Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (49 page)

Meriel shouted, falling away from the man as she released Treoraí’s Heart, unable to bear the shared agony any longer. The contact faded more slowly than Meriel liked. She gulped air as the pain radiating from her arm slowly receded; the scars on her hand burned, and she could see that the lines were snaking past the wrist now. The man gave a shout, holding his arm aloft in wonder. Where a moment before the arm had been scored and torn, there were now only three angry red streaks like healing scabs. He flexed his hand, laughing and holding it up before him in amazement.

The Bunús woman, still holding the shreds of bloody cloth, also gave a cry. She hugged the man, speaking fast words in her own language to Meriel over his shoulder. “She asks you to forgive her for her suspicion before,” Keira told Meriel. “She thanks you for healing her husband.”

“Tell her that she’s welcome, that I owe the Bunús Muintir far more than that for rescuing me.”

As Keira translated, Meriel caught glimpses through the trees of someone rowing a skin-covered currach across toward them. An elderly man stepped from the boat and approached the group on the shore. Like Keira, he wore skins and fur and around his neck was an ornamental collar made of a beaten gold sheet decorated with raised patterns that reminded Meriel of the scars on her and her mam’s arm.

“Ragan!” Keira cried, going to him and embracing him. He kissed the top of her head, laughing. His eyes, a startling ice blue, gazed at Meriel and Owaine over the top of her head, then to the Bunús gathered around the dead water ghost. Keira pulled away from him and spoke to him at length in their own language, pointing at Meriel and Owaine, then to the newly-healed man. He nodded. He spat carefully on the body of the Uisce Taibhse, then came over to them with slow, shuffling steps.

“I don’t speak the language of the Daoine well,” he said, his voice so heavily accented that they had to listen carefully to understand it. “Forgive me. Keira has told me about you; I was the one who asked her to bring you here, and after what you’ve done here today, I’m glad for that. I am Ragan, and I am Ald here. You know the title?”

“Aye,” Meriel said. “In some of our towns, there is an Ald.”

He nodded again. “You Daoine borrowed the term from us, but even for us it means less than it once did. Come, I’ll take you across to the island.”

Ragan’s hut was larger than it had looked from the shore. Inside, the single large room was partitioned off by hanging tapestries, with the center area left as a common kitchen. A table formed from a slice of a huge oak trunk dominated the area, its surface polished and smooth, the three legs that supported the table flowing from the top in seamless curves down to the rush-covered floor. A wide, shallow bowl of cut flowers floating in water sat in the middle, their sweet smell filling the air. A small leather bag slouched alongside the bowl. Ragan gestured to the half dozen stools arranged around the irregular perimeter. “Please sit,” he said. “Let me get you some refreshment after your long walk.”

The Ald called out and a young Bunús man scurried in with a tray holding a pitcher and several wooden mugs. Ragan poured a pale liquid from the pitcher into the mugs and handed them to Meriel, Owaine, and Keira. Meriel sniffed at hers—an aroma of mint and honey drifted up from the liquid; when she tasted it, a cool, lush sweetness filled her mouth. “That’s wonderful,” she said. Owaine muttered agreement

Ragan nodded. “It’s an infusion of tree barks, a few herbs, honey, and water from a sweet spring.” He smiled as if with a gentle, inward amusement. “There’s also a fermented version, but that’s for other occasions.” He reached across the table for the pouch. As he picked it up in his knobby-fingered hand, Meriel heard a sound like small stones clinking together. Ragan fiddled with the knotted string holding the pouch closed, but didn’t open it. “You Daoine have your cities and your steel. Your stone houses are better than any we Bunús ever made. But there are a few things we Bunús Muintir know that you have yet to discover, or perhaps have simply forgotten.”

Meriel thought of Keira, of her slow magics and her woodlore, of the wolves and crows who did her bidding. “Believe me,” she said, “I realize that. Sometimes . . . well, I’ve heard people say that the Bunús are savage people, half wild, but my mam . . .” Meriel could almost see Jenna as if she’d invoked her, and with the vision an intense, surprising longing filled her, not just for her mam, but for Inish Thuaidh and Inishfeirm and everything that had once been familiar.
One minute you hate her, and the next you miss her so terribly . . .
Meriel hesitated, swallowing hard. “. . . she never would say anything like that or let anyone talk that way in her presence,” she finished. “She always talked fondly of your people, and especially of Seancoim. She’s made laws in Inish Thuaidh—no one is allowed to harm a Bunús Muintir there or to go into Thall Coill without their permission.”

