Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (76 page)

Meriel watched as did Jenna, though Jenna had risen to her feet and she screamed the caointeoireacht na cogadh, the war cry of the Inishlanders.

But there was no surprise to their attack: Ó Riain seemed to have somehow expected it. Mahon’s knife and Doyle’s arrows rebounded as if they had hit a clear wall three feet from Ó Riain’s chest. Owaine’s lightning crackled close enough to light Ó Riain’s face but without touching him; Mundy’s tentacles of force wrapped around the man but could not tighten about him.

Ó Riain sneered. Edana’s mage-demon roared in answer and its red-mailed fist swung. The sound rang like steel on steel and thunder followed. For a moment, Meriel felt a surge of hope and optimism, for Ó Riain went down with a cry, falling to the road as his horse reared and fled. Lámh Shábhála might be powerful, but Ó Riain, as her mam had suspected, wasn’t yet skilled at wielding it. They would prevail.

The other clochs gathered themselves and sent their power surging toward him. The mage-demon howled and lifted its foot, ready to crush Ó Riain into a bloody mass in the mud.

Meriel heard Jenna laugh.

But new lines of blue-white force materialized, wrapping about the demon’s ankle and pulling. The monster went down, crashing to the earth near Ó Riain.

Jenna hissed. “Weaver,” she said. Enean had entered the fray.

“Edana! What are you doing?” Enean screamed, his hand around his own cloch.

“Enean, please! You have to trust me!” she shouted back, and the netting about the demon’s ankle loosened somewhat as Enean’s face twisted in puzzlement and confusion. But the moment where they might have won had passed already.

Ó Riain pushed himself up and Lámh Shábhála raged. He shouted, and it was as if the sound were a physical blow. Mundy and Owaine were flung backward along with their clochs’ manifestations—Meriel crying out in alarm—and Edana screamed, going to her knees as wild light flared around the mage-demon as it roared in agony. The gale that was Ó Riain’s shout picked up rocks and stone, sending them smashing against the mage-demon and Edana. Blood ran from cuts on Edana’s face and arms; she and the mage-demon screamed together. The demon took a step toward Ó Riain and was shoved back as wild light poured from Lámh Shábhála, so bright that Meriel had to shield her eyes.

“No!” Enean shouted. “Don’t hurt Edana, Labhrás!” “No!” Enean shouted. “Don’t hurt Edana, Labhras!” But the assault continued as Mundy and Owaine picked themselves back up and intensified their attack. Lámh Shábhála faltered, the storm wind around it subsiding, but Ó Riain ignored the others except to throw up a wall against them. Edana was the focus of Lamh Shábhála’s fury: light as bright and blinding as the sun erupted around Edana’s mage-demon—burning it, tearing at it, ripping into its body, shredding its flesh. The demon shuddered in torment and Edana fell to her knees in the mud, doubled over in reflected pain.

Meriel could see the valley, bright in the searing new dawn of Lámh Shábhála. The radiance painted the bottoms of the clouds, made the rain sparkle.

She realized that they had lost. They had lost, and there Ó was nothing she could do to help. Lámh Shábhála and Ó Riain were too strong, even for three Clochs Mór. Yet out of defeat came a sudden glimmer.

“No!” Enean shouted again. The Rí Ard jumped down from his terrified horse like a vengeful spirit, holding his cloch high though his other hand was on the hilt of his sword. He stood over Edana’s prone body, glaring at Ó Riain—and when lightning crackled from Ó Riain’s hands, lashing out toward Edana as a finishing stroke, he attacked. Weaver’s pale net went snapping forward, joining with Mundy’s and Owaine’s siege of Lámh Ó Shábhála’s wall. The lightning faltered and went dim. Ó Riain moaned and the mage-demon stirred again as Edana lifted her head. Lámh Shábhála pushed back at its attackers, but this time they were four, not three, and they held fast. Owaine grimaced angrily alongside Meriel, grunting wordlessly as he pushed at the mage-wall. Edana’s demon roared and stomped toward Ó Riain, bringing its red fists down to shudder once against the man’s defenses. Ó Riain shoved her back; the demon staggered, then charged once more. Again she was pushed back and again she returned: as the other clochs tore at the wall, which suddenly fell in an explosion of sound and light . . .

... then ...

Ó Riain wailed, a thin sound against the din of the clochs. He collapsed, falling into a heap in the mud. His hand opened.

