Holder of Lightning (41 page)

She knew what she had to do and yet she hesitated—in that hesitation, she could feel the other two clochs search ing for her in the landscape of Lámh Shábhála. There was no doubt as to their intentions; she could feel the hostility, especially from the sea-colored stone. For the moment, though, she ignored them. She looked instead for the four riders and she released more of the stored energy within her cloch, gathering it in her mind and shaping it, then releasing it with a savage mental thrust.

With her eyes, she saw lightnings arc from her scarred right arm, flashing outward in jagged white-hot streaks toward the riders. Two of the riders were torn from their saddles and their mounts killed as bolts shot through them: shredding flesh, shattering bones, and boiling their blood. Thunder boomed and crackled. Jenna heard the screams of both men and horses, short and cut off as the force of the cloch ripped the life from them. She felt them die.

But in that same instant, the remaining two bolts were turned aside before they struck their targets: one meeting a similar bolt from the red cloch; the other shoved aside as if by an invisible hand from the other stone. The two colliding bolts exploded in a ball of blinding fireworks between the two groups; the one shoved aside gouged a crater from the earth just to the left of its intended target, whose horse reared and bucked. She saw O’Deoradháin break from cover with a cry, kicking his horse into a gallop and charging back up the slope toward the remaining riders. The one who had nearly been struck broke and fled; the other pulled his sword from its sheath and came for O’Deoradháin.

The two cloch Holders ignored O’Deoradháin and in stead turned their attention to Jenna and Lámh Shábhála. Their clochs were now open; in her mental view, she could see them, twin expanding ripples in the white sea of Lámh Shábhála. The sea-foam color of one moved more rapidly, surging for the center that was Jenna.
“Don’t let it reach you. Go toward it . . .”
The voice spoke in her head:
Riata,
she realized, come to her on his own. The other voices were there as well, the voices of all the Holders, a babble of contradictory advice: one telling her to flee, another to make the first strike now, yet another insisting that it was too late already . . . She ignored them and found Riata’s voice again.
“Go toward it, not physically but with the cloch . . .”
She let her awareness slide forward . . .

The impact nearly stunned her. She was surrounded by howling winds and a hand that seemed to grasp at her, squeezing the very breath from her lungs. Jenna gasped and struggled. She could feel more and more energy pouring from the attacking cloch, then—in support—lightning arced from its partner. Jenna screamed with the pain, the electricity arcing through her, her body convulsing as all her muscles contracted and the burning spear coursed through her. The aqua light continued to pummel her like a gigantic fist as she felt the other cloch gathering itself again.

Yet she could also sense that with each attack, the clochs, including Lámh Shábhála, grew weaker, that there was less force left for them to use.
“You are stronger . . . You can hold more of the mage-light’s power than they can . . .”
She thrust back at the blue-green constriction that had wrapped about her, unwrapping it like a sticky rope laced around her body. She could feel energy draining from Lámh Sháb hála as she fought back, but the crushing pressure was easing. She
pushed,
and the cloch fell back. She lifted an ethereal arm and slammed it down; waves of pain and alarm radiated from the center of the cloch’s influence. The red cloch released another bolt of lightning; shifting her attention, she sent her own to intercept it and a momentary sun flared between them. The aqua cloch was pushing back now, the two of them grappling mentally like wrestlers searching for a hold. The ruddy one held back, and Jenna realized that Mac Ard was waiting, deliberately allowing the other cloch to drain as much of Lámh Shábhála’s power as it could.

He’s planning to wait until I weaken myself dealing with the other cloch, then strike . . . I wonder . . .
She sent her awareness racing to the center of the other cloch: she could see a face, strained and hurting as it fought her: Damhlaic Gairbith, the Rí’s commander. He tried to push her away; she would not let him. She shouted at him, feeling her throat go raw with the near-scream.
“Mac Ard’s using you, Gairbith! He intends to let you die fighting me!”

