Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  O’Deoradháin blushed and said nothing.

  The room they entered was a library, Jenna realized, far bigger than the small chamber in the keep at Lár Bhaile, the interior airy with light from windows in the east and west walls, and filled with three rows of long tables. The smell of musty parchment filled the air, and scrolls sat in wooden notches along the south wall, while the north wall held leather-bound flat volumes. Also along the north wall was a large wooden cabinet. Its doors hung askew, torn from their hinges. An elderly Bráthair sat at a desk at the front of the room, a parchment spread out in front of him. As they entered, he bowed to the Máister and left the room, his right leg dragging the floor as if he could not bend the knee or move the limb easily.

  “This room is where the knowledge of the Order is writ ten down and kept,” Máister Cléurach told Jenna. He walked over to the ruined cabinet. Shoving aside the broken doors, he pulled out one of several trays. She could see that the tray was lined with black velvet and separated into several compartments, all of them empty. Jenna heard O’Deoradháin suck in a breath as the Máister displayed the tray to them. “And here . . . Here was where our clochs na thintrí were stored: behind the locked and warded Library door, and the doors of this cabinet were warded with slow magics as well.”

  Máister Cléurach dropped the tray onto one of the tables. The sound was loud and startling. “Tadhg O’Coulgh an’s vision was a long one and correct,” he continued. “We did acquire many of the Clochs Mór over the centuries, and we kept the knowledge and we held to his dream.” His fist slammed against the table. “And it was all taken away. Stolen just before Tadhg’s future came to fruition.” He glanced at them, his voice bitter, his mouth twisted. “The same acolytes who betrayed us let the invaders into this room, knowing the word as you did, Ennis. Librarian Maher was badly injured resisting the gardai; you noticed that he still hasn’t fully recovered. Keeper Scanlan died of his wounds that night. The acolytes and Bráthairs resisted as well as they could with sword and slow magics, and twelve of them died in the hall outside. The raiders took the clochs, all of them. I suppose I should be grateful that they left the books and scrolls or that they didn’t set fire to the library as they fled. But this . . . this was enough. You’ve seen the consequences.”

  “I wondered,” O’Deoradháin said. “I wondered why there seemed to be so many Clochs Mór with the tuatha. Now I know why. Tiarna Mac Ard and the Rí Gabair, or perhaps the Tanaise Ríg—they must have planned this not long after the mage-lights appeared in Tuath Gabair.”

  “Aye,” the Máister nodded. “The clochs are again in the hands of the Riocha, and again they are used for war.”

  Máister Cléurach shook himself from reverie, standing again and rubbing fingers through the fringe of unruly white hair. For the first time, the frown lifted from his face, though he did not smile. “I will teach you, Jenna Aoire,” he said. “I will teach you to be the cloudmage who holds Lámh Shábhála.”

  “You’d teach a woman?” she asked, remembering the acolytes she’d seen.

  “In Tadhg’s time and Severii’s, when the clochs na thintrí were still active, we had female acolytes here, and Siúrs of the Order. Not many, true, but some of the Holders were women—for Lámh Shábhála as well as other clochs, as you must know. Aye, we would teach them. It was only after, when the mage-lights had stopped, that we also stopped accepting women into the Order. So few were sent us then and so few came here on their own . . .” Maister Cleurach shrugged. “Eventually habit or circumstance becomes the rule, and rule tradition. But tradition broken is also soon forgotten.”

  His hands seemed old and tired as he picked up the empty tray and slid it back into its place in the cabinet. He pushed the broken doors together. “At least they didn’t get Lámh Shábhála,” he said. “Stay, and I will teach you what is in the books here. You will become a Siúr of the Order.”

  “And Lámh Shábhála?” Jenna asked. “The cloch my great-da stole?”

  “You’re its Holder and the cloch is yours,” Máister Cléurach replied. “I would be pleased to have the First Holder also be a cloudmage of the Order.” He gave her a rueful smile. “It seems you’ll be the only one.”

