Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (25 page)

“I said that I would take care of my da,” Edana reminded him. “He’ll say the right things when the time comes.” She glanced outside to the balcony, where the first strands of the mage-lights were beginning to appear. “You’ll want to go to the lights,” she said to Shay. “Will you be staying? I can have the Hall Máister prepare a chamber for you.”

Shay was already shaking his head. “I need to get back to Lár Bhaile; Bluefire will need a new Holder, I’m afraid. I’ll send word to Doyle that you’re handling things here.”

“Tell him also that I’ll meet him in Lár Bhaile. I’ll leave in a few days, once I know that my da understands what he needs to say.”

Shay nodded to her. “Then I’ll go replenish Quickship. With your leave, Bantiarna . . .” He bowed and left for the balcony. Edana watched him lift the cloch to the sky and then left the common room, moving past the gardai at the entrance to the residential wing of the keep and up the stairs to the Common Hall. She’d intended to go to her da’s chambers, but she saw Enean and Tiarna Ó Riain in the hall, huddled together speaking while old MacCamore hovered nearby, obviously excluded from their conversation. MacCamore saw Edana first and his eyes widened hopefully.

Ó Riain saw her also; he rose languidly to his feet, giving her a bow that was so slight as to be on the verge of an insult. His Cloch Mór just barely swayed on its chain. “Bantiarna O Liathain,” he said. “I was hoping I would see you . . .”

Enean had leaped up from his chair, his eyes bright in his horribly scarred face. “Edana!” he half-shouted. He strode over to her and gave her a fierce hug that she returned with affection. She kissed her half brother’s forehead, brushing back his hair gently, but her gaze over his shoulder was on Ó Riain, who watched the exchange carefully. “Edana,” Enean said to her after giving her a kiss on the cheek, “Tiarna Ó Riain says that I would be a good cloudmage because I can focus so hard on things when I want to.”

She kissed him again, her attention still on Ó Riain and the amused smile playing on his thin lips. “I’m sure you would be, Enean. Tiarna Ó Riain, I’m surprised you’re not outside with the mage-lights.”

“I was just leaving to do exactly that,” he told her. “In fact, that’s why Tiarna O Liathain and I were discussing his being a Holder. I was giving him my opinion regarding the Order of Gabair.”

“Labhrás says that he thinks that I would be better if he taught me himself,” Enean interjected.

Edana smiled at Enean. “I’m sure that’s exactly the way Tiarna Ó Riain feels,” she told him. “Enean, why don’t you go with MacCamore? I’ll come up and we’ll both go see Da.”

MacCamore came forward at the mention of his name, the old man touching Enean’s shoulder. “All right,” Enean said to Edana. “You won’t be long?”

“Promise,” Edana told him. She kissed his forehead again and watched him follow MacCamore from the room.

“I’m sorry if my opinion offends you, Bantiarna,” Ó Riain said as Enean left the room. “But the Order of Gabair doesn’t impress me. I would hate to believe that they’d threaten the peace of the Tuatha by, let us say, doing something to provoke the Mad Holder.” The way he looked at her then, with that toad’s face draped with stringy, balding dark hair, made her realize that some whispers must have reached his ears. “Many of us remember Dun Kiil and the terrible power of Lámh Shábhála,” he said. “We’d hate to see the Mad Holder bring that kind of destruction here in revenge for some foolish act. The thought of that would be upsetting to some of the Ríthe. Terribly upsetting.”

“The Rí Ard supports the Order of Gabair,” she told him.

“Aye, he has thus far. But the Rí Ard’s voice is weak these days, and getting weaker. It’s such a shame that your da is so ill,” he said in a voice that indicated he believed no such thing.

Edana flushed at that. “He’s not so ill that he can’t be Rí Ard,” she told the man. “And I would prefer that you stay away from my brother, Tiarna Ó Riain.”

“Your brother is an adult with the capability of making up his own mind, and he likes my company,” Ó Riain answered. “Perhaps he’s tired of having others tell him that he can’t do things, or treating him like a child rather than a man.”

