Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (39 page)

Owaine rode on with an optimism that was quickly dampened. First, not long after he crossed into Tuath Gabair, Léimard suddenly chattered and leaped away 376 from the horse. Not ten breaths later, several gardai riders in the colors of Gabair accosted him on the road and interrogated him endlessly, stretching Owaine’s ability to lie and seemingly jabbing at every inconsistency in his story. From their questions, it was obvious that it was Meriel that they were searching for, and they had ridden up from the direction Owaine was headed; that worried Owaine. If the riders hadn’t found her with the Taisteal on the road ahead, was he also chasing a chimera?

There was little choice but to continue, though. There was nowhere else to go in this place—his choice had been made. Owaine plodded on—Léimard returning as soon as the gardai had departed—as his mood soured.

Then the crows came, more of the nasty, loud things than Owaine believed anyone could count. They swarmed around him like monstrous black gnats, cawing and screeching, and then hurrying off back the way they’d come.

Worse, the sun was falling far too quickly in the sky and the cursed drumlins lay mockingly across his path as if the gods had set them there deliberately to slow him down, and he’d neither caught up with the Taisteal nor found the village the riders had told him was just ahead: Bally-something-or-other, though half the villages and towns in Talamh an Ghlas seemed to start with that. There was nothing around him but marsh, a copse of trees just ahead, and the bare heads of the drumlins front, back, and sides. He’d have to spend another night out in the weather. After the encounter with the dragon, Owaine had no intention of riding in the dark.

He flicked the reins and the horse moved into the shelter of the trees. Léimard chattered at him scoldingly. Owaine ignored the creature.

“All right then, Máister Cléurach,” he said to the horse, “we’ll stay here for the night. It looks like good enough grazing here for you.” Owaine doubted that the old Máister would appreciate Owaine’s naming of the horse (especially since the beast was a gelding), and it really wasn’t fair to the horse, either, who wasn’t nearly as ancient, cantankerous, or decrepit as the Máister had been during Owaine’s first two years at the Order. Owaine was certain he wasn’t the only one who failed to mourn when Máister Cléurach suddenly died one morning and Bráthair Kirwan became Máister.

He hobbled Máister Cléurach, then gathered wood for a fire and set about making a camp. Léimard ran up the nearest tree trunk and vanished. When Owaine had a small fire going and a bit of stirabout sizzling in the pan, he leaned back against his bedroll and ate, staring at the veiled landscape around him, which could have hidden untold thousands of crows or several dragons. “I hope we’re going the right way,” he said to the horse, who lifted its tail and deposited a steaming pile on the ground. Owaine decided not to take that as a sign, but he wondered. “We’ll catch up with the Taisteal tomorrow, maybe even before they leave the village,” he told the horse. The horse was a worse conversationalist than Léimard, who at least looked at Owaine when he was talking. “We’ll find out whether it’s really Meriel we’ve been chasing.” He touched his clochmion for reassurance; there was no sense of Meriel’s presence, but he told himself that he still was confident in his choice. Yet . . . a few times, especially during the rainy, dreary and empty days, he’d doubted.

In all the villages, those who described the healer invariably said she was dark-haired and a few had given her name as Cailin, not Meriel. But there also were those who said her accent wasn’t quite that of a Taisteal and some who said without Owaine’s prompting that she might sound a bit Inish.

Hair could be dyed. Names could be changed. And Meriel may have been given a clochmion, and perhaps the stone could heal. . . .

He’d know for certain soon. His clochmion would tell him, as soon as he was close to the Taisteal he’d been chasing.

There was nothing he could do about it now. With a sigh, Owaine scraped the last few scraps of stirabout on the ground in front of Máister Cléurach and unrolled his blankets. He looked around again for Léimard, who remained hidden. He stared up at the blurry stars and the fuzzy rags of light clouds until he fell asleep.

He woke, suddenly, with the remembrance of a sound. It was still full night, and the fire had gone to glowing coals. Eyes open, Owaine lay still, listening—aye, there it was again; the crack of a dry limb, somewhere nearby. Máister Cléurach was snuffling with flaring nostrils, the horse’s hooves shuffling nervously, its ears standing straight up and eyes wide.