  Jenna looked at O’Deoradháin, knowing what she wanted to do and wondering if he knew as well. He nodded to her. “Not the only one,” Jenna told the Máister. “Ennis . . . ?”

  O’Deoradháin pulled his cloch from under his clóca. The ruby facets gleamed in the light streaming into the library from the windows facing west and the lowering sun. “This isn’t the cloch you sent me to find, Máister,” he said. “But I hold the Cloch Mór that was once held by the Mac Ards of Tuath Gabair.”

  “And this . . .” Jenna reached into the pouch at her belt, bringing out the sea-foam green jewel that Tiarna Gairbith had once possessed. “This is another Cloch Mór, though I don’t know its long history.” She placed it on the table in front of Máister Cléurach. “I give it to the Order to do with as you will. Consider it payment for my tuition, and a small compensation for what my great-da took.”

  39

  Training

  IT was harder than Jenna imagined.

  “Maister Cléurach is an excellent mentor,” O’Deorad háin told her the first day. “If you can stand him.” That wasn’t an exaggeration. The Máister had an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore of the clochs na thintrí and was seemingly able to call up in his mind the pages of the entire library of the Order, but he was also sometimes impatient with Jenna, who became his only student. He was initially exasperated by the fact that Jenna could neither read nor write. At first he refused to go further until she learned her letters, then a few minutes later reversed himself after finding that Jenna’s memory was quick, facile, and reliable.

  “I suppose the Holder of Lámh Shábhála deserves different treatment than a common acolyte,” he said grudgingly. “If you weren’t halfway intelligent, you’d already be dead.” It was as close to a compliment as she was to receive for the next several weeks.

  The first day, looking at a scroll filled with the bright, painted images of clochs na thintrí, she let the scroll roll itself up once more and she held up her own cloch to his eyes. “Why didn’t you know for certain that this was Lámh Shábhála, since the first two Máisters of the Order both had held this cloch themselves? For that matter, why didn’t Lámh Shábhála get passed on to each of the Máisters in turn? I don’t understand.”

  “You need patience,” he replied. “The answers will come in time, when they will make the most sense to you.”

  “I want the answers now,” she persisted.

  “I’m the teacher, you’re the student. I will determine when you’re ready, what you’ll learn, and when.”

  “Aye, I’m the student. And it’s my duty to tell you when I don’t understand something so that you can explain. Don’t put me off with platitudes and pleas for patience. When I ask questions, tell me what you know or tell me that you don’t know.”

  “You’re an arrogant young lady.”

  “And you’re a crotchety old man who is used to easily cowing the boys who are sent to you because you look sour and mean. Your appearance and reputation aren’t going to frighten me, Máister Cléurach. A year ago, I might have been as terrified as any of them, but not now. Here’s one thing I’ve learned in that time: when someone refuses to answer me, they either don’t know the answer to my question or they’re deliberately withholding it for reasons of their own. Which is it for you, Máister?”

  They glared at each other for a few breaths, then Máister Cléurach snorted. “The Holders of Lámh Shábhála evidently have their obstinate streak in common,” he said. “As well, evidently, as a tendency to view the world in dualities. One thing I hope you learn here is that things are more complicated than that. You’re seeing conspiracies when the truth is more innocent and banal.”

  He shook his head, rapping his fingernails on the table a few times before continuing. “Here’s your answer: S
everii O’Coulghan was not Tadhg. Though he did serve as Máister here, which was his da’s dying wish, the truth is that he didn’t share Tadhg’s sweeping vision for the Order. The clochs went dead late in his Holding, and Lámh Shábhála finally died a year or two afterward. Had Tadhg been the Holder then, he would certainly have given Lámh Shábhála to the Order as the ultimate prize of its collection. Then, when the mage-lights returned, we would have seen them shining here over Inishfeirm and known that the time of the Filleadh was approaching. We would have had Lámh Shábhála to protect us if raiders came to plunder the clochs. Severii had the cloch, though, not Tadhg. Rather than treasuring the cloch for the Order, he gave Lámh Shábhála as a gift to his lover.” Máister Cléurach gave a sniff of derision. “Lámh Shábhála is not the most beautiful or most striking of jewels, as you know,” he continued. “If anything, it’s rather plain. And love, as you may also know, is an emotion that can fade and die like the mage-lights. Severii’s lover one day abruptly left the island never to be seen again. With him went Lámh Shábhála.”

