Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (19 page)

“Dhegli . . .”

A laugh. “Hush. I’ll be back as soon as I can and we’ll talk again. There are decisions we must make, you and I, together.” He pulled her to him. The umber sound of his voice whispered within her. “Come with me. Swim with me again, tonight, for a bit. Before I have to go.”

His hand tugged at hers. She resisted for only a moment, then let him guide her away through the fog.

M
ERIEL knocked on the door to the chamber deep in the bowels of the keep, clutching the note written in Máister Kirwan’s ornate scrawl and hoping she’d correctly followed the directions written there. The note had been placed in an envelope tacked to the door of her rooms; she’d discovered it when she groggily pulled herself out of a deep and too short sleep. The tapping of her knuckles on wood seemed too loud, reverberating against the coarse granite walls of this deep corridor, so unlike the finished marble of the upper halls. The only light came from witchfire pots set along the walls: Meriel had been taught the slow magic involved in making witchfire in Siúr Bolan’s class, but she had yet to produce much more than a soft momentary glow. These were brighter than torches, the nest of herbs in the pots burning brilliantly and cold.

“Speak your name,” a voice whispered, seeming to emanate from the oaken planks in front of her. “Meriel MacEagan,” she answered, and the door swung open.

The chamber inside was dim, but as she stepped inside and the door—untouched—closed behind her, she saw a hand pass over a witchfire pot on a table in the center of the room. The light swelled rapidly, making Meriel blink and shade her eyes for a moment. There were two chairs at the table, but both were empty. Máister Kirwan stood alongside the table; while standing near the side wall to the right was Siúr Meagher. The room itself was small, low, and plain, the floor, walls, and ceiling all cut from the living stone of the mountain on which the keep sat. Meriel could still see the marks of the chisels in the walls. Even though the room wasn’t cold, she found herself shivering. The room felt like a dungeon; it was easy to imagine clinking chains and rotting skeletons here.

She wondered whether Dhegli had been wrong and Máister Kirwan knew where she’d gone the night before. “Máister,” she said. “Your note . . . you wanted to see me . . .”

“Aye,” Máister Kirwan said. “Do you know where you are?” Meriel shook her head mutely, and Máister Kirwan continued. “Bear with me for a few minutes then, even if you know what I’m telling you.” He drew a long breath. “The White Keep was finished in the time of Severii O’Coulghan, the Last Holder of Lámh Shábhála in the Before. By the time the last stone was in place, the mage-lights were failing and only Lámh Shábhála was still awake of all the clochs na thintrí. One of the tasks Severii placed on the Order of Inishfeirm was for us to obtain the clochs na thintrí that were sleeping, so that when the time came for them to awaken again, it would be the cloudmages of Inishfeirm who held them.”

“Máister, I know—” Meriel began to interrupt, but Máister Kirwan raised his finger to his lips.

“Indulge me,” he said. “I’m sometimes surprised at what acolytes
don’t
know or what they have wrong, and I want to be certain you understand this. Over the centuries, we did exactly what Severii had ordered us to do. Through various means, we were able to acquire many stones reputed to have been clochs na thintrí, though we would never be certain that they were true stones of power until the mage-lights came again. And over the centuries, we also became careless—because for all we knew the jewels we gathered were just pretty stones. After several centuries, my predecessors began to doubt whether the mage-lights really would ever come again and it was easy to disregard how precious the clochs would be if they were awakened once more. The clochs were originally kept down here, but one Máister brought them out and moved them to the library, in a separate case that was under the protection of a Keeper. The stones were often shown to visitors or to the few acolytes we had during those times.” Máister Kirwan took a breath, glancing at Siúr Meagher, and she took up the tale.

“Three quarters of a century ago, one of the stones was stolen: a small, plain stone with what was believed to be a severely-inflated history. The claim was that the stone was Lámh Shábhála itself, which had been lost after Severii’s death.” Meriel shuffled restlessly, wanting to interrupt—she knew this all too well: it was the tale of her own family. But Siúr Meagher glared at her and she closed her mouth on the words. “No one believed that claim,” Siúr Meagher continued. “The Clochs Mór were beautiful gems and the clochmions were fine stones as well; how could Lámh Shábhála be something so utterly ordinary? The fact that
any
of the stones could be stolen should have been a warning for us, but because we believed the stone to be worthless and the theft trivial, nothing was done beyond disciplining the Keeper and changing the ward-words—after all, the acolyte who stole the stone was found drowned a few days later. The young woman of Inishfeirm with whom he fled and the stone he stole were never seen again. We assumed both were lost forever.” Siúr Meagher paused, tilting her head toward Meriel, and Meriel hurried into the opening.

