Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  The blue ghost smiled, and Ennis smiled with it. “No one can stand before Kurhv Kralj and Ennis Svarti,” he said as Cima translated. “No one. Kurhv Kralj will lead us to Cudak Zvati and the gift that Cudak holds for us.” The Arruk howled again with that, and the sound was so loud that it threatened to send Ennis reeling. The darkness threatened to close in around him again, and he took a step backward. Kurhv Kralj seemed to notice his injuries for the first time.

  “That needs to be removed, and the wound cleaned,” he said. “Cima will take you to the Mender. Then you’ll return here.” He pointed east and north. “We will follow the call of the Cudak Zvati, and none will be able to resist us.”

  They howled again, and Ennis shouted with them, his little-boy voice giving vent to all the pain and fright within himself that he dared not show.

  For several stripes of the candle later, the pain was nearly too much to bear, and Sevei screamed and wept with the agony that lashed her body. The scars burned like ropes of fire, pulsing with each beat of her heart; her eyes felt like glowing coals set in her skull. The vision of the temple she’d placed at her mam’s barrow hovered before her like a mirage. She’d taken herself to a deserted beach on Inish Thuaidh, far from any of the fastnesses of the clans and well away from the few fishing villages; away, too, from the demands that Kayne and the Fingerlanders might have put on her.

  There, she could be alone in her misery; there no one could see her weakness and she would not have to use Lámh Shábhála until the pain had subsided. If she had andúilleaf, she would have used it, quickly and gladly, and that frightened her more than anything, remembering the tales of Gram’s madness.

  “. . . no, my love, that’s not a path you should take,” Gram’s voice trembled at the thought. “Don’t make the mistakes I made. When you’re here, all the pain will be gone for you. I promise you that much . . .”

  The voices of the other ancient Holders screeched and chattered in her head like a flock of dark, angry crows and she couldn’t hold them back. They accused, they jeered, they suggested, they wailed with her. She tried to find her gram’s voice again, but she was submerged in the flood. It was Carrohkai Treemaster who came to her.

  “. . . this will pass, as Jenna told you. What you’re feeling is the burden of the Scrúdú, the price for knowing all of Lámh Shábhála, but it will pass. Accept the pain, listen to it, try to understand it . . .”

  The first night, when the mage-lights came, she tried to resist their call, but Lámh Shábhála was starved and fierce and she couldn’t stop herself from opening herself to the wild power that lashed the clouds. She screamed as the mage-lights filled her and the cloch, and she wondered if those who fed their own stones that night could hear the sound of the Bán Cailleach’s anguish. When it was over, she huddled on the rocks, twitching and wishing she were dead, wishing she could give up Lámh Shábhála.

  “. . . soon enough. Soon enough. For now, be strong. Accept the pain, listen to it. Let me show you . . .”

  In her fevered sight, Sevei thought she saw a Bunús Muintir: a young woman no older than herself, naked, her brown body covered with the same horrible scars. She crouched before Sevei. “I’m here,” she said, “and I’ll help you. I was able to bear this for a time; I know you can too. But you must do something for me, for my people . . .”

  “I love you,” Séarlait said, and grinned at the sound of the words coming from her throat and mouth. Kayne grinned back.

  “I wish the rest of the Fingerlanders felt the same. Maybe they’d stay, then,” he said.

  She hugged his arm to her. “They can’t have you. Not the way I can. But they do love you, Kayne, in their way. You led them to a victory over the Riocha. That’s not something any Fingerlander will forget lightly. Now you have to let them do what they need to do. They’ll return to you when you call again.”

  “Will they?”

  She nodded and pressed his arm again, silent. Even with her voice returned to her, Séarlait still preferred to communicate in gestures. They stood at the highest point of the Narrows, looking eastward down to the tangled, crumpled landscape of the Finger, wrapped in mystery and mist. A caravan of Fingerlanders was moving down the High Road. As they prepared to turn a corner in the torturous descent, the rider at the front turned and waved back up to the them: Laird O’Blathmhaic, returning to his clan-home. Rodhlann, at least, had gained permission from Banlaird MacCanna to remain at the Narrows, but there were too few of the Fingerlander troops with him for Kayne’s comfort. Séarlait and Kayne waved back to the laird, and the distant figure turned around a knob of heather-wrapped stone and was lost. Kayne heard Séarlait sigh and clutch at him more tightly.

