Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (71 page)

The youth stopped a careful few feet away. “An’ what would that be?” he asked suspiciously, peering slit-eyed at Doyle. Doyle reached into the purse tied to his belt and retrieved a mórceint; he flipped the coin once so that the boy could see the glitter of it in the light from the inn’s windows. “There’s a tiarna inside. You’ll recognize him easily—a big man, in green and brown, and he has a Cloch Mór around his neck that’s the white of sea foam. His name’s Shay O Blaca. I want you to tell him that you have a private message, only for him. Get him away from his companions, or whisper it into his ear if you must. Tell him that there’s someone outside who would like to speak with him.”

“If I were a tiarna, I wouldn’t be coming out, not into an ambush, an’ I might be tempted to hurt the messenger a bit, just to see what else he knows.”

Doyle laughed. “Ah, you’re a wise one, indeed. Give Shay one more word: tell him it concerns Snapdragon. Just that. Snapdragon. He’ll understand.” Doyle flipped the coin toward the boy; it landed glistening at his feet. “Can you do that for me?”

The boy stopped, plucked the coin from the earth. From the expression on his face, Doyle knew that he’d been expecting a simple copper. His eyebrows raised at the gleam of gold, probably more money than his family saw in a month. “Aye,” he said wonderingly. “Aye, I can indeed.”

“Then do it. I’ll be here, waiting.”

Doyle watched the boy enter the tavern, the light spilling out across the road and the voices rising in volume as he opened the door, then darkness and quiet returning as it shut behind him. Doyle moved away from the tree, going to the side of the inn. A few moments later, the door opened again and he saw O Blaca’s broad shadow outlined in the light. The man stood there, obviously peering out into the darkness. “Shay,” Doyle called, stepping out so that O Blaca could see him. “I need to talk with you. Alone.”

“Doyle?” O Blaca’s bass rumble was a half laugh, but there was a bitter tinge to it, a cautious reserve. He glanced over his shoulder into the tavern. “By the Mother, man, you’re supposed to still be back in Doire Coill. Someone’s information is very wrong.”

“And it needs to stay wrong,” Doyle told him. “I hope you’re still the friend I know you to be. I hope your loyalty’s to the Order of Gabair before any oath you’ve given to that damned Ó Riain.”

Shay’s face tightened. “The new Holder?” He spat carefully on the ground. “You don’t look good, Doyle Mac Ard. You look ill and beaten.”

“Ill, aye. I am that. Beaten?” Doyle lifted a shoulder.

“You were always resilient, I’ll give you that,” Shay said. “Why are you here, Doyle. Is it Snapdragon? The Toscaire Concordai wears your Cloch Mór, and he’s with the Regent Guardian.”

Doyle shook his head. “Not Snapdragon, though I’ll pay back the Toscaire for that.”

O Blaca nodded but he looked unconvinced. “So that’s it, is it? Still pursuing the chimera. If you’ve come here looking for help from me, then I’m sorry, Doyle. Cloudmages need to tread carefully right now, especially when it concerns the new Rí Ard’s Regent Guardian.”

“Aye, I can believe that,” Doyle answered. “But the Regent Guardian might not be the Holder of Lámh Shábhála for long. The winds may change.”

“Those are nice and brave words, but you hardly inspire confidence, Doyle. Your last few plans have been . . . less than successful. Damned deadly, in fact, for those in it with you.”

Doyle hissed, drawing himself up even though the pain inside made him want to hunch over. “I
had
Lámh Shábhála, Shay,” he said bitterly. “You know that. I
had
the cloch and it was only betrayal by that foul Toscaire Concordai and Ó Riain that ruined it. The Order of Gabair would have been ascendant then, Shay, and you and the rest of our cloudmages with it. We
had
it . . .”

“There’s no ‘we’ when it comes to holding Lámh Shábhála. And it’s ‘had.’ Not ‘have.’ We don’t have it now.”

“But maybe again.”

O Blaca smiled. “Your appearance doesn’t say that, Doyle. I see no Cloch Mór around your neck. I see a sick man who looks as if he can barely stand, who dragged himself here from Gabair in clothes more ragged than a field worker’s. Do you command an army of beggars, Doyle? Will you come against the Regent Guardian and Lámh Shábhála with pitchforks and torches?”