Owaine let his hand ease down to the hilt of his belt knife and slipped it from the scabbard. Carefully, he moved the blankets aside as he gazed around. He could see nothing and no one. The road lay empty under the stars a few paces away, but there were shadows enough around him, and the tree trunks were black as obsidian and numerous enough to conceal a dozen men. Robbers were common enough and single travelers were easy pickings—that was why Owaine had kept to the villages at night when he could. But he’d thought that with the gardai out riding, robbers would have decided to stay off the roads tonight.

A crow cawed once, overhead. Owaine glanced up. It was difficult to make out the bird in the darkness, but a patch of lighter color shone in the glow of the coals. The crow cawed again.

A low growl answered, just off in the trees . . .

Owaine scrambled to his feet as Máister Cléurach whinnied in fright and fought its hobbles. Owaine saw it then, a form sliding fluidly out into a patch of starlight and close enough that he had no difficulty seeing it: a wolf, but one as tall as Owaine at the shoulders. The beast was massive and huge, with muscular limbs as thick as Owaine’s leg and curved talons sprouting from the paws; yellow, angry eyes; twin rows of ivory spear-heads set in its open jaws; a blood-red tongue lolling out hungrily as the creature stared back at Owaine.

A dire wolf, a beast of legend . . .

The knife in Owaine’s hand looked ridiculous, suddenly: no more threatening than a knitting needle set against a sword. The dire wolf gave two barking exhalations, fog coming from its mouth with each explosion of breath—it sounded suspiciously like laughter. Owaine shivered. He imagined those jaws closing around him, tearing and ripping ... a shiver crawled his spine. He backed away toward Máister Cléurach, the wolf staring at him without moving, and stooped down. He envisioned cutting the hobbles and leaping onto the horse’s back in one swift motion, holding on for his life to Máister Cléurach’s neck and bare back and praying to the Mother-Creator that the gelding could outrun a dire wolf.

The wolf laughed again, as if it could hear his thoughts.

Owaine reached down and, sawing desperately, severed the rope around the horse’s front legs. Máister Cléurach reared away as Owaine straightened and tried to vault onto the horse’s back. He managed to get his leg up and his arms around the gelding’s neck as Máister Cléurach turned and started to gallop away in utter fear.

Owaine’s leg slipped off; Máister Cléurach’s flight tore his grip from the horse’s neck. He fell to the ground as the gelding pounded away through the trees. He pushed himself up. The knife was gone, lost somewhere, and the dire wolf glared at him. He knew, for a certainty, that he couldn’t outrun the creature.

He knew he was going to die here.

As he stood there, waiting, he heard another sound behind him. Before he could turn, something struck him in the back, like the stabbing of an arrow. He reached for it, spinning, but as he did so the world dimmed around him. A darker night closed in from the edges of his sight, growing until it seemed he was staring through a pinprick at the stars, realizing that he’d fallen and was staring up helpless. He tried to rise, but his body wouldn’t obey and the nothingness closed over him like a storm wave and he was lost.

“You’re certain you can do this, my friend?” Doyle asked Shay O Blaca. “We’ve talked about this so long, and I agree with you: I’ll need three other cloudmages with Clochs Mór with me for us to be certain we can overcome Lámh Shábhála; if we can’t be four against the One, then none of this will work.”

Shay nodded grimly, touching the irregularly-shaped, clear crystal around his neck. In many ways, O Blaca had been the da Doyle had never had, taking the much-younger Doyle under his tutelage at the request of Doyle’s uncle. Shay had become adviser, mentor, guide, and friend; as Doyle had come into prominence in the Rí Ard’s court, he had also become co-conspirator.

O Blaca glanced over to Edana, who was listening to the two of them while staring out the window at the inner courtyard of the Rí Ard’s keep, then his gaze returned to Doyle. “I’ve never been to Inishduán, so I had one of the Infochla fisherfolk take me over to the island so I could see well enough to use Quickship. I think I can send all four of you
there
with the cloch, Doyle, but I won’t be able to bring anyone back and I won’t be able to go myself. It will take everything Quickship has to do just that one task.”