There was, astoundingly, silence punctuated by the rolling echo of the battle rebounding from Sliabh Bacaghorth. The mage-demon vanished as Edana gasped and released her cloch; Enean sank down beside her. Owaine gave a sigh next to Meriel and Mundy reeled backward in weariness.

Stunned and exhausted, no one moved.

No one but one.

Jenna, on Meriel’s other side, gave a wordless cry and scrambled to her feet, rushing out from cover and dashing toward Ó Riain’s unconscious body as Meriel, belatedly, pursued her. But another did the same.

Doyle.

They reached Ó Riain at the same time. Jenna was crouched, snarling like an animal with hands extended like claws and her eyes glaring wildly at her younger brother. “It’s mine!” she hissed, and when Doyle scoffed and reached for it, she slashed at him, drawing blood from his hand. “Mam!” Meriel shouted as Doyle reached for the knife at his side and Jenna crouched over Ó Riain like a wolf guarding its kill. Meriel heard the sound of steel being drawn and a sword cut air dangerously close to Jenna’s outstretched hand.

“No!” Enean’s voice boomed. “Back away, both of you!”

“Don’t make a mistake here, Enean,” Doyle answered placatingly, his hands spread wide. “This is our chance. Think of it: you as Rí Ard, Edana at your side as Banrion Dún Laoghaire and me as her husband with Lámh Shábhála . . . Enean, no one could oppose us. No one. Your reign would be the wonder of all time. The song-masters would sing of you for centuries.” Meriel saw a slow, childlike grin spread over Enean’s face with that, and she also sensed the dangerous vibration of the clochs—Edana’s, Owaine’s, Mundy’s—and she didn’t know where they would strike, only that they would.

Enean’s sword wavered for an instant, and as it dropped Jenna plunged her hand past the blade, snatching at the chain of Lámh Shábhála. Enean roared, and his sword drew a line of blood down Jenna’s white-scarred arm, but her fingers were around the stone now, pulling, and the chain’s links flew apart as Jenna opened the cloch with her mind. Ó Riain’s eyes flashed open; he gasped openmouthed like a man drowning, reaching for the cloch, but Jenna danced back away from him.

Her cry was laugh and scream and shout of rage, all at once, melded with the fury of Lámh Shábhála’s power. Jenna was transformed in that instant. She seemed younger, vital, and terrible.

And insane. Meriel knew what she saw: the person who had once been called the Mad Holder.
“. . . it’s those you love you should fear the most, for they hold the greatest danger for you.”
Sevei had told her that what seemed a lifetime ago. Meriel had believed that if they could recover Lámh Shábhála the crisis would somehow end, that with the recovery of the cloch her mam would right the world and everything would return to how it had been. She realized now how wrong she’d been.

“Mam!” Meriel cried again, but her voice was lost. She had thought that Lámh Shábhála had been emptied, but perhaps Jenna knew the hidden places in the stone or how to tap it far more deeply than had Ó Riain. A widening ring of pure energy welled out from the cloch: a wild, rushing storm wind, black and awful and hissing with lightning. Meriel was thrown backward and away, lost in the whirlwind, feeling herself striking rocks and brush. She could hear the others yelling also, and one loud wail rose over the din. Her head struck something hard and for a few breaths or perhaps more, Meriel fell away into darkness. When she could see again, she could hear the sound of hooves and a woman’s angry cursing. Blinking, groaning, she lifted her head and saw her mam riding away south along the road to Falcarragh, and the wind brought the sound of her voice . . .

“I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all!”

“Mam!” she called uselessly, and then groaned again. She sank back down, trying to hold onto ground that seemed to be rolling around her. “Owaine? Mundy?”

“Here!” She felt Owaine’s hands on her shoulders. “Are you hurt?” Meriel shook her head and tried to get up; Owaine helped her to her feet.

“My mam . . .”

“Gone mad.” That was Mundy, his clóca and léine torn, standing a few feet away, blood running down one side of his face from a long cut on his forehead. He stared down the road to where Jenna had vanished into the rain and mist. “And dangerous, with Lámh Shábhála.”

“We have to go after—” Meriel began, but a wail interrupted her.

“Enean!”
It was Edana’s voice. “Oh, Mother-Creator, no!” Edana was kneeling next to Enean, who lay sprawled on the ground, his sword broken halfway up from the hilt. He had the look of a broken doll, his arms flung at wide, awkward angles, one leg bent entirely backward. Coins glinted in the mud around him, the mórceints he’d brought for Edana’s ransom. His eyes were open, Meriel noticed as she sank down beside Edana, but they saw nothing and his chest did not move. “You have to help him,” Edana said to Meriel. “The clochmion . . .”

