Holder of Lightning (42 page)

“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 Lámh Shábhála—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 Mór; 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 Lámh Shábhála from you several times now. He could have taken this clock na thintrí 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 Lámh Shábhála. 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’Deoradháin 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 na thintrí’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’Deoradháin 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.”

35

O’Deoradháin’s Tale

T
HEY stopped to eat and rest near a narrow and long lough cradled between close green hills. The sun was high and peeked out occasionally 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’Deoradháin answered. “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’Deor adháin hobbled the horses. The lough’s waters were fairly clear, not peat-stained like the waters of Lough Lár, 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 Lámh Shábhála: she had renewed its reservoirs with the mage-lights the night before, and O’Deora dháin had done the same with his cloch. She opened Lámh Shábhála slightly, letting its aura spread out over the lough, feeling for the presence of other clochs na thintrí. She could sense O’Deoradháin close by and feel the powerful emana tions 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 Lámh Shábhála’s range, the clustering of many people in the village. But there was no one else. No one with intentions 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 Lámh Shábhála. 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-fingered, 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. Lámh Shábhála’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, churning 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’Deoradháin. She choked and gasped, bleeding and coughing up water, as he helped her onto the shore. “Lámh Shábhála,” 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 word lessly. She pushed out of O’Deoradháin’s grasp and floun dered 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 Lámh Shábhála; 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 thintrí, especially Lámh Shábhála.”

Jenna turned. O’Deoradháin 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 . . . ?” I 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 nodded, 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?”