Holder of Lightning tc-1

by S L Farrell Неизвестный Автор

  . . they were close to the keep now, and arrows filled the air in a deadly rain. She saw the man beside her suddenly drop, a feathered shaft sprouting from his neck as blood spurted, but then he was gone under the rush. The main gates to the keep loomed ahead, but they were still shut. .

  . . something snarled, and a whip of arcing yellow slapped down across her shoulders. Jenna whirled and saw a dragon's face, jaws open with needled teeth as it clamped down on her shoulder and coiled the rest of its body around her. Jenna howled, the teeth digging deep into her, the writhing scales flaying the skin from her body everywhere it touched. "MacEagan!" Jenna shouted, but even as she called, she realized that both MacEagan and Aithne were each struggling with a rival Cloch Mor and couldn't come to her aid. Mac Ard was nearly free of his confinement. Jenna imagined herself growing larger, her skin hard as stone, and energy flowed from Lamh Shabhala into her. The yellow coils of the dragon's body snapped and broke, and she followed fading energy back to its source-a young man, his face pale and frightened as he realized who he faced-but she saw him only for an instant as Lamh Shabhala tore at his Cloch Mor, draining it. She thought she could hear the young man whim-per, and Jenna wondered if she had killed him. .

  . . The charge faltered with the sight of the closed gates, the front ranks spreading out along the walls as the arrows continued to arc down on them. "The doors were supposed to be opened!" someone shouted. "We can't go forward… "

  . . furious now, Jenna swept the cloch-vision about, searching for Mac Ard, but she was given no chance to find him. The mage-demon landed just outside the keep, towering above the onrushing

  Inishlanders, and it roared as it plunged into their ranks, tearing and ripping with its clawed hands and feet. She saw it storm forward and pick up a man bodily, legs and arms flailing, and rip the body apart as if it were a rag doll, blood and entrails splattering as it tossed the broken corpse aside. The war-keening faltered; the advance slowed like a tide striking a rising seabed. The beast laughed, its wings spreading and blotting out the setting sun, and it bent to its terrible task once more. Jenna shouted and unleashed Lamh Shabhala again, reaching out with arms of energy to pluck the thing up and smash it down on the ground again before it could react to the attack. She sent thunderbolts raining down on it, striking it again and again and yet again. The creature bellowed as she tore at it, and she heard the mirroring cries from its Holder within the keep. In the cloch-vision, a coiling line of gold led from the mage-creature back to the Cloch Mor which spawned it, and Jenna sent of blade of energy down on it, severing the link. The mage-demon howled once more and vanished, and Jenna would have finished it then. .

  … the arrows no longer fell, but something else did: several hands of round balls arced over the walls, rolling into the midst of the Inishlanders. Where the jell, great cries of anguish went up. One fell near Jenna and she saw that it was not a stone but a severed head, the eyes still wide open, long black hair matted with mud and caked blood. She recognized the gory features even through the distortion of the death rictus: it was Tiarna 0 Beolldin, and she knew then that those who had been sent to open the keep from the inside had failed. The last glow of sunlight was fading; darkness was falling, and when she looked up at the walls of the keep, she saw the first stars glitter in the dome of the sky

  . . light blazed all around her, suddenly. A half-dozen flares of power multihued and dangerous, Mac Ard among them. Jenna reflexively threw up shields as they attacked as one, and she was suddenly contending with attacks from all sides, the snarl and blinding light of mage-energy pound-ing at her. Mac Ard sent his fire; she caught it with Lamh Shabhala and threw the flame toward the great glowing wolf that was leaping toward her. Spears of golden sunlight cascaded from the shield, but she couldn’t respond fast enough to the others.

  A stream of rich azure slithered through, burning her while a funnel of utter black whirled above, its

  mouth twisting ravenously. She could feel the power of Lamh Shabhala being leeched away by the tornado. .

  . . the war-keening had died. Around her, the soldiers milled, confused and stymied. Rams were brought forward to break down the gates, but archers on the walls cut down half the men wielding them. The gates shuddered with the impact but held. MacEagan's lava-creature-bright in the growing darkness- came lumbering forward to smash open the iron-barred wood, but the mage-demon, returning to the battlefield, met him, the two struggling before the gates so that none could get past. The moving shadows of their contest played over the faces of the soldiers, and Jenna could see the despair and resignation there. Jenna knew that the gates must go down now or they must retreat. To stay would mean being decimated by the archers on the walls and the Clochs Mor. .

