Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Jenna continued to shake her head, half understanding, half not wanting to understand. “But why hold the stone if it’s a curse?”

  A bitter laugh. “The one who holds Lámh Shábhála gains power for their pain. Some believe that’s more than a fair barter—those who have never held the cloch itself. It’s the First who suffers the most, not those who come after, and you are the First, the one who will open the way. So watch, Jenna of the Daoine. Watch for those who follow the mage lights, for they aren’t likely to be your friends.”

  Jenna thought of the riders from Connachta, and she also thought of Mac Ard. But before she could say more, Riata’s shape stirred. “The mage-lights beckon,” he said. “They call the stone. Do you feel it?”

  She did. The cloch was throbbing in her hand. “Go to them,” Riata said. His shape was fading, as was his voice, now no more than a whisper. “Go . . .” he said again, and the apparition was gone. She could feel its absence, could sense that the air of the tomb was now dead and empty. She called to him—“Riata!”—and only her own voice answered, mocking. The mage-lights sent waves of pure red and aching blue-white shimmering down the passage, and Jenna felt the stone’s need, like a hunger deep within herself. She walked down the passage and out into cold fresh air again. The mage-lights wove their bright net above her, a spider’s web of color that stretched and bent down toward her, swirling. She raised her hand, opening her fingers, and the light shot down, surrounding her, enveloping her in its flowing folds. The whirlwind grabbed her hand in its frigid gasp, and she screamed with the pain of it: as the brilliance rose, a sun caught in her fingers, consuming her.

  Hues of brilliance pulled at her. Knives of color cut into her flesh. She tried to pull away and could not, and she screamed again in terror and agony.

  A flash blinded her. Thunder filled her ears.

  Jenna screamed a final time, as the cold fire seemed to penetrate to her very core, her entire body quivering with torment, every nerve alive and quivering.

  Then she was released, and she fell into blessed darkness.

  9

  Through the Forest

  “JENNA?”

  The smell was familiar—a warm breath laden with spice. Jenna opened her eyes to see Seancoim crouching alongside her. The dolmen towered gray above her, rising toward a sky touched with the salmon hues of early morn ing, and Dúnmharú peered down at her from a perch on the capstone. Jenna blinked, then sat up abruptly, turning to look at the tomb behind her. “Riata,” she said, her voice a mere hoarse croak. Her throat felt as if it had been scraped raw, and her right arm ached as if someone had tried to tear it loose from its socket. She could feel the cloch na thintrí: cold, still clutched in her fist, and she slipped it back into the pocket of her skirt, grimacing with the effort. Something was wrong with her right hand—it felt wooden and clumsy, and the pain in her arm seemed to emanate from there.

  “You saw him?” Seancoim asked, and Jenna nodded. Seancoim didn’t seem surprised. “He walks here at times, restless. I’ve glimpsed him once or twice, or I think I might have.”

  “He . . .” Jenna tried to clear her throat, but the effort only made it hurt worse. She wanted to take her hand out from where it was hidden in the woolen skirt, but she was afraid. “. . . called me. Spoke to me.”

  Seancoim’s blind eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He opened the leather bag at his side and rummaged inside, pulling out a smaller leather container capped with horn. “Here. Drink this.” Jenna reached out. Stopped. The skin of her right hand was mottled, the flesh a swirling pattern of pale gray and white, and the intricate tendrils of whitened flesh ached and burned. Her fingers were stiff, every joint on fire, and the damaged skin throbbed with every beat of her heart. She must have cried out, for Dúnmharú flew down from the capstone to Seancoim’s shoulder. The Bunús Muintir took her hand, examining it, pushing back the sleeve of her blouse. The injured area extended just past her wrist.

  “Your skin is dead where it’s gray. I’ve seen it before, in people who were caught in a blizzard and exposed to bitter cold,” Seancoim said. Jenna felt tears start in her eyes, and Seancoim touched her cheek. “It will heal in time,” he said. “If you don’t injure it further.”

