S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"Then I’ll die!" she shouted back.

The voice sounded amused. "We thought that no longer mattered to you." The energy of the Clochs Mor crackled around Jenna, and she pushed back at them. She could feel the baby in her womb, frightened and in pain because Jenna was in pain, suffering because she suffered. The voice at the heart of Lamh Shabhala seemed amused. "So that’s why you fight, even though you still don’t understand. What have you brought me?"

Jenna could only shake her head in confusion and terror. "I don't know what you mean? The clock?"

"No. There, in your hand." Jenna could see blue light radiating from between the fingers of her left hand-the crystal that Terrain had pulled from itself. She held it out, felt the presence take it from her. The light danced away in darkness. "Ah, such a gift…" The voice seemed to sigh "So my children ask me to help you. How can one refuse one's own…" The voice faded, and Jenna thought it had gone. Then the feeling of nearness crawled over Jenna's skin again. "AH the hearts of my children connect to the mage-lights through you. You fight yourself when you fight them."

"What do you mean?"

"I will give you a gift for the sake of my children, though I don't know if you are capable of using it. This once, in this moment, you must accept what they give you," the voice answered. It was sounding fainter now, and Jenna felt herself being pushed away, rising through the levels of the cloch once more back to reality. "Accept it…" the voice said again, a whisper.

Jenna lay like a broken doll on the cold ground before the keep. The power of the Clochs Mor played around her, keeping away the Inish sol-diers who were trying to reach her and pull her free. The pile of stones that had been Terrain were at her right hand, and the mage-lights had appeared in the sky above. She could feel the threads connecting all the clochs na thintri: running through Lamh Shabhala and into the sky, creat-ing loops of energy, endless circles and spirals. .

"This once, in this moment, you must accept what they give you…" That's what the voice of Lamh Shabhala had said.

Jenna let the shields fall. The energy poured into her and through her. She marveled at the feel of it. She seemed to have been thrown entirely away from her body into some new reality where she was with all the clochs, and their energy filled her, but it no longer hurt, not with the mage-lights in the sky. Instead, she had become a vessel, and they filled her to overflowing. She held the power in her hand.

She rose. She found five of the Clochs Mor and took hold of them.

She thought.

The wind blew cold and salty. The mage-lights flared and vanished, but

their radiance seemed to remain, illuminating the cliffside and the weathered, ruined statue of Bethiochnead.,

Six people stood there, each with a cloch na thintri in his or her hand all of them battered and bruised and bloody, all but one of them with confusion on their faces.

"Where are we?" Banrion Aithne asked. She stood next to MacEagan and Moister Cleurach, both of whom stared up at the statue. "Holder, did you do this?"

"Aye, I did," Jenna answered. "I think I did. I’m not entirely certain." Power filled Lamh Shabhala as it never had before, so potent that her body seemed to vibrate with it. She felt like a piece of parchment trying to hold back a frothing torrent. Is this what it would have been like if I’d passed the Scrudu? she wondered. How can anyone handle this? The energy buzzed in her head, making her giddy and delirious. Her face burned with it so that she was surprised that she wasn’t literally glowing. Her voice seemed too loud and too fast. She wanted to laugh. "Banrion, Tiarna MacEagan, Moister Cleurach, this is Nevan

O Liathain, the Tanaise Rig, and Tiarna Padraic Mac Ard. And this," she swept a hand about to indicate the cliffside on which they stood, "is the place they call Bethiochnead, in Thall Coill."

Before she’d finished talking, she felt O Liathain’s Cloch Mor open; before he could use it, she clamped an ethereal hand around it, letting the power flow not to his stone but to her, the Tanaise Rig gaping in astonish-ment as nothing happened. The feel and color of the energy was all too familiar to Jenna, and she did laugh now, high and maniacal. "Why, Ta-naise Rig," Jenna said. The power of his cloch wriggled in the grasp of her mind, and she saw him grimace in pain and cry aloud, falling to his knees. "So it was you who wielded the mage-demon. I should have known. I’m sorry, I really can’t allow him to walk here."

Mac Ard and O Liathain were truly frightened; she could see it in their faces. MacEagan, Aithne, and Moister Cleurach seemed bewildered,

un-certain of whether they should attack the Tuathians or wait. Jenna could feel all the clochs; she held the strings to them in her mind like puppets, but they were puppets who had wills of their own and who fought the control. She could not hold them long, not when the energy ached to be used, rattling the bars of her mind. She heard her voice again. "Tanaise Rig, you were right to name me the Mad Holder. You were right to call me dangerous. But you want to know why you're here now, don't you?" Jenna realized she was babbling, but she had to talk, had to find some way to dissipate at least some of the energy or it would consume her utterly. "That's simple enough. I will have an end to this war. Now."

Mac Ard and O Liathain looked at each other; O Liathain had risen shakily to his feet again. His voice, even through the fear, was still oily and smooth and dangerous. "That's what we all want, isn't it, Holder? But it wasn't us that started this, after all. After Lar Bhaile…" A shrug; a glance at Aithne. "Even the Banrion understands that, I'm sure. After all Cianna was your niece." His gaze went back to Jenna, but he kept glancing at the others. "Killing us also won't end the war, Holder. It will only convince everyone of how dangerous you are. Everyone."

Jenna was trembling now. "I give you a gift for the sake of my children, though 1 don't know if you are capable of using it. ."Jenna closed her eyes, trying to stop the buzzing in her head. Her scarred arm felt as if it were aflame, the pain crawling along the lines the mage-light had carved into her flesh; she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. She could tell that the clochs wanted to return to where they had been; it was only Lamh Shabhala holding them here. It was as if she had lifted all five of them into the air: if she let go, they would return, falling back instantly to Dun Kiil; but the effort of holding them was draining her.

"You are Tanaise Rig," she said to O Liathain, and her voice was a shout, tearing at her throat. "You will be Rl Ard one day. You can end this. You will end it, or-" Jenna stopped.

"Or you will kill him?" Mac Ard finished for her.

He stepped forward, putting himself between Jenna and the Tanaise Rig. One side of his mouth lifted. "I'm sure you could, Jenna. That seems to be your answer for any disagreement. Kill me, kill the Tanaise Rig. Then what happens when the Banrion or your new husband or the Moister do something you don’t like. Do you kill them also?"

"Be quiet.’" Jenna shouted at Mac Ard, wondering if he could even hear her over the shrilling, singing energy that filled her. The cloch pulled at her, struggling to be free of her grasp. The strain of holding them here was too much, too much.

"Don’t you see?" Mac Ard continued, and he was no longer talking to her but the others. "We are dealing with a rogue Holder. That isn’t some-thing I want to admit since Jenna’s the daughter of the woman I love, but none of us can deny it. She’s a danger to everyone around her. She can- she will-kill those she perceives as standing against her. She is mad. How long before it’s one or all of you that she turns on?"