Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3)

by S L Farrell

  The people of Talthma, the Daoine city closest to the Uhmaci Wall, say that as the Brightness died, they heard a loud voice speaking to the Arruk in their own tongue. Though many in later years claimed to know what the voice said, the truth is that their tales all contradict one another.

  What the Brightness said, only the Arruk know.

  Cima woke from the intense cold of the passage in a tor por, his body so frigid that he found it difficult to move his joints. A flat-faced bluntclaw watched him silently, leaning on a wooden staff. Cima forced his reluctant knees to bend and rise from where he knelt. Cima was clutching Ennis Svarti’s spell-stick in his left hand, with the symbols of the Kralj’s Svarti carved into its oaken surfaces, though he didn’t remember picking up the spell-stick. His right hand was still fisted around Treoraí’s Heart.

  “Where am I?” he asked the bluntclaw as his body warmed and movement returned, “Where is the White Beast? Where are my people?”

  He could still hear the whisper of the White Beast’s voice in his head, the whisper he’d heard in the darkness of the passage: “I give you this gift, Cima. I give it to you in the name of all the Aware. My gift to you, my gift to all . . .”

  “The White Beast is gone,” the bluntclaw answered. “She’s returned your people to their homes as she promised. But you, she’s taken another way. This—” the bluntclaw indicated the landscape with a sweeping wave of his hand, “—is Bethiochnead in Thall Coill. It is also what you would call Cudak Zvati.”

  Cima forced his neck to swivel, to look around. He was standing on a cliff top bordered by a gray, heavy sea. The shadowstar had already set, but there was still light in the sky. He could hear wind shrieking past his ears and the waves battering rocks far below, could sniff the brine and fish smell of the ocean. The verdant line of a forest curved inland nearby, though he and the bluntclaw stood in a grassy meadow. Near the cliff’s edge, as if it had rested there for centuries watching over this place, its body cracked and set at a strange angle in the ground . . .

  “Cudak . . .” Cima said. “That is Cudak, who called us.”

  “Perhaps,” the bluntclaw agreed. “Or perhaps it is the God of whom all the rest are shadows and echoes.” Cima said nothing. The bluntclaw leaned on his staff, resting his hands on the knobbed end and his chin on his hands. “I am Beryn,” he said. “I am the Protector of this place.”

  “I am Cima, and I am—” Cima stopped. “I don’t know what I am,” he finished finally. The bluntclaw showed his teeth at that in the way the Perakli did when they were amused. Cima walked over to the statue and placed his hands on the time-eroded stone. Even though the sun shone brightly here and he touched the flank of the carven god in full sunlight, the stone was so cold that he plucked his hand away in surprise.

  “What am I supposed do?” he asked Beryn.

  “Use the gift that the Bán Cailleach, the White Beast, gave you.”

  Cima glanced down to the gem that was still in his hand, the sky-stone that Ennis had called the Heart. “Will I be able to use this as Ennis Svarti did?”

  “Perhaps,” Beryn answered. “I don’t know. Only we Bunús Muintir and the Daoine, who are the same people, have been able to use the clochs na thintrí in the past. The other Aware have their own way to the power of the mage-lights: the Saimhóir through Bradán an Chumhacht or the dragons through the ordeal of mage-fire. You were called here to find the way for the Arruk. I suspect that you will also find a new path, but for now look at the Heart, Cima. Let yourself fall into it. The Heart will open a way for you.”

  Cima slowly lowered his gaze from Beryn to the stone. He wondered what the man was talking about it. Fall into it . . . ? The facets glimmered in the dying light, and in the gathering darkness above him, a wisp of Cudak’s Web curled, green and faint. He saw the light reflect in the stone, seemingly deep inside. His vision shifted; he was suddenly seeing not only with his own eyes, but with some other, different vision, and Treoraí’s Heart was bright, so bright . . .

  “Ah,” said a deep voice. It rumbled; it shook Cima’s body with its power. “So as Treorai once gave his Heart, it’s been given again. . . .” Cima looked away from the gem, startled. The clearing was no longer the same. Beryn was gone, the cliff ended many strides farther away, and the statue of Cudak . . .

