Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Jenna rose, going to where the tiarna stood. Looking out, she could see the ramparts of the keep, built into a mountainside overlooking the harbor. Everything was cloaked in mist from the rain, but Jenna imagined that on a clear day the view would be breathtaking: the blue deep water, the curving strips of white sand, the houses set in the lush green foliage that cloaked the mountainside, the sheer black rock of the cliff on which the keep perched.

  “They call this Croc a Scroilm, the Hill of Screaming. When Máel Armagh of Infochla brought his ships of war to Inish Thuaidh, when his cloudmages brought him safely through the storms our mages called up to stop him, it was here his fleet landed, and here that the first battle was fought. Then, there was no keep, only the flat top of the mountain. The pregnant women, the young mothers and their children, the elderly and infirm of Dún Kiil fled here when the Infochla fleet sailed into the harbor and they watched the battle from above. We had no army waiting for them since it was thought he would come first to attack Inishfeirm, where Severii O’Coulghan, the Holder of Lámh Shábhála, waited. Here there were only a few hundred gardai and maybe a thousand pressmen, and only a single cloudmage with her Cloch Mór. It was a slaughter, and quickly over. Those Inishlanders Rí Armagh captured—men and women both, for many of the women fought alongside their men—he brought bound and hobbled to the base of the mountain below these cliffs where those gathered above could see. With a wave of his hand, he had his archers fire into the helpless captives, while those above wailed in sorrow and terror and helpless disbelief. Then, Armagh ordered his soldiers to climb the mountain; when they reached the mourning crowds, his soldiers raped the women and their daughters and killed the sons and old men, throwing their violated bodies over the side of the mountain to join the bleeding corpses of their slaughtered loved ones. Some, according to the tale, jumped over the cliff on their own rather than submit. They fell, all of them, screaming . . .”

  Jenna’s hand had gone to her throat as MacEagan spoke, imagining the horror of that scene. “We remember,” MacEagan finished. “We will always remember. It was Severii who began the construction of this keep after the Battle of Sliabh Míchinniuint, where Rí Armagh met his fate. They say it’s the tears of those who died here that drip inside the keep when it rains. I don’t know if that’s true. I do know that the roof’s been repaired and rebuilt and redesigned a dozen or more times over the centuries, and still the tears fall. I think they remember, too.”

  Jenna turned away from the window, MacEagan closing it behind her. She saw that the stained glass depicted the scene he’d just described: a woman, her mouth open in a silent cry, tumbled over black, jagged rocks. “What is it you’re asking of me?” she asked the trio.

  Banrion Aithne answered. “Some of the tiarna advise us to wait, to prepare our armies for the inevitable. That’s the advice my husband listens to, because it means he can sit in comfort and do nothing. But while we sit, the tuatha make their own preparations. We’ve learned that the Rí Ard has ended the conflict between Tuath Connachta and Tuath Gabair, and that he is actively working to have the tuatha join together. If they all come, fully prepared and allied, we can’t stand.”

  “What does your brother say?” Jenna asked.

  Aithne almost laughed. “So you’ve felt the knives in his glare? Árón will be against anything that involves you, I’m afraid. I’ll deal with that when the time comes. But . . .” She paused. “We here in this room believe that time must be soon.”

  The bright shattering of glass tore Jenna’s gaze away from Aithne—Kianna tossed her wineglass into the fireplace.

  “The Banrion is right,” she said. “We must strike first. Before the Tuatha are ready.”

  The mage-lights came, and Jenna wearily pulled herself from the bed to answer their call. As she lifted Lámh Shábhála to their glowing strands of energy, she could feel Ennis doing the same somewhere nearby, and also Máister Cléurach opening Stormbringer, which he had taken for himself after having given Gairbith’s cloch to Bráthair Mundy Kirwan. The mage-lights seethed and roiled above her, and Lámh Shábhála sucked greedily at them, filling itself. Afterward, her arm throbbed and ached, and it trembled as she released the cloch, the pain shooting deep into her joints.

  She went to the small chest of drawers beside the bed. She pulled out the packet of fine, soft paper.

  “I must consider this,” she’d told them. “I need to speak to Máister Cléurach and Ennis, for what you’re asking also concerns them. I need to think . . .”

