Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (56 page)

He reversed the spell-stick in his small hand. He brought the end down sharply on the flags, though the sound was lost in the roar of the crowd around him and the snarling of Kurhv Ruka and Grozan Kralj, still locked in combat. The spell Gyl Svarti had been about to release toward Ennis lingered in the staff, throbbing, only a few words needed to release it. Ennis found the words, stealing them from Gyl Svarti and speaking them.

He pointed the spell-stick toward the combat before him.

The fury he unleashed surprised even him.

Lightning crackled, and Treorái’s Heart lent its own power to the bolt. The fury nearly blinded Ennis, the force almost taking the staff from his hand again, but his aim had been true enough.

Kurhv Ruka lay on the floor of Torness Keep and gaped at Ennis. He realized that he was still holding what was left of Kralj Grozan: a gory, open-jawed head and shoulders. The remainder of the Kralj was a mass of blood and tissue splattered in a gruesome spray away from Ennis, who stood with Svarti Gyl’s spell-stick smoking in his hand. Svarti Gyl lay crumpled at Ennis’ feet.

Kurhv Ruka flung the dripping remnants of the Kralj away from him and scrambled to his feet. Bits and pieces of the Kralj slid from his body in thick red streams. “Kapasti!” he cursed toward what was left of the Kralj. He roared in triumph.

The sound brought Ennis back to himself. He took a long, shuddering breath. He nearly threw away the spell stick in disgust, then realized that he could feel other enchantments placed within it. The crowd of Arruk had been struck silent. They listened to Kurhv’ Ruka’s triumphal screams; they stared at Ennis brandishing the spell-stick and still clasping Treoraí’s Heart with his other hand.

“You have defeated me. You are stronger, and I will serve you in death . . .”
The voice spoke in his head, in the language of the Arruk, and it was Gyl Svarti’s voice. Ennis released Treorái’s Heart and the voice stopped.

The pain returned then from the burns on his chest, but the blue ghost had returned and still wasn’t crying, so he forced himself to stand there grim and glaring. Following the blue ghost, he turned slowly, pointing the end of the spell-stick at each of the watching Arruk in turn. The ring around them widened visibly.

Cima hurried back to Ennis as Kurhv Ruka stepped up on the dais recently occupied by Grozan Kralj. “I am now Kurhv Kralj,” Kurhv Ruka declared as Cima spoke the words to Ennis in Daoine. “And Ennis Svarti will stand beside me. Does anyone here challenge me? Does anyone question my right to be Kralj?”

Silence answered him. Around them, Arruk lifted their snouted chins in submission. Kurhv Kralj snarled in satisfaction. “Stand here, Ennis Svarti,” he said, pointing to the side of the throne. Ennis went to where he pointed, Cima following, and Kurhv Kralj sat on the throne. The Arruk were now crowding around, ignoring Gyl Svarti’s body and trampling the bloody fragments that had once been Grozan Kralj.

“I am Kurhv Kralj,” the former Ruka said again. “And you will follow me to Ennis Svarti’s land, and we will trample the Perakli underneath us until we reach Cudak Zvati!”

The Arruk responded with a clash of fists on chest scales and a terrible shrieking roar of approval. Ennis wanted to do no more than clasp his hands over his ears at the uproar and run from the hall. But the pattern surrounded him in its sapphire cage, and he lifted the spell-stick in his hand and shouted with them. At the end of the pattern he saw himself on the throne where Kurhv Kralj now sat, and he saw all those who had hurt him and his family lying before him dead.

He found, seeing the vision, that he could smile even without the blue ghost.

DOYLE MAC ARD NODDED to his son Padraic, and together they lifted their clochs toward the swelling veins of brilliant colors at the zenith, letting the draperies of painted light dance down to envelop their hands in a glorious embrace.

The mage-lights reflected from the stony flanks of Dún Laoghaire Keep, and the rippling illumination swept over the rooftops of the town spread below them, and lent their hues to the slow, rolling swells of the harbor. It glinted from the golden torc of the Rí Ard around his neck. It was as entrancing a scene as Doyle had ever seen.

He wished, as he had nearly every night for the last few months, that Edana was there to share it with him. He regretted much of what he’d done over the last year, regretted the decisions that, he told himself, had been forced on him and the actions of which he’d been a part. Still, nothing wounded him more than the fact that this path—the path of the Ríthe and Rí Mallaghan in particular, the path that had made him Rí Ard but should have led him to Lámh Shábhála as well—had lost Edana to him.

