Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  Connail grimaced, a surprisingly adult look on the child’s face. He placed his hand on the collar of his léine. “You shouldn’t have seen that. It’s not in the pattern. The blue ghosts . . .”

  “Pattern? Ghosts? What are you talking about?” Haughey suddenly became suspicious. Why would an itinerant Songmaster’s son have a chain of gold, and why would he hide it so carefully? “Let me see that, boy. Bring it out.” Haughey reached forward and Connail sprang backward off his chair, the wooden leg scraping loudly across the flagstone. Brina and the scullery maid came from the kitchen at the noise. “What’s going on here . . . ?”

  Connail was shaking his head and holding something at the end of the chain in his hands.

  “You weren’t supposed to see this,” he said. He was crying, sobbing, staring wildly around the room as if looking for something. “You shouldn’t have seen. Now I don’t have any choice.”

  “What are you talking about, child?” Brina asked. She leaned toward him, glancing from the boy to Haughey and back.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I have to. I have to.” It was the only answer Connail gave. He closed his hand more tightly, and touched Brina with his other hand.

  Haughey would never forget the sound his wife made then, but fortunately he would have only a few breaths of life in which to remember it.

  31

  The Scrúdú of Bethiochnead

  THE CLIFFSIDE OF THALL Coill was bright: with the buttery light of the full moon; with the autumnal flicker of the fire Beryn had built against the cold wind off the Westering Sea; with the searing, cold beauty of the mage-lights that looped in pale aquamarine and furious emerald and eerie blood-red around Sevei’s arm.

  The riot of illumination was reflected in the glossy, utterly black sides of the statue of Bethiochnead.

  “Oh . . .” The exhalation was all Sevei could manage as the mage-lights curled away from her and snaked their way back into star-pricked darkness. She opened her fingers and let Lámh Shábhála drop to her breast, nearly falling at the release. Beryn’s arms came around her in support. “I’m fine,” she told him, almost angrily, and the Bunús Muintir let her go, retreating a few steps as Dragoncaller, around his neck, glittered in moonlight. She gave him a weak smile in apology. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect . . .” She took another slow breath, seeing it pulse cold and white from her mouth in the evening chill. “This was nothing like it was with Dragoncaller. I could feel every cloch na thintrí out there: Dragoncaller, all of them . . . It was like they were all part of Lámh Shábhála, all connected to it somehow. I could feel the person behind each stone, and I could hear all the voices of those who have ever held Lámh Shábhála, and I could feel its power . . .”

  She looked at her right arm. Curling white scars swirled on her wrist. They seemed to glow, faintly, though it was difficult to tell if that wasn’t some trick of the full moon, and her arm—it felt cold, stiff, and impossibly heavy. She forced protesting fingers to close again, and twinges of pain radiated out from her arm to her chest. So this is what it was like for Gram, all the time, she thought, and then: This is what it will be like for me, from now on . . . She moaned softly and Beryn looked at her anxiously.

  “Can I help you? Some kala bark tea . . . ?”

  She shook her head. “I’m . . . just a little overwhelmed, that’s all. Those with Clochs Mór . . . They’ll all know that Lámh Shábhála’s been found, though they don’t know by whom yet. I could feel Doyle and I know he felt my cloch. I felt Snarl, also, but it was Padraic wielding it, not Máister Kirwan and it was far away in the Tuatha . . .” Involuntary tears filled her eyes—for Máister Kirwan, for Dillon, for all those she’d lost, as well as with relief at knowing for certain now that Kayne still lived—and she wiped them away with the cold, dead right hand. It felt like ice against her skin. “And Treoraí’s Heart, it was there, too, but even farther away and the person who had it kept his or her face hidden . . .” She closed her eyes, sighing.

  “If you’re tired, you could wait until morning for the Scrúdú; get some sleep first.”

  Sevei glanced sidewise at the statue looming above them, blotting out the stars like a darker night. She could see a muted reflection of the campfire in the great beast’s flanks, and the moonlight glittered in the curve of its eyes. “No. If I wait . . .” I might never do it at all, she finished inside, but Beryn’s nod showed that he’d guessed the thought. “How do I begin?” she asked.

  “Open Lámh Shábhála,” he told her. “That’s all.”

