This townland was sparsely settled, and the villages grew even smaller and farther apart as they continued north. They began seeing large herds of storm deer, their hooves striking thunder from the land. Wind sprites wafted in clouds through the branches of trees, and the red, glaring eyes of dire wolves could be glimpsed watching them as they passed, though none attacked. There were other sounds and calls in the dark, and glimpses of creatures Jenna couldn't identify. Even the more normal crea-tures seemed strange. She saw eagles flying high overhead with wingspans wider than she was tall, and they called to each other with voices that sounded almost human; there were enigmatic ripples in the dark lakes, odd footprints in the earth.
"The land has almost fully awakened here," Seancoim said one morning as they settled into an overhanging hollow in a hillside to sleep. He lit a small fire with dead branches, striking the tinder into reluctant flame with flint and steel. Denmark flapped over to roost on a nearby branch, his head down on his breast. "It spreads slowly, but soon all places will be like this. When the mage-lights last faded, hundreds of years ago, these creatures faded, too, remembered only in the tales of the old people. In a few generations, they were nothing more than myths and legends, and those who claimed to see them were ridiculed and laughed at. Now the mage-lights bring them back from the hidden, lost places where they rested."
"All the fables are real?" Jenna remembered the tales she'd heard back in Tara's Tavern: from Aldwoman Pearce or Tom Mullin or in the songs Coelin sang.
"Not all. But most are based on some truth, no matter how twisted and distorted they’ve become over time. In another twenty or thirty turns of the seasons, everyone will have seen the real meaning of the Filleadh." Seancoim groaned as he settled back against the rocks. He rummaged in his pack for an earthenware pot, filled it with water from one of the skins, and set it at the edge of the fire. He unrolled a packet of dried fruit and meat and passed it over to Jenna. "In Thall Coill, the awakening is nearly complete."
"Tell me about Thall Coill," Jenna said, breaking off a bite of the smoked meat. "Tell me about the Scrudu. 1 asked En-" She started to say the name, and her throat closed. She forced back the sudden tears, swallowing.". . Ennis," she continued, "but he didn’t know much about it, and Moister Cleurach simply wouldn’t talk about it at all."
Seancoim shook his head, his white, featureless eyes seeming to stare at the fire. "I won’t, either," he said. "Not until it’s time."
"Moister Cleurach believes that it’s not real, that it’s a Bunus Muintir trick to kill the Daoine Holders."
"Is that what you think?"
"I don’t believe you would do that to me."
Seancoim didn’t answer, only nodded sleepily. The eastern sky was lightening, though the sun was still behind the hills. The clouds were painted with rose and gold. "If I fail at Thall Coill," Jenna said, "I want you to take Lamh Shabhala."
Seancoim laughed at that. "Me? An old, blind man? A Bunus Muintir?" He laughed again, setting his pack behind his head as a pillow. "No," he answered. "It’s not a burden I want. Not now. If you fall, I’m certain that Lamh Shabhala will find itself another Holder, all on its own-one that it wants." He turned on his side, facing the fire. "And if you don’t let me rest these old bones, we’ll never get there and you won’t have to worry about it at all."
The mountains curved away east to their end at the long bay that jutted deep into Inish Thuaidh. Here, they were taller and stonier than their green-cloaked brothers and sisters to the south, thrusting jagged peak
into a steel-gray sky, piercing the clouds so that they bled rain and oozed a mist that cloaked the summits and sometimes fell heavily into the valleys
below. This was wild land, and if there were Daoine here at all, Jenna saw no sign of them. "The only towns of your people are well off to the south in the farmlands away from the coast," Seancoim told her, Denmark' sitting on his shoulder. He pointed away with his walking stick to the hazy triple lines of ridges, one atop another, receding into the mist, and gestured to the ramparts yet to the north of them, a wall of stone. "Past there is the peninsula of Thall Coill."
"Do you know the way through? Have you been here before?"
"No," Seancoim answered. "But we'll be shown the way, I'm sure."
"What do you mean?"
"Be patient," he told her.
They rested there that day, and Seancoim roused Jenna before sunset. They broke camp and trudged northward, toiling steadily upward be-tween walls of gray rock spotted with lichens and garlanded with slick green mosses. To Jenna, it seemed that Seancoim wandered, moving left or right at random, their progress erratic. He said nothing, but seemed to be waiting. As they trudged on, walking in deepening twilight while the peaks above them were still touched with the last rays of the sun, Jenna had the sense of being watched, though she saw nothing and no one. The feeling persisted; it was so strong that she touched Lamh Shabhala and opened it slightly, letting the cloch's energy be her vision. She could sense life around them, but she recognized none of the patterns it made in the cloch-vision. Somewhere, near the edge of the cloch's sight, though, there were pinpricks of radiance less bright than a Cloch Mor: some of the clochmion, the minor stones. She started to mention it to Seancoim, but he simply grunted and shook his head at her, and she subsided into si-lence.
They walked on, and the feeling of being watched persisted and strengthened as the sun vanished and the sky above darkened to ultrama-rine, then black. The crescent moon had yet to rise, but the constellation of the Oxcart wheeled ahead of them. The birds had settled into their roosts and Denmark was nearly unseen as he moved from rock to rock ahead of them.
Suddenly Denmark gave a caw of alarm and
hopped quickly into the air. The mound of rocks on which he perched seemed to shiver and lift and change, until. .
… the mound shifted like molten glass and solidified again, taking on the shape of a bulky, humanlike form standing shorter than Jenna o
Seancoim, nearly as wide as it was tall. It raised its arms, then cracked them together again with a sound like two boulders smashing. A few seconds later, there was an echoing clamor to their right, and two other rock piles began to move, flowing slowly into similar forms. In the dark-ness, their exact shape was difficult to see, but there was a scraping sound as they walked forward with a rolling, side to side gait. They wore no clothing, their bodies a light brown-gray color like slate yet with a glossy sheen like fired pottery, their limbs thick and muscular. They stopped a few yards from Jenna and Seancoim as Jenna reached for Lamh Shabhala, ready to use the cloch at need. Thick eye ridges curled downward on the lead creature’s face; its rough-hewn features frowned. Again, it clashed hands together, and this time Jenna saw sparks jump as the hands came together.