He should have been feeling pride at all he’d accomplished, far more than the bastard son of a tiarna could ever have expected, but he felt an emptiness even as the energy of the mage-lights filled him.

He could feel Edana close by in the opposite tower of the keep, in the quarters they’d once shared along with Padraic and their daughter Alastríona. Edana had returned to Dún Laoghaire to conduct Tuatha business as well as to allow Doyle and Padraic to share in the celebration of Alastríona’s birthday. Doyle had gifted his daughter with a clochmion from the Order of Gabair, but Edana had steadfastly and angrily refused to allow Alastríona to go to Lár Bhaile to learn how to use it, as Doyle had wanted. He could feel Alastríona’s clochmion and Demon-Caller opening and calling the mage-lights to them in the far tower of the keep. He wondered if Edana felt his presence as well, and whether she, too, felt the emptiness.

Out there also was the Hidden One, distant but powerful with Treoraí’s Heart, which nearly all the mages now realized must be more than a simple clochmion. As always, Doyle wondered if it was indeed Isibéal who held the Heart, and where she was.

He also wondered, as he must, about the Bán Cailleach. As the mage-lights reached their full brilliance, he felt Lámh Shábhála open and begin to feed—so did all of them caught in the netting of the lights over Talamh An Ghlas. He shuddered, as he had every night he’d felt her, at the vision of her scarred and awful face and the dead empty eyes. As always, he pushed at the wall she erected around herself and was rebuffed: she would not let him see her fully. Who was she? How had she come to have Lámh Shábhála, which he’d thought lost forever at sea. Mists wrapped around the Bán Cailleach, and even as he felt her push him back, the mists coiled and fled as if a great hurricane wind had taken them. Lámh Shabhála was gone. But yet . . .

“Greetings, Great-Uncle. It’s a beautiful night, don’t you think?”

Doyle heard Padraic gasp even as he turned, the golden-scaled dragon within his Cloch Mór already forming in front of him. An apparition had appeared at the open door of the balcony on which he and Padraic stood: a woman. For a moment, he wondered what she wore—a skin-tight wrapping covered with glowing white curliques that mimicked the mage-lights above them—then he realized that she was naked and that the lines over her body were scars. Her flesh was illuminated as if from inside, and the eyes in that marred face were an utter and complete void; mage-lights danced above and flowed down to her body, as if entering directly into her.
The Bán Cailleach . . .
The words she’d spoken puzzled him for a moment, then he saw the lines of the face under the scars and he understood. He knew who held Lámh Shábhála; he knew who had become the Bán Cailleach.

“Sevei . . .”

A harsh, bitter smile touched the corner of her lips. “Aye, Great-Uncle. I’m Sevei.” She glanced at Padraic and the smile gentled momentarily. “Tráthnóna maith duit, Cousin.” She paced at the open doors of the balcony, looking away from them into the Ard’s bedchamber. “I barely recognize the room, Uncle. You’ve changed everything since this was Mam’s. All the tapestries and draperies she used to love . . .” Then the smile collapsed entirely, and Doyle saw the scars on her body glow brighter, making the eyes two expressionless craters. “That seems like another life altogether. A long time ago. Why, I haven’t seen either of you since you killed Gram Jenna.”

“Padraic!” Doyle shouted. “Now!” Snapdragon hurled fire and the dragon’s great muscular head snapped toward Sevei; in the same moment, he felt Padraic open Snarl, whipping lines of blinding, pure energy in Sevei’s direction. Doyle felt despair even as he attacked: Jenna could have handled two Cloch Mórs with disdainful ease, and he suspected that whatever Sevei had become, the Bán Cailleach was more dangerous than the First Holder had been.

He found those fears quickly justified. Sevei moved not at all, yet the dragon’s fire struck the air before her and splattered as if it had hit an invisible wall; when the dragon darted its head down in a snakelike strike, it howled in pain and recoiled as Sevei merely glanced at it. The scales at its chest ripped apart and blood poured out from under them. Doyle screamed with the dragon, caught in the mage-energy and feeling the terrible injury as if it had happened to himself. In his mage-vision, a fist of fire slammed into the dragon’s chest, its blood boiling and steaming beneath the blow. The force of the strike sent the dragon howling into nothingness and Doyle went staggering backward, the stone railing striking him at the small of his back. The fire-fist caught the torc around his neck and the gold burned as if it had been thrown into a smithy’s forge. Doyle caught himself on the railing’s edge a bare breath before he would have fallen over; the Ard’s torc tore itself from his neck and went hurtling into darkness. He heard the emblem of the Ard crash to the flags far below.