  Grimacing, she brought her cold and stiff right hand over the gem at her breast. As her hand cupped it, it seemed to warm her so that her fingers could close again. The new scars at her wrist did gleam white, she noticed.

  She closed her fingers around the stone. “Hello, darling . . .” her gram’s voice whispered in her head. “I will help you through this, as much as I can . . .” But she heard the other voices as well.

  “. . . Fool . . . !”

  “. . . Stupid thing . . . !”

  “. . . How sad to hold the stone for but a few breaths . . .”

  Her vision doubled, the emerald facets of Lámh Shábhála overlaying what she saw before her like a new landscape, and she let herself fall into it . . .

  . . . a black shape, gigantic as the shadow of a mountain, stirred . . .

  . . . she heard a purring growl that made the dirt tremble at her feet, that shook pebbles loose from between the rocks of the cliffside . . .

  Bethiochnead moved and it was no longer a broken eroded carving, but a living creature. The head shook itself like a great cat waking from sleep, and there were wings on its leonine back, and a barbed red tail thrashed the ground. Claws gouged stone, digging furrows in the rock. “Ah,” it said, and eyes the color of summer grass stared at her from an impossible height. “Welcome—I am An Phionós. I am the First, and you are now in my world. I wondered when the First Holder’s whelp would want to try where she failed.”

  “I did not fail,” another voice protested—Jenna, speaking through Lámh Shábhála, and Bethiochnead laughed.

  “But you also did not succeed,” An Phionós answered with the same mild, almost scornful, amusement. Sevei could feel the beast’s presence in her mind and though she tried to shut it out, she could not. She realized that the very landscape around them had changed: the cliff now ended several feet farther away from the statue-creature, and the forest seemed to have vanished. She could not see Beryn at all. “You’re not the one I expected,” An Phionós rumbled. “I had thought you would be the one who was in Jenna’s womb, but you’re the daughter’s daughter. Strange. But no matter—you desire to pit yourself against the Scrúdú?”

  Voices cascaded in her mind (“No!” “Don’t be foolish, child!”) and she had to force them down before she could answer. “No,” she told the creature. “I don’t desire it. But I gave my word that I’d attempt it.”

  The creature laughed. “A vow? Then I release you from it, for you couldn’t have known what you promised. The Scrúdú is death—ask those inside your stone.”

  “I don’t care if I live or if I die,” Sevei told it, and voices echoed from inside: “That, at least, is the proper attitude . . .”

  “Hush!” her gram’s voice scolded them. “Be quiet and let her listen . . . !”

  “That’s what those who haven’t yet died say,” An Phionós answered Sevei. “I thought the same until I was actually dead.” Mage-lights were circling above the cliff, a banded whirlpool of them brighter than any Sevei had ever seen. They flashed like a lightning stroke and for a moment An Phionós was lit from within, as if its skin were black glass. “Careful,” Sevei heard Jenna say in her head. “It’s ready to attack. Shield yourself . . .”

  Sevei felt the frigid heat of the gathering mage-lights, and suddenly An Phionós roared, spitting out energy in a blast that nearly caught her despite the wall she suddenly imagined between them. The mage-lights struck the barrier in flares of awful pr
imary colors. Sevei felt them pummeling at her, felt the shield bending and nearly cracking, but then the light was gone and she panted, blinking as her eyes readjusted.

  “Now that was impressive for someone so new to Lámh Shábhála,” An Phionós said grudgingly. “Even with Jenna helping you. So, as with your gram, this won’t be simple. That’s good. Good. Too many times it was just that easy for me. I enjoy a challenge after such a long wait. It keeps me awake longer.”

  An Phionós was pacing now, prowling from side to side of the open area before the cliffs, the barbed tail lashing and the feathered wings unfolding from its back. It seemed to be considering what it would do next, and Sevei watched the beast warily, her fist held so tightly to Lámh Shábhála that she could feel the silver wires caging it pressing deep into the skin of her palm. The end of the deadly tail flicked close to her once and Sevei flinched, ready to send the cloch’s energy flooding out.