  Jenna’s face must have shown confusion. “Him?”

  Máister Cléurach shrugged. “Life is complicated,” he re plied simply and continued his tale. “No doubt Lámh Sháb hála was eventually given away or lost or misplaced as something not particularly valuable. When Severii was asked by the librarian for a description of Lámh Shábhála, so that it could be painted and written down in our books . . .” Maister Cleurach went to one of the shelves and pulled down one of the bound volumes.

  “The Book of Lámh Shábhála,” he said, placing it before Jenna. He opened the stiff leather cover, the smell of dust and old paper wafting over Jenna. His bony forefinger pointed to an illustration on the first page: a cloch held in someone’s hand: caged in silver wire; whorled with emerald-green and mottled gold; the size of a duck’s egg and glinting as if transparent and full of hidden depths. Jenna could see hints of the actual stone in the representa tion, but this was Lámh Shábhála magnified and made far more jewellike than the reality.

  “Obviously, that’s not Lámh Shábhála,” Máister Cléurach said. “Perhaps Severii deliberately lied to the artisan—wanting to make the loss of the cloch and his lover all the more poignant. Or it’s possible that the artisan, knowing that this was Lámh Shábhála, the greatest of the clochs, could not see it as . . . well . . . plain, and Severii obviously never contradicted that image. So when a rather ordinary-looking stone reputed to be Lámh Shábhála did come back to the Order, you can understand why my predecessors doubted the identification when they looked here. That’s also why, when your great-da stole it, Máister Dahlga could believe that it was a false cloch that had been lost, not Lámh Shábhála.”

  “I do understand,” Jenna said. “And is what’s written in this book also false?”

  “In this book is written all that Tadhg and Severii told us of Lámh Shábhála, and all that we have learned since. Some of it is undoubtedly untrue or exaggerated or rumor; other portions are certainly true. You’ll help us revise this at the same time you’re learning from it.”

  “I have another question,” Jenna said, and Máister Cleurach sighed audibly, though he said nothing, waiting. “Sometimes, when I’ve used Lámh Shábhála, I’ve heard the voices of all of its Holders. Some of them have spoken of a test, ‘Scrúdú,’ they call it. What is that?”

  Máister Cléurach sighed. His fingers brushed the parch ment where the false image of Lámh Shábhála was painted.

  “The Scrudu . . .” he breathed. “Not all Holders need to know that.”

  “That’s not an answer, Máister.”

  He glared at her, but continued. “Right now, Lámh Shábhála is like a Cloch Mór, more powerful and with more abilities than any of those, aye, but still a Cloch Mór. Many Holders have been content with that, and spent their years with the cloch that way. No one will think less of you if you do the same.”

  “Finish your answer, Máister. Please.”

  He snorted in irritation. “A few, a few Holders have found the full depths of Lámh Shábhála’s power. To do so, they must first pass the trial they call the Scrúdú. I will tell you this, Holder Aoire: most who try fail.”

  “And if they fail?”

  “If they’re lucky, they die,” Máister Cléurach replied. His stare was unblinking and cold. “If you believe that to be overdramatic, I assure you it’s not.”

  “Is this Scrúdú in your book?”

  “It’s mentioned, but neither Tadhg or Severii ever risked the challenge. But the process, the way to begin and what happens then . . .” He shrugged. “They—the voices in the stone—will tell you later if you’re foolish enough to make the attempt. I would advise you to first learn something about being a cloudmage.”

  Jenna started to speak, but Máister Cléurach closed the book sharply, surprising her so much that her mouth snapped shut again. Dust rose from the pages, so heavy that Jenna had to turn her head and sneeze. “You’ve used up your quota of questions for a month, Holder Aoire. If you have no interest in the lore we have to give you, you’re welcome to leave. If not, then henceforth you’ll learn when I’m ready to teach and not before. Is that quite clear?”