  The Banrion had nodded and given her that small, cold smile. “Then we’ll talk tomorrow evening,” she said. “But there is only one answer, Holder. I think you already know that.”

  Jenna had said nothing. She’d walked quickly from the room, but on the way, without conscious thought, she’d taken the packet Banrion Aithne had given her . . .

  She put water over the hearth fire to boil, holding the packet on her lap and watching the steam start to curl from the small iron pot. When she heard the first chatter of the boil, she took two of the leaves, crushed them in her left hand, and sprinkled them into the pot. The bitter smell of anduilleaf filled the room and she sniffed it gratefully, already feeling the pain easing in her arm and shoulder. She poured some of the thickening tea into a mug.

  For a long time, she sat there, just holding it and inhaling the aroma. She could almost taste it. She felt her body yearning for the brew, her hands trembling around the mug, and yet she waited. She could hear the voices in her mind, the voices of all the old Holders.

  . . . go ahead. I was a First Holder and it’s what I needed, too . . .

  . . . aye, and you were mad with it a mere five years later, Caenneth: homicidal, fey, and insane, and hated by those around you . . .

  . . . I could take it or not. I was never in thrall to it . . .

  . . . that’s what you wanted to believe . . . that’s not what they said after you were dead . . .

  . . . it was all that kept me from going crazy with the pain . . .

  The arguments echoed in her head, contradictory. Her arm throbbed and sent stabbing flashes through her shoulder and chest. Finally, she started to lifted the mug to her lips.

  There was a harsh knock on her door. “Jenna! Please open the door. I need to talk with you.”

  “Go away, Ennis.”

  “Jenna, open the door. I’m not going away.” Again, the knocking came. With a sigh, Jenna set the mug down and opened the door. Ennis walked in. His right arm was bare to the elbow, and she could see the markings of the mage lights beginning to scar his flesh as it had hers—not as deep, not as defined, but they were there. Seeing her gaze, he rubbed at the arm.

  “It aches and throbs when I use the cloch or call the mage-lights to me,” he said. “But it’s bearable. I don’t hold Lámh Shábhála. I didn’t have to open the clochs na thintrí to the lights. I don’t have to bear the power you wield.” He glanced at the mug steaming on the table. “Is that what you need?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know.” She bit her lower lip. Her right hand was shaking, and she pressed it against her stomach. “I’m afraid, Ennis,” she said. “It hurts so much, and the leaf . . . the leaf keeps the pain away, at least for a little while, but I wonder . . . I wonder if I hadn’t been taking it . . . the Banrion . . . I was so confused, so angry . . .” She stopped. Her breath was coming in short gasps, her chest tight. The room swam in unshed tears.

  He was close to her, but he wouldn’t touch her. “You can’t change what happened, Jenna. You didn’t have a choice then.”

  “But I did.” Her voice was nearly a whisper. “And I have a choice now.”

  “About the andúilleaf?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “The Comhairle, then?”

  A nod. “I told Máister Cléurach . . .”

  “I know. And he told me. What do you think?”

  Jenna lifted her head. “I think they’re right. There will be war, no matter what we do, and if
we strike first, we have the best chance of prevailing. I also I think it would be horrible and I don’t want to be part of it. The clochs na thintrí shouldn’t be weapons of war, Ennis, but that seems to be all they’re ever used for—to gain power.”

  “Then tell the Banrion and the Comhairle that your answer’s ‘no.’ ”

  “And there’s even more death as a result. Right here. For good or ill, this is my home. This is where my ancestors came from, and Ballintubber’s lost to me now. The Rí Ard and Tanaise Ríg both stand against me. There’s nowhere I can go in Talamh an Ghlas. This is my home, the only one I have. Shouldn’t I defend it?”

  “You’re arguing against yourself, Jenna, and that’s an argument you can’t win.” A gentle, sympathetic smile touched the corners of his mouth, creasing his cheeks. His hand lifted, brushed her cheek, and fell away. “Listen to your heart. What does it say?”

  Jenna gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t know. I can’t hear it through all the confusion.” She picked up the mug of andúilleaf.

  “Will that help you hear it, or just cloud your mind more?”

