Holder of Lightning

"My arm. ." she cried. "It hurts so much, Mam." Sharp, red agony stabbed at her, radiating from her hand downward and into her chest. She shivered with cold, the wind biting at her drenched clothing. Her vision was colored with it, like a veil over her eyes. With Jenna leaning against her mother, they moved down away from the falls. As they turned, Jenna glanced down.

The falls flared white as the water cascaded over the edge of the ravine, and the mist touched her face like tears.

Chapter 13: Smoke and Ruin

A STRIPE later, new wrappings with Seancoim's poultice slathered on the cloth and a mug of the anduilleaf brew had dulled the pain enough so that Jenna could ride. The wan fall sun had dried her clothes somewhat. She told the others that she'd slipped and fallen on the arm- the story appeared to satisfy them, and if she seemed wetter than the mist alone could have managed, no one mentioned the fact.

It was nearing midafternoon when they returned to the High Road. "A long lunch," Mac Ard said worriedly when they finally were riding north again. "It will be dark before we reach the ford at this rate. We still may not reach Ath Iseal tonight."

Jenna was silent on the ride. Again Mac Ard and Maeve rode together, and O'Deoradhain remained behind with Jenna, but his attempts to draw her into conversation failed. In truth, she barely heard him or saw the landscape as they approached the ford of the Duan. She held the reins of the horse loosely in her left hand, trusting the mare to keep to the road, and stared down at her bandaged arm, letting the fingers stretch and close, stretch and close. She traced the patterns of the scars with her gaze, feeling them even though they were hidden under folds of cotton.

Her thoughts were on Lamh Shabhala. The other times she had tapped the stone's power, she had felt no control of the process. But now. . Even without holding the stone, she could touch it with her mind, as if she and the cloch were linked. She could place her thoughts there and imagine herself sinking into the unguessed depths of the cloch. She could see power flaring between the crystalline structures within the stone, and she could direct that force: she could send it flaring outward and control where it went, what it touched, what it did.

And she could see, at the center of the stone, a hidden well of another power, one that was as yet half-filled, and when she looked there with her mind, she could feel gossamer, invisible threads running away from Lamh Shabhala into the world. At the end of those threads, she knew, lay the other clochs na thintri, the stones of lightning, waiting for Lamh Shabhala to restore their power.

She could not imagine how she would handle that huge reservoir, if the energy that already ran through Lamh Shabhala hurt her so much already. At the same time, she knew that she could not throw the stone away or give it to someone else. Lamh Shabhala wouldn’t allow that. She would not allow it. Even contemplating that action made her arm throb through the veil of anduilleaf. She had opened the stone, but Lamh Shabhala had also opened her.

She could no more easily abandon the cloch now than she could dis-card her heart.

"I don’t know how Tiarna Mac Ard feels," she heard O’Deoradhain saying though her musings,

"but I don’t like this. There’s been no one on the road with us all day. The west isn’t as well traveled as the east side of the lough, but still we should have seen a few others by now. Actually, I was surprised no other travelers stopped at the falls in all the time we were there."

Jenna nodded. She might have glanced at him, but Lamh Shabhala overlaid the sight. He may have continued to talk, but she was lost inside the stone, peering at its secrets.

By evening, with the sun sending long shadows eastward as it touched the treetops, they approached a crossroads where the lough road met with the High Road traveling up to Ballintubber and crossing over to the Duan. On either side of the road, oak trees overhung the stone fences; to the west, the outskirts of Doire Coill huddled close by across an overgrown field. Mac Ard suddenly pulled back on his reins to bring his horse to a halt, standing up in the stirrups and peering around them. "Can you smell that?" he asked.

The question brought Jenna out of her reverie.

She sniffed, and the smell brought with it unpleasant memories. "Woodsmoke," she said, then frowned. "And something more."

"Too much wood smoke," Mac Ard commented. "And an awful reek within it. I was past here a dozen days ago, on my way to Ballintubber. Where the roads meet there was a tiny village: a tavern and three or four houses." His face was touched with worry as he looked back over his shoulder. "And I share your concern about the quiet on the road, O’Deoradhain. I think we should ride carefully and slowly, and keep an eye about us. Jenna-"

Jenna started at the sound of her name. "Aye, Tiarna?"