Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (59 page)

Owaine stroked her hair and her back; Meriel leaned back into his touch, enjoying the silent comfort of it. Keira grimaced, as if she’d expected to hear Meriel’s assessment. “The legends all speak of cloudmages driven mad by the loss of their clochs, especially those who have held Lámh Shábhála,” she said. “I don’t know that anyone can help your mam now. She has to find her own way.”

“She’s hurting so terribly, Keira,” Meriel said. “I could give her a little comfort, that’s all. And it won’t last. It can’t.” She took a long breath that threatened to break into a sob. “I don’t know if I can go there again. I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

“I can do a little more, once we’re back in Doire Coill,” Keira said. “And we can pray to the Greatness to help her. But all the old Holders who had Lámh Shábhála taken away from them died when the cloch was stolen, or not long after. The First Holder is stronger than most, but . . .” She looked away, nodding to where Arror and Garrhal sat on their haunches, several strides down the hill. “There’s still something we have to do here. Come with me.”

Gently, Meriel laid her mam’s head down on the grass, kissing her cheek. Owaine helped her to her feet. She started to shake her head and shrug away his hands, but the movement caused the world to spin around her and her knees crumpled. She nearly fell and had to let Owaine support her weight for several seconds until the ground settled once more. She let him keep her arm as they walked toward the dire wolves. As they approached, she saw a person on the ground between them. His face was turned up to them, the eyes open; his hands were clasped together at his chest. “Doyle Mac Ard.” She spat out the name.

He said nothing in response, though his lips moved and she thought he could see recognition in his gaze. “His Cloch Mór’s gone,” Keira said. “There are two more tiarna farther down the hill; Arror says they’re the same way. Whoever we saw fleeing here left with Lámh Shábhála and three Clochs Mór—that’s a prize worth a Rí’s ransom. That’s enough to shift the balance of power in Talamh an Ghlas.”

“Then let’s go after them before they’re too far away,” Owaine said. “With the storm deer, maybe—” But Keira was already shaking her head.

“What would we do then? They have the Clochs Mór with them, and several gardai. By the time we reached them, they could be near Áth Iseal, where there’s a garrison. No, we’d fall, and there’d be no one to care for your mam. The crows will watch them and tell us where they’ve gone.”

Meriel listened to them, staring at Mac Ard. His eyes gazed back at her, and in them was reflected the same pain she’d felt inside her mam—perhaps not as intense and all-consuming but still a mirroring of that grief and loss, of a part of him torn bodily away and carried off. His scarred right hand clutched over and over again at his chest for something that wasn’t there. His lips opened. “He took it,” he said. “Ó Riain. He took it. By the Mother, it hurts, it hurts . . .”

Arror growled in his own language, long and low. “He says he’ll kill the man for you,” Keira said, “and to turn away if you don’t want to see.”

Arror rose from his haunches and started to lunge at Mac Ard, his terrible mouth open, but Meriel shouted. “No!” Arror stopped in mid-strike, as Mac Ard brought his hands up belatedly. “I don’t want him killed.”

Arror growled again, as did Garrhal. “He says one should never leave a wounded enemy alive,” Keira translated. “And Garrhal adds that mercy is giving your opponent another chance to bite you. You may smell sorrow on him now, but that’s an odor easily washed away.”

“I agree with them, Meriel,” Owaine said. “Mac Ard didn’t give you the same consideration. Did you, Tiarna?” he asked Mac Ard. The man shook his head.

“No,” he answered, closing his eyes as if trying to push the words through the pain. “I would have killed you, Meriel, to get back at your mam. I’m sorry. I was angry. I thought . . .” His eyes opened again. “I know now why she couldn’t simply give up the cloch. I know very well.” He seemed to almost laugh, then his face twisted again in pain. He curled up on the ground, groaning.

The rain fell harder, lashing Knobtop in sweeping sheets. The lights of Ballintubber were lost. They stood alone on a dark island lost in clouds and mist. Arror growled and Keira nodded. “We should leave here,” she said, “before others come. Everyone for miles around will have seen the lights on the mountain. Meriel? What of Mac Ard and the others? I leave you with that decision.”