Again, the slow smile. “That’s good to hear. The First Holder is a true friend to us and if one of us can no longer hold Lámh Shábhála, we’re glad that she wields the First Cloch. But we’re seeing the long twilight of the Bunús Muintir, I’m afraid, and darkness is gathering even while the magic returns.”

“Because of us?” Owaine asked. “I know about the old wars between Daoine and Bunús Muintir, and I’ve heard that the Tuatha still kill Bunús Muintir whenever they find them.”

“Maybe in Talamh an Ghlas that’s true,” Meriel said. “But not in Inish Thuaidh. It can be stopped here, too . . .”

Ragan’s graying head was moving slowly from side to side. “No, you don’t understand. We’re not failing because of the Daoine. Oh, that’s part of it, perhaps, but it’s not the illness that kills the root. No . . .” He untied the string on the pouch, his fingers trembling slightly. “We were never many, we Bunús, even when the Daoine came to Talamh an Ghlas. A Daoine mam might have four or six or even more children in her lifetime, if the Greatness wills it; a Bunús will be lucky to have two or three, and some of those will die before they reach the age of childbearing themselves. When you Daoine came and filled the land, some of our women became Daoine brides; a few of the men lay with the Daoine women, too, though that was rarer. You, Owaine, or especially you, Meriel, may have Bunús blood yourself; I know Seancoim wondered about that with Jenna. And some of us here have a trace of Daoine ancestry. So a part of the Bunús Muintir has blended in with the Daoine—become part of you. But the rest of us . . . we fade, slowly, without any help from the Daoine at all. I wonder, when the mage-lights fail again, centuries from now, if any Bunús Muintir will be left under the old trees. I can hope so . . . but I doubt that any of us will see the awakening after the long darkness. I don’t think we’ll survive to awaken once more.”

Ragan jiggled the pouch and upended it on the table. Bits of polished ivory bones spilled out along with a single black feather and three blood-red, polished half circles that might have been seashells. They rattled on the tabletop. “Bones of crow and scale of dragon,” Ragan said.

“Dragon scales?” Owaine said. “Really? I saw a dragon . . .” He leaned forward, reaching out toward them but Keira touched his wrist, shaking her head, and he reluctantly pulled his hand back.

“These oracles give a similar pattern every time I cast them,” Ragan said. “See there, farthest out?—the wing tip is under the claw, and see how far the bit of spine has gone from the rest? And look next to it: the feather is covered by a scale. I see our time passing. Here, closest to me, the bones jumble—a war, perhaps, or certainly a great struggle coming soon. And just beyond that, the dragon scale covering a rib bone: a threat from outside that is still hidden.” He scooped up the pile and placed them back in the bag, then handed the bag to Meriel. “Throw them again,” he said.

Meriel remembered Sevei in her tent, placing the array of cards on the table and peering down at them. She shivered, afraid suddenly. “I don’t believe in this,” she said, but the truth was that she was afraid that, like Sevei’s cards, she believed in them all too much.

“You don’t have to believe,” Ragan answered. “The bones will feel what’s in your heart whether you have faith in their ability or not. Go on.” He peered at her with ancient eyes. “I’m not afraid to see what they say,” he told her. “Your Taisteal friend accepted what she saw in the future, also.”

“How do you—?” Meriel stopped. Shivered. Ragan smiled at her gently.

“Cast them,” he said. She jiggled the bag as she’d seen Ragan do and turned over the bag, letting the contents scatter on the table. Ragan bent forward, squinting so that his white, bushy eyebrows seemed to curl together around the wrinkles above his nose. “Interesting,” he said. “Not what I expected.”

“What do they say?” Owaine asked. Ragan didn’t answer, looking instead at Meriel. She shrugged at him.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Whatever it is, you can say it.”

