Holder of Lightning tc-1

by S L Farrell Неизвестный Автор

  "It isn’t brigands I particularly fear," he answered. "You have the advan-tage of me, since you seem to know me but your face isn’t familiar."

  "My name is Ennis O’Deoradhain." He gestured to the fields on either side of him. "This is my family’s land. Not much, but enough to keep us fed. We’re three generations freelanded, loyal to the Ri Gabair, and the name O’Deoradhain is well known around the west of the lough. And I know you because I was at the Taisteal’s camp last night seeing if they had anything useful, and Clannhri Sheehan has a mouth large enough to swallow all of Lough Lar itself." He smiled and laughed at his own jest, and the harsh lines of his face relaxed in his amusement. "And if it allays your fears, I’m hardly a threat to you, Tiarna. I doubt my knife is a match for your sword." O’Deoradhain swept his cloca aside, showing them that the only weapon he wore was the knife Jenna had seen the night before.

  "In my experience, a knife kills as easily as any weapon," Mac Ard told the man, but his voice was easier. "But a freelanded man loyal to the Ri shouldn’t be left alone to brigands, and the High Road’s open to all, if you’d like to ride with us."

  Jenna could have spoken. She saw O’Deoradhain’s gaze flick toward her again, and she set her mouth in a firm, thin line of disapproval. Yet she held back. O’Deoradhain flicked the reins, and his horse moved out onto the road. For a time, he rode alongside Mac Ard, and Maeve, and they conversed in low voices. Then O’Deoradhain dropped back to where Jenna trailed behind. "And how are you today?" he asked. "Is the arm better?"

  "It's fine," Jenna answered shortly. She didn't look at him, keeping her gaze forward to the road winding along the lakeshore. Lough Lar was narrowing, now no more than a few hundred strides across as they neared the falls of the Duan.

  "So it seems you didn't mention our encounter last night to the tiarna."

  "I didn't think it that important. I'd forgotten it myself until I saw you this morning." She answered him with the haughtiness she thought a Riocha would display. Now she did look over at him, and found him watching her with a strange smile on his lips. "Interesting that you'd hap-pen to be going to Ath Iseal today, and at the same time."

  "What would you think if I told you that wasn't entirely coincidence?"

  "I'd wonder if I should make up for my error last night and tell Tiarna Mac Ard."

  '"Tiarna Mac Ard?' An awfully formal way to refer to your father," O'Deoradhain commented. Her face must have shown something at that, for he lifted his eyebrows. "Ah… I see I've been mistaken.

  Evidently Clannhri Sheehan didn't know as much as he pretended he did. You never can trust the Taisteal. I thought… "

  "I don't care what you thought."

  "This does shed a different light on things, though, I must say," O'Deoradhain persisted. "What is your name, then?"

  She remembered that Mac Ard had commented on their name being: Inish, and that O'Deoradhain had suggested that he thought her an Inishlander as well. She considered giving him a false name, but it didn't seem to matter now. Her mam would probably tell him, if he asked, or Mac Ard. "Aoire," she said. "Jenna Aoire."

  The startled look on his face surprised her with its severity. For a moment, his eyes widened, and he seemed almost to rise up in his saddle. Then he caught himself, his features masked in deliberate neutrality. "Aoire. That's an Inish name, 'tis. So my guess wasn't so wrong after all."

  "Aye," she admitted. "My father's parents were from the island, or so he claimed, though Mam says that they left the island when they were young."

  O'Deoradhain's head nodded reflectively. "No doubt," he said. "No doubt." He shifted in the saddle, adjusted his cloca. "We should be in Ath Iseal by midafternoon," he said. "We'll be passing the falls in a bit; they're not as pretty this time of year without all the green, but they'll be impres-sive enough if you've never seen them before." It was obvious that he intended to change the subject, and Jenna was content to allow that to happen.

  They heard the falls long before they saw them. Here, the High Road lifted in short, winding rises up a low series of hills, until they stood well above the level of Lough Lar. Away to the south stretched the dark waters of the lough; to the north, the road was hidden behind yet another set of low hills.

  Westward stretched checkered patches of farmland, meadow, and woods, and beyond that, like a green wall, was the forest of Doire Coill, lurking on the horizon.

