by S L Farrell
“. . . show them mercy, and they will kill you for it! I know . . .”
“. . . You’re too soft, too weak . . .”
“. . . No! Kill them! It’s the least they deserve for what they did to me . . .”
The voices of old Holders yammered in her head at that. Only her gram’s voice was louder, but also gentler. “I, too, would kill them, Sevei. But my choices weren’t always the best ones, I know now. Trust yourself, great-daughter . . .”
The uproar in the Halla matched that in her head, as Mac Baoill, Torin Mallaghan, and Allister Fearachan rose to their feet shouting. Only Doyle sat silently in his throne, his face ashen above the gold sheen of the Ard’s torc. Sevei opened Lámh Shábhála a little more and they all went silent, sitting back in their seats as if unseen hands had shoved them down. The voices still clamored in her head, but Sevei ignored them. “I haven’t finished,” Sevei told the Ríthe. “I will have my brother Kayne as the new Rí Ard.”
“Kayne?” Torin Mallaghan managed to croak out against the force that held him to his seat. “Not yourself?”
She gave him a smile rimed with frost. “Not me,” she said. “I have other tasks, and other fates—and I return to them now. I will give you a hand of days to give me your response.”
“You ask for nothing less than our total submission to you,” Torin Mallaghan said angrily.
She bowed mockingly toward him. “Aye, Rí Mallaghan. That’s exactly what I ask.”
“You can’t have it. You won’t have it.” Mallaghan said it without looking at the others, but Sevei could see the apprehension in their faces. Doyle slumped on his throne as if he were hearing nothing; Edana stared at Doyle with a surprisingly gentle look on her face. Mac Baoill was as defiant as Mallaghan, but the others watched Mallaghan with varying degrees of shock on their faces. Sevei shrugged.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Rí Mallaghan. If I must, I will make an example of one of the Ríthe. I would prefer not to have to do that, but since you volunteer . . .”
“. . . they won’t listen unless you show them . . .”
“. . . take Mallaghan now . . .”
Sevei couldn’t keep the voices down. She was tiring, and she was in terrible pain, and she could not stay here. The energy captured in Lámh Shábhála burned in her mind, yearning to break free of her. “But I don’t wish your answer now,” she told the Ríthe. “I’ll give you time. Talk among yourselves and send the Comhdáil Comhairle’s answer to the Narrows: to the new Tuath Méar, the Finger. But before you talk, I would urge you to remember this: I can destroy just as easily as I can create.”
With that, gratefully, Sevei opened Lámh Shábhála fully and let the power inside bear her away.
The news came to the Ríthe even before they left the Tuatha Halla. One of Doyle’s aides, a fosterling from the O’Murchadha family staying at Dún Laoghaire, peered nervously through the open archway of the Halla. They had all heard his quick footsteps, and the contentious argument that had engulfed all of them but the silent Doyle now subsided as they turned to him. The aide’s gaze went from Edana to Doyle but avoided the others, as if their glares could cut. Water dripped from his long hair onto the floor, and his clothing was sodden. “Rí Ard, Banrion, I don’t mean to interrupt, but on Cnocareilig . . . at the Healer Ard’s barrow . . .” He stopped at the sound of sucked-in breaths, as if the name had been an invocation, and his expression slid from nervous to puzzled. “I thought you should know . . .”
The feeling of slow dread that had consumed Doyle since Sevei’s appearance deepened. He stroked the Torc of the Ard as he had since the Bán Cailleach had recited her demands, feeling the cool smoothness of the gold. His own voice sounded like the croaking of a frog in the marsh. “Go on, Auliffe,” he told him. “Speak. What’s happened?”
The young man visibly swallowed. He pulled his clóca tight around him. “I was on my rounds, checking in with the gardai on duty at the keep gates. My back was to the grave-hill, but suddenly I could see my shadow on the keep walls. I turned: a brilliant light was playing over Cnocareilig—like the sun had burst through the rain clouds. Then it was gone, so quickly that the day seemed darker than before. I wasn’t certain what to do—whether I should wait or to send a few of the keep’s gardai to Cnocareilig to investigate. I’d summoned your Hand, and we were about to go ourselves when the first of the people came running back down the Cnocareilig road. We’d seen at least a double-hand of double-hands of supplicants walking up there in the morning, even with the rain. But that’s usual, ever since the Healer Ard’s statue—”
He stopped, and a hand came up to prowl the thin beard on his chin. Auliffe had been with Doyle when he’d received the news of the statue’s appearance and undoubtedly had just remembered the Ard’s reaction. The Ríthe were grumbling again, though Edana was staring at Auliffe with interest. Torin Mallaghan slapped the arm of his throne with an open hand, and Auliffe jumped. Doyle waved a weary hand at the young man. “Auliffe, please continue.”
