by S L Farrell
Ennis could see immediately that other Arruk deferred to Kurhv Ruka. He saw several of the warriors carrying their pole arms, and their snouts wrinkled as the litter approached, as if they scented Ennis. They looked in Ennis’ direction to snarl threateningly until they saw that he was seated beside Kurhv Ruka. Then their demeanor would change: the snarls faded from their snouts, and they stared, heads slightly lowered and their weapons pointed carefully away from the litter.
After a time, Ennis realized that all the Arruk he’d seen seemed to be adult males. There were no female Arruk here—either that or they were so much like the males that there was no discernible difference to Ennis’ eyes—and no young.
They were carried through the center of the town to a temple on a hill just outside. This had once been consecrated to the Mother-Creator—the symbols carved on the lintel were similar to those on the temple in Dún Laoghaire. But there were no Draíodóiri here tending the temple or performing the services, though the pale brown stains that covered the walls near the archway looked suspiciously like old blood, and Ennis wondered if it might not be that of the priests who had once lived here.
Arruk guards stood near the temple’s entrance, and as the litter was placed on the ground and Ennis and Kurhv Ruka dismounted and stood up, another Arruk, this one dressed in a warrior’s leather marked with a sun half-covered with cloud, emerged from the dark interior. The Arruk blinked once at the sunlight, showing translucent eye coverings, then his snout wrinkled as he glared at Ennis. He snarled something to Kurhv Ruka that sounded decidedly aggressive. Kurhv Ruka spat back harsh syllables, his claws extending out from his fingers.
The blue ghosts came . . .
They appeared strongly here, surrounding Ennis and sliding over the confrontation between the two Arruk. With most of them, he saw the two Arruk leap at each other and begin to fight, and in each of those futures he saw that Kurhv Ruka would lose and that his own form would be lying on the ground dead immediately afterward. Ennis peered frantically around him toward the other blue ghosts, looking for the pattern that led to another conclusion, that would bring him closer to the future he’d glimpsed so long ago in Talamh an Ghlas. For a moment he despaired, for he was surrounded by images of his own death, so dominant that they obscured everything. Ennis shivered, frightened now as the two Arruk continued to spit and growl at each other, as other Arruk warriors, seeing and hearing the conflict, started to gather around. He was enclosed in a circle of them now, their scent overpowering and sour-sweet, their scaled bodies a forest around him that blocked off sight of anything else.
The blue ghosts were starting to fade, and he still hadn’t found the pattern. Ennis started to sob, the sound of his distress lost in the louder conflict near him. Kurhv Ruka took a step toward the other Arruk, his claws slashing out at the same time.
There . . .
Ennis saw the pattern finally. With a grateful sob, he let himself fall into it, let himself merge with the blue ghost, hoping the vision would last long enough for him to survive this . . .
“Wait!” the blue ghost called out, and Ennis let himself shout with it. He pushed forward between the two Arruk. He could hear the breathy gasp that was Arruk laughter at the sight: a human boy, his head just reaching Kurhv Ruka’s abdomen, his skin pale and unprotected, no claws on his hands or feet, no ripping incisors gleaming in his mouth, no weapon at all in his hands. They laughed, including the warrior who had confronted them. It snarled something at Kurhv Ruka, who backed away with a gesture toward Ennis. The warrior gave another laugh and reached down, snatching at Ennis’ clóca, the claws digging into the cloth and drawing blood from Ennis’ arm. He gasped at the pain, but the blue ghost didn’t cry out, so neither did he. The warrior held tightly to him, shaking him as he ranted. Kurhv Ruka replied calmly. The gold-flecked irises of his eyes watched Ennis.
Ennis saw the blue ghost that was himself touch Treoraí’s Heart under his léine; he followed the motion and opened the cloch . . .
Treoraí’s Heart was growing stronger with every use, or perhaps he was slowly learning how to use it. Through the Heart, he slid himself into the body of the other person, and there—an intruder—he simply released the wild energy inside them, letting it explode outward. There was no careful guidance and no subtlety. Perhaps it was easier his way—certainly where Mam could heal but one person a day, he could take the life of more. Many more.
