Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (65 page)

She must have shivered, must have made some sign, for Owaine scooted over to her and his arm went around her. She looked over at him. “I’m sorry—” he began and started to withdraw, but she took his hand and held it against her shoulder.

“It’s all right. It’s . . . fine for now.” She leaned into his embrace, wanting the comfort of it against the cold vision inside her. “Keira sent crows to Dún Kiil this morning,” Owaine said. “I wrote the notes for her, telling them to prepare for war and letting them know that Jenna is here and that Lámh Shábhála has been lost. We don’t know if they’ll arrive, since Doyle told us how they sent a false crow to trap your mam, but it’s all I could think to do.”

“Inish Thuaidh can’t stand against this,” Meriel said, the dark vision still vivid before her.

“No,” Owaine agreed, “but we Inishlanders are stubborn and proud and we know our land. We’ll retreat to the mountains and caves and hidden places, and we’ll come from the darkness like ghosts to ambush the invaders wherever and whenever we can. They might claim the stones, but their blood will stain it for long generations and it will never truly be theirs. And one day, one day, we’ll rise and drive them out again.”

She could hear the fierceness in his voice, the angry pride of his ancestors singing in the words. His arms tightened around her shoulders, and she curled her own arm around his waist, wanting to believe him, wanting to take some solace and optimism from his words. But the vision wouldn’t leave her and he spoke only of more death.

“Edana and my uncle are right,” she said. “We need to work together now.”

“With that bastard Mac Ard? If he’d succeeded, your mam would be dead and
he’d
be out there at the head of the armies.” With his free hand, he gestured at the army crawling before them. “Edana’s Cloch Mór would be right alongside him, too. And don’t forget that it’s her brother who’s one of the Ríthe, and most likely to be the new Rí Ard. Where do you think her loyalty would go, if it came to a choice?”

“Right now what Doyle and Edana want is what we want.”

“What Doyle wants is to have Lámh Shábhála himself.”

“He can’t have that,” Meriel said firmly. “That’s Mam’s. But . . .” She could see the train of the army now, a bedraggled caravan of wagon and retainers following in the wake of the soldiers. “I would give him back the Cloch Mór that was taken from him for the promise that he would never try to take Lámh Shábhála again. I believe he would keep his word once he gives it. And I believe Edana’s word, as well.”

“That’s not what your mam believes. She refuses to even see Mac Ard.”

“I know. She’s wrong in this, though.”

“Must you always see the good in people?”

Meriel almost laughed at that.
See the good in people? I think I usually see the opposite.
The lough glimmered beyond the green cover of the trees and the trudging line of the army, and nothing moved on its waters but a few fishing boats. “Don’t make me out to be like one of those Mother-touched people, Owaine. I’m not.” She scooted away from him slightly, turning inside the half circle of his arm so she faced him. She looked into his face: so plain, and yet, now that she looked . . . “It took me far too long to see all the good in you, Owaine. I was the one with a flawed vision, not you. You’re the one who stayed with me, even when I didn’t show you much encouragement. After the way I treated you in Inishfeirm . . .”

Muscles tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You treated me better than most of the others.”

Meriel shook her head. “No, I didn’t, Owaine. I saw the same thing they saw when I looked at you, because I was looking at you with the eyes of the Riocha. Even here, I was still doing the same.”

He was staring at her, close enough that for the first time she noticed the flecks of gold in the irises of those brown eyes, that she saw the unmasked affection for her in his face and wondered why she hadn’t returned it. With Lucan, with Thady, with Dhegli . . . with them there’d been an intense flare of interest, a searing spark that ignited seemingly the first moment she’d seen them. With Owaine, there had never been such a spark; there had been only a slow, grudging movement toward friendship and trust and appreciation.

But she wondered, now, if there couldn’t somehow be more because of that. There was a solidity to Owaine that had been missing with Dhegli, that had never been there at all with Lucan or Thady.

She leaned toward him. She wondered if the touch of his lips would be soft or fierce.

A crow cawed loudly, landing next to them in a loud thrashing of midnight wings, and Meriel moved back, startled. It cawed again, cocking its head to one side as it peered at first Meriel, then Owaine. It hopped backward, turning as it did so. Glancing back at them, it opened its mouth and cried at them once more before launching itself back into the air and landing on a branch a few feet away to stare at them.

“Keira must want us,” Owaine said. He hadn’t moved. She could feel his hand on her back, his fingers slowly traversing the valley of her spine.

