Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2) (34 page)

“And especially me,” Sevei added, with a lifting of eyebrows. “They say the waters of the western loughs are haunted by Uisce Taibhse, the water ghosts, ever since the Filleadh.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Meriel answered. “Any more than I believe in sióg mists.”

Sevei shrugged. “I’d love to hear you say that in the middle of night when the mage-lights play over the barrows and the dead kings come out to walk, with glowing eyes and anger in their hearts and bright swords in their hands. But the Uisce Taibhse aren’t true ghosts at all; they’re creatures all too alive who live under the water and who prefer flesh to fish for their dinners. Still, I’m sure your lack of belief will be a comfort as they drag you under the waves to their lair. Wait until we get to the village, then talk to the fisherfolk. Ask
them
if they believe.”

Nico, as usual, negotiated with the Ald of the village, a wizened dwarf of a man with a bald head so shiny it might have been polished. At his direction, they moved the wagons to a sheep pasture on a hill just outside town and well away from the shore, and the clan began unpacking and setting up for the night. The clouds had opened in the west and the lough was touched with golden fire as the sun fell toward the hills at the far end of the water. The sight reminded Meriel of similar sunsets in Dún Kiil and Inishfeirm, and the ache in her heart deepened. Somewhere not too far past those distant peaks must be the sea, and that realization made Meriel think of Dhegli. She could still feel the warmth of his gift in her mind:
call me, and I’ll come to you . . .

I will call for you,
she whispered silently.
Soon . . .

Several of the villagers were already plodding up from the town center toward the Taisteal encampment, and she felt the sick dread starting again in her stomach coupled with the throbbing of Treoraí’s Heart under her tunic. “Do you want to wait?” Sevei whispered to her. Her hand stroked Meriel’s shoulder. “I’ll have Nico tell them that you’re ill and can’t see anyone until late tonight or tomorrow.”

Meriel shook her head. “No,” she told her. “I’ll see them. I
am
tired, though.”

“I’ll keep the group small. Go get yourself ready and I’ll work with Nico to see who we have. We’ll be there in half a stripe.”

Meriel started toward the end of the pasture where two of Nico’s grandsons were erecting the small tent for Sevei and Meriel. Halfway there, she stopped. Sevei and Nico were well down the hill talking with the villagers; everyone else was busy readying the camp and paying little attention to her. Meriel sidled away from the tent, drifted behind one of the wagons. A small copse of hawthorns sat a few yards away on the other side of a stone fence. She ran, hopping the fence and darting into the sparse cover of the trees.

No one shouted alarm. No one seemed to notice at all. Meriel started to dare to hope.

She pushed through the bramble to the other end of the stand, then hurried across another pasture—startling a small flock of black-faced sheep—to a wooded hillside. She stayed within the shelter of the trees and started to work her way down the slope toward the lough, following a brook that leaped and danced on its way to the larger water. The wood skirted the southern edge of the village, and the brook soon fanned out into a thousand rivulets as it hit a bog. Meriel was forced to move away along the edges of the swampy hummocks, staying to firmer ground and fighting her way through thick undergrowth and thicker clouds of midges. The ground oozed black water under her boots; she told herself that soon she would strip the boots away entirely, along with her captivity.

As the sun vanished beneath the crown of hills and the eastern sky turned purple, she came out onto a rocky meadow that ran down to the shore of the lough. Meriel ran toward the water. She stripped off the furred overcloak of the Taisteal and flung it to the ground; she pulled off her boots. She began to loosen the ties of her trousers.

“Cailin! Meriel!”

The call came from behind and she knew the voice well. She looked over her shoulder to see Sevei stepping out from the trees, still several yards away. Meriel turned her back and started to move toward the water.

“Wait! I won’t come any closer. Please wait!”

Meriel paused. Glanced back again. “You can’t stop me,” she said. “By the time you reach me I’ll be in the water. Take one step toward me and that’s what I’ll do.”

“I won’t,” Sevei said. In the rising gloom, she carefully sat on the ground. “See? You’ve won, Meriel. You’ve escaped. But . . .” She closed her mouth, lowered her head.

“What?” Meriel asked.

“How safe will you be afterward, Meriel? Think about this. Even if you don’t believe what I said about these waters, what happens when you reach the end of the lough? You’ll be naked, alone in the wild, and still miles from the sea. You’ll have no food, no provisions, no fire to keep you warm, no weapons if dire wolves or bandits or anything else that walks here attacks you. Worse than that, you’ll still be in the Tuatha and any tiarna you meet will be your enemy, if not actively looking for you.”

“I’ll take my chances with all that.”

Sevei nodded. “I might, too, in your situation. But I have another offer.”

Meriel shook her head, wondering if Sevei was trying to trap her, if the woman wanted to hold her here until boats came from the village. She could see firelight reflecting from the waters of the lough from where the village quay jutted out around the curve of the shore, but there was no one out on the lake. “I’m listening.”

“I have to give you a story first. I have to explain something you asked me before.”

“Then do it. Quickly.”

Meriel could see Sevei draw a long breath in through her nose, her eyes closed. “You asked about my mam and the cards,” Sevei said at last. “I told you I was here with Mam when I was a child. I didn’t tell you how my mam died.”

“Sevei—”

“No, I’ve started this. Now listen . . .”

