Holder of Lightning S L Farrell

THE stone was a gift of the glowing sky. Jenna wasn't certain exactly when the first shifting curtain of green and gold shimmered into existence among the stars, for her attention wasn't on the vista above her. She shouldn't have been out this late in the first place-she should have been bringing the sheep into their pen even as the last light of the sun touched the hills. But Old Stubborn, their ancient and cantankerous ram, had insisted on getting himself stuck on a rocky ledge on Knobtop's high pasture, and Jenna had spent far too long pushing and prodding him down while trying to avoid being butted by his curled horns. As she shoved the ram's wooly bottom back down toward the winter scrub grass where the rest of the flock was grazing, her dog Kesh barking and growling to keep Old Stubborn moving, Jenna noticed that the silver light of the stars and crescent moon had shifted, that the landscape around her had been brushed by gold.

She looked up, and saw the sky alight with cold fire.

Jenna gaped, her mouth half open and her breath steaming, staring in wonder at the glowing dance: great sheets and folds of light swaying gracefully above like her mother's dress when she danced with Halden at the Corn Feast last month. The lights throbbed in a strange silence, filling the sky high above her and seeming to wrap around Knobtop.

Jenna thought there should have been sound: wailing pipes, or a crackling bon-fire roar. There was power there; she could feel it, filling the air around her as if a thunderstorm were about to break.

And it did break. The light above flared suddenly, a gold-shattered flash that dazzled her eyes, snatching away her breath and sending her stagger-ing backward with her hands before her face. Her heel caught a rock. She went down hard, the air going out of her in a rush and a cry, her arms flailing out on either side in a vain attempt to break her fall. The rocky, half-frozen ground slammed against her. For a moment, she closed her eyes in pain and surprise. When she opened them again, the sky above her was dark once more, dusted with stars. The strange lights were gone, and Kesh was whining alongside her, prodding her with his black-and-white muzzle. "I'm all right, boy," she told him. "At least I think so."

Jenna sat up cautiously, grimacing. Kesh bounded away, reassured. One of the rocks had bruised her left hip through her woolen coat and skirts, and her neck was stiff. She'd be limping back down to Ballintubber, and Mam would be scolding her not only for getting the sheep back so late, but also for getting her clothes so dirty. "It's your fault, you stupid hard-head," she told Old Stubborn, whose black eyes were gazing at her placidly from a few strides away.

She pushed angrily at the rock that had bruised her. It rolled an arm's length downhill. In the black earth alongside where it had lain, something shone. Jenna scraped at the dirt with a curious forefinger, then sat back, stunned.

Even in the moonlight she could see a gleam: as pure a green as the summer grass in the fields below Knobtop; as bright as if the glowing sky had been captured in a stone. Jenna pulled the pebble free. It was no larger than two joints of her finger, rounded and smooth. She rubbed it between fingers and thumb, scrubbing away the dirt and holding it up to the moonlight. With the touch, for just that second, another vision over-laid the landscape: she saw a man with long red hair, stooped over and peering at the ground, as if searching for something he'd lost. The man halted and looked toward her-he was no one she recognized, and yet. . She felt as if she should know him.

But even as she stared and the man seemed to be about to speak, the vision faded as did the glow from the pebble. Maybe, she thought, none of it had ever been there at all; the vision and the brilliance had simply been the afterimage of the lights in the sky and her fall. Now, in her hand, the stone seemed almost ordinary, dull and small, with no glow or spark at all, though it was difficult to tell under the dim moon. Jenna shrugged, thinking that she would look more closely at the rock later, in the morn-ing. She put the pebble in the pocket of her coat and whistled to Kesh.

"Let’s get ’em home, boy," she said. Kesh yipped once and circled the flock, nipping at their heels to get them moving. The sheep protested, kicking at Kesh and baaing in irritation, then started to move, following Old Stubborn down Knobtop toward the scent of peat and home.

By the time they came down the slope and crossed the ridge between the bogs and saw the thatched roofs of Ballintubber, Jenna had forgotten about the stone entirely, though the dancing, glowing draperies of light remained bright in her mind.

The expected scolding didn’t come. Her mam, Maeve, rushed out from the cottage when she heard the dull clunking of the tin bells around Old Stubborn’s neck. Kesh went running to her, barking and racing a great circle around all of them.

"Jenna!" Maeve said, her voice full of relief. She brushed black hair away from her forehead.

"Thanks the gods! I was worried, you were so late getting back. Did you see the lights?"

Jenna nodded, her eyes wide with the remembrance. "Aye, I did. Great and beautiful, and so bright. What were they, Mam?"

Maeve didn’t answer right away. Instead, she threw her shawl over her shoulders and shivered. "Get the sheep in, then clean yourself up while I feed Kesh, and we’ll go up to Tara’s. Everyone’s there, I’m sure. Go on, now!"

A while later, with the flock settled, her clothing changed and the worst of the mud brushed away from her coat and from her hands, and Kesh (and herself) fed, they walked down the lane to the High Road, then north a bit to Tara’s, the dirt cold enough to crunch under their boots, the moon frosted silver above. The tavern’s windows were beckoning rec-tangles of yellow, and the air inside was warm with the fire and the heat of bodies. On any given night, Tara's was busy, with Tara herself, gray-haired and large, behind the bar and pulling the taps for stout and ale. Often enough, Coelin would be there, playing his fiddle or giotar and singing, and maybe another musician or two would join him and later someone would start dancing, or everyone would sing along and the sound would echo down the single lane of the village and out into the night air.

Jenna liked to listen to Coelin, who was three years older. Coelin had apprenticed under Songmaster Curragh, dead of a bloody cough during the bad winter three years ago. Jenna thought Coelin handsome, with his shock of unruly brown hair, his easy smile that touched every muscle in his face, and those large hands that spidered easily over his instrument land which, aye, she sometimes imagined running over her body). She thought Coelin liked her, as well. His green eyes often found her when he was singing, and he would smile.

"You're too young for him," Mam had said one night when she noticed Jenna smiling back. "The boy's twenty. Look at the young women around him, girl, smiling and preening and laughing. Half of them have already lifted their skirts for him, I'll wager, and one day soon one of them will miss her bleeding and pop up big and there'll be a wedding. You'd be a piece of blackberry pie to him, Jenna, sweet and luscious, devoured in one sitting and as quickly forgotten. Look if you want, and dream, but that's all you should do."

Tonight, Coelin wasn't playing, though Jenna thought that half of Ballintubber must be pressed inside the tavern. Coelin sat in his usual corner, his instruments still in their cases. Aldwoman Pearce stood up alongside the huge fireplace across from the bar, a mug of brown stout close at hand, and everyone staring at her furrowed, apple-shaped face."… in the Before, the sky would be alive with mage-lights, four nights out of the seven," she was saying in her trembling voice that always reminded Jenna of the sound of a rasp against wood. When Jenna and Maeve walked in, she stopped, watching them as they sidled along the back of the crowd. Cataract-whitened eyes glittered under overhanging, gray-hedged brows, and she took a long sip of the stout's brown foam. Aldwoman Pearce was Ald-the Eldest-in Ballintubber, over nine double-hands of years old. "I've buried everyone born before me and many after," she often said. "And I’ll bury more before I go. I’m too old and mean and tough for the black haunts to eat my soul." Aldwoman Pearce knew all the tales, and if she changed them from time to time as suited the occasion, no one dared to contradict her.

Aldwoman Pearce set the glass down on the mantel again with a sharp clack that made half the people jump up, startled. The noise also narrowed Tara’s eyes where she stood behind the bar-mugs were expensive and chipped ones were already too common. Aldwoman Pearce didn’t notice Tara’s unspoken admonition; her gaze was still on Maeve and Jenna.

"In the Before, when the bones of the land were still alive, mage-lights often filled the sky," Aldwoman Pearce declared, looking back at the oth-ers. "They were brighter and more colorful than those we saw tonight, and the cloudmages would call down the power in them and use it to war against each other. In the Before, magic lived in the sky, and when the sky became dark again, as it has stayed ever since for hands upon hands of generations, the cloudmages all died and their arts were lost."

"We’ve all heard that story a thousand times before," someone called out. The voice sounded like Thomas the Miller, who lived at the north end of the village, but Jenna, craning her head to see over the crowd, couldn’t be sure. "Then what was that we saw tonight? I saw my shadow, near as sharp as in the sun. I could have read a book by it."

"Aye, that you could, if you owned a book and if you could read at all," One Hand Bailey called out, and everyone laughed. Jenna’s mam had a book, a fine old thing with thick pages of yellow paper and gray-black printing that looked more perfect than any hand could have written. Thomas claimed he could read and Jenna’s mam had shown him their book once, but he claimed it must have been written in some other lan-guage, because he couldn’t read it all. Sometimes Thomas read stories from the book bound in green leather that Erin the Healer owned, but Jenna wasn’t alone in wondering whether Thomas simply made up the things he supposedly read.

"Tonight we saw the signs of the Filleadh," Aldwoman Pearce declared. "The first whisper that the bones of the land have stirred and will walk

again, that what was Before will be Now. A hint, perhaps-" She stopped and glanced at Jenna's mam again; a few of the others craning their necks to look back as well. "-that things that were hidden will be found again."

Some of the people muttered and nodded, but Thomas guffawed. "That's nonsense, Aldwoman.

The Before is Before, and the bones of the land are dead forever."

"The things I know aren't written in any of your books, Thomas Miller," the Ald sneered, tearing her hard gaze away from Maeve. "I know because my great-mam and great-da told me, and their parents told them, and so on back to the Before. I know because I hold history in my gray head, and because I listened. I know because my old bones feel it, and if you had a lick of sense in your head, you'd know it, too."

Thomas snorted, but said nothing. Aldwoman Pearce looked around the room, turning slowly, and again she fixed on Maeve. "What do you say, Maeve Aoire?"

Jenna felt more than saw her mam shrug. "I'm sure I don't know," she answered.

The Ald sniffed. "This is a portent, I tell you," she said ominously. "And if they saw the lights all the way in Dun Laoghaire, the Riocha will be like a nest of hornets hit with a stick, and will be buzzing all around the whole of Talamh an Ghlas. The R1 Gabair will be sending his emissaries here soon, because we all saw that the lights were close and within his lands." With that, Aldwoman Pearce drained her stout in one long swallow and called for more, and everyone began talking at once.

By the time Tara's clock-candle had burned down another stripe, Jenna was certain that no one in the tavern really knew what the lights had been at all, though it certainly made for a profitable evening for Tara-talking is thirsty work, as the old saying goes, and everyone wanted to give their impression of what they'd seen. Jenna slipped outside to escape the heat and the increasingly wild speculation, though Maeve was listening in-tently. Jenna shook her head as the closing door softened the din of a dozen conversations. She leaned against the drystone wall of the tavern, looking up at the crescent moon and the stars, gleaming and twinkling as if their stately transit of the sky had never been disturbed.

She smelled the odor of the pipe a moment before she heard the voice and saw the glowing red circle at the corner of the tavern. "They’ll be going for another stripe, at least."

"Aye," Jenna answered, "and they’ll all be complaining of it in the morning."

Laughter followed that remark, and Coelin stepped out from the side of the tavern, his form outlined in the glow from the tavern’s window. He took a puff on the pipe, exhaling a cloud of fragrant smoke. "You saw it, too?"

She nodded. "I was up on Knobtop, still, when the lights came. With our sheep."

"Then you saw it well, since it looked as if the lights were flaring all around old Knobtop. So what do you think it was?"

"I think it was a gift from the Mother to allow Tara to sell more ale," Jenna answered, and Coelin laughed again, with a full and rich amuse-ment as musical as his singing voice. "Whatever it was, I also think that there’s nothing I can do about it."

"That," he said, "is the only intelligent answer I’ve heard tonight." He tapped the pipe out against the heel of his boot, and sparks fell and ex-pired on the ground. Coelin blew through the stem and tapped it again, then stuffed the pipe in the pocket of his coat. "They’ll be calling for me to play soon, wanting to hear all the old songs tonight, not the new ones."

"I like the old songs," Jenna said. "It’s like hearing the voices of my ancestors. I close my eyes and imagine I’m one of them: Maghera, maybe, or even that sad spirit on Sliabh Collain, always calling for her lover killed by the cloudmage."

"You have a fine imagination, then," Coelin laughed.

"Your voice has a magic, that’s all," Jenna said, then felt herself blush-ing. She could imagine her mam listening, and telling her: You sound just like one of them. . Jenna was grateful for the dark.

She looked away, to where Knobtop loomed above the trees, a blackness in the sky where no stars shone.

"Ah, ’tis you who has the magic, Jenna," Coelin said. "When you're there listening, I find myself always looking at you."

Jenna felt her cheeks cool, and she stopped the laugh that wanted to escape. "Is that the kind of sweet lie you tell all of them, so they'll come sneaking out to you afterward, Coelin Singer? It won't work with me."

His eyes glittered in the light from the window, and the smile remained. "'Tis the truth, even if you won't believe it. And you can tell your mam that the rumors about me are greatly exaggerated. I've not slept with all the young women hereabouts."

"But with some?"

He might have shrugged, but the grin widened. "Rumors are like songs," he said. He took a step toward her. "There always has to be a bit of truth in them, or they won't have any power."

"You should make up a song about tonight. About the lights."

"I might do that," he answered. "About the lights, and a beautiful young woman they illuminated-"

The door to the tavern opened, throwing light over Jenna and Coelin and silhouetting the figure of Ellia, one of Tara's daughters and Coelin's current favorite. "Coelin! Put out that pipe of yours and…" A sudden frost chilled Ellia's voice. "Oh," she said. "I didn't expect to see you out here, Jenna. Coelin, Mam says to get your arse inside; they want music." The door shut again, more vehemently than necessary.

"Ellia sounds. ." Jenna hesitated, tilting her head at Coelin. "Upset," she finished.

"It's been a busy night, that's all," Coelin answered.

"I'm sure."

"I'd better get in."

"Ellia would like that, I'm certain."

The door opened again. This time Jenna's mam stood there. Coelin shrugged at Jenna. "I should go tune up," he said.

"Aye, you should."

Coelin smiled at her, winked, and walked past her to the door. "’Evenin’, Widow Aoire," he said as Jenna’s mam stepped aside.

"Coelin." She let the door shut behind him, and crossed her arms.

"We were talking, Mam," Jenna said. "That’s all."

Maeve sniffed. Frown lines creased her forehead. "From what I saw, your eyes were saying different things than your mouth."

"And neither my eyes nor my mouth made any promises, Mam."

Inside the tavern, a rosined bow scraped against strings. Maeve shook her head, revealing the silvery gray that touched her temples. "I don’t trust the young man. You know that. He’d be no good for you, Jenna- wouldn’t know a ewe from a ram, a bull from a milch cow, or potato from turnip. Songmaster Curragh got him from the Taisteal; the boy himself doesn’t know who his parents are or where he came from. All he knows is his singing, and he’ll get tired of Ballintubber soon enough and want to find a bigger place with more people to listen to him and brighter coins to toss in his hat. He’d leave you, or you’d be tagging along keeping the pretty young things away from him, all the while with children tugging at your skirts."

"So you’ve already got me married and your grandchildren born. What are their names, so I’ll know?" Jenna smiled at her mam, hands on her hips. Slowly, the frown lines smoothed out, and Maeve smiled back, her brown-gold eyes an echo of Jenna’s own.

"You want to go in and listen, darling?"

"I’ll go in if you’re going, Mam. Otherwise, I’ll go home with you. I’ve had enough excitement for a night. Coelin’s voice might be too much for me."

Maeve laughed. "Come on. We’ll listen for a while, then go home." She opened the door as Coelin’s baritone lifted in the first notes of a song. "Besides," Maeve whispered as Jenna slipped past her, "it’ll be fun to watch Ellia’s face when she sees Coelin looking at you."

Chapter 2: A Visitor

IN the morning, it was easy to believe that nothing magical had hap-pened at all. There were the morning chores: settling the sheep in the back pasture, cleaning out the barn, feeding the chicks and gathering the eggs, going over to Matron Kelly's to trade a half dozen eggs for a jug of milk from her cows, doing the same with Thomas the Miller for a sack of flour for bread. By the time Jenna finished, with the sun now peering over the summit of Knobtop, it seemed that life had lurched back into its familiar ruts, never to be dislodged again. In the daylight, it was difficult to imagine curtains of light flowing through the sky.

Jenna could smell Maeve frying bacon over the cook fire inside their cottage, and her stomach rumbled. Kesh was barking at her feet. She opened the door, ducking her head under the low, roughly-carved lintel, and into the warm air scented with the smell of burning peat. The cottage was divided into two rooms-the larger space crowded with a single table and chairs and the kitchen area, and a small bedroom in the rear where Jenna and her mam slept. Maeve had helped Jenna's father-Niall-build the wattle and daub house, but that was before Jenna had been born. She often wondered what he looked like, her da. Maeve had told her that Niall's hair was red, not coal black like Jenna's and Maeve's, and his eyes were as blue as the deep waters of Lough Lar, and that his smile could light up a dark night. She knew little about him, only that he wasn't from Ballintubber, but Inish Thuaidh, the fog-wrapped and cold island to the north and west. Jenna tried to imagine that face, and sometimes it looked like one person and sometimes another, and sometimes even an older Coelin. She wished she could see the memories that her mam saw, when she rocked in the chair and talked about him, her eyes closed and smiling.

Jenna had no memory of Niall at all. "He was killed, my love," Maeve had told her years ago when Jenna had asked, curious as to why she didn't have a da when others did, "slain by bandits on his way to Bacathair. He was going there to see if he could gain a berth on one of the fishing ships, and maybe move you and me there. He always loved the sea, your da."

When Jenna grew older, she heard the other rumors as well, from the older children. "Your da

was fey and strange, and he just left you and your mam," Chamis Redface told her once, after he pushed her into a thicket of bramble. "That’s what my da says: your da was a crazy In-ishlander, and everyone’s glad he’s gone. You go to Bacathair, and you’ll find him, sitting in the tavern and drinking, probably married to someone else and talking nonsense." Jenna had flown at Chamis in a rage, bloody-ing his nose before he threw her off and Matron Kelly came by to pull them apart. When Maeve asked Jenna why she’d been fighting with Chamis, she just sniffed. "He tells lies," she said, and would say nothing else.

But she wondered about what Chamis had said. There were times when she imagined herself going to Bacathair and looking for him, and in those fantasies, sometimes, she found him. But when she did, invariably, she woke up before she could talk with him.

The man you thought you saw, after you jell… He had red hair, and his eyes, they might have been blue. . Jenna tried to shake the thought away, but she couldn’t. She saw his face again and found herself smiling.

"I’m glad to see you’re so pleased with yourself," her mam said as she came into the tiny house. "Here’s your breakfast. Give me the milk and the flour, and sit yourself down." Maeve slid the wooden plate in front of Jenna, along with one of the four worn and bent forks they owned: eggs sizzling brown with bacon grease, a slab of brown bread with a pat of butter, a mug of tea and milk. "This afternoon I have to give Rafea two of the hens for the bolt of cloth she gave me last week."

"Give her the brown one and the white neck," Jenna said. "They’re both fat enough, and neither one lays well." Jenna slid her fork under a piece of bacon. "Mam, I think I’ll take the flock back up to Knobtop this afternoon."

Maeve’s back was to her as she cut a slice of bread for herself. "Up to Knobtop?" she asked. Her voice sounded strained. "After last night?"

"It’s a nice day, the grass was good up there yesterday, and this time I’ll be sure I’m back earlier. Besides, Mam, in all the old stories, the mage-lights only come at night never during the day."

Her mam hadn't moved. The knife was still in her hand, the bread half cut "I thought you might help me with the hens." When Jenna didn't answer, she heard Maeve sigh. "All right. I suppose I shouldn't be sur-prised. Aldwoman Pearce'll be talking about it, though."

"Why should Aldwoman Pearce care if I go to Knobtop? Because I was there last night?"

"Aye," Maeve said. She set the knife down and turned, brushing at the front of her skirt. "Because of that, and. ." She stopped. "Ah, it doesn't matter. Go on with you. Take Kesh, and keep Old Stubborn out of trouble this time. I'll expect you back before sundown. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Mam." Jenna hastily finished her breakfast, gave Kesh the plate on the floor while she put her coat and gloves back on, and took the half loaf of brown bread her mother gave her, stuffing it into a pocket of the coat. "Come on, Kesh. Let's get the sheep…" With a kiss for her mam, she was gone.

By the time they reached the green-brown flanks of Knobtop, the sun had warmed Jenna and her coat was open. The sky was deep blue over-head and dotted with clouds, sailing in a stately fleet across the zenith. The sheep moved along with Kesh circling and nipping at their heels, their black-faced heads lowering to nibble at the heather. As they rose higher, Jenna could look back north and west and see the thatched roofs of Ballintubber in its clearing beyond the trees lining the path of the Mill Creek, and looking eastward, glimpse the bright thread of the River Duan winding its way through the rolling landscape toward Lough Lar. By noon, they were in the field where Jenna had seen the lights.

She didn't know what she had expected to see, but she found herself disappointed. There was no sign that anything unusual had happened here at all. Kesh herded the sheep into the largest grassy slope, and the flock set themselves to grazing-they paid no more attention to the area than they did to the pastures down in the valley.

Jenna found a large, mossy boulder and sat down to rest from the climb. "Kesh! Keep them here, and don't let Old Stubborn get away this time." She pulled her mam's brown bread from her pocket; as she did so, the pebble she'd picked up the previous

night fell out onto the ground. She leaned down to pick it up.

The touch of it on her fingers was so cold that she dropped the stone in surprise, then picked it up carefully, as if she were holding a chunk of ice. In the sunlight, there was the echo of the emerald brilliance the rock had seemed to possess when she’d first found it. She’d never seen a rock this color before: a lush, saturated green, crenellated with veins of pure, searing white that made her pupils contract when the sun dazzled from them.

The stone looked as if it had been polished and buffed with jewel-er’s rouge.

And so cold. . Jenna closed her right hand around the stone, thinking it would warm as she held it, but the cold grew so intense that it felt as if she’d taken hold of a burning ember. As it had last night, another vision settled over her eyes like a mist, as if she were seeing two worlds at once. The red-haired man was there again, still stooped over as he paced the slope of Knobtop, and again he turned to look at her. "I lost it. ." he said, and then he faded. Other, stronger voices came to her: a dozen of them, two dozen, more; all of them shouting at her at once, the din clam-oring in her ears though she could make out none of the words in the chaos.

Jenna cried out (Kesh barking in alarm at her voice) and tried to release the stone, but her fingers wouldn’t open. They remained stubbornly clamped around the pebble, and the icy burning was climbing quickly from her hand to her wrist, onto her forearm, past the elbow. . "No!" This time the words were a scream, as Jenna scrabbled frantically at her fisted hand, trying to pry the fingers open with her other hand as the cold filled her chest, pounding like a foaming, crashing sea wave up toward her head, crashing down into her abdomen. The voices screamed. The cold fire filled her, and Jenna screamed again in panic. She could feel a surging power pressing against her, each fiber of her body taut and hum-ming with wild energy. She lifted her hand, concentrating her will, imag-ining her fingers opening around the stone. Her fingers trembled as if she had a palsy, then sprang open. Coruscating light, brighter than the sun, flared outward, arcing in a jagged lightning bolt that struck ground a dozen strides away.

The stone fell from her hand. A peal of thunder dinned in her ears and echoed from the hills around

Knobtop. Breathless, Jenna sank to her knees in the grass.

Whimpering, Kesh came up and licked her face while she tried to catch her breath, as the world settled into normalcy around her. Old Stubborn baaed nearby. Jenna blinked hard. Everything was normal, except. .

Where the lightning bolt had struck, there was a blackened hole in the turf, an arm deep and a stride across. The dirt there steamed in the air.

Jenna's intake of breath shuddered in amazement. "By the Mother, Kesh, did 1…?"

The stone lay a hand's breadth from her knee. Cradled in winter-browned heather, it seemed pretty and harmless. She reached out with a trembling forefinger and prodded it once. The surface seemed like any other stone and she felt nothing. She touched it again, longer this time: it was still chilled, but not horribly so. She picked it up, careful not to close her hand around it again. "What do you think, Kesh?"

The dog whimpered again, and barked once at her.

Gingerly, she placed the stone back in her pocket.

"Is everything all right?" Maeve asked as Jenna brought the flock back to Ballintubber. "Thomas said he saw a bright flash up on Knobtop, and we all heard thunder even though the sky was clear." The worry made her mam's face look old and drawn. "Jenna, I was worried. After last night. ."

All the way down from the high pasture, Jenna had debated with her-self over what she'd tell her mam. She'd thought at first that she'd tell her everything, how she'd found the stone after the lights, how it had seemed to glow, how the cold fury had consumed her until released. She wanted to describe the man she'd seen in the misty vision, and ask her: Could it be Da? But looking at Maeve now, seeing the anxiety and concern that filled her eyes, Jenna found that the carefully rehearsed words dissolved inside her. The fright she'd felt had faded and she seemed unhurt by the experience-why bother Mam with that now? Besides, she wasn't sure she could explain it: Mam might think she was making up tales, or wonder if Jenna had gone insane like Matron Kelly's son Sean, whose brain had been burned up by a high fever when he was a baby.

Sean talked as poorly as a three-year-old and babbled constantly to creatures only he could see. No, better to say nothing.

Jenna plunged her hand into her coat pocket, letting her fingertips roam over the pebble there. The stone felt perfectly normal now, like any

other stone, not even a hint of the coldness. Jenna smiled at her mam.

"I’m fine," she said. "A flash? Thunder? I really didn’t notice anything." Jenna wasn’t used to lying to her mam-at least no more than any adoles-cent might be-and she was surprised at how easily the words came, at how casual and natural they sounded. "I didn’t see anything, Mam. I thought I might, after last night, but everything was just. ." She shrugged, and brought her hand out of her pocket.". . normal."

Maeve’s head was cocked slightly to one side, and her eyes were nar-rowed. But she nodded. "Then get the sheep in, and come inside. I have some stirabout ready to eat." She continued to regard Jenna for a long breath, then turned and entered the cottage.

That was all Jenna heard on the subject. She took the stone out of her Pocket that night after her Mam was asleep, hiding it in a chink in the wall next to her side of the bed and covering it with mud. It was dangerous, she told herself, and shouldn’t be handled. But every morning, when she woke up, she looked at the spot, brushing her fingers over the dried mud. She found the touch comforting.

That night, she dreamed of the red-haired man, so real that it seemed she could touch him. "Who are you?" she asked him, but instead of an-swering her, he shook his head and wandered off toward Knobtop. She followed, calling to him, but she was caught in the slow motion of a dream and could never catch up. When she woke, she found that she couldn’t remember his features at all; they were simply a blur, unreal.

She looked at the mud-covered spot where the stone lay, and that, too, seemed unreal. She could almost believe there was nothing there. Nothing there at all.

Over the next few days, the excitement in Ballintubber about the lights over Knobtop

gradually died, even though the stories about that night grew with each telling, until someone listening might have thought that entire armies of magical creatures had been seen swirling in the air above the mount, wailing and crying. A good quarter of the village of Ballintub-ber had been up on Knobtop that night, too, if the tales that were told in Tara's were to be believed. But though the tales grew more elaborate, the night sky over Knobtop remained dark for the next three nights, and life returned to normal.

Until the fourth day.

The day was gloomy and overcast, with the lowering clouds dropping a persistent cold rain that permeated through clothing and settled into sinew and bone. The world was swathed in gray and fog, with Knobtop lost in the haze. Ballintubber's single cobbled lane was a morass of pud-dles and mud with occasional islands of wet stone. The smoke of turf fires rose from the chimneys of Ballintubber, gray smoke fading into gray skies, and the rain pattered from the edges of thatch into brown pools.

Rain couldn't alter the pace of life in Ballintubber, nor in fact anywhere in Talamh an Ghlas. It rained three or four days out of seven, after all, the year around. Rain in its infinite variety kept the land lush and green: startlingly bright and refreshing drizzles in the midst of sunshine; foggy rains where the clouds seemed to sink into the very earth and the air was simply wet; soaking, hard spring downpours that awakened the seeds in the ground; summer rains as warm and soft as bathwater; rare winter storms of snow and sleet to blanket the world in white and vanish in the next day's sun; howling and shrieking hurricanes from off the sea that lashed and whipped the land. Rain was simply a fact of life. If it rained, you got wet; if the sun was out or it was cloudy, you didn't-that was all. The chores still needed to be done, the work still went on. A little rain couldn't bring the activity in Ballintubber to a halt.

But the appearance of the rider did.

Through the open doors of the small barn behind Tara's Tavern, Jenna saw Eliath, Tara's son and youngest at twelve years of age, currying down the steaming body of a huge brown stallion. Jenna was pushing a barrow of new-cut turf toward home; she detoured to see the horse, which looked far too large and healthy to be one of the local work animals.

"Hey, Eli," she said, setting down the barrow just inside the door where it was out of the rain.

Eli glanced up from his work. The horse turned his great neck to glance at Jenna and nickered. She went over and rubbed his long muzzle. Eli grinned. "Hey, Jenna. That’s some animal, isn’t it?"

"It certainly is," she said. "Who does it belong to?"

"A man from the east, that’s all I know. He rode in a while ago, stopped at the tavern, and asked Mam to send me to get the Ald. I think he’s Riocha; at least he’s dressed like a tiarna-fine leather boots and gloves, a jacket of velvet and silk, and under that a leine shirt as white as new snow, and a cloca over it all that’s as thick as your finger and embroidered all around the edges with gold-the colors of the cloca are green and brown, so he’s of Tuath Gabair." Eli plucked at his own bedraggled woolen coat and unbleached muslin shirt. He plunged a hand into a pocket and pulled out a large coin. "Gave me this, too, for getting Aldwoman Pearce and taking care of the horse."

"Where is he now?"

"Inside. Lots of other people there now, too. You can go in if you want."

Jenna glanced at the tavern, where yellow light shone through the streaks of gray rain. "I might. Can I leave the barrow here?"

"Sure."

There were at least a dozen people in the dim, smoky interior of the tavern, unusual in mid-afternoon. The stranger sat at a table near the rear, talking with Aldwoman Pearce. Jenna caught sight of a narrow face with a long nose, brown eyes dark enough to be nearly black, and a well-trimmed beard, a slight body clad in rich clothing, a delicate hand wrapped around a mug of stout. His hair was long and oiled, and the line of a scar interrupted the beard halfway to the left ear. Jenna could hear his voice as he spoke with Aldwoman Pearce, and it was as smooth and polished as his clothing, bright with the accent of the upper class and permeated with a faint haughtiness. The others in the tavern were pretending not to watch the stranger’s table, which made it all the more obvious that they were.

Coelin was there, also, sitting at the bar with a mug of tea and a plate of scones in front of him,

talking with Ellia. Tara was in the rear of the tavern, hanging the pot over the cook fire. Jenna went over and stood next to Coelin, ignoring the barbed glance from Ellia, behind the bar.

"Who is he?" Jenna asked.

Coelin shrugged. "Riocha. A tiarna from Lar Bhaile, if he's to be be-lieved. The Tiarna Padraic Mac Ard, he says."

"What's he talking to Aldwoman Pearce about?"

Coelin shrugged, but Ellia leaned forward. "Mam says he asked about the lights-didn't Aldwoman Pearce foretell that the other night? Says he saw them in Lar Bhaile from across the lough. When Mam told him how they were flickering around Knobtop, he asked to speak to the Ald."

"Maybe he'll want to speak with you, Jenna," Coelin said. "You were up there that night."

Jenna shivered, remembering, and shook her head vigorously. She thought of those dark eyes on her, of those thin lips asking questions. She thought of the stone in its hole in the wall of her cottage.

"No. I didn't see anything that you didn't see here. Let him talk to the Ald. Or some of the others here who say they saw all sorts of things with the lights."

Coelin snorted through his nose at that. "They saw things with the ale and whiskey they drank that night and their own imaginations. I doubt Tiarna Mac Ard will be much interested in that."

"Why's he interested at all?" Jenna asked, glancing over at him again. "They were lights, that's all, and gone now." Mac Ard's eyes glittered in the lamplight, never at rest. For a moment, their gazes met. The contact was almost a physical shock, making Jenna take a step back. She looked away hurriedly. "I should go," she said to Coelin and Ellia.

"Ah, ''tis a shame," Ellia said, though her voice was devoid of any sor-row at all.

"Come back tonight, Jenna," Coelin said. "I made up a song about the lights, like you suggested."

Despite her desire to be away from Mac Ard and the tavern, Jenna could not keep the smile from her lips, though the pleased look on Ellia's face dissolved. "Did you now?"

Coelin tilted his head and smiled back at her. "I did. And I won’t sing it unless you’re there to hear the verses first. So will you come?"

"We’ll see," Jenna said. Mac Ard was still looking at her, and Aldwoman Pearce turned in her chair to glance back also. "I really need to go now."

As Jenna rushed out, she heard Ellia talking to Coelin- "Keep your eyes in your head and the rest of you in your pants, Coelin Singer. She’s still just a gawky lamb, and not a very pretty one at that…" — then the door closed behind her. The cold rain struck her face, and she pulled the cowl of her coat over her head as she ran through the puddles to the barn and retrieved her barrow of peat.

She hurried back to the cottage through the rain and the fog.

Chapter 3: A Song at the Inn

JENNA had just lit the candles on the shelves to either side of the fire-place. The sun was down or lowering-the rain persisted, and the sky slipped from the color of wet smoke to slate to coal as the interior of their house slowly darkened. Maeve was peeling potatoes; Jenna was carding wool. They both heard the sound of slowly moving hooves through the drumming of rain, and Kesh lifted his head from the floor and growled. Leather creaked, and there were footsteps on the flags outside the door. Someone knocked at the door and Kesh barked. Maeve looked at Jenna.

"Mam, I forgot to tell you. There’s a tiarna who was at Tara’s. ." Maeve set down her paring knife and went to the door, brushing at her apron. She opened the door. Mac Ard stood there, a darkness against the wet night.

"I’m looking for Maeve Aoire and her daughter," Mac Ard said. His voice was deep and gruff. "I was told this was their home."

"Aye, ’tis," Maeve answered, and Jenna heard a strange, awed tone in her mam’s voice. "I’m Maeve

Aoire, sir. Come in out of the wet, won't you?"

Maeve stood aside as the man ducked his head and entered. Kesh growled once, then slunk away toward the fire. "Jenna, put your coat on and take the tiarna's horse out to the barn. At least it'll be dry there. Go on with you, now."

By the time Jenna got back, Mac Ard was sitting at the table with a plate of boiled potatoes, mutton, and bread, and a mug of tea in front of him. Kesh sat at his feet, waiting for dropped crumbs. His boots and cloca were drying near the fire. Maeve sat across from him, but she wasn't eating. Her face was pale, as if she might be frightened, and her hands were fisted on the table, fingers curled into palms. She glanced up as Jenna came through the door, shaking water from her hood and sleeves. "It's not raining as hard as it was," she said, wanting to break the silence. "I think it'll stop soon."

Her mam simply nodded, as if she'd only half heard. Mac Ard had turned in his chair, the legs scraping across the floorboards. "Sit down, Jenna," he said. "I'd like to talk with you."

Jenna glanced at her mam, who gave her a slight nod. Jenna didn't sit, but went over to Maeve, standing behind her, and resting her hands on her Mam's shoulders even as Maeve reached up to pat Jenna's hand reas-suringly. One corner of Mac Ard's mouth lifted slightly under the beard, as if he found the sight amusing.

"I didn't expect to hear the surname Aoire, so many miles from the north," he commented. He stabbed a potato with a fork, brought it to his mouth, and chewed. "It's an uncommon name hereabouts, to be certain. Inishlander in origin."

"My husband was from the north," Maeve answered. "From Inish Thuaidh."

"Husband?"

"He's dead almost seventeen years, Tiarna Mac Ard. Killed by bandits on the road."

Mac Ard nodded. He blinked, and the dark eyes seemed softer than they had a moment before. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, and Jenna thought she heard genuine sympathy in his voice. "For a woman as well-spoken and comely as yourself, he must have been an exceptional person for you to never have remarried. This is his daughter?"

Maeve touched Jenna’s hands. "Aye. She was still a babe in arms when Niall was murdered."

Another nod. "Niall Aoire. Interesting. Niall’s not an Inish name, though. In fact, my great-uncle was named Niall, though he was a Mac Ard." The tiarna sipped at the tea, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to be waiting, then took a long breath before continuing. "Four nights ago, I was standing on the tower of the Ri’s Keep in Lar Bhaile, when I saw colors flickering on the black waters of the lough. I looked up, and I could see the glow in the sky as well, to the north and west beyond the hills. They were nothing I’d ever seen before, but I’d heard them described, in all the old folktales. Mage-lights."

He drummed the table with his fingers. "A dozen or more generations ago, I’m told, my own ancestors were among the last of the cloudmages as the mage-lights in the sky weakened. Then the lights vanished entirely, and with them the power to perform spells. If you listen to the old tales, with the lights also went other magics as well: that of mythical creatures and of hidden, ancient places. Now half the people think of those tales as myth and legend, no more than stories. At times, I’ve thought that, too. But looking at the lights, I felt. ." He tapped his chest, leaning forward, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. "I felt them calling me, here. I went running down from the tower, and dragged the town’s Ald back up so that I could show him. ’By the Mother-Creator, those are mage-lights, Tiarna,’ he said. They can’t be anything else. After so long…’ I thought the poor old man might cry, he was so moved by the sight of them. So I asked the Ri’s leave to come here, because they called me, because I wanted to see where they’d chosen to return." His eyes found Jenna, and again she felt the shock of that contact, as if his gaze could actually bruise her. "I’m told that you were up there that night, on Knobtop."

She wanted to shout denial, but couldn’t, not with her mam there. "Aye," she started to say, but the admission was more squeak than word. She cleared her throat. "I was there."

"And what did you see?"

"Lights, Tiarna Mac Ard. Beautiful lights, rippling and swaying." She could not stop the awe the memory placed in her voice.

"And nothing more?"

"They flashed at the end, brighter than anything I'd ever seen. Then they were. ." Her shoulder lifted. "Gone," she finished. "I told Kesh to bring the sheep along, and we came back here."

Mac Ard ruffled Kesh's head and fed him a piece of the mutton. "Strange," he said. "And nothing else happened? Nothing else. . un-usual?" His eyes held her. Jenna found herself thinking of the stone hid-den in the wall in their bedroom, not six strides away from Mac Ard, and of the cold lightning that flared from it and the red-haired man. She could feel her cheeks getting hot, and her mouth opened as if she wanted to speak, but she forced herself to remain silent as Mac Ard continued to stare. She thought that he could see through her, could sense the lie of omission that lay in her gut, burning, all the worse because now she was lying to a Riocha, one of the nobility of the land. Mac Ard's nostrils flared on his thin nose and he almost seemed to nod. Then he blinked and looked away, and the terror in her heart receded.

"How odd," Mac Ard said, "that the mage-lights would choose to reap-pear here."

"I'm sure neither of us know why, Tiarna," Maeve told him.

He pursed his lips. He glanced back once at Jenna before turning his attention to her mam. "I'm sure you don't. Tell me this, Widow Aoire, did you know your husband's family well?"

Maeve shook her head. "I was born and raised here. The truth, Tiarna, is that I know very little about them, and never at all met any of them. The farthest I've ever been from Ballintubber is Bacathair, a few months after my husband's death. I went there to see if the gardai could help me find out more about how he died, and who the murderers were."

"And did the gardai help you?"

Jenna saw Maeve's head move softly from side to side. "No. They had nothing more to tell me than I already knew, nor did they care much about the death of 'some Inishlander.'"

Mac Ard nodded slowly, contemplatively. "I've taken enough of your time and hospitality," he said. "Let me repay you. I understand that there's a

young man with an excellent voice who sings at the inn where I'm staying tonight. Come back there with me; be my guests for the evening, both of you. We can talk more there, about whatever you'd like."

Jenna had to stop herself from grinning, both from relief that the tiar-na's interrogation seemed to be over, and at the suggestion to go to Tara's. Coelin had promised her a song, and she hadn't wanted to ask, with the awful weather. But if the tiarna insisted. .

"Oh, no, Tiarna," Maeve started to say automatically, then glanced back at Jenna. He smiled at her and nodded, as if they shared a secret.

"Your daughter wants you to accept," Mac Ard said. "And I would be honored."

"I don't-" Maeve began. Jenna tightened her arms around her moth-er's shoulders, and felt her sigh. "I suppose we'd also be honored," she said.

The rain had subsided to a bare, cold drizzle. Mac Ard brought his stallion out from the barn. "You want to ride him?" he asked Jenna. She nodded, mutely. He picked her up, hands around her waist, and placed her side-ways astride the saddle, handing her the reins. He patted the muscular neck, glossy and as rich a brown as new-turned earth. "Behave yourself, Conhal," he told the horse, who snorted and shook his head, bridle jin-gling. "That's a special young woman you hold."

For a moment, Jenna wondered at that, but then Mac Ard clucked once at Conhal, and the horse started walking, startling Jenna. They moved up the lane to Tara's, Mac Ard and Maeve walking alongside. The tiarna seemed to be paying most of his attention to Maeve, Jenna noticed. His head inclined toward her, and they talked in soft voices that Jenna couldn't quite overhear, and he smiled and, once, he touched Maeve's arm. Her mam smiled in return and laughed, but Jenna noticed that Maeve also moved slightly away from the tiarna after the touch.

Jenna frowned. Her mam had never paid much attention to the other men in Ballintubber, though enough of them had certainly indicated their interest. She'd always rebuffed them-some gently, some not, but all of them firmly. But this dark man, this Mac Ard… He seemed to like Maeve, and he was Riocha, after all. Maeve had always told her

how Niall, her da, was strong and protective and loving, and she could imagine that this Mac Ard might be the same way. .

The conversation inside Tara’s stopped dead when Tiarna Mac Ard pushed open the door of the tavern so that Maeve and Jenna could enter, then, as quickly, the chatter resumed again as everyone pretended not to notice that the tiarna had brought company with him. Tara came out from behind the bar, and shooed away old man Buckles from one of the tables. "What will you have, Tiarna Mac Ard?" she asked with an eyebrows-raised glance at Maeve. Mac Ard tilted his head toward Jenna’s mam.

"What do you recommend?" he asked.

" Tara’s brown ale is excellent," Maeve said. She was smiling at Mac Ard, and if she remained a careful step away from him, she also kept her gaze on him.

"The brown ale, then," Mac Ard said. Tara nodded her head and bus-tled off. Maeve sat across the table from Mac Ard; Jenna went over to where Coelin was tuning his giotar. Ellia was there also, her arm around Coelin. He glanced up, smiling, as Jenna approached; Ellia just stared.

"So the tiarna found you, eh?" he said. "He came up right after you left and asked where you lived." Coelin glanced over at the table, where Mac Ard’s dark head inclined toward Maeve. Coelin lifted an eyebrow at Jenna. "Seems he likes what he found." Ellia grinned at that, and Jenna frowned.

"I don’t find that funny, Coelin Singer," she said. She lifted her chin and turned to walk away.

Coelin strummed a minor chord. "Jenna," he said to her back. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you." She looked over her shoulder at him, and he continued. "So what did he ask you? ’She’s the one who was up there,’ he said to me. ’I know this. I can feel it.’ That’s what he told me, before he even knew who you were."

"What did the tiarna mean by that?" Jenna asked.

Coelin shrugged. "I’m sure I wouldn’t know. What did he say to you? What did he ask?"

"He only asked whether I saw the lights, that’s all. I told him that I had, and described them for him."

"We all saw them," Ellia said. "That’s nothing special. I could describe the lights for him just as easily, if that’s all he wants to know." She tight-ened her arm around Coelin. Jenna looked at her, at Coelin. She tried to find a hint in his bright, grass-green eyes that he wanted her to stay, that her presence was special to him. Maybe if he’d spoken then, maybe if he’d moved away from Ellia, if he’d given her any small sign. .

But he didn’t. He sat there, looking as handsome and charming as ever, with his long hair and his dancing eyes and his agile, long-fingered hands. Content. He smiled, but he smiled at Ellia, too. And he’d let either of us lift our skirts for him, too, with that same smile, that same contentment. The thought struck her with the force of truth, the way Aldwoman Pearce’s proclamations sometimes did when she scattered the prophecy bones from the bag she’d made from the skin of a bog body. There was the same sense of finality that Jenna heard in the rattling of the ivory twigs. You’re no more to him than any other comely young thing. His interest in you is mostly for the reflection he sees of himself in your eyes. He flirts with you because it is what he does. It means no more than that.

"I’ll be going back to my table," she said.

"Stay," he said. "I’ll be singing in a minute."

"And I’ll hear you just as fine from there," Jenna answered. "Besides, you have Ellia to listen to you."

A trace of irritation deepened the fine lines around his eyes for a breath, then they smoothed again. His fingers flicked over the strings of his giotar discordantly. Ellia pulled him back toward her, and he laughed, turning his head away from Jenna.

She went back to the table. Mac Ard was leaning toward Maeve, his arms on the table, his hands curled around a mug of the ale, and her mam was talking.". . Niall would go walking on Knobtop or the hills just to the east, or follow the Duan down to Lough Lar, or go wandering in the forests between here and Keelballi. But he always came back, was never away for more than a week, maybe two at the most. There was a wander-lust in him. Some people never seem satisfied where they are, and he was one. I never worried about it, or thought he was traipsing off with some lass. Once or twice a year,

I’d find him filling a sack with bread and a few potatoes, and I’d know he would be going. Jenna,"

Maeve glanced up as Jenna approached, and she smiled softly, "-she has some of that restless-ness in her blood. Always wanting to go farther, see more. I don't know what Niall was searching for, nor whether he ever found it. I doubt it, for he was wandering up to the end."

Mac Ard took a sip of the ale. "Did you ever ask him?"

Maeve nodded. "That I did. Once. He told me. ." She looked away, as if she could see Jenna's da through the haze of pipe and peat smoke in the tavern. Jenna wondered what face she was seeing. "He told me that he came here because a voice had told him that his life's dream might be here." Meave's eyes shimmered in the candlelight, and she blinked hard. "He said it must have been my voice he heard."

Coelin's giotar sounded, a clear, high chord that cut through the low murmur of conversation in the bar. He'd moved over near the fire, Ellia sitting close to him and a mug of stout within reach. "What would you hear first?" he called out to the patrons.

On any other night, half a dozen voices might have answered Coelin, but tonight there was silence. No one actually glanced back to Tiarna Mat Ard, but everyone waited to see if he would speak first.

Mac Ard had turned in his chair to watch Coelin, and Jenna could see something akin to disgust, or maybe it was simply irritation, flicker across his face. Then he called out to Coelin. "I'm told your teacher was a Song-master. He must have given you the 'Song of Mael Armagh.'"

"Aye, he did, Tiarna," Coelin answered. "But it's a long tale and sad, and I've not sung it since Songmaster Curragh was alive."

"All the more reason to sing it now, before you lose it."

There was some laughter at that. Coelin gave a shrug and a sigh. "Give me a moment, then, to bring it back to mind. ." Coelin closed his eyes. His fingers moved soundlessly over the strings for a few moments; his mouth moved with unheard words. Then he opened his eyes and exhaled loudly. "Here we go then," he said, and began to sing.

Coelin's strong baritone filled the room, sweet and melodious, a voice as smooth and rich as

new-churned butter. Coelin had a true gift, Jenna knew-the gods had lent him their own tongue. Songmaster Curragh had heard the gift, unpolished and raw, in the scared boy he'd purchased from the Taisteal; now, honed and sharpened, the young man's talent was apparent to all. Mac Ard, after hearing the first few notes, sat back in his chair with an audible cough of surprise and admiration, shaking his head and stroking his beard. "No wonder the boy has half the lasses here in his thrall," Jenna heard him whisper to Maeve. "His throat must be lined with gold. Too bad he's all too well aware of it."

Coelin sang, his voice taking them into a misty past where fierce Mael Armagh, king of Tuath Infochla four hundred years before, drove his ships of war from Falcarragh to Inish Thuaidh, where the mage-lights had first shone in the Eldest Time and where they glowed brightest. The verses of the ancient lay told how the cloudmages of the island called up the wild storms of the Ice Sea, threatening to smash the invading fleet on the is-land's high cliffs; Mael Armagh screaming defiance and finally landing safely; the sun gleaming from the armor and weapons of Mael Armagh's army as they swarmed ashore; the Battle of Dun Kill, where Mael Armagh won his first and only victory; Sage Roshia's prophecy that the king would die "not from Inish hands" if he pursued the fleeing Inishlanders to seal his victory. Yet Mael Armagh ordered the pursuit into the mountain fast-nesses of the island and there met his fate, his armies scattered and trapped, the Inishlanders surrounding him on all sides and the mage-lights flickering in the dark sky above. The last verses were filled with the folly, the courage, and the sorrow of the Battle of Sliabh Michinniuint: the Inish cloudmages raining fire down on the huddled troops; the futile, suicidal charge by Mael Armagh in an attempt to win through the pass to the Lowlands; the death of the doomed king at the hands of his own men, who presented Mael Armagh's body to Severii O'Coulghan, the Inishland-er's chief cloudmage, to buy their safe passage back to their ships. And the final verse, as Mael Armagh's ship Cinniuint, now his funeral pyre, sailed away from the island to the south never to be seen again, the flames of the pyre painting the bottom of the gray clouds with angry red.

The clock-candle on Tara's bar had burned down a stripe before Coelin finished the song, and Mac

Ard’s hands started the applause afterward as Coelin eased his parched throat with long swallows of stout. "Excellent," Mac Ard said. "I’ve not heard better. You should come to Lar Bhaile, and sing for us there. I’ll wager that in another year, you would be at the court in Dun Laoghaire, singing to the R1 Ard himself."

Coelin’s face flushed visibly as he grinned, and Jenna saw Ellia’s eyes first widen, then narrow, as if she were already seeing Coelin leaving Bal-lintubber. "I’ll do that, Tiarna. Maybe I’ll follow you back."

"Do that," Mac Ard answered, "and I’ll make sure you have a roof over your head, and you’ll pay for your keep with songs."

The patrons laughed and applauded (all but Ellia, Jenna noticed), and someone called out for another song, and Coelin started a reel: "The Cow Who Married the Pig," everyone clapping along and laughing at the non-sensical lyrics. Mac Ard inclined his head to Maeve, nodding once in Jenna’s direction. "Those were her ancestors the boy sang of," he said. And your husband’s. A fierce and proud people, the Inishlanders. They never bowed to any king but their own, and they still don’t." He sat back, then leaned forward again. "They also knew the mage-lights. Knew how to draw them down, knew how to store their power. Even then, in the last days of the Before, in the final flickering of the power and the cloud-^Aages. They say it’s in their blood. They say that if the mage-lights come again, when it’s time for the Filleadh, the mage-lights will first appear to someone of Inish Thuaidh."

Jenna saw Maeve glance toward her. She wondered if her mam had felt the same shiver that had just crept down her spine. "And are you thinking that my daughter and I had anything to do with this, Tiarna Mac Ard?" Maeve asked him.

Mac Ard shrugged. "I don’t even know for certain that what we saw were mage-lights. They may have just been some accident of the sky, the moon reflecting from ice in the clouds, perhaps. But. ." He paused, listening to Coelin’s singing before turning back to Maeve and Jenna. "I told you that when I saw them, I wanted to come here. And I… I have a touch of the Inish blood in me."

Chapter 4: The Fire Returns

JENNA left before the clock-candle reached the next stripe: as Coelin sang a reel, then a love song; as Mac Ard related to Maeve the long story of his great-great-mam from Inish Thuaidh (who, Jenna learned, fell in love with a tiarna from Dathuil in Tuath Airgialla, who would become Mac Ard's great-great-da. There was more, but Jenna became lost in the blizzard of names.) Maeve seemed strangely interested in the intricacies of the Mac Ard genealogy and asked several questions, but Jenna was bored. "I'm going back home, Mam," she said. "You stay if you like. I'll check on Kesh and the sheep."

Her mam looked concerned for a moment, then she glanced at Ellia, who was leaning as close to Coelin as she could without actually touching him. She smiled gently at Jenna. "Go on, then," she told Jenna. "I'll be along soon."

It was no longer raining at all, and the clouds had mostly cleared away, though the ground was still wet and muddy. Her boots were caked and heavy by the time she reached the cottage. Kesh came barking up to her as she approached. Jenna took off her boots, picked up a few cuttings of peat from the bucket inside the door, and coaxed the banked fire back into life until the chill left the room. Kesh padded after her as she went from the main room to their tiny bedroom and sat on the edge of the straw-filled mattress. She stared at the mud-daubed hole where the stone lay hidden.

"They say it's in their blood," Tiarna Mac Ard had said. "When I saw them, I wanted to go there…"

Jenna dropped to her knees in front of the hole. She picked at the dried mud with her fingernails until she could see the stone. Carefully, she pried it loose and held it in her open palm. So oddly plain, it was, yet…

It was cold again. As cold as the night she'd held it in her hand on Knobtop. Jenna gasped, thrust the stone into the pocket of her skirt, and left the bedroom.

She sat in front of the peat fire for a few minutes, her arms around herself. Kesh lay at her feet, looking up at her quizzically from time to time, as if he sensed that Jenna's thoughts were in turmoil.

She wondered whether she should go back to Tara’s and show the stone to Mac Ard, tell him everything that had happened on Knobtop. It would feel good to tell the truth-she knew that; she could feel the lie boiling inside, festering and begging for the lance of her words. Mam certainly seemed to trust the tiarna, and Jenna liked the way he spoke to her mam, and the way he treated the two of them. She could trust him, she felt. And yet…

He might be angry to find that she’d lied. So might her mam. Jenna swore-an oath she’d once heard Thomas the Miller utter when he’d dropped a sack of flour on his foot.

The ram, in the outbuilding, bleated a call of alarm. A few of the ewes also gave voice as Kesh’s ears went up and he ran barking to the door. Jenna followed, pulling the muddy boots back over her feet, guessing that a wolf or a pack of the wild pigs was prowling nearby, or that Old Stub-born had simply got himself stuck somewhere again. "What’s the matter with-" she began as she walked toward the pens.

She stopped, looking toward Knobtop.

Something sparked in the air above the peak: a flicker, a whisper of light. Then it was gone. But she’d seen true. She could still see the ghost of the light on the back of her eyes.

"Kesh, come on," she said.

She started toward Knobtop, her boots sloshing through the muck.

By the time she started walking up the mountain’s steep flanks, the sky flickered again with flowing streams and billows of colors, tossing multi-ple shadows behind her over the heather and rocks. Kesh barked at the mage-lights, lifting his snout up to the sky. They were brightening now, fuller and even more dazzling than they’d been the last time. By now, Jenna knew, someone in Ballintubber would have seen them. They’d be tumbling out of Tara’s, all of them, gawking. And Tiarna Mac Ard.

She imagined him, running to the stable behind Tara’s, leaping on his brown steed and riding hard toward Knobtop. . She frowned. Now that the lights had appeared again, she didn’t want to share them with him. They were hers. They had given her

the stone; they had shown her the red-haired man.

The stone. . She could feel its smooth weight now, cold and pulsing in the woolen pocket. She pulled the stone out: the pebble glowed, shim-mering with an echo of the sky above, the colors tinting her fingers as she held it. The mage-lights seemed to bend in the atmosphere directly above her, swirling like water, as if they sensed her presence below. Jenna lifted her hand, and the mage-lights coalesced, forming a funnel of sparkling hues above that danced and wriggled, lengthening and elongating. Jenna started to pull her hand away, but the funnel of mage-light had wrapped itself around her hand now, like a thread attached to the maelstrom in the sky above her. As she moved her hand, it stretched and swayed, a ball of glowing light attached to her wrist. She could feel the mage-lights, not hot but very, very cold, the chill creeping from wrist to elbow, to shoulder.

Jenna tried to pull away, desperately this time, but they held her like another hand, gripping her shoulders, the cold seeping into her chest and covering her head.

She swam in light. She closed her eyes, screaming in the bright silence, and she could still see the colors, melding and shifting.

Ethereal voices called to her.

A flash.

A deafening peal of thunder.

Blackness.

Kesh was licking her face.

Jenna rolled her head away, and the movement sent pain coursing through her neck and temples. Kesh whined as she shoved him away. "Get off," she told him. "I'm fine." She sat up, grimacing. "I hope so, anyway."

She was still on Knobtop, but the sky above was simply the sky, starlit between shreds of clouds slowly moving from the west. She looked down; she was holding the stone, and it throbbed like the blood in her head, pulsing cold but no longer shining. She was suddenly afraid of the pebble, and she started to throw it away, drawing her hand back.

Stopping.

The mage-lights came to you. They came to you, and the stone. .

She brought her hand back down to her lap.

Kesh whined again, coming up to rub against her, then his head lifted, the ears going straight, his tail lifting and a low growl coming from his throat.

"What is it?" Jenna asked, then she heard it herself: the sound of shod hooves striking rock within the copse of elm and oak trees down the slope of Knobtop. Jenna stood. Whoever it was, she didn’t want to be seen here. She put the stone in her pocket and lifted the hem of her skirts. "Come, Kesh," she whispered, and ran. There was a small stand of trees fifty strides away, and she made for the darkness there. She stopped once she was under their shade, looking back through the tree trunks to the field. She saw the horse and rider emerge from under the trees: Tiarna Mac Ard, astride Conhal. The tiarna made his way slowly up the hillside, looking at the ground, glancing up at the sky. Kesh started to run out to them, and Jenna held the dog back. "Hush," she whispered. Mac Ard wouldn’t be finding the mage-lights tonight, and she didn’t want him to find her, either, or to have to explain why she was here.

"Come," she said to Kesh, and slipped deeper into the shelter of the woods, making her way down the slope toward home.

Her mam looked up from the fire as Jenna opened the door. "Your boots are muddy," she said.

"I know," Jenna said. Sitting on the stool at the door, she took them off.

"I was worried when you weren’t here."

"I went walking with Kesh."

"On Knobtop." The way Maeve said it, Jenna understood it was not a question. She nodded.

"Aye, Mam. On Knobtop."

Maeve nodded, worry crinkling her forehead and the corners of her eyes. "That’s where he said you’d be." She didn’t need to mention who "he" was; they both knew. "You look cold and pale," Maeve continued. "There’s tea in the kettle over the fire. Why don’t you pour yourself a mug?"

Wondering at her mam’s strange calmness, Jenna

poured herself tea sweetened with honey. Maeve said nothing more, though Jenna could feel her mam's gaze on her back. By the time she'd finished, Kesh barked and they heard the sound of Mac Ard's horse approaching. The tiarna knocked, then opened the door, standing there in his cloca of green and brown. Maeve nodded to the man, as if answering an unspoken question, and he turned to Jenna. He seemed too big and too dark in the cottage, and she could not decipher the expression on his face. He stroked his beard with one hand.

"You saw them," he said. "You were there." When she didn't answer, he glanced again at Maeve. "I saw your boot prints, and the dog's. I know you were there." His voice was gentle-not an accusation, just a sympa-thetic statement of fact.

"Aye, Tiarna," Jenna answered quietly.

"You saw the lights?"

A nod. Jenna hung her head, not daring to look at his face.

Mac Ard let out a long sigh. "By the Mother-Creator, Jenna, I'm not going to eat you. I just want to know. I want to help if I can. Did you see the lights first, or did you go there and call them?"

