Holder of Lightning

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 fog 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."