Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (61 page)

“Tell me.”

“It was simple. He said to tell you this: ‘At the end of the ficheall game, the losing Rí is always dead.’ ”

Doyle gave a laugh that turned into a protracted and phlegm-racked cough. “I suppose that’s clear enough. When are you supposed to do the deed? Should I hand you my sword or would you prefer to use your own?”

O Blaca shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “I was only told to report back to the Rí—I assume that if any of the Rí’s gardai find you in Tuath Gabair, they’ll have orders to—” He stopped. Took a breath. “The Rí also said: ‘Tell Doyle that a good player knows when he’s lost and topples the piece himself.’ And then he told me that if you decided to take a more honorable and permanent path rather than to live in perpetual shame, I should bring your Cloch Mór back to the Order for a more worthy cloudmage.”

“I’m surprised you brought in the healer for me, Shay. Maybe I would have conveniently died for you if you’d left me alone.”

A shrug. “You’ve been my student and then my friend, Doyle. I needed to know if the game was really over first. You couldn’t tell me in the state you were in.”

“And if I tell you it’s
not
over?”

“Then I take my time returning to Rí Mallaghan, and perhaps I’ll report to him that you’d already left Ballintubber heading for Infochla and your family’s holdings when I arrived there, when in fact you take the High Road south to Locha Léin. Tiarna Salia will take you in, at least for a time.”

“You’d do that for me?”

A nod.

“You’re a good friend, Shay. I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I expected the crows would be coming in to feed . . .” He would have given a wry smile, but the pain racked him again, tightening every muscle in his body, and he groaned.

O Blaca stood. He frowned down at Doyle. “But this is the last thing I can do for you as a friend. And I’m sorry, Doyle, but you have to leave soon. The mage-lights will come tonight; when they do, I’ll have to return to Lár Bhaile and give that report. Once I do, I don’t know how hard and how fast Rí Mallaghan will send people out looking for you. You lost three Clochs Mór to Ó Riain and Dun Laoghaire, and that means that Ó Riain holds the power in the Tuatha now—so I suspect Rí Mallaghan will be feeling rather vengeful.”

“And you, Shay? What are you feeling?”

The frown deepened under O Blaca’s dark beard as he pressed his lips together before replying. His eyes glinted hard and cold as marbles. “You may have destroyed everything that we’ve created in the Order of Gabair. I don’t know that the Order will survive this crisis and the loss of our clochs na thintrí. I do know that to have any chance, we’ll have to appear loyal to the Rí Ard once he’s named—and it will be Enean, and Ó Riain will be the Regent Guardian. I’m not the ficheall player that you or Rí Mallaghan are, but I would say that only a foolish player continues a game that’s obviously lost, and only a bigger fool continues to follow him.” He strode across to the room to the door again, putting his hand on the bronze handle there. “I’m not a fool,” he said.

O Blaca opened the door and went out. He closed the door behind him with exaggerated care.

Getting out of the bed was torture. Doyle’s body protested every move, and when he stood, the darkness threatened to take him again and he thought he heard the dark laughter of his mam, mocking him. There was a gnawing hunger and craving in his belly, but it was nothing that could be eased by food or drink. His hands shook with it; his body trembled with the need.

He managed to open the door after two attempts. There was no one in the hall; the gardai that Aghy had brought with him were gone. Doyle went to the door to Edana’s room. He hammered on the door, leaning against the planks. “It’s Tiarna Mac Ard,” he shouted. “Let me in.”

The elderly maidservant opened the door, fright written on her lined and puckered face, worry widening her rheumy eyes. “Tiarna! I’m so glad to see you. There’s been such commotion. All that noise and light on the mountain last night, then the gardai left when those horrible wolves and wild people tore through the village and we heard that the young tiarna was killed and you’d been hurt . . .”

Doyle said nothing, pushing past her and going to the bed where Edana lay. “She stirred last night during all the commotion on the mountain,” the servant said behind him. “I thought she was going to wake, I did. I went to her, of course, and held her and talked to her. I could tell she heard me. I thought—”

“For the Mother’s sake, woman, shut up and leave us!” Doyle shouted at her. The servant’s eyes widened even further and a hand went to her mouth. She fled at the sight of Doyle’s face.

He turned back to Edana. There were faint lines on her forehead, as if she were troubled in her sleep. Her arms were at her sides; her Cloch Mór lay on her chest.

Her Cloch Mór
...

The hunger deepened in his gut. Sweat beaded on his forehead, ran down into his beard. The trembling in his hands increased.

Without realizing it, his hand had gone to the silver-caged jewel of Demon-Caller. His fingers brushed the clear facets veined with purest red, and he could feel the power within it. He could imagine the relief that would flood through him, warm and comforting, once he slipped the chain from around her neck and closed his hand around the cloch to claim it as his own.

All the pain would be gone. He would be part of the mage-lights again. He could seek his revenge for what had been done to him.