“Aye, I know that story,” Meriel told the two mages. “I’ve heard it a hundred times from my mam. The young woman was Kerys Aoire, my great-great-mam, and the acolyte was Niall Mac Ard, my great-great-da. Niall gave the stone to Kerys, she gave it to my great-da, and my mam found it when the mage-lights came again. The stone
was
Lámh Shábhála. Why tell me this now?”

Máister Kirwan answered. “Because the Order hadn’t learned its lesson. Just before the Filleadh, when your mam awakened all the clochs na thintrí, raiders came to Inishfeirm from the Seven Tuatha. I was just a new Bráthair myself then, but I remember that day, how the two ships came into Inishfeirm Harbor and soldiers spilled out, rushing up the long road to the White Keep and overwhelming what little resistance the Order could muster—most of us couldn’t handle a sword and the slow magics we had were too few. The raiders knew where they were going, knew the ward-words to open the library doors, slew the Keeper who tried to keep them out, and wounded the Librarian. They took the clochs and went back to their ships. When the Filleadh came, not long after, the cloudmages of the Order had none of the clochs that should have been ours, none of the stones we’d spent so many long centuries gathering.”

Máister Kirwan gave a self-deprecating laugh, short and bitter. “Think of what the Order could have been, Meriel—with the Máister wielding Lámh Shábhála and our cloudmages holding perhaps twenty of the Clochs Mór and most of the clochmions. Instead... Well, we’ve learned to shut the pasture gate even though the sheep have escaped the field. This room is where the clochs na thintrí will go when the mage-lights fail again, long centuries from now, and hopefully this time the Order will remember its task. But . . .” he paused. “This is also where new clochs we gain will stay until they’re given a Holder. We already have a few stones here, one a Cloch Mór that belonged to your—” He stopped, and Meriel saw Siúr Meagher glance at Máister Kirwan curiously. “. . . that your mam brought to us to hold,” he finished.

Meriel looked around the dreary room. It seemed a sad place to lock away the stones. “If this is supposed to impress upon me the importance of the Order and what you have to teach, well, that’s something I already know. I can’t change what I am. I doubt that I’m the first acolyte to disappoint you, or do you bring all of us down here for this lecture?”

Siúr Meagher drew her breath in through her teeth, hissing, but Máister Kirwan only shrugged. “I
am
disappointed, I’ll admit—”

“Because I’m not
her?
Because I’m not my mam?” Meriel spat out before he could finish. She could hear the stridency in her voice but couldn’t stop the words, not knowing if it was because she was exhausted or because they were feelings she’d wanted to shout for too long now. “I kept telling her and telling her that I didn’t
want
to be her, didn’t want to be like her, and she never listened. And you’re not listening, either. I didn’t
ask
to come here, Máister. All this was forced on me, but I’ve done what I can with it. I’ve tried. I really have, and I don’t care if you believe that or not, or whether Mam believes it. I broke your rules, aye, but I had my reasons and I’d do the same thing again if I were given the choice. Tell Mam whatever you want. If I don’t have the ability or the attitude to be a cloudmage, that’s not my fault. Send me back, then—that’s where I wanted to be in the first place.”

Siúr Meagher stared at her, her left hand over her clochmion but not closed about it. Máister Kirwan stood, patient, waiting until the tirade failed her, until she stood there shaking her head and breathing hard, her hands gesturing as if they could say what she couldn’t find the words to express.

“If I actually believed you could never be a cloudmage, you’d already be gone, Meriel,” he said, his voice quiet against the storm of her anger, the set of his eyes in the flicker of witchfire more amused than angry. “And I think you’re more like your mam than you want to believe. Now, if you’d let me finish . . .” He paused, and Meriel waited. “I
am
disappointed, as I was saying, but mostly in myself. I’ve made some of the same mistakes of arrogance that Máisters have made before me, and
that
was largely the point of the lecture. Because there’s no one to tell us that we’re wrong, we think we’re always right, and we’re not.
I’m
not. I’ve been treating you as if you were any other acolyte, and as much as I wanted to believe that was true, it’s not. It’s time I stopped pretending and time we actually
know
whether you should be here instead of simply guessing at it.”