“Owaine,” Meriel started to say, but the crow shrieked once more, fluttering its wings impatiently. Outside the wood, the army continued to snake its way through the landscape. She could have leaned back toward him, could have let it happen, but the moment dissolved. Meriel took a breath as Owaine’s hand dropped away. He stood abruptly, holding his hand out to her.

“We should go,” he said. “Keira wouldn’t send the crow unless it was important.”

Meriel took his hand, letting him help her to her feet. Doubts assailed her again:
You’re too different: a changeling, a Riocha and Bantiarna, the daughter of the Banrion of Inish Thuaidh and the First Holder. This feeling’s come only because you’ve been thrust together out here. You’d be bored with him, once you’re back in Dún Kiil
... From the east came a din of clanging steel and the shouting of soldiers as an armorer’s wagon lurched and rocked over the rutted High Road. The sound was that of war, stretching out and spreading like the gray-black roiling of a thunderhead. It would envelop her, she knew, and with it would come pain and loss, and grief that would only increase the more she entangled her heart with those around her.

She let her hand drop away from Owaine’s. The crow, satisfied, flew away with a final cry.

“I
T’S YOUR mam,” Keira said as Meriel and “Owaine—both breathing hard from the long walk up the slope—approached the mouth of the cave. The Bunús Muintir’s face was creased with concern. Past Keira’s shoulder, Meriel saw a flash of motion inside the cavern’s entrance: Doyle Mac Ard and Edana.

“What are they doing in there?” Meriel asked, unable to keep the suspicion from rising in her voice. “Did he do something to her?”

Doyle slid out of the shadows. He lifted his chin, looking down at her. “I wanted to see her, that’s all. I asked Keira if she would bring me in to her. She was with me the whole time.”

Edana linked her arm through Doyle’s. “Meriel,” she said. “It was my idea. I thought . . . I thought we should talk with her, tell how things had changed with us and that . . . that we’d been wrong.”

Keira nodded agreement. “Jenna was awake, though groggy with the andúilleaf, and she agreed to see them. Edana went in first and it was fine, then she saw Doyle and . . .” A shrug. “I don’t know what happened.”

Meriel rushed past Keira before she’d finished speaking. Doyle held out a hand to stop her as Edana bowed her head. “I did nothing to her, Meriel,” he said. “Truly. I only wanted to apologize to her.” Meriel pushed his hand aside without answering, following the low, winding passage to where it emptied abruptly into the single large room as Owaine hurried after her. In the flickering of the peat fire, she saw her mam, standing near her bed and clutching a blanket to herself. Her hair was disheveled and matted, her eyes sunken and dark over pinched cheeks, and she swayed back and forth. For a breath or two Meriel thought that her mam was singing, until she realized that the high, continuous keening coming from her was a whimpering moan, interrupted only when she paused to breathe. “Mam?”

With the word, Jenna seemed to notice Meriel for the first time, and she backed away toward the fire. “Stay away from me!” Her voice was half-screech, half-sob. “You’re one of them. You may pretend to be my daughter, you may act like you’re concerned, but I can see through you, young woman. I know what you are. I know what you want.”

“What do you think I want, Mam?”

“You want my cloch.
The
cloch. You think I can’t see the puny little clochmion you carry? I know you’re jealous and you want what I have.”

“Mam ...” Meriel started to take a step toward her, but Jenna backed away again, her clóca and the hem of the woolen blanket around her dangerously near the flames. Meriel stopped, her hands out in mute supplication. She heard Owaine breathing heavily behind her.

“You can’t have it!” Jenna’s hand clutched together at her chest, as if she were hiding Lámh Shábhála under the folds of the blanket.

“I don’t want it, Mam. I never wanted it.”

Jenna’s eyes narrowed, then widened. “You’ll take it. You’ll take it from me.”

“No, Mam. I won’t.”

“I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. They all want it. They want to take it from me, but they don’t understand how much it
hurts
. . . .” The final word transformed itself into a long wail and Jenna sank down, the blanket brushing over coals. Meriel rushed toward her as she sank backward toward the fire, pulling Jenna forward as Owaine stamped out the sparks on the blanket. She crouched alongside her mam, rocking her in her arms as if Jenna were the child and crooning soft comfort. She caught Owaine’s worried gaze.

Treoraí’s Heart burned against her flesh. She knew what she had to do and yet it frightened her so much that she could hardly breathe.
It was so awful the last time; this will be worse.

