Holder of Lightning

"Thank you," she told him, as gently as she could. The Comhairle was staring at the pouch, knotted shut with a leather cord. Jenna untied the cord and opened the flap. She turned the pouch and a necklace slid out along with a sheet of parchment on which she could see the black scrawl of words. The necklace was silver and a cage of fine silver wire hung from one end. The cage was empty, but Jenna knew what had once sat there: Ennis' cloch, the one she had taken from Mac Ard.

"Oh, Ennis. ." she breathed, hand over her mouth to stop the cry that wanted to wail and shriek its way forth. "Don't," Mac Ard had pleaded when she took the cloch from him. "It would be like tearing away part of yourself to lose it. Don't…"

Now it was Ennis who had had his cloch na thintri ripped from him, it was Ennis who must have cried out in pain and loss, suffering more than if Aron had cut him open with his sword and left him to bleed to death. "Ennis. ." Tears dripped onto the paper, the sepia ink running where the water touched, and Jenna blinked furi-ously, grasping the necklace in her hand, wishing she could read the words and also glad that she could not. She handed the note to Moister Cleurach. "Moister, what does the note say?"

He read it slowly, aloud:

"To the First Holder Aoire-

"I send you this token as proof that I hold Holder O'Deoradhdin as hostage against the blood payment you owe for my daughter's murder. The eraic I demand is this: you will give me Lamh Shabhala, for you have shown that you are not fit to hold it. You will send the cloch to me via my sister, the Banrion, who will bring it to Rubha na Scarbh. Once I have the cloch in my possession, I will release my hostage. If I do not have Lamh Shabhala by the Festival of Meitha, I will send back your lover's body for you to mourn as 1 mourned my daughter."

Moister Cleurach laid the paper down on the table as if with great weariness. "It is signed," he said, "by Tiarna Aron O Dochartaigh."

They were all staring at Jenna. She could feel their

gazes, hot against the aching cold dread that had seeped deep into her with each word. "The Festival of Meitha is in ten days," the RI said, the first words he had spoken all morning, and it brought everyone’s attention to him. The Ri shrugged as if surprised. "We have a lot to do before then," he said. "All the preparation for the festival. ." He lapsed into silence, his mouth shutting abruptly. He waved a hand indulgently. "But go on. Go on."

Banrion Aithne audibly sighed.

Tiarna Kianna Ciomhsog rose and pointed to the parchment in front of Jenna. "This changes everything," she said. "Aron has made the affair not treason but eraic, a personal matter of honor between himself and the First Holder in which the Comhairle needn’t involve itself." Several of the other tiarna around the table muttered in agreement. Jenna saw annoy-ance flit over the Banrion’s face; Aithne nodded to MacEagan, who imme-diately interjected.

"He may have tried to do so. But it remains that Tiarna O Dochartaigh disrupted the holiday, destroyed the Ri’s property, and killed several of his subjects. That isn’t eraic; that is lawlessness and a breaking of the oaths of fealty and peace we’ve all sworn to the Comhairle and the Ri. The Comhairle should still recommend that the Ri issue the warrant against him."

Banrion Aithne rose then, nodding to MacEagan. "And I, sadly, must agree with Tiarna MacEagan." Her voice was tinged with soft regret. "Even though Aron is my brother, he has violated the peace of the Ri and de-serves to pay for that. ."

Jenna wondered why Aithne would argue against Aron, but Moister Cleurach leaned toward her and whispered. "Oh, she’ll make him pay-by bleeding his personal estate dry to come up with the honor-price against the warrant and replacing him in the Comhairle with another tiarna whose gratitude will give her his vote. Leave it to the Banrion to turn her brother’s rash judgment to her own advantage."

The Banrion continued to speak."… but Tiarna Ciomhsog is also correct in that the hostage taking is now eraic, and neither the Comhairle or the Ri can interfere in that." Aithne looked directly at Jenna, and though the sorrow still throbbed in her voice, her gaze was as hard as "int. "I wish it were different, First Holder. I wish the decision weren't so painful and difficult for you, or that I had wise counsel to give you. I don't. You must make your own decision as to how to respond to the eraic's demands. I can only offer myself as your servant to carry Lamh Shabhala to my brother, if that is what you decide."

Chapter 47: Voices

SHE wished she could speak with Seancoim. She wished she could sink into her mam's arms and simply sob. She wished Ennis were there, warming the other side of her bed.

But the night was cold and empty, and there was no one but Jenna herself and the voices inside Lamh Shabhala. She stroked the stone, listening. .

". . give it up! Aye, it will hurt and may even kill you, but holding the clock will end up being more pain for you than this, and death is a final release. Save the man you love… "

". . give up Lamh Shabhala, and you'll die unhappy and young. You'll hate him for having made you lose the cloch, that wonderful love of yours will turn sour and bitter and you'll end up with nothing. Nothing at all… "

". . go there yourself and attack the man. If you lose, at least you've fought… "

". . only a stupid fool would give up Lamh Shabhala for a lover… "

". . only an utterly selfish one would keep it at the cost of a lovers death…"

"Riata, talk to me," Jenna said, but if his voice was there in the babble, she couldn't distinguish it from the dozens of others. Jenna rolled from the bed, grimacing as the healing wounds and burns pulled and com-plained, and went over to a chest at the foot. Under the clothing were nestled the tore of Sinna Mac Ard and the carved blue seal her father had made. She picked up the seal, caressing it and

holding it against Lamh Shabhala. A moment later, the moonlight streaming in from the windows shimmered, and she was looking at the interior of her cottage in Ballintubber, and her da glanced up in surprise. "Who are you?" he asked, as he had every time.

And as she had every time, she told him, and watched his disbelief slowly turn to acceptance. She told him about Mac Ard and Maeve, about Ennis. "I don't know what to do, Da," she said finally, unable to stop the tears. "1 don't know. ."

Niall put down the block of wood he was carving. He walked toward her and a hand went out to touch her in comfort, but it moved through her as if Jenna were no more substantial than air. He looked at his hand as if it had somehow betrayed him. "What if it were you, Da?" Jenna continued as Niall stared at the offending fingers. "What if holding the cloch meant that you lost Mam?"

"I never held a cloch na thintri when it was alive," he answered. "It's not hard to give up something that had little value to you. I would give away a thousand stones like that to keep Maeve." He put his knife to the wood and a brown shaving curled away. "I'm sorry, Jenna. Truly I am. But I can't help you; I can't imagine needing to make the choice or the choice being that important." His sad, lost eyes gazed at her, and she was struck by the softness of his face and his hands. He wouldn't have been strong enough to hold Lamh Shabhala. It would have destroyed him. The thought was so like the cold, judgmental voices she'd heard in her head that she gasped, knowing it was her own voice she heard. She opened her hand and the carving fell to the floor. "Da, I'm sorry. ." she whispered as Niall and the cottage vanished, leaving her alone in the room.

She left the carving where it fell, picking up a shawl and leaving her chambers. The guards posted outside started to follow her, but she ges-tured to them to stay. She hurried down the stairs and corridors of the keep and outside to the courtyard.

"I need to go down to the town," she told one of the pages on duty there, and he scurried off to wake the stable master and bring a carriage. Half a stripe later, she left the carriage at one end of the wharf. "Stay here," she said to the driver. "I'll be back soon."

In the darkness, the harbor area was quiet, though she could hear laughter and singing from the tavern facing the docks, and the waves lapped the piers as mooring ropes groaned and hulls knocked gently against pilings. Jenna strode quickly to the end of the wharf where she and Ennis had gone the night of the Feast of First Fruits. She walked from the planks onto the wet, dark boulders there and sat, staring out over the water. She touched Lamh Shabhala, her attention drifting with its energy over the sea, calling.

There was an answer. Several minutes later, as she sat shivering in the cold night breeze, a head appeared in the waves, the waves splashing white and phosphorescent around it. A grunting warble: "Sister-kin." The Saimhoir hauled itself awkwardly out of the water and onto the pebbled beach.

"You knew," Jenna said. It was not so much an accusation as a state-ment, nor did Thraisha deny it. "When we left, you told him ’Farewell’”

“You knew."

The black eyes glinted in moonlight. Blue light shimmered in the satin fur, mottled with the pattern of the mage-lights. She smelled of brine and fish. "I knew that my land-cousin wasn’t with you in my foretelling, and I had the sense that I wouldn’t see him again."

Tears filled Jenna’s eyes with that, and Thraisha waddled over until she could put her head in Jenna’s lap. Jenna stroked the silken fur, crying. A drop fell near Thraisha, and she lapped at the water, tasting it. "Why do you give the salt water?" Thraisha asked. "Is it an offering to your gods?"

"No," Jenna answered, sniffing. "I’m crying because I know that I could change your vision. All I have to do is give up Lamh Shabhala."

"You can’t do that." It was not a warning or a caution, only a statement of fact.

"Why not?" Jenna railed. "Why shouldn’t I?

What’s Lamh Shabhala brought me that’s so wonderful I can’t bear to let it go? I’ve lost my mam, lost my home. I’ve had to endure more pain than I thought possible; I’ve killed people and had them try to kill me." She yanked the stone from around her neck, holding it in her hand, the chain dangling. "Why not give it up?" she shouted. She took her arm back, bringing it forward with a sharp, throwing motion.

But there was no answering splash out in the water. Her hand remained closed and when she opened it, the stone was still there, glinting in her palm.

"Jenna, stroke my back." Jenna placed Lamh Shabhala around her neck again, and reached down to Thraisha, her fingertips grazing wet fur: "No-harder, so you can feel beneath," Thraisha told her. Jenna rubbed the patterned fur, and underneath the skin of her back and sides, she could feel the lines of hard ridges. "Those are scars and wounds that are still healing," Thraisha said. "Not from harpoons or the teeth of the seal-biter. These are from my own kind, because they wanted what I have and tried to take it from me. Because they think that I'm wrong in what I do.

Her front flippers slapped rock as she moved, and Jenna saw that the left one was torn, as was her tail. "So it's no different for you."

"No, sister-kin." In the cloch-hearing, Thraisha gave a bitter laugh, as Jenna's own ears heard a soft warbling. "Stone-walkers and Saimhoir both came from the loins of the Miondia, and those lesser gods are all brothers and sisters from the womb of the same deity, even if we give Her different names-We are cousins and share more traits than we like to admit. There are a few who believe as I do, but only a few."

"What is it that you believe?"

Thraisha looked up at Jenna. "That we're to do more with the gifts we've been given than use them as weapons. That we who come First can mark this time and shape it so that it will be different and better than all the times the mage-lights have come in the past. That your fate and your choices-yours, sister-kin-are important to the Saimhoir because you hold Lamh Shabhala, who opened the way for all and who might still guide us." She huffed, her nostrils flaring at the end of the dark muzzle. "But there aren't many who agree with me. Most believe that Saimhoir and stone-walkers should stay apart, that our changeling land-cousins are abominations, and that the Bradan an Chumhacht should be used only for the needs of the Saimhoir. 'The stone-walkers live on the dry stones and their concerns aren't ours. We only meet them at the water's edge, and that's not enough. Use your gift

for your own kind.’ That’s what they tell me."

"I hear the voices of all the old Holders," Jenna said. "I’ve never heard any of them speak much of the Saimhoir."

Again the laugh. "Then perhaps it’s time one did."

"I didn’t want this," she said. "I didn’t ask for it."

"I know," Thraisha answered. "I didn’t either. But it’s ours, and the question is what will we do with it."

"You’ve already seen it in your foretelling. You’ve seen my death and yours. You’ve seen it all fail."

A cough, a moan. "Perhaps. Or, as you said, maybe that was only a vision of what could be, not what must be." Her head lay back on Jenna’s lap, as if she were tired. "What do you think Ennis would tell you?"

"He would tell me not to worry about him and to do what I felt was right." She stroked Thraisha’s head. "It should have been Ennis with Lamh Shabhala. Not me. It would have been better that way."

"It wasn’t what Lamh Shabhala wanted," Thraisha answered. "It chose you, and there was a reason for that."

"Then it should tell me what it is."

"I think it has," Thraisha answered. "You just haven’t listened. You need to listen now-to your head, not your heart."

"But Ennis…"

"Ennis is lost," Thraisha said. "I think you know that."

"No!" Jenna shouted the denial, screamed the word as if she could burn away the void inside her with the fury as she scrambled to her feet, pushing Thraisha away. In the tavern, the singing stopped, and someone opened the door, spilling yellow light over the dock and silhouetting a man’s figure. "I won’t let him be lost!"

"Hello out there!" the figure called. A few other heads appeared behind it. "Is everything all right?"

"I’m. . fine," Jenna said, turning to wave at the people in the tavern door. "Sorry. I just. . slipped."

The door closed. After a moment, the singing started up again.

When Jenna turned back, Thraisha was gone. The waves lapped the stones silently.

Chapter 48: Glenn Aill

THE party that left Dun Kiil on horseback was tiny: Jenna, Moister Cleurach, the Banrion Aithne and a quartet of gardai along with six attendants. They were escorted for the first day by the Rl and several tiarna and bantiarna of the Comhairle and their followers, but the others turned back when they came within sight of Sliabh Mlchinniuint, where long ago Mael Armagh had been defeated by Severii O'Coulghan. The group traveled on alone: beyond the townland of Dun Kiil into Maoil na nDreas and Ingean na nUan, and finally past the leaning, gray stone marker of the O Dochartaigh clan.

Jenna could well believe that Rubha na Scarbh could effectively hide Aron O Dochartaigh or a thousand others. The landscape was violent and wild, with sudden cliffs, great mountains of greenery-hung granite; boulder-clogged lowlands and hummock-strewn bogs. Mist and clouds draped the slopes and thunder rumbled in the valleys. They followed wandering sheep and goat trails or no path at all, coming upon "villages" of three or four houses where suspicious, grimy faces peered at them from shuttered windows. For every mile they traveled northwest, it seemed they traveled four up and down, or had to detour for half a day around an escarpment that flung itself across their path.

They saw a herd of storm deer, their hooves striking sparks from the rocks, the noise of their passage obliterating the storm. The next night, wind sprites lit the air around them in the mist and fog. From the pine wrests bristling on the mountains came the howls of wolves that sounded 'like sibilant, long chants. Red, glowing eyes watched them from the darkness, and once there was a call that none of them could identify at all-chilling long moan that raised the hair on the back of their necks, then was answered from across the valley.

"The land is changing," Moister Cleurach said.

"The Old Ones are slowly waking from their long sleep. You woke them, Jenna."

A rider had come up to their party that morning, as they moved deeper into O Dochartaigh’s land. A white banner fluttered from his spear, and his scabbard was empty of its sword. He’d glanced at Jenna, Moister Cleurach and their escorts, then handed the Banrion a note. "I wasn’t told the Holder would be coming, or the Inishfeirm Moister," the man said. "The tiarna… "

"Is my brother so defenseless that a dozen riders are a threat to him?" the Banrion asked, and the man flushed.

"The Holder-"

"— wishes to see that the hostage is delivered into her hands as was promised," the Banrion snapped. "Nothing more. Tell Aron that she is here to give him the eraic he demanded. Or if he prefers, we can ride back to Dun Kiil and he can be content with nothing."

Jenna had remained silent, staring back as the rider’s eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. Then, with an arrogant sniff, he wheeled around and galloped away. The Banrion had unrolled the parchment. "He’ll meet us at Glenn Aill," she said. Her eyebrows raised as she glanced at Jenna. "This is what you want, isn’t it, First Holder?"

Jenna felt a flush rise in her cheeks. "I don’t know of any other way to get Ennis back." Moister Cleurach came up to them, listening. Jenna couldn’t look at him, afraid of what Aithne might see if she did.

The Banrion seemed mostly amused by Jenna’s statement. "Love is a phantom, Holder. It lives but a few years, then withers away and leaves you wondering how you could have ever thought you liked this sad per-son sharing your bed." She paused, her head tilting slightly as she re-garded Jenna. "I think we’re more alike than you want to believe, Jenna, and I certainly wouldn’t give up what you have for that."

"I suppose I don’t have your cynicism, Banrion."

Moister Cleurach, grunted but said nothing.

Aithne smiled at Jenna. would call it realism,

Holder. Besides, your sacrifice leaves my brother as the Holder of Lamh Shabhala."

"I would have thought that was something you might prefer."

"Love is a phantom," Aithne repeated, "whether 'tis between lovers o between siblings. I hold no illusions as to whether Aron would allow any lingering affection for me to stand in the way of what he wants."

"And that is…?"

"He would like to see a true Rl sitting on the throne at Dun Kiil, one who wouldn't need or want the Comhairle. With Lamh Shabhala, he could well have that." Her gaze lingered on Jenna, and Aithne seemed to sigh. "I wish you trusted me more, Holder. I think we both actually want the same thing." She kicked heels into her horse's side.

"Does she know?" Moister Cleurach asked softly as the Banrion moved up the trail. Jenna shook her head.

"I don't think so."

"We may have made a mistake in not telling her."

"If so, it's already made," Jenna answered. "We've gone too far to take the chance now."

The Banrion stopped, looking back at the two of them. She waved her arm. "We go this way," she said.

They were in their second day of storm.

" Tis no worse than others I've seen," Moister Cleurach said. "The sea is a fey mistress and we're no more than a speck in her hand-there's no escaping her whims, not in Inish Thuaidh."

Jenna huddled sullen and miserable on her horse. The reedcoat she wore flapped in the gale force winds that shredded the gray-black clouds above and pushed them firmly across the sky. The persistent and steady rain, blown nearly horizontal, had penetrated every fold and gap in the reedcoat and plastered her hair to her skull under the hood she held over her face. Her mount plodded through the deluge, great clumps of mud clinging to her hoofs and fetlocks, her mane dripping and the leather saddle and reins sodden. The clouds ran aground on the tops of the steep mountains to either side of them, a thousand dancing and splashing rills and streams plummeting down their sides toward the river whose banks they followed.

It helped, a little, that the others in their small party were suffering with her. Moister Cleurach sniffled and coughed, the gardai and retainers grumbled and muttered. Only the Banrion Aithne seemed unaffected by the weather, sitting uncomplaining on her black mare as she peered around her.

"Another few hours," she said. "We’re nearly there."

Glenn Aill emerged from the storm and haze like an apparition: a curving half-moon rampart of native stone thirty or forty feet high, its horns ’acing outward toward them. Huddled high on a steep mountainside and adorned with draperies of vine and moss, the fortification could have been part of the landscape. Dour, small windows peered out from two towers at either end of the structure; a single massive oaken door at the center led out into a cramped, winding path through fifty yards of chevaux de frise: pointed, tall rocks set like thousands of teeth bristling in the gums of the earth, through which an army would have trouble advancing at any speed. The rocks gave way to a long, sloping meadow separated by stone fences into dozens of small fields planted with various crops or grazed by sheep, all running down to a narrow black lough that filled the valley in front of them. A stone-walled bridge with wooden planks arched over the water. No more than two riders could have ridden across it*abreast. "Glenn Aill was built over two hundred years ago and has never been taken by force of arms, though there have been attempts," the Banrion said. "Beyond the walls is the keep, also built of stone. Even if the outer wall and keep were overrun, there are corridors leading back into caverns in the mountain where you could hide forever, or come out far from here."

"You lived here?" Jenna asked. Aithne nodded, her gaze on the fortifi-cations looming above.