  “Tiarna?”

  Kayne looked away from where the rest of the caravan was following O’Blathmhaic into the morning. “What is it, Harik?”

  “There are riders coming up the road from the west under the Ard’s banner. They’re also flying a peace banner.”

  “How soon until they get here?” Kayne asked the Hand.

  “At least two more stripes, and yet the Bán Cailleach’s not here,” he answered, sounding more angry than worried. “Have you heard from your sister yet?”

  Kayne shook his head. He was also worried at Sevei’s absence, expecting her to return with the mage-lights one of the last few nights. It had been three days now since she’d left for Dún Laoghaire. “No,” he told Harik, “but we all felt her in the mage-lights last night. She’s safe. If anything has changed, she would have told us. She doesn’t need to be here. We’re not her only worry.” Kayne realized he was repeating what Séarlait had told him the night before: “Your sister does what she must, and she gave you no promise to be here. You feel her, and she knows that tells you she’s safe . . .”

  Harik nodded without speaking. His eyes did not appear convinced.

  “Is that what you’re worried about, Harik?” Séarlait asked. “Or are you worried that the delegation will see how few soldiers we have here?”

  Harik’s gaze slipped grudgingly from Kayne to Séarlait. His stare was flat and noncommittal. “I wouldn’t be impressed to see the Narrows held by so few hands of men, most of them not even Fingerlanders. I’d wonder about any agreement I might have made with the Bán Cailleach.”

  “Then you’d make the same mistake that the Tuatha have always made,” Séarlait answered. “It’s the Finger itself that defends the clans. Not swords, not soldiers, but this very land.”

  Harik sniffed. It might have been the chill of the morning or the onset of a cold. He looked back at Kayne. “Perhaps, Tiarna, we should meet them at the Narrows itself, where a few men might look like many and there could be more hidden in the rocks.”

  Kayne forced down the annoyance he felt at Harik’s dis missive treatment of Séarlait: this wasn’t the time for a problem between himself and his Hand, but he told himself he’d remember this and other moments and deal with them afterward. “It’s more than the soldiers we have here, Harik. They’ll also see three Clochs Mór.” Kayne touched the stone at his chest, and Harik, unconsciously, mimicked the motion. “And they’ll remember what the Bán Cailleach did here, all alone, without any gardai at all. But your suggestion’s a good one; we’ll meet at the entrance to the Narrows. Have a tent set up there. We’ll ride there in half a stripe.”

  Harik nodded, bowing his head to Kayne though his eyes never went again to Séarlait. He turned and left, already calling out orders to the gardai and sending one of them for Rodhlann.

  Kayne could see that Séarlait watched Harik’s departure carefully, though she said nothing. “It’s not you,” he said, and Séarlait turned her head to him, raising a questioning eyebrow. “It’s not,” he insisted. “He’s céili giallnai, and sometimes the half-Riocha are worse than the Riocha themselves in the way they treat those of ‘lesser’ blood. It’s not you specifically; it would be anyone I loved who wasn’t Riocha or at least céili giallnai. He’s what we have to face in the Tuatha hands after hands after ha
nds of generations. Change frightens the most those who have the most to lose.”

  Séarlait shook her head. He thought she’d say nothing more than that, then she licked her lips. “Maybe,” she told him. “That sounds pretty, and maybe you’re right, but I think Harik simply doesn’t like me.” She leaned into Kayne again, hugging him to her as if holding him back from some precipice he couldn’t see. “And to tell the truth, Kayne, I’m not certain he likes you either.”

  The peace banner—a stylized red doe on a grass-green field—snapped as if angry to be bound to the pole of the tent. Kayne thought that perhaps it was. He held aside the flap of the tent to let Rodhlann, Harik, and Séarlait enter, then went inside himself.

  There were three people inside, already seated at a table clad in white linen. Around the table wine had been poured into silver mugs and sweetmeats arranged on pewter plates. Kayne recognized the pattern chased into the metal rims of the goblets and carved into the backs of the chairs: he’d seen it a thousand times at home in Dún Laoghaire. These were the Ard’s settings.