With that, Máister Kirwan went to the back wall of the room. He put his hand close to unbroken stone and spoke a few soft words that Meriel couldn’t hear. The wall glowed softly for a moment, then a small rectangular piece fell out into the Máister’s hand. He reached into the darkness beyond it, pulling out a fine necklace from which dangled a small gem caged in silver wire. He placed the rectangle of stone back into place; there was a flash of white light, and when Meriel could see again, the wall once more was unbroken stone. Máister Kirwan held the gem and chain out to Meriel in the palm of his hand. “Your mam had wanted me to give this to you before you came here. I thought she was wrong then and maybe she was.”

“Then why isn’t she here to give it to me now?”

She thought he hesitated at that, but it might have been a trick of the light. “Because this is
my
decision, not hers. I thought you weren’t ready. But it’s time now, regardless. Take it. Go on . . .”

Hesitantly, Meriel held out her own hand and with a turn of his hand Máister Kirwan let the chain and stone slide into her palm. Witchfire sparkled on the polished facets, shimmered on the silver links. “You had this in Dún Kiil,” she said, looking at the pale blue captured in the stone. “On the beach, when we talked.”

“Aye. And do you know what it is?”

“I can guess. A cloch?”

“A clochmion. One of the minor stones. A gift from your mam, until you’re ready to take a Cloch Mór.” Máister Kirwan gave her a wry smile. “Or more.”

Meriel stared at the gem. It felt heavy in her hand. “What does it do?”

His white clóca rustled as he shrugged. “I can tell you where it came from—it was given to your mam during the Battle of Dun Kiil, a gift of self-sacrifice from one of the Créneach, the clay-creatures. Because of that, your mam has always called the stone Treoraí’s Heart. As to what the Heart is capable of doing . . . We’ll know when you tell us, because you’re the first person to hold it. Meriel, I’ve talked enough for one morning and I have other duties. I’ll leave the rest for Siúr Meagher.”

He nodded to Meriel and Siúr Meagher, and left the room. The older woman came forward and sat at the table as his footsteps receded down the corridor toward the stairs. “Why did he leave?” Meriel asked Siúr Meagher.

“Because he didn’t want to make you nervous, watching.” She gestured toward the other chair. “Sit.”

Meriel sat. Witchlight played over Siúr Meagher’s thin, serious features. Her right hand cupped her left, kneading the swollen knuckles of the fingers unconsciously. She saw Meriel glance down at her hands. “The cold and damp down here makes my hands ache,” she said. Then she regarded Meriel for a long time, saying nothing as Meriel waited. “
Are
you nervous?” Siúr Meagher asked finally.

“Aye, Siúr.”

The woman’s chin lifted. “Good,” she said. “That’s the wisest thing I’ve heard you say. Take the clochmion and put the chain around your neck . . . aye, like that. You remember Máister Kirwan’s sitting lessons, the ones all of you first-years find so boring and useless? You’re about to be tested on how well you paid attention. Close your eyes and try to be as still as possible inside. A clochmion’s not like a Cloch Mór, which comes to your mind with a great roar and with its own ability burned into it by the mage-lights, the same for every Holder. A clochmion is quiet and sometimes difficult to hear, and each Holder will find that it has a different skill, one unique to you and the stone.”

“How will I know what that is?”

“Hush. You won’t
ever
know if you can’t open your mind better than this. The clochmion will tell you, or rather the two of you will discover it together. Close your left hand around the stone; gently, girl, you don’t have to try to crush it. Imagine it becoming part of you, opening like a crystalline flower as you touch it with your mind. See it growing within you, larger and larger, and you’re drifting with it, the energy of the mage-lights sparkling around you and captured there . . .”

Siúr Meagher’s voice faded, lost in the inner sight that suddenly opened to Meriel. She was snared in a latticework maze of crystal, flooded with the sapphire hues of the stone, only the shades were deeper and more saturated and nearly the color of a summer sky. They pulsed and throbbed in time to the beat of her own heart. She opened herself to the energy and felt it fill her, as achingly cold as if she’d plunged into an icy sea, and yet . . . it was welcoming, and comfortable. She could hold it, gaze at the power, and turn it within herself. The brilliance flooded her.