Holder of Lightning (60 page)

Jenna walked over to them and took the reins. She swung herself up on the horse, tucking the long clóca between her legs. She stared at the pyre, then lifted her gaze away from Glenn Aill to the north and east where mountains lifted stony heads in the sunshine.

“. . . You can determine the shape of this age . . .”

“. . . It doesn’t have to be this way . . .”

“I don’t think my path leads to Inishfeirm or Dun Kiil,” she said.

Máister Cléurach followed the direction of her gaze, and his mouth tightened under his beard. “You can’t be thinking of Thall Coill. Jenna, don’t be stupid—”

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

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

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

Aithne gave a short laugh, but Máister Cléurach’s eyebrows lowered like white thunderheads over the sea. “Jenna,” he said, his placating tone at odds with his face, “at Inishfeirm, I can show you what the other Holders of Lámh Shábhála have said about Thall Coill and the Scrúdú. Why, neither Tadhg or Severii O’Coulghan would attempt that, not after Tadhg witnessed Peria’s death, and Tadhg was one of the most accomplished cloudmages.”

“So you believe that because Tadhg was afraid of the Scrúdú, I should be also. No doubt that’s more of what you call wisdom.”

“Tadhg watched the woman he loved die there,” Máister Cléurach answered, all the softness gone from his voice. It was steel and bone. “You of all people should appreciate that. Don’t push away those who are only trying to help you, Holder. You need us more than you can imagine.”

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

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

“If I don’t, then probably Inish Thuaidh falls anyway. And right now, Banrion, I have to say that I find I don’t really care. Inish Thuaidh was my great-mam’s home and I love this land, too, but ultimately the land will remain, no matter who is called Rí in Dún Kiil. Will the lives of these people change?” She gestured at the field workers. “They’ll just switch one master for another, that’s all. No matter who rules, the crops will have to be planted, tended, and harvested, and the stock will have to be fed and watered. I know. I was once one of them and I cared nothing for the Riocha in their keeps and estates. When you say Inish Thuaidh will fall, you mean yourself.”

If Aithne felt the lash of Jenna’s words, she showed none of it. “Then perhaps you made a mistake not handing over Lámh Shábhála to my brother yesterday,” she answered with a gentle reproof. “The Rí Ard’s interest in Inish Thuaidh is mostly because you’re here, after all. If you’d given him Lámh Shábhála, it might be that no army would come here at all.”

Jenna’s hand had gone protectively to her breast, where the cloch was hidden under her léine. “Jenna,” the Banrion continued, “there are times we’re drawn into something all unwillingly. No matter what you do, the Rí Ard considers you now to be part of Inish Thuaidh. You’re their enemy; nothing you say or do will change that, not until you no longer hold Lámh Shábhála.” Aithne stopped then, her gaze sliding to Jenna’s right hand and past to the white ashes of the pyre. “You had something I’ve never had, however short the time,” she said. “I envy you that, Jenna. What do you think
he
would tell you? Can you hear Ennis’ voice?”

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

“This is nonsense,” Máister Cléurach said. “Banrion, we have no time to waste here.”

“Should I tie the First Holder to her horse and drag her back to Dún Kiil?” Aithne answered. “Is that something you want to try, Máister?”

Máister Cléurach glowered but said nothing.

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

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

“Surely you’re not thinking of telling her to go,” Máister Cléurach said. “That would be a tragedy for all of us, including Jenna.”

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

50

Roads Taken

T
HERE were barrows where their path met the High Road, which was little more than an unmarked trail heading vaguely northeast down from the hills. In the storm and rain, Jenna had noticed neither the High Road nor the barrows when they’d passed before. The mounds were overgrown, appearing as stony, weed-infested hillocks in the field alongside the path, the low sun draping long shadows behind them.

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

“On the road to Dun Kiil?”

A nod.

“I’m staying here tonight,” Jenna said. Máister Cléurach groaned audibly.

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

“Then go on,” Jenna told him. “Leave me here. I’m going no farther today.”

Máister Cléurach looked at the Banrion. “Rocks,” he said. “In her head, too.”

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

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

“We’ll stay here,” Aithne told the attendants. “Make the camp ready.”

The mage-lights that night were faint and weak, soft filaments that glowed fitfully and vanished. Jenna watched them while sitting between the barrows, away from the encampment and the fire, a blanket around her shoulders. Both the Banrion and Máister Cléurach had come to her earlier—Máister Cléurach demanding and gruff, Aithne soothing and understanding, but both attempting to convince her to return to Dún Kiil. To both of them she gave the same reply: “I’ll decide by morning.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jenna!”

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

“Seancoim!” She rushed to him, enveloping him in her arms and taking in the familiar smell of spices and herbs that exuded from his body and clothing. “I can’t believe you’re here. How did you know, how did you get here . . . ?”

The old Bunús Muintir seemed to gaze past her with his cataract-white eyes, his hand holding hers. Dúnmharú came flapping down from the branches above to land on his shoulder in a flurry. “You still overlook the slow magics,” he told her. “It was always the fault with most of you Daoine. You’ll likely ignore them entirely now, with the power you wield with the clochs na thintrí.” He took a long, slow breath and let it out again. “I saw, I heard,” he said. “Once this was Bunús Muintir land, and some of us still live here, hidden.” His blind eyes looked aside, but Dúnmharú regarded her with steady, bright eyes. “I came as quickly as I could. But it seems I’ve come late. I saw the pyre two nights ago, and I felt your anguish. I’m sorry, Jenna. I knew that there was to be love between the two of you. Even when you denied it back in Doire Coill, I knew. I’m sorry.”

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

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

“I was there. I saw them kill him and I couldn’t
do
anything to stop it.”

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

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

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

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

“You don’t,” he answered. “And you never
will
know. Not until the Seed-Daughter calls your soul back to Her and whispers the tale of your life in your ear. But you need to choose now. Go with them, or with me.”

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

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

As Seancoim had indicated, they moved by night and rested by day, slipping through the landscape while the peo ple in the villages and farms slept. They met other Bunús Muintir: they crossed the River Teann in a currach oared by a Bunús they met on the shore, apparently waiting for them. Seancoim and the other man spoke in their own lan guage briefly, the Bunús occasionally glancing at Jenna, but he either didn’t speak the Daoine language or had nothing he wanted to say to her. When she thanked him for his help, he merely grunted and pushed his boat away from the shore, paddling back the way they’d come.

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