Holder of Lightning

Jenna didn’t know what to say. She looked up the sloping bank of the lough to where the horses stood, to the pack on her mare where her father’s carved seal was hidden, and she remembered the blue paint he’d used to paint it and she wondered.

"They’ve followed me, as well as they can, since I left Inish," O’Deoradhain was saying. "They haven’t told me why, just that ’the Water-Mother’s voice tells them that they must.’ The WaterMother is their god, like our Mother-Creator. The ’voice,’ I think, is a euphemism, a feeling they have or perhaps part of an old song-tale-all their history is passed down in songs since they don’t write at all, and there are thousands of them. Their-I suppose I should say ’our’-memories are very good, and they pass the songs down generation to generation. I don’t know them all yet, only a few hundred."

Jenna remembered the seal who watched them when they talked at Deer Creek, and the shapes in the water that had pushed their boat away after they’d crossed Lough Lar. . "What was the thing that attacked me?

O’Deoradhain shrugged again. He took a stick from the ground and pushed at the logs in the fire; sparks and smoke went whirling upward. "I don’t know. Garrentha-that’s the name of the seal who came to your rescue-didn’t either. There are things that live in hidden places that we don’t know, and more and more of them are waking as the mage-lights grow stronger. It’s not only humans who want to hold the magic." He rose to his feet. "If you’re dry and warm enough, we should go. I think we be safer in the village at night than out here."

Jenna glanced back at the lough. She nodded. "Are there other secrets you’re keeping from me, O’Deoradhain? You ought to trot them out now, before we go farther."

He grinned at that, but the expression turned oddly serious when his dark eyes found hers. "I only have one," he answered. "I suspect you already know what it is."

She found herself blushing under his gaze, and she turned away rather than say more.

Chapter 36: Ambush and Offer

THE folk of the village of Banshaigh had a name for the creature: "Uisce Taibhse," it was: the water ghost. "No one fishes at the eastern end of Lough Glas now," one grizzled old man told Jenna and O’Deoradhain. "At least not if you care about coming back. Too many boats have been mysteriously sunk there-in broad daylight and calm water-and many of those aboard lost. The Uisce Taibhse is an evil creature-or creatures, since there is more than one of them, and they don’t like us. We’ve caught one ourselves, snagged in our nets; it died out of the water like a fish, but it fought like a mad, cornered dog to its last breath. Why, if I had one of those clochs na thintri the Riocha are wearing now, I’d just kill them all. ."

As would have happened in Tara’s tavern back in Ballintubber, the newcomers to The Green Waters, Banshaigh’s only inn, were greeted with curious looks and many questions. Jenna and O’Deoradhain agreed on their cover story before entering the village: they were cousins uprooted from their homes in Tuath Gabair by the recent troubles and hoping to return to the home of their uncle in Inish Thuaidh. Banshaigh wasn’t much larger than Ballintubber and though the villagers were aware of the hostilities between Connachta and Gabair, they were far enough removed from the larger towns and the Riocha that they were more sympathetic than hostile to the unfortunate travelers, especially

since O'Deoradhain seemed to know as much about fishing as any of the locals.

Lough Glas, the green lake, was fed by springs, brooks, and rills run-ning from the high hills around it, and fed from its western end into a mountain-flanked and marshy tidal basin and the sea. Aye, the village fisherfolk sometimes ventured out into the open ocean. Aye, there was one fisherman in the village who would doubtless be willing to sail them to Inish Thuaidh for a fair price-Flynn Meagher had a large enough boat and often sailed the coast, if never that far north.

They went to see Flynn Meagher the next morning near dawn, in a windy downpour.

Meagher was a burly, nontalkative man, who grunted as O'Deoradhain explained what they wanted. "Maybe six days out, six back, fewer if the wind is good," Meagher said finally. "Need to take another person to help me sail and I won't be able to do any fishing. A half-morceint a day is what I'll need." His face showed that he expected the bedraggled strangers to turn and leave with that. When O'Deoradhain showed him three golden coins and placed one of them in Meagher's palm, he seemed aston-ished.

"A quarter-morceint a day is twice as much as you should get, but we're in a hurry," O'Deoradhain countered. "I'll give you one morceint now so you can hire your crew member and provision the boat. You'll get the other two when we get there."

Meagher stared at the money in his hand. Slowly, his fingers curled around the coin, then opened again. He seemed to be thinking. "Can't leave today. Tomorrow. Better weather, better tide."

"We'll be here tomorrow morning, then. Same time."

A nod. His hand closed around the money and disappeared under the oiled leather coat.

"He could take us a day's sail out, kill us while we're sleeping, steal the money and dump our bodies overboard for the fish," Jenna said as they walked back to the inn.

"Aye, he could," O'Deoradhain admitted. "We'll need to be careful. But we also have defenses he doesn't know we have, and I could sail that boat myself with your help if we needed to. Do you have

She didn’t. But she didn’t feel easy about the decision.

The next day they sold their horses to the proprietor of The Green Waters and went to meet Meagher at his boat near the end of the docks. The day Promised to be a fine one, as Meagher had suggested, but despite the yellow glow on the horizon and the deep, nearly cloudless azure above, Jenna felt more and more uneasy as they approached their rendezvous. She opened Lamh Shabhala slightly, examining the space around them with the cloch’s vision. There were several other people in the dock area which was to be expected, but if there were other clochs nearby, they were well-shielded. They walked toward the small wooden shack on the shore where Meagher stored his nets and other equipment.

Jenna put her hand on O’Deoradhain’s arm. "Wait," she said. She could feel several people in the immediate area, yet the only one she could see was Meagher, on his boat and waving at them. "There are too many-"

It was as far as she got. The door to Meagher’s shack opened. Tiarna Mac Ard stood there, and she suddenly felt the concealing shields go down around the rubied jewel already grasped in his hand.

"No!" Mac Ard shouted as both Jenna and O’Deoradhain reached for their own clochs. "Don’t move!" Several men now appeared around the dock area, at least a half dozen with arrows nocked in bows already pulled back at full draw. They wore no colors, but they were obviously gardai. "Those arrows are aimed at your friend, Jenna," Mac Ard continued. "I’ve seen what you can do, but I doubt that he’s had enough practice yet to know how to use that cloch well. If they see him touch poor Gairbith’s stone, though, they will fire."

Both of their hands went back to their sides and a grim smile came over Mac Ard’s face. He took a few steps toward them, though he stopped several yards away. "Your mam sends you her love and concern, Jenna. When I saw her last, a month ago, she was big with your half brother-at least the midwife tells us she thinks it’s a boy."

"Have you married her, or will this son be a bastard?" Jenna spat out, and Mac Ard’s smile

"Marriage is… a tool," he answered slowly. "You know that, even if you don't like it. In my position, one should only use it at need."

"What about my mam's needs?"

"My heart is with Maeve, Jenna," he answered.

"It will always be, whether I marry another woman or not. I don't know if you can believe that, but it's true and your mam knows it. And I know that my love is returned. She understands why I don't marry her; she also knows that I will always take care of her, as I'll take care of your brother when he's born. Despite what you might want to believe, I'm not a monster." He spread his hands wide as if he were about to embrace her, the cloch glinting in his right palm. "Give me Lamh Shabhala, freely, and I will also give you my promise that I will use the tool of marriage in a way that would please you. Your mam and my son, your half brother, would share my name. I would make her Bantiarna Mac Ard."

Jenna didn't answer but glanced at O'Deoradhain, and Mac Ard's gaze followed hers. "You're more resourceful than I'd thought, Inishlander," he said to O'Deoradhain. "I've underestimated you twice now. It won't hap-again. I also see the way she looks at you. Poor Coelin would be jealous, I think, though I doubt his wife lets the young man out of her sight any more."

His regard came back to Jenna. "I'll let you and O'Deoradhain take this man's ship back to Inish Thuaidh," he told her, gesturing at Meagher's boat. "But Lamh Shabhala and Gairbith's cloch must be given to me. Mow." He waited; Jenna only breathed, her mind whirling. "I need an answer, Jenna. You're not going to get a better offer. It's difficult, holding back bowstrings this long. I can see their fingers trembling. I'd hate to have one of them slip."

"You'll just kill us anyway," she said. "You would have killed me a few days ago."

Mac Ard shook his head. "Only if I'd had to. That time, I was defending myself from your attack and I seem to recall that it was you who struck first." He shrugged, and a faint smile appeared in the curl of his lips. "Aye, I'd kill you if it means saving myself. I don't apologize for that, either. If I wanted you

dead, Jenna, I wouldn’t be standing here talking with you. I’d have struck before you ever saw us."

"You can’t leave us alive and go back to Tuath Gabair and the Ri, not with all these witnesses."

Mac Ard’s empty hand gestured to the men surrounding them. "These are my personal gardai, loyal to me and not Ri Gabair," he responded. "They will see what I tell them to see. I don’t have many options here, however. I can’t take you back to Lar Bhaile with me-not after what you’ve done. For the Banrion’s death alone your life is forfeit, and there are the gardai you killed afterward at the bridge and the death of Gairbith and his men. And there were those we sent into Doire Coill to look for you who never came back." He sighed, shaking his head. "All that would await you in Lar Bhaile is torture and an eventual execution; I couldn’t stand the torment and sorrow that would bring to Maeve. But I can take Lamh Shabhala back and tell the Ri that I killed you and O’Deoradhain in battle, and no one will challenge that tale. Then you and the Inishlander can go to your island, once I have your vow that you’ll stay there and never return here at all." His scarred head cocked toward her questioningly. "Well, Jenna? I offer you your life and your friend’s as well as your mam’s future, all in return for the clochs na thintri you have. Is that not a fair enough trade?"

For a moment, Jenna considered the offer. She thought of how it would feel to take Lamh Shabhala from around her neck and give it to Mac Ard, never hold it again, to never drink the addictive power of the mage-lights, to never see with its ferocious vision. To lose Lamh Shabhala for-ever. Jenna glanced again at O’Deoradhain and knew that he saw the answer in her eyes. She looked back at Mac Ard.

"No," she said.

And with the word, everything happened at once.

. . Bowstrings sang as Jenna reached for Lamh Shabhala and opened it with a mental wrench. The arrows arcing toward O’Deoradhain burst into flame, the wooden shafts seared to quick ash, the barbed heads clat-tering on the stone flags. Lightnings crackled from Jenna’s hands and she heard the screams from the gardai around her. .

. . O’Deoradhain opened his own cloch with a shout and sent a burst of hurricane wind toward Mac Ard even as the tiarna attacked with his own cloch. Their energy met in a thunderous maelstrom between them, but Mac Ard was stronger and O'Deoradhain was enveloped in snarling, flickering fury. He shouted once, a voice full of hurt and failure

. . Jenna saw O'Deoradhain fall to his knees and she struck with Lamh Shabhala as Mac Ard turned toward her. In the cloch-vision, she saw their two stones collide, like two giants formed of bright lightning wrestling with each other and grasping for holds. For several seconds, the tableau held, the power draining from their clochs with each moment. But slowly, slowly, Mac Ard's attack weakened under Lamh Shabhala’s greater strength and endurance, giving way so suddenly that Jenna nearly stum-bled herself. She could feel all the power spill from his cloch, and with her true eyes, she saw the tiarna fall--

That quickly, it was over. Jenna released Lamh Shabhala, and the shock sent her to the ground, sitting abruptly on the stones. She fought to retain consciousness, not daring to fall into night as she had the last time. Dark-ness threatened to take her, her vision shrinking and the world seeming to recede as she fought to hold onto it, bringing consciousness back slowly: Meagher and his crewman cowering behind the single mast of his boat; the moans of Mac Ard's gardai; O'Deoradhain and Mac Ard both sprawled on the ground; the echo of thunder rumbling in the hills.

Jenna took a long, slow breath and pushed herself back up. She went to O'Deoradhain; he was breathing but unconscious. "O'Deoradhain?" she said, shaking him slightly, but he didn't wake. She took the long dagger from its scabbard at his waist, the keen edge ringing as it was unsheathed. "Come help me with him," she shouted to Meagher and the other man. When they didn't move, she lifted the cloch around her neck.

"Now!" she commanded, and they scrambled over the ship's side to her. "Put him aboard," she told the wide-eyed and terrified fishermen. "You'll be taking us to Inish Thuaidh, and be glad that I don't strike you down right now for telling them we were here." A quick intake of breath told her that she was right. "How much did Tiarna Mac Ard pay you, Flynn Meagher? Tell me," she barked into his frightened eyes.

"Four morceints, mistress," he finally mumbled, his head down.

"Then you’ve been paid in full and more. Take my companion to the ship" Meagher and the other man didn’t move, their heads still down as if they awaited an executioner’s stroke. "Do it now!" she ordered, "And gently."

"Aye, mistress." Meagher and the other man lifted O’Deoradhain care-fully As they placed him on the boat, Jenna went to Mac Ard. She crouched beside him. He was barely conscious; his eyes fluttered, and he seemed to almost smile. His hand still clutched at his cloch. "It seems I’ve underestimated you as well, Jenna," he said. His eyes moved to the dagger in her hand. He tried to lift his hand, but it fell back to his chest. "At least make it quick."

She pressed the keen edge against the side of his neck and blood drooled as Mac Ard inhaled and closed his eyes. But she only held it there, and his eyes slowly opened again. "Were you lying to me? Would you have let us go?" she asked him. She showed him Lamh Shabhala. "You know I can hear the truth, if I wish."

"It wasn’t a lie," he answered. "I believe you’re an abomination and a great danger, but I would do nothing that would hurt Maeve so much unless I had no other choice."

She stared at his face, remembering the way he had looked at her mam, remembering the softness when she’d seen him sleeping with Maeve in his arms, back in Seancoim’s caves. She pulled the dagger back and put it in her belt. Then she reached down and wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the chain of his cloch, pushing his feeble hand away from the stone. "No," he moaned. His lips were flecked with blood. "Ah, Jenna, don’t do this. Don’t take the cloch. Think of how Lamh Shabhala is part of you, how it would be like tearing away part of yourself to lose it. Don’t…"

She could see genuine fright in his eyes now, surprising her. Would I feel this way, if it were me laying on the ground and Lamh Shabhala about to be taken from me? With the thought, a spear seemed to penetrate her heart, and she gasped with imagined terror. Aye, you would feel as he does, and worse…

You knew I couldn’t just give you Lamh Shabhala.

You knew I wouldn't be able to do that."

"I suspected it." His eyes went to her hand, still clutching the chain of his cloch. "Now I know it." His gaze searched her face. "I'm sorry, Jenna.

“I'm sorry you have to bear the burden. I'm sorry I could not be your da for you."

"My da?" Jenna shouted in rage. "You could never be my da!" Anger twisted her hand tight around the chain, and with the rising fury she tore the cloch from around his neck, the silver links parting as they ripped open his skin.

He screamed, a sound that held loss and terror, a wail of grief and a shivering denial. His hands grasped for the cloch, his eyes wide. "No..!" He was panting, and his eyes were wild. "I'll kill you for this. I swear it!"

She stared down at him. "The next time we meet," she told him, clutch-ing his stone in her hand, "one of us will die." The words came to her with a sense of truth, as if she'd been given a glimpse of the future.

He moaned and shrieked, his eyes not on her but on the cloch na thintri she'd taken. Jenna turned and went to the boat, trying not to listen to the mingled threats and pleas he hurled at her back.

"Cast off," she told Meagher, and went to sit next to O'Deoradhain, staring back at the village as the wind snapped at the sail and bore them away.

Chapter 37: The White Keep

HE expected him to be angry. He wasn't. "You know it was a mistake to leave him alive," was all he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "But you should know that in some ways, that was more cruel. He'll always feel the loss. Forever."

"They'll give him another Cloch Mor. Or he'll find one," Jenna an-swered.

O'Deoradhain nodded. "Aye, I agree. He will. And

he will come after you with it, because you have wounded him-on the inside, where it will never heal."

She only nodded, her hand at her throat, and he smiled sadly at her. 'You made the choice. You can't unmake it. And I'm not surprised that you couldn't find it in yourself to kill a helpless man." It was the last time he mentioned the incident.

The first night out, with the headland of the bay still to be rounded, the mage-lights began to glow. Meagher and his friend were watching, their gazes on the two and the mage-lights that were beginning to swirl above them. "You saw what the clochs can do at the village," Jenna told Meagher. She cradled her right arm, letting them see the patterns the lights had carved into her skin. "I'm telling you now that we can sense your intentions, also, while we're calling the mage-lights or even when we're sleeping. I will use the cloch if I feel threatened. Do you understand?"

They nodded silently, meek and terrified. Neither looked inclined to test the truth of Jenna's small lie. The mage-lights strengthened, their glow touching the waves with color.

"Jenna," O'Deoradhain said as Jenna steeled herself for the ordeal of filling Lamh Shabhala once again. "If you're willing, I'd like you to give me Mac Ard's cloch." She glanced at him, more quizzical than anything "I'll give you Gairbith's in return," he added.

Jenna hesitated. "Why? They're both Clochs Mor."

"Because he'll come looking for that one," O'Deoradhain answered "And I want him to come to me, not to someone who may not understand or may not be expecting him."

"Are you sure it's not just because he hurt you with it?"

O'Deoradhain shrugged. "And that, too."

Jenna handed the rubied stone to him. His mouth tightened as he bowed his head to take Gairbith's cloch from around his neck, and she heard him gasp as if stung when the chain was removed. "It's only Mac Ard's cloch in my other hand that lets me do this," he* said as he handed the green stone to her. He was sweating, the lines of his face carved deep.

"Even this hurts, though I held Gairbith’s cloch for just a few days and have another cloch to immediately replace it. Take it from me, Jenna; I can’t… I can’t let it go."

Jenna reached over and pried his fingers from the stone until it dropped into her hand. O’Deoradhain took a long, shuddering breath, clutching Mac Ard’s cloch to him. After a few minutes, he lifted his head again and shook it. Jenna could see tears in his eyes. "They told me during the training that no one could give up his cloch willingly. I always thought that was an exaggeration, but that was harder than I believed. I couldn’t ever do that again," he said softly. "Never. If I’d kept the other cloch any longer, if I’d used it more…"

"Then fill Mac Ard’s cloch now," Jenna told him. "Fill it and make it yours."

The mage-lights danced seductively, calling Jenna, and Lamh Shabhala’s need tugged at her. She turned away from O’Deoradhain and looked up, lifting the cup of the cloch to the mage-lights to be filled.

The voyage took five days, hopping across the chain of small islands be-tween Talamh an Glas and Inish Thuaidh. "There," O’Deoradhain said finally, pointing ahead across the choppy gray waves. "That’s Inishfeim. That’s where we’re going."

Jenna could see a gleam of brilliant white atop the blue-gray hump the island, a white that shimmered in the pale sunlight filtered through thin gray clouds. As they approached the island, the patch resolved into stone towers perched precariously on the island’s steep cliffs. A road wound back and forth from a village clustered around the sheltering arms of a bay up to the ornate and imposing structure on the heights. "The town of Inishfeirm, where your great-mam once lived," O’Deoradhain told her. The "town" looked small, larger than Ballintubber, certainly, but not as imposing as even Ath Iseal. "And the Order of Inishfeirm," O’Deoradhain continued, pointing to the high towers, "where I spent far too many years." He laughed at the memory. "Moister Cleurach will be surprised. It’s been two years now I’ve been away, and I don’t think he ever expected to see me again." He chuckled again, pointing. "There, see that dark speck making its way down the road? That’s one of the Order’s carriages- they’ve seen our ship and

know it's not one of the island's, and have sent someone down to meet us."