Once, he’d asked Mam how it felt to heal people, and she told him how with the Heart she became the person she touched, that she could find the hurt or injury and carefully direct the mage-energy to repair it. It was different for Ennis; he might hear the thoughts of those he touched or feel them, but there had never been the sense of merging with them. He was always separate, always himself, always held at a distance.
“It’s because you’re what you are,” Isibéal whispered to him as he touched the cloch now. “Your mam had true empathy. She thought of others first . . .”
“You killed mam, and I killed you,” Ennis answered. “That’s fair. I’ll kill the ones who killed Da and Gram and everyone else, too. The blue ghosts showed me, but I have to do what they say. That’s all. It’s not me doing this. It’s them.”
She responded, as always, only with mocking laughter. Below Isibéal, though, he thought he heard another voice sobbing.
In the cloch-vision, the warrior who held him was a radiant shell of yellow, a false sun. Ennis took a handful of the mage-energy and followed the connection of the Arruk’s hand on his arm into the glowing shell of his body. He could feel the pounding of the creature’s heart like the beating of a low, massive drum: toom, toom, toom. He was surrounded by the webbing of muscle and ligament, veins and arteries. With the connection came the creature’s words, also: he still heard the hissing, spitting speech of the Arruk with his ears, but inside his head the words became ones he could understand. “. . . you think that this bluntclaw pup will take me more than a moment to kill, Kurhv Ruka? You’re weak. You’re deluded. You are less than the piss of the lowest.”
He heard Kurhv Ruka’s reply as if through the warrior’s ears: “I told you, Noz Ruka.” Ennis wondered whether the two Arruk were related, to have the same last name. If they were, there was no affection between them. “I accept your challenge, and this Perakli—this bluntclaw—will be my champion.”
Noz Ruka coughed his derision. He shook Ennis as easily as if he were one of his sister’s dolls, and Ennis clutched Treoraí’s Heart harder. Not yet... The blue ghosts were unmoving around him. “You’ve finally gone mad, Kurhv Ruka. No wonder the Kralj broke you to Ruka.” With that, Ennis realized that what he’d thought of as Kurhv Ruka’s family name was instead a title. He wondered what else he didn’t understand, and that made him cling even tighter to the blue ghost. “Now I’ll break you further. You’ll take the brand of the lowest after I kill the pup.”
“Then kill the pup, if you can,” Kurhv Ruka answered. His golden eyes were on Ennis. The blue ghosts moved, taking Ennis with them.
He was still holding the mage-energy. Now, in the mage-vision, he opened his hands and let it blossom outward like an awful, deadly flower. He watched it rip through Noz Ruka’s body, watched the power rip muscles from their attachments and shred organ and tissue, the blood boiling and erupting from torn vessels, bones shattering like a pottery mug hurled on rocks. Ennis could see the enormous agony rippling through the Arruk—a shell of blue sparks rising around him—and Ennis released the cloch as if it were a glowing coal, not wanting to share that pain the way his mam had.
“Killing is only healing gone mad . . .” Isibéal intoned. “It’s easier, so much easier . . .”
Noz Ruka gasped and the talons that held Ennis opened; he tumbled away from the Arruk, sprawling in the mud. Noz Ruka’s snout was lifted to the sky and he howled, keening like a maddened dog. He coughed, gulped, and then spat out an enormous clot of bright blood, spattering Ennis and the Arruk nearest him and causing the crowd around them to push hastily back
. Noz Ruka shivered, his body frenzied, his clawed hands twitching and clutching at nothing. He howled again, spewing more blood; his bowels loosed at the same time.
He collapsed like a storm-felled tree, hitting the ground hard. His body convulsed, thrashing wildly at the earth.
He went still.
In the terrible silence that followed, Kurhv Ruka stepped forward. Lifting a flap of his leather loincloth, he carefully released a quick splash of urine on Noz Ruka’s body. He came over to Ennis and lifted him the way his da had once lifted him, placing him effortlessly on his hip. The Arruk around them slid carefully back from the two of them as Kurhv Ruka stepped over the body and entered the temple.
