Holder of Lightning tc-1

by S L Farrell Неизвестный Автор

  Moonlight shimmered through moving branches, and the leaves spoke their words. Jenna nodded to the Seanoir, the ancient oaks of Doire Coill.

  "I will," she said. "And I'll always remember."

  They left that morning before the sun rose, their faces toward the constel-lation of the Badger, whose snout always points north. They said little besides idle talk of the weather, and if O'Deoradhain noticed that Jenna paralleled the High Road and that Knobtop crept slowly closer to them as the sun rose behind a wall of gray clouds, he said nothing. By evening, they were close to Ballintubber, with Knobtop rising high on their right hand, its bare stony summit still in sunlight even though the marshes on either side of the road were wrapped in shadow. As they approached the Bog Bridge, O'Deoradhain placed his hand on Jenna's arm. "Are you sure?" he asked.

  "I need to see this."

  He looked as if he were about to argue, but he swallowed the words and shrugged. "Then let's hurry, before we're walking in the dark."

  A few hundred strides beyond the bridge, they came to the lane which led to Jenna's home. The lane was overgrown, the grass high where once the sheep had kept it cropped close and the hay wagon had worn ruts in the earth. Jenna turned into the

  lane, hurrying now down the familiar path around the bend she recalled so well. She wasn’t certain what she expected to see: perhaps the house as it had once been, with her mam at the door and Kesh barking as he ran out toward her, and smoke curling from the chimney.

  Instead, there was ruin. The house had mostly returned to earth. Only a roofless corner remained, overgrown with vines and brush. Where the barn had been there was only a mound. She walked forward with a stum-bling gait: there was the door stone, worn down in the center from boots and rain, but it sat in the midst of weeds, the door itself only a few blackened boards half-buried in sod and grass. The chimney had col-lapsed, but the hearth was still there, blackened from the fire that had destroyed the house, and her mam’s cooking pot, rusted and broken, lay on its side nearby.

  Here was where she had slept and laughed and lived, but it was only a ghost now. The bones of a dead existence. The silence here was the silence of a grave.

  "I’m sorry," O’Deoradhain said. Jenna started at the sound of his voice; lost in reverie, she hadn’t heard his approach. "I can imagine it looked beautiful, once."

  She nodded. "Mam always had flowers on the windowsill, red and blue and yellow, and I knew every stone and crack in the walls. ."A sob shook her shoulders, and she felt O’Deoradhain’s arms go around her. His touch dried the tears, searing them with anger. She shrugged his embrace away, her hands flailing. "Get off me!" she shouted at him, and he backed away, hands wide and open.

  "I’m sorry, Holder," he said.

  Jenna’s right hand went automatically to Lamh Shabhala, touching the stone. A faint glimmer of light shone between her fingers, turning them blood-red. "You don’t ever touch me. Do you understand?"

  He nodded. His face was solemn, but there was something in his pale green eyes she could not read, a wounding caused by her words. He turned away and dropped his pack from his shoulders as Jenna slowly relaxed.

  She let go of the cloch and its light faded. Her arm

  ached, as if in memory of how Lamh Shabhala had awakened here, and she wished again-fleetingly-that Seancoim had put anduilleaf in her pack. "We might as well camp here tonight," she said, trying to sound as if the confrontation had never happened and knowing she fooled neither of them. "It's obvious no one's come here since… " She stopped, and genuine wonder filled her voice. "Shh! What's that?"

  What?" O'Deoradhain glanced in the direction Jenna was pointing.

  Well off in the field where Old Stubborn and his herd used to graze, there was movement: pairs of pale green lights gleaming in the twilight, like glowing eyes. There seemed to be hundreds of them, just above the level of the tall grass, shifting and moving about, blinking occasionally. And they spoke like a crowd of people gathered together: a low, murmuring conversation that raised goose bumps on Jenna's arms. There were words in their discussion, she was certain, then-distinctly-a horn blew a shrill glissando. The lights went out as one, and a wind rose from the field and swept past them and up the lane. In the twilight, Jenna could glimpse half-seen shapes and feel ghostly hands brushing against her. The horn sounded again: fainter and more distant, heading in the direction of Knob top. The wind died as a few glowing eyes stared back at them from near the bend in the lane and disappeared again.