  A trail ran away from the High Road to a ledge overlooking the falls, and Mac Ard turned his horse in. "We've made good time this morning, and there's not a better day to see the falls," he said. "We'll eat here." As Mac Ard rummaged in the saddlebags for the food, Jenna and her mam walked to the end of the ledge, where the land fell off steeply toward the lough, so that they were looking down at the tops of the trees below. Ahead and to their left, the River Duan splashed and roared as it spilled down a deep cleft in the green hills, cascading white and foaming to the lake below while a white mist rose around the waters. The sunlight sparked rainbows in the mist that wavered, gleamed, and disappeared again. "Ah, Mam, 'tis beautiful," Jenna breathed. The wind sent a tendril of mist across her face, and she laughed in shock and surprise. "And wet."

  "And dangerous, if you get too near the edge." O'Deoradhain spoke, coming up next to them. He pointed down toward the lake. "Not two months ago, they brought up a man from Ath Iseal who slipped over the edge and went tumbling down to his death. He was looking at the falls and not his feet, unfortunately."

  Both Jenna and Maeve took a step back. "The mist has a way of en-chanting, they say," O'Deoradhain continued. "The Duan weeps in

  "Why in sorrow?" Jenna asked, interested despite herself.

  " ’Twas here, they say, well back in the Before, that an army out of Inish Thuaidh met with the forces of the RI of what was then the kingdom of Bhaile; RI Aodhfin, I think his name was. The river ran red with blood that day, the stain washing pink on the shores of the lough itself, and the skies above were bright with the lightnings of the clochs na thintri. Lamh Shabhala itself was here, held by an Inishlander cloudmage whose name is lost to the people around here."

  The name of the cloch made Jenna narrow her eyes in suspicion, and she thought she felt the hidden stone pulse in response. Aye. . The voice, a whisper, sounded in Jenna’s head. Eilis, I was. . "Eilis," Jenna said, speaking the name. "That was the Holder’s name. Eilis."

  O’Deoradhain raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps. It’s as good a name as any, I suppose. You know this story, then?"

  "No," Jenna answered, then shook her head. The voice was gone, and Jenna wondered whether she’d actually heard it, or if she imagined it in the sound of the falls. Maeve was looking at her curiously, as well. "Maybe I heard it at Tara’s one night. One of Coelin’s songs-he was always sing-ing about battles and romances from other times."

  O’Deoradhain shrugged. "Whatever the name, Aodhfin wrested Lamh Shabhala away from the Inishlander cloudmage during the midst of battle; then, for two hundred and fifty years, Lamh Shabhala was held here in Talamh an Ghlas. They say that the mist of the falls is the tears of the cloudmage who lost Lamh Shabhala, and that’s why it’s dangerous. He, or she," he added with a glance at Jenna, who was watching the water spilling down the ravine, "still seeks revenge for the loss."

  "That’s a pretty tale," Maeve said. "And an old one."

  This is an old place," O’Deoradhain answered. He gestured straight out from the ledge. "They say that back when the first people came here to the lough, the falls were out here. But the river’s hungry, and it eats away a few feet of the cliffs every year and so

  the lough keeps growing at this end. One day, thousands and thousands of years from now, the falls will be all the way back to Ath Iseal. We look at the land, and from our perspective, it all seems eternal: the mountains, the rivers, the lakes-they are there at our birth, and there looking the same at our death. But the stones themselves see that everything is always changing, and barely see us or our battles and legends at all. We're just ghosts and wisps of fo
g to them."

  "Ah, you have a poet in you," Maeve said. "Tis well said."

  O'Deoradhain touched his forehead, smiling at Maeve. "Thank you, Bantiarna. It's my mam's gift. She had a wonderful way with tales, espe-cially those from the north. She was from Inish Thuaidh, as I told your daughter."

  Jenna refused to look back at him. "An Inishlander?" Maeve said. "So was my late husband-or his parents were from there, anyway. But he wasn't one for stories, I'm afraid. He didn't speak much about his family or the island. I don't think he'd ever been there himself."

  "Perhaps not, but I've heard the name Aoire before, in some of the tales my mam used to tell me." He seemed as though he were about to say more and Jenna looked away from the falls toward him, but Mac Ard came striding up, and O'Deoradhain went silent at the tiarna's approach.