A nod. “The dragon scales touch there,” he said, jabbing at the table with a thick-nailed hand. “And see how the feather floats free while the claw and beak touch. I thought . . .” Ragan looked up, staring at Meriel. “You reject the path others would set for you. Instead, you follow what calls to your soul. That will bring you danger and possibly an early death.”

A coldness gripped her chest. Meriel stared at the artifacts, trying to see in them what Ragan saw. “The parts within you are at war,” Ragan continued. “You are pulled in many directions—toward something or someone different than you and away from what someone else wants you to be, even though I see that you would do well in that place.”

Meriel felt the brush of cold fingers along her spine. “You’re saying I’m making a mistake,” she began, but Ragan was already shaking his head.

“No one can say that. The bones indicate that you stand at the branching of paths. There are several futures for you: some where you fulfill a great destiny, others where you turn away from that destiny because the choice is being imposed on you rather than being your own. I also see here—” he touched the bones that had fallen closest to Meriel, “—that the most risk for you comes from someone close to you, not from those you think of as your enemies.”

Meriel drew in a breath.
It’s what Sevei said, also. “. . . that it’s those you love you should fear the most, for they hold the greatest danger for you.”
Meriel nodded, but Owaine spoke, almost angrily. “This is nonsense,” he said. “You can’t see the future in a few bits of bone. You’re talking in such vague terms that of course Meriel imagines it applies to her.”

Ragan looked placidly at the young man. He scooped up the bones and placed them back in the bag. “Would you like to cast them?” he asked Owaine, holding out the pouch to him. “There might be enough of the spell left within them for one more telling.” Owaine blinked and Meriel saw the anger slowly fade, replaced by a grudging curiosity. He held out his hand and Ragan placed the pouch in Owaine’s upturned palm.

“I still don’t believe in this,” Owaine said. Ragan said nothing and Owaine upturned the pouch. Bones chattered on wood, bouncing. “Well, what do you see?”

Ragan peered at the array. “The beak is down while the rib bones have opened to enclose the scale . . . You’ve given your love to someone who doesn’t return it. You’re afraid to speak too much of your feelings to her because you think you know what her answer would be, so you stay silent. And the claw holds the feather . . . You would protect that person even at the cost of yourself. That speaks of an unselfish and brave heart.”

Owaine looked up from the table and his gaze caught Meriel’s. Owaine blushed; Meriel looked quickly away.
We both know what Ragan is implying, and I don’t want you thinking that way about me,
she wanted to say to him.
I don’t want to hurt you after all you’ve done, but I don’t love you. Not that way. Dhegli has that part of me . . . I’m sorry.

She didn’t say it; she pressed her lips closed, staring only at the bones. “You talk of now, Ragan,” Owaine said. With his voice, Meriel stole a glance at him, but he kept his gaze fixed on Ragan. “What of my future?”

A soft smile. “I thought you didn’t believe?” Owaine sputtered, and Ragan laughed. “I didn’t need the bones to give you the reading just now, Owaine,” Ragan said. “I could see all of what I said in your face and your eyes. The bones were empty of the slow magic; I could feel that when you put them on the table. I’m sorry. But I can tell you one other truth without needing magic: you haven’t thought much of your future. Someone who would rush away to find someone without any preparation or concern for himself doesn’t look that far forward. Right now you see little hope that there will
be
a future.” Ragan scooped up the bones again and knotted the string around the neck of the pouch. “There will be one, of course, but whether you or I will be in it . . .” Ragan shrugged and gave a low laugh. “Only the gods know.”

“That’s hardly comforting,” Owaine said. “And hardly magic.”

Ragan sighed and straightened. “Comfort is for fools, and only fools depend on magic.” He set the pouch aside on the table and folded his hand on the polished surface. His wrinkled gaze returned to Meriel. “I wanted to meet you because the bones tell me you’ll be here for a time yet, and that affects us.”

“I’m sorry,” Meriel told him. “I didn’t want to bring trouble to your people. If you want, I’ll leave. All I need do is go to the lough.”

“And leave Owaine behind, trapped here?” Keira asked.

She could feel his gaze on her and wouldn’t look his way. “Owaine can’t travel the way I’d go. The Riocha aren’t after Owaine, but me. Once the Riocha realize I’m gone, it would be easy enough for him to leave.”