Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (29 page)

Ennis woke in darkness. The bed on which he was lying swayed and jerked, the movement accompanied by the sound of hung pots banging together, and he realized that he was in one of the Taisteal wagons and that they were moving. “Pull over there,” he heard Clannhra Ata say, and the wagon turned right and the bumping and swaying increased for a few breaths before it stopped. He heard the creaking of wagon wheels as the other wagons settled around them; the neighing of the horses and the low murmur of people talking as they settled the animals.

“Unnisha?” he called.

No one answered. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. That sent yellow afterimages fading into purple and dancing before him. He wondered how long he’d slept—it had been late afternoon when he’d talked with the Clannhra and Unnisha; now it was dark. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the light of a lamp filtering through the crack of the rear door of the wagon. He got out of the bed that smelled of Unnisha and padded toward the door. He pushed and the door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Outside, the Taisteal had gathered the wagons together in a small meadow just off the road. The west was still touched with fading red sunlight, but the rest of the sky was dark and the Seed-Daughter’s Star was already bright above the horizon.

“Dobra vece, Fiodóir,” Unnisha’s voice said. For a moment, Ennis wondered who she was talking to, then he remembered. He saw her near the corner of the wagon, placing triangular pieces of wood under the wheels. “Did you have a good nap?”

He nodded and yawned helplessly. She laughed at that. “Are you hungry?”

This time the nod was more vigorous. “Oh, aye,” he said. “Very.”

She smiled at him. “I thought you might be. Tamara will be making a stew soon, but she’ll give us a bit of bread and cheese to tide you over. Help me get the wagon set, and we’ll go over to her . . .” She held her arms wide, and he jumped from the wagon door into her embrace. She kissed his forehead and placed him on the ground. “Here—we need to get the chucks under the wheels first, and then we’ll help Estraven with the horses . . .”

A half-stripe later, he and Unnisha were seated with several of the other Taisteal around a fire, over which a black iron kettle had been hung. A thick stew simmered there, the smell making Ennis’ stomach growl despite the small loaf of bread he’d already eaten. Unnisha sat next to him; across the fire, he could sense Clannhra Ata’s gaze on him, though whenever he glanced at her, she was always looking somewhere else. This time, her eyes were lifted to the zenith where the curls of fragrant steam vanished. Ennis followed her gaze and saw curling green-and-blue lights crawling between the stars.

“Mage-lights,” one of the Taisteal said. “They’re late tonight.”

The Clannhra nodded. Her gaze came down and this time found Ennis.

“Fiodóir?” he heard Unnisha say, and he realized that he was standing. The hunger within him had shifted, no longer focused on his belly but now somewhere deeper inside him, frightening with its urgency. He found himself reaching for Treoraí’s Heart, and he knew that the mage-lights were calling him as they’d called his mam every night. His tiny fingers found the stone. “Clannhra, he’s far too young . . .” he heard Unnisha protest and saw the Clannhra wave her hand at the woman.

He took Treoraí’s Heart in his hand as the mage-lights brightened above them. The swirls of light responded, coalescing above him and dancing down. As he’d seen his mam do, he lifted his hand toward the lights and several tendrils snaked down to wrap around his hand. He gave a sharp intake of breath at the first touch of them: like plunging his hand into an icy stream. Almost, he pulled away but the lights tightened about his wrist and he could feel Treoraí’s Heart yearning to open to them. “I don’t know how,” he started to say, but he thought he heard his mam’s voice:
“Here. Let me show you . . .”

“Mam?” he said aloud, hopefully. “Mam, is that you?”

He thought he heard her start to answer, but there was a chuckle that overpowered his mam’s voice: Isibéal’s laugh, tinged with anger.
“Child, this was mine. It should have saved me . . .”

“No!” he cried out. He wanted to release the cloch, but could not. The power of the mage-lights was burning him, searing the flesh of his hand. He heard another voice, a strange, deep one:
“Here. Let me show you . . .”

Ennis felt the cloch open like a flower to the sun in his mind.