"Now and again, when there was need," she answered. "Normally, there are only a few families of attendants here to keep the place ready. Our parents retreated here once, when the chieftain of

Carraig an Ghaill attacked us over a dispute about grazing lands. I remember watching the battle-they never got farther than the bridge before they turned and retreated again. And my family would come here every so often, just to visit."

Jenna glanced at the forbidding scene, and Moister Cleurach shifted in his saddle. "Such a lovely holiday spot," he muttered, droplets falling from his white beard as he spoke. The Banrion only smiled.

"I think that right now Aron feels it's quite lovely," she said.

They rode over the bridge. The workers in the field stopped to look at them, and up on the mountainside, the great door in the wall opened. Several riders emerged, making their way through the chevaux de frise. "We should wait here," the Banrion said. "Out of any archer's range."

They pulled up their horses. The rain pummeled them as the riders made their way down the long slope. "This is your last chance, Holder, Aithne said to Jenna. "We could still turn and leave." Jenna only shook her head.

The riders stopped a few hundred yards from them. Aron was at their head. He reined in his horse and lifted a hand. "I expected no one but my sister," he said, his voice sounding distant and muffled in the storm.

"I need to see Ennis," Jenna called back to him. "I need to know that he's still alive."

Aron made a gesture, and two horsemen from the rear came forward. On one steed was Ennis, his hands bound together in front of him. The other was one of Aron’s men, with one hand on Ennis' arm and a long dagger placed firmly against his throat.

"Ennis. ." Jenna nearly sobbed the word. He sagged in his saddle as if desperately weary, and his green eyes were clouded with pain. His hair was disheveled and plastered to his skull with the rain; his skin was pallid and drawn. He stared at Jenna, pleadingly, and shook his head, water splattering on his face so that he blinked. He looked beaten. Defeated. Jenna nearly despaired, seeing him.

"Jenna," he husked. "Don't-" He stopped with a gasping intake of breath as the man holding him jabbed the blade against his throat.

"Be quiet," Aron warned him. "You are to say nothing."

She wanted desperately to go to Ennis, to rip the bonds from his hands and kiss him, to hold him in her arms again. And yet… he gazed at her like a lost thing, with no hope or joy in his eyes at all. Is this the way Mac Ard was after I took the cloch from him? Is this what I would look like once Lamh Shabhala is gone-or worse, since it's woven itself so deeply into me. .? She started to urge her horse forward, but Aron lifted his hand and the man holding Ennis pressed the dagger tight. "Move this way, Holder, and he dies. You know what I want. Give it to my sister. Now!"

Jenna let her hood fall back, uncaring of the rain. She brought her hands up and touched the chain around her neck. Muscles jumped in her face; she tightened her mouth, closing her eyes.

She lifted the chain from around her neck, the stone swinging in its silver cage, and handed it into Aithne's waiting hands. She bowed her head, clutching herself around the waist and cradling her right arm to herself as she gave a sobbing cry. Aithne glanced at the stone in her hand. Her lips lifted slightly, and Jenna quickly dropped her gaze away from the Banrion's face.

Aron’s laughter came from up the hill. "Well, you are stronger than I thought possible, Holder. You should have heard your lover scream when I plucked the cloch from his hands," he called down to them. "Aithne, you may come forward now."

Moister Cleurach, alongside Jenna, leaned toward her. "She knows," he whispered.

"Maybe. It doesn't matter. Aron takes the stone, sends Ennis to us, and We g°>" Jenna replied.

"And after that?"

"We ride hard and fight if we must."

Jenna heard the Banrion slap her horse's neck with the reins, heard the animal take a few steps forward through the mud. Then she stopped halfway between the two groups. "It's not much of a jewel, Aron," she said. "But I wonder. . how it would look on me?"

"Aithne!" He shouted the name, a call of fury. Moister Cleurach hissed in irritation. Jenna glanced

up to see Aron’s horse rear in alarm, and nocked crossbows appeared from under the cloaks of his companions "Don’t be a fool, Sister. You’ll wear that cloch for no longer than a breath The moment you take it in your hand and try to claim it will be your last."

4

Aithne laughed. "Such glorious threats. What will you do with it, Brother? Use it to promote yourself? Such a banal and selfish "purpose."

"Aithne, I warn you. The blood we share won’t stop me from giving the order."

"Oh, I know it won’t." Jenna watched Aithne heft the stone in her palm, as if in thought. "In truth, I gave this almost no thought until just now, when I took it into my hand…" She lifted her head up. "The truth is, Aron, that I trust the Holder Jenna more than I trust you. But. ." She clucked at the horse, urging it forward again. As she came alongside Aron, she nodded her head to Ennis.

"Let him go now," Jenna heard her say. "That was the agreement."

"Give me Lamh Shabhala." He held his hand out, palm up.

"Let O’Deoradhain go," Aithne repeated.

"When I have Lamh Shabhala in my hand. Not before."

Aithne glanced over her shoulder toward Jenna, then placed the neck-lace in his hand. He stared at it, then his eyes lifted to find Jenna’s gaze and he raised his voice to her. "I’m sorry," he said. "This is still not suffi-cient payment for my poor Cianna."

He nodded to the man holding Ennis.

The knife moved, slashing deep, and blood fountained even as Jenna’s hand belatedly closed around the true cloch, hidden in a small pocket in her cloca. "Ennis!" she screamed. "Ennis!"

He was already falling, his eyes open and unseeing, a froth of red foam on his lips.

Jenna was sobbing as she ripped open Lamh Shabhala with her mind. Unthinking, she threw its power, wild and raw, toward Aron. He was still holding the necklace in his hand, not yet realizing that it was a false stone. He was defenseless, his own cloch still resting untouched at his breast. She wanted to see him crushed and smashed, wanted the lightnings of the cloch to snap and burn around his screaming, broken body. She saw the lightning flash and crackle, arcing toward him, then. .

Just before the fury struck Aron, Jenna saw another lightning strike her own, and the two exploded in a white fireball and thunder. Another bolt followed, and Jenna was forced to shove it aside.

That is Ennis' clock, she realized. They've given it to someone.

Chaos erupted. Her senses lost in the cloch's, Jenna was vaguely aware of shouts and curses. She tried to follow the cloch's energy back, to see who possessed it, to kill him because he had what should have been Ennis'.

". . Lamh Shabhala! Use it!"

". . she still has it!"

Jenna was vaguely aware of what was happening around her. Moister Cleurach’s hand convulsed around the stone about his neck; immediately the storm howled a thousand fold with Stormbringer's energy. A hurricane wind tossed men from their saddles and pounded against the walls of Glenn Aill. She saw Aron’s fist close around the false Lamh Shabhala, then his face convulsed with a curse as he tossed it aside. Aithne had turned her horse, galloping back toward them as Aron lifted his own cloch.

Jenna, though, kept her attention on the person using Ennis' cloch. You bastard. . I'm almost there… I can feel you. .

A stream of energy-sapphire and white streams hissed and snarled, reminding Jenna all too well of the ambush in Dun Kiil-flared from the Keep and struck Aithne, hurling the woman backward from her horse.

. . there! I can almost see your face. . The winged demon appeared in the air above them, shouting rage; the lava-creature spewed orange flame as the other two Clochs Mor that had attacked Jenna and Ennis in Dun Kiil now opened.

•. by the Mother-Creator!

Jenna saw the figure holding Ennis’ cloch, standing at one of the win-dows of the towers on the wall.

She saw his face and she nearly released Lamh Shabhala with the shock.

She knew now why the cloch was handled so well and easily. She knew now who had helped O Dochartaigh plan the ambush. She knew now that there was another reason Ennis had been taken.

The new Holder was also its old one: Padraic Mac Ard.

In the cloch-vision, it was as if they faced one another in the same room though a quarter mile or more separated them. His mouth moved, his eyes almost sad. "Jenna. ." The word was loud in her hearing, even through the clamor. She recoiled backward, the vision of Mac Ard receding as if she were falling away from him impossibly fast. She found herself back in her body, the roar of the battle around her.

"Jenna!" Moister Cleurach shouted. His face was grim and strained, his Nesh pale as he lashed out with Stormbringer against the other clochs. He pointed at Aithne, but even the gesture allowed an opening, and the lava beast threw globules of fire that the winds of Stormbringer hurled aside only barely in time. The field workers were running away in panic; the rows of wheat nearest Jenna and the others were now ablaze. The Dun Kiil gardai had gone to Aithne, swords drawn uselessly. One went down

with a crossbow quarrel in his breast.

The mage-demon flapped its dragon wings above Aithne, claws out as it stooped like a hawk and plummeted. At the same moment, blue light-ning erupted again from Aron’s hand. Jenna imagined a wall above the Banrion and she felt Lamh Shabhala shudder in her hand as the demon struck it, as the searing energy from Aron’s cloch battered at-the shielding force. The demon, growling in frustration, tore at the shield; Jenna could feel it as if the claws were gouging at her own flesh. Aithne rose groggily, and she touched her own cloch.

A new demon appeared, the twin of the first. It hurled itself at the other and they came together with a roar.

Mac Ard sent lightning that tore at the earth directly in front of Jenna. Her horse reared, sending

her falling to the ground. Her right elbow struck a rock in the mud, and her arm went numb. She was no longer holding Lamh Shabhala. The world snapped back into drab confusion, the power of the Clochs Mor now just half-glimpsed whirlings in the air, the shrill howling of wind, and the flickering of pale light. One of the stone fences exploded, shards of rock flying everywhere. A fragment sliced across Jenna's left arm, leaving a long cut that gaped white for an instant before blood welled up. Jenna cried in pain and frustration. Her right arm throbbed with the pain of wielding the cloch as she scrabbled in the mud. There-she saw the cloch, an arm's length away, and flung herself at it. Her hand closed about it…

. . and the fury rose again: around her. Inside her.

"Mac Ard!" She screamed his name. She reached deep into the well of energy within her cloch, grasping it all, holding the power with her mind and shaping it. She could see him, could feel the lightning that writhed like snakes in his hands. She hurled the whole force of Lamh Shabhala s energy at him. He sensed the attack and pushed back at it. Aron, too, felt it, and his Cloch Mor turned to aid Mac Ard. For a moment they both held, then, with a cry, she broke through. Aron swayed in his saddle' senseless. Mac Ard, in his tower room, crumpled.

Jenna herself sagged, suddenly weary. She took a breath, ready now to finish it, to kill them. .

There were cries and shouts around her-she saw one of O Dochartaigh's riders pluck the tiarna's unconscious body from his horse and turn to gallop back up the hill. The others followed, retreating as the other two Clochs Mor pushed back Moister Cleurach and the Banrion's renewed attacks. Jenna flung the cloch's rage at them, and one of the Mages gave a cry and fell as the lava-beast wailed and vanished. The door to Glenn Aill opened to let the remaining riders in, then shut.

She could feel the remaining Clochs Mor close also, their Holders re-leasing the stones, though Moister Cleurach continued to hurl Storm-bringer's energy toward the walls and towers.

"Moister, it's over," Jenna heard Aithne say wearily. "They've gone. They'll be in the caverns and gone before we can get to them."

The old man lifted his hand. With a curse, he released the cloch. The storm was simply a cold, soaking rain once more. All but one of their gardai were dead; the Banrion’s attendants seemed to have fled. Three of the O Dochartaigh retinue lay on the ground, and. .

"Ennis!" Jenna ran to him, ignoring the pain and fatigue of her body. "By the Mother…" She sank into the mud beside him, pulling him into her lap. His eyes were open, and the long gaping wound across the side of his neck no longer pulsed, but seeped thick and red. The ground below him and his leine were soaked with it, and the blood covered Jenna’s rain-slick hands as she cradled him.

"Ennis. . Oh, Mother-Creator, no. ." His name was a wail, a keening of grief. The rain splattered on his still face, on his unseeing eyes, and she rocked back and forth in the muck and grass, willing him to stir, to take a gasping breath, to speak, to live. She cried, praying to the Mother-Creator, to the Seed-Daughter from whom the Miondia, the lesser gods, had sprung, to Darkness in His own realm, to any god that might bring him back. She touched Ennis’ face, still warm in the cold rain, and stroked his hair.

"He’s gone, Jenna." Moister Cleurach’s voice, at her shoulder. "Jenna, I’m so sorry…"

He’s not gone! she wanted to rail at him. I won’t let him be gone. There has to be something, some way to change this. . But no words came out. She looked up at Moister Cleurach, stricken dumb, her mouth open as she shook her head.

She took Lamh Shabhala in her hand. She held the cloch, opening the small store of energy still left within it. She held the energy, not knowing how to shape it or change it so that she could bring his soul back from where it had fled. The brilliance of the mage-lights shimmered around her, and it meant nothing. She let go of the cloch and fell over Ennis’ body, weeping.

She lay there for long minutes until gentle hands pulled her away.

Chapter 49: Leave-taking

THE attendants, returning now that the battle was over, argued that with the rain it was impossible to cremate the body, but Jenna insisted that a pyre be built in the nearest field. Jenna watched as they sullenly constructed the pyre in the downpour, sitting by Ennis' body and refusing to move whenever Moister Cleurach or Aithne came to join her, though she didn't resist when they tended to her injuries. The tears came and went on some internal tidal rhythm; the grief filled her like a cold moon-less sea, heavy and deep. The sun sank below the mountains beyond Glenn Aill; the rain subsided to drizzle as mist and a few stars emerged between ragged clouds.

"The pyre's ready," Aithne said. Jenna felt the Banrion's hand on her shoulder. The woman had said little since the battle. She crouched down alongside Jenna and took her hands, still clutching Ennis' stiffening body. "They need to take him now," she whispered, nodding to her attendants. They came forward silently and took the body as Aithne helped Jenna to her feet. She stood unsteadily, her legs weak with exhaustion and hours of sitting.

They placed the body atop the framework of logs and branches, and placed the bodies of the gardai who had died to either side of him. One of the retainers came forward with a burning torch and touched it to the base of the pyre. A pale blue flame flickered then went out. "The wood is soaked, Banrion," he called. "We used what little oil we had, but.. There was a hint of pleasure in his words, the ghost of an unspoken reprimand.

"I'll do it," Jenna said. She shrugged away the Banrion's hands, drawing a breath as she found Lamh Shabhala’s chain, recovered from where it had fallen and around her neck once more. She lifted the cloch, closing her eyes and coaxing the remaining essence from deep within the well of the stone.

She imagined fire: a flame of elemental force, burning purer and hotter than a smelter's furnace. She placed the image under the pyre and released it. With an audible whump, the pyre burst into flame. White smoke bil-lowed as the moisture in the wood went immediately to steam and evapo-rated.

The pyre hissed and grumbled, but it burned so aggressively that the attendants all moved well back. Shadows lurched and swayed behind them as the flames leaped up to envelop the bodies, the light from it touching even the walls of Glenn Aill. Jenna poured the last dregs from Lamh Shabhala into the pyre; the flames roared in response, sending a whirling column of furious sparks pinwheeling into the night sky.

She watched as the flames devoured the corpses. She imagined Ennis’ soul soaring free, dancing in the glowing ash toward the sky and the Seed-Daughter’s welcome to the afterlife. She watched until the pyre collapsed in a tornado of sparks; until it was no more than glowing embers; until she saw above them the mage-lights snarling the sky and felt the yearning, seductive pull of Lamh Shabhala toward them.

"I know you’re exhausted and hurting, Holder, but you need to renew your cloch," Aithne said softly, startling Jenna. "Aron and the others will be doing the same, and it’s a long and possibly dangerous ride home."

Moister Cleurach, off to one side, had already opened his cloch to the lights. Aithne stood near Jenna, her face gentle and sympathetic. The Banrion looked battered and sore: a bruise discolored her cheek and puffed one side of her mouth. Her cloca and leine were scorched, torn, and filthy, and blood had soaked through along one arm where a long cut trailed down nearly to her wrist. She’d been burned on the other arm-Jenna could see the blisters that glistened on the woman’s left hand, running up beyond the sleeve of her leine.

Jenna nodded. "Banrion, I’m sorry. ." she began, then faltered. So much had happened that demanded an apology: that she hadn’t told the Banrion about the false Lamh Shabhala she and Moister Cleurach had Prepared; that she hadn’t trusted Aithne; that Aithne had been injured Protecting her… "I wish I’d told you before what the Moister and I had done."

"I wish you had also," Aithne said and the agreement cut deeper than any of the wounds. "But I knew, or at least suspected. And I understand why you kept your own counsel and didn’t tell me."

"Aron was your brother, and I didn’t know how you’d react. I thought it might work, and it was the

only way I could think of to get Ennis b u and. ."A deep sob racked her from the center of her being, a grief ' huge and terrible that for a moment she thought she couldn't bear ' Aithne put her arms around Jenna, pulling her close. Jenna wept on the Banrion's shoulder, letting the lamentation rise within her and give voice to her bereavement as Aithne stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head as her mam might have done.

Her mam. .

Jenna gently pulled away from Aithne, pushing the grief back down within herself. "Banrion, during the battle, Lamh Shabhala showed me the face of one of your brother's allies. It was Tiarna Padraic Mac Ard, of Tuath Gabair, holding the cloch they'd taken from Ennis. And the other clochs. . Moister Cleurach is certain that at least one of the other Clochs Mor was among those stolen from Inishfeirm."

Aithne's face went grim. "That's a strong accusation," she responded. "Aron is stubborn and foolish. He thinks mostly of himself. But you call him a traitor to Inish Thuaidh now. And that is something I find hard to believe."

"I know what I saw," Jenna answered. She gestured at the sullen orange embers of the pyre. "I'm also realizing, now, how the loss of someone you love can mark and change you. And your brother's right: I was responsible for that. I bear the blame."

Aithne said nothing. Her gaze went from Jenna to the pyre. Finally, she placed her hand over her Cloch Mor. "I've been told the name of this cloch is Scail," she said. "'Reflection,' because it steals the power from another Cloch Mor and uses that force to defeat the attack. Aron gave the cloch to me, after I returned from meeting you at Inishfeirm. He said that it had been in our clan for centuries, but though he was eldest and it belonged rightfully to him, he had another. I used the cloch with Aron so that I could learn to understand how it worked. In those few minutes when our clochs were linked and struggling against each other, I also saw Aron’s mind mirrored in my own." She paused, taking a slow breath an looking away from Jenna. "I saw the rot in his soul," she continued, don't think you made him that way, Jenna. I think Cianna's death on exposed that vein within him and gave him an excuse to turn to it mo and more. If the Rl Ard

promised Aron that he would be made RI in Dun Kiil, then my brother might well listen and betray kin, clan, and oath. I still hope not. I still hope that there’s some other reason why he would tolerate Mac Ard’s presence here."

Aithne sighed. She glanced up at the sky, then down at her cloch have much time, Holder," she said. "And whatever my brother is or whatever he plans, you will need Lamh Shabhala. Let’s use the mage-lights while we can, and worry afterward."

The day dawned surprisingly clear and warm. The field workers came out from Glenn Aill, staying well away from the encampment over which flew the banner of Dun Kiil and Ri MacBradaigh. Of Aron O Dochartaigh and his people, there was no sign.

Jenna let Lamh Shabhala open slightly; in the wave of cloch-vision she felt no other Clochs Mor aside from those with the Banrion and Moister Cleurach.

If Aron and Mac Ard were still lurking in the area, they weren’t where they could immediately attack.

Ennis’ pyre still smoldered in the field, wispy tendrils of smoke rising from the ash. "Holder?"