“You feed him useless flatteries.”

The cold, polite smile was cemented on his lips. He shook his head. “I see the possibilities in front of him, and I suggest to him how he might achieve them. Each of us needs allies, Bantiarna, even the most powerful among the Riocha. I’m sure you realize that. I believe in Enean.” One eyebrow raised as he stared at Edana, though the smile remain fixed and unchanging. “A pity some of those closest to Enean do not.”

“I know what Enean was before and what he is now, Tiarna. And I consider anyone who would hurt him or use him to be an enemy.”

The smile widened slightly but the eyes were hard and almost scornful. “Surely you don’t think of
me
as your enemy, Bantiarna? That would be . . . unfortunate. I only have the welfare of your brother at heart, just as you do.”

“I’m certain,” Edana told him. “But I still intend to speak to my da about my concerns.”

Ó Riain shrugged. “That’s certainly your prerogative, Bantiarna. But until the Rí Ard expressly orders me to do otherwise . . . well, I consider Enean a friend, and I’m pleased to be able to act as a mentor to him.” He glanced to the window, where the mage-lights were in their full glory. “If you’ll excuse me now, Bantiarna, my cloch calls to me . . .”

He brushed past her as the smile—finally and completely—dissolved.

The seals moaned and wailed on the rocks, craning their thick, muscular heads. The wind off the bay flapped the loose folds of his clóca and made his eyes water, but even through his blurred vision, Owaine could see that they were Saimhóir, midnight bodies gleaming with sapphire highlights in the intermittent sun. He’d heard them that morning. He’d gone scrambling down the path to the shore, knowing that it was what Meriel would have done.

“She’s gone!” he called to them, knowing they couldn’t understand him but hoping that somehow they would understand. “She can’t come swim with you!”

A young man stepped from around a screen of boulders wet with spray. He was naked, his dark hair plastered wetly to his skull, and Owaine remembered a similar morning, many summers ago, when he’d seen Jenna, as bare as this man, walk from the sea. . . .

The man smiled, walking slowly toward Owaine, who took a step back. He started to speak and the man shook his head. He lifted his hand, showing his empty palm to Owaine before touching his shoulder. He spoke, and Owaine’s ears heard a sound like that of the Saimhóir out on the rocks. But inside . . .

“Be calm, land-cousin. My name is Dhegli, and I know why you came here.”

“You know?” Owaine sputtered. “How . . . ?”

“She and I are . . .” Dhegli hesitated, as if searching for the words. “. . . bound together,” he continued. “That’s how I know.” He gazed solemnly at Owaine with whiteless ebony eyes. “We feel the same about her, you and I.”

Owaine shook his head. “No,” he began, but Dhegli laughed, short and gentle.

“You stone-walkers are strange about these things. How can you deny that you can be attracted to more than one person? The hearts of Saimhóir are not different than yours and can hold more than one love. Meriel is no different than me or you. You find yourself pulled to her even though you don’t know why, even though you know you shouldn’t listen to that feeling, don’t you?”

Owaine nodded.

“I do, too,” Dhegli laughed. “We’re brothers in that.” Then his face went solemn, and his hand tightened on Owaine’s shoulder. “I felt the power of the sky-stones loosed here, felt it all around here. I came as quickly as I could, even though I knew I would be too late to help in that. When I came here, I reached for her and couldn’t touch her.”

“She’s gone,” Owaine told him. “They took her.”

“I know. She’s gone to Winter Home, the larger land to the south. She’s far away and once they take her from the water, I can’t go to her.”

Salt spray whipped through the wind, stinging Owaine’s eyes. “She’s gone to Talamh an Ghlas, then,” he said. “That’s what Jenna—the Holder—thought. But no one knows where . . .”

Dhegli tilted his head to one side, as if listening to something only he could hear. Out on the rocks, the other Saimhóir wailed and grunted. “You can find her,” Dhegli said. “The sky-stone you wear, it has that gift.”

“No,” Owaine said. “It’s not strong enough. I would have to be close to her.”