Meriel’s fingers brushed against her clochmion: Treoraí’s Heart, her mam had named it. She imagined someone taking it from her and the pain that would follow—the gift itself had cost Treoraí its life. Now it was hers, the stone that could only heal, not harm.

A vital part of her.

“Leave them,” she said.

“Meriel!” Owaine protested. “Arror and Garrhal are right. If we leave them here alive, the Mother alone knows what could happen.”

“Exactly,” Meriel answered. “None of us know.”

“They wouldn’t have been so kind to you,” Owaine retorted. He pointed at Mac Ard. “That bastard admitted it.”

Mac Ard was watching, silent. Meriel caught his gaze, and he looked away. “He’ll know. He’ll remember. Won’t you, Uncle?” Mac Ard nodded, misery clouding his face. “It’s done, then,” Meriel said. “Let’s get my mam and leave.”

Arror growled, looking as if he would ignore Meriel’s decision, but Garrhal stepped in front of him. She sat on her haunches and lifted one of her huge front paws, displaying to him the leg that had been broken, speaking to him in a bark and low howl, nudging him when he persisted in moving closer to Mac Ard. Arror growled again, but he turned his head away. The two dire wolves padded away down the hill. In a few moments, their gray forms were hidden in the rain and darkness.

Owaine stood over Mac Ard, still holding Meriel’s arm. “I hope it hurts,” he said to the man. “It doesn’t begin to pay for what you’ve done to Meriel and the Banrion.” Mac Ard remained mute, blinking against the raindrops that pattered on his face. As Keira called the storm deer back to them and Owaine and Meriel went back up the hill to Jenna, Mac Ard called after them. Meriel turned to see the man push himself up to a sitting position, a hunched figure in the wet night.

“Meriel,” he called. “I’m sorry. For all of it. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t answer. She had nothing she wanted to say to him. She was empty and exhausted and tired and she seemed to feel nothing, or perhaps everything. Her emotion were a welter, a confused jumble. It was all she could do to help Owaine and Keira lash together a carrier for Mam, then mount the storm deer for the slow journey back to Doire Coill.

The sky stormed the rest of the night, and the mage-lights did not come.

T
HE ODOR was overpowering and bitter, and just sniffing the fragrance wafting from the small bronze kettle made Meriel feel dizzy and lethargic. “It’s an infusion of andúilleaf,” Keira said. “It helps a person to forget the pain for a little while.”

“Mam told me about it once,” Meriel said. “She also said that once she started taking it, she couldn’t stop. She said that it made her crazy and that’s why she killed Banrion Cianna in Lár Bhaile.”

Keira nodded, stirring the brew with a wooden spoon. Thick white liquid clung to the wooden handle. “That could be true. If you use too much of it too often, the leaf makes you dependent on it. It does cloud your judgment and makes your emotions climb higher and fall lower. But right now, your mam needs help with the pain she’s feeling, and andúilleaf does that better than kala bark or anything else I know from the herbcraft Seancoim taught me. But if you don’t want me to give it to her . . .”

Keira raised an eyebrow; Meriel shook her head. Since they’d returned to Keira’s cave, her mam had become increasingly distraught and inconsolable. The calming effect of Treoraí’s Heart was wearing off and it wasn’t yet night, when the mage-lights might come and Meriel could refill the cloch. But even if she did have Treoraí’s Heart to use, she wasn’t certain that she could attempt another journey into the wailing, chaotic interior of her mam’s injured mind. The thought of being inside her mam’s mind again terrified her.

“Go on,” she told Keira. “Whatever you think best.”

“I think for the time being all we can do is ease her pain. She’ll bring herself back on her own, in her own time, if that’s what the Mother wills.”

“Let me help you, then . . .”

Meriel lifted her mam’s head and shoulders, and Keira touched a wooden bowl filled with the andúilleaf brew to Jenna’s lips. Jenna seemed to stir at the odor; her lips opened and Keira let some of the brew trickle into her mouth. Meriel could see her mam’s throat convulse as she swallowed. Jenna sighed; her mouth opened. “More,” she said, her voice a bare croak.

Keira glanced at Meriel, then brought the bowl up again. Jenna sipped at it eagerly, her hands coming up to cup Keira’s. She drained the bowl, and Meriel could feel her mam’s body relax, the tenseness leaving the muscles as she lay her back on the pallet. “Mam?” she said. “Can you hear me, Mam?”