Jenna turned to see Aithne and Moister Cleurach already mounted on their horses. The attendants were packing the last of the supplies onto the pack animals and the Banrion held the reins of Jenna’s horse. "It’s time to go back to Dun Kiil," Aithne said. "We need to make plans. I’ll make certain that the Comhairle puts a watch on our coast immediately, but I don’t have much hope that we’ll catch Mac Ard before he returns to Talamh an Ghlas and tells the Ri Ard what’s happened here. If you’re right and my brother has allied himself with the Ri Ard and the Tuatha, then we can expect them to attack soon. Possibly before the Festival of Gheimhri and winter. I’ve been talking with Moister Cleurach; he wants you to go back to Inishfeirm at least through the month of Softwood to continue your study with Lamh Shabhala."

Jenna walked over to them and took the reins.

She swung herself up on the horse, tucking the long cloca between her legs. She stared at the Pyre, then lifted her gaze away from Glenn Aill to the north and east where mountains lifted stony heads in the sunshine… You can determine the shape of this age…"… It doesn’t have to be this way…" I don’t think my path leads to Inishfeirm or Dun Kiil," she said.

Moister Cleurach followed the direction of her

gaze, and his mouth tightened under his beard.

"You can't be thinking of Thall Coill. Jenna, don't be stupid-"

He stopped as Jenna's head snapped around and she glared at him. "If you think that I'm at all concerned about the possibility of dying, you're mistaken, Moister."

He sniffed and frowned. "I didn't think that at all, First Holder. In fact, it doesn't surprise me at all that you'd choose a suicidal course So f your recent choices haven't proved to be particularly wise."

The words stung, her face reddening as if he'd slapped her across the cheek. "The difference between us is that I don't judge wisdom by ho little the action might cost me."

Aithne gave a short laugh, but Moister Cleurach’s eyebrows lowered like white thunderheads over the sea. "Jenna," he said, his placating tone at odds with his face, "at Inishfeirm, I can show you what the other Hold-ers of Lamh Shabhala have said about Thall Coill and the Scrudu. Why neither Tadhg or Severii O'Coulghan would attempt that, not after Tadhg witnessed Peria's death, and Tadhg was one of the most accomplished cloudmages."

"So you believe that because Tadhg was afraid of the Scrudu, I should be also. No doubt that's more of what you call wisdom."

"Tadhg watched the woman he loved die there," Moister Cleurach an-swered, all the softness gone from his voice. It was steel and bone. "You of all people should appreciate that. Don't push away those who are only trying to help you, Holder. You need us more than you can imagine."

"Don't try to impose your will where it doesn't belong. I am the First Holder, not you."

The two glared at each other. The Banrion rode up between them, so that their horses shifted and the eye contact was broken. "I think the Holder is fully aware of your feelings, Moister Cleurach," she said. "Jenna, I won't presume to tell you what course to follow. I only ask you to consider this: if you go to Thall Coill and fail, then you leave Inish Thuaidh open to the Ri Ard."

"If I don't, then probably Inish Thuaidh falls anyway. And right now, Banrion, I have to say that I find I don't really care. Inish Thuaidh was my great-mam’s home and I love this land, too, but ultimately the land will remain, no matter who is called RI in Dun Kiil. Will the lives of these people change?" She gestured at the field workers. "They’ll just switch one master for another, that’s all. No matter who rules, the crops will have to be planted, tended, and harvested, and the stock will have to be fed an watered. I know. I was once one of them and

I cared nothing for the Riocha in their keeps and estates. When you say Inish Thuaidh will fall, you mean yourself."

If Aithne felt the lash of Jenna’s words, she showed none of it. "Then perhaps you made a mistake not handing over Lamh Shabhala to y brother yesterday," she answered with a gentle reproof. "The Ri &r interest in Inish Thuaidh is mostly because you’re here, after all. If you’ve given him Lamh Shabhala, it might be that no army would come here at all."

Jenna’s hand had gone protectively to her breast, where the cloch was hidden under her leine.

"Jenna," the Banrion continued, "there are times we’re drawn into something all unwillingly. No matter what you do, the Ri Ard considers you now to be part of Inish Thuaidh. You’re their enemy; nothing you say or do will change that, not until you no longer hold Lamh Shabhala." Aithne stopped then, her gaze sliding to Jenna’s right hand and past to the white ashes of the pyre. "You had something I’ve never had, however short the time," she said.

"I envy you that, Jenna. What do you think he would tell you? Can you hear Ennis’ voice?"

"Aye," Jenna answered immediately. "I listened all night for it, asking him the same question. I heard the answer."

"This is nonsense," Moister Cleurach said. "Banrion, we have no time to waste here."

"Should I tie the First Holder to her horse and drag her back to Dun Kill?" Aithne answered. "Is that something you want to try, Moister?"

Moister Cleurach glowered but said nothing.

The Banrion gave Jenna a soft smile. The tore about her neck glinted with the movement. "Your Ennis spoke to you, truly?"

Jenna nodded. "I hear him here," she said, touching her breast.

"Surely you're not thinking of telling her to go," Moister Cleurach said. "That would be a tragedy for all of us, including Jenna."

Aithne sighed. "It's not a decision any of us need to make yet. Jenna, the High Road to the townland of Ingean na nUan is still two days' ride from here, and that's the road you'd need to travel to An Ceann Ramhar and eventually Thall Coill. We'll ride together at least that far, then we'll see." She looked at Moister Cleurach warningly. "And we'll speak of this no more today. A few days of thinking might do us all some good."

Chapter 50: Roads Taken

THERE were barrows where their path met the High Road, which was little more than an unmarked trail heading vaguely northeast down from the hills. In the storm and rain, Jenna had noticed neither the High Road nor the barrows when they'd passed before. The mounds were over-grown, appearing as stony, weed-infested hillocks in the field alongside the path, the low sun draping long shadows behind them.

"They're old Bunus Muintir graves," Banrion Aithne said, noticing Jenna's attention. "There are a few barrows here in Rubha na Scarbh, and more in the northern townlands. As children, we were told they were haunted. We were warned to stay away from them or the wights would rise from their slumber and come for us. No more than tales, I'm sure. I know that I was shooed away from them more than once, and Aron as well. They say there are still Bunus living in the hills and people still saw them occasionally, though I never did." She inclined her head to Jenna. "There's only another hour or two of light. There's an inn we could reach in that time and stay in dry and warm rooms."

"On the road to Dun Kill?"

A nod.

"I'm staying here tonight," Jenna said. Moister Cleurach groaned au-dibly.

"I don't care to sleep another night with rocks digging into my back, he said. "I'm an old man and I've been too many days away."

"Then go on," Jenna told him. "Leave me here.

I'm going no farther today."

Moister Cleurach looked at the Banrion. "Rocks," he said. "In her head,

too."

"If we stay out here, anyone can see our fire from the hills around us," the Banrion said to Jenna. "I know those with my brother will have eyes out there, reporting to him where we are. I doubt he would dare attack after the last time, but I don't know that for certain. He'd be less likely to do so if we're in a village, where others might be more inclined to side with the Ri in Dun Kill."

Jenna said nothing, sitting on her horse and staring down to where the High Road led off through the heather. She felt more than heard the Banrion's sigh.

"We'll stay here," Aithne told the attendants. "Make the camp ready."

The mage-lights that night were faint and weak, soft filaments that glowed fitfully and vanished. Jenna watched them while sitting between the bar-rows, away from the encampment and the fire, a blanket around her shoulders. Both the Banrion and Moister Cleurach had come to her ear-lier-Moister Cleurach demanding and gruff, Aithne soothing and under-standing, but both attempting to convince her to return to Dun Kiil. To both of them she gave the same reply: "I'll decide by morning."

She didn't know what she expected to happen during the night to ease the conflict within herself. The thoughts chased themselves, ephemeral and changing, impossible to hold or examine. She felt the conflict deep in her soul; when she tried to muddle through the choices in front of her, Ennis' face rose before her and the grief welled up again, overcoming her.

Once, she opened Lamh Shabhala, but there was only more confusion and contradiction in the voices of the old Holders and she closed it again quickly, returning to the near-silence of the night.

In the darkness there was the rustling of dark wings. A form appeared on the barrow to her left, a particle of night with black eyes that stared at her. A yellow beak opened. The creature cawed once.

"Denmark?" At the name, the crow cawed again and spread wide wings, gliding down to land in the grass in front of her. Its head cocked inquiringly at her. "Denmark, is that really you?"

The crow cawed once more as she reached out toward it. It didn’t move, but let her touch the soft, black feathers of its head and back. She glanced about her. "Seancoim, is he here, too?"

Denmark hopped backward, then flapped away again to the barrow, alighting there and cawing again. When Jenna got to her feet, the crow flew up again and landed just past the end of the grave, moving away from the fire and the encampment. Another caw. Jenna glanced back to where the Banrion and Moister Cleurach were sleeping, then followed after the bird. Fly several feet and wait; fly several feet and wait. The pattern went on for some time, until Jenna was well away from the camp moving steadily down and east into a wooded valley. Denmark led her along the bed of a stream tinkling merrily as it descended the slopes until it finally merged with a river wending southward through a stand of sycamores. Denmark cawed again, loudly this time, and flew off with a great flapping of wings, circling high and disappearing into the leaves of the trees.

"Jenna!"

The call was soft in the darkness, the voice familiar. She saw a flickering gleam of white beard in the shadows, and Seancoim stepped out toward her, leaning on his staff of oak.

"Seancoim!" She rushed to him, enveloping him in her arms and taking in the familiar smell of spices and herbs that exuded from his body and clothing.

"I can’t believe you’re here. How did you know, how did you get here. .?"

The old Bunus Muintir seemed to gaze past her with his cataract-white eyes, his hand holding hers. Denmark came flapping down from the branches above to land on his shoulder in a flurry. "You still overlook the slow magics," he told her. "It was always the fault with most of you Daoine. You’ll likely ignore them entirely now, with the power you

wield with the clochs na thintri." He took a long, slow breath and let it out again. "I saw, I heard," he said. "Once this was Bunus Muintir land, and some of us still live here, hidden." His blind eyes looked aside, but Denmark regarded her with steady, bright eyes. "I came as quickly as I could. But it seems I've come late. I saw the pyre two nights ago, and I felt your anguish. I'm sorry, Jenna. I knew that there was to be love between the two of you. Even when you denied it back in Doire Coill, I knew.

I m sorry."

The tears came again then, sudden and hot, pushing from deep within her. She'd thought that she cried away all the pain, but it returned now, redoubled, and she realized how much she'd been holding away, hiding it from Aithne and Moister Cleurach and herself.

"You'll always feel this pain," Seancoim murmured in her ear as he held her. "It will always be with you. You'll hear a sound or smell something, and it will remind you of him and you'll feel the loss all over again. But 1 will stop hurting you so much. You'll get used to carrying the grief, as you're starting to carry the pain of Lamh Shabhala without thinking about it."

"I was there. I saw them kill him and I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"I know. And that's not your fault. You need to mourn, but you also need to move past the grief. You're still here, Jenna, and while you are, you can't forget this world. If you're going to Thall Coill, I knew I should be with you."

"Thall Coill. ." She repeated the name, sniffing and wiping at her eyes. "That's what some of the Holders told me. Riata. ."

"I know. I saw his spirit, wandering restless from his grave and looking north. Come with me; we have a long way to travel and night is the best time." He hugged her again, then started to move away into the trees. Jenna began to follow, then glanced back up into the hills, where the campfire glimmered like a yellow-orange star. "You can choose only one path, Jenna," Seancoim said.

"How do I know which is the right one?" Jenna asked him.

"You don't," he answered. "And you never will

know. Not until the Seed-Daughter calls your soul back to Her and whispers the tale of your life in your ear. But you need to choose now. Go with them, or with me."

"I’ll go with you," Jenna answered, and with the words she could feel the doubt dissolve within her. She gave a final glance back at the campfire, wondering whether the Banrion or Moister Cleurach realized yet that she was gone. Soon they would, but Jenna felt certain that she knew what the Banrion’s decision would be: We can’t waste time searching for the Holder. She’s made me a promise, and she’ll keep it if she can. We return to Dim Kiil. .

Jenna turned to Seancoim, and followed his shuffling steps into the deep shadows of the sycamores, Denmark flitting ahead above them.

As Seancoim had indicated, they moved by night and rested by day, slip-ping through the landscape while the people in the villages and farms slept.

They met other Bunus Muintir: they crossed the River Teann in a currach oared by a Bunus they met on the shore, apparently waiting for them. Seancoim and the other man spoke in their own language briefly, the Bunus occasionally glancing at Jenna, but he either didn’t speak the Daoine language or had nothing he wanted to say to her. When she thanked him for his help, he merely grunted and pushed his boat away from the shore, paddling back the way they’d come. Jenna remembered the maps she’d seen in Inishfeirm and Dun Kiil.

Though she couldn’t read the markings on them, both Ennis and Moister Cleurach had pointed out to her the townlands and geography of Inish Thuaidh. Ingean na nUan, through which they walked now, was a lush land of rolling hills, punctuated here and there by the wide, checkered expanse of farmed lands, with small villages that reminded Jenna achingly of Ballintubber, tied together with the narrow ribbons of rutted dirt roads They avoided the settled areas, keeping to the forest that wound in and around the farmland. As the nights passed, they moved steadily eastward and the land started to rise again. With each dawn, as they settled in to rest, Jenna could see the mountains ahead of them less blue with distance, looming higher until their path started to lift toward them and they were walking in green, narrow valleys where rills and brooks rushed frantically down steep slopes toward them, half-hidden in bracken and thickets. They turned northward now, and when they were forced to climb up to one of the ridgelines, Jenna could glimpse off to the east the shore of Lough Athas; then, a few days later, to the north, the endless expanse of the Westering Sea, its waves touched with the milk of moonlight. Jenna wondered if, somewhere out there, Thraisha or her kind swam. But they never came close enough to the shore for Jenna to call for the Saimhoir with the cloch. Seancoim now turned north and east, roughly following the coastline but staying with the spine of mountains, steep hills, and drumlins bulwarking the island from the winds and storms that the sea often flung at it, and passing into the townland of An Ceann Ramhar.

This townland was sparsely settled, and the villages grew even smaller and farther apart as they continued north. They began seeing large herds of storm deer, their hooves striking thunder from the land. Wind sprites wafted in clouds through the branches of trees, and the red, glaring eyes of dire wolves could be glimpsed watching them as they passed, though none attacked. There were other sounds and calls in the dark, and glimpses of creatures Jenna couldn't identify. Even the more normal crea-tures seemed strange. She saw eagles flying high overhead with wingspans wider than she was tall, and they called to each other with voices that sounded almost human; there were enigmatic ripples in the dark lakes, odd footprints in the earth.

"The land has almost fully awakened here," Seancoim said one morning as they settled into an overhanging hollow in a hillside to sleep. He lit a small fire with dead branches, striking the tinder into reluctant flame with flint and steel. Denmark flapped over to roost on a nearby branch, his head down on his breast. "It spreads slowly, but soon all places will be like this. When the mage-lights last faded, hundreds of years ago, these creatures faded, too, remembered only in the tales of the old people. In a few generations, they were nothing more than myths and legends, and those who claimed to see them were ridiculed and laughed at. Now the mage-lights bring them back from the hidden, lost places where they rested."

"All the fables are real?" Jenna remembered the tales she'd heard back in Tara's Tavern: from Aldwoman Pearce or Tom Mullin or in the songs Coelin sang.

"Not all. But most are based on some truth, no matter how twisted and distorted they’ve become over time. In another twenty or thirty turns of the seasons, everyone will have seen the real meaning of the Filleadh." Seancoim groaned as he settled back against the rocks. He rummaged in his pack for an earthenware pot, filled it with water from one of the skins, and set it at the edge of the fire. He unrolled a packet of dried fruit and meat and passed it over to Jenna. "In Thall Coill, the awakening is nearly complete."

"Tell me about Thall Coill," Jenna said, breaking off a bite of the smoked meat. "Tell me about the Scrudu. 1 asked En-" She started to say the name, and her throat closed. She forced back the sudden tears, swallowing.". . Ennis," she continued, "but he didn’t know much about it, and Moister Cleurach simply wouldn’t talk about it at all."

Seancoim shook his head, his white, featureless eyes seeming to stare at the fire. "I won’t, either," he said. "Not until it’s time."

"Moister Cleurach believes that it’s not real, that it’s a Bunus Muintir trick to kill the Daoine Holders."

"Is that what you think?"

"I don’t believe you would do that to me."

Seancoim didn’t answer, only nodded sleepily. The eastern sky was lightening, though the sun was still behind the hills. The clouds were painted with rose and gold. "If I fail at Thall Coill," Jenna said, "I want you to take Lamh Shabhala."

Seancoim laughed at that. "Me? An old, blind man? A Bunus Muintir?" He laughed again, setting his pack behind his head as a pillow. "No," he answered. "It’s not a burden I want. Not now. If you fall, I’m certain that Lamh Shabhala will find itself another Holder, all on its own-one that it wants." He turned on his side, facing the fire. "And if you don’t let me rest these old bones, we’ll never get there and you won’t have to worry about it at all."

The mountains curved away east to their end at the long bay that jutted deep into Inish Thuaidh. Here, they were taller and stonier than their green-cloaked brothers and sisters to the south, thrusting jagged peak

into a steel-gray sky, piercing the clouds so that they bled rain and oozed a mist that cloaked the summits and sometimes fell heavily into the valleys

below. This was wild land, and if there were Daoine here at all, Jenna saw no sign of them. "The only towns of your people are well off to the south in the farmlands away from the coast," Seancoim told her, Denmark' sitting on his shoulder. He pointed away with his walking stick to the hazy triple lines of ridges, one atop another, receding into the mist, and gestured to the ramparts yet to the north of them, a wall of stone. "Past there is the peninsula of Thall Coill."

"Do you know the way through? Have you been here before?"

"No," Seancoim answered. "But we'll be shown the way, I'm sure."

"What do you mean?"

"Be patient," he told her.

They rested there that day, and Seancoim roused Jenna before sunset. They broke camp and trudged northward, toiling steadily upward be-tween walls of gray rock spotted with lichens and garlanded with slick green mosses. To Jenna, it seemed that Seancoim wandered, moving left or right at random, their progress erratic. He said nothing, but seemed to be waiting. As they trudged on, walking in deepening twilight while the peaks above them were still touched with the last rays of the sun, Jenna had the sense of being watched, though she saw nothing and no one. The feeling persisted; it was so strong that she touched Lamh Shabhala and opened it slightly, letting the cloch's energy be her vision. She could sense life around them, but she recognized none of the patterns it made in the cloch-vision. Somewhere, near the edge of the cloch's sight, though, there were pinpricks of radiance less bright than a Cloch Mor: some of the clochmion, the minor stones. She started to mention it to Seancoim, but he simply grunted and shook his head at her, and she subsided into si-lence.

They walked on, and the feeling of being watched persisted and strengthened as the sun vanished and the sky above darkened to ultrama-rine, then black. The crescent moon had yet to rise, but the constellation of the Oxcart wheeled ahead of them. The birds had settled into their roosts and Denmark was nearly unseen as he moved from rock to rock ahead of them.

Suddenly Denmark gave a caw of alarm and

hopped quickly into the air. The mound of rocks on which he perched seemed to shiver and lift and change, until. .