  It was statue no longer. Instead, a great creature stood there, a winged body that held elements of a dozen beasts or more. It kneaded immense, clawed forepaws on the ground, tearing furrows of rich, black earth; its golden eyes as piercing as those of a hungry eagle as it stared at him. “Cudak,” Cima whispered. Involuntarily, he lifted his snout, exposing his throat.

  “Cudak . . .” the beast repeated, as if tasting the name in its mouth. “Aye, that is one of my names. So your kind have awakened again, and this time you’ve finally come to me. I’ve been calling, all this time . . .”

  “We heard your call,” Cima told the creature. “But only I have come. The White Beast—”

  “I know,” Cudak said. “She has chosen, and because of the path she took, this will not be the Age of the Daoine but the Age of all the Awakened. And you, Cima, you will go back to your people as the First.” The spell-stick quivered in Cima’s left hand as Cudak looked at it. “So that will be the way of your people. You will call the power from the mage-lights with your carved staffs, and yours will be the First Staff that opens the others. You will have but a few precious spell-sticks that will be capable of this, and your people will treasure them as the Daoine do their clochs.” The spell-stick was changing in Cima’s hand, no longer the dead brown of cut wood, but the pale yellow of a goldenwood sapling, as if it were a tree and he were the earth in which it grew and to which it was bound.

  “Is this what you want, Cima?” Cudak asked him. “Because you must know that holding the First Staff will be a burden like Lámh Shábhála was to the one you called the White Beast, or as Treoraí’s Heart was to Ennis. The First Staff will consume you. It will eventually kill you. Are you willing, or should your people remain half-awake until the next cycle?”

  The mage-lights brightened above them. Impossibly, it was full night already, with the stars above and the sweeping band of the Egg-Mother’s Milk dusting the zenith. The curls and eddies of the mage-lights snaked down, as Cima had seen them do with Ennis and Treoraí’s Heart, but they went not to Treoraí’s Heart but to the transformed spell-stick he carried. There they hesitated, as if waiting for him to speak. Cudak was staring at him; he could see nothing but the beast’s huge, patient eyes: eyes that now looked like Ennis’.

  “I’m willing, Cudak,” he said.

  The beast sighed; its wings cupped and swept cold air over him. Cima gasped as the mage-lights wrapped around and finally touched the wood, sliding past to envelop his arm to the elbow. The mage-lights were an exquisite blending of pain and pleasure: searing cold that burned their patterns into the scales of his skin, yet filling a hunger within him that he hadn’t known he possessed. He could feel . . . no, he was . . . the staff taking in the power within the mage-lights, soaking it into deep recesses and pockets within the wood. Cima shouted as the mage-lights brightened and deepened in color, forcing more and more of the sky-power into the staff. It seemed to be a few breaths; it seemed to be an eternity.

  And it was gone . . .

  It had all vanished: Cudak was only a gull-spotted, rain-streaked statue of smooth, black again, wingless and forlorn on the cliff edge in twilight, and Beryn was still leaning on his staff. But . . .

  Cima looked at his left hand, holding the spell-stick. His skin was marked as Ennis’ arm had been marked, the swirls and curlicues of the mage-lights burned in scars in his scales, and the stick was still like a living sapling, feeling as if it were part of him. He could feel the power caught within it, waiting for him to release it.

  “Use the First Staff,” Beryn told him. “Think of your people. Think of your home and it will take you there.”

  Home . . . It had been so long since he’d b
een there. He could recall it: the lakes, the forests, the villages with the Egg-mothers . . . Home . . . Something inside the First Staff stirred, and Cima took the rising power and touched it to his memories.

  He departed Cudak Zvati.

  When the Arruk was gone, Beryn sighed. He went to the statue of An Phionós and touched its flank with his hand, smiling at the feel of the frigid stone. Then he went to where the Arruk had stood. Bending down and holding onto his staff, he picked up a blood-red stone from the grass. He could feel the pull of it, the sudden attachment and bonding of his mind and the Heart.

  For the first time since the Daoine had come to Talamh An Ghlas, a Bunús Muintir held a cloch, and this one a true rival to Lámh Shábhála.

