S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

Peria didn't notice Tadhg's defeat. She'd sunk to her knees, as if beaten down by the power above her, though her face still stared at the mage-lights in stricken, helpless horror. "No!" Jenna saw her mouthing the word her free hand raised as if in supplication. The mage-lights flayed the sky, so powerful that Jenna could hear them, shrieking like a raging hurricane. "No!" Peria said again, this time an audible shriek nearly lost in the raging storm of the lights. "I can't!”

As if in answer, the mage-lights pulsed in one gigantic flash. They slammed down to earth, engulfing Peria. She screamed as if she were caught in the midst of an inferno, her body contorted in agony. As Jenna shouted with her, Peria was smashed into the ground. The crack of bones and spine was horrible to hear, a dry, awful snapping

like a handful of dry twigs. Her flesh tore; vertebrae ripping from her back, a femur erupting bloody and white.

The mage-lights vanished.

Jenna stood, stunned, in the sudden silence and dark.

"Peria!" The cry shattered the stasis. "Oh, Gods, no\" Tadhg had risen to his feet; now he ran to the broken body at the cliff’s jagged extremity. He sank down beside her, pulling her to him. Horrified,

Jenna saw Peria’s head lolling, attached only by flesh and muscle, blood pouring from her mouth, nose, and eyes. Tadhg cradled her body, rocking back and forth, sobbing and wailing as Peria’s lifeblood stained his clothes, calling her name over and over again.

This was worse than the battle, this was worse than anything Jenna had ever seen. Jenna could feel tears flooding her eyes in sympathy.

"That is how my mam died," the voice came again as Jenna watched Tadhg lay Peria’s shattered body on the ground, as she saw him take the cloch’s chain from around her neck and put it over his own. "That is how my da came to hold the cloch…"

"But what was that?" Jenna asked the voice.

"What was she doing?"

"Something only fools or the very strong should attempt," came the answer, but it was another voice, a familiar one.

"Riata?"

There was no answer or rather there were many, a babble in which she could distinguish no one person. The cliffside meadow and forest van-ished, and Jenna was standing in a white, cold fog, and the voices came m her from the air around her.

". . do this… "

". . no, you must not! It will be your death as it was mine… "

". . you have the chance where those who come after you may not. ."

". . Lamh Shabhala will always be primarily an instrument of war…"

". . it needn’t be that way…"

". . she can’t change it. She hasn’t the will for the Scrudu…"

". . she’s weak… "

". . let her die. ."

Then Riata’s voice came again. "She will make her own choice, in her own time, as I did."

"Riata! Please, I need to know more…"

The fog dissolved in an unseen wind. She was in a room, her room, the room where she had lived in Lar Bhaile, and in the bed Maeve groaned, her hair damp with perspiration, knees up and legs open and the sheet wet and bloodied under her. A midwife bent over Maeve, her hands be-tween Maeve’s thighs as another woman stood ready with a blanket and knife. "Push now, love; the babe’s nearly out. I have the head-curls as red as the sunset. All we need are the shoulders. Bear down, and push!"

As Jenna walked to the bedside to stand near her mam’s head, Maeve groaned again, her face tightening, her hand fisted in the blankets and body trembling. Then she gasped in sudden relief, and the midwife laughed. "There!" A thin cry sounded. The midwife’s assistant hurried forward with knife and thread. Jenna glimpsed the squalling infant as the midwife toweled him clean and swaddled him. "Tell the tiarna he has a son," the midwife said to her assistant. "He’s waiting in the other room."

Then she turned back to Maeve, tucking the baby carefully in the crook of her arm. Maeve touched the newborn’s pudgy, purple-red cheeks. "He’s a beauty. Do you have a name for him?"

"Aye," Maeve answered. "His name is Doyle. ."

"He’s beautiful, Mam," Jenna whispered, standing alongside the bed. Maeve’s head lifted almost as if she heard Jenna, and Jenna leaned over, reaching out to stroke her mam’s sweat-damp hair. .

"Jenna?" A new voice intruded, and she ignored it, but then her mam and her old room were gone and she was reaching out to nothingness. ’Jenna?" the voice called again.

"Jenna?"

She came awake with a start, realizing that her

fingers were clutching Lamh Shabhala, and that Ennis' arm was around her. The moon threw silver shadows over their bed. The sky was dark, the mage-lights having long ago died away. "You were turning and calling out," Ennis said sleepily. "I thought you were having a nightmare."

Jenna released the cloch, cuddling into Ennis' embrace. "I'm. fine — > she said. "If you'd just hold me for awhile."

His lips touched the back of her neck. His breath was warm down her spine. "I'll do that," he said.

They were in Moister Cleurach’s chambers in the keep. He'd stared at the two of them when they'd first arrived, their hands clasped together defi-antly and openly. "I knew this could be a problem," he said. "I expected better of you," he snapped at Ennis, then glared at Jenna. "I'd tell you that you're too young, but youths never understand that until it's too late and the mistake can't be undone."

That had started the conversation. It had gone downhill since then, with Jenna relating her dreams of the night before as servants brought in their breakfast.

"Thall Coill?" Jenna saw Moister Cleurach’s frail form shudder at the name. "What insanity have you been listening to, girl? You mustn't go there."

His words were like a slap in the face. He's treating you like you're his misbehaving daughter.

"So the dream was real? There is such a place? There is a test called Scrudu?"

"There is, and that's all you need to know."

"It's not your decision," she told him angrily.

"It certainly is," he retorted. "I'm Moister of the Order, and if I'm to teach you, then you'll damned well listen to me."

"You're a frightened old man," she retorted. "Why should I listen to you?"

Ennis put his hand on Jenna's shoulder. "Jenna-" he began, but she shrugged him away.

"Don't, Ennis," she told him. "I know how you feel about him and the Order, but I don't. I don't." She pushed away the plate of sausages and bread in front of her. "I don't know enough about anything,"

she finished more softly.

"That you don’t know enough is something that we can all agree on, Moister Cleurach answered.

The argument didn’t seem to have affected his appetite. He gestured at Jenna with a fork full of sausage. "Limn Shabhala holds a shadow of all its old Holders, as it will hold a wisp of you after you die-an image of your personality, though not your true soul. Well, not all of the Holders were good people or entirely sane at the end of the Holding, and a lot of those Holder-shadows would laugh to see you fail because it would mean that you’re no better than they were, and any advice they give is poisoned with that attitude. As for Thall Coill none of the Daoine Holders-none of them, girl, not a single one- ever lived through Scrudu, if it is truly a test and not just some old Bunus Muintir fable. If you could read-" Moister Cleurach paused for emphasis, "then you might have seen what Tadhg wrote after Peria’s death. He thought that this ’Scrudu’ was nothing but a rumor circulated by the Bunus Muintir to gain some small revenge on the Daoines. There’s no test and no reward; opening Lamh Shabhala at Thall Coill, the center of the mage-lights, kills the Holder. That’s what he believed." He shoved the sausage into his mouth, talking as he chewed. "You can’t trust the Bunus. Those who do so are fools."