  “Jenna!” The call came from the ridge above them. Maeve and Mac Ard stood there, her mam waving an arm and scrambling down the slope into the valley, Mac Ard following more carefully after her. Maeve came running up to them, glancing harshly at Seancoim. “Jenna, are you all right? We woke up and saw the lights, and you were gone—” She noticed Jenna’s hand then, and her own hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Jenna . . .”

  Jenna turned the hand slowly in front of her face, a contortion of pain moving across her features as she flexed her fingers slowly. The swirling pattern on her hand echoed the carved lines of the dolmen. Her mam took her wrist gently. “What happened, darling?” she asked, but Jenna saw Mac Ard approaching, and she only shook her head. He had the cloch in his hand, and he gave it back to me . . . Mac Ard came up behind Maeve, putting his hands on her shoulders as she examined Jenna’s injury. Jenna saw Mac Ard’s gaze move from her hand to the carvings on the dolmen, then back again. For a moment, their eyes locked gazes, and she tried to keep her emotions from showing on her face. Watch for those who follow the mage-lights, Riata had said. She wondered how much Mac Ard knew or guessed, and if he had, did he regret not keeping the stone when he had it.

  “I’m fine, Mam,” she said to Maeve. “The pain’s easing already.” It was a lie, but Jenna forced a small smile to her face, pulling her hand gently away from her mam.

  “I’ll make a poultice that will take away the sting and speed the healing,” Seancoim said. “There are andúilleaf flowers still in bloom in the thicket near the camp.” His staff tapping the ground ahead of him, he shuffled away between the barrows.

  “Jenna,” Mac Ard said. “We saw the lights. Did the stone . . . ?”

  “I hold the stone,” she answered, far more sharply than she intended. Belatedly, she added: “Tiarna.”

  His eyes flashed, narrowing, and his hands dropped from Maeve’s shoulders. “Jenna!” her mam said. “After all the tiarna’s risked for us . . .”

  “I know, but we’ve risked our own lives as well,” Jenna told her, watching Mac Ard’s face more than her mam’s. “We lost our home, and poor Kesh is dead. We’re not Riocha, with fine clothes and buildings and the Rí waiting for us to return. We know farming and planting and raising sheep; we’re not used to fighting or intrigue or even traveling. He’s going back to what he knows. We’re going forward into a situation we don’t understand at all. We’re caught up in something, and . . .” She stopped, closing her mouth. . . . and I think he knows more about it than he’s telling us. Emotions warred inside her. That doesn’t mean he’s evil. Your mam’s right; he has risked himself for you.

  And the question: Do I tell him? Do I tell him what Riata said about the stone?

  No, she decided. I don’t. Not right now.

  “Jenna . . .” Maeve breathed, then glanced back at Mac Ard. “She’s hurting, Padraic. It’s the pain talking.”

  “I know, Maeve,” he answered. His voice soothed, though Jenna thought she saw irritation in the folds around his eyes and mouth. Then his face cleared entirely, and he stepped forward, opening his arms as if he were about to sweep Jenna up and carry her.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “I . . . I could use your help.”

  She cradled her arm to her waist, feeling in her head the cold, cold pulsing of the stone. She let Mac Ard support her as they walked back to their campsite.

  “Take this.”

  Seancoim handed Jenna a wooden cup. A vile-looking, thick whitish liquid steamed inside, with bits of pale stems floating in the mixture. He gestured at the wrapping around her right hand and arm. “The brew is made from andúilleaf, like the poultice I gave you,” he said to her unspoken question. “It’ll take away what’s left of the pain.”

  Maeve and Mac Ard were
packing away what little they had, and the embers of the fire had been covered with moist dirt. Jenna took the cup from Seancoim and sipped the concoction. It was bitter and lukewarm, and she made a face. “Drink it and don’t complain,” Seancoim growled. “We’ve a good walk ahead of us yet today, and you don’t need to be thinking about your hand.”

  Jenna took a breath and lifted the cup to her mouth, trying to ignore the sharp smell of the andúilleaf and gulping it down quickly so she couldn’t taste it. She wasn’t entirely successful. “Uch!” she said, wiping her mouth and handing the cup back to Seancoim. “It’s awful.”