… the mound shifted like molten glass and solidified again, taking on the shape of a bulky, humanlike form standing shorter than Jenna o

Seancoim, nearly as wide as it was tall. It raised its arms, then cracked them together again with a sound like two boulders smashing. A few seconds later, there was an echoing clamor to their right, and two other rock piles began to move, flowing slowly into similar forms. In the dark-ness, their exact shape was difficult to see, but there was a scraping sound as they walked forward with a rolling, side to side gait. They wore no clothing, their bodies a light brown-gray color like slate yet with a glossy sheen like fired pottery, their limbs thick and muscular. They stopped a few yards from Jenna and Seancoim as Jenna reached for Lamh Shabhala, ready to use the cloch at need. Thick eye ridges curled downward on the lead creature’s face; its rough-hewn features frowned. Again, it clashed hands together, and this time Jenna saw sparks jump as the hands came together.

Seancoim answered with a like gesture, the sound of his handclap al-most comically soft in contrast. The creature uttered a low, warbling tone and seemed to nod, its head inclining slowly first to Seancoim then Jenna. It stretched a thick-fingered hand out to Jenna, beckoning once.

"Seancoim?"

"They are Creneach," he answered. "Have you never heard of them?" Jenna shook her head. "If you’d been brought up here, you would have," he continued. "They belong to yet another one of the old tales: the Clay People who live in their mountain fastnesses. The Hewers of Rock, the Eaters of Stone, the Dwellers In Darkness, the Boulder-folk. There were a dozen names for them in my childhood."

Jenna touched the cloch as the Creneach gestured again to her, its voice a liquid sibilance almost like a bird’s call. As she did so, she felt that same presence of a clochmion, focused in all of the Creneach before her-not hung about them like jewelry, the way she carried Lamh Shabhala, but inside. A part of their being.

Glancing back once at Seancoim, she went forward slowly, stopping an arm's length from the creature. Now that she was close, she could see umber eyes that reflected light back at her as it stared up toward her, as a cat's eyes might. The skin was unnaturally smooth, flecked with color like polished granite, and muscles bulged in arms, the torso, and legs. The unclothed being in front of her seemed to possess no gender at all; like its two companions, there was only a smoothness where she would have expected to see genitalia. The Creneach had no nose; instead, twin fissures ran between the eyes, each curling outward and under the deep eye sock-ets. The nasal openings flexed as the creature inhaled deeply in Jenna's direction, still venting its warbling noises. It leaned closer to Jenna, its head level with the cloch hanging on its chain. It snuffled and a trill of musical notes came from its mouth. A long tongue flicked out, a flash purple. Before Jenna could react, the creature licked at Lamh Shabhala the long, thin tip snaking between the silver wire of its cage before retracting. The creature smacked its lips, its eyes half closed as if considering the taste as Jenna's hand went belatedly to the cloch. She closed her hand around it, stepping back. The Creneach gave a final smack and turned to its companions; they conversed loudly in their own language for a moment.

Jenna opened Lamh Shabhala, and in the cloch-hearing, words mingled with the warbling voice as the Creneach swiveled to face her again. "Soft-flesh bears the All-Heart. She returns to us. Soft-flesh will follow." It beck-oned as the trio turned and started to waddle away between the rocks.

"Wait!" Jenna called to it, wondering if it could understand her through the clochmion inside it as Thraisha had understood her. "Who are you? What do you want?"

It looked at her. "You may call me Treorai, for I've come to escort you," it said, then continued to walk away.

Jenna glanced at Seancoim. He was already shuffling to follow them, his staff clattering against the rocks. She released the cloch, not wanting the Creneach to overhear her. "You're going to follow them?" she asked. "Seancoim, we don't know them or what they might intend to do."

"They seem to know where they're going," he

He smiled at her. Denmark cackled on his shoulder.

Jenna grimaced, but she followed.

Chapter 51: The Tale of All-Heart

TREORAI and its companions led them on a winding, upward path between two peaks. After a long climb, Terrain turned abruptly, de-scending by a set of steep and narrow stone steps into a barely-visible cleft. They followed the stairs down, then walked another mile or so be-fore again turning through a jagged fissure into a short passage and out into a small valley. The moon had risen by then, and Jenna could see a few other Creneach there as well as the black openings of caverns set in the overhanging, furrowed cliffs that lined the hidden spot. There were no more than fifteen of the creatures; in the cloch-vision, Jenna could sense that each of them held within it a clochmion. . and that there was one spot of greater brightness: a Cloch Mor.

She had stopped at the entrance, though Seancoim continued on. Terrain gestured for her to come forward. "Soft-flesh, bring the All-Heart," it said, the words sounding in her head while her ears heard the musical trill of its voice. Jenna hesitated, but Seancoim was standing there also, with the Creneach around him and seemingly unconcerned. Denmark flew over to Jenna, circled her once with a harsh caw, then flew back to Seancoim. She took a hesitant step forward as the Creneach gathered around her like a crowd of strangely-sculpted children. They sniffed and their tongues flicked out to touch her right hand, curled protectively around Lamh Shabhala. The touch of them was strange: cool and smooth, yet strangely hard-like fired and glazed pottery that was impossibly pli-able. She could hear the whispers as they huddled close, their voices crowding inside her head.

". . the All-Heart. ."

". . ahh, the taste. ."

"… it comes back to us…"

"… bring the Littlest to see…"

Jenna saw one of the Creneach push forward as the others made way It carried a small form in its arms: an infant Creneach, the tiny body smooth and marbled with color, its arms waving as each Creneach they passed touched it with its tongue.

There was a brilliance in the cloch-vision: the Cloch Mor was within the child.

"This is our Littlest," Terrain said. "Given to us in the return of the First-Lights. It carries a Great-Heart within it, so we know that the All-Heart is pleased with us and our long wait." Terrain took the infant from the other Creneach, cradling it close. "It will have life while the First-Lights stay, and when the lights return to their search, it will go with them."

"I don’t understand," Jenna said, shaking her head. "The All-Heart, the lights… I don’t know what you mean."

"Then listen," Terrain answered. Its tongue ran along the child’s face, like a caress, and the infant mewled in soft contentment. "You bear the All-Heart, so you should know…"

Back when there was only stone in the world and the First-Lights gleamed, before the coming of the soft-flesh things, there was Anchead, the First Thought. Anchead wanted a companion, and so took a pebble from Itself and let the First-Lights wrap around it. The First-Lights gave the pebble of Anchead life and awareness, and from this piece grew the god we call Ceile. Within Ceile, Anchead’s pebble grew, always pulling the First-Lights toward it. For a long time, Anchead and Ceile dwelled together, but Ciele found that Anchead still sometimes yearned for Its solitude and would often go wandering by itself, leaving Ceile alone for years at a time. So Ceile also became lonely, and like Anchead, broke away a pebble from Itself and held it out to the First-Lights, and they came and gave it life and shape also, though the fire of its life did not burn as deeply as Ceile’s. Each time that Anchead went wandering, Ceile would break off another part of Itself, until there were a dozen or more children of Ceile. Sometimes her children even broke oil fragments of themselves and made their own children, but their hearts were even weaker than their own and shone only dimly.

The children and grandchildren of Ceile were the first of the Creneach.

One day, though, Anchead went wandering and never returned, and Ceile sorrowed though the Creneach tried to give It comfort. The First-Lights felt the grief and loss of Ceile, and in sympathy they left and went to search for Anchead. As they faded,

so did Ceile's life and those of the Creneach. When the First-Lights had gone completely, Ceile and Its chil-dren and grandchildren fell down lifeless, and the wind and rain wore away the form of their bodies until all that was left were their gleaming hearts.

The soft-flesh things came, and they took away many of the hearts they found for themselves, for they loved the way the hearts looked-Ceile's heart was one of those that was taken.

And so it was until finally the First-Lights returned again from their unsuccessful search for the lost Anchead. The First-Lights found Ceile's heart and they went to it, filling it once more. But the soft-flesh things held the heart now and the First-Lights could not bring Ceile back, nor any of Its children or grandchildren who had also been taken. But the All-Heart that had been within Ceile was able to stir and waken the hearts of all Its children and grandchildren: those hearts the soft-flesh things pos-sessed could hold the power of the First-Lights, but only the few who had not been touched by the soft-flesh things could revive and have form and shape again as Creneach.

Without Ceile, though, none of the Creneach could take of themselves and make children. The First-Lights saw that and sorrowed, and so they gave a gift to the Creneach: they found a pebble that was like the heart of the Creneach and gave it life and form, and that one was the Littlest, and its light shone as bright as the first children of Ceile.

That is the way it has been ever since: the First-Lights go to search now and again for Anchead and we Creneach die. Our bodies crack and crum-ble to pebbles and dust, and the hearts within us fall away. Those hearts the soft-flesh things find and take will never live again as Creneach. When the First-Lights return from their search, they go first to the All-Heart and awaken it once more, and the All-Heart in turn awakens all of Its children and grandchildren. Then the First-Lights find the hearts that have not yet been touched and bring us back.

And they also wake a new Littlest or two. .

Jenna found herself staring at Lamh Shabhala as Terrain finished the tale, still cradling the infant in its arms. She tried to imagine her cloch burning with the mage-lights energy inside the god Ceile, only to be found after the long, slow erosion of her body.

She thought of all the clochs na thintri

Cloch Mor or clochmion-having first been born in the Creneach.

Truth or fable. . There was no way to know. All she knew was that the Creneach believed it, as Jenna believed in the Mother-Creator and Seed-Daughter, as Seancoim believed in the god he called Greatness, as Thraisha believed in her WaterMother. Perhaps they were all mingled, all shades of the same truth. Jenna looked around her at the Creneach, and inside each of them burned an undeniable cloch na thintri: that, at least, was truth.

"I hold the All-Heart that was inside Ceile," she said, and Terrain nod-ded with slow precision.

"I am Eldest here," it said. "This is my twelfth Awakening. I’ve seen the quick growth of soft-flesh things like you, who can change the very land. I have felt the All-Heart close by twice before: when I was Littlest, and also at the end of my last life." Jenna could hear the awe enter its voice, then, and its eyes were on the stone in her hand. "But this is the first time any of us here have actually seen it. It is a great gift for all of us, and for the Littlest."

". . my twelfth Awakening…" The import of that staggered Jenna-if true, the Creneach before her was unimaginably old. From Riata’s time to her own was thirteen centuries or more, and that would have encom-passed only a portion of two of Treorai’s "awakenings." Most of the voices within Lamh Shabhala were the more recent Holders; of the Bunus Muintir Holders, only Riata’s voice was easily heard, and he had been the last active Bunus Holder. There must be older, fainter voices buried deep within the cloch, going back and back to the dim mist of legend and myth.

And here, one of the legends walked.

Jenna glanced at Seancoim, who was leaning placidly on his staff, and then she bent down, looking at the smooth, shiny face of the Littlest in Treorai’s arms. She could feel the Cloch Mor shining in the chest of the infant, a jewel with a radiance stronger than the moon. She dangled Lamh Shabhala over it, as she might have with a child. It didn’t reach for the cloch, but its tongue darted from its mouth, sliding over the stone in its silver cage and withdrawing. The Littlest chirped then, birdlike, as if in satisfaction.

"It will remember," Terrain said. "We will all remember the taste of the All-Heart. Soon enough, when the Littlest has grown, we will leave here, each on our own, to search for Anchead while the First-Lights still glow in this land, but we will remember."

Terrain handed the Littlest to one of the other Creneach, and clapped his hands together again.

"But I forget that the soft-flesh things are always in a hurry, for your lives are short. We could stay here for several darknesses, remembering all the old tales of the All-Heart and our long search, but you would grow old in that time, so-" Terrain stopped, abruptly. He turned away from her, as if he'd forgotten she was there, and lifted his gaze toward the sky.

The first wisps of the mage-lights glimmered into existence, a feathery curtain dancing in the sky, and the Creneach responded, clapping their hands together once in unison. The resulting boom was deafening, and both Jenna and Seancoim put hands to ears as the Creneach clapped again, the explosion of sound repeating from the nearby peaks, each time fainter and more distant. The Creneach lifted their hands toward the sky and the brightening mage-lights, as Jenna felt the insistent pull of Lamh Shabhala and mirrored the gesture with her own right hand. The mage-lights curled and fused above the valley, lowering until their slow light-ning flowed around them in multicolored streamers. One stream wrapped itself around Lamh Shabhala, filling it eagerly; around her, Jenna saw the Creneach standing surrounded by the glow, their mouths open and the mage-lights swirling in as if they were swallowing them. The Creneach crooned, a twittering, musical sound almost like chimes stirring in a wind.

Lamh Shabhala filled quickly, and Jenna released it with a gasp of min-gled pleasure and pain. The Creneach paid no attention to them at all, their attention all on the bath of light in which they were immersed. Seancoim came up to her, his arm supporting Jenna as she slowly let the cloch-vision recede.

"We'll stay here tonight," he said. "Go on and rest, and I'll watch. ."

Chapter 52: The Protector

SHE was more exhausted than she’d thought. She fell asleep quickly and when she woke, it was dim morning, the sun lurking behind a thin smear of charcoal-gray cloud. The valley, in the daylight little more than a narrow canyon, was empty. Seancoim was poking at a tin pot boiling on a small campfire while Denmark pecked halfheartedly at the ground. Jenna’s right arm ached and throbbed. She grimaced as she sat up, rubbing at the scarred flesh.

"Where are the Creneach?" Jenna asked.

Seancoim pulled the pot from the fire with a stick. He sprinkled herbs from a pouch into the boiling water and Jenna caught the scent of mint. He set the tea aside to steep. "Still here," he answered. He pointed with the stick in the direction of a rock pile against the cavern wall. "That is Terrain, I think."

Jenna went over to the pile: undistinguished broken granite, glinting here and there with flecks of quartz-she would have walked past it un-knowingly a hundred times. The rocks were loose and in no semblance of any shape: ordinary, plain and common, as if they had tumbled from the cliff walls years ago and been sitting there since.

The only hint that this might be something out of the ordinary was a lack of weeds or grass growing up in the cracks between the boulders. She started to reach toward it with her right arm, but a flash of pain ran through her with the movement, and she cradled the arm to herself, stifling a moan. When the spasm had passed, she touched one of the larger boulders with her le hand: it was rough and broken, not at all like the skin of the Creneach had been. "You’re certain?"

"Aye," Seancoim answered. "When the sun rose, they all sat. As the light came, they seemed to just melt into what you see now. Before they went to sleep, though, Terrain told me that we would find the path to Thall Coill through the other end of the valley. It also said to tell you that the Creneach will always honor the All-Heart, and even the Littlest will always remember." Seancoim poured the tea out into two chipped-rim bowls and handed one to Jenna. "Here. You’ll need this: it’s kala bark."

"Not anduilleaf?"

He didn't answer |hat, simply gave her a grimace of his weathered face. "We have a long walk today."

Jenna nodded, sipping her tea and staring at the rock pile as if it might reassemble itself again into Terrain. "We did see them, didn't we, Sean-coim?"

The old man smiled briefly, the beard lifting on his flat, leathery face. "Aye," he told her. "We did."

"And is it true, what they told me-that each of the clochs na thintri is the heart of a dead Creneach?"

Seancoim shrugged. "It's what they said." He took a long draught of his tea, and tossed the dregs aside. He wiped the bowl and placed it back in his pack. "We should go. These mountains are best passed through in daylight."

They packed quickly, then set off again. The path led upward toward a saddle between two peaks. Eagles soared above them, huge and regal, and Denmark stayed on Seancoim's shoulder, not daring to challenge them. Their pace was slow as they made their way through broken, trackless ground, sometimes needing to detour around cliffs and slopes too steep to climb. They reached the ridge by midday, and finally looked down over a long, curving arm of forested land spread out into the distance before them. Fogs and vapors curled from the treetops, indicating hidden streams and rivers and bogs below the leafy crowns. The sea pounded white against the rocky coastline, until it all merged into indistinct haze. It was cold in the heights, as if summer had never reached here, and Jenna shivered in her cloca.

Thall Coill," Seancoim said, though he appeared to be looking well °out into the distance. "And there-on the coast-can you see the open rise where the cliffs lift from the sea? I can see it with Dunmharu’s eyes, but. ."

Jenna squinted into the distance, where there was a speck of brown and gray against the green. "I think so. Is that where. . where 1 must go?"

'Aye." He exhaled, his breath white. "That place is called Bethiochnead, and it's our destination. But we won't get there standing here. Come o at least it will be warmer farther down."

They took the rest of the day to toil downward

over the intervening ridges, through fields of bracken and hawthorn into glades dotted with firs, and finally into the shadow of Thall Coill's oak-dominated fastness There was no sharp demarcation, no boundary they that they crossed but they could sense the ancient years lying in the shadows, the long centuries that these trees had witnessed, unmoving and untouched. By evening clouds of wind sprites were flowing between the trunks of the oaks like sparkling, floating rivulets, and a herd of storm deer swept over the last stretch of open field, their hooves drumming the earth.

Jenna felt as she had in Doire Coill. This was a land alive in a way that she could not understand. There were places here older even than the ancient forest near the lough. As if guessing at her thoughts, Seancoim halted next to her. "We'll have no fire here tonight," he said. "I don't think the forest would like it, and I don't know what it can do. And beware the songs you might hear. Thall Coill is said to have a stronger, more compel-ling voice than the Doire. These trees were here when we Bunus came to Inish Thuaidh; they will still be here after you Daoine are as scarce as we are now. Thall Coill doesn't care about us-only about itself."

Jenna shuddered, feeling the truth of the statement. "We can't get to that place you saw tonight," she said. "I think we should stay here and not go any deeper into the forest tonight."

"I think there may be a better place to stay." Seancoim plunged the end of his staff into the loamy earth. He took a long breath, and called out into the gathering dark as Jenna watched him curiously. There was move-ment in the shadows, and from under the trees, two Bunus Muintir emerged.

They were both male, one nearly as old as Seancoim; the other much younger. Like Seancoim, they were dressed in skins, their feet wrapped in leather. They had the wide, flattened faces of the Bunus, their skin the color of dried earth. The young one, with a matted and tangled beard, was armed with a bow and a bronze bladed sword; the older, his chin stubbled with patchy gray, had only a knife and an oaken staff. The expressions on their faces were suspicious and decidedly unfriendly. ^Ae old one held out his staff and spoke a few words in their guttural lan-guage. Jenna understood none of the words but the intent was clear: they were not welcome here.

Seancoim replied in the same language, and Jenna belatedly reached for Lamh Shabhala, so she could understand what was being said, gesture drew the attention of the younger man; he pointed to Jenna s a as he spoke to his companion, evidently noticing the scars there. He nocked an arrow and started to pull back the string of his bow. Jenna’s fingers closed around the cloch, ready to defend herself and Seancoim, but the older one grunted and gestured to his companion. The younger Bunus slowly released the tension on the bow, though he kept the arrow fitted to the string.

The old one spoke in the Daoine language, his voice even more heavily accented than Seancoim’s, his words slow and full of effort as he tried to find the words. "Go back,’* he said. "You should never have been brought here." He glared at Seancoim.

"She holds Lamh Shabhala, Protector Loman," Seancoim told him.

"I know what she holds, and I know who you are, too-Seancoim Crow-Eye. A Protector should stay with the forest he has been given to guard."

