Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  Dust made her blink her eyes, but she kept the shield in place above her, pushing the splintered, hard rain away from her.

  She could do little more than fend off the mage-demon. In her cloch-vision, she saw a stream of pure energy—a blue so brilliant it was nearly white—come snarling toward her. She threw up a wall of her own power barely in time, and the color broke against it, sizzling and burning.

  Fire erupted in the street in front of her, molten gobs splattering against Lámh Shábhála’s wall. In the dust, Jenna saw a figure standing nearby, seemingly formed of lava and flame, glowing orange-red and covered with scabs of black, visible both to her eyes and the cloch-vision. The lava-creature lifted its hands and a glowing boulder erupted from them, arcing toward her. Jenna pushed back at the new assault, sending a blast of furious wind from Lámh Shábhála. The boulder went black and fell, shattering ten feet away in a gout of fury. Jenna could feel the heat, searing and intense. The building was aflame above her.

  The cloch-beast continued to tear at the structure, and she could sense the house starting to collapse around her. The roiling clouds of dust and smoke were so thick that she could see nothing as she flung herself back into the lane. Bowstrings sang from somewhere above and arrows arced toward her; with a flick of energy, she sent them to streaks of fire and ash. But some of them got through, hissing past or ricocheting from the doorway in which she now crouched.

  I can’t keep this up . . . I can’t . . .

  A strobe of lightning illuminated the dust clouds as it streaked away: Ennis attacking. Down the lane, there was a cry of distress and the massive lava-creature grunted and shifted its attack to Ennis, though the blue-white beam still pounded at the defensive wall Jenna had erected. “Jenna! Back to the square!” she heard Ennis shout in the confusion. She thought she saw a glimpse of his figure, then the dust closed in again as the second story of the house fell in with a splintering, long crash. Someone screamed in the rubble. The mage-demon attacked directly once more, hovering above her with an audible whoomp-whoomp of wings before it plummeted down; Jenna formed the energy of Lámh Shábhála into hands and reached for it. The beast reared back as the hands caught and held it, fiery arcs of drool flying from its mouth and its wings flapping desperately, clawing at the unseen fingers that held it. Jenna could feel the claws, as if they were ripping into her own skin, and she screamed.

  Jenna forced herself to focus, to fend off the beast and still hold back the others. She knew now how Lámh Sháb hála had been beaten in the past—she could not put her attention anywhere long enough to counterattack; inevitably someone would get through. She could sense that the other Cloch Mór Holders in the city were now aware of the battle: Máister Cléurach, the Banrion . . . She could only hope that they would enter the fray soon. She gave way, the mage-demon following, backing down the lane and hoping Ennis was doing the same. She could feel him struggling against the fire cloch.

  She heard his voice, calling out, “Jen—” and then cut off. She screamed her own pain and fear as the lava-creature stomped back toward her. Hold them. They have to be weakening . . . Already the cloch-beast’s struggles were failing, though the other two clochs continued their assault. For an instant, she let down the wall, shouting against the pain as the energy stream burned her, as the clinging fire of the lava-creature struck her clothing. She channeled the flow of Lámh Shábhála toward the hands holding the mage-demon, imagining them crushing the life from the thing: the beast gibbered in panic, limbs flailing now in desperation. She heard bones cracking, and the soft, ugly sound of the body rupturing.

  The cloch-beast vanished in a wail as down the lane she heard an echoing cry from its Holder. Jenna threw the wall back up again, pushing away the other two clochs’ assault. She’d fallen without knowing it, nearly losing hold of Lámh Shábhála. Her clóca was scorched, her skin burned underneath. She forced herself to stand again, readied herself to release the wall now and counterattack.

  Raging chaos shifted abruptly into silence and dark. In her cloch-vision, the other two clochs vanished. She could sense them still, but they were dim and inactive. The Holders were moving away, quickly, as if on horseback. She flung furious lightning bolts toward them, but it was already too late. They were gone.

