Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (63 page)

An awful, shocked silence followed. Owaine’s mouth was open; Meriel had muffled her shocked cry with a hand. Only Keira moved, walking toward the road from the cover of the trees, her staff raised and an odd ululation coming from her throat.

The remaining two gardai wasted no time goggling at the apparition approaching from the black heart of the forest or waiting for another, perhaps better-aimed burst of magic. They fled. Grabbing the reins of frightened, panicked horses and jumping astride, they galloped north, passing quickly out of sight around the curving road. “Come on!” Keira shouted to Owaine and Meriel. “It’s over.”

Meriel started to follow, then realized that Owaine wasn’t with her. “Owaine?”

He’d released the Cloch Mór, which dangled from its chain. He was staring at his hand. “Owaine?”

His hand dropped. He blinked. A solidity and seriousness she’d not glimpsed in him before set in the lines of his face. “I’m . . . I’m coming,” he said.

T
HE PEASANT was rising to his feet as they approached, moving as if the effort cost him greatly. He’d dropped the sword and they could see cuts and tears along one side of his body from the rock fragments. He held his arm as if it might be broken. They could see an old woman there as well, a cut along one cheek dripping blood. She screeched at their approach, clambering awkwardly over the stones on the far side of the road. The man didn’t move; he stood there, slump-shouldered and swaying as if he were about to collapse.

Meriel caught up with Keira alongside the enchanted horse and rider, the wood of the statue scorched from the blast of the fireball and steaming in the rain. The peasant lifted his head; she stopped. The man’s lips curled in a wan smile.

“Hello, Niece,” he said. “I suppose I should say it’s good to see you again.”

Meriel stepped over the wreckage of the wall and the gory remnants of the garda. She stood before him.

She slapped him hard across the face.

She was surprised when he went down with the blow, sprawling in the mud of the road next to the body of the cart’s horse. He lay there for a moment before pushing himself up on his elbows. He spat blood.

“This is twice now in the last few days that you’ve saved me, Meriel,” he said. “I suppose I should be grateful, but somehow that’s not what I feel.”

She gave him a fierce stare, but she also saw the lines on his dirt-smeared face, the pain that clouded his eyes, the weakness in his limbs. He no longer appeared to be her age; instead, he looked middle-aged and drawn, as if some illness burned deep within him. She turned away as Owaine came up to them. She noticed that he carefully avoided looking at the carnage around them. Keira had gone across the road, calling softly to the old woman to return, who instead bolted for the shore of the lough. Keira sighed and went to the cart.

“Meriel,” Keira said. “You should come here.”

Doyle swiveled his head around and seemed to notice Keira for the first time. “No!” he shouted. He struggled to rise. “You leave her alone!” Meriel stepped carefully around Doyle to where Keira was standing. She looked into the bed of the cart, where a young woman lay in the straw half-exposed, her clothing torn, and around her neck . . .

“That’s a Cloch Mór,” Owaine said, coming up. “I know. I felt its presence when I opened mine.”

Meriel leaned forward into the cart and pulled the shreds of the woman’s tunic over her. She touched the side of her neck. “She’s alive, but this isn’t a natural sleep.”

“Leave her alone!” Doyle shouted again. He’d managed to get to his feet and limped toward them. “That’s Edana’s cloch.”

“Edana? The Bantiarna O Liathain?” Owaine asked. He looked again at the Cloch Mór. “That’s Demon-Caller,” he said to Meriel. “It used to be the Rí Ard’s cloch. Now
that
would be a prize for the Order of Inishfeirm . . .” He reached forward and Doyle wailed, hurling himself at Owaine. Owaine pushed at the man’s chest and Doyle went down. Owaine reached for the cloch again, but Meriel touched his arm, stopping him. She shook her head.

“Where are you going dressed like this?” she asked Doyle. “Why would gardai from Tuath Gabair attack you?”

Doyle had pushed himself up once more, splattered with mud and blood from cuts. He laughed bitterly. “After what happened, I’m hardly in the Rí Gabair’s good graces. Quite the opposite, in fact. We were heading for Tuath Locha Léin.” He gestured at the dead horse still in the traces of the cart. “Though it looks as if I’ll have to carry Edana the rest of the way.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“Ask your mam. It’s her fault.”

Owaine snarled something. Keira only watched, her broad face impassive. Meriel took a breath, not letting herself feel the anger she might have at his tone. “You didn’t take Edana’s Cloch Mór. You could have.”

“And do to her what’s been done to me? You don’t know me, Bantiarna.”

“I know you would have taken Lámh Shábhála from my mam.”

“Aye, I would have done that. But I love Edana—she was to be my wife. Your mam . . .” He snorted. “You know the history as well as I do. I can’t cause her more pain than she’s caused me.”

“You can still say that, knowing how you feel now? Knowing that the loss of Lámh Shábhála would be worse?”

Doyle scowled but said nothing.

Meriel glanced at Keira, then again at Edana’s still form. She could feel Treoraí’s Heart pulling at her as she reached into the cart to touch the young woman’s arm.
No,
she wanted to tell the clochmion.
I can’t do that again. I nearly lost myself in my mam’s madness. She could do the same, mage-snared as she is. I might not find my way out again or be able to help her.

There was no answer, only the same yearning from the clochmion. Her hand crept toward the gem. “Meriel!” Owaine said warningly, but her fingers touched the stone even as her other hand stroked Edana’s arm.

She found herself inside.