  “Thank you, Treoraí,” he said. “Thank you, Sevei. This is a gift like none other.”

  He clutched the stone in his hand. Turning his back, he left Bethiochnead and slipped quietly into the deep woods as the sky darkened and the Seanóir began to sing.

  Kayne stepped back from the entrance to the tomb. He nodded to the Draíodóiri with their incense and incantations, and the priests began a final chant as the attending gardai slowly rolled the closing stone over the mouth of the tomb. Kayne watched as the darkness enveloped the passage inside to hide the ashes and bones of his mam’s and Ennis’ bodies from sight once more.

  The great statue of the Healer Ard loomed over Kayne, her spread arms and gentle smile embracing all those who had gathered to see the interment of the Healer Ard’s youngest son. He touched the statue’s foot, feeling the disconcerting warmth of its flesh. There were over a thousand people there: the Riocha standing nearest Kayne, the céile giallnai next, and then the tuathánach in the plain, simple clothing—the ones, Kayne knew, who came to this place to pray, to talk with Mam as they might any of the Mionbandia, the demigods of the Mother-Creator. Most of Dún Laoghaire seemed to be here today.

  But except for Aunt Edana and Greada Kyle, none of the Ríthe were here. They waited elsewhere in the city, and they did not want to be seen.

  “This is where Ennis should be. It’s where he’d want to be,” Aunt Edana said alongside Kayne. Her hand brushed his hair gently. Greada Kyle clasped his shoulder. Kyle lifted his head; as he did so, his fingers brushed against the stone on his chest.

  “. . . You did well. I’m sorry, Kayne. Sorry I couldn’t listen to you, that I couldn’t save Ennis . . .”

  He grimaced. He hated the voices: Sevei, Gram, all the others going forever back in time. He hated knowing that he’d one day be one of them.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked Sevei.

  “What?” Greada Kyle asked, and Kayne realized he’d spoke aloud.

  “Nothing, Greada. I was just . . .” Kayne took a deep breath. The torc of the Ard was heavy around his neck, but Lámh Shábhála seemed heavier. He looked up at the statue of his mam. Except for the fact that she was ten men high, she looked alive, looked as if she might at any moment bend her head down to see him or go striding away from Cnocareilig. The Draíodóiri were still chanting, and the crowd of tuathánach around the tomb were chanting with them—a song he hadn’t heard before, a paean to the Healer Ard, a prayer asking for her favor.

  “Rest in the Mother’s arms,” he said to Ennis as the stone grated into place and gardai stepped back to their stations on either side of the tomb entrance. With Edana and his greada, he turned to face the crowd. They sang to him, sang to the tomb behind him. He wondered if they would ever love him as they’d loved his mam.

  “Come,” Edana told him. “The other Ríthe are already at Tuatha Halla. Tonight, they’ll acknowledge you as Rí Ard.”

  “Only because I hold Lámh Shábhála,” Kayne said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Only because they’re frightened. Only because they think it might keep me from slaying them for their betrayals and their cowardice.”

  “Not all of them,” she reminded him. “Not me.”

  “Nor me,” Kyle told him. “Nor Rí Rodhlann of Tuath Méar. You will be Ard over all the Tuatha, as it should be. You’ll be the Rí Ard and Holder, together, as perhaps it always should have been.”

  . . . Aye, he heard Gram say in his head, and Sevei also. . . . Aye . . . But the voice he’d most like to have heard was never there: Séarlait. That voice was gone forever. He would never hear her again and no power in Lámh Shábhála could change that.

  “Are you ready?” Edana asked him.

  “No,” Kayne answered. “But no one is ever ready.”

  He strode away from Cnocareilig into the night and the swelling chant, and the tuathánach parted to make way for him, their hands outstretched toward him. He heard their voices: “The Healer Ard’s son . . . Make way for the last of her family . . .”

  He touched them in return, and didn’t care if they saw his tears.