  “Ennis!” She called his name, coughing in the dust, try ing desperately to see either with her eyes or through Lámh Shábhála. “Ennis!”

  He wasn’t there. The dust was settling; she could see the street and the rubble strewn across it, but there was no sign of Ennis, and she could not feel him or his cloch with Lámh Shábhála.

  He was gone. Taken.

  “Ennis!” she called again, knowing in her heart it was useless. Footsteps were running toward her from the direc tion of the square. Jenna whirled, her hand on Lámh Sháb hála, ready to strike.

  “Holder!” One of the Rí’s gardai—a sergeant by the insignia on his shoulder—came to an abrupt halt, staring in disbelief at the destruction around him and Jenna’s battered appearance as half a dozen soldiers came hurrying behind. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Mage O’Deoradhain has been captured.” Jenna waved her arm. “Quickly! We have to find him!”

  The sergeant barked orders and his men scattered, but Jenna knew it was too late.

  Too late.

  PART FOUR

  THE SHADOW Rí

  46

  Decisions

  “IT was my brother,” the Banrion said. “Or at least I ‘have to make that assumption. He’s gone, along with all his retainers.”

  Jenna had been carried to her chambers in the keep and the healer sent for. Maister Cléurach had come rushing in as well, refusing to leave in case he might need to defend her with his cloch. Guards were set outside the doors and in the hallways, and trackers were sent in pursuit of Árón Ó Dochartaigh.

  Now, several hours later, Jenna lay bandaged in her bed, the cuts, scrapes, and burns on her body salved and wrapped, her right arm and chest throbbing with fiery needles each time she breathed or moved. She kept finding her gaze snagged on the set of drawers across the room where the bag of andúilleaf sat. The only thing that kept her from telling them to bring her the leaf was knowing how disappointed Ennis would be if she started using it again.

  She wasn’t sure how long that would mean anything. She was afraid that Ennis might never have the chance to know.

  The Banrion Aithne sat alongside the bed, at her left hand, and for the first time Jenna seemed to see genuine anguish on her face. Her haughtiness and stiff certainty were gone. “I’ve sent word that the Comhairle will meet tomorrow, and we’ll send an edict to the Rí that Árón and those with him are to be proclaimed traitors, with the price of death on their heads if Holder O’Deoradháin is harmed.” A trace of her old confidence returned to her. “The Rí will sign the warrant, of course.”

  “Where has your brother gone?” Jenna asked. Her throat was raw; it hurt to talk. It hurt to move. It hurt simply to lie there.

  “If I know him, he’s riding hard for the mountains of Rubha na Scarbh. That’s where we both grew up, and he knows the paths and hidden places as well as anyone. There are caverns and lost valleys there where he can hide for years, and an army would not be able to dig him out. The people there are like him: grim and solitary folks, fiercely loyal to their clan-kin; they won’t care about the proclamation. They’ll hide him and protect him.”

  “So you’re telling me that the warrant means nothing.”

  Aithne shrugged. “If we can find him before he reaches Rubha na Scarbh, it means everything. It’s a long ride over hard country, and there are several townlands to cross with people who will wonder why a tiarna and his people are passing through so quickly. But once he’s there, in his own land . . .” She shook her head. “I won’t lie to you, Holder. In his land, he is the only genuine Rí, even though he doesn’t claim that title. Inish Thuaidh isn’t like the Tuatha of Talamh an Ghlas. We may fight, clan against clan, but we’d re
sist together if the Rí MacBrádaigh tried to use the power given him by the Comhairle to take out one of us—because we would fear we’d be the next. The warrant may cause someone to betray Árón; we can hope for that. There will be people there who consider themselves more loyal to me than to him. And we can send a few troops in to look for him, though not an army.”

  Máister Cléurach stirred from the chair in which he’d been sitting all evening. “The Banrion tells you the truth, Jenna. We Inishlanders covet our little independences. We take oath first to clan, then to townland, and last to Dún Kiil.”