  The horde had passed.

  "Wind sprites," O'Deoradhain said. His voice was hushed and awed, as if he were standing in one of the Mother-Creator's chapels. Jenna looked at him in puzzlement. "My great-mam used to tell me tales at night, and she spoke of eyes in the dark, and horns, and the wind as they rushed by in their hunts. I thought the stories she told me were all legends and myths."

  He shook his head. "Now I think the legends were only sleeping."

  Chapter 32: Ballintubber Changed

  THE next morning, they walked up the High Road to the village. The morning was a drizzle of mist and fog that beaded on their clocas and hair, and the spring’s warmth seemed to have fled. As they approached, Jenna began to sense that something was wrong. It was the silence that bothered her. A Ballintubber morning should have been alive with sound: the lowing of milch cows in their barns; the steely clatter of a hammer on hot iron or bronze from the smithy; the creak and rumble of produce carts going out to the fields; the shouts and hollers of children; laughter, conversations, greetings. .

  There was nothing. She could see the buildings up the rise, but no sound wafted down from them to challenge the birdcalls or their footsteps on the muddy road. O’Deoradhain noticed it as well; he swept back his cloca and placed his hand on the hilt of his knife. "Perhaps they all de-cided to sleep late this morning," he said, and gave a bitter laugh at his own jest.

  Not likely," Jenna answered. Grimacing, she placed her right hand around the cloch. She opened the stone and let its energy flow outward, her own awareness drifting with it. O’Deoradhain had offered to teach her some of the craft of the cloudmage during their months in Doire Coill, and she had-grudgingly-accepted his tutelage. She wasn’t sure how good a pupil she’d been, suspicious of her teacher’s intentions and instruction, but she had learned a few skills. She could sense life in the way the power flowed, and that told her there were people nearby, though only a few.

  And there was something else, at the edge of what she could detect: a pull and bending in her consciousness, as if another cloch were out there as well. She brought up the walls that O’Deoradhain had taught her to create around the cloch, but at that moment, the hint of another presence vanished. She put her attention there, to the south and east, but it was gone. Perhaps it had never been there at all.

  She opened her hand and her eyes. A shiver of

  discomfort traveled from wrist to shoulder, and she groaned. "Jenna?"

  "I'm fine," she told O'Deoradhain sharply. "Come on; there's no one there we need to be concerned with." She began walking rapidly toward the cluster of buildings.

  Things had changed. The High Road was marked with stone flags through the village, but grass grew high between the flat rocks. Dogs would usually have come running to greet newcomers, but the only dog Jenna glimpsed-black and white and painfully reminiscent of Kesh- was bedraggled and thin, skulking away with lowered tail and ears as soon as it caught a glimpse of them. The Mullin house, near the outskirts of the village, hadn't been whitewashed this spring as Tom and his sons usually did, and the thatch roof sagged badly just over the doorway. The door hung on one hinge, half-opened and leading into a dark interior. "Hello," Jenna called as they passed, but no one came out.

  "Not the place you remember, is it?" O'Deoradhain ventured. "You're certain there are people here?"

  "Aye," Jenna answered grimly. "Near the tavern,

  I think."

  "I'd be drinking if I lived here."

  Jenna gave him an irrita
ted glance; he stared blandly back at her. Turn-ing her back on the man, she walked quickly to Tara's Tavern. The village square was overgrown and shabby, but peat smoke curled from the chim-ney of the inn and she could smell bacon frying. The stone steps leading up to the door were achingly familiar, and she pushed open the door and entered.

  "By the Mother-Jenna?" Tara's voice cut through the dimness inside, and the woman set down a tray of glasses with a clatter and a crash, and she came running from behind the bar. She stopped an arm's length away from Jenna and looked her up and down, her mouth open. "Would you look at you-all dressed up in a Riocha's clothes, and that silver chain around your neck." Tara's gaze snagged on Tara's scarred right arm, and the mouth closed. Behind her, O'Deoradhain entered, and Tara took a step back. "You've. . you've not changed a bit," Tara finished, and Jenna smiled wanly at the obvious lie. "Sit down, sit down. You and your..

  companion take that table over there, or any you want. It's not like we're going to have a crowd, though once people hear that you've come back, I expect we'll see as good a one as I've had all year. I have bacon going in the pan, and good eggs, and biscuits I just made this morning. I'll get me tea for you… Sit.. " Tara turned and scurried into the kitchen;

  Jenna shrugged at O'Deoradhain.

