Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (13 page)

“I don’t care. Thady’s helped me a few times. He’s a friend.”

A nod. A grin. “Or is he something else? I’ll admit he’s handsome enough. He could almost make you forget the sheep. Or someone else.”

Meriel closed her mouth on the reply she wanted to make.
Actually, I find Thady very attractive and nice. I like him well enough and my own great-mam herded sheep and so did my mam when she was our age. For that matter, I’d hardly worry about sheep since last night I swam with a seal who could turn into a man, and I found him handsome, too. . . .

None of that was anything she could say to Faoil.

“How many letters have you received from your Lucan?” Faoil asked.

“You know the answer as well as I do,” Meriel answered. There’d been only the one letter, long days ago now. “But a dozen things can delay a letter.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Faoil agreed, though her eyes were laughing. “Answer one thing for me. Are you going to write to your Lucan tonight?”

Meriel glanced over to where Thady was sitting, talking with the other third-years. And she heard, in her mind, the sound of seals. “No,” she told Faoil. “I don’t think I am.”

In the moonlight, she pulled the clothes from her body and draped them over a rock a few steps from the high tide line. Naked, she stepped toward the first onrushing wave, ducked her head, and dove into black water, feeling the delicious changes ripple through her body . . .

“May the currents bring you fish, Meriel.”
The words came with the touch of warm fur as Dhegli’s body wriggled over and around hers in the water. The touch was delicious and more sensual than Meriel remembered, and it awakened a strange desire and yearning within her. The intimacy was too much for her and she swam away from him. He pursued, faster and more agile than she, but he let her stay ahead, occasionally nipping at her flukes as the sound of his laughter rippled through the water. She laughed with him, enjoying the luxuriant false chase, the sense of freedom that came with swimming this way, the heightened senses that flooded her.
“This way . . .”
Dhegli circled around her, then dashed off. She followed, and the sea bottom rose to meet them, until they hauled out on the sandy half-moon of beach near the foot of the keep trail. Dhegli was beside her, his black, pupil-less eyes staring at her . . . . . . and though the pupils remained that strange utter black, they were no longer the bulbous eyes of a seal but human orbs set below the ridge of brow, his sable hair matted over his forehead. And she was no longer a seal either, but herself again and lying on her back in the sand, and Dhegli’s face was very close to hers.

The kiss, when it came, was very soft and very tender, and his lips tasted of salt. He drew back, finally, looking down at her solemnly. His hand cupped the side of her face.
“I shouldn’t have . . .”
she heard his voice say in her head, though his lips remained still and slightly parted.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “It was what I wanted, too.” She knew, as she thought the words, that they were true: despite all reason, despite logic, despite the fact that she knew him not at all, despite the unalterable fact that he was Saimhóir and she Daoine. It didn’t matter in that moment. She reached up to draw him back down to her, but he resisted, instead kissing the palm of her hand.

“Later,”
he said.
“There will be time later.”
He looked down the length of her body and she could feel the touch of his arousal. “If that’s what we both want.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked him, confused by the twin pulls of his desire and restraint as he smiled sadly.

“What life can we have, Meriel?” he asked. “We meet here between our two elements, you the stones and me the sea, but neither one of us can truly live as the other. Even if we could, Saimhóir lives are shorter than stone-walker lives. What would we have together—a dozen journeys to Winter Home? You wouldn’t give up the stones for me, even if you could, and I wouldn’t give up the water. We have our fates, Meriel, and they aren’t—they can’t be—together.”

Meriel blinked away salt. “Then why . . .” she began, and he pressed her hand against his face and shook his head.

“Who can know the WaterMother’s whims?” he said. He kissed her hand again, and started to pull away, but she caught him and pulled him toward her, and this time he didn’t resist. They kissed again, longer this time, as she pressed him to her, as his hands moved along her body. This was not like the times she’d been with Lucan. Her blood roared in her ears, her breath burned.

“We can be together here, in between our worlds,” she whispered to him. “For this little time.”