  “If they . . .” Kill, Jenna started to say, but she wouldn’t utter the word. “Speak ill and you make it true” was an old saying, one she’d heard her Aldwoman Pearce or her own mam utter many times. “. . . hurt Ennis at all, I swear by the Mother-Creator Herself that I will kill him. I don’t care if he’s your brother, Banrion. I don’t care about anything. I will kill him.”

  The Banrion smiled thinly. “You’re an Inishlander, Holder. I would expect nothing else.”

  “There were two other Cloch Mór Mages with him. Who were they?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “You hold a Cloch Mór yourself, even if you hide it from everyone. Show it to me.”

  Aithne started, sitting back in the chair and glancing at Máister Cléurach. But she didn’t deny the accusation. Her hands went to her neck, and she slowly lifted a fine, silver chain there. From under her léine, a blue stone emerged, a finger’s length long and cut with intricate facets. “Do you recognize it?” Jenna asked Máister Cléurach, who leaned forward to look closely at the gem, then shook his head.

  “No. It’s not a stone that the Order held.”

  “I wasn’t a party to the Inishfeirm raid and I wasn’t with my brother tonight, if that was your suspicion, Holder,” Aithne said. “I can understand why you’d be cautious. But

  I was with the Rí. You can ask any of the Riocha or half the townspeople. I had nothing to do with this. Or you can use Lámh Shábhála and judge the truth of what I say.”

  Jenna held Aithne’s gaze for a long breath, then closed her eyes. “Put the cloch away,” she told her. “You’re probably wise not to let others see it.”

  The Banrion tucked the gem back under her léine and leaned over to hold Jenna’s hand. “I promise you that all that can be done is being done. Get yourself well again—that’s the best you can do for him right now.” With that, the Banrion left the room in a rustle of linen and a whiff of musk oil.

  “She’ll do as she promises,” Máister Cléurach said. “I know that much.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Jenna pulled herself up on the bed, grimacing as freshly-closed wounds pulled. “I should have been able to stop it. I should have been stronger.”

  Máister Cléurach sniffed. “There were three Clochs Mór set against you. I think you did as well as anyone could have. I could read you the histories, or you could listen to the Holders’ voices inside Lámh Shábhála. There have been Holders who have fallen against two clochs, or even one that surprised and overwhelmed them before they could react. You fought three, and you might have beaten them had they stayed to play it out. But I don’t think they truly expected to defeat Lámh Shábhála. They would have taken that gift if it had happened, but I wonder if all along the real target wasn’t you, but Ennis.”

  “Why? Why would Árón want Ennis?”

  “Do you love Ennis?”

  The question made Jenna blink. “Aye,” she answered, feeling the truth in the gaping wound inside her, one that no Healer could cure. “I do.”

  Máister Cléurach’s mouth tightened; his eyes narrowed. “And Árón Ó Dochartaigh loved his daughter,” he said.

  She knew he was right, knew it even as she shook her head in reflexive disagreement. The tiarna wanted to hurt Jenna as she had hurt him, and that realization was a sword blade in her gut, ripping and tearing at her soul. “No . . .” she whispered, and the word was not so much a denial as a plea.

  The light shifted in the room, a wavering brightness that dimmed for a moment the yellow glow of the candles. Outside, the mage-lights touched the sky, wrapping around the moon and calling to her. Jenna flung aside the covers.

  “You can’t,” Máister Cléurach said. He rose, as if to guide her back down. “You’re too weak and it will hurt too much. The lights will come again tomorrow or the next day.”

  Jenna pushed his hands away. “So might the next attack or the chance to help Ennis. I need Lámh Shábhála full. Lámh Shábhála wants to be full.” Biting her lips to keep from crying out, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Máister Cléurach, without saying anything, brought a woolen shawl and draped it over her shoulders. He helped her up, held her as she walked across the room and pushed open the doors to the balcony. The cold night air bit into her and she shivered. The mage-lights crawled and sparked from horizon to horizon between the shreds of clouds. Everywhere, she knew, the cloudmages were lifting their clochs to sky. That’s what Árón would be doing, she was certain, and the other two who had been with him.

