Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  “Stop!” Jenna screamed again. She raised the cloch, pulling the chain from around her neck and lifting it high. Her fist tightened around it. “Here! Here’s your answer.”

  An Phionós bared its teeth. The wings spread wide; the claws gouged new furrows in the stone. Mage-lights snapped and shattered around it. “Then we begin,” it said. It drew in a great breath, pulling in the mage-lights as if they were smoke. Its neck arced, the head reared back and it exhaled in a roar, blinding light rushing from its mouth. Jenna reflexively interposed a wall with Lámh Shábhála; the mage-lights crashed upon it like a furious tidal wave. Jenna stumbled back against the assault, the pressure of it driving her to her knees as An Phionós vomited forth an unending stream of raw power. Jenna’s hand tightened around Lámh Shábhála, wrenching the cloch fully open. She imagined the wall growing, expanding, pushing back: slowly, she stood. She thought of the wall as a mirror-smooth lake, reflecting back what came to it as the Banrion’s cloch had done. The wall shifted with the thought and she found herself wielding a weapon as the shield gathered in the energy thrown at her and hurled it back at An Phi onós. The beast staggered back at the first impact, roaring in wordless pain.

  Then it nodded to her, as if in satisfaction. “So it won’t be simple. Good. You would have disappointed me if it had, Holder. After so many years, to be awakened only for a moment . . .”

  It was pacing now, the scale-armored body striding back and forth before the hoary, vine-laden oaks: fifty feet long without the enormous barbed tail, half again as high to the crown of the head, the wings folded against its back. Then the wings opened, and a hurricane wind lashed Jenna as it took to the air, rising high above. The mage-lights encircled it like arms, burning like a second sun so that An Phionós was silhouetted against the glare.

  Jenna waited for the inevitable attack: fireballs; thunderbolts of bright power; burning thickets of spears and swords; blasts of winds; demons or giants or a flight of angry dragons. None of it came.

  The silver bands holding Lámh Shábhála dug into her palm. The landscape shifted around her again: she floated in a featureless void with An Phionós. The forest, the cliff, the sound of the seas, even the mage-lights—all of them were gone, though she could feel their energy supporting her. An Phionós swept its wings leisurely, circling slowly around her, and she waved her arms to follow its movement as if swimming in the emptiness.

  “It’s just the two of us, Jenna,” it said, still circling. “That’s all it’s ever been. The shape of the energy doesn’t matter. Each cloch na thintrí bonds to its Holder in a different manner, in the form that a long sequence of Holders has worn into it like grooves in a road. Most Holders follow that same path because it’s easiest to see and hold to, and that’s why the clochs na thintrí tend to be used in the same way each time a new cloudmage uses them. Very few have the strength to shape the power of their cloch na thintrí in a new way, to give it a new form that might suit them better. It’s no different with Lámh Shábhála.”

  “Are you intending to talk me to death?” Jenna asked.

  An Phionós laughed. It stopped, hovering in front of her with slow beats of its leathery wings. “Perhaps. Do you die that easily?”

  “No,” Jenna answered. “I don’t plan on dying at all.”

  The teeth bared again. “No? Even to be with him?”

  Now Ennis stood before her. He smiled, almost shyly, holding out his hand. “Jenna,” he said. “I wish . . . There was so much I wanted to tell you, just to say one last time that I loved you . . .”

  She wanted to take that hand, wanted desperately to take him in her arms, to bruise her lips with his kisses. She started to lift her left hand, then forced it back to her side. She looked at An Phionós, not Ennis. “You can’t seduce me with false images,” she told it.

  The huge, scaled head lifted. “Not false,” it said. “That is Ennis, or the spirit that was once him. I brought him here. He awaits you, Jenna, on the other side of death.”

  “It didn’t hurt,” Ennis said to her, his familiar voice awakening a deep longing in her. “You should know that. I felt the knife move and the heat of my blood pouring out, then . . . I don’t know. It was as if I were outside myself. There was no pain, just a slow fading and a feeling of regret, and I was gone. I watched you cry over the body, Jenna, and I tried to touch you and comfort you. I tried to tell you that I was still with you, but I couldn’t. I am with you, Jenna, each day. And we’ll be together again.”