  . . This was the end, Jenna realized, even as she fought the Clochs Mor arrayed against her, even as she tossed wild power around her and threw them all momentarily back. She was stronger, aye, but they would bear her down under sheer numbers. The Inish hope had been that the army could gain the keep, that sword and spear would cut down a few of the Mages or cause them to look elsewhere. Mac Ard's cloch attacked her again, and this time she could not push it aside. The force struck her, enveloping her in fire, and she screamed as the blow sent her reeling backward and her freshly healed wounds ripped open again. Unseen hands caught her and held her upright, but they, too, shouted in pain as they touched Mac Ard's blaze. Jenna held Lamh Shabhala aloft in futile defiance, gathering power in the fist of her mind and sending it smashing down to where she sensed Mac Ard standing-but the other clochs inter-posed themselves, shunting the energy aside or absorbing it themselves. She could feel their realization that victory was to be theirs, that they were enough to overwhelm Lamh Shabhala. Their colors circled her, like hun-gry wolves harrying an injured but still dangerous storm deer stag. They would come in for the final kill now, and Jenna found that the anger inside her, even toward Mac Ard, had dissolved into resignation. She hadn't wanted this fight in the first place, and people all around her were dying, all because of the cloch she held. .

  the men around the mage-demon hacked at it,

  but it kicked them aside as if they were bothersome flies. It leaped upon the lava-creature, and Jenna saw its clawed hands grasp the glowing head and twist it. A sound came like stones splitting, and MacEagan’s clock-created creature was gone. She saw MacEagan, several yards away, collapse as Alby wailed, dropped his sword, and sank down alongside him, cradling the unconscious tiarna in his lap. The mage-demon began rampaging through the Inishlanders closest to the gate, and Jenna saw men starting to retreat in panic into the gathering night, pushing back against the ranks behind them. .

  . . her cloch-vision was filled with the lights of the Tuathian Holders. She gathered a shield around her; they broke it down. Lamh Shabhala was weakening now; she was using its stores quickly.

  She could prepare a final stroke, perhaps aiming it at Mac Ard, or she could simply allow it to happen-quickly and hopefully without too much pain. The mage-demon had fastened its eyes on her, and was plowing through the soldiers between it and her. .

  . . now. It’s better that we die now, she told herself and her unborn child. 1/ we die, this ends. The Tuathians will have what they want, and Inish Thuaidh will have to retreat and then negotiate for peace, but the battle will end. In the final tally, we will have saved hundreds of lives. Won’t that be better. .?

  . . but there was something else in Lamh Shabhala’s vision now, mov-ing swiftly toward them from the tumbled rocks at the feet of the moun-tain close to the keep, and there was the sound of rocks clashing together in furious handclaps, a storm of sound, and mingled with it a musical warbling that Jenna remembered well. She blinked, wonderingly. The Creneach. .!

  In their valley near Thall Coill, she had never seen them move this quickly. They were surprisingly graceful despite their size and appearance, their craggy bodies sliding among the amazed Inishlanders. The mage-demon howled, fluttered its leathery wings and flung itself at them; one of the Creneac
h slapped at it with a bouldered hand and the mage-demon shattered like glass. Several more of them went to the gates of the keen The archers sent a hail of arrows down at them, but the shafts clattered and broke on their smooth, dark skin. The Creneach placed their hands on the great doors and their fingers seemed to sink into the wood as if the oak were no more substantial than newly-churned butter: they ripped the gates open, splinters and shards of reinforcing metal flying, the portcullis torn out and flung aside as if it were made of sticks. The Inish troops cheered; they began to surge forward again. A ferocious battle was quickly underway at the ruins of the gate as the defending soldiers within came forward to meet the Inishlanders.

