Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (12 page)

Out in the surf, she saw a seal’s head, moving outward to where the rest of the blue seals waited.

She shivered with the cold.

T
HE Waking Bells tolled ominously: the high-pitched small bells chattering while the low droner tolled once for every five strokes of the others, so low and powerful that it was more a presence transmitted through the stone and wood rather than heard. Meriel cracked an eye open, unwilling to believe that it was already morning, but the room was grudgingly visible in the wan light of a rain-drenched dawn. Meriel groaned while the bells continued their clamor, and she heard Faoil awake and puttering about in the adjoining common room.

Faoil stared at Meriel strangely as she blinkingly stumbled into their shared parlor. “You look a mess,” she said. “Your hair’s all tangled and it looks a bit damp, too. Do you have a fever?” Faoil started to reach out to touch Meriel’s forehead, but Muriel drew away from the girl’s ministrations.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I . . . didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. I was tossing and turning. Nightmares.”

“My mam always said you get nightmares whenever a ghost touches you while you sleep.” Faoil went to the fire and pulled away the crane. She took an iron pot from the hook, folding her clóca around her hand to protect it from the heat. “Considering how old and haunted this place is, it’s a wonder we have any good dreams at all. I’ve made tea—would you like some?”

Meriel nodded. Faoil continued to talk while she prepared the tea; Meriel sank down into one of the chairs. Last night: the memory of it seemed so impossibly far away, so improbable. But she touched her hair, and it was damp around her forehead and at the base of her skull, and the curled strands were stiff with salt. When she brought her hand to her face to rub at her eyes, the scent of brine clung to the flesh.

It was real. You swam with the Saimhóir
....

The realization made her draw breath in sharply, caused the light in the room to seem to shift. In that moment, she realized that her life had been altered, irrevocably and unutterably, in some new direction. This was nothing she could tell Lucan—in fact, she wasn’t sure that she would ever tell Lucan anything again. This was nothing she could mention to Faoil or Thady or Máister Kirwan or anyone else here. The only person who might understand, who might be able to give her guidance, was her mam . . . and that wasn’t possible either. She’d learned long ago that her mam was not the kind of person to whom a child could run when she needed comforting.

Whatever fate had touched her, it was one she would have to face alone.

“Here . . .” Faoil handed her a steaming mug, fragrant with mint and honey. Meriel started, then reached out to take the mug, cupping her hands around the warm glaze.

“Thanks.”

Faoil sat down on the chair across from Meriel. “So . . . are you going to tell me?”

Meriel sipped the tea to cover her discomfiture; the brew scalded the roof of her mouth. “Tell you what?”

“Something’s happened. I can tell. Is it Thady, maybe, or did this Lucan of yours finally write you another letter? Oh, I know,” she said too brightly. “You’ve finally fallen for Bráither Geraghty!” Faoil grinned at her own jest, and Meriel tried to smile in return.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, as casually as she could, and Faoil arched an eyebrow.

“All right, then, keep your secrets, Meriel MacEagan, but I can tell that something’s changed with you. Look at the way the color’s rising in your neck, and you look as if you didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Nothing’s changed, Faoil.”
And if it had, I certainly wouldn’t be telling you.
Perhaps it was the residue of her mam’s suspicion, but Meriel had rebuffed Faoil’s occasional attempts to be a friend. She was just the person with whom Meriel shared a room. In fact, Faoil’s insistence on continuing to make the attempt at friendship hardened Meriel’s skepticism.
“I see one of those strings leading here, very close to you
. . .” That’s what Dhegli had said, and no one here was physically closer to her than Faoil. Meriel shook her head firmly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine,” Faoil answered, a touch of irritation coloring her tone. “Then keep your secrets to yourself.”

“I don’t have secrets.”

“
Everyone
has secrets, Meriel. Everyone.” Faoil took a long drink of her tea, looking away from Meriel to the hearth. “Everyone,” she said again, the word nearly a whisper.