  She listened to him, shaking her head in denial and disbe lief, and Ennis glanced over at An Phionós. “Death doesn’t hurt, Jenna. All you have to do is accept it.”

  “I will make it easy and quick,” An Phionós told her. A forepaw lifted, the scythes of its claws scissoring in the air. “One stroke. One quick flash . . .”

  “Ennis . . .” The word was a sigh, a plea. Jenna closed her eyes, letting Lámh Shábhála’s force flow out to him. Where it touched the body, she felt strings leading back to An Phionós. She could feel An Phionós trying to push her away with its own power, but she concentrated, letting more power flow from the cloch. She formed the energy into hands and ripped away the strands of connection even as An Phionós tried to stop her. Ennis wailed, his body went pinwheeling away like a rag in a storm, finally vanishing in a point of white light that made Jenna squint and throw her hand in front of her face. A wave of intense cold flew past her.

  “It’s just us,” Jenna told An Phionós. “No ghosts. No lies. No tricks.”

  “There’s no trick in what I said,” it told her. “I can make this painless and fast for you. You simply have to allow it.”

  “No.”

  She could hear the shrug in its voice. “Then it will be the other way.” Muscles bunched and wings flexed. An Phionós stooped like a hawk about to swoop down on a helpless field mouse. The wings folded in and the apparition fell in a rush, plummeting toward her. Jenna raised her cloch, concentrating its force on the onrushing creature, pushing back at it. Jenna grunted with the impact as An Phionós seemed to dissolve, slipping through the web of force like water through a sieve. Jenna searched for it with the eyes of the cloch: there! She hurled lightning at the mage-glow that was An Phionós, but it swept the bolts aside.

  Frantically, she created a creature like An Phionós, molding it from mage-stuff and launching it at the creature. They collided in a snarl of talons and wings and teeth, and Jenna felt the concussion as if it were her own body that smashed into her opponent. She was flung backward—screaming, her eyes rolling back in her head, a red-shot blackness threatening to drown her—and she fought to hold onto consciousness. Her own fingers curled and slashed as she gouged at An Phionós, and for a moment, the creature retreated. Jenna breathed, gulping and tasting blood.

  “This is good,” it said. “Usually the Daoine are so weak.” An Phionós looked at her, and it seemed to Jenna that its eyes saw past the surface of her skin and deep into her being. “But you’re not just Daoine, are you? Part of you is also Saimhóir, and much farther back, there is also Bunús Muintir. Ah, that surprises you, does it? You’re a mongrel, and mongrels are often the strongest.”

  Then An Phionós came again with a roar; Jenna fought back in the form of the mage-creature, but An Phionós was immensely strong, far more powerful than any of the clochs she had encountered. In the space of a few breaths, her mage-creature was shredded and fading like smoke.

  Lámh Shábhála was nearly empty; there was nothing left but the dregs of power. Jenna was no longer floating in nothingness. The hard gray rocks of Bethiochnead pressed into her back, and she lay looking up at a storm-lashed sky.

  An Phionós hovered over her. “Now,” it whispered, “even the mongrel falls.”

  Jenna threw a final bolt at the creature. The attack was weak and slow; An Phionós pushed the flickering brilliance aside contemptuously. “You’re an empty vessel, Jenna,” it told her. “Do you remember Peria? Do you remember how I crushed her? Do you remember the sound of
bones cracking and splitting and ripping through flesh? That’s what will happen to you now.”

  An Phionós descended. It picked up Jenna in its talons as she beat futilely at the beast with her fists, the scales scraping the flesh from her knuckles. She felt the knife-edge points digging into her flesh. Its head came down; its too-human eyes regarded her almost sadly. “You came so close,” it said. “Closer than you know. Perhaps . . .”

  Its claws closed around her, She felt them begin to tighten, felt her ribs crack. An Phionós was inside her head now, its awareness flooding her. She was still holding Lámh Shábhála. Mage-energy crackled inside her with An Phi onós’ intrusion. “Now,” it said gently. “You’ll be with him again. I promise you that much . . .”

  The pressure against her body increased. Jenna screamed in terror and pain. The mage-energy burned her. She tried to push back with Lámh Shábhála, but there was nothing there. She took her awareness deep into the cloch, deeper, to the utter bottom of the well, and there . . .

  A glimpse . . . A hope . . .

  “No!”