  "Holder of the All-Heart!" Jenna heard Treoral’s voice, mingled with the warbling sound of its true language. "We tasted the need of the All-Heart, and so we came." Jenna wanted to answer, but the clochs had not forgotten her with the appearance of the Creneach; as she heard the call and felt Treoral’s presence approaching from behind her, they attacked again as one. Forms and shapes and colors swept over her like a tide, too quickly for her to do more than glimpse them. A dire wolf flew at her; she split it asunder with a blade of energy; lines of bright color wrapped around her like a snake; she tore them away. The yellow dragon coiled above her; the black funnel began to draw power from her; Mac Ard's fire spitting at her like great glowing meteors.

  In the cloch-vision, an ebon wall interposed itself between Jenna and the others. They shattered against it, energy flaring in a mad explosion. For a moment, the wall held, but the massed clochs continued to strike, battering it. With her own eyes, she saw Terrain shamble forward to stand facing her, and she heard the shrill trill of Treoral’s voice. "The Soft-flesh must give in to the heart that you hold in your hand," it said. "Find Ceile inside. You must-"

  "I can't," she told Terrain, not knowing if the Creneach could hear or understand her. "It's too late."

  "If not for you, then for the life you carry,"

  Terrain answered. "You can, if-" Its hand plunged into its own chest, ripping a fissure in its body, and emerged again holding a tiny blue crystal. "Give this to her. . Treoral’s voice went silent as the clochs broke down the wall. Jenna heard the sound of falling stone; before her, the bodily form of Terrain collapsed into a heap of rocks and boulders. The crystal fell to the ground.

  The Clochs Mor surged toward her.

  THEY hammered her down. They took her cowering to her knees. Jenna shrilled her pain to the world, nearly losing her grip on Lamh Shabhala as she fell. Her own sight was gone now; there was only the terrible light and agony of the cloch-world, and she sank down inside Lamh Shabhala as she had with An Phionos at Bethiochnead, desperately seeking a place to hide from the assault. The voices of the Holders shrieked at her or laughed or shouted contradictory advice.

  She burrowed deeper, seeking escape. The Clochs Mor followed her. She tumbled into a crystalline, twisting well. The faces of the ancient cloudmage Holders flashed past her: the Daoines, then the Bunus Muintir, then tribes and peoples for whom she had no names at all, falling deeper into the past. And there, at the bottom. .

  Lamh Shabhala throbbed like a live thing, waves of colors pulsating around her. This was the place.she had glimpsed during the Scrudu, the place she’d not been able to reach. She went toward it as the Clochs Mor continued to pummel her, and again she was held back. "No…" a voice whispered. "You’re not allowed here. You have not passed the test."

  "Then I’ll die!" she shouted back.

  The voice sounded amused. "We thought that no longer mattered to you." The energy of the Clochs Mor crackled around Jenna, and she pushed back at them. She could feel the baby in her womb, frightened and in pain because Jenna was in pain, suffering because she suffered. The voice at the heart of Lamh Shabhala seemed amused. "So that’s why you fight, even though you still don’t understand. What have you brought me?"

  Jenna could only shake her head in confusion and terror. "I don't know what you mean? The clock?"

  "No. There, in your hand." Jenna could see blue light radiating from between the fingers of her left hand-the crystal that Terrain had pulled from itself. She held it out, felt the presence take it from her. The light danced away in darkness. "Ah, such a gift…" The voice seemed to sigh "So my children ask me to help you. How can one refuse one's own…" The voice faded, and Jenna thought it had gone. Then the feeling of nearness crawled over Jenna's skin again. "AH the hearts of my children connect to the mage-lights through you. You fight yourself when you fight them."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I will give you a gift for the sake of my children, though I don't know if you are capable of using it. This once, in this moment, you must accept what they give you," the voice answered. It was sounding fainter now, and Jenna felt herself being pushed away, rising through the levels of the cloch once more back to reality. "Accept it…" the voice said again, a whisper.

  Jenna lay like a broken doll on the cold ground before the keep. The power of the Clochs Mor played around her, keeping away the Inish sol-diers who were trying to reach her and pull her free. The pile of stones that had been Terrain were at her right hand, and the mage-lights had appeared in the sky above. She could feel the threads connecting all the clochs na thintri: running through Lamh Shabhala and into the sky, creat-ing loops of energy, endless circles and spirals. .

  "This once, in this moment, you must accept what they give you…" That's what the voice of Lamh Shabhala had said.

