Holder of Lightning

The chambermaids were easy: she gave each of them a morceint and told them to go buy whatever they liked. It took time to lose the gardai, but she eventually managed to lose all the watchers and sneak away to the wooden stairs leading down to Deer Creek and a small patch of meadow there where a few people sat fishing despite the cold. Jenna. stayed under the trees, moving east along the creek and away from the meadow, where someone glancing down from the market above wouldn't easily spot her. She saw movement out in the creek-the seal rose from the cold water and clambered onto one of the flat rocks in the middle of the stream.

She could sense O'Deoradhain in the tangle of woods huddled against the steep bank. Jenna shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her cloca, one hand grasping the stone on its chain, ready to

open it fully and strike the man down at need. "You could have at least picked a warm place to meet," she called out to where he hid.

There was a rustle of dry brush and leaves, and O’Deoradhain stepped out. One arm was in a sling, but there was a knife at his belt, and Jenna watched his free hand carefully, knowing how quickly he could move with that weapon. She stayed ready to strike if his fingers strayed near the hilt. "If it were summer, the midges would be out. Would you rather be cold or bitten to death?"

The seal out in the water gave a coughing roar, and Jenna glanced again at the creature. It was a large bull, its head up and alert and staring back at them. Its coat was coal-black, yet deep blue highlights gleamed within it, like sparks struck from a flint and steel. O’Deoradhain looked toward the seal as well. "There aren’t usually seals in Lough Lar," he said. "Some-times in Lough Dubh, aye, but they don’t usually come up the Duan this far."

"For an Inishlander, you know a lot about Tuath Gabair."

"I’ve been here a long time now," O’Deoradhain answered, turning away from the seal and looking back at Jenna. "Ever since the Order decided that Lamh Shabhala might be in Gabair. Almost two years now."

Jenna cocked her head at that. "And how did you know that Lamh Shabhala was here before the mage-lights came?"

O’Deoradhain shrugged, grimacing as his bandaged shoulder moved. "Some in the Order know the magics of earth and water, the slow eternal spells. I know a bit of them myself. Ordinarily, that means little, but as the Filleadh approached and the mage-lights started to strengthen even though none of us could see them yet, those with the skill could feel the resonance through their own spells. They knew and they started to search, and they realized that Lamh Shabhala had once been on Inishfeirm and that they had lost the cloch. It wasn’t hard, then, to know who had taken it-your great-da. What took time was discovering where he had gone and what had happened to him."

"So they sent you? Alone?" Jenna scoffed. "Why didn’t they send every-one? Why isn’t Gabair filled with people from the Order?"

O'Deoradhain gazed back placidly into her mocking stance. "If all of Inishfeirm suddenly came here, then everyone would suspect why and everyone would have been searching for the cloch. And there are only a few who are capable of being the Holder of Lamh Shabhala."

The way he said it lifted the hairs on Jenna's arms with a sudden chill that was not the cold air. "A few like you?" she asked.

O'Deoradhain nodded. "That's what I was trained to do." Jenna took a step back from him. "Jenna," he said. "Use the stone. Look at me. I'm not a threat to you. I'd take the stone from you if you gave it to me, aye. If you'd died the other day in my room, I'd have taken it then, too. But I won't harm you to become the Holder."

That might have been true; she could feel no danger to herself emanat-ing from him. Yet… "I don't know that," she said. "Even with the cloch."

O'Deoradhain smiled, which softened his rugged face. "You're right. You don't know that, and I'll tell you that there are ways to hide yourself from a cloch na thintri, even Lamh Shabhala."

"And you know them."

"I do."

"Then I can't trust you."

"Perhaps not," he answered. "But you can't survive alone. Not for long, and not with what you hold."

"I have those I can trust," Jenna replied with some heat, and- strangely-O'Deoradhain chuckled at that.

"Who? Mac Ard? The Ri and Banrion? That self-centered boy from your old village?"

"He's not-" Jenna began heatedly, then stopped, clenching her jaw as O'Deoradhain studied her, as the seal out in the river gave another moan-ing wail as if calling for a mate. "What did you want of me, O'Deoradhain?"

"Only what I told you: to bring you to Inishfeirm, so you can learn to use the power you hold."

"I have learned," she retorted. "I wouldn't be talking to you now if I hadn't. Three times someone