"My pledge-daughter Keira watches in my place," Seancoim answered. "I’m old, and Denmark is ancient for his kind. Soon I’ll be blind again. The Greatness has given me another task. Doire Coill is Keira’s, now."

Loman scoffed. "So Seancoim has abandoned his charge. ." He nod-ded to his companion. "You see, Toryn, this is what comes of being too close to the Daoine. You fail in your duty and give it over to someone who’s not yet ready, who is still learning the slow magics. Doire Coill will fail, like so many of the other old places." He lifted his grizzled chin. "But not Thall Coill."

"You underestimate Keira," Seancoim answered quietly. "You always did. She’s been away from me and doing the work of the Protector for over two hands of years now. I see you still don’t trust Toryn and keep him close so you can correct his mistakes."

Toryn visibly flushed at that, and the bow came up once more. Sean-coim lifted his staff even as Jenna started to open Lamh Shabhala. "Do you really want to match our skills, Toryn?" Seancoim asked. "It would be a shame. Loman’s getting too old to begin with a new pledge-child."

Toryn glared; Loman spat on the ground. "Put your bow away, boy," Loman said. "Don't let him goad you into foolishness. It's not Crow-Eye you have to worry about; it's the Holder. Slow magic can't stand against Lamh Shabhala, even when it's wielded by a girl-child." I m not a child," Jenna snapped back angrily.

Loman didn't answer directly, but his eyes showed his contempt. "You misunderstand if you think I'm being anything but kind to you, Holder. I’d love nothing better than to see you fail here-with none of your own People around you. It's been a thousand years and more since a Bunus uintir held Lamh Shabhala. I wonder. . what would a Bunus Holder be able to accomplish? Perhaps the Daoine could be made to regret why your ancestors did to us, eh?"

"What would happen to Lamh Shabhala after I'm gone isn't my concern, "Jenna answered. "If I fail, I fail."

"Then you have a death wish."

"I'm not afraid of death," Jenna answered. "I've seen too much of it"

Loman's eyes narrowed at that. "Maybe not such a child, now " he muttered. "But you've chosen a poor adviser if you're listening to Seancoim." His gaze went back to Seancoim. "You think she can survive Scrudu, Crow-Eye? You can look at this stripling and believe that?"

"Riata believes it," Seancoim answered.

Loman made a sound like a kettle too long on the fire. "Riata's long dead."

"His body, aye, but his spirit is still restless and he has spoken to Jenna. He seems. . impressed by her."

Loman snorted again. "The Daoine are a weak race. They conquered us only because they were so many and we were so few. They conquered us because their swords were iron and ours were bronze. But even with steel and numbers, they still wouldn't have won had our clochs na thintri not been decades asleep when they came." One shoulder rose and fell. "We would have pushed the Daoine back to Ceile Mhor and beyond if the clochs had been awake. But go ahead, Crow-Eye. Let her try. I think Toryn would be a good Holder, afterward."

The youth grinned at that, cocking his head appraisingly toward Jenna. "It’s about time that Lamh Shabhala came home to Thall Coill," he said. His voice was thick and low, blurred with the Bunus Muintir accent, a voice of confidence and certainty. "I’ll be happy to escort the two of you to Bethiochnead, and afterward. ." He grinned again, showing his teeth. "Lamh Shabhala will come back to us, and perhaps we can obtain a few of the Cloch Mor, then who knows? It may be that the Bunus Muintir win emerge from our forests and hills and take back what was once ours, an age ago." Dreams flashed in his eyes, widening his smile.

"Come with me, Holder," he said. "Let me show you Thall Coill.

It was Toryn who led Jenna and Seancoim through the trackless forest, Loman refusing to accompany them. "I’ve no interest in watching J° Daoine die," he told Seancoim. "That’s your task, since you brought here. And I’m too old to want Lamh Shabhala." The forest…

A spine-backed form slunk away through the snarl of seedlings to their right. A patch of moonlight struck blue highlights from a whorled shell taller than Jenna, glimpsed in a meadow bordering the shoulder of a black stream. The smell of sulfur and rotting meat wafted from a fissure bound in vines. Air colder than winter or the heights of the mountains spread from a pond whose glowing water was the color of buttermilk fresh from a churn. Calls and hoots and shrill cries erupted from the darkness around them.

And the tree-song. . Jenna heard the call of the ancient oaks, the green life in the most ancient and lost hollows of Thall Coill, a compelling whisper that rustled the leaves above them, that caused the oaks to bend down with many-limbed branches, that hushed the call of the mage-lights nearly invisible under the canopy of the forest. Thall Coill had a stronger, more insistent voice than Doire Coill, a call that echoed down in the very fibers of Jenna’s being. The voice of the forest awoke primitive echoes, as if pulling at impossibly ancient ties between the trees and her most distant ancestors. More than once, Jenna found herself straying from the path, wandering away as Seancoim and Toryn continued on. The first time it happened, Seancoim called to her, breaking the spell, and Toryn laughed. "She’s weak," he told Seancoim. "The Old Ones would snare her, and we’d find her bones years later, sitting against their trunks."

Jenna flushed, embarrassed that she could succumb to the trees' sing-ing, but she noticed as Toryn turned away that there were tufts of moss in his ears, and that Toryn pushed them in deeper as he strode away.

You're not the only one. . Seancoim nodded to her, with a quick smile; he had noticed as well. "Everything beautiful is also dangerous," he said to her before turning to stump along after Toryn.

As Jenna followed along behind them, she tried to see the forest with Seancoim's eyes. It was beautiful in its way, she had to admit. The oaks, their massive trunks wound with vines of mistletoe, with girths so wide that two people could not have encircled them with their hands, were survivors from when Thall Coill, Doire Coill, and the few other old growth forests had dominated all of Talamh An Ghlas, penetrating far into Ceile Mhor and even to the great continent of Thall Mor-roinn. The Daoine were still in their homelands then; the Bunus Muintir were nothing but a series of family-based clans scratching out a subsistence exis-tence under the trees, their culture just starting to coalesce.

Walking here, Jenna felt as the first peoples must have felt: insignificant arid small in the midst of this ancient life. The forest was a single creature, a vast and intricate organism in whose bowels she walked, and within its body was mystery, danger, and, aye, great beauty. If the forest desired, it could crush her with its sheer weight. It tolerated her because she was small to do it any real harm.

She understood for the first time why the Bunus Muintir could worship a goddess whose earthly form was an oak tree.

They walked for hours, Toryn (deliberately, Jenna was certain) keeping a quick pace that made it difficult for Seancoim to stay with him. Jenna remained at Seancoim's side; Toryn would at times be so far ahead of them that he was barely visible in the moonlight filtering down through the trees. Each time, Seancoim sent Denmark angrily flying to the young man, screeching at him from a nearby branch until he stopped to wait hands on hips, while they caught up with him again. And each time, as they approached, he would start off once more without a word.

Jenna had decided she despised the man by the time false dawn tinted the horizon with rose and ocher.

The call of the Old Ones had faded; Jenna could hear the rhythmic pulse of the sea crashing against rock. The land was rising steeply under them, the trees thinning quickly until they gave way entirely to a grassy swath. Here, the bones of the land showed through the dirt: furrowed lines of bare gray limestone, the cracks sprouting a few weeds clinging to the thin film of earth at the bottom. At the top of the rise, the land simply stopped at a sheer cliff while-nearly a hundred feet below-waves gnawed at the feet of the island. The wind blew in steadily, cold and misty. And there. . where in her dream of Peria and Tadhg had been only the sense of a presence that would not allow itself to be seen.

It might have been a huge cat or, perhaps, a dragon. The statue stood a few strides from the cliff edge, gazing out to sea as if it were protecting the forest or the island from unseen invaders. The statue was carved of jet-black stone, glassy and volcanic in appearance and unlike any rock Jenna had seen in the area. The head was perched thirty feet above them on a massive four-legged body, sitting down on its haunches with its tail wrapping around its left side and curling away to end abruptly at the cliff edge. Along the sloping back, there were two ridges where wings might once have been, though there was no evidence of them having tumbled to the ground around them. The monument’s features were blurred by the weight of centuries, polished by wind and sand, eroded by rain until all that remained was the obscured outline of what the creature had once been.

"Bethiochnead," Seancoim said as Jenna gazed up at the creature, t was here when we Bunus Muintir came. No one knows who erected this or exactly what it is."

"The Greatness Herself put Bethiochnead here for the Bunus Muintir to find," Toryn said from the side of the statue. "It still holds Her power."

Seancoim shrugged. "That’s what some believe, aye," he told Jenna. He glanced at Toryn. "But not all. There may have been other races here before the Bunus and Daoine, and they may have made this. Some think it was the Creneach who sculpted it, that this is a representation of one of their gods.

Others think it may be a Creneach, solidified by some magic, or else a mythical creature snared by a spell, or. ." He stopped, tapping his staff on the rocks as if testing their stability. "Its origin doesn't matter. It only matters that it's here. This is the center. This is where the mage-lights are strongest."

"What do I do?" Jenna asked. She clutched her right arm to herself. It felt colder and more lifeless than ever, though there was no pain. She could only move the fingers with great effort. The scars on her flesh were pure white, as if etched with new snow.

"You rest," Seancoim told her. "And sleep if you can. When you're ready, I'll tell you all I know."

Chapter 53: Bethiochnead

SHE hadn't thought she could sleep, but she did.

In her dream, she was with Ennis in Ballintubber, entering Tara's Tavern. Coelin was there inside, and Ellia with several small children around her, all of whom looked like miniature Coelins. Everyone was singing and dancing, and Ennis and Jenna joined in with them. In the midst of the dancing, without warning, the door opened with a sudden crash like thunder. A form stood there in darkness, cloaked in black with its face hidden and sending a surge of unreasoning fear through Jenna. She grabbed Ennis by the hand and they ran-that agonizing, skin-crawling slow run of dreams where the legs refuse to cooperate no matter how hard you try. Somehow, she and Ennis retreated into the fireplace and through another door at the back of the chimney, which led them outside again. It was raining, and Kesh was barking and running circles around her. Mac Ard was shouting something from inside the cottage (for when Jenna looked about, they were back at the old house), only when she glanced up it was her father Niall whose face she saw at the window. Her mam was outside with Jenna, and Jenna felt a stab of jealousy because Ennis was so close to Maeve, his arm around her waist. .

Jenna woke up, feeling a sense of incredible loss sitting heavy on her chest as the remnants of the dream faded quickly in the light of reality-It was late afternoon, and the clouds had cleared. The statue cast a long shadow that reached the cliff edge and disappeared. She seemed to alone, though Seancoim's pack was next to hers. She sat up, the blanket around her shoulders, and saw Denmark come flapping out of the woods. The crow circled the statue once but didn't land on it, coming instead to rest on a nearby boulder. The bird cocked its head at her; a moment later, she saw Seancoim and Toryn walking up the slope from under the emerald cave of the oaks. She stood, shivering a bit despite the warm sun, as they approached. Toryn was staring at her; she ignored him. Seancoim handed her an apple. "Here, you should eat something. Did you sleep?"

Jenna took a bite of the apple, letting its tart sweetness awaken her, and shrugged. "A bit." She glanced at the statue. "What do we do now?" she asked.

"That depends on you. You're still resolved to try? You realize that only a few times has anyone gone through the Scrudu and survived?"

"And none of those were Daoine," Toryn added. When she glanced at him, he smiled.

"I don't care about me," she told them. "If I die, I can be with Ennis. If I don't, then maybe his death will mean. . will. ." She stopped. The heaviness returned to her chest, not allowing the words out. Seancoim nodded as Denmark hopped up into the air and, with a flap of black wings, landed on the old man's shoulder.

"All right," he said. He came over to her and hugged her. She let herself fall into his herb-scented embrace, her arms going around him. "You can do this," he whispered to her. "You can."

He released her, his blind gaze looking past her out to the sea. "Stand in front of Bethiochnead, Jenna," he said. "Take Lamh Shabhala in your hand, and open the cloch. That's all you need to do. The rest. ." He patted her cheek, smiling gap-toothed at her. "You'll have to tell us, after-ward."

He walked with Jenna around to the front of the statue. She could hear the waves roaring against the rocks; she could feel the wind tousling her hair and

the sun warming her face; she could smell the salt breeze mixed with mint and loam. The colors of the landscape seemed impossibly satu-rated, the green of the grass like glowing emerald, the limestone ribs of the land speckled with white and red and soft pink. She wondered if she would ever see them again. She wondered how much it would hurt.

Her hand closed around Lamh Shabhala. She willed the cloch na thintri to open, and felt the power go surging forth. one was still standing near the cliffside, but the land now ended several ’feet farther out. And the statue. .

It was no longer ruined and half missing. The legs and chest rippled with carved tendons; the feet were cat-clawed, seeming to tear into the rock on which the creature sat. The body was scaled, feathered and brightly painted: the red of new-shed blood and the blue of a child’s eyes the simmering yellow of the yolk of a hen’s egg. The expanse of wines spread majestically from its back, ribbed and fingered like some gigantic bat’s, with black, leathery skin pouched like sails between the ribs. The tail was complete, with a barbed, bulging tip at its end.

The head had a long muzzle, the mouth partially open to reveal twin rows of daggered white teeth. The ears were like a cat’s also, though be-tween them were scales like staggered rows of painted shields; its eye-brows were two fans of spines, meeting above the muzzle and running back over the middle of the skull. The eyes were frighteningly human; the large, expressive eyes of a child, and as Jenna gazed at the statue, the eyes blinked and opened. Though the mouth didn’t move, a low, stentorian voice purred.

"So. Another one comes after all these years."

Jenna could feel the power flooding from the statue; above, the mage-lights curled, visible even in the bright sunlight. The trees of the forest beyond writhed and swayed as if they, too, were alive and capable of pulling roots from ground and capering about. "Who are you?" Jenna asked. Her voice sounded thin and weak in this charged atmosphere.

The eyes blinked once more. A shimmering change rippled through the body from spiny crest to curled-claw feet and when it passed, the thing was no longer painted stone but living flesh. It stretched

like a cat waking from a nap, the wings snapping and sending a rush of wind past Jenna. "I am An Phionos," it said. "I am the First, and you are now in my world."

Its voice was Ennis'.

"Stop that!" Jenna shouted at the creature, and it reared its great head, the mouth curling in a near-laugh, the eyes flashing.

"Ah, my dear Jenna. Do you think you're so strong that you can com-mand my obedience?" it asked with seeming mirth, still with Ennis in-flection and tone. Then the mocking amusement left, along with the memory of Ennis' voice. An Phionos hissed, steam venting from its nos-trils. Mage-lights flickered around it in a bright storm. "Are you stronger than me, Jenna? Do you remember Peria's fate? Do you remember how she screamed as I crushed the life from her? I give you this boon: release Lamh Shabhala now, before it's too late."

Jenna's fisted hand trembled around the cloch.

She could feel An Phionos bending its will to her, insinuating itself into her muscles and prying at her fingers, loosening them. Yet with the intrusion she also caught a glimmer of the entity's mind, and she realized that, despite its fury and insolence, An Phionos didn't actively seek her death. It had no choice as to how it must act. "Why do you do this?" she asked, gasping as she fought to keep hold of the cloch.

An Phionos laughed, a bitter and wild sound. "One should never offend a god," it answered. "Their revenge is swift and eternal, and that's why I sit here forever waiting. You, at least, have a choice-let go of the cloch and live, Jenna, or continue to hold it and die."

"And if I hold it and don't die?"

"That won't happen. But if you do… there are depths within Lamh Shabhala that you have only glimpsed, and the shaping of this entire age could be yours." Again the laugh. "I hope you don't think that's a gift. It would be the greatest burden of all." An Phionos bent down close to her. The scent of rotting meat drifted from its mouth. "Release the cloch, Jenna. I have nothing for you but pain." An Phionos' hold on her hand vanished; it sat back on its haunches again. "Make your choice now."

Jenna glanced wildly about her and An Phionos snorted. "Your friend can’t help you. Look. ." The air shimmered, and for a moment Jenna caught a glimpse of Seancoim, his mouth open in a shout, trying to push forward toward her as the mage-lights threw him back. Then he was gone again. "He doesn’t see what you see. He sees only your struggle, not me." An Phionos’ front paws kneaded the earth, tearing at the limestone. His voice was Ennis’ again, and now Ennis’ eyes gazed down at her from An Phionos’ face, a single tear rising and sliding down a scaled cheek to splash on the rocks. "I don’t want you to die, my love. Don’t do this."

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

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

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

It was pacing now, the scale-armored body striding back and forth before the hoary, vine-laden oaks: fifty feet long without the enormous barbed tail, half again as high to the crown of the head, the wings folded against its back. Then the wings

opened, and a hurricane wind lashed Jenna as it took to the air, rising high above. The mage-lights encircled it like arms, burning like a second sun so that An Phionos was silhouetted against the glare.

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

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

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

"Are you intending to talk me to death?" Jenna asked.

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

"No," Jenna answered. "I don't plan on dying at all."

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

Now Ennis stood before her. He smiled, almost shyly, holding out hand. "Jenna," he said. "I wish.

There was so much I wanted to you, just to say one last time that I loved you. ."

She wanted to take that hand, wanted desperately to take him in her arms, to bruise her lips with his kisses. She started to lift her left hand, then forced

it back to her side. She looked at An Phionos, not Ennis. "You can’t seduce me with false images," she told it.

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

"It didn’t hurt," Ennis said to her, his familiar voice awakening a deep longing in her. "You should know that. I felt the knife move and the heat of my blood pouring out, then… I don’t know. It was as if I were outside myself. There was no pain, just a slow fading and a feeling of regret, and

I was gone. I watched you cry over the body, Jenna, and I tried to touch you and comfort you. I tried to tell you that I was still with you, but I

couldn’t. I am with you, Jenna, each day. And we’ll be together again."

She listened to him, shaking her head in denial and disbelief, and Ennis glanced over at An Phionos. "Death doesn’t hurt, Jenna. All you have to do is accept it."

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

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

"It’s just us," Jenna told An Phionos. "No ghosts. No lies. No tricks."

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

"No."

She could hear the shrug in its voice. "Then it will be the other way." Muscles bunched and wings flexed. An Phionos stooped like a hawk about to swoop down on a helpless field mouse. The wings folded in and the apparition fell in a rush, plummeting toward her. Jenna raised her cloch, concentrating its force on the onrushing creature, pushing back at

II Jenna grunted with the impact as An Phionos seemed to dissolve, slipping through the web of force like water through a sieve. Jenna searched for it with the eyes of the cloch: there! She hurled lightning at the m glow that was An Phionos, but it swept the bolts aside.

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

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

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

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

An Phionos hovered over her. "Now," it whispered, "even the mongrel falls."

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

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

Its claws closed around her, She felt them begin to tighten, felt her n^A crack. An Phionos was inside her head now, its awareness flooding _ She was still holding Lamh Shabhala. Mage-energy crackled inside with An Phionos’ intrusion. "Now," it said gently. "You’ll be with him again. I promise you that much… "

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

A glimpse… A hope. .

"No!"

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

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

Jenna shook her head. "I don’t understand. No."

"Look," An Phionos answered. "Look within yourself."

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

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

"Aye," An Phionos answered. "You're with child. You didn't know?"

Jenna could only shake her head mutely. An Phionos snorted. It came to earth, resting again as she had first seen it: sitting on its haunches, the wings down against its body, the tail wrapped around one side, staring down at her as she lay in front of it. "There can be no finish to this Scrudu," it said. There was a note almost of triumph in its voice. "I let you live."