  "I have our lunch unpacked," Mac Ard said. "We could bring it out here, and eat while watching the scenery."

  "That sounds lovely," Maeve said. "Excuse me. We'll go help Padraic. Jenna?"

  "Coming, Mam." She turned away from the falls, catching O'Deoradhain's gaze as she did so. "What is it you want?" she asked him, as her mam walked away.

  O'Deoradhain shrugged. "Probably the same thing you want. Maybe the same thing you've already found." He nodded to her and smiled.

  She grimaced sourly in return, and followed her mother.

  Chapter 12: The Lady of the Falls

  THEY finished their lunch, and lay in the soft grass under a surprisingly warm sun. Jenna’s arm was starting to throb again with pain, and she stood up. "I’ll be right back," she said. "I’d like to take a walk."

  "I’ll go with you," O’Deoradhain offered, and Jenna shook her head.

  "No," she said firmly. "I’d prefer to go alone. Mam, do you mind?"

  "Go on," Maeve told her. "Don’t be long."

  "I won’t be." Jenna walked away north, around the curve of the cliffs toward the falls. As she approached, the clamor of the cascading water grew steadily louder, until it drowned any other sound in white noise. Greenery hung over the edge of the ravine so that it was difficult to tell where the ground ended, and the mist dusted Jenna’s hair and clothes with sparkling droplets. She moved as close to the edge as she dared. Foaming water rushed past below her, spilling down to the lough. With the touch of the mist, she thought she heard faint voices, as if hidden in the roar of the falls was a distant, whispering conversation.

  At the same time, her right arm began to feel cold and heavy under the bandages, and the cloch na thintri snuggled next to her skin flared into bitter ice. Jenna stopped, rubbing at her arm and flexing her suddenly stiff fingers, moaning slightly at the renewed pain. She started to turn back, thinking that she would fix herself more of the nasty-tasting anduilleaf, but stopped, blinking against the mist. There, just ahead of her, was a break in the greenery, a narrow trail leading down toward the Duan right where it plunged over the cliff edge. She wondered how she could have missed seeing it before.

  Follow. . she thought she heard the water-voices say. Follow…

  She took a tentative step forward, steadying herself against the bushes to either side. The path

  was steep and ill-defined, the grass underfoot slick and only slightly shorter than anywhere else, as if the trail were nearly forgotten. Once she slipped and fell several feet before she could stop herself. She almost turned back then, but just below, the path seemed to level out, curving enticingly behind a screen of scrub hawthorns. Follow. . The voices were louder now, almost audible.

  She followed.

  Around the hawthorns, she found herself on a ledge below the lip of the falls. Water thundered in front of her, foaming and snarling as it thrashed its way over black, mossy rocks. The ledge continued around, cutting underneath the overhanging rocks at the top of the waterfall and disappearing into darkness behind the water.

  Follow. . Her arm ached, the stone burned her skin with cold. Her hair and clothes, soaked by the mists, clung to her face and body. She should go back, she knew. This was insanity-one slip, and her body would be broken on the rocks a hundred feet below.

  Follow. .

  But there were handholds along the cliff wall, looking as if they'd been deliberately cut, and though the ledge was crumbling at the edges, the flags appeared to have once been laid by someone's hands. She took a step, then another, clinging to the dripping wall as the water pounded a few feet in front of her.

  Then she was behind the falls, and the ledge opened up. Jenna gasped in wonder. She was looking through the shimmering veil of water, and the falls caught the sunlight and shattered it, sending light dancing all around her. The air was cool and refreshing; the sound of the falls was muffled here, a constant low grumbling that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. The rock underfoot trembled with the sound. As her eyes grew accustomed to the twilight behind the falling water, Jenna saw that the ledge on which she stood opened up behind her, sloping down and into the cliff wall: a small, hidden cave. Something gleamed well back in the recess, and Jenna moved toward it, squinting into the dimness.

  And she stopped, holding her breath. In a stony niche carved from the living rock of the cliff, a

  skeleton lay, its empty-socketed eyes staring at Jenna. The body had once been richly dressed-a woman, adorned with the remnants of brocaded green silk, with glistening threads of silver and gold embroidered along the edging. The arms were laid carefully along her sides, and under her head was a pillow, the stuffing spilling out from rotting blue cloth, a few strands of golden hair curling below the skull.