Jenna shook her head, slowly at first then more vigorously. "I didn't call them," she said hurriedly.

"I was here, and I heard Old Stubborn making a commotion and went outside to check and… I thought I saw something. So I went. Then, after I was there, they came." She stopped. Mac Ard let the silence linger, and Jenna forced herself to stay quiet, though she could see him waiting for her to elaborate. "Did you see them, Tiarna?" she asked finally.

"From the tavern, aye, and as I was riding toward the hill. They went out by the time I reached the road and started up Knobtop. I saw the flash and heard the thunder when the lights vanished." He held his right arm straight out, and ran his left hand over it. "I could feel my hair standing on end: here, and on the back of my neck. I rode up to where the flash seemed to have come from. That's where I saw the marks of your boots." He let his hand drop. His cloca rustled. His voice was as soft and warm as the blanket on her bed. "Tell me the truth, Jenna. I swear I mean you and your mam no harm. I swear

He waited, looking at Jenna, and she could feel her hand trembling around the wooden mug. She set it down on the table, staring down at the steaming brew without really seeing it. She was trembling, her hands shaking as they rested on the rough oaken table top.

"I was there," she said to the mug. "The lights, they were so… bright and the colors were so deep, all around me. ." She lifted her head, looking from Mac Ard to her mam, shimmering in the salt water that suddenly filled her eyes. "I don’t understand why this is happening," she said, sniffing and trying to keep back the tears. "I don’t know why it keeps happening to me. I don’t want it, didn’t ask for it. I don’t know anything." The stone burned cold against her thigh through the woolen fabric. "I. ." She started to tell them the rest, how the mage-lights had glowed in the stone, how the power had arced from it, how the pebble had seemed to draw the mage-lights tonight, all of it. But she saw the eagerness in Mac Ard’s face, the way he leaned forward intently as she spoke of the lights, and she stopped herself. You don’t know him, not really. The stone was your gift, not his. The voice in her head almost seemed to be someone else’s.

"There isn't anything else to tell you, Tiarna," she said, sniffing. "I'm sorry."

Disappointment etched itself in the set of his mouth, and she realized that the man was genuinely puzzled. He shook his head. "Then we wait, and we watch," he said. He turned to Maeve. "I'll stay at Tara's for another day, at least, and we'll see. The mage-lights may come again tomorrow night. If they do, if they call Jenna, I'll go up there with her. If that's acceptable to you, Widow Aoire."

Maeve lifted her chin. "She's my daughter. I'll be with her, too, Tiarna Mac Ard."

He might have smiled. Maeve might have smiled back.

Mac Ard brushed at his cloca, adjusting the silver brooch at the right shoulder. "Good night to you both, then," he said. He gave a swift bow to Maeve, and left.

Chapter 5: Attack on the Village

THE night sky stayed dark the next night. Tiarna Mac Ard remained at Tara’s, coming to Jenna’s house that evening and escorting the two of them back to the tavern, where they listened to Coelin with an eye on the window that showed Knobtop above the trees.

But it remained simply night outside. Nothing more.

The next day broke with a heavy mist rolling in from the west, a gray wall that hid sun and sky and laid a sheen of moisture over the village. The mist beaded on the wool of the sheep as Jenna and Kesh herded them to the field behind the cottage. Kesh was acting strangely; he kept lifting his head and barking at something unseen, but finally they got the last straggler through. Jenna walked the field perimeter once, checking the stone fence her father had built, then calling Kesh-still barking at noth-ing-and closing the gate.

She smelled it then in the air, over the distinctive tang of smoldering peat from their own fire and those in the village: the odor of wood smoke and burning thatch. Jenna frowned, surveying the landscape. There was a smear of darker gray beyond the trees lining the field, and under it, a tinge of glowing red. "Mam!" she called. "I think there’s a fire in the village."

Maeve came from the cottage, wrapping a shawl over her head. "Look," Jenna said, pointing. Her mam squinted into the damp air, into the gray, dim distance.

"Come on," she said. "They may need help. ."

They didn’t get as far as the High Road. They heard the sound of a galloping horse racing toward them down the rutted dirt lane, and Tiarna Mac Ard came hurtling around the bend, his hair blowing and his cloca billowing behind him. He pulled Conhal to a mud-tossing halt in front of them, dismounting in a sudden leap.

"Tiarna Mac Ard-" Maeve began, but then the man cut off her words with a slash of his arm. "No time," he said. "We need to get you and your daughter out of here. Into the bogs, maybe, or over-" He stopped, whirling around at the sound of pounding hooves, as Kesh ran barking and snarling toward the quartet of on-rushing horses.

White fog blew from the nostrils of the steeds and the mouths of the riders.

"Kesh, no!" Jenna shouted at the dog. Kesh stopped, looked back at Jenna.

They could have gone around him. There was easily room.

They ran the dog down. Jenna screamed as she saw the hooves of the lead horse strike Kesh. He yelped and rolled and tried to escape, but the horse's muscular rear legs struck his side and Kesh went down under the three behind, lost in the blur of motion and clods of flying dirt. "Kesh!" Jenna screamed again, starting to run toward the bloody, still form in the dirt, but Maeve's arms went around her as Mac Ard stepped between them and the horsemen. "Kesh!"

The lead rider pulled his party to a stop before Mac Ard. The man threw his cloca back, and Jenna, sobbing for Kesh, saw a sword on his belt. "Where's your blue and gold, Fiacra De Derga?" Mac Ard called to the rider. "Or are those of Connachta too cowardly to show their colors when they go plundering in Gabair?"

The rider smiled. His hair was flaming red-a deeper red than that of Ard, what a surprise. I haven't seen you since our cousin's wedding feast a year ago last summer." Pale eyes swept over Maeve and Jenna. Jenna wanted to leap at the man, but Maeve's arms held her tightly, and Jenna clutched at her skirts in frustration and anger. In the folds caught in her left fist, she felt a small, cold hardness beneath the wool. "And what inter-esting company you keep. Is this the Aoire family the village Ald told me about before she died, the Inishlander's wife and daughter?"

"These people are formally under R1 Mallaghan of Tuath Gabair's pro-tection. That's all you need to know."

De Derga smiled. He lifted himself in his saddle with a creak of leather and looked about ostentatiously. "And where is R1 Mallaghan? I don't

seem to see him at the moment, or any royal decree in your hand." His gaze came back to Mac Ard. "I only see you, Padraic. If I’d known that, I’d have left my companions with the rest of my men." The three men behind De Derga laughed as he tsked. "One lone tiarna is all R1 Gabair sends when mage-lights fill the sky? I find that incredibly foolish. When word came to R1 Connachta that people on our eastern borders had seen mage-lights, he sent out over two dozen to follow them. And last night. . well, you saw them better than us, didn’t you, up on that hilltop?"

Jenna let her hand slip into the pocket of her skirt. The stone pulsed against her fingertips, as frigid as glacial ice.

"You would always rather talk a man to death than use your sword, Fiacra."

De Derga spread his hands. "It’s my gift. Now, step aside, as I’ll be taking the women back to Thiar."

Mac Ard unsheathed his sword, the iron ringing. Jenna heard her mam’s intake of breath. "Be careful, Tiarna," she said, one hand extended to Mac Ard, the other still around Jenna’s shoulders. Jenna slipped from her mam’s grasp, a step away; she took her hand from her pocket, her hand fisted. De Derga laughed.

’"Be careful,’" he repeated, mocking Maeve’s tone. He shook his head at Mac Ard. "Your taste was always common, Padraic."

"Get off your horse, Fiacra, so I can separate your babbling head from your shoulders."

De Derga sat easily as his mount stamped a foot and shook its head at the smell of the weapon. "No.

I think not."

"You have no honor, De Derga. And I’m shamed that you’d let your men see that."

(Throbbing against her skin. . Searing cold rising up her arm, filling her. .)

"My men have seen me fight often enough, cousin, and they know that I could take you as easily as this woman you’re shielding. They also know that I won’t be goaded into doing something foolish when the battle’s already won." De Derga waved a hand, and Jenna noticed that the trio behind had drawn

bows. "So, Padraic, the choice is yours: sheathe that weapon and return to Lar Bhaile, or we'll simply cut you down where you stand."

This time it was Mac Ard who laughed. "Let's not lie to each other, Fiacra. You can't let me go back and tell my R1 that you were here in his land."

A muscle twitched in De Derga's mouth. "No," he said. "I suppose I can t." He waved a hand to his men as Mac Ard let out a scream of rage and charged toward De Derga, his sword swinging in a great arc. Bow-strings sang death.

"No!" Jenna screamed, and the fury seemed to burst through her skin, ripping and tearing through her soul, spilling from her open mouth.

She lifted her hand.

In one blinding instant, arrows flared and went to ash in mid-flight. The horses screamed and reared, and four jagged bolts of pure white erupted from Jenna's hand, the lightnings snapping and crackling as they impaled the riders, striking them from their saddles and arcing as they slammed the bodies to the ground. The discharge from the stone was blinding, overloading Jenna's eyes even as she saw the riders fall; the sound deafened her, a sinister crackling like the snapping of dry bones. Someone screamed in agony and terror, and Jenna screamed in sympathy, her voice lost in the chaos, her mind awhirl with the cold power until, swirling, it bore her down into oblivion and silence.

Chapter 6: Bog And Forest

SHE awoke with a start and a cry, and Maeve’s hand brushed her fore-head soothingly. "Hush, darling," she said, but her eyes were full of worry.

"Where are we?" Jenna asked. She sat up-they were sitting in the midst of bracken, and Tiarna Mac Ard was crouched a few feet away, his back to them. Jenna could smell the earthy, wet musk of bog, and water trickled brightly somewhere nearby. Two saddle packs were on the ground near them, and a bow with arrows fletched like those of the men who had attacked them. The memory came back to her then, awful and fierce: Kesh lying dead on the ground, the men from Connachta threaten-ing them, the cold, terrible lightning from the stone. "The riders. ." she breathed with a sob. "The man you called De Derga, your cousin. ."

"Dead." Mac Ard said the word gruffly, his voice low. "All dead. And by now their companions know it as well, and are hunting us." He glanced back at Jenna, and his expression was guarded. "They’ll also know that it wasn’t a sword that cut them down."

"I…"Jenna gulped. Her stomach lurched and she bent over, vomiting acid bile on the ground. She could feel her mam stroking her back as the spasms shook her, as her stomach heaved. When the sickness had passed, Jenna wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her coat. "I’m sorry," she said. They’re-" She couldn’t say the word. Mac Ard nodded, watching her as she leaned into the comforting arms of Maeve, as if she were a little child again.

"Jenna, the first time someone fell to my sword, I did the same thing you just did," he said. "I’ve seen men hacked to death during a battle, or crushed under their horses. Eventually, it bothers you less." He leaned over, as if he were going to stroke her hair as Maeve did, but pulled his hand back. He pursed his lips under the dark beard. "I’d be more worried about you if it didn’t bother you. But I have to tell you that what you did. . I’ve never seen the like."

The stone, cold in her hand… Jenna felt in her

skirt pocket, then glanced frantically around her on the damp ground.

"Would you be looking for this?" The stone glistened between Mac Ard's forefinger and thumb. He turned it carefully in front of them. "Not much to look at it, is it? Something you might miss entirely, if it was just lying there."

"That's mine," Jenna said loudly. "I found it."

"Jenna-" Maeve began, but Mac Ard snorted as if amused.

"A clock na thintri, it's called," he said. "A lightning stone. And you had it all along. When I asked you about the mage-lights, you must have forgotten to tell me about the cloch you found." He could have sounded angry. He didn't; he seemed more disappointed.

Jenna looked at the ground rather than at him.

"Your da would have known the term," Mac Ard continued. "I'll wager he brought the stone here himself, or knew that this one lay there on Knobtop, waiting for the mage-lights to return. And, aye, Jenna, now it's yours." He stretched out his hand, and dropped it in Jenna's palm. It was warm, an ordinary stone. "Keep it," he said. "It gave itself to you, not to me."

Jenna put it back in her skirt, feeling Mac Ard's eyes on her. "How. .?" she started to say, but Mac Ard lifted a finger to his lips. "Later, you'll know all you want to know, and more."

Jenna stared at the tiarna, trying to see past his dark gaze. He seemed calm enough, and not angry with her. After a few breaths, she looked away. "Mam, where are we?" she asked once more.

"In the bog on the other side of the bridge,"

Maeve said. "Tiarna Mac Ard carried you here when you collapsed, after-" Her mam stopped.

"Mam, what's happened? Why did those men come here?"

It was Mac Ard who answered. "They came for the same reason I came-because they saw the mage-lights. I didn't think R1 Connachta would be so foolhardy as to send his people here. I was the one who told R1 Mallaghan of Gabair that we didn't need to concern ourselves with the other Tuatha." He

scoffed angrily. "I was a damned fool, and damned lucky to be alive. Tara’s son Eliath came running into the tavern this morning, said that the Ald’s cottage was afire and that there were a dozen men on horseback there. I left the tavern then, and rode for your home. De Darga saw me as I brought Conhal out of the stable, and followed. The rest you know."

"Where’s Conhal?"

"With three of us, we couldn’t outrun the others with one horse, so I turned him loose. Hopefully he’ll find his own way home. As for the others, they’re scouring the countryside now, looking for us. We’ve seen them twice while we were here; once a pair of riders, then four more who crossed the bridge and went up on Knobtop. Look. ." He stopped, pulling brush aside so that Jenna could see the bog. They were on one of the grassy, overgrown hummocks that dotted the marsh. She could see the peat-stained open water of the Mill Creek a little bit away, and beyond the creek was the rise of the northern bank and the low hills that con-cealed their house. Beyond the hills, she could see a column of black smoke smeared across the sky. She knew what it was even as her mam spoke.

"They burned the cottage," Maeve said. Her voice was strangely calm. "Everything we had…"

"The R1 Gabair will give you all and more, once we get to Lar Bhaile. I promise you that."

Maeve’s eyes flashed, and Jenna heard the mingled anger and sorrow in her voice. "Will the R1 give me back the scarf that Niall gave me the night he first came to me? Will he give me the cups and plates that Niall made with his own hands, or the pot with blue glaze I fired for him? Will I see the first linen shirt I made for Jenna, when she was just a babe? The R1 can give me money and build a new cottage, but he can’t give me a tithe of what’s been destroyed."

"I know that," Mac Ard replied softly. "I wish it were different, Maeve- may I call you that?"

Jenna’s mam nodded. "Good. And please call me Padraic. I wish I could undo my words to R1 Mallaghan and that I had come here with my own squad of gardai, as he wished. Maybe then none of this would have happened. But I can’t unsay the words, and I can’t ease your loss. All I can do now is try to keep us alive."

"How?" Maeve asked. She looked at Jenna. "You don't want her to-"

"No," Mac Ard said quickly. "She doesn't need more blood on her hands, nor do I think she knows how to control the stone or whether she could repeat what she did. I certainly don't know the answer to that. The Connachtans will expect us to make for Lar Bhaile, so they'll be watching the High Road and the River Duan. They can't stay here long, however- they know word will eventually reach the Rl's ears about this raid and he'll send soldiers after them."

"So what do we do?"

"We find a place to hide for a few days."

Maeve shook her head, hugging Jenna. "Where? I don't know of such a place. They would find us here, eventually."

"I agree," Mac Ard answered. "So we'll go into Doire Coill."

Jenna cried out at that and Maeve shook her head. "Have you gone mad, Tiarna Mac Ard? You take us from one death to another."

"I take us from sure death to a hope for life," he answered. "They'll be searching the bogs soon enough, Maeve. We can't stay here. We need to go, and we need to go now while we can."

Maeve was still shaking her head, but Jenna felt her mam's arms relax around her and knew that she'd made a decision, staring at the smoke rising from the ruin of their lives. Everything they'd known was gone; their only ally was Mac Ard. Jenna leaned toward Maeve. "We have to trust him,

Mam," she whispered. "We have to."

She could see the lines at the corners of her mam's eyes relax as she made the decision. "All right," she said finally. "We'll follow you. Padraic."

Jenna knew that most of the tales were simply that-stories to frighten the children. The residents of Ballintubber had a thousand tales and leg-ends and stories about the half-wild land that surrounded them. The R1 Mallaghan might proclaim himself king over Tuath Gabair, but in truth, his rule only extended to the small towns, the villages, and the occasional squares of farmed land: tamed patches of a landscape that had seen vast, misty centuries when legends walked alive.

Legends still walked, if the stories were to be believed, in those hidden places where humankind came infrequently, or not at all. Doire Coill was one of those places, a lingering remnant of a greater oak forest that had once stretched from Lough Lar to the Westering Sea, and north and south for leagues, a wall of trees shading meandering bogs and hidden valleys, where giant elk and ferocious knifefangs had roamed. Most of the forest was gone now, eroded by axes, time, and changing climate. Yet portions of it yet existed, here and there through the peninsula of Talamh an Ghlas. Doire Coill was not the largest of these or the most well known, but it loomed large in the stories Jenna had heard. One Hand Bailey, in his cups at Tara's, had often spoken of the time he'd lost his hand.

"Oh, I'd heard the tales, aye," Jenna could remember his drunken voice saying, low and slurred with alcohol. "Rubbish, I thinks, because I was young an' stupid. So I takes me old horse and cart down the High Road past Knobtop, thinking that Doire Coill weren't likely to miss one of those nasty old black oaks, and wouldn't that make a great pile of lumber for the selling. That's what I thought, and every day of my life since I've regretted it. Me an' Daragh O'Rheallagh started a'sawing at the closest trunk to the road with a two man blade, and at first it went fine, though I thought I heard the trees rustling angrily at the sight of the metal, and a cold wind came out from underneath the trees like the forest was breathin', a foul breath of dead and molderin' leaves. Didn't see any ani-mals, which was strange: not a squirrel, not a bird, not a deer; like they'd all gone, knowing what we were doing and afraid of it. We kept at our sawin', wantin' to get out of there as quick as we could-the noise dead in the stillness, the tree sittin' there hating us, the sawdust piling at our feet. Then, all a' sudden, it fell, before it had any right to do so, like it chose to fall. Crushed poor Daragh under it before he could move, and the saw blade snapped with an awful noise an' whipped out, an' it sliced me hand right off me arm. I thought I'd die there meself, but I managed to tie a scrap a' cloth around me arm quick to stop the bleedin'. Wasn't no such luck for Daragh; he was already dead, his head smashed and his brains dashed out on the ground. I came back here quick as I could, and six men and the new Widow O'Rheallagh went back to get Daragh's body out from under the tree. When they

got there, it was gone. Not a trace of ’im was left. I swear it-ask Widow O’Rheallagh herself, or Tom Mullin over there, who went with ’em. Doire Coill’s an evil place, I say. I already gave it me hand, and that’s all a’ me it’s to get. I won’t go in there again, and them that do are nothin’ but fools."

Bailey’s words resonated in Jenna’s head as they left the hummock in the bog and started heading south, moving parallel to the rough line of the High Road and taking care to stay hidden from possible watchers on the rising flanks of Knobtop. It was getting near dark, with all of them tired and soggy nearly to the waist, when Jenna noticed that the ground underneath their feet was firmer, and that the trees around them were twisted, thick-trunked oaks hung with parasitic mistletoe, huddled to-gether in a dark mass.

They were within the indistinct edges of Doire Coill, west and south of Ballintubber. Somewhere to their left, the High Road to Lar Bhaile (and beyond to Dun Laoghaire) passed within a stone’s throw of the forest’s leaves before turning sharply east to meet and cross River Duan at the village of Ath Iseal, a good full day’s journey from Ballintubber on horse-back. Between Ath Iseal and Ballintubber, there were few human habita-tions-and in the empty space between no one gave allegiance to R1 Gabair or any king.

"How long do we need to stay here?" Maeve asked. Jenna looked at the deep green shadows under the trees. She let the pack she carried fall to the ground. Contrary to what One Hand Bailey had said, she saw life enough: black squirrels bounding through the tangled limbs above them, starlings and finches flitting from branch to branch. The trees here were ancient: they had seen the first movement of humankind through this land, and Jenna sensed that they remembered and were not pleased. Mac Ard’s boots crunched on a thick carpet of old leaves and acorn caps.

"Two days, maybe a few more," he said. "The Connachtans can’t stay longer without risking open war, and I don’t think they want that. Two days, and we can chance the High Road again."

"Two days," Jenna repeated. "Here in Doire Coill."

"It’s a forest, that’s all," Mac Ard told her. "Don’t worry yourself over silly tales. I’ve been out here before, at the edge of the Doire, and slept under its

branches. I had strange dreams that night, but that’s all."

"We’ll need a fire," Maeve said. "So we don’t freeze during the night."

"There’s a tinderbox in one of the packs. A fire will be safe enough after the sun goes down and they can’t see the smoke, I suppose," Mac Ard said. "We’re far enough off the High Road. If we go a bit farther in, the trees will shield the light…" Maeve looked at Jenna as Mac Ard started to rummage in the packs.

"He knows what he’s doing, Mam. And if he hadn’t come to help us, we might be dead."

Maeve nodded. She went to Mac Ard and began helping him. An hour later, they were huddled in a tiny clearing with a small fire of dead wood that they’d gathered. The warmth of the fire was welcome, but to Jenna, the flickering light only seemed to intensify the darkness around them, encasing them in a globe of bright air while blackness pressed in around them. They’d eaten a loaf of hard bread and a few slivers of cheese from the pack, with water that still tasted of the bog from a nearby stream. Maeve and Mac Ard sat close to each other, closer than Jenna had ever seen her mam sit to another man. She was pleased at that, huddled in her cloak across the fire. She watched them through the flame, talking softly together, with a brief smile once touching her mam’s lips. Jenna smiled herself at that. Maeve had rebuffed the advances of every man in Ballin-tubber, from what Jenna had heard and seen, but this Mac Ard was differ-ent. Jenna wondered, for a moment, how her own da might have reacted to what happened, and that brought back to her the events of the day, and she wanted to cry, wanted to weep for Kesh and the soldiers she’d killed and the lives that she’d left destroyed behind her, but there were no tears inside her.

She was dry, cold, and simply exhausted.

Wings fluttered somewhere above and behind her, startling Jenna. The rustling came again, loud and closer, and a huge black crow swooped low across the fire and lifted to land in a branch near Mac Ard. It cawed once, a grotesque, hoarse cough of a sound. Its bright eyes regarded them, the glossy head turning in quick, abrupt moves. "Nasty thing," Maeve said, glaring at the bird. "They’re thieves,

those birds, and scavengers. Look at it staring at us, like it's waiting for us to die."

Mac Ard picked up the bow and nocked an arrow. "It won't stare long," he said. He drew the bowstring back, the braided leather creaking under the strain.

"Hold!"

The voice came from the darkness, and a form stepped from the night shadows into the light of the fire: a man, old and hunched over, attired in ragged leather and fur and supporting himself with a gnarled oaken staff. The crow cawed again, flapped its wings, and flew to the man, perching itself on his left shoulder. "Who are you?" Mac Ard asked, the bow still drawn and the arrow now pointed at the chest of the stranger.

"No one worth killing," the man answered. His words were under-standable, but thick with an odd accent. He seemed to be staring some-where slightly to the side and above Mac Ard, and in the gleam of the firelight, Jenna saw the man's eyes: unbroken, milky white pupils.

"He's blind, Tiarna," she said.

The man laughed at that, and at the same time the crow lifted its head and cackled with him, the two sounds eerily similar. "This body's blind, aye," he said, "but I can see." The man lifted his right hand and stroked the crow's belly. "Denmark here is my eyes. What he sees, I see. And what I see now is two village folk and a tiarna, who know so little they would light fires under these trees."

"This is not your land," Mac Ard answered. "This forest is within Tuath Gabair, and belongs to the Rl. And you've still not given us your name."

The old man's amusement was loud, echoed by the crow. "My name? Call me Seancoim," he answered. "And Rl Gabair can claim whatever he likes: his cities and villages, his bogs and fields. But the old places like this forest belong to themselves, and even Rl Gabair knows that." He grinned at them, gap-toothed, and gestured. "Now, follow me. I'll take you where you'll be safe."

"We're safe enough here," Mac Ard said.

"Are you?" Seancoim asked. "Do you think your young woman's sky-magic can protect you here?"

He glanced up with his dead eyes. A strong wind stirred the tops of the trees, and Jenna could hear their limbs groaning and stirring. At the edges of the firelight, branches writhed and stretched like wooden, grasping arms, and the sound of the wind through the trees was like a sobbing voice, mournful. The hair raised on Jenna’s forearms and the light of the fire shuddered, making the shadows move all around them. "Mam?" Jenna called out.

"Stop!" Mac Ard commanded Seancoim, and he brought his bow back to full draw. The crow stirred, wings fluttering, and at the same moment the arrow snapped in half like a twig even as Mac Ard released the bow-string. The crow settled again on Seancoim’s shoulder; the wind in the trees died to a breeze, the leaves rustling. "Put out your fire and follow me," Seancoim repeated. "The tiarna can keep his sword in his hand, if it makes him feel better. But it won’t do him any good here, and the trees hate the smell of iron."

With that, the old man turned, shuffling slowly into the darkness, his staff tapping the ground before him.

Chapter 7: Seancoim's Cavern

JENNA wrinkled her nose at the smell: musty earth, and a strange, spicy odor that could only be Seancoim himself. A draft wafted from the entrance of the cavern, the mouth of which was a narrow slit in a rocky, bare rise another stripe's walk deeper into the forest. Yellow light beck-oned beyond, outlining the stone arch, and she smelled burning peat as the wind changed.

"It's warm inside," Seancoim said, gesturing to them as he ducked into the passage. Denmark cawed and leaped from his shoulder, disappearing into the cave. "And light. There's food as well, enough for all. Come." He vanished inside, and Jenna saw her mam glance at Mac Ard. "We've fol-lowed him this far," she said.

"I'll go first," Mac Ard answered. He drew his sword and, turning side-ways, followed the old man. Maeve waited a moment, then went into the opening with Jenna close behind.

Beyond the narrow passage, the cavern widened significantly, the roof rising to follow the slope of the hill, the sides opening up quickly left and right. The passage led slightly downward a dozen strides, and Jenna found herself in a large room. A central fireplace ringed with stones sent smoke curling upward toward the roof, lost in darkness above. The low flames from the peat sent wan light to the stone walls, and Jenna could dimly see another passageway leading deeper into the hill. Along the wall were sev-eral querns, small stone mills used for grinding corn and other grains. Hung everywhere around the cavern were racks with drying herbs and various plants laid over the wooden rods. Some of them Jenna recognized: parsley, thyme, lemon grass, mint; others were entirely unfamiliar. The smell of the herbs was almost overpowering, a barrage of odors.

Denmark had roosted on a rocky shelf nearby. Beyond the drying racks and querns, there was almost no furniture in the room. If it was a home, it was a bare one. Jenna could see a straw pallet laid out near the fire, a bucket of water, and a long wooden box that Seancoim eased him-self down on. He leaned his staff against the box, but it fell to the

stones and the sound echoed harshly.

"It’s not pretty," he said. He leaned down and placed the staff within reach. "But it’s dry, and warm enough, and not susceptible to enemies burning it down." He glanced at Maeve as he said that, and Jenna heard her mam’s intake of breath. Mac Ard scowled, walking around the perime-ter of the cavern, his sword sheathed now but his hand on the hilt.

"This is where you live?" Jenna asked, and Seancoim laughed.

"Here, and other places," he answered. "I have a dozen homes in the forest, and a dozen more I’ve forgotten about over the decades."

Jenna nodded. "You live alone?"

Seancoim shook his head. "No. There are others like me here, a few, and I see them from time to time. And there are more of my people, though not many, in the old forests that are left, or in the high mountains, or the deepest bogs. We were the first ones to find Talamh an Ghlas."

"You’re Bunus Muintir," Jenna said. The word was like breathing a legend. The oldest poems and songs spoke of the Bunus Muintir, of the battles that had raged between the Bunus and Jenna’s people, the Daoine. In the poems, the Bunus were always evil and horrific, fierce and cruel warriors who had allied with spirits, wights, and demonic creatures.

"Aye, I am the blood of Bunus Muintir, and I know your Daoine songs." Seancoim said. "I’ve heard them, and like all history, they’re half true. We were here when your ancestors came into this place, and we fought them and sometimes even bred with them, but Daoine blood and Daoine swords proved stronger, until finally those of the pure lineage sought the hidden places. There were no final battles, no decisive victory or defeat, despite what the songs tell you. True endings come slowly. Sometimes they come not at all, or just fade into the new tales." Groaning, Seancoim stood again.

"There’s bread there, on the ledge near Denmark, baked two days ago now, I’m afraid. There’s still some of the last blackberries of the season, and smoked meat. That’s all I have to offer and it’s not fancy, but it will fill your bellies. Go on and help yourselves."

The bread was hard, the berries mushy with age and the meat tough, but Jenna thought it strangely delicious after the day's exertions. She fin-ished her portion quickly, then broke off a hunk of bread and went outside. The clouds had parted, and a crescent moon turned the clouds to silver white. She was above the trees, looking down on their swaying crowns. She could see Knobtop, rising up against the stars to the north, farther away than she'd ever seen it before.

The wind lifted her hair and brushed the forest with an invisible hand. She thought she could hear voices, singing not far away: a low, susurrant chant that rose and fell, the long notes holding words that lingered just on the edge of understanding. Jenna leaned into the night, listening, caught in the chant, wanting to get closer and hear what they were singing. .

. . aye, to get closer. .

. . to hear them, to touch their gnarled trunks. .

. . to be with them. .

Beating wings boomed in her ears: Denmark touched her shoulder with his clawed feet and flew off again, startling her. Jenna blinked, realiz-ing that she stood under the gloom of the trees at the bottom of the slope, a hundred strides or more from the cavern, and she had no idea how she'd come to be there. She whirled around, suddenly frightened at the realization that she hadn't even realized that she was walking away. The last few minutes, now that she tried to recall them, were hazy and indis-tinct in her mind.

Small with distance, Seancoim beckoned at the cavern entrance, and Jenna ran back up the hill toward him, as if a hell hound were at her heels.

"So you do hear them," he called to her, as the crow swept around her again before settling back on the old man's shoulder. "Some don't, or think it's only the wind moving the trees. But they sing, the oldest trees, the ones that were planted by the Seed-Daughter after the Mother-Creator breathed life into the bones of the land. They remember, and they still call to the old gods. It's dangerous for those who hear: the enchantment in their old voices can hypnotize, and you'll find yourself lost in the deepest, most dangerous parts of the wood. Most who go to listen don't return."

Jenna looked over the forest, listening to the eerie, breathy sound. "Should we leave?" she asked.

The old man shrugged. "The unwary should be careful, or those whose will isn’t strong enough.

That last, at least, doesn’t describe you, now that I’ve told you the danger."

"You don’t know me."

"Oh, I know you well enough," he chuckled.

Jenna shook her head. The wind shifted and the tree-song came to them louder than before, the chant rising in pitch. "What is it they’re singing? It sounds so sad and lonely."

Seancoim leaned heavily on his staff, as if he were peering into the dark. "Who knows? I certainly don’t. They speak a language older than any of ours, and their concerns aren’t those of humans." He turned, and his blind eyes stared at her. "There are other magics than the sky-magic you can capture in a cloch na thintri," he told her. He extended his hand toward Jenna. "Let me hold it," he said to her.

Jenna took a step back, clutching at the stone hidden in her skirt. "I know you have the stone," Seancoim said. "I saw the lights over the hill there, through Dunmharu’s eyes." Seancoim pointed at Knobtop. "I could feel the power crackling in the sky, as it has not in many lifetimes, and I feel it now close to me. You can’t hide a cloch na thintri from me, or from any of the Bunus Muintir. I can feel the stone. All I ask is to hold it, not to keep it. I promise that."

Jenna hesitated, then brought the stone out and laid it on Seancoim’s lined palm. He closed his fingers around it with a sigh. He clasped it to his breast, holding it there for several long breaths, then holding out his hand again, his fingers unfolding. "Take it," he said. "Such a small stone…"

"I’m sure it’s not powerful, like the ones the cloudmages in the songs had," Jenna said, and Seancoim laughed.

"Is that how you imagined them, with stones the size of their fists hung on chains around their necks, the way the songs and tales tell it?" The crow cackled with him. "Is that the source of your knowledge?"

Jenna nodded. "You must know how to use the

cloch," she said. "You have magic, too: using the crow for your eyes, the way you broke the tiarna's arrow or how you knew I had the stone…"

"I gave you the answer just a moment ago, but evidently I need to repeat it: there are other magics than that of the sky." He stared upward, as if looking at a scene only his blind eyes could glimpse. "Once my people knew them all: the slow, unyielding power of earth; the shimmer-ing, soft gifts of water. Some of them we know still. Others aren't for us humans at all, but belong to others, like the oldest of the oaks here in Doire Coill, or other creatures who are sleeping for the moment." His chin tilted down once more, and he seemed to laugh at himself. "But you asked if I know how to use your cloch na thintri, didn't you? The answer to that is 'No.' Each stone teaches its owner in its own way; yours has already begun to teach you."

"You talk as if the stone were alive."

"Do you know that it's not?" Seancoim answered. He smiled, a darkness where teeth once had been, the few teeth left him leaning like yellow gravestones in his gums. The wind died, and the tree-song faded to a hush, a whisper, then was gone. "There, they've finished. We should go inside-it's late, and there are things walking out here that you don't want to meet. Your tiarna will want to leave with the morning, and you need sleep after this day."

Jenna could feel exhaustion rise within her with Seancoim's words. She yawned and nodded, following the man through the cavern's entrance. Seancoim continued on into the darkness past the fire, but Jenna stopped. Her mam and Mac Ard were asleep, next to each other even though on different pallets. Her mam's hand had trailed out from underneath her blanket, and it rested near Mac Ard's hand, as if she were reaching for him. She could sense Seancoim's attention on her as she stared, her breath caught in her throat. She wanted to smile, happy that her mam wasn't ignoring Mac Ard as she had the others, and yet afraid at the same time, wondering what it might mean for her.

"She is a woman and he a man, and both of them handsome and strong," Seancoim whispered, his voice echoing hoarsely from the stones. "I can tell that your mam is attracted to the tiarna, even if she resists the feeling. That's natural enough. It's been a long time for her, hasn't it, to feel that way about a

Jenna swallowed hard. "Aye," she said. "A long time. I just wonder. . Does he feel the same? After all, he’s Riocha, and we’re. . nothing."

Seancoim took a step forward. Bending close, he seemed to peer at the sleeping Mac Ard with his blind eyes before rising with a groan. "I think he does, as much as he can. He’s a hidden man, this tiarna, but there’s room in him for love, and if he’s Riocha, he’s perhaps less prejudiced than many with his lineage. But-" he stopped.

"But?"

Seancoim shrugged. "He’s also a man with his own ambitions."

"How can you know all that? You can’t see… I mean, is that magic, too?"

"Perhaps." Seancoim grinned at her. "Isn’t it what you want to hear?"

"I want my mam to be happy. That’s all."

"What about yourself?" he asked.

Jenna could feel heat rising from her neck to her throat, her cheeks burning. Her mam stirred on the pallet, turning, her hand sliding away from Mac Ard. Jenna let go of the breath she was holding. Twin tears tracked down her face.

"Too much has changed for you today," Seancoim said. Somehow, he was standing next to her again. "Too much changed in the space of one sun." His hand went around her shoulder. She started to pull back, then allowed herself to sink against him, the tears spilling out. His chest smelled of herbs and leather and sweat. She clung to Seancoim, weeping; still holding her, he went to the box next to his pallet. "Wait a moment," he said, and lifted the lid. A sweet, spice-filled aroma filled the air with the movement. Inside were several small leather bags, and Seancoim shuffled through them, muttering, before snatching one up with a cry and handing it to Jenna.

"Here," he said. "One day, you will need this."

"What is it?" Jenna asked, sniffing.

"Brew it as a tea, and drink it, and you will forget

what is most painful to you," Seancoim told her. "There are some things that no one should remember, be it in song or tale or memory. When that time comes for you, you'll know."

Jenna glanced again at her mam and Mac Ard. "I don't think I want to remember today," she said, and the tears started again. Seancoim let the lid of the box close, sat on it, then drew her to him again. They sat, and Jenna stayed with him, crying for Kesh and her home, for her innocence and for her mam, letting Seancoim rock her until sleep finally came.

In the morning, Jenna found herself curled up on a pile of straw and old cloth close to the fire, which had dwindled to glowing coals. Seancoim's small leather bag was still clutched in her hand. No one else was in the cavern, and pale light filtered in through the entrance. Jenna got up, put the bag in her skirt with the stone, wrapped her coat around her, and padded outside.

Below her, the forest was wrapped in white mist and fog, the sun a hazy brightness just at the horizon. Seancoim was nowhere to be seen, but Mac Ard and Maeve were standing a few feet down the slope, talking with their heads close together. She started to go back inside, not wanting to interrupt them, but the rock under her foot tilted and fell back with a stony clunk. Maeve turned. "Jenna! Good morning, darling."

'"Morning, Mam. Where's Seancoim?"

"We're not certain," Maeve answered. "He was gone when we woke. He refilled the water bucket, though, and left some fresh berries on the shelf."

We're not certain. . Jenna nodded and found herself smiling a bit, hearing the plural. Mac Ard was smiling at her as well, teeth flashing behind the black beard, the smile slightly crooked on his face. She wanted to know what he was thinking, wanted to know that her mam would be safe with him, wanted to know that they could, perhaps, be a family.

But she knew there could be no answer to those questions. Her bladder ached in her belly. Jenna shrugged, turned, and left them. Later, having relieved herself behind a convenient screen of boulders, she came back to find that Seancoim had returned with Denmark on his shoulder.

". . riders on the High Road," he was saying to Mac Ard and Maeve. "They were tiarna-had to be, with those great war steeds, the heavy swords at their sides, and that fine clothing-but they weren’t showing colors on their cloca."

"Which way were they riding?" Mac Ard asked.

"That way," Seancoim answered, pointing south, away from where Knobtop would have been, had they been able to see it through the fog.

Mac Ard nodded, the lines of his face deepening and a scowl touching his lips. Jenna saw his right hand tighten around the hilt of his sword. "The Connachtans are looking for us well away from Ballintubber, then, and the High Road’s not safe. I’d hoped. ." His voice trailed off.

"There are other ways," Seancoim said.

"Other ways?"

Seancoim shrugged. The crow flapped its wings to keep its balance. "The forest you call Doire Coill goes away east and south from here, until it meets the tip of Lough Lar. A loop of the High Road passes close by again, as well, and it’s not far from there to Ath Iseal and the ford of the Duan-a few miles. No more. I can lead you there in a day and a half."

"You would do that for us?" Maeve asked.

"I would do it for her" Seancoim answered. He pointed to Jenna, his blank white eyes looking in her direction.

"Why me?" Jenna asked.

Seancoim gave Jenna his broken smile. "Because the Bunus Muintir have our songs and tales also."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Mac Ard said.

"It means what it means," Seancoim answered. The smile vanished as he looked at Mac Ard.

"That’s all."

"I’m suspicious of those who hide their intentions in riddles," Mac Ard retorted. "I’m especially suspicious when that person’s a Bunus Muintir."

Seancoim snorted. "If I wanted you dead, Tiarna Mac Ard, you would already be dead."

Mac Ard scowled. "Are you threatening us?"

"It's no threat at all. Only the truth. All I had to do was leave you where you were in the forest-that would have been enough on a night when the trees were singing. If I wanted to be more certain, I could have led

Chapter 8: The Cairn of Riata

EVEN by day, the forest was dim. They moved through valleys of fog-shrouded trees, pacing alongside fast-moving brooks whose foam made the dark water seem almost black by contrast. They caught rare glimpses of sky, blue now that the high mist had burned off, and every so often walked through columns of gold-green light, their boots crushing a thousand tiny images of the sun on the forest floor.

Jenna had often walked through the woods near Ballintubber, but they felt different: lighter, airier, with the trees spaced farther apart and well-worn paths meandering among them. They were old, too, those woods, but Jenna had never felt that the forest itself watched her, judging her and deciding whether it would allow her to stay.

She felt a Presence here. Here, there were musty vapors rising from the ground, and red-crowned, sinister mushrooms peering from between piles of decaying leaves decades old, screens of mistletoe and bramble that tugged at her with thorny fingers, vine-wrapped hollows between close-set oaks in which night nestled eternal. There were trails that Seancoim followed: thin, narrow paths that might have been made by deer or other animals, twisting through the underbrush and vanishing suddenly. Doire Coill was a maze where they found themselves walking the bottom of a hollow with sides too steep to climb, all white fog ahead and behind, so that they moved between walls of brown and green until Seancoim turned into a hidden break that Jenna knew she would have missed, a narrow pass through to another fold of land bending in a slightly different direc-tion, all of them leading to some unseen destination. And if she had found herself suddenly alone and lost, it would do no good to cry for help. The forest swallowed sound, muffling it, making words indistinct and small.

Jenna was certain that she would call only whatever fey creatures Doire Coill held within its confines.

By the time the sun had reached its height and started to decline, Jenna knew that if Seancoim were to vanish into the fog around them, they would never find their way back. She said nothing, but the scowl that lurked on Mac Ard's face and the frown

twisting Maeve’s lips told her that the other two realized it as well.

As evening approached, the hillsides spread out slightly to either side of them before curving back in to each other, so that they walked in the center of a bowl several hundred strides across, the trees all around them with open sky directly above. In the center of the bowl, gray with the persistent fog, a dolmen loomed, a pair of massive, carved standing stones two people high with another block laid over the top, large enough that several people could walk between them abreast as if through a door. Arrayed around the central stones in a circle were six cairns covered with earth and grass, the narrow entrances of the passage graves arranged so that each looked out onto the central stones. Seancoim continued to walk between the graves toward the dolmen as Denmark flew away to land on the capstone, but the others stopped at the entrance to the valley of tombs. Jenna stared at the dolmen, at the notches carved in them that were Bunus Muintir writing, wondering what was inscribed there.

"Who is buried in this place?" Mac Ard asked. "These must be the graves of kings and heroes, yet I’ve never heard anyone speak of this valley."

"You’re not supposed to know it," Seancoim answered, "though a few Daoines have been here and seen the graves. We’ve kept it hidden, in our own ways, because the last chieftains of the Bunus Muintir rest here." He nodded in the direction of one of the mounds. "Maybe you would know this one. In there is Ruaidhri, who fought the Daoine at Lough Dubh and was wounded, and died weeks later."

Died from the wounds from Crenel Dahgnon’s sword," Mac Ard said. To Jenna, the name seemed to draw echoes from the hills around them, like clouds running before a storm, and she thought she heard the angry whispers from the mouths of the passage graves, or perhaps it was only the wind blowing across the entrances.

Seancoim shook his head, while Denmark flapped his black wings

angrily. "That’s not a name one should speak here, but aye, that’s the

Daoine R1 whose blows shattered Ruaidhri’s shield and killed him, and

Hugh Dubh would be the last time any of the Bunus Muintir chieftains would put an army on the field." Seancoim pointed to the largest grave, aligned directly with the dolmen at the far end of the valley. "There is Riata. Do you know of him?"

Jenna shook her head, as did Maeve, but Mac Ard took in a breath that caused Seancoim to laugh.

"Ah," he said, "so you have listened to some of our old tales. Riata-he was the last, and perhaps the most powerful, of the Bunus cloudmages. The mage-lights vanished for us a scant three generations before you Daoine came. If they hadn't, if we had our mages wielding the clochs na thintri when the Daoine came, then perhaps all that would be left of your people would be a few haunted barrows. Or perhaps if we hadn't become so dependent on that magic, we would not have been so easily displaced when you came." He lifted his hands and let them fall again like wounded birds. "Only the gods can see down those paths."

"Do we have to stay here?" Jenna asked. "It's getting late." The entire valley was in deep shadow now, and Jenna felt cold, though the sky above was still bright.

"It's late," Seancoim agreed, "and it's not safe to travel here at night. We'll stay there." Seancoim pointed to the ridge beyond the valley.

Mac Ard grimaced. "That's a long climb, and close to this place."

"They say restless ghosts walk here, and Ruaidhri is among them," Seancoim answered. He cocked his head at Mac Ard. "If I were Daoine, I might be afraid of that."

"I'm not afraid of a spirit," Mac Ard said, scowling. "Fine, old man. We'll stay here."

"Aye, we will," Seancoim told him, "unless you want to go back on your own." He turned away, calling Denmark back to him, then walking on through the dolmen. After a moment, Jenna and the others followed, though Jenna walked carefully around the dolmen rather than going under its capstone, and didn't look into the cold archways of the barrow graves at all.

Jenna had thought that it would be impossible to sleep that night, unpro-tected under the oaks and so near the Bunus tombs. Exhaustion proved

stronger than fear, and she was asleep not long after she lay down near their tiny fire, only to be awakened sometime later by a persistent throb-bing near her leg and in her head. She opened her eyes, disoriented. The fire had died to embers. Her mam and Mac Ard were asleep, sleeping close to each other and not far from her; Seancoim and Denmark were nowhere to be seen. Jenna blinked, closing her eyes against the throbbing and touching her leg-as she did so, her hand closed on the stone under the cloth. It was pulsing in time with the pain in her temples. As she lay there, she thought she heard her name called: a soft, breathy whisper wending its way between the trunks of the trees. "Jenna…" it came, then again: "Jenna…"

Jenna sat up in her blankets.

There was light shifting through the leaves: a rippling, dancing, familiar shining high in the sky and very near. She thought of calling to her mam, then stopped, knowing Mac Ard would awaken with Maeve. Part of her didn’t want Mac Ard to see the lights, didn’t want his interference. Jenna rose to her feet and followed the elusive glimmering.

A few minutes later, she stood at the rim of the valley of Bunus tombs, looking out down the steep, treeless slope to the circles of graves and the dolmen at its center. She could see them very clearly, for directly above the valley the mage-lights were shimmering. Their golden light washed over the mounds of earth and rock in waves, as if she were watching the surface of a restless, wind-touched lake. The valley was alive with the light.

"Jenna… " She heard the call again, more distinctly this time, still airy but now laden with deeper undertones: a man’s voice. It came from below.

"No," she whispered back to it, afraid, clutching her hands together tightly. The stone pulsed against her hip, cold fire.

’Jenna, come to me. ."

"No," she said again, but a branch from the nearest tree touched her on the back as if blown by a sudden wind, pushing her a step forward. She stopped, planting her feet.

’Jenna… "

The lights flared above, sparks bursting like a log thrown on a bonfire, and a tree limb crashed to the ground just behind her. Jenna jumped at the sound, and her foot slid from under her. She took another step, trying to recover her balance, only now the ground was tilted sharply down, and she half ran, half fell down the long, grassy slope to the valley floor, land-ing on her knees and hands an arm's length from the rear of one of the barrows.

"Come to me. ."

The mage-lights splashed bright light on the dolmen, sending black

shadows from the standing stones twisting wildly over the mounds. Jenna

could feel the stone throbbing madly in response, and she took it in her

and. The pebble glowed with interior illumination, bright enough that

she could see the radiance between her fingers as she held the stone in her fist. Having the stone in her hand seemed to lend her courage, and she walked slowly between the graves toward the dolmen, though she could feel every muscle in her body twitching with a readiness to flee.

As she stepped into the open circle around the dolmen, she saw the apparition.

It stood before the barrow of Riata: a man's shape, long-haired and stocky, clad in a flowing cloca of a strange design which left one shoulder bare. The form shifted, wavering, as if it were formed of clear crystal and it was only the reflection of the mage-lights on its polished surface that rendered it visible. But it moved, for one hand lifted as Jenna recoiled a step, her back pressed up against the carved surface of the standing stone. There were eyes watching her in the spectral face. It spoke, and its voice was the one that had called to her. The words sounded in her head, as if the voice was inside her.

"You hold the cloch na thintri," it said, and there was a wistful yearning in its voice. Its face lifted and looked up at the mage-lights, and she could see the glow playing over the transparent features. "They have returned," it said, its voice mournful and pleased all at once. "I wondered if I would see them again. So beautiful, so cold and powerful, so tempting. ." The face regarded Jenna again. "You are not of my people," it said. "You are too fair, too tall."

"My people are called the Daoine," Jenna answered. "And how is it you know our language?"

"The dead do not use words. We lack mouth and tongue and lungs to move the air. I speak with you mind to mind, taking from you the form of the words I use. But I feel the strangeness of your language. Daoine… " It said the word slowly, rolling the syllables. "I knew no Daoines when I was alive.

. There were other tribes, we knew, in other lands, but here there were only the Bunus Muintir. My people."

"You’re Riata?" Jenna asked. She was intrigued now. The ghost, if that’s what it was, had made no threatening moves toward her, and she leaned forward, trying to see it more clearly. The ghosts and spirits of the tales she’d heard in Ballintubber were always bloody, decaying corpses or white vapors, and they cursed and terrified the living.

This, though. . the play of light over its shifting, elusive form was almost beautiful, and its voice held no threat.

"I was called that once," the specter said, sounding pleased and sad at the same time. "So that name is still known? I’m not forgotten in the time of the Daoine?"

"No, not forgotten," Jenna answered, thinking that it might be best to mollify the spirit. After all,

Tiarna Mac Ard had known of him.

"Ahh. ." it sighed. A hand stretched out toward

Jenna, and she forced herself to stand still. She

could feel the chill of its touch, like ice on her

forehead and cheek, then the hand cupped hers and

Jenna let her fingers relax. In her palm, the stone

shot light back to the glowing sky. "So young you

are, to be holding a cloch na thintri, especially this

one. But I was young, as well, the first time I held it!!

"This one?" Jenna asked. "How. .?"

"Follow me," it said. Its hand beckoned, and from fingertips to elbow the arm seemed to reflect the intricate curls and flourishes of the lights above, as if the patterns had been carved into the limb. The phantom glided backward into Riata’s tomb, its cold

touch fading.

"I can't," Jenna responded, holding back from the yawning mouth of the barrow. She glanced up at the lights playing over the valley, at the stone in her hand.

"You must," Riata replied. "The mage-lights will wait for you." Then the presence was gone, and nothing stood in front of the passage. "Come. ." whispered the voice faintly, from nowhere and everywhere.

Jenna took a step toward the barrow, then another. She put her hand on the stone lintels of the opening: they were carved with swirls and eddies not unlike the display in the sky above and on Riata's arm, along with lozenges and circles and other carved symbols. She traced them with her fingers, then walked into the passage itself.

Darkness surrounded her immediately and Jenna almost fled back outside, but as her eyes slowly adjusted, she could see in the illumination of the mage-lights and the answering glow from the cloch na thintri that the walls were drystone, covered with plaster that was now broken and shattered, the stones piled to just above the height of her head and capped with flat rocks. The passage into the burial chamber was short but claustrophobic. The walls leaned in, so that while two people could have knelt side by side at the bottom, only one standing person could walk down the corridor at a time.

Once, the walls must have been decorated-there were flecks of colored pigment clinging to the plaster and her touch caused more of the ancient paintings to crumble and fall away. Here and there were larger patches where she could see traces of what, centuries ago, must have been a mural. Jenna was glad to finally reach the relative spaciousness of the burial chamber. She glanced back: through the passage, she could see the dolmen awash in the brilliant fireworks of the mage-lights.

The burial chamber itself had been constructed with five huge stones, forming the sides and roof. The air was musty and stale, and the room dim, touched only by the reflections of the lights, the cloch na thintri's illumination. At the center of the room was a large, chiseled block of granite, and set there was a pottery urn, glazed with the same swirls and curved lines carved on the lintel stones. Around the urn were beads and pieces of jewelry, torcs of gold and braided silver that glistened in the moving radiance. Clothing had once lain here as well; she could see mouldering scraps of brightly-dyed cloth. These had been funeral gifts, obvi-ously, and the urn undoubtedly held the ashes and bones of Riata. But his specter had vanished.

"Hello?" she called.

Air moved, her hair lifting, and she felt a touch on her shoulder. Jenna cried out, frightened, and the sound rang in the chamber, reverberating. She dropped the cloch na thintri, and as she started to reach for it, the pebble rose from the floor, picked up by a hand that was barely visible in the stone’s glow.

"Aye," Riata’s voice said in her head, full of satisfaction, the tones dark and low. "Tis true. This was once mine." Pale light stroked the lines of his spectral face, sparking in the deep hollows where the eyes should have been. His voice seemed more ominous, touched with hostility. "Or more truthfully, I once belonged to it. Until it was stolen from me and found its way to another."

"I didn’t steal it," Jenna protested, shrinking back against the wall as the shadowy form of Riata seemed to loom larger in front of her. "I found it on the hill near my home, the first time the mage-lights came. I didn’t know it was yours; I never even knew of you. Besides, it’s only a little stone. It can’t be very powerful."

Cold laughter rippled the dead air of the tomb, and the stench of death wafted over Jenna, making her wrinkle her nose and turn her face away. "I don’t accuse you of stealing it," Riata’s voice boomed.

"This cloch na thintri has owned many in its time and will own many more. Davali had it before me, and Oengus before him, and so on, back into the eldest times. And it may be little, but of all the clochs na thintri, it is the most powerful."

"It can’t be," Jenna protested. "Tiarna Mac Ard… he would have said. ." Or he didn’t know, she suddenly realized. She wondered if he would have handed it back to her, if he had.

"Then this tiarna knows nothing. This cloch even has a name it calls itself: Lamh Shabhala, the Safekeeping. The cloch was placed here when I died, on the offering stone you see in front of you. And it was taken over a thousand long years ago-I felt its loss even in death, though I didn’t have strength then to rise. For hands upon hands upon hands of

years I slumbered. Once, centuries ago, the lights came again to wake me and I could feel that Lamh Shabhala was alive with the mage-lights once more.

I called out to Lamh Shabhala and its holder, but no one answered or they were too far away to hear me. With the mage-light's strength, I was able to rise and walk here among the tombs when the mage-lights filled the sky, but few came to this place, and though they were Bunus Muintir, they appeared to be poor and savage, and seemed frightened of me. None of them knew the magic of the sky. I realized then that my people had declined and no longer ruled this land. But someone held Lamh Shabhala, or the lights could not have returned. For unending years I called, every night the lights shone. Then, as they have before, the mage-lights died again, and I slept once more." The shape that was Riata drew itself close to her. "Until now," he said. "When the mage-lights have awakened again."

"Then take the stone," Jenna said. "It's yours. Keep it. I don't want it."

Riata laughed again at that. "Lamh Shabhala isn't mine, nor yours. Lamh Shabhala is its own. I knew it wanted me to pass it on as it had been passed to me. I could feel its desire even though the mage-lights had stopped coming a dozen years before I became sick with my last illness, but I held onto it. There were no more cloudmages left, only people with dead stones around their necks and empty skies above. I believed my cloch to be as dead as theirs; in fact, I prayed that it was so. I should have known it wasn't. Lamh Shabhala is First and Last." The voice was nearly a hiss. "And a curse to its Holder, as 1 know too well, especially the one who is to be First."

The stone hung in the air in front of Jenna, held in invisible fingers. "Take Lamh Shabhala," Riata said. "I pass it to you, Jenna of the Daoine, as I should have passed it long ago. You are the new First Holder."

Jenna shook her head, now more afraid of the stone than of the ghost. Yet her hand reached out, unbidden, and took the cloch from the air. She fisted her hand around the cold smoothness as Riata's laughter echoed in her head.

"Aye, you see? You shake your head, but the desire is there, whether you admit it or not. It's

already claimed you."

Jenna was near to crying. She could feel the tears starting in her eyes, the fear hammering at her heart. The cloch burned like fiery ice in her hand. "You called it a curse to its holder. What do you mean?"

"The power of the land is eternal, as is the power of the water. Their magics and spells, for those who know how to tap and use them, are slower and less energetic than that of the air, but more stable. They are always there, caught in the bones of the land itself, or in the depths of the water. The power within the sky ebbs and flows: slowly, over generations and generations of mortal lives. It has done so since before my people walked from Thall Mor-roinn to this land and found Lamh Shabhala here.

No one knows how often the slow, centuries-long cycle has repeated itself. There were no people here when we Bunus Muintir came to Talamh an Ghlas, but there were the standing stones and graves of other tribes who had once lived here, and we Holders could hear the voices in the stone, one tribe after another, back and back into a past none of us can see. The mage-lights vanished for the Bunus Muintir four times, the last time while I was still alive. The sky-power returned once for you Daoine, then van-ished again. Now the mage-lights want to return again."

Jenna glanced down the passage of the tomb. Multicolored light still touched the dolmen, brightening the valley. "The mage-lights have already returned," Jenna said, but Riata's denial boomed before she could finish.

"No!" he seemed to shout. "This is but the slightest hint of them, the first stirrings of Lamh Shabhala, the gathering of enough power within the stone to open the gates so that all the clochs na thintri may awaken and the mage-lights appear everywhere. For now, the lights follow Lamh Shabhala-and that is the danger. Those who know the true lore of the mage-lights also know that fact. They know that where the lights appear, Lamh Shabhala is also there. And they will follow, because they want to hold Lamh Shabhala themselves."

Jenna continued to shake her head, half understanding, half not want-ing to understand. "But why hold the stone if it's a curse?"

A bitter laugh. "The one who holds Lamh Shabhala gains power for their pain. Some believe that’s more than a fair barter-those who have never held the cloch itself. It’s the First who suffers the most, not those who come after, and you are the First, the one who will open the way. So watch, Jenna of the Daoine. Watch for those who follow the mage-lights, for they aren’t likely to be your friends."

Jenna thought of the riders from Connachta, and she also thought of Mac Ard. But before she could say more, Riata’s shape stirred. "The mage-lights beckon," he said. "They call the stone. Do you feel it?"

She did. The cloch was throbbing in her hand. "Go to them," Riata said. His shape was fading, as was his voice, now no more than a whisper. "Go. ." he said again, and the apparition was gone. She could feel its absence, could sense that the air of the tomb was now dead and empty. She called to him-"Riata!" — and only her own voice answered, mocking. The mage-lights sent waves of pure red and aching blue-white shimmer-ing down the passage, and Jenna felt the stone’s need, like a hunger deep within herself. She walked down the passage and out into cold fresh air again. The mage-lights wove their bright net above her, a spider’s web of color that stretched and bent down toward her, swirling. She raised her hand, opening her fingers, and the light shot down, surrounding her, enveloping her in its flowing folds. The whirlwind grabbed her hand in its frigid gasp, and she screamed with the pain of it: as the brilliance rose, a sun caught in her fingers, consuming her.

Hues of brilliance pulled at her. Knives of color cut into her flesh. She tried to pull away and could not, and she screamed again in terror and agony.

A flash blinded her. Thunder filled her ears.

Jenna screamed a final time, as the cold fire seemed to penetrate to her very core, her entire body quivering with torment, every nerve alive and quivering.

Then she was released, and she fell into blessed darkness.

Chapter 9: Through the Forest

"JENNA?"

The smell was familiar-a warm breath laden with spice. Jenna opened her eyes to see Seancoim crouching alongside her. The dolmen towered gray above her, rising toward a sky touched with the salmon hues of early morning, and Denmark peered down at her from a perch on the capstone. Jenna blinked, then sat up abruptly, turning to look at the tomb behind her. *Riata," she said, her voice a mere hoarse croak. Her throat felt as if it had been scraped raw, and her right arm ached as if someone had tried to tear it loose from its socket. She could feel the cloch na thintri: cold, still clutched in her fist, and she slipped it back into the pocket of her skirt, grimacing with the effort. Something was wrong with her right hand-it felt wooden and clumsy, and the pain in her arm seemed to emanate from there.