  He also recognized the two men and the woman who stood as they entered. The closest to them was Parin Mac Baoill of Tuath Airgialla, first cousin of Rí Morven Mac Baoill—“One-Eyed Parin,” who had lost an eye at Falcarragh and wore a patch over the empty socket. He also wore a torc of gold and silver around his neck, and Kayne realized with a start that it was the Rí Airgialla’s torc. Shay O Blaca of the Order of Gabair stood alongside Mac Baoill. The third person was, surprisingly to Kayne, Áine Martain, his mam’s Hand of the Heart. Where the other two were grim-faced and solemn, Áine was smiling broadly, obviously pleased to see Kayne. He greeted the Hand of the Heart first, not caring that he broke etiquette by ignoring the new Rí Mac Baoill and O Blaca. “Áine, it’s good to see you. I was worried, when I heard about Mam, that . . .”

  He saw the smile soften and fade on her face, and a shimmer of moisture glisten in her eyes. “That was a horrible day,” she agreed, but then the smile returned. “But Tiarna Kayne, if you knew what has happened since she died . . . She is more loved than ever, and the healings I’ve witnessed on Cnocareilig, and the crowds who pray to her . . .” Áine seemed to realize that she might be saying too much, glancing back at the stern faces of her two companions.

  Kayne smiled again at her, though his gaze went now to the others. “Welcome to Tuath Méar, the Finger,” he told them. O Blaca tightened his lips at that, and Parin Mac Baoill flushed visibly. “I see the torc of Airgialla around your neck, Tiarna Mac Baoill. I hope that’s an indication that Morven Mac Baoill has obeyed the Bán Cailleach.” He didn’t wait for the man’s answer but gestured to his companions. “You all know Harik, my da’s Hand and mine, and now the Holder of Bluefire. Rodhlann O Morchoe commands Tuath Méar’s army here in the Narrows. And this is Séarlait Geraghty—a Fingerlander, my wife, and the Holder of Winter. You remember Winter, don’t you, Parin? It used to adorn Mal Mac Baoill’s neck, until one of Séarlait’s arrows took him.”

  Séarlait had refused to take the bow and quiver from around her shoulders, despite the peace flag. “Let them see the arrows,” she’d told Kayne. “They know my fletching in Airgialla. Let them realize who I am.” Parin’s lips curled into a scowl under his single-eyed stare, and Shay O Blaca put a hand on the man’s arm.

  “We know the clochs you hold,” O Blaca said. “I know Harik well myself, and we’re pleased to meet the new Bantiarna Geraghty.” There was no pleasure in his expression and the word “Bantiarna” seemed to taste sour in his mouth. “But we also expected the Bán Cailleach . . . that is, your sister . . . to be here.”

  “Sevei was here, and told me she expects to return soon,” Kayne answered carefully. “Her presence, or lack of it, has no effect on what we say here.”

  “Indeed,” O Blaca answered. “She made her . . .” O Blaca paused, and Kayne could sense that he was choosing another word than the one he might have used. “. . . wishes quite clear in Dún Laoghaire. But we thought that she would be here for our negotiations. However . . .” He smiled at Kayne. “I’m sure we can discuss the situation without her.”

  “These aren’t negotiations,” Kayne answered curtly, and O Blaca’s tentative smile vanished like frost in sunlight as Mac Baoill hissed in irritation. Áine, standing behind them, grinned broadly at Kayne. “Either the Ríthe have done what we requested or you haven’t, and our response—my sister’s and mine—will depend on your answer. Which is it?”

  Parin and O Blaca exchanged glances once more, and the Rí nodded. O Blaca went to the rear of the tent and brought back a wooden box. He placed it on the table close to Kayne, then stepped back. Kayne lifted the lid. Inside, nestled in a bed of plush green velvet, was a silver torc chased in gold filigree. Kayne had last seen that torc around his mam’s neck. He reached out and stroked the cold metal with a forefinger, tracing the knotted patterns in the surface. “The torc of the Ard,” Mac Baoill said. “It will be yours, Tiarna Geraghty, as soon as you return with us to Dún Laoghaire and the Óenach has made the declaration official.”

  “Dún Laoghaire?” Séarlait said. “Why does Kayne need to go to Dún Laoghaire?”

  “Dún Laoghaire is the seat of the Ard, Bantiarna,” Mac Baoill answered. “All the Ards have been given their torc there, in Tuatha Halla during a proper Óenach with the Ríthe in attendance.” He smiled at Séarlait before turning his head to look at Kayne. “That’s why we’ve come: to accompany you back to Dún Laoghaire in a manner befitting an Ard. The Bantiarna may certainly come with us, and your Hand.”