There wasn’t the blinding maelstrom that had been inside her mam. Here mage-winds howled in the voice of someone lost and trapped, and Meriel felt the panic begin to touch her own mind through her connection with Edana. Meriel moaned and wept, feeling the pain and fear that had driven the woman to this state. Edana crouched inside her own mind, huddled in the dark recesses, and her thoughts mingled with Meriel’s. “The lightning,” she whimpered. “No more. Please, no more . . .” Around her, the storm still crackled, a looping eternal memory; deeper inside, wrapping around her like dark clouds, were the thoughts and emotions from the moment she’d been trapped. As Meriel became Edana, the emotion buffeted her. She felt them, terribly strong:
She didn’t hate the Mad Holder, not like Doyle did with his smoldering loathing. No . . . this was more like killing a wild dog, one that was too dangerous to be left alive. You feared its power and you knew you had to kill it, but you didn’t hate it. So strong, so strong . . . Can Doyle handle this power . . . ?
And with the thought of Doyle, there came a feeling of such intense affection and love that Meriel was confused by it, battering against her own loathing of the man. She fell deeper into Edana.
Oh, Mother, I don’t think we can defeat her. Don’t think I can hold on. Too strong . . .
and then there was a flash of pain so terrible that Meriel screamed, her vision filling with white heat and she felt the last dregs of DemonCaller’s energy fall as Lámh Shábhála tore at her and sent her spinning away . . . falling . . . falling . . .

Meriel/Edana sat in a dark space far, far inside, and remembered lightnings flared all around her. She felt herself holding them away by sheer will, knowing that if they came to her, she would finally die. Meriel fought to retain herself separate from the woman.

“Let me have the storm,” she whispered to herself, to Edana. “Let me take the lightning away from you.” She felt a sudden faint hope rise within her. “Aye,” she said. “We can take the storm away, together. Doyle wants us to come back. He’s there. He’s waiting.”

The hope inside her strengthened. Edana’s mind shifted and the memory-storm raced toward Meriel/Edana with a roar. She forced herself to stay there, to let it strike her. She screamed as the lightning flickered around her and fought not to curl into a fetal ball.
It’s only a memory, not actually Lámh Shábhála. It’s not real. None of this is real. . . .

The pain was real, however, and it burned and seared her even as Edana cried with relief, even as—with her true eyes—she saw Edana stir, her mouth opening in a gasp, her eyes flying open.

Meriel found herself sagging in Owaine’s arms, the vestiges of Edana’s turmoil fading in the rain.

“Doyle?” Edana said, her voice ragged and weak. “Where’s Doyle? I’ve been gone so long. . . .”

“Meriel, I’m sorry, but this is stupid,” Owaine said when Meriel suggested that Doyle and Edana come into Doire Coill with them. “These are our enemies. You realize that Edana was part of the attack on your mam? By the Mother, Meriel, the woman has a Cloch Mór!”

“Keira doesn’t mind,” she replied. “And her Cloch Mór’s empty. Right now, they can’t do much to hurt us.”

“It’s not ‘right now’ I’m worried about,” Owaine retorted. “It’s later.”

“Owaine . . .”

He shook his head. “No, you don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know how I feel.”

“And I do,” she said. She smiled at him. Her fingers brushed his hand, taking it in hers. “I know how you feel. I do understand.” She looked at him, wondering if he knew what she was saying.

His eyes narrowed.

“I haven’t treated you well or listened to you, Owaine,” she told him. “I’m sorry for that. But I need you to trust me now in this.” He’d pressed his hand around hers. For a few breaths, Owaine stared at her.

“I can see, and I have a Cloch Mór. I’d say you’ve given me more than I could ever expect.”

“Owaine—”

He shook his head. “You don’t need to say anything Meriel. I don’t want you to say anything.” He released her hand then.

They’d followed Keira back into the forest and to the cave where Jenna slept.

“You can’t heal your mam the way you did me?”

Meriel shook her head at Edana’s question. “It’s not the same,” she said. “Lámh Shábhála is the strongest of the clochs na thintrí and she held it for years. The loss, the grief, is so strong . . .” Meriel shuddered, remembering what she’d felt inside her mam’s mind. “I was able to bring her back to consciousness, and even that was something I wouldn’t want to attempt again.”

“But you did. With me.”

Meriel lifted a shoulder. “Aye. But you had your Cloch Mór when you awoke. Mam didn’t. Lámh Shábhála’s gone.”

“So for Doyle, too . . .” Her voice trailed off as she glanced at him.

She would have tried. She reached for the cloch, but Doyle shook his head—a quick, choppy back-and-forth—the suffering on his face mingled with distaste as he glared at Meriel. Meriel knew that if she offered to try to help him, he would refuse.

She brought her hand back down to her lap. “I could ease his physical wounds, perhaps,” Meriel said, “but nothing I can do would replace the cloch he’s lost. I can’t do anything about that pain.”

Edana nodded; Doyle looked down and away again. The rain had stopped with the sunset and the clouds had begun to part, showing the stars. They were seated outside Keira’s cavern, eating a dinner of spring water, berries, and smoked meat that Keira had brought out. There was no fire—Keira would allow no fire out here in the open where the trees could see and feel it. The Bunús Muintir went back inside to watch Jenna. Doyle sat next to Edana, and Owaine stared grimly at the man next to Meriel, his hand significantly close to the Cloch Mór around his neck, ready to act if Doyle made any aggressive move.

Edana closed her eyes and Meriel saw the flicker of remembered pain pass across her face. “I will always be grateful to you,” the young woman said. “I was lost and you brought me back.” Her eyes opened again, finding Meriel’s gaze. “I’ll never understand why.”