Gairbith didn’t reply—couldn’t reply, she knew, for handling the cloch was taking all his concentration. But his eyes went wide with fear and suspicion, and he looked away toward where the other cloch pulsed blood red, watching and waiting.

The truth was enough. Jenna felt Gairbith’s focus shift and with that the defenses he’d set around himself weakened. Jenna cried out, releasing a new flood of energy from Lámh Shábhála. It raged forward, overwhelming Gairbith. The mental connection between himself and his cloch snapped. Through her true eyes, she saw one of the men sway in his saddle and fall. In the middle of the field, O’Deoradháin and another man were fighting, steel clashing as a sword rang against the Inishlander’s long dagger.

Jenna nearly fell with Gairbith. The sudden release of pressure made her gasp and Lámh Shábhála was nearly drained. Weary, she turned her attention to Mac Ard.

“We don’t have to do this, Jenna.” She heard Mac Ard’s voice as if he whispered in her ear. “I don’t want to hurt you. Give up the cloch. Let me take it and I’ll let you go or take you back to your mam. Whatever you want. I swear it.”

The thought of losing the cloch was worse than conte mplating death. “No,” she answered. “Lámh Shábhála is mine. It stays mine.”

She heard no more words, but she felt his sadness.

Jenna could feel Mac Ard’s cloch opening and knew he was readying a strike. She didn’t wait for it; she grasped at the dregs of power within Lámh Shábhála and flung them at him. The energy shattered against his cloch, absorbing the lightning he hurled toward her. As it crackled around him, she could feel Lámh Shábhála sucking the rest of the life from his cloch until there was nothing left. She saw Mac Ard’s face go suddenly wide-eyed with fear.

Mac Ard’s horse reared up as he yanked at the reins. Faintly, she heard his cry of pain and frustration as he fled, galloping into the trees and over the rise. Within Lámh Shábhála, there was still power left, enough that she could feel Mac Ard’s cloch moving away until she could no longer sense it at all.

She let go of the cloch. It was a mistake, she realized immediately, for it was only the residual energy within Lámh Shábhala that was keeping her upright. With the release of contact, a doubled wave of severe pain and exhaus tion swept over her. She could still see O’Deoradhain fighting close by, but the edges of her vision had gone black, the scene before her shrinking and condensing until it was only a pinpoint. Thunder roared in her ears, and the drumbeat of her blood. Her right arm felt as if it were on fire. She tried to lift it, tried to call out, but the darkness closed in around her and she felt herself falling.

She didn’t feel the impact of the ground at all.

34

The Gifting

“Y
OU see,she’sweakandstupid.Shedoesn’tdeserve ‘to be Holder . . .”

“You can’t be seriously thinking she could survive the Scrúdú . . .”

“Next time they come after her, she’ll die. The only thing that saved her was the inexperience of the others, and they’ll learn . . .”

“She doesn’t have the discipline . . .”

“Lámh Shábhála has chosen poorly this time . . .”

“Be quiet, all of you. She will learn, she may take the Scrúdú in time, and she is stronger than you think . . .”

“Riata?” With the word, the voices faded. She could see nothing. Her eyes refused to focus though there was a whiteness all around her, and she was being jostled. She tried to move her hands or her legs and could not—something held her. She remembered the last thing she’d seen: O’Deoradháin and the other man fighting. If O’Deor adháin had lost . . . had she been captured? Had Lamh Shábhála 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 andúilleaf, 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 awareness deeper. She did cry out then, in relief rather than pain.

Lámh Shábhála 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 suffered 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 helping 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 clóca. “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 Lámh Shábhála. “There’s his cloch na thintrí. I took it from the body after . . .” He stopped.

Memory of the battle was coming back now. Jenna remembered Gairbith’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 I 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 Lámh Shábhála 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 Mór 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’Deorad hain. 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 difference 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’Deoradháin, when the gods say it’s our time.” Gairbith’s cloch na thintrí 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 Lámh Shábhála, 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?”