  “You don’t really know how to use Lámh Shábhála, do you?” An Phionós peered down at her, its huge eyes glimmering with moisture, its voice genuinely sad. “Not like your gram—when she came here, she’d been holding the cloch for many months and was fairly skilled with it. Or poor Peria; she’d had Lámh Shábhála for years. So had most of the others. You . . . You’re only a fledgling. How could you hope to succeed here when they, who knew the depths of Lámh Shábhála so much better, failed?” An Phionós stopped and sat on its haunches as muscles corded in its powerful body. “I’m not without compassion. Let go,” it told Sevei. “Let go and we will forget the Scrúdú.”

  “Do it!” the voices wailed inside her. “Listen to the beast or you’ll die!” But Sevei listened only for one voice: Jenna’s. “An Phionós made me the same offer,” she said. “I refused. And I lived.”

  “Your gram says that only to bring you in here with us,” one of the ancient Holders said, a woman’s voice, and Sevei knew it was Peria. “Beware! You’ll just be one of us, whispering to the next Holder.”

  “I would never do that to you, Sevei,” Gram answered, her voice louder than the others. “I’ll help you . . .”

  “Shut up!” Sevei shouted. “All of you but Gram! Let me think.”

  “Sevei . . .” She glanced up at the sound of her name. The huge body of An Phionós was gone; it was Dillon standing there, his face sad and full of longing. “Don’t do this, my love,” he said. “Let go of Lámh Shábhála. Stay with me.”

  “Dillon!”

  He ran to her and she felt his arms go around her, felt the warmth of his body and the taste of his lips on hers. Her hand, holding the cloch, was nearly crushed between them, hard and uncomfortable. “I thought . . . I thought you were dead.”

  “What’s death?” he asked her, laughing gently, and bent his head down to hers again. He kissed her long and deep, and afterward his breath burned hot on her ear. “I was dead,” he whispered and pulled back from her. He cupped his hands around her right hand and Lámh Shábhála, the scars glowing in the dark. “Aye, I was dead but I’ve come back. If you want me to stay, let go of the stone. That’s all you need do, I promise. Let go of the stone and I’ll be alive again and with you. With you and loving you forever. It will be the life we wanted. I promise, Sevei.”

  His eyes were the color of summer grass . . .

  “No,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, Sevei,” he said, and she heard two voices speaking as one: Dillon overlaid with An Phionós. “It’s not possible for me to lie; the gods won’t allow it. You can have me back, forever, but you must give up the Scrúdú to have me. Do it, and we can be together.”

  “Why?” Sevei asked, her eyes narrowing. Dillon’s form shifted, the hands becoming claws, the face elongating, the body swelling and turning dark. “Because you’re afraid I might succeed?”

  Now it was only An Phionós in front of her. “Ah,” it said. “You have Jenna’s arrogance, too.” Then the creature was Dillon again, his face sad and mournful. “I’m not enough for you?”

  Sevei was crying, the tears flowing down her cheeks. “Dillon, I miss you so much, and I wish . . . I wish I could truly have you back again.”

  “You can, “ he insisted. “I’m here. Now.”

  She touched his cheek. It was warm and soft and she wanted to lose herself in his embrace. “No,” she said.

  He sighed, and his features ran like melting snow until he became An Phionós again. “So be it,” An Phionós said. Its clawed forepaw slashed at her. Belatedly, Sevei drew power from the cloch—lightning arced and spat and thunder boomed and An Phionós hissed and drew back. Wielding Lámh Shábhála was like holding fire in her hands: the power throbbed and pulsed, difficult to contain. She might as well attempt to bridle a hurricane. An Phionós snarled and leaped toward her.

  Clumsily, she formed the energy into a tangled wall of glowing vines. The obstruction slowed An Phionós only a moment, the creature snarling in the nest of clinging power before shredding it with claws and teeth, moving toward her step by step. Sevei felt each blow from the talons as if it struck her. She screamed in terror and anger, retreating backward under the assault.

  “You think this will stop me?” An Phionós roared at her, its voice matching her fury. A forepaw snatched at a loop of energy around its neck and threw it aside; it vanished in a crash of thunder that reverberated inside Sevei’s skull, pounding against her temples. “Can you do this forever, Sevei? I can. Don’t you feel the power failing already? Can’t you feel it draining from Lámh Shábhála? Once it’s gone, what will you do then?”

