Holder of Lightning (50 page)

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

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

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

“. . . it travels with you . . .”

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

Aye. There . . .

Another cloch na thintrí was aboard, its bright energy spraying outward and upward, and she could sense the mind wielding it: one that knew the waters of the channel, knew the ship and how much wind and heavy seas it could handle.
Driving us east and south with the storm, toward Talamh an Ghlas
. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bolt of lightning cleaved the inner vision, and from the deck there was a cry of pain and alarm. The maelstrom faltered; Jenna pressed in against it and it collapsed completely. Jenna could see Ennis and the gardai rush the captain, taking him down.

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

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

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

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

The man’s head hung down. He didn’t dare to look up at them. “My cloch,” he whispered. “Please . . .”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m sorry, Holder, Banrion,” he said. “I didn’t want this . . .” He stopped, his face stricken. “My son . . . he was in fosterage to my cousin, a tiarna in Infochla. Two weeks ago, a man came to me with the cloch. He offered me . . .” The man gulped. “He seemed to know that this would happen. He told me what the cloch could do and said he would show me how to use it. He promised that if I brought you and the Banrion to them, I would be made Riocha myself and could remain as the Holder of Stormbringer. And if I failed. . . . He made no direct threats, but I understood that my son was a blood-hostage, and he would pay for my failure. Holder, my son is all I have. My wife is dead, there are no other children . . .”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The garda pushed hard at the captain’s back. He tumbled over the side. The Banrion took a step to the rail and glanced down. Already the man was behind the boat, thrashing at the waves, gasping as the frigid water leeched the strength from his body. “Well, that’s done,” she said. “Holder, Máister . . .” She moved away, gesturing to the new captain.

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

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

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

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

“I don’t know that we can survive when they all come,” she said.

42

Dún Kiil

L
ÁR Bhaile and the Rí’s Keep were more magnificent. Iseal was larger. Ballintubber seemed more LÁth Iseal was larger. Ballintubber seemed more inviting.

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

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

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

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

There were other rulers of other townlands among the thirteen chieftains of the Comhairle whose names had already slipped Jenna’s memory. They stood before the throne, watching her as the Rí spoke and the rain dripped through the roof of Dún Kiil Keep. Behind the Comhairle stood the minor Riocha and the céili giallnai—a hundred or more people gathered under the cold, seeping stone vaults of the keep.