“Aye, we can,” he told her, as softly. “But not this night.” He lifted himself from her and for the first time she was cold, the wind raising goose bumps on her skin. His hand touched her foot as she rose up on her elbows. “Come swim with me some more,” he said. “We’ll catch the sweetfish . . .”

They swam. They caught the sweetfish, and Meriel swallowed them, tasting their delicious flesh, and when she was exhausted and the night well on its way to morning, she returned to the beach, dressed, and walked back up the steep path to the White Keep, while below the seals sang of the sea.

I
T SIMPLY wouldn’t do for the Rí Ard of Talamh an Ghlas to receive a delegate from the Concordance of Céile Mhór from his bed. Instead, the initial meeting took place in the Great Hall, with Rí Ard O Liathain sitting on the throne that had been occupied by Daoine Ríthe since the time of Crenel Dahgnon, a thousand years before. In truth, it wasn’t the same seat on which Dahgnon had reclined; it was far newer than that, having been rebuilt several times over the long years, though pieces of that most ancient seat of power had always been incorporated into its structure. And in truth, the Rí Ard was able to remain sitting mostly because he was tied firmly to the back of the throne under his clóca.

In both cases, appearances were maintained and that was the most important thing.

The curious among the Riocha of Dún Laoghaire had crowded into the Great Hall as word spread of the delegate’s arrival. Though none of the Ríthe of the Seven Tuatha were in Dun Laoghaire, their representatives were and those privileged Riocha were arrayed to the Rí Ard’s right alongside Enean, who fidgeted restlessly in his chair with MacCamore standing behind him and whispering gentle encouragement. Noticeably, Tiarna Labhrás O Riain sat near to Enean also. Doyle wondered at that: Labhrás Ó Riain was no friend of Doyle’s or to any of the young Riocha who were part of the Order of Gabair. Ó Riain was the protégé of the established Riocha of ancient lineage, arrogant and middle-aged, though he was held in high esteem by the Ríthe of Connachta, Airgialla, and Éoganacht. Doyle had wondered, once or twice over the years, if his half sister had not been responsible for the attack that had killed the Banrion O Liathain and addled poor Enean, whether Ó Riain might not have been among those responsible.

Ó Riain was also the Holder of Wolfen, one of the Clochs Mór. His lineage was impeccable: Peria Ó Riain, Holder of Lámh Shábhála, had been a distant ancestor; another of his ancestors had been Rí of Tuath Airgialla; his cousin was Rí there still. Labhrás had made it clear that he considered Doyle little more than a tuathánach: a commoner, a bastard and half-breed who had no right to be holding a Cloch Mór, an upstart whose betrothal to Edana was a ludicrous mockery.

Doyle knew that if his own ambitions were ever to be realized, it would be Ó Riain who would be standing in his way.

Doyle himself sat at the Rí Ard’s left, next to Edana. Because their engagement was public knowledge, Doyle and Edana held hands and smiled at one another as the Hall Máister approached to announce the delegate. They both knew their roles, but the affection between them was no lie: Doyle would have asked the Rí Ard for permission to court his daughter even if Nevan hadn’t pushed them together. The Hall Máister approached the throne, struck the shaft of his spear twice upon the flags, and bowed. “The Toscaire Concordai, Ulán Rhusvak, most excellent emissary from his august majesty, Aeric the Third, Thane of the Concordance of Céile Mhór, requests an audience of the Rí Ard.”

“I wonder if this Toscaire is as tall as his title is long?” Edana whispered to Doyle as the Rí Ard waved a tired hand in acceptance and the Hall Máister strode back down to the tall doors of the Great Hall to usher the man into the room. Ulán Rhusvak was nearly as impressive as his introduction. He
was
tall, half a head taller than Doyle and dressed in the fashion of Céile Mhór: high leather boots; loose pants of brown cloth decorated with bits of shell and bone; an elaborately embroidered linen undertunic. Over his head and cascading down his shoulders and back was the hide of a bear, the skull and upper jaw still intact and placed atop the man’s head, so he looked out at the assembled Riocha through a screen of yellow-white incisors. A necklace of claws adorned his throat; at his waist a wide leather belt held twin, long daggers with pommels of carved whalebone. His arms were bare and muscular, and on the sun-browned skin, Doyle could see the marks of battle scars.