  Jenna let the shields fall. The energy poured into her and through her. She marveled at the feel of it. She seemed to have been thrown entirely away from her body into some new reality where she was with all the clochs, and their energy filled her, but it no longer hurt, not with the mage-lights in the sky. Instead, she had become a vessel, and they filled her to overflowing. She held the power in her hand.

  She rose. She found five of the Clochs Mor and took hold of them.

  She thought.

  The wind blew cold and salty. The mage-lights flared and vanished, but

  their radiance seemed to remain, illuminating the cliffside and the weathered, ruined statue of Bethiochnead.,

  Six people stood there, each with a cloch na thintri in his or her hand all of them battered and bruised and bloody, all but one of them with confusion on their faces.

  "Where are we?" Banrion Aithne asked. She stood next to MacEagan and Moister Cleurach, both of whom stared up at the statue. "Holder, did you do this?"

  "Aye, I did," Jenna answered. "I think I did. I’m not entirely certain." Power filled Lamh Shabhala as it never had before, so potent that her body seemed to vibrate with it. She felt like a piece of parchment trying to hold back a frothing torrent. Is this what it would have been like if I’d passed the Scrudu? she wondered. How can anyone handle this? The energy buzzed in her head, making her giddy and delirious. Her face burned with it so that she was surprised that she wasn’t literally glowing. Her voice seemed too loud and too fast. She wanted to laugh. "Banrion, Tiarna MacEagan, Moister Cleurach, this is Nevan

  O Liathain, the Tanaise Rig, and Tiarna Padraic Mac Ard. And this," she swept a hand about to indicate the cliffside on which they stood, "is the place they call Bethiochnead, in Thall Coill."

  Before she’d finished talking, she felt O Liathain’s Cloch Mor open; before he could use it, she clamped an ethereal hand around it, letting the power flow not to his stone but to her, the Tanaise Rig gaping in astonish-ment as nothing happened. The feel and color of the energy was all too familiar to Jenna, and she did laugh now, high and maniacal. "Why, Ta-naise Rig," Jenna said. The power of his cloch wriggled in the grasp of her mind, and she saw him grimace in pain and cry aloud, falling to his knees. "So it was you who wielded the mage-demon. I should have known. I’m sorry, I really can’t allow him to walk here."

  Mac Ard and O Liathain were truly frightened; she could see it in their faces. MacEagan, Aithne, and Moister Cleurach seemed bewildered,

  un-certain of whether they sh
ould attack the Tuathians or wait. Jenna could feel all the clochs; she held the strings to them in her mind like puppets, but they were puppets who had wills of their own and who fought the control. She could not hold them long, not when the energy ached to be used, rattling the bars of her mind. She heard her voice again. "Tanaise Rig, you were right to name me the Mad Holder. You were right to call me dangerous. But you want to know why you're here now, don't you?" Jenna realized she was babbling, but she had to talk, had to find some way to dissipate at least some of the energy or it would consume her utterly. "That's simple enough. I will have an end to this war. Now."

  Mac Ard and O Liathain looked at each other; O Liathain had risen shakily to his feet again. His voice, even through the fear, was still oily and smooth and dangerous. "That's what we all want, isn't it, Holder? But it wasn't us that started this, after all. After Lar Bhaile…" A shrug; a glance at Aithne. "Even the Banrion understands that, I'm sure. After all Cianna was your niece." His gaze went back to Jenna, but he kept glancing at the others. "Killing us also won't end the war, Holder. It will only convince everyone of how dangerous you are. Everyone."

  Jenna was trembling now. "I give you a gift for the sake of my children, though 1 don't know if you are capable of using it. ."Jenna closed her eyes, trying to stop the buzzing in her head. Her scarred arm felt as if it were aflame, the pain crawling along the lines the mage-light had carved into her flesh; she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. She could tell that the clochs wanted to return to where they had been; it was only Lamh Shabhala holding them here. It was as if she had lifted all five of them into the air: if she let go, they would return, falling back instantly to Dun Kiil; but the effort of holding them was draining her.

  "You are Tanaise Rig," she said to O Liathain, and her voice was a shout, tearing at her throat. "You will be Rl Ard one day. You can end this. You will end it, or-" Jenna stopped.