  He glared at her, his head turned sideways, looking so stern that Jenna suddenly felt compelled to laugh. “Aye,” she told him, as his face softened slightly in response to her laughter. “I suppose I can work on my patience.”

  Máister Cléurach might be old, but he was hardly decrepit. If anything, his stamina was greater than Jenna’s. The schedule over the next weeks quickly fell into routine: every morning, O’Deoradháin would wake her by knocking on the door of her small cell, located near Máister Cléu rach’s own rooms. She broke her fast with O’Deoradháin in the same dining hall as the other acolytes and Bráthairs. O’Deoradháin then escorted her to the library, where she and Máister Cléurach worked until sundown.

  Máister Cléurach had given over his other duties and students; Jenna’s instruction was now his only task. She learned about the clochs na thintrí: their history, their behavior, their quirks, how previous Holders had dealt with handling their power. She was shown meditations that helped her deal with the pain of her interaction with the mage-lights, she was guided through the bright landscape she saw when she looked at the world through Lámh Sháb hálá’s eyes. She and Máister Cléurach pored over the texts left by previous Holders of Lámh Shábhála, and Jenna realized that she had only touched on the surface of the cloch’s abilities. As Máister Cléurach had said, some of what was stated in the book was false, but much more of it illuminated pathways within the cloch that Jenna had not even guessed at. The Máister pushed her and prodded her, never letting her rest, taking her past what she thought were her physical and mental limits, never accepting less than her best effort.

  “Was he this way with you?” she asked O’Deoradháin after a particularly grueling day. “After all, he expected you to hold Lámh Shábhála had you found it. Did he drive you like this?” They were standing on a balcony of one of the White Keep’s towers, overlooking the crags and cliffs atop which the cloister perched. The houses and buildings of the village were a collection of dots far below already in deepening shadow. Only the upper rim of the sun was still visible, the clouds above burning molten gold and rose, the waves of the sea tipped with shimmering orange. A sparkling column of wind sprites lifted from the cliffs halfway down the mountain, and several seals had hauled out of the sea, roaring and honking where the waves crashed foaming onto black rocks.

  “Consider it a good sign,” O’Deoradháin grinned. “He’s hardest on the ones he feels have the most potential. The time to worry is when he’s easy on you.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Was he this hard on you?”

  O’Deoradháin smiled again. “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?” Jenna laughed and his smile grew broader. “I knew you could do that,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “Laugh. Enjoy yours
elf.”

  Jenna felt herself blushing, and she glanced down toward the village so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. Her flight from Lár Bhaile now seemed ages ago, and over the intervening months her feelings toward O’Deoradháin had been slowly changing: from suspicion and caution to grudging admiration, to friendship, to . . . she didn’t know how to term what she felt now. Or perhaps you’re simply afraid to give it a name, for all manner of reasons . . . Below, the seals were leaping into the waves, one after another, dozens of them. “Are those blue seals?” Jenna asked to shift the subject, but O’Deoradháin moved closer to her to peer over the balcony’s stone railing. She could feel the heat of his body against her side.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Just the normal harbor seals. There’s a family of blues here, but they’re usually on the other side of the island.”

  “Are they . . . ?”

  “The ones I first swam with?” he finished for her softly. “No. That was on Inish Thuaidh itself. But I’ve been with this group, when I felt the need. They know me, and Garrentha, who saved you at Lough Glas, is one of the Inishfeirm family.” His hand touched hers on the railing—her right hand. She didn’t move away this time. His fingers interlaced with hers, pressing gently. Though the fingers of that hand, as always, moved only stiffly and with some pain, she pressed back. “Jenna . . .” he began, but his voice trailed off. The throng of wind sprites rose in the darkening air, chattering in their high voices as they swarmed past Jenna and O’Deoradháin before darting around the bulge of the tower.

  “What were you going to say, Ennis?” Jenna asked, and O’Deoradháin chuckled. “What?” she said into his laughter.