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

An Phionos shook its head. "Perhaps," it said.

"And perhaps not. You'll never know now."

Why not?" Jenna asked. "I could come back, after the child is born. ." ^Ahe stopped, realizing that what An Phionos had said was the truth.

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

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

The fog around them cleared. She was back in

Thall Coill, kneeling on the cold ground with Seancoim hurrying toward her, and she let herself fall.

Chapter 54: Fire and Water

"JENNA!"

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

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

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

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

"Can you stand?"

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

'You passed the Scrudu," Toryn said, his voice awed. "You met the beast and defeated it. We saw the mage-lights, we heard your cries, saw you fighting with something unseen… "

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

"But you're alive," Seancoim protested. "The Scrudu kills those who fail."

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

"Us?" Seancoim asked, but Toryn interrupted before Jenna could ex-plain.

"But you’ve found the full power of Lamh Shabhala," he said. "You wrestled with the beast and were given that gift."

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

"Jenna, here. Sit." Seancoim lowered her to one of the rocks. "I’ll start a fire, mix some anduilleaf…"

He hurried away. Toryn stayed with her, his gaze appraising and cold. "Lamh Shabhala is drained? The struggle must have been awful."

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

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

Seancoim started up the hill, one arm around a bundle of dry sticks, the other around his staff. Toryn turned as if to follow. Jenna saw the intention in the younger man too late. "Sean-.’" she began as Toryn swung the heavy oaken limb he held. Jenna saw Seancoim fall an instant before the dull, sickening sound of the impact came to her.

Denmark screeched, diving at Toryn as Jenna tried to stand. She forced her right hand to move as Denmark raked its talons over Toryn’s cheek;

Toryn swung the crude club at the bird and missed. Jenna’s hand closed around Lamh Shabhala and she tried to open the cloch (the crow rising again in a fury of black wings, coming back to attack once more), but there was nothing there, no glittering store of mage-energy. Nothing.

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

He gestured toward the unmoving Seancoim.

"No!"

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

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

"No," she said in a voice that trembled. "It's mine."

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

Jenna continued to back away. She was alongside the statue as Toryn glanced back at Seancoim. The fire was already dying. Jenna could glimpse a blackened, withered skeleton through the smoke.

"At least he was unconscious when it happened," Toryn remarked. "Can you imagine what it would feel like to be consumed while alive and awake?

Your flesh crackling and turning black like bacon too long in the fire; the fat of your body hissing and sputtering as it boils, the flames feeding on your face. Flesh gone, muscle and tissue seared and crisped as you scream and shriek in agony. ." Jenna continued to back away; Toryn stalking her, step for step. She could sense the air at her back, could hear the crumbling edge of the cliff under her feet. Toryn stopped. "Are you sure you don't want

to give me the cloch?" he asked, his hand held out to her.

"No," Jenna answered. She touched her stomach. "I’m sorry," she said.

Toryn seemed to shrug. He lifted his hands again, speaking a phrase in his own language. She saw the flames appear before him.

Jenna turned away. The cliff edge was two steps away. She ran toward it, and leaped.

She expected death.

The wind rushed past her, roaring. And she felt her body changing altering as she plummeted toward the water. Her cloca and leine slipped away, torn from her new, sleek shape by the rushing of air, and she fell naked to the waves.

She had almost no time to contemplate the alteration of her body.

Jenna hit the water with a stunning impact that ripped the breath from her lungs. She expected to feel the shock of the frigid ocean, but somehow the water felt impossibly warm and pleasant. Still, the shock of striking the surface nearly made her lose consciousness; she was disoriented, her sense of direction lost underwater. Her body, already sore and battered, screamed with abuse; her vision seemed sharper yet somehow distorted. She could see the wavering light of the waves well above her and her lungs yearned for air. She reached out with her arms and kicked with her legs to stroke for the surface. They responded though the feel was strange, and she could not see hands or arms even though the light came quickly closer. She broke the surface with a gasp, swallowing spray along with the wonderful cold air. She almost immediately went under again.

Something, someone was under her, lifting her. .

She emerged into the air once more, coughing and spitting water, and she was held up as she retched and spluttered and finally took another shuddering breath. A head emerged from the waves.

Jenna started to speak in surprise and relief-"Thraisha!" — but what emerged was a croak and moan. She looked back along the length of her own body.

The chain of Lamh Shabhala gleamed against black fur touched with blue highlights, the caged stone still with her. Jenna barked in surprise; Thraisha’s eyes gleamed; she almost seemed to laugh. High above them, at the cliff edge, Jenna saw Toryn staring down, his face pale. Thraisha followed the direction of Jenna’s gaze, her body rolling easily in the white surf. She spoke, but with the emptiness within Lamh Shabhala Jenna understood none of it. Thraisha started swimming, pushing Jenna’s body

in front of her, moving away from the rocks and outward. Toryn shouted something, his voice faint against the roar of wind and waves. Jenna tenta-tively tried to help Thraisha and swim on her own-the body ached and complained, but she managed a few strokes. They swam out beyond where the waves broke, and Jenna realized that Thraisha was making for the blue-gray hint of coastline to the south, where a tongue of land curved outward.

She could not swim long and had to stop, exhausted. Thraisha stayed with her, patiently keeping Jenna afloat on the waves. Swim and rest; swim and rest.

The journey took hours. The sun was nearly setting when they came to a table of low, wet rocks and could crawl out of the water.

"You threw yourself from the cliff a stone-walker and landed a Saimhoir." Thraisha seemed amused by what she'd seen. "Welcome to the sea, land-cousin."

The mage-lights had come; Jenna had been able to renew Lamh Shabhala, and with the cloch she'd regained her ability to speak with Thraisha. She was still in seal form-far more comfortable than any human one in this environment. She marveled at the new feel of the world around her and her heightened senses. She had never known that the taste of the ocean was so complex, that she could sense where the mouth of a river shed fresh water, or whether the bottom below was sandy or rocky, or where the kelp beds lay. Swimming unbounded by gravity was a luxuriant pleasure, the feel of the water against her fur like the stroke of a lover's hand. Underneath the water, she could hear the sounds of the ocean: the distant, mournful calls of whales, the splash of brown seals feeding nearby, the flutter of a school of fish turning as one, the grunts and chirps and clicks of a thousand unidentified animals.

Yet her new body retained marks of the old: her right flipper was scarred and balky, the fur marked all the way to her spine with the shapes of the mage-lights. She still ached, every movement sending a reminder of the punishment she'd endured.

"How long can I stay this way?" she asked Thraisha after she'd re-counted to the Saimhoir

what had happened since they’d last talked. "Ennis, he said that most changelings were either Water-snared or Earth-snared, able to change for only a few hours."

Thraisha grunted agreement. "He was right. But your blood runs strong with the Saimhoir strain and with the power of the mage-lights. You can stay this way until you will yourself to return to your birth form. But there’s danger in that, as well. The longer you remain Saimhoir, the more difficult it will be to make the change back. And I would believe that the longer you stay Saimhoir, the more likely it is you will lose the ability to use the cloch na thintri. Lamh Shabhala is a servant of the stone-walkers, not of the Saimhoir."

In the radiance of the cloch, Jenna could sense the faint stirring of the life inside her. She wondered what would happen to the child if she remained Saimhoir. "I need to go back. To Inishfeirm, perhaps." She looked at the cliffs of the headland, a hundred yards away from the rocks on which they lay. They were lower here than at Thall Coill-looming like a blue-green line of thunderclouds on the horizon at the end of the curving shore of the island-but still high. And beyond them, she knew all too well, were trackless miles of steep hills and drumlins.

She would be naked. With no resources but Lamh Shabhala. Without Seancoim. . The thought stirred the deep sorrow in her. You’ve lost the two people who cared most for you. You’re alone. Alone. .

Jenna found that while a Saimhoir could feel anguish and grief, they could not cry.

Thraisha stirred. "We could swim there, faster than you could walk. I would stay with you."

"I can’t ask that of you. You told me: the interests of the Saimhoir aren’t those of my people."

"You are both," Thraisha answered. "And we’re linked, you and I." She coughed, and the heads of two more blue seals broke the water near them. They hauled out of the water alongside Thraisha.

"It’s a long swim around the Nesting Land," Thraisha said. "Rest today, and feed yourself while the sweetfish are running. Then we’ll begin."

OWAINE often went down to the shoreline in the mornings. He'd help his da and his older brothers push the boat off the half-moon shingle where it was beached and tied every night, even though he knew that it was the burly arms and legs of his brothers and not his tiny form that was sliding the tarred and weathered wood along the wet sand. When the waves finally lapped at the prow, his da would ruffle his hair. "That's good enough, little one. We'll take it from here. Watch your mam for us until we get back." Then they would push the boat out into the swells, his da leaping into the boat last as his brothers rowed out a bit. He'd see his da readying the nets as the boat cleared the surf and headed out to the deeper water past the headland.

Owaine would watch until he could no longer see the boat-that would not be long, since his eyes were shortsighted and everything quickly became a blur-then he'd go exploring before his mam called him back to the cottage up the hill. Usually, he scrambled around the clear tidal pools that collected between the black rocks, trying to catch the small bait fish that were sometimes trapped as the tide went out, or poking at the mussels and clams. Sometimes he'd come across odd pres-ents the sea had tossed up on the shore for him to find: a boot lost by some fisherman; a battered wooden float from a fishing net; strange, whorled shells with enameled, sunset-pink interiors; driftwood polished by the waves and twisted into wondrous shapes.

Today Dwaine walked to the north side of their small beach, to where the waves broke against the rocky feet of the Inishfeirm. The wind was cold; the salt spray wet his hair and made him blink. Mam wouldn't let him stay out long today; he knew she'd be calling him back to help her and his two sisters: there was butter to be churned and the chickens to be fed. He half-slid, half-crawled along the rocky shoreline, wet to his thighs He thought he heard the call of seals just beyond a screen of boulders and he clambered over to them to see. Once his brothers had said they'd seen a family of blue seals on the shore, but Swain hadn't been there that day. Blue seals occasionally visited the island, he knew, and it would be exciting to glimpse them, since they were so rare. Bragging about it after-ward to his brothers would be best, though. . Maybe he could make it sound even more exciting than it was.

Dwaine pulled himself up the surf-slick face of the last boulder. Beyond was another tiny rocky beach. He caught a blurred glimpse of black fur sparkled with blue fire, but then movement at his end of the beach caught his eye. He gasped and nearly fell from his perch.

A young woman was standing there, walking out of the water. She was naked, her black hair hanging in wet, dripping strings, her body sheened with water. She seemed exhausted and her right arm appeared to be in-jured, scarred and hanging limp at her side. She wore a silver chain around her neck, with a pendant swinging between small breasts. To Dwaine, she seemed to be perhaps a little older than his sisters.

A naked lady on the beach was going to be a far better tale than blue seals, but he wondered if anyone was going to believe him.

He must have made a noise, for her head turned and she looked at him. "Don’t be frightened," she said, the words accompanied by a soft smile. Her voice sounded hoarse, as if she hadn’t used it for a long time. She made no attempt to cover herself; she didn’t seem to notice her nudity at all. She cleared her throat. "This is Inishfeirm, isn’t it?"

He nodded, wide-eyed.

"Good. I wasn’t certain, since I couldn’t see the White Keep from this side, but that’s what they said it was. Do you have a cottage near here?"

They? Dwaine wondered who she might mean but decided not to ask. Instead, he nodded solemnly.

"What’s your name?"

"Dwaine." He blinked as the apparition took a few steps toward him. He crouched, ready to jump down from the boulder and run. The woman walked gingerly, the way Dwaine did when he sat too long with his legs under him and they were all tingly and heavy. He decided he could stay where he was. "Dwaine Geraghty. Who are you?"

"My name’s Jenna. I need to go to the White Keep. Do you know it Moister Cleurach has

Dwaine shook his head. He'd heard that name, of course-everyone on Inishfeirm knew it-but his family had little to do with the White Keep and the cloudmages. He'd seen a few of the acolytes, even talked to them a bit when they bought the fish his da brought to the market, but he'd never seen the old Moister, who-his brothers and sisters all told him-was a cross and nasty man who sometimes liked to beat the acolytes with willow branches, just for fun. They told him other more imaginative and awful things about the keep and the Brathairs and their Moister and what happened to the acolytes there, but Dwaine wasn't sure how much to believe since, after all, none of his siblings had ever actually been to the White Keep. Still, some of it might be true and Dwaine couldn't imag-ine why anyone would want to meet Moister Cleurach, who seemed to be part monster.

Of course, this woman could be a monster herself, which might explain her appearance. . But the woman smiled again, and she didn't seem dangerous at all. "Don't worry, it's all right," she said. "How about you-do you have a home near here? Is your mam there?"

"She's back there in the cottage." Dwaine pointed to the whitewashed walls just visible high up in the green hills.

"Will you take me to her?" She seemed to have realized her state for the first time, one hand covering her breasts, her scarred and stiff-looking right hand over the dark fleece at the joining of her legs. "I suppose I need some clothes… "

Being in the White Keep reminded Jenna achingly of Ennis. She almost sobbed, seeing her own tiny room again. But Moister Cleurach arrived not a minute after the wide-eyed acolyte closed the door behind himself.

"I didn't think I would see you again, frankly," he said without pre-amble.

"I'm pleased to see you again, too, Moister."

He sniffed at that. He stared at her, his eyes dark under the white-haired line of his brows. "The rumors are flying through the keep that you've returned from Thall Coill, that you appeared naked on the shore in a blaze of sorcerous light, that you

passed the Scrudu and now under-stand the deepest places within Lamh Shabhala."

One corner of her mouth lifted. "I've returned from Thall Coill. The rest. ." She shrugged.". . are just rumors."

"What happened?"

She wasn't certain that she wanted to tell him. But once she started, she found that there was a catharsis in telling him all that had happened since they'd parted ways after Glenn Aill. Moister Cleurach let her talk occasionally interjecting a question to clarify some point. An acolyte came in with a lunch of bread, fruit, and water, then left. She told him every-thing except the fact that she was pregnant.

She didn't know why she kept that back, only that it felt right to do so

Moister Cleurach listened, then grunted. "I still don't understand," he said. "Why did this An Phionos not kill you as it did Peria?"

She'd prepared a lie for that, knowing the question would come. "We fought to a draw," she said. "I wasn't able to defeat An Phionos, but nei-ther did it have the power left to kill me."

"Hmm…" Moister Cleurach ran fingers along his bearded jaw. "And you have the changeling blood, too. Like Ennis."

The mention of the name made her blink. "Aye," Jenna answered. "Or I wouldn't be here and Lamh Shabhala would be lost in the ocean."

"I doubt it." He plucked a slice of apple from the tray and chewed it thoughtfully. "Lamh Shabhala has a way of finding its own path to a Holder. By now, someone else would have found it washed up on a shore, or in the gullet of someone's fish dinner." He swallowed. "I've already sent word to Dun Kiil that you've returned."

Jenna nodded. "I thought you would. So the Banrion's back there? Is she well? Is there word about the Ri Ard and the Tuatha? Mac Ard?"

"Nothing about Mac Ard," he answered, "but we hear that the Rl Ard and his son have gone to Tuatha Gabair, Airgialla, Connachta, and Infochla, and sent messages to Locha Lein and Eoganacht as

well. Mundy Kirwan-you remember him; Ennis’ friend-is strong with the slow mag-ics, and he has felt Clochs Mor gathering near Falcarragh. I think the war comes soon; the Comhairle agrees with me. And that makes me wonder. Why did you come back here, Jenna?"

"I don’t know," she answered honestly. "I thought… I thought it was the only place I belonged right now."

"Then you’ll fight with Inish Thuaidh."

The memory of Thraisha’s foretelling came to Jenna again, as it had an too often over the last days. . You stood there alone, and you 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 there, too, but I was too jar away and others’ clochs were set against 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. 1 saw you fall. .

"This is my home. This was Ennis’ home. And I know that my presence is the reason for the war if it comes." Jenna shrugged. "I didn’t choose this path, Moister. But it seems to be the one I have to walk."

Moister Cleurach grunted again. "Then I’ll do my best to make you ready for it," he told her. "We can start today."

She hadn’t been certain what she wanted, but Moister Cleurach certainly had no such doubts. He immediately resumed his role as Jenna’s mentor in her studies of the cloudmage art. Most of that time was spent in the library, as Moister Cleurach set Brathair Maher to pulling out dusty and half-crumbling rolls of ancient parchment. There were exercises and med-itations; reading and history lessons; the beginning of her study in the slow magics of earth and water.

Jenna fell into the routine almost gratefully. It allowed her no time to think, the work kept her mind occupied and held the grief and worry at arm’s length, at least during the days. The nights were a different matter. She didn’t sleep well, despite the exhaustion of the days and the mage-lights’ nightly call. Then the ghosts threatened to overwhelm her as she cried with her head buried in her pillow,

seeing Ennis' face or Seancoim's. She clutched her stomach where the first flutterings of life quickened. She listened to the calls of the seals far down the jagged cliffs of Inishfeirm, and wondered whether Thraisha was out there somewhere, even though she couldn't feel her with Lamh Shabhala.

But the days. . The days she could tolerate.

". . and as you see, Severii claims that even when Lamh Shabhala seems to be devoid of energy, there is still a reservoir of power within it, one that he was unable to tap. Which is what he thought was the place that would be opened through the Scrudu-"

Moister Cleurach stopped, causing Jenna-seated next to him looking at the mostly undecipherable marks on the yellowed roll of parch-ment-to glance up. An acolyte cleared his throat from the doorway of the library; behind him, another figure lurked. "Moister," the acolyte began, but Moister Cleurach was already on his feet.

"Banrion," he said. "This is a surprise."

Aithne gave a cough of laughter. "Then you don't know me well at all, Moister. Holder Jenna, it's good to see you again. I wanted to give you my condolences on the death of your friend Seancoim.

It must have been terrible, losing two people so close to you in such a short space of time." The sadness in her voice seemed genuine, as did the sympathy on her face. "And I also wanted to welcome you back." She held her hand out to

Jenna, who took it. Aithne's fingers pressed against hers. "I was afraid I would never see you again," Aithne said. "I knew when we woke that morning and found you gone that you'd taken the path to Thall Coill Come, walk with me a bit and tell me about it. Moister Cleurach’s dry reports are fine, but I'd like to hear your own words. Moister, if you don't mind… "

Jenna didn't particularly want to relive any of it again, but she could think of no way to politely refuse. Leaving Moister Cleurach and the li-brary, the Banrion walked with Jenna along the stone corridors of the White Keep, her two gardai accompanying them just out of earshot.

They walked for a few minutes, hand in hand, Aithne telling Jenna about their own trek back from Glenn Aill and the response of the Comhairle to the

news of Aron’s treachery.". . My own best guess is that my brother, Tiarna Mac Ard, and the others with them have left Inish Thuaidh and slipped the net of ships we placed around the island. They’re proba-bly in Falcarragh with the Ri Ard by now."

They’d come to the bronze doors cast in the shapes of the mage-lights: the Temple of the Founder. Aithne pushed the doors open and they en-tered. Six acolytes were there with a Brathair of the Order, who bowed to the Banrion and Jenna and quickly escorted his charges out of the room. The Banrion and Jenna walked down between the twin rows of marble columns as they exited, approaching the immense statue of Tadhg O’Coulghan. He seemed to watch them advance, his right hand raised as if he were about to cast the power of Lamh Shabhala down at them from the mage-lights swirling in the painted dome above him. They stopped just under the dome, with Tadhg looming above them.