  The pressure was suddenly released. An Phionós dropped her, and Jenna gasped in pain and surprise as she fell back to the ground, struggling up to a sitting position with her legs folded underneath her. The beast coiled above her, the wings and body blocking the sky. “Why did you come here?” it raged at her. “I can take your life if you give it to me, but I can’t take a life that doesn’t come here willingly—She whose servant I am won’t allow that. Why would you do this?”

  It glared at her, mouth gaping dangerously, then the eyes and its voice softened. “You don’t know, do you?” it asked.

  Jenna shook her head. “I don’t understand. No.”

  “Look,” An Phionos answered. “Look within yourself.”

  An Phionós gestured, and Jenna saw herself as the creature saw her: a form of energy and light, her heart beating like a candle fluttering in the wind, and in her belly, a tiny flame burned.

  “Mother-Creator . . .” Jenna breathed. She cupped her abdomen, as if she could warm her hands in that small radiance.

  “Aye,” An Phionós answered. “You’re with child. You didn’t know?”

  Jenna could only shake her head mutely. An Phionós snorted. It came to earth, resting again as she had first seen it: sitting on its haunches, the wings down against its body, the tail wrapped around one side, staring down at her as she lay in front of it. “There can be no finish to this

  Scrúdú,” it said. There was a note almost of triumph in its voice. “I let you live.”

  “But I found the path,” Jenna told the creature, still cradling herself and staring in wonder at the sparkle of life in her womb. She raised her head as the cloch-vision faded. “I saw the way to defeat you.”

  An Phionós shook its head. “Perhaps,” it said. “And perhaps not. You’ll never know now.”

  “Why not?” Jenna asked. “I could come back, after the child is born . . .” She stopped, realizing that what An Phionós had said was the truth.

  “Aye,” it said. “You nearly died this time, with no certainty that what you found would have helped you. Could you undergo this again, knowing that you might leave your child motherless and abandoned? The child will bind you here, Jenna. This time, you fought without caring that you might die; the next time, your focus will be divided.” Its voice was sad. “There’s but one time in your life to test yourself this way, Jenna. Now you must leave the Scrúdú to some other. Perhaps to the child inside.”

  Its voice became less heard than sensed, the years and decades and centuries seeming to pass as she watched An Phionós became simply a statue once more, its features eroding and fading. “You saw inside Lámh Shabhala. You glimpsed the possibilities. But you’ll always wonder if you’d really found the way, Jenna,” its dying voice husked. “And so will I . . .”

  The fog around them cleared. She was back in Thall Coill, kneeling on the cold ground with Seancoim hurrying toward her, and she let herself fall.

  54

  Fire and Water

  “JENNA!”

  Through half-opened eyes, she could see Seancoim hurrying to her, and Dúnmharú cawing in alarm at her side as she rolled and pushed herself up on one side with her left arm. Scrapes and cuts oozed blood along her body; the smell of ozone hung in the air like the aftermath of a thunderstorm. She was still clutching Lámh Shábhála, but the cloch was empty and drained. Her world swayed around her and she steadied herself, trying to keep from falling back into unconsciousness. Her head pulsed with a fero cious headache; her right arm, now that she released Lámh Shábhála, fell dead and useless at her side.

  She felt as if her body had been placed on the anvil of the gods and pounded.

  The spice of Seancoim’s presence was at her side. His hands cradled her. “Jenna . . . You’re alive! I thought . . .”

  “So did I,” Jenna answered. The rocks dug into her side, her legs, her elbow. “Help me up, Seancoim.”

  “Can you stand?”

  “I think so. Probably.” Toryn had come over to her as well, and she felt both of them lifting her.

  “You passed the Scrúdú,” Toryn said, his voice awed. “You met the beast and defeated it. We saw the mage lights, we heard your cries, saw you fighting with something unseen . . .”

  Jenna shook her head. The movement sent the world dancing again and she would have fallen if not for the hands holding her. “No,” she said when the land settled once more. She glanced at the ruined visage of An Phionós. “No,” she repeated. “I didn’t win.”

  “But you’re alive,” Seancoim protested. “The Scrúdú kills those who fail.”

  “Aye,” Jenna answered. “But not me.” She touched her abdomen. “Not us.”