  “And Tuath Méar’s gardai? Our troops?” Rodhlann asked. “The new Rí Ard should be accompanied by those he knows are loyal to him and will protect him on the road.”

  The eyebrow over Parin’s good eye sought to touch the fringe of curls on his forehead. “Our clochs and the gardai we have with us will be more than sufficient to protect us from brigands on the road, Commander O Morchoe,” he answered. “Certainly Tiarna Geraghty should bring any servants and aides that he needs. But the army of the Fing . . .” He grimaced. “. . . Tuath Méar should remain here.”

  “Oh, Rodhlann’s not worried about brigands,” Séarlait told Mac Baoill.

  “Someone who has the protection of the Bán Cailleach certainly would not be concerned with mere robbers,” Mac Baoill answered blandly. “Nor would they need an army for protection.”

  “The Healer Ard will be watching over you as well,” Áine interjected. “She is now a Mionbandia in the favor of the Mother-Creator, and her protection will be over you, Tiarna Geraghty. The tuathánach are pleased that her son is the Rí Ard and her daughter the Bán Cailleach.”

  O Blaca frowned deeply at that, glancing back sharply at the Hand of the Heart. Kayne found that pleasing. So the Riocha are worried that Mam is as much a factor dead as she was alive. Good . . .

  Kayne stroked the surface of the Ard’s torc again, remembering how it looked around his mam’s neck. He could feel Mac Baoill and O Blaca watching the gesture. Mac Baoill reached forward and slowly pushed the lid closed again as Kayne withdrew his hand. “You will have the torc in Dún Laoghaire,” he said, “after the Ríthe have done what they must do.”

  “No,” Séarlait said. “I don’t trust them, Kayne. You can be named Ard here as easily as there, and with those around you who would lay down their lives for you.”

  “Fingerlanders are too suspicious,” Parin said.

  “And if we are, who has made us that way, Rí Mac Baoill?” Séarlait retorted. “The Tuatha, especially Tuath Airgialla, have taught us that to be wary is the best way to stay alive.”

  “We get nowhere with this argument,” O Blaca interrupted. “Rí Mac Baoill, I think we can both understand the Bantiarna’s worry. And for your part, Bantiarna, you must know how difficult this has been for the Ríthe. Rí Morven Mac Baoill has exiled himself. Doyle Mac Ard has joined him, giving up the torc of the Ard. The Ríthe have agreed to name your husband as Rí Ard, and to grant seats in Tuatha Halla to
both Rí MacEagan of Inish Thuaidh and whomever Tuath Méar names as Rí. The Óenach has given the Bán Cailleach all that she asked for, and those were difficult and hard decisions.” O Blaca stared directly at Kayne, holding his gaze. “The new Ard will have even harder decisions to make in the future. We’ll need to work together from now on, Tiarna. It’s time—it’s well past time—that we learned to trust each other.”

  Kayne felt Séarlait come alongside him. Her hand grasped his arm, tightening around it, but she was silent. Kayne held O Blaca’s gaze for a long breath, and finally nodded. “You’re right, Máister O Blaca. It is time. We’ll ride with you: Séarlait, Harik, and I. Rodhlann will remain here with the troops. We only need a stripe or two to prepare.”

  O Blaca relaxed visibly. For the first time, a smile came to his face. “I’m pleased to hear that, Tiarna,” he said. “We’ll coordinate with your Hand, then. Harik, if you’ll remain with us . . .”

  Outside, as they walked back to their own tent, Séarlait’s silence seemed deafening to Kayne. “What is it?” he asked her finally.

  He thought that she wasn’t going to answer, but her shoulder lifted with a heavy sigh and she turned as she raised the flap of the tent. “If you don’t consider my advice worth listening to, then why did you bind yourself to me? Or is it just that you preferred me when I couldn’t speak to you?”

  “You don’t understand, Séarlait,” he began, then realized as her eyes narrowed that he’d said the wrong thing entirely. He shook his head as if he could shed the words like rainwater clinging to his hair. “I love you. You know that—or you should. I value your advice, but sometimes . . .” He reached out to stroke her cheek, but the way she glared at his hand made him stop before his fingers reached her. “Sometimes we can’t do as we might want to,” he finished. “Or even necessarily what we think is best.”