Though she couldn’t read the markings on them, both Ennis and Moister Cleurach had pointed out to her the townlands and geography of Inish Thuaidh. Ingean na nUan, through which they walked now, was a lush land of rolling hills, punctuated here and there by the wide, checkered expanse of farmed lands, with small villages that reminded Jenna achingly of Ballintubber, tied together with the narrow ribbons of rutted dirt roads They avoided the settled areas, keeping to the forest that wound in and around the farmland. As the nights passed, they moved steadily eastward and the land started to rise again. With each dawn, as they settled in to rest, Jenna could see the mountains ahead of them less blue with distance, looming higher until their path started to lift toward them and they were walking in green, narrow valleys where rills and brooks rushed frantically down steep slopes toward them, half-hidden in bracken and thickets. They turned northward now, and when they were forced to climb up to one of the ridgelines, Jenna could glimpse off to the east the shore of Lough Athas; then, a few days later, to the north, the endless expanse of the Westering Sea, its waves touched with the milk of moonlight. Jenna wondered if, somewhere out there, Thraisha or her kind swam. But they never came close enough to the shore for Jenna to call for the Saimhoir with the cloch. Seancoim now turned north and east, roughly following the coastline but staying with the spine of mountains, steep hills, and drumlins bulwarking the island from the winds and storms that the sea often flung at it, and passing into the townland of An Ceann Ramhar.
This townland was sparsely settled, and the villages grew even smaller and farther apart as they continued north. They began seeing large herds of storm deer, their hooves striking thunder from the land. Wind sprites wafted in clouds through the branches of trees, and the red, glaring eyes of dire wolves could be glimpsed watching them as they passed, though none attacked. There were other sounds and calls in the dark, and glimpses of creatures Jenna couldn't identify. Even the more normal crea-tures seemed strange. She saw eagles flying high overhead with wingspans wider than she was tall, and they called to each other with voices that sounded almost human; there were enigmatic ripples in the dark lakes, odd footprints in the earth.
"The land has almost fully awakened here," Seancoim said one morning as they settled into an overhanging hollow in a hillside to sleep. He lit a small fire with dead branches, striking the tinder into reluctant flame with flint and steel. Denmark flapped over to roost on a nearby branch, his head down on his breast. "It spreads slowly, but soon all places will be like this. When the mage-lights last faded, hundreds of years ago, these creatures faded, too, remembered only in the tales of the old people. In a few generations, they were nothing more than myths and legends, and those who claimed to see them were ridiculed and laughed at. Now the mage-lights bring them back from the hidden, lost places where they rested."
"All the fables are real?" Jenna remembered the tales she'd heard back in Tara's Tavern: from Aldwoman Pearce or Tom Mullin or in the songs Coelin sang.
"Not all. But most are based on some truth, no matter how twisted and distorted they’ve become over time. In another twenty or thirty turns of the seasons, everyone will have seen the real meaning of the Filleadh." Seancoim groaned as he settled back against the rocks. He rummaged in his pack for an earthenware pot, filled it with water from one of the skins, and set it at the edge of the fire. He unrolled a packet of dried fruit and meat and passed it over to Jenna. "In Thall Coill, the awakening is nearly complete."
"Tell me about Thall Coill," Jenna said, breaking off a bite of the smoked meat. "Tell me about the Scrudu. 1 asked En-" She started to say the name, and her throat closed. She forced back the sudden tears, swallowing.". . Ennis," she continued, "but he didn’t know much about it, and Moister Cleurach simply wouldn’t talk about it at all."
Seancoim shook his head, his white, featureless eyes seeming to stare at the fire. "I won’t, either," he said. "Not until it’s time."
"Moister Cleurach believes that it’s not real, that it’s a Bunus Muintir trick to kill the Daoine Holders."
"Is that what you think?"
"I don’t believe you would do that to me."
Seancoim didn’t answer, only nodded sleepily. The eastern sky was lightening, though the sun was still behind the hills. The clouds were painted with rose and gold. "If I fail at Thall Coill," Jenna said, "I want you to take Lamh Shabhala."