“I could take you there,” Dhegli said. “I can follow their path and bring you to where they will take her ashore on Winter Home. From there, you would have to find her on your own, but I can bring you that far.” A pause. A heartbeat. The wind tore gray rags of cloud across the sky. “I can do that only if you go now. If it’s something you dare to do.”

“Now?” Owaine nearly pulled away. He glanced back up the mountainside to where the White Keep was hidden.

“Now, or too late,” Dhegli answered. “I’m leaving to follow even though my heart tells me it’s hopeless. It may be too late already.”

Owaine knew what he had to say. There was no choice. He had no permission for this. Máister Kirwan would
never
give permission for this, not to Owaine. Perhaps to one of the other cloudmages: someone of Riocha blood, someone with a Cloch Mór who could stand against another tiarna. Not Owaine the Poor-Sighted. Owaine the Fisher. Owaine the Banrion’s Charity. To leave now and tell no one where he was going . . . There was only one answer he should have given, but he gave another.

“Aye,” he said. “Take me with you.”

Dhegli nodded. He released Owaine’s shoulder and motioned for him to follow. Around at the end of the crescent of beach, a currach was pulled up, its mooring rope wrapped around a boulder. Dhegli unknotted the rope. He gestured for Owaine to push the boat into the water.

Owaine hesitated. Twice before, he had felt the moment where life branched irrevocably for him: the first time as a child when he’d seen Jenna climb from the sea; the second time when Máister Kirwan, then just a Bráthair of the Order, came on behalf of the Banrion to offer Owaine the chance to become a cloudmage himself. The first time, the moment had simply come to him; the second time, the choice before him had been crystalline and clear-cut. This time . . . This time there was no certainty to his choice.

Only a vague hope.

Owaine put his hands to the boat and shoved it into the waves. As he clambered into the tiny boat, he wondered whether he would ever see Inishfeirm again.

“C
AILIN!” The call was hushed, barely more than a whisper and yet urgent enough that it woke Meriel from sleep. A low, unidentifiable rumbling accompanied the voice, like an erratic and enormous drumbeat. “Cailin, come see this!” Sleep-groggy, it took Meriel a moment to realize that she was the one being called; when she opened her eyes, she was disoriented, seeing the interior of the tent rather than the familiar ceiling of her room at the White Keep.

A head poked through the tent flap from the outside: Sevei. “Come on! Hurry!” she whispered huskily. Her eyes were alight, dancing. Meriel threw the blankets aside. The undertunic she wore was stiff; the clothes she threw on felt strange and unfamiliar and she fumbled with the ties. Sleepily, she stumbled out.

The sun had yet to rise. The meadow where they were camped was a misty dreamscape white with fog, with the forest a hidden darker gray lurking in the background. The world was hushed, quiet and ethereal, except for the persistent bass thudding. She could feel it through the soles of her boots, as if the heart of the earth itself was throbbing. “What?” Meriel started to ask as she came out of the tent to stand alongside Sevei, then she saw them.

They plodded slowly and majestically through the tall grass, striding out from the forest just past Nico’s wagon. There were perhaps a half dozen of them, all close by. At first she thought it was simply a herd of deer, but then the scale of the scene struck her, how the mantled crown of the nearest stag loomed over the top of the wagon: nearly ten feet from the ground to the head, and yet another arm’s length to the tips of the rack of antlers. The animal’s fur was as ruddy as the eastern sky on a cloudy morning, the chest gleaming snow, the legs thick and rough-furred. And the sound . . . Black hooves as large as Meriel’s hands cupped together pounded the earth with each step, and each step was the strike of a beater on the bodhran of the world. They walked with solemn grace, unhurried and confident, the thunder of their passage growing louder as more of them came from the wood: a dozen; two; more—stags and does; adults, yearlings, and fawns that were the size of full-grown red deer. Occasionally, one of them would glance over in Meriel’s direction with eyes that seemed to hold a wise, ancient intelligence. All the Taisteal were awake now, tumbling from wagons and tents and staring at the herd moving past them on all sides: the children gaping openmouthed, the adults standing awed.