The energy poured into the receptive vessel of the cloch; at the same time Ennis’ awareness drifted out so that he realized that all around Talamh An Ghlas others were doing the same. He could sense their connection through the mage-lights, a few of them—the Clochs Mór—immensely strong. Some of those he felt he knew: was that Uncle Doyle and Aunt Edana? And that distant tug at the lights . . . was it possible that was Kayne?

But Treoraí’s Heart was already full and the lights were pulling away from him now, trailing upward and dimming once more. He sighed as they left him, in mingled relief and sadness. The stone pulsed cold in his hand.

“What does it do, that cloch? Will it do what your mam could do with it?”

Ennis blinked. In the time he’d been with the mage-lights, he’d forgotten where he was. The Taisteal were all staring at him, and the stew bubbled thick. Unnisha rushed over to him, enfolding him in her warm embrace, but Clannhra Ata’s gaze on him was nearly as cold as the mage-lights.

“What does it do, Fiodóir?” she asked him again. Ennis heard the mocking laughter again in his mind.
“You set the pattern, boy, with the way you gained the Heart . . .”

“I don’t know,” he told the Clannhra as he snuggled gratefully against Unnisha. “I don’t know.”

But he did. As his fingers opened around Treoraí’s Heart and he let the stone fall on its chain against his chest, he knew.

THE SMOKE FROM the pyre drifted over the island and out to the water where the wind finally tore it apart. Sevei watched, the heat from the oil-fed flames making her face feel tight and hot. She wondered why she wasn’t crying, but the tears wouldn’t come, even as the small stack of logs collapsed in a fuming of sparks and the smoke obscured what was left of her gram’s body.

She could feel Parlan standing just behind her, his cap off and in his hands as he watching the burning.

He’d brought her over in the little currach piled with wood and flagons of scented oil. Jenna’s body had been where Sevei had last seen it two days before, strangely undisturbed and untouched by corruption. For a moment, looking at her, Sevei had wondered whether she’d made a mistake and Gram was merely sleeping, but no—the chest was still, and her flesh as cold and hard as the stones. She suspected that Bhralhg had used some spell to protect Jenna; if so, she was grateful to him for that small favor. The body seemed to weigh less than nothing as she and Parlan lifted it from the niche near the beach and brought it to where they’d constructed the pyre. Sevei had said a silent prayer to the Mother, had kissed her gram’s forehead one last time, then Parlan handed her the torch.

The flames had licked hungrily at the gift, roaring. She watched until there was nothing left but black ash and coals glowing a sullen red.

“The smoke . . .” Parlan said behind her. He whispered as if he didn’t want to break her reverie, but there was an urgency to the man’s voice.

“I know,” Sevei answered. “It may bring eyes that we don’t want.”

Parlan helped her pile stones on the remnants of the pyre until they had the mound of a cairn. Filthy and exhausted, her skin blackened with soot, Sevei knelt alongside it and kissed one of the stones. “Good-bye, Gram,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find Lámh Shábhála for you. One day, I’ll bring you back to Inish Thuaidh. I promise that much.”

Parlan put his hand on her shoulder. “We should go now,” he said. She nodded. She touched her fingers to her lips and touched the stones.

The wind helped push them back to Inishlesch. A stripe later, they were in the single tavern in the village. Parlan’s son Donal was there also, and motioned them over to his table.

The story they’d given the village was that Sevei was an orphaned cousin of theirs from Inish Cnapán, the north ernmost island of the Stepping Stones. She could feel the stares of the other patrons in the inn and hear the muttering:
“She’s staying with old Parlan, is what I hear . . . Wonder what kind of cousin she really is . . . ?”
but she did her best to ignore it. If the people of the island hadn’t been welcoming, neither had they been hostile.

“What’ve you learned, boy?” Parlan said before they were even seated. “What’s the word in Ballynakill?”

“Not good, Da, ” Donal answered. He kept his voice to a low, husky whisper. He wouldn’t look at Sevei or talk directly to her. “They’re still looking for the girl and the Banrion Holder. The gardai in Ballynakill are asking all the fisherfolk who are bringing in their catches if they’ve heard of any bodies washed up or of any unknown women showing up on the islands. I saw at least three of Infochla’s warships on my way, and two of them sent boats over to talk to me and make certain I wasn’t hiding anyone.” He took a sip of the stout in front of him. His gaze never came close to Sevei.