  APPENDICES

  CHARACTERS (in order of appearance):

  THE RULERS (Ríthe) OF THE TUATHA (as of Year 1169)

  PLACES

  FLORA & FAUNA

  DAOINE TERMS:

  BUNÚS MUINTIR TERMS:

  TAISTEAL TERMS:

  SAIMHÓIR TERMS:

  ARRUK TERMS:

  THE DAOINE CALENDAR:

  The Daoine calendar, like that of the Bunús Muintir, is primarily lunar-based. Their “day” is considered to start at sunset and conclude at sunrise. Each month consists of twenty-eight days; there is no further separation into weeks. Rather, the days are counted as being the “thirteenth day of Wideleaf” or the “twenty-first day of Capnut.”

  The months are named after various trees of the region, and are (in translation) Longroot, Silverbark, Wideleaf, Straightwood, Fallinglimb, Deereye, Brightflower, Redfruit, Conefir, Capnut, Stranglevine, Softwood, and Sweetsap.

  The solar year being slightly more than 365 days, to keep the months from recessing slowly through the seasons over the years, an annual two-fold adjustment is made. The first decision is whether there will be additional days added to Sweetsap; the second proclaims which phase of the moon will correspond to the first day of the month that year (the first day of the months during any given year may be considered to start at the new moon, quarter moon waxing, half moon waxing, three-quarter moon waxing, full moon, three-quarter moon waning, half-moon waning, or quarter moon waning). The proclamation is announced at the Festival of Ghéimri (see below) each year—any extra days are added immediately after Ghéimri and before the first day of Longroot. All this keeps the solar-based festivals and the lunar calendar roughly in line.

  This adjustment is traditionally made by the Draíodóiri of the Mother-Creator at the Sunstones Ring at Dún Laoghaire, but the Inish Thuaidh Draíodóiri generally use the Sunstones Ring near Dún Kiil to make their own adjustments, which do not always agree with that of Dún Laoghaire. Thus, the reckoning of days in Talamh an Ghlas and Inish Thuaidh is often slightly different.

  The year is considered to start on the first day of Longroot, immediately after the Festival of Ghéimri and any additional days that have been added to Sweetsap.

  There are four Great Festivals at the solstices and equinoxes.

  The following is a sample year with corresponding Gre gorian dates. However, bear in mind that this is only an approximation and will differ slightly each year.

  1st day of Longroot (New Year’s Day) = September 23

  1st day of Silverbark = October 21

  1st day of Wideleaf = November 18

  1st day of Straightwood = December 16

  Festival of Láfuacht :7th day of Straightwood (December 22)

  1st day of Fallinglimb = January 13

  1st day of Deereye = February 10

  1st day of Brightflower = March 10

  Festival of Fómhar: 11th day of Brightflower (March 20)

  1st day of Redfruit = April 7

  1st day of Conefir = May 5

  1st day of Capnut = June 2

  Festival of Méitha: 19th day of Capnut (June 20)

  1st day of Stranglevine =
June 30

  1st day of Softwood = July 28

  1st day of Sweetsap = August 25

  Festival of Gheimhri: 28th day of Sweetsap (September 21)

  MYTHOLOGICAL TALES:

  Each of the “aware” races of the world, of which there are several, have their own mythologies and gods, though there are intertwining connections and similarities between them all. Here are a few mythological tales concerning the beginning of things. These tales come from diverse racial sources: the Daoine, the Bunús Muintir, the Saimhóir, and the Créneach.

  The chronicling of all the various myths and tales would be an immense task indeed; those below are merely intended to give a sampling. As with all mythology, these are tales that have passed down for long ages back to dim beginnings, slowly changing and altering with each telling, but truths lie underneath them.

  The Daoine Creation Tale:

  The Mother-Creator had intercourse with the Sky-Father, and gave birth to a son. But their son was sickly and died, and she laid him down in the firmament, and his skeleton became the bones of the land. In time, the Mother-Creator overcame her grief and lay again with Sky-Father, and gave birth to Seed-Daughter.

  Seed-Daughter flourished and in time became as beautiful as her mother, and she attracted the attention of two offspring of the Sky-Father: Cloud, and his sister Rain. From that triple union came the plants living in the soil that covered her brother, the Earth. Seed-Daughter was also coveted by Darkness, and Darkness stole her away and took her in violence. The troubled and often violent relationship between Darkness and Seed-Daughter is told in many tales.