Holder of Lightning

THE folk of the village of Banshaigh had a name for the creature: "Uisce Taibhse," it was: the water ghost. "No one fishes at the eastern end of Lough Glas now," one grizzled old man told Jenna and O’Deoradhain. "At least not if you care about coming back. Too many boats have been mysteriously sunk there-in broad daylight and calm water-and many of those aboard lost. The Uisce Taibhse is an evil creature-or creatures, since there is more than one of them, and they don’t like us. We’ve caught one ourselves, snagged in our nets; it died out of the water like a fish, but it fought like a mad, cornered dog to its last breath. Why, if I had one of those clochs na thintri the Riocha are wearing now, I’d just kill them all. ."

As would have happened in Tara’s tavern back in Ballintubber, the newcomers to The Green Waters, Banshaigh’s only inn, were greeted with curious looks and many questions. Jenna and O’Deoradhain agreed on their cover story before entering the village: they were cousins uprooted from their homes in Tuath Gabair by the recent troubles and hoping to return to the home of their uncle in Inish Thuaidh. Banshaigh wasn’t much larger than Ballintubber and though the villagers were aware of the hostilities between Connachta and Gabair, they were far enough removed from the larger towns and the Riocha that they were more sympathetic than hostile to the unfortunate travelers, especially

since O'Deoradhain seemed to know as much about fishing as any of the locals.

Lough Glas, the green lake, was fed by springs, brooks, and rills run-ning from the high hills around it, and fed from its western end into a mountain-flanked and marshy tidal basin and the sea. Aye, the village fisherfolk sometimes ventured out into the open ocean. Aye, there was one fisherman in the village who would doubtless be willing to sail them to Inish Thuaidh for a fair price-Flynn Meagher had a large enough boat and often sailed the coast, if never that far north.

They went to see Flynn Meagher the next morning near dawn, in a windy downpour.

Meagher was a burly, nontalkative man, who grunted as O'Deoradhain explained what they wanted. "Maybe six days out, six back, fewer if the wind is good," Meagher said finally. "Need to take another person to help me sail and I won't be able to do any fishing. A half-morceint a day is what I'll need." His face showed that he expected the bedraggled strangers to turn and leave with that. When O'Deoradhain showed him three golden coins and placed one of them in Meagher's palm, he seemed aston-ished.

"A quarter-morceint a day is twice as much as you should get, but we're in a hurry," O'Deoradhain countered. "I'll give you one morceint now so you can hire your crew member and provision the boat. You'll get the other two when we get there."

Meagher stared at the money in his hand. Slowly, his fingers curled around the coin, then opened again. He seemed to be thinking. "Can't leave today. Tomorrow. Better weather, better tide."

"We'll be here tomorrow morning, then. Same time."

A nod. His hand closed around the money and disappeared under the oiled leather coat.

"He could take us a day's sail out, kill us while we're sleeping, steal the money and dump our bodies overboard for the fish," Jenna said as they walked back to the inn.

"Aye, he could," O'Deoradhain admitted. "We'll need to be careful. But we also have defenses he doesn't know we have, and I could sail that boat myself with your help if we needed to. Do you have

She didn’t. But she didn’t feel easy about the decision.

The next day they sold their horses to the proprietor of The Green Waters and went to meet Meagher at his boat near the end of the docks. The day Promised to be a fine one, as Meagher had suggested, but despite the yellow glow on the horizon and the deep, nearly cloudless azure above, Jenna felt more and more uneasy as they approached their rendezvous. She opened Lamh Shabhala slightly, examining the space around them with the cloch’s vision. There were several other people in the dock area which was to be expected, but if there were other clochs nearby, they were well-shielded. They walked toward the small wooden shack on the shore where Meagher stored his nets and other equipment.

Jenna put her hand on O’Deoradhain’s arm. "Wait," she said. She could feel several people in the immediate area, yet the only one she could see was Meagher, on his boat and waving at them. "There are too many-"

It was as far as she got. The door to Meagher’s shack opened. Tiarna Mac Ard stood there, and she suddenly felt the concealing shields go down around the rubied jewel already grasped in his hand.