Auliffe dropped his hand and shook beaded rain from the ends of his hair. “Well, it seemed at least half the supplicants were coming back down toward the city. Running, Rí Ard, as if all the ghosts that haunt Cnocareilig were chasing them, shouting and screaming, the mud of the road splattering under their feet. We thought they were frightened, but when they came closer, we realized what they were saying, and that they weren’t frightened but joyous.” He stopped again, and this time the Ríthe waited. “They were saying that the Healer Ard had appeared herself—in the sky as a bright, shining star—and that she had created a temple for herself on Cnocareilig. They were coming down to tell the others, the tuathánach of the city.” He paused. “The rain is just a drizzle now, my Ard. You . . . you can see yourself if you step out of the Halla.”
Edana was the first to move. She was out of her throne and striding past Auliffe before any of the rest of them had stirred. Torin Mallaghan glared at Auliffe as if the boy were personally responsible for the news, then followed, the other five Ríthe in his wake. Doyle took a long breath before pushing himself up from his throne. Doyle felt, suddenly, very old. He shuffled like some decrepit ancient across the sunken floor of the throne circle and past the central fire. Auliffe watched him, and Doyle patted the young man on the back as he came up to him. “Thank you, Auliffe. Don’t worry. You did what you should have done.” With another sigh, he left the throne circle and went outside.
The Ríthe had gathered in a cluster with all their gardai—waiting obediently outside in the weather—gathered behind. All of them were staring south: from the summit of Halla Hill, and to the left of the hill on which the twin keeps of the Rí Ard and Banrion Dún Laoghaire sat, to the steep, barren hillside past the Old Walls where the barrows of the ancient Ards rested. There, through the gray mist of the rain, Doyle could see a structure of pure white gleaming, with four towers dotting its ramparts.
He knew the architecture. He’d seen it before: it was a replica of the main section of the White Keep on Inishfeirm, home of the Order of Inishfeirm and where all three generations of the Aoires—Jenna, Meriel, and Sevei—had been educated in the ways of the cloudmages. I give you your last chance for hope, it said mutely. You must choose.
“ ‘I can destroy as easily as I can create.’ ” Edana breathed the quote for all of them.
“This is an outrage,” Torin Mallaghan was saying. “A mockery. It must be torn down.”
“Tear it down?” Edana repeated. She laughed. Her graying hair, uncovered by the cowl of her clóca, was frosted with the drizzle, and beads of water were on the torc of Dún Laoghaire around her neck. “And what would that accomplish, Rí Mallaghan, except to rouse the tuathánach who still love the Healer Ard? Do any of us have the power in our Cloch Mór to take down the building as quickly as the Bán Cailleach built it? How foolish would we look, destroying this temple to her mam stone by stone when she created it in a moment? I won’t allow it, Rí Mallaghan. This is my Tuath, not yours. I say the Bán Cail
leach has sent us a clear message, and I prefer it remains there so that we’re not tempted to forget.”
“What you forget, Banrion, is that the Rí Ard also dwells here, and he rules all the Tuatha,” Mallaghan retorted. “What say you, my Ard: do we let this insult to all Ríthe and Riocha remain standing?” Doyle didn’t move; he stared at the new keep on the hill: the temple to the Healer Ard. “Rí Ard?”
Doyle shivered at the call. He looked at Torin, at Edana. He knew what he should answer. He knew what he must answer, if he were not to make Torin Mallaghan an enemy rather than his ally. But the words wouldn’t come.
Edana pushed past them, going to her carriage. Gardai clad in the gray of Dún Laoghaire closed around her. “Where are you going, Banrion?” Mallaghan called out after her.
“To Cnocareilig and the White Temple,” she answered. She turned to look at them. “I’m not frightened of my people, or of the Healer Ard’s ghost, or of the Bán Cailleach,” she said. “But I understand why you would be.” She tilted her head toward Doyle. “Will you come with me, Husband?” she asked. She held out her hand.