Doyle nodded. “I will do that if I need to. But, Shay, my old friend, remember that twice now since Knobtop I was to be killed and I’m still alive. Fiodóir hasn’t woven me out of the tapestry of life, and so I think the Mother-Creator has a better fate in store for me at the end. Remember the tales you heard of how I vanished into Doire Coill; remember that I’m still supposed to
be
in the Dark Wood surrounded by gardai, and I’ve escaped. I dress as I do because I want to move without notice, but don’t make the mistake of thinking me an old toothless dog.”

“And what kind of teeth do you have?”

Doyle glanced up. Tendrils of light were snaking among the stars, brightening and lowering, swirls and coils of gold and blood and deep-water blue. Seeing the mage-lights made the yearning swell in Doyle’s chest, made him want to close his eyes and moan with the pain of the loss. He forced himself not to move and to keep the pain inside. “What teeth?” he answered. “Teeth that will chew on the mage-lights. The teeth of a sister. Inish teeth. Cloudmage teeth.”

O Blaca made a hissing noise, glancing up at the mage-lights. “You and Edana have allied with the Order of Inishfeirm?”

“I’ve allied with those who will gain me what I want. I’ve allied with those who will take down the Regent Guardian-Holder. Understand that I’ve no quarrel with Enean, though—he’s a pawn in this.”

“He’s more than a pawn, Doyle. He has Weaver.” Doyle sucked in his breath at that, and O Blaca nodded. “Aye, a Cloch Mór is around his neck, he has a strong right arm, and the commanders of the armies may know that he’s childlike and slow, but they still admire him. If you want Lámh Shábhála, you have to consider Enean.”

“Then I will,” Doyle answered. “And you, Shay? Where is your loyalty?”

O Blaca sniffed. “I gave my fealty first to the Order, then to the Rí Gabair, then to the Rí Ard. Rí Mallaghan said he would follow the Rí Ard into battle, and so I go with him. I’m just telling you this: Enean could be more trouble than you think.”

“And Edana could always handle him. He won’t hurt his sister, Shay.”

O Blaca glanced up at the mage-lights, strengthening and glowing brighter. In a few moments, Doyle knew, the others would be coming out from the inn so their clochs na thintrí could commune with the power above. But he would not. He could only look at the mage-lights and feel the empty yawning hole inside himself. “Perhaps not,” Shay ventured, “but you may have to deal with Enean as an enemy. Are you prepared to do that? Is Edana?”

“We’ll do what we need to do,” Doyle answered. “Right now I need to know if you’ll help. If I ask for your aid sometime in the next few days, will you give it?”

“Recently, when I’ve done that, the results have been less than spectacular.” Doyle saw O Blaca’s hand start to drift to his Cloch Mór, and he knew the man wanted to turn his attention to the mage-lights.

“I promise that no one will know of your involvement unless I’m successful, Shay. For what we put together in the Order of Gabair, I ask this of you.
Especially
for the good of the Order.”

O Blaca sighed. “Aye. We’ve always been friends, Doyle. I’ve thought of you as the younger brother I never had. I’ll make no promise, understand, but I’ll listen when you call. If I can—
if
I can—I’ll do what you ask, especially if it takes down Ó Riain. Right now the Holder’s attention is on Inish Thuaidh; when that’s over, I suspect he’ll look at the Order of Gabair, and I don’t trust the man.”

Doyle grinned and slapped the O Blaca on the back. “You’re a good friend, Shay. I promise you won’t regret this.”

“Then you’d best be leaving before the others come out for the mage-lights and see you,” O Blaca told him. “They might be inclined to claim the reward the Rí Ard’s put out for you.” He started to close his hand around his cloch, but Doyle interrupted him.

“One more thing,” Doyle told him. “You remember the rabbit hutch that sits just outside the eastern gate of Goat Fell back in Lár Bhaile? Aye? Good ...”

“They’re asleep,” Meriel said quietly. “Why aren’t you?”

Owaine turned. The mage-lights had died and their campfire had gone to glowing ash. Meriel was a dark shadow under the tree-cloaked and cloud-masked sky. She sat next to him, close enough that Owaine could feel the heat of her body. “Doyle,” he said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“He was gone two stripes or more, Meriel, and he didn’t come back until the mage-lights were failing.”