Behind the Toscaire came four attendants, dressed similarly though without the skins; between them, they bore a long box which, from the look of strain on their faces, was heavier than it appeared.

Rhusvak strode up to the dais of the Rí Ard and bent one knee, his head down so that the black stone eyes of the bear seemed to regard them all. “Rí Ard O Liathain, your cousin Thane Aerie MagWolfagdh bids you good health and prosperity. I bring you his words.”

“I would like to hear them,” O Liathain answered, his voice weak but audible. “You may rise, Toscaire Rhusvak. Please accept the hospitality of the Tuatha.”

“Thank you, Rí Ard.” Rhusvak bowed his head again, then stood. Under the bear’s jaw, Doyle could see the shadowed face, as tracked with white scars as the arms. “The Thane will be pleased to know that you’re well.”

O Liathain almost seemed to smile at that; at Doyle’s side, Edana smothered a chuckle, though the faces of the other tiarna remained stolidly expressionless. Edana answered for her da. “I’m sure he’ll also be pleased to know his Toscaire has the gift of flattery,” Edana said. “I’m also certain that Thane Aeric didn’t send you here to see if the Rí Ard was still among the living. Why
have
you come to Dún Laoghaire, Toscaire Rhusvak?”

There was silence in the hall at the temerity of someone speaking before the Rí Ard could reply. Then the Rí Ard chuckled, and after a moment, the rest of the Riocha followed suit, seeing that the Rí Ard took no offense at Edana’s interruption. Doyle, throughout his youth, had experienced the interminable, gratingly polite back-and-forth of diplomacy. Edana had known that the conversation should have dragged on for a candle stripe or more yet before the real subject of the meeting was finally broached, and she could also see the drawn weariness in the Rí Ard’s face and the way he sagged against the hidden bonds holding him upright.

He squeezed her hand; she returned the pressure.

Rhusvak regarded the Rí Ard silently for a moment, then gestured to his attendants. They brought the box forward and set it down alongside the Toscaire. “I apologize for this, Rí Ard, but it is easier to show you than to tell you,” he said.

He nodded to the others, who opened the seals and immediately turned the box on its side. As Doyle, Edana, and the rest of the onlookers rose to their feet in horror and shock, as Enean’s voice rose in an audible childish shriek, a body tumbled out onto the flagstones, a massive scythelike weapon clattering loudly to the ground alongside it. A foul stench filled the hall. Only the Rí Ard, bound to his throne, remained seated.

Whatever it was, it was not a Daoine or any creature that Doyle had even seen. The thing was clothed only in a filthy cloth around its hips, bloodstained and torn, with what seemed to be a crest or insignia at the right hip. The creature’s thighs were huge and muscular, the massive, platelike joints articulating backward, powerful lower limbs ending in long, clawed feet. The upper body was rippled with corded muscle; the arms too long, the four-fingered hands as large as dinner plates, looking easily capable of handling the oversized pole arm beside it. The skin was a mottled pattern of yellow and brown, finely scaled like that of a snake. The face was snouted, with large eyes set close together at the juncture of a nasal ridge, a small mouth set underneath. A thick bony crest extended from the crown down to where the spine met the neck; to either side of the neck were large, tympanic ears, the soft flesh there an oval of bright orange.

Doyle tried to imagine the thing standing; it would have towered over any of them, looming like a creature from a nightmare. The Tiarna around him were all shouting and gesturing, some with hands reaching for weapons that—following the etiquette of the Great Hall and the Rí Ard’s presence—were missing. Doyle’s hand, though, like a few others, had gone not for iron but for stone; he closed his right hand around the Cloch Mór he held, ready to open it and release the mage-dragon at need.