  Lámh Shábhála held the beast, but Sevei listened to An Phionós and despaired. The cloch had finite power, and she was wasting it with half measures. Desperate, weeping unashamedly, she emptied the power within Lámh Shábhála upon An Phionós, a great, flaring torrent of mage-energy in any shape she could imagine: flights of great spears as close together as blades of grass; shrieking winds that tore rocks from the cliffside and ripped the great oaks from the very ground; ferocious lightnings that crawled on the land like a spider’s legs; gibbering armies of black nightmare creatures, shrieking madly and waving glowing swords as they charged. Sevei plunged ever deeper into the emerald depths of Lámh Shábhála, finding all the crevices with their pools of mage-energy and flinging them at An Phionós as if the creature contained all her pain and grief, her hatred and her sorrow. The landscape around them was ablaze: brighter than the moon, brighter than the mage-lights, a furious glare that rivaled the dawn. Sevei’s assault was relentless, and now it was An Phionós who retreated, roaring and wailing. She pursued him, step by slow step, pushing him backward with the cloch, snarling like an animal herself, her lips drawn back from her teeth as she lifted Lámh Shábhála high.

  An Phionós shrieked in pain and torment. A step, another . . . Her adversary backed grudgingly, its head low, the blood-colored tail tucked under the body, black blood pouring from its ravaged flanks. A rear leg tore rocks from the edge of the cliff to crash into the sea far below; the other dangled over open air. “Aye! You can do this!” she heard Jenna crow inside her. An Phionós reared up as Sevei plumbed the depths of Lámh Shábhála searching for the last reserves of its power. She took what was left and hurled it at her adversary. It screamed and fell backward, vanishing over the cliff edge. Sevei ran forward toward the lip of the precipice, expecting to see the creature’s broken body on the jagged rocks below, hope rising up in her.

  She stopped, hearing laughter.

  An Phionós rose above her in the empty air, magnificent and terrible, its great wings thrusting. “I have not had an opponent like you in far too long,” it said. “Not even Jenna was able to do so much.” It landed gently a few feet from her as Sevei slumped to the ground, exhausted. The place of Bethiochnead was dark again, the moon struggling against the afterglow of the mage-power she’d expended. An Phionós was a black mountain, only its eyes aglow, and from its massive chest came a low purring. “You shouldn’t have been able to do that,” An Phionós continued, “not as
inexperienced as you are. That was a work of true greatness and potential. A shame, then, that such talent is now to be wasted.”

  In her mind, desperate, Sevei searched the verdant facets of Lámh Shábhála, trying to find lingering remnants of the energy. “There’s nothing,” the voices of the past Holders whispered. “Nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing . . .”

  “Are you ready to die, Sevei?” An Phionós asked, almost gently, almost sadly. Its paw lifted, eclipsing stars. “I will be quick. You won’t have time to scream or hear the crack of bones. Are you ready?”

  “Go deeper . . .” a voice whispered: Gram. Jenna. “Find the very heart of the stone . . . Let yourself fall . . .”

  “Aye,” Sevei said, not knowing who she was answering. In her doubled vision, she let herself tumble into Lámh Shábhála even as she cowered below An Phionós.

  The paw loomed over her, a final and eternal night, its cold skin just touching her . . .

  . . . she plunged into green darkness, opening herself, letting Lámh Shábhála rip into her soul and her very being. Images flashed past her, and she felt as if she were falling not into some unimaginable void but into the past. She fell into herself. She heard the voices of the Holders, but they were no longer Daoine or even Bunús Muintir. They spoke in tongues older and stranger. Back, back, back . . . and here, here in the darkness there was an ending and a beginning and a light . . .

  . . . time itself stopped.

  “Oh, Mother,” Sevei whispered. “Mother, I hadn’t known . . .”

  Lámh Shábhála filled her. She filled Lámh Shábhála. There was no difference. The necklace that held Lámh Shábhála burst into flame, the gold spattering and fuming; the cage of silver holding it running like bright water. Sevei released the stone as the molten metal burned her, but it didn’t fall. It hung there before her, then turned and arrowed at her chest. The jewel struck above the heart and burrowed into her. Sevei screamed as Lámh Shábhála ripped into her, as it tore through muscle and bone. Then it stopped. She took a breath.