The rest of the morning went no better. Meriel’s morning duty was to peel breadroot tubers for breakfast. By the time the sun was fully up and the kitchen’s fires blazing, the Bráthairs and Siúrs seated at their tables along with the fifth- and sixth-year acolytes and the servers taking the plates out, Meriel was already exhausted. She picked at her own breakfast, helped the other first-years clear the tables, and stumbled along the hallways with the others as the First Bell rang. She slumped into her chair at her desk with a sigh, propping her head on her hand.

It was difficult to concentrate on Siúr Meagher’s lecture on the Lay of Caenneth Mac Noll and the North Dragon, and the deeper meaning within the text. Meriel’s thoughts were more of the sea and the caress of water on dark fur. Somehow, the White Keep and the Order and Inishfeirm, her mam and Dún Kiil and Lucan, all the politics and intrigues and power struggles—they all seemed to have dissolved in one night, washed away in her exhilarating alteration. For the first time, she wondered whether her mam might not be right, that there was a power within her that she hadn’t suspected, a power that would shape her life into some new and uncertain form.

She wanted to go back to the beach now. She wanted to strip off this life and plunge into this new ocean. She wanted to hear Dhegli’s strange, low voice in her head... and that made her think of the Saimhóir in his human form, and that . . . well, that made her feel strangely uncomfortable and conjured up unsettling, disturbing images. The sea welled up inside her, pulsing and pounding, the tide rising and swelling, the taste of it in her throat . . .

“. . . and what is
your
opinion, Meriel?” Meriel came back to the present with a start and the muffled laughter of her classmates. Siúr Meagher was standing beside her desk, frowning down at her. Her spidery fingers, thick-knuckled with arthritis, stroked the clochmion hung around her neck.

“I’m sorry, Siúr. I... I wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s vastly apparent. Is there a reason?”

“I’m ... not feeling well, Siúr.”

Brown eyes regarded her down the length of a long, thin nose. Those eyes did not seem convinced, but Siúr Meagher nodded. She let go of the clochmion around her neck and rubbed at her fingers as if they pained her. “Then perhaps you should see Siúr Khennhi in the apothecary. Perhaps one of her tonics might enhance your ability to concentrate.”

Meriel grimaced; she hadn’t yet experienced any of Siúr Khennhi’s tonics, but she’d heard of them. Siur Khennhi looked to be half Bunús Muintir, with a wide flat face, grizzled thick eyebrows, and an encyclopedic knowledge of herb craft. The apothecary always smelled of strange herbs and odd potions. Meriel started to protest, but Siúr Meagher was already pointing toward the door. “We’ll leave it to Siúr Khennhi to decide what’s best for you,” she said, “since it seems not even a dragon can hold your attention today. I’ll let Máister Kirwan know of your condition.”

Wonderful,
Meriel thought.
And Máister Kirwan will tell my mam . . .

She heard Siúr Meagher’s voice resuming the lecture as she padded down the cold hallway toward the apothecary. Turning a corner, she nearly ran into Bráthair Geraghty, carrying an armful of scrolls. “I’m sorry, Bráthair,” she said. Owaine smiled at her. All she could think of was the memory of him standing in front of her door last night.

“Don’t worry about it, Bantiarna. Happens all the time—I’m not the best at seeing what’s in front of me.” Then he frowned. “Why aren’t you in class? You look tired . . .”

“I’m not feeling well. Siúr Meagher told me to see Siúr Khennhi.”

Scrolls rustled dryly in his arms. He squinted. “Do you know where the apothecary is? I could walk with you—”

“I know where it is, Bráthair,” she answered hurriedly.

He stared at her, eyes narrowed. “Of course you do,” he said. His arms tightened around the scrolls. “I hope you feel better, then.” He blinked. “You didn’t sleep well last night? I didn’t either; the seals were making such a racket at the bottom of the cliffs.” He paused expectantly and seemed to be waiting for her to comment.

“Really? I didn’t hear them.”