A few stripes later, they pulled the ship up at the harbor, Meagher tossing a line to the crowd that had gathered to watch the strangers dock. Jenna thought their faces held suspicion and she saw O'Deoradhain glance up a few times at the buildings of the Order and frown, as if he spied something there that troubled him. But as they stepped onto the dock, the crowd suddenly parted and a blond-haired, dark-bearded man dressed in a cloca of pure white linen came striding toward them. He stopped, his face registering amazement and disbelief. "Ennis? Is that really you?"

"Mundy! By all the gods, you're as ugly as ever." The two men, laugh-ing, met in the middle of the dock, hugging each other fiercely, kissing each other's cheeks. "So you're still here!"

"I am. I doubt you're going to believe this, but I'm now in charge of the acolytes-who'd have thought that someone as difficult as I was would end up having to herd the young ones and trying to keep them out of trouble."

"Who better? You know all the tricks, having done them yourself," O'Deoradhain laughed. "How's Moister Cleurach faring these days? And why aren't you holding one of the clochs by now?"

Mundy's expression turned somber at that. "Moister Cleurach's as well as can be expected, I suppose. These aren't good times for the Order."

"What do you mean? Is that why everyone is looking at us like we're tax collectors? With the mage-lights coming every night to the clochs now, I'd have thought-"

Mundy shook his head warningly, raising his hand. "This isn't anything to discuss here. I must ask you for some patience. In the meantime, you haven't introduced me." He glanced significantly at Jenna.

This is Jenna Aoire," O'Deoradhain told him, and Jenna stepped for-ward. "Jenna, this is Mundy Kirwan, a Brathair of the Order." O'Deoradhain leaned toward Mundy, speaking softly so that only Jenna and Mundy could hear him. "She is the First, Mundy. She holds Lamh Shabhala; she brought the Filleadh."

Mundy's expression was simultaneously shocked

and awed. "First Holder, I am honored. And Aoire. ." He glanced again at O’Deoradhain with lifted eyebrows. "That’s a name that’s not unfamiliar here."

"I was told that my family was from here," Jenna told him. "A few generations ago."

Mundy nodded. "The Moister will undoubtedly want to meet with you immediately. Do you have belongings?"

O’Deoradhain lifted the pack he carried. "This is all."

"Then follow me. I’ll take you up to the mountain, and we can get you rooms there…"

Mundy escorted them to the carriage, little more than a flat cart with wooden seats attached, open to the weather without even the cover of an awning. A young boy in the same white attire waited there with the two horses, though the leine underneath his cloca was red, not white. Jenna looked out curiously as they ascended the narrow, winding switchback road up the steep hillside, more and more of the panorama spreading out below them as they rose. The sea was a rippling, shining carpet, dotted with a few nearby tiny islands; well out to the north, stony cliffs blue with distance rose on the horizon, the white line of distant breakers under-neath. "The shore of Inish Thuaidh," Mundy told her, noticing her gaze. "Those are the Bird Cliffs. Thousands and thousands of seabirds nest there."

"I’d like to see that sometime."

"Perhaps you will." Mundy was sitting across from Jenna and O’Deoradhain, his seat facing them. He turned back from the scenery. "Aoire," he said, almost musingly, but with an undertone that made Jenna’s eyes narrow. "An acolyte once stole a supposed cloch from the cloister and ran away with a local girl. In at least one version I heard, her family name was supposed to be Aoire."

Jenna glanced at O’Deoradhain. "We agreed that we wouldn’t try to hide anything from Moister Cleurach," he told her. "And I trust Mundy’

The cart lurched in the ruts as they navigated one of the tight hairpin turns of the road. Jenna felt a momentary surge of irritation that O’Deoradhain would speak so openly, but she forced it down, knowing that it was mostly because she was uneasy about revealing the truth of how she'd come to acquire the cloch. "Then maybe that version's the correct one, Jenna told Mundy. "Her name was Kerys Aoire and she was my great-mam- And the cloch they took was this." She pulled the stone out from under her tunic. "This," she said, "is Lamh Shabhala."

"Lamh Shabhala. ." Mundy breathed the word, leaning forward to peer closely at the cloch. "So plain, compared to the other ones. No won-der no one believed that it was a true cloch na thintri, or at best only a minor one. So we did hold it for a time." An ironic smile touched his face. "Moister Cleurach won't be pleased to hear that. Not after what's hap-pened here."

"What has happened?" O'Deoradhain asked. "There are marks on the walls of the central tower where it looks like fires have burned, and our reception was definitely cold."

"I'll let the Moister give you that news," Mundy responded. "It's nothing any of us like to talk about."

Moister Cleurach was a short, balding man with a fringe of snow-white hair that didn't seem to have been combed in days. He came bustling toward Jenna and O'Deoradhain between the desks of his two clerks. "Ennis!" There may have been pleasure in his shout, but Jenna couldn't see it in his face. The folds of his face settled comfortably in the lines of his frown. "By the Mother-Creator, I was certain we'd lost you. The last letter was a year ago… "

O'Deoradhain shrugged at the mild rebuke. "I wrote six months ago, and again three months ago as well, Moister. But the tuatha are unsettled, and who knows where those letters have gone."

"Aye, we know the tuatha are at war, and we know why." Moister Cleurach seemed to glare at O'Deoradhain as if he were the cause of it, and then the old man went to one of the arched, open windows of the cloister, staring back south and east over the waves.

"Moister Cleurach," O'Deoradhain said, "Mundy hinted that things aren't well here, and I saw marks on the walls. What's happened? Why aren't Mundy and you and some of the others holding clochs? The

Order was founded to make cloudmages… "

The old man turned back into the room, blinking as if the pale light outside had blinded him. "Five months ago," he said slowly, "not long after the Solstice and just before the mage-lights heralded the Filleadh, ships carrying gardai came here out of Falcarragh. When we realized that this was more than an unexpected visit, it was too late. The gardai wore the colors of both Tuath Infochla and Tuath Gabair. We closed the gates to the White Keep, thinking we could hold them in siege until help came from RI Thuaidh, but we had acolytes who were from Infochla and Gabair and some of them betrayed us, opening one of the gates. The gardai came storming in, and though we defended the cloister as well as we could we’re not trained to fight. The betrayal of our acolytes went deeper-these gardai also knew where the clochs na thintri were kept." The Moister sighed, his rheumy gray eyes flared. "They took them all, Ennis. All."

"Moister. ." O’Deoradhain breathed. "I didn’t know. ."

Moister Cleurach grunted, interrupting him. "The clochs na thintri were all they were after. They fled as soon as they had them, returned to their ships and sailed away. When our Ri finally sent men and ships-too few of both, and far too late-they were a fortnight gone. Then the mage-lights began to appear everywhere in the sky, heralding the Filleadh, and we knew all hope to recover them was lost. The Order may have the knowledge to teach cloudmages, but now we have no clochs to give them." The Maister’s sour face regarded Jenna briefly, then returned to rest on O’Deoradhain.

"And what do you bring us, Ennis, you who we sent out to find Lamh Shabhala? More tales of failure, no doubt."

"I bring you Jenna Aoire," O’Deoradhain answered. "The tale is hers."

"Aoire. ." The word was a hissing intake of breath. The clerks looked up from their work and Moister Cleurach’s gaze returned to Jenna. He stared at her face. "Aye, I see it now. The shape of your face, your eyes. . You could be an Aoire-a family whose fortunes, I must tell you, have declined greatly in my time."

"My great-mam was Kerys Aoire," Jenna told the Moister, "and my great-da was an acolyte here

named Niall, though I don't know his sur-name."

Moister Cleurach visibly trembled as Jenna spoke, his hands clenching together at his breast. "I know that tale and those names, and I know Niall's surname," he answered. "I know because I was sent here as an acolyte the following year, and the gossip about Niall Mac Ard was fresh and new among the acolytes and Brathairs, since they'd known him."

"Mac Ard?" Jenna couldn't stop the words, which stabbed her so that she could hardly breathe. "Niall was a Mac Ard?"

Moister Cleurach glared at her as if she were a dim-witted student. "Aye. That was his name. A well-known Riocha name in Tuath Infochla, and Gabair, too, where a Mac Ard was once Ri long ago. Most of our acolytes are Riocha. You would hear many famous names among them.

Jenna felt dizzy and nauseous. My great-da was a Mac Ard. Did Padraic Mac Ard know that? She glared at O'Deoradhain angrily. "You knew!" she said to him. "You knew and you didn't tell me."

He was shaking his head, and the confusion in his face seemed genuine

"No, Jenna. I swear I didn't. I knew the story, aye, but not the acolyte's surname… All that happened forty years before I came here as a boy. It was just an old cautionary tale given to the acolytes and Mall's last name was never mentioned. None of us were old enough to have known them, and the elder Brathairs who might have been here then wouldn't talk about it."

"They were told not to talk about it," Moister Cleurach interrupted. "It was a foolish deed done by a naive young man that cost him his life, and what was important was that it not happen again, or we might lose one of the stones we knew were true clochs. What Niall stole was probably just a pebble and not a true cloch, and almost certainly not the cloch it was reputed to be."

"Moister," O'Deoradhain said, "Jenna is the First. The Holder of Lamh Shabhala."

The Maister’s eyes widened in sudden realization and he frowned at her so harshly that Jenna took an involuntary step backward, her hand going to the cloch under her tunic. Her sleeve fell away, exposing the scars, and Moister Cleurach huffed once. He glanced back-the clerks were staring also, and he waved a hand at them. They scattered, leaving the room by the rear door as Moister Cleurach turned back to Jenna and O’Deoradhain. "Then. ."

"Aye, Moister," O’Deoradhain told him. "The cloch Niall took was what it had been said to be."

"No…" Moister Cleurach protested, then his mouth snapped shut and his eyes narrowed. He seemed filled with a cold anger as he regarded Jenna again. "If you hold the cloch Niall Mac Ard stole from us, then Lamh Shabhala is not yours, but the Order of Inishfeirm’s." He held out his hand, as if he expected her to place the stone there.

Jenna returned his glare. Her arm throbbed as she pulled the cloch out and forced the fingers of her right hand to close around it. She shut her eyes momentarily: no, there were no other clochs na thintri here other than the ones she and O’Deoradhain carried. "Lamh Shabhala is its own," she told Moister Cleurach, "and it has chosen me."

His eyes stared greedily at the stone. "That is the cloch na thintri I have had described to me. There is a record of it here: we have paintings and drawings of all the clochs na thintri that were in our collection, and I recognize this-there was no other like it. So… plain."

"And your Moister at the time thought the stories about the cloch being Lamh Shabhala were false, or that it was at best a minor stone," Jenna retorted. "That’s what my great-mam believed; that was what Niall had told her."

"Indeed, that was Moister Dahlga’s belief,"

Moister Cleurach responded "He wasn’t the most intelligent man and I heard him say that myself, but what else was he going to claim but that bit of wishful thinking? We thought the stone lost at sea-Mall’s body was found a few days later on the coast of Tuath Infochla and brought back here; we believed your great-mam had suffered the same fate until two years ago, when we learned that she’d actually lived, and that her son-Mall’s child-had left Tuath Infochla and traveled south. By then we also knew that mage-lights would return soon, and so we sent out some of the Brathairs to look for this offspring of Niall Mac Ard in case he still had the cloch that might be-" He stopped. His lips pressed together. "-that was Lamh Shabhala."

"You're mistaken if you believe you have any claim to Lamh Shabhala," Jenna told him. "Not after what my family's gone through. Not after what I've gone through." She looked at O'Deoradhain. "And I made a mistake coming here." She turned on the balls of her feet, ready to leave.

"Wait!" The note of panic in Moister Cleurach’s voice halted Jenna in midstep. "Why did you bring Lamh Shabhala back here?"

O'Deoradhain answered. "She came to learn, Moister. She came because I told her that you would teach her to be a cloudmage, a Siur of the Order. She came because this was her family's home and I told her that the Order would help her. If all that's wrong, and I've unintentionally lied to Jenna, then you can have my resignation. I'm leaving with her."

O'Deoradhain's rebuke put color in Moister Cleurach’s cheeks. His chest expanded as if he were about to shout something in return, then he let the breath out with a sigh. "I'm sorry," he said simply. His hands opened in a gesture of apology, then fell to his sides. He sat on the edge of one of the desks, slumping. "I'm sorry," he said again. "It's just that it's all gone, everything Moister after Moister worked for over the centuries. He knows-" Moister Cleurach pointed to O'Deoradhain-"but do you? Do you know why the Order of Inishfeirm came to be?"

Jenna shook her head, silent, still half-turned away.

"Come with me, then," he said. He started to walk toward the door through which his clerks had gone, then stopped at the door when he realized that Jenna wasn't following. "It will be easier if you see," he told her. "I promise you that it's not a trap." He held the door open.

Reluctantly, with another glance at O'Deoradhain, she went through.

Chapter 38: The Vision of Tadhg

THEY walked down a corridor of marble flags. Twin rutted hollows were worn in the hard stone, unpolished and stained: the marks of countless sandaled feet over countless years. Jenna realized then just how old the White Keep was. The halls of the Order were quiet; the conversa-tions that drifted from the open doors they passed were whispered and hushed. Even the laughter she heard once had the sense of being muffled and held back. The occasional acolytes and Brathairs-no females, Jenna noticed-they met in their walk gave a quick bow of obeisance to the Moister, but Jenna felt their eyes on her, curious and wondering.

They came finally to a set of ornate, twin doors of bronze, the metal cast with curling flourishes and spirals that Jenna knew all too well: the same lines that marked her arm. Moister Cleurach pushed the doors open and beckoned to her to enter.

The room was large, with columns of polished marble in two rows down either side. At the end of the hall was a huge statue, easily twenty feet high, larger than any carving Jenna had ever seen: the figure of a man, elderly yet still vital. He was a seeming giant, his cloca white and flowing as if in some unseen breeze, his skin tanned, the eyes a startling blue under grayish, thin hair. He seemed to look directly at them, his expression solemn yet pleasant. His right arm was raised, the fingers curled into a fist as if he held something, and on the dome above him were painted the hues of the mage-lights, dancing in a black sky dotted with stars. For a moment, Jenna couldn’t breathe, staring at the colossus. "Go on," Moister Cleurach told her. "Look closer. ."

Jenna walked down the wide corridor between the columns, her foot steps echoing loudly. The gaze of the statue seemed to follow her, watching her as she approached. It was only when she reached the railing set a few yards before the statue that its regard left her. "Go up to him," Moister Cleurach said. "Touch him." She could hear Moister Cleurach and O’Deoradhain following behind. She went to the statue, her head reaching only halfway to his knee. She spread her left hand on the leg, expecting to feel cold, painted marble.

The leg was warm, and the flesh seemed to yield under her touch. She drew her hand back with a gasp, half-expecting the giant to be looking down at her with a sardonic grin. "That is the founder of our order and its first Moister-Tadhg O'Coulghan, Holder of Lamh Shabhala and the da of Severii O'Coulghan, who would be the Last Holder." Jenna could hear amusement in Moister Cleurach’s voice. "And no sculptor carved this image of him, No, the chisel was Lamh Shabhala, the marble the stuff of the mage-lights, and the artist Severii. He made this image of his da with the dying power of the cloch in the last days of the mage-lights." Moister Cleurach gave a soft laugh. "It startles all the acolytes in the same way, the first time they touch it. The statue has remained warm and soft and lifelike for over seven centuries now."

"I've never seen anything to equal it," Jenna said. She touched the statue again, wonderingly. The detail was exquisite: the pores of the skin, the fine hair of the legs. She almost expected to feel the pulse of blood under her hand.

"Tadhg saw that the clochs na thintri were being used primarily as weapons, that the possession and holding of them was the cause of dissent and war and death." Moister Cleurach continued, his voice reverberating from the dome above them. "He believed that they should be used not as weapons, but as tools. He and a few followers built the White Keep, using the powers of their clochs to create the buildings, erecting in a few years the work it would have taken hundred of laborers and artisans a dozen years or more to create. Yet as the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, he also could sense that the mage-lights were beginning to weaken, that the time was approaching when they would die completely and the power in the clochs would vanish with them. He was right, for that would happen in his son Severii's holding. Tadhg felt that there must be a repository, a place where knowledge of the clochs and how to use them could be kept alive over the long centuries of their sleeping. That was the public task of the Order-to keep safe the old knowledge, to be the place where the Riocha and others would come to learn the ways of the cloudmage."

"The Order's public task," Jenna said, emphasizing the word, and Moister Cleurach nodded as if pleased.

"Aye, and as you suggest, there was also a private

task. Tadhg envi-sioned the Order gathering to it most of the clochs na thintri after their magic was gone and forgotten. That, he knew, would be impossible at first, but as the years and decades passed and the clochs were given to sons and daughters, and then given to their sons and daughters, they would become pretty jewels, their power forgotten or dismissed. Then, Tadhg believed, they could be bought or acquired in other ways-when a tiarna sent his son or daughter here to be an acolyte of the Order, one condition was that the child be given the family’s Cloch Mor, should they possess one. And if that acolyte took the vows of the Order, then the cloch would be passed on not within the family but into the Order. As Tadhg perceived it, long centuries later when the Filleadh came, it would be those of the Order who held the majority of the Clochs Mor. It would be the Order that created the cloudmages. It would be the Order that en-sured that the wars and strife and fighting didn’t happen again. It would be the Order that put together a better world, one where the clochs na thintri were used not for death and fighting, but for life."

Jenna glanced up again at the statue, at the face of Tadhg, imagining him saying those words. It was easy to visualize that kindly face speaking. The words awakened an echo inside her. Yet. . "That’s an admirable goal," she said. "But not an easy one. And ’better’ for whom? The Riocha? That’s who holds the clochs, that’s who send their children to the Order, so even if the clochs hadn’t been stolen, you’d have been making cloud-mages of Riocha, and war is exactly what they’ve always used them for."

Moister Cleurach took a long breath yet didn’t answer. "This way," he said. "There’s more to see."

They went out from Tadhg’s Hall and back to the corridor. Moister Cleurach stopped before another door, this one simple, thick wood. "Try to open it," he said.

Jenna glanced at him, but went to the bronze handle of the door and Pushed, then pulled. The door rattled in its frame but wouldn’t open. "It’s tacked," she said.

"Keep trying."

Moister," O’Deoradhain interjected, but Moister Cleurach raised his hand, ringer to lips.

"It's nothing you didn't try, Ennis. Let her."

Jenna looked at O'Deoradhain; he shrugged. Jenna pushed and pulled again at the door, then again. The third time, there was a snap and sudden pain like quick sharp knives ran up her arm. "Owl" she exclaimed, step ping back and shaking her hand, which still tingled.

Moister Cleurach’s expression was solemn, but she thought she saw amusement in his eyes. "Most acolytes try the door at one time or an-other," he said. "The truly persistent and curious are the ones who feel it is that not so, Ennis?"

"Aye, Moister," O'Deoradhain answered. "Tis."

Moister Cleurach placed his hand on the door. Jenna heard him start

to speak, then he stopped and removed his hand. "You know the word

don't you, Ennis?" %

O'Deoradhain took a step back, his eyes a bit wide. "No, Moister. How would I. .?"

