Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (10 page)

The dragon spoke, sounds Sevei could not understand with her ears, but which formed into dark and low words in her head.

“Why do you call me, Soft-flesh?” it asked.

Sevei almost staggered. “Call . . . you?” she stammered, her voice seeming impossibly small against the roar and presence of the dragon. “I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

“You called me here and now you hold me,” the dragon intoned. “If there is nothing you want of me, then let me go.”

“Let you go?” Sevei repeated, then saw the dragon’s gaze lower from her face to her hand (and seeing its viewpoint in her mind), and she realized that she was still clutching the clochmion, that the energy of the mage-lights was pouring out from it. She also realized that it was emptying quickly of the power she’d placed in it just a stripe ago.

So
that’s
what it does . . .

One of the bráthairs emerged from the doorway of the opposite tower, gaped in astonishment at the dragon perched above, and fled shouting for help. Close by, Sevei felt a Cloch Mór open, and then—like the sun rising again—Lámh Shábhála also wakened. Sevei wasn’t sure how she knew this: she could feel the impact on the net of energy flowing outward from her clochmion.
Dragoncaller . . .
She thought the name involuntarily and knew that would be the name for her stone.
Dragoncaller . . .

“Let me go,” the dragon said again, “or wait, if you prefer.” Its face seemed to leer at her and she could hear amusement in its voice. There was sharp intelligence behind those eyes, but also a strong malevolence that made Sevei shudder. She realized that the creature cared nothing about or for her or the world of humans—there was no common ground between them. She stared into the cold eyes of Otherness. She knew—somehow, inside—that the dragons called themselves the
Earc Tine,
and that this one’s name was Kekeri the Bloodtail, and that . . . “You can’t hold me much longer,” it said, guessing her thoughts, and she knew it was right—already the clochmion was nearly drained and once its power was gone . . .

If she had called the dragon, if she held it here with the clochmion, then once the cloch’s energy was drained, the creature would be free to do whatever it wished. As if to underscore her thoughts, the dragon’s claws clutched hard at the lip of the tower and more stones fell.

Gram would emerge in a moment, and Máister Kirwan, and she could imagine what they would do with the beast perched on the ramparts of the White Keep, and she could also imagine what the dragon might do in response. An image flashed before her of the White Keep caught in dragon flame and the lightnings of the clochs na thintrí. She could smell the fire and hear the screams.

She could see people dying. People she knew and cared about.

“Go!” she told it loudly. She waved her free hand at it as if shooing away a persistent fly. “Go back to your journey!”

The dragon lifted its head. “I will meet you again,” it said. “Another time . . .” It lifted its head away as the great jaws opened and it screamed: a deep mournful howl that shivered with the sound of hissing flame. The wings flapped once, sending a blast of summer-hot air over the courtyard that raised dust from the flagstones. Its massive legs pushed hard against the tower, cracking the stones and showering the courtyard with a final cascade of rock. The scarlet tail slapped at a crenellated wall and it fell. The dragon’s shadow flitted over the court as Sevei heard shouts of alarm from around the keep. Sevei and Dillon rushed out from their shelter to see the dragon wheel high above the keep and then flash downward over the cliffs of the island toward the sea. In a moment, it was gone behind the screen of trees.

Sevei released the clochmion. There was but a bare breath of power left within it.
When it was gone, what would have happened?
Sevei found herself shivering from more than just the cold.

“Sevei! Sevei, where are you!”

“Here, Gram!” Sevei stepped out into the open with Dillon beside her. Jenna was standing at the balcony of her room overlooking the courtyard, clutching Lámh Shábhála, and Máister Kirwan stood there with her.

“The dragon—”

“It’s gone, Gram. I—”

Jenna peered down at them. “I know what you did. I felt it.” The light had nearly vanished in the west and in the gloom and with the distance, Sevei could not read the expression on the older woman’s face. “You’ll come up here,” Jenna said, and it wasn’t the voice of Gram but the command of a Banrion who expected obedience. “Both of you. Up here. Now.”