To say “aye” would be the bravest thing he’d ever done, he knew. To take Edana’s hand now would be to repudiate all that he’d done over the decades: his lust to revenge his da’s death, his ambition to be Rí, his determination to hold Lámh Shábhála himself, all that he’d helped to create with the Order of Gabair. To take Edana’s hand now would be to declare that everything he’d done before—all the suffering, all the struggle, all the blood and pain and death—had somehow been wrong or misguided. To take Edana’s hand would be to turn his back on all that for the hope that the two of them might reconcile. To take Edana’s hand would be to slap the face of Rí Mallaghan and make him forever an enemy.
The wind, shifting, splattered rain on his face and he blinked into the spray. He touched again the torc of the Ard—the symbol of everything he’d managed to accomplish and all that remained to do.
He shook his head.
“No,” he told her.
PART FOUR
CONFRONTATION
44
The Battle of the Four Lakes
LIKE ANY CHILD, Ennis had heard the songs of wars and battles, sung by the bards and Songmasters who came to the courts of Dún Laoghaire. The lyrics of the songs wove fantastic landscapes of waving flags and bright swords, of bravery, of flashing clochs, of glorious deeds and triumph in the face of impossible odds.
Ennis had listened to his brothers Kayne and Ionhar talk about war in glowing, excited tones—Kayne especially, since he’d actually trained as a soldier and was going off to fight with Da in Céile Mhór, while Ionhar was less than a hand older than Ennis and was being sent to fosterage. Kayne’s vision of war seemed to match that of the Songmasters, but Ennis didn’t know for certain whether it was true since Kayne hadn’t yet been in battle.
He’d also spoken to Da, one night not long before he left for Céile Mhór. “Tell me about war, Da,” Ennis had said, his voice rushed with excitement and his eyes wide. “Were you ever in a battle like Sliabh Míchinniúint?”
A visiting bard had just that night given the court the Song of Máel Armagh, with its long, brilliant verses of Máel’s tragic defeat at the hands of the great Inish cloudmage Severii O’Coulghan. Ennis had listened spellbound, entranced both by the bard’s warm baritone and the exciting tale.
Da’s face had gone strangely sad and quiet at the request. “War is everything great and glorious, and everything horrible and awful, Ennis,” he’d said. “It’s everything that the Songmasters sing about, but it’s also everything that they leave out.” He wouldn’t give Ennis any of the details he so desperately wanted to hear. Instead, Da toyed with the pieces of the ficheall board set up near Ennis’ bed. “You know how to play, don’t you?” Da asked.
Ennis had nodded. “I’m good at it. Ionhar gets mad, because I know what piece he’s going to move before he does it, and so I put my pieces where they can’t get hurt.”
Da had laughed and tousled Ennis’ hand. “I’ll have to play you, then. Ennis, war is like a ficheall game: you maneuver your pieces until your opponent is forced to surrender.” A curiously pained look came over his face then. “The difference is that the pieces have wives and children and families. The pieces are your friends and your companions and people you talk to every day. Once they’re gone from the board, they’re gone forever. You can’t ever reset the pieces and play with them again.”
War didn’t appear to be as clean, as majestic, or as orderly as the Songmasters had made it seem, but Ennis did see the qualities of a game. Cima stayed with Ennis as the Arruk prepared to leave the city, and Ennis sat in his room with Gyl Svarti’s spell-stick across his tiny lap. He listened to the voice of Gyl Svarti inside, stealing into the creature’s memories to find the binding words that would seal magic in the spellstick to be released later at his command. Ennis was surprised at how simple it was, how the knowledge came to him, as if in slaying Gyl Svarti with Treoraí’s Heart, he’d taken the Svarti’s mind into his own.
Cima watched and listened, occasionally correcting Ennis’ pronunciation and twice supplying missing words, and nodding as if pleased with what he saw. Afterward, the spell-stick full of slow magic, Ennis gave the staff to Cima to hold for him. Cima nodded, hefting the length of wood in his hands. “How do you know the spell words? Were you going to be a Svarti, Cima?” Ennis asked.
The Arruk nodded, one hand sliding along the finger-polished wood of the spell-stick. It was a touch of familiarity. “I was a Svarti.”
“I’ll bet you were a good one,” Ennis said earnestly. Without the blue ghost, he found that he desperately wanted Cima’s approval. Cima only shrugged. “Tell me about that time. Tell me why you’re not a Svarti any more.”
A definite look of pain crossed Cima’s face with that, his underlids closing over his eyes and the colors of his scales fading. “Another time, Ennis Svarti,” he said. “Now we need to be ready for when . . .”