As he clutched at the rail in desperation, he saw the coils of Snarl touch the wall around Sevei; she turned her head to look at Padraic and the sea-blue power curved back to where it had come, snapping and hissing like lightning. Padraic wailed and went to his knees clutching his chest, making Doyle’s heart freeze with terror for his son—Padraic was new to the Cloch Mór; she could smash him in an instant, as she would a mosquito.

“Sevei!” he shouted, regaining his balance and trying to push himself upright. He could not; Lámh Shábhála held him, easily. “I beg you. Do what you want with me, but leave Padraic alone. He had nothing to do with killing Jenna. If it had been his choice, he would not have been there at all.” Sevei was still facing Padraic, but she turned her head slowly to stare at Doyle with that blank, terrible gaze. The remainder of Snarl’s tendrils slashed skyward to the mage-lights, fading as they went, but they didn’t touch Padraic. “I did it all,” Doyle said softly. He touched his chest with the hand that still held Snapdragon. “I did it. Leave Padraic alone. Please.”

Doyle glanced over at his son, desperate, realizing that he himself was already dead, that the best he could hope for now was that Padraic would survive this night. He could feel thick, fluid-filled blisters raising on his neck where the torc had once been. His head pounded and he fought to remain conscious, fought not to fall. “He’ll release his cloch, Sevei. He’s no threat to you.” Doyle didn’t dare look at Padraic, caught in the Bán Cailleach’s baleful stare and afraid that if she glanced again at Padraic, she would kill him.

The Bán Cailleach sniffed. “Our dear Padraic has Máister Kirwan’s cloch.” Now she did look back at Padraic, glaring down at his panting, huddled form. He was moaning through clenched lips. “What did you do, Padraic? Did you take it from Mundy’s body after you tortured him in Lár Bhaile? Did you laugh when he begged you not to do it, when he cried out with the loss of his cloch?”

Doyle could see the terror and fright in his son’s face. “Sevei,” Padraic began, “I didn’t . . . I couldn’t have . . .”

Sevei sniffed, her head swiveling to face Doyle again. “You must have been pleased, Uncle, when you realized that you also had Snarl in your little trap. Aye, I know that Máister Kirwan was taken—and so does all of Inish Thuaidh. If you wished to make eternal enemies of the Inishlanders, you’ve taken the right course.”

“Mundy’s cloch was taken after the battle, after you and Jenna were . . . lost in the sea,” Doyle gasped out. “The others—they wanted to kill him there, but I wouldn’t let them. Instead, I had him brought to Lár Bhaile,” Doyle told Sevei. “But there was no torture. I wouldn’t allow that, even when some argued for it. I pleaded with Rí Mallaghan to send his healers to Máister Kirwan in the Order of Gabair’s Keep, and he did.”

Sevei gave a cough that was nearly a laugh. “No torture, Uncle? You took Mundy’s cloch. You couldn’t do more to torment him than that.”

Doyle lifted a shoulder. “I
know
that pain, Sevei. I’ve experienced it myself, and yet I managed to survive it. I’d truly hoped Mundy could as well, but he was older and was badly wounded in the battle besides. He grew sicker every day, despite everything we tried to do. I didn’t want him to die, but two days after we arrived . . .” Still caught in Lámh Shábhála’s grasp, he shrugged again, licking his lips to get the words out, his hands clutching desperately at the railing of the balcony as his body was bent out over the night. “Tell me that I’m wrong, Sevei. Tell me that if our positions had been reversed, you wouldn’t have taken Snapdragon from me to give to one of your allies—to Kayne, maybe, if you could. But don’t blame Padraic, Sevei. He did no more than his da asked him to do. Don’t punish him for loyalty to his family—you of all people should understand that.”

“And he was well-rewarded for his loyalty, wasn’t he?” Sevei paused, then pointed to the balcony entrance. “Leave us, Padraic. This is between your da and me.”

Padraic shook his head, pushing himself to his feet with a groan. “I won’t,” he told her, still holding his chest as if it pained him to move. “He’s my da, Sevei, and he’s right—no matter what he’s done, he has my love and my loyalty. I’m sorry.”

The Bán Cailleach nodded. “So am I,” she said. “For the friendship we once had, I’d spare you.”

“Padraic, do as she asks,” Doyle grunted, twisting in Lámh Shábhála’s grip, feeling the cold emptiness of the fall beneath him. “Please, there’s no need for this; Snarl alone can’t stand against her. Go on.”