Ennis could feel them staring at him, but the blue ghost simply held onto Kurhv Ruka and smiled gently and innocently back at them.
34
Movements
“AND THAT, MY RÍ ARD, is why we feel so . . . Astrongly that Meriel Geraghty must be declared to be a Mionbandia. The declaration would mean so much coming from you, especially with all the troubles . . .”
Doyle stared from his balcony in the Ard’s Keep out to Meriel’s barrow on the Cnocareilig, the Hill of the Ards. Even at this distance, he could see the line of supplicants snaking down the road out of Dún Laoghaire toward the barrow. Where once they’d come to the Heart Chamber in the Ard’s Keep to be cured of their afflictions, now they went to his niece’s barrow to pray for her favor. Every day brought reports of more healings and transformations. Meriel had told Edana and Doyle, years ago, how some of those who came to her were hurt only in their own heads, and for that reason their own belief in the power of Treoraí’s Heart sometimes healed them. Treoraí’s Heart might be gone (and active again, too, far off and probably in the hands of that damned Taisteal woman Isibéal) but the belief in Meriel the Healer Ard still lingered, transferred now to Meriel’s spirit.
“Meriel Geraghty must be declared as a Mionbandia. . . .” Meriel’s Hand of the Heart, Áine Martain, had come to him yesterday and made that plea: “must be,” not “should be.” Doyle hadn’t missed that distinction. The woman had gazed at Doyle and made the demand without flinching. Heart-Hand Martain claimed that Meriel’s ghost had come and told her to remain at the barrow, and that is where she now lived: in the eyes of the populace, Martain the Heart-Hand was now Meriel’s Draíodóir, her priest, and she lived from the offerings the supplicants gave her.
Doyle believed none of it. But his skepticism did nothing to lessen the belief of the tuathánach. The tuathánach were restless everywhere, the Finger was in open revolt, his niece was a demigod, and now—worst of all—Lámh Shábhála had returned in the hands of some unknown Pale Witch, a Bán Cailleach with hair the color of snow and eyes like night, her face and arms and body scarred as if the mage-lights had burned themselves into her skin. All those with clochs na thintrí had seen that apparition in the mage-lights.
The burning in his stomach, the queasy fire that had been set alight the night Lámh Shábhála had reappeared with the Bán Cailleach, made him grimace. He touched the cold, smooth gold of the torc around his neck. After all the years, after all he’d sacrificed and all the loss in his own life it had taken to place the torc of the Ard around his neck, he should have felt triumphant, but it had all turned to ashes: first with the loss of Edana’s love, and now again with the mage-lights.
“Da?” Doyle turned to see Padraic standing at the door to his chambers. “Rí Mallaghan is here.”
The burning rose higher in his throat. He swallowed hard. “Send him in, Son.”
Torin Mallaghan swept in before Padraic had even turned. “Thank you, Padraic,” he said to the young man. “If you’d leave your da and me, and take the servants with you . . .” Padraic glanced once at Doyle; he nodded to Padraic, and his son gave a terse bow to Rí Mallaghan and left the room, gesturing to the attendants to follow. Torin waited until the door had closed behind them before he spoke. He brushed at the folds of his clóca, trimmed in gold and dyed in the green of Tuath Gabair; his own torc, well polished, lay under the chain of his Cloch Mór. Though his hair had long since gone gray, he still retained his full head of hair and the burly figure of a warrior. Torin Mallaghan, more than any of the Ríthe, gave the appearance of being regal. “I sent a messenger to give my regards to Banrion Mac Ard,” he said, “but I’m told she’s not in residence.”
“Edana’s at our estate in the Ceocnocs, along with her court. She says that the air here no longer agrees with her.”
A single eyebrow raised itself. “The Ceocnoc hills are lovely this time of year, I have to admit, and the air sweet.”
“My presence appears to be what spoils the air here,” Doyle told him.