"How long has it been?" Aithne asked.

Jenna’s brows wrinkled, puzzled. "Banrion?"

Aithne pressed her fingertips against Jenna’s abdomen, gently. Jenna flushed, and the Banrion smiled. "Sometime dry reports have buried nug-gets. You came here with nothing, and among the documents Moister Cleurach sent was a list of everything you’d been given, a quite detailed list. What was interesting to me was what wasn’t there: no sponges, no cloths. A surprising omission for a young woman who should be expect-ing her monthly bleeding. I wasn’t certain, though, until I saw you." The Banrion chuckled softly. The sound reverberated from the dome. "How long?"

"Two months, Banrion. Nearly three." Jenna sighed-with the admis-sion, a surprising sense of relief washed through her; she hadn’t realize how much it had pained her to have no one in whom to confide.

"Is Ennis the da?"

Jenna nodded. "So Moister Cleurach knows as well?"

"Actually, I doubt it. He didn’t mention anything in the reports, I didn’t speak to him about my suspicions, and he’s not… as observant about these things. I didn’t know until I saw you, and even then

I wasn't certain. Your condition isn't really visible yet, but I see a slight curve to your stomach where there was none before, and I doubt that the Order is feeding you that well." She smiled. "Combined with the rest. . The question now is what to do about it. My healer has potions that can start your bleeding again even at this point, if that is what you want."

Jenna was shaking her head before the Banrion finished. "No," she answered. "This is all I have left of Ennis. I… can't."

Aithne nodded. "I thought that would be your answer. Do you remem-ber Tiarna Kyle MacEagan of the Comhairle?" Jenna nodded, recalling the short, stocky man who with the Banrion and Kianna Ciomhsog controlled the Comhairle. "He and I have been good friends for many years," Aithne continued. "I like the man-he's a good person, wise and quick-witted. He knows when to speak and when to hold back what he knows. He's also. . unmarried."

Jenna started to protest, realizing what Aithne intended to suggest, but the Banrion held up a hand. "Let me finish," she said. "Tiarna MacEagan. . well, let us simply say that he doesn't have any interest in our gender beyond friendship. A marriage between the two of you would legitimize both you and your son or daughter. He would be a good father as well as a guide and companion for you. You would have as much leverage over him as he would have with you: he wouldn't care if, in time, you have other lovers as long as you gave him the same freedom. And he would acknowledge as his own any children that came as a result."

Twin knots of tension burned in the corners of Jenna's jaws, clamped tight as Aithne spoke. The gardai stood near the door of the room, talking softly among themselves and carefully looking away. No! she wanted to shout. No! This is not what I want. But she pressed her lips shut, taking a breath and glaring at the face of Tadhg high above. "And you, Banrion," Jenna asked. "What do you get out of this?"

Aithne nodded as if in satisfaction. "You learn well, Holder. Aye, I'll benefit from this arrangement, also. It keeps the Holder of Lamh Shabhala bound to Dun Kiil and Inish Thuaidh. It means that Tiarna MacEagan, Bantiarna Ciomhsog and I will have an even stronger hold on the Com-hairle. It means that

you will fight with us against the Ri Ard, because that time’s coming very soon. I wanted to strike first, as you recall. I still believe that would have been the best strategy, but that time’s past. The invasion will come well before the Festival of Gheimhri. There isn’t much time." She looked meaningfully at Jenna’s cloca. "There isn’t much time for you to make your decision, either, Holder. Soon enough your secret will be… obvious and then Tiarna MacEagan would no longer be able to make the offer."

"You’ve already broached this with Tiarna MacEagan?"

"No. But I’m confident his thinking will be the same as mine." The Banrion reached out and touched Jenna’s hair, stroking it gently. "He’s truly a good person, Jenna," she said. "If you allow it, he could be a loyal friend even though you never share a bed. I made certain that Moister Cleurach gave him the Cloch Mor of the fire-creature you destroyed at Glenn Aill, and he is learning to use it. He could be an excellent ally if you have political desires. I know that you say you don’t, but that may change in time. You could do far, far worse for a husband Do this now in the next few weeks, and no one will question that the child is his-it will simply come early, as some children do. But if you wait. ." Aithne shrugged.

Ennis. . Jenna’s thoughts whirled, confused. I miss you so much. . What do I do? Jenna started to speak, then stopped. She backed away from the Banrion, pacing around the base of the statue. "I can’t give you an answer," she said. "Not here. Not right now."

"You already have," Aithne answered. "You haven’t said ’no.’ Think about this conversation, Jenna. I will be here for another day, perhaps two. I’ve come to tell Moister Cleurach that he must bring the Brathairs of the Order to Dun Kiil along with the few clochs na thintri they hold so that we can prepare for the Ri Ard’s invasion. We could go back together, meet with Tiarna MacEagan, and make the announcement to the Comhairle." Aithne sighed, her face soft with sympathy. "This is a lot to put on your shoulders, which have already borne more than their share of pain. I know that, Jenna. I don’t mean this to sound as cold as it will, but Ennis is gone forever. We can’t bring him back. I think he would understand this and approve, because it’s best for you." She gestured at Lamh Shabhala. "I

know that you can hear the old Holders. Listen to them. How many of them have done the same thing I'm asking you to consider?"

Jenna remembered Banrion Cianna's words to her back in Lar Bhaile that seemed so long ago now, though it had been less than year-regarding Tiarna Mac Ard's reluctance to marry Maeve: ". . marriage to him is another weapon…" Even Ennis had said it once: ". . They would tell you that the Holder of Lamh Shabhala should use marriage as a tool, to be utilized when it's most advantageous."

She suspected that Ennis would have understood, all too well.

Jenna stared at the Banrion, her face stricken, her head shaking from side to side not so much in denial as in confusion. Aithne gathered Jenna to her, hugging her close. "Go, and think about this," she whispered in Jenna's ear. "I'll keep Moister Cleurach away from you until tomorrow. Then come and give me your answer." Her lips brushed Jenna's hair. "In the end it must be your decision, Jenna," she said. "Not mine."

Chapter 56: Covenant

AN attendant, a younger man, opened the door for Jenna and Aithne and motioned them in.

The room was the same one in which she'd first met Tiarna MacEagan. The sun streamed through the stained glass window depicting the horror of Croc a Scroilm, sending bright hues shimmering on the walls. Mac-Eagan sat in one of the chairs near the fire, sipping an amber liquid in a cut-crystal goblet. Bantiarna Kianna Ciomhsog sat across from him. Jenna brushed her cloch with her finger and let it open slightly: MacEagan wore the Cloch Mor she remembered all too well from Glenn Aill and the attack during the Feast of First Fruits. Kianna, who had no cloch at all the last time they'd met, now had a clochmion, perhaps the one that had been MacEagan's.

MacEagan set down his glass and rose as Jenna and Aithne entered, going immediately to Jenna after a quick glance at the Banrion. She found herself searching his face, looking at his body. The crown of his head was but a few finger’s width higher than her own, and streaks of pale scalp showed through the dark strands at his temple.

Still, the lines around his eyes crinkled deep when he gave her a wry smile, and his eyes were kind and lingered easily on her face.

"Holder," he said. "This is awkward for both of us."

"Aye," Jenna answered, not allowing herself to respond to the smile-"Tis that."

"Banrion Aithne has told me about her, umm, proposal. I want you to know-it would be acceptable to me. It would, in fact, be good for me. And I hope for you as well."

Jenna lifted up a shoulder under her cloca. She remained silent and MacEagan looked again at Aithne. "I’ll leave the two of you to discuss this," the Banrion said. "Bantiarna Kianna, why don’t we walk and plan the defense of Dun Kill?" Kianna pushed herself from her chair; she and the Banrion linked arms and left. The attendant remained, gazing with a strange intensity at MacEagan, who nodded to him.

"You may go, too, Alby," he said. "I’ll call for you later."

"Tiarna-"

"Go on. Please." Alby bowed stiffly and left. The door closed loudly behind him. Jenna cocked her head toward MacEagan, raising an eye-brow. "Aye," the man said. "Alby is more to me than simply my squire. I tell you that so there won’t be any secrets between us. There can’t be, not if this is to work." He gestured toward one of the chairs and Jenna sat, watching as MacEagan seated himself across from her. The odd smile was still on his face, and he folded his hands quietly on his knee.

"I’ll never love you," Jenna said flatly.

He seemed to take no offense, his face unchanging. "Perhaps not. And certainly not love in the way you loved Ennis O’Deoradhain. I wouldn’t expect or want that of you. But I hope that you could come to like and respect me, at least. I think we can be friends, Holder Aoire, and I would say that I have love for my friends."

Another shrug. More silence. Finally, MacEagan rose and went to the window. He pushed open the stained glass panels, sending colors shifting across the room. He stood there limned in sunlight before turning back. "I know the Banrion has outlined what I can offer you, Holder, and I won't go over that again, only tell you that I would endeavor to be as a father to your child. I would offer your child everything I would offer a child of my own."

"And what is it you intend to gain from our. . arrangement?" Jenna asked him. "In your words, not the Banrion's."

He brought steepled hands up to his mouth, bowing his head for a moment in thought. "I get to use your reflected power," he answered finally. "Bluntly, that's what I receive. We know-Aithne, Bantiarna Ciomhsog, and I-that Ri MacBradaigh won't live much longer. When he dies, a tiarna of the Comhairle will be elected Ri in his place. A tiarna married to the Holder of Lamh Shabhala would be a powerful figure, don't you think? Maybe even enough to be more than a Shadow Ri-and we control enough votes in the Comhairle to guarantee the outcome. And you. . you would be Banrion and would take my place on the Comhairle."

"What of Banrion Aithne?"

"She would have her ancestral lands in Rubha na Scarbh to rule, especially daily now that her brother has proved to be a traitor. She would still h among the Comhairle, representing her townland, and the Comhairm is the real power in Inish Thuaidh, not the Rl. And she would also know secrets, which would ensure that her voice was adequately heard She loses nothing but a husband she doesn't love, like, or respect and a tit] she won't mourn."

"Because hers was a political marriage," Jenna spat. "Like the one we're discussing."

"Aithne went into her marriage knowing it would be no more than it is," MacEagan responded. "I have higher expectations."

"You shouldn't."

"But 1 do," he persisted. "Oh, not for physical love-neither one of us want that of the other. But I do admire you, Holder Aoire. Your youth, your background-there aren't many like you who could have gone through what you have and survived,

much less flourished. You're stronger than most believe, including, I think, yourself."

"I don't need false flattery, Tiarna MacEagan."

He went back to the chair, sat, and took the glass in his hand again, swirling the liquid before taking a small, appreciative sip. "I've said noth-ing false, Holder. And my given name is Kyle. I would be pleased to have you use it."

"I still haven't made a decision," Jenna answered. She paused, took a breath. "Tiarna," she finished.

MacEagan gave a sniff that might have been a chuckle. "How can I help you make that decision, then? Tell me what you need."

"There's nothing you can give me. It's something I have to feel. Back in Ballintubber. . My marriage would never have been arranged; I wasn't important enough for that. It's the poor who can most easily marry for love, and I always expected that, if I married, it would be that way. I expected that we would have little more than the land we worked, that it would be hard, but it would be all right because we would care for each other. This-" Jenna swept a hand through the air.

"You can still have love," MacEagan said. "I don't intend to keep you from that."

"But it would always have to be a secret love. You might know, and perhaps Aithne, but it would have to be hidden from everyone else.

"Aye," MacEagan responded. He blinked. "As mine is. Now." He too another sip of the whiskey and set the glass down once more. "I've already y given you my trust, Holder. I've already made myself vulnerable to you s^A that you would feel safe. I can't force you into this marriage, and wouldn’t even if I could. But I do think it could be advantageous to us both. I will give you one other promise-if one day you find a love that you can't bear to keep hidden from the rest of the world, then I will go with you to the Draiodoir and sign the dissolution. All you have to do is ask."

"You say that now."

"I'll put it in writing, if you wish."

Jenna could feel her hands trembling. She placed her right hand over her left, trying to conceal the

nervousness. In the three days since the Banrion had made the suggestion back in Inishfeirm, she had agonized over this. The night the Banrion had come, she’d gone to the harbor and called Thraisha, but no matter how wide she cast the vision of Lamh Shabhala, she couldn’t find her. The Holders within the cloch na thintri had been useless, yammering contradictory advice. She had found Riata in the babble and spoken with him, but he had only sighed. "The Daoine way isn’t ours," he said, more than once, and didn’t seem to be able to comprehend the implications, so foreign to his culture. She’d called her da from the carving of the blue seal, and he had listened sympathetically, but in the end all he could tell her was to do what she thought best. She wished more than once that she could talk with her mam again-she wondered what Maeve’s advice might be, caught up as she was in the same snare-but her mam was with Mac Ard. She closed her eyes every night and called to Ennis’ spirit, trying to bring him to her to tell her what to do… but the only answer had been the wind and the steady, relentless sound of the surf against the rocks.

"You are the only one who can make the decision," Riata had said finally. "You are the one who has to live it."

"Write it, then," Jenna said. "And we will marry, Kyle MacEagan."

"Please leave us, Keira," MacEagan said to Jenna’s attendant. The young woman-no older than Jenna herself-lowered her gaze, curtsied quickly, and vanished, closing the door to the bedchamber behind her. MacEagan smiled at Jenna, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling her night robe tightly around her neck. He held a bottle of wine and two goblets.

"I thought I would come and say good night, Jenna," he said. He re-mained standing at the door. He nodded toward the polished wood be-hind him. "You can trust her. Keira’s been with me since she was twelve; she knows how to keep her mouth shut and eyes averted when they need to be. Or if you have someone else you feel you can trust more. .

?"

Jenna shook her head, mute. MacEagan-my husband, she thought. I Wonder if I will ever stop shivering when I hear that-continued to smile.

" ’Bantiarna Jenna MacEagan of Be an Mhuilinn,

Holder of Lamh Shabhala.' I imagine that will sound strange to you for a while."

"I think it may always sound strange," Jenna answered.

"If asked, Keira will swear that I spent our wedding night here in the chamber," MacEagan said. "But Alby has put together a room for me m across the hall. I thought. ." He lifted the wine and gold-rimmed goblets "We should at least share a drink together first. I would like that, if you're willing. It's been a long and tiring day for both of us."

That was certainly true enough. Banrion Aithne had given Jenna a cloca of finest white silk that had come all the way from Thall Mor-roinn. Jenna had let Keira and the other attendants dress her, feeling numb and some-how detached, as if she were watching this happen to someone else. The wedding had been in the Great Hall of Dun Kiil Keep; she entered the hall to find the Ri and Banrion, the entire Comhairle, Moister Cleurach and several of the Brathairs of the Order, and many of the minor Riocha of the city in attendance. The dripping of the stones punctuated the droning voice of the Draiodoir brought from the Mother-Creator's temple to con-duct the ceremony. Jenna stood next to MacEagan, not truly hearing the words, and when the Draiodoir handed her the traditional oaken branch to break, symbolizing her departure from her previous family, the dry crack of the stick had sounded impossibly loud and she had dropped the half she was to give to MacEagan, startled. The party afterward had been interminable. A singer had begun the Song of Mael Armagh, his baritone voice so much like Coelin's that Jenna felt her breath go shallow for a moment. The food in front of her seemed to taste of ashes and paper. A seemingly eternal line of well-wishers passed their table. Jenna had won-dered what they were thinking behind their carefully smiling faces, their choreographed movements, their polite and empty words. .

MacEagan poured the wine and handed one of the goblets to Jenna. She took it, but stared down into the well of purple liquid without drink-ing. She felt as if she wanted to cry, but her eyes were almost painfully dry. "I don't feel much like celebrating," she said.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Jenna. Truthfully."

She glanced up; there was genuine empathy in his face, a distress that carved deeper the lines around his eyes. "I realize I can’t ever fill the void Ennis left in you, perhaps one day someone will. But I do promise that in the meantime won’t make the emptiness larger."

"What does that mean?"

He sat on the bed near her, leaving a hand’s width between them-When she moved away, he remained where he was. "It means that stand with you even if others won’t. The truth is, when the time comes finally choose sides-and it’s coming sooner than anyone except perhaps Aithne, Kianna, and I believe-neither you nor I know where the final lines will be drawn and who will stand where. People do strange things when they think it’s to their advantage, or when it seems to be the only course they can take."

"Like marrying someone they barely know."

The corner of his lips twitched; it might have been a smile. "That’s one example, aye. You began a new age when you woke the clochs na thintri, Jenna. We still don’t know the rules of it yet, or how it will change us. We only know that it will change us." He lifted his goblet. "So would you drink with me? To the future beyond the Filleadh."

Jenna felt the infant stir within her, a fluttering deep in her stomach. She wondered what kind of world the child would be coming into. Not one I thought a child of mine would have a year ago, nor one I would have chosen. .

"To the future," she said.

The clink of the goblets touching gilded rims seemed as loud as the crash of a closing door.

"I'M so scared," she'd admitted to MacEagan that morning. "1 don't know if we can stop them." She didn't mention Thraisha's dream, which had haunted her more and more in the last few weeks: the images of death and loss. She hadn't mentioned that to anyone, but she felt the certainty of it, more firmly each day. She felt as if she were walking a path that was already set for her, unable to turn aside or change it. Part of her, at least, was already reconciled to the inevitability of failure.

The first signs of the coming battle were the white sails on the horizon beyond the arms of the Inner Harbor, well out in Dun Kiil Bay.

They knew the armada was coming from Falcarragh-their own fast scout ships had come scurrying back as soon as the fleet had been sighted. The first battle of the war had already been fought and lost: the much smaller fleet of Inish Thuaidh had engaged the enemy as soon as it rounded Falcarragh Head and turned west toward the island. The tattered remnants of the Inish fleet-five ships of twelve oars, one of twenty: their rams broken, their single sails torn, the hulls dark with smoke and blood-had landed at the end of An Ceann Caol a week ago; an exhausted courier had staggered into the keep with the news two nights afterward.

And now the sails could be seen in the morning light.

Jenna stood in the golden dawn with MacEagan, Aithne, Kianna Ciomhsog, and Ri MacBradaigh.

They gathered on the south tower, gazing out over the town, the bay, and the sea. The wind was laden with the scent o salt and fish. Soon, Jenna suspected, the primary smell would be the cop-pery odor of death.

The sails. . Jenna could count at least twenty of them; more seemed to appear every few minutes. "Forty oars, at least two hundred troops on each," MacEagan said, answering the unasked question. "Perhaps a few less than they started out with, if our ships were at all successful in ram-ming and sinking theirs. But I imagine that we’re looking at a force of up to ten thousand men."

Ten thousand… It seemed an inconceivable number. It seemed even more inconceivable to imagine such a horde in battle.

Everyone glanced down from the ramparts to Dun Kiil itself. The town bristled with troops and weapons. Officers shouted orders to trained gardai as well as conscripts from the surrounding lands. The town steamed with the smokes of the forges, the smithies hammering out weapons even as the invaders approached. Catapults sat on the harbor front and out on the headlands, ready to hurl fiery boulders at the RI Ard’s ships as they approached.