  Rings hung loose on the bones of her fingers; jeweled earrings had fallen to the stone alongside the skull.

  You look on the remains of Ellis MacGairbhith of Inish Thuaidh, and I was once the Holder of Lamh Shabhala, as you are now. .

  The voice was as liquid as the falls, and it sounded inside her head. Jenna stepped back, her hands to her mouth, until she felt the roar of the water at her back. "No," she said aloud. "Be quiet. I don’t hear you."

  A laugh answered her. The skeleton stared. Take one of my rings, the voice said. Place it on your own finger. .

  "No. I can’t."

  You must. . The voice was a bare whisper, fading into wind and the falls’ louder voice. For a moment, Jenna thought it had gone entirely, then it returned, a husk--please. . one of the rings. .

  Her hand trembling, Jenna stepped toward the body again and reached out to the hands crossed over the breast. She touched the nearest ring, gasping, then pulled back as the golden band wobbled on the bones. Taking a breath, she reached out again, and this time pulled the ring from the unresisting hand. She held it in her fingers, turning it: the ring was heavy gold, inset with small emerald stones, filigreed and decorated with knotted rope patterns-an uncommon piece of jewelry, crafted by a mas-ter. The ring of someone who was once wealthy or well-rewarded.

  She put the ring on her own finger.

  At first nothing changed. Then Jenna realized that the hollow seemed brighter, that she could see as if it were full day. A bright fog filled the recess and the sound of the falls receded and died to nothing.

  A woman, clad in the green silk that the skeleton had worn, stepped through the mist toward Jenna.

  Her hair was long and golden-red like bright, burnished copper, and her skin was fair. Her eyes were summer blue, and she smiled as she came forward, her hands held out to Jenna. The sleeves left her arms bare, and Jenna saw that her right hand was scarred and marked to the elbow with swirling patterns, patterns that matched those on Jenna's own hand and arm.

  On one of her fingers sat the same ring Jenna wore.

  "Eilis," Jenna breathed, and the woman laughed. Aye," she said. "That was once my name. So you're the new Holder, and so young to be a First. That's a pity." Her hand touched Jenna's, and with the touch, Jenna felt a touch in her head as well, as if somehow Eilis were prowling in her thoughts. "Ah.

  Jenna, is it? And you've met Riata."

  Jenna nodded. "How. .?" she began
.

  "You are the Holder," Eilis said again. "This is just one of the gifts and dangers that Lamh Shabhala bestows: the Holders before you-we who held Lamh Shabhala while it was awake and perhaps even some of those who held it while it slept-live within the stone also." Jenna remembered the red-haired man she'd glimpsed when she first picked up the stone. Had he been a Holder, once? "At least," Eilis continued, "some shade of us does. Come to where a Holder's body rests, or touch something that was once theirs, and they can speak with you if you will it. They will also know what is in your mind, if you allow it to be open. Tell me, when you met Riata, did he give you a token?"

  Jenna shook her head. "No. He only spoke to me."

  Eilis nodded at that, as if it were the answer she expected. "I met him, too. Riata prefers to be left alone in death. He knows that should you need him again, you can find him in the stone or go to where he rests. I went there once, myself. That's how I came to know him-a wise man, wiser than most of us Daoine believed possible of a Bunus Muintir. We're an arrogant people. ." She seemed to sigh, then, and looked past Jenna as if into some hazy distance. "He told me I would die, if I followed my heart. I didn't believe him." Another sigh, and her attention came back to Jenna. "You will meet the

  shades of other Holders, inevitably, especially if you go to Lar Bhaile as you intend. And I’ll warn you; some you will not like and they will not like you. Some will smile and seem fair, but their advice will be as rotten as their hearts. The dead, you see, are not always sane." She smiled as she said that, a strange expression on her face. "Be careful."

  "Why didn’t Riata tell me this?" Jenna asked. "There’s so much I need to know."

  "If he told you all, you would have despaired,"

  Eilis answered. "You’re new to Lamh Shabhala, and you are a First besides." She shuddered. "I wouldn’t have wanted to be a First."