing even the dying sun’s light. The brilliant multicolored shadows had swept around the White Keep and the First Holder’s Wing, and Sevei had gasped with the wonder of it all, marveling at the feeling of holding the mage-lights within herself, within the clochmion.