"You saw him?" Seancoim asked, and Jenna nodded. Seancoim didn't seem surprised. "He walks here at times, restless. I've glimpsed him once or twice, or I think I might have."

"He. ."Jenna tried to clear her throat, but the effort only made it hurt worse. She wanted to take her hand out from where it was hidden in the woolen skirt, but she was afraid.". . called me. Spoke to me."

Seancoim's blind eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He opened the leather bag at his side and rummaged inside, pulling out a smaller leather container capped with horn. "Here. Drink this." Jenna reached out. Stopped. The skin of her right hand was mottled, the flesh a swirling pattern of pale gray and white, and the intricate tendrils of whitened flesh ached and burned. Her fingers were stiff, every joint on fire, and the damaged skin throbbed with every beat of her heart. She must have cried out, for Denmark flew down from the capstone to Seancoim's shoulder. The Bunus Muintir took her hand, examining it, pushing back the sleeve of her blouse. The injured area extended just past her wrist.

"Your skin is dead where it's gray. I've seen it before, in people who were caught in a blizzard and exposed to bitter cold," Seancoim said. Jenna felt

tears start in her eyes, and Seancoim touched her cheek. "It will heal in time," he said. "If you don’t injure it further."

"Jenna!" The call came from the ridge above them. Maeve and Mac Ard stood there, her mam waving an arm and scrambling down the slope into the valley, Mac Ard following more carefully after her. Maeve came run-ning up to them, glancing harshly at Seancoim. "Jenna, are you all right? We woke up and saw the lights, and you were gone-"

She noticed Jen-na’s hand then, and her own hand went to her mouth. "Oh, Jenna. ."

Jenna turned the hand slowly in front of her face, a contortion of pain moving across her features as she flexed her fingers slowly. The swirling pattern on her hand echoed the carved lines of the dolmen. Her mam took her wrist gently. "What happened, darling?" she asked, but Jenna saw Mac Ard approaching, and she only shook her head. He had the cloch in his hand, and he gave it back to me. . Mac Ard came up behind Maeve, putting his hands on her shoulders as she examined Jenna’s injury. Jenna saw Mac Ard’s gaze move from her hand to the carvings on the dolmen, then back again. For a moment, their eyes locked gazes, and she tried to keep her emotions from showing on her face. Watch for those who follow the mage-lights, Riata had said. She wondered how much Mac Ard knew or guessed, and if he had, did he regret not keeping the stone when he had it.

"I’m fine, Mam," she said to Maeve. "The pain’s easing already." It was a lie, but Jenna forced a small smile to her face, pulling her hand gently away from her mam.

"I’ll make a poultice that will take away the sting and speed the heal-ing," Seancoim said. "There are anduilleaf flowers still in bloom in the thicket near the camp." His staff tapping the ground ahead of him, he shuffled away between the barrows.

"Jenna," Mac Ard said. "We saw the lights. Did the stone. .?"

"I hold the stone," she answered, far more sharply than she intended. Belatedly, she added: "Tiarna."

His eyes flashed, narrowing, and his hands dropped from Maeve’s shoulders. "Jenna!" her mam said. "After all the tiarna’s risked for us. ."

"I know, but we've risked our own lives as well," Jenna told her, watch the wood. The last time I passed by the valley of the tombs, with a bright moon above, I saw him walking restlessly outside near the dolmen, look-ing up at the night sky. When you came, I realized that it might be that the Last Holder needed to meet the new First, so I made certain our path went by the tombs."

"You know about this cloch, then," she said. "He called it Lamh Shabhala. Can you tell me-what will it do to me? What does it mean to be the First?"

Seancoim shrugged under his furs. "I know the magic of the earth, not the sky, and they're very different. Jenna, it's been four centuries since the mage-lights last came, and you Daoine had Lamh Shabhala then. For the Bunus Muintir. . well, the last time we possessed the cloch you hold was not long after you Daoine came here, an entire age ago. and all the tales have been so twisted and distorted in the tellings and retellings that much of the lore can't be trusted, or is so wrapped with untruths that it's difficult to separate the two. Each time, the cloudmages must learn anew. I can tell you very little that I know with a certainty is true."

"I'm scared, Seancoim," Jenna said, her voice husky and broken.

He stopped. He took her injured hand in his gnarled, wrinkled fingers. "Then you're wiser than anyone else who is searching for Lamh Shabhala," he said.

The land flattened out into a plain, and Jenna noticed that the trees were no longer so closely huddled together. The oaks were now less numerous than maples, elms, and tall firs, and the ground less boggy than the wide valley where Ballintubber sat. The woods grew lighter, with the sky visible between the treetops, and Jenna became aware of the bright singing of birds in the trees above them, a sound that she realized had been missing in Doire Coill. Ahead, they could see where the trees ended at the verge of a large grassy field, which ran slightly downhill to a wide, brown strip of bare earth bordered on either side by a stone fence.

"There is the High Road coming up from Thiar in the west and Bacathair to the south," Seancoim said. He pointed to the left. "That way, the road runs north to cross the Duan at Ath Iseal. Beyond the line of trees on the other side of the road is Lough

Lar, and the High Road runs along-side it. This is the eastern border of Doire Coill, and here I leave you."

"Thank you, Seancoim of the Bunus Muintir," Mac Ard said. "I promise you that I’ll tell Ri Gabair of your help. Is there some way I can have him reward you for bringing us here safely?"

"Tell Ri Gabair to leave Doire Coill alone," Seancoim answered. "That will be reward enough for the few Bunus Muintir who are left."

Mac Ard nodded. Jenna went to Seancoim and hugged him, then stroked Dunmharu’s back.

"Thank you," she said.

"Take care of yourself," Seancoim whispered into her ear. "Be sparing with the anduilleaf; do not use it unless you must, or you’ll find it difficult to stop. I also think you should be careful about showing the power of the cloch you hold. Do you understand?"

Jenna nodded. She hugged Seancoim again, inhaling his scent of herbs. "I’ll miss you."

"I am always here," he told her. "Just come into Doire Coill and call my name, and I’ll hear it." He let her go, and turned his blind eyes toward Maeve. "Take care of your daughter," he said. "She’ll need your help with the burden she bears."

Maeve nodded. "I know. I thank you also, Seancoim. When I first met you, I didn’t trust you, but you’ve kept your word to us and more."

"Remember that when you look on others," he answered. He gave a short bow to the three of them. "May the Mother-Creator watch your path. Denmark, come-we have our own business to the south." He turned his back to them and walked off into the forest. Jenna watched until his form was swallowed in shadow, and the three of them made their way to the High Road.

Chapter 10: The Taisteal

THE High Road, between the waist-high stone walls that bordered its path, was rough and muddy, with a scraggly growth of grass and weeds in the center between ruts carved by the wheels of carts and car-riages. Mac Ard bent down to look closely at the road. "All the hoof marks are old. No riders have passed this way in a few days," he said. "That makes me feel a bit easier." He stood up, scanning the landscape. "I've come up on this side of Lough Lar a few times. Ath Iseal is no more than ten miles to the north, but there aren't many inns or villages along this side of the lake, so near to Doire Coill. It's too late for us to reach the town today, but we can camp along the lake's shore if we don't come across an inn. Tomorrow morning it should be an easy walk to the ford of the Duan, and once across to Ath Iseal I can hire a carriage to take us to Lar Bhaile." He smiled at Maeve, at Jenna. "We're almost home," he said.

Not our home, Jenna wanted to answer. That's gone forever. She clamped her lips together to stop the words and nodded encouragingly.

They walked through the afternoon. The High Road followed the line of Lough Lar, sometimes verging close enough that they could see the blue waters of the lake just to their right. At other times, the road turned aside for a bit to climb the low, wooded hills that held the lake in their cupped hands. As they approached the narrow end of the lake, the dark woods of Doire Coill turned westward and gave way to large squares of farmed and grazed land, defined with tidy stone fences. Occasionally, they would pass a gate in the fence that bordered the High Road, with a lane leading far back to a hidden farmhouse set a mile or more from the road. Jenna, used to the small homesteads and farms of Ballintubber, was amazed by the size of some of the fields. They saw workers in those fields, and once had to stand aside as a hay wagon drawn by a pair of tired, old horses squealed and creaked its way past them. The driver looked at them curiously, and said little to Mac Ard's hail. They passed no one at all on the road going in their direction.

Toward evening, they came to an empty field on the lough side of the road. The flickering lights of cook fires glistened there among several tents and four wagons. They could hear the nickering of horses and the occasional laughter of people. There was a sign hanging on one of the wagons, written in high black letters that were still visible in the dusk.

"What does the sign say?"

"You can’t read?"

Jenna shook her head. "Neither of us know our letters," Maeve said, "but Niall could read. He said he’d teach me, but. ." Remembered sorrow touched her face, and Jenna hugged her mam.

"No matter," Mac Ard said. "Once we’re in Lar Bhaile, we can find teachers for you. Reading can be a useful art, though it’s probably best that the common folk don’t learn the skill. The sign says ’Clan Sheehan. Pots mended, goods sold.’" Mac Ard seemed to hesitate. "These are Tais-teal camped for the night. They’re coming down from the north, so per-haps they’ve heard something. If nothing else, we can probably buy shelter for the night here."

"Can you trust them?" Maeve asked nervously. "Some of the Taisteal who have come through Ballintubber were thieves and cheats, and often the goods you buy from them are damaged or poorly made. The last ones through fixed a leaking pot of Matron Kelly’s and it began to leak again not two days after they were gone."

Mac Ard shrugged. "If I were buying something from them, I’d inspect it well, but I doubt they’re any more prone to be criminals than any other people. They roam, and so they’re convenient to blame."

"Coelin came from the Taisteal," Jenna reminded her mam.

"I know," Maeve answered, but she did try to smile. "That’s why I worry."

Mac Ard laughed at that. "We can’t go farther today in any case," he said. "I’d rather spend the night among a group than alone, especially if the Connachtans are still out searching for us. Let’s keep our eyes open and be cautious, but I don’t think the Taisteal would risk assaulting a tiarna on the High Road so close to Ath Iseal."

They followed Mac Ard through a break in the High Road wall and kept the rest back: the worry she had that it might have been the same cloch she carried that he’d been searching for, that if he knew she had it his attitude might change.

"Thank you, Jenna," Maeve said. "That means a lot to me. None of this changes anything between us, darling. No matter what, you and I won’t change."

Jenna remained silent. She could see in her mam's face that she knew that wasn't necessarily true, that neither one of them totally believed the words yet neither wanted to admit it. If you go to him, it may change every-thing, Mam. It means that it's more likely you'll take his side against mine. It means that you'd be feeling things we can't share anymore. And it means that once we reach the city, I might lose you, and that scares me most of all. Butt Jenna only nodded. "He makes you happy?"

Maeve smiled. "Aye, child. He does. That's something you'll under-stand soon enough for yourself, I'm sure."

"I hope so," Jenna said. "I hope so."

"You will. I know it," Maeve answered. "I can smell the stew. Clannhri Sheehan said that we should come and join them when we're ready. I'll be right back with Padraic. You're sure you're all right?"

"Go on, Mam. I'm fine. I think I'll go out and see the camp."

Maeve nodded and left. Jenna lay on the pile of sheepskins that served as a bed, fingering the smooth surface of the stone.

The Taisteal clan were all gathered around the largest fire, crackling in the center of the ring of tents and wagons. When Jenna came out of the tent, she could feel that everyone was watching her, even if they didn't look directly at her. She felt suddenly out of place and a little frightened. In Ballintubber, she would have had a name for every face. For the first time in her life, she was surrounded by total strangers. These were people to whom Ballintubber was just another village like a hundred others they'd seen, who had traveled from the cliffs bordering the Ice Sea to the south-ern tip of Talamh an Ghlas. Jenna suddenly felt provincial and lost.

She saw Clannhri Sheehan standing to one side, smoking a pipe and talking with one of the men. He saw her, said something to the man, and came over to her. "Ah, m'lady!" He glanced up and down at her as if inspecting a side of ham. "Now, doesn't that feel more comfortable? Here, let me get you some of the stew. Hilde…" Jenna started to protest, to say that she'd wait until her mam and Mac Ard came out, but Sheehan took her arm and ushered her forward.

She could feel the eyes of the clan on her as she came to the fire. She smiled, tentatively, and received a few smiles in return. They seemed to be several families: men and women as well as children, plainly dressed. She heard someone whisper in a voice that carried over the murmur of conversation: "She’s the one with the tiarna… " No one spoke to her-that was also unlike Ballintubber, where strangers would have been immedi-ately engaged in conversation and bombarded with a dozen questions about where they came from, where they were going, what their names might be and who they might be related to hereabouts. Instead, these people seemed content to stare and keep their speculations private. Most of the faces were friendly enough, and she supposed that she could have spoken to them and been answered kindly, but a few stared hard at her, with guarded faces and expressions. Hilde hurried to her with a bowl filled with fragrant stew, a small loaf of bread, and a wooden spoon. Shee-han took it from her and handed it to Jenna. "There, Ban tiarna. Sit, sit and be comfortable." He sat next to her, speaking too loudly for her com-fort. "It’s not much, but the best we can offer. Don’t often have Riocha staying with us, ’tis the truth, not with the Taisteal."

"Thank you, Clannhri," she said. "You’re very kind." She started eating the stew, hoping he would leave her alone, but he didn’t seem inclined to move or to be quiet.

"Aye," he said. "I knew him to be a tiarna as soon as I clapped eyes on him, I did, even through the mud and scratches. We Taisteal have the gift of that, you know, and Clan Sheehan best of all-we can see worth where someone else sees nothing. You’ve had a time of it, I could see, and I said to myself ’Sheehan, you need to treat these people well, who have had a bit of difficulty on the road.’ What with all the trouble just to the north, and the lights in the sky, who knows what one might encounter? Some are already saying that this is the Filleadh, the time of magic come again, and creatures that have lain hidden for the last age will walk again. There are people out already hunting for the clochs na thintri in the old places, as if a spell-stone like they talk about in the tales of the Before could be found strewn about for the taking."

Jenna tried to smile at that and almost succeeded. The stone hidden in her clothes seemed to burn with the mention, so that Jenna was surprised

Sheehan couldn't see it. She placed her hand over the stone, as if to hide it. "I don't know about clochs," she said. "What about this trouble?"

Sheehan's face collapsed into a frown with a sad shaking of his head. He brushed what little hair he had left back with a thick-knuckled hand. Ah, 'twas awful," he said. "Raiders came and burned one village, is what

I hear, and killed several. Then they went riding all over the country, looking for someone from there. Word is they came as far east as the Duan before they turned back. Even came south on the High Road a bit, not more than a few miles from here."

Jenna shivered with remembered fear. The response must have been noticeable, for Sheehan lifted his hands as if to calm her. "Ah, there's no danger now, Bantiarna. But there's no doubt but that strange things are afoot. In fact, we've heard all manner of odd tales from people coming up the road recently: a party who says they saw a naked boy sunning himself on a rock at the north end of the Lough Dubh, and as soon as the boy saw them, he changed into a black seal and dove into the water. Just a hand of days ago, I was talking with a man who said he was attacked by a pack of huge dire wolves, which haven't been seen in this land since my grandfather's time, and another who was pursued by a troop of wee folk, no bigger than his knee and all armed with sharp little swords. Hilde herself saw a dog as large as a pony, with red, glowing eyes and mouth foaming, and the dog spoke, it did, spoke as plain as-"

"Did the dog talk as well as you, Clannhri, I wonder?" Mac Ard's voice interrupted the monologue, and Sheehan nearly fell, turning his head around to glance up at the tiarna. He stood and gave a quick bow to Mac Ard and Meave, who was on the tiarna's arm.

"Tiarna Mac Ard," Sheehan said. "I was just telling the young Bantiarna about how strange the times have become, even for the poor Taisteal.

Why, one might think-"

Mac Ard lifted his hand, and the man's voice cut off as if severed with a knife. "No doubt you have thought that we would like some of that fine stew, and something to drink if you have it," Mac Ard

said, and Sheehan gave a nod of his head. He scurried off as Mac Ard helped Maeve to the ground and then sat alongside her himself. The gathering around the fire had gone entirely silent. Mac Ard glanced around, and faces looked quickly away. Conversations started up again, the noise level rising.

"Tiarna," Jenna said, keeping her voice low. "He said that Ballintubber was burned, and they’ve seen the mage-lights."

"Aye," Mac Ard said. "No doubt the rumors are everywhere now, maybe even in Dun Laoghaire itself by now. But I doubt that the Connachtans are still in the area, or that they burned Ballintubber to the ground. Rumors grow larger the farther they travel, and the Connachtans are likely to have scurried home by now." He glanced around the encampment. "But it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve left a spy or two behind, either some of their own or someone who is willing to send word to them for a few morceints. There are faces here I don’t like, and Sheehan talks more than is good for him. I don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. I won’t feel safe until we’re back in Lar Bhaile."

Sheehan came back with stew for Mac Ard and Jenna, more bread, and cups of water. This time he said very little, glancing at Mac Ard with the expression of a scolded dog and hurrying off again. Mac Ard and Maeve talked, but Jenna only half-listened, leaning back on her arms and watch-ing the fire. She wished someone would sing some of the Taisteal songs, and that thought made her think of Coelin, and she wondered how he was, if he’d been hurt by the Connachtans, or if Tara’s even still stood and wasn’t a burned-out hulk next to the road. She didn’t want to go forward; she wanted to go back. She wanted to see Ballintubber again and Knobtop and all the familiar places. If it were within her power, she would erase the events of the past several days and happily go back to her old, predict-able life.

She felt tears starting in her eyes, and she brushed at them almost angrily. "I’m tired," she told her mam. "I’m going up to the tent."

Maeve glanced at her with concern, but she kissed Jenna. "We’ll do the same as soon as we eat," she said. "I’ll check on you. Good night, darling."

"Good night, Mam, Tiarna." Jenna nodded to Mac

Ard. She brushed at her skirts and walked away from the fire toward her tent.

She didn't notice that one of the men to her left excused himself from his companions and rose, following a few moments later.

Chapter 11: Two Encounters

"BANTIARNA, a moment.

The voice came from behind Jenna, low and gravelly. Startled, Jenna turned. The man was brown-haired with a longish beard, and she found his age difficult to discern-he could have been as young as Coelin or nearer to thirty. His face was drawn and thin, his skin brown from the sun; his strangely light green eyes nested deep under his brows, glinting in the light of the fire. His clothing was plain, but more like that of a freelander than the Taisteal, and Jenna saw a bone-handled knife in its scabbard at his belt. His appearance was that of someone used to a life of labor, his body toughened and scarred by what it had experienced. He stopped a few feet away from her, as if he realized that she would shout for Mac Ard if he came closer. She moved a few steps toward the ring of light from the campfire.

"What do you want?" Jenna asked coldly.

"Nothing that will trouble you," he said. "A minute's conversation, that's all." When Jenna remained silent, he continued. "My name is Ennis O'Deoradhain. I'm not with the Taisteal; I have land nearby and happened to come here to see if the Taisteal had anything interesting to sell-my father was born here and also died here, several years ago. But in his youth, he wandered, and went to the west as a fisherman and came to the north. He married a woman there, and brought her back to Lough Lar."

"What has that to do with me?"

"My mam-may the Mother-Creator keep her soul safe-was an Inishlander. They say I'm more like her than my father. In some ways, I think that's true. They say one Inishlander knows another. Maybe

that’s true as well or maybe the mage-lights have just sparked something in me that was dormant all this time." He stopped, staring at her.

"I’m from…" Ballintubber, she started to say, then realized that might not be something to admit either.". . Lar Bhaile," she said. "Not Inish

Thuaidh."

O’Deoradhain nodded, though his eyes seemed unconvinced. "Mam always said that I had a weirding in me. She also told me that one of our ancestors was a cloudmage, and wielded a cloch na thintri under Severii O’Coulghan in the Battle of Sliabh Michinniuint. Of course, one never knows about family history that far back and to tell the truth it’s a rare Inishlander family that doesn’t claim a cloudmage or three among their ancestors, true or not. If all the stories are to be believed, the land must have been ankle-deep in clochs na thintri."

With the mention of the mage-stones, Jenna’s hand went to her waist, where her own stone was hidden. She immediately let her hand drop back to her side, but the man’s eyes had followed her involuntary gesture. He almost seemed to smile.

"Your arm-you’ve hurt it." He nodded at the bandages wrapped around her arm; it seemed to throb in response.

"It’s nothing," she said. "A cut, that’s all."

"Ah." He nodded again. He glanced over his shoulder, as if making certain no one was close enough to overhear them. "One wonders," O’Deoradhain mused, "where Lamh Shabhala will be found if the Filleadh has really come, since the eldest cloch was taken from the Order of Inishfeirm and could be anywhere in Talamh an Ghlas by now. But then, you probably realize that already, since Clannhri Sheehan tells me that you’re a Mac Ard. After all, your ancestors were once cloudmages themselves. I ’m not surprised to see a Mac Ard on the road where the mage-lights have been seen. Not at all."

Jenna wanted to be away from the man, wanted to be alone, wanted to take the cloch out and hold it, wanted to throw it away and never see it again. She’d understood little of what he’d said-all that prattling about "Inishfeirm" and some Order, but he spoke of "Lamh Shabhala," the same name Riata had used. . "You've had your minute, Ennis O'Deoradhain, and I'm tired."

True, I've had the minute, and more, and I've spoken honestly about things that I probably shouldn't, out here in the open." The man's left and moved close to the hilt of his knife, and Jenna wondered how quickly someone would get to her if she screamed. Not soon enough, she feared, if O'Deoradhain was skilled with his weapon. Her bandaged hand went again to the stone; she could feel its chill under the cloth, and her heart was pounding in her chest. If she brought the cloch out, if she could use it as she had with the men from Connachta…

But O'Deoradhain only smiled, gave a short bow, and turned to walk back toward the fire. For a moment, Jenna wondered whether she should follow and tell Mac Ard and her mam what had just happened. But she couldn't make herself go that way, not after what the man had said to her.

Instead, she went to her tent, half-running. Her arm throbbed and burned, and she boiled water over the tiny cook fire inside and made herself another cup of the anduilleaf tea.

The next morning, it was easy to forget the encounter. Maeve was there in the tent, sleeping alongside Jenna-she had wondered, after their con-versation, if Maeve might stay in the tiarna's tent that night. Jenna's arm still ached, and she heated another cup of the brew to take away the hurt before her mam rewrapped the arm with fresh bandages. Outside, a warm, late autumn sun was shining, O'Deoradhain was nowhere to be seen, and they found that Mac Ard had haggled with Clannhri Sheehan for the purchase of three of the Taisteal's horses. They looked old and slow, but a better prospect than walking the rest of the way to Ath Iseal. By the time the sun was well up in the sky, the Taisteal had packed away the tents into the wagons and were jangling and plodding south along the road while Jenna, Maeve, and Mac Ard rode north toward the ford of the Duan.

They moved through a landscape of green: farmland mostly, with occa-sional patches of wood. The High Road meandered, following the line of Lough Lar closely. Not long after they'd left, as they rounded a bend in the road, they heard hooves and the nickering of a horse coming up from an

intersecting lane; a moment later, a rider came into view between a line of beech trees, a man wearing a plain cloca over pants and shirt. The hood of the cloca was up; the face in shadow. The man waved at them, then kicked his horse into a trot to meet them.

"Greetings, Tiarna Mac Ard, Bantiamas. A beautiful morning. We seem to be going in the same direction, if Ath Iseal is your destination. May I join you? With brigands on the road, four is safer than one." He pushed back the hood, and Jenna saw that it was Ennis O’Deoradhain. His eyes glittered as he glanced toward her, but he kept his attention on Mac Ard, who frowned.

"It isn’t brigands I particularly fear," he answered. "You have the advan-tage of me, since you seem to know me but your face isn’t familiar."

"My name is Ennis O’Deoradhain." He gestured to the fields on either side of him. "This is my family’s land. Not much, but enough to keep us fed. We’re three generations freelanded, loyal to the Ri Gabair, and the name O’Deoradhain is well known around the west of the lough. And I know you because I was at the Taisteal’s camp last night seeing if they had anything useful, and Clannhri Sheehan has a mouth large enough to swallow all of Lough Lar itself." He smiled and laughed at his own jest, and the harsh lines of his face relaxed in his amusement. "And if it allays your fears, I’m hardly a threat to you, Tiarna. I doubt my knife is a match for your sword." O’Deoradhain swept his cloca aside, showing them that the only weapon he wore was the knife Jenna had seen the night before.

"In my experience, a knife kills as easily as any weapon," Mac Ard told the man, but his voice was easier. "But a freelanded man loyal to the Ri shouldn’t be left alone to brigands, and the High Road’s open to all, if you’d like to ride with us."

Jenna could have spoken. She saw O’Deoradhain’s gaze flick toward her again, and she set her mouth in a firm, thin line of disapproval. Yet she held back. O’Deoradhain flicked the reins, and his horse moved out onto the road. For a time, he rode alongside Mac Ard, and Maeve, and they conversed in low voices. Then O’Deoradhain dropped back to where Jenna trailed behind. "And how are you today?" he asked. "Is the arm better?"

"It's fine," Jenna answered shortly. She didn't look at him, keeping her gaze forward to the road winding along the lakeshore. Lough Lar was narrowing, now no more than a few hundred strides across as they neared the falls of the Duan.

"So it seems you didn't mention our encounter last night to the tiarna."

"I didn't think it that important. I'd forgotten it myself until I saw you this morning." She answered him with the haughtiness she thought a Riocha would display. Now she did look over at him, and found him watching her with a strange smile on his lips. "Interesting that you'd hap-pen to be going to Ath Iseal today, and at the same time."

"What would you think if I told you that wasn't entirely coincidence?"

"I'd wonder if I should make up for my error last night and tell Tiarna Mac Ard."

'"Tiarna Mac Ard?' An awfully formal way to refer to your father," O'Deoradhain commented. Her face must have shown something at that, for he lifted his eyebrows. "Ah… I see I've been mistaken.

Evidently Clannhri Sheehan didn't know as much as he pretended he did. You never can trust the Taisteal. I thought… "

"I don't care what you thought."

"This does shed a different light on things, though, I must say," O'Deoradhain persisted. "What is your name, then?"

She remembered that Mac Ard had commented on their name being: Inish, and that O'Deoradhain had suggested that he thought her an Inishlander as well. She considered giving him a false name, but it didn't seem to matter now. Her mam would probably tell him, if he asked, or Mac Ard. "Aoire," she said. "Jenna Aoire."

The startled look on his face surprised her with its severity. For a moment, his eyes widened, and he seemed almost to rise up in his saddle. Then he caught himself, his features masked in deliberate neutrality. "Aoire. That's an Inish name, 'tis. So my guess wasn't so wrong after all."

"Aye," she admitted. "My father's parents were from the island, or so he claimed, though Mam says that they left the island when they were young."

O'Deoradhain's head nodded reflectively. "No doubt," he said. "No doubt." He shifted in the saddle, adjusted his cloca. "We should be in Ath Iseal by midafternoon," he said. "We'll be passing the falls in a bit; they're not as pretty this time of year without all the green, but they'll be impres-sive enough if you've never seen them before." It was obvious that he intended to change the subject, and Jenna was content to allow that to happen.

They heard the falls long before they saw them. Here, the High Road lifted in short, winding rises up a low series of hills, until they stood well above the level of Lough Lar. Away to the south stretched the dark waters of the lough; to the north, the road was hidden behind yet another set of low hills.

Westward stretched checkered patches of farmland, meadow, and woods, and beyond that, like a green wall, was the forest of Doire Coill, lurking on the horizon.

A trail ran away from the High Road to a ledge overlooking the falls, and Mac Ard turned his horse in. "We've made good time this morning, and there's not a better day to see the falls," he said. "We'll eat here." As Mac Ard rummaged in the saddlebags for the food, Jenna and her mam walked to the end of the ledge, where the land fell off steeply toward the lough, so that they were looking down at the tops of the trees below. Ahead and to their left, the River Duan splashed and roared as it spilled down a deep cleft in the green hills, cascading white and foaming to the lake below while a white mist rose around the waters. The sunlight sparked rainbows in the mist that wavered, gleamed, and disappeared again. "Ah, Mam, 'tis beautiful," Jenna breathed. The wind sent a tendril of mist across her face, and she laughed in shock and surprise. "And wet."

"And dangerous, if you get too near the edge." O'Deoradhain spoke, coming up next to them. He pointed down toward the lake. "Not two months ago, they brought up a man from Ath Iseal who slipped over the edge and went tumbling down to his death. He was looking at the falls and not his feet, unfortunately."

Both Jenna and Maeve took a step back. "The mist has a way of en-chanting, they say," O'Deoradhain continued. "The Duan weeps in

"Why in sorrow?" Jenna asked, interested despite herself.

" ’Twas here, they say, well back in the Before, that an army out of Inish Thuaidh met with the forces of the RI of what was then the kingdom of Bhaile; RI Aodhfin, I think his name was. The river ran red with blood that day, the stain washing pink on the shores of the lough itself, and the skies above were bright with the lightnings of the clochs na thintri. Lamh Shabhala itself was here, held by an Inishlander cloudmage whose name is lost to the people around here."

The name of the cloch made Jenna narrow her eyes in suspicion, and she thought she felt the hidden stone pulse in response. Aye. . The voice, a whisper, sounded in Jenna’s head. Eilis, I was. . "Eilis," Jenna said, speaking the name. "That was the Holder’s name. Eilis."

O’Deoradhain raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps. It’s as good a name as any, I suppose. You know this story, then?"

"No," Jenna answered, then shook her head. The voice was gone, and Jenna wondered whether she’d actually heard it, or if she imagined it in the sound of the falls. Maeve was looking at her curiously, as well. "Maybe I heard it at Tara’s one night. One of Coelin’s songs-he was always sing-ing about battles and romances from other times."

O’Deoradhain shrugged. "Whatever the name, Aodhfin wrested Lamh Shabhala away from the Inishlander cloudmage during the midst of battle; then, for two hundred and fifty years, Lamh Shabhala was held here in Talamh an Ghlas. They say that the mist of the falls is the tears of the cloudmage who lost Lamh Shabhala, and that’s why it’s dangerous. He, or she," he added with a glance at Jenna, who was watching the water spilling down the ravine, "still seeks revenge for the loss."

"That’s a pretty tale," Maeve said. "And an old one."

This is an old place," O’Deoradhain answered. He gestured straight out from the ledge. "They say that back when the first people came here to the lough, the falls were out here. But the river’s hungry, and it eats away a few feet of the cliffs every year and so

the lough keeps growing at this end. One day, thousands and thousands of years from now, the falls will be all the way back to Ath Iseal. We look at the land, and from our perspective, it all seems eternal: the mountains, the rivers, the lakes-they are there at our birth, and there looking the same at our death. But the stones themselves see that everything is always changing, and barely see us or our battles and legends at all. We're just ghosts and wisps of fog to them."

"Ah, you have a poet in you," Maeve said. "Tis well said."

O'Deoradhain touched his forehead, smiling at Maeve. "Thank you, Bantiarna. It's my mam's gift. She had a wonderful way with tales, espe-cially those from the north. She was from Inish Thuaidh, as I told your daughter."

Jenna refused to look back at him. "An Inishlander?" Maeve said. "So was my late husband-or his parents were from there, anyway. But he wasn't one for stories, I'm afraid. He didn't speak much about his family or the island. I don't think he'd ever been there himself."

"Perhaps not, but I've heard the name Aoire before, in some of the tales my mam used to tell me." He seemed as though he were about to say more and Jenna looked away from the falls toward him, but Mac Ard came striding up, and O'Deoradhain went silent at the tiarna's approach.

"I have our lunch unpacked," Mac Ard said. "We could bring it out here, and eat while watching the scenery."

"That sounds lovely," Maeve said. "Excuse me. We'll go help Padraic. Jenna?"

"Coming, Mam." She turned away from the falls, catching O'Deoradhain's gaze as she did so. "What is it you want?" she asked him, as her mam walked away.

O'Deoradhain shrugged. "Probably the same thing you want. Maybe the same thing you've already found." He nodded to her and smiled.

She grimaced sourly in return, and followed her mother.

Chapter 12: The Lady of the Falls

THEY finished their lunch, and lay in the soft grass under a surprisingly warm sun. Jenna’s arm was starting to throb again with pain, and she stood up. "I’ll be right back," she said. "I’d like to take a walk."

"I’ll go with you," O’Deoradhain offered, and Jenna shook her head.

"No," she said firmly. "I’d prefer to go alone. Mam, do you mind?"

"Go on," Maeve told her. "Don’t be long."

"I won’t be." Jenna walked away north, around the curve of the cliffs toward the falls. As she approached, the clamor of the cascading water grew steadily louder, until it drowned any other sound in white noise. Greenery hung over the edge of the ravine so that it was difficult to tell where the ground ended, and the mist dusted Jenna’s hair and clothes with sparkling droplets. She moved as close to the edge as she dared. Foaming water rushed past below her, spilling down to the lough. With the touch of the mist, she thought she heard faint voices, as if hidden in the roar of the falls was a distant, whispering conversation.

At the same time, her right arm began to feel cold and heavy under the bandages, and the cloch na thintri snuggled next to her skin flared into bitter ice. Jenna stopped, rubbing at her arm and flexing her suddenly stiff fingers, moaning slightly at the renewed pain. She started to turn back, thinking that she would fix herself more of the nasty-tasting anduilleaf, but stopped, blinking against the mist. There, just ahead of her, was a break in the greenery, a narrow trail leading down toward the Duan right where it plunged over the cliff edge. She wondered how she could have missed seeing it before.

Follow. . she thought she heard the water-voices say. Follow…

She took a tentative step forward, steadying herself against the bushes to either side. The path

was steep and ill-defined, the grass underfoot slick and only slightly shorter than anywhere else, as if the trail were nearly forgotten. Once she slipped and fell several feet before she could stop herself. She almost turned back then, but just below, the path seemed to level out, curving enticingly behind a screen of scrub hawthorns. Follow. . The voices were louder now, almost audible.

She followed.

Around the hawthorns, she found herself on a ledge below the lip of the falls. Water thundered in front of her, foaming and snarling as it thrashed its way over black, mossy rocks. The ledge continued around, cutting underneath the overhanging rocks at the top of the waterfall and disappearing into darkness behind the water.

Follow. . Her arm ached, the stone burned her skin with cold. Her hair and clothes, soaked by the mists, clung to her face and body. She should go back, she knew. This was insanity-one slip, and her body would be broken on the rocks a hundred feet below.

Follow. .

But there were handholds along the cliff wall, looking as if they'd been deliberately cut, and though the ledge was crumbling at the edges, the flags appeared to have once been laid by someone's hands. She took a step, then another, clinging to the dripping wall as the water pounded a few feet in front of her.

Then she was behind the falls, and the ledge opened up. Jenna gasped in wonder. She was looking through the shimmering veil of water, and the falls caught the sunlight and shattered it, sending light dancing all around her. The air was cool and refreshing; the sound of the falls was muffled here, a constant low grumbling that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. The rock underfoot trembled with the sound. As her eyes grew accustomed to the twilight behind the falling water, Jenna saw that the ledge on which she stood opened up behind her, sloping down and into the cliff wall: a small, hidden cave. Something gleamed well back in the recess, and Jenna moved toward it, squinting into the dimness.

And she stopped, holding her breath. In a stony niche carved from the living rock of the cliff, a

skeleton lay, its empty-socketed eyes staring at Jenna. The body had once been richly dressed-a woman, adorned with the remnants of brocaded green silk, with glistening threads of silver and gold embroidered along the edging. The arms were laid carefully along her sides, and under her head was a pillow, the stuffing spilling out from rotting blue cloth, a few strands of golden hair curling below the skull.

Rings hung loose on the bones of her fingers; jeweled earrings had fallen to the stone alongside the skull.

You look on the remains of Ellis MacGairbhith of Inish Thuaidh, and I was once the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, as you are now. .

The voice was as liquid as the falls, and it sounded inside her head. Jenna stepped back, her hands to her mouth, until she felt the roar of the water at her back. "No," she said aloud. "Be quiet. I don’t hear you."

A laugh answered her. The skeleton stared. Take one of my rings, the voice said. Place it on your own finger. .

"No. I can’t."

You must. . The voice was a bare whisper, fading into wind and the falls’ louder voice. For a moment, Jenna thought it had gone entirely, then it returned, a husk--please. . one of the rings. .

Her hand trembling, Jenna stepped toward the body again and reached out to the hands crossed over the breast. She touched the nearest ring, gasping, then pulled back as the golden band wobbled on the bones. Taking a breath, she reached out again, and this time pulled the ring from the unresisting hand. She held it in her fingers, turning it: the ring was heavy gold, inset with small emerald stones, filigreed and decorated with knotted rope patterns-an uncommon piece of jewelry, crafted by a mas-ter. The ring of someone who was once wealthy or well-rewarded.

She put the ring on her own finger.

At first nothing changed. Then Jenna realized that the hollow seemed brighter, that she could see as if it were full day. A bright fog filled the recess and the sound of the falls receded and died to nothing.

A woman, clad in the green silk that the skeleton had worn, stepped through the mist toward Jenna.

Her hair was long and golden-red like bright, burnished copper, and her skin was fair. Her eyes were summer blue, and she smiled as she came forward, her hands held out to Jenna. The sleeves left her arms bare, and Jenna saw that her right hand was scarred and marked to the elbow with swirling patterns, patterns that matched those on Jenna's own hand and arm.

On one of her fingers sat the same ring Jenna wore.

"Eilis," Jenna breathed, and the woman laughed. Aye," she said. "That was once my name. So you're the new Holder, and so young to be a First. That's a pity." Her hand touched Jenna's, and with the touch, Jenna felt a touch in her head as well, as if somehow Eilis were prowling in her thoughts. "Ah.

Jenna, is it? And you've met Riata."

Jenna nodded. "How. .?" she began.

"You are the Holder," Eilis said again. "This is just one of the gifts and dangers that Lamh Shabhala bestows: the Holders before you-we who held Lamh Shabhala while it was awake and perhaps even some of those who held it while it slept-live within the stone also." Jenna remembered the red-haired man she'd glimpsed when she first picked up the stone. Had he been a Holder, once? "At least," Eilis continued, "some shade of us does. Come to where a Holder's body rests, or touch something that was once theirs, and they can speak with you if you will it. They will also know what is in your mind, if you allow it to be open. Tell me, when you met Riata, did he give you a token?"

Jenna shook her head. "No. He only spoke to me."

Eilis nodded at that, as if it were the answer she expected. "I met him, too. Riata prefers to be left alone in death. He knows that should you need him again, you can find him in the stone or go to where he rests. I went there once, myself. That's how I came to know him-a wise man, wiser than most of us Daoine believed possible of a Bunus Muintir. We're an arrogant people. ." She seemed to sigh, then, and looked past Jenna as if into some hazy distance. "He told me I would die, if I followed my heart. I didn't believe him." Another sigh, and her attention came back to Jenna. "You will meet the

shades of other Holders, inevitably, especially if you go to Lar Bhaile as you intend. And I’ll warn you; some you will not like and they will not like you. Some will smile and seem fair, but their advice will be as rotten as their hearts. The dead, you see, are not always sane." She smiled as she said that, a strange expression on her face. "Be careful."

"Why didn’t Riata tell me this?" Jenna asked. "There’s so much I need to know."

"If he told you all, you would have despaired,"

Eilis answered. "You’re new to Lamh Shabhala, and you are a First besides." She shuddered. "I wouldn’t have wanted to be a First."

"Riata… he said that the stone was a curse, especially for the First."

"He was right."

Jenna shuddered. "That scares me, the way you say the words."

Her gaze was calm. "Then you’re wise."

"Is the cloch evil, then?"

Eilis laughed, a sound like trickling water. "Lamh Shabhala-or any of the clochs na thintri, for that matter-don’t know good or evil, child. They simply are. They give power, and power can be put to whatever use a Holder wishes. Lamh Shabhala is First and Last, and so the power it can lend is also greatest. As to evil. ."A smile. "You bring to the stone what you have inside you, that’s all. In any case, evil depends on which side you stand-what one person calls evil, another calls justice. Let me see it " she said. "Let me see Lamh Shabhala again."

Jenna felt reluctant. She shook her head, the barest motion, and Eilis frowned, taking a step forward. "I mean you no harm, Jenna," she said. "Let me see the cloch I once wielded myself."

Jenna felt for the stone, closing her fingers around it through the cloth that hid it. "If Lamh Shabhala has the greatest power of all the clochs, how was it taken from you?"

Eilis’ laugh was bitter now. "I said its power was greatest, but even the strongest can be overpowered by numbers or make a fatal mistake. Lamh Shabhala is chief among the Clochs Mor, the major clochs, but there are others that are nearly as

powerful. Three of the Clochs Mor were arrayed against me, and I was isolated. Betrayed by. ." She scowled, her face harsh.". . my own stupidity. By listening to my heart, as Riata said it would be. And so I died. He laid me here, the new Holder, the one who had betrayed me: Aodhfin O Liathain. My lover. He placed me here after he killed me and took Lamh Shabhala for himself. He kissed my cold lips with tears in his eyes. If you should happen to meet him through the cloch, tell him that I still curse his name and the night I first gave myself to him." Another step, and Eilis' hand reached out toward Jenna. "My cloch. Let me see it once more."

Shaking her head, Jenna backed up again. She wasn't certain why she felt this reluctance-perhaps the harsh eagerness in Eilis' features, or the way she had referred to the stone as hers. But Jenna felt a compulsion to keep the stone hidden-too many people had asked to see it already. Eilis took another step closer, and again Jenna retreated. There was a strange yet familiar roaring behind her. She glanced quickly over her shoulder, but there was nothing there, only the white-lit, ethereal fog. She could feel Eilis touching her memories again, and she tried to close her mind to the intrusion. The ghost laughed at her effort. "You're indeed young and unpracticed," she said. "So much to learn. ." Her voice was honey and perfume. "I know your mind. You showed Riata the stone, didn't you? And Seancoim and that tiarna with you. Why not me?"

Jenna, reluctantly, reached beneath her clothing and pulled out the stone. "Here," she said to Eilis. "Here it is."

Eilis stared at the cloch, a hand at her breast as if she were having difficulty breathing. "Aye," she whispered. "That is Lamh Shabhala. And you don't know yet how to use it."

Jenna shook her head. "No. Can you tell me?"

"I can't," she answered, but then her eyes narrowed. "Or perhaps I can. Let me hold it. Give it to me. ." She stretched her arm out.

"No." Jenna closed her fingers around the cloch, fisting it in her right hand.

"Give it to me. ." Eilis said again. Her hand came closer, and Jenna took a final step backward.

Cold water hammered at Jenna's head and

shoulders, driving her back-ward. The falls tore her away from the ledge and bore her under even as she screamed. She felt herself flung downward with the water, and she knew she was dead.

In that instant, the cloch burned in her hand, and she felt it open to her, as if she became part of the stone itself, her mind whirling with the patterns on her hand, with the identical patterns of the cloch, with the energy locked within it borrowed from the mage-lights. This was different than when she had unleashed lightning on Knobtop or when she had killed the soldiers. Then, there had been no conscious thought involved. This time, she felt herself will the cloch to release its energy, and it an-swered. The water of the Duan still pounded at her, unrelenting and mer-ciless, but she was no longer falling. .

Now you know. . Eilis’ voice whispered in her head.

Now you know. .

Somehow, impossibly, Jenna was standing on the grass above the falls, in the sunlight. The cloch was no longer in her hand. There was no ring on her ringer. She felt at the waist of her skirt: there it was, the familiar lump of cloch, and circular hardness alongside it: Eilis’ ring.

Someone was crying, weeping in pain, and she realized it was her.

"Jenna! There you are! We’ve been calling… By the Mother-Creator, girl, you’re soaked through! What’s the matter?" Maeve came running up to her. Jenna sank into her embrace.

"My arm. ." she cried. "It hurts so much, Mam." Sharp, red agony stabbed at her, radiating from her hand downward and into her chest. She shivered with cold, the wind biting at her drenched clothing. Her vision was colored with it, like a veil over her eyes. With Jenna leaning against her mother, they moved down away from the falls. As they turned, Jenna glanced down.

The falls flared white as the water cascaded over the edge of the ravine, and the mist touched her face like tears.

Chapter 13: Smoke and Ruin

A STRIPE later, new wrappings with Seancoim's poultice slathered on the cloth and a mug of the anduilleaf brew had dulled the pain enough so that Jenna could ride. The wan fall sun had dried her clothes somewhat. She told the others that she'd slipped and fallen on the arm- the story appeared to satisfy them, and if she seemed wetter than the mist alone could have managed, no one mentioned the fact.

It was nearing midafternoon when they returned to the High Road. "A long lunch," Mac Ard said worriedly when they finally were riding north again. "It will be dark before we reach the ford at this rate. We still may not reach Ath Iseal tonight."

Jenna was silent on the ride. Again Mac Ard and Maeve rode together, and O'Deoradhain remained behind with Jenna, but his attempts to draw her into conversation failed. In truth, she barely heard him or saw the landscape as they approached the ford of the Duan. She held the reins of the horse loosely in her left hand, trusting the mare to keep to the road, and stared down at her bandaged arm, letting the fingers stretch and close, stretch and close. She traced the patterns of the scars with her gaze, feeling them even though they were hidden under folds of cotton.

Her thoughts were on Lamh Shabhala. The other times she had tapped the stone's power, she had felt no control of the process. But now. . Even without holding the stone, she could touch it with her mind, as if she and the cloch were linked. She could place her thoughts there and imagine herself sinking into the unguessed depths of the cloch. She could see power flaring between the crystalline structures within the stone, and she could direct that force: she could send it flaring outward and control where it went, what it touched, what it did.

And she could see, at the center of the stone, a hidden well of another power, one that was as yet half-filled, and when she looked there with her mind, she could feel gossamer, invisible threads running away from Lamh Shabhala into the world. At the end of those threads, she knew, lay the other clochs na thintri, the stones of lightning, waiting for Lamh Shabhala to restore their power.

She could not imagine how she would handle that huge reservoir, if the energy that already ran through Lamh Shabhala hurt her so much already. At the same time, she knew that she could not throw the stone away or give it to someone else. Lamh Shabhala wouldn’t allow that. She would not allow it. Even contemplating that action made her arm throb through the veil of anduilleaf. She had opened the stone, but Lamh Shabhala had also opened her.

She could no more easily abandon the cloch now than she could dis-card her heart.

"I don’t know how Tiarna Mac Ard feels," she heard O’Deoradhain saying though her musings,

"but I don’t like this. There’s been no one on the road with us all day. The west isn’t as well traveled as the east side of the lough, but still we should have seen a few others by now. Actually, I was surprised no other travelers stopped at the falls in all the time we were there."

Jenna nodded. She might have glanced at him, but Lamh Shabhala overlaid the sight. He may have continued to talk, but she was lost inside the stone, peering at its secrets.

By evening, with the sun sending long shadows eastward as it touched the treetops, they approached a crossroads where the lough road met with the High Road traveling up to Ballintubber and crossing over to the Duan. On either side of the road, oak trees overhung the stone fences; to the west, the outskirts of Doire Coill huddled close by across an overgrown field. Mac Ard suddenly pulled back on his reins to bring his horse to a halt, standing up in the stirrups and peering around them. "Can you smell that?" he asked.

The question brought Jenna out of her reverie.

She sniffed, and the smell brought with it unpleasant memories. "Woodsmoke," she said, then frowned. "And something more."

"Too much wood smoke," Mac Ard commented. "And an awful reek within it. I was past here a dozen days ago, on my way to Ballintubber. Where the roads meet there was a tiny village: a tavern and three or four houses." His face was touched with worry as he looked back over his shoulder. "And I share your concern about the quiet on the road, O’Deoradhain. I think we should ride carefully and slowly, and keep an eye about us. Jenna-"

Jenna started at the sound of her name. "Aye, Tiarna?"

"You should be most careful of all." His dark gaze held her, moving from her face to her arm. "I think you understand my meaning."

She closed her fingers around the hidden cloch. "I do, Tiarna."

A nod. "O'Deoradhain, you and I should ride ahead, I think."

They rode on, Mac Ard and O'Deoradhain several feet ahead of them.; Jenna noticed that the tiarna swept his cloca back away from the hilt of his sword and that she could also see the leather-wrapped hilt of. O'Deoradhain's knife. Alert now, they approached the crossing. The aroma of smoke hung in the air, and the odd scent underlying it grew stronger. The walls on either side of the road spread out suddenly, and in the clear space ahead of them, she could see a cluster of buildings. In the twilight, they seemed wrapped in a strange, dark fog, then she realized that the structures were roofless, the windows and doors gaping open like dead mouths, and that the fog was tendrils of smoke from still-smoldering timbers.

The scene was eerily deserted. No people moved in the midst of the rubble, no birds, no dogs.

Nothing.

She also knew, then, what the other odor must be, and she swallowed hard. "The fires were set a day ago or more, by the look," Mac Ard said, almost whispering. His face was grim. None of them wanted to speak; loudly here; it seemed disrespectful.

"That worries me-I didn't think the Connachtans would stay this long, or be so bold as to strike this close to Ath Iseal with its garrison. Those who lived here no doubt fled, the ones who weren't killed, but why they haven't returned by now is what worries me more."

"Tuath Connachta, was it?" O'Deoradhain asked. "You speak as if you've met them, Tiarna. Are the Tuatha at war?"

Mac Ard glanced back at O'Deoradhain but didn't

answer. "Let's see what we can learn here. Carefully!!

They moved closer to the ruins. Jenna could see now that all that was left of the houses were the

tumbled down stone walls, blacked with smoke. A few fire-blistered timbers leaned forlornly, with wisps of gray smoke lifting from them. The ground was littered with broken crockery and scraps of cloth, as if the village had been torn apart before the fires were set. As if, Jenna realized, the attackers had been looking for someone or something. There were no signs of the residents of this place, though Jenna saw dark shapes within walls of the houses that made her look away.

Mac Ard reined up his horse before the ruins of the largest building- the inn, Jenna decided. He walked carefully over the stones and timbers, his boots crunching through the wreckage and sending plumes of ash up with each step. Once, he stopped and bent down, then came back out.

"There are two dead in there," he said. "Maybe a few more that I can’t see. Some, perhaps most, I hope, ran before the fire and are still alive." He looked around. "There’s nothing we can do here. I’ll feel safer once we reach Ath Iseal."

"If it hasn’t been attacked as well," O’Deoradhain replied but Mac Ard shook his head.

"There weren’t that many here, by the signs. A dozen, perhaps a few more. This is the work of marauders, not an army."

As Mac Ard spoke, Jenna closed her eyes for a moment. The cloch burned in the darkness behind her eyes, and she could see the webs of connection to the other clochs na thintri. One of those connections, she suddenly realized, snaked over to Mac Ard, and another. .

She opened her eyes. Against the ruddy western sky, on a bare knife — edged ridge half a mile away, she could see a rider. "Tiarna," she said, pointing, and as Mac Ard turned to look, the rider turned his horse and vanished. A faint voice called in the distance, and others answered. Mac Ard muttered a curse and mounted.

"Ride!" he cried. "And let’s hope that the crossing is still open."

They urged their horses into a gallop in the growing dark, moving quickly while they could still somewhat see the road ahead of them. At the juncture of the roads, they turned east toward the river, a few miles ahead. Jenna kept looking back over her shoulder at the road behind, expecting to see riders coming hard after them, but for the moment the lane remained empty. As they left the village, the walls closed in again to border the road, and they moved into a wooded area. There, night already lurked under the trees, and they had to slow the horses to a trot or risk being thrown by an unseen root or hole. By the time they'd emerged from the trees, the sun had failed entirely, the first stars emerging in the east. The waxing moon-now nearly at a quarter-lifted high above the west and painted the road as it swept down in a great curve over low, flat lands. Far ahead, a row of trees ran nearly north to south across their way, marking the line of the river, which sparkled just beyond. Across the Duan, the road lifted again; on the banks of the hills beyond, yellow light gleamed in the windows at Ath Iseal.

And between the four of them and the river stood three horsemen, moonlight glinting from ring mail leathers laced over their tunics. They didn't appear to see Jenna and the others yet, against the cover of the trees. Behind, from the direction of the village, Jenna could hear hooves pounding and men calling.

Mac Ard pulled his horse up "Trapped," he said, "and it's no good cutting across the field when the ford is ahead. Jenna?" Mac Ard looked back at her. "Can you. .?" He didn't finish the question, but Jenna understood. Wanly, she shook her head. Her arm already hung cold and heavy; she could not imagine what it would feel like to use the cloch again so soon. "These are the same people who killed the people in your village, who killed people you know, who burned your house and ran down your dog," Mac Ard reminded her, and Jenna lifted her head.

"If I must," she said wearily. She reached for the cloch, but Mac Ard stopped her hand.

"Not yet. If we can cut the odds down somewhat, we may not need to reveal what we have. O'Deoradhain, it's time to see how useful that knife of yours is. Maeve, Jenna, as soon as we have them engaged, ride on past. Go off the road around them if you need to. We'll follow as soon as we can. Now, let's see what we can do before they realize we're here."

He reached back and pulled the bow from the pack slung behind his saddle. Hooking a leg over one end of the weapon, he bent the bow and strung it, then nocked an arrow in the string. "I'm not much

of a bowman but a rider’s a large target."

He drew the bowstring back and let the arrow fly. Jenna tried to follow its flight but lost it in the darkness. But there was a cry from the riders, though no one fell. She could see them looking around, then one of them pointed toward the group and they came charging up the road toward them. Mac Ard nocked another arrow, letting them approach as he held the bow at full tension. Jenna could see muscles trembling in his arm. Then he let it fly, and one of the horses screamed and went down, the rider tumbling to the ground as the other two rushed past. "Now!" Mac Ard shouted, tossing the bow aside and drawing his sword. He kicked his horse into a gallop. "Ride for the ford!"

Maeve and Jenna both urged their horses to follow, but as Jenna kicked the mare’s sides, O’Deoradhain’s hand reached out and grabbed her reins. Mac Ard was already flying down the road with sword raised and a loud cry that they must have heard in Ath Iseal. Maeve’s horse was close be-hind. "Let me go!" Jenna cried. Her horse reared, but O’Deoradhain held last. Jenna tried to wrench the reins away from him, and reached for the stone, a fury rising in her.

"Wait!" he said. "It’s important-"

"Let go!" she shouted again. Maeve had realized that Jenna hadn’t fol-lowed and was stopped in the middle of the road between Jenna and Mac Ard. Jenna heard the clash of steel as Mac Ard and the riders met. O’Deoradhain continued to hold her. Jenna’s fist closed around the cloch.

Her arm was ice and flame. Lamh Shabhala seemed to roar in her ears with anger as she brought it out. "Get away!" she screamed at O’Deoradhain, and at the same time, she opened the cloch in her mind, releasing just a trickle of its power. Light flared from between the closed fingers of her right hand, and a jagged beam shot from her hand to smash against O’Deoradhain, lifting him out of his saddle and throwing him against the fieldstone wall. He slumped down, but Jenna didn’t stop to see what had happened to him. She was free, and Lamh Shabhala threw shimmering brilliance over her, as if she were enveloped in daylight. "Ride!" she called to her mam, and kicked her own horse forward.

Ahead, Mac Ard fought, but he was in desperate trouble without O’Deoradhain, the two horsemen flanking him. Jenna saw him take a blow to his sword arm, and his weapon went clattering to the ground. She clenched Lamh Shabhala tighter, lifting her hand. "No!" she screamed as swords were raised against Mac Ard, now weaponless and injured.

She imagined lightning striking the two riders. She visualized savage light darting from cloch to riders.

It happened.

Twin lightnings flared in searing lines from her fisted hand, slicing around Maeve and Mac Ard without touching them. The riders' swords shattered, molten shards exploding in bright arcs as hilts were torn from gloved hands and flung away. The lightning curled around the riders, lifting them in a snarling coil of blue-white and hurling them a hundred feet into the fields as their horses screamed and fled.

Behind them, there were shouts of alarm. Jenna turned. Four more riders had come from under the trees. Jenna waved her hand, and the earth exploded at their feet, a line of bright fireworks erupting before them as horses reared and bucked. The riders turned and fled back the way they'd come. Jenna saw O'Deoradhain, back on his horse, riding wildly south across the fields and away.

She let him go. The angry glare faded in her hand, and Jenna screamed, this time with her own pain, as every muscle in her right arm seemed to — lock and twist. She bent over in her saddle, fighting to stay conscious. You can do it. Breathe. Keep breathing. You can't stop the pain, no, but put it to one side. . The voice inside didn't seem be hers. Riata? She fought the inner night that threatened to close around her, pushed it away, and forced herself to sit up in the saddle. She rode to her mother. "Mam, are you all right?"

Maeve nodded, mute. Her eyes were wide and almost timid as she stared at her daughter. "Jenna.

" she breathed, but Jenna shook her head.

Cradling her right arm in her lap, she flicked the reins with her left hand, going to Mac Ard. He was standing, his sword now held in his left hand, the point dragging on the ground, a spreading pool of dark wetness soaking his cloca at the right arm. Another cut spread a fan of blood across his forehead.

"You look awful," she said to him. "Padraic."

A fleeting smile touched his lips and vanished.

"You haven't seen your-self, Jenna. I can ride, though. And we need to do that before those other riders decide to come back. Where's that bastard O'Deoradhain?"

Jenna pointed away south, where a distant rider pounded away across the moonlit fields. Mac Ard spat once in the man's direction. Maeve came riding up, holding the reins to the tiarna's horse. She dismounted and went to Mac Ard. "We're binding this first," she said. "Riders or not, you're losing too much blood, Padraic. Jenna can watch for the attackers."

She looked up at Jenna, who nodded. "I'm. . fine for now, Mam," she said, hoping it was true. The edges of her vision had gone dark, and her arm radiated agony as if the very bones had been shattered. She took deep, slow breaths of the cold night air-keep the pain to one side-and forced herself to sit upright. If the riders returned, she wasn't sure she could use the cloch again. She thought of the anduilleaf in the pack: As soon as we get to the town, you can have some, and that will keep the pain away. . "Go on. But you need to hurry, Mam. ."

Maeve tore strips from her skirt hem, bandaging Mac Ard's arm and strapping the arm to his chest. "That will need to be stitched when we reach town, but it will do for now. Can you mount, Padraic?"

In answer, Mac Ard grasped the saddle with his left hand, put his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up with a grimace. Astride, he looked around them: the empty-saddled horses now standing a hundred yards down the road, the bladeless hilts on the road, the broken bodies of the two men sprawled in the awkward poses of the dead in the field, the black furrow torn in the ground up the slope from them.

"So much for keeping this a secret," he said.

Chapter 14: Ath Iseal

JENNA could not imagine a city larger than Ath Iseal. To her eyes, which had seen only Ballintubber, the town was vast, noisy, and impos-sibly crowded, though she knew that Lar Bhaile, to the south on the east side of Lough Lar, was the size of several Ath Iseals put together.