“You called that creature with the clochmion.” The way Gram said the words made it a statement, not a question.

“Aye, Gram,” Sevei answered. “I didn’t know . . . I felt the clochmion, and when I touched the stone, it was like I
was
the dragon. I know exactly how the beast felt: the stone called and it
had
to come even though it didn’t want to. The clochmion could hold it as long as there was still power in the stone, and I think if I had ordered the dragon to do something, it would have, though with a great reluctance. The dragons don’t really like or understand us, or us them . . .”

“It talked to you ...You could understand dragon-speech . . .” Sevei saw her gram glance at Máister Kirwan. “All her da could do with the same stone was find lost items,” she said to him, “and
this
child brings down half the library and one of my towers the first night she fills it. Dragons, of all things!”

“She’s an Aoire,” Máister Kirwan answered. “Look what Meriel has done with Treoraí’s Heart. It’s your bloodline, Jenna. Don’t act so surprised.”

Jenna sighed at that, but Sevei thought she looked secretly pleased. Next to Sevei, Dillon stirred uncomfortably and Sevei took his hand. Jenna’s eyes followed the motion and she scowled. Sevei hurried into the silence before her gram could speak again.

“Da always said he was fascinated by dragons, Gram, and he’d even seen them three times in his life,” she said, “the first time when he was looking for Mam after she was taken from here and he was still holding this cloch. Maybe that’s why the stone took that ability—because of Da’s interest in dragons.”

“
Why
doesn’t matter,” Jenna snapped. “What matters is whether you can control the clochmion, rather than the reverse.”

“I can, Gram,” Sevei said, her voice taking on an edge to match Jenna’s. “I didn’t know what I was doing or even what I had called just now—I was only responding to the cloch. Now I
do
know—and I’d remind you that I also knew enough to release the beast before Dragoncaller had spent all its energy, or we might not be talking together. The way the thing looked at me . . . it would have crushed me in its jaws.”

“It would have had to take me first,” Dillon interjected, and Jenna made a sound of rude disdain in her throat.

“
Phah!
Brave words are easy when you don’t have to back them up, Bráthair Ó’Baoill. And you, child,” she said, turning her gaze on Sevei. “So now you
name
the stone, too? It’s a simple clochmion, not a Cloch Mór. You don’t need to be so overdramatic, Sevei.’

“And you needn’t be so condescending, Gram,” Sevei retorted.

“
Sevei
. . .” Dillon whispered, squeezing her hand warningly, but she ignored him. She sat forward in her chair, ready to answer heatedly, but Máister Kirwan interrupted the tirade she might have unleashed.

“I think,” he said, stepping forward to stand between Jenna and Sevei, “that if a mirror could show the soul of a person and not just the body it inhabits, the two of you would see that there’s not a whit of difference between you. Which is why you’ll get nowhere arguing with each other, and why you
will
argue. Sevei, I’ll spend the time between now and your departure for Dún Laoghaire working with you and the clochmion. That way we’ll
all
be certain that there aren’t any more, ah, unfortunate accidents with it. And that should satisfy Banrion MacEagan, also.” He looked more at Jenna than Sevei. Jenna frowned, refusing to meet Máister Kirwan’s eyes, but she finally gave a huff of exasperation and waved a hand at Sevei.

“I’ve never been good at acknowledging when someone tells me the unflattering truths about myself,” Jenna said. Her face softened then. “But . . . Mundy, as usual, you’re right—even if I don’t want to admit it. Sevei, I’m sorry. I just . . . worry, that’s all. For you to do this . . .” She shook her head. “You’re stronger than most cloudmages, that’s for certain. You’ll need to be careful because of that. Do you understand?”

“No,” Sevei answered truthfully. Jenna laughed at the bald starkness of the answer.

“Good. That’s the most intelligent thing anyone has said here tonight.” She waved her hand again. “You’ve exhausted that stone and can’t fill it again until tomorrow night, so we’re safe for the evening. Go on with you, then. I’m tired.”