“At least he came back with a rabbit. And it tasted good.” He heard rather than saw her smile.

“I still don’t think he was hunting most of the time he was gone.”

“You think he has a cloch he’s hiding? That he used the mage-lights out of sight of us?”

Owaine grimaced. “No. I think we’d have sensed that. But I do wonder . . . We’re so close to the village where those Riocha have stopped, and Edana admitted they knew them.”

“We can’t worry about that,” Meriel answered. “I think Doyle just needed to be alone as he said: to think, to rage, to suffer in private without people being around.” Her shoulder lifted, brushing against his. “I don’t know how deeply he’s hurt, but I can understand. Sometimes we get angry at those who most want to help us, even when we shouldn’t. Even when we realize how stupid we’re being.”

“You’re too trusting and forgiving.”

Meriel laughed. “I wish I actually had either of those two qualities. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven my mam for what I thought was the way she ignored me as a child, even when I finally started to understand why she acted the way she did. And you, Owaine . . . I never trusted you when I should have, all along.”

Something in the tone of the words made Owaine lift his head. The affection for her, the feelings that he’d had ever since he met her in Inishfeirm, that he’d pushed down lest they choke him, rose again as they always did, seeming to batter against the bars of his rib cage. “It doesn’t matter,” he told her, the lie coming automatically. It
did
matter; it
had
hurt, but the ache never altered his feelings, his infatuation with her. He’d raged against himself many nights, angry at his own stupidity for being captured by her when it was so obvious that the affection wasn’t—would never be—returned. At Inishfeirm, he had always seen the annoyance that pulled at her mouth whenever she saw him or whenever they spoke or even when he simply happened across her in the halls, and it had hurt. Even after he’d gone after her and found her in Doire Coill . . . “I didn’t care.”

“I think you should have. I think you did.” Her hand touched his. He didn’t dare move. Her fingers interlaced with his own, pressing. Slowly, tentatively, he returned the pressure. She was very close to him when he looked at her, and water shimmered in her eyes. “I’ve been stupid for a long time. I’ve missed what’s right in front of me. I’m sorry.”

Her hand pulled away from his; reluctantly, he let it go. He thought she’d rise then, and leave him. But the hand lifted in the darkness and touched his cheek, her fingers curling around the back of his neck, a slight, slight pressure . . .

She brought his head down to hers.

Her lips were wonderfully soft, her breath sweet and warm. After the first touch, he started to pull away, uncertain, but her hand brought him back down and this time he responded as he wished, his arms going around her. The kiss was long and lingering, their mouths slowly opening to each other, and he could feel the tears running down her cheek. Reluctantly, he broke away from her, brushing the moisture away from her skin with his thumb.

“Why?” he asked her finally, not knowing if he were asking her about the tears or the kiss.

“Don’t ask questions, Owaine. Just accept it.”

“I have to ask,” he told her. “I saw you with Dhegli, Meriel. I know how you felt about him because it was the way I felt about you. But you’ve never felt that way about me. So I . . .”

“Shh,” she told him, placing a finger on his lips. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“More than anything else,” he told her. “But I only want it if it’s what you want also. For the same reasons.” He watched her eyes. Her gaze held his, solemn.

“Owaine . . .”

“It’s different, isn’t it, Meriel? Different than what you had with Thady and then with Dhegli.”

Her answer was a sigh melded with a sob. “Aye,” she told him. “But what I had with them . . . Owaine, it didn’t last. And Dhegli . . .”

She was crying now, and Owaine had to resist the temptation to just take her in his arms, to try to comfort her. “I realize now that Dhegli doesn’t see love the same way that we do,” she said finally. “I realize that there has to be more than heat and light in a relationship. There has to be something deeper if it’s to last. Owaine . . .” She choked back a sob, gazing up at him pleadingly. “I don’t deserve your love. Truthfully, I’m not even really sure what I’m feeling right now. I don’t know what it will become or where we can take it. You’re right; it is different than what I felt for Lucan and Thady and Dhegli, but maybe it’s better that way. I don’t know. I know that it feels right to be with you. Here. Now.” She pressed his hand. “If it’s what you still want.”