  "It's a better breakfast than we're likely to have for a while," she told him. "If it's not our last."

  Jenna sniffed. "I know these people,

  O'Deoradhain. They're my friends."

  "They were once, aye. But friendship can be as hard to hold onto as a salmon in a stream." He didn't say more, but slid behind the table nearest the door. She noticed that O'Deoradhain sat with his back to the wall where he could see both the door and the rest of the room, and his hand stayed on the hilt of his dagger. She took a chair across from him.

  They weren't alone. There were two other tables occupied, one by Erin the Healer, who lived to the north of the village. He nodded to Jenna as if seeing her was no more unusual than seeing any of the rest of Ballintubber's residents. At the other table were two men she didn't recognize; travelers, evidently, since they had packs sitting next to their chairs. A head poked out from the kitchen: Tara's son Eliath. He was a few inches taller than Jenna remembered, and a new, puckered scar meandered from his forehead to the base of his jaw. "Hey Jenna! Mam said you were out here."

  "Eliath! It's good to see you. ."

  He grinned and came over to the table. He glanced at O'Deoradhain, and the grin faded to a careful smile before he turned back to Jenna. 'Good to see you, too. Everyone thought you and your mam were dead, when the Troubles started. Is your mam. .

  ?"

  "She's fine. She's in Lar Bhaile."

  The grin returned. "Lar Bhaile? That's where Ellia went. She married Coelin Singer, did you know that?"

  "I know," Jenna said, forcing a smile. "I saw her, big with child."

  Tara had come up with a tray loaded with steaming mugs of tea and platters of food. She set them down on the table. "You saw my Ellia?" she asked. "Did she look well? Did she ask after us? We didn’t. ." Tara blushed. "I’m afraid we didn’t part on the best of terms, and I haven’t heard from her since."

  She looked lovely and wonderful and happy, and they’re living in a fine house in the town," Jenna responded, giving them the lie she knew Tara wanted desperately to hear. "She’ll be a mam soon, probably already is by now, since I saw her last a few months ago. Coelin’s even sung for the RI, and for the Tanaise Rig when he visited there. She told me to give you her love when I came back to Ballintubber and to say that she missed you."

  "Truly?" Tara sighed. "I should go there," she said. "The Mother-Creator knows there’s not much here. Not since the Troubles and all the death. I should go and see her and the babe. And your mam, too. Maybe this summer, once the spring rains have stopped."

  She wouldn’t go, Jenna knew. Like the rest of them, she would never leave Ballintubber. "I’m certain they’d love that. Both of them."

  Tara nodded. "You know, Jenna, I thought you were sweet on that Coelin yourself. The boy had half the young women of the village hanging on him, and my Ellia no different."

  "I didn’t have a chance with him," Jenna answered. The smile was difficult to maintain. "Not with Ellia."

  Another sigh. Then Tara stirred. "But here I am prattling on about things and your food’s getting cold. Eat, and drink that tea before it turns to ice-it’s a cold day for the season, ’tis." Despite the words, Tara seemed content to stay there, standing before the table. "Are you back home? Will you be building a new place on your mam’s land?" she asked, and her gaze drifted significantly to O’Deoradhain.

  "No," Jenna said. "This is Ennis O’Deoradhain, Tara-he’s a friend, a traveling companion. We’re going north-"

  O’Deoradhain cleared his throat. When she glanced at him, he smiled, though his eyes glittered warningly. "-and east," she finished. "Along the High Road up to Ballymote, then on to Glenkille and maybe even across the Finger to Ceile Mhor."

  Tara 's eyebrows raised at the names. "So far? Child, I haven't been farther than a stone's throw from Ballintubber all my life, and you're going all the way to Ceile Mhor? It's not safe traveling. Not any more. Not with the fighting and the lights in the sky, and the strange creatures that have been seen.