Cima’s voice trailed into silence, but Ennis knew what he’d been going to say. “When we meet my people, you mean?”
Cima nodded. “Kurhv Kralj knows that the bluntclaws have people watching. We’ll move slowly, so that the Perakli Kralj will know from his spies that we’re marching again. Kurhv Kralj has already told the Mairki that the Perakli think we’re little but animals, and so we should look and act like animals to them so he’ll bring his army out to stop us . . .” Cima shrugged then.
“What will happen?”
“Kurhv Kralj thinks it will be a great battle, and that this time we will send much of the Perakli army to their gods. Then we will follow you, Ennis Svarti. We will follow you all the way to Cudak Zvati.”
“Are you scared, Cima? I’m scared.” Ennis had his hand around Treoraí’s Heart, but that did little to comfort him. His mam’s voice was silent; if he heard anything, it was only the mocking advice of Isibéal or the cackling derision of Gyl Svarti or the lost wails of the others he’d killed.
What Cima did then was something his mam or da might have done. The Arruk stretched out his clawed hand and touched Ennis’ cheek. “You Perakli fear death too much. Whether we die or not doesn’t matter. But I’m afraid, too. I’m afraid that when Cudak weighs my third heart after I die, that He’ll find it too light, or perhaps he won’t find enough blood of my enemies on my jaka to send me back as an Arruk, and I’ll be returned as a sheep or goat for the true Arruk to feed on.” His hand dropped back to his side, and Cima smiled. “You’ll be fine, Ennis Svarti. I’m proud to carry your spell-stick for you. You will bring terror to the Perakli.”
Ennis watched Cima stroke the carved surface of the spell-stick. “How do you make a spell-stick?” he asked the Arruk. “If all you have to do is take a stick, there could be so many that everyone could have one.”
Cima gave a coughing bark of a laugh at that. “No, Ennis Svarti. First, there are years of training that are necessary before a Nesvarti or Svarti can le
arn to create a spell-stick. Also, the wood we use is from the goldenwood tree that is rare and grows only slowly; why, once the great Barak Svarti searched for a full two cycles to find just the right goldenwood. Even when you find a tree mature enough to make a spell-stick, it still takes nearly a full cycle for a Svarti or Nesvarti to create the carvings and prepare the staff. A wrong stroke of the knife or inattention to the chants, and he must start over. Even then it may not work, or the spell-stick may be flawed so that it holds only one or two spells or breaks the first time it’s used. If a Svarti or Nesvarti’s spell-stick is lost or broken, then until he makes another he can only use the chanted magics which take a long time to cast. Spell-sticks are rare and treasured.” Cima handed the spell-stick back to Ennis. “There’s another reason that the Svarti are frightened by you—no Svarti has ever been able to use another’s spell-stick. When a Svarti dies, so does his spell-stick. Yet you took Gyl Svarti’s from him and the spell-stick still lived.” Ennis set the staff to one side, letting it lean against the wall, seeing Cima’s eyes follow the motion. “I remember how I carved my own spell stick,” Cima said. “Let me tell you, so you’ll understand. I went high up on Forsaken Mountain, because that was where Barak had found his goldenwood . . .”
As Cima spoke, the blue ghosts swirled like a dim fog around Ennis and within them, in the dim distance, he saw himself seated on a stone throne holding a spell-stick in one hand and the Heart in the other. . . .
The Arruk force moved north from Torness as a wild mass, roughly clumped around each of the Mairki, who—like the Kralj as well as the chief Svarti—rode in bearer-borne litters. They moved north in several distinct groups, as if disorganized and independent of each other. They passed through a deserted landscape of farmland and pasture bejeweled with several large lakes, the cottages and small villages they passed empty as the inhabitants fled before them. The Arruk torched the houses as they passed, leaving behind them a trail of greasy smoke and ruin. The fields and the crops were trampled underneath; the sheep, goats, and cattle were slaughtered to feed the troops. At night they would camp, then move forward the next day before dawn—for three days, that was the routine. It was only when the mounted scouts sent out ahead of the main mass of the army came galloping back with word that the enemy had been sighted ahead of them, on a hill near one of the many lakes of the region, that Kurhv Kralj gave the orders to assemble in battle formation. The Mairki and their Svarti now abandoned their litters, though Kurhv Kralj (and thus Ennis) did not as yet.