“Meriel, don’t,” Owaine said warningly, but she shook her head.

“I have to,” she answered. “She’s my mam and she’s hurting. How can I
not
do it?” The clochmion seemed to pull at her hand. She found herself stroking the gem’s cold smooth surface without even realizing she’d moved her hand. And with the touch . . .

She fell into Jenna.

She fell into madness.

This wasn’t like the last time at all. Inside, there was no wild chaos or howling storm. Instead, Meriel found herself in a nightmare landscape surrounded by night-shrouded shapes and forms. Fingers reached out from darkness and clutched at her; harsh voices spoke demandingly, eyes peered at her suspiciously. There was little light here and what there was seemed bathed in blood; this was eternal night, a night in which ghosts walked, angry and uneasy. They glared at her as an intruder, all those who haunted her mam’s memory. Most of them she didn’t know, others she could guess at: the white-haired, stooped Bunús Muintir who frowned gap-toothed at her—that must be Seancoim, or rather not Seancoim but a twisted and misshapen caricature made feral and dangerous by Jenna’s insanity. He snarled at her, and arthritic fingers clutched at her shoulder. “I’ll tear you apart,” he hissed. “I’ll open you like a fatted pig and spill your guts on the ground.” He lifted an oaken staff, its gnarled head glowing with the power of the slow magic and brought it toward her. She tore herself away from him and he laughed maniacally as she fled.

She was Jenna, swept up in nightmare memories, but she was also herself. She was split, half-complete. She heard Jenna wailing somewhere close by. “Mam?” she called. “Where are you?”

Lost . . . lost . . .
“Here . . .”

The call came from within a forest of tangled tree limbs. Meriel pushed through them, the branches snatching at her. She pulled herself away from them and heard laughter. A man appeared before her: first the face, then the rest of the body. He was brown-haired with a beard longer than most men’s. He was thin with skin darkened by much sun, and the eyes were a strange, light green. The voice, when he spoke, was deep and graveled. “So this is my daughter,” he said. “You looked much like she did, then.”

“Da? Ennis?” She knew she was seeing through Jenna’s fevered memory, and she wondered if this was what he really looked like, the man who’d been her true father. He wasn’t handsome—too unkempt and rough, more like a farmer or fisherfolk than a Riocha. Like Owaine. And yet . . . “Come here,” he told her. “I’ll take you to her.” His eyes were deep-set and sad and she obeyed cautiously, but as soon as she came within reach of him, his hand darted out to grab the front of her clothing. “Where is it?” he rasped. “You have to give it to me.”

She struck at him with her fists, and they went through his flesh as if he were made of wet parchment. A wind moved through the darkness and the shards of his body fluttered away, dissolving into the sound of his low laughter.

A pile of stones to her right shifted with a dull, rocky clunking, shifting and rearranging itself, the stone melting as if it were molten and flowing in thick, glassy coils, though Meriel felt no heat. It rose as it moved, forming a creature in the rough shape of a man, but stocky and solid, as wide as it was tall with stony ridges over the caverns of its eyes, its skin gray-brown, glossy and smooth. The thing slammed its hands together. Sparks jumped, and the sound of the clap nearly deafened her, booming like a crack of thunder. The being spoke, its voice sounding like the liquid trill of a dozen bass-voiced birds, the words difficult to understand. “That is
my
heart,” it said. “Why would you bring it here?”

“Treoraí?” She lifted the clochmion on its chain. “This is yours?”

“You talk as if it were something I made.” Deep in the shadows under the ridged head, there was a gleam as its eyes moved. “That stone is me. I want it back now. Did you really think it could do anything about
this?
” He gestured; with the motion, Meriel’s vision seemed to recede as if she were being lifted rapidly into the sky high above the land. This interior world was bathed in bloody red light that seemed only to make the darkness more sinister and deep, and
things
moved in it like white maggots wriggling in rotting meat. Voices—mocking, threatening, arguing—filled the air, and shapes and faces drifted in the winds like clouds. Some of the visages she recognized, though all were warped and changed: Máister Kirwan, her da Kyle, even an angry and sullen version of herself. Others she knew not at all, images from her mam’s past and imagination. A strange beast like a gigantic cat with dragon’s wings and barbed tail stalked the landscape, crushing things under massive feet, its wings sending blasts of fierce winds across the world. Meriel looked up and saw that the blood-drenched sun was no day star, but Lámh Shábhála itself.