Doyle waved a hand in dismissal. “I’ve already sent word to Falcarragh to have a ship waiting for us off Inishduán.” He gave O Blaca a quick grin. “Getting back won’t be the issue, Shay—we’ll either have Lámh Shábhála or we’ll be dead.”

Shay chuckled darkly at that. “You’ll have Lámh Shábhala. I know you.”

Doyle grinned back at him. “Aye, I will. But just in case . . . You remember that bantiarna in Falcarragh with a clochmion called Messenger?—a useful little stone. I know she’s not of the Order or even Riocha, but she wants to study with us, and I told her that if she’d help in this I’d make sure she had a personal invi tation from you to come to Lár Bhaile. She’s agreed to be aboard the ship and will send word back immediately as to the outcome.”

“I’m worried about the number of people involved in this, Doyle. Too many people know too much.”

“I know,” he told the man, clapping him on the shoulder. “I am, too. But the cloudmages of the Order will work together. Think of how prominent we’ll be when the Order of Gabair holds Lámh Shábhála.”

Edana stirred. She lifted the Cloch Mór around her own neck. “I’ll be one of the four, Shay,” she said. “Demon-Caller has already met Lámh Shábhála and nearly won.” She stood up and went to Doyle before he could protest. She hugged him, placing her index finger on his lips. “No, love,” she told him. “I know what you’ll say, and no. I
will
be with you. Consider that an order from your Banrion Ard.”

Doyle kissed her finger. “You’re not the Banrion yet. And you’ve not used Demon-Caller yourself.”

“I was trained at the Order, too.” She inclined her head to Shay. “I had the same excellent teacher.”

“I know, but . . .”

She lifted her finger again. “I have a few days still to learn the cloch. And I
will
be Banrion. When we return with Lámh Shábhála.”

He wanted to simultaneously smile and sigh. He realized, more and more, the cost of love. Even his love for his mam had been tempered by pity for her broken soul and mind; in truth, there had been a sense of relief in him when she’d finally died. But he looked at the vital, comely woman before him, and he knew he was where he wanted to be. Aye, he was ambitious. Aye, he wanted to share the power she would have and that was why he had first courted her, but they had both been snared—unlooked-for—by the fickle bonds of tenderness. He knew now that love imposed its own burdens, for when he thought of Edana in danger or hurt, he ached inside. He was more frightened for her than for himself. “Edana, the training and your desire don’t matter. You’ve had no experience fighting with another Cloch Mór. This would be an empty, useless victory if we win Lámh Shábhála but lose each other.”

She leaned forward. She kissed him deeply and long, uncaring that O Blaca watched. When she pulled back, she put her forehead on his, her hand curled around the back of his neck. “And what kind of leader would I be if I stayed and let the other Riocha whisper that I was too afraid to risk myself?” she asked him softly. “What kind of lover would I be if I didn’t do all I could do to protect the person I care most about? I have to do this, Doyle. I
will
do this.”

He sighed. He nodded. He hugged her fiercely.

O Blaca cleared his throat noisily. “Ó Riain has already sent people to Rí Connachta, Eoganacht, and Airgialla,” he said. “There are too many Riocha who would like to see Enean on the throne for my comfort. No offense to your da, Bantiarna Edana, but he was strong-willed and forced the Tuatha to cooperate, sometimes against their will. Some have made no secret of the fact that they resented the power given to your da—Rí Connachta and Rí Éoganacht definitely made their feelings known privately as well as in their dealings with him. They’d prefer to see a weaker person on the throne in Dún Laoghaire so that their own power is elevated.”

“Which makes it all the more vital that we take Lámh Shábhála from the Mad Holder,” Edana answered. “Once Doyle holds the cloch, the Ríthe can make their feelings known all they like, but they can’t stand against us. They’ll
have
to—” She stopped as the door to the chamber was flung open and Enean stalked in, followed by two protesting gardai. “I’m sorry, Bantiarna,” one of the gardai said, “but he—”