But there were not ten thousand here. There was less than half that.

"How many Clochs Mor do they have?" Kianna Ciomhsog asked. The bantiarna’s sword was already unsheathed, clenched in a muscular hand. Her bright red hair hung braided and long, shimmering against the dull leather armor around her torso. Aithne shrugged.

"The runner said that the captains claimed there were at least three single hands of them used during the sea battle. But that could be an exaggeration."

Or an undercount. . None of them would say it. Jenna remembered the night of the Filleadh and the power she had unleashed. Three double hands of Cloch Mors were opened then. . MacEagan had one, as did Aithne, Moister Cleurach, Ennis’ friend Mundy and one other Brathair of the Order. One single hand. The Ri Ard could have two double hands and more.

One of them, she was certain, would be Aron O Dochartaigh. He would be out there, as would Mac Ard and the Tanaise Rig, Nevan O Liathain..

Ironic, isn’t it, how firmly you turned the little bastard down when he offered you marriage. Won’t he be amused to find you married here, when you

could have been the Tanaise Banrion, to one day be Banrion Ard. .

So much would have been different, if she'd accepted. She might never have met Ennis again, but he would be alive. She would never have gone to Thall Coill, and Seancoim would still be walking in Doire Coill with Denmark on his shoulder. Maybe that would be better.

You can't go back and change any of it. That's not within even Lamh Shabhala's power.

"We should retreat now," Rl MacBradaigh muttered, staring down at his troops. The Ri's eyes were wide as he turned to look back at the others gathered with him, and his dry white hair was wild in the wind "w could leave a small force here to hold them back and give us time to rejoin the families we've already sent back to the mountains." He looked from one to another of them, as if searching their faces for some agreement Jenna turned away so she didn't have to see him. "Doesn't that make sense?" he asked. "We could carry them from the mountains, cut them down bit by bit when it was safe, maybe find a better place to make a stand, maybe even Sliabh Mlchinniuint again…"

"Which we'll do if it becomes necessary," Aithne told him, speaking to him like a stern parent to a misbehaving child. "Not all of them will land here. And none of their Holders are trained cloudmages, nor do they have Lamh Shabhala." Jenna felt everyone look to her with that pronounce-ment.

She could think of nothing to say. I'm not your salvation, she wanted to say. Don't look at me as if I were. She felt ill, nauseous. She placed her hand on her stomach, pressing it tightly.

"We'll meet them as they land," Kianna said. "I need to go speak with those who will be fighting with steel. Banrion, I leave the strategies for the cloudmages to you. Ri MacBradaigh, will you go with me? Our people would like to see their leader."

"I… I don't know what to tell them," the Ri stammered, looking frightened, and Kianna exchanged glances with Aithne.

"I'll tell you what to say," she told the man. "All you'll need to do is keep a brave face on." She gestured toward the keep; the Ri, with a final look back at the sails on the horizon, shuffled slowly toward the archway to the balcony, with Kianna following.

Banrion Aithne sighed. "We shouldn’t stay here, that’s for certain," she said. "The keep will be an obvious target for the clochs. Better that they not know where we are. Jenna, where do you want to make a stand?’

"Down at the harbor," Jenna answered. "We’ll need to be close as they come in so they’re within range of our clochs; if we must, we can retreat back up toward the keep and the mountains with the rest of the troops.

Aithne, Jenna knew, could have blamed her for this. Maybe she was right, all along. Perhaps if I’d listened to her, if we’d made the attack on Falcarragh first before the Ri Ard was ready as she and the Comhairle wanted…She could say that it’s my fault, that the Ri Ard wouldn’t come here at all except for me… But there was no accusation in Aithne’s voice or face, only a solemn acceptance of their task. "Then that’s where I’ll stand as well. I’ll tell Moister Cleurach to meet us there." With that, she swept away toward the keep, leaving Jenna and MacEagan alone.

"We’ll get through this," MacEagan told her. "The tuatha have never been able to conquer Inish Thuaidh. The Ri Ard will suffer the same fate as the rest, and fifty years from now, the bards will be singing the Song of Kiernan o Liathain the way they sing of Mael Armagh now, and laughing at the man’s foolishness."

"I hope you’re right."

"I am. We might lose this battle, but we’ll prevail. Inish Thuaidh is a hard land, and the Tuathians are soft. They will break here, as they always have." He stopped. His hand lifted as if he were about to touch her shoul-der, then dropped back to his side. "You’ll live, Jenna," he said. "And so will your child."

Jenna nodded. On a pole on the keep’s tower, the blue-and-white flag of Inish Thuaidh snapped in the wind. Far out to sea, she could see the banners fluttering above the sails: the colors of the Tuatha: green and brown, blue and gold, green and gold. She could see the oars churning the water as the sun glinted on mail and steel.

"They’ll be here soon," she said. "Then we’ll know."

The battle for Dun Kiil began with a single sound:

the k-thunk as the arm of a catapult was released out on Harbor Head and a flaming ball went hurtling across the late afternoon sky. It splashed into the water in an eruption of water and steam a dozen yards short of the lead boat just entering between the inner bay's arms. Four more fireballs followed; two of them struck the ship and burning oil and grease splattered over the deck. Faint screams could be heard from the crew, and the oars splintered and fell as those on the ship leaped into the water, some of them aflame. Jenna, standing next to MacEagan near the end of the dock, heard a rag-ged cheer go up from the troops assembled close by.

The cheer nearly immediately went silent. The catapult nearest the fleet erupted in a gout of black smoke, pieces of shattered timber flying through the air. There were more screams, but this time it came from the Inishlanders manning the catapult.

The Clochs Mor had entered the battle.

The sky near the entrance to the inner bay darkened and swirled with storm clouds as a gale force wind blew out to sea, howling and shrieking and laden with blinding curtains of rain: Stormbringer awakened. Jenna could see the ships gathered near the harbor entrance and already trying to avoid the flaming hulk of the lead craft, suddenly heel over. Sails went down-cut or torn, she didn't know-and oars lashed the water, pushing the boats forward against the tempest. Two more catapults fired, and an- other ship was bathed in a gushing inferno; a moment later, fireball hissed away from the incoming ship, and both catapults exploded The ships pushed on.

The Inner Harbor had been closed off with chains and nets hung just under the water between Little Head and Harbor Head. The first few ships hit the barriers and were stopped, but only for minutes before they were cleared. The first ships moved into the Inner Harbor

Smoke was beginning to drift over Dun Kiil, laden with the scent of charred wood and the burning oil; curtains of driving rain obscured the bay. A constant roar dinned in her ears, the wordless cry of the massed thousands. Kianna Ciomhsog raised her sword a hundred yards away, her mouth opened as she shouted something to the troops; Ri MacBradaigh was with her, a sword clutched in his hand also, though its point dragged the ground at

"Jenna, it’s time." MacEagan’s hand closed around his Cloch Mor. He nodded to her. "I’ll be with you."

Jenna took Lamh Shabhala in her right hand.

She sent her mind into the cloch.

The world faded about her for a moment, then the doubled vision of the cloch-world came to her, brilliant and saturated. Jenna gasped in won-der and terror-so many clochs, so many points of brilliance set like burning suns about her: at least twenty of the Clochs Mor, and dozen upon dozens of the clochmion as well, faint pinpricks against the glory of their powerful cousins.

Some of them she knew, their colors and shapes familiar: Ennis’ cloch wielded by Mac Ard; Aron O Dochartaigh, the nameless tiarna with the Cloch of the mage-demon. Nevan O Liathain was out there, and other tiarna she had met at Lar Bhaile. They were out there, and they were aware of her as well-she could feel their minds turn as the greater sun of Lamh Shabhala rose.

They saw her. The first attack came before she could draw breath.

A wave seemed to tower in front of her, a surging surf of green whose crest glowed white. It loomed high, ready to fall like an immense tower down on her. She could feel the inexperience of the Holder behind the cloch’s attack-there were holes in the wall of energy before her. With near contempt, Jenna shaped Lamh Shabhala’s power, gathered up the wave, and threw it back to its source. The emerald wave crashed over one of the ships just entering the Inner Harbor; a thin, single scream cut through the noise of the rising battle. The Mage had squandered all the energy in the cloch in one flurry, and Lamh Shabhala greedily sucked it out, emptying the cloch utterly and spitting it back over the ship. More screams came, this time from the people around the Holder; the lumines-cence that had marked the cloch’s position vanished like a snuffed candle.

One. .

The Clochs Mor of Inish Thuaidh were alive now, attacking on their own, and Jenna realized that no matter how much she might have disliked Moister Cleurach’s tutelage, the quality of the Order’s

teaching showed. The Inishlander cloudmages were superior to any of the Tuathian Mages-she saw Mundy Kirwan's cloch open and tendrils of blue-green death streak outward across the water, thrusting aside the defenses of two Clochs Mor and smashing into one of the ships, its touch setting the hull afire as the boat capsized. Most of the Tuathian Mages were inexperienced, their handling of the mage-light's power awkward and tentative. For the first time, Jenna began to have some hope.

Sudden flights of arrows arced from the bay, a thousand barbs streaking down through the smoke, surprising Jenna with their suddenness, and Jenna barely managed to throw a shadow of Lamh Shabhala’s power toward them. The arrows closest to her burst into flame and went to drifting ash, but those to either side did not and soldiers fell, screaming in pain or silent in death. The assault brought back to Jenna the realization that it would not be the clochs only that won this battle. Even Lamh Shabhala couldn't stand alone against an army.

And not all the clochs had entered the fray.

A shout went up from the western end of the harbor-the first of the Tuathian ships had landed, the soldiers on it swarming out to be met by Kianna Ciomhsog and her vanguard. The caointeoireacht na cogadh-the war-keening-burst from their throats as they charged. Jenna heard the first clash of steel on steel as men rushed past her, moving toward the battle. Another ship landed; a second mass of arrows was launched hiss-ing through the air; again, Jenna spent a tithe of Lamh Shabhala’s energy to destroy those raining down toward her.

"Jenna!" she heard MacEagan call. "Fall back!

Keep yourself behind our troops." She felt MacEagan's arm on hers, and she allowed him to pull her back through the press of soldiers until they stood in the shadow of the tavern. His face was drawn, his hand white around the cloch. His eyes closed and he groaned, staggering, and in her cloch-vision, Jenna saw the fire-creature recoil as a thicket of glowing spears thrust into its torso.

Through the smoke at the edge of the harbor front, Jenna saw a banner °f green and brown appear, waving above a troop of mailed knights not thirty yards away. Then the smoke obscured them as a squadron of Inishlander troops rushed past Jenna toward them.

The mage-demon appeared in the air over the harbor front, tendrils of smoke writhing about it like a mad cloak. It shrieked, its head seeming search the city, then it folded its wings and fell toward Jenna.

From there, what little vestige of order remained disintegrated into chaos, and Jenna was too busy to see what happened anywhere but in front of her.

The demon fell upon them, claws and horrible mouth open in fury Jenna sent a pulse of energy toward it, nearly too late: a taloned hand slashed air so close to her face that she felt the wind of its passage. The creature slammed into the wall of the tavern, timbers cracking and stone walls tumbling in. Splintered wood and sharp fragments of shattered stone splattered over Jenna; she ducked instinctively, raising her left hand to protect her face.

The mage-creature howled in rage and pain, leather wings lashing as part of the roof collapsed and dust rose in a gray pall. It stalked out of the ruin, thrusting aside shattered roof beams, as Jenna stood again. She sent her mind into the well of the cloch, sending arcing bolts of energy toward the beast. It howled and screamed as they struck and went down to its knees. Jenna prepared a second strike, knowing that alone the creature couldn’t survive against Lamh Shabhala. But it was not alone, suddenly.

Behind you. .! She could hear the scream of a chorus of ancient Holders in her head.

Light flared in her cloch-vision, slashing toward her from two direc-tions within the Inner Harbor: firebolts accompanied by streaks of azure lighting, both of them all too familiar to Jenna: Mac Ard and Aron O Dochartaigh. Cursing, Jenna brought the energy she’d gathered to bear on the new attack: mage-power exploded so near her that she was thrown back, landing on the paving stones with a grunt, her cloca torn and skin scraped away on her left arm and side. Almost, she lost her grip on Lamh Shabhala; the cloch-vision shuddered, blinked, then returned. The demon pulled itself erect again. .

… but a form of molten rock hurtled past in front of Jenna, colliding with the demon with a screech of rage; MacEagan, somewhere close by, shouted in unison with the creature. A fury surged through her, overlaid with the memory of Aron’s murder of

Ennis. She reached out with Lamh Shabhala, rushing back along the lines radiating from Aron’s cloch with the full force of her own cloch. But two additional clochs had joined in the attack; Jenna felt an unseen force drape around her; where it touched, it clung like a stinging spider's web. The net constricted, pulling tighter, and she had to divert some of the force of Lamh Shabhala to push it back and allow herself to breathe. At the same moment, she felt the touch of cloch on her mind. There was disconcerting sense of invasion, then it went away.

. and Ennis was standing before her, smiling, his hands out. "Ennis. ." Jenna breathed. Ennis, still smiling, raised a sword that ap-peared impossibly in his hands and slashed at her. She fell back, raising her left hand, and the blade cut deep in her forearm, opening a long wound through which bone shone white for a moment before blood poured from the gaping cut. The blade finished its diagonal slice at her hip, opening a shallower wound along her right side. The strike intended for Aron O Dochartaigh went wild, vanishing as she lost control of the power. Ennis was still smiling as he raised the sword-dripping red along its keen edge-once more.

"Ennis!" She screamed his name. A line of fire hurtled toward her- Mac Ard-and she barely managed to turn the fireball aside; she could feel its terrible heat as it exploded in one of the buildings behind her. She heard screams from behind but couldn't turn to look. The net tightened around her; in her cloch-vision, she could feel the snarling power of O Dochartaigh's and Mac Ard's clochs gathering for another strike.

Ennis-smiling fixedly like a mad creature-brought the sword down.

Jenna brought up a shield of Lamh Shabhala’s energy. Where the power met Ennis' sword, the blade hissed, smoked, and sheared away. Screaming wordlessly, Jenna sent the red-tinted fury past the useless weapon, hur-tling into Ennis' body, burning and tearing at it as if it were her own hands even as she cried. Ennis screamed in pain, calling her name like a curse, and she wept even as she pulled at the ribbon of energy that linked his image to the cloch that had created it. She could feel the Mage at the other end shrieking with agony as she raked the phantom with Lamh Shabhala’s power, and that fueled the anger even more. She ripped every last erg of energy from the other's cloch and sent its

remnants hurtling toward the netting laced around her. The impact loosed the constriction, and she rolled aside as azure lightning and red-orange fireballs both gouged craters in the earth at the spot where she’d been standing an instant before.

For a moment, she was free, but the cloch-vision roiled with bright points of power even as she threw shields around Lamh Shabhala to keep it hidden. Some of them were matched with the clochs of the Inishlanders: Moister Cleurach, MacEagan, Aithne, Galen. . Most of the Tuathian clochs were set against the Inish troops, but she could feel several search-ing for her. She wished she could make sense of the uproar and confusion around her. Men were shouting and yelling and moaning all around her; there was movement and the bright sound of clashing steel; the scent of blood and death, but she was standing alone in a small circle of calm She spun around, looking for MacEagan, but though she could sense his cloch close by, she couldn’t see him. "MacEagan!" she shouted. "Kyle!" There was no answer.

She thought for a moment she glimpsed Kianna through a gap in the clouds of smoke, sword lifted and bloody, hacking at two Tuathian sol-ders, then the smoke covered her again. Where Aithne or Moister Cleurach or Ri MacBradaigh might be, she had no idea. She tried to walk and nearly went down; pain shot through her right hip, and she looked down to see her cloca ripped and covered with gore, her left arm slathered with blood and the wound gaping and raw. The sight of it made her nauseous and weak and she nearly fell. Her fingers loosened on Lamh Shabhala, and the cloch-vision faded, the world going gray and dim. She forced herself to stand erect, to pull strength from the cloch.

"This is what war is like…" The voices came from within Lamh Shabhala.

". . we warned you… "

". . it’s pain and blood and loss and death…"

". . it’s only in the songs and myths that war is glorious and brave and only the enemy is hurt…"

Jenna felt despair and hopelessness wash over her. We’re going to lose. We need to call the retreat now, before it’s too late.

But there were sea-green points of magic-imbued light, moving out in the water. One of them was very familiar. "Thraisha!" The blue seals moved among the ships of the Tuatha. Through the confusion of the battle, Jenna heard the sudden shouts of alarm aboard the boats and the splintering of wood. In the cloch-vision, Thraisha's brilliance flared, and Jenna saw, out in the Inner Harbor, a ship suddenly heel over as if a giant hand had pushed it; at the same time, one of the cloch-lights winked out, extinguished.

The Tuathian Mages now seemed to realize that they were being at-tacked from the sea and Jenna felt many of them turn away to deal with this new threat. Limping and slow, Jenna made her way toward the water. She felt the ground underneath move from stone flags to hard-packed earth to wooden planks as she reached the quays. She passed bodies, both Inishlander and Tuathian; she passed wounded who looked up at her beseechingly, moaning or calling out to her-she ignored them, lost in the cloch-vision.

Mac Ard was still there, searching for her, and Aron O Dochartaigh also. She was near enough now that she could see the ships on which they stood, Mac Ard out near Little Head, and O Dochartaigh a few hundred yards out and to the south of her, his ship rowing in. "Strike before they find you…" She heard the whispered advice, and plunged her being into Lamh Shabhala, gathering up as much of the cloch's power as she could hold, keeping the shields around her as she prepared, then drop-ping them as she threw the wild energy toward O Dochartaigh. Too late, he saw the attack and sent pulses of blue toward it, but the white-hot force was hardly blunted. Jenna followed the lines back, imagining that she handled lightning with her bare hands and shoved it, pushing it back at O Dochartaigh. She saw his face in her cloch-vision, glimpsed his ha-tred as he realized that Jenna was there. "This is for Ennis!" she shouted at him, not knowing if he could see or hear her, not sure if it was truly his face or simply a shadow of it glimpsed in the cloch-vision. His lips shaped words, but she held the lightings and thrust them directly into that mouth. Lamh Shabhala tore at him, shredding flesh from bone, his hair aflame, his eyes bulging. .

And he was gone. The cloch-light went dark, and she felt him, finally, die.

She had no time to savor her revenge, no time to feel any emotions at all. Lamh Shabhala was revealed again, and Mac Ard and the other cloch wielders saw her. Red violence streaked toward her; she thrust it aside and the piers to either side of her erupted in splinters and flame, the heat of Mac Ard’s attack rushing over her. The net-thrower was at her again, tossing its webbing about her. She could feel the attention of other clochs turning to her now. A giant wolf howled, leaping from nowhere toward her, mouth open and slavering. She speared it with Lamh Shabhala, toss-ing it into the water as somewhere a Mage howled in concert. Another wolf followed, and another. . She dropped the pier from underneath one, then hurled the other into the fire of the docks Mac Ard had de-stroyed. The netting pulled tight around her as her attention wandered, tendrils closing around her throat, the ends writhing and pushing at her mouth. Her arms were trapped, and she felt herself being pulled toward the water, her feet lifting from the ground.

Jenna was deep into the reservoirs of Lamh Shabhala now. She forced herself to concentrate, to find the power to pull away the cloch-bonds around her. .