Sevei rose and went to Jenna. She kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Gram,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? I’m sorry I argued with you. You’re a Banrion and the First Holder besides, but you’re my gram and that matters the most.”

“Aye, I know,” Jenna said quietly and patted Sevei on the cheek. “And I love you as well, daughter-child. I . . . I just don’t want you to be hurt. I’ll need you. I know that for certain now. I’ll need you soon.” She put an odd stress on the last word, and Sevei nodded. Dillon had come up alongside her; he bowed to the Banrion, who inclined her head in response silently, watching as Sevei took Dillon’s arm and went to the door. Máister Kirwan followed after them.

“Mundy,” Jenna called out. “Can you stay for a bit? I’d like you to fix some of the tea you talked about earlier . . .”

Máister Kirwan halted. “Certainly, Banrion. Bráthair, if you’ll go on ahead with Sevei and escort her
directly
—” he paused to emphasize the word, “—to the women’s wing . . . and see that this time she doesn’t feel a need to use her clochmion.”

“She won’t, Máister,” Dillon said. Sevei saw him start to grin, then his face went serious as he glanced back at Jenna.

“Tea,” Dillon said to Sevei as Máister Kirwan shut the door behind them. The grin was back on his face. “I’ll bet she just wants him for tea.”

She kissed his grin away, and then raised an eyebrow at him. “Tea,” she said firmly. “Or are you calling my gram a liar?”

“Never,” he answered, his hands out in mock surrender.

“It’s a good thing,” she told him, “because she and I
are
alike, and what you say and think about her you also say and think about me.”

She smiled at Dillon, but the way his eyes narrowed told her that he heard the bones within the words.

THE ARRUK SNARLED and hissed, raising its long-bladed jaka and swinging it toward Kayne. He brought his sword up to block, but the blade seemed impossibly heavy. Iron rang, and Kayne’s sword went spinning out of his nerveless hands to land in the mud three strides away. Everything seemed to stop and shift into underwater motion. He had forever to notice that his feet were mired to the ankle in the muck of the bog, that his armor and clothing were spattered with blood, that a storm was beginning to blow in from the west and that the battle around him was eerily silent.

Da was standing at the top of a rise just behind the Arruk, and he held a bow in his hand with an arrow fitted to the string. His Cloch Mór sat untouched and gleaming on his gray léine. Owaine watched, but though the Arruk lifted his jaka again with a roar, swinging it back to make the strike that would kill Kayne, Da didn’t move, didn’t draw back the bowstring and send the arrow into the Arruk’s unprotected back, didn’t bring his hand to his cloch to send the terrible lightning of Blaze down on the creature.

He just watched. Waiting.

“Da!” Kayne screamed, but Owaine’s dark eyes only stared, impassive. Desperate now, Kayne tried to leap to one side to regain his sword, but the swampy ground held him fast. He could hear the mud squelching under him, could smell the ripeness of the bog and the rotting flesh odor of the Arruk’s breath. Kayne raised his hand in a useless, hopeless gesture of defense, knowing that the leather wrapping around his arms couldn’t hold back the bite of the notched blade, that his next few breaths would be his last. “Da!” he screamed again.

Owaine shook his head, mute.

“Da! Help me!” The blade was sweeping down, as inevitable and bright as the sun . . .

“Tiarna!” A hand shook him. “Tiarna, wake up!”

Kayne fluttered his eyes open to find a young woman’s face framed in unruly, long red locks staring at him. Dawn light streamed in through the painted slats of shutters and the remnants of a fire glowed dully in the hearth. Kayne was sweating and tangled in the sheets of the bed; the young woman, sitting up alongside him, was naked. She seemed to realize it belatedly, reaching to bring up the sheet and holding it before her with a tentative smile. “You were shouting in your sleep, Tiarna,” she said. Her voice held the thick Fingerlander accent.