Meriel took Treoraí’s Heart in her hand and placed her other hand on Enean. She willed it to open, tried to force herself into Enean’s body. The power within Treoraí’s Heart filled her but she sensed nothing from Enean—there was no pain, no spark, no thoughts, no connection at all. She might as well have been touching a rock. “I’m sorry, Edana,” she said. “I’m so sorry . . . There’s nothing I can do . . .”

Edana wailed, her head back. Rain pounded down on them, as if her cry had ripped open the sky. Meriel put her arm around the woman, but Edana shrugged her away angrily. Meriel stood up as Owaine came to stand next to her. They stared down at Enean, the rain slicking his face, his eyes staring upward. Doyle went to his knees by Edana and held her. She sank into his embrace, sobbing, as Doyle reached out to close Enean’s eyes.

“We need to go after your mam,” Mundy said to Meriel. She tore her gaze away from Enean to the worried face of the Máister. “There’s nothing we can do here, but Jenna is—” He stopped.

“Mad,” Meriel finished for him. Owaine’s arm tightened around her in sympathy. “I know. I saw it; I felt it.”

“She won’t get to Falcarragh before nightfall,” Mahon said, “if she gets that far at all.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Mundy said. “Lámh Shábhála must be nearly drained after this, but when the mage-lights come . . .” He took a long breath. “Far too many could die.”

Ó
RIAIN was also dead, Meriel realized when she went to him. His eyes and mouth were open in his last cry, his hands still reaching hopelessly for the cloch he’d lost.

“He wasn’t as strong as your mam,” Owaine told her. “Losing Lámh Shábhála killed him.”

Meriel didn’t hear him. She was looking to the west, where the hidden sea surged against the land. Her forehead burned.

Mahon brought their horses from where they’d been hobbled. Ó Riain’s body they left on the road; Edana insisted that Enean’s remains had to return with them and they laid him across his horse. Edana had taken the torc of Dún Laoghaire from her brother. It now lay around her own neck. She’d also taken the Cloch Mór Enean had held. Mundy had started to protest, but Meriel shook her head at him and he subsided. Weaver now lay on Doyle’s chest, the man’s face no longer looking drawn and weak. The way he stared at her—cold and almost angry—made her uncomfortable. She looked instead at Edana.

“Mam didn’t intend to kill Enean,” Meriel said to Edana as the group quickly mounted. “She threw us all back, even me. This wasn’t what she would have done if she were thinking rightly. You must know that.”

The glance Edana shot toward Meriel was venomous and sharp. “What I know is that my brother’s dead. And I know who killed him.” She looked at Doyle, staring now in the direction that Jenna had taken. “I also know that Doyle wouldn’t have done that had
he
taken Lámh Shábhála. I know that if she’d killed all of us taking Lámh Shábhála, including you, she wouldn’t have cared. That’s what I
know,
Meriel, and you know it also. I think too many people have made too many excuses for your mam over the years.” Her fierce, grieving stare went over them all: Owaine, Mundy, Mahon, and then came back to Meriel. “You, at least, should realize it. Didn’t you taste her madness yourself?”

“Enough talk,” Doyle said before Meriel could reply. “We waste time here.” With that, Doyle slapped the reins of his horse and moved off quickly. Edana followed, with Enean’s horse tied behind. Mahon started after them, his face red and furious, but Meriel shook her head at him. “You three can follow them soon enough,” she said. “Let Edana grieve with Doyle for now.”

“ ‘You
three
can follow?’ ” Owaine repeated, tilting his head toward her. “What about you?”

Meriel looked to the west, where the mountains ended. Ever since her mam had left, she could feel the tug of the water and something else . . .
someone
else . . . “I’m going to Falcarragh another way,” she told him. “A way you can’t go.”

“Meriel,” Owaine said. His hand touched her arm and there was pain in his eyes. “Don’t do this.”

“I’ll get there faster that way,” she told him. “I may get to Falcarragh even before Mam.” But Owaine was shaking his head.

“Is
he
there? Is that why?” She didn’t respond, but he nodded as if he’d heard her answer. “Aye, so he is.”

“If you trust me, if you love me and you know that I love you also, then you also know you have nothing to worry about,” she told him. “This is the best way, Owaine. For me
and
for my mam. For us.”

“For us?” Owaine grunted. “Meriel . . .”