  Why, only the other night, Matron Kelly saw wolves with red eyes and as tall as horses on the hill near her house. A pair of them, howling and snarling and frightening her so that she was afraid to go out of her house for days. Killed four of her sheep-tore their throats out and picked them up in their mouths as if they weighed nothing at all. No, I wouldn't be traveling. Not me."

  The two strangers had risen from their chairs. They passed by the table as they left without a word. Jenna saw O'Deoradhain's gaze following them as they opened the door and went out.

  "I see you still have people stopping at the inn," Jenna said to Tara, nodding toward the door.

  "Them? They're the first in a week. Came up from the south, they say, from Ath Iseal. The High Road's not as well traveled these days. And not

  much business of a night, either." She shook her head, wiping her hands nervously on her apron.

  "Not since. . well, you know. That was a bad time when those Connachtans came raiding. Killed Aldwoman Pearce, and cut down Tom Mullins and all four of his sons not a dozen steps from here when they tried to help. And poor Eli; one of them opened up my boy's face just because he didn't move fast enough when they told him to curry their horses. It was awful. They burned half the houses, and some of the women they…" Her voice trailed off. Remembered horrors drained the color from her face.

  "Aye. I understand," Jenna told her.

  "We thought you and your mam and that tiarna were all dead, too. We saw your house burning like the rest, and those that went to look said there was no one there alive, though there were dead Connachtans and your poor dog. We thought you'd been burned with the house."

  Jenna shook her head. She found she didn’t want to talk about it. The days when the Connachtans had swept through in pursuit of the mage-lights and Lamh Shabhala had damaged Ballintubber but not truly changed the place. Ballintubber remained sleepy and forgotten; if it was lucky, it might stay so. For the first time, Jenna saw just how much she’d been altered by the events of the last several months. She was no longer the person who had lived here. This was no longer "home."

  "We managed to sneak away, my mam and I and the tiarna," she told Tara. "It didn’t seem safe to go back."

  "So you went to Lar Bhaile," Tara finished for her. From the expression on her face, she seemed to find it alternately amusing and unbelievable that someone from Ballintubber would have made that choice. "And now you’re. . traveling." She said the word as if it were something mildly distasteful.

  And we’ll be needing horses," O’Deoradhain broke in, leaning for-ward. "Would you have two good steeds in your stable, or can someone in the village sell us the mounts? We’ll pay in hard coin."

  Tara
shrugged, but Eli spoke up. "We have one, sir-a roan mare that’s a good twelve hands high and strong," he said. "And One Hand Bailey has another he’s been talking of selling, a big brown gelding, past its prime but still healthy. He was asking half a morceint, and not getting it. He’d take less now, I’d wager."

  "He can have his half a morceint," O’Deoradhain told him. "And a morceint to you and your mam for the roan and livery for the two.

  Here. ." O’Deoradhain opened his purse and took out two of the coins, flipping them to Eli. "Go fetch the gelding and get them both ready for us, and you can have the other half morceint yourself." Eli grinned; Tara’s eyebrows went up again.

  "Aye!" Eli almost shouted. "Give me a stripe; no, half a stripe," he said and he was gone, running. Tara, after a few more minutes of conversation excused herself to go back into the kitchen. Erin the Healer left with another silent nod to Jenna. O’Deoradhain sipped his tea and leaned back in his chair. He whistled tunelessly.

  "Horses?" Jenna asked.

  "I didn't like the way those two strangers stared at us, like they were memorizing our faces," O'Deoradhain answered. "I didn't like the fact that they came up the High Road from the south, either. If they've been travel-ing through Gabair, then who knows what they've heard and what they realize? I want to get as far away from here as fast as possible."

  "So you're the little Rl here, eh?" She lowered her head in mocking subservience, then glared at him. "And I must follow your orders."

  "I would point out that you made the decision to come here. I'm just making the decision as to how to leave. That seems fair enough." He gave her that strange, lopsided smile of his. "You know, I get the sense that you still don't like or trust me much."

  "I don't," she told him. "Either one. I want to go to Inish Thuaidh; you do also. Our paths just happen to lie together at the moment."

  "And when they don't?"

  "When that happens, or if I decide I can't trust you, then we part."

  O'Deoradhain nodded. He took a hunk of bread and gnawed it thoughtfully. "That seems fair enough, too," he said.