S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"I've never seen anything to equal it," Jenna said. She touched the statue again, wonderingly. The detail was exquisite: the pores of the skin, the fine hair of the legs. She almost expected to feel the pulse of blood under her hand.

"Tadhg saw that the clochs na thintri were being used primarily as weapons, that the possession and holding of them was the cause of dissent and war and death." Moister Cleurach continued, his voice reverberating from the dome above them. "He believed that they should be used not as weapons, but as tools. He and a few followers built the White Keep, using the powers of their clochs to create the buildings, erecting in a few years the work it would have taken hundred of laborers and artisans a dozen years or more to create. Yet as the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, he also could sense that the mage-lights were beginning to weaken, that the time was approaching when they would die completely and the power in the clochs would vanish with them. He was right, for that would happen in his son Severii's holding. Tadhg felt that there must be a repository, a place where knowledge of the clochs and how to use them could be kept alive over the long centuries of their sleeping. That was the public task of the Order-to keep safe the old knowledge, to be the place where the Riocha and others would come to learn the ways of the cloudmage."

"The Order's public task," Jenna said, emphasizing the word, and Moister Cleurach nodded as if pleased.

"Aye, and as you suggest, there was also a private

task. Tadhg envi-sioned the Order gathering to it most of the clochs na thintri after their magic was gone and forgotten. That, he knew, would be impossible at first, but as the years and decades passed and the clochs were given to sons and daughters, and then given to their sons and daughters, they would become pretty jewels, their power forgotten or dismissed. Then, Tadhg believed, they could be bought or acquired in other ways-when a tiarna sent his son or daughter here to be an acolyte of the Order, one condition was that the child be given the family’s Cloch Mor, should they possess one. And if that acolyte took the vows of the Order, then the cloch would be passed on not within the family but into the Order. As Tadhg perceived it, long centuries later when the Filleadh came, it would be those of the Order who held the majority of the Clochs Mor. It would be the Order that created the cloudmages. It would be the Order that en-sured that the wars and strife and fighting didn’t happen again. It would be the Order that put together a better world, one where the clochs na thintri were used not for death and fighting, but for life."

Jenna glanced up again at the statue, at the face of Tadhg, imagining him saying those words. It was easy to visualize that kindly face speaking. The words awakened an echo inside her. Yet. . "That’s an admirable goal," she said. "But not an easy one. And ’better’ for whom? The Riocha? That’s who holds the clochs, that’s who send their children to the Order, so even if the clochs hadn’t been stolen, you’d have been making cloud-mages of Riocha, and war is exactly what they’ve always used them for."

Moister Cleurach took a long breath yet didn’t answer. "This way," he said. "There’s more to see."

They went out from Tadhg’s Hall and back to the corridor. Moister Cleurach stopped before another door, this one simple, thick wood. "Try to open it," he said.

Jenna glanced at him, but went to the bronze handle of the door and Pushed, then pulled. The door rattled in its frame but wouldn’t open. "It’s tacked," she said.

"Keep trying."

Moister," O’Deoradhain interjected, but Moister Cleurach raised his hand, ringer to lips.

"It's nothing you didn't try, Ennis. Let her."

Jenna looked at O'Deoradhain; he shrugged. Jenna pushed and pulled again at the door, then again. The third time, there was a snap and sudden pain like quick sharp knives ran up her arm. "Owl" she exclaimed, step ping back and shaking her hand, which still tingled.

Moister Cleurach’s expression was solemn, but she thought she saw amusement in his eyes. "Most acolytes try the door at one time or an-other," he said. "The truly persistent and curious are the ones who feel it is that not so, Ennis?"

"Aye, Moister," O'Deoradhain answered. "Tis."

Moister Cleurach placed his hand on the door. Jenna heard him start

to speak, then he stopped and removed his hand. "You know the word

don't you, Ennis?" %

O'Deoradhain took a step back, his eyes a bit wide. "No, Moister. How would I. .?"

Moister Cleurach snorted derisively. "Don't treat me like a fool, Ennis O'Deoradhain. I'm not as blind as some of you Brathairs might think."

With a glance at the old man, O'Deoradhain put his hand against the wooden planks and spoke a soft word that Jenna could not hear. A violet light glimmered around his fingers. The door swung silently open. "The ward was placed on the door by Tadhg himself," Moister Cleurach said. "And 'tis no less strong now than when I was shocked by it, many years ago." He nodded toward O'Deoradhain. "The opening word is at best an open secret. Only the Moister, the Librarian, and the Keeper are supposed to know it, but acolytes and Brathairs have sharp ears, and some elders aren't as careful as they might have been. Eh, Ennis?"

O'Deoradhain blushed and said nothing.

The room they entered was a library, Jenna realized, far bigger than the small chamber in the keep at Lar Bhaile, the interior airy with light from windows in the east and west walls, and filled with three rows of long tables. The smell of musty parchment filled the air, and scrolls sat in wooden notches along the south wall, while the north wall held leather-bound flat volumes. Also along the north wall was a large wooden cabinet. Its doors hung askew, torn from their hinges. An elderly Brathair sat at a desk at the front of the room, a parchment spread out in front of him. As they entered, he bowed to the Moister and left the room, his right leg dragging the floor as if he could not bend the knee or move the limb easily.

"This room is where the knowledge of the Order is written down and kept," Moister Cleurach told Jenna. He walked over to the ruined cabinet-Shoving aside the broken doors, he pulled out one of several trays. She could see that the tray was lined with black velvet and separated into several compartments, all of them empty. Jenna heard O'Deoradhain suck in a breath as the Moister displayed the tray to them. "And here. Here was where our clochs na thintri were stored: behind the locked and warded Library door, and the doors of this cabinet were warded with slow magics as well."

Moister Cleurach dropped the tray onto one of the tables. The sound was loud and startling. "Tadhg O'Coulghan's vision was a long one and correct," he continued. "We did acquire many of the Clochs Mor over the centuries, and we kept the knowledge and we held to his dream." His fist slammed against the table. "And it was all taken away. Stolen just before Tadhg's future came to fruition." He glanced at them, his voice bitter, his mouth twisted. "The same acolytes who betrayed us let the invaders into this room, knowing the word as you did, Ennis. Librarian Maher was badly injured resisting the gardai; you noticed that he still hasn't fully recovered. Keeper Scanlan died of his wounds that night. The acolytes and Brathairs resisted as well as they could with sword and slow magics, and twelve of them died in the hall outside. The raiders took the clochs, all of them. I suppose I should be grateful that they left the books and scrolls or that they didn't set fire to the library as they fled. But this. . this was enough. You've seen the consequences."

"I wondered," O'Deoradhain said. "I wondered why there seemed to be so many Clochs Mor with the tuatha. Now I know why. Tiarna Mac Ard and the Ri Gabair, or perhaps the Tanaise Rig-they must have planned this not long after the mage-lights appeared in Tuath Gabair."