  “Good. That will make it less likely that you’ll want it again.” He handed her a small bag. “Here,” he said. “This is the rest of the andúilleaf I gathered. I’ll tell you how to make the brew before I leave you. When you get to the tiarna’s city, find a good apothecary and show him this; if the herbalist has any knowledge at all, he’ll know what it is, so you can get more if you must.”

  “I won’t want more, I promise,” Jenna said.

  Seancoim only nodded uncertainly at that. “Can you feel the draught working?”

  Jenna nodded: its fire had settled in her stomach, and was reaching outward. Her hand felt almost normal under the wrappings, and she could flex her fingers easily.

  Seancoim patted her on the shoulder, then stuffed the cup back in his pack. “It’s time to go,” he announced loudly.

  They started off again through the forest. Even though the day was clear and sunny, Doire Coill remained dim and shadowed, and the walk was, if anything, more difficult than their passage the day before, as Seancoim led them up one ridge and down another. The land was flattening, though, each ridge a little less high and steep than the one before, until by noon they were walking through a rolling plain, with the trees set close together and the floor of the forest choked with underbrush. Seancoim led them in a wandering pattern through the wild growth, and they had to go single file behind him, with thorns snatching at their clothes on every side and branches threatening to bump unwary heads. Though Seancoim moved this way and that, never keeping to a straight path—impossible anyway in the dense forest—Jenna felt certain that they were bending north again, as well as east, so that their path the last two days described a small arc looping deeper into Doire Coill than one would have expected. She wasn’t certain how she knew this, but in her head she could feel the valley of the tombs where Riata slept, and it was now behind and to their left. Once, when they came across a fire-cleared glade, Jenna moved next to Seancoim, talking softly to him so her mam and Mac Ard could not overhear.

  “I wonder,” she said to him, “if we couldn’t have cut in a straighter path across the forest and missed the valley last night.”

  Seancoim didn’t look at her. His blind eyes stared straight ahead. “Sometimes the best path isn’t the straightest one.”

  “Did you know . . .” She stopped, feeling a tingling in her hand under the bandage. “. . . what would happen?”

  “In truth, no,” he answered. “But I suspected that something would. I’ve been hearing the call of Riata for several months, whispering through the wood. The last time I passed by the valley of the tombs, with a bright moon above, I saw him walking restlessly outside near the dolmen, looking up at the night sky. When you came, I realized that it might be that the Last Holder needed to meet the new First, so I made certain our path went by the tombs.”

  “You know about this cloch, then,” she said. “He called it Lámh Shábhála. Can you tell me—what will it do to me? What does it mean to be the First?”

  Seancoim shrugged under his furs. “I know the magic of the earth, not the sky, and they’re very different. Jenna, it’s been four centuries since the mage-lights last came, and you Daoine had Lámh Shábhála then. For the Bunús Muintir ... well, the last time we possessed the cloch you hold was not long after you Daoine came here, an entire age ago and all the tales have been so twisted and distorted in the tellings and retellings that much of the lore can’t be trusted, or is so wrapped with untruths that it’s difficult to separate the two. Each time, the cloudmages must learn anew. I can tell you very little that I know with a certainty is true.”

  “I’m scared, Seancoim,” Jenna said, her voice husky and broken.

  He stopped. He took her injured hand in his gnarled, wrinkled fingers. “Then you’re wiser than anyone else who is searching for Lámh Shábhála,” he said.

  The land flattened out into a plain, and Jenna noticed that the trees were no longer so closely huddled together. The oaks were now less numerous than maples, elms, and tall firs, and the ground less boggy than the wide valley where Ballintubber sat. The woods grew lighter, with the sky visible between the treetops, and Jenna became aware of the bright singing of birds in the trees above them, a sound that she realized had been missing in Doire Coill. Ahead, they could see where the trees ended at the verge of a large grassy field, which ran slightly downhill to a wide, brown strip of bare earth bordered on either side by a stone fence.