Parlan grimaced. “They’ll give it up soon enough,” he insisted.

No, they won’t,
Sevei wanted to tell them.
Not as long as Lámh Shábhála’s still missing. Not as long as they don’t know for sure. They’ve made that mistake with my gram before; they won’t make it again.
But Donal spoke before she could stir herself.

“It’s worse than that, Da. There are rumors all over Ballynakill about the Healer Ard being dead. They say the Ríthe are already meeting to name a new Rí Ard, and they’re saying it may be one of the Order of Gabair’s mages.”

“Was there news of Inish Thuaidh?” Sevei asked, and Donal nodded.

“Aye. All sorts of talk: about the clans disagreeing about who should be the new Ard there, though right now the Banrion Holder’s husband is acting as Ard.” She noticed that he wouldn’t say “your greada” when he spoke of Kyle MacEagan, as if he still didn’t want to admit that Sevei might be who she claimed to be. “There’s talk and rumors about the Tuatha sending an army over to take the island now that the Mad . . .” He stopped. “. . . the Banrion Holder and her cloch are gone.”

“And the Order of Inishfeirm?”

“In disarray. I was talking to a drunken garda last night who claimed that the Máister of Inishfeirm was a prisoner in Lár Bhaile and that his Cloch Mór has been taken by the Order of Gabair. One of the siúrs has been named Máistreás in the meantime.”

Sevei moaned. “Oh, poor Máister Kirwan . . .” She knew now, holding the clochmion, how devastating it was to cloudmages to have their cloch taken. To some, the pain was impossible to endure: it could drive them to madness or suicide. She thought she could see Máister Kirwan’s face, distorted by torment, screaming in darkness . . . She shook away the image.

Donal was looking carefully away from her. His voice was an urgent, harsh croak. “It’s too dangerous for her to be here, Da. You could bring the gardai down on all of us.”

Parlan sniffed. “Is that my son speaking, or Báirbre?”

Donal flushed, his knuckles whitening around the mug of stout. “We both think the same, Da, me and Báirbre.”

“You do, eh?” Parlan answered. “Well, you can think all you like, but I make up my own mind, and I do what I believe is right without worrying about what everyone else might think. You might start doing the same.” He rose, holding his hand out to Sevei. “We’re going home,” he told her.

“Da—” Donal shook his head.

“Parlan,” Sevei protested, “I don’t want to cause any trouble between you and your family.”

“You’re not,” Parlan told her. “The trouble was always there. Donal prefers to let others do his thinking for him.” Everyone in the tavern was watching them, the silence nearly deafening. “Come on. Suddenly it’s gotten too cold in here.”

She took his hand. His grip was warm and strong and she could feel the thick calluses on his palm. She let him pull her to her feet and toward the door. The world outside, full of the sound of the surf and gulls, the creaking of the wooden quay and the conversation of buyers and sellers at the market lining the harbor street, seemed an incredible din after the tavern’s quiet. Parlan kept her hand in his as they walked; she made no attempt to pull away. She could sense the stares following them as they took the path away from the water toward the hills where Parlan’s small plot of land lay. As they passed the last house of the village, he seemed to realize that he was still holding her. His hand opened.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t presume—”

She reached out and took his hand again. “It’s fine,” she told him. “I don’t care.”

“I don’t mean nothing by it,” he said. “You could be my daughter, and you’re a bantiarna and I know . . .”

“Parlan, it doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t. She felt numb, somehow, as if everything that had happened since the sinking of the
Uaigneas
had taken place to a Sevei who was somehow removed from her. The pain, the grief, the loss of Gram, of her mam, of Dillon, of all of those close to her: she couldn’t quite feel the loss and sorrow, though she knew it was there. All of her senses were dulled, as if she viewed them through gauze. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “Nothing matters.” She could think of nothing else to say.

They were both silent the rest of the way home.