  “Us?” Seancoim asked, but Toryn interrupted before Jenna could explain.

  “But you’ve found the full power of Lámh Shábhála,” he said. “You wrestled with the beast and were given that gift.”

  Again, Jenna shook her head. “No. I used every bit of energy within Lámh Shábhála. And I thought, for a moment . . .” She tried to lift her right hand to the cloch and couldn’t. “Mother-Creator, it hurts. It hurts so much . . .”

  “Jenna, here. Sit.” Seancoim lowered her to one of the rocks. “I’ll start a fire, mix some andúilleaf . . .”

  He hurried away. Toryn stayed with her, his gaze apprais ing and cold. “Lámh Shábhála is drained? The struggle must have been awful.”

  Jenna shuddered at the memory. “Aye,” she answered. Toryn nodded. Seancoim had gone downhill a bit to the edge of the forest. They could see him gathering deadwood, Dúnmharú fluttering around him.

  “Let me help you,” Toryn called. He walked down toward the old man, stooping to gather up branches. “Go on,” Jenna heard Toryn say finally. “There’s a few more branches here. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Seancoim started up the hill, one arm around a bundle of dry sticks, the other around his staff. Toryn turned as if to follow. Jenna saw the intention in the younger man too late. “Sean—!” she began as Toryn swung the heavy oaken limb he held. Jenna saw Seancoim fall an instant before the dull, sickening sound of the impact came to her. Dúnmharú screeched, diving at Toryn as Jenna tried to stand. She forced her right hand to move as Dúnmharú raked its talons over Toryn’s cheek; Toryn swung the crude club at the bird and missed. Jenna’s hand closed around Lámh Sháb hála and she tried to open the cloch (the crow rising again in a fury of black wings, coming back to attack once more), but there was nothing there, no glittering store of mage-energy. Nothing.

  The club swung again, striking Dúnmharú down to earth in a heap of ebon feathers. Toryn lifted it again and pounded it back down on the small mound. As Jenna cried out, Toryn flung the club aside. He spread his hands: fire erupted between them.

  He gestured toward the unmoving Seancoim.

  “No!”

  Small, tiny blue flames erupted over Seancoim’s figure; thin tendrils of white smoke rose
and began wafting away toward the forest. Jenna screamed again and started running toward Seancoim, even as the flames thickened and went to orange and yellow, as the smoke began to billow in earnest. Seancoim didn’t move. Jenna could hear the flames crackling, burning as if Seancoim were made of paper and tinder. In the space of her first two limping strides, he was engulfed in an inferno. The impossible heat washed over her, and she knew no one could survive that. Toryn, already running up the hill, caught her before she could move again.

  Jenna battered at Toryn with her fists, first trying to push past him to get to Seancoim, then tearing herself from his grasp and backing away from him. “Sometimes slow magic is quite effective,” he said, grinning as she struggled. “Crow-Eye was a useless old man anyway, but he did make you quite a nice fire, don’t you think?” She was still holding Lámh Shábhála in her hand, and she saw his gaze on it.

  “No,” she said in a voice that trembled. “It’s mine.”

  His smile was lopsided. “I won’t ask you to give it to me. I know that’s something Holders can’t do. But I will take it from you. It took me a full day to create the spells to hold the slow magic so I could use it at will, but I made two of them. Seancoim could have deflected the spell if he’d been awake—even old and decrepit, he was strong in the slow magic. But you don’t have the slow magic, do you? All you have is a cloch na thintrí that’s been exhausted. I don’t think a bit of fire will hurt Lámh Shábhála.”

  Jenna continued to back away. She was alongside the statue as Toryn glanced back at Seancoim. The fire was already dying. Jenna could glimpse a blackened, withered skeleton through the smoke. “At least he was unconscious when it happened,” Toryn remarked. “Can you imagine what it would feel like to be consumed while alive and awake? Your flesh crackling and turning black like bacon too long in the fire; the fat of your body hissing and sputtering as it boils, the flames feeding on your face. Flesh gone, muscle and tissue seared and crisped as you scream and shriek in agony . . .” Jenna continued to back away; Toryn stalking her, step for step. She could sense the air at her back, could hear the crumbling edge of the cliff under her feet. Toryn stopped. “Are you sure you don’t want to give me the cloch?” he asked, his hand held out to her.