Moister Cleurach snorted derisively. "Don't treat me like a fool, Ennis O'Deoradhain. I'm not as blind as some of you Brathairs might think."

With a glance at the old man, O'Deoradhain put his hand against the wooden planks and spoke a soft word that Jenna could not hear. A violet light glimmered around his fingers. The door swung silently open. "The ward was placed on the door by Tadhg himself," Moister Cleurach said. "And 'tis no less strong now than when I was shocked by it, many years ago." He nodded toward O'Deoradhain. "The opening word is at best an open secret. Only the Moister, the Librarian, and the Keeper are supposed to know it, but acolytes and Brathairs have sharp ears, and some elders aren't as careful as they might have been. Eh, Ennis?"

O'Deoradhain blushed and said nothing.

The room they entered was a library, Jenna realized, far bigger than the small chamber in the keep at Lar Bhaile, the interior airy with light from windows in the east and west walls, and filled with three rows of long tables. The smell of musty parchment filled the air, and scrolls sat in wooden notches along the south wall, while the north wall held leather-bound flat volumes. Also along the north wall was a large wooden cabinet. Its doors hung askew, torn from their hinges. An elderly Brathair sat at a desk at the front of the room, a parchment spread out in front of him. As they entered, he bowed to the Moister and left the room, his right leg dragging the floor as if he could not bend the knee or move the limb easily.

"This room is where the knowledge of the Order is written down and kept," Moister Cleurach told Jenna. He walked over to the ruined cabinet-Shoving aside the broken doors, he pulled out one of several trays. She could see that the tray was lined with black velvet and separated into several compartments, all of them empty. Jenna heard O'Deoradhain suck in a breath as the Moister displayed the tray to them. "And here. Here was where our clochs na thintri were stored: behind the locked and warded Library door, and the doors of this cabinet were warded with slow magics as well."

Moister Cleurach dropped the tray onto one of the tables. The sound was loud and startling. "Tadhg O'Coulghan's vision was a long one and correct," he continued. "We did acquire many of the Clochs Mor over the centuries, and we kept the knowledge and we held to his dream." His fist slammed against the table. "And it was all taken away. Stolen just before Tadhg's future came to fruition." He glanced at them, his voice bitter, his mouth twisted. "The same acolytes who betrayed us let the invaders into this room, knowing the word as you did, Ennis. Librarian Maher was badly injured resisting the gardai; you noticed that he still hasn't fully recovered. Keeper Scanlan died of his wounds that night. The acolytes and Brathairs resisted as well as they could with sword and slow magics, and twelve of them died in the hall outside. The raiders took the clochs, all of them. I suppose I should be grateful that they left the books and scrolls or that they didn't set fire to the library as they fled. But this. . this was enough. You've seen the consequences."

"I wondered," O'Deoradhain said. "I wondered why there seemed to be so many Clochs Mor with the tuatha. Now I know why. Tiarna Mac Ard and the Ri Gabair, or perhaps the Tanaise Rig-they must have planned this not long after the mage-lights appeared in Tuath Gabair."

"Aye," the Moister nodded. "The clochs are again in the hands of the Riocha, and again they are used for war."

Moister Cleurach shook himself from reverie,

standing again and rub-bing fingers through the fringe of unruly white hair. For the first time, the frown lifted from his face, though he did not smile.

"I will teach you, Jenna Aoire," he said. "I will teach you to be the cloudmage who holds Lamh Shabhala."

"You’d teach a woman?" she asked, remembering the acolytes she’d seen.

"In Tadhg’s time and Severii’s, when the clochs na thintri were still active, we had female acolytes here, and Siurs of the Order. Not many, true, but some of the Holders were women-for Lamh Shabhala as well as other clochs, as you must know. Aye, we would teach them. It was only after, when the mage-lights had stopped, that we also stopped accepting women into the Order. So few were sent us then and so few came here on their own. ." Moister Cleurach shrugged. "Eventually habit or circum-stance becomes the rule, and rule tradition. But tradition broken is also soon forgotten."

His hands seemed old and tired as he picked up the empty tray and slid it back into its place in the cabinet. He pushed the broken doors together. "At least they didn’t get Lamh Shabhala," he said. "Stay, and I will teach you what is in the books here. You will become a Siur of the Order."

"And Lamh Shabhala?" Jenna asked. "The cloch my great-da stole?"

"You’re its Holder and the cloch is yours," Moister Cleurach replied. "I would be pleased to have the First Holder also be a cloudmage of the Order." He gave her a rueful smile. "It seems you’ll be the only one."

Jenna looked at O’Deoradhain, knowing what she wanted to do and wondering if he knew as well. He nodded to her. "Not the only one," Jenna told the Moister. "Ennis. .?"

O’Deoradhain pulled his cloch from under his cloca. The ruby facets gleamed in the light streaming into the library from the windows facing west and the lowering sun. "This isn’t the cloch you sent me to find, Moister," he said. "But I hold the Cloch Mor that was once held by the Mac Ards of Tuath Gabair."

"And this. ." Jenna reached into the pouch at her belt, bringing out the sea-foam green jewel that

Tiarna Gairbith had once possessed. "This is another Cloch Mor, though I don’t know its long history. " She placed it on the table in front of Moister Cleurach. "1 give it to the Order to do with as you will. Consider it payment for my tuition, and a small compensation for what my great-da took."

Chapter 39: Training

IT was harder than Jenna imagined. "Moister Cleurach is an excellent mentor," O’Deoradhain told her the first day. "I/you can stand him." That wasn’t an exaggeration. The Moister had an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore of the clochs na thintri and was seemingly able to call up in his mind the pages of the entire library of the Order, but he was also sometimes impatient with Jenna, who be-came his only student. He was initially exasperated by the fact that Jenna could neither read nor write. At first he refused to go further until she learned her letters, then a few minutes later reversed himself after finding that Jenna’s memory was quick, facile, and reliable.

"I suppose the Holder of Lamh Shabhala deserves different treatment than a common acolyte," he said grudgingly. "If you weren’t halfway intel-ligent, you’d already be dead." It was as close to a compliment as she was to receive for the next several weeks.

The first day, looking at a scroll filled with the bright, painted images of clochs na thintri, she let the scroll roll itself up once more and she held up her own cloch to his eyes. "Why didn’t you know for certain that this was Lamh Shabhala, since the first two Maisters of the Order both had held this cloch themselves? For that matter, why didn’t Lamh Shabhala get passed on to each of the Misters in turn? I don’t understand."

"You need patience," he replied. "The answers will come in time, when they will make the most sense to you."

"I want the answers now," she persisted.

"I'm the teacher, you're the student. I will determine when you're ready, what you'll learn, and when."

"Aye, I'm the student. And it's my duty to tell you when I don't under-stand something so that you can explain. Don't put me off with platitudes and pleas for patience. When I ask questions, tell me what you know or tell me that you don't know."

"You're an arrogant young lady."

"And you're a crotchety old man who is used to easily cowing the boys who are sent to you because you look sour and mean. Your appearance and reputation aren't going to frighten me, Moister Cleurach. A year ago I might have been as terrified as any of them, but not now. Here's one thing I've learned in that time: when someone refuses to answer me, they either don't know the answer to my question or they're deliberately with-holding it for reasons of their own. Which is it for you, Moister?"

They glared at each other for a few breaths, then Moister Cleurach snorted. "The Holders of Lamh Shabhala evidently have their obstinate streak in common," he said. "As well, evidently, as a tendency to view the world in dualities. One thing I hope you learn here is that things are more complicated than that. You're seeing conspiracies when the truth is more innocent and banal."

He shook his head, rapping his fingernails on the table a few times before continuing. "Here's your answer: Severii O'Coulghan was not Tadhg. Though he did serve as Moister here, which was his da's dying wish, the truth is that he didn't share Tadhg's sweeping vision for the Order. The clochs went dead late in his Holding, and Lamh Shabhala finally died a year or two afterward. Had Tadhg been the Holder then, he would certainly have given Lamh Shabhala to the Order as the ultimate prize of its collection. Then, when the mage-lights returned, we would have seen them shining here over Inishfeirm and known that the time of the Filleadh was approaching. We would have had Lamh Shabhala to protect us if raiders came to plunder the clochs. Severii had the cloch, though, not Tadhg. Rather than treasuring the cloch for the Order, he gave Lamh Shabhala as a gift to his lover." Moister Cleurach gave a sniff of derision. "Lamh Shabhala is not the most beautiful or most striking of jewels, as you know," he continued. "If anything, it's rather

plain. And love, as you may also know, is an emotion that can fade and die like the mage-lights. Severii’s lover one day abruptly left the island never to be seen again. With him went Lamh Shabhala."

Jenna’s face must have shown confusion. "Him?"

Moister Cleurach shrugged. "Life is complicated," he replied simply and continued his tale. "No doubt Lamh Shabhala was eventually given away or lost or misplaced as something not particularly valuable. When Severii was asked by the librarian for a description of Lamh Shabhala, so that it could be painted and written down in our books. ." Moister Cleurach went to one of the shelves and pulled down one of the bound volumes.

"The Book of Lamh Shabhala," he said, placing it before Jenna. He opened the stiff leather cover, the smell of dust and old paper wafting over Jenna. His bony forefinger pointed to an illustration on the first page: a cloch held in someone’s hand: caged in silver wire; whorled with emerald-green and mottled gold; the size of a duck’s egg and glinting as if transparent and full of hidden depths. Jenna could see hints of the actual stone in the representation, but this was Lamh Shabhala magnified and made far more jewel like than the reality.

"Obviously, that’s not Lamh Shabhala," Moister Cleurach said. "Perhaps Severii deliberately lied to the artisan-wanting to make the loss of the cloch and his lover all the more poignant. Or it’s possible that the artisan, knowing that this was Lamh Shabhala, the greatest of the clochs, could not see it as… well. . plain, and Severii obviously never contradicted that image. So when a rather ordinary-looking stone reputed to be Lamh Shabhala did come back to the Order, you can understand why my prede-cessors doubted the identification when they looked here. That’s also why, when your great-da stole it, Moister Dahlga could believe that it was a false cloch that had been lost, not Lamh Shabhala."

"1 do understand," Jenna said. "And is what’s written in this book also false?"

"In this book is written all that Tadhg and Severii told us of Lamh Shabhala, and all that we have learned since. Some of it is undoubtedly untrue or exaggerated or rumor; other portions are certainly true. You’ll help us revise this at the same time you’re learning from it."

"I have another question," Jenna said, and Moister Cleurach sighed audibly, though he said nothing, waiting. "Sometimes, when I've used Lamh Shabhala, I've heard the voices of all of its Holders. Some of them have spoken of a test, 'Scrudu,' they call it. What is that?"

Moister Cleurach sighed. His fingers brushed the parchment where the false image of Lamh Shabhala was painted. "The Scrudu… " he breathed. "Not all Holders need to know that."

"That's not an answer, Moister."

He glared at her, but continued. "Right now, Lamh Shabhala is like a Cloch Mor, more powerful and with more abilities than any of those, aye, but still a Cloch Mor. Many Holders have been content with that, and spent their years with the cloch that way. No one will think less of you if you do the same."

'Finish your answer, Moister. Please."

He snorted in irritation. "A few, a few Holders have found the full depths of Lamh Shabhala’s power. To do so, they must first pass the trial they call the Scrudu. I will tell you this, Holder Aoire: most who try fail"

"And if they fail?"

"If they're lucky, they die," Moister Cleurach replied. His stare was unblinking and cold. "If you believe that to be overdramatic, I assure you it's not."

"Is this Scrudu in your book?"

"It's mentioned, but neither Tadhg or Severii ever risked the challenge. But the process, the way to begin and what happens then. ." He shrugged. "They-the voices in the stone-will tell you later if you're foolish enough to make the attempt. I would advise you to first learn something about being a cloudmage."

Jenna started to speak, but Moister Cleurach closed the book sharply, surprising her so much that her mouth snapped shut again. Dust rose from the pages, so heavy that Jenna had to turn her head and sneeze. "You've used up your quota of questions for a month, Holder Aoire. If you have no interest in the lore we have to give you, you're welcome to leave. If not, then henceforth you'll learn when I'm ready to teach and not before. Is

that quite clear?"

He glared at her, his head turned sideways, looking so stern that Jenna suddenly felt compelled to laugh. "Aye," she told him, as his face softened slightly in response to her laughter. "I suppose I can work on my pa-tience."

Moister Cleurach might be old, but he was hardly decrepit. If anything, his stamina was greater than Jenna's. The schedule over the next weeks quickly fell into routine: every morning, O'Deoradhain would wake her by knocking on the door of her small cell, located near Moister Cleurach’s own rooms. She broke her fast with O'Deoradhain in the same dining hall as the other acolytes and Brathairs. O'Deoradhain then escorted her to the library, where she and Moister Cleurach worked until sundown.

Moister Cleurach had given over his other duties and students; Jenna's instruction was now his only task. She learned about the clochs na thintri. their history, their behavior, their quirks, how previous Holders had dealt with handling their power. She was shown meditations that helped her deal with the pain of her interaction with the mage-lights, she was guided through the bright landscape she saw when she looked at the world through Lamh Shabhala’s eyes. She and Moister Cleurach pored over the texts left by previous Holders of Lamh Shabhala, and Jenna realized that I had only touched on the surface of the cloch's abilities. As Moister Cleurach had said, some of what was stated in the book was false, but much more of it illuminated pathways within the cloch that Jenna had not even guessed at. The Moister pushed her and prodded her, never letting her rest, taking her past what she thought were her physical and mental limits, never accepting less than her best effort.

"Was he this way with you?" she asked O'Deoradhain after a particu-larly grueling day. "After all, he expected you to hold Lamh Shabhala had you found it. Did he drive you like this?" They were standing on a balcony of one of the White Keep's towers, overlooking the crags and cliffs atop which the cloister perched. The houses and buildings of the village were a collection of dots far below already in deepening shadow. Only the upper rim of the sun was still visible, the clouds above burning molten gold and rose, the waves of the sea tipped with shimmering orange. A sparkling column of wind sprites lifted from the cliffs halfway down the mountain, and several seals had hauled out of the sea, roaring and honk-ing where the waves crashed foaming onto black rocks.

"Consider it a good sign," O’Deoradhain grinned. "He’s hardest on the ones he feels have the most potential. The time to worry is when he’s easy on you."

"You still haven’t answered my question. Was he this hard on you?"

O’Deoradhain smiled again. "That would be telling, wouldn’t it?" Jenna laughed and his smile grew broader. "I knew you could do that," he said.

"Do what?"

"Laugh. Enjoy yourself."

Jenna felt herself blushing, and she glanced down toward the village so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. Her flight from Lar Bhaile now seemed ages ago, and over the intervening months her feelings toward O’Deoradhain had been slowly changing: from suspicion and caution to grudging admiration, to friendship, to… she didn’t know how to term what she felt now. Or perhaps you’re simply afraid to give it a name, for all manner of reasons. .

Below, the seals were leaping into the waves, one after another, dozens of them. "Are those blue seals?" Jenna asked to shift the subject, but O’Deoradhain moved closer to her to peer over the balco-ny’s stone railing. She could feel the heat of his body against her side.

“I don’t think so," he said. "Just the normal harbor seals. There’s a family of blues here, but they’re usually on the other side of the island."

"Are they. .?"

"The ones I first swam with?" he finished for her softly. "No. That was on Inish Thuaidh itself. But I’ve been with this group, when I felt the need.

They know me, and Garrentha, who saved you at Lough Glas is one of the Inishfeirm family." His hand touched hers on the railing — her right hand. She didn’t move away this time. His fingers interlaced with hers, pressing gently. Though the fingers of that hand, as always, moved only stiffly and with some pain, she pressed back. "Jenna. ." he began but his voice trailed off. The throng of wind sprites rose in the darkening air, chattering in their high voices as they swarmed past Jenna and

O'Deoradhain before darting around the bulge of the tower.

"What were you going to say, Ennis?" Jenna asked, and O'Deoradhain chuckled. "What?" she said into his laughter.

"I think that may be the first time you've called me by my given name."

She smiled back at him. "Is that wrong? Is that too familiar for you?"

"No," he answered, still smiling. "I like the way you make it sound."

They were still holding hands. "Ennis. ." she began, and this time the tone was different.

"I know. You don't have to say it."

Her eyes searched his. "What do you know?"

"I'm a bit too old for you. A bit too strange. A bit. ." He shrugged. He let her hand fall away from his grasp. "I understand all that. Truly. But I hope you know that I will always be your ally. When you need my cloch to stand with you against the other Clochs Mor-and I don't think that can be avoided-I will be there."

He started to turn away. She reached out with her left hand and touched his arm. "Wait, Ennis."

His head tilted, his gaze questioned. Jenna reached up for him, slowly, wondering at the gesture even as she made it. She brought his head down to hers. The kiss, when it came, was softer and sweeter than she expected, and longer. There wasn't the bruising urgency there'd been with Coelin; there also wasn't the awkwardness. This was deeper and stronger.

It was more frightening.

The fright overwhelmed her. She turned her head, breaking off the kiss. His breath was warm at her ear. She heard him swallow.

"I'm sorry, Jenna," he said. "I shouldn't have. ."

"Tell me that you have no more secrets, Ennis."

A quiet, tentative laugh. "None that I know of."

"Then tell me that you won’t hurt me the way Coelin did."

His arms closed tight around her, pressing her close. "Not the way he did, no. I can’t promise that I’ll never hurt you, Jenna. But I’ll promise that I’ll love you, for as long as you want me."

"Ennis…" She didn’t know how to say it, to tell him how scared she was of this, how confused. How she didn’t-couldn’t-trust her own feelings, not after Coelin’s betrayal. That the things he had told her about himself did matter, even if she said they didn’t. Her heart pounded against her ribs as if shaking the cage of its confinement; her pulse throbbed in her temples, and the pain of her arm came again, making her close her eyes. She shook her head. "I’m not ready… I don’t know. ."

He nodded. She could see the hurt in his eyes. His hands left her. "Ah," he said. He tried to smile. "I understand," he said. "I do."

She wanted to explain it all to him, but she had no words.

The seals called plaintively below them, and the sun’s disk slipped below the line of the sea.

Chapter 40: The Ri's Request

"JENNA?"

The knock on the door was tentative, and the husky whisper was that of Ennis. Jenna blinked sleepily. It was dark in the room, though dawn was just beginning to paint the sky. Jenna reluctantly put the covers aside and drew her night robe closer around her in the cold air as she sat up.

After their conversation a few days before, she'd hoped he might come to her, that he might begin the conversation again, that he might kiss her and she would let herself open to him. She'd also feared the same thing, not knowing what she wanted.

There was an awkwardness now when they were together, when their arms accidentally brushed. She wanted to be next to him; she was frightened to get too near. Not now. Not this way. . she thought as she moved to the door. No! Let him in. You want the feel of his body on yours, his mouth. . another part of her shouted. She opened the grille in the center of the door and peered through, and all the voices inside died as she saw his face.

"Ennis? What's the matter?"

Ennis' face, candlelit, filled the opening on the other side of the grille, serious and unsmiling. "Moister Cleurach would like to see us in his rooms immediately."

"What's wrong?"

His lips twitched under the beard. "Nothing's wrong. We have.. a visitor. A Riocha from Inish Thuaidh, from the Ri's court in Dun Kill- He's on his way up from the village; a runner was sent ahead to alert us.