Seancoim laughed at that. "Me? An old, blind man? A Bunus Muintir?" He laughed again, setting his pack behind his head as a pillow. "No," he answered. "It’s not a burden I want. Not now. If you fall, I’m certain that Lamh Shabhala will find itself another Holder, all on its own-one that it wants." He turned on his side, facing the fire. "And if you don’t let me rest these old bones, we’ll never get there and you won’t have to worry about it at all."
The mountains curved away east to their end at the long bay that jutted deep into Inish Thuaidh. Here, they were taller and stonier than their green-cloaked brothers and sisters to the south, thrusting jagged peak
into a steel-gray sky, piercing the clouds so that they bled rain and oozed a mist that cloaked the summits and sometimes fell heavily into the valleys
below. This was wild land, and if there were Daoine here at all, Jenna saw no sign of them. "The only towns of your people are well off to the south in the farmlands away from the coast," Seancoim told her, Denmark' sitting on his shoulder. He pointed away with his walking stick to the hazy triple lines of ridges, one atop another, receding into the mist, and gestured to the ramparts yet to the north of them, a wall of stone. "Past there is the peninsula of Thall Coill."
"Do you know the way through? Have you been here before?"
"No," Seancoim answered. "But we'll be shown the way, I'm sure."
"What do you mean?"
"Be patient," he told her.
They rested there that day, and Seancoim roused Jenna before sunset. They broke camp and trudged northward, toiling steadily upward be-tween walls of gray rock spotted with lichens and garlanded with slick green mosses. To Jenna, it seemed that Seancoim wandered, moving left or right at random, their progress erratic. He said nothing, but seemed to be waiting. As they trudged on, walking in deepening twilight while the peaks above them were still touched with the last rays of the sun, Jenna had the sense of being watched, though she saw nothing and no one. The feeling persisted; it was so strong that she touched Lamh Shabhala and opened it slightly, letting the cloch's energy be her vision. She could sense life around them, but she recognized none of the patterns it made in the cloch-vision. Somewhere, near the edge of the cloch's sight, though, there were pinpricks of radiance less bright than a Cloch Mor: some of the clochmion, the minor stones. She started to mention it to Seancoim, but he simply grunted and shook his head at her, and she subsided into si-lence.
They walked on, and the feeling of being watched persisted and strengthened as the sun vanished and the sky above darkened to ultrama-rine, then black. The crescent moon had yet to rise, but the constellation of the Oxcart wheeled ahead of them. The birds had settled into their roosts and Denmark was nearly unseen as he moved from rock to rock ahead of them.
Suddenly Denmark gave a caw of alarm and
hopped quickly into the air. The mound of rocks on which he perched seemed to shiver and lift and change, until. .
… the mound shifted like molten glass and solidified again, taking on the shape of a bulky, humanlike form standing shorter than Jenna o
Seancoim, nearly as wide as it was tall. It raised its arms, then cracked them together again with a sound like two boulders smashing. A few seconds later, there was an echoing clamor to their right, and two other rock piles began to move, flowing slowly into similar forms. In the dark-ness, their exact shape was difficult to see, but there was a scraping sound as they walked forward with a rolling, side to side gait. They wore no clothing, their bodies a light brown-gray color like slate yet with a glossy sheen like fired pottery, their limbs thick and muscular. They stopped a few yards from Je
nna and Seancoim as Jenna reached for Lamh Shabhala, ready to use the cloch at need. Thick eye ridges curled downward on the lead creature’s face; its rough-hewn features frowned. Again, it clashed hands together, and this time Jenna saw sparks jump as the hands came together.
Seancoim answered with a like gesture, the sound of his handclap al-most comically soft in contrast. The creature uttered a low, warbling tone and seemed to nod, its head inclining slowly first to Seancoim then Jenna. It stretched a thick-fingered hand out to Jenna, beckoning once.
"Seancoim?"
"They are Creneach," he answered. "Have you never heard of them?" Jenna shook her head. "If you’d been brought up here, you would have," he continued. "They belong to yet another one of the old tales: the Clay People who live in their mountain fastnesses. The Hewers of Rock, the Eaters of Stone, the Dwellers In Darkness, the Boulder-folk. There were a dozen names for them in my childhood."