They ran into a squadron of men in green and brown, hurrying across the ford and up the road, having seen the lightnings and heard the fight-ing. On meeting Tiarna Mac Ard, three of the soldiers accompanied them across the ford, while the rest of the small force rode west in pursuit of the Connachtans. Tiarna Mac Ard, Maeve, and Jenna were taken to the Ri’s House-lodgings reserved for the RI Gabair should he come to Ath Iseal-and healers were sent for. Servants brought food and drink, and baths were prepared.

Jenna slept more soundly that night than she had since they’d left Bal-lintubber: only six days ago now, though it seemed far longer to her. When she awoke the next day, the sun was already high in the sky, masked by scudding gray rain clouds. She stood at the window, a blanket wrapped around her, shivering and yet delighting in the sharp cold and the fresh smell of the rain. The Ri’s House had been built on top of the river bluff, and from her window, Jenna looked down on the clustered town. She’d never seen so many buildings in one place, all crowded to-gether as if desperately seeking each other’s company, the streets between ’ them busy with people moving from place to place. A market square was just off to her left and down, packed with street vendors and buyers, bright with the awnings of the stalls. The sound of vendors’ calls and high-pitched bartering came to her on the air.

For a moment, looking at the untroubled life below, she could almost forget the events of the past fortnight. But a twinge of pain from her arm brought back the memories, and she stepped away from the window again. She must have cried out, for someone knocked at the door to the room. "Young miss, are you awake? May I come in?"

"Aye," Jenna answered. "Come in."

The door opened, and a young woman no older than Jenna entered, bearing a tray with a steaming pot, a cup, and tea. A tentative smile was on her plain face, but there was also caution in her eyes as she set the tray down on the bedside table and bustled about the room, pulling clothing from a

chest at the foot of the bed. She kept looking at Jenna as if Jenna" were some sort of mythical beast, or as if she were afraid that Jenna might suddenly order her head lopped off.

"Here, Bantiarna. This will be good; see how the brown matches your eyes? The tiarna's already been to breakfast, and the other bartiarna, too-she's your mam, isn't she? I think she's very lovely, not at all like my own mam-but they asked that you come to them when you wake. The healer will be back here in just a bit to look at your arm again; I'll make sure someone runs to find him as soon as I leave you. That arm of yours must hurt, the way it's wrapped. Did it give you problems sleeping? You've evidently been through a terrible fight, from what I've heard. Goodness, the rumors that have been flying around here all morning. ."

As the woman spoke, all seemingly in one gigantic breath, Jenna felt her arm cramp and tighten, her hand clenching involuntarily into a fist. She felt for the cloch-it was still there, hidden, and the feel of it caused her hand to relax, though the pain still radiated through her shoulder and into her chest. The servant was looking at her strangely, her mouth open though the words had stopped spilling out for the moment.

"Leave me," Jenna said abruptly before the young woman could take another breath and begin another monologue. "Those clothes are fine; I won't need your help."

The servant blanched, her face going white. "Young miss, if I've of-fended-"

Jenna waved her good hand to stop her. "You haven't. I just… I'd prefer to dress alone. Tell my mam and the tiarna that I'll be down shortly." She opened the door. "Please," she said, gesturing.

With a nod and bow, the servant left. Jenna closed the door behind her. She went to her pack, sitting at the side of the bed, and rummaged through it until she found the pouch of anduilleaf. She crumbled a bit of the herb and set it steeping in the teapot, then sank down on the bed. The bittersweet scent of anduilleaf wafted through the room, and that alone seemed to ease the pain a bit. For long minutes, she simply lay there, eyes closed, feeling the pain slowly lessen until she found she could move the fingers of her right hand again, then she went and poured her-self a cup of the brew. As she drank, she pulled

Eilis’ ring from the pocket, looking at it and turning it in her hand. She needed to know more, but she didn’t place the ring on her finger, uncertain. The specter of the an-cient Holder had seemed so bitter, so fey. Not someone Jenna would vol-untarily choose as an adviser. Come to where a Holder’s body rests, or touch something that was once theirs, and they can speak with you, if you will it. With the memory of Eilis’ words, Jenna sat up. She finished the anduilleaf tea, dressed quickly, and left her room.

She found her mam and Mac Ard in a parlor room leading out into an interior garden court, though when Jenna-directed by another servant- passed through it to get to the tiarna’s room, she found most of the plants were now brown and dead. The doors were shut, and a fire was roaring in the hearth. Mac Ard was standing near the fire, one arm still bound to his body and another bandage over his forehead. Maeve was sitting near him.

They had evidently been conversing, but both went silent as Jenna entered.

Food was laid out on a table near them, and Mac Ard waved at it with his good hand as Jenna entered. "Have you eaten?"

"I’m not hungry," she answered. "What word is there on the Connach-tans or O’Deoradhain?"

Mac Ard shrugged with one shoulder. "None. Three of the Connach-tans are dead-I know their faces, and the Ri Connachta won’t be pleased, as two of them are his cousins-and the others fled west, evidently leaving the High Road when it turned north. I sent men to the farm where we met O’Deoradhain-it wasn’t his land at all, it seems. There’s been no sign of him, and no freelander in the area knows him at all. I had someone find the Taisteal and speak with Clannhri Sheehan, who said that O’Deoradhain had come into the camp only a few hours before us. He was proba-bly a Connachtan as well."

Three are dead, and two of them you killed. . Jenna swallowed hard, trying to keep her face from showing anything of her feelings. "There’s talk all through Ath Iseal about mage-lights, clochs, and the Filleadh," Mac Ard continued. "The sooner we get to Lar Bhaile, the better. I’d like to set out tomorrow, if you’re able."

The thought of more travel made Jenna grimace,

but she nodded. "Whatever you think best. Whatever keeps us safe."

"You'll be safe now," Mac Ard told her. "From here, I can promise that. The Connachtans won't dare come this far east. I never offered you my gratitude, Jenna," Mac Ard said. "But I do now. That's the second time you've saved my life. It's a debt I'll do my best to repay."

"There's no debt," Jenna answered. "The first time, what happened was out of my control, an accident. This time. ." She took a long breath. "I did it to save myself and my mam."

"And me?"

"Aye, and you. Because-" Jenna stopped, looking at her mam. Mac Ard's followed the gaze, his dark eyes glinting in the firelight. He nodded, as if he saw something in her face that he expected to see, and pushed himself away from the mantle.

"The cloch of yours," he said, his voice carefully neutral. "I thought it was a clochmion, one of the minor clochs, one of the least. I think we both know better now. I think I could name the cloch you're holding."

Jenna hurried to answer. "I didn't know, Tiarna Mac Ard. I just found it, that's all. I didn't know what it was."

"If you had, would you have given it to me? Would you give it to me now?"

Jenna didn't answer. She took a step back from him.

"You don't have to say anything," he said. "I can see the answer in your face." His eyes held hers for a few breaths longer before he looked away. "I have a dozen things to attend to if we're leaving tomorrow. Jenna, I'm glad you're feeling somewhat better. If you'll excuse me, Maeve. ."

He left the room, passing close by Jenna. She could feel the breeze of his passage.

"Come here, darling," Maeve said as he left the room. She opened her arms, and Jenna sank into the embrace as if she were a small child again. As Maeve stroked her hair, tears came, surprising Jenna with their sudden-ness. She sobbed against her mother's breast as she hadn't done in years, and

Maeve crooned soft words to her, kissing the top of her head. Finally, Jenna sniffed back the tears and pulled away, rubbing at her eyes with her sleeve. "How are you feeling this morning?" Maeve asked softly. Her eyes, concerned, glanced at the bandages around Jenna’s arm. "You used anduilleaf again," Maeve said.

"I had to," Jenna answered. "It hurt too much."

Maeve nodded. "You should know, Jenna. Padraic and I-"

"You don’t need to say anything," Jenna told her.

"I understand, and if this is what you want, then I’m happy for you. Just don’t let him hurt you, Mam."

"He won’t," Maeve answered emphatically. Certainty tightened her face. "We talked for a long time. I know what he can do and what he can’t do, and I’m comfortable with that. I understand his position; he understands mine. We’re. ." Maeve stopped and Jenna saw a broad smile spread across her face, twinned with a blush. "We’re well suited for each other."

Jenna hugged her again, and Maeve stroked her hair. "Padraic is wor-ried about you, Jenna," she said.

"Padraic doesn’t need to worry." Jenna used his first name scornfully, as if she hated the taste of its familiarity. "This seems to be my problem, not his."

"He’d take the cloch and its burden from you, if he could."

Jenna’s eyes flashed at that, and she stood abruptly, taking a step away from her mam. In the hearth behind her, a log crashed in a whirling cascade of sparks. "He can’t have it. It’s mine."

She pushed away from Meave, who let her go. "That’s what he said you’d say, that you wouldn’t, that you couldn’t, willingly give it up now, even though it hurts you." Maeve smiled sadly. "I wish you could. I would do anything to stop you from being in pain, Jenna. I wish. ." She looked away to the fire, then back to Jenna. "I wish you’d never found the stone. I wish Niall, your father. ." She stopped.

"What about my da?" Jenna asked.

Maeve shook her head. "Nothing. He said nothing of this to me, but in looking back on how it was, I think he was always waiting for that cloch himself. I wonder now if he didn't bring it to Ballintubber himself, from Inish Thuaidh or wherever he came from before. If he'd lived, it would have been him who was up on Knobtop that night, not you."

"And then Tiarna Mac Ard would have come."

Her mam gave Jenna a knowing smile. "I loved your da, Jenna. But it's possible to be in love more than once in your life. It's even possible to be in love with two people at once, even if it's dangerous and even though you know that those feelings will inevitably cause everyone pain. One day you'll realize that. I'll always love your da, and always cherish my time with him. After all, he gave me you."

"And I'm all that's left. All the rest that we had is gone. I have nothing." Her voice was wistful and sad.

"Most of it is gone, aye, except for a few things of his I took before we left. Wait here a moment." Maeve rose from her chair and left the room for a few minutes, returning with a small wooden carving in her hand. "Remember this?" she asked, holding it out to Jenna: a block of pine fitting easily into her palm and poorly carved into a representation of a 'seal and painted a bright blue, though wood showed through at several places where it had been scratched.

"Aye," Jenna said. "The seal I used to play with when I was a baby." She looked at Maeve. "Why that?"

"Your father carved it, before he left for Bacathair. When you lost inter-est in it, I kept it because it was his last gift to you. I’d forgotten I still had it until I was trying to find a few things to take when we fled. Here… it isn’t much, but you should have it back now."

Jenna held it in her left hand as memories surged back: sitting on her mam’s lap at the table and laughing with her mam as the seal bobbed in a pan of water; tossing it angrily across the room one night because she was hungry and tired, chipping a crockery bowl in the process-she’d never told her mam that, letting her think the bowl had been chipped some other time. "Da made this? I never knew."

Maeve nodded.

. . touch something that was once theirs, and they can speak with you, if you will it…

"Mam, may I keep this?"

Maeve smiled at her. "It’s yours, Jenna. It was always yours."

She did nothing until after the evening meal, when she was alone again in her room.

The sun had sunk behind the hills. The night was dark, the moon and stars hidden behind a screen of clouds. The air seemed heavy and cold. Jenna had dismissed the servant for the night and sat in a chair near the fire, feeding it peat until the blue flames rose high and the light touched the far wall of the bedroom. She took the carving of the seal from the stand by her bed and set it in her lap, staring at the fire for a time. Then she took it in her right hand.

She stared at the carving, at the marks her da’s knife had made shaping the wood, and seeing in her mind’s eyes the shavings curling away under the blade. She could almost hear the sound of the dry scraping of sharp iron against soft wood--

No. She could hear it.

She turned. Near the window, a man sat in a plain chair, holding a block of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. Shavings were piled in his lap.

She could see the wall behind through the ghostly

image. His face. . Jenna gasped, realizing that the man who sat there, hair the color of fire, was the same she'd glimpsed when she'd found the stone. "Da?" she whispered.

He looked up. "Who. .?" he asked. He seemed confused, looking around. "Where am I? Everything looks so pale. . Maeve, is that you? You're dressed so strangely, like a Riocha."

Jenna walked toward him, holding the battered, chipped seal out so he could see it. "I'm Jenna, Da. Your daughter. Seventeen years old now." He shook his head, wonder and fear and confusion all mingled in his gaze. His reaction was so different from that of Eilis, but then Eilis had held Lamh Shabhala when it was active and knew that the cloch contained its old Holders. When her da possessed Lamh Shabhala, it had been dead, just an ordinary stone wrapped in legend. Her da would have had no experience of the cloch's abilities.

"Wait," Jenna said. She imagined her memories opening to him, as if they were gifts that she could hand him, letting him see within her as Eilis had, only this time she directed the sharing, choosing what she allowed him to know. She could feel his gentle touch on her memories, and as he comprehended them he gasped, the knife and seal falling from his grasp. They made no sound, vanishing before they reached the floor.

"I'm dead. A ghost."

"Aye," she told him softly. "Or neither dead nor ghost, only a moment caught forever, like a painting. I don't really know, Da. But Eilis, the lady in the falls, told me that Lamh Shabhala carries its Holders. Which means you were one, too, even though the mage-lights weren't there for you. Here, do you remember?" She took the cloch out and held it so he could see the stone. He started to reach for it, then let his hand drop back.

"I remember, aye. I carried it with me, everywhere. Then, on Knobtop one day, I lost it. I was never sure how that happened. I go up there and look for it, all the time, still. Did I. .?"

"No, Da. You never found it, but I did, the night the mage-lights came."

The wraith of Niall nodded. "So the stone truly was Lamh Shabhala. I never knew for certain; for all I knew, it was just a colorful pebble, though I'd always been told it was a cloch, and supposedly the cloch, the Safe-keeping. But it was dead-or waiting for the mage-lights-when I had it." He sighed. He looked at her for a long time, a slow smile touching his mouth. "You look like her. You have Maeve's eyes, and her hair."

"She always says I have your nose, and the shape of your face."

He laughed. "I remember her saying that, not long after you were born." He was silent for long moments after that, his face somber. "Why did you call me here, Jenna? If I’m dead, why did you rouse me? Why didn’t you leave me to rest?"

"I wanted. ." Jenna stopped. Now that she had called him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. There was so much. "I need to know what you know about the cloch. I need you to help me."

He stood and came toward her, reaching out his hand. She extended her own hand for his touch. She expected to feel his skin, or perhaps a waft of chill air. She felt nothing. Her fingers went through his as if they were mist. Is that what would have happened with Eilis? She seemed so real, so whole, but she was trying to scare me… Jenna felt disappointment, and the figure of her da drew back, sighing. "You’re a dream. Not real."

Jenna shook her head. "No. I’m real. It’s you who aren’t."

He may have believed her. He made no protest.

"If this is death, why is it so… ordinary? Why don’t I remember dying? Why do I seem to be still in our house, and you standing before me like a ghost?"

"I don’t know," Jenna answered. She looked at the carving in her hand. "Though this wasn’t with you when you died, and it’s all I have of yours. Maybe that’s the reason. There’s so much I don’t know, Da. The stone was yours for a while-tell me why. Tell me how you came to have it. Tell me everything. Help me as you would have helped me if you were still alive."

He clasped his hands together, staring at them as if marveling at their solidity. "If I were still alive, I would have Lamh Shabhala," he answered. "Not you. I would have been on Knobtop that night."

"But I have it now, Da. Your daughter."

He looked at her. "My daughter," he said. "I never expected to have the gift of a daughter. For that matter, I never expected to fall in love at all… "

Chapter 15: Niall’s Tale

MY mam, your great-mam, was the one who took the cloch. No, that's not quite true. Actually, it was your great-da who stole it from where it rested. .

"No, let me begin again. It's easier to start farther back. Let me tell you the story as my mam used to tell it to me…

"She was born on Imshfeirm, an island just off Inish Thuaidh. Inish-feirm's best known for the Order of Inishfeirm, with their white stone buildings set high on the peak. From what my mam said, there weren't many residents of Inishfeirm outside the Order; of those few, most were fisherfolk, her family included. They knew the Brathairs of the Order, though. Couldn't help it, since the Order dominated what social life there was on the island. They'd meet them in the streets or in the market, buying fish for their table or some of the greens that came over from the big island.

"My mam's name was Kerys Aoire. The Aoires weren't Riocha, just plain folk, but well enough off and one of the main families on the island, from what Mam told me. They were often invited by the Maister to dine at the Order Hall on the feast days. The Order was a contemplative one, devoted to the Mother-Creator. In the last decades of the Before, the Order was known for its cloudmages, but when the mage-lights failed, so did their prominence. By the time my mam was born, they were a curiosity from another age, a place to visit and hear the old tales, to see the spectac-ular scenery of Inishfeirm, with its buildings clinging like lichens to the steep cliff walls of the mountain peak that formed the isle, with the bright parapets of the Order, built five centuries before, standing proud at the summit. Once, the cells of the Brathairs were crowded; now, half of them were empty, though the Order still attracted occasional acolytes from Inish Thuaidh, young men sent to serve by wealthy families, mostly, and even a few from among the mainland Riocha, primarily from Falcarragh in Tuath Infochla.

"One of the acolytes, a boy of eighteen summers named Niall, caught my mam's eye. Aye, that's my name as well, and I'm sure that tells you some of what happened next. I don't know much about my da. Mam always claimed that she wouldn't tell me his family name because she wanted to protect him, but I'm not certain she ever knew it. I suppose it

doesn’t matter. They fell in love, or at least lust. My mam was probably your age, sixteen or seventeen, and naive. It wasn’t the first time a Brathair of the Order and a local girl had become lovers; I’m sure it wasn’t the last, either, though afterward I’ll bet the Maister watched things more closely than before.

"One of the treasures of the Order of Inishfeirm was its collection of clochs na thintri. Once, the Order’s founders had even held Lamh Shabhala, and three of the other Clochs Mor had been theirs, as well as several of the minor stones. But when the mage-lights failed, Lamh Shabhala was given away or lost, though they retained the other clochs. Over the centu-ries, they had accumulated more stones reputed to be clochs na thintri, though of course no one could know for certain with the mage-lights long dead. Some of the clochs had been handed down through families for generations; others were purchased or found, and as to their lineage and the truth of the claims made for them. . well, no one knew.

"Some two hundred years before my mam’s birth, the Order acquired a stone that was reputed to be the long-lost Lamh Shabhala. I don’t think anyone actually believed that tale. Mam said that she’d seen the collection a few times when the Moister would order it brought out for the admira-tion of his guests, and some of the clochs were gorgeous stones: gleaming, transparent jewels of bright ruby, midnight blue, or deepest green, faceted and polished, some of them as big as your fist. The one called Lamh Shabhala looked puny and insignificant alongside them, at that time wrapped in a cage of silver wire as a necklace. Even the necklace was plain: simple black strands of cotton. The Moister seemed somewhat skep-tical about the claims. You know how tales grow and change with each telling, and by that time it had been four centuries and more since the clochs were alive with power, so it’s no wonder that no one knew for certain what Lamh Shabhala had looked like.

"The Brathairs were contracted by their families for life to the Order.

Marriage was forbidden to them. When Mam twice missed her monthly bleeding, she told Niall. She was afraid that he would go to the Moister, confess, and be forbidden to see Mam again, and Mam would be left to the shame of a bastard child. Certainly that had happened before, and there were women on Inishfeirm who were pointed out as local

scandals. Now Mam thought she would be one of them, a cautionary tale to Inish-feirm girls who looked with love on one of the Brathairs.

"But Niall was true to her. He promised Kerys that he would go away with her, that he would take her to one of the Tuatha where they might be married. And to prove that his promise was in earnest, he gave her a token of his love and also of his rejection of the Order. He stole what he perceived as one of the least of the clochs, and gave it to my mam.

"Aye, the very cloch you hold now.

"They managed to steal away at night, taking a small currach that be-longed to my mam's family. Though the moon was out when they started, my mam said, they chose the wrong night, for a quick storm came thun-dering out of the west and south after they passed the last island and were nearly across to Tuath Infochla. A currach is fine in a calm sea; in the storm, in the huge wind-driven waves, only a very lucky and very experi-enced sailor could have kept the tiny craft afloat and neither Niall nor Kerys were experienced or lucky. The currach foundered just off the coast. Both Niall and Kerys went over-Mam, at least, could swim well, and she knew to rid herself of her wet clothes before they dragged her down. She said she never knew what happened to Niall. She heard him call once, but in the storm and night, she never saw him again.

She called for him, called many times, but only the thunder and the hissing of rain answered her. She was certain she would die, too.

"But she did not. When Mam told the tale, she always said that a pair of large blue seals came to her, and kept her above water, her arms around their bodies as they swam toward shore. I don't know if that's true at all; in the midst of the storm and the terror, who knows if what you remember is true. What is true is that, gasping and choking on the cold salt water, she found herself on the rocky shore, naked and shivering.

"Around her neck, somehow, the necklace Niall had given her was still there.

"Mam saw a light high on the hill behind her, and she walked to a cabin. The shepherd family there took her in, set her by the fire, and gave her clothing and blankets. If the storm hadn't thrown Kerys ashore at that place, where there was a

sparse shingle of beach and a house close by, she would have died anyway, of cold and exposure. She always wondered whether some faint power still lurked in the stone, that it brought the seals and found the beach and saved her so it would not be lost. Again, I don’t know if that’s true or not. Certainly the stone never did anything else for her… or for me. But I get ahead of my tale.

"The next day, the shepherd, his wife, their two children, and my mam went back down to the beach. They found shattered pieces of the currach, but nothing else. Niall’s body wasn’t ever found; he drowned, most likely, and his body was dragged to the bottom by the weight of what he wore, or tossed to the shore at the foot of one of the wild cliffs nearby and never seen.

"Kerys stayed with the shepherd family, whose name was Hagan, and I was born that winter. I don’t know what tale she gave the Hagans regard-ing that night-for all I know, it may have been simply the truth. The Hagans kept to themselves, rarely going into the nearest village, and Mam said they told the villagers that she was a cousin who had come to stay with them. When the shepherd’s wife died the next spring in childbirth, my mam remained, and eventually married Conn Hagan, my stepfather. They had two other children of their own. I can say little but good about Conn Hagan-he treated me as well as he treated his own children. If it was a hard life, it was no harder for me than for his own.

"There’s not much more to tell. When I was sixteen, I felt the need to see more of Talamh an Ghlas than the few acres of our farm. When I left, Mam gave me the cloch and told me the tale about her and Niall. I set off north and came to Falcarragh, and sailed from there over to Inish Thu-aidh, and lived on the island for a few years. I even visited Inishfeirm, though I didn’t tell anyone who I was. I visited the Order, and they told me about the Before and the clochs na thintri and Lamh Shabhala, the Stone of Safekeeping.

"I played the stranger with them, saying that I’d heard the Lamh Shabhala was also there at the cloisters, but they said ’no.’ Many years ago, they told me, a cloch had been stolen from the cloisters, and though some had claimed that the stone was Lamh Shabhala, the Moister was unconcerned about the loss because the claims regarding the cloch were almost cer-tainly false. If the stone was a

cloch na thintri at all (and the Moister doubted it) it had been no more than a clochmion, a minor stone. No one knew where Lamh Shabhala was, they told me. That cloch was lost.

"But I learned a lot about the clochs na thintri from the Order of Inish-feirm and from other places, and I always wondered. Many of those I talked to spoke of the Return, the Filleadh, for they believed that the mage-lights would return soon, maybe within my lifetime. I thought that if this cloch was truly Lamh Shabhala, then I would be the First Holder. I would hold the renewed stone. I wandered more, leaving Inish Thuaidh and traveling the High Road south until I came to Ballintubber.

"And I found a new and more enduring type of enchantment in Maeve, and I stayed…"

"What happened to the cloch, Da?" Jenna asked. "How did you lose it on Knobtop?" The phantom of her father glanced up from his chair, where he seemed to have fallen into a reverie after his tale.

He shrugged.

"I lost it, or it lost me," he said. "I don't know which. I wore the necklace all the time. I walked often on Knobtop while in Ballintubber-I seemed to be drawn to the mountain, or perhaps it was the cloch that drew me there. After I married your mam, I'd take the flock up there nearly every day. One night, not a month after we married, I returned from grazing them there, and when I took off my shirt that night, I saw that the silver cage that had held the stone was empty. The wires holding the stone had moved apart enough for it to fall through.

I looked for the stone for the next year, almost every day, combing the ground while the sheep grazed. I never found it. But I know if I'd seen the mage-lights over Knobtop, I'd have come running. But from what you've said, it seems I never had the chance." He seemed distraught and upset. "I wonder," he said finally. "I wonder if the cloch did it all: brought itself to Knobtop because it knew that the mage-lights would come there, pulled itself away from me so it could stay there. Or maybe that was just all coincidence. Maybe the mage-lights would have found the cloch wherever it was. I don't know."

As her da talked, Jenna became aware of light moving against the walls, colorful, swirling bands. She glanced at the balcony door; outside, the night sky was alive with the mage-lights, sheets of brilliance flowing as if in some unseen wind, dancing above her. "Da!" she cried. "There! Can you see them? Da?" She looked behind; he was gone. The wraith had vanished.

The cloch called to her, still in her hand from when she had shown it to her father’s spirit. Jenna went out onto the balcony, into the chill night, into the blazing shower of hues and shades. She lifted the cloch to the sky, and the mage-lights coalesced like iron filings drawn by a lodestone. She could hear people in the streets below, shouting and calling and pointing to the sky and to the tower on which she stood, and behind her, her mam and Mac Ard hurried into her room.

"Jenna!" Maeve called, but Jenna didn’t turn.

The first whirling tendril of the mage-lights had closed around her hand and the cloch, and the freezing touch seeped into the patterns etched in the flesh of her arm: as Maeve and Mac Ard rushed toward her and stopped at the balcony doors; as the people below exclaimed and gestured toward her; as the mage-lights enveloped her, encased her in color as energy poured from the sky into Lamh Shabhala; as Jenna screamed with pain but also with a sense of relief and satisfaction, as if the filling of the cloch’s reservoirs of power also fulfilled a need in herself she hadn’t known existed. She clenched her fist tight around the stone while billows of light fell from the sky and swept through and into her, as she and Lamh Shabhala shouted affirmation back to them.

Then, abruptly, it was over. The sky went dark; Jenna fell to her knees, gasping, holding the stone against her breast. Lamh Shabhala was open in her mind, a sparkling matrix of lattices, the reservoir of power at its core stronger now, though not yet nearly full. That would come, she knew. Soon. Very soon.

"Jenna!" Her mam sank to the balcony floor in front of her, hands clutching Jenna’s shoulders. "Jenna, are you all right?" Jenna looked up, seeing her through the matrix of the stone. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She blinked, and Lamh Shabhala receded in her sight. The full agony of the mage-lights was beginning now, but she would not lose consciousness this time.

She was stronger. She could bear this.

"Help me up," she said, and felt Maeve and Mac Ard lift her to her feet. She stood, cradling her right arm to her. She shrugged the hands away, and took a few wobbling steps back into her room, with the tiarna and her mam close beside her. She sat on the edge of her bed, as her mam bustled about, shouting to the servant to bring boiling water and the anduilleaf paste. Mac Ard knelt in front of her, reaching out as if to touch her arm. Jenna drew back, scowling.

"It wanted me, not you," she told him. "It's mine now, and I won't let you have it. I won't ever let you have it."

She wasn't sure what she saw in his eyes then.

"I'm sorry, Padraic," she said. "I didn't mean that. It's just the pain."

He stared at her for long seconds, then he nodded. "I'm not a danger to you, Jenna," he said, his voice low enough so that only Jenna could hear him. "But there are others who will be. You'll find that out soon enough." He stood then.

"I leave her to you, Maeve," he said, more loudly. "I'll send for the healer. But I doubt that he has anything that will help her now."

PART TWO: Filleadh

(Map: Lar Bhaile)

Chapter 16: Lar Bhaile

IF Ath Iseal felt large and crowded to Jenna, Lar Bhaile was immense beyond comprehension. The city spread along the southeastern arm of Lough Lar, filling the hollows of the hills and rising on the green flanks of Goat Fell, a large, steep-sloped mountain that marked the end of the lough. Along the summit of Goat Fell ran the stone ramparts of the Ri's Keep, twin walls a hundred yards apart, opening into a wide courtyard where the keep itself

stood, towering high above the city. Behind those walls lived RI Gabair, whose birth name was Torin Mallaghan, in his court with the Riocha of Tuath Gabair gathered around him.

Jenna could well imagine how Tiarna Mac Ard could have seen the mage-lights over Ballintubber from those heights, flickering off the night-clad waters of the lough.

She looked up those heights now from the market in what was called Low Town along the lake’s shore, and they seemed impossibly high, a distant aerie of cut granite and limestone. Jenna judged that it had taken her at least a candle stripe and a half to ride down from the heights in Tiarna Mac Ard’s carriage; it would take two or more to wend their way back up the narrow road that wound over the face of Goat Fell.

But that was for later. Now was the time for business.

Jenna glanced at the trio of burly soldiers who accompanied her. Nei-ther the Ri nor Tiarna Mac Ard would allow her to leave the keep alone. At first, she hadn’t minded, not after the escape from Ballintubber. But in the intervening two months, the initial feeling of safety had been replaced by a sense of stifling confinement. She was never alone, not even in the rooms the Ri had arranged for her at the keep-there were always gardai stationed outside the door and servants waiting just out of sight for a summons. The cage in which she found herself was jeweled and golden, plush and comfortable, but it was nonetheless a cage.

"For your own safety," they told her. "For your protection."

But she knew it wasn’t for her protection. It was for the protection of the cloch.

Since she’d been in Lar Bhaile, the mage-lights had appeared here a dozen times. Each time, they had called her; each time, she had answered the call, letting their power fill the cloch she carried, now encased in a silver cage necklace around her neck, as it had been once for her da. Soon, she knew, the well within Lamh Shabhala would be filled to overflowing and the stone would open the way to the mage-lights for the other clochs. Everyone else knew it, also, for she saw that the Riocha were gathering here in Lar Bhaile, and many of them wore stones that had been in their families for generations, stones that were reputed to be clochs na thintri. They waited. They smiled at her the way a wolf might smile at an injured doe.

The Alds had been consulted, old records pored over, tales and legends recalled. They knew now that Jenna held Lamh Shabhala, and they also knew the pain the First Holder must endure when Lamh Shabhala opened the rest of the clochs na thintri to the mage-lights. They seemed content to let Jenna be the First Holder.

She thought most of them also imagined themselves the Second Holder, though at least Padraic Mac Ard didn’t seem to be among them. Wherever she went, there were eyes watching, and she knew that the gardai whis-pered back to the Riocha.

Jenna could sense that the gardai didn’t like where she’d brought them. They scowled, and kept their hands close to the hilts of their swords. The four of them were at the end of the market square; the stalls were small and dingy and the crowds thin.

Just beyond, a narrow lane moved south: Cat’s Alley, where the houses seemed to lean toward each other in a drunken embrace, leaving the cobbled lane in perpetual twilight. The central gutter was foul with black pools of stagnant water edged with filthy ice, and a frozen reek of decay and filth welled out into the square from the open mouth of the lane. Jenna grimaced: this was where Aoife, the servant she trusted most, had told her that she would find a man named du Val, who kept potions.

"Back in Ballintubber," she’d told Aoife, "we had a woman who gathered herbs and knew the old ways. You know, plants that can cure headaches, or can keep a young woman from getting pregnant, things like that. Where would I find someone like that here?"

Aoife had smiled knowingly at Jenna. "1 do know, mistress," she said. "Down in Cat’s Alley, no more than fifty strides from where it meets Low Town Market. You’ll see the sign on your right.

Jenna counted the steps, trying to avoid the worst of the muck on the ground. Before she reached forty, she saw the weathered board with faded letters: Du Val, Apothecary & Herbalist. She couldn’t read the words, but the tutors Tiarna Mac Ard had assigned to her had taught her the letters

and she could compare then with the note Aoife had given her. "Stay here," she told her escorts.

"Mistress, our orders. ."

She'd learned quickly how to deal with the objections of gardai. "Stay here, or I'll tell the Ri that you lost me in the market. Would you rather deal with that? I'll be careful. You can stay at the door and watch me, if you'd like." Her words emerged in puffs of white vapor; she wrapped her cloca tightly around her. "The sooner I'm done here, the sooner we can get back to the keep and some warmth."

They glanced at each other, then shrugged. Jenna pushed open the door. A bell jingled above. In the wedge of pale light that came in through the open door, she saw a small, windowless room. The walls were lined with shelves, all of them stuffed with vials of glass and crockery. Ahead of her was a desk piled high with more jars, and beyond into dim shadows were cabinets and cubbyholes. There was a fireplace to the right, but the ashes looked cold and dead. "Hello?" Jenna called, shivering.

Shadows moved in the darkness, and Jenna heard the sound of slow footsteps descending a staircase behind a jumble of boxes and crates. A short dwarf of a man peered out toward her, squinting, a hand over his eyebrows. "Shut the door," he barked. "Are you trying to blind me?"

"Shut it," Jenna told the garda, then when he hesitated, added more sharply, "do it!"

The door closed behind her, and as Jenna's eyes adjusted, she saw that some light filtered in through cracks in the doors and shutters, and that candles were lit here and there along the shelves. The little man shuffled forward to the desk with an odd, rolling gait. He was dressed in a dingy, shapeless woolen tunic and pants, held together with a simple rope. His face reminded her a bit of Seancoim's-the same bony ridge along the eyebrows, the flattened face. She wondered if there wasn't Bunus Muintir heritage in him somewhere. He glanced up and down at her appraisingly. "What can I do for you, Bantiarna?" he asked.

"Are you du Val?" He sniffed. Jenna took that for an affirmative answer.

"I’m looking for a certain herb that none of the healers in the keep seem to know," she told him. "I was told that you might have it."

"The healers know shite," du Val spat. "They forget the lore their ances-tors knew. What are you looking for?"

"Anduilleaf."

Du Val said nothing. He came from behind the desk and stood in front of her. He was no taller than her chest. He stared up at her face, then let his gaze travel over her body. He saw the cloth wrapped carefully around her right arm and took her arm in his hands. Jenna didn’t protest as he unknotted the cloth strip and rolled it back. When her hand was exposed past the wrist, he turned it over and back, examining the skin with its mottled, scarred patterns. Then, with stubby hands that were surprisingly graceful, he wrapped the arm again.

"So you’re the one? The one who calls the mage-lights?" Jenna didn’t answer. Du Val sniffed. "You don’t have to tell me; I can look at your arm and see it. I’ve seen the mage-lights swirling around the keep and heard about the young figure that stands on the keep’s summit at their bidding and swallows them. I’ve heard the name Lamh Shabhala bandied about. I’ve heard the rumors, little ones and big ones, and I know more about the truth of them than some of the Riocha up in the keep. I’ve seen the Riocha come to Lar Bhaile all of a sudden with bright stones around their necks, and I know that the eye of the Ri Ard in Dun Laoghaire looks this way as well, and he’s also very interested in what’s going on. And the goons outside-I suppose they’re here to protect you and stop me from taking the cloch from you."

Jenna felt a shiver not born of cold run through her. "They’re fast and strong, well-armed and mean, and they will kill you if you so much as scratch me," she told du Val. He seemed unimpressed. He scratched his side.

"Vermin," he said. "You can’t get rid of them. Not here in their natural habitat: the city. How long have you been taking the leaf?"

"Almost two months now."

"Regularly?"

"Almost every day." In truth, it was every day.

Sometimes twice. On the really bad days, the days after the mage-lights, even more. Du Val stroked his chin.

"You know that anduilleaf's addictive?"

Jenna shrugged. "It takes away the pain."

"So it does, so it does-though your healers would tell you that the leaf has no known pharmacological properties, if they recognize the herb at all. They wouldn't know where to find it, wouldn't notice it growing.

That knowledge's lost to them. The Old Ones knew, the Bunus Muintir. The few of them who are still around know, too. They also know how careful you have to be with the leaf, if you don't want to end up needing it forever."

"If you're planning to talk me to death, I'll go elsewhere," Jenna told him speaking to him in the tone she'd heard the bartiarnas use with their servants. "I have another source." She turned to go, hoping the bluff would work. She could feel tears welling up behind her eyes and knew that she couldn't hold them back once she closed the door behind her, no matter what the gardai might think. She was scared: lost in the need for the relief from pain the herb brought, lost in a level of society she didn't understand. There was no "other source"-she had no idea how she could find Seancoim again, or how she would find her way to Doire Coill with-out having to explain it to the Ri and Mac Ard.

"All right," du Val grunted behind her, and she wiped surreptitiously at her eyes before turning back to him. "I have the leaf. 'Tis expensive." He almost seemed to laugh. "But considering who you are, that's probably not a consideration, is it? Who else knows you're dependent on it?" When she didn't answer, he did laugh, a snorting amusement that twisted his swarthy, broad face. "If you're afraid that I'll use the information to black-mail you, forget it. You have worse worries than that."

He went to the back of the room, rummaging around in the shadowy recesses of a leaning, bowed case of shelving. He returned with a glass jar half-filled with brown leaves. "This is all I have," he said. "'Tis old, but still potent." Jenna reached for the jar, and du Val pulled it back to his chest, scowling up at her. "First, it's two morceints."

"Two morceints?" Jenna couldn’t keep the shock from her voice. Two morceints was more than a good craftsman made in a year. Back in Ballintubber, that might have been more money than the entire village together saw in the same time.

’Two morceints," he repeated. "And don’t be complaining. There’s few enough of us who would even know how and where to find this, and it grows in only one place anywhere near here."

"Doire Coill," Jenna said.

If du Val was surprised by her knowledge, he didn’t show it. "Aye," he said. "The dark forest itself, and only in special places there. Two morceints," he repeated, "or you can check your ’other source.’" He smiled at her, with black holes where several teeth should have been.

All right," she said. She fumbled in the pouch she carried. At least Tiarna Mac Ard wasn’t stingy with his money; she had the two morceints and more. She counted out the coins into du Val’s grimy, callused palm, then reached again for the jar. He wouldn’t release it.

"Does someone know you’re taking this?" he asked again.

"Aye," she answered. "My mam." It was a lie. The truth was that no one knew, unless Aoife suspected it.

He nodded. "Then tell your mam this: take the leaf no more than once a day, and for no longer than a month. Start with four leaves in the brew; cut the dosage by one leaf every week, or you’ll be back here again in another month, and the price will be four morceints. Do you understand that?"

"Aye," Jenna answered.

With the word, du Val released the jar and closed his fingers around the coins. He jingled them appreciatively. "A pleasure doing business with you, Holder."

"I’m certain it was."

He snorted laughter again. "I’ll see you again in a month."

"I don’t think so."

"The magic you're trying to hold is powerful, but also full of pain. There's no cure for it. You can look for ways, like the leaf, to dull it, or you learn to bear what it gives you. Either way, it will always be there. Better to accept the pain as it is, if you can."

"Do you charge for your platitudes, also?"

Du Val grinned. "For you, I can afford to give the advice for nothing."

"And that's exactly what it's worth," Jenna retorted. "I won't be back."

She immediately hated the way the words sounded, hated the intention to hurt that rode in them: she sounded too much like some of the Riocha at the keep, the ones she despised for their haughtiness. If du Val had shown that her words stung, she would have felt immediate remorse. She would have apologized. But the dwarf shrugged and moved away behind the desk. He puttered with the flasks and vials there, ignoring Jenna. Finally, she turned and went to the door. When her hand touched the rope loop that served as a handle, du Val's voice came from behind her.

"I'm sorry for you, Holder. I truly am."

She took a breath. She opened the door, nodded to the relieved glances of the gardai, and closed the door behind her again.

She spent another candle stripe or so in Low Town Market, desultorily pretending to shop as an excuse for the trip. The wind began to rise from off the lake, and she could see storm clouds rising dark in the west beyond the roofs of the houses, and finally told the gardai to fetch the carriage for the ride back. The carriage moved slowly through the twisting maze of narrow lanes, heading always up toward the stone shoulders of Goat Fell and the keep high above. Jenna lay back on the seat, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of vibrant, crowded life around her: the strident, musical calls of the vendors; shouts and calls from the windows of the houses she passed; the laughter from the pubs, seemingly on every corner; the sound of a fine baritone voice lifted in song. . "Stop!" Jenna called to the driver.

The carriage jolted to a halt, and she got out, the gardai hurriedly following her. She could still hear the voice, coming from the open door of a tavern

just down the street. She strode down the lane to the pub, squinting into a hazy darkness fragrant with the smell of ale and pipe.

So over the sea they sped

From Falcarragh where the mountains loom

From home and bed

To Inish and their doom. .

She knew the tune: the Song of Mael Armagh. She had heard it once before she left Ballintubber. And she knew the voice as well.

"Coelin!"

The song cut off in mid-verse, and a familiar head lifted. "By the Mother-Creator. . Jenna, is that you, girl?"

"Aye. ’Tis me, indeed."

Laughing, he set down his giotar and ran to her.

He took her in his arms and spun her around, nearly knocking over a few pints. He set her down again, holding her at arm’s length.

He kissed her.

"I thought you were dead, Jenna. That’s what everyone was saying. The damned Connachtans killed the Ald, and Tom Mullin, too, when he tried to stop them. Then there were the killings down by your old house, and the fires…" Coelin was shaking his head; Jenna’s finger still touched her lips. Now she placed the finger on Coelin’s lips.

"Shh," she said. "Quietly. Please." That, at least, she’d learned from the Riocha: you never knew who might be listening to your words.

Coelin looked puzzled, but he lowered his voice so that only she could easily hear him against the murmuring conversations of the pub. "Any-way, the Connachtans went off in a fury, and we heard they were looking for you and your mam, and that tiarna-what was his name? Mac Ard? — but everyone figured you’d either been burned up in your cottage, or lost in the bogs." He stopped, looking at her closely, and glancing behind her at the trio of soldiers who watched carefully from the doorway. Coelin’s eyes narrowed a bit, seeing them. "All the rumors were wrong, obviously, and by the looks of you, you’re hobnobbing with the Riocha.

And your arm-you have it all wrapped up. You owe me a tale, girl."

He was smiling, and she could still feel the touch of his lips on hers. "What about you, Coelin?" she asked. "How did you come to be here? And softly…"

He shrugged, grinning, but he kept his voice low. "If you remember, that tiarna of yours said I was good, that I should be singing to larger audiences than poor little Ballintubber could give me, so after things set-tled down, I thought I'd take his advice." He touched her cheek, though his gaze went quickly to the gardai. "After all, you were gone. Ballintubber just didn't seem to be where I wanted to be anymore."

"You still have the gift of words, Coelin Singer," Jenna told him, but she was smiling back. "Pretty and beguiling and too charming."

"But not false," he answered. "Not false at all."

"Hah!"

His face fell in mock alarm. "You don't believe me, then? I am hurt." He laughed again, and gestured at the corner where his giotar rested, a few copper coins in the hat placed near it. "Can you stay and listen? Maybe we can talk more? I wasn't joking when I said that you owe me the tale of your adventures."

Jenna started to shake her head, then stopped. "I have a better idea," she said. "Come with me. I'm on my way back to the keep. You can sing for the Riocha there, and we can talk. Tiarna Mac Ard will remember you." She gestured at the hat with its coins. "And the pay's likely to be better."

"To the keep? Really?"

"Aye. Mam would love to see you again. We knew some of what hap-pened in Ballintubber, but the Ri didn't want it known that we were here, not after what happened, and so it's been kept quiet. Mam will ask you a hundred questions, or more likely a thousand. Will you come?"

He smiled. "I could never refuse anything you asked, Jenna," he said.

Chapter 17: The Ri’s Supper

"COELIN!"

Maeve sounded nearly as glad to see him as Jenna had. She clasped the young man to her, then held him out at arm’s length. "When did you leave Ballintubber?"

Coelin’s gaze wouldn’t stay with Maeve. It kept wandering past her to the rich embroidered tapestries on the walls of their apartment within the Ri’s Keep; to the expensive, dark furniture; to the glittering trinkets set on the polished surfaces. "Two hands of days ago," he said. "By the Mother-Creator, I’ve never seen-"

"You have to tell me everything," Maeve said, pulling him toward a chair near the fire. Jenna laughed softly, watching Coelin marvel at the surroundings. "Start with the day the Connachtans attacked. ."

Coelin told her, spinning the tale with his usual adroitness, and-Jenna suspected- a certain amount of dramatic license.". . so you can see," he finished, "I barely escaped with my life myself."

That may still be the case," a voice said from the doorway. Tiarna Mac Ard stood there, frowning at the trio gathered near the fire. His dark beard and mustache were frosted with ice, and the furs over his cloca were flecked with rapidly melting snow.

"Tiarna," Coelin began. "I’m-"

I know who you are," Mac Ard interrupted. "What I don’t know is why you’re here." He took off the furs, tossing them carelessly on a chair. As he did so, he grimaced-the wound he’d taken on the road to Ath Iseal hadn’t completely healed yet, and his right arm, Jenna knew, was still stiff and sore, its range of motion limited. He was dressed in riding leathers, and a short sword hung heavily from his belt. His left hand rested casually on the silver pommel of the hilt.

"I brought him here, Tiarna," Jenna said. "I happened to see him in the city, and we started talking, and I knew Mam would want to hear about Ballintubber, so. ." She stopped, her eyes widening. "Did I do wrong?"

"Aye," Mac Ard answered, though his voice sounded more sad than angry. "I'm afraid that you did, Jenna."

"The boy isn't to blame, Padraic," Maeve said. "Or Jenna. She only did what I would have done, had I seen him."

"That may be," Mac Ard answered. "The deed's done, in any case. What we do now depends." He stopped.

"Depends on what?" Jenna asked.

"On whether Coelin Singer knows how to keep his mouth shut about certain things." Mac Ard strode up to the boy. He stood in front of Coelin, staring at the young man's face. "For various reasons, we've been careful to make certain that it's not common knowledge in the city that a certain two people from Ballintubber are here, or to know the circumstances under which they left the village. If I suddenly start hearing those rumors, I'd know where to place the blame and how to deal with the source. Am I understood?"

Coelin's lighter eyes held the man's burning gaze, though he had to clear his throat to get his voice to work. "I can keep secrets, Tiarna. I know that certain songs should never be sung, or only in the right circum-stances."

Mac Ard took a long breath. He rubbed at his beard, melting ice falling away. "We'll see," he said. "It's a hellish evening out there," he added. "Cold, and full of sleet and snow. A fine end to the year.

But a song or two performed well might be welcomed at the Ri's dinner tonight. Are you prepared to sing for a Ri, Coelin?"

Coelin's face broke into a helpless grin. "Aye," he nearly shouted. "For the Ri? Truly?"

Mac Ard seemed to smile back. "Truly," he answered. "Though you'll need to look better than you do now. Where's that girl? Aoife!" he called, and a young woman came out from one of the doors, curtsying to Mac Ard.

"Tiarna?"

"Take this lad and get him proper clothes for the supper tonight with the Ri. He'll be singing for us.

Go on, then, Coelin, and practice until you’re called for."

Coelin grinned again. "Thank you, Tiarna," he said. His gaze strayed to lenna, and he winked once at her. She smiled back at him.

"You can repay me by keeping quiet," Mac Ard told him. "Because if you don’t, I will make certain you never talk to anyone else again. I trust that’s clear enough for you."

The grin had fallen from Coelin’s face like a leaf in an autumn wind. "Aye, Tiarna" he said to Mac Ard, and his voice was now somber. "It’s very clear."

"Good." Mac Ard glanced from Coelin, to Jenna, and back again. "I would not forget my place and my task, if I were you, Coelin Singer."

Coelin nodded. He left the room with Aoife, and did not look again at Jenna.

The Ri’s suppers were in the great Common Hall of the keep, a loud and noisy chamber with stone walls and a high, dim ceiling. A trestle table was set down the length of the hall. Torin Mallaghan, the Ri Gabair, sat with his wife Cianna, the Banrion, at the head of the table, jeweled torcs of beaten gold around both of their necks.

Arrayed down either side of the table before the royal couple were the Riocha in residence at the keep.

Not surprisingly, there was a delicate etiquette involved in the seating. Immediately to the Ri’s left was Nevan O Liathain, the first son of Kiernan o Liathain, the Ri Ard-the High King in Dun Laoghaire. Nevan’s title was "Tanaise Rig," Heir Apparent to the Ri Ard. He had come to Lar Bhaile at his father’s request, as soon as the rumors of the mage-lights had reached the Ri Ard’s ears.

Padraic Mac Ard sat at the Ri’s right hand next to Cianna, a sign of his current favor, and Maeve and Jenna were seated after him. There were Riocha from most of the tuatha present as well, and many of them wore prominent necklaces with stones that were reputedly cloch na thintri, though none of them knew for certain. Jenna knew, however. She could open her mind to the cloch she held, and see the web of connection from her cloch to theirs. A good number of the stones were simply pretty stones, and those who owned them would be

disappointed when the Filleadh came. But some. . some possessed true clochs na thintri. One of them was Mac Ard, even though the cloch he held was never visible.

Farther down, below the salt, were the ceili giallnai-the minor Riocha — then the Ri's clients and a few prominent freepersons of Lar Bhaile.

Jenna hated these suppers, and usually pleaded illness to avoid them.

She hated the false smiling conversations; hated the undercurrents and hidden messages that ran through every word; hated the way Ri Mal-laghan sat in his chair like a fat, contented toad contemplating a plate of flies before him; hated when his eyes, half-hidden in folds of pale flesh, regarded her with an appraising stare, as if she were a possession of his whose value was still in question. She wanted to dislike Cianna, the Ri's ailing wife, whose eyes were always hollow and sunken, ringed with dark flesh, but she couldn't, more out of pity than anything else. Cianna was as thin as the Ri Gabair was corpulent yet she wheezed constantly, as if the exertion of moving her frail body about was nearly too much for her. Cianna, unfortunately, seemed to have fastened on Jenna as a fellow suf-ferer and talked to her often, though she treated Jenna like an addled child, always explaining things to her in a breath scented with the mingled odors of cinammon and sickness. She leaned toward her now, bending in front of Mac Ard and Maeve, the torc around her neck swinging forward, glinting in the torchlight. Her dark, haunted eyes fastened on Jenna's. "How are you feeling today, dear? Did that healer I sent to you from Dubh Bhaile help you?"

"Aye, Highness," Jenna answered. "The arm feels a bit better today." Actually, Jenna had endured the man's prodding and poking, and had thrown away the potion he offered, taking instead some of the anduilleaf she'd bought that morning. She could feel it easing the pain in her arm.

Cianna looked pleased. "Good," she said. "He's certainly done much for me, though I still can feel the pain in my back."

Jenna nodded. The Banrion had gone through three new healers in the two months they'd been at the keep; each time the Banrion seemed to get a little better, but then she inevitably slumped back

into illness and the current healer was dismissed and another summoned. If her back was hurting now, this healer would be leaving before another fortnight. The Rl himself never seemed to notice-he'd perhaps seen too many healers already, and no longer inquired after his wife's health. She'd borne him a son and a daughter early in their marriage; both were away in fosterage- the son to Tuath Infochla, the daughter to Tuath Eoganacht. The Banrion Cianna had performed her duty and could keep her title. As to the rest. . well, the Rl had other lovers, as Jenna already knew from keep gossip. For that reason, she was careful when the Rl smiled at her-two of the Ri's current lovers were as young as Jenna.

The Tanaise Rig, Nevan O Liathain, had evidently been listening to Cianna's conversation with Jenna. He looked across to her as the servants set the meat trays on the table. "Perhaps the pain will lessen when the other clochs are opened, Holder," he said. "Or perhaps there is another way to use the mage-lights that wouldn't cause a Holder so much.

agony." Jenna could hear the words underneath what he said: Perhaps you are too stupid and too common to be the First. Perhaps someone of the right background would be better able to use it… O Liathain smiled; he was handsome, with hair black as Seancoim's crow Denmark, and eyes of glacial blue. Thirty, with a body hardened by training and an easy grace, his wife dead two years now leaving him still childless, he turned the heads of most of the available women in the keep, even without the added attraction of his title. He knew it, also, and smiled back at them indul-gently.

But not at Jenna. Not at Maeve. Jenna had overheard him talking to the Ri one night, a few days after his arrival. "Why do you keep them?" he asked the Ri, laughing. "Listen to them. Their accents betray their commonness, and their manners are, well, nonexistent. 1 can't believe Mac Ard would be consort-ing with that stupid cow mother of the Holder-if I were going to take one of them to my bed, as disgusting a thought as that is, I would have chosen the girl, who's at least trainable. Better to have left them back scrabbling in the dirt, which is all they're suited for. One of us should take the cloch from this Jenna now, before she truly learns to control it, and be done with the charade… "

She hadn't heard the Ri's answer. She'd slipped away, steeling herself to fight for the possession of

the cloch that night if she had to, trying to stay awake lest the Ri’s gardai enter her bedroom, but eventually exhaus-tion claimed her and she drifted off to sleep, awakening the next morning with a start. But the cloch was still with her, and the Ri Gabair, if anything, seemed almost conciliatory toward her when she saw him later that morning.

She smiled at O Liathain now across the table, but her smile was as artificial and false as his own. "Each cloch tells its Holder the way to best use it, as the Tanaise Rig might learn one day should he actually have a cloch of his own." Her smile widened on its own; O Liathain wore what he thought was a cloch na thintri around his neck; while it was certainly an expensive jewel worthy of a Ri, it pleased Jenna to know that it was simply that, not a cloch na thintri.

O Liathain frowned and fingered the polished facets of his stone on its heavy gilded chain. He looked as if he were about to retort, but the Ri guffawed at the exchange. "You see, Nevan," he said to O Liathain. "The Holder is more than she appears to be. She has an edge on her tongue."

"Indeed, she does," O Liathain replied. He inclined his head to her. ’My pardon." There was a distinct pause before the next word. "Holder," he finished.

Mac Ard speared a piece of mutton with his knife and set it on his plate. "The Tanaise Rig is gracious with his apology," he said, but Jenna and everyone else who heard it knew the tone of his voice and the hard stare he gave O Liathain added another thing entirely: and it was necessary if you didn’t want me to take offense. Maeve touched Mac Ard’s arm and smiled at him. Mac Ard, at least, seemed protective of them, though Jenna noted that while he might spend the night with Maeve, he also hadn’t offered to legitimize the relationship.

Mac Ard was playing his own game. They were all playing their own games. She had already learned that words and actions here were carefully considered, and often held more than one meaning. Jenna was already weary of ferreting out those meanings, especially since she seemed to be the prize at the end of the contest. She wanted straightforward talk again, the easy conversations she’d had back in Ballintubber with her mam or Aldwoman Pearce or the other villagers, words that were simply gentle and kind speech.

Mac Ard smiled at O Liathain; O Liathain smiled

back. Neither one of them meant the gesture. Jenna would have made an excuse, as she often did, that her arm troubled her and she needed to retire. But Maeve leaned toward her. "Patience," she whispered. "Coelin will be singing in a few minutes."

Jenna brightened at that. She endured the barbed conversations around her until the doors at the end of the hall opened and Coelin walked through with his giotar. Mac Ard cleared his throat and leaned toward the Banrion and Ri. "I heard this young man in the village where the mage-lights first appeared, and he recently came to the city. He trained with the Songmaster Curragh, who came here now and again, if you remember. He really has an extraordinary voice, Highnesses. I thought you would enjoy hearing him."

'Well, then, let's hear him," the Ri said. He gestured to Coelin, and pointed. "Stand there, and give us this voice of yours."

Coelin bowed low, his eyes catching Jenna's as he did so. "Is there a song your Highnesses would like to hear?" he asked. "A story that Song-master Curragh used to sing, perhaps?"

The Ri seemed amused by that. "Are you saying your voice is the equal of your Songmaster's, young man?"

Coelin shook his head but the charming grin remained on his face. "Oh, no, my Ri. Songmaster Curragh always said my voice was the better."

There was a moment of silence before the Ri laughed, the rest of the table following his lead a moment later. "He seems to have a healthy ego, at least, Padraic. I suppose that's good. But we'll be the judge of his talent. Give me The Lay of Rowan Beirne, young man."

Mac Ard sniffed, as if the choice surprised him, and Jenna glanced at him curiously. Coelin strummed a chord on his giotar, his eyes regarding the ceiling of the hall as if the words to the song were written there. "A fine choice, Ri Mallaghan. Songmaster Curragh taught me that one, not long before he died. Let me think a moment, and bring back the verses Aye…" Coelin's gaze came back down and he nodded his head to the Ri. "I have it now," he said. His gaze caught Jenna's again, and he winked. He began to sing.

On the cusp of summer Rowan came forth

Bright armor on his chest, around his neck the stone

He saw the army on Sliabh Bacaghorth,

The banners of the Inish waving as Rowan stood alone. .

"Have you heard this song before?" Cianna whispered, leaning toward Jenna. Jenna shook her head.

"I don’t believe so, Banrion," she answered. She wanted to add. . and 1 still won’t have heard it, if you talk to me, but held her tongue.

Cianna glanced at Mac Ard, next to her. "He knows it," she said. "Don’t you, Padraic?"

"I do, Banrion," Mac Ard answered, his voice gruff and low.

"And do you enjoy it?"

"I think ’enjoy’ is too strong a word, Banrion. I find it… illuminating. And an interesting choice for the Ri."

"Indeed." Cianna leaned back then. Jenna puzzled over the exchange for a moment, but then Coelin’s rich voice drew her back, and she re-turned her attention to him, smiling as she watched him perform.

Jenna had indeed heard portions of the tale once or twice, though greatly altered and changed in the retellings. She had heard folktales of the hero Rowan, who had a magic stone-though she hadn’t realized until now that the stone was supposedly the one she held now, or that Rowan was anything other than a mythological figure. What Coelin sang now, though, gave the full background of the tales, and it was a history Jenna had never suspected. Rowan Beirne had been a Holder of Lamh Shabhala more than five centuries before, and the last Holder from Talamh an Ghlas. From the opening stanza on the eve of Rowan’s last day of life, the lay moved backward in time to the hero’s youth, to his first triumphs on the field of battle, to the unsurprising extolling of his skill with the sword and his prowess in battle, and to his consolidation of the smaller tuatha that were numerous around Tuath Infochla at the time.

But that wasn't what startled Jenna. Early in the lay, the verses gave the lineage of Rowan, and it was then that Jenna sat back in her chair, stunned, no longer even hearing Coelin's voice. Rowan's mam was a woman named Bryth, and she held Lamh Shabhala before Rowan. Bryth's surname, before she married Tiarna Anrai Beirne of Tuath Infochla, was Mac Ard.

A Mac Ard once held Lamh Shabhala. . Jenna barely heard the rest of the song: how Rowan foolishly allowed himself to be drawn north out of Falcarragh to a supposed parley with the Inishlanders, where he was ambushed and murdered by assassins in the employ of the Inish cloud-mage Garad Mhullien; and how Lamh Shabhala was taken from Rowan's body and brought to Inish Thuaidh. She barely reacted when Coelin fin-ished the song to the applause of the table, or when the Ri handed Coelin a small sack of coins and told him to return again four nights hence to entertain his guests at the Solstice Feast.

She sat clutching at the stone on its chain around her neck. She couldn't look at Mac Ard, and she fled the table as soon as she could make an excuse.