Jenna felt her stomach lurch. You can't escape the politics, even here. . "I'll be there as soon as I'm dressed."

Her stomach settled, and the voices returned. She could do it; she could unlatch the door, let him slip inside. . But Ennis gave her no chance to act on the impulse.

"Good. I'll tell Moister Cleurach that you're on

your way. Quickly!" With that, Ennis turned, and she saw the yellow glow of his candle mov-ing off down the corridor.

Moister Cleurach glanced up from his desk as they entered. One of the acolytes was already there with a tray of tea and scones, placing it on a table to one side of the room. He bowed out as Moister Cleurach waved toward the tray, taking a sip from his own cup. If Moister Cleurach knew about the attraction between Ennis and Jenna, he gave no indication, though he looked at them strangely, standing close but not too close to each other. "Have some tea. Get yourselves warm and awake."

"Who’d they send, Moister?" Ennis asked.

A single shoulder lifted. "The runner didn’t know. All he said was that it was a tiarna who claimed to be here at the Ri’s request. And who was anxious enough to get here that he crossed the water at night. He’ll be here soon; I’ve been told the carriage is already at the main gate."

Jenna cupped her right hand around the welcome warmth of the steaming mug. "What does he want?"

"There are still other allegiances among the Brathairs and acolytes," Moister Cleurach answered. "We haven’t been able to eradicate all the spies among us. I’m certain that rumors have left the White Keep and gone to Inish Thuaidh as well as the mainland, saying that the Holder of Lamh Shabhala was here. At least our visitor’s from Thuaidh and not another troopship from one of the tuatha. I’d hoped to have another few weeks to prepare before this started, but it would seem-"

There was a knock at the door. Moister Cleurach sighed. "Would you let him in, Ennis?"

There were a quartet of people in the corridor: three gardai in blue and white, and one other who stepped in through the open door, leaving the gardai behind.

It wasn’t a him. It was a woman.

She was tall, with long white-blonde tresses trailing from underneath a hood the color of spring grass, and Jenna decided that the woman was older than Maeve by several years. Her large eyes were the same deep green as her overcloak, dominating a round face networked with fin wrinkles. She shrugged out of the overcloak and tossed it

uncaringly over the nearest chair. Her cloca was a lighter shade of green and finely embroidered; the leine underneath snowy white. An ornate, thick torc of beaten gold hung around her neck, and rings adorned her fingers. Moister Cleurach came hurrying from behind his desk to greet her, and to Jenna's surprise, bowed low as he approached. "Banrion," he said. "I would not have thought that Rl MacBradaigh would send you on this errand."

"I insisted, Moister Cleurach," the woman said.

"Or do you think that the return of the Holder of Lamh Shabhala to Inish Thuaidh isn't impor-tant enough for me?" Her voice was pleasant and low with a hint of amusement just below the surface.

But there was a careful posturing to her tone and stance, as if she kept her emotions well concealed and in-tended them to remain so. She glanced at Jenna and Ennis, and Moister Cleurach coughed.

"My pardon, Banrion. This is Holder Jenna Aoire and Ennis O'Deoradhain, both cloudmages of the Order." Jenna, startled at the title given her, looked quickly at Moister Cleurach, but his eyes told her to say nothing. He nodded at the woman. "And this is Banrion Aithne MacBradaigh, wife of the Ri Thuaidh, Ionhar MacBradaigh."

The woman's verdant gaze rested on Ennis for a breath, then went to Jenna, cool and appraising. Jenna, unlike Ennis, didn't politely lower her head, meeting the woman's eyes. "Ah," the Banrion said with a slight twist of her lips. "So very young. I expected someone older and more. ." she paused, as if considering the next word, ". . sinister in appearance," she finished. "For being the Mad Holder who gleefully murders Banrions, you look innocent enough."

Jenna flushed, taken aback. For a moment, she could not speak at all though her mouth opened in protest as Banrion MacBradaigh continued to stare at her. "That wasn't my intention. Truly. Banrion Cianna was ill and weaker than I thought. I wish it hadn't happened."

The Banrion gave a slight nod at Jenna's protest. "Then the rumors of the destruction of the bridge to Ri Gabair's Keep and the death of twenty or so gardai are, no doubt, exaggerated as well. Or were also not in-tended."

"There is some exaggeration there, aye, Banrion." Jenna blinked. "But won't deny there was also

intention-it was my life or theirs. 1 chose mine."

Again the lips curled in a slight smile. "A choice most of us would make, I think. So you are more complicated than you appear." The heat Jenna’s face increased as the Banrion’s gaze dropped to Jenna’s right arm "The marks of the Holder. . May I see Lamh Shabhala?"

Her tone held the expectation of obedience. Reluctantly, Jenna pulled the cloch out from under her leine. The Banrion took a step toward her and leaned closer to examine it, but made no move to touch the stone. After a few moments, she stepped back again. "It’s plainer than I would have thought."

"That’s an oversight others have made," Jenna answered, "mistaking an ordinary appearance for weakness."

The Banrion laughed aloud, clapping her hands twice, the sound loud in the cold morning. "And you have a bite to your words as well. Excel-lent. I can understand how that fool Torin Mallaghan managed to under-estimate and lose you. He may be Ri Gabair, but he holds his title mostly for his name, not his ability. And that woman he married. My niece’s blood was more her mam’s than that of my brother." The Banrion laughed again at the expression on Jenna’s face. "Aye, Cianna was my niece. Ri Mallaghan thought that perhaps it might be a good alliance; as usual, he was mistaken. You needn’t worry, Holder. I had no love for her conniving, scheming soul. But you might be advised to avoid my brother; a da’s love for his daughter is less objective, I’m afraid."

She turned from Jenna back to Moister Cleurach. "The Ri requests that you and your cloudmages appear at the court. There are… implications that must be discussed. The Comhairle of Tiarna will be meeting in Dun Kiil in a fortnight, and they are anxious to meet the First Holder. As you might expect, there are complications to Holder Aoire being here in Inish Thuaidh, and we’ve already received open threats from Tuatha Gabair, Infochla, and Connachta, insisting that she be returned to them for vari-ous crimes committed in their territories." Aithne smiled thinly. "I don’t think any of us are fooled as to the actual reason they’d like to have the Holder. It’s the prize she wears, not her that they want."

This time Moister Cleurach lifted his head. "The

Order is not subject to the Ri's commands," he told the Banrion. "That's clear in Severii's Char-ter, as I'm certain the Banrion is aware."

"I'm aware of the charter, Moister," Aithne answered calmly, "even if a charter seven centuries and more old is hardly relevant to today's situation, and I suspect the signatures at that time were made more under duress than by actual agreement with Severii's desires. I said it was a request, not a command, yet the importance of this can't be denied. After all, I was sent, not some anonymous messenger, and the Comhairle has been summoned. The Order may have its independence, but Inishfeirm is the Rls land and the Order but a small part of the island. Nor do I see an army here to protect you should the Tuatha decide to attack."

"The Rl should have thought of that a few months ago."

Jenna saw the folds around the Banrion's eyes tighten at the remark but Aithne still smiled grimly. "That was an unforeseen and a terrible mistake on all of our parts-I'd remind you that your request for help was rather after the fact. Perhaps my husband would have stationed a garrison here if there had been a suggestion from the Moister that the Order's clochs na thintri were so vulnerable." Her hand waved, dismissing their words. "None of that can be undone now. It would be more terrible to make a second mistake, now that we realize the import of the clochs."

"I agree, Banrion. But I must still consider this. Will you stay with us? I could have one of the acolytes take you to the guest cells, and you're welcome to break your fast at our table. .?"

Aithne's lips tightened slightly. She glanced at the tray with its tea and few scones. "No," she said. "I'll return to my lodgings at the Black Gull. I think that may be slightly more comfortable. But only slightly." She picked up her overcloak and wrapped it around herself. She strode toward the door, and Ennis barely managed to open it before she reached it. Jenna wondered if she would have bothered to open it herself. Jenna heard a conversation suddenly go silent as the gardai outside straightened and fell in to flank the Banrion. Aithne turned back and nodded to Moister Cleurach,

Jenna, and Ennis. "Holder Aoire, it was good to meet you. Moister, I'll expect to hear your answer this afternoon before my ship departs. I trust it will be one that the RI and the Comhairle hope to hear, and we’ll take ship together."

The footsteps of the Banrion and her entourage echoed loudly in the marbled halls.

"We only have one answer, you realize," Moister Cleurach told them as they stood on the balcony watching the Banrion’s carriage wind away down the long road to the village. "Making her wait for it is just so much pettiness. But it feels good, nonetheless."

Jenna almost laughed. "She’s frightening. Those eyes, the way she stands, the tone in her voice."

"You haven’t met Ri MacBradaigh, Jenna," Ennis told her. "Behind his back, they call him the Shadow Ri. It’s Banrion Aithne who is the true power in Inish Thuaidh. She’s the one the Comhairle of Tiarna listen to. The Banrion didn’t come here because the Ri requested it; she came be-cause that’s what she wanted to do."

"And she knows we’d realize that," Moister Cleurach finished. He took in a long breath as the Banrion’s carriage vanished behind the trees at the first switchback, and let it out again loudly. The cloud that emerged from his mouth echoed the mist that cloaked the base of Inishfeirm and hid the sea. They seemed to be standing on an island floating in fog. "The Banrion has her faults, but she’s fair and what she does, she does with all of Inish Thuaidh in mind, not just herself. I might not entirely like her, but 1 do respect her. Most dangerous of all would be to underestimate her."

"I don’t think that will happen, Moister," Jenna answered. I did that once before, with Cianna. . Jenna felt the hair at the base of her neck rise with the memory, and a twinge of pain sliced up her right arm.

"Go prepare yourselves to leave," Moister Cleurach told them. "I’ll send a messenger to her after the noon meal and tell her that if she will wait until tomorrow morning, we’ll accompany her." The elderly man snorted. "She’ll likely bite the head off the poor acolyte I send, but it will do the Banrion good to spend a night here in the Black Gull’s beds, don’t you think?"

"I doubt the innkeeper will ever forgive you, Moister," Ennis com-mented.

A fleeting smile was the only answer.

Chapter 41: Cloch Storm

THERE were seals at the harbor quay. Jenna was disappointed to see that they were the common brown harbor seals and a few grays. Jenna wandered down to see them as she and Ennis waited for the Banrion's entourage and Moister Cleurach to arrive. The Banrion's ship, the name Uaigneas-Loneliness-emblazoned across its prow, cast a long shadow over the harbor front, and Jenna glanced at the ship as she walked along the beach with Ennis. Uaigneas dwarfed any craft Jenna had seen before, with a sparred central mast that seemed to prick the lowering clouds and six oars per side for use when the wind died. She could see several sailors on the deck and more swarming near it where it was docked alongside a long wharf extending out into the bay. The sides of the ship were painted in the blue-and-white colors of Inish Thuaidh in sweeping curves that were reminiscent of the long swells of the ocean.

"She's magnificent, isn't she?" Ennis said. Jenna nodded, silent. His hands touched her shoulder; before he could move away again, she leaned back against him, luxuriating in the feel of his closeness. But though he remained where he was, he wouldn't put his arm around her and his voice was carefully neutral. "We Inishlanders know how to build ships. Infochla may claim to have rule of the Westering and Ice Seas, but though they have more ships, ours are the better. The Banrion's ship is one of the best, which is why her captain was unafraid to sail at night. Inishlanders understand and respect the sea because it surrounds us. Even in the mid-dle of Inish Thuaidh, the ocean's but a day's ride away and its whims and its moods touch the entire land."

A hoarse roar punctuated the end of Ennis' sentence, and they both turned to look. A quartet of blue seals was hauling out on the rocky beach,

Jenna glanced at Ennis; he nodded to her. "Go on," he said and for the first time that morning, a smile touched his lips. "They've come to see you, not me."

She approached the group: a bull, two cows, and a pup. They watched as she and Ennis walked closer, their utterly black eyes glistening, their glossy fur rippling with sapphire highlights. The bull hung back, but the pup waddled awkwardly forward;

when Jenna crouched down in front of the animal, it nuzzled the hand she held out. The pup's breath was warm, its fur damp velvet. The larger of the two females came forward also. Up close, the seal smelled of brine, an odor Jenna found strangely pleasant. As the female came closer, Jenna took in a breath of wonder: the cow's fur was mottled in color: dark gray swirls and curlicues interrupted the blue-black and the fur there was stiff and wiry, as if the animal had been injured.

The pattern in the cow's fur was the same as the scars on Jenna's right hand.

The cow spoke, uttering a long string of moans and gargles and Jenna glanced back at Ennis. "She offers welcome to their land-cousin, the Holder," he said.

"Land-cousin?"

Ennis lifted a shoulder. "The blood of the Saimhoir-that's their name for themselves-is mixed with many Inish families. They say the Saimhoir can sense when a human has but a touch of their blood in their ancestry. She's saying that you're one of them." The seal spoke again, a bark and a braying cough. "She also says that I'm a poor translator and you should use the cloch."

"The cloch. .?" Jenna touched it. Curiously, she opened it slightly until she saw the seals in both her own vision and that of the cloch's energy. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, startled, when she heard the seal's voice.

"Land-cousin, can't you taste the salt in your blood? Thraisha is my name and Garrentha, who fought the darkbeast that attacked you, was of my milk." The words came overlaid with the sound of the seal's own language and came not from her ears but through Lamh Shabhala. Around Thraisha, there was a strange radiance in the cloch's vision, something Jenna had never experienced before.

Jenna laughed in wonder, glancing back at Ennis with wide eyes. Thraisha, you can understand me now when I speak?" Jenna asked, and she knew the answer immediately: her voice came back to her altered in the moans and calls of a seal.

"The language of Saimhoir is part of your blood, and Lamh Shabhala allows you to tap that part of yourself," Thraisha responded. "And I have chased and swallowed Bradan an Chumhacht, the first bright salmon of the mage-lights, which has come back to us. I am like you and I bear the marks. Aye, I understand you through Bradan an Chumhacht as you understand me through Lamh Shabhala."

Jenna blinked. "You’ve eaten a fish that gave you the ability to tap the mage lights?"

Thraisha gave a series of pants that translated as laughter to Jenna’s ear. "And you have a stone that gives you power?" she said, mimicking Jenna’s tone of astonishment. "Why, the land is full of stones." She laughed again. "The sea has changed as the land has changed, and things swim under the waves that have not been glimpsed since the last change of currents. Did you think that you humans were the only ones who could tap the power above or who could use the slow magics? The gods made us all; why should they gift only you?" The seal lifted her gray, bristled muzzle. "I am First for the Saimhoir as you are First for your kind. I understand your pain; I have endured it also."

With the words, a foaming, cresting wave of force rose from within Thraisha and enveloped Jenna.

For a moment, as the false surf swept over her, Jenna felt the memory of the Filleadh, the agony she’d felt as she’d opened all the clochs na thintri to the mage-lights. . and at the same time she saw herself as Thraisha, undergoing the same brutal trial under-neath the sea and nearly dying as the energies tore at her. It had been worse for Thraisha, Jenna realized-she had nearly succumbed, saved only by her bull mate who had lifted her to the surface and held her above the water for long hours as Thraisha lay senseless. Jenna cried out, a wail of her own remembered torment all mingled with Thraisha’s suffering as she sank to her knees in front of the seal, not caring that the rocks were wet or that the spray from the slow breakers washed over her legs and cloca. Her arm ached and throbbed, the fingers of her right hand knotting as muscles cramped and protested. Thraisha lurched forward and Jenna cradled the seal’s head against her breast as she might a child, her breath choked with a sob. She heard Ennis start forward behind her, then stop as the bull roared once at him in warning.

"We are closer than sisters of the milk," Thraisha said softly. "We know, you and I. We know. ." Thraisha’s head pulled away and Jenna reluctantly let her go. "Bradan an Chumhacht isn’t Lamh

Shabhala; what it gives me is not what the stone gives you," the seal said to her. "One gift it brings to me is a small foretelling, a glimpse of possibilities. I am seer and this is what I've seen: our fates our linked together, my sister-kin. That's why I wanted to meet you."

"What do you mean? How are we linked?"

Thraisha moved her head from side to side with a gurgling wail. "That I don't know. I can't see it. But I know we will be together again, and in one vision of those possible futures, we die together. I've seen Bradan an Chumhacht swim from my dying mouth and Lamh Shabhala fall to the ground from your hand."

The bull roared loudly behind them and Thraisha gave a snort. "Your people are coming and I must go now. We'll talk again." With a lurch and a roll, the seal turned to leave. The bull waited, but the other female and the pup had already slipped back into the water, calling to Thraisha.

"Wait!" Jenna cried. She stumbled to her feet, Ennis running forward to help her up. "I want to know more."

"You will," Thraisha called. "We both will, when it's time." Thraisha was at the water's edge; she half-fell, half-dove into the water. The bull lumbered after her. A moment later, her sleek head reappeared. "Beware the storm," Thraisha called to her. "It doesn't follow you; it travels with you."

"Thraisha. .!"

The blue seals dove as one. She could see their muscular bodies just below the surface, seeming to fly in the water, as graceful in their element as they were clumsy on the land.

"Mages!"

The voice came from the wharf. Jenna and Ennis turned as one, Jenna releasing her hold on the cloch at the same time. As the cloch-vision left her, the brilliance seemed to wash out of the world, leaving the colors muted and gray. The Banrion was standing there looking down toward them. Moister Cleurach stood next to her; behind, their luggage was being loaded into Uaigneas. "Consorting with seals isn't something I expected of the First Holder," Aithne commented. "I especially didn't expect to hear you growling and wailing like one of them. Will we find you chirping at gulls, as well?" She didn’t wait for an answer. "The captain says we should sail now, while the tide is running out. We’re boarding."

The Banrion gestured to them and strode purposefully toward the ship, the gardai falling into place alongside her. Moister Cleurach stared a mo-ment longer, then followed her.

"Jenna. .?" She glanced back to the water, its rolling surface now Unbroken. Thraisha and her companions had vanished. Ennis’ hand stroked her right arm, trailing down the stiff flesh and falling away again "We need to go." She nodded.

Inishfeirm lay only five miles off the coast of Inish Thuaidh, but they were making for the harbor of Maddygalla, twenty miles eastward around a cliff-walled headland-a full day’s journey. Jenna had to admit that the Uaigneas was far more comfortable than the small fishing boat in which she and Ennis had made the crossing from Talamh an Ghlas. The ship rode the waves easily with a gentle rocking motion, the sail billowing on the mast above them, spray curling from the bow as it cut the gray-green water. Jenna stood with Ennis at the starboard rail; the Banrion and Moister Cleurach were talking near the stern. Jenna watched the water, won-dering if she might see the shapes of the seals pacing the boat, but there was nothing but the occasional gull or cormorant diving for a fish.

Behind, Inishfeirm slowly receded, the White Keep glinted atop the summit as the sun moved in and out of clouds.

"What are you thinking?" Ennis asked. He was standing next to her, a careful arm’s length away. She leaned toward him, enjoying his closeness and attention, imagining that she could feel the warmth of his body against the chill sea breeze.

