S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 53: Bethiochnead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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