I told you that my mam was a true reader, and the clans knew it. My da had left not long after I was born; I never knew him. But Mam was well-known among the clans and always welcome in a caravan. I used to watch her give readings to the Clannhra with whom we were traveling, after all the locals had gone. I was no more than six or seven, then—this was a few years before the mage-lights returned. I’d sit on her knee and watch as she laid out the cards on the table, fascinated by the colors and the drawings and the way Mam’s voice took on this mesmerizing tone when she was lost in the reading, speaking of things only she could see.

One day I asked my mam to read my fortune for me the way she did for our cousins—I handed her the cards, awkwardly shuffled, and cut them in front of her the way I’d seen the others do. She looked at the cards, then at me, and finally laid them out in the true spiral array. I stared at the cards, fascinated: all the pretty drawings and strange symbols. Mam stared at them also, then swept the cards up again and placed them in their cloth bag. She pulled the tie-string and knotted it. “Mam!” I complained. “You didn’t
read
them.”

She reached across the table and patted my cheek. “No,
moj ljubav.
You don’t know it, but I’ve read the cards for you many times. Someday I will tell you, when you’re older.”

“Tell me now,” I insisted.

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I would, too,” I said fervently. “Mam . . .”

She smiled, a bit sadly, I thought. “You know the suits?” she asked me, and I nodded. “Good. What cards did you see the most of?”

“The Major Arcana and Swords,” I told her.

“Aye. The Major Arcana are great influences that you cannot affect, and Swords . . . they indicate strife and conflict. Do you know what I mean?” I nodded, though I didn’t really understand, and she went on. “I did a reading when you were first born, touching the cards to your body and breaking the deck where you put your finger when I held them in front of you. I saw then that you have a role in life to fill, Sevei. You’ll come to know someone when you’re older, someone who is destined to be important, and you’ll have a chance to help that person.”

“Really?” I said, and I grinned, thinking of myself as the hero of some bard’s tale. “Then I’ll be important, too.”

She was already shaking her head. “No, Sevei,” she told me. “You won’t. If you take that path and help that person, very few will ever really know about it. Your part in the tale ends there.”

I was disappointed, though I tried not to show it.
What’s the good of doing something heroic and dangerous if no one ever knows about it?
I wanted to ask her. Instead, I asked Mam if she ever read the cards for herself. She just smiled at that. “I already know my fate. I’m destined to be your Mam. My fortune is to make certain that you grow up. And I’ll do that,
moj ljubav.
I’ll do that.”

I reached over and picked up the cards in their bag, feeling their edges through the soft, smooth cloth. “I still want you to do a real reading for me, Mam.”

She patted my hands and took the cards from me. “I will,” she told me. “One day I will.”

She never did. She never had the chance.

Back then, I didn’t really understand what happened, though I do now, having seen what I’ve seen over the years. It must have been no more than two seasons or so later. We were somewhere in the Tuatha, in the south of Talamh an Ghlas, in some village that looked no different than any other village that we’d been to. Mam was reading the cards and I was bored. I wandered away from the tents and across the field where we were camped toward a grove of fruit trees. Though I couldn’t see our wagons or the buildings, I could hear the noises of the village and every once in a while someone’s laughter. There was still daylight left, so I felt safe. So when I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see a man standing there close to me, I just turned around, curious. “Enjoying your walk?” he asked. I remember his voice, gruff and low with a sound like a rasp on hard wood. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

I nodded as he came closer. In my memory, he’s huge, standing over me like a mountain, so big he blocked the light. He smelled of sheep and earth and sweat. One of his hands reached down to cup my face. “You’re the pretty one,” he said. “Very pretty. I noticed you right away yesterday, when you came here. Did you see me?”

I shook my head. He was crouching down in front of me now. His face was grizzled and lined, and he was missing several teeth. He was breathing strangely and his breath was sour. Both of his hands were on my shoulders and the fingers of his right hand were stroking my neck. “I saw you walk out here,” he said. “So I followed. A girl as pretty as you . . .” He stopped. His tongue brushed his upper lip. I didn’t like his fingers on my neck or his face so close to me and started to back away. His left hand tightened on my shoulder and his right flashed down to his belt and came back. He held a knife blade in front of my face. “Do you see this, pretty thing? You know what it can do?” I nodded, so frightened now that I couldn’t speak. “Good. If you scream, if you yell, it will be the last thing you do. Do you understand?” His fingers dug into the skin of my shoulder and the blade of the knife pressed against my throat. I quickly gave him another nod.

He flung me down on the ground. I could feel his hand on my clothes and hear the cloth ripping and his weight on me . . . Then it was gone as I heard him grunt, and he went rolling off to one side in a flash of bright cloth and I saw my mam struggling with him. “Run!” she screamed at me. “Run, Sevei!”

I obeyed her, crying and screaming for help. I ran out of the grove as others came at my wailing, villagers and Taisteal both. The Clannhra took me in her arms and hurried me back to the tent. “Mam! Where’s Mam?” I kept asking her.

They found Mam on the ground in the grove, deep stab wounds in her chest, her breath rattling in her lungs and blood on her lips. Four of my cousins brought her back to the encampment while the others went after my attacker. Mam . . . she died less than a stripe later. The man, they caught him, too. They would never tell me what they did to him.

For a long time afterward, I wondered why Mam hadn’t seen the danger in the cards, why she didn’t know what would happen to her. Finally, I realized that she almost certainly had known and that it didn’t make any difference. As she’d told me, her destiny was to be my mam—and she would perform that task, no matter what the cost might be for her. . . .