"I’m thinking that we’re walking into another snake’s nest like the Ri’s Keep in Lar Bhaile. I’m thinking that there are still too many things I don’t know. I’m wondering if I have a baby brother by now or if I’ll ever see my mam again. I’m wishing that I had the courage to say…" She stopped herself… to say to you all the things I want to say. She sighed, and gave him a wan smile. "I’m wondering about Thraisha’s words. Did you know about her, Ennis?"

"Aye, a bit. I knew the tales the Saimhoir told

about the mage-lights and Bradan an Chumhacht, and I knew from Garrentha that her milk-mother had eaten the salmon." His hand was near hers on the railing. It she moved, she could touch him. "I figured that she'd come looking for you."

The sun cloaked itself again though its light still danced on the waves well out from them. Jenna shivered. "Are there more? Other things like the cloch na thintri held by other creatures?"

"Probably. The books in the library talk of eagles and wolves having their own magic and they hint of dragons with the same. There may others."

She glanced up at his shadowed face. "When did you last see dragon?" He smiled back at her for a moment, the expression lightening his face, and she started to laugh with him. Jenna lifted her hand, put it on top of his He looked down at their intertwined fingers as he spoke. "Never. Moister Cleurach says he doubts they exist at all. But I hope he's wrong, Now that would be a sight. ."He suddenly dropped his hand away from the railing, his gaze moving past her shoulder. "Banrion," he said. "Moister. Good morning."

That earned Ennis a grunt from Moister Cleurach and a flick of the Banrion's eyes before her gaze went to Jenna. "We hardly need to make polite small talk here. Let me be blunt. You don't seem to like me, First Holder," Aithne said.

"Banrion-" Jenna began, but the woman raised her hand. "You don't need to either acknowledge that or try to smooth it over. I simply state the fact. The truth is, Holder Aoire, I don't much care if you like me or not. All that matters to me is that I understand where your loyalties lie, so that I know how we can work together. Your mam, I understand from Moister Cleurach, is the consort of Tiarna Mac Ard of Gabair and is carrying his child."

Her tone made it clear that she felt the word "consort" was closely related to "whore," and the quick shift of her gaze to Ennis indicated that she might feel that Jenna was little more than that herself. Jenna's eyes narrowed as if she'd been slapped, and it was difficult to keep her voice civil. "Aye, Banrion, that's true, if she hasn't already delivered the baby." The wind freshened slightly, and Jenna felt a drop of rain touch her cheek. But as to my loyalty…" Deliberately, she put her arm through Ennis', who nearly jumped before his

mouth spread into a grin. "This man helped me where no other would. And the Order and Moister Cleurach have taken me in and I owe them for their kindness. Past that, I am loyal only to Lamh Shabhala. My enemies are those who would try to take it from me." Jenna started to remove her arm from Ennis’s, but he brought his arm in to his body to hold her.

That’s well said," the Banrion answered. The wind tossed her light hair lifting the glossy strands from her shoulders as it turned around to blow from the northwest. A splatter of rain drummed over the wooden deck and Jenna glanced up to see the clouds gray and lowering over the oat, though well out in the channel she could still see sunshine, and the White Keep shone far behind. "You’ll find that most of the Riocha here share your attitude. Inish Thuaidh isn’t Tuath Gabair, where the Ri’s word is law. Ask Moister Cleurach how difficult it is to get the Comhairle agree on an action, even if the Ri wishes it."

Above them, canvas snapped angrily, and Uaigneas heeled over abruptly, causing all of them to reach for ropes and railing to keep the balance as a wave crashed white and gray over the side of the shin drenching them. Thunder grumbled somewhere close by, and the day had gone as dark as twilight, though sunlight played on the horizon all around. Sailors scurried across the deck as the captain came over to them "You told me this would be a fair day for sailing," the Banrion shouted at him over the rising wind

The captain had a hand in the pocket of his oiled overcoat, as if the shifting deck were solid ground and he were out for a stroll. "That is what all my experience said, Banrion," he answered. "But blows like this can come suddenly and without warning. You and your guests should go below-it’s becoming dangerous up here."

Another wave pounded the ship, the prow lifting high then falling, sending Moister Cleurach sprawling. Ennis reluctantly let go of Jenna and helped him back to his feet as the rain began to fall in earnest, cold and stinging. The captain alone seemed unperturbed by the ship’s motion, one hand still casually in his pocket. Jenna could see nothing past the rippling gray curtains: Inishfeirm had vanished, as had the chalk cliffs of Inish Thuaidh. The captain shouted to his men to reef the sail which was threat-ening to tear apart in the gale,

and to man the ship's oars. "Banrion, please," he said. "I can't be responsible if you stay on deck."

The ship lurched, turning as the captain shouted directions to the man at the tiller. Jenna followed Aithne to the small deckhouse and down the short flight of stairs into a cabin barely large enough to hold the four of them and the trio of gardai. The wind howled and cold seawater poured in through the hatch before Ennis and one of the gardai managed to push it shut. Uaigneas rolled again, more sharply this time, and they heard an ominous cracking and splintering above, accompanied by a scream. Then the ship seemed to shake off the waves and finally right itself, lifting first bow, then stern. "The captain's turned her to run before the wind," Ennis said. "We're going where the storm wants to take us."

A garda abruptly and noisily threw up. Jenna fought not to be sick herself from the smell and the seawater and the ship's wild careening, For an interminable time, like the others, she huddled in a corner of the cabin, leaning against Ennis with eyes closed as she tried to sleep, her hands out to brace herself. She must have managed to actually doze for bit, but a sharp roll of the ship brought her awake again.

"Beware the storm…" Thraisha had said that before she left, and Jenna wondered if she'd glimpsed this. She'd said more, as well. Jenna took a breath trying to remember as the ship seemed to rise, hesitate a moment, hen plummet back into the sea. "It doesn't follow you; it travels with you."

Jenna remembered the sunlight, playing on the horizon and the peak of Inishfeirm. The storm hadn't come streaking from across the sea toward them; it had developed rapidly above them.

". . it travels with you… "

She fumbled under her soaked clothing for the chain that held Lamh Shabhala. She let her mind touch the cloch as she forced stiff fingers to wrap around the stone; her awareness drifted outward with the cloch's energy.

Aye. There. .

Another cloch na thintri was aboard, its bright energy spraying out-ward and upward, and she could sense the mind wielding it: one that knew the

waters of the channel, knew the ship and how much wind and heavy seas it could handle. Driving us east and south with the storm, toward Talamh an Ghlas.

Jenna pushed herself to her feet, trying to maintain her balance on the rolling, wet planking and still hold onto Lamh Shabhala. "Open the door!" she shouted above the shrieking wind and the drumming of the rain. "Ennis! I need you!"

Ennis noticed Jenna's hand on her cloch, and he immediately clenched his own. The Banrion noticed as well. "Open it!" she ordered the nearest garda. "Go with the Holder."

The garda pushed open the door; water and sheets of sleeting rain poured in as the garda, then Jenna and Ennis, forced their way up the stairs to the deck. "Can you feel it, Ennis?" Jenna shouted to him, blinking against the assault of rain and wind. The crew was at the oar seats, drenched and grim-faced with the task of keeping the ship from being swamped in the heavy seas.

"Aye!" Ennis pointed to the bow of the ship, near the tiller. The captain was there, his gaze turned up toward the sky. One hand remained in the Pocket of his overcoat.

"I'll hold him," Jenna shouted to him. "You and the gardai take him."

Ennis nodded. Jenna let herself fall into Lamh Shabhala’s worldview.

There, the captain's Cloch Mor was a maelstrom of gray and black, swirling and rotating and as yet unaware of her. Psychic winds howled and screeched around it, and Jenna knew those could be directed at her as easily as they now pushed at the ship. She opened Lamh Shabhala fully, letting its radiance swell outward until it touched the cloudy black; as it did, she felt the captain's awareness shift, sensing the attack even as she brought her cloch's energy down on and around the interior storm It battered her, the winds tearing at Lamh Shabhala’s hold like a furious animal. The cloch's strength surprised Jenna, and for a moment the maelstrom nearly slipped through as doubt entered her mind. A gust of wind slammed into Jenna, sending her staggering backward. She went to her knees, gasping and taking in water from the rain and the waves, but she held onto the stone, pushing

back again at the other cloch’s dark energy

She had no choice. She could feel the power draining from Lamh Shabhala with every passing second, but she knew that the same was happening to the captain’s stone. Lamh Shabhala burned in her hand searing her flesh with ice, and she forced herself to hold tightly to it knowing she would pay afterward.

A bolt of lightning cleaved the inner vision, and from the deck there was a cry of pain and alarm.

The maelstrom faltered; Jenna pressed in against it and it collapsed completely. Jenna could see Ennis and the gardai rush the captain, taking him down.

Ennis’ hand reached down, pulling the cloch from the captain. There was a scream, a wail of wild distress and loss. The wind slowly died; the rain fell to a drizzle. The waves fell.

"Well done, Holder." The Banrion was standing at the entrance to the cabin, and Moister Cleurach emerged behind her. The crew, appearing dazed, were gazing about them in bewilderment as Ennis and the gardai dragged the captain forward. The man was weeping, and he stared at Ennis, struggling to be released. "Give it back!" he cried. "I have to have it. You must give it back!" In Ennis’ hand was a large crystalline stone, which he gave to Moister Cleurach. The older man held up the gem: a mottled smoky-gray like an approaching thunderhead.

"It’s named Stormbringer," Moister Cleurach said, his face grim. "I know it-it’s one of the clochs na thintri stolen from the Order." He walked up to the captain, now moaning in the hands of the gardai, and abruptly slapped him across the face. "Thief!" he spat. "And worse you’re a traitor." Moister Cleurach pointed eastward.

Under the clearing sky, they could all see four ships well away to the east. Three of them flew green-and-gold banners from their masts, and one green and earth-brown: Tuath Infochla’s colors, and Tuath Gabair’s. Jenna was still holding Lamh Shabhala, not daring to let it go because she was still borrowing the cloch’s strength to hold off the pain that would come. She could feel faintly, at the outer edge of the cloch’s vision, the presence of two more Clochs Mor out where the ships lurked. "You were sending us to them. You were to hand over the Banrion and the First Holder."

The man's head hung down. He didn't dare to look up at them. "My cloch," he whispered. "Please…"

"You, First Mate!" Banrion Aithne called out to one of the crewmen, who hurried forward. "You are now Captain. Bring us around and take us back to Inish Thuaidh." The man bowed, and began shouting to the crew. They hurried up the mast and started to unfurl the sail. Aithne turned back to the former captain as the Uaigneas started a slow turn back north and west, putting its stern to the waiting ships. "Your life is forfeit," she told the weeping man. "Kill him and toss the body overboard," she told the garda holding the man. "His friends may want to recover the body before the sharks find it, but I doubt it. That will end his pain." The garda's hand closed around the long knife at his belt and the captain blanched, closing his eyes. The Banrion held out her hand to Moister Cleurach. "And the Cloch Mor 1 claim for the Ri."

"No!" Jenna shouted. The garda stopped his thrust in mid-motion; Aithne's head swiveled to regard Jenna with eyes of green ice.

"No?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. "I remind you, First Holder, that you are on a ship I command."

"And you and your ship would have been in their hands and your husband paying your ransom if I hadn't been here," Jenna answered. "The cloch was stolen from the Order of Inishfeirm and cloudmages of the Order have won it back again."

Aithne sniffed. Jenna could see her considering her next words. "I sup-pose that's a fair statement," she said finally, though Jenna knew that did not reflect her true feelings. "And what would you do with the traitor, First Holder?"

Jenna didn't answer the Banrion directly. Instead, she turned to the former captain. "Look at me," she said, and he lifted his head slowly. "I hold Lamh Shabhala, and it can hear truth," she told the ashen-faced man, though it pleased her to see a flicker of uncertainty also cross the Banrion's face. "Tell me a lie and I'll let the Banrion's order stand. Tell me the truth and you might manage to live. How did you come to hold Stormbringer?"

"I'm sorry, Holder, Banrion," he said. "I didn't want this. ." He stopped, his face stricken. "My son… he was in fosterage to my cousin, a tiarna in

Infochla. Two weeks ago, a man came to me with the cloch. He offered me. ." The man gulped. "He seemed to know that this would happen. He told me what the cloch could do and said he would show me how to use it. He promised that if I brought you and the Banrion to them, I would be made Riocha myself and could remain as the Holder of Stormbringer. And if I failed… He made no direct threats, but I under-stood that my son was a blood-hostage, and he would pay for my failure.

Holder, my son is all I have. My wife is dead, there are no other children… "

He sagged in Ennis’ arms, his face to the deck.

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry I betrayed you and the Banrion. I’m sorry that my weakness will almost certainly mean my son’s death." His head came up again. "Kill me," he said to Jenna. "I’ve lost my son; I’ve lost the cloch. It hurts too much. Kill me and let me rest. At least my son and I can be together in the womb of the Mother-Creator."

He closed his eyes, as if awaiting the dagger’s thrust. The garda looked at Jenna, then at the Banrion, who shrugged. "Leave this judgment to the Holder," she said.

They were all staring at her. Jenna took a long breath, not certain what to do. There were no good decisions here, she realized. She felt sorry for the man; he’d been well-trapped by Infochla. Now, his livelihood was lost and he’d be forever branded a traitor, his son likely dead. Jenna closed her eyes, her fingers still around Lamh Shabhala, her arm beginning to throb with the pain of using it. In the cloch’s vision, she could feel each of the people on the ship, and in the water, nearby. .

"Throw him over the side," she said to the garda. "Toss him in the water."

Ennis started to protest, and the Banrion chuckled. "You surprise me, Holder. A slow drowning rather than a quick death…"

"Do it!" she told the garda, with a look of warning to Ennis. Ennis let go of the man and the garda pushed him toward the railing. He glanced back at Jenna as the captain stared down at the cold water rushing by. "Go on," Jenna told him.

The garda pushed hard at the captain’s back. He tumbled over the side. The Banrion took a step to

the rail and glanced down. Already the man was behind the boat, thrashing at the waves, gasping as the frigid water leeched the strength from his body. "Well, that's done," she said. "Holder, Moister… " She moved away, gesturing to the new captain.

Jenna stood with eyes half-closed, watching and listening through the cloch. A trio of Saimhoir were close by: Thraisha was not with them, but Garrentha was. Go to him, she whispered in the voice of the stone, know-ing the seal would hear her. Keep him alive and take him to the other ships.

In her head, there was a warble of acknowledgment from Garrentha.

She released Lamh Shabhala, gasping as the pain came to her fully, forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths. Moister Cleurach looked at her, hefting Stormbringer in his hand. Ennis gave her a concerned frown, and nodded.

"This will be the last Cloch Mor we take alone," she told them. "They’ll know now that one Cloch Mor isn't enough against Lamh Shabhala, and they won't make that mistake again." For a moment, she felt she could glimpse the future, and it was dark and bloody. She watched the sails behind them and felt the touch of dread. Jenna rubbed at her dead, cold arm as if she could scrub away the marks there. The pain ripped from hand to shoulder and into her chest. Her body trembled with it; she closed her eyes and clenched her jaw to keep from crying out. Ennis rushed over and took her in his arms and she let herself relax into his grasp, allowing him hold her up. When the worst of the spasms passed, she pulled away from his embrace and looked at the ships of the tuatha again, growing smaller in the distance.

"I don't know that we can survive when they all come," she said.

Chapter 42: Dun Kiil

LAR Bhaile and the Rls Keep were more magnificent. Ath Iseal was larger. Ballintubber

seemed more inviting.

At first glance, Dun Kiil was a gray town on a gray mountainside be-yond gray water. Jenna knew the impression was unfair-the weather had gone to drizzle by the time they reached the seat of Inish Thuaidh and the clouds were a landscape of unbroken, featureless slate overhead. The bright colors of the doors and the flowery window boxes were muted, and most of the people in the streets were intent on getting to their desti-nations and out of the weather.

The keep dripped. Jenna could hear the rhythmic, echoing splat of water striking the stone flags, as if the gods were keeping time to the Ri’s welcoming speech.

Ri Ionhar MacBradaigh of Inish Thuaidh was not an impressive speaker or an impressive man. His complexion was pallid, his voice mild, his physique potbellied and flabby. Jenna could understand why they called him the Shadow Ri behind his back; already it had been made clear to her that the true negotiations would take place with the Banrion and the Comhairle of Tiarna. It was also clear to her that the alliance of the Inishlander Riocha was a fragile thing that might-and often did-break apart at any moment. Already, half a dozen of the tiarna and bantiarna to whom she’d been introduced had leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially to her that they wished to speak with her in private, intimating that they were the true power behind the throne. There was Kyle Mac-Eagan of Be an Mhuilinn, short of stature and wide of girth, but whose eyes blazed with a sharp intelligence and piercing awareness; Bantiarna Kianna Ciomhsog of An Cnocan, a dark-haired woman whose beauty and grace was still untouched in her third decade, and who, Ennis whispered in Jenna’s ear, was the match of any of the men with a sword.

There was also Aron O Dochartaigh of Rubha na Scarbh, whose cheeks were as flaming red as his hair and who towered a full head above Ennis. He was also Banrion Aithne’s brother, and the da of Banrion Cianna. He glared at Jenna with undisguised animosity, and she knew that she already had at least one open enemy in the court.

There were other rulers of other townlands among the thirteen chief-tains of the Comhairle whose names had already slipped Jenna’s memory. They stood before the throne, watching her as the

Rl spoke and the rain dripped through the roof of Dun Kiil Keep. Behind the Comhairle stood the minor Riocha and the ceil giallnai-a hundred or more people gath-ered under the cold, seeping stone vaults of the keep.

After the first day, Jenna was already weary of the politics and begin-ning to despair of the chances of the Inishlanders' ability to hold off a concerted attack. Moister Cleurach must have sensed her thoughts, for he inclined his head toward her through the Ri's droning speech. "We Inishlanders come together quick enough against a common foe, First Holder," he said. "And when there's no outside foe, we make do with ourselves."

"… and so we bid welcome to the First Holder, who has brought Lamh Shabhala back to Inish Thuaidh, where it belongs." The Rl finished with a nodding bow to Jenna, and there was polite applause from the gathered Riocha. Aron O Dochartaigh made no pretense at all: he simply glowered.

The Rl stepped down from the steps of the throne as servants began to circulate through the room with trays of drinks and appetizers. The sound of conversation obliterated the softer tink of falling droplets. The Rl ap-proached Jenna, Ennis, and Moister Cleurach, and Jenna curtsied. "No, no," Ionhar clucked, lifting her back up. He smiled, and Jenna had a sense that this was a gentle man, someone who would be more comfortable with a book or a goblet of wine in his hand than a sword. His hands were soft and uncallused; the hands of a scholar, nor a warrior. Under the rich cloth of his cloca and leine, the muscles of his arm sagged.

'I should be bowing to you, Holder, since it's through you that the Banrion was returned to me. Such awful treachery, and from someone I trusted." He shook his oiled and well-coifed head. "This is an ill omen, I'm afraid. I would like to speak with you at length, Holder. Your tale, what I've heard of it, is a strange one, and I thought-"

"You thought that you would keep the Holder from her well-deserved rest, my dear?" Banrion Aithne came up behind Ionhar in a rustle of silk "This has been a long and difficult day for her. The tale should wait for another time, I think. Besides, I wanted to steal Lady Aoire away for a bit and thank her myself. I have a gift for her."