Chapter 18: Secrets

"WHY didn't you tell us that your ancestors once held the cloch, Padraic? I don't understand…"

Maeve's voice trembled, and Jenna could tell that her mam was on the verge of tears. Mac Ard, standing near the fireplace of their chambers, made as if to move toward her, but she lifted her head and he stopped with a shrug.

"Maeve, would you have trusted me if I had?" he answered. "Or would you have thought that I'd come only to take it from Jenna?" He glanced at Jenna, seated next to her mam and still clutching the stone.

"I don't know what I would have thought," Maeve answered. "Because you never gave us the chance to know. Why would you have come at all, if you didn't want the stone?"

"I did want it," Mac Ard answered. "I won’t deny that. Had I found the cloch on that damned hilltop, aye, I would have kept it for myself. I wanted to be the Holder of Lamh Shabhala. I thought. ." He took a breath and let it out in a nasal snort. "When I saw the mage-lights-here, so close to me-I thought that it was a sign that it was my destiny to bring the cloch back to my family. But Jenna already had it, though I didn’t know it. And when I did. ." He raised his hands, let them fall. "If you remember, I did hold it once, after Jenna killed the riders, and I gave it back. Maeve, have I done anything, anything, to make you feel threatened, or to cause you to feel that I’m a threat to your daughter?"

Jenna watched her mam shake her head slowly.

"Have I made any attempt to take the stone from Jenna, even though I had the opportunity, even though I once actually held it in my hands, before she knew how to use it?"

"No," Maeve admitted. She touched Jenna’s bandaged arm. "Though sometimes I wish you had."

"Then forgive me for not telling you all of the history I knew, but believe me when I say it was because I was afraid that you wouldn’t trust me, and because I was afraid that you would think that I lied when I told you I loved you."

"Padraic," Maeve began, but the tiarna interrupted.

"No, let me tell you all now, so there aren’t any more secrets. There isn’t much to tell." He pulled a chair close to the two of them and took Maeve’s hands. His attention was on her; he glanced quickly at Jenna and looked away again before returning his gaze to her mam. "All this took place five centuries ago, so I-don’t know what’s true and what’s been changed in all the telling and retellings over the years. That’s too much time, and details change every time the story gets told. So I’m simply going to give you the bare, dry genealogy without any embellishment: Sinna Hannroia-a Riocha from a small fiefdom-once held Lamh Shabhala, and she fell in love with the Ri of another small fiefdom named Teador Mac Ard, my several times great-da, and married him. The two of them had a daughter named Bryth and a son named Slevin. Sinna passed Lamh Shabhala to Bryth before her death, and as you know from Coelin’s song tonight, Bryth later

married Anrai Beirne-a purely political alliance, from what our family history tells us-and eventually became the mother of Rowan Beirne, who lost the cloch to the Inishlanders. In any case, I'm not of Bryth's direct line, which is dead now: Bryth had only Rowan, and Rowan left no children that anyone knows about. The Mac Ards of today, like myself, trace our lineage back to Bryth's younger brother Slevin. So, aye, once someone of my blood and my name was the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, but it was long, long centuries ago in the Before. I have hand upon hand of cousins with the Mac Ard name who can say the same. There are many tiarna, as well as people of more common blood, who can say the same because there have been numerous Holders over the years. If you're going to be afraid of all of those who share the same surnames, you're going to be fearful of half the Riocha. You can't blame me for history, nor hold me accountable for it." He kissed the back of her hands, lifting them to his lips.

"That's the extent of it, Maeve. Don't be afraid of my name. Don't be afraid of me."

He smiled at her, and Jenna watched her mam smile in return. Then Mac Ard leaned forward and kissed Maeve. "I need to see the Ri," he said. "The Ri rarely does anything without a reason, and I wonder why he ailed for that song tonight. I think he and I should have a conversation. If you'll pardon me…"

"Go on, Padraic," Maeve told him. She continued to hold his hands as he stood. "And thank you. I do understand."

He kissed her hands again. "I'll see you later, then. Jenna, I hope you also understand," he added, and left the room. As he did so, Maeve placed her hands over her abdomen, pressing gently. Jenna's eyes narrowed, and she must have made a sound, for Maeve glanced back over her shoulder and Jenna saw that she noticed where her daughter's gaze lay. Maeve looked down at her hands herself, then back to Jenna, shifting in her chair so she faced her daughter.

"Aye," she told Jenna.

"You're certain?"

"I've not bled for two moons, and I've been ill the last several mornings. But it's far too early to feel the quickening and know for certain." Jenna saw a slow satisfaction move over her mam's face. "But it

"Have you told the tiarna?"

"No. Not yet. I’ll wait until I can feel the life. Then I’ll tell him." She paused. "You’re supposed to ask if I’m happy," she said.

She went to her mam and hugged her fiercely.

"Are you happy?" she whispered, burying her head in her mam’s scented hair.

"Aye," Meave answered. "I’m happy. I want you to be happy, too."

For a time, the two held each other, saying nothing. Finally, Jenna pulled away with a kiss to Maeve’s forehead. "Will Padraic give the child his name, and you also, do you think?"

For a moment, Jenna saw uncertainty in her mam’s eyes. "I don’t know, Jenna. I don’t know how the Riocha do things. I don’t know all that Padraic can do and what he can’t. It doesn’t matter, though, as long he doesn’t change the way he feels toward me."

"But it does, Mam," Jenna replied earnestly. "Everyone will know it’s Padraic’s child, and if he won’t acknowledge it, they’ll laugh at you, Mam. They’ll give you their meaningless smiles and then snicker at you behind their hands. You know they will. It won’t be Mac Ard who’ll have to bear all that; it’ll be you." Jenna knelt in front of Maeve, her hands in Maeve’s lap.

She knew she shouldn’t say it even as she spoke the words. "Mam, if this isn’t what you want, well, Aoife knows an herbalist in Low Town. He’ll have potions, like Aldwoman Pearce… "

"Jenna!" Maeve said loudly, and Jenna stopped. "I don’t need your herb-alist," her mam continued, more softly. "I don’t want the herbalist."

"I know, Mam, but if after you tell him, what if he!!

"Jenna-"

. . what if he isn’t as he seems? What if he’s angry, or if he abandons you, or you find that the love he says he feels is just another Riocha word? She couldn’t finish it. She didn’t want to finish it. She didn’t want to believe it herself.

Instead she forced herself to smile, to lift up and give her mam another kiss and place her own hands on Maeve's stomach. Inside, there is life. A brother, or a sister. .

"I trust him, Jenna," Maeve said. "I love him."

Her face was so peaceful and content that Jenna nodded. "I know," she said.

Jenna didn't see Coelin after his singing. She heard through Aoife that he'd left the keep late that evening, and that he had asked after her. She thought he might send word the next day; he didn't. The mage-lights came again that night, and after taking in their power, she was too ex-hausted to care about anything but fixing a brew of the anduilleaf to blunt the pain. At least, that was what she told herself.

More Riocha were arriving at the Keep each day as word spread that Lamh Shabhala had a Holder and that she was in Lar Bhaile. Most of them wore the green and brown of Tuath Gabair, though there were a few with the red and white of Tuath Airgialla, or the blue and black of Tuath Locha Lein. None wore Tuath Connachta's blue and gold. They were men, mostly, and a few women, with rich clothes and rich accents and bright jewels around their necks, and some of those jewels, aye, were clochs na thintri. She was introduced to them and as quickly forgot their names and titles, though she could feel them watching her as she wandered about the keep, staring at her, whispering about her, and pointing at her band-aged arm.

Waiting. Waiting for Jenna to give them the power they wanted.

"Jenna…"

She heard Cianna's voice as she walked along one of the deserted upper hallways, trying to avoid the eyes. Jenna stopped and turned: the Banrion stood at the end of the hall, with two of her ladies. Jenna curtsied and dropped her gaze as she'd seen the Riocha do in the woman's presence. "Banrion," she said. "Good morning."

"Please, no courtesies here. Not between us. Is it a good morning for you, or are you simply being polite?" Cianna asked. She cleared her throat, a phlegm-rattled sound. "None of them seem good to me lately. I think the new healer's a fraud, like all

"I’m sorry to hear that, Banrion."

Cianna laughed, a sound that ended in a series of coughs. "It’s what I expected, my dear. I’m not quite as stupid and self-involved as some would have you believe. I know that I’m deluding myself-I don’t think any healer can cure what’s inside me.

But I feel I have to try. Maybe, maybe one of them…" The Banrion’s eyes glittered with sudden mois-ture, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. She sniffed and shook her head, and the mood seemed to pass. She waved her hand at her attendants.

"Leave me," she told them. They scurried away, glancing at Jenna. "They’re supposed to be here to help me, but they’re really just the Ri’s eyes,"

Cianna said to Jenna, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. "They tell him everything they see. Come with me for a few moments, before they rush back to tell me that the Ri insisted they return. We should speak somewhere where no eyes watch or ears listen."

Cianna took Jenna’s arm. The Banrion seemed to weigh nothing; her hand looked that of a skeleton, poking from under the lace of her leine. She led Jenna along the hall and down a corridor, through a door and up a small flight of stairs. Taking a torch from one the sconces, she opened the door at the top of the stair, which led into a musty-smelling gallery. There were shelves along the gallery, and on them were items, most cov-ered in gray layers of dust. Their feet left marks in the film of it covering the floor, and cloudlets rose wherever they stepped. Jenna sneezed. "Ban-rion, this can’t be good for your lungs."

"Hush," Cianna answered, tempering the word with a smile. "Do you know where we are?" Jenna shook her head. "This is the Hall of Memo-ries," Cianna continued. "These are artifacts from the long history of Lar Bhaile. Not many come here-my husband isn’t one for sentiment and history. He dismissed the Warden of the Hall, whose task it was to pre-serve these things and clean them, and since then the hall hasn’t been opened in years. Previous Ris, though, were rather proud of it and brought visitors here so they could view the artifacts."

"Remembering the past is important." She said it politely, wondering why Cianna had brought her here.

"Is that something you believe?" Cianna asked.

"Is it true, Holder, that you can bring the dead Holders of that cloch back to life and speak with them? That's what Tiarna Mac Ard tells me. He said he thought you had done it once, with an old Bunus Muintir Holder."

"Aye, that's true, Banrion," she told Cianna. She'd never told Mac Ard or her mam about the others: the Lady of the Falls and her own da. She still had Eilis' ring and Niall's carved seal back in her room. She'd never tried to bring Eilis back again, but she had talked to her da several times. It had been disappointing, for he stared at her as if he'd never seen her before, and she had to explain all over again who she was. The dead, it seemed, did not retain the memory of being dragged back into this exis-tence by Lamh Shabhala. "If I'm near to where a Holder rests, or if I touch something that was once theirs I can speak with their shade. At least that's what I've been told."

"Then come here…" Cianna gestured at one of the shelves. On it was a torc, the hammered gold incised with swirling lines that made Jenna glance at her bandaged arm. "Do you know why my husband chose to have that singer give the Lay of Rowan two nights ago?" Jenna shook her head. Cianna started to speak, then coughed a few times, patting at her mouth with a lace handkerchief. Jenna could see spots of blood on the ivory cloth. "This cough… it gets worse. Damn that healer. This is the way it is for us, Jenna. They let us suffer, me because I've already given the Ri what he wanted and now he no longer cares; you because they think you're weak and they can take what they want from you later, when it's less dangerous" She coughed again, nearly doubling over with the racking spasms.

"Maybe we should leave this room, Banrion," Jenna suggested, but Ci-anna drew herself up, her haunted, umber-circled eyes widening.

"No. Listen to me, Jenna. There is talk. I hear it, though they think I don't listen or care. But I do. They want you for one thing, Jenna, and one thing only: to open the other clochs to the mage-lights. They know that the First Holder always suffers more than the Holders who follow- they're content to let you take that pain for now, even though some of them intend to take the cloch you hold, once you've opened the others."

"Who?" Jenna asked. "Who wants it?"

"Some I know for certain," the Banrion answered. "Nevan O Liathain, the RI Ard’s son, covets Lamh Shabhala-he’s made no secret of that. My husband does, as well; he’s more ambitious than you might think. Galen Aheron, the tiarna from Infochla who arrived a few days ago, has said things that make me suspect he would try for it as well. And even Padraic Mac Ard… "

"You’ve heard him talking?" Jenna asked, her eyes narrowing. "Tiarna Mac Ard?"

Cianna shook her head. "No, in truth, though I think that’s why the Ri called for the song, because he knew that Mac Ard had said nothing to you regarding his ancestors’ history with Lamh Shabhala. The Ri is always careful with Mac Ard, because he knows that a Mac Ard was once Ri and that Padraic could contend for the throne of Tuath Gabair. My husband and Padraic aren’t enemies, but they also aren’t entirely allies. Mac Ard’s said nothing against you that I’ve heard, but when he rode away from the keep weeks ago, when the mage-lights first came, I know he was eager to find the cloch. And if you were. ." Cianna paused. Coughed.". . no longer the Holder, aye, I believe he would try for the cloch himself."

Jenna’s right hand, the fingers stiff and painful to move, closed around Lamh Shabhala on its necklace. Cianna noticed the gesture, and her fin-gers touched Jenna’s. "Your skin there is so cold and so hard, like the scales of a snake." She touched her cheek. "And so warm and smooth here." The Banrion smiled gently. "You’re so young to carry such a bur-den, Jenna. But I was a cycle and more younger when I was sent to marry the Ri and was a mam by the time I was your age. Women often carry their burdens early." She smiled again. "And long."

Cianna picked up the torc from the shelf, brushing away the dust with a hand and pursing her lips to blow away the rest, though the effort cost her another fit of coughing. She held out the golden artifact to Jenna, though Jenna only looked at it, puzzled. "We have nothing of Rowan’s or of Bryth’s, but this torc was Sinna Mac Ard’s, great-mam of Rowan Beirne. I don’t know if she could give you answers to the questions you might have, but you may try. Take it, use it if you can."

"Banrion, I can't. ."

"If anyone asks why you have it, tell them to come to me. That's all you need say. Keep it." She gestured around her, at the gray-covered shelves, at the dim recesses filled with hundreds of unseen items. "You can see how much the past is revered here." She reached out and touched the cloch where it rested between Jenna's breasts. "But they will grab for what they see as the future," she said. "And some of them are quite willing to kill anyone who would get in their way."

Chapter 19: An Assassin's Fate

SHE could feel the strong tingling of a presence when she held the torc, and she knew that Cianna had spoken true-this had once 'been a Holder's beloved possession. But even though she found herself alone in the apartment when she returned, Jenna didn't let the cloch call the pres-ence forth. The experience with Riata had been frightening at first yet ultimately rewarding, but the ghost of Eilis had scared and nearly killed her and as for her da… seeing him hurt too much and left her unsatisfied and feeling more alone than ever.

She doubted that Sinna's specter could help her at all.

She placed the torc among her clothes where Aoife was unlikely to find it, thinking that she might use it that evening. But the mage-lights came again and she went to them, and afterward Jenna was in too much pain for anything but anduilleaf and bed.

After Maeve had fussed over her for a bit (with Mac Ard hanging in the background at the door of the room, staring at her, Jenna thought, strangely), she lay in her bed, holding the cloch in her hand and staring into the darkness of the ceiling, seeing not the room but Lamh Shabhala. She gazed into the crystalline matrix of the cloch, seeing the nodes gleaming and sparking with the stored power of the mage-lights, flickering tongues of blue-white lightning arcing between the facets. She let herself drop deeper into Lamh Shabhala's depths toward

the seething well at its heart, and she seemed to stand on a precipice, looking down into a maelstrom, a thunderstorm so bright that it nearly blinded her. The well was nearly full now-no more than three or four more nights, and it would overflow, filling the cloch. .then. .

She knew what was supposed to happen, knew that Lamh Shabhala was to "open the other clochs na thintri." But she didn't know how, didn't know what that would do to her, how it might feel or how it might hurt her or what it would be like afterward. She wondered if Tiarna Mac Ard might know, but she couldn't-or wouldn't-ask him. She was grateful to him for what he'd done to save her and her mam, and she knew that Maeve loved the man and seemed to be loved in return, yet she found herself holding back when she might speak to him. There was no one she trusted enough to ask that question who would know the answer.

There were the dead Holders, of course. Riata she might ask, but she had nothing of his to bring him back; Eilis was too fey. Her da she'd already asked, but he had never held Lamh Shabhala while it was alive-he knew less than she did.

She trembled, looking down into the depths, at the raging energy trapped there. She ached to know, she needed to know, if only to steel herself for the ordeal.

She let go of the cloch, and the image of it faded in her mind, leaving only the darkness of her room.

She threw aside the bedclothes, shivering in the cold, and went quickly to the chest holding her clothing, pulling out the tore Cianna had given her. Her hands tingled with the feeling of the presence within it, and she thought she heard her name called, a yearning summons. They feel you just as you feel them. .

She went back to her bed, wrapping the quilts around her and snug-gling her toes under the heated plate of cotton-wrapped iron Aoife had placed beneath the covers to warm the bed. She placed the torc around her own neck, grimacing as the cold, burnished metal touched her skin.

Sinna. .?

Torchlight swam in the darkness.

Sinna, come to me. .

Jenna trembled, tugging the blankets tightly around her. She was in her room, but the portion in front of her was overlaid with a hazy image of another time. There, the fireplace was roaring; torches were set in their sconces along the walls, and embroidered hangings covered stone walls no longer plastered and painted. In the shadows, someone moved, a woman with plaited, long gray hair, wearing a leine of yellow under a long cloca of green. Around her neck was the torc Jenna wore and from Under the gold a fine chain held Lamh Shabhala. She stepped forward into the firelight, and Jenna saw that her movements were slow, her pos-ture stooped, her face lined with the furrows of age. Her right arm was marked to the elbow with swirling curves of scars, in the pattern Jenna knew all too well.

"Ahh," the specter said, looking around. "I remember this room, though it’s much changed. So it’s happening to me, now-new Holders are calling me back." The smile was bittersweet. "I’m to be used as I once used others." Jenna felt the touch of the woman’s mind on her own, and at the same time Jenna reached into her. "You’re Jenna. . and a First."

"Aye. And you’re Sinna."

The woman nodded. "Aye. And long dead, it would seem. Nothing more than dust and a memory. Have you called me back before?"

Jenna shook her head, and the apparition sighed. "Good," she said. "At least I’m not replaying an old scene. I always hated that, myself, having to explain again who I was and what I knew. No wonder the dead are often so angry and dangerous. You’ve already learned to keep most of your mind closed off, so I assume at least one of us has given you a nasty fright before. And the cacophony of voices within the cloch…" She shivered and yawned. "It’s summer here, and I’m still cold, and every joint in my body is aching. Being old is worse than being dead…" She shook herself out of her reverie and peered at Jenna again. "You’re young, though-have they married you off yet, Jenna? Is that why you’re here in Lar Bhaile’s Keep?"

"No," Jenna answered. "And they won’t marry me against my will. I won’t allow it."

Sinna laughed at that, her voice husky. "Then you do live in a different age. In my time, you were

fortunate if you married for love. I was lucky enough to have loved once: my dear, poor Ailen, who gave me this." She lifted the cloch, and at the same time, Jenna felt Lamh Shabhala pulse on her own chest, as if the cloch remembered the touch. "But the second time. . Well, a Holder is a political prize, and Teador Mac Ard was Rl."

It gave Jenna a strange satisfaction to learn that Sinna hadn't fallen in love with Teador, as Padraic had told them, that it had only been a mar-riage of convenience. "You were the Holder of Lamh Shabhala. How could they make you marry him?"

Sinna shrugged. "I suppose they couldn't, not if I utterly refused. But a Holder who is a woman must also know how to play the game, if she wishes to stay the Holder. A Banrion is a powerful thing, too, and to be both Holder and Banrion. ." Sinna smiled. "Teador and I found love elsewhere, but we were well suited to be Ri and Banrion. What we had wasn't love, but we understood each other well enough, and for the most part we both wanted the same things. That was enough. And when my daughter was old enough, we used her to strengthen an alliance." She sighed and smiled inwardly, then her gaze focused on Jenna, who saw hat one eye was cloudy and white with a cataract. "Why did you call me back First Holder? What is it you wanted to ask me? Ask, and let this ghost go back to sleep."

Jenna flipped away the bed quilts. Suppressing a shiver as the cold air touched her, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and walked to where the old woman stood. "I'm First, as you said. And the other cloch na thintri aren't yet opened. I want… I want to know what will happen when Lamh Shabhala is full and wakes the other stones."

"No one has told you?"

"They hint, but they don't say. Or perhaps they truly don't know," Jenna answered. "I've even talked to the Ald here. He says he doesn't know-it's been so long since the mage-lights came that the knowledge is lost."

Sinna sighed. Her hand lifted as if she were about to touch Jenna, then dropped back. "So they do use you," she said. Her voice was soft. "Your time isn't so much different, then. I wasn't a First, Daughter. When I held Lamh Shabhala, the clochs had been active for generations and genera-tions, nearly all the way back to when the first Daoine came to this

land. I can’t help you with that…" She stopped, turning slightly from Jenna and holding her hands out to the image of the fire, as if warming them. "Tell me, did I give the cloch to Bryth, or did someone else take it?"

"No," Jenna answered. "Bryth was the next Holder, and her son after that, your grandson."

Sinna nodded, firelight reflecting on her wrinkled skin and over the coarse gray hair. "That’s good to know," she said. "It’s a comfort, even though I’ll forget as soon as you release me. I’m going to Tuath Infochla in a fortnight to meet her, and I intend to pass it to her then. So it seems I manage to do so."

"Another Mac Ard would like to hold Lamh Shabhala now," Jenna said, and with that Sinna turned back to her. "Ahh. ." she breathed. "So the line continues."

’Not Bryth’s," Jenna told her. "Your son’s. Slevin."

Her face changed with that, as if she’d tasted sour fruit. "Slevin," she said, and the word sounded harsh and bitter. "Strange how distant we can become from our own children. ." She stopped. "Jenna, do you feel that?"

"What?"

Sinna turned, her half-blind eyes peering toward the south window of the room. "Perhaps I can teach you something after all. See with the cloch, Jenna. Imagine. . imagine that your skin is alive with its power, that it’s like a shell around you, expanding, and you can feel everything that it touches, can see the shape of it as the power within you wraps around it. Can you do that?"

"Aye. ." Jenna breathed. "I can." Perhaps it was because Lamh Shabhala remembered Sinna’s touch, perhaps it was because Sinna’s mind and hers were open to each other, but Jenna could feel her presence expand, filling the room so that in her mind she could see everything in it as clearly as if it were day. She let it expand farther, moving her awareness outward.

And stopped with a gasp.

"Aye," Sinna said. "Even the dead can feel that threat."

Outside, on the wall, a dark form crept upward in

the night, hands already on the balcony and death lurking in his heart. The intruder pulled himself silently over the rail-with her eyes, Jenna saw nothing but the closed doors leading to the balcony, shut against the night and the cold air. But with the cloch, she saw the man crouch, then stand, and she saw the small crossbow in his hand and the quarrel smeared with brown poison.

"You see," Sinna said softly. "Lamh Shabhala can do more than throw lightnings. Watch; let me use the cloch. ."

One of the balcony doors swung open, and a night-wrapped form slipped in with a breath of cold wind. At the same time, Jenna felt the stone around her neck respond as the ghost of Sinna moved forward, her body changing as Lamh Shabhala’s energy surged through her, her shape suddenly that of Jenna herself, young and brown-haired, the torc gleam-ing around her neck. "You!" Sinna shouted, and the intruder turned, firing the crossbow in the same motion. The quarrel went through Sinna's chest, burying itself in the plaster behind her. Sinna laughed, and she was herself again, an old woman. Behind the dark wrapping of the assassin's head, his eyes were wide, and he looked from the ghost of Sinna to Jenna, standing near the bed. A knife flashed in his hand, but before he could move, Jenna felt Sinna's mind close over her own and-like a skilled teacher's hand guiding a student's-she let energy burst forward from the cloch, shaping the force as it flew, and the assassin was picked up as if in a giant's hand and slammed against the wall, grunting in pain and shock. A wisp of the cloch's power ripped the cloth from his head, so that Jenna could see his face.

"Do you recognize him?" Sinna asked.

Jenna shook her head-his features were those of a stranger.

"Then he was hired, and he has a name to tell you." The man was struggling, trying to push away from the wall and move, but Jenna held him easily. "There, you have him," Sinna said, and Jenna felt Sinna's mind leave hers.

'I'll tell you nothing," the man grated out, writhing in the grip of the cloch. His gaze kept slipping from Jenna to the ghostly image of Sinna.

"No?" Sinna said. "Tighten the power around him,

Jenna. Go on. Squeeze him, Jenna. Make him feel you."

Jenna did as Sinna instructed, imagining the tendrils of Lamh Shabhala’s energy snaking around him, pulling tight like a noose. The man gri-maced, the lines around his eyes and forehead deepening, and he spat defiantly.

"Good. I like defiance," Sinna said. "It increases the pleasure when he finally gasps out the name we want. I wonder if he’s ever felt his ribs crack inside him, snapping like a dry branch into a dozen knives of bone. I wonder if he’ll whimper like a kicked dog when the eyes pop from his skull, or scream as his ballocks are crushed and ruined."

Sinna/Jenna yanked at the cords of energy, pulling them tighter still. The man moaned, and Jenna glanced at Sinna. "I can’t-" she began, appalled, but with the shift of attention, the assassin momentarily pulled away from his invisible bonds. Before Jenna could respond, the knife still in his hand moved. With a cry, he plunged it into his own chest. Blood welled around the wound, and flecks of red foamed at his lips. He wailed, his eyes rolled upward.

He fell. The wind from the balcony brought the fetid smell of piss and bowels.

Sinna sniffed. "Not a common assassin, then, but a loyal and devoted retainer, to kill himself rather than talk," she said. Her voice sounded eerily emotionless. "I would guess that someone’s becoming impatient."

Jenna gaped in horror at the foul corpse on the floor. "Would you have done that, what you told him you would do?"

Sinna laughed. "If he had come to me, in my time, rather than to you? Aye, I would have done that and more to stay alive. I have done it. And so will you, Daughter, if you want to remain the Holder."

"No, I won’t," Jenna said, the denial automatic. Sinna only smiled.

"Jenna!" Maeve’s voice called from outside the room, and she heard footsteps pounding toward her. Jenna pulled the torc from her neck, and Sinna vanished as Maeve and Mac Ard rushed in, Mac Ard with his sword drawn. He stopped at the doorway, gazing at the crumpled body of the

assassin. He hurried over to the man as Maeve went to Jenna. He prodded the assassin's body with the tip of his sword, then knelt and pressed his fingertips against the neck just under the jaw, grimacing at the smell. She saw him glance at the small crossbow on the floor near him. "Dead," he said, rising again. "And by his own hand, it would seem. Jenna, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she answered, trying to keep her voice from trembling. Her arm ached, burning cold, and there was ice in the pit of her stomach, making her want to vomit, but she forced it down, forced herself to stand erect and pretend that she was calm. Later, she could allow herself to cry at the remembered fear and the death. Later, she could run to the anduilleaf and its relief. But not now. .

"What happened here?"

Jenna pointed to the open door to the balcony, then to the quarrel embedded in the wall. "He climbed up from outside and shot that at me, but… " She paused, considering her words. She pulled away from her mam's embrace. "I knew he was coming," she said, more strongly, "and I swept the bolt aside with the cloch, then held him. He killed himself rather than be captured; if I'd suspected he would do that, I would have stopped him, but I was too late. No doubt he didn't want me to know who hired him." She watched Mac Ard's face carefully as she spoke- certainly it wasn't Padraic, not after all he's done. He's had a hundred better opportunities if he wanted them. . Yet she watched. Mac Ard was frowning and serious, but she had seen him speaking with the Ri and knew that he could keep his thoughts hidden from his face. She couldn't stop the para-noia from creeping back into her mind. He could easily tell an assassin where and when to find me.

"You 'knew he was coming'?" he said, his head tilted, one eyebrow raised.

"Lamh Shabhala can do more than throw lightnings," she stated: Sinna's words. . His eyes narrowed at that; his mouth tightened under the dark beard and he turned away from her. He went to the quarrel and pulled it from the wall, sniffing at the substance daubed over the point. "Aye, 'tis poisoned," Jenna told him.

There was anger and fury in Mac Ard's face, but Jenna didn't know if it was at the attempt, or at the

failure of it. "The garrison will comb the grounds, and those on watch tonight will be punished for allowing this to happen," he said. "I’m sorry, Jenna.

I will have gardai sent here immedi-ately. This won’t happen again."

How convenient that would be… to have his own people around me all the time. "Thank you, Tiarna, but I don’t need gardai," Jenna said firmly.

"Jenna-" Maeve began, but Jenna shook her head.

"No, Mam, Tiarna," she insisted. "Get rid of… that." She pointed at the body. "Call the servants in to clean up the mess. But no gardai. I don’t need them." She lifted Lamh Shabhala. "Not while I hold this."

Chapter 20: Love and Weapons

"SO far," Jenna said, "they tell me that they think the assassin was sent from Connachta."

"Jenna. ." Coelin's arm went around her shoulders at that. For a moment, Jenna tensed, then she relaxed into the embrace, moving closer to him as they walked slowly along the garden path. The planted array in the keep's outer courtyard rustled dry and dead in the winter cold, and a chill wind blew in off the lough, tossing gray clouds quickly across the sky and shaking occasional spatters of rain from them.

Coelin had arrived early for the feast celebrating the winter solstice, the Festival of Lafuacht, to be held that night. Aoife had come running into Jenna's apartment, bursting with the news that the "handsome harper" was in the keep and asking about her, and Jenna had sent Aoife to fetch him. Jenna could feel the warmth of Coelin's body along her side, and it felt comfortable and right. She knew there were eyes watching them, and that tongues would be clucking about the Holder and a lowly entertainer (and no doubt saying how "common blood will tell"), but she didn't care. You sound as if you don't believe them," Coelin said.

"I don't," Jenna said firmly. "What good would it do for Connachta to have me killed here, where someone else would simply become the Holder? That makes no sense unless the assassin himself was to be the I Holder, yet he wasn't from the Riocha families."

But how else could someone from Tuath Connachta get the stone? You said none of the Riocha from Tuath Connachta are here. If that assassin was so loyal that he'd kill himself rather than be caught alive, he might be loyal enough to take the cloch to his employer without keeping it himself."

"Maybe. That's what Tiarna Mac Ard said, too." Jenna shivered as the wind shook water from the bare branches of the trees. "I don't think so. I think he was hired by someone here."

"Who?" Coelin asked.

"I don’t know. But I’ll find out."

"Finding out could be dangerous."

"Not finding out is more dangerous, Coelin." She stopped, moving so that they stood face to face, his arm still encircling her shoulder. His face seemed bewildered and innocent with all she had told him, and she knew that she would have looked the same a few months ago, thrown without warning into this situation where agendas were veiled and hidden, and the stakes of the game so high. Looking at him, she saw reflected back just how much she had changed in the intervening months. He is a harper, and nothing more-right now singing is enough for him and all that he thinks about. If he has ambition, ’tis to be a Songmaster like Curragh, who plucked him away from a life of servitude.

"Jenna, you should leave the investigation to Tiarna Mac Ard and the others."

"One of the others may have sent the man in the first place." She hesi-tated, not wanting to say the rest. "I can’t even rule out Tiarna Mac Ard."

His eyebrows lifted, widening his sea-foam eyes.

"I thought he and your mam-"

"They’re lovers, aye," Jenna said. "But I’m not my mam, I’m not his blood, and I hold what he was searching for when he came to Ballintub-ber. Wouldn’t it have been convenient, for him to be the first to find my body? He could have plucked the cloch from around my neck before anyone could have stopped him."

"You don’t know that, Jenna, and I don’t believe it."

"You’re right, 1 don’t know that and honestly, 1 don’t believe it’s true, either," she answered. "But I don’t know. I don’t know."

He was looking somewhere above and beyond her, as if he could find an answer written on the stones of the keep. He shook his head as if to some inner conversation. "Jenna. ." he began. "This is so. ."

Jenna reached up, twining the fingers of her left hand in the curls at the back of his head. She gently pulled him down to her. The kiss was first soft and tentative, then more urgent, her mouth opening to his as he pulled her against him. When at last it ended, she cradled her head on his chest. He stroked her hair. "Jenna," he said. "How can I help you?"

"I don't know yet," she answered. "But I will. And I'll ask when the time comes."

"And I'll be there for you," Coelin answered. He brought his head down hers again, and she opened her mouth to his soft lips and his hot, sweet breath and when his hands slid up to cup her breasts, she did not stop him.

"I can tell you this much about the assassin, Holder," the Ri Mallaghan told her, his trebled chins shaking as his mouth moved. Nevan O Liathain stood at the Ri's right shoulder, frowning appraisingly at her as the Ri spoke and stroking his thin beard. "He was not a Riocha that anyone here recognizes. I have people who would know such making inquiries in Low Town to see if he's a local, but I don't think so. We may never know who he was. I know that's of no comfort to you, but I assure you that the gardai here will be more…" He paused, and a smile prowled his face for just a moment.". . vigilant from now on," he finished.

Jenna knew that the gardai on watch that night had been imprisoned, and the sentry assigned to the north side of the keep nearest Jenna's room had been executed in front of the others as an example. The punishment had been exacted before she could protest and without her consent. She suspected that it never occurred to the Ri to inquire about her feelings-it was his domain, and he did as he wished.

It's also true that dead men don't talk, if they'd been told to look the other way and their knowledge of who gave them the order was now a danger. The Ri Gabair has the money and the knowledge and the desire, as much as anyone here.

She smiled blandly back at the Ri. "I appreciate your efforts, Ri Mal-laghan. Your concern for my well-being is gratifying."

The Ri laughed at that, his body shaking under the fine clothing. There, you see, Nevan-as fine a response as any Riocha could have fashioned.

Tiarna Mac Ard has taught the girl well."

Jenna gave the Ri the expected smile, resisting the impulse to retort. Tiarna Mac Ard may have helped, but I taught myself more by listening to the

lies I hear around me every day, she wanted to say. But she curtsied instead, as a Riocha would, and continued to smile.

"The RI Ard is also concerned with your well-being," O Liathain said before Jenna could escape. "I have put the Ri Ard’s garrison here in Lar Bhaile at Ri Mallaghan’s disposal."

"That is kind of you, Tanaise Rig," Jenna answered. "Some good has come of this incident, though. I’ve discovered that the stone I hold has greater and more varied powers than I’d thought. I may be able to dis-cover who my enemies are on my own." She touched Lamh Shabhala with the scarred, patterned flesh of her right hand, looking from O Liathain to Ri Mallaghan. "And I’m certain the Ri and the Ri Ard would allow me to exact my own retribution. Wouldn’t that be interesting?"

The smile on O Liathain’s face wavered and for a moment Jenna won-dered if she’d gone too far, but Ri Mallaghan also frowned. "The laws are the laws," Ri Mallaghan intoned. "An accusation would need proof-and proof that I as Ri can see."

Jenna inclined her head. "I’ve heard that the Ri Mallaghan has excellent methods for obtaining proof when it’s needed," she responded.

The Ri snorted. "Taught well, indeed," he commented to O Liathain. Cianna drifted over to them before he could say more, with Tiarna Galen Aheron of Tuath Infochla accompanying her. Cianna touched Jenna’s shoulder and nodded to O Liathain’s abbreviated bow.

"The servants tell me we should begin moving toward the table soon, my husband," she said, her voice too fast and colored with a slight wheeze. "Let me take the Holder for a few minutes before we sit. Here, Tiarna Aheron wishes to speak with you."

"Certainly," the Ri answered. "Holder, I will speak with you later." Jenna curtsied to the Ri and O Liathain again, and let Cianna guide her away. O Liathain’s head moved toward the Ri’s ear before they were a step away, as Galen Aheron bowed to the Ri..

"What did you say to the Tanaise Rig?" Cianna asked quietly as they moved through the crowd. "Poor Nevan looked as if he’d swallowed a fish bone."

"I simply suggested to him that Lamh Shabhala might have ways of uncovering treachery," Jenna said. Cianna laughed at that, the laughter trailing away in a cough. She stopped, drawing Jenna into a corner of the hall.

"I would be careful with what you claim, Jenna," she said. "It's not good to put an enemy on alert with a bluff."

"I don't know who my enemies are, Banrion," Jenna answered. "I thought that I might find out-and I wasn't entirely bluffing."

"Ah," Cianna said thoughtfully, nodding. She gestured at the room. "They're all your enemies, every one of them here," she said. "Even me, Jenna. Any of us would take the cloch and become the Holder, if we thought it would gain us power."

"I think I can trust you, Banrion. Or you wouldn't have said what you just said."

Cianna smiled. "Thank you, Jenna. But look at them. There are more plots there than leaves in the forest, and many of them concern you. In the last cycle, my husband was nearly killed himself when one of the ceil giallnai decided that he might increase his standing by allying with one of the Connachtan families. He managed to actually draw his blade at the table before he was cut down, not five feet from the Ri. Trust is a rare commodity here, Jenna. Don't take it lightly, and don't believe that it's eternal, either. Allegiances shift, friendships fade, love is ephemeral. Be careful."

Jenna glanced worriedly at the throng, at the faces overlaid with smiles and politeness. "How do you stand it, Banrion?" she asked. "Doesn't it drive you mad?" The crowd parted momentarily, and through the silken rift, Jenna saw Tiarna Mac Ard across the room, with her mam at his side and a quartet of the Riocha women also surrounding him. Maeve looked uneasy in the midst of the other women, her smile lopsided as her atten-tion went from one to another of them, all of them obviously much more at ease and more skilled at the game of flirtation. Maeve's hand cradled her abdomen more than once. Jenna felt Cianna's gaze shift, following her eyes.

"There are rules even in this, Jenna. You've already learned some of them; if you want to keep the stone and also stay alive, you must continue to learn. You think Padraic Mac Ard doesn't

understand how our society works? He does, all too well. That’s why he doesn’t marry your mam-because marriage to him is another weapon, one that often can be used only once, so he won’t unsheathe it lightly."

"He uses my mam, then," Jenna said heatedly.

Cianna coughed, though it might have been a laugh. "I don’t doubt that Padraic also loves her, or he wouldn’t be so openly with her-he knows that his relationship with your mam dulls the blade of the marriage weapon, because it says that his true affection is elsewhere. He does love your mam, and that may have saved you as well, Jenna."

You said to trust no one, and I wondered… I wondered if Tiarna Mac Ard sent the assassin."

Jenna felt more than saw Cianna shake her head. "Mac Ard would take Lamh Shabhala if he could, I agree. But I know him well, and his person-ality is more suited to the frontal attack. He can be subtle when he needs to be, but when action must be taken, he prefers to do it himself and openly. I wouldn’t entirely trust him, if I were you, but I also doubt that the assassin was his man."

Jenna wasn’t certain she was convinced, but she nodded her head in the direction of the Ri, still in conversation with O Liathain. "The Tanaise Rig, then," Jenna said, and watched Cianna purse her lips.

"Possibly," she said. "Hiring someone to do his killing for him is more his style, certainly-he wouldn’t want to bloody his own hands. And through the Ri Ard, he has the money and connections; the assassin could have come from the east rather than the west. The Ri Ard used an assassin himself to kill his predecessor-or at least that’s the rumor-and Nevan is more ambitious than even his father. Holding Lamh Shabhala and being Ri Ard: that would place him in a very powerful position indeed."

"You think it was him, then?"

Cianna shrugged. "Possibly," she repeated. "Maybe even probably. But there are other contenders here: my husband is certainly one; Tiarna Ah-eron, whose uncle is Ri of Infochla and who has been snatching any re-puted clochs he can find, buy, or steal, is another. Jenna, any of the

Riocha here could be the one."

Jenna's head whirled. She'd taken anduilleaf a few hours ago; the effects were already starting to fade, and her arm throbbed with a promise of pain to come. She looked out at the crowd and saw skeletons and ghouls underneath the fine clothing and polite speech.

A gong rang. "There, we're being called to table," Cianna said. "Come, walk with me. You will sit next to me tonight-we'll let Padraic move a seat farther down."

"Banrion?"

Cianna smiled. "Just a little object lesson, Jenna. Everyone will notice your elevation, though no one will say anything until afterward when they're alone. Even Mac Ard will gracefully make the shift, but he'll also see the message in it: that the Holder is now more important than the one who found her, and that what happens to you will be of intense concern to me." She coughed, and cleared phlegm from her voice. "That also means no one will question too much what you do, even if you should decide to consort with a simple harper."

Jenna felt her cheeks flush. "Banrion, I… "

"Oh, he's handsome enough, I'll grant you, and has talent for what he does. A little dalliance with him won't hurt you as long as you take the proper precautions-I'll make sure the healer sends a packet of the right herbs to you. But he can't help you, Jenna, not in this. Tell me, is it true you knew this Coelin in Ballintubber?"

"Aye, Banrion."

Cianna nodded. "Convenient that he should arrive here in Lar Bhaile just at this moment, don't you think?" she asked, but she gave Jenna no chance to ponder that question or to try to answer. "Come. All the tiarna are seated by now. Time to give them something to contemplate… "

"You were wonderful. The Ri and the Banrion were rapt-did you notice?"

Jenna could see the grin tugging at the corners of Coelin's mouth as she complimented his performance. "Aye," he said. "I did. I thought I might forget some of the words, but they came back to me in time. The captain said that I might be

asked to sing again at an entertainment for the Tanaise Rig in five days, and he gave me a gold morceint for the evening. That's more than I saw for months in Ballintubber." The grin spread, and Jenna impulsively reached up and kissed him. She started to pull away, but his arms went around her and he brought her close, cup-ping his hand around the back of her head. The kiss was long and deep, and Jenna wanted more, but it was late and the carriages were already waiting at the gates of the keep to take the extra servers and entertainers back down into the town. "Jenna, when can I see you again?"

Stay, she wanted to say, but she remembered Banrion Cianna's admoni-tions, and there would be her mam's questions, and the pain in her arm was getting worse. . "The day after tomorrow," she said. "You know the market in Low Town? I'll meet you there, when they ring the bells after morning services at the Mother-Creator's temple."

"I'll be there," he promised. He kissed her again, quickly this time, and held her hand-her left hand. He didn't touch the right. His fingers pressed against her. "The day after tomorrow will seem like forever before it comes," he said, and walked quickly away toward the gates across the courtyard. Jenna watched until he reached the gates and the gardai there pushed the inner door open. He went through, and she could hear that he was whistling. She smiled.

As she turned to go back into the keep, she saw movement at one of the windows: a shutter swinging closed. She glimpsed a face in the win-dow just before the shutters pulled tight, shadowed in the dim light of the moon and the torches around the courtyard.

Tiarna Mac Ard's face.

Chapter 21: A Familiar Face

"YOU will stay here with the carriage," she told the quartet of gardai Tiarna Mac Ard had sent with her. The protest was predictable, but when she

invoked the Banrion’s name, they went sullenly silent. You see, she wanted to tell Cianna. You taught me well. I can play this game, too.

Low Town Market was crowded today. Wagons had come in from the surrounding farms. There was little produce-the fields had long ago been harvested, but there were horses for sale, sheep brought in for slaughter, milk and eggs, pickled vegetables, dried herbs. A spice vendor in from the port at Dun Laoghaire had set up a display, and exotic aromas from the distant lands of Ceile Mhor and Thall Mor-roinn wafted through the chill air. The sun beat down, driving away the worst of the chill. There was little breeze, and the respite from the cold had brought out most of the townsfolk. Jenna was surrounded by the movement and noise, the color and odors. Some of the tiarna from Upper Town were here as well, and they nodded to her as they passed, no doubt wondering why the Holder was walking unescorted through the city.

Jenna moved through the market, looking among the crowds for Coe-lin. The temple bells had rung as the carriage arrived at the market, but it would be easy to miss someone. She was beginning to wonder whether Coelin had forgotten her, and she closed her right hand around the cloch, remembering how Sinna had helped her. She let her awareness drift out-ward with the stone’s energy, seeing the crowd with the power and look-ing for the spark that would be Coelin. She could sense him, close by, and started to turn even as she heard his voice.

"Jenna!"

She turned to see him hurrying toward her. With a grin, he swept her and spun her around once, kissing her as she laughed. "I’ll bet you thought I’d forgotten," he said, wagging a finger in front of her face. She pretended to bite at it.

"I did not," she answered. "I had perfect confidence in you."

He snorted. "Hah! I saw your face when you turned." He glanced around. "I’m surprised they let you come here alone. I expected to see your mam, or servants at least. Armed and surly gardai, most likely, after what happened in your bedroom."

"Armed gardai I had," she answered. "But I sent them away." No, they’re following. . The energy she’d released before was fading slowly, but within the expanded shell of awareness she could feel one of them. She turned her head, and saw a garda ducking quickly behind the spice ven-dor's stall. "Though they don't obey well. Don't look yet, but near the spice vendor's stall… "

"Here, let's look at this cloth. ." Coelin took her arm and guided her over to the nearest stall, pretending to show her the dyed wool there. "Ah, aye. I see. You have a shadow, but not a very good one. Ring mail and leathers makes one conspicuous. Do you really want to lose him?"

Jenna nodded, and Coelin took her left arm.

"Come on, then," he said.

With Coelin leading, they moved behind the stalls and into one of the alleys. Jenna could sense the garda's sudden consternation and feel him start to move through the crowd toward the stall where they'd been, but Coelin was running through a space between two houses, across a narrow courtyard, and on into another street. He paused, looking up and down the street and behind them.

"You've lost him," she said to him.

"How do you know?"

"I know," she answered.

He didn't question that. He simply smiled at her and kissed her again.

We're alone, then." He glanced around at the people moving along the cobbled lane, most of whom were staring openly at Jenna, too well-dressed to be an occupant of one of these small, shabby dwellings. Away from the market square, the city had turned drab and dirty and crowded.

The central gutter was choked with refuse, rotting garbage and excrement, and the fetid smell wrinkled Jenna's nose. The people were as shabby as their surroundings, dressed in rags and scraps of clothing. A child stared her from a nearby door, her feet wrapped in muddy rags, her hair matted and wild, though her eyes were dark and clear. She smiled tentatively at Jenna, who had to force herself to return the gesture. "Well, at least we're not where anyone knows you," Coelin finished. He gave a mock, sweeping bow. "And now where would you have me take you?"

"Somewhere other than here."

Coelin glanced around, and she realized that he saw nothing unusual: these were the streets where he lived, too, and he didn’t see the contrast, because he hadn’t lived as she had for the last few months. Jenna could feel herself recoiling in instinctive disgust and revulsion. She could not imagine having to live here-she would rather call on the power of the cloch and destroy it, to cleanse the earth in fire and storm. And she won-dered: Is this the way Tiarna Mac Ard felt, when he first walked into our little cottage back in Ballintubber? "There’s an apothecary I need to see," she told him. "Du Val, in Cat’s Alley."

He glanced at her curiously, then shrugged. "Let’s go this way, then, to avoid the market."

They approached du Val’s establishment from below the market. Jenna half expected to see one of the gardai standing outside the tiny shop, but none of these men had accompanied her on her first visit. A few dozen strides from the sign, she saw a man, dressed as a freelander, come out the doorway and turn away from her toward the market.

She stopped, her hand on Coelin’s arm. "What?" he asked.

"That man…" She knew him. Without seeing his face, she recognized the walk, the posture, the feel of him: Ennis O’Deoradhain, whom she’d last seen fleeing through the fields just across the River Duan near Ath Iseal. Jenna held her breath, wanting to duck into shadows and suddenly wishing that she hadn’t dismissed the gardai. Her hand went around Lamh Shabhala; if the man had turned, if he’d seen her and started toward her, she would have used the cloch and struck him down.

But he didn’t turn, didn’t seem to notice her at all.

"What about him?" Coelin asked. "Who is he?"

Jenna shook her head. O’Deoradhain was hurrying away, already at the end of the lane where it opened into the Low Town Market. "When…after we left Ballintubber, we met that man. I think he was part of the group of Connachtans who were pursuing us." And if he’s here in Lar Bhaile, if he’s snooping around after me, then chances are he’s the one who sent the assassin. .

"Well, let’s go after him, then," Coelin said, starting to pursue O’Deoradhain, but Jenna held

him back.

"No " she told him. "He's already too far away, and he may have friends with him. Let's talk to du Val."

The shop was as pungent and dark as before, but du Val was in the front bent over one of his tables with a mortar and pestle, grinding a small pinch of plant material into a powder. The dwarfish man glanced up as Jenna and Coelin entered, and grunted.

"It's not even been a month," he called out without preamble. "Well, this time the price is four morceints, as I told you. And six the next time."

Jenna was glad for the dimness of the shop, so that Coelin could not see the flush that crept up her neck. "I hear you," she said. "Just get it."

Du Val sniffed. He set the pestle on the table with a loud clunk. His ugly, craggy face seemed to leer at her for a moment, then he turned and went back into the recesses of the shop. Jenna wondered what Coelin was thinking, seeing her spend four morceints without a thought when he had been ecstatic to have received one the other night. She didn't dare look at him while they waited. Du Val returned in a few minutes with a pouch, which he extended to Jenna, palm up. When she reached to take it, he pulled his hand back. "Five morceints," he said.

"You told me four."

One robed shoulder lifted and fell. "1 changed my mind between then and now. Maybe the price will make you change yours about taking this, but if not,

I might as well line my pockets with your foolishness."

Jenna felt the words like a slap, her cheeks reddening. "All I have to do is whisper to the Ri or Banrion, and they will have you in irons before the evening bells ring."

Du Val snorted and tossed the pouch of anduilleaf into the air and caught it again. "And if you do that, what happens when this is gone?" He gave her a lopsided leer. His glance went to Coelin. "I notice that you don't have your usual escort with you, only someone who makes his living singing for coppers and ale. Seems to me that you're being careful not to let anyone know you've come to see me, so I think I'm fairly safe from your threats, Holder."

’Jenna," Coelin said behind her. "Let’s just leave. This man is a thief. I’ve seen the type of people who come in here."

No," Jenna answered. She turned back to du Val. "Fine, I’ll give you the five morceints, but you’ll also tell me something in return. There was

a man who came from this shop just before we arrived. What did he want?"

Du Val sniffed. "I’m not in the habit of talking about my customers," he answered. "I’d also think that’s something you’d be pleased to hear, Holder."

"His name is Ennis O’Deoradhain."

Du Val’s lips pursed and he waggled his head. "So you do know him. Interesting."

"Why was he here?" When du Val didn’t answer, Jenna’s hand went to the cloch, with du Val’s black gaze watching the movement. "The man’s a danger to me, du Val. I’ll do what I need to do to protect myself, even if means killing someone."

Du Val blinked, then cleared his throat and spat on the floor. "Brave words, Holder. I love the way you lift your chin and look down at me when you say that. It’s so haughty and practiced-you’ve obviously been watching the Riocha around you. I also believe that’s another bluff. I don’t think you’re capable of striking a man down without provocation. Not yet, anyway. Tell me, Holder, how did it feel, when you killed the as-sassin?"

"I didn’t kill him. He killed-" Jenna stopped. "How did you know that?"

"I hear the things that run through the underbelly of this city. That’s one of the reasons people come to me."

"Like O’Deoradhain."

Du Val just stared at her.

"He sent the assassin, didn’t he?"

The dwarf shook his head, like a parent disappointed in a child. "Holder, you have no concept of who your real enemies are. Or your real friends. That makes me wonder if you will be holding Lamh Shabhala for much longer." He held out his left hand palm up and waggled his fingers. "Four morceints," he said. "I’m giving you a

discount for not talking about O'Deoradhain."

Jenna untied a pouch from under her cloca and counted out the coins into du Val's hand. He gave her the pouch of anduilleaf, but held onto it for a moment as her fingers closed around it. "Holder," he said, his voice gravelly and low. "Please. You can't continue this. The leaf will consume you. It will change you. It's already begun."

Jenna snatched the bag away. "I won't be back," she told du Val. "If I need to, I'll find another source."

"You'll need to," du Val said somberly.

As they left the shop, Coelin stroked her hair and she stopped, leaning against him. "Coelin. ." she whispered. She lifted her face to him, unable to stop the tears now that she was outside. She wasn't sure why she was crying: fear, or du Val's harsh words, or simply the confusion that whirled in her mind. Coelin's thumb gently blotted the tears, and he kissed her eyelids, then her mouth.

"What's the matter, Jenna?" "Everything," she answered. "And nothing."

"Is it this O'Deoradhain? Are you scared of what he might do?"

She nodded. It was as good an answer as any.

"Then I'll find him," Coelin said. "I have my sources, too. If he's down here in Low Town, I can uncover him. I'll find out where he lives, find out what he's asking. And you can send the Ri's gardai after him." He smiled down at her. "See?" he said. "You do have friends you can trust." He kissed her once more, his hand moving across the mound of her breast, and she felt herself yearn for more. "Come with me now, Jenna," he whispered. "Let me love you."

"I want to, Coelin. I want to so much."

"But. .?"

She opened her mind to the cloch, feeling the city around her with its power: her gardai were moving through the square, searching for her. One was close by, moving toward Cat's Alley. "I've been away too long already. I have to go back."

"Ah." The word held a bitterness in its tone. He

"Coelin, it's not that," she protested. "I do want you. I miss you every day."

"Then when, Jenna? When will we be together?"

"When you come to sing next. Afterward. I'll make arrangements."

He smiled at her and kissed her again. She pulled him close, not want-ing to let go yet forcing herself to push him away. She nodded toward the far end of the lane. "They're coming for me now," she said.

"Go that way."

"Jenna. ."

"Hush," she said. "Don't say anymore. Go. Find O'Deoradhain for me. We'll be together soon. I promise."

He took a step backward, still looking at her, then turned. She watched him go, then turned herself and walked toward Low Town Market Square.

Chapter 22: Proposals

THE mage-lights came that night and Jenna caught their power, crying out in mingled longing and agony. Afterward, the anduilleaf dulled only the worst of the pain, and, following a troubled sleep, she took it again early in the morning. The arm was still throbbing, a steady pulsing mirrored by a nauseous headache as she and Aoife moved toward her apartment from the common room, where she'd breakfasted with the Ban-rion.

"Holder, if you have a moment. .?"

Nevan O Liathain called to Jenna as she passed the door of his apart-ments. She stopped, closing her eyes before glancing inside as a wave of pain swept over her: the Ri Ard's son was standing near the fireplace. Rich, dark hangings adorned the walls, gleaming with bright colors; a woven carpet softened the varnished wood of the floor; the tables and chair were carved and expensive, unlike anything she’d seen in the keep. She suspected that most of the furnishings had traveled with O Liathain from Dun Laoghaire. O Liathain looked as rich and as handsome as his surroundings, his raven-black hair oiled, those strange, light blue eyes regarding her.

Jenna saw no way to politely decline. She nodded to Aoife and went to the doorway. "Good morning, Tanaise Rig. Of what service can I be to you?"

O Liathain glanced significantly at Aoife, and Jenna waved to the ser-vant. "Wait in the hall for me," she said. "I won’t be but a few minutes." She hoped that was true; she didn’t know how much longer she could hear the headache, and she longed for another cup of the leaf. Aoife curtsied and continued down the hall; Jenna took a step inside the apartment.

"The door, please, Holder," O Liathain said. "Too many ears and eyes " Jenna pulled the door to, and O Liathain took a few steps toward her stopping an arm’s reach away. He moved with the ease of a dancer or a well-trained fighter. "This is most improper, I know," he said. "Yet I would speak with you privately, without curious ears listening." Another step She could see his lips twist upward in a momentary smile. "I would like to suggest something to you that would be to our mutual advantage."

"And what would that be, Tanaise Rig?"

Another vanishing smile, gone like frost under a spring’s sun. "I will forgo delicacy here, Holder," he answered. "Let me be blunt. It’s come to my attention that your mam is carrying Tiarna Mac Ard’s child. No, you needn’t protest or try to deny it-we both know it’s true. I also know that for the moment Padraic is unlikely to legitimize the child or his relation-ship with your mam. Yet if he did so, if he took your mam to wife, and acknowledged you as his own daughter as well. . well, then that would make you a Riocha, wouldn’t it?"

Jenna sniffed. "I am evidently not quite so awed by that possibility as you, Tanaise Rig. While I would like to see the Tiarna Mac Ard acknowl-edge my mam and his child by her, if that’s the case, I have no interest in being named his daughter."

A nod. An appraising, sidewise glance. "I believe you miss the implica-tions, Holder," he continued.

"If you are Riocha, then you are a peer to anyone here. And if, let us say, the Holder of Lamh Shabhala were to marry, especially someone with power himself, why, that would be an alliance to be reckoned with." O Liathain spread his hands wide.

"I hope I make my intentions clear enough for you."

He did. Jenna could feel a fist grasping her stomach and twisting as he watched her, and for a moment the edges of her vision went dark with the pounding in her temples and her right arm. She struggled to show nothing on her face. She lifted her hand to the cloch around her neck, and he stared at the patterns of scars on her flesh with a flat gaze. He wants the power you hold. He will take it any way he can, through marriage if he can. He will try this, but if it doesn't work, he will try another way. He may have already tried another way. Jenna knew what Cianna would tell her, that this was part of the game, and she must play the card as well and as long as she could. What she must not say was "no."

It would not be good Politics to have the heir to the Ri Ard's throne as an open enemy.

Holder?" he asked, tilting his head. The gold-threaded patterns on his gray cloca shimmered as he took another step toward her. His hand reached out and took hers. He looked at Lamh Shabhala, cupped in her palm, the chain taut around her neck. "So small, this stone. And yet so many lust for it." His finger moved over the smooth surface, trapped in its silver cage, but his blue eyes held hers. "I understand that feeling."

He let the stone drop back to her chest. "Listen to me, Holder," he said. "I can apply enough pressure to Mac Ard to make him do as I say with your mam. I'm a reasonable person, Holder, and, I'm told, not unhand-some for a man of my age. I believe it is possible we could come to love each other in time, but if not. ." He shrugged. "I would not expect fidelity of you any more than you would expect it of me, and as long as tongues aren't wagging throughout the tuatha, I would not care who you see."

Jenna could feel that her eyes were wide, that she must be showing the sick fright she felt inside. O Liathain nodded, as if what he saw on her face was what he expected. "I don't ask for an answer now, Holder. But soon I must. I would have you remember that there are… other ways. You may have thwarted the first attempts, but others might come, more difficult to prevent. Or perhaps a more

efficient tactic would be not to attack you, but rather those you love."

"Tanaise Rig, are you threatening me?"

O Liathain put his hand to his throat in theatrical horror. His eyes widened almost comically. "Me? Certainly not." Then his hand dropped, and his handsome face went serious. "I’m simply pointing out your vul-nerabilities to you, Holder. And offering you a solution to effectively ne-gate them. Think about my offer." The fleeting smile returned. "I leave to return to Dun Laoghaire in three days. It would be best to have an answer by then, so I might speak to my da, the RI Ard. I assume you know not to speak of this to anyone."

He brushed past her then, going to the door. His hand closed around the brass handle. "You’ll be at the fete the RI and Banrion are giving for me in two nights?"

Jenna nodded, silent.

"I will look forward to seeing you then, and perhaps speaking privately at that time." He swung the door open, and gestured toward the corridor. "Have a good morning, Holder."