Jenna touched the cloch as the Creneach gestured again to her, its voice a liquid sibilance almost like a bird’s call. As she did so, she felt that same presence of a clochmion, focused in all of the Creneach before her-not hung about them like jewelry, the way she carried Lamh Shabhala, but inside. A part of their being.
Glancing back once at Seancoim, she went forward slowly, stopping an arm's length from the creature. Now that she was close, she could see umber eyes that reflected light back at her as it stared up toward her, as a cat's eyes might. The skin was unnaturally smooth, flecked with color like polished granite, and muscles bulged in arms, the torso, and legs. The unclothed being in front of her seemed to possess no gender at all; like its two companions, there was only a smoothness where she would have expected to see genitalia. The Creneach had no nose; instead, twin fissures ran between the eyes, each curling outward and under the deep eye sock-ets. The nasal openings flexed as the creature inhaled deeply in Jenna's direction, still venting its warbling noises. It leaned closer to Jenna, its head level with the cloch hanging on its chain. It snuffled and a trill of musical notes came from its mouth. A long tongue flicked out, a flash purple. Before Jenna could react, the creature licked at Lamh Shabhala the long, thin tip snaking between the silver wire of its cage before retracting. The creature smacked its lips, its eyes half closed as if considering the taste as Jenna's hand went belatedly to the cloch. She closed her hand around it, stepping back. The Creneach gave a final smack and turned to its companions; they conversed loudly in their own language for a moment.
Jenna opened Lamh Shabhala, and in the cloch-hearing, words mingled with the warbling voice as the Creneach swiveled to face her again. "Soft-flesh bears the All-Heart. She returns to us. Soft-flesh will follow." It beck-oned as the trio turned and started to waddle away between the rocks.
"Wait!" Jenna called to it, wondering if it could understand her through the clochmion inside it as Thraisha had understood her. "Who are you? What do you want?"
It looked at her. "You may call me Treorai, for I've come to escort you," it said, then continued to walk away.
Jenna glanced at Seancoim. He was already shuffling to follow them, his staff clattering against the rocks. She released the cloch, not wanting the Creneach to overhear her. "You're going to follow them?" she asked. "Seancoim, we don't know them or what they might intend to do."
"They seem to know where they're going," he
He smiled at her. Denmark cackled on his shoulder.
Jenna grimaced, but she followed.
Chapter 51: The Tale of All-Heart
TREORAI and its companions led them on a winding, upward path between two peaks. After a long climb, Terrain turned abruptly, de-scending by a set of steep and narrow stone steps into a barely-visible cleft. They followed the stairs down, then walked another mile or so be-fore again turning through a jagged fissure into a short passage and out into a small valley. The moon had risen by then, and Jenna could see a few other Creneach there as well as the black openings of caverns set in the overhanging, furrowed cliffs that lined the hidden spot. There were no more than fifteen of the creatures; in the cloch-vision, Jenna could sense that each of them held within it a clochmion. . and that there was one spot of greater brightness: a Cloch Mor.
She had stopped at the entrance, though Seancoim continued on. Terrain gestured for her to come forward. "Soft-flesh, bring the All-Heart," it said, the words sounding in her head while her ears heard the musical trill of its voice. Jenna hesitated, but Seancoim was standing there also, with the Creneach around him and seemingly unconcerned. Denmark flew over to Jenna, circled her once with a harsh caw, then flew back to Seancoim. She took a hesitant step forward as the Creneach gathered around her like a crowd of strangely-sculpted children. They sniffed and their tongues flicked out to touch her right hand, curled protectively around Lamh Shabhala. The touch of them was strange: cool and smooth, yet strangely hard-like fired and glazed pottery that was impossibly pli-able. She could hear the whispers as they huddled close, their voices crowding inside her head.
". . the All-Heart. ."
". . ahh, the taste. ."