  A shrug. “Right now, I need something to lean on. To help. This is what I have.”

  “You have me.”

  Jenna started to speak. Blood pounded at her temples. She took a breath. “Ennis . . .”

  His hand closed around hers on the mug, so tightly that she gasped. “If you need this, then fine. I trust your decision and won’t stop you. But I’ll be here, too. I’ll give you what I can, whatever you want to take from me. I’ll stand with you in whatever decision you make. I’ll . . .” He stopped. He was very close, his green eyes not letting her look away.

  “Let go of the mug, Ennis,” she told him. For a moment, he continued to stare. Then he took a step back, letting go of her hand.

  She looked down at the milky brew inside the cup, at the promise it held. Very softly, she set the mug down again. She walked over to Ennis, put her left hand around his neck and pulled his head down.

  She pressed her mouth to his. He tasted sweet, and she opened her mouth to him, an urgency and need rising in her. His arms went around her, drawing her close, his hands tangling in her hair. Her lips clung to his, moist and soft, as he lifted his head.

  “Jenna . . . ?” he husked.

  “Aye,” she whispered back to his question. “This is what my heart says. And for right now, anyway, this is what I want.”

  43

  The Dream of Thall Coill

  SHE was there, in the upheaval and the blood . . .

  Sliabh Míchinniúint, the Mountain of Ill Fate, burned as if it were an ancient, slumbering volcano come to vile life, spewing rivers of molten lava down on its blackened and broken slopes, the earth steaming with gray-white mists under the assault. Only this was no natural fury; this was the terror of a battle of cloudmages. Beneath black clouds the armies clashed, and she was one of them: an Inish clans-woman roaring her defiance at the armored troops of Rí Máel Armagh, shouting her hatred of the banners of green and gold gathered in a writhing island of steel and flesh in the valley below. She rushed down on them from the slopes among the hundreds of her fellow clansmen, her throat raw with the battle cry they called “caointeoireacht na cogadh,” the massed sound of it like the thousand-throated scream of an angry god. Overhead, the cloudmages called down lightning and fire as great explosions clawed at the mountainside with shrieking hurricane winds and twisting black funnels. She and her fellow clansfolk slammed into the Infochla troops with an audible clash of iron on iron, bronze on bronze, the impact stunning. Her first slash hewed off the sword arm of a young Infochla soldier. The soldier—no doubt a pressman boy of no more than fourteen, his face still pimpled—screamed a thin shriek of terror and shock, the arm pinwheeling to the ground still clutching the sword, blood spraying wildly over both of them. A blow struck her from the side, the bronze shoulder plates of her leathers dimpling under the impact. She went down on her knees, crying out as she swung her own weapon, blinking away the blood and seeing the edge of her sword slice through the thin mail of her attacker and cut deep into his abdomen. She struggled to her feet, knowing she was screaming, feeling the sound ripping her throat but hearing none of it in the ferocious din of the battle. There was blood everywhere and no way to know if it was hers or her enemy’s. She saw a flash of green and gold; she slashed at it blindly. All around her, Infochla soldiers fell, and still the Inishlanders pushed forward, trampling the dead into the mud underfoot. Above and around them, the clochs raged, illuminating the battlefield with their bright, awful lightnings. Something struck the ground near her with a deafening ka-RUMPH: she saw searing, yellow light and a dozen and more soldiers, Infochla and Inishlander alike, screamed as the fire consumed them in an awful moment, leaving behind nothing but blackened skeletons that stood in an eerie imitation of their last poses for a few seconds before dropping to the ground like broken dolls.

  This was chaos. This was slaughter.

  “This was how it was, Holder. This is how it would be . . .” The voice seemed familiar, one of those who spoke to her when she used the cloch.

  “Severii?” she asked, knowing that he’d been there at the battle, but she was now somewhere else, standing at the edge of a high cliff in a small open space surrounded by the dark, brooding presence of ancient oak trees. Nearby there seemed to be a presence, but she could not see it. It was as if there was a blank spot in her vision where the presence lurked, so that it vanished whenever she tried to look directly at it. Is this Doire Coill? she wondered, and someone answered as if she’d spoken aloud, a woman’s voice this time.