If the theft bequeathed the torture he felt now to Edana, what of it? She was already lost. If her face reflected the pain, then it would be a mercy to take the breath from her body and end this sham of a life. Her soul would be grateful for the release; the Mother-Creator Herself would thank him.

Edana would
want
him to have the cloch. His revenge would be hers as well.

The links of the chain were cold on his fingertips. Beneath her léine, he could feel her chest rising and falling. Her mouth twisted as he lifted the chain, Demon-Caller hanging heavy from it. Edana moaned behind dry lips and a hand lifted slightly from the covers before falling back. Eyes fluttered under closed lids. “I’m sorry,” he told her.

All that remained was to lift her head and remove the chain.

He stopped. His hands shook, the tremor so violent that the chain slipped from his fingers. His knees folded; he collapsed alongside the bed.
“No!”
he screamed into the fiery, pounding torment. It filled his head, searing, and the apparition of his da threatened to rise from the orange-yellow haze.
“No!”

Shivering, groaning helplessly, he pushed himself up again. He stood, swaying with eyes closed, trying to push away the stabbing pain in his temples and gut. “I can do this,” he said to the image of his parents. “Aye, I can . . .”

He leaned over Edana. He touched his lips to hers. He stroked the hair at her temples. “Come back, Edana,” he told her. “Please come back. I need you.”

There was no answer. He took a long shuddering breath and stood back, waiting until the room stopped spinning around him. He could still see Demon-Caller glittering between Edana’s breasts. He clenched his fists at his sides, unable to stop them from shaking. Turning away with a visible effort, he went to the door and called to the old woman, pacing nervously in the corridor outside.

“Get her ready,” he told her. “We’ll be leaving in a few stripes.”

T
HEY didn’t travel as Riocha, with a carriage and rich trappings and gardai riding alongside. Doyle sold Aghy’s horses and carriage to the inn’s owner, taking in exchange a sway-backed mare and a ramshackle wagon. Using his dagger, he chopped his long hair close and took his beard down to stubble; he had the servant cut off Edana’s tresses as well, leaving her hair disheveled and matted. Edana lay on the wagon on a bed of straw, her fine clothing replaced with simple, undyed cloth and the Cloch Mór hidden underneath. The old woman—whose name he learned was Paili—sat with her; Doyle walked alongside the mare.

They left Ballintubber in the late afternoon. Shay O Blaca emerged from the tavern door to watch them pass; he said nothing to Doyle.

They walked south along the High Road to the Mill Creek, crossing the stream at the foot of Knobtop. Doyle kept his gaze firmly averted from the steep slopes and truncated, rocky summit. He forced his feet to move: one step, then another, watching the dust rise to coat the tattered sandals he wore. He walked like an aged, infirm man. He shuffled along with shoulders bowed and head down, as if the Miondia, the lesser gods who delight in tormenting the living, had heaped a lifetime of abuse and sorrow on him and broken him under it.

It was very easy to pretend. All he had to do was listen to the unending pain inside him.

The road moved slowly under their feet. The sun dropped westward and the shadows of Doire Coill lengthened toward the road. When darkness came, they moved off the road to the east, away from the gnarled oaks that were uncomfortably near. Doyle lit a small, cheerless fire and cooked a thin stew of coney meat and breadroot. As they were eating, the mage-lights began to brush the sky with their luminous hues. Doyle gazed stubbornly down at his plate but the lights gnawed at him.

He imagined Ó Riain, somewhere out under this same sky, holding Lámh Shábhála up to the lights and opening the cloch to himself. He thought of Snapdragon in Toscaire Rhusvak’s hand.

With a cry of disgust, Doyle swept the plate off his knees. He hunched over, holding his stomach and retching as the mage-lights strengthened and sent wavering, colorful shadows over the ground. He didn’t dare go to Edana, afraid that the temptation of Demon-Caller would be too great for him with the mage-lights flowing above. Setting his jaw and ignoring the cruel pounding in his head, he walked away from the encampment, waving away the cry of alarm from Paili. Not too far south, he could see the swirls of colors coiling like bright thunderheads—evidently someone with a cloch was out there somewhere, replenishing his or her stone. He remembered how it was: connected with the mage-lights, he had been part of a larger whole. Even as they wrapped around his hand as he held Snapdragon, he could sense the tug of others feeding on that same well of energy, had felt the web of all the cloch na thintrí and could even detect, at a distance, the great tidal pull of Lámh Shábhála who had opened the way for the rest of them.

Now, he felt nothing. The mage-lights were a pretty display in the sky, that’s all: unreachable, aloof, a reminder of everything he’d lost. They mocked him. The longing and yearning to be part of them again coursed through him as if knives were circulating through his body rather than blood. He sat down heavily on the dew-damp grass and covered his face with his hands until the sheets of light between the stars faded. Then he stumbled back to the cart where Edana and Paili slept. He lay down alongside Edana, listening to Paili’s snores.