She managed to hold her stomach in check until she and Aoife had turned down the corridor toward her apartment.

Jenna spoke to no one, though the encounter with

O Liathain troubled her all day and most of the next. She remained in her rooms, letting Aoife bring her meals with the excuse that she was too tired and in too much pain to dine with others. Cianna sent word that she would like to see her at dinner that night, and Jenna told Aoife to let the Banrion know that she would be there.

She could not hide forever, and perhaps Cianna would be a confidante. Her mam had already gone down to the common room with Mac Ard when the bells rang the sunset and Jenna left her room, Aoife accompany-ing her as she had her own duties in the kitchen. They were nearing the stairs when she heard her name called.

"Holder!"

"Tanaise Rig." She gave him a perfunctory curtsy; Aoife dropping nearly to the floor with hers, as was proper. O Liathain was accompanied by a tiarna

she'd seen at the table, well down from her. His cloca was a somber gray, the color of Dun Laoghaire, and he remained back as O Liathain approached her.

"Are you on your way to supper? Good. We will walk with you, then." o Liathain extended his arm to her; Jenna hesitated, but there seemed no graceful way to refuse. She placed her left hand in the crook of his elbow, and he smiled at her. "Come then," he said.

They walked on, the other tiarna and Aoife a few paces behind.

"Have you thought of what we spoke about yesterday?" he asked.

"Truthfully, I've thought of little else."

"Has an answer come to you?"

"No, Tanaise Rig. Not as yet."

His lips pursed, pushing out from the chiseled, perfect lines of his face. "Ah, I suppose that's what I would say in your place. But, as I said, I expect to hear from you before I leave Lar Bhaile to return home."

His face inclined toward her, he smiled, but the gesture never touched the rest of his face. The eyes were as cold as the waves of the Ice Sea as they approached the stairs leading down to the hall. "I…

I shall have an answer-"

A cry-"Stop!" — and an answering wail cut off her words. O Liathain pushed Jenna to one side of the corridor and with the same motion, drew the sword girded at his side. Jenna moved back again, trying to see past the man and reaching instinctively for Lamh Shabhala. Her awareness went streaming out with the cloch's energy, and she felt someone die: a spark guttering out in the web.

"Aoife!" Jenna cried. She pushed past O Liathain's sheltering body and stopped. "No. ."

Aoife lay sprawled on the flags of the corridor, bright blood streaming from a gash torn in her side. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open in her dying wail. O Liathain's tiarna was standing over her, his short blade held back at the end of the killing stroke, the honed edges dripping thick blood. "What have you done, Baird?" O Liathain roared at the

man, his sword now pointing at his companion. Jenna could hear footsteps pound-ing up the stairs toward them, shouts of alarm, and the ringing of un-sheathed metal.

Baird lowered his sword. "She intended to attack the Holder," he said. A booted foot prodded Aoife’s limp arm. "Look-the dagger’s still in her hand. She started to rush at your backs; I called, then I cut her down before she could reach you."

"No!" Jenna cried again. She went to Aoife, sinking down on her knees beside the body. She looked at Baird in fury, her right hand tight around the cloch, and the man backed away from her, his eyes widening in fear.

"Holder, no! I swear-"

"Jenna!" Mac Ard’s voice snapped her head around. Padraic was stand-ing, sword in hand, at the top of the stairs. Half a dozen other people crowded the landing behind him, Jenna’s mam among them. Mac Ard pushed through them and came up to Jenna. "Do nothing with the cloch," he said to her. "Not here."

Jenna pointed at Baird. "He killed Aoife," she shouted. "How dare you tell me to do nothing!"

Baird dropped his sword; the blade clanged discor-dantly on the stones.

"Tiarna Mac Ard," the man wailed, "Don’t let her kill me."

O Liathain stepped forward. He had sheathed his own sword, and went to Mac Ard, placing a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. "Baird did as he had to," he said. "The girl tried to kill the Holder, and perhaps me as well."

"That’s not true!" Jenna shouted. "Aoife wouldn’t do that!"

"See for yourself, Tiarna," O Liathain told Mac Ard. "My man is blame-less in this."

Mac Ard gave O Liathain a dark look, then stepped forward and went to one knee alongside Jenna. She was trembling, her hand quivering around the stone, and she could barely hold back the power, wanting to unleash it at someone, anyone. "Calm yourself, Jenna," Mac Ard whis-pered to her as he knelt. "We both need to be very careful here." He leaned over, taking the

dagger from Aoife's hand and turning it before his face. The blade was long, the leather-wrapped hilt ending in a knob of yellowed whalebone carved as a twisted knot. "This was made in Con-nachta," he said, loudly enough so everyone could hear. "I know the hilt design-it's one they use in the ironworks of Valleylair."

"Then our cousins in Tuath Connachta have much to answer for," O Liathain said. "I'll give this news to my father, and tell him how they threatened my life and the Holder's."

"No doubt the Rl Ard will send a strong letter scolding the Ri Connachta in Thiar," Mac Ard responded, getting to his feet. He put Aoife's dagger in his belt; O Liathain watched, but didn't ask for the weapon. His face remained somber, but Jenna saw his eyebrows lower as he stared at Mac Ard.

"The Ri Ard will do what is within his power," O Liathain said. "This was a cowardly act; we can't condone it."

"Indeed," Mac Ard answered. He held his hand out to Jenna, still kneel-ing alongside Aoife's body. Jenna ignored the offer. Instead, she reached out and closed Aoife's eyes, then got to her feet by herself. She strode to o Liathain and stood before him, staring into his face. He returned the stare placidly, unblinking.

"I'm going back to my rooms," Jenna said: to O Liathain, to Mac Ard, to her mam and the others watching. "If anyone follows me, I will use the cloch. I, too, can do what I need to do." She spun on her toes and stalked down the corridor away from the carnage.

Baird shrank away to the wall as she passed. Behind her, there was only silence.

The Banrion first sent her handmaiden, who was visibly trembling when Jenna opened the door, holding a mug of anduilleaf brew. "The Banrion asks permission to visit the Holder in her chambers," the woman said. Her eyes flicked upward once to Jenna's face; otherwise, her gaze remained fixed on the floor, as if fascinated by the parquet pattern there. Jenna sighed.

"When?" she asked. "My mistress waits just outside."

Tell the Banrion that I'm only a guest here and

these are after all her rooms, not mine. She may come in if she wishes."

Jenna drained the mug of its bitter contents; the handmaiden curtsied and fled. A few moments later, the door opened again and Cianna entered in a rustle of her ornate, silken cloca, her torc gleaming golden around her neck. As Jenna watched, she took a seat near the fire. She said nothing, only watched Jenna as she paced back and forth across the rug.

He had her killed," Jenna said at last. "He didn’t care that he was killing a person. She was just… an illustration to me of what he could do- A warning."

Cianna continued to sit quietly. Jenna plopped into the chair across from the Banrion, not caring about the lack of etiquette. Cianna raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t move. "I don’t know what to do now," Jenna said.

"We are talking about the Tanaise Rig?" Cianna asked, stirring finally. Jenna nodded. "I thought so. He departs in a few more days, and he grows impatient. Do you know why he leaves?"

Now it was Jenna who sat silent. She moved her head slowly from side to side, trying to keep back the headache that threatened to engulf her, starting to feel the brew send its welcome warmth through her body.

"Tuath Connachta is gathering an army on its borders," she said. "They have demanded erratic-blood payment-for the death of Fiacra De Derga. Padraic tells me you may not remember that name, but he was the tiarna you killed in Ballintubber when the power of Lamh Shabhala first came to you. The erratic is the excuse for their aggression, and my husband has already sent back word that they may wait for their payment forever. Of course, what they really want is you. ." Cianna stopped. She seemed to sigh. "Or more precisely, what you hold. We may be at war very soon, and the Ri Ard doesn’t want his son and heir caught up in that collision. The Ri Ard knows he must stay above feuds between the tuatha if he wants to remain on his throne."

"The Tanaise Rig wants me to marry him," Jenna said.

Cianna held her hands out to the low flames of the peat fire, rubbing them softly together. She didn’t look at Jenna. "Does that surprise you? If I were

Tanaise Rig, I would have made that suggestion to you, too-just as soon as I had decided that it was too dangerous to take the stone from you myself."

"He threatened to do this. He hinted that to make me accept the offer he'd attack the people I loved. Aoife was to let me know that he meant it. That wasn't her dagger-I'm sure of that. That man probably handed it to her, then immediately killed her. I wasn't watching; she was behind me, both of them were." Jenna couldn't speak. The tears choked her throat and blurred her vision, the headache threatened to overwhelm her. If Cianna had opened her arms then, if the Banrion had called to her, Jenna would have sunk into her embrace like a child searching for the comfort of her mam. But the Banrion only watched, wheezing slightly as she breathed and hugging herself as if cold.

"You could do much worse than the Tanaise Rig," Cianna said. "I told you before, marriage is a weapon. Now I'll tell you that once it's in your hands, you'll find the edge can cut for you as well as O Liathain."

That brought Jenna's head up and dried the tears. "You can't be se-rious."

"I am. Very much so.

"He killed Aoife."

"You killed Mac Ard's cousin De Derga and those with him. You killed two Connachtans more near Ath Iseal, I was told. And there was the assassin."

"All of that was different," Jenna protested. "With De Derga, I literally didn't know what I was doing. And the men near Ath Iseal-that was pure self-defense. They would have killed us had I not acted. The assassin was suicide; I was only trying to capture him."

"So he could be tortured and tell us what he knew, and then be killed." Cianna gave Jenna a wan smile. "I blame you for none of that, Jenna. You did what you felt was necessary, and you didn't worry that you were killing someone's son or brother or father or friend. That's as it should be, to protect yourself. But I would argue that's also what the Tanaise Rig did, if he was responsible for Aoife's death."

"I didn't threaten the Tanaise Rig. He wasn't in danger from me."

"The Tanaise Rig, the Ri Ard, as well as Ri Gabair or Ri Connachta or most of the Riocha for that matter, always feel threatened by a perceived stronger power. That’s what you represent with Lamh Shabhala around your neck. If you aren’t their ally, then you’re their enemy. That’s the way they see the world, in cold black and white. You are on their side or you are against them. There is no middle ground." Cianna lifted a finger against Jenna’s burgeoning protest. "And your saying that it’s not so doesn’t change that perception. I know that’s not your vision of the world. It’s not mine, either. But it is theirs."

"I don’t love him. I never could."

"What does love have to do with marriage? Do you think I love my husband?" Cianna gave a bitter, short laugh that ended in a barking cough. For a moment, she spasmed, leaning over as a series of coughs racked her body. Then she sat up again, wiping her mouth with a lace handkerchief, blotting away the blood on her lips. "Or that he loves me?" she finished. "It is enough that the two of you work together, with what he can do as Tanaise Rig and eventually Ri Ard, and you with Lamh Shabhala."

’To do what?" Jenna asked.

Whatever you can." Cianna closed her eyes, as if in pain. When they opened again, she smiled at Jenna. "You can’t say ’no’ to him. Not yet. But if it’s not what you want, you can also delay, and see what tomorrow brings."

Jenna pounced on that, like a drowning person grabbing a stick ex-tended from the bank. "How? How can I delay?"

"The Tanaise Rig must leave, but you can tell him that you are in too much pain to travel-that much at least is close to the truth, and he knows it. You can tell him that once Lamh Shabhala has opened the way for the other clochs to feed on the mage-lights and you no longer have that burden on you, then you’ll come to him in Dun Laoghaire and be his wife. Until then, you will stay here under Ri Gabair’s protection. That’s a reasonable compromise, and he won’t be able to refuse it." Her shoulders lifted under her cloca. "And who knows what might happen in that time."

Relief flooded into Jenna, the tension slowly receding. She went to the Banrion and knelt before her chair, taking the woman's hand in hers. "Thank you, Banrion. You are a friend where I did not expect to find one."

Cianna's face gentled, and with her free hand, she stroked Jenna's hair. "I'm pleased you feel that way," she said. "It's what I would want."

Chapter 23: Answers

JENNA was escorted to the fete by Mac Ard and her mam. As Maeve walked down the stairs, her cloca moved against her body, and Jenna could see the slight swell of her abdomen. She wondered if others saw it as well; she wondered most if Mac Ard had noticed, and what his thoughts might be.

The Banrion had sent Jenna one of her own cloca to wear, trimmed in gold thread and in the colors of Tuath Gabair. The cloca left her arms bare to the elbow, and Jenna had not let her mam bandage the right arm. "Let them see it," she'd told her. "Let them see what Lamh Shabhala does to its Holder." The stone itself she also let show, bright against the darker cloth. As a gem, it was plainer than any of the gems at the throats of the tiarna below, but its very plainness spoke of its power.

She'd taken a large draught of the anduilleaf before they left. The herb roiled in her stomach as they descended the staircase in the Great Hall toward the sound of pipes, bodhran, and flute, all eyes on them. Most of the Riocha were already there, the ceil giallnai in their finest, the higher-ranking Riocha already talking in polite circles, watching the stairway for the Ri and Banrion who would enter with O Liathain, their entrances as carefully choreographed as the seating arrangements.

Halfway down the stair and looking at the faces upturned to them, Jenna spotted Coelin, standing with his giotar near the other musicians at the end of the hall. He had a broad grin on his face, and she smiled back at him. Maeve noticed the exchange, for she saw her mam's focus shift for a moment and a brief frown cross her face. "Jenna," her mam whispered, leaning toward her. "Coelin has no importance here. Don't make a fool of yourself."

"You needn't worry. I'm not with child by him," Jenna answered. Her mam's hiss of hurt and irritation made Jenna immediately regret her words, but she made no apology. It's the pain talking, Mam, not me… They walked down the rest of the stairs in silence. They were immediately engulfed, several of the tiarna surrounding them, smiling and nodding. Jenna found herself torn away from her mam, who remained with Padraic as several of the unmarried women came up to him.

Tiarna Galen Aheron of Tuath Infochla, resplendent in his cloca of green and gold, with a leine of fine white cloth underneath, was suddenly next to her. He was a burly man, muscular now in his prime, but Jenna suspected that the burliness would turn to fat soon enough, leaving the tiarna huge and slow. She also remembered that Cianna had named him as one of those who coveted Lamh Shabhala himself. She could easily imagine those thick fingers drop-ping a purse of gold morceints into the palm of a paid assassin.

"Good evening, Holder," he said, his breath scented with mint. "A fine party for the Tanaise Rig, don’t you think? A shame he’ll be leaving. Have you ever given any thought of going to Dun Laoghaire yourself?" He asked the question with a slight incline of his head, and with enough emphasis that Jenna wondered if he might not know or at least suspect, what O Liathain had asked of her. If it hadn’t surprised the Banrion, then others of the Riocha would certainly have suspected it as well.

"I would like to see Dun Laoghaire sometime," she answered, trying to return the smile. "Perhaps I shall, one day."

"Soon, possibly? After all, I would think-" Aheron paused as the mu-sicians suddenly stopped playing and gave a loud, ornate flourish, his gaze going past Jenna’s shoulder and up. "Ah, here comes the guest of honor now…"

The Riocha gathered in the Great Hall turned as one, applauding po-litely. Jenna turned to see the Ri and Banrion at the top of the stair, with Cianna holding to both the Ri’s and O Liathain’s arms. O Liathain’s eyes caught Jenna’s for a moment; she looked down and away as Aheron glanced appraisingly at her. When the trio reached the foot of the stair, the Riocha closed around them, everyone talking at once. Jenna held back; she looked over her shoulder at the far end of the hall to where Coelin stood. He nodded to her. He seemed nervous and excited, his eyes wide, and she realized that he saw none of the underlying complexity-he was awed simply to be here. His naivete almost made her smile.

"Good evening to you, Holder."

Jenna turned back quickly. O Liathain was standing before her, a cadre of tiarna behind him.

He smiled at her, his gaze wandering past her for a

moment to where she'd just been looking. She lowered her head, but he stopped her automatic curtsy by picking up her right hand. He held it, looking at the pattern of scars mottling her skin.

"No bandages tonight," he said. "That's as it should be. A warrior should be proud of the scars of battle. There's no shame in them." He kissed her scarred hand. She tried to smile, feeling everyone watching, listening. "By the way, I was thinking of asking that young singer-the one from your village-to come to Dun Laoghaire and entertain us there. He has an excellent voice."

"Aye," Jenna answered, keeping her eyes downcast. "That he does."

"I wonder," O Liathain continued, "if you would have a moment to speak with me later this evening? More. . privately." Jenna looked up; his blue eyes pierced her, demanding.

"As the Tanaise Rig wishes, of course," she answered.

"Good." The corners of his mouth lifted. "I will look forward to that. In the meantime, I must speak to these good people I must leave behind tomorrow morning. Until later, then…" He kissed her hand once more, then released it, turning to the other Riocha. Jenna heard laughter, and O Liathain's rich voice starting another conversation. Someone spoke to her, and she smiled back politely, but she paid little attention to the words. She could feel the touch of O Liathain's lips on the back of her hand, and she was afraid to touch the stone around her neck.

The fete seemed interminable. Jenna wandered from conversation to con-versation, occasionally finding her mam, Mac Ard, or Banrion Cianna, but without a chance to speak with any of them. The musicians began playing again, and she was asked to dance by the Ri-a request she could not decline-then afterward by Tiarna Aheron. Coelin seemed to have van-ished; she could not find him in the crush of people. A stripe and a half later by the clock-candle near the stairs, the cold of the Great Hall was seeping into her bones despite the fires and the crowd and the dancing, and she could feel the old pain tingling in the fingertips and joints of her right hand. Jenna knew that she'd need to return to her room for more anduilleaf before the end, and she wondered how she could manage to leave without being noticed.

"Holder?"

Baird, O Liathain's man, was standing before her. Jenna could feel her face tightening as she glared at the man who had murdered Aoife. Her voice was frost and ice. "What do you want?"

"The Tanaise Rig asks if you would come with me. He said to remind you that you promised him an answer and that he awaits you in a side chamber to hear it."

Jenna’s stomach turned over and she could feel the acid burning in her throat. Baird had already turned to go. "This way, Holder. ." She fol-lowed him down a side aisle of the hall. He knocked on a door near the south end.

"Enter," a muffled, familiar voice answered. Baird opened the door and gestured to Jenna to go through, closing it behind her and remaining outside.

O Liathain was seated on a chair, his legs propped up on the stone flags of the fireplace, his boots off. He gestured to a chair next to him. "Please," he said. His voice was oddly gentle, almost tired. "It’s weary, standing and dancing all night, and I’m sure your feet are as sore as mine."

"Thank you, Tanaise Rig." Jenna settled into the chair, feeling the wel-come warmth of the fire wash over her. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. Jenna was content to have it that way, trying to think of what she might say to the man. When he finally did speak, his voice made her start.

"Have you reflected on our previous conversation?"

"I’ve thought of little else, Tanaise Rig," Jenna answered truthfully. "After all, you. . emphasized with Aoife just how important my answer was to you."

A look almost of pain played over his face in the firelight. "You are blunt, Holder. That can be an asset, if you use it in the right circum-stances. But at the wrong time. ." He let his voice trail off.

"And which is this-the right time or the wrong?"

He sat up in his chair, turning so that he faced her. "Here, we can speak openly, since there are just the two of us and my man holds the door."

"Aye. He seems to be a man who would kill someone if you ask him to do so, even if that person was entirely innocent of wrongdoing."

The right side of O Liathain’s mouth twitched as if with some inner amusement. "Innocent? Let me

speak frankly now, Holder. Did I order the girl killed? Aye, I did. Was the-well, shall we call it a lesson? — intended for you? Only partially. There was another who was even more distressed by the incident and it was mostly for that person's, ah, benefit, that I told Baird to do as he did. The girl was hardly innocent, Jenna. She may have been your servant, but she was doing the bidding of another. I happen to know that Aoife told that person's assassin where and when he could find you."

Jenna knew the shock of that statement showed on her face. "I don't. that. Aoife wouldn't have betrayed me that way." "It's true, nonetheless."

"Show me the proof. Tell me who this 'other person' is." O Liathain took a long, slow breath. He put his feet back on the hearth, slouching again in his chair. "I will. In time. When I know you and I are of one mind. Until then, you will have to trust me and trust my intentions. Did I order Aoife killed. Aye, I did. Did I do it only to demon-strate to you how far I would go to have you as my wife?" His lips pursed, his hands lifted palms up from his lap and fell again. "That was, I'll admit, a secondary consideration. But only secondary. I had Aoife killed to tell those who would harm you that you are under my protection, to show them that I knew more than they believed and that Dun Laoghaire has long arms." He looked over to her, the blue eyes reflecting fire. "What is your answer to me, Holder? Aye, or nay?"

"I…" Jenna's throat convulsed. She remembered Cianna's advice; it was all she had. She could not look at him and say no-he would kill her mam or Coelin. "You made another promise to me-that Mac Ard would also marry my mam and make her Riocha."

O Liathain nodded. "That he will do, when I put pressure on him. The Tanaise Rig will not marry a commoner."

"Then your answer is aye," she said finally. "But Tanaise Rig, I can't go with you yet."

His burgeoning smile transformed to a frown, darkly. "Why not?" "You don't know how Lamh Shabhala hurts," she told him. The truth of that statement made it easier to say the lie she had been constructing for the last few days. "Lamh Shabhala will open the other clochs na thintri soon-no more than four or five appearances of the mage-lights from now. I need to stay here until that happens-I /eel that. Lamh Shabhala tells me this. The mage-lights would not follow me as far as Dun Laoghaire, and the cloch tells me to remain here, near the center of Talamh an Ghlas. I must stay here until Lamh Shabhala opens the other stones. When that happens, then I will come to you in Dun Laoghaire. I promise that it will be no more than a month from now, when you will be holding a cloch yourself."

He was fingering the stone around his own neck, the stone Jenna knew Was only a jewel, no more. "How do I know you tell the truth?" he scowled. "Once I’m gone, you may decide that it’s safe to change your mind." we are to be ’of one mind’ as you say, then you must learn to trust what I tell you also," Jenna answered. "And didn’t you just tell me that the arm of Dun Laoghaire is long?"

"Indeed it is." He said nothing for a time. The fire crackled and hissed in the fireplace, sending a column of whirling sparks upward. Jenna moved her right arm so that the fire’s radiance fell on the perpetually cold flesh, the welcome heat easing the growing discomfort somewhat. "Are you aware that Tuath Connachta is gathering an army and that they may attack Tuath Gabair?"

Jenna nodded. "The Banrion gave me the news."

"Did she also tell you that the RI no doubt hopes for Lamh Shabhala to be part of that battle, if it comes to that, that he would love to see the lightnings of your cloch smash the enemy and send them fleeing for their lives back to the Westering Sea? No, you needn’t answer; I can see by your face that she didn’t. I can also see that the thought appalls you."

"I won’t be used that way," she said. "As a weapon. To kill."

O Liathain vented a quick, unamused laugh.

"Since we’re being blunt, then let me say that you have no choice," he told her. "Lamh Shabhala is a weapon. It has always been a weapon. If you don’t wield it in war against the enemies of those who protect you or if you’re unwilling to protect yourself with its power, then someone will take it from you, someone who is willing to use it. I don’t say that as a threat or to attempt to frighten you, Jenna. I say that simply because it’s the bare truth, and if you don’t accept it as such, your life will be a short one."

"I don’t-" Jenna started to protest, then closed her mouth. It is true. You know it. The blood is already on your hands, and there will be more.

She could feel twin tears course down her face. O Liathain made no move to comfort her. He watched, fingers prowling in his dark, gray-spattered beard.

"Here is what we will do," O Liathain said. "We will go back into the hall, together, with you on my arm. You will stay on my arm for a time and

everyone will notice. Let them talk. That's exactly what we want. We will also go to the Ri and the Banrion, and we will tell them of our plans. That way, my-let's deem it an 'investment'-in you is protected by their knowledge, and they will understand that you must be kept safe or the Ri Ard and I will be most upset."

Jenna sniffed, rubbing angrily at her eyes. "And Mac Ard and my mam?"

"Mac Ard will notice the two of us together; he will see us chatting with the Ri and Banrion. He will know what that means; when I speak with him later, I guarantee he won't be surprised." O Liathain reached down and picked up his boots, pulling them over his stockings. He rose his chair and extended his hand to Jenna. "Let us make our en-trance," he said.

Jenna licked dry lips and rubbed again at her eyes. She lifted her left hand to O Liathain and he shook his head. "No, it should be the hand of power I hold," he said. "That, I think, will send the message best."

His own hand felt cool and smooth under the stiff, unyielding flesh of her right hand. He placed her fingers on his forearm, on the soft fabric of his leine.

With her hand on O Liathain's arm, they left the room and went into the hall again.

He kept her with him for a candle's stripe.

O Liathain was correct: they were noticed. Jenna could see the eyes on them, the heads that turned to nearby companions for quick, whispered comments. The Ri and Banrion accepted the news with nods and smiles and Cianna nodded once to Jenna when the Ri and the Tanaise Rig were engaged in conversation. Her mam saw, too. Maeve was shadowing Mac Ard, never on the tiarna's arm since their arrival but always near him. She lifted her hand and seemed to smile, but O Liathain moved then and Jenna had no chance to speak with her.

Coelin sang, and O Liathain moved to stand directly in front of the young man, his hand gently covering Jenna's. Coelin faltered once, seeing them, and for the rest of his performance his gaze always skittered past her, sliding over her face with an uncertain smile. When Coelin finished and left the hall to applause, O Liathain and Jenna moved from group to group for a time, until Jenna pressed O Liathain’s arm.

"Tired, Holder?"

"Aye. Exhausted. And my arm… I need to retire for a bit."

Certainly," O Liathain said. "These events are wearisome, aren’t they? But I need to remain for a while longer. Baird will escort you back to your apartment."

I don’t need. ." Jenna began. "That will be fine," she finished.

Baird left her at the door to her rooms, bowing to her as she left him.

A girl no older than herself came scurrying out from the servants’ quarters as she closed the door: Aoife’s replacement, whose name Jenna didn’t now yet. She was plain, her hair dull and close-cropped, and yet her eyes glittered with intelligence.

"Mistress, let me help you. ."

Jenna waved her away. She’ll be someone’s spy.

"I don’t want help."

’But, Mistress, I’m-"

"Go now," Jenna answered sharply. "Leave me." The girl’s eyes wid-ened, then she made a hurried curtsy and fled the room. Jenna heard her voice whispering to the other servants as she closed the door behind her. Jenna went through the outer parlor to her bedroom. There, she removed the cloca the Banrion had lent her. She went to the chest at the foot of her bed and rummaged beneath the clothing there until she felt the packet of anduilleaf. She set a pot of water to boil over the fire and prepared some of the powdered leaf in a mug. She was sipping the pungent liquid when she heard the scrape of a footstep at the door. She whirled around, nearly spilling the potion, her right hand going instinctively to the cloch.

"Coelin. ."

He smiled at her. "I thought you were about to strike me dead with that damned stone."

"How did you get in here?"

He grinned. "I have my ways. Do you want me to leave?"

"By the Mother, no," she answered. She set the mug down and went to him, her arms going around him and her face lifting for his kiss. The embrace was long and urgent, and she pulled him to the bed, enjoying the feel of his hands on her body and the heat of his response. He pulled away from her once, looking down at her with a question in his eyes, and she nodded to him. "Aye," she whispered.

Then they said nothing at all for a time.

Afterward, Jenna drew her leine over herself. There was blood between her thighs and on the bedsheets. She rolled away from him and took the cup of cold anduilleaf, sipping it as she sat on the side of the bed.

It was supposed to be different. While they were together in the few minutes of passion, she had lost herself and forgot everything to simply be with him, but when it was over. . The insistent throbbing of her arm, the dead coldness of the scarred flesh called her back, and suddenly the anduilleaf was more important than being with Coelin. She sought solace in the sour milkiness of the brew, not with the man to whom she'd just given herself. She felt dead inside when she should have been feeling joy and release.

Did you do this because you wanted Coelin that much, or just so o Liathain couldn't be the first? She wanted to cry, but there were no tears inside her.

She felt Coelin move behind her, and his hand trailed from her head down her spine. She shivered and his arms went around her, cupping her breasts. She let herself lean back against him. "Are those the herbs you bought from du Val?" he asked. He kissed the side of her neck. "That potion smells awful."

"And tastes worse. But it helps."

"Mmm." He nuzzled the other side of her neck.

His fingers started to drift lower, and she stopped them. "Jenna. ."

"Hush," she told him. "It was wonderful. It was what I wanted."

She could feel his smile. "I thought, when I saw you with the Tanaise Rig tonight… "

"I was doing what I had to do, Coelin. Nothing else. There’s no love there. There never will be." That, at least, was only the truth. She turned her head, kissing him softly; Coelin grinned at her, then returned the kiss more passionately. When he tried to lay her down again, she shook her head. "No, not now, Coelin. My mam and Mac Ard will be returning soon, and I’m… sore. Later. There will be time. But for now, you’d better go." She stopped, looked into his green, soft eyes, and for a moment felt a surge of the old affection. "My love."

"My love," he answered, and kissed her again. With a sigh, he left the bed. "I nearly forgot," he said as he drew his tunic back over his head. "That man-Ennis O’Deoradhain. I found him. I know where he’s living."

Jenna sat up, her eyes narrowing as remembered anger made her jaw clench. If he sent the assassin, then he is also ultimately responsible for Aoife’s death. . "Where?" she asked.

"On Cooper Street. He has a room in a widow’s house. Her name is Murrin. I’ve seen him a couple times now. Do you want me to do some-thing with him? There are people I know in Low Town…"

"No," Jenna answered. "I will take care of O’Deoradhain myself."

Coelin’s head went back at the ferocity of her words. "You’re certain? He could be dangerous, and I-"

"I will take care of the man," Jenna said decisively. "Don’t worry about him."

Coelin nodded reluctantly. "I should go, then," he said. He looked uncertain, an odd, strained smile on his lips, and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, as if he wanted to say more. "I’ve been asked to play for the Ri again, next week. And the Tanaise Rig said he would talk to his father about me."

The mention of O Liathain’s title brought the coldness back, and Jenna reached for the mug of brew, taking a long swallow and grimacing. "That’s… good," she told Coelin. "When you come here again, we’ll make plans."

He nodded. Turned.

Coelin," she said. She could not keep the desperation from her voice. Tell me that you love

He smiled, looking back over his shoulder. "I love you, Jenna. I always have."

And he left.

Chapter 24: The Traitor

THE Banrion seemed concerned when Jenna came to her requesting half a dozen trusted gardai, but to her credit, Cianna did not ask Jenna why but only nodded in agreement. "Certainly, Holder. Let me call for Labras; he's a good man, and he can choose five others… "

Jenna lifted her hand. "No, Banrion. Not today. After the Tanaise Rig leaves. Tomorrow morning. I need to go into Low Town then."

"Ah," Cianna had said. Just the one sound, then silence. "I'll make arrangements for them to be at Keep Gate at first bell tomorrow, then."

The Banrion started to move away, as if in dismissal, but Jenna cleared her throat. "Banrion, I would like to tell you why. It needs to be a secret between the two of us, though. You're the only person who has given me help, unasked for. Now I would ask it."

Cianna smiled softly. "Jenna, I will know anyway, whether you tell me now or not. The gardai will inform me where you take them, and why. The ones I would send with you aren't as blindly stupid as those you've borrowed before from my husband or Mac Ard. They won't let the Holder roam unaccompanied through Low Town, no matter what she says."

Jenna laughed with the Banrion. "I know. And that's why I came to you."

She told the Banrion about O'Deoradhain, how he had lied to them about himself on their way to Ath Iseal, how he had reacted during the attack by the Connachtans, that she'd glimpsed him in Low Town (though she said nothing about du Val), and how she now suspected the man had been responsible for the assassin.

Gianna’s face was grim when Jenna finished. "Tell me where this man and I will have him fetched here for you," she said. "There’s no need for you to expose yourself to danger, Jenna-and the Tanaise Rig will be upset if you are injured while you remain with us."

Jenna shook her head. "Banrion, I will have Lamh Shabhala to protect me Your gardai will be there only as a precaution. I want to do this myself- I want to see his face and hear his voice."

"Jenna-"

"Please, Banrion. I don’t know any longer who I can trust. I can only trust myself."

Jenna saw Cianna gather herself for another argument, but the Banrion finally dropped her shoulders. She coughed softly a few times, rising from her chair. Servants appeared as if summoned by the rustling of fabric, and the Banrion waved them away. "Come, then," she said. "We should give our farewell to your future husband, and pretend that none of us is plot-ting anything."

"I need four to stay out here and make certain that no one leaves until I’m finished." Jenna gestured to Labras, a tall, burly man with hair so red it almost seemed to burn and eyes as gray as storm clouds. She wasn’t sure she liked the man at all; he seemed to radiate violence, and the abundant scars on his face spoke to his familiarity with it. Yet if the Banrion trusted him… or maybe her reaction to him was only the haze of the anduilleaf. She’d taken two mugs of the brew before they’d left the Keep, knowing she might well be using the cloch, and the herb was like a fog over her mind that wouldn’t quite clear. "Labras, bring someone with you and follow me."

She touched Lamh Shabhala once as the three of them strode toward the door of the small, two-story house. She could feel O’Deoradhain, could feel the pattern of his energy motionless on the second floor. She could sense no fear or apprehension in him.

She decided that would soon change.

An elderly woman came scurrying from the kitchen as they opened the door, stopping suddenly and gaping with an open, toothless mouth at Jenna and the armed men behind her. There were two elderly men in the front parlor, huddled over a

ficheall board and staring with frightened yes at the intruders: Labras with a drawn sword, his companion holding a nocked and ready crossbow. "You have nothing to fear if you stay where you are," Jenna told them. "Widow Murrin, you have a man here named Ennis O'Deoradhain."

"First door to the left at the top of the stairs," the woman said hurriedly pointing, then hopping back as Jenna and the gardai pushed past her and up the stairs. Jenna heard the click of a door shutting as she reached the landing; in the expanded awareness of the cloch, she could feel O'Deoradhain's presence: still and quiet, even though she knew he must have heard the commotion below, the pounding of feet on the stairs and the jingling of the mail over the gardai's tunics. She could sense no danger in him, though, as she had with the assassin. He seemed to be waiting, calm. She started toward the door, but Labras shook his head. "He may have a bow or sword, ready to strike the first person through," he whis-pered. "Let me go in first." He seemed almost eager to do so.

"You needn't worry," Jenna said firmly. "He has a dagger, and it is in its sheath."

"How-?" Labras began, then saw her white-patterned hand touch the stone around her neck. An eyebrow interrupted by the pale line of a scar lifted and fell again. "So he has a dagger. You can see with that?"

"Aye," she told him. She pushed the door open. O'Deoradhain was leaning against a table on the far side of the room, arms folded across his chest.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to find me," he said. His gaze went past Jenna to the two gardai crowding the doorway. "You don't need them."

"No?" Jenna answered. "Strange. I expected you to be running like a frightened rabbit again, as you did the last time I saw you."

"If I were a 'frightened rabbit,' I wouldn't have come to Lar Bhaile at all," O'Deoradhain responded easily. "I wouldn't have made certain you saw me at du Val's. I wouldn't have made it so easy for that handsome, stupid boy with the golden throat to track me down."

His remark caused anger to flare in Jenna. She

grasped Lamh Shabhala, opening it slightly with her mind so that the cold, blue-white power filled her hand. "You knew where I was," she spat. "If you wanted to speak to me, you didn’t need this charade."

O’Deoradhain snorted. He took a step toward her, his hands down at his sides. She saw the well-worn leather of the scabbard there, and heard the gardai shift uneasily behind her. But the man stopped two strides from her. "Oh, aye. I could have walked right up to the gate-and Mac Ard would have had me killed immediately, or the RI Gabair would have bound me in irons to be tortured until I gave them the answers they wanted, or the Tanaise Rig might have had me dragged behind his carriage as he left for Dun Laoghaire, just for the pleasure it would give him. But I could never have gotten to you, Jenna Aoire. They might call me their enemy and be right, but I’m not your enemy."

Aye That’s why you sent the assassin, she wanted to tell him, mockingly. But she saw him through the eyes of Lamh Shabhala, not just her own, and though she could sense that he desired the power she held, there was no malice in him toward her, only jealousy and envy and sadness. The certainty in her failed. "Who’s your master, then?" she asked. "Who sends you? The RI Connachta?"

He laughed and glanced at the gardai. He gestured at Labras with his chin his hands not moving. "I would rather not talk here. In front of them."

"You’ll talk here, or you’ll talk back at the keep. I’ll ask you again, and I’ll know the truth of what you say: are you with Tuath Connachta?"

Again, a laugh. "I gave you the truth when we met. I’m of Inish blood. As to who sent me… I’m a Brathair of the Order of Inishfeirm and the Moister there gave me this task."

Despite herself, Jenna found her interest suddenly piqued at the men-tion of Inishfeirm and the Order. She remembered her da Mall’s tale, and her great-mam’s and great-da’s escape from that island. "And what task was that?"

"To bring you back to Inishfeirm so you could be taught the ways of the cloudmage."

Jenna bristled. The anduilleaf rang in her ears, Lamh Shabhala pulsed in her grasp. "What makes

you think that I need your instruc-" In the fog of the anduilleaf, she nearly missed it: a sudden sense of danger, of attack-not from the man in front of her, but from behind. .

"Jenna!" O'Deoradhain shouted at the same time. He flung himself for-ward as Jenna turned to look.

She caught a glimpse of Labras, no longer holding a sword but with a long dagger in his hand, his gray eyes not on O'Deoradhain but on Jenna and the dagger already beginning to make a sweeping cut that would have found her neck. O'Deoradhain hit Jenna in that same instant; as she fell she glimpsed O'Deoradhain parrying Labras' attack with his own weapon, the clash of blade against blade loud. Then she saw nothing as she struck the floor with a grunt and a cry, trying to roll away. As she tumbled, she heard a shout and a horrible, wet strangling sound: Jenna, on her knees, saw Labras fall, a new, second mouth on his neck gaping wide and frothing blood. The crossbow twanged, the bolt hissing, and O'Deoradhain staggered backward. The remaining gardai tossed the now useless crossbow aside and drew his sword. He moved-toward Jenna, not the wounded O'Deoradhain.

A shout of rage, the tendons standing out like ropes in her neck: Jenna let the power surge from the cloch. A torrent of agony rushed from the cloch, through her arm and into her body, and she threw that torment outward with a scream as light flared from her hand. The searing bolt lifted the garda from his feet and slammed him backward into the wall, lightning crackling madly about his frame. The wood cracked and shat-tered beneath the force of the blow, mingling with the cracking of bones; the body dropped to the floor like a rag doll, neck and spine broken, the wall blackened and smoldering behind him.

The echo of thunder rumbled in Jenna's ears and faded. In the sudden quiet, she could hear O'Deoradhain groan as he pushed himself to his feet, Jenna was breathing heavily, her body shaking. She stared at the garda's mangled body. The eyes were still open; they gazed at her as if in accusation. "I'm sorry…" she whispered to the corpse.

" That is what makes me think you still need to learn how to use your cloch, Holder," O'Deoradhain said. That near-contempt in his voice snapped her head around. His left arm dangled uselessly, the quarrel from the crossbow protruding from his

shoulder and dark blood staining the arm. His right hand still held his dagger, dripping red. He went to the corpse of Labras and wiped the blade on the garda’s clothing. He turned to Jenna, sheathing the dagger. "Your other men are coming," he contin-ued, "and I don’t have time to talk." He was right; she could feel them rushing toward the house from their stations. "I’m not your enemy. They may be."

Jenna shook her head; she could feel nothing in the others but concern and fear for their own well-being if she’d been hurt. She wished she’d taken the same precaution with Labras and his friend. "No," she told him. "They’re loyal."

"To you, perhaps. Me, they’ll kill."

"Stay, O’Deoradhain. You’re right. We need to talk."

They could hear the first of the gardai rush into the house. O’Deoradhain went to the window and glanced down. He put a leg over the sill. "Then come with me."

There were footsteps pounding the stairs. "O’Deoradhain!" Jenna called. "Wait."

His shook his head. "Meet me below Ri’s Market at Deer Creek-third bell, two days from now." She could have stopped him. She could have reached out with Lamh Shabhala and held him with the cloch’s energy-or crushed him like you did the garda. . Jenna lifted her hand but rather than reaching out with the power, she pushed it back, closing Lamh Shabhala. O’Deoradhain slid over the windowsill, grimacing as he tried to maneuver with one hand. He lowered himself slowly down, until all Jenna could see was his right hand, holding the sill. Then he let go, and she heard him land on the soft ground outside, the sound followed by his running footsteps.

"Holder!" someone shouted, and Jenna turned from the window to see the gardai, swords out, staring horrified at the carnage in front of them. She could feel the fear in them as they glanced toward her, untouched in the midst of the butchery. And perhaps because she could sense that dread, perhaps because she needed to convince herself that she had only done what she’d needed to do, she lifted her chin and glared back at them.

"This is what happens to those who betray me," she said.

In her voice, she heard an imperious tone that had never been there before, and she wondered at it.

Chapter 25: Preparations

JENNA had wondered whether Cianna would believe her. She shouldn't have worried. The Banrion uttered a gasp of horror when Jenna started to relate how Labras had attacked her, and she immediately sent away the servants, going to the door of her chamber and closing it firmly. "My child," she said, enfolding Jenna in her arms. Then she released her, a quivering hand going to the torc about her neck, gold braided with bright silver. "I can hardly breathe," she said.

"Let me call the healer," Jenna said, but Cianna shook her head.

"No." Cianna took a long, wheezing breath. "No. It will pass. I put you in terrible danger, however unintentional. I was certain Labras was one of those

I could trust, but…" She bit at her lip.". . he was evidently in someone else's pay. How can you ever forgive me for making such a mis-take? Had you been hurt, or the cloch taken from you. . Jenna, I put you in such danger."

Jenna hurried to reassure the distraught woman. "You couldn't have known, Banrion."

A flush burned high on Cianna's cheeks. "No, Jenna. I absolutely should have known. For my own survival, as well as yours. Now I have to wonder who else around me is in the employ of another, who of those others I trust implicitly…" Cianna turned away, hunching over as a fit of cough-ing took her. "Damn this sickness in my lungs, and damn the healer for his own lies." Slowly, she straightened again, still turned away from Jenna. "What about the man you went to capture? Was he part of this, too?"

"He escaped, Banrion. When I used the cloch."

Cianna turned, touching a handkerchief to her mouth. There were clumps of clotted blood on the cloth. "My guess is that Labras was being paid in this O'Deoradhain's coin. To think that I was an unwitting accomplice — oh, this would have played so well for him-had you not been alert, Lamh Shabhala would have been his."

Jenna didn't bother to correct Cianna' s perception. It would be a good lie for the time being,

until she learned whose hand was actually behind the scenes. And she would find out.

The anger burned in her, alloyed with fear.

"I will have the rest of the gardai who went with you interrogated to see if there are others whose loyalty has been turned, but now I don’t know if I can trust the results I would hear," Cianna continued. "I can’t discount the possibility that my husband arranged for this, or the Tanaise Rig, or even Padraic Mac Ard or one of the other tiarna here-maybe Aheron from Infochla; he seemed awfully fond of you the other night." She stopped, and touched Jenna’s cheek. "You can trust no one, Jenna." A bitter smile creased her face. "Evidently not even me."

Jenna put her own hand, stiff and marked with the curling scars of the cloch, on top of Cianna’s. She took the Banrion’s hand and kissed it once. "It wasn’t your fault, Banrion," she told the woman. "We both need to be more careful, that’s all. And I’ve learned something from this: I can use Lamh Shabhala to look inside a person and see what’s in their heart." Jenna frowned. "I won’t be surprised this way again," she declared.

Cianna, pale and grim, nodded.

The Holder Aoire," the page announced, and closed the door behind Jenna. The three men in the room were huddled together over a table, and they turned to look at her as one: Ri Mallaghan, Tiarna Mac Ard; and a man whom Jenna didn’t recognize. She lowered her head and gave them a brief curtsy.

Ah, Jenna," the Ri said. He was smiling, but there was a grimness in his smile. "Thank you for coming so quickly. Here, you should see this…" He beckoned to her, and she came over to the table. She nodded Mac Ard, then glanced curiously at the other man. "Ah, you’ve yet to be introduced to our Field Commander," the Ri said, noting the direction of her gaze. "Holder, this is Tiarna Damhlaic Gairbith, who has been away to the west watching the Connachtans."

The man inclined his head to her. He wore his cloca uncomfortably, as if he were unused to the long folds of fabric. His face was hardened and fissured from exposure to wind and sun, his cheeks and forehead marred with the white lines of scars, his gray-flecked beard thin over patches of mottled

flesh. His hands were on the table, holding down a large piece of unrolled parchment; Jenna saw that the left hand had but two fingers and a thumb.

Through Lamh Shabhala, Tiarna Gairbith radiated violence. This was a man at whose hands hundreds had died and who would most likely be responsible for the death of hundreds more if he lived. There was no visceral enjoyment of death in him, though Jenna sensed a deep satisfac-tion within him at the results of his campaigns, and he carried no remorse or guilt at all in his soul. She knew that if the Ri ordered it, he would slay her with the same pragmatic lack of passion. But she could sense no direct threat in him at all: to him, she was simply a piece in the game and he would use her or not as the strategies of the game dictated.

The emotional matrix around Mac Ard and the Ri were more compli-cated. There were strange colors and hues in their shapes, nothing that was overtly threatening, but she knew both of them wanted what she held and would take it if the opportunity arose. With Mac Ard especially there were tendrils of black secrets that snaked outward toward Jenna, vestiges of hidden plots that involved her. She wondered-more strongly this time-if Mac Ard were at the heart of the attacks against her, if his involvement with her mam weren't simply a subterfuge to allow him ac-cess to her and Lamh Shabhala.

The Ri's emotions were simpler and yet more deeply hidden. He was wrapped in plottings and deceptions. Under it all was the burning orange-red of ambition: the Ri Gabair would be Ri Ard, if he had the chance. . and it took little imagination on Jenna's part to believe that the Ri might feel Lamh Shabhala would give him that chance.

The Ri moved aside to let Jenna stand next to the table. Lines were drawn on the parchment, and placed atop it were small triangular flags, some green and brown, others blue and gold. "This is Tuath Gabair," the Ri explained to Jenna. "There, see that blue area? That's Lough Lar. Here-" his stubby index finger stabbed at the map. "That is Lar Bhaile, where we are now. Up here-" his finger moved up past Lough Lar to where a line of blue meandered, occasionally met by other, smaller branches. "That's the River Duan and the Mill Creek feeding into it, and Knobtop and Ballintubber." His finger touched the map again and again in concert with his words. Jenna nodded, but

in truth the map meant little to her. How could marks on paper be Ballintubber or Knobtop?

"The flags," the RI continued, "are where our troops and the troops of Tuath Connachta are currently located. Do you see here, southwest of Ballintubber, where the Connachta flags have bunched? That’s where their main army is camped, right on the border. That’s where they’ll make the first push toward us."

As the Ri spoke, images came to Jenna. It was as if she were a bird, hovering far above Tuath Gabair and looking down. There was the lough, and just past it… "Doire Coill is in their way," Jenna said. "They can’t go through that forest with troops."

Tiarna Gairbith snorted through his long nostrils: a laugh. "I thought you said the Holder knew nothing of war, my Ri," he said. The fingers remaining on his mutilated left hand traced one arc on the map, then another. "They will split their forces as soon as they reach the border of Doire Coill," he said. "One arm, the larger and slower, will go north to secure the ford of the Duan at Ath Iseal, then attack Lar Bhaile from the north. The other, smaller and swifter, will cross the Duan at the southern ford and come up to Lar Bhaile from the south. ’The Horns of the Bull,’ they call it; the Connachtans have used the tactic more than once. They hope to split our forces to deal with the twin attacks; if one horn fails, the other might still impale us."

"But your troops won’t let that happen," Jenna said, looking at the men. "If you know where they’ll strike, you will have made plans against that. You have the advantage of knowing the land and deciding where to make your battle where you can use the ground to your benefit."

Again, the laugh. "I like this Holder," Gairbith said to the Ri. "No talk from her of negotiation, of somehow avoiding the conflict. Instead, she sees that the battle will come and prepares to meet it." He bowed to Jenna, approvingly, and she wondered whether the smile was genuine or if the man was simply mocking her. "Aye, we will do just as the Holder sug-gests," Gairbith answered, "but many will die doing that, and after we push them back to their own borders, we will be too weak to do more than watch them leave. Unless…" His voice trailed off. He looked at Mac Ard, who stood with arms crossed, lips in a tight frown, his eyes almost angry.

Unless what?" Jenna asked, and Nevan O Liathain's words echoed in her memory: ". . the Rl no doubt hopes for Lamh Shabhala to be part of that battle. . he would love to see the lightnings of the cloch smash the enemy and send them fleeing for their lives. ."

Rl Mallaghan saw the realization on her face. "Lamh Shabhala has been countless battles over the centuries, Jenna," he said, "many of them here in what is now Tuath Gabair. And while Lamh Shabhala is the only cloch na thintri that is awake. ."He spread his hands wide. "There is only one reason the Connachta are mounting their armies: they know

Lamh Shabhala is here and they think to strike before you learn to wield the cloch as the cloudmages have in the past and my army comes to invade their land-because if they had the cloch, they would use it to strike us. They believe the only reason we haven't yet struck is because the cloch or the Holder is still weak. But you've learned so much already Jenna. I ask you, how many lives will it cost if Lamh Shabhala does not enter the battlefield? All we request of you is that you help us defend you as the Holder."

The Ri's words were spoken in a voice like sweet butter, thick and freighted with an unconscious arrogance that spoke of his expectation that he would be heard and obeyed. His eyes, behind their enclosing folds of pale flesh, stared at her unblinking. When Jenna opened her mouth to begin a protest, she saw those eyes narrow. Through the cloch, she felt a sudden surge of malice directed toward her from the Ri, and she knew that if she refused, he would use that answer to justify other actions against her. As Cianna had told her with O Liathain, "no" was not an answer she could give him.

Is he the one, then? Has the Ri been stepping carefully only because the Tanaise Rig was here also?

"Jenna hasn't fully learned to use Lamh Shabhala, my Ri," Mac Ard interjected before Jenna could decide what to say. "Not in the way of the legends of the Before. Not in the way the cloudmages of song used them. Your majesty knows the pain involved for Jenna when the mage-lights come. You also know that Lamh Shabhala’s task right now is to unlock the other clochs na thintri and that is what

Lamh Shabhala has been teaching the First Holder-not the art of war. You ask too much of her too soon and place her in danger. You must remember, my RI, that the Tanaise Rig has expressed an interest in Jenna. He would not want her injured. Worse, what if the Connachtans should win the battle when Lamh Shabhala is involved? What if Ri Connachta were suddenly to pos-sess the cloch? Do you think the Ri Ard or any of the other Tuatha would come to your aid, or would they sit and watch and wait and let the Con-nachtan vultures feed on the bodies of Lar Bhaile?"

Through Mac Ard’s speech, the Ri’s face had grown progressively more ruddy. "So it’s Tiarna Mac Ard’s counsel that I throw my armies against Connachta and ignore the weapon that could easily turn the battle? You would take the sword from my hand and have me do battle with a butter knife."

"I say better a duel with butter knives than risk giving your enemy your sword, that’s all," Mac Ard answered.

"I have no plans to give the enemy this particular sword," Tiarna Gairhith interjected. "I will cleave the enemy’s head from its shoulders with it and I will keep Lamh Shabhala safe-that’s my pledge."

The Ri laughed at that. "There, you see, Padraic? My Commander has made his promise."

"I think," Jenna said loudly, and all three men turned their heads to her "that everyone is talking as if I were incapable of making a decision for myself." Mac Ard glowered, Gairbith gave a quick, shocked laugh, and the Ri sucked his breath in with an audible hiss. For a moment, Jenna thought she’d gone too far, but then the Ri applauded her, three slow claps of his hands. His eyes were still narrowed and dangerous, but his voice was soft.

"The Holder seems to have no lack of courage in speaking her mind," he said. "That is good-a ruler should know the true feelings of those under him. I assume the Holder realizes that when the Ri asks for an opinion, she may give it. And when he issues a command, she will obey it. Without any question at all."

The malice she felt in him increased, a dark arm swirling around her in cloch-vision. She knew he wanted submission now. He wanted her to drop her head, perhaps even to fall to her knees to beg forgiveness for her audacity in questioning him. Instead, she touched Lamh Shabhala, letting a trace of its cold energy seep into her to fill her voice. "Is the Ri giving me a command, then?" she asked, and the words were edged like a blade, filled with a warning and menace. "Does he believe the Holder to be like a ficheall piece that he can move about the board? If so, I would remind him that the Holder is the most powerful of all his pieces and that it might even strike the hand that tries to move it to the wrong square."

Jenna could see the Ri scowl at the words, saw him blink and take a step backward while the fury brought color to his cheeks. Tiarna Gairbith put a hand to the hilt of his sword; she knew that if the Ri ordered it, that blade would flash out toward her. Mac Ard's hand was also on his weapon and in the cloch-vision his own emotions were chaotic and ambivalent: Jenna couldn't tell what he might do. Jenna clutched Lamh Shabhala, and all three men watched her fingers close around the brightening stone.

Mac Ard stepped out between Jenna and the Ri. "Jenna, the Ri is an excellent ficheall master, both in the game and in war. You need to trust his hand, for he wouldn't put a piece as important as you in needless jeopardy. Believe me in this. I have been with him all my life and my Parents served him also. He won't ask more of you than you can give. All We are doing here is looking at the alternatives available to us for this threat. Nothing more. Ri Connachta has yet to make an irrevocable move. There is still some hope they will not."

Behind the Ri, Gairbith laughed again at that assessment.

In the cloch-vision, the Ri was a thunderhead ready to spew lightning and wind and hail. Jenna knew that she had just pushed the man as far as he could be pushed-the Ri was accustomed to obedience and defer-ence, at least on the surface.

He had known nothing else; he would toler-ate nothing else. Whether she would do his bidding or not when the time came, she couldn't defy him now without using the cloch. And afterward. . even if she walked out of this room still the Holder, what then? She would be a fugitive, a dangerous animal to be hunted down and killed.

Jenna's fingers loosened around the stone. They watched her hand drop back to her waist, watched her cradle the stiff, aching flesh to her abdomen.

"I'm sorry, my Rl," she said, lowering her gaze so that she stared at the man's fat, sandal-clad feet below his cloca and hoping that her words sounded sufficiently apologetic. "I spoke too harshly. I… I'm still frightened by what happened yesterday, the attack by the Banrion's gardai."

"Ah, that. ." The Ri nodded; his stance relaxed and his voice was now gentle. "An unfortunate occurrence, to be certain, but one that shows me that you are learning to use the cloch, eh?"

She nodded. "Aye, my Ri."

"Good," he said. She thought that he might pat her with a fatherly hand. The malice in her cloch-vision hadn't diminished, though; this was a man who would take her without a thought if he believed it to be to his advantage. There was no affection for her in his tone; only the satisfaction that came from watching her submit to his will. "Then we'll make our plans appropriately. Tiarna Gairbith will be in contact with you regarding the plans and I know Tiarna Mac Ard-" the Ri's gaze flicked over to Padraic and at the same time, Jenna saw the two of them in the cloch-vision, entangled in mutual webs of ambition and deceit "-will be help-ing us as well. I hope you understand, Holder Jenna, that we hold you in the highest esteem, and that everything we do here is for your benefit."

He said the words with compassion gleaming in his voice and decep-tion in his heart.

Jenna smiled at him and nodded.

The mage-lights swirled in the night sky over the keep, and Jenna went to them. The bright communion was at once painful and joyous, and afterward Jenna staggered back into her room from the balcony, clutching her arm to herself, and half-fell into Maeve's arms. Her mam helped her back to her bed, where she sat, eyes closed, feeling only the power surging through her. "Anduilleaf," she managed to croak out. "Quickly."

The water was already boiling, the leaf already crushed in the bottom of the mug. Jenna heard her mam pour the water and smelled the aroma of the leaf wafting through the cold air. "Here," Maeve said, and Jenna felt a warmth pressed against her left hand. She took the mug and lifted it to her lips, sipping noisily against the heat of the brew.

"How many times more, Jenna?" There was a weary concern in her mam’s voice.

"Is that what he wanted you to ask me?" Jenna answered. "Is he getting impatient to be a cloch Holder himself? You can tell him that it will be soon: two more appearances. Three, at most."

Maeve ignored Jenna’s scornful tone. "And what then?"

"I don’t know" Jenna answered heatedly. "If I did, I’d tell everyone so they’d stop asking these stupid questions of me."

She glanced up to see her mam bite her lower lip, looking away with hurt in her eyes. "I ask because 1 hate to see you in pain, Jenna," Maeve answered, her voice trembling with the sob she held back.

"I’ve been hoping that once the other clochs were open, you wouldn’t be… in so much. ." Maeve couldn’t finish. She covered her mouth with a hand, tears spilling over her eyes. Jenna wanted to go to her, to comfort her mam as she had comforted Jenna a thousand times over the years, but she couldn’t make herself move. She hid herself behind the mug of leaf-brew, sipping and inhaling the steam as she watched her mam sniff and blot her tears with the sleeve of her leine.

Jenna could see the swelling curve of her mam’s belly. She could feel the life inside, glowing like a banked fire in a hearth.

"Maybe," Maeve said, "Padraic should be the Holder." She wouldn’t look at Jenna. "Maybe that’s what should have happened."

"Is that what Da would have wanted?" Jenna retorted. "Or have you already forgotten him and the fact that Lamh Shabhala was once his?"

Maeve turned, her cloca flaring outward with the sharp motion. "I will "ever forget Niall. Never. And

I can’t believe that you’d be cruel enough to even suggest that."

Guilt made Jenna momentarily forget the throbbing coldness in her arm. "Mam, I’m sorry…"

There was a tentative knock at the door and one of the servants stuck her head in. "Pardon, m’ladies, but Coelin Singer is here asking to see the Holder."

Maeve was still glaring at Jenna. "Tell him he may

come in," Jenna said. "In here, Holder?" the servant asked.

"Do you not have ears?" Jenna snapped. "Aye, here. If the Tanaise Rig doesn’t like it, then he should have left his own people to stand guard."

The servant looked at Maeve, who shrugged. "The Holder obviously doesn’t care to have anyone else suggest what she should do or question her commands."

The servant fled.

"Mam-" Jenna began, but then the door opened again and Coelin entered. His face was full of concern and question, but he seemed startled when he saw Maeve.

"Oh, Widow Aoire," he said, nodding to Maeve and glancing once at Jenna questioningly. "I don’t mean to disturb…" He gestured at the door. "I can wait in the outer room."

"Stay. Maybe you can talk some sense into the girl," Maeve said to Coelin. "I obviously can’t tell my daughter anything. She would rather learn from her own mistakes, I suppose. Just see that you’re not another one, Coelin Singer." Maeve didn’t turn back to look at Jenna, but walked out of the room. The sound of the door closing was loud in the apartment.

"What was that about?" Coelin asked. "Jenna? I saw the lights, and thought that you might-"

Jenna shook her head. "Don’t talk," she said. "Just. . come here. Please. Hold me."

Coelin, with a glance back at the door, went to the bed in two long strides. He took Jenna up in his arms.