  “No, this is Thall Coill. This is the source and the place of Scrúdú . . .”

  Jenna turned around—there was nobody with her. And yet . . . there was. She saw them: a couple—a woman and a man, perhaps in their early twenties, both of them leaning against the trees at the edge of the clearing as if impossibly weary. They panted, their breath steaming about them in clouds although Jenna herself felt warm. Around the wom an’s neck, outside the soiled, ragged clóca, was Lámh Shábhála. Jenna’s hand went to her own breast: no, Lámh Shábhála was still there, on its chain, and yet . . . “Hello?” she called to the two, but though the woman’s eyes were searching the cliff top, she didn’t seem to see Jenna standing there or to hear her voice. She took a step forward, staggering to where Jenna sensed the presence, and fell to her knees. The man started to come forward and she raised a hand to hold him back.

  “No, Tadhg, I have to do this myself. Stay back. Please . . .”

  Tadhg . . . The name hit Jenna with a shock—could this be Tadhg O’Coulghan, the Founder of the Order? Jenna could see the conflict in the man’s face, the love and concern for the woman.

  “Peria, come back. You don’t need to try the Scrúdú. You hold enough power with Lámh Shábhála the way it is now. We can go back, be content with ourselves. Think of Severii if you won’t think of me; the boy will never know his mam . . .”

  Jenna had the sense that this was an old argument, one that both of them had been going over and over for many days now, the protest and responses so automatic that they weren’t even heard. The woman was shaking her head into Tadhg’s argument, pushing herself up from the muddy ground. “I may be the Last Holder, Tadhg,” she told him. “I’ve told you what the voices say—it’s the first few Hold ers or the last few who have Lámh Shábhála when it’s the strongest. By undergoing the Scrúdú, the Firsts can create the path for the others to follow; the Lasts can forge a legacy to last until the mage-lights come again. I have to try.”>

  “Almost all who try, fail. You told me that’s what all the old Holders said, Peria.”

  “I won’t fail.”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t.”

  Tadhg started forward again, and again she lifted her hand. He stayed, but Jenna could see him trembling with fear.

  Taking a long breath, Peria moved to stand near the edge of the cliff and then turned her back to the sea,
standing within an arm’s reach of Jenna yet not reacting to her at all. Again, she looked all around her, her gaze passing through Jenna as if she weren’t there. She stared at the place that was dark and blank in Jenna’s sight.

  The woman took Lámh Shábhála in her right hand, the loose sleeve of her léine falling back, and Jenna saw the familiar scarred flesh mirroring her own damaged arm. Grimacing with pain, Peria closed her stiff fingers around the cloch, her eyes closing as she opened it to her mind. Above the meadow there was a sudden burst of brilliance, a showering of stars that sent black shadows racing away into the forest. Peria’s face lifted, the radiance forcing her to squint as she looked up. The mage-lights, brighter and more colorful than Jenna had ever seen them, twisted and writhed above her, their forms bending toward her, dancing downward . . .

  . . . touching . . .

  Peria screamed, a long, drawn-out ululating cry, a wail of despair and desperation. Peria’s eyes were wide open now, staring fixedly into the glare of the mage-lights. Jenna didn’t know what Peria saw in her mind through the cloch-vision, but it obviously terrified her. Her mouth was working, pleading silently with something or someone that only she could see or hear, and Jenna saw her hand clench tighter around the cloch, as if she were forcing herself to hold onto it when every instinct was telling her to let go, to release the power and save herself. Tadhg evidently saw the internal struggle also, for he surged forward with a cry. With his first step toward her, the mage-lights flared, an arc of blue fury lashing out to strike the man, hurling him backward. He got to his feet and tried once more; again, the mage-lights threw him back. This time, he didn’t rise.

  Peria didn’t notice Tadhg’s defeat. She’d sunk to her knees, as if beaten down by the power above her, though her face still stared at the mage-lights in stricken, helpless horror. “No!” Jenna saw her mouth the word, her free hand raised as if in supplication. The mage-lights flayed the sky, so powerful that Jenna could hear them, shrieking like a raging hurricane. “No!” Peria said again, this time an audible shriek nearly lost in the raging storm of the lights. “I can’t!”