Aithne, smiling, detached Jenna from the Ri's attention, leaving Ennis and Moister Cleurach still talking with the man. Ennis' gaze followed her as she moved away, her arm through the Banrion's as the older woman escorted her through the throng in the Hall. It wasn't only Ennis who watched; Jenna could feel the gathered nobility's appraising eyes on them. The Banrion maneuvered them to a small door hidden in an alcove. A garda stood there; silent, he opened the door for them, closing it again behind them. Jenna found herself in a smaller, comfortable chamber, the air warm with a blazing fire in the hearth and bright tapestries covering the walls with golds, reds, and browns.

In the room, also, were Kyle MacEagan and Kianna Ciomhsog. The two flanked the fireplace. MacEagan nodded his head to Jenna; Bantiarna Kianna simply lifted her glass goblet. "Would you like some wine, Banti-arna Aoire?" the woman asked.

"That title doesn't fit a common sheepherder from Ballintubber," Jenna said. "I'm not Riocha, Lady. Please call me Jenna, or Holder, if you prefer."

The woman simply smiled. "That's simple enough to remedy. I don't think we'd allow the First Holder to remain common. Do you, Banrion?"

Aithne smiled at Jenna. "Hardly." She gestured to one of the chairs before the fire. "Please sit, Holder."

She brushed her fingers against Lamh Shabhala, hoping none of them would notice the quick grimace of pain as she let the cloch's energy drift quickly out. She immediately felt two holes in the field where Banrion Aithne and Kyle MacEagan stood: attempts at shields. The hole around Banrion Aithne was strong; the one about MacEagan much smaller. Tiarna MacEagan has a clochmion and the Banrion has a Cloch Mor that she didn’t t have on the ship. Where did she get it? Jenna wished now that she'd used Lamh Shabhala in the main hall to see how many more of the clochs na thintri were gathered here. Does Aron O Dochartaigh also possess a clock, like his sister?

Jenna smiled, letting her hand drop away, and took the offered chair, the Banrion took her seat opposite her, though the other two remained standing where they were. "I said I had a gift for you. I do. Here. ." She reached under her chair and brought up a small packet wrapped in paper and secured with a ribbon. Jenna untied the ribbon

and unwrapped the paper. A familiar smell wafted out as she did so, and she stared down at the pile of dried, brown leaves there. "On the ship, I saw the cost of using

Lamh Shabhala, so I asked my healer what the ancient Holders used to ease their pain. He said some of them used this, an herb that the Bunus

Muintir knew. You grind the leaves and make a tea

!!

"I know," Jenna said, perhaps a bit too harshly. "Anduilleaf. Thank you. I’ve. used it in the past."

It would be pleasant to use it, just once again, to fed all the pain and cold leave your body for a time. . She set the packet on a table next to her chair.

You’ll leave it there. You won’t pick it up. You won’t use it again… At the thought, pain shot up her arm again, and she grimaced. They watched her, reminding her of crows standing on a tree limb watching a dying rabbit. They’d take Lamh Shabhala from you in an instant, if they thought they could… "I assume there’s another reason I’m here, Banrion."

Aithne smiled; the other two chuckled as if sharing a secret joke. "Evi-dently Moister Cleurach has already told you that while my husband may have the title, the Comhairle actually reigns. And we three… we hold the Comhairle. Four more tiarna and bantiarna on the Comhairle have pledged their votes to us when needed. The Ri will sign what I place before him. So what we decide here-" her hands spread wide-"becomes law." Aithne glanced at MacEagan, and Jenna saw a look pass between them, an affection that made Jenna wonder whether there was more be-tween the two than simple concern for their land or friendship.

But Kianna stirred and drew Jenna’s attention away from them. "You realize that the Ri Ard won’t leave you alone here. The Rithe of the Tuatha are afraid of Lamh Shabhala, if not of you. They’ll come here, and they’ll bring an army of thousands, supported by all the Clochs Mor they can muster."

Jenna thought of Mac Ard and the Ri Mallaghan of Gabair. She thought of Nevan O Liathain and what he would advise his father, the Ri Ard. "I know," she answered.

"We remember the last time a Tuathian army came here. It’s been en-graved in the tales we tell our children, in the history the sages keep, in the

very bones of the land. We remember the battles and the destruction," Kianna continued. Her finely-chiseled face frowned, placing lines around her mouth and eyes. "We remember the deaths of our ancestors: men, Women, and children alike. We remember the smell of corruption and smoke when Dun Kiil was sacked and burned. We remember the flare of the clochs na thintri as they tore at the very land and changed it forever." Her eyes held Jenna's. "We remember, and we wonder how we can pre-Vent that from happening now. To us. To our children. To our towns and lands."

Jenna couldn't speak, held in Kianna's stern, unblinking gaze. She had no answer, didn't know what the woman wanted her to say. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"You frighten the Holder, Kianna," the Banrion said, her voice holding a soft amusement, and the spell was broken. "She's such a young thing. ." Kianna took a step back, though the frown didn't leave her face

"Young or no," she said, "she has to understand the cost of her being here-the cost to all of us."

"I'm sure she does," the Banrion purred. "Don't you, Jenna?"

"I do." Jenna put her spine against the chair's back, rubbing at her arm She could smell the anduilleaf, seductive and enticing. "I know they'll come. I don't want that, but I can't stop them. As long as Lamh Shabhala is here, they'll come."

'"As long as Lamh Shabhala is here. .'" MacEagan commented. The brogue of Inish Thuaidh sat firmly in his tenor voice. "Aye, that's the crux, is it not?"

"Would you have me leave, Tiarna?" Jenna asked him. She sighed. "Then give me a boat and I will sail for Ceile Mhor, perhaps, or-" She stopped as the man laughed.

"You misunderstand, Holder," he said. "If you leave, then the likelihood is that Lamh Shabhala will fall into the hands of the tuatha. If that hap-pens, then Inish Thuaidh will inevitably fall to the Rl Ard. We'd fight and resist, we'd run to the hills and hide, coming out to kill them when they least expect it. We would die to the last rather than submit but eventually we would be conquered, because we couldn't stand against the massed power of the

clochs and the army the RI Ard can raise. But while Lamh Shabhala is here, we might yet prevail." He moved across the room to the window, pushing the stained glass panels open. "Holder, I’d like you to see this."

Jenna rose, going to where the tiarna stood. Looking out, she could see the ramparts of the keep, built into a mountainside overlooking the har-bor. Everything was cloaked in mist from the rain, but Jenna imagined that on a clear day the view would be breathtaking: the blue deep water, the curving strips of white sand, the houses set in the lush green foliage that cloaked the mountainside, the sheer black rock of the cliff on which the keep perched.

"They call this Croc a Scroilm, the Hill of Screaming. When Mael Armagh of Infochla brought his ships of war to Inish Thuaidh, when his cloudmages brought him safely through the storms our mages called up to stop him, it was here his fleet landed, and here that the first battle was fought. Then, there was no keep, only the flat top of the mountain. The pregnant women, the young mothers and their children, the elderly and infirm of Dun Kiil fled here when the Infochla fleet sailed into the harbor and they watched the battle from above. We had no army waiting for them since it was thought he would come first to attack Inishfeirm, where Severii O’Coulghan, the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, waited. Here there were only a few hundred gardai and maybe a thousand pressmen, and only a single cloudmage with her Cloch Mor. It was a slaughter, and quickly over. Those Inishlanders Ri Armagh captured-men and women both, for many of the women fought alongside their men-he brought bound and hobbled to the base of the mountain below these cliffs where those gathered above could see. With a wave of his hand, he had his archers fire into the helpless captives, while those above wailed in sorrow and terror and helpless disbelief. Then, Armagh ordered his soldiers to climb the mountain; when they reached the mourning crowds, his sol-diers raped the women and their daughters and killed the sons and old men, throwing their violated bodies over the side of the mountain to join the bleeding corpses of their slaughtered loved ones. Some, according to the tale, jumped over the cliff on their own rather than submit. They fell, all of them, screaming… "

Jenna’s hand had gone to her throat as MacEagan spoke, imagining the horror of that scene. "We

remember," MacEagan finished. "We will always remember. It was Severii who began the construction of this keep after the Battle of Sliabh Mlchinniuint, where Rl Armagh met his fate. They say it's the tears of those who died here that drip inside the keep when it rains. I don't know if that's true. I do know that the roof's been repaired and rebuilt and redesigned a dozen or more times over the centuries, and still the tears fall. I think they remember, too."

Jenna turned away from the window, MacEagan closing it behind her. She saw that the stained glass depicted the scene he'd just described: a woman, her mouth open in a silent cry, tumbled over black, jagged rocks. "What is it you're asking of me?" she asked the trio.

Banrion Aithne answered. "Some of the tiarna advise us to wait, to prepare our armies for the inevitable. That's the advice my husband listens to, because it means he can sit in comfort and do nothing. But while we sit, the tuatha make their own preparations. We've learned that the Rl Ard has ended the conflict between Tuath Connachta and Tuath Gabair, and that he is actively working to have the tuatha join together. If they all come, fully prepared and allied, we can't stand."

"What does your brother say?" Jenna asked.

Aithne almost laughed. "So you've felt the knives in his glare? Aron will be against anything that involves you, I'm afraid. I'll deal with that when the time comes. But. ." She paused. "We here in this room believe the time must be soon."

The bright shattering of glass tore Jenna's gaze away from Aithne_

Kianna tossed her wineglass into the fireplace.

"The Banrion is right," she said. "We must strike first. Before the Tuatha are ready."

The mage-lights came, and Jenna wearily pulled herself front the bed to answer their call. As she lifted Lamh Shabhala to their glowing strands of energy, she could feel Ennis doing the same somewhere nearby, and also Moister Cleurach opening Stormbringer, which he had taken for himself after having given Gairbith's cloch to Brathair Mundy Kirwan. The mage-lights seethed and roiled above her, and Lamh Shabhala sucked greedily at them, filling itself. Afterward, her arm throbbed and ached, and it trem-bled as she released the cloch, the pain shooting deep into her joints.

She went to the small chest of drawers beside the bed. She pulled out the packet of fine, soft paper.

"I must consider this," she’d told them. "1 need to speak to Moister Cleurach and Ennis, for what you’re asking also concerns them. 1 need to think…"

The Banrion had nodded and given her that small, cold smile. "Then we’ll talk tomorrow evening," she said. "But there is only one answer, Holder. I think you already know that."

Jenna had said nothing. She’d walked quickly from the room, but on the way, without conscious thought, she’d taken the packet Banrion Aithne had given her. .

She put water over the hearth fire to boil, holding the packet on her lap and watching the steam start to curl from the small iron pot. When she heard the first chatter of the boil, she took two of the leaves, crushed them in her left hand, and sprinkled them into the pot. The bitter smell of anduilleaf filled the room and she sniffed it gratefully, already feeling the pain easing in her arm and shoulder. She poured some of the thicken-ing tea into a mug.

For a long time, she sat there, just holding it and inhaling the aroma. She could almost taste it. She felt her body yearning for the brew, her hands trembling around the mug, and yet she waited. She could hear the voices in her mind, the voices of all the old Holders.

… go ahead. I was a First Holder and it’s what I needed, too. .

. . aye, and you were mad with it a mere five years later, Caenneth-homicidal, fey, and insane, and hated by those around you. . I could take it or not. I was never in thrall to it. . that’s what you wanted to believe. . that’s not what they said after you were dead. . it was all that kept me from going crazy with the pain. .

The arguments echoed in her head, contradictory. Her arm throbbed and sent stabbing flashes through her shoulder and chest. Finally, she started to lifted the mug to her lips.

There was a harsh knock on her door. "Jenna! Please open the door. I need to talk with you."

"Go away, Ennis."

"Jenna, open the door. I'm not going away." Again, the knocking came. With a sigh, Jenna set the mug down and opened the door. Ennis walked in. His right arm was bare to the elbow, and she could see the markings of the mage-lights beginning to scar his flesh as it had hers-not as deep, not as defined, but they were there. Seeing her gaze, he rubbed at the arm.

"It aches and throbs when I use the cloch or call the mage-lights to me," he said. "But it's bearable. I don't hold Lamh Shabhala. I didn't have to open the clochs na thintri to the lights. I don't have to bear the power you wield." He glanced at the mug steaming on the table. "Is that what you need?" he asked softly.

"I don't know." She bit her lower lip. Her right hand was shaking, and she pressed it against her stomach. "I'm afraid, Ennis," she said. "It hurts so much, and the leaf. . the leaf keeps the pain away, at least for a little while, but I wonder… I wonder if I hadn't been taking it… the Banrion… I was so confused, so angry.." She stopped. Her breath was coming in short gasps, her chest tight. The room swam in unshed tears.

He was close to her, but he wouldn't touch her. "You can't change what happened, Jenna. You didn't have a choice then."

"But I did." Her voice was nearly a whisper. "And I have a choice now."

"About the anduilleaf?"

She shook her head. "No."

"The Comhairle, then?"

A nod. "I told Moister Cleurach. ."

"I know. And he told me. What do you think?"

Jenna lifted her head. "I think they're right. There will be war, no matter what we do, and if we strike first, we have the best chance of prevailing. I also I think it would be horrible and I don't want to be part of it. The clochs na thintri shouldn't be weapons of war, Ennis, but that seems to be all they're ever used for-to gain power."

"Then tell the Banrion and the Comhairle that your answer’s ’no.’"

"And there’s even more death as a result. Right here. For good or ill this is my home. This is where my ancestors came from, and Ballintubber’s lost to me now. The RI Ard and Tanaise Rig both stand against me There’s nowhere I can go in Talamh an Ghlas. This is my home, the only one I have. Shouldn’t I defend it?"

"You’re arguing against yourself, Jenna, and that’s an argument you can’t win." A gentle, sympathetic smile touched the corners of his mouth creasing his cheeks. His hand lifted, brushed her cheek, and fell away. "Listen to your heart. What does it say?"

Jenna gave a bitter laugh. "I don’t know. I can’t hear it through all the confusion." She picked up the mug of anduilleaf.

"Will that help you hear it, or just cloud your mind more?"

A shrug. "Right now, I need something to lean on. To help. This is what I have."

"You have me."

Jenna started to speak. Blood pounded at her temples. She took a breath. "Ennis. ."

His hand closed around hers on the mug, so tightly that she gasped. "If you need this, then fine. I trust your decision and won’t stop you. But I’ll be here, too. I’ll give you what I can, whatever you want to take from me. I’ll stand with you in whatever decision you make. I’ll. ." He stopped. He was very close, his green eyes not letting her look away.

"Let go of the mug, Ennis," she told him. For a moment, he continued to stare. Then he took a step back, letting go of her hand.

She looked down at the milky brew inside the cup, at the promise it held. Very softly, she set the mug down again. She walked over to Ennis, put her left hand around his neck and pulled his head down.

She pressed her mouth to his. He tasted sweet, and she opened her mouth to him, an urgency and need rising in her. His arms went around her,

drawing her close, his hands tangling in her hair.

Her lips clung to his, moist and soft, as he lifted his head.

"Jenna. .?" he husked.

"Aye," she whispered back to his question. "This is what my heart says. And for right now, anyway, this is what I want."

Chapter 43: The Dream of Thall Coill

SHE was there, in the upheaval and the blood. .

Sliabh Mlchinniuint, the Mountain of Ill Fate, burned as if it were an ancient, slumbering volcano come to vile life, spewing rivers of molten lava down on its blackened and broken slopes, the earth steaming with gray-white mists under the assault. Only this was no natural fury; this was the terror of a battle of cloudmages. Beneath black clouds the armies clashed, and she was one of them: an Inish clanswoman roaring her defi-ance at the armored troops of Rl Mael Armagh, shouting her hatred of the banners of green and gold gathered in a writhing island of steel and flesh in the valley below. She rushed down on them from the slopes among the hundreds of her fellow clansmen, her throat raw with the battle cry they called "caointeoireacht na cogadh," the massed sound of it like the thou-sand-throated scream of an angry god. Overhead, the cloudmages called down lightning and fire as great explosions clawed at the mountainside with shrieking hurricane winds and twisting black funnels. She and her fellow clansfolk slammed into the Infochla troops with an audible clash of iron on iron, bronze on bronze, the impact stunning. Her first slash hewed off the sword arm of a young Infochla soldier. The soldier-no doubt a pressman boy of no more than fourteen, his face still pimpled- screamed a thin shriek of terror and shock, the arm pinwheeling to the ground still clutching the sword, blood spraying wildly over both of them. A blow struck her from the side, the bronze shoulder plates of her leathers dimpling under the impact. She went down on her knees, crying out as she swung her own weapon, blinking away the blood and seeing the edge of her sword slice through the thin mail of her attacker and cut deep in his abdomen. She struggled to her feet, knowing she was screaming feeling the sound ripping her throat but hearing none of it in the ferocious din of the battle. There was blood everywhere and no way to know if n was hers or her enemy’s. She saw a flash of green and gold; she slashed at it blindly. All around her, Infochla soldiers fell, and still the Inishlanders pushed forward, trampling the dead into the mud underfoot. Above and around them, the clochs raged, illuminating the battlefield with their bright, awful lightnings. Something struck the ground near her with a deafening ka-RUMPH: she saw searing, yellow light and a dozen and more soldiers, Infochla and Inishlander alike, screamed as the fire consumed them in an awful moment, leaving behind nothing but blackened skele-tons that stood in an eerie imitation of their last poses for a few seconds before dropping to the ground like broken dolls.

This was chaos. This was slaughter.

"This was how it was, Holder. This is how it would be. ." The voice seemed familiar, one of those who spoke to her when she used the cloch. "Severii?" she asked, knowing that he’d been there at the battle, but she was now somewhere else, standing at the edge of a high cliff in a small open space surrounded by the dark, brooding presence of ancient oak trees. Nearby there seemed to be a presence, but she could not see it. It was as if there was a blank spot in her vision where the presence lurked, so that it vanished whenever she tried to look directly at it. Is this Doire Coill? she wondered, and someone answered as if she’d spoken aloud, a woman’s voice this time.

"No, this is Thall Coill. This is the source and the place of Scrudu. ." Jenna turned around-there was nobody with her. And yet… there was. She saw them: a couple-a woman and a man, perhaps in their early twenties, both of them leaning against the trees at the edge of the clearing as if impossibly weary. They panted, their breath steaming about them in clouds although Jenna herself felt warm. Around the woman’s neck, out-side the soiled, ragged cloca, was Lamh Shabhala. Jenna’s hand went to her own breast: no, Lamh Shabhala was still there, on its chain, and yet… "Hello?" she called to the two, but though the woman's eyes were searching the cliff top, she didn't seem to see Jenna standing there or to hear her voice. She took a step forward, staggering to where Jenna sensed the presence, and fell to her knees. The man started to come forward and she raised a hand to hold him back.

"No, Tadhg, I have to do this myself. Stay back. Please. ."

Tadhg. . The name hit Jenna with a shock-could this be Tadhg O'Coulghan, the Founder of the Order? Jenna could see the conflict in the plan's face, the love and concern for the woman.