  She took Lámh Shábhála in her right hand. The mage lights curled and swayed above her in response. She lifted it to the tendrils of light snaking down from above, closing her eyes as the icy touch burned along her hand and wrist and arm and Lámh Shábhála greedily sucked in the power.

  She had drained the cloch nearly dry. When it was full again, when the mage-lights reluctantly drew away from her, she would have fallen if Máister Cléurach had not been there to catch her. “Get the Holder a solution of kala bark for the pain,” he snapped at the healer as they came back into the chamber. He helped her onto the bed and patted her forehead with a warm, wet towel. He took her cold right hand between his gnarled fingers and rubbed life back into it. “Come back with me to Inishfeirm, Jenna. There are still things I need to teach you. There’s nothing you can do about Ennis now—it’s out of your hands. You can help him most by being as strong as you can.”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not? You can’t be seriously thinking of doing what the Banrion has suggested. Jenna, you—” He stopped, and she saw suspicion widen his gray, sad eyes. “You intend to go to Thall Coill.” He invoked the name as if it were a curse.

  She grimaced as pain rippled through her arm, her hand tightening into a fist. “You said it best, Máister,” she told him. “I can help Ennis most by being as strong as I can possibly be.”

  The Comhdáil Comhairle, the Conference of the Comhairle, was as boisterous and loud as Jenna had been led to believe it would be. Rí MacBrádaigh sat in his chair at the head, his pallid face propped on a hand as he listened, his eyes so close-lidded that Jenna wondered if he wasn’t dozing. The Comhairle was arrayed down either side of the massive oaken table, much scarred and discolored from years of use. There were six chairs down the right side, seven down the left. One chair on the left side—Árón Ó Dochartaigh’s chair—sat vacant. Jenna and Máister Cléurach were seated at the far end of the table, facing the Rí and the tiarna. This afternoon, the hall was also crowded with the minor tiarna and the céili giallnai, standing behind Jenna.

  Even though the sun shone beyond the great, tall stained glass windows behind the Rí, the keep still dripped, a sullen plop-plop-plop that could be heard whenever the Comhdail Comhairle lapsed into silence.

  That was not often. It seemed that everyone wanted their chance to speak. Jenna decided that the falling water was less the tears of those slaughtered on Croc a Scroilm and more the gods weeping for the waste of words. Most of the tiarna railed against Árón Ó Dochartaigh’s audacity in the tiarna railed against Árón Ó Dochartaigh’s audacity in ruining the Feast of First Fruits, the destruction and loss of life—over a dozen bodies had been pulled from the burning, charred rubble of the lane—and the temerity in taking Cloudmage Ennis as a hostage. But as the Banrion had predicted, once the indictment had been made, they all stopped short of calling for concerted action against him. Despi
te the loud and brave talk, they were content with the verbal condemnation of Árón, and no one wanted to pursue him once he was in his own land.

  “. . . we know that a tiarna’s land is his own, and if Tiarna Ó Dochartaigh is back in Rubha na Scarbh, there will be no pulling him out.” That was Kyle MacEagan, looking sour and irritated as he glanced up and down the table. “The Rí should issue a warrant, but then we must wait. Tiarna Ó Dochartaigh will send word, and soon, as to his intentions. Do you not agree, Banrion? You know Árón better than any of us.”

  Banrion Aithne rose, nodding to MacEagan and her husband, the Rí. “I do know Árón,” she said, “and even though we share the same blood, I agree with those who say that we must condemn this action with the strongest terms possible. And I also agree with Tiarna MacEagan: though I speak in the Comhairle for my husband’s town land of Dún Kiil, Rubha na Scarbh was my home, and I know it and its clans well. Árón won’t be found if he doesn’t wish to be found. I believe—”