"Kiss me," she said. "Make me forget about all this for a little bit. ."

And, for a time, she did.

Chapter 26: A World Changed

DEER Creek ran at the bottom of a steep ravine. Above, to the north, was the city of Lar Bhaile; south rose the steep and stony flanks of Goat Fell with the Ri's Keep perched on top. Not far beyond the bridge that linked Low Town to Goat Fell and the ramparts of the keep, the creek widened and fanned out into a marsh-clogged mouth before flowing into Lough Lar. To Jenna's mind, Deer Creek was more river than creek, nearly twice as wide as the Mill Creek that ran past Ballintubber, deeper and faster.

And Deer Creek had seals; one, at least: on a flat slab thrusting out of the rushing water, a dark, shiny-furred head watched as Jenna made her way down the path from the Ri's Market Square. Getting away from the keep had been easier than Jenna had expected. After the incident with the gardai, no one voiced an objection when she left the keep unescorted except by two chambermaids. Jenna noticed that another carriage de-parted the keep immediately after they left, and that the square seemed particularly well-populated with gardai. Jenna had opened the cloch slightly, letting its energy spread out over the square-there were at least a half dozen tendrils of attention leading to her, none of them overtly dangerous but all watching.

And down in the hawthorn-choked ravine, another: O'Deoradhain.

The chambermaids were easy: she gave each of them a morceint and told them to go buy whatever they liked. It took time to lose the gardai, but she eventually managed to lose all the watchers and sneak away to the wooden stairs leading down to Deer Creek and a small patch of meadow there where a few people sat fishing despite the cold. Jenna. stayed under the trees, moving east along the creek and away from the meadow, where someone glancing down from the market above wouldn't easily spot her. She saw movement out in the creek-the seal rose from the cold water and clambered onto one of the flat rocks in the middle of the stream.

She could sense O'Deoradhain in the tangle of woods huddled against the steep bank. Jenna shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her cloca, one hand grasping the stone on its chain, ready to

open it fully and strike the man down at need. "You could have at least picked a warm place to meet," she called out to where he hid.

There was a rustle of dry brush and leaves, and O’Deoradhain stepped out. One arm was in a sling, but there was a knife at his belt, and Jenna watched his free hand carefully, knowing how quickly he could move with that weapon. She stayed ready to strike if his fingers strayed near the hilt. "If it were summer, the midges would be out. Would you rather be cold or bitten to death?"

The seal out in the water gave a coughing roar, and Jenna glanced again at the creature. It was a large bull, its head up and alert and staring back at them. Its coat was coal-black, yet deep blue highlights gleamed within it, like sparks struck from a flint and steel. O’Deoradhain looked toward the seal as well. "There aren’t usually seals in Lough Lar," he said. "Some-times in Lough Dubh, aye, but they don’t usually come up the Duan this far."

"For an Inishlander, you know a lot about Tuath Gabair."

"I’ve been here a long time now," O’Deoradhain answered, turning away from the seal and looking back at Jenna. "Ever since the Order decided that Lamh Shabhala might be in Gabair. Almost two years now."

Jenna cocked her head at that. "And how did you know that Lamh Shabhala was here before the mage-lights came?"

O’Deoradhain shrugged, grimacing as his bandaged shoulder moved. "Some in the Order know the magics of earth and water, the slow eternal spells. I know a bit of them myself. Ordinarily, that means little, but as the Filleadh approached and the mage-lights started to strengthen even though none of us could see them yet, those with the skill could feel the resonance through their own spells. They knew and they started to search, and they realized that Lamh Shabhala had once been on Inishfeirm and that they had lost the cloch. It wasn’t hard, then, to know who had taken it-your great-da. What took time was discovering where he had gone and what had happened to him."

"So they sent you? Alone?" Jenna scoffed. "Why didn’t they send every-one? Why isn’t Gabair filled with people from the Order?"

O'Deoradhain gazed back placidly into her mocking stance. "If all of Inishfeirm suddenly came here, then everyone would suspect why and everyone would have been searching for the cloch. And there are only a few who are capable of being the Holder of Lamh Shabhala."

The way he said it lifted the hairs on Jenna's arms with a sudden chill that was not the cold air. "A few like you?" she asked.

O'Deoradhain nodded. "That's what I was trained to do." Jenna took a step back from him. "Jenna," he said. "Use the stone. Look at me. I'm not a threat to you. I'd take the stone from you if you gave it to me, aye. If you'd died the other day in my room, I'd have taken it then, too. But I won't harm you to become the Holder."

That might have been true; she could feel no danger to herself emanat-ing from him. Yet… "I don't know that," she said. "Even with the cloch."

O'Deoradhain smiled, which softened his rugged face. "You're right. You don't know that, and I'll tell you that there are ways to hide yourself from a cloch na thintri, even Lamh Shabhala."

"And you know them."

"I do."

"Then I can't trust you."

"Perhaps not," he answered. "But you can't survive alone. Not for long, and not with what you hold."

"I have those I can trust," Jenna replied with some heat, and- strangely-O'Deoradhain chuckled at that.

"Who? Mac Ard? The Ri and Banrion? That self-centered boy from your old village?"

"He's not-" Jenna began heatedly, then stopped, clenching her jaw as O'Deoradhain studied her, as the seal out in the river gave another moan-ing wail as if calling for a mate. "What did you want of me, O'Deoradhain?"

"Only what I told you: to bring you to Inishfeirm, so you can learn to use the power you hold."

"I have learned," she retorted. "I wouldn't be talking to you now if I hadn't. Three times someone

has tried to kill me and three times I've killed them instead. I can see with the cloch, see what people are feeling toward me. I can tell whether a person holds a true cloch or a worthless stone. I can draw the mage-lights down to me and fill the stone with their energy."

"And did you need to kill them or even want to? Do you know that you see truth through the cloch? Do you know all Lamh Shabhala wants to do with that power or all it can do? Do you know how to deal with the pain Jenna?" She must have shown something in her face, unwillingly, for he nodded. "Aye, that we can help you learn. But you must come with me back to Inishfeirm."

"I don't trust you," Jenna said again.

"I know you don't. But you're trusting the wrong people now."

"You don't know that."

"Unfortunately, I do," he answered calmly. "But I also know that you must learn things yourself to believe them. Let me start you on that path. I've done some investigation myself. Go to Night Mist Alley, just off Cal-laghan Street. Walk down to the third door on the left, the red one, and knock. And after you've been there and returned to the keep, use the cloch. Look at the ones you haven't bothered to examine yet because you trust them. And when you're done, if you think you might begin to believe me, then come to du Val again. He can tell you where to find me."

O'Deoradhain started to walk away; as if startled by his movement, the seal out in the river roared a last time and dove into the water with a soft splash. "O'Deoradhain, wait."

"No, Holder. There's nothing more to say. Go and see things for your-self and ask the questions you need to ask. When you need me again, I'll find you." He smiled at her. "I wanted to be the Holder, aye," he said. "But I think Lamh Shabhala has chosen wisely on its own." With a wave, he slid back into the undergrowth again, and she heard the sound of his retreat.

Out in the water, a dark shape slid away toward the lough.

Night Mist Alley was a dirt lane in the Low Town area. Even in the sun-light, it was dim, with the

houses staring at each other across a muddy strip down which two people could barely walk abreast. Children were screeching and chasing each other through the puddles, filthy and snot-faced, and the adults Jenna saw stared at the sight of an obvious Riocha and her two chambermaids out where the royalty rarely walked.

The third door on the left was indeed red though the paint was scratched and peeling, and the door itself appeared to have been kicked, the lower panel cracked and bowed in. Jenna motioned to the maids to remain in the alley as she went to the door and knocked. There was no immediate answer. She knocked again. "Just a moment. ."a woman’s voice answered, and a few seconds later, the door opened. A woman blinked into the sunlight. "By the Mother-Jenna?"

Ellia Tara’s daughter, stood there. Jenna nearly didn’t recognize her. She was heavy with child, one hand under the rounded bulk of her belly, face and fingers swollen. After her initial surprise, she smiled at Jenna.

"By the Mother-Creator, look at you," she said. "Don’t you look wonderful! Oh Jenna, it’s so good to see you! Everyone thought you’d died when those horrible soldiers came. And to think you came here, like us."

"Us?" A feeling of dread was filling Jenna. She wanted to rage, wanted to take Lamh Shabhala and bring a storm of lightning down on this house and this town and leave everything in flames.

"Aye." A possessive, triumphant smile lifted Ellia’s lips. She turned slightly to call back into the darkness of the room. "Darling, come and see who’s come to visit us. You’re not going to believe this."

A sleepy grunt came from the interior. Jenna heard the sound of shuf-fling feet, then a man’s form showed behind Ellia as she opened the door wider. The man took a step into the light. She knew who it was before she saw him, knew from the leaden stone that filled her stomach, knew because of the blackness that threatened to take her vision. Her world was suddenly shattered, crashing in crystalline shards around her.

Coelin.

Ellia’s arm snaked possessively around Coelin’s

waist as he gaped at Jenna. "Look, love-it's Jenna! Back from the dead! Jenna, did you know that Coelin has sung for the Rl himself. .?"

Ellia must have continued to speak, but Jenna heard none of it. She stared at Coelin. He stared back, slack-jawed, rubbing at his eyes as if trying to rid them of a sudden nightmare. "Jenna, I…" he stammered, but Jenna shouted back at him in fury.

"You bastard! You damned lying bastard!" Jenna turned and ran from the alleyway, her maids hurrying after her with wide-eyed glances behind.

"Jenna!" she heard Coelin shouting behind her, and Ellia's now-shrill voice asking him what was happening. Jenna fled, helpless tears hot on her cheeks, unheeding of the people around her, staring. She only wanted to be away before the temptation to use the cloch grew too strong, before she gave in to the temptation to get revenge for this awful deception. It's your own fault! she railed inside. You're so stupid. So naive and stupid. .

“Jenna!" A hand touched her shoulder and she whirled around with a cry, her right hand going to the stone around her neck, the radiance of Lamh Shabhala between her fingers already brighter than the sun. Coelin, Panting, took a step backward from Jenna, his eyes wide. He was shoeless and half-dressed, his feet muddy, his legs bare under his tunic. His breath was a white cloud around him in the cold air. He spread his hands wide, as if to ward off a blow. "Jenna, listen to me. ."

Her chambermaids flanking her, Jenna chopped at the air with her left hand. "You have nothing to say to me!" she shouted back at him. "Nothing! You disgust me, Coelin Singer. And I'm ashamed of myself for letting you. ." She couldn't say the words. Fury obliterated them.

"Jenna, let me explain!"

"Explain what? Is that your child Ellia's carrying? Tell me now-is it?" Coelin started to shake his head, started to speak, and Jenna lifted the cloch. "Don't you dare lie to me again, Coelin, or I swear it's the last words you'll ever speak."

Coelin gulped and hung his head. "Aye," he said, his voice a whisper. "Tis mine." Then his head came up, and his green eyes gazed at her imploringly. "But, Jenna, I love you. ."

"Shut up!" Jenna screamed at him. Light flared from her fisted hand, and shadows moved over the buildings around them. Someone shouted in alarm, and the curious crowd that had begun to gather around the encounter suddenly vanished. "No!

Don’t you dare say it. Who arranged this, Coelin? None of this was an accident, was it? Who made certain I’d find you, who told you to seduce me?" When Coelin said nothing, Jenna stamped her foot, the light flaring yet brighter. "Tell me!"

"Tiarna Mac Ard," Coelin sputtered. "He… he sent word that I should come here, said that you needed someone familiar, that I could help him help you. ." He stopped. His hands lifted toward Jenna, then went to his sides. "Jenna, I didn’t mean. ."

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to hear Coelin scream in agony as the lightnings tore him apart.

She wanted him to feel the pain and hurt that was coursing through her now. Her hand trembled around Lamh Shabhala but she held back the energy that wanted to surge outward. "Did you marry her?" she asked.

A nod. "Aye. When Tara realized that Ellia was with child, she came to me. What else was I to do, Jenna? At that time, I thought you were dead, and your mam and Tiarna Mac Ard, too."

"Do you tell Ellia you love her, too? Did you come to her after you’d been with me and snuggle down alongside her and give her the same words you give me?"

"Jenna-"

She spat at his feet. "I never want to see you again," she told him. "If I do, I swear to you that I’ll use Lamh Shabhala to strike you down. Stand before me again, and I will leave Ellia a widow and your child fatherless. Go, Coelin. Go and find some way to tell Ellia about this. Maybe she’ll keep you; maybe she’ll even find the love in her to forgive you." She lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. "But I won’t," she told him. "I never will, and I am your enemy from this moment. Do you understand me, Coelin?"

He nodded, mute. He looked as if he were about to speak again, but Jenna tightened her fist around the cloch, and-wide-eyed-he turned and fled, walking then running back the way he’d come. Her breath fast and painful in her chest, Jenna relaxed her grip

on Lamh Shabhala, and the stone's brilliance faded.

The street around them was empty and silent except for the ragged sound of her breath. "Come," she told the maids. "It's time we returned to the keep." They started down the lane toward where the carriage waited. As they walked, a man stepped out from between two houses and stood in the narrow street, barring their way. One of the chambermaids screamed at the sudden confrontation, but the man ignored her. One arm was in a sling, and he no longer seemed quite as dangerous. He looked at Jenna.

"Now you know," he said. "I'm sorry, Jenna."

"You could have told me, O'Deoradhain. Or did you get a perverse pleasure out of knowing I'd be humiliated?"

His head moved slowly in denial. "I took no pleasure in it, Holder. I would have preferred to tell you myself, but you wouldn't have believed me," he answered. "You know that, if you look inside."

She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a response. Her head was pounding, her arm ached, and there was a fury inside burning to be unleashed. "Fine. Now get out of my way. I'm going back to the keep."

"Holder. ." He held out his hands, as if in supplication. "This isn't the way. You're angry, and you have reason to be. But you don't know the cloch well enough yet. There are too many people there, too many to confront."

Jenna coughed a single, bitter chuckle. "I thought you told me to go back and use the cloch."

"Not the way you're thinking of using it right now." He gestured to the tower of the keep, which could be seen rising above the rooftops. "I wanted you to know that the Riocha up there can't be trusted, that's all. I wanted you to use the cloch to see the truth in them."

"And you can teach me how to do that."

Aye." He said it firmly. "1 can. Come with me. Come with me now."

Her pulse pounded against the sides of her skull like a hammer; her arm seemed to be sculpted from ice. She couldn't think. She needed to get home.

Needed to get anduilleaf. Needed to think. Needed to find a way to vent this rage before it consumed her entirely.

Get out of my way, O’Deoradhain." Jenna started walking toward him.

She intended to push him out of the way, not caring about his size or the knife at his belt, ready to blast him dead with the cloch if she needed to do so. But as she reached him, he stood aside and let her pass, the two maids scrambling quickly after her.

"Holder, this is madness!" he called after her. "Please don’t do this. Jenna, I can be your ally in this if you’ll let me."

She didn’t answer.

Chapter 27: Bridges Burned

HER fury had gone cold and flintlike before the carriage reached the keep. Through the headache, through the agony in her hand and arm, the events of the last few months kept roiling in her mind and she could make no sense of it. They were all trying to use her; they were all lying to her: the Ri Gabair, the Tainise Rig, Mac Ard, the Connachtans, Tiarna Aheron, even O’Deoradhain by his own admission.

They all had their agendas. She could understand that, yet it left unan-swered the question of who was actively trying to kill her. Why would Mac Ard try to assassinate her and at the same time send Coelin to her? In any case, he could have taken the cloch easily before she knew what she possessed. What would the Tanaise Rig gain by her death when he believed he could have Lamh Shabhala for his use by marrying her? Would Ri Gabair be willing to risk the enmity of the Ri Ard and those of the other tuatha by killing her?

I’d take the stone from you if you gave it to me, aye. If you’d died the other day in my room, I’d have taken it then, too. In that, certainly, O’Deoradhain was no different. Mac Ard might not strike against her, but Jenna had no doubt that her mam’s lover would race to pluck Lamh Shabhala from her neck if she fell. Or the Ri or the Tanaise Rig or Aheron or any of the tiarna.

Yet both assassination attempts required that someone know the keep, that they know the details of the society behind the massive walls, that they know Jenna's movements. Who had known her and the keep that well? Who would have had the connections and the money to hire an assassin, to buy the loyalty of the gardai?

Jenna's next breath was a gasp as the carriage wheels struck the cobbled surface of Deer Creek Bridge. A suspicion started to grow, one that left her feeling breathless and sick. By the time Jenna stepped down at the High Gates with an admonition to her chambermaids (that she knew would be useless) to say nothing about what they had witnessed, she had already made a decision. And after you've been there and returned to the keep, use the cloch, O'Deoradhain had told her.

She would do that, then. She would do exactly that.

She hurried to her rooms.

"Jenna, what's the mat-" her mam asked as she rushed into the apart-ment, but Jenna hurried to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She locked it, then went to the door leading to the servants' hall and locked that one as well.

Her mam knocked and called, but Jenna ignored her. She set water to boiling for the anduilleaf and dug under the clothes in her chest until she found the torc of Sinna. She placed it around her neck and let Lamh Shabhala open…

. . and there Sinna was again, the old woman with the plait of gray hair, dressed in her leine and cloca, the fireplace blazing with a remem-bered fire, the walls of the room overlaid with its older structure. Sinna turned as if surprised and Jenna opened her mind to her, letting her see what Jenna wished her to see. "Ah, Jenna," Sinna said, her voice quavering with age, "so I've met you before." A sad smile. "But of course I don't remember. I'm just a ghost."

"I need your help," Jenna told the old woman.

"Of course you do. Isn't that why we Holders always call back our predecessors? The dead can't rest when the living desire an answer." She sighed. "But your time will come, when your spirit won't be allowed its peace, either. How can I help you, Jenna First Holder?"

"I have been told that Lamh Shabhala can see the truth in someone. Can that be done?"

Sinna's gray head nodded. "Aye. With Lamh Shabhala that's possible, though not with the other clochs na thintri. If you know how to listen through the cloch, you can hear truth, though a person who holds another cloch can still hide truth from you. It's better if you learn to trust your own judgments. There are all sorts of truths, and not all of them are worth knowing."

"Show me."

Sinna smiled sadly. "Listen to me first. Sometimes it’s not good to see the truth, Jenna. I can see anger and hurt and confusion in you already Your thinking is clouded by that and by the potions you’re taking. Jenna, sometimes you will find that you’d rather not know all the things that could be revealed to you." She gave a mocking, self-deprecating laugh. "1 discovered that, too late." "Show me," Jenna insisted.

"And what do you do when you discover the truth, Jenna?" "If you want peace, if you want me to let you rest, you’ll show me." Another nod, accompanied by a sigh. "All right, then," she said. "This

is how I was taught to truth-see…"

"Banrion!"

Cianna turned as Jenna strode through the door to her chamber, two of the Banrion’s attendants skittering nervously alongside her. Cianna waved the maids away. "Jenna," she said soothingly. "I’m glad to see you. There are rumors simply darting through the keep right now."

Jenna ignored that. The anduilleaf made her want to sleep and the walls around her seemed slightly hazy, as if she walked in a mist. Her hand closed around the cloch, the sleeve of her leine falling down to show the scars of her arm. She forced herself to focus. "I need to ask you this, Banrion-do you know who sent the first assassin?" she asked. "Do you know who told Labras that he was to kill me?"

Cianna coughed. Her eyes widened as if she were shocked by the ques-tions, and her gaze was on Jenna’s hand. "Of course not, Jenna. If I’d discovered that, I would have told you."

The words sounded sincere and almost sad. But even through the anduilleaf fog, Jenna could hear the broken, hidden tones, the umber notes that Sinna had shown her to be the signature of a lie. Jenna struggled to control her own face, to keep her voice calm even though she wanted to cry out her anger. She hadn’t wanted her suspicions confirmed; she’d continued to hope that the certainty that had

settled in the pit of her stomach since she'd spoken with O'Deoradhain was a sham-for if it was not, then she could no longer trust her own judgment. "Why would you ask, Jenna?" the Banrion continued. "You know that I would keep nothing like that from you. Who have you been talking with that filled your head with such notions?"

Jenna shrugged. Focus… "I overheard a most distressing conversation between two tiarna, and one of them was insisting that you were the one who hired the assassin."

Jenna watched the Banrion's face carefully as she gave her the fabrication. Cianna's face took on an expression of shocked disbelief. Her hand went to the torc around her neck and she coughed in quick spasms. "Surely you don't believe that, Jenna," she gasped. "I would never have. . No, my dear, that's simply not true."

Yet it was. Jenna could hear it. She knew it.

It was Cianna who would kill her to hold Lamh Shabhala.

"Who are these tiarna? I will have them brought here this instant to answer to me," Cianna fumed. She rose from her chair, steadying herself as another coughing fit took her.

"No, you won't," Jenna told her.

For a moment, Cianna glared at Jenna. "You cannot take that tone with me-" she began, then seemed to catch herself. She smiled. "Jenna, I can see that you're upset. Let me call for some refreshments…" She lifted her hand, reaching for the bell rope near her chair.

"No," Jenna said again as she took Lamh Shabhala in her hand, allow-ing more of its energy to surge forth. Cianna started to cry out in alarm, but Jenna squeezed her right hand around the cloch, imagining the cloch's energy closing itself around Cianna's throat at the same time. The Banrion gave a choking gasp, her hands going to her neck as if to tear away invisi-ble fingers. Her face went dark red, her mouth opened as she tried to draw in air.

"There can be no more lies between us, Banrion," Jenna told her. "Lamh Shabhala can hear the truth, and I know who sent* the first assassin-when you knew that I would be in my room, when you thought I might be weak or distracted by trying to

speak with the ghost of Sinna. After that attempt failed, after you came so close to being discovered, you were too frightened to try again until I stupidly played right into your hands by asking for your gardai. I can imagine you thought that incredibly convenient-kill me, kill O’Deoradhain, then blame my death on him while Labras brings you back your prize before anyone else has the chance to claim it. I can’t believe that I was so naive as to believe you afterward."

Cianna’s face had gone purple. Through the anger and the haze of anduilleaf, Jenna realized that the woman was near unconsciousness and death. She relaxed her grip on the stone, and Cianna took a deep, rattling gasp of a breath. "Why did you want the cloch so badly, Banrion?" Jenna asked. "What made it so valuable to you that it was worth my life? Answer me, and I might let you live."

"Kill me," Cianna managed to grate out, her voice a harsh croak. "Go ahead. You’re no better than any of the rest of them. I’ve heard them, all along. ’Poor Cianna. Such a weak, pathetic creature. She’s given the Ri all she could, and now she’s useless. It’s a shame she doesn’t die, so he could _ marry again.’ And you-do you think I couldn’t see the pity and disgust in your face? ’Poor Cianna. .’ Well, with the cloch, no one would be saying that."

"I never-" Jenna began.

"You want more of this truth, Holder?" Cianna spat out, interrupting. "Well here’s more: The Ri and Damhlaic Gairbith have planned more than just the defense of Gabair. When the Connachtans attack, the Ri will take you with him, let you use the cloch, then-when you’re weak and hurt and exhausted and the cloch is empty of power-you will be unfor-tunately ’killed in the battle.’ You’ll receive all the plaudits and honors you desire, but you’ll be dead and the Ri will be wearing Lamh Shabhala.

You see, he’s no different than me. And as to Nevan

O Liathain, do you really think the Tanaise Rig would have an interest in someone as common and plain as you if you weren’t the Holder? Do you honestly believe he doesn’t have his own plans to take Lamh Shabhala from you? You’re a stupid, common child, and you don’t deserve what you possess."

The rage was flooding Jenna’s mind, a foaming, wild flood that swept away reason before it. She shouted back at Cianna, a wordless, guttural scream lost in the din of the fury. She lifted the cloch on its chain, her hand a trembling fist, and Cianna began a cry that suddenly choked into silence. Jenna's fist tightened. There was a sense of unreality to her action, as if it were someone else moving her hand, and it was not only Cianna's image that she choked-she imagined doing the same to Coelin, Mac Ard, the Ri Gabair, and the Tanaise Rig and Tiarna Aheron and everyone who stared at her and whispered against her.

But they were not here. Cianna was.

Jenna felt something break inside the woman. A bloody froth bubbled on the Banrion's lips and she fell as Jenna turned away, stalking out of the room. The maids shrank back against the wall as the doors slammed against their stops with Jenna's thrust, and she strode across the anteroom and out into the corridors of the Keep.

Behind her there was a scream and a cry of alarm.

Jenna paid it no attention. She stalked through the wing toward her own rooms, pushing open the doors. "Jenna!" Maeve called as she en-tered. "What's happened?"

Silent, Jenna pushed past her into her bedroom. She grabbed the pouch of anduilleaf, placed the torc of Sinna Mac Ard around her neck. She pulled her traveling pack from its shelf, and stuffed some clothing in it.

She put on her old coat, the one she'd worn in Ballintubber. She turned to leave.

Her mam was standing in the doorway, one hand at her swelling belly, the other on the thick, polished wood of the doorframe. There were tears in her eyes. "Jenna, talk to me," she said. "Darling, you look so. ." She stopped.

"Get out of my way, Mam," Jenna said. "I'm leaving."

"You can't."

"I have to. I just murdered the Banrion."

Maeve gave a cry that was half-sob. She swayed, the hand on the door-frame going to her chest and Jenna pushed past her. As she started across the parlor, the door opened and Mac Ard entered, his dark face grim. He saw Jenna and his hand went to

his sword. For a moment, Jenna blinked, seeing him.

"Don't do it," Jenna told him. It sounded like someone else's voice. "Show me a hint of steel, and I'll kill you where you stand, even if you are the father of my mam's child."

"Jenna," he said. "Listen to yourself. Look at yourself. If Lamh Shabhala or the anduilleaf has driven you mad-"

"Then you'll gladly take the cloch," Jenna finished for him. "So kind of you, Tiarna. Why don't you tell my mam all of your kindness, like the way you arranged for Coelin to come here to be my lover when you knew he was married to Ellia and she was with child. Tell her about that. Now move out of the way."

"I can't let you go, Jenna. I can't. I love you as my own daughter, but I also have my duty and my word."

"Move!" Jenna shouted at the man. The word tore at her vocal cords, a shriek.

"I can't," Mac Ard repeated.

Jenna screamed again. Her vision had gone dim, a red haze over every-thing, and she could see only what stood in front of her: Mac Ard. She lifted Lamh Shabhala, and it flared in her hand as her mam shouted be-hind her. Lightning crackled, wrapping around Mac Ard and lifting him. Jenna gestured and the man was flung across the room, his body slam-ming against the wall. He collapsed with a groan. Maeve ran to him, crouching down alongside him and cradling his head in her lap. He was moaning as blood poured from a cut along his forehead. Maeve wept, tears sliding down her face. "Jenna! Stop this. . Please, darling, you must!"

Jenna spoke with a strange calmness in the midst of the red fury. "I can't stop it, Mam. I can't. It's too late for that. I'm sorry. ." She tore her gaze away from Maeve, went to the door, and left the room.

She could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs. She sent lightning crack-down the long hall toward the sound and flames sprang up where bright fingers touched. She ran the other way, to the back stairs the keep's help used. She ran down winding stone steps, scattering the few servants who were on them, and emerged into the courtyard. A tiarna was

nearby, dismounting from his horse as two stable hands held the beast.

"Holder " he started to say in greeting. Jenna gave him no chance to go further she let a pulse of energy flow from the cloch, smashing him in the chest. The horse reared and Jenna snatched the reins from the boy who was holding them, his face a frozen mask of terror.

She leaped onto the horse, not caring that her cloca rode up leaving her legs bare to the cold. "Holder, stop!" the boy shouted, but she kicked the horse into motion. Gardai were pouring out from the keep and an arrow hissed past her ear. Jenna crouched low on her steed’s back, urging him into a gallop toward the gates.

There were men there, she saw, and the gates were closed. She reined up the horse, lifting Lamh Shabhala as the squad of men hesitated. She cried aloud, her hand alight with the power, the scars on her arm glowing. The squad scattered; brighter than the sun, a fist like that of a god arced out from the cloch and smashed into the gate. Metal screeched and wailed; stone cracked and fell.

"Now!" Jenna shouted to the horse, kicking him again with her heels. She moved him carefully through the rubble and dust as more arrows shattered on the stones around her, then she was through onto the winding path leading down the steep slope of Goat Fell toward the town. Over the pounding of her mount’s hooves, she could hear the commotion behind her. As she traversed the first of the switch-back turns, she glanced back at the keep. Black smoke was pouring from the windows of the main tower, and a cloud of dust hung over the main gates, but a dozen mailed gardai on warhorses were already in pursuit.

Jenna kicked the horse again, and the stallion’s nostrils snorted twin white clouds into the cold air as his hooves tossed clods of half-frozen mud in the air. She would make the bridge, she knew, but already her head threatened to explode and her arm felt as if it was made of frozen granite. Her vision had contracted so that she could see only what was directly in front of her, and that poorly. She clutched the horse’s reins with her left hand, the right hanging limp, her knees trying desperately to keep a grip on the saddle. She heard more than saw the horse reach the bridge and begin to gallop across, the hooves loud on the wooden planking. She halted the stallion on the other side, pulling him

around so that she faced the bridge. Wearily, she reached for Lamh Shabhala with a hand that felt as heavy as the stones that formed the bridge's arches. She could barely see. She squinted into her dimming sight, trying to see her pursuers, ready to open Lamh Shabhala again and take them and the bridge down. She swayed in the saddle, and forced herself erect again.

"Holder!"

Jenna grimaced, her fingers fumbling around the cloch. She could hear the riders approaching, but couldn't see them in the dusk of her sight.

"Holder! Jenna!" the voice shouted again, behind her and to the left, it sounded familiar, and she turned her head slowly, her eyes narrowing.

"O'Deoradhain. . You bastard…" She lifted Lamh Shabhala, ready to strike the man down. He ran toward her awkwardly, hampered by his sling-bound arm, as she wobbled in the saddle, nearly falling.

"Can you ride?" He seemed to be shouting in her ear. "Holder, listen to me! Can you ride?"

She nodded. It took all the effort she had.

"Then ride. Go to du Val's. The Apothecary. Go, and I'll meet you there."

"The men. ."Jenna muttered. "From the keep.

"I will deal with them. Go!"

"It's too late," Jenna said. Her voice sounded nonchalant, almost amused. Strangely, she wanted to laugh. She couldn't lift her hand to point, but nodded toward the bridge. The riders from the keep were gal-loping around the final bend in the mountain road. Sighting Jenna on the other side of the bridge, they shouted and urged their horses forward. Jenna reached for the cloch again, wondering if she could open it in time, wondering if she had the strength to stay conscious if she did.

Something moved in front of her: O'Deoradhain, stepping to the end of the bridge as if he were about to hold back the on-rushing gardai him-self, one-handed. As Jenna watched, the man bent down and took a stone from the ground in his free hand. He held it in front of him, as if he were offering it to

the riders. She heard his voice call aloud: "Obair don dean-nach!" He threw the stone to the ground, and it seemed to shatter and dissolve. The gardai’s horses pounded onto the bridge, and at the same time, the bridge groaned like a live thing, a wail of wood and stone. The bridge decking writhed as if a giant had struck it from below as the tall stone arches to either side collapsed and fell away. Blocks of carved stone rained; support timbers bent and cracked like saplings in a storm.

The bridge fell, with the first of the riders on it. Horses and men screamed as they pinwheeled in air to the bottom of the ravine and crashed against the stones of Deer Creek.

There was a stunning silence. A gout of dust rose from the deep cleft-a gaped. The gardai trapped on the far side stared down at the broken bodies of their companions.

O’Deoradhain alone was free of the stasis. Jenna saw him move, heard groan with effort and pain as he pulled himself with his one good m onto her horse, even as Jenna swayed and nearly fell. His arms went round her, taking the reins. He slapped them against the stallion’s neck, kicked at its massive chest. "Go!" he shouted, wheeling the horse around.

Even as the first arrows arced toward them from across the ravine, they were galloping away toward the town, the onlookers staring in terror and fright. They fled.

Chapter 28: A Return

JENNA remembered little of the flight from Lar Bhaile, where O’Deoradhain took her or how they came to leave. There were flashes of images:

. . du Val, his face peering down at her concernedly. His mouth moved, but she heard nothing of what he said. There was another face behind the ugly dwarfs-O’Deoradhain? — and Jenna tried to struggle up, but hands held her firmly. .

. . the pain as she was lifted. She could see nothing, but she could feel herself moving. There

were voices: "We can't stay here. They'll be scouring the town in an hour. Not only the keep's gardai, but the Rl Ard's garrison as well" Another voice spoke. "A carriage, then? She can't ride, certainly." The first voice answered. "No, they'll be watching the High Road. If we could get across the lough… "

… a gentle rocking motion, the creaking of wood, the splashing of water and the smell of damp and fish. She looked up and saw stars above her, swaying softly…

There were still stars, and the smell of the lough and the sound of canvas rippling in a wind. Jenna sat up. She was in a small boat, a single small sail billowing in the cold night breeze. She was wrapped in blankets and she hugged them around her against the frigid air. O'Deoradhain was seated in the stern of the boat, the tiller in his hand, his left arm still bandaged tightly against his chest. Ahead, the shore was no more than a quarter mile distant. "Where?" was all she could manage to say. Her throat was raw and burning; the headache still pounded with every beat of her heart, and she wasn't certain she could move her right arm; it seemed dead- She touched her neck with her other hand: Lamh Shabhala was still there on its chain-that, at least, gave momentary relief. O'Deoradhain hadn't taken it from her.

"Nearly on the western shore of Lough Lar," O'Deoradhain answered. "And a bit north of Lar Bhaile as well. I've been looking for a good, low shingle where we can land."

"Anduilleaf… I need it…"

O'Deoradhain shook his head. "Don't have it. Du Val took it."

Jenna shivered at that. Anger burned, and she started to lift her hand to the cloch, but weariness overcame her. She sank back. "I'll die," she whispered. "I hurt so much."

"You might wish you died, but you won't. Not from the pain of Lamh Shabhala or withdrawal from the leaf. Perhaps from the Ri's soldiers, if they find us."

She remembered, suddenly, O'Deoradhain standing before the bridge, and it falling. . "The bridge," she said. "You said you knew other magics, but you also said they were slow and weaker. That was neither slow nor weak."

If Jenna’s praise pleased him, he didn’t show it.

His face was grim and sad. "Aye, much slower and weaker they are. But that spell was set earlier, before we met in the ravine and once the keystones were gone on the arches, the bridge itself did the rest. I thought that if we were to need to flee from the keep, that we would also need a way to slow up the pursuit. The spell took several at least a candle stripe or two of preparation, but then it was already done and set-all I had to do was speak the words."

He lifted his head to scan the shore, turning the tiller and adjusting the sail. "There, that’s as good a spot as we’re likely to find." A few minutes later, the keel grated on a tiny, pebbled beach along a small cove. Starlight dappled the tops of the trees on the shore while they held impenetrable darkness underneath, but across the lough and to the south, Jenna could see the yellow light of Lar Bhaile. O’Deoradhain leaped from the boat into the shallow water. Extending his good hand, he helped Jenna from the craft.

"I can’t walk far," she told him.

"I know, but come dawn we’d be all too visible on the lough’s shore." ’They’ll see the boat anyway and know where we landed." O’Deoradhain shook his head. "No," he said simply. He helped her up the bank to dew-wet grass. Then he went back down to the beach and shoved the prow of the boat away from shore. Jenna heard the bottom of the craft grinding against the bed of the lough, yet the boat continued to move outward. She saw two dark forms, blacker than the night, break the water’s surface alongside the hull. Blue light shimmered from their bodies Water splashed, the foam white, and the boat moved out into deeper water, floating free. The bow turned and faced south and east and it began to move away from them. O’Deoradhain came back to her and stood watching until they could no longer see the boat past the bend of the shore. He said nothing; Jenna decided she would not, either, though she wondered: Were those seals? O’Deoradhain held out his hand to her. "We need to go as far as we can tonight," he said. "They’ll find the boat tomor-row just south of Lar Bhaile, on the eastern side. If the Mother-Creator smiles on us, it will be a few days before they start looking on the western shore."

"And where are we going?"

O'Deoradhain shrugged. "North. To Inish Thuaidh."

"No," Jenna said.

"No?" In the darkness, it was difficult to see his face, but Jenna could hear his scowl and sigh of exasperation. "Holder, in the morning, all of Gabair will be out looking for you. When word reaches Dun Laoghaire, the Rl Ard will have his troops sent searching as well, and Tuath Con-nachta might very well consider this a wonderful opportunity to come look for you themselves. The other tuatha may do the same. Your only safety is to be gone from here as quickly as we can, and Inish Thuaidh is where you can best learn to use the power you have."

"No," Jenna repeated. She looked up, to where the wind tousled the heads of the trees. She could see nothing but the night sky and stars above them, but she could feel the first shy touch of mage-lights at the zenith. She knew that they would appear soon, no more than two stripes from now, and she was tired. So tired. No! she wanted to scream to them. Not tonight. I can't. .

She struggled to her feet, staring into the darkness of the trees. She remembered other trees, the dark twisted oaks that stretched close to the shore of the lough, Seancoim's tenderness and aid… "I'm going to Doire Coill."

O'Deoradhain loosed a scoffing breath. "I didn't snatch you from the Ri's gardai to have you die under the haunted oaks."

Jenna shrugged. She took a halting step-it took more effort than she thought. "I've been through those oaks once before. I think I'm safer there than on the road. If you don't want to come with me, then I'll thank you for your rescue, Ennis O'Deoradhain, and may the path to your home be easy." Another step. She forced herself to stay upright. She turned toward the trees and forced her legs to keep moving. Suddenly she felt O'Deoradhain beside her, his hand under her arm, supporting her. When she glanced at him, he was shaking his head.

"Is it true, what they say of Doire Coill?" he asked.

Jenna nodded. "Aye. And yet no. The forest is old and alive in a way that other woods are not, and things live there that are dangerous. But Doire Coill is also beautiful, and none of the tales that I heard ever spoke of that. I have a friend there…" She closed her eyes, the weariness coming over her again. She looked back across the lake to the town, as if she could see the commotion and upset there. She had thought she had a friend there as well and she had left behind the one person whom she knew loved her unconditionally. Mam, I’m so sorry. 1 hope I will see you again. . "At least I think he’s a friend," she finished.

O’Deoradhain took a long breath. Let it out again. "Then I suppose it would be a shame for me to miss seeing the forest while I’m so close."

Two stripes and more passed while they walked to the west at as fast a pace as Jenna could manage. They crossed the High Road a half mile from the lough, moving across the stone fences into a field dotted with small trees that must have once been farmland but was now long abandoned. A line of darkness loomed at the ridge of the hills just beyond the field, and as they approached, they saw the twisted, tall forms of oaks against the starlit sky. "Doire Coill?" O’Deoradhain asked, and Jenna nodded.

"Seancoim said it came close to the lough at places. We’re lucky."

"Or not." O’Deoradhain scowled at the forest. "It feels like the trees are watching us."

"They are," Jenna answered. She glanced at the sky and thought she could see wisps of color curling above. "Hurry," she said. "I won’t be able to go much farther." O’Deoradhain glanced at the sky also, though he said nothing. His arm went around her waist, and he helped her forward over the rough ground.

The hill was steeper and taller than it had appeared from the High Road. As they climbed, resting often, the two could look back over the ground they’d covered and see Lough Lar glimmering beyond the trees and, faintly on the horizon, the hills where the city lay. There were trees now as they neared the ridge, still widely spaced but undeniably the off-spring of the ancient oaks of Doire Coill. As they started down into the valley beyond, the trees came suddenly closer together, and they had to walk carefully to avoid tripping over roots or being smacked in the head by

low-hanging branches. At the bottom of the hill, they came across a small stream meandering through the wood, and Jenna sank to the ground. "No more," she said. "I'm too tired."

"Jenna, we're two miles from the lough. Maybe less. We should move on."

Jenna shook her head. "It doesn't matter. They'll know where I am soon enough." She pointed to the sky overhead through the winter-dry leaves and netted branches. Light burned there, brightening even as they watched. As the mage-lights grew, Jenna felt the desire in her to take their energy grow as well, overwhelming the exhaustion. She struggled to her feet again and took the cloch's chain from around her neck. She placed the stone in her right hand, forcing the fingers to close around it.

The mage-lights seemed to feel Lamh Shabhala’s presence; they swelled, flashing like blue and green lightnings directly above her. She 1 heard O'Deoradhain gasp. The power of the mage-lights crackled and hissed in her ears, and it seemed she could almost hear words in the din, speaking a language so old that it awakened ancestral memories in her blood. The scars on her arm seemed to glow, echoing the patterns in the sky above, and she lifted her hand, watching the colors converge and fuse over her. A funnel, a tongue slipped down from the display, bending and 1 twisting until it touched her hand, engulfing it.

Jenna cried out in mingled] pain and relief as the power of the mage-lights poured into Lamh Shabhala. She didn't know how long the connection lasted: forever, or a stripe of the candle, or only a few breaths. She could see the force or the magic, brilliant as it surged into the niches within the cloch, as it filled the well inside the stone nearly to overflowing.

Once more. . Jenna realized. The next time the mage-lights come, Lamh Shabhala will be able to hold no more. .

But Jenna could hold no more herself. The primordial cold of the mage-lights burned her, and she could no longer bear it. She cried out, as the mage-lights danced above and waves of tints and hues fluttered in the sky. She pulled her hand away from the grasp of the lights, and there was a pulse of fury and thunder.

As Jenna fell away into darkness, she thought she

Chapter 29: Awakening

SOMEONE’S head swam in her vision, and she could smell a scent of spices. Jenna blinked, squinting to make the features come into focus. She seemed to be in a cave. Torches guttered against the walls, and she lay on a bed of straw matting.

The air was warm and fragrant with the smell of a peat fire. If O’Deoradhain was there, she couldn’t see him. "Seancoim," she whispered. "Is that you?"

"Aye," a familiar voice answered. "I’m here."

"Lamh Shabhala," Jenna said, suddenly panicked. She remembered holding it, her fingers opening. .

"It’s around your neck," Seancoim answered. She felt his fingers take her left hand and guide it to her throat. She felt the familiar shape of the cloch in its silver cage. The relief lasted only a moment.

"Anduilleaf," she croaked. "I need… the leaf potion. You must have some. Give it to me."

"No," he answered, his voice gentle yet firm.

’Please. ." She was crying now: from the pain, from the refusal. Seancoim, it hurts. . You don’t know how it hurts. ."

His blind eyes seemed to stare at her. Callused fingers brushed her cheek. On his shoulder, she could see Denmark, the bird’s black eyes giving back twin, tiny reflections of her face. "Jenna, what’s hurting you most right now is the lack of the anduilleaf and not the sky-magic. should never have given the herb to you in the first place. Some people

I can t stop once they take it, and eventually the craving becomes so intense that it drives you mad. You will have to get through this without it."

"I can’t," she wept. She huddled in a fetal position, cradling her right arm against herself, but nothing would warm its cold flesh. Nothing would ever make it normal again. The chill seemed to have crept all the way to her shoulder, and she shivered. She couldn’t see Seancoim any-more; her vision was

narrowing again, as it had in the keep, all her periph-eral vision gone until there was nothing there but what was directly in front of her. The headache raged in her skull, and she was afraid that if she moved, her head would burst. "Seancoim. ." she wailed.

"I'm here," his voice answered, and she heard his staff clattering against stone as he moved. "I'll stay with you. Here, drink this."

He pressed a bowl to her lips. She sipped the warm liquid, hoping irrationally that despite his words it was anduilleaf. It was not: sweet mint tea, with a hint of something else. She swallowed, more eagerly than she expected, for the taste made her realize how hungry and thirsty she was. He gently laid her head back again. "Seancoim, just this once. The mage-lights… it hurts…"

"I know it does," he told her. "But you can bear it."

"I can't" she answered, but the words were hard to speak. She was sleepy; she could feel the weariness spreading through her, radiating out from her belly. "Where's O'Deoradhain?" she asked.

"He'll tell you what's happened…"

"He's here. Just outside." Seancoim's face was receding, as if she were falling away from him. "And he's told me everything."

"It hurts," Jenna said again.

"I know," he answered, but his face was so tiny and his voice so soft and it was easier to close her eyes and give in to the urge to sleep.

"Seancoim?"

A hand brushed lank hair away from her face.

"No, it's Ennis," O'Deoradhain's voice answered. "Seancoim's gone for a bit. Should I go look for him?"

Her head felt huge and heavy, and the headache still pounded. Her right arm was a log of ice cradled against her stomach. She tried to lift it and couldn't. She couldn't feel her fingers at all. Her body was trembling and despite the chill air, she could feel sweat breaking out on her fore-head. A soft cloth brushed it away. Jenna licked dry, cracked lips. "Thank you," she husked.

"Feeling better?"

Her left hand felt for the cloch around her neck. When she felt the she clasped it with a sigh. "Worse,

I think. I'm not sure." "Here then. He left this; said to have you drink it when you woke up." The bowl touched her lips again and she drank the sweet brew. Afterward, she lay back. O'Deoradhain looked down at her worriedly. There was a across his forehead: a line of dried blood with black thread sewn through it to hold the gaping edges shut, and both his eyes were swollen nearly closed and blackened.

"What happened to you?" Jenna asked. "Did the Ri's gardai. .?" O'Deoradhain shook his head. He touched the wound, his mouth twisting ruefully.

"No. After you took in the mage-lights, you collapsed, and this crow came flying past me and an ancient Bunus Muintir appeared right behind me. I thought he was about to attack or cast a spell. I drew my dagger, and all of a sudden the old bastard cracked me on the head with his damned staff, a lot faster and harder than an old blind man had any right to move. ."

Despite the pain, Jenna found herself chuckling at the image of Seancoim rapping O'Deoradhain over the head with his staff. O'Deoradhain frowned at first, then finally smiled back at her. "I'm glad you find that funny. I assure you I didn't at the time."

"If you wouldn't go pointing your weapon at people, it wouldn't have happened at all,"

Seancoim's voice answered from behind O'Deoradhain. A moment later, Denmark fluttered past O'Deoradhain to land at Jenna's left side. She lifted her hand to stroke the glossy black feathers, and the crow cawed back at her. "He was rather insistent about protecting you," Seancoim told her. "Even when he'd been knocked on the skull. Doesn't listen well, either. I had to hit him twice more. I nearly left him there, but I decided that if he brought you this far, he deserved better." Seancoim shooed O'Deoradhain aside. He crouched down next to Jenna's pallet. His gray-bearded, flat face was solemn. The cataract-whitened eyes gleamed in a nest of wrinkled brown flesh. "It's time to get up," he told her. Jenna shook her head. "No. Let me lie here. I couldn't. ." His gnarled, thick-knuckled hand reached down and took her arm. His grip surprised her with its strength as he pulled her up to a sitting position. Her head whirled with the movement, and for a moment she thought she would be sick. "Breathe," he told her. "Slow breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. That’s it."

She could feel his hand on one side, O’Deoradhain’s on the other, lifting and she shook her head again.

"It hurts. I don’t want to. ."

"You will," Seancoim answered. "You are stronger than you think. And there is something you must see." Suddenly she was standing on weak, wobbly legs. The room, she saw for the first time, was less a cave than deep, sheltered hollow below an overhanging limestone cliff. Ahead of her down a grassy embankment was a creek, and beyond that the dark tangle of oaks and brush of the forest.

They helped her walk down the embankment and out past the vine-fringed cliff wall into sunshine. Jenna squinted, but the heat on her shoulders felt good. The day was warm for the season; she could not even see her breath before her. "Sit here," Seancoim said, and Jenna was happy to do so, sinking down into the blanket of grass. "Look. . Straight across the stream, near the tallest oak."

Jenna saw it then, in a shifting of shadows as it moved. At first she thought it was simply a stag deer, but then it came out from under the trees, and Jenna gasped as she realized that the animal was huge, taller than O’Deoradhain at the shoulders, with a rack of massive antlers that echoed the great branches of the oaks. Its coat was a brilliant russet with a white, powerful breast, and the black, gleaming hooves were larger than Jenna’s hands. The creature was magnificent, almost regal, as it walked slowly down to the stream’s edge and lowered its crowned head to drink for a moment. Then the head lifted again to gaze across the river to the three people with eyes that seemed calm and intelligent.

"That’s a fia stoirm," Seancoim said quietly, answering Jenna’s unasked question. "The storm deer. In the Bunus Muintir histories, they speak of herds of them, their hooves so loud pounding against the earth that it sounded like thunder.

When the sky-magic died, so did they."

"Our stories are the same," O’Deoradhain said.

"From the Before, cen-turies ago. But if they all died

"Not all," Seancoim answered. "A few survived, hiding in the oldest places. When I was young, I

once glimpsed a storm deer deep in Doire Coill. But in the past year, I have seen dozens, and not in the depths of the forest but here near the edge. I have seen other things, too, that were once legend and are not as beautiful and gentle as these: dire wolves, who have a language of their own; boars with long tusks as sharp as knives, and whose bristles are gold; snakes with white scales and red eyes, as long as any of us are tall. From my brothers to the west,

I have learned that a dragon's scream was heard on one of the islands in the Duan Mouth. And from another, that blue seals were gathering along the northern coast. Jenna remembered the seals she'd seen in Lough Lar, the way their satin fur had gleamed. She glanced at O'Deoradhain, but he would not look at her. "The myths are awakening again," Seancoim continued. "Things walk the land that have not been seen in many generations. Even the trees of Doire Coill are more awake now than I have ever felt them."

Almost as if in response to Seancoim's words, the wind rose slightly and shook the branches of the oaks. The stag's nostrils widened as it sniffed the breeze. The creature took a last look at them before bounding away, its great hooves thudding audibly on the ground as it departed.

"This is what you are caught in, Jenna," Seancoim said. "Part great beauty, part great danger. As the mage-lights are awakening the old crea-tures, so you are ready to awaken the other clochs na thintri. You will make a new world."

"I can't," Jenna said. The pain inside her, forgotten for a moment with the sighting of the storm deer, returned. "I don't know how. I'm scared, Seancoim. I'm so. ." She couldn't finish the sentence. The tears came again in racking, terrified sobs, and she wanted more than anything else for her mam to be here, to comfort her as she had so many times. She had thought of herself as a woman now, an adult and self-sufficient, but she suddenly felt like a child again.

It was O'Deoradhain who came to her. "I can help you, Jenna," he told her, crouching down in front of her. "I can't do it for you because Lamh Shabhala has chosen you, but I can help you. If you'll let me."

His arms went around her, and for a breath she stiffened, ready to pull away. He started to release her, to back away, but she laid her head on his shoulder. She let herself fall into the embrace,

allowing herself to believe that she was safe in her mam’s arms again, imagining that she was home again and that none of this had ever happened.

But it wasn’t an illusion that could last.

"There’s another who will help you as well," she heard Seancoim say. "Or at least, I hope so. We’ll go to him tomorrow."

Chapter 30: Release

SHE remembered the valley. The sight of the central dolmen, carved with the pattern of the scars on her arm and surrounded by the passage graves of the Bunus Muintir chieftains, still made her shiver. The day was gray and sullen with rain misting from lowering clouds, the water dripping heavily from the cap-stone of the dolmen as they stood under it. Only Denmark seemed un-bothered by the rain-the crow was perched above the entrance to Riata’s grave, mouth open to the sky and occasionally shaking droplets from his feathers.

Jenna’s mood matched the weather. Her stomach roiled and she’d thrown up nearly everything that Seancoim had put into her. The head-ache refused to leave, so that at times she could barely walk, and her right arm hung useless at her side. She’d leaned heavily on O’Deoradhain as they’d made the two-day journey to the valley. She remembered little of the time: it was a blur of pain and fatigue. She’d begged Seancoim for anduilleaf off and on, sometimes weeping, sometimes in a fury, once with a threat to use the cloch; he refused each time, though never with anger.

Jenna sank down with her back against one of the standing stones, not caring that the ground was soaked and muddy. "Now what?" she asked.

"We wait," Seancoim answered.

"Here?" Jenna spat.

"Here, or in Riata’s cairn."

"Here," O’Deoradhain said. He cast a look at the blackness beyond the stones where Denmark

roosted, and shivered. "Graves aren't for the living."

"Riata isn't quite dead," Seancoim told him.

"Then that's even worse."

"Can we at least have a fire?" Jenna asked. "I'm cold through."

O'Deoradhain gathered together what kindling he could find and pulled his tinderbox from his pack, but the spark wouldn't catch despite repeated efforts. "It's too damp," he said finally. Jenna nodded miserably, and Seancoim hunkered down in front of the nest of kindling O'Deoradhain had built. He rubbed his hands together several times, chanting words that Jenna could not understand. He picked up O'Deoradhain's flint and struck it. A blue flame shot out, startling Jenna, and the kindling began to crackle. O'Deoradhain chuckled. "I'm beginning to think that I was lucky you only hit me on the head," he said to Seancoim.

Seancoim's grizzled, ancient face grinned back at him as he warmed his hands over the flames. "That you were, young man."

They stayed there under the dolmen as the sun lowered itself beyond the lip of the valley and the valley grew darker under the overcast sky. The rain stopped before sunset; as night fell they began to glimpse stars between the thinning clouds.

Seancoim and O'Deoradhain talked as they waited, but Jenna said little, sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up and her right arm cradled against her. She stroked Lamh Shabhala from time to time. The cloch seemed almost restless, its image throbbing in her head, filling her vision with bright sparks. There was a tension in the air itself like the drone of some sepulchral pipe, so low that she couldn't quite hear it but only feel the sound, rumbling just below the threshold of perception.

A finger of light appeared above them, blue outlined in gold, wavering and brightening so that they saw the shadow of the dolmen sway on the ground in response. Jenna rose to her feet.

"So it is to be tonight… "

The voice spoke in her head, not in her ears: a resonant, warm baritone. The others looked up as well, as if they'd also heard. "Riata?" Jenna glanced toward the entrance to his tomb. There was a wavering in the dimness, a mist that formed itself

into a man’s shape as she watched. "Do you remember me?"

She felt the now-familiar touch of another Holder’s mind on her own, this one more powerful than most, strong enough so that she could not shut him out as he prowled her thoughts and her memories. The spectral figure of the ancient Bunus Holder drifted toward her. Jenna was vaguely aware of the others watching, Seancoim placidly silent, O’Deoradhain with shocked apprehension. "Ahh," Riata sighed. "Jenna. You are the First who came to me once before." More mage-lights had appeared in the sky, brighter and more brilliantly colored than Jenna had seen in previous displays. The largest manifestation was directly overhead, but the mage-lights flickered all the way to the horizon. The entire valley was illumi-nated, as if a thousand fires burned above. Riata’s indistinct face glanced up to them. "Aye," he said. "Tonight."

Jenna clutched the cloch na thintri. The fingers of her right hand, as if warmed by the glare of the mage-lights, moved easily now and closed around the stone. Lamh Shabhala was frigid in her palm, glowing in re-sponse to the swaying, dancing power above it. Jenna could sense the cloch yearning like a live thing, wanting her to open it, to fill it. The feeling was so urgent and compulsive that it frightened Jenna.

"Lamh Shabhala craves the power as you crave the anduilleaf," Riata murmured in her head. "You must control Lamh Shabhala as you must control yourself, or it will destroy you utterly when it consumes the mage-lights this night and sets free the other clochs na thintri."

Riata’s words filled Jenna with dread. Her breath came fast and shallow; she could feel her heart racing. "I can’t do it," she gasped.

"You can. I will help you."

"As will I," O’Deoradhain said. He was beside her now. His hand touched Jenna’s shoulder, and she shrugged it away.

"You want me to fail," she spat at him. "Then you’ll take Lamh Shabhala."

"Aye, I would if that happened," he told her. His pale emerald eyes regarded her calmly. "But your failure isn’t what I want. Not any longer. You can

believe me or not, Jenna, but I will help you. I can help you. This is what I was trained to do."

"Listen to him," Riata husked. "Use the cloch. See the truth even if you want to deny it."

"You swear that?" Jenna asked O'Deoradhain, and she let the barest hint of the cloch's strength waft outward. Shaping it to her task was like holding one of the piglets back in their farm in Ballintubber: it wriggled, it squirmed to be away, and she could control it only with difficulty.

"I do swear it," O'Deoradhain answered, and the truth in the words reverberated like the sound of a bronze bell.

"Then what do I do?" Jenna asked.

"Start as you always have. Open the cloch to the lights."

Jenna let the image of Lamh Shabhala fill her mind: the crystalline interstices; the jeweled valleys and hills; the interior landscape of spar-kling energy. Above, the sky responded, a surge of pure white light that was born directly above Jenna and rippled outward in bright spectral rings. The mage-lights flamed, the clouds were driven away as if by hurri-cane winds.

Lamh Shabhala pulled at the sky-magic, sucking in the power like a ravenous beast. "No!" O'Deoradhain and Riata shouted as one. "You must direct the cloch this time, Jenna," O'Deoradhain continued, his voice shouting in her ear but almost lost in the internal din of the mage-lights as they crackled and seethed around her. "You must go up to the mage-lights, not let Lamh Shabhala bring them down to you."

"How?" Jenna raged at him. "Do you think I can fly?" This was nothing she had experienced before with the cloch. She seemed to be in the mid-dle of a coruscating storm, flailing and trying to hold her ground, nearly blind and deaf in its brilliance and roar. Riata's voice answered her, calm and soft as always, cutting through the bedlam.

"Think it," he said, "and it will be."

Her arm burned, the scars as bright as lightning. She lifted the cloch toward the sky and imagined rising into the maelstrom above. Her per-ception shifted: she was outside herself. She could see her

body on the ground, arm lifted, and yet she was also above with the mage-lights run-ning through and around and with her, the land spread like a tapestry below. She was Lamh Shabhala; she was the power within it. Voices and shapes surrounded her in the dazzling space and she knew them: all the ones who had held an active Lamh Shabhala before her: Severii O’Coulghan, who like Riata had been Last Holder; Tadhg O’Coulghan, his father who had held it before Severii; Rowan Beirne, Bryth and Sinna Mac Ard; Eilis MacGairbhith, the Lady of the Falls, and Aodhfin O Liathain, the lover who had betrayed and killed her to take the cloch; Caenneth Mac Noll, also a First, and the first Daoine to hold an active Lamh Shabhala. The Bunus Muintir Holders were there too-Riata, Davali, Oengus. There were hundreds of them: Daoine, Bunus Muintir, and peoples unknown to her, stretching back thousands of years. And they spoke, a babble of voices that rivaled the sound of the mage-lights.

". So young, this one."

’… She’s too young. Too weak. Lamh Shabhala will consume her."

"… I was a First and I died the night I opened the clochs, as will she. ."

"… let her undergo the Scrudu, too. Now, before this happens, and if she lives. .

’Now is not the time for the Scrudu. She must wait for that test until later, as I did. Lamh Shabhala chose her, and sent her to me." That was Riata, calm. "There is a reason it was her… " "What must I do?" Jenna asked them. Her voice was phosphorescence and glow. A hundred voices answered, a jumble of contradiction. Some were amused, some were hostile, some were sympathetic.

". . die!"