“I hope you don’t expect me to tell you how sorry I am to hear that.” Torin came out onto the balcony with Doyle; he sniffed at the line of supplicants shuffling toward Meriel’s barrow. “I understand the Hand of the Heart wants a declaration from you. I think you should give it.”
“My Rí . . .” After all the years, he couldn’t call the man by his name. Not even when he was the Rí Ard and supposedly above the man. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”
“Why not?” Torin said. He smiled and waved down to the supplicants. None of them returned the gesture; none of them were looking at the keep at all. “After all, we Ríthe had nothing to do with the Banrion’s death. That was the fault of that horrible Taisteal woman.” He managed to say it without sarcasm. “Let’s face reality, Doyle. The tuathánach will make Meriel MacEagan a Mionbandia whether you declare it so or not. By making the declaration, you make us look less . . . guilty, and perhaps throw some oil on the waters of the unrest. We have worse problems.”
“Lámh Shábhála,” Doyle said. The words burned in his throat.
“Aye, Lámh Shábhála,” Torin agreed. “Which you should have had, eh?” That was accompanied by a sharp look of rebuke. Doyle pressed his lips together. He could feel a burning rising from his stomach to his chest. “And now we must wonder where will it go? Who is this Bán Cailleach who holds it and what is her alliance? Those are questions we must have answered, and quickly. Did you call back the Order’s mages from the Finger, as I asked?”
“I did,” Doyle told him, “but Rí Mac Baoill was incensed at the action, especially when several of the other Tuatha’s troops went with them. I received a rather harsh message from him, especially after I gave him orders to advance his troops into the Finger anyway.”
Torin frowned as though he’d eaten something disagreeable. “You did what? You were to wait until I came here to make any decision on the Finger.” The acid burned all the way to the back of Doyle’s throat. He touched the Ard’s torc. Torin saw the gesture and shook his head. “Don’t say it,” he told Doyle. “You’re Ard because I made you Ard, and for no other reason. You’re still subject to me.”
Doyle said it anyway. He couldn’t hold the bile inside him; he was afraid it would kill him. “I obeyed you, Rí Mallaghan, and allowed my niece and her family to be killed. I obeyed you and I lost my wife’s affection and respect. I obeyed you and we still don’t have Lámh Shábhála—and that was not my fault. Well, I won’t let you make me become the Puppet Ard. I’ve sent message birds to Mac Baoill, telling him that the Fingerlanders must be put down or we’ll face Lámh Shábhála in the west and both the Fingerlanders and the Arruk in the east . . .”
Mallaghan’s face had gone the color of the sunrise. “You don’t know that.”
“You saw the Bán Cailleach, my Rí. Whoever she is, whatever she is, she has no allegiance to the Tuatha, which means we must consider her a potential enemy. And the Arruk are coming; I’ve read the messages the Thane of Céile Mhór has sent over the Tween since Owaine Geraghty left, asking for more troops and clochs to return. The Thane’s army aren’t able to hold the Arruk. You made me Rí Ard; now I’m doing what that position demands—no matter who put me on the Ard’s throne. Nothing more.”
Torin still glared. He moved closer to Doyle, so th
at he stood a finger’s distance from the younger man. “I don’t care if it’s the right thing to do. I made you Ard, aye. I made you Ard because that was the strategy that served me best, and here’s what I expect in return. I expect to be consulted in the future before you make decisions that affect all the Tuatha. If I suspect that you ever again failed to do that . . .” He hesitated. Doyle saw his eyes narrow slightly. “Then Banrion Edana might find that no air anywhere in the Tuatha suits her, and Padraic and the rest of your children may find that they have no sponsors or support among the Riocha. As for yourself . . . Ards can be disposed of when they become liabilities; it’s happened often enough in the past, eh? And rather recently, as well. We both know that, don’t we?” Mallaghan smiled then, cocking his head slightly to one side and brushing the torc around Doyle’s neck with a finger. “You understand me, don’t you, Doyle? After all these years together, I’d hate to think that we misunderstood each other’s place.”