"Peria, come back. You don't need to try the Scrudu. You hold enough power with Lamh Shabhala the way it is now. We can go back, be content with ourselves. Think of Severii if you won't think of me; the boy will never know his mam…"

Jenna had the sense that this was an old argument, one that both of them had been going over and over for many days now, the protest and responses so automatic that they weren't even heard. The woman was shaking her head into Tadhg's argument, pushing herself up from the muddy ground. "I may be the Last Holder, Tadhg," she told him. "I've told you what the voices say-it's the first few Holders or the last few who have Lamh Shabhala when it's the strongest. By undergoing the Scrudu, the Firsts can create the path for the others to follow; the Lasts can forge a legacy to last until the mage-lights come again. I have to try."

"Almost all who try, fail. You told me that's what all the old Holders said, Peria."

"I won't fail."

"You don't know that. You can't."

Tadhg started forward again, and again she lifted her hand. He stayed, but Jenna could see him trembling with fear.

Taking a long breath, Peria moved to stand near the edge of the cliff and then turned her back to the sea, standing within an arm's reach of Jenna yet not reacting to her at all. Again, she looked all around her, her gaze passing through Jenna as if she weren't there. She stared at the place that was dark and blank in Jenna's sight.

The woman took Lamh Shabhala in her right hand, the loose sleeve of her leine falling back, and Jenna saw the familiar scarred flesh mirroring her own damaged arm. Grimacing with pain, Peria closed her stiff fingers around the cloch, her eyes closing as she opened it to her mind. Above the meadow there was a sudden burst of brilliance, a showering of stars that sent black shadows racing away into the forest. Peria's face lifted, the radiance forcing her to squint as she looked up. The mage-lights, brighter and more colorful than Jenna had ever seen them, twisted and writhed above her, their forms bending toward her, dancing downward

. . touching. .

Peria screamed, a long, drawn-out ululating cry, a wail of despair and desperation. Peria's eyes were wide open now, staring fixedly into the glare of the mage-lights. Jenna didn't know what Peria saw in her mind through the cloch-vision, but it obviously terrified her. Her mouth was working, pleading silently with something or someone that only she could see or hear, and Jenna saw her hand clench tighter around the cloch as if she were forcing herself to hold onto it when every instinct was telling her to let go, to release the power and save herself. Tadhg evidently saw the internal struggle also, for he surged forward with a cry. With his first step toward her, the mage-lights flared, an arc of blue fury lashing out to strike the man, hurling him backward. He got to his feet and tried once more; again, the mage-lights threw him back. This time, he didn't rise.

Peria didn't notice Tadhg's defeat. She'd sunk to her knees, as if beaten down by the power above her, though her face still stared at the mage-lights in stricken, helpless horror. "No!" Jenna saw her mouthing the word her free hand raised as if in supplication. The mage-lights flayed the sky, so powerful that Jenna could hear them, shrieking like a raging hurricane. "No!" Peria said again, this time an audible shriek nearly lost in the raging storm of the lights. "I can't!”

As if in answer, the mage-lights pulsed in one gigantic flash. They slammed down to earth, engulfing Peria. She screamed as if she were caught in the midst of an inferno, her body contorted in agony. As Jenna shouted with her, Peria was smashed into the ground. The crack of bones and spine was horrible to hear, a dry, awful snapping

like a handful of dry twigs. Her flesh tore; vertebrae ripping from her back, a femur erupting bloody and white.

The mage-lights vanished.

Jenna stood, stunned, in the sudden silence and dark.

"Peria!" The cry shattered the stasis. "Oh, Gods, no\" Tadhg had risen to his feet; now he ran to the broken body at the cliff’s jagged extremity. He sank down beside her, pulling her to him. Horrified,

Jenna saw Peria’s head lolling, attached only by flesh and muscle, blood pouring from her mouth, nose, and eyes. Tadhg cradled her body, rocking back and forth, sobbing and wailing as Peria’s lifeblood stained his clothes, calling her name over and over again.

This was worse than the battle, this was worse than anything Jenna had ever seen. Jenna could feel tears flooding her eyes in sympathy.

"That is how my mam died," the voice came again as Jenna watched Tadhg lay Peria’s shattered body on the ground, as she saw him take the cloch’s chain from around her neck and put it over his own. "That is how my da came to hold the cloch…"

"But what was that?" Jenna asked the voice.

"What was she doing?"

"Something only fools or the very strong should attempt," came the answer, but it was another voice, a familiar one.

"Riata?"

There was no answer or rather there were many, a babble in which she could distinguish no one person. The cliffside meadow and forest van-ished, and Jenna was standing in a white, cold fog, and the voices came m her from the air around her.

". . do this… "

". . no, you must not! It will be your death as it was mine… "

". . you have the chance where those who come after you may not. ."

". . Lamh Shabhala will always be primarily an instrument of war…"

". . it needn’t be that way…"

". . she can’t change it. She hasn’t the will for the Scrudu…"

". . she’s weak… "

". . let her die. ."

Then Riata’s voice came again. "She will make her own choice, in her own time, as I did."

"Riata! Please, I need to know more…"

The fog dissolved in an unseen wind. She was in a room, her room, the room where she had lived in Lar Bhaile, and in the bed Maeve groaned, her hair damp with perspiration, knees up and legs open and the sheet wet and bloodied under her. A midwife bent over Maeve, her hands be-tween Maeve’s thighs as another woman stood ready with a blanket and knife. "Push now, love; the babe’s nearly out. I have the head-curls as red as the sunset. All we need are the shoulders. Bear down, and push!"

As Jenna walked to the bedside to stand near her mam’s head, Maeve groaned again, her face tightening, her hand fisted in the blankets and body trembling. Then she gasped in sudden relief, and the midwife laughed. "There!" A thin cry sounded. The midwife’s assistant hurried forward with knife and thread. Jenna glimpsed the squalling infant as the midwife toweled him clean and swaddled him. "Tell the tiarna he has a son," the midwife said to her assistant. "He’s waiting in the other room."

Then she turned back to Maeve, tucking the baby carefully in the crook of her arm. Maeve touched the newborn’s pudgy, purple-red cheeks. "He’s a beauty. Do you have a name for him?"

"Aye," Maeve answered. "His name is Doyle. ."

"He’s beautiful, Mam," Jenna whispered, standing alongside the bed. Maeve’s head lifted almost as if she heard Jenna, and Jenna leaned over, reaching out to stroke her mam’s sweat-damp hair. .

"Jenna?" A new voice intruded, and she ignored it, but then her mam and her old room were gone and she was reaching out to nothingness. ’Jenna?" the voice called again.

"Jenna?"

She came awake with a start, realizing that her

fingers were clutching Lamh Shabhala, and that Ennis' arm was around her. The moon threw silver shadows over their bed. The sky was dark, the mage-lights having long ago died away. "You were turning and calling out," Ennis said sleepily. "I thought you were having a nightmare."

Jenna released the cloch, cuddling into Ennis' embrace. "I'm. fine — > she said. "If you'd just hold me for awhile."

His lips touched the back of her neck. His breath was warm down her spine. "I'll do that," he said.

They were in Moister Cleurach’s chambers in the keep. He'd stared at the two of them when they'd first arrived, their hands clasped together defi-antly and openly. "I knew this could be a problem," he said. "I expected better of you," he snapped at Ennis, then glared at Jenna. "I'd tell you that you're too young, but youths never understand that until it's too late and the mistake can't be undone."

That had started the conversation. It had gone downhill since then, with Jenna relating her dreams of the night before as servants brought in their breakfast.

"Thall Coill?" Jenna saw Moister Cleurach’s frail form shudder at the name. "What insanity have you been listening to, girl? You mustn't go there."

His words were like a slap in the face. He's treating you like you're his misbehaving daughter.

"So the dream was real? There is such a place? There is a test called Scrudu?"

"There is, and that's all you need to know."

"It's not your decision," she told him angrily.

"It certainly is," he retorted. "I'm Moister of the Order, and if I'm to teach you, then you'll damned well listen to me."

"You're a frightened old man," she retorted. "Why should I listen to you?"

Ennis put his hand on Jenna's shoulder. "Jenna-" he began, but she shrugged him away.

"Don't, Ennis," she told him. "I know how you feel about him and the Order, but I don't. I don't." She pushed away the plate of sausages and bread in front of her. "I don't know enough about anything,"

she finished more softly.

"That you don’t know enough is something that we can all agree on, Moister Cleurach answered.

The argument didn’t seem to have affected his appetite. He gestured at Jenna with a fork full of sausage. "Limn Shabhala holds a shadow of all its old Holders, as it will hold a wisp of you after you die-an image of your personality, though not your true soul. Well, not all of the Holders were good people or entirely sane at the end of the Holding, and a lot of those Holder-shadows would laugh to see you fail because it would mean that you’re no better than they were, and any advice they give is poisoned with that attitude. As for Thall Coill none of the Daoine Holders-none of them, girl, not a single one- ever lived through Scrudu, if it is truly a test and not just some old Bunus Muintir fable. If you could read-" Moister Cleurach paused for emphasis, "then you might have seen what Tadhg wrote after Peria’s death. He thought that this ’Scrudu’ was nothing but a rumor circulated by the Bunus Muintir to gain some small revenge on the Daoines. There’s no test and no reward; opening Lamh Shabhala at Thall Coill, the center of the mage-lights, kills the Holder. That’s what he believed." He shoved the sausage into his mouth, talking as he chewed. "You can’t trust the Bunus. Those who do so are fools."

Ennis’ eyes widened, and he started to protest, "Urn, Moister. ." But Jenna had already pushed her chair back from the table, the legs screech-ing angrily. She stalked toward the door.

It opened before she reached it.

"Good morning, Holder. I trust you broke your fast satisfactorily." Banrion Aithne stood in the corridor. Next to her was a red-haired giant: her brother. The sight of Aron O Dochartaigh’s surly glower made Jenna’s throat close. She took a step back as the Banrion nodded to her attendants to remain outside, then swept past Jenna into the room. The tiarna en-tered behind her, and Jenna stood well aside. As casually as she could, she mentally opened the cloch at her throat. The wash of emerald energy spread out like a rushing tide and immediately broke on another cloch’s presence, sparkling and foaming.

Aron held a Cloch Mor. He’d also made no attempt to shield the stone from her cloch-vision. It gleamed in Lamh Shabhala’s vision under his leine.

'Moister Cleurach, Ennis, would you leave us for a moment, please?" the Banrion asked. Moister Cleurach bowed to the Banrion and left quickly; Ennis hesitated until Jenna shook her head slightly to him, then walked over to Jenna and embraced her.

“I’ll be just outside," he told her and kissed her, the Banrion watching with an amused expression as Ennis and Aron exchanged stares. After the door closed behind them, she sat in Moister Cleurach’s chair at the table.

^ “I don't believe you actually had a chance to meet Aron, Holder Jenna,"

He said. "I know he was very interested in seeing you."

Jenna let her hand drop from Lamh Shabhala, and the doubled vision of the cloch vanished, leaving the world momentarily washed-out and colorless. She could see hints of Cianna's features in her da's face: he was hearty and full where Banrion Cianna had been sickly and thin, but the sharp, straight nose, the high cheekbones, the set of his mouth echoed that of his daughter, and now that she knew to look for it, she could see it in Aithne as well.

Aron glared, towering over Jenna. His hands were clenched in fists cords of muscle standing out under the sleeves of his tunic. He didn't extend his hand; she would have been afraid to take it. She saw his gaze travel from her face to her right arm. "Did it make the Firs? Holder feel powerful," he asked, "to have Lamh Shabhala crush the life from someone as frail and ill as my daughter?"

The words brought a searing flush to Jenna's face, and for a moment, tears blurred her vision. She blinked angrily. "No," she answered. "It did not. But let me ask, Tiarna, does it make you feel proud to know that Cianna pretended to be my friend while she twice sent others to kill me?"

Now it was Aron whose face burned red. The hatred radiated from him, palpable, and Jenna realized that she'd made a mistake: this was a man who loved his daughter, as blindly and unconditionally as any parent. He would not-he could not-see any evil in her. He would have protected Cianna in life without thought; he would do the same in death. Jenna would forever and always be the cruel murderer who had stolen that love from him.

And he faced her now.

The Banrion's tsk was a torrent of cold water into the heat. Jenna and Aron both turned to her to find her shaking her head. "This won't do," she said.

"The Rl Ard would be laughing himself silly, seeing the Inishlanders at each other's throats as usual. This is exactly what he wants. It's time to set aside your grief, Brother. Are you planning to demand eraic of the First Holder? Well, she has no blood payment to give you and we need her as an ally."

"I don't need her at all, Sister," the man retorted, swinging around to her angrily. "It's you and the fools on the Comhairle who think that. We don't need her. The Rl Ard also knows his history and will recall that every army the Tuatha have sent here has been broken by the Inish. It-and, unlike you, I think it's no certainty, Aithne-the Rl Ard manages to get the tuatha to work as one and come against us, we will break them again-without Lamh Shabhala." His gaze flicked toward Jenna. "And don't trust the Order, which has already failed Inish Thuaidh by losing their clochs to the Tuatha. In fact, Sister, I find it interesting to note that it was within a few weeks after the clochs na thintri were stolen from the Order that the First Holder chose to open them."

"I knew nothing about that, Tiarna," Jenna told him. "And I didn't choose the timing of the Filleadh."

A sniff. The huge man pulled himself up to his full, towering height. "So you say, Holder. Yet if I were the Rl Ard. . how convenient for me that the First Holder would show herself to be a threat to the Riocha; that she would dare to kill a Banrion and destroy a keep; that she would then flee to Inish Thuaidh. Curious, too, that along the way the person sent to pursue her would be the very tiarna who shares a bed with her mam-and she just happens to defeat him publicly in her flight. Wouldn't it be tragic if during the battle Lamh Shabhala suddenly turned against us, as it was intended to do all along."

"This is insane," Jenna protested. "You're concocting a conspiracy where none exists."

Aron ignored Jenna, his voice riding over hers. "Why, if I wanted to create an outside threat to pull the Tuatha together just when they were starting to war among themselves, I could ask for nothing better. What does it cost, after all? Only the death of a sickly woman who would proba-bly die soon anyway of the consumption in her lungs, and whose husband already has the children which were all he ever wanted from her."

"Aron! "The rebuke was sharp. Aithne pushed herself up, the chair scraping back as she confronted him. "This is not why we came here. We were in agreement, we were going to put together a plan… "

Aron towered over his sister: a mountain standing before a wisp of cloud. "I listened to you once before, Sister, when you told me that it would be good for Inish Thuaidh and for Cianna to have her marry Ri Mallaghan. But I do agree with you that there’s a threat to Inish Thuaidh looming." He pointed at Jenna. "The threat stands there. I know that now. I came with you because I wanted to see her. I wanted to listen to her voice. I wanted to look into the eyes of the person who killed my child before I made my final judgment. Well, I’ve looked, and I’m not im-pressed. I see no remorse or sorrow in her gaze, and I tell you, Aithne, that if you go into battle expecting her aid, you will find yourself crushed between the cloudmages of the Tuatha in the front and Lamh Shabhala at your unprotected back-because that’s exactly what they plan for you to do."

Tiarna," Jenna said, her hands wide, "I’m sorry for what I did. Truly. I wish I could undo it, but-"

Aron spat, deliberately and loudly. The globule pooled on the wooden floor a scant fingertip from her feet. "I have no more to say to you, First Holder," he told Jenna. "I’ll give you the warning you were too cowardly to give poor Cianna. From this day forward, I am your enemy. Remember that" The door shivered and trembled on its hinges as it slammed shut be-hind the man. The sound rang in Jenna’s ears for long seconds.

Chapter 44: Juggling Possibilities

THAT evening, Rl MacBradaigh declared that the Feast of First Fruits would take place in three days.

"What," Jenna asked Ennis, "is the Feast of the First Fruits?"

He kissed her throat before replying, and Jenna lifted her chin with a trembling gasp at the touch. His mouth traveled from throat to chin to mouth, and then he pulled slightly away from her, smiling down as he rested on one elbow on the bed, his other hand at the loose collar of her night robe, undoing the satin ribbon tied there. "The Feast of First Fruits. . Have you seen the blackberry vines on the columns of the Temple of the Mother-Creator?" When Jenna shrugged, he continued, his fingers slipping under the cloth of her gown. "Traditionally, the Feast takes place close to the Great Festival of Meitha, when the Dralodoiri who keep the temple first see that the vines show ripened berries. In truth, though, the Dralodoiri are sometimes told by the Comhairle that now would be a good time to proclaim the feast, regardless of the state of the vines-a few green berries can easily be dyed to provide justification."

The memory of Aron's declaration in Moister Cleurach’s chambers was a distraction to the pleasure of Ennis' roving hand. "And because of what happened today with the Banrion, her brother, and me, this is one of those times."

Ennis nodded. "I would think so, given the timing. I'd wager that this was the Banrion's doing to try to dissolve some of the tension." His thumb grazed her nipple; his hands cupped her breast. She closed her eyes, tak-ing a breath, and he laughed softly. His mouth came down again, brushing her lips. "Do you want to talk about this now?"

"No," she answered. "Not now."

"Then what do you want?" His lips touched hers once more, moist and warm, more insistent this time. She opened her eyes as he drew away loving the way he watched her.

"I just want to be with you."

"That's all I want, too," he told her. His hand had moved lower. "I would like that forever."

"Is that a proposal of marriage, Ennis O'Deoradhain?"

"It’s quite possible," he answered, almost teasingly. "But I also know it’s not what the Banrion or Moister Cleurach or probably even your mam would advise. They would tell you that the Holder of Lamh Shabhala should use marriage as a tool and use it when it’s most advantageous."

His voice had gone serious. His hand was still. "Do you think*I care what the Banrion or Moister Cleurach would advise?" Jenna asked him. "Do you think I need their approval? And my mam. . She would tell me that I should do what my heart says. And my heart says that I love you, Ennis."

She sat up abruptly, on her knees on the bed as she pulled the night robe over her head.

Underneath, she was naked except for the chain hold-ing Lamh Shabhala. "All I want is what is best for the two of us," she told him. "Is that what you want?"

He gazed at her. "Aye," he said huskily.

"Then you are overclothed," she said.

The Feast of First Fruits:

Street vendors appeared as if by summoned by magic. Booths were hastily erected around the main square of Dun Kiil, selling everything from hand crafts to potions. Street musicians, jugglers, and sleight-of-hand magicians stood on every corner. Bright banners were hung around the square and from the tessellated walls of the Keep high above. Carts groaning under the weight of apples, early corn, freshly slaughtered pigs-and new-brewed ale rumbled into town from the outlying farmlands. A sense of desperate gaiety infected the population; there was talk of little else. The Comhairle suspended their meetings (though Jenna suspected that the Banrion, Tiarna MacEagan and Bantiarna Ciomhsog still gathered to talk), and the lesser Riocha and ceil giallnai came in from the nearby townships, filling the inns and the taverns and swelling the population o Dun Kiil.

Jenna and Ennis moved through the laughing, shouting throngs in the street. As they walked from between the pair of standing stones that marked the entrance to the square, Ennis stopped Jenna and pointed. To their right, a juggler with a hatchet, flaming torch, and dagger wove bright, dangerous

patterns in the air. As they moved closer to watch, despite her determination to keep this a day strictly for merrymaking, the sight of the juggler made Jenna think of the choices she was juggling herself: to side with the Banrion and attack the Tuatha now; to go back to the Order and learn more from Moister Cleurach, knowing that the Tuatha would almost certainly invade the island; to seek the path of Thall Coill and the Scrudu, wherever that might lead. Perilous choices all, with their own keen edges ready to cut, and she wondered how long she could keep them all in the air before she had to choose one.

