Holder of Lightning

Coelin sang, his voice taking them into a misty past where fierce Mael Armagh, king of Tuath Infochla four hundred years before, drove his ships of war from Falcarragh to Inish Thuaidh, where the mage-lights had first shone in the Eldest Time and where they glowed brightest. The verses of the ancient lay told how the cloudmages of the island called up the wild storms of the Ice Sea, threatening to smash the invading fleet on the is-land's high cliffs; Mael Armagh screaming defiance and finally landing safely; the sun gleaming from the armor and weapons of Mael Armagh's army as they swarmed ashore; the Battle of Dun Kill, where Mael Armagh won his first and only victory; Sage Roshia's prophecy that the king would die "not from Inish hands" if he pursued the fleeing Inishlanders to seal his victory. Yet Mael Armagh ordered the pursuit into the mountain fast-nesses of the island and there met his fate, his armies scattered and trapped, the Inishlanders surrounding him on all sides and the mage-lights flickering in the dark sky above. The last verses were filled with the folly, the courage, and the sorrow of the Battle of Sliabh Michinniuint: the Inish cloudmages raining fire down on the huddled troops; the futile, suicidal charge by Mael Armagh in an attempt to win through the pass to the Lowlands; the death of the doomed king at the hands of his own men, who presented Mael Armagh's body to Severii O'Coulghan, the Inishland-er's chief cloudmage, to buy their safe passage back to their ships. And the final verse, as Mael Armagh's ship Cinniuint, now his funeral pyre, sailed away from the island to the south never to be seen again, the flames of the pyre painting the bottom of the gray clouds with angry red.

The clock-candle on Tara's bar had burned down a stripe before Coelin finished the song, and Mac

Ard’s hands started the applause afterward as Coelin eased his parched throat with long swallows of stout. "Excellent," Mac Ard said. "I’ve not heard better. You should come to Lar Bhaile, and sing for us there. I’ll wager that in another year, you would be at the court in Dun Laoghaire, singing to the R1 Ard himself."

Coelin’s face flushed visibly as he grinned, and Jenna saw Ellia’s eyes first widen, then narrow, as if she were already seeing Coelin leaving Bal-lintubber. "I’ll do that, Tiarna. Maybe I’ll follow you back."

"Do that," Mac Ard answered, "and I’ll make sure you have a roof over your head, and you’ll pay for your keep with songs."

The patrons laughed and applauded (all but Ellia, Jenna noticed), and someone called out for another song, and Coelin started a reel: "The Cow Who Married the Pig," everyone clapping along and laughing at the non-sensical lyrics. Mac Ard inclined his head to Maeve, nodding once in Jenna’s direction. "Those were her ancestors the boy sang of," he said. And your husband’s. A fierce and proud people, the Inishlanders. They never bowed to any king but their own, and they still don’t." He sat back, then leaned forward again. "They also knew the mage-lights. Knew how to draw them down, knew how to store their power. Even then, in the last days of the Before, in the final flickering of the power and the cloud-^Aages. They say it’s in their blood. They say that if the mage-lights come again, when it’s time for the Filleadh, the mage-lights will first appear to someone of Inish Thuaidh."

Jenna saw Maeve glance toward her. She wondered if her mam had felt the same shiver that had just crept down her spine. "And are you thinking that my daughter and I had anything to do with this, Tiarna Mac Ard?" Maeve asked him.

Mac Ard shrugged. "I don’t even know for certain that what we saw were mage-lights. They may have just been some accident of the sky, the moon reflecting from ice in the clouds, perhaps. But. ." He paused, listening to Coelin’s singing before turning back to Maeve and Jenna. "I told you that when I saw them, I wanted to come here. And I… I have a touch of the Inish blood in me."

Chapter 4: The Fire Returns

JENNA left before the clock-candle reached the next stripe: as Coelin sang a reel, then a love song; as Mac Ard related to Maeve the long story of his great-great-mam from Inish Thuaidh (who, Jenna learned, fell in love with a tiarna from Dathuil in Tuath Airgialla, who would become Mac Ard's great-great-da. There was more, but Jenna became lost in the blizzard of names.) Maeve seemed strangely interested in the intricacies of the Mac Ard genealogy and asked several questions, but Jenna was bored. "I'm going back home, Mam," she said. "You stay if you like. I'll check on Kesh and the sheep."

Her mam looked concerned for a moment, then she glanced at Ellia, who was leaning as close to Coelin as she could without actually touching him. She smiled gently at Jenna. "Go on, then," she told Jenna. "I'll be along soon."