Jenna’s eyes flickered open, her tongue licked cracked and dry lips. The wisp of a smile touched her mouth. “Aye,” she husked. “I hear you, my darling.” She lifted her hand; Meriel took it, feeling the fingers trembling under hers. She leaned over and kissed her mam’s forehead.

“I was so afraid, Mam,” she began, then could go no further, her throat closing with a sob.

“I was scared, too,” Jenna said. “I was frightened I’d never see you again, never hold you . . .” Her eyes closed, opened again. “I felt you, when you used the clochmion on Knobtop. I felt you inside me when I was lost, and you brought me back. You’re a true cloudmage, Meriel, even more than me. If you can do that with Treoraí’s Heart, then you’re strong enough to hold Lámh Shábhála, perhaps even to do what I couldn’t.” Jenna licked her lips again, and Keira leaned over to moisten them with a dampened cloth. Jenna watched the Bunús Muintir. “You must be Seancoim’s apprentice,” Jenna said to her. “I never met you, but this is his cave. I remember it . . .”

“Aye,” Keira said gently. “We never met, but I saw you in these woods. Then, you looked much as Meriel does now. I see you in her. You both have the same inner strength.”

Jenna nodded. Then her face clouded and she moaned. “Lámh Shábhála. Doyle took it—”

“Not Doyle, Mam,” Meriel said. She told Jenna what they’d seen on Knobtop, what they’d learned from her uncle. When she’d finished, Jenna lay with her eyes closed, her breath harsh and fast. Meriel thought for a moment that she was sleeping again, then the eyes opened again, clouded with subdued pain. “I’d have killed him,” she said. “For what he’s done to me. And to you.”

“I couldn’t, Mam. I’m sorry if you feel I was wrong.” “No,” Jenna said. “Not wrong. At least he’s suffering for what he’s done. But . . .” She scrabbled in her clóca, her hands thrusting into a hidden pocket under the folds. “Thank the Mother—I brought this for you, Meriel.”

She brought out her hand, holding a thin silver chain at the end of which dangled a jewel of pure, bright red. “This is Blaze,” Jenna said. “A Cloch Mór. I brought it to give to you.”

“Keep it, Mam,” Meriel said. “Maybe it would help you.”

Jenna shook her head. “No, it would make it worse. If I’d had another Cloch Mór, perhaps Blaze could replace it. But holding it now would just remind me of everything I’ve lost. Besides, this was . . .” She paused, holding out the cloch to Meriel. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “It was your da’s cloch. I took it from Padraic Mac Ard after . . .” She stopped.

“Da’s cloch?” Meriel asked, frowning. She didn’t move to take the stone. “But Da has one, and it’s brown and tan.”

“Meriel.” The tone of Jenna’s voice sent ice through Meriel’s chest, made her quiver as if the world had shifted around her. She didn’t want to hear the rest, afraid now of what her mam was going to say. When it came, it was worse than she could have imagined.

“I should have told you a long time ago,” her mam said. “Kyle said I should, but I didn’t listen. Now I wish I had—it would make this easier.” Gold-brown eyes held Meriel, and the deep sorrow in them frightened her. “Kyle’s been a true and good da to you, a better da than I could have hoped for and a good friend and companion to me. But you share no blood with him, Meriel. Your da, the man I loved, was named Ennis O’Deoradhain, though he died before you were born.” Groaning with the effort, Jenna sat up and grasped Meriel’s hand. She put the Cloch Mór in Meriel’s palm, letting the fine links of the chain flow around it, and closed her fingers around the stone. “Take this. Take it and when the mage-lights come, make it your own.”

“You should keep it yourself, Mam,” Meriel protested. A hundred questions whirled in her head. Jenna had smashed her worldview with a few words and Meriel reeled, not knowing what to say or how she should feel. She stared at the jewel in her hand, wanting it to be gone, wanting everything to be the way it had been just a few moments before. “You don’t know; in a few days, with the andúilleaf . . .”

“Blaze is
yours
now, Meriel,” Jenna said, and for an instant her voice had again the imperiousness of a Banrion, sharp with the expectation of obedience. “Yours.” The effort exhausted Jenna, she lay back again, panting. “I need more andúilleaf,” she said to Keira.