He shrugged, looking at the wall of the corridor rather than her. “I hear them. I listen for them. I’ve always loved them, especially the blues. I thought you might, too, especially since your mam . . .” He stopped; he looked at her and his face went red, and he quickly glanced away again. “I was just a child when I saw her, coming out of the ocean with them.”

“You
saw
her?” Meriel asked, interested despite herself.

“Aye,” he answered. “I was four or five. I was on the beach and the first to find her after her swim from Thall Coill after the Scrúdú. My mam took her to Máister Cléurach, who was still alive then and afterward we heard about Dun Kiil and the great battle there. When I was thirteen, one of the Bráthairs came to our house from the keep and told my parents that the Banrion had requested I be sent to the Order. When I passed the mage-test, your mam sent me this . . .” Juggling the scrolls, he showed her the clochmion on its chain.

“What does it do?” Meriel asked.

Bráthair Geraghty shrugged. “Very little, like most clochmions. I can find things with it. Lost things.” He shrugged. “Bráthair Maitias thinks that’s a great skill for a librarian, to be able to find even the most hidden of the scrolls in the library.” His eyes widened suddenly, as if startled. “Oh, please don’t think that I’m not grateful to your mam for the gift. Why, so many of the cloudmages don’t have any cloch at all, only the slow magics. I’m very pleased and humbled that she would give me this.”

“I’m sure you are, Bráthair.” He seemed so harmless, almost laughably so, and yet last night . . . She remembered him, standing just outside her door, where he shouldn’t have been. And he was
always
around her. . . .
those strings leading here, very close to you
. . . “I need to get to Siúr Khennhi,” Meriel said.

He nodded, squinting toward her again. “Aye, you do. I didn’t mean to keep you . . .” He stepped out of the way, and she hurried past him. She could feel his gaze on her as she walked quickly away, and she knew if she looked back, he’d still be standing there, watching.

Thady MacCoughlin came up to Meriel as she sat down next to Faoil at supper. Faoil openly snickered as he approached, and she heard whispers from the others, especially those who were Riocha. Thady must have heard them as well, but he pretended not to notice. “I heard you were sick, Meriel,” he said.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” she answered. “I’m better now. Siúr Khennhi gave me some herbs.”

“Did they taste like ash and dirt?” Thady asked, and Meriel grimaced at the memory of the cloying, thick paste that Siúr Khennhi had made her eat. Thady laughed at her expression. “I know; I’ve had a taste or two myself over the last few years. They say that once Máister Kirwan was walking by the apothecary with a pot of new flowers for the garden, and the flowers wilted just from the smell in the hallway.”

Faoil sniffed disdainfully. Thady didn’t look at any of the acolytes with Meriel; he watched only her. His eyes were hazel, and strands of long, light brown hair slid over the side of his face as he leaned down across the table from her. “Well . . . get yourself better,” he said. “Remember that little jaunt I suggested a while ago? I’d still like to try it, if you’re willing.”

Meriel felt conspicuous, as if the attention of everyone in the room was on her. She glanced over at the mages’ tables: Máister Kirwan was looking her way, as was Siúr Meagher and, aye, Bráthair Geraghty. The other mages though were talking among themselves, and Máister Kirwan turned to one of them, as if he were answering a question. “Meriel?” Thady asked. “Did you hear me?”

“Leave her alone, Thady,” Faoil told him. “You think the Banrion’s daughter is interested in a ‘jaunt’ with you and your lowborn friends?”

He ignored Faoil, and Meriel felt a flash of irritation at Faoil’s interference. “I have to think about it,” she told him.

“Good,” he said. “That’s not a ‘no.’ ” He smiled again, tapped the table with his fingers, and walked over to his friends, already enmeshed in another conversation. Meriel stared down at her plate.

Under the table, Faoil nudged her with a knee. “What?” Meriel asked.

“Nice of Thady to care so much about your health,” Faoil said. “And nice of you to even notice him. His father has a bit of Riocha in him, but the man makes his money from keeping sheep. He’s really no better than a shepherd. I’ll bet you can smell the dirty wool on him. Just like you can smell the fish on Bráthair Geraghty.”