S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

There was an answer. Several minutes later, as she sat shivering in the cold night breeze, a head appeared in the waves, the waves splashing white and phosphorescent around it. A grunting warble: "Sister-kin." The Saimhoir hauled itself awkwardly out of the water and onto the pebbled beach.

"You knew," Jenna said. It was not so much an accusation as a state-ment, nor did Thraisha deny it. "When we left, you told him ’Farewell’”

“You knew."

The black eyes glinted in moonlight. Blue light shimmered in the satin fur, mottled with the pattern of the mage-lights. She smelled of brine and fish. "I knew that my land-cousin wasn’t with you in my foretelling, and I had the sense that I wouldn’t see him again."

Tears filled Jenna’s eyes with that, and Thraisha waddled over until she could put her head in Jenna’s lap. Jenna stroked the silken fur, crying. A drop fell near Thraisha, and she lapped at the water, tasting it. "Why do you give the salt water?" Thraisha asked. "Is it an offering to your gods?"

"No," Jenna answered, sniffing. "I’m crying because I know that I could change your vision. All I have to do is give up Lamh Shabhala."

"You can’t do that." It was not a warning or a caution, only a statement of fact.

"Why not?" Jenna railed. "Why shouldn’t I?

What’s Lamh Shabhala brought me that’s so wonderful I can’t bear to let it go? I’ve lost my mam, lost my home. I’ve had to endure more pain than I thought possible; I’ve killed people and had them try to kill me." She yanked the stone from around her neck, holding it in her hand, the chain dangling. "Why not give it up?" she shouted. She took her arm back, bringing it forward with a sharp, throwing motion.

But there was no answering splash out in the water. Her hand remained closed and when she opened it, the stone was still there, glinting in her palm.

"Jenna, stroke my back." Jenna placed Lamh Shabhala around her neck again, and reached down to Thraisha, her fingertips grazing wet fur: "No-harder, so you can feel beneath," Thraisha told her. Jenna rubbed the patterned fur, and underneath the skin of her back and sides, she could feel the lines of hard ridges. "Those are scars and wounds that are still healing," Thraisha said. "Not from harpoons or the teeth of the seal-biter. These are from my own kind, because they wanted what I have and tried to take it from me. Because they think that I'm wrong in what I do.

Her front flippers slapped rock as she moved, and Jenna saw that the left one was torn, as was her tail. "So it's no different for you."

"No, sister-kin." In the cloch-hearing, Thraisha gave a bitter laugh, as Jenna's own ears heard a soft warbling. "Stone-walkers and Saimhoir both came from the loins of the Miondia, and those lesser gods are all brothers and sisters from the womb of the same deity, even if we give Her different names-We are cousins and share more traits than we like to admit. There are a few who believe as I do, but only a few."

"What is it that you believe?"

Thraisha looked up at Jenna. "That we're to do more with the gifts we've been given than use them as weapons. That we who come First can mark this time and shape it so that it will be different and better than all the times the mage-lights have come in the past. That your fate and your choices-yours, sister-kin-are important to the Saimhoir because you hold Lamh Shabhala, who opened the way for all and who might still guide us." She huffed, her nostrils flaring at the end of the dark muzzle. "But there aren't many who agree with me. Most believe that Saimhoir and stone-walkers should stay apart, that our changeling land-cousins are abominations, and that the Bradan an Chumhacht should be used only for the needs of the Saimhoir. 'The stone-walkers live on the dry stones and their concerns aren't ours. We only meet them at the water's edge, and that's not enough. Use your gift

for your own kind.’ That’s what they tell me."

"I hear the voices of all the old Holders," Jenna said. "I’ve never heard any of them speak much of the Saimhoir."

Again the laugh. "Then perhaps it’s time one did."

"I didn’t want this," she said. "I didn’t ask for it."

"I know," Thraisha answered. "I didn’t either. But it’s ours, and the question is what will we do with it."

"You’ve already seen it in your foretelling. You’ve seen my death and yours. You’ve seen it all fail."

A cough, a moan. "Perhaps. Or, as you said, maybe that was only a vision of what could be, not what must be." Her head lay back on Jenna’s lap, as if she were tired. "What do you think Ennis would tell you?"

"He would tell me not to worry about him and to do what I felt was right." She stroked Thraisha’s head. "It should have been Ennis with Lamh Shabhala. Not me. It would have been better that way."

"It wasn’t what Lamh Shabhala wanted," Thraisha answered. "It chose you, and there was a reason for that."

"Then it should tell me what it is."

"I think it has," Thraisha answered. "You just haven’t listened. You need to listen now-to your head, not your heart."

"But Ennis…"

"Ennis is lost," Thraisha said. "I think you know that."

"No!" Jenna shouted the denial, screamed the word as if she could burn away the void inside her with the fury as she scrambled to her feet, pushing Thraisha away. In the tavern, the singing stopped, and someone opened the door, spilling yellow light over the dock and silhouetting a man’s figure. "I won’t let him be lost!"

"Hello out there!" the figure called. A few other heads appeared behind it. "Is everything all right?"

"I’m. . fine," Jenna said, turning to wave at the people in the tavern door. "Sorry. I just. . slipped."

The door closed. After a moment, the singing started up again.

When Jenna turned back, Thraisha was gone. The waves lapped the stones silently.

Chapter 48: Glenn Aill

THE party that left Dun Kiil on horseback was tiny: Jenna, Moister Cleurach, the Banrion Aithne and a quartet of gardai along with six attendants. They were escorted for the first day by the Rl and several tiarna and bantiarna of the Comhairle and their followers, but the others turned back when they came within sight of Sliabh Mlchinniuint, where long ago Mael Armagh had been defeated by Severii O'Coulghan. The group traveled on alone: beyond the townland of Dun Kiil into Maoil na nDreas and Ingean na nUan, and finally past the leaning, gray stone marker of the O Dochartaigh clan.

Jenna could well believe that Rubha na Scarbh could effectively hide Aron O Dochartaigh or a thousand others. The landscape was violent and wild, with sudden cliffs, great mountains of greenery-hung granite; boulder-clogged lowlands and hummock-strewn bogs. Mist and clouds draped the slopes and thunder rumbled in the valleys. They followed wandering sheep and goat trails or no path at all, coming upon "villages" of three or four houses where suspicious, grimy faces peered at them from shuttered windows. For every mile they traveled northwest, it seemed they traveled four up and down, or had to detour for half a day around an escarpment that flung itself across their path.

They saw a herd of storm deer, their hooves striking sparks from the rocks, the noise of their passage obliterating the storm. The next night, wind sprites lit the air around them in the mist and fog. From the pine wrests bristling on the mountains came the howls of wolves that sounded 'like sibilant, long chants. Red, glowing eyes watched them from the darkness, and once there was a call that none of them could identify at all-chilling long moan that raised the hair on the back of their necks, then was answered from across the valley.

"The land is changing," Moister Cleurach said.

"The Old Ones are slowly waking from their long sleep. You woke them, Jenna."