S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

O’Deoradhain and the other man fighting. If O’Deoradhain had lost. . had she been captured? Had Lamh Shabhala been taken from her? She closed her eyes, gathering her strength.

This time, she could see. The whiteness was a cloth draped over a wooden framework above her face, the sun shining through it. She could lift her head, and saw that she was reclining on a crude carrier-canvas stretched and tied between two saplings. She could hear the slow clopping of two horses’ hooves and smell their ripeness-the carrier she was in was being dragged along behind one of the animals, the saplings evidently tied to the saddle, and the jostling was the device bumping and lurching over the broken ground. Someone had tied her into the frame as well.

Her body felt as if it had been bruised and battered and she could easily have slipped back into unconsciousness. Her right arm throbbed as if someone were rhythmically pounding it with a hammer of ice. She wanted to scream for someone to bring her anduilleaf, the old yearning for the drug rising from the suffering. She gritted her teeth to stop from crying out, forcing herself to take long, slow breaths, sending her aware-ness deeper. She

did cry out then, in relief rather than pain.

Lamh Shabhala was still around her neck. She could feel the cloch, as drained as she was, but alive and with her. It will always be part of you now. . The last of the voices whispered to her… to lose your cloch is like losing your child. You can't imagine that pain. . "O'Deoradhain?" she called. Her throat felt as if someone had scrubbed it with a steel file.

The horse came to a sudden halt. She heard someone dismount, then footsteps. The cloth was pulled away from the frame, and Jenna was blinking up into a bright sky as a dark face eclipsed the sun.

"You're finally awake." The voice was familiar and deep.

"Finally?"

"It's been nearly two days," he told her.

"Two days?" She repeated the words wonderingly. "So long?"

"You learn to bear using the cloch against others as it happens more. At least that's what I was taught. We can hope that Tiarna Mac Ard suf-fered the same fate, though I suspect he's had more practice than you." He crouched down in front of her. "Can you stand? Here, let me loosen these ropes…" He unlashed her, and helped her out of the contraption. Her knees were wobbly but they supported her; O'Deoradhain, after help-ing her to rise, let her go as she took a few tentative steps. She recognized none of the landscape around her: tall, grassy peaks with steep rocky outcroppings, and limestone-boned ground underfoot. There was an odor in the air that she couldn't identify, a fresh, briny scent. "Where are we?"

"In Tuath Connachta above Keelballi, near the northern border with Tuath Infochla. We're perhaps five or six miles from the sea. I'm hoping to reach a fishing village where we can find someone who'll take us to Inish."

"Mac Ard? The others?"

"I don't know what happened to Mac Ard or the other one who fled. The rest… are dead."

Jenna touched the cloch. O'Deoradhain's eyes followed the gesture. "The cloch Gairbith had. .?"

"Was that the man’s name?" O’Deoradhain shrugged, then reached into a pocket under his cloca. "Here. . It’s yours now." He took her left hand, turning it palm up and placing in it a gold chain. At the end of the chain was a turquoise gem, faceted and gleaming and far larger than Lamh Shabhala. "There’s his cloch na thintri. I took it from the body after. ." He stopped.

Memory of the battle was coming back now. Jenna remembered Gair-bith’s cloch going silent, and the man falling from his horse. "He wasn’t dead " she said. "The cloch was drained, but Gairbith wasn’t dead."

"He is now." O’Deoradhain’s lips pressed together.

She stared at him; his eyes, nearly the color of the gem in her hand, returned the gaze, as if daring her to object. "You could have let him go," she said. "Taken the cloch from him, aye, and his horse-"

"Jenna…"

". . but you didn’t have to kill him. Without the cloch, he wasn’t-"

"Jenna!" he said sharply, and Jenna blinked angrily, closing her mouth. "I don’t expect the person who murdered the Banrion to lecture me about the choices 1 made. We aren’t children playing a game, Holder. What do you think this Gairbith would have done with you, had the positions been reversed? Do you believe the Banrion’s assassin was only going to threaten you? Do you think the Connachtans who came to Ballintubber would have left you alive after they plucked Lamh Shabhala from your neck? Frankly, from what I’ve been taught, a cloudmage would prefer to be killed rather than have his or her cloch taken."

He snorted derisively, his hand slashing air in front of her. "You did the right thing with the Banrion, because if you’d left her alive she might have been the one to kill you later, or more likely, to have ordered your death. Now she can’t. And as for Gairbith-he doesn’t have to bear the pain of having his Cloch Mor ripped away from him, and he won’t be able to seek revenge."

Jenna looked at the gold links pooled in her hand. She closed her fist around them. "I’m sorry for you, O’Deoradhain. I’m sorry that you live in such a

harsh, self-centered world. There is a time for mercy."

"I've learned that mercy and forgiveness will usually get you killed, Holder. I notice that you 'murdered' the riders with Mac Ard without worrying overmuch about that action."

The lightning striking them down… "I did what I had to do. The differ-ence is that I regret that action, even if it was necessary."

"I also do what's necessary to keep me-and you-alive, and I don't regret that. I don't intend to die because I was too busy worrying about whether I should defend myself."

Jenna lifted her head. "We all die, O'Deoradhain, when the gods say it's our time." Gairbith's cloch na thintri was heavy in her hand. She looked down at the stone: beautiful and clear all the way down into its emerald depths, captured in a finely-wrought cage of silver and gold.

Unlike Lamh Shabhala, this gem would be precious even if it couldn't draw the power of the mage-lights from the sky. She looked back at O'Deoradhain. "Why did you give me this?"

"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 Lamh Shabhala-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 Mor; 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 Lamh Shabhala from you several times now. He could have taken this cloch na thintri 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 Lamh Shabhala. 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'Deoradhain with new eyes, and wondering if he were feeling what she was.