Holder of Lightning

ached, as if in memory of how Lamh Shabhala had awakened here, and she wished again-fleetingly-that Seancoim had put anduilleaf in her pack. "We might as well camp here tonight," she said, trying to sound as if the confrontation had never happened and knowing she fooled neither of them. "It's obvious no one's come here since… " She stopped, and genuine wonder filled her voice. "Shh! What's that?"

What?" O'Deoradhain glanced in the direction Jenna was pointing.

Well off in the field where Old Stubborn and his herd used to graze, there was movement: pairs of pale green lights gleaming in the twilight, like glowing eyes. There seemed to be hundreds of them, just above the level of the tall grass, shifting and moving about, blinking occasionally. And they spoke like a crowd of people gathered together: a low, murmuring conversation that raised goose bumps on Jenna's arms. There were words in their discussion, she was certain, then-distinctly-a horn blew a shrill glissando. The lights went out as one, and a wind rose from the field and swept past them and up the lane. In the twilight, Jenna could glimpse half-seen shapes and feel ghostly hands brushing against her. The horn sounded again: fainter and more distant, heading in the direction of Knob top. The wind died as a few glowing eyes stared back at them from near the bend in the lane and disappeared again.

The horde had passed.

"Wind sprites," O'Deoradhain said. His voice was hushed and awed, as if he were standing in one of the Mother-Creator's chapels. Jenna looked at him in puzzlement. "My great-mam used to tell me tales at night, and she spoke of eyes in the dark, and horns, and the wind as they rushed by in their hunts. I thought the stories she told me were all legends and myths."

He shook his head. "Now I think the legends were only sleeping."

Chapter 32: Ballintubber Changed

THE next morning, they walked up the High Road to the village. The morning was a drizzle of mist and fog that beaded on their clocas and hair, and the spring’s warmth seemed to have fled. As they approached, Jenna began to sense that something was wrong. It was the silence that bothered her. A Ballintubber morning should have been alive with sound: the lowing of milch cows in their barns; the steely clatter of a hammer on hot iron or bronze from the smithy; the creak and rumble of produce carts going out to the fields; the shouts and hollers of children; laughter, conversations, greetings. .

There was nothing. She could see the buildings up the rise, but no sound wafted down from them to challenge the birdcalls or their footsteps on the muddy road. O’Deoradhain noticed it as well; he swept back his cloca and placed his hand on the hilt of his knife. "Perhaps they all de-cided to sleep late this morning," he said, and gave a bitter laugh at his own jest.

Not likely," Jenna answered. Grimacing, she placed her right hand around the cloch. She opened the stone and let its energy flow outward, her own awareness drifting with it. O’Deoradhain had offered to teach her some of the craft of the cloudmage during their months in Doire Coill, and she had-grudgingly-accepted his tutelage. She wasn’t sure how good a pupil she’d been, suspicious of her teacher’s intentions and instruction, but she had learned a few skills. She could sense life in the way the power flowed, and that told her there were people nearby, though only a few.

And there was something else, at the edge of what she could detect: a pull and bending in her consciousness, as if another cloch were out there as well. She brought up the walls that O’Deoradhain had taught her to create around the cloch, but at that moment, the hint of another presence vanished. She put her attention there, to the south and east, but it was gone. Perhaps it had never been there at all.

She opened her hand and her eyes. A shiver of

discomfort traveled from wrist to shoulder, and she groaned. "Jenna?"

"I'm fine," she told O'Deoradhain sharply. "Come on; there's no one there we need to be concerned with." She began walking rapidly toward the cluster of buildings.

Things had changed. The High Road was marked with stone flags through the village, but grass grew high between the flat rocks. Dogs would usually have come running to greet newcomers, but the only dog Jenna glimpsed-black and white and painfully reminiscent of Kesh- was bedraggled and thin, skulking away with lowered tail and ears as soon as it caught a glimpse of them. The Mullin house, near the outskirts of the village, hadn't been whitewashed this spring as Tom and his sons usually did, and the thatch roof sagged badly just over the doorway. The door hung on one hinge, half-opened and leading into a dark interior. "Hello," Jenna called as they passed, but no one came out.

"Not the place you remember, is it?" O'Deoradhain ventured. "You're certain there are people here?"

"Aye," Jenna answered grimly. "Near the tavern,

I think."

"I'd be drinking if I lived here."