  “There is the High Road coming up from Thiar in the west and Bácathair to the south,” Seancoim said. He pointed to the left. “That way, the road runs north to cross the Duán at Ath Iseal. Beyond the line of trees on the other side of the road is Lough Lár, and the High Road runs alongside it. This is the eastern border of Doire Coill, and here I leave you.”

  “Thank you, Seancoim of the Bunús Muintir,” Mac Ard said. “I promise you that I’ll tell Rí Gabair of your help. Is there some way I can have him reward you for bringing us here safely?”

  “Tell Rí Gabair to leave Doire Coill alone,” Seancoim answered. “That will be reward enough for the few Bunús Muintir who are left.”

  Mac Ard nodded. Jenna went to Seancoim and hugged him, then stroked Dúnmharú’s back. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Take care of yourself,” Seancoim whispered into her ear. “Be sparing with the andúilleaf; do not use it unless you must, or you’ll find it difficult to stop. I also think you should be careful about showing the power of the cloch you hold. Do you understand?”

  Jenna nodded. She hugged Seancoim again, inhaling his scent of herbs. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I am always here,” he told her. “Just come into Doire Coill and call my name, and I’ll hear it.” He let her go, and turned his blind eyes toward Maeve. “Take care of your daughter,” he said. “She’ll need your help with the burden she bears.”

  Maeve nodded. “I know. I thank you also, Seancoim. When I first met you, I didn’t trust you, but you’ve kept your word to us and more.”

  “Remember that when you look on others,” he answered. He gave a short bow to the three of them. “May the Mother-Creator watch your path. Dúnmharú, come—we have our own business to the south.” He turned his back to them and walked off into the forest. Jenna watched until his form was swallowed in shadow, and the three of them made their way to the High Road.

  10

  The Taisteal

  THE High Road, between the waist-high stone walls that bordered its path, was rough and muddy, with a scraggly growth of grass and weeds in the center between ruts carved by the wheels of carts and carriages. Mac Ard bent down to look closely at the road. “All the hoof marks are old. No riders have passed this way in a few days,” he said. “That makes me feel a bit easier.” He stood up, scanning the landscape. “I’ve come up on this side of Lough Lár a few times. Ath Iseal is no more than ten miles to the north, but there aren’t many inns or villages along this side of the lake, so near to Doire Coill. It’s too late for us to reach the town today, but we can camp along the lake’s shore if we don’t come across an inn. Tomorrow morning it should be an easy walk to the ford of the Duán, and once across to Ath Iseal I can hire a carriage to take us to Lár Bhaile.” He smiled at Maeve, at Jenna. “We’re almost home,” he said.

  Not our home, Jenna wanted to answer. That’s gone forever. She clamped her lips together to stop the words and nodded encouragingly.

&
nbsp; They walked through the afternoon. The High Road fol lowed the line of Lough Lár, sometimes verging close enough that they could see the blue waters of the lake just to their right. At other times, the road turned aside for a bit to climb the low, wooded hills that held the lake in their cupped hands. As they approached the narrow end of the lake, the dark woods of Doire Coill turned westward and gave way to large squares of farmed and grazed land, defined with tidy stone fences. Occasionally, they would pass a gate in the fence that bordered the High Road, with a lane leading far back to a hidden farmhouse set a mile or more from the road. Jenna, used to the small homesteads and farms of Ballintubber, was amazed by the size of some of the fields. They saw workers in those fields, and once had to stand aside as a hay wagon drawn by a pair of tired, old horses squealed and creaked its way past them. The driver looked at them curiously, and said little to Mac Ard’s hail. They passed no one at all on the road going in their direction.

  Toward evening, they came to an empty field on the lough side of the road. The flickering lights of cook fires glistened there among several tents and four wagons. They could hear the nickering of horses and the occasional laughter of people. There was a sign hanging on one of the wagons, written in high black letters that were still visible in the dusk.

  “What does the sign say?”

  “You can’t read?”

  Jenna shook her head. “Neither of us know our letters,” Maeve said, “but Niall could read. He said he’d teach me, but . . .” Remembered sorrow touched her face, and Jenna hugged her mam.