". . give up the clock while you can…"

". . hold onto yourself… "

She ignored them and listened for Riata’s voice. "Feel the presence of the other clocks…"

"I do." She could sense them all, scattered over the land yet tied to Lamh Shabhala with streamers of green-white energy. The channels led to the well within the cloch.

"Fill the cloch now," Riata told her, though other voices wailed laughter or warning. "Open it. ."

"You are the cloch," said another voice, fainter and paler: O'Deoradhain.

She imagined Lamh Shabhala transparent and without boundaries. Nothing happened. She drifted above the valley, snared in lambent splen-dor, but there was no change. She looked at her arm, saw light reflecting from it. A beam curled around her, and she willed it to enter her. Blue-green rays crawled the whorls of scars, and she gasped as the radiance entered in her and through her, surging into the cloch she held. Like a dam bursting under the pressure of a flood, the mage-lights suddenly whirled about her, following the path she had made, more and more of the energy filling her as she screamed in ecstasy and fear. Unrelenting, it poured inward. Lamh Shabhala was utterly full, too bright to gaze upon, shuddering and quivering in her hand as if it might break apart. And the pain came with the power: white, stabbing needles of it, driving deep into her flesh and her soul, a torment beyond anything she'd endured before.

The mage-lights were a thunderous cacophony into which she shouted uselessly. In a moment, she would be lost, swept away in currents that she could not control. She ached to release it, to simply let it pass through her, to end this.

"Hold onto the magic, Jenna!" The voice was Riata's or O'Deoradhain's or both. "You must hold onto it!" they shouted again, and she screamed back at them.

"I can't!"

"Jenna, Lamh Shabhala will open the way for the other clocks through you. It is too late now for anything else. The only choice to be made is whether you will use Lamh Shabhala or it you."

". . too young. . too weak. . she will die. ."

". . you see, even if she did this task, she would never have passed the Scrudu later. Best she die now…"

She couldn't hold the energy. No one could hold it. It clawed at her mind with talons of lightning, it roared and flailed and smashed against her. It bellowed and shrilled to be loosed. a moment longer… "

Her hand wanted to open and she knew that if she let go of the stone the force would fly outward with the motion, uncontrolled and explosive. Lamh Shabhala burned in her palm; she could feel its cold fury flaying the skin from muscles, the muscles from bone. It would tear her hand from her arm. She closed her left hand around the right.

". . Good! Turn it inward. Inward…"

Jenna squeezed the cloch tighter, screaming against the resistance and the torture. She closed her eyes, crushing fingers together and shouting a wordless cry.

The sky went dark. The mage-lights vanished.

For a moment, Jenna gaped upward, back in her body again. Light flooded around her cupped, raised hands as if she were grasping the sun itself.

"Now," O'Deoradhain said, his voice loud in the sudden silence. "Let it

Jenna opened her hands.

A fountain of multicolored light erupted: from the cloch, from the scarred flesh of her arm, from her open mouth and eyes. It blossomed high above the valley, gathering like an impossible star for several breaths. Then it shattered, bursting apart into meteors that jetted outward along the energy lines of the other clochs na thintri, the star fading as the mete-ors flared and faded themselves, arcing into the distance and away.

There was the sound of peal upon peal of thunder, then their echoes rebounded from the hills and died in silence.

The valley was dark under a starlit sky, and the sparks lifting from their fire under the dolmen stone seemed pallid and cold. Jenna lifted the cloch that had fallen back around her neck-it burned cold, but it was dark. She marveled at her hands, that they were somehow whole and unblood-ied. The pain hit her then. She fell to her knees, crying out, and O'Deoradhain and Seancoim laid her down gently. "Riata?" she called out.

'He's gone," O'Deoradhain told her. "At least I think so."

"It hurts," Jenna said simply.

I know. I'm sorry. But it's done. It's done, Jenna.

She nodded. Her right arm was stiffening now, the fingers curling into a useless fist, sharp twinges like tiny knives cutting through her chest. She cried, lying there, and let O’Deoradhain place his arm around her for the little comfort it brought her. A familiar smell cut through the smell of wood smoke: Seancoim crouched down by her, a bowl in his hand.

"Anduilleaf," he said. "This one time."

Jenna started to reach for it. Her fingers grazed the edge of the bowl and then stopped. She shook her head. "No," she told the old man. "I can bear this."

What might have been a smile touched his lips beneath the tangle of gray beard. His blind eyes were flecked with firelight; Denmark flapped in from the night and landed on his shoulder. Seancoim dumped the contents of the bowl on the ground and scuffed at the dirt with his feet.

"You have indeed grown tonight, Jenna," he said.

PART THREE: The Mad Holder

(Map: Inish Thuaidh)

Chapter 31: Taking Leave

A DIRE wolf howled its worship to the moon goddess from the next hill. A white owl with a wingspan as wide as a person's outstretched arms swooped down from a nearby branch and lifted again with a rabbit clutched in its talons. The wind brought the enchanting song of the trees at the heart of the forest. Mage-lights snarled the stars.

"I have to go," Jenna said.

Seancoim nodded. Denmark ruffled his wings on the old man's shoulder as Seancoim's pale eyes plucked moonlight from the air. "I know," he said.

"Do you know why?"

He sniffed, almost a laugh. "Well, let me see if I can fathom it… Because Lamh Shabhala aches to be used. Because Jenna herself is tired of hiding and sitting. Because you know that to the north are the people who are your father's fathers, and there also lies the knowledge that you lack as Holder. Because even though I tell you you're wrong, you're afraid that if you hide here too long, your enemies will come in too great a force for even Doire Coill to resist and you don't want harm to come to me or

the forest. Because the winter's chill is gone and the land calls you. Be-cause you see the magic at work here and want to see what it's done elsewhere. Because a blind old man is poor company for a young woman. Are those your reasons?"

Jenna laughed. "All but the last, aye. And more." And you'll be traveling with Ennis O'Deoradhain." It was more statement than question, and he was still smiling. "So that's the way it is, 'tis it? You've come to like the man."

"No!" The denial came quickly and automatically.

"Not at all. But he’s Inish, and knows some of the cloudmage ways and will help me get to the island. Do I trust him? I suppose I do to a point-he could have taken Lamh Shabhala from me easily when we were in Lar Bhaile and he didn’t but the man still has his own agenda and if I get in the way of that…" She shrugged. "And I don’t like the man, Seancoim. Not that way." And after Coelin’s betrayal, I’m not sure I’ll ever love anyone again that way, she wanted to add, but pressed her lips shut.

Jenna and O’Deoradhain had wintered in Doire Coill. Seancoim had scoffed at Jenna’s concerns that RI Gabair and Tiarna Mac Ard-or the RI Ard and Tanaise Rig themselves-might try to invade the forest. "The forest will take care of itself, as I told Tiarna Mac Ard when you first came here," he answered. "Now the magic is unleashed again, and the forest is more awake than ever. They bring their own death if they wander here."

And yet they had come. The mage-lights of the Filleadh had told those in Lar Bhaile where Jenna had gone after she fled the city. In the days immediately following her escape, troops were dispatched to search for her on the west side of Lough Lar and some even ventured into Doire Coill. As Seancoim had predicted, few of those who entered the oak forest returned. But strangely, after the initial fortnight, no one came searching at all.

Jenna had wondered about that at first. Then she realized. .

Nearly every night now, the mage-lights flickered in the sky, no longer only above the locus of Lamh Shabhala but from horizon to horizon, and the newly-released clochs na thintri fed on them. The Riocha were scrambling for possession of the stones-and learning to control them- which created such turmoil and contention that finding Lamh Shabhala and Jenna was temporarily a secondary concern. The night of the Filleadh, Jenna had opened three double hands of the major clochs (the Clochs Mor, O’Deoradhain had said they were called) and a hand of the minor stones-or clochmions-for each of the Clochs Mor: almost two hundred clochs na thintri all told were now active.

Nearly every night, too, Jenna yearned for the anduilleaf and the solace it would bring against the continuing pain of holding Lamh Shabhala. But Seancoim would not offer it to her again, and she

remembered too well the fog it had cast over her mind.

Little news reached Doire Coill from outside, but O'Deoradhain would sometimes go to search out a traveler alone on the High Road. He would bring back their tales to Jenna and Seancoim. Twice during their stay, other Bunus Muintir came to visit Seancoim-from Foraois Coill in Tuath Infochla, and the great island of Inishcoill off Tuath Airgialla-and they brought news of their own. Jenna knew from those contacts that word had been sent from Dun Laoghaire to all the tuatha that the Holder of Lamh Shabhala had been driven insane, that she had murdered a score of Riocha in Lar Bhaile including the Banrion Cianna herself. A hefty blood rice had been placed on her head, and it appeared that the Tanaise Rig no longer had any interest in his marriage proposal.

Jenna was now the Mad Holder, to be killed upon sight.

Two months ago, near the time of the Festival of Fomhar, the three of them had watched from the western fringes of Doire Coill as an army approached from the west and another marched out from Lar Bhaille to meet it. They had seen in the distance the smoke and dust of battle, and Jenna felt the surge of power from several clochs na thintri wielded as terrible weapons. From the travelers, they learned that other armies had been seen battling south and east, as well.

The tuatha were fighting among themselves, and the clochs na thintri were among their implements of war.

Eventually, Jenna knew, someone would come searching for Lamh Shabhala, someone with an army or a few of the Clochs Mor or both at their backs, and they would stop at nothing to find her. Jenna had learned much about handling the cloch in the last months, but she didn't want to see Doire Coill at the center of a battle, even a victorious one.

And Seancoim was right. She was tired of hiding.

"When do you go?" Seancoim asked, his voice bringing her out of reverie. She shivered, then smiled at him.

"Tomorrow."

"Then 1 will enjoy tonight." Seancoim turned

solemn, twirling a finger in his beard before he spoke. "You must realize that I’m not the only one who can guess which way Lamh Shabhala would travel."

"I know that. We’ll be careful."

"Careful may not be enough."

She smiled at him and kissed his forehead. "Then come with us. I’d like that. Have you ever seen the Westering Sea, Seancoim? O’Deoradhain says that you look out, and see nothing but water and sky, all the way to the end of the world."

He shook his head sadly. "No. But this is where my destiny and my home are. I’m an old man, and I have my apprentice to train."

"Apprentice? Since when do you have an apprentice?" You’ve not met her. She stays on her own most of the time inside the forest. She’s learned most of what I have to teach her but not all. No, Jenna, thanks for your offer, but I’ll stay here and make certain that you have a place to which you can return one day."

They were standing at the northern edge of Doire Coill, near where Mac Ard, her mam, and she had first entered the forest-less than a year ago, though it seemed that everything had changed in that time. The High Road was less than a quarter mile away, turning here in a great sweeping curve to the north, where a day’s walk away waited Knobtop and Ballintubber. Jenna wondered about her home, wondered what they said about her and her mam when they gathered in Tara ’s Tavern of an evening. Perhaps there were already tales of the Mad Holder, and One Hand Bailey or Chamis Redface regaled anyone who would listen with fanciful tales of Jenna as a child.

"Even back then it was obvious that she was fey and dangerous. Why, once Matron Kelly scolded her, and Jenna made a motion like this, and Matron Kelly’s cows gave no milk for an entire week. Tom Mullin once caught her stealing apples from his orchard and chased her off his land, and the very next day as he rode to Aldwoman Pearce’s house, may the Mother-Creator rest her soul, his horse threw him for no reason at all and he broke his leg. He’s walked with a limp since that day. I tell you, we were all careful what we said and did around the Aoires… "

"You don't get to choose how you're remembered," Seancoim said, as if he sensed what she were thinking. "That's up to those who are left behind." He touched her right arm. "Come with me," he said.

He turned and walked back into the forest, Denmark flapping heavily ahead of them. He turned away from the faint path they'd followed, slip-ping into the darkness under the trees. "I can't see," Jenna said, hesitating.

"Then take my arm. ."

Holding onto the elbow of a blind man, she moved into the night landscape of the forest. They walked for nearly a stripe, it seemed, Jenna stumbling and occasionally pushing away a stray branch, while Seancoim was sure-footed and easy with Dunmharu’s guidance.

They skirted a fen, and Jenna realized that the sound of the forest had changed at some point. She could no longer hear the animals: the grunt of the deer, the occasional howl of a wolf, the rustlings and chirps of the night birds. Here, there were other sounds: leafy rustlings, the groan of shifting wood, the sibilant breath of leaves that sounded almost like words. The moon came out from behind a cloud, and she could see that she and Seancoim were surrounded by gigantic old oaks with gnarled, twisted branches and great trunks that it would take three men to encircle. They loomed over the two, and Denmark stayed on Seancoim's shoulder rather than roosting in any of these branches.

The trees spoke to each other. Jenna could hear them, could feel them. They were aware; they knew she was there. Branches moved and swayed though there was no wind, one limb sweeping down to wrap about Jenna's right arm. She resisted the temptation to brush away the woody fin-gers, the leafy touch, and a few moments later it uncurled and swept away. "Can you talk to them, Seancoim?" she asked, her voice a hushed whisper. It seemed sacrilegious to speak loudly here.

"No," he answered, his voice as quiet as hers. "They're the Seanoir, the Eldest, and their language is older than even the Bunus Muintir, nor do they experience life as we do. But this place is one of the many hearts of Doire Coill. These trees were planted by the Seed-Daughter herself when she gave life to the land, and they have been here since

the beginning, thousands and thousands of years. Here, feel. ." Seancoim took Jenna’s hand and placed it on the veined, craggy surface of the nearest trunk. She felt nothing for a moment, then there was a throb like the pulsing of blood; a few breaths later, another followed. "That’s the heartbeat of the land itself," Seancoim said. "Slow and mighty and eternal, moving through their limbs."

Jenna kept her hand there, feeling the long, unhurried beats, her own breath slowing and calming with the touch. "Seancoim, I never. ." She wanted to stay here forever, feeling this. There was a sorcery to the trees, an insistent lethargy, and she remembered. "When I was here before. ."

"Aye, it was their call you heard," Seancoim told her. "And if the Old Ones here wished it, you would remain snared in their spell until your body died of thirst and hunger. Look around you, Jenna. Look around you with your eyes open."

"My eyes are open…" she started to say, then blinked. For the first time, she noticed that there were gleams of moonlit white in the grassy earth of the grove. She bent down to look and straightened with a stifled cry: a skull leered back at her, stalks of grass climbing through vacant eye sockets, the jaw detached and nearly lost alongside. There were dozens of skeletons in and around the tree trunks, she saw now: some human, some animal.

"The sun feeds their leaves, the rain slakes their thirst, and those who come here and are trapped by their songs nourish the earth in which their roots dig," Seancoim said. "This is where, when it’s time, I’ll come, too, on my own and by my own choice." Jenna continued to stare. She could smell the death now: the ripe pungency of rotting flesh. Some of the bodies were new, and the clothes they wore were dyed green and brown.

She should have been horrified. But she felt the throbbing of the trees and the earth and realized that this was as it should be, that the Seanoir fed on life in the same way Jenna fed on life. She ate the meat of animals that had once been alive, and soaked up their juices with bread from the wheat that had waved in fields under the sun a month before. This was simply another part of the greater cycle in which they were all caught There was no horror here. No malevolence, no evil. The trees simply did as their nature demanded. If they killed,

it was not out of hatred, but because their view of the world was far longer and broader than that of the races whose lives were impossibly fleeting.

A branch came down; it lifted the cloch at Jenna's neck and let it drop again. "They know Lamh Shabhala," Seancoim said. "It is nearly as old as they are. They know it lives again." He went up to the largest of the trees and lifted his hand. A branch above wriggled, and a large acorn dropped into his palm. "Here," he told Jenna. He folded the nut in her left hand, closing her fingers around the acorn and putting his own leathery hands over hers. "For the Seanoir, the mage-lights signal a time of growing. Even the seasons themselves are too fast for them. The lights are the manifesta-tion of a burgeoning centuries-long spring and summer for them, and this is their seed. Take this with you when you go, and plant this where you find your new home. Then you will always have part of Doire Coill with you. Make a new place for them."

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

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

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

"I need to see this."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I’m sorry, Holder," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The horde had passed.

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

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

Chapter 32: Ballintubber Changed

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

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

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

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

She opened her hand and her eyes. A shiver of

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

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

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

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

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

I think."

"I'd be drinking if I lived here."

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

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

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

Jenna shrugged at O'Deoradhain.

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

Jenna sniffed. "I know these people,

O'Deoradhain. They're my friends."

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

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

"Eliath! It's good to see you. ."

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

"She's fine. She's in Lar Bhaile."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Aye. I understand," Jenna told her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Horses?" Jenna asked.

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

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

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

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

"And when they don't?"

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

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

Chapter 33: A Battle of Stones

THEY were three days out of Ballintubber, and it still seemed strange to both of them that they'd encountered very few people. Though the land at the northern borders of Tuath Gabair was sparsely populated and they were traveling overland rather than on the road, the area seemed oddly empty. Fields that should have been plowed by now were fallow, with weeds and grass growing up among the straggling clumps of wheat and barley. The day before, they'd passed near one village, and though they heard the sounds of children playing and saw several women work-ing the fields nearby, the only men they noticed were the old. O'Deoradhain turned grim at the sight.

"They’ve been sweeping the land, then, and pressing men into service. The Ris are strengthening their armies," he’d said, and Jenna hadn’t wanted to believe him.

Now the proof lay before her.

They were walking through a wooded valley between two tall ridge lines. The trees thinned, and they came out into an open field where the hills swept wide apart in great curving arms.

A mound of raw new earth cut across their path, and the banner of Tuath Gabair flapped on a pole planted in the dirt. Jenna glanced at O’Deoradhain; his face was grim, and he pulled on the reins of his horse to Pass to the left of the mound.

He quickly brought his horse to a stop. "By the Mother," he breathed. Jenna came up alongside him. "Gods," she said. Her stomach jumped, and she tasted bile in her mouth.

They were on a slight rise. The full expanse of the field lay spread out before them: trampled, torn, and bloodied. Black flocks of carrion crows fought and scrabbled over the bodies of soldiers; feral dogs lifted their heads from gory feasts to glare suspiciously at them. Flies buzzed and whined through the air. The bodies, Jenna noted, all wore the blue and gold of Tuath Connachta. There were two more mounds on the field, and on each Gabair’s banner flew.

A few heads had been mounted on broken lances as a warning. O’Deoradhain rode his horse up to one of the trophies, the horse shying away from the smell of rotting meat and the crow-emptied eye sockets, and a cloud of flies rising from the face as O’Deoradhain leaned over from his saddle to peer at it. The jaw hung upon, the head gaping in eternal amaze-ment. "A boy," he said. "No more than fifteen, I’ll wager, and a pressman in his Ri’s army. I’ll bet he told his mam he’d be back a hero."

Jenna’s stomach turned again, and she leaned over, vomiting quickly. She hung onto the horse.

The wind shifted slightly, and the smell came to them: rotting, ripe flesh. The sweet sickly smell of death.

"Victory," O’Deoradhain said mockingly. " Tis a wonderful sight, don’t you think?"

Jenna wiped her mouth and nudged her horse

carefully forward. The horse nickered, its eyes wide and nervous. She looked down at a body to her right. The soldier sprawled awkwardly on his back, a broken sword still clutched in his hand. The rings of bronze and iron sewn on his boiled leather vest were ripped and broken over his abdomen, and a horrible wound had nearly split him in two. Scavengers had been at the body-the eyes and tongue were gone, his entrails pulled out and scattered, the flesh gnawed upon. White maggots crawled in and around his open mouth, in the sockets of his eyes. Jenna's stomach lurched again, and she forced the gorge back down.

O'Deoradhain was riding slowly around the field, occasionally looking down at the earth. Jenna stayed where she was, not wanting to go out into the carnage. "What was left of the Connachtan force retreated west," he said when he returned. "They weren't pursued-from the looks of the mounds, the Gabairan troops lost a good many men also, and their com-mander decided to stay here and bury their dead. They moved off to the east, through that pass there." He glanced down at the body of the soldier by Jenna. "The battle took place no more than two days ago, from the signs." Jenna nodded; she was still staring at the body. "Jenna?"

She wondered how young he'd been, how he'd looked in life, whether he'd had a wife and family. She imagined the body alive again, as if she could turn back time.

"Jenna?"

She lifted her head to find O'Deoradhain staring at her. "There were lochs here, too," he said. "There are several places where the earth is scorched as if by lightning strikes. Boulders were flung about that had crushed men underneath, and trees ripped whole from the ground and tossed. Since the Clochs Mor, unlike Lamh Shabhala, have only one ability each, I would guess there were two or possibly three of the stones here."

Jenna touched Lamh Shabhala. She could feel nothing here now, but a sense of dread hung over her that she had not felt since they'd left Doire Coill. For the first time, she realized just how much the Filleadh had changed the world. You caused this, she thought, her gaze on the field of destruction ahead of her. This is all because of the cloch you hold, and there will be more of it. Much more.

"It’s my fault," Jenna said.

O’Deoradhain nudged his horse alongside Jenna’s, though he didn’t touch her. "No," he said firmly, though quietly. "This isn’t your fault. This is the fault of greed and callousness and stupidity. You didn’t force any of the Rithe into conflict; they were just waiting for the opportunity, and Lamh Shabhala provided a convenient excuse."

The corpse leered up at her, a mockery in the bright spring grass. "All these people dead. ."

"Aye," O’Deoradhain said, "and yet more will die. That I can guarantee. But their souls won’t come wailing to you when they cry out for justice."

She still stared down, realizing that beyond this body another one lay, and another and another…

"I can hear them now," she told him. "They already call to me…" She was trembling, unable to stop the movement of her hands.

"Jenna, you’ve seen a dead body before." His mouth snapped shut, and she could imagine the rest of what he might have said: You were responsible for their deaths, too.

She looked at O’Deoradhain, her head shaking violently from side to side. "Not this many," she said. "Not like this, just. ." She had to stop ’or a moment, her breath gone. Her heart was pounding in her chest…. just scattered everywhere. Torn apart, half-eaten, discarded and unmourned " She tasted vomit at the back of her throat again, and swal-lowed hard. This is your legacy. This is your fate, too. Some day it will be you sprawled lifelessly there. . The land was starting to whirl around her, at the center the grotesque face of the dead soldier.

Jenna." O’Deoradhain brought her back as she was about to fall. Harsh and unsympathetic, his voice struck like a slap. She took a breath, and the world settled again. "This isn’t the last you’ll see of this. You’ll see more and worse, because you’ll be part of it. You don’t have a choice, not unless you want to give up Lamh Shabhala."

"Lamh Shabhala is mine," Jenna answered heatedly. Her hand went to the cloch, closing around it.

"Then look around you and get used to the sight, because you’ll need to have a clear head and mind

when a battle's raging around you, or someone will be taking Lamh Shabhala from your corpse." Then his voice softened; he started to reach for her, then let his hand drop back to his side. "The dead can't hurt you, Jenna. Only the living can do that. We can't stay here, and we can't go back. The war will follow us-my bet is that the Ri Ard is already stepping in to end these battles between the tuatha. They'll unite to find Lamh Shabhala; we can only hope to stay ahead of them, and maybe, maybe on Inish Thuaidh we can leave them behind. But we have to go now, before someone finds us. And before night falls, because this place will be haunted." He tilted his head toward her inquiringly. "Holder? Are you listening to me?"

"I thought you said that the dead couldn't hurt you." His grin was sheepish. "They can't. That doesn't mean they won't try." She said nothing to that. Instead, she flicked the reins of her horse and touched her heels to the mare's sides, urging the horse forward-not around the field of battle, but through it. She would not look down, but she saw the bodies as they passed, and each of them seemed to call to her accusingly.

O'Deoradhain slept under his blankets on the other side of the fire. The flickering yellow light illuminated the undersides of the leaves above them and plucked the white trunks of the sycamores from the night in a circle about them. She could hear him snoring softly, the loudest sound in the stillness.

Jenna reached into her pack and laid the relics out in front of her: the wooden seal her da had carved; the ring of Eilis MacGairbhith, the Lady of the Falls; the golden torc of Sinna Mac Ard. Of Riata she had nothing; the ghost of the ancient Holder had made it clear to her that he did not want to be awakened again unless she returned to Doire Coill and the valley of cairns.

She stared at them, a fingertip brushing each and feeling the spark within. Da? But he had never held the active Lamh Shabhala, and the times she had called him up, he had seemed more frightened and con-fused than she was, and she had ended by comforting him. Eilis? Jenna had called the Lady of the Falls only one other time after that day in her burial chamber behind the Doan’s waters, and the ghost had been as angry and fey as during their first encounter; though Jenna knew that the ghost couldn't touch or harm her, she would call that Holder forth only in great need.

Jenna picked up Sinna’s torc. She started to place it around her neck..

"You’ll just have to explain to her again who you are because she won’t remember you. She’s not your friend. She doesn’t care about you-to her, you’re as much a ghost as she is to you."

Across the fire, O’Deoradhain was watching from his blankets, up on one elbow. "Her time wasn’t like our time, and she isn’t like you. At all. You need to find your own path, not tread along someone else’s," he finished.

"Which is the path you want me to take, no doubt." She hated the disdain in her voice. She thought of offering an apology-He’s done noth-ing but help you, and yet you keep pushing him away-but then it seemed that she’d waited too long. The muscles along his jaw clenched, and he blinked. She pretended to look away from him, to be absorbed in the torc.

"I’m not forcing you to go anywhere, Holder," he said. "Remember when I said earlier today that the dead can’t hurt you? Well, they also can’t help you."

’"Only the living can do that.’ Is that how that ends? Meaning I’m supposed to trust you?"

O’Deoradhain took a long breath. His eyes held hers, and she saw the hurt in them. "You do what you think you need to do, Holder, and believe what you must." He lay back down and snapped the blankets around him, turning his back to the fire and her.

Jenna held the torc in her hands for several minutes, watching the fire shimmering in its burnished surface. Finally, she placed it back in her pack. "I’m sorry," she whispered to the night, not sure to whom she was speaking.

The spring sun beat down on the bright carpet of silverweed, primrose, and heather in which Lough Crithlaigh rested; the sky was cloudless and deep. Yellow siskins, song thrushes, and warblers darted among the wild-flowers. Mountains lifted gorse-feathered heads to the west beyond the hills, and they could see deer grazing near a foaming rill winding toward the lough. The day was pastoral; even their horses seemed affected, neigh-ing and lowering their heads as if they wanted to linger here forever.

"Those are storm deer, not the normal red," O'Deoradhain commented then glanced back at Jenna. "You're frowning."

Jenna turned in her saddle. She tried to give the man a smile and failed. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just. ." She stopped; he lifted an eyebrow."… a feeling."

O'Deoradhain pulled back the reins of his mount, his gaze searching the terrain.

They'd debated whether they should go through this expansive but open valley, or take the much longer and difficult path through the hills. She wondered now if they'd made a mistake. She touched the cloch, let-ting tendrils of energy spread outward. In that invisible cloud, there was a twin disturbance. She could sense it in the pattern of Lamh Shabhala’s sphere, like a wave disturbed by the presence of unseen rocks just below the surface. "There are two other clochs na thintri close By," Jenna said. She could feel a cold apprehension spreading out from her stomach. "Powerful ones: Clochs Mor. I can feel them."

O'Deoradhain rose up in his saddle again.

"Where?" he asked. "In what direction?"

"I'm not certain," Jenna said. "To the south, I think. They're trying to keep themselves hidden, but one of the Holders isn't particularly good at keeping his wall up and so I can sense them both."

"By the Mother-Creator," O'Deoradhain cursed. His hands clenched into fists around the reins, the knuckles going white with pressure. "I was afraid this would happen. Well, we don't have a choice. All we can do is ride on, and see if they show themselves."

"O'Deoradhain, what should I do? What happens if they attack with the clochs, or if they're part of the army the Ri has raised. .?" Jenna remembered the battlefield and saw herself as one of the corpses. Her breath was coming fast, and panic roared in her ears.

"You'll do what you can," O'Deoradhain told her.

"I will do what I can, also, but if the clochs enter the battle, you must deal with them." Then his voice gentled, and his eyes held hers. "You're the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, and it's stronger than the other clochs na thintri. Remember that."

She did. She also remembered the words of the Lady of the Falls: ". . even the strongest can be overpowered by numbers, or make a fatal mistake…" "I don’t know what to do."

"You will, if it comes to that," O’Deoradhain told her. "And if we’re lucky, they won’t see us. If we can reach the hills beyond the lough. .’

They moved through the field toward the lough, the land sloping gently downhill to the water. There were beeches and sycamores lining the banks, and without speaking both of them urged their horses into a gallop to head for their cover. The storm deer glanced up; the dominant tag of the herd lifted an antlered head and gave a ululating cry, and the herd moved off at a canter to the east, their hooves trembling the ground with a low rumble. Jenna and O’Deoradhain reached the line of trees and moved just inside, then pulled up their mounts and turned. "Can you still feel them?" O’Deoradhain asked.

Jenna closed her eyes, touching the cloch with stiff and cold fingers. "Aye," she said. She looked at him, worried. "Closer now. There." She pointed up the slope they’d just traveled to the low ridge lined with trees.

A few breaths later, a half dozen riders appeared, emerging slowly from under the trees, perhaps half a mile away. All were dressed in green and brown, mail glinting under their colors. One of the group, even from that distance, seemed familiar to Jenna.

Jenna’s heart jumped. "The man in front-with no helm. That’s Mac Ard, I think."

O’Deoradhain cursed again. "Aye. You could be right." As they watched, a rider dismounted and walked carefully along the ridge. He stopped and pointed-it seemed to Jenna that his finger was aimed di-rectly at her. "Damn, they’ve seen our trail," O’Deoradhain spat. "There’s nothing for it, Jenna. They’ll track us now, and once we leave the cover of the trees, they’ll see us." Jenna only stared at him, as if by her gaze she could change his words. "There are six of them, Jenna. I can’t deal with that many, even without the clochs na thintri they have."

She knew what he was saying, though her head was shaking in denial. "I can’t… "

It was eventually going to come to this, Jenna, no

matter what. We both knew it. You can either use the cloch now, while they're not certain now close they are to us, or later when they know who we are and where. Strike first, and you have the advantage."

"I don't know how to fight cloch against cloch."

And probably neither do they, yet," O'Deoradhain persisted. "I suspect Lamh Shabhala will show you the way."

He was right; she knew it, could feel it in the very marrow of her bones and yet she resisted. The riders gathered again as the scout remounted, and they started down the slope toward where they were hidden, following the unmistakable path their horses had made through the tall grass.

She watched the tall rider with the dark hair, certain that it was Mac Ard even though she couldn't see his face clearly. He will have one of the clochs, It will be him you strike against, your mam's lover. .

She brought her right hand up, looking at the mottled skin. She opened her fingers with an effort, then closed them again around Lamh Shabhala

She opened her mind fully to the cloch.

Lamh Shabhala was full with the power of the mage-lights, its crystal-line interstices crackling and surging with the energy. The vision of it seemed to expand and spread out before her, rushing like a tidal wave over the land; when it struck the riders, the force broke and shattered on twin rocks, shimmering white. Jenna saw the world in doubled vision now: through her eyes and through Lamh Shabhala. With her eyes, she saw Mac Ard and one of the other riders suddenly pull up and stop while the other four continued on; through the cloch, two presences suddenly appeared, one as ruddy as heated coals, the other more the color of a cold sea, both throbbing and pulsing inside the horizon of Lamh Shabhala.

She knew what she had to do and yet she hesitated-in that hesitation, she could feel the other two clochs searching for her in the landscape of Lamh Shabhala. There was no doubt as to their intentions; she could feel the hostility, especially from the sea-colored stone. For the moment, though, she ignored them. She looked instead for the four riders and she released more of the stored energy within her cloch, gathering it in her mind and shaping it, then releasing it with a savage mental thrust.

With her eyes, she saw lightnings arc from her scarred right arm, flash-ing outward in jagged white-hot streaks toward the riders. Two of the riders were torn from their saddles and their mounts killed as bolts shot through them: shredding flesh, shattering bones, and boiling their blood. Thunder boomed and crackled. Jenna heard the screams of both men and horses, short and cut off as the force of the cloch ripped the life from them. She felt them die.

But in that same instant, the remaining two bolts were turned aside before they struck their targets: one meeting a similar bolt from the red cloch; the other shoved aside as if by an invisible hand from the other stone. The two colliding bolts exploded in a ball of blinding fireworks between the two groups; the one shoved aside gouged a crater from the earth just to the left of its intended target, whose horse reared and bucked. She saw O'Deoradhain break from cover with a cry, kicking his horse into a gallop and charging back up the slope toward the remaining riders. The one who had nearly been struck broke and fled; the other pulled his sword from its sheath and came for O'Deoradhain.

The two cloch Holders ignored O'Deoradhain and instead turned their attention to Jenna and Lamh Shabhala. Their clochs were now open; in mental view, she could see them, twin expanding ripples in the white of Lamh Shabhala. The sea-foam color of one moved more rapidly, urging for the center that was Jenna. "Don't let it reach you. Go toward " The voice spoke in her head: Riata, she realized, come to her on his own. The other voices were there as well, the voices of all the Holders, a babble of contradictory advice: one telling her to flee, another to make the first strike now, yet another insisting that it was too late already. . She ignored them and found Riata's voice again. She moved toward it, not physi-cally but with the cloch…" She let her awareness slide forward. .

The impact nearly stunned her. She was surrounded by howling winds and a hand that seemed to grasp at her, squeezing the very breath from her lungs. Jenna gasped and struggled. She could feel more and more energy pouring from the attacking cloch, then-in support-lightning arced

from its partner. Jenna screamed with the pain, the electricity arcing through her, her body convulsing as all her muscles contracted and the burning spear coursed through her. The aqua light continued to pummel her like a gigantic fist as she felt the other cloch gathering itself again.

Yet she could also sense that with each attack, the clochs, including Lamh Shabhala, grew weaker, that there was less force left for them to use. "You are stronger. . You can hold more of the mage-light’s power than they can…" She thrust back at the blue-green constriction that had wrapped about her, unwrapping it like a sticky rope laced around her body. She could feel energy draining from Lamh Shabhala as she fought back, but the crushing pressure was easing. She pushed, and the cloch fell back. She lifted an ethereal arm and slammed it down; waves of pain and alarm radiated from the center of the cloch’s influence. The red cloch released another bolt of lightning; shifting her attention, she sent her own to intercept it and a momentary sun flared between them. The aqua cloch was pushing back now, the two of them grappling mentally like wrestlers searching for a hold. The ruddy one held back, and Jenna realized that Mac Ard was waiting, deliberately allowing the other cloch to drain as much of Lamh Shabhala’s power as it could.

He s planning to wait until I weaken myself dealing with the other cloch, then strike… I wonder. . She sent her awareness racing to the center of the other cloch: she could see a face, strained and hurting as it fought her: Damhlaic Gairbith, the Ris commander. He tried to push her away; she would not let him. She shouted at him, feeling her throat go raw with the near-scream. "Mac Ard’s using you, Gairbith! He intends to let you die fighting

Gairbith didn’t reply-couldn’t reply, she knew, for handling the cloch was taking all his concentration. But his eyes went wide with fear and suspicion, and he looked away toward where the other cloch pulsed blood red, watching and waiting.

The truth was enough. Jenna felt Gairbith’s focus shift and with that the defenses he’d set around himself weakened. Jenna cried out, releasing a new flood of energy from Lamh Shabhala. It raged forward, overwhelm-ing Gairbith. The mental connection between himself and his cloch snapped. Through her true eyes, she saw one of the men sway in his saddle and fall. In the middle of the field,

O'Deoradhain and another man were fighting, steel clashing as a sword rang against the Inishlander's long dagger.

Jenna nearly fell with Gairbith. The sudden release of pressure made her gasp and Lamh Shabhala was nearly drained. Weary, she turned her attention to Mac Ard.

"We don't have to do this, Jenna." She heard Mac Ard's voice as if he whispered in her ear. "I don't want to hurt you. Give up the cloch. Let me take it and I'll let you go or take you back to your mam. Whatever you want. I swear it."

The thought of losing the cloch was worse than contemplating death. "No," she answered. "Lamh Shabhala is mine. It stays mine."

She heard no more words, but she felt his sadness.

Jenna could feel Mac Ard's cloch opening and knew he was readying a strike. She didn't wait for it; she grasped at the dregs of power within Lamh Shabhala and flung them at him. The energy shattered against his cloch, absorbing the lightning he hurled toward her. As it crackled around him, she could feel Lamh Shabhala sucking the rest of the life from his cloch until there was nothing left. She saw Mac Ard's face go suddenly wide-eyed with fear.

Mac Ard's horse reared up as he yanked at the reins. Faintly, she heard his cry of pain and frustration as he fled, galloping into the trees and over the rise. Within Lamh Shabhala, there was still power left, enough that she could feel Mac Ard's cloch moving away until she could no longer sense it at all.

She let go of the cloch. It was a mistake, she realized immediately, for it was only the residual energy within Lamh Shabhala that was keeping her upright. With the release of contact, a doubled wave of severe pain and exhaustion swept over her. She could still see O'Deoradhain fighting close by, but the edges of her vision had gone black, the scene before her shrinking and condensing until it was only a pinpoint. Thunder roared in her ears, and the drumbeat of her blood. Her right arm felt as if it were on fire. She tried to lift it, tried to call out, but the darkness closed in around her and she felt herself falling.

She didn’t feel the impact of the ground at all.

Chapter 34: The Gifting

"YOU see, she’s weak and stupid. She doesn’t deserve to be Holder…" I "You can’t be seriously thinking she could survive the Scrudu…"

"Next time they come after her, she’ll die. The only thing that saved her was the inexperience of the others, and they’ll learn… "

"She doesn’t have the discipline… "

"Lamh Shabhala has chosen poorly this time…"

"Be quiet, all of you. She will learn, she may take the Scrudu in time, and she is stronger than you think… "

"Riata?" With the word, the voices faded. She could see nothing. Her eyes refused to focus though there was a whiteness all around her, and she was being jostled. She tried to move her hands or her legs and could not-something held her. She remembered the last thing she’d seen:

O’Deoradhain and the other man fighting. If O’Deoradhain had lost. . had she been captured? Had Lamh Shabhala been taken from her? She closed her eyes, gathering her strength.

This time, she could see. The whiteness was a cloth draped over a wooden framework above her face, the sun shining through it. She could lift her head, and saw that she was reclining on a crude carrier-canvas stretched and tied between two saplings. She could hear the slow clopping of two horses’ hooves and smell their ripeness-the carrier she was in was being dragged along behind one of the animals, the saplings evidently tied to the saddle, and the jostling was the device bumping and lurching over the broken ground. Someone had tied her into the frame as well.

Her body felt as if it had been bruised and battered and she could easily have slipped back into unconsciousness. Her right arm throbbed as if someone were rhythmically pounding it with a hammer of ice. She wanted to scream for someone to bring her anduilleaf, the old yearning for the drug rising from the suffering. She gritted her teeth to stop from crying out, forcing herself to take long, slow breaths, sending her aware-ness deeper. She

did cry out then, in relief rather than pain.

Lamh Shabhala was still around her neck. She could feel the cloch, as drained as she was, but alive and with her. It will always be part of you now. . The last of the voices whispered to her… to lose your cloch is like losing your child. You can't imagine that pain. . "O'Deoradhain?" she called. Her throat felt as if someone had scrubbed it with a steel file.

The horse came to a sudden halt. She heard someone dismount, then footsteps. The cloth was pulled away from the frame, and Jenna was blinking up into a bright sky as a dark face eclipsed the sun.

"You're finally awake." The voice was familiar and deep.

"Finally?"

"It's been nearly two days," he told her.

"Two days?" She repeated the words wonderingly. "So long?"

"You learn to bear using the cloch against others as it happens more. At least that's what I was taught. We can hope that Tiarna Mac Ard suf-fered the same fate, though I suspect he's had more practice than you." He crouched down in front of her. "Can you stand? Here, let me loosen these ropes…" He unlashed her, and helped her out of the contraption. Her knees were wobbly but they supported her; O'Deoradhain, after help-ing her to rise, let her go as she took a few tentative steps. She recognized none of the landscape around her: tall, grassy peaks with steep rocky outcroppings, and limestone-boned ground underfoot. There was an odor in the air that she couldn't identify, a fresh, briny scent. "Where are we?"

"In Tuath Connachta above Keelballi, near the northern border with Tuath Infochla. We're perhaps five or six miles from the sea. I'm hoping to reach a fishing village where we can find someone who'll take us to Inish."

"Mac Ard? The others?"

"I don't know what happened to Mac Ard or the other one who fled. The rest… are dead."

Jenna touched the cloch. O'Deoradhain's eyes followed the gesture. "The cloch Gairbith had. .?"

"Was that the man’s name?" O’Deoradhain shrugged, then reached into a pocket under his cloca. "Here. . It’s yours now." He took her left hand, turning it palm up and placing in it a gold chain. At the end of the chain was a turquoise gem, faceted and gleaming and far larger than Lamh Shabhala. "There’s his cloch na thintri. I took it from the body after. ." He stopped.

Memory of the battle was coming back now. Jenna remembered Gair-bith’s cloch going silent, and the man falling from his horse. "He wasn’t dead " she said. "The cloch was drained, but Gairbith wasn’t dead."

"He is now." O’Deoradhain’s lips pressed together.

She stared at him; his eyes, nearly the color of the gem in her hand, returned the gaze, as if daring her to object. "You could have let him go," she said. "Taken the cloch from him, aye, and his horse-"

"Jenna…"

". . but you didn’t have to kill him. Without the cloch, he wasn’t-"

"Jenna!" he said sharply, and Jenna blinked angrily, closing her mouth. "I don’t expect the person who murdered the Banrion to lecture me about the choices 1 made. We aren’t children playing a game, Holder. What do you think this Gairbith would have done with you, had the positions been reversed? Do you believe the Banrion’s assassin was only going to threaten you? Do you think the Connachtans who came to Ballintubber would have left you alive after they plucked Lamh Shabhala from your neck? Frankly, from what I’ve been taught, a cloudmage would prefer to be killed rather than have his or her cloch taken."

He snorted derisively, his hand slashing air in front of her. "You did the right thing with the Banrion, because if you’d left her alive she might have been the one to kill you later, or more likely, to have ordered your death. Now she can’t. And as for Gairbith-he doesn’t have to bear the pain of having his Cloch Mor ripped away from him, and he won’t be able to seek revenge."

Jenna looked at the gold links pooled in her hand. She closed her fist around them. "I’m sorry for you, O’Deoradhain. I’m sorry that you live in such a

harsh, self-centered world. There is a time for mercy."

"I've learned that mercy and forgiveness will usually get you killed, Holder. I notice that you 'murdered' the riders with Mac Ard without worrying overmuch about that action."

The lightning striking them down… "I did what I had to do. The differ-ence is that I regret that action, even if it was necessary."

"I also do what's necessary to keep me-and you-alive, and I don't regret that. I don't intend to die because I was too busy worrying about whether I should defend myself."

Jenna lifted her head. "We all die, O'Deoradhain, when the gods say it's our time." Gairbith's cloch na thintri was heavy in her hand. She looked down at the stone: beautiful and clear all the way down into its emerald depths, captured in a finely-wrought cage of silver and gold.

Unlike Lamh Shabhala, this gem would be precious even if it couldn't draw the power of the mage-lights from the sky. She looked back at O'Deoradhain. "Why did you give me this?"

"It's yours. I didn't win that battle. You did."

Her fingers closed around it again. "Can I… can I use it?"

"No," he told her. "A Holder can use only one stone, and you have Lamh Shabhala-why would you take a lesser stone? But while you keep this one, no one else can use it against you. It's one of the Cloch Mor; better you have it than your enemies."

Her gaze went back to him, and she suddenly felt ashamed of her doubt and suspicion of the man.

He's done nothing but tell you the truth: about Coelin, about Mac Ard, about everything. He helped you even when it put him in danger, and he could have taken Lamh Shabhala from you several times now. He could have taken this cloch na thintri just as easily, and yet he hands it to you. . "O'Deoradhain, I'm sorry if it seems I don't trust you. I certainly-"

He wouldn't let her finish, shaking his head into her words. "You should be careful with your trust, Holder. You haven't exactly made good choices in the past."

"Give me your hand," she told him. His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened again. He held out his right hand, and she took it in her own. She placed Gairbith's cloch in his palm and closed his fingers around it. "Tonight when the mage-lights come," she told him, "take this and fill it as I fill Lamh Shabhala. Become its Holder."

Her hand stayed on his, and he didn't move it away. His gaze searched her face, and she felt herself blushing under the scrutiny. You like this man more than you want to admit, and the realization brought more heat to her cheeks. What she felt wasn't what she had once felt for Coelin; the heat inside her was different. With Coelin, the attraction had come from his flattery of her and his handsome face, and she knew now how false and shallow that had been. What she was feeling now came at her from all directions, and she found herself looking at O'Deoradhain with new eyes, and wondering if he were feeling what she was.

"This isn't the cloch I want to possess," he said gruffly. "You know that."

"Aye," she answered. "I know. I also know that if you take the one you want, it will be because I can no longer use it. And I also know that will be due to some other person's deed, not yours." She pressed his fingers more tightly around the stone, and smiled at him. "I think I'm making a good choice, this time."

Slowly, he nodded. His hand slid from her grasp and he put the cloch a thintri’s chain around his neck. The jewel gleamed on his chest for a moment before he placed it under his tunic.

"If you can ride," he said, "we should be moving. I'd like to make the coast by tomorrow evening. He won't let us rest." O'Deoradhain didn't need to tell Jenna who "he" was-she knew. "He'll follow us, as soon as he's able, and the next time he attacks he'll be more careful."

"I know he will," she agreed. "But we'll be stronger."

Chapter 35: O'Deoradhain's Tale

THEY stopped to eat and rest near a narrow and long lough cradled between close green hills. The sun was high and peeked out occasion-ally between the clouds sweeping across the sky. Cloud shadows raced over the slopes, and the smell of the sea was in the wind from the west. Well out toward the western end of the lake, two fishing boats bobbed on the waves where the lough curved north and away toward the endless water of the ocean. Dark fingers of smoke smeared across the sky around the hills behind them, and underneath was a cluster of white dots.

"People," Jenna said. "I’m not sure I remember how to react around them anymore."

"If we’re lucky, we won’t meet too many of them," O’Deoradhain an-swered. "We’ll make for that village. Maybe there’s an inn where we can stay and clean up, and if we’re lucky, find someone to take us up the coast. But they’ll be asking questions of strangers." He nodded at Jenna’s right arm and the swirl of scars. "You’ll need to cover that arm of yours, and we’ll need to devise a story to give them. And we can’t show the clochs. Ever. Not here."

"I agree. But let’s rest here for a bit. Tis beautiful, this."

"Aye. If you’d like to look about, go on. I’ll take care of the horses and our food."

Jenna walked down to the shore of the lough as O’Deoradhain hobbled the horses. The lough’s waters were fairly clear, not peat-stained like the waters of Lough Lar, and the water shifted from green to deep blue as the bottom fell away quickly. She sat on a rock that protruded out a bit into the water, taking off her boots and leggings and letting her feet splash in the cold water. She stroked the smooth surface of Lamh Shabhala: she had renewed its reservoirs with the mage-lights the night before, and O’Deoradhain had done the same with his cloch. She opened Lamh Shabhala slightly, letting its aura spread out over the lough, feeling for the presence of other clochs na thintri. She could sense O’Deoradhain close by and feel the powerful emanations of his cloch even through the wall he had tried to erect around it; she could perceive the fisherfolk in their boats, their thoughts altering the pattern of faint energy she placed around them; and at the very edge of Lamh Shabhala’s range, the

clustering of many people in the village. But there was no one else. No one with inten-tions toward her.

Except…

There was something. Rising toward her, drawn to her, its attention steady on her.

Rising from below. .

Fingers gripped Jenna's ankles, still dangling in the water. They pulled, hard and sudden.

Jenna had no time to cry out. Instinctively, she turned her body, trying to cling to the rock even as she was dragged down into the lough. Frigid water hammered at her lungs; she took a gulping breath as her head went under, her hands still scrabbling for purchase. Invisible, frigid hands pulled at her legs, her waist, her breasts, and finally closed around the chain of Lamh Shabhala. Her desperate fingers found a knob of rock, and she pulled herself up even as the hands tried to hold her down and rip away the cloch from around her neck. Gasping, Jenna's head broke the surface as she flailed for a higher handhold, pulling herself up. She screamed, letting go with her left hand and striking at her assailant.

She saw her attacker now, and shock nearly stole the breath from her. The creature's torso had risen from the water with her, its arms around her-the face nearly featureless, its body the blue-black of the depths as if it were made of the water itself. A finned row of spines ran from its smooth-featured crown down the back of its sinuous body, and the hands that encircled Jenna and snagged the cloch's chain were webbed, long-hungered, and wide. The eyes were dead black and shining-emotionless, cold shark eyes-and thin fanged teeth glistened in a gaping round mouth. Jenna tried to scream once more but the creature folded its arms around her and with a powerful wriggle of its body and a splash, yanked her away from the rock and back under the water. Lamh Shabhala’s chain broke and tore away; she grabbed for the cloch, but it vanished, drifting down.

Eyes open in terror, Jenna struggled, trying to strike at the creature though the water softened and slowed her blows. She pulled at the thing's hands, and felt it bite at her shoulder and neck. It bore her down to the bottom, turning her under its body. She felt rocks and mud on her back and she

knew that she had only seconds, that the first breath she took would be her last. She saw another dark form speed toward them, churn-ing white foam on the dappled surface, and she despaired. Yet at the same moment she was about to give up and take the breath that would mean her death, the form above dove and struck her assailant hard. The creature shrilled in pain, releasing Jenna to respond to this new attack. Jenna pushed herself up from the rocky bottom, surging toward the rippling promise of sunlight above. Her head broke the surface and she took a desperate breath, her arms slapping at the waves. She could feel herself going under again, the weight of her clothing dragging her down. She gulped water. .

A hand caught hers and pulled her up: O’Deoradhain. She choked and gasped, bleeding and coughing up water, as he helped her onto the shore. "Lamh Shabhala," she managed to say. "They took it. ." She started to plunge back into the lough, but he held her back, grasping her from behind. She struggled in his arms now, trying to get loose, screaming and crying as she fought to dive back in and find the cloch, but he was too strong.

"Jenna, you can’t go back in there. ." he was saying to her, his lips close to her ear as he hugged her to him. "You can’t. ."

She continued to try to break free, but exhaustion took hold and she hung limp in his arms, struggling to catch her breath. The surface of the lough showed nothing, then a silken head surged up through the small wind-driven waves several yards out: a seal. It roared at them once and dove again, surfacing closer to the shore. Bright blue highlights glinted in its ebon fur where the sunlight touched it. Metal glinted in the animal’s mouth and Jenna cried out wordlessly. She pushed out of O’Deoradhain’s grasp and floundered into the water toward the seal. It waited for her; wading in waist-deep, Jenna snatched at the broken chain with the silver-caged stone. Her hand closed around Lamh Shabhala; the seal opened its mouth and released the necklace at the same moment. Sobbing, Jenna clutched the stone in her hand. The seal stared at her with its bulbous chocolate eyes, its whiskered snout wriggling as if it were sniffing the air. "Thank you," Jenna told the seal, tightening her right hand around the cloch.

She would have sworn that the seal nodded. Its head lifted, the mouth opening, and a series of wails

and coughs emerged: like words but in no language Jenna understood. Then, with a flash of shimmering lapis, the seal turned and dove back into the water.

"It said that the Holder should be more careful, and warned you that not only humans want to possess a cloch na thintri, especially Lamh Shabhala."

Jenna turned. O'Deoradhain stood on the bank, his hand extended to her. "Come out of the water," he said. "I'll start a fire, and we can get you warm and dry."

She didn't move. Waves lapped at her waist. "You understood it?"

"Her, not it. And aye, I understood her." He stretched out his hand again. "Trust me, Holder. I will explain."

She ignored the hand. "I thought I knew you," she said.

His mouth twitched under the beard. "Not all. Come out of the water, Holder; I don't know if that creature will be back."

She took a breath, shivering. Then she reached for his hand. "Then tell me," she said as he helped her from the lough. "Tell me why the seals come to you."

He nodded.

I was perhaps four or five when I realized that my mam was. . strange. I woke up one night in the bed I shared with my younger brother. I don't know what it was that woke me-maybe the sound of a footstep or the creaking of the door. I managed to get out of the bed without waking my brother. Our house was small: my sister-the youngest of us at the time-slept in her crib in the same room, beside my parents' bed. I could hear my da snoring. The moon was out and the sky was clear; in the silver light, I could see that where my ma should have been, the blankets were flung back. I called out for her softly so I wouldn't wake the others, but she didn't answer. I went out into the other room, but she wasn't there, either. The door to our cottage, though, was ajar.

My da was a fisherman, and we lived just above a rocky shingle of beach on the southern coast of Inish Thuaidh not far from the island of Inishfeirm where

your family lived, in the townland of Maoil na nDreas. Sometimes, when the day was clear, we could even see Inishfeirm like a gray hump on the horizon to the south. But that has nothing to do with this story. .

I walked out of the cottage. I could see my father’s boat pulled up on the beach and hear the waves pounding against the shore. I thought I heard another sound as well, and I padded down toward the water. The wind was brisk, and the breakers were shattering on the walls of our little cove, splashing high on the cliff walls that rose out like arms on either side. In the bright moonlight, I could see seals out there on the rocks several big ones, and they were calling loudly to each other, occasionally diving awkwardly into the surf and pulling themselves back up with their flippers.

These seals, I noticed, were different than the small harbor seals that I usually saw. They shimmered in the moonlight, their fur sparkling with blue highlights. I watched them for a while, listening to what sounded like a loud conversation. One of the bulls noticed me, for I saw him turn his snout toward the beach and bellow. A few of the other seals looked toward me too, then, and one lurched from the rock into the sea and I lost sight of it. I watched the others, though, especially that old bull, who kept roaring and staring at me.

"Ennis. .?" 1 heard my mam call my name, and she came from around da’s boat to where I was sitting on the beach. She was soaking wet and naked, and water dripped from her hair as she crouched down by me, smiling. Her eyes were as dark and bright as a seal’s. "What are you doing out here, young man?"

"I woke up and you weren’t there, Mam," I told her. "And I came out and saw the seals and I was watching them." I pointed at the old bull and the seals gathered around him on the rock. I laughed. "They sound like they’re talking to each other, Mam."

"They are talking," she said, laughing with me.

She had a voice like purest crystal, and she seemed entirely comfortable in her nudity, which made me comfortable with it also. "You just have to know their language."

"Do you know the language?" I asked her wonderingly, and she nod-ded, laughing again.

"I do. Would you like me to teach you sometime?"

"Aye, Mam, I would," I told her, wide-eyed.

"Then I will. Now, let's get you inside and back into bed. It's cold out here." She lifted me up, but I struggled to stay.

"I'm not cold at all. Mam, what were you doing out here?" I asked her, staring up at her face, her hair all stringy and still dripping water from the ends, a bit of seaweed stuck near her ear. "Aren't you cold?"

"No, Ennis. I was. . swimming."

"With the seals?"

She nodded. "With the seals. Maybe, someday, you can swim with them, too, if. ." She stopped then, and a smile curled her lip. She rubbed my hair. "Come now. Back to bed." She led me back to the cottage door and stopped there. "Go on in," she said. "I'm going to swim a bit more. ."

She kept her promise. She taught me how to understand the language of the blue seals. And, once or twice a year, she would leave our house late at night to "go swimming with the seals." I don't think my siblings ever noticed, but I did. I would see her slip out of bed and follow her. I think she probably knew that I was watching her, but she didn't seem to care and never paid any attention to me at all.

She would stand at the water's edge and take off her night robe, standing naked under the moon with the seals all wailing and moaning and calling to her.

She'd run toward the water, diving into the surf. Somehow, though I looked, I never saw my mam after that-she would vanish among the bodies of the seals and emerge hours later as light began to touch the sky, dripping wet but some-how not cold. If I were still there asleep on the beach, she would wake me and take me back to the cottage with her.

I asked her, the first time, why I never could see her after she went into the water and she told me I might understand one day. She also told me about the blue seals-that there was but one small group of them left in all the world here at Inish Thuaidh, but that soon a time would come when they would return in greater numbers, and that she hoped I would be part of those days…

Aye, my da knew. He seemed troubled by his wife's occasional forays into the ocean, but did

nothing about them, or perhaps it was just that he'd learned over the years that this was simply part of her-he didn't speak to her about the seals, or her 'swimming' at night, or mention any of it to us.

"Your mam must do what she must," was all he would say the one time I dared to bring up the subject with him. "And if you're lucky, you won't share her curse and find yourself out there swimming in the moonlight." Then he turned his back to me as he mended his fishing net.

I didn't think of my mam as cursed, though. I saw the joy in her face as she came from the water. I saw the cavorting of the seals and the way they flew through the water and thought that it must be wonderful to be able to do that. I listened to their talk and sometimes tried to speak with them, though our throats aren't made to speak their words, and they would laugh at my poor attempts and answer.

And, one day after my body had started to grow hair and my voice had gone deeper, I did swim with them…

You're…?" Jenna breathed, and O'Deoradhain nodded solemnly. "I thought… I mean I've heard of changelings and such, but I'd always believed they were only tales."

"Not only tales. And not only me. Wasn't your grandmother mysteriously rescued by seals? — or maybe she unconsciously, under the stress of nearly drowning, tapped a part of herself she didn't know was there."

The fire O'Deoradhain had built while he told his tale crackled, and Jenna snuggled close to the flames, letting the welcome heat sink into her still-damp clothes. She glanced back at the waters of the lough half-expecting to see the seal again, but it was gone. "Are all the blue seals. .?"

O'Deoradhain shrugged. "Some of them are changelings, aye, but not all and almost none can change at will. Most of those who can change are water-snared, nearly always a seal but changing for a few short hours a year into human shape. Somewhere, back in my family's past, a many times great-mam must have met a bull in his human form and loved him, and that blood manifested itself in my mam-she said that her sisters and brothers weren't that way, just as my siblings also weren't affected. But the blood occasionally shows to create the few Earth-snared ones like me or my mam, who feel the call of the water-part of us only rarely."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 36: Ambush and Offer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What about my mam's needs?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No," she said.

And with the word, everything happened at once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 37: The White Keep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mundy's expression was simultaneously shocked

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I’d like to see that sometime."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order was founded to make cloudmages… "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 38: The Vision of Tadhg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Keep trying."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

don't you, Ennis?" %

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

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

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

O'Deoradhain blushed and said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

Moister Cleurach shook himself from reverie,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 39: Training

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

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

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

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

"I want the answers now," she persisted.

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

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

"You're an arrogant young lady."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's not an answer, Moister."

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

'Finish your answer, Moister. Please."

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

"And if they fail?"

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

"Is this Scrudu in your book?"

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

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

that quite clear?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do what?"

"Laugh. Enjoy yourself."

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

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

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

"Are they. .?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was more frightening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 40: The Ri's Request

"JENNA?"

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

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

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

"Ennis? What's the matter?"

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

"What's wrong?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It wasn’t a him. It was a woman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This time Moister Cleurach lifted his head. "The

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

"I'm aware of the charter, Moister," Aithne answered calmly, "even if a charter seven centuries and more old is hardly relevant to today's situation, and I suspect the signatures at that time were made more under duress than by actual agree

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