"He's good, isn't he?" Ennis said. Jenna started, then smiled at him.

"Aye," she answered. "He is." She dropped a morceint in the juggler's hat; the boy grinned at her and tossed the torch high, letting it spin several times as he struck the ax head deep into a small log standing end up to his right, jabbed the dagger point first into the wood alongside the quiver-ing ax, then caught the torch before it hit the ground and blew it out. He bowed extravagantly. Jenna and Ennis applauded, as did the small crowd that had gathered around to watch.

"You make that look easy. What's the hardest thing about juggling?" Ennis asked the juggler as he laid the smoking torch atop the log.

The boy chuckled and reached down into a large cloth bag behind him. He brought out three leather balls, juggling them high and slowly so that they could easily see the pattern. "There's just one ball in the air and two in your hands," he said as he juggled. "It's that simple." He stopped and handed the balls to Ennis. "Try it," he said with a grin.

"Start with two in your right hand and toss one of them high over to your left hand."

Ennis shook his head and started to hand the balls back, but Jenna laughed. "No, no, no," she told him. "You asked the question. Now you have to try."

Ennis grimaced. Standing spread-legged, he tossed the balls up in the air-right, left, right-and they all plopped immediately to the ground. Jenna and several of the people watching applauded laughingly. The juggler grinned. "You just have to remember that the ground always wins, Tiarna, Bantiarna." He reached down, flipped the torch up and caught it. The Mother-Creator designed our world so that when you toss some-thing up, it comes back down. That makes juggling possible, but it also Cleans that no matter how good you are, eventually you’ll make a mis-take.". He pulled ax, dagger, and unlit torch from the log and started the cascade again: ax, dagger, torch, ax, dagger, torch, ax-but this time they saw the dagger spin a little faster, so that it turned over one and half time starting to come down into the juggler’s hand blade first. With a comic’ expression of horror, he snatched his hand back at the last instant. The dagger clattered on the cobblestones of the street. "You just have to know when something’s about to cut you and remember to let it go," he said

The boy adroitly slipped his toes under the blade near the hilt and kicked the dagger back into the air-and suddenly he was juggling again Jenna and Ennis applauded once more, watching for a bit before tossing another coin in the boy’s hat and walking on. "I think you missed a career as a street performer," Jenna told Ennis.

"I think you just enjoy seeing me make a fool of myself."

Jenna laughed and pulled him close, hugging him. "I love being with you," she said. "I enjoy not having to think about anything for a few hours." She felt Ennis’ muscles tense under her hand. "What?" she asked.

They stopped. Ennis pretended to look at the cloth hung at a weaver’s stall. "I can tell you want to say something," Jenna said. "What?"

"I spoke to Moister Cleurach this morning, before we left."

"And?"

"He feels very strongly that you should come back to Inishfeirm. He believes that the more of the cloudmage discipline you can learn before the invasion comes-and we all know it’s coming-the better chance we’ll all have."

"And what does he think of the Banrion’s plan?"

A shoulder lifted his cloca. "He understands her position but doesn’t agree. No army’s ever come to Inish Thuaidh and conquered it. And no Inish army has ever left here to invade the Tuatha."

"No army’s ever had this many Cloch Mor with them," Jenna answered. "And no Rl Ard has ever put together an alliance of all the Tuatha, and if this one has… "

Another shrug. They moved away from the weaver's stall to the next, a potter's booth, bright with glazed mugs and bowls. Ennis picked up a bowl: golden brown swirled with blue. "So you agree with the Banrion. strike first before they strike us."

Jenna sighed. "I don't know who I agree with," she said.

"Attack first, or wait. You don't have any other options. At least none that I can see."

There's Thall Coill… she thought, but didn't voice it, forcing the thought away. The day was bright and warm, and the festival atmosphere filled Dun Kiil, and she wanted nothing more than to forget for a few stripes the decision ahead of her and just enjoy herself. Her hand brushed Ennis', and she tangled her fingers in his. "Shut up," she said.

He looked at her, startled, and saw her smile gentle the words. "We don't have to talk about this now," she said. "Tomorrow is soon enough."

"gut-" he began, then stopped himself. He took her hand and put it behind his back, pulling her close and kissing her. Jenna leaned into him, reveling in his presence, in the affection that radiated from him. He had, all unexpected, become her sanity in this. When she was with him, she felt complete, as if he been designed to sustain a part of her, as Lamh Shabhala had fulfilled another part.

It was never like this with Coelin. Never. This is what my mam must have felt for my da. . With that thought came its corollary: And what she feels now for Mac Ard, also. She recalled her last sight of Mac Ard, screaming with the pain of his loss as they left Banshaigh and Lough Glas. Jenna's fingers convulsed around Ennis'. He returned the press of fingers, his other hand trailing down Jenna's spine as he held her, and she let the memory go.

"Let's not talk about anything but ourselves today," she whispered to him. "Let's just enjoy this."

He grinned at her. "That sounds wonderful to me," he answered. He took a long, appreciative sniff of the air. "Smell that?" he said. "Someone's making milaran."

Ennis grinned. "You don’t know what a milaran is? Well, it’s time you found out."

Jenna would find that a milaran was a griddle cake made with honeyed batter and drizzled with molasses and spices. It was both sticky and deli-cious, and part of the fun of eating one was to lick the clinging syrup from each other’s fingers and mouth. They watched a street magician make scarves appear from empty boxes and coins vanish and reappear seem-ingly at will. They laughed and shouted encouragement to a pair of dwarves fighting a mock battle with wooden swords and groaned with feigned disappointment as their chosen champion fell. They listened to the start of a storyteller’s tale and helped fill his bowl with coins so he’d finish the story. They ate a midday meal at an inn near the waterfront, and in the afternoon went walking along the harbor way.

"Look!" Jenna said. "Aren’t those Saimhoir?" She pointed to a trio of dark shapes in the water, moving steadily toward the shore. The glint of blue highlights shimmered in their black fur. Jenna brushed Lamh Shabhala with her right hand and laughed. "Thraisha!" she called happily, then tugged at Ennis’ hand. "Come on!"

They ran down the wharf to where the harbor ended in a jumble of dark rocks. The seals were just hauling out of the water as they arrived, and Thraisha gave a warble and huff of greeting. Jenna held Lamh Shabhala in her hand, opening the cloch so that the cloch-vision overlaid her own and Thraisha’s words came to her. Thraisha glowed brightly in the flow of the mage-lights’ energy.

"May the currents bring you fish, sister-kin," Thraisha called. "A fore-telling came to me that you would be walking here today. I came to tell you first that the stone-walker you gave to Garrentha was saved. The stone-walkers in their islands-of-dead-wood-that-move. . what is the word you use for them?" Jenna felt the touch of Thraisha’s mind on her own, and she allowed the intrusion, let the seal rummage through her thoughts. "Ah. ’Ship’-that’s it. Garrentha kept the stone-walker afloat until the ships came. The stone-walkers in those ships pulled the stone-walker from the water, then the ships moved away from Nesting "Land to Winter Home."

Jenna nodded. "Good," Jenna told her. "Tell them that I thank Garren-tha for doing that." She glanced at Ennis. "And perhaps the captain was reunited with his son. I would like to believe that."

Ennis shrugged, and she saw that he held no such hope.

Thraisha turned to the other seals, moaning and panting in their own tongue for a few moments. Then she turned her head back toward Jenna, the blue-white pulse of Bradan an Chumhacht rising within the seal. "I came also to tell you another foretelling. I dreamed last night, and in that dream I saw several ships coming from Winter Home to Nesting Land." Thraisha lowered her head, her black eyes looking mournful and sad. "These ships were full of stone-walkers in hard shells that gleamed in the sunlight, and they had sticks of bright stone in their hands. They came to Nesting Land at this very place and hauled out onto the rocks and the stone-walkers who lived here swarmed from the dry hills to meet them. I saw smoke and fire. I smelled the scent of stone-walker blood. I heard cries of pain and screams of rage. And I saw you, sister-kin."

Thraisha paused before she continued, as if she didn't want to say more. "I could feel something incomplete inside you, as if you'd failed to do something you were expected to do. I could feel it like a hollowness in the fire of your soul. You stood there alone and called lightning down from the skies with Lamh Shabhala, but other sky-stones were there also, held by the hard-shelled ones, and they gathered against you. I was here, too, but I was too far away and others clochs were set again me and couldn't reach you. You looked for help but even though those with you held sky-stones of their own, they were beset themselves and none came to your aid. I saw you fall."

She stopped, and Ennis shook his head. "Your dream is wrong, water-cousin," he told her. "My cloch will stand with Jenna as will any others held by the Order."

Thraisha gave a coughing pant. "I did not see you in my dream, land-cousin," she said. "I'll admit that surprised me. I know you would be there, if you could."

"Then the dream is wrong," Ennis insisted. "It was a dream and nothing else."

The seal wriggled in what Jenna decided was the equivalent of a shrug. "That may be," she said. "I only tell you what came to me. But it had the feeling of a foretelling."

"Do you see what will be, or only what might be?" Jenna asked.

"I see what I see," Thraisha answered. "I don't know more than that." Another cough: "I'm sorry, Holder. When I came, I could see joy in your face and I have destroyed that with my words. I wish I could give it back to you."

Jenna glanced back at the town. They could hear the sound of laughter and see the tops of the banners fluttering from the roofs of Market Square, just past the warehouses and fisheries that flanked the harbor front. The gaiety struck a false note now, like a song sung just off-key. Jenna could look at the harbor and imagine it filled with the warships of the tuatha, could practically see the smoke of burning houses while below the streets of Dun Kiil were chaotic with battle. As she stared, her right arm throbbed, her fist convulsing with the pain as if she were already there, the power of Lamh Shabhala arcing through her and breaking against the massed might of the Cloch Mor.

"It's only a possible future you see," Jenna said.

"It must be. The Water-Mother sent you a vision in warning. After all, Thraisha, if what you see must happen, then what use is there in telling me? If it's destiny, then there's nothing I could do to change it. Any action I take would still inevitably lead to the same point."

Thraisha wriggled again. "I don't know the way of gods, yours or mine. I see what I see," she repeated. "If it's destiny, then I know I'll soon be here with you again. I saw more, sister-kin. When you fell, the clochs turned to me and I could not swim against that current. Their magic drowned me and Bradan an Chumhacht swam from my mouth. So if it's destiny, then it's not only your death. It's also mine."

"It's a glimpse of maybe," Jenna insisted. "That's all. A warning."

"I hope you're right, Holder," Thraisha answered. Her companions were chattering loudly behind, and she turned her head toward them, her tar glistening with the movement as she listened and then looked

back to Jenna. "The sweetfish have started their evening run, and it’s time for us to feed," she told Jenna. "I will see you again, sister-kin, and I will help you any way I can." Her gaze went to Ennis. "And you, land-cousin, I bid you farewell."

Thraisha waddled toward the water, moving awkwardly over the rocks and dropping into the water. One by one, her companions slipped into the water with her. Their heads regarded Jenna and Ennis for a moment then they ducked under the next swell and were gone.

Chapter 45: Torn Apart

THEY walked back to the square. Though Jenna tried to pretend that nothing had changed, the joy had been drained from the day. The gaiety and laughter around them only served as a contrast, making darker the shadows that wrapped around Jenna with Thraisha’s words. She real-ized now that there would be no escape from the burden of Lamh Shabhala, not until it was taken from her (and with the thought, a bolt of agony shot up her right arm as if it had been torn loose from its socket) or she was dead.

She could not escape the world: not with love, not with festivals, not by turning her back on it and secluding herself. She must be the First Holder.

"Come on," she told Ennis, taking his hand. She pulled him toward the square and for the next few stripes, she went from one vendor’s booth to another, watched all the performers, examined all the wares with a fierceness and energy that surprised Ennis. She plunged into the fair as if she could obliterate herself in its bright celebration. By the time torches Were lit along the square and the bonfires roared on the three hilltops around the city, Jenna was exhausted and certain that she knew what she must do.

They took supper in one of the inns just off the square, and afterward strolled out toward the crowd gathering around a temporary stage at the north end for a performance by a group of

mummers. They were stopped °y a page from the keep, who came running up to them. "Mages! There you are! I’ve been looking for you for over a stripe now…"

Ennis laughed at the boy, panting, his hands on knees as he tried catch his breath. "What is it, Aidan? Is Moister Cleurach wondering where we got to?"

"Not Moister Cleurach," Aidan answered, gulping air. "It’s the RI. The procession to the square is ready to start and he wishes the two of you to be at his side when he enters." He nodded toward one of the side streets leading away from the square. "Follow me," he told them. "I was told to take you this way."

They followed after him down the narrow lane. Jenna could nearly touch the houses on either side and little light made its way here from the square, only the milky light of the moon providing illumination. There were few people here, all of whom pressed back to let the three well-dressed Riocha pass. Aidan was well ahead of Jenna and Ennis, stopping near an intersection and waving. "This way! Hurry!"

They heard the horns announcing the Ri from the square behind them. Ennis stopped, a hand on Jenna’s arm. The page was looking back toward the square with a puzzled expression. "I thought-"

Ennis began.

The page collapsed to his knees, his eyes widening as if startled. His mouth opened but no words came. He fell face-down into the mud of the lane. Three arrows protruded from his back.

"Jenna!" Ennis yelled. He pushed her into a doorway across the street as more arrows suddenly hissed past them. Ennis grunted, and Jenna saw a wooden shaft blossom in red at his shoulder. He staggered backward against the wall across the lane from her. His eyes on her, he shook his head as she started to run across to him. His hand closed around his cloch.

A moment later, she did the same, ripping open Lamh Shabhala so that its power roared out like a rogue wave.

She could sense Ennis and his cloch, along with a trio of Cloch Mor lurking just down the lane. Several

dozen people were moving toward them from the front as well as behind. She had no chance to identify any of the ambushers or judge their intentions: the three Cloch Mors arrayed against her struck.

They concentrated on Jenna. As she crouched in the doorway, a rush of heavy wings beat the air above her. She looked up to see a demonic horror above: twice as tall as herself, skin burnished like bronze over massive muscles, clawed fingers and feet, and a brick-red face scowling with anger under folds and horns. Leathery wings sprang from the crea-ture's back. Looking at the thing dredged an elemental feeling of revulsion and horror from her, as if this were a creature formed of ancient racial fears or memory. Jenna wondered at first if it was simply an illusion, the apparition slammed into the structure above her, its claws ripping deep into mortar and plaster. The mage-demon was real and physical enough. The house shuddered at the impact, and Jenna had to use part of Lamh Shabhala’s power to shield herself from falling stone and beams. The creature howled, roaring words in no tongue that she had ever heard before as it started to fall toward her, but she pushed it away. It snarled and spat, slamming again into the second story of the house as its great wings flailed the air.

In frustration, it ripped away at the house, pulling it apart as if it were made of paper and throwing pieces of the ruin down toward her.

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 Lamh Shabhala’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 Lamh Shabhala. The boulder went black and fell, shat-tering 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 door-way 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 Lamh Shabhala 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 Lamh Shabhala had been beaten in the past-she could not put her attention anywhere long enough to counter-attack; inevitably someone would get through. She could sense that the other Cloch Mor Holders in the city were now aware of the battle: Moister Cleurach, 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 Lamh Shabhala 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 Lamh Shabhala.

Her cloca 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 horse-back. 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, trying desperately to see either with her eyes or through Lamh Shabhala. "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 Lamh Shabhala.

He was gone. Taken.

"Ennis!" she called again, knowing in her heart it was useless. Footsteps were running toward her from the direction of the square. Jenna whirled, her hand on Lamh Shabhala, ready to strike.

"Holder!" One of the Ri'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 RI (Map: Dun Kiil)

Chapter 46: Decisions

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

Jenna had been carried to her chambers in the keep and the healer sent for. Moister Cleurach 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 Aron 0 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 anduilleaf 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 haughti-ness and stiff certainty were gone. "I’ve sent word that the Comhairle will meet tomorrow, and we’ll send an edict to the Ri that Aron and those with him are to be proclaimed traitors, with the price of death on their heads! Holder O’Deoradhain is harmed." A trace of her old confidence returned to her. "The Ri 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

"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 Rl, 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 resist together if the Rl MacBradaigh 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 Aron; 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."

Moister Cleurach 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 Dun 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 ex-pect nothing else."

"There were two other Cloch Mor Mages with him. Who were they?

"We don't know."

"You hold a Cloch Mor yourself, even if you hide it from everyone. Show it to me."

Aithne started, sitting back in the chair and glancing at Moister Cleurach. 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 leine, a blue stone emerged, a finger's length long and cut with intricate facets.

"Do you recognize it?" Jenna asked Moister Cleurach, 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 under-stand why you'd be cautious. But I was with the Rl. You can ask any of the Riocha or half the townspeople. I had nothing to do with this. Or you can use Lamh Shabhala 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 leine 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," Moister Cleurach 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."

Moister Cleurach sniffed. "There were three Clochs Mor 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 Lamh Shabhala. 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 Lamh Shabhala. 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 Aron 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."

Moister Cleurach’s mouth tightened; his eyes narrowed. "And Aron O 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," Moister Cleurach 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 Lamh Shabhala full. Lamh Shabhala wants to be full." Biting her lips to keep from crying out, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Moister Cleurach, 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 snage-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 Aron would be doing, she was certain, and the other two who had been with him.

She took Lamh Shabhala 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 Lamh Shabhala 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 Moister Cleurach 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, Moister," she told him. "I can help Ennis most by being as strong as I can possibly be the Comhdail Comhairle, the Conference of the Comhairle, was as bois-terous and loud as Jenna had been led to believe it would be. Ri MacBradaigh 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-Aron

o Dochartaigh's chair-sat vacant. Jenna and Moister Cleurach were seated at the far end of the table, facing the Rl and the tiarna. This after-noon, the hall was also crowded with the minor tiarna and the ceil giallnai, standing behind Jenna.

Even though the sun shone beyond the great, tall stained glass win-dows behind the Rl, 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 Aron O 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. Despite the loud and brave talk, they were content with the verbal condemnation of Aron, 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 O 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 Ri should issue a warrant, but then we must wait. Tiarna

0 Dochartaigh will send word, and soon, as to his intentions. Do you not

agree, Banrion? You know Aron better than any of us."

Banrion Aithne rose, nodding to MacEagan and her husband, the Ri. "I do know Aron," 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 townland of Dun Kiil, Rubha na Scarbh was my home, and I know it and its clans well. Aron won’t be found if he doesn’t wish to be found. I believe-"

There was a crash as the doors to the hall were thrown open. Everyone turned, and even the Ri looked up sleepily. A bedraggled garda entered, looking travel-stained and tired. He held up a leather pouch toward the Comhairle. "For the First Holder," he said. The Banrion gestured for the man to come forward; a moment later, the Ri did the same. He moved through the press of tiarna, who stepped aside, and placed the package in front of Jenna. "We followed Tiarna O Dochartaigh’s path from Dun Kiil," he said. "He had a dozen riders with him, at least. They stopped at Nealmhar Ford to water their horses. We found this hanging on a tree branch at the crossing, with a note that it was to go to you, Holder." He gestured at the bag. "I rode here as quickly as I could. None of us opened it." He said that last sentence quickly, as if he feared that Jenna would

strike him down with Lamh Shabhala.