"… it comes back to us…"
"… bring the Littlest to see…"
Jenna saw one of the Creneach push forward as the others made way It carried a small form in its arms: an infant Creneach, the tiny body smooth and marbled with color, its arms waving as each Creneach they passed touched it with its tongue.
There was a brilliance in the cloch-vision: the Cloch Mor was within the child.
"This is our Littlest," Terrain said. "Given to us in the return of the First-Lights. It carries a Great-Heart within it, so we know that the All-Heart is pleased with us and our long wait." Terrain took the infant from the other Creneach, cradling it close. "It will have life while the First-Lights stay, and when the lights return to their search, it will go with them."
"I don’t understand," Jenna said, shaking her head. "The All-Heart, the lights… I don’t know what you mean."
"Then listen," Terrain answered. Its tongue ran along the child’s face, like a caress, and the infant mewled in soft contentment. "You bear the All-Heart, so you should know…"
Back when there was only stone in the world and the First-Lights gleamed, before the coming of the soft-flesh things, there was Anchead, the First Thought. Anchead wanted a companion, and so took a pebble from Itself and let the First-Lights wrap around it. The First-Lights gave the pebble of Anchead life and awareness, and from this piece grew the god we call Ceile. Within Ceile, Anchead’s pebble grew, always pulling the First-Lights toward it. For a long time, Anchead and Ceile dwelled together, but Ciele found that Anchead still sometimes yearned for Its solitude and would often go wandering by itself, leaving Ceile alone for years at a time. So Ceile also became lonely, and like Anchead, broke away a pebble from Itself and held it out to the First-Lights, and they came and gave it life and shape also, though the fire of its life did not burn as deeply as Ceile’s. Each time that Anchead went wandering, Ceile would break off another part of Itself, until there were a dozen or more children of Ceile. Sometimes her children even broke oil fragments of themselves and made their own children, but their hearts were even weaker than their own and shone only dimly.
The children and grandchildren of Ceile were the first of the Creneach.
One day, though, Anchead went wandering and never returned, and Ceile sorrowed though the Creneach tried to give It comfort. The First-Lights felt the grief and loss of Ceile, and in sympathy they left and went to search for Anchead. As they faded,
so did Ceile's life and those of the Creneach. When the First-Lights had gone completely, Ceile and Its chil-dren and grandchildren fell down lifeless, and the wind and rain wore away the form of their bodies until all that was left were their gleaming hearts.
The soft-flesh things came, and they took away many of the hearts they found for themselves, for they loved the way the hearts looked-Ceile's heart was one of those that was taken.
And so it was until finally the First-Lights returned again f
rom their unsuccessful search for the lost Anchead. The First-Lights found Ceile's heart and they went to it, filling it once more. But the soft-flesh things held the heart now and the First-Lights could not bring Ceile back, nor any of Its children or grandchildren who had also been taken. But the All-Heart that had been within Ceile was able to stir and waken the hearts of all Its children and grandchildren: those hearts the soft-flesh things pos-sessed could hold the power of the First-Lights, but only the few who had not been touched by the soft-flesh things could revive and have form and shape again as Creneach.
Without Ceile, though, none of the Creneach could take of themselves and make children. The First-Lights saw that and sorrowed, and so they gave a gift to the Creneach: they found a pebble that was like the heart of the Creneach and gave it life and form, and that one was the Littlest, and its light shone as bright as the first children of Ceile.
That is the way it has been ever since: the First-Lights go to search now and again for Anchead and we Creneach die. Our bodies crack and crum-ble to pebbles and dust, and the hearts within us fall away. Those hearts the soft-flesh things find and take will never live again as Creneach. When the First-Lights return from their search, they go first to the All-Heart and awaken it once more, and the All-Heart in turn awakens all of Its children and grandchildren. Then the First-Lights find the hearts that have not yet been touched and bring us back.
And they also wake a new Littlest or two. .
Jenna found herself staring at Lamh Shabhala as Terrain finished the tale, still cradling the infant in its arms. She tried to imagine her cloch burning with the mage-lights energy inside the god Ceile, only to be found after the long, slow erosion of her body.
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