"I remember, aye. I carried it with me, everywhere. Then, on Knobtop one day, I lost it. I was never sure how that happened. I go up there and look for it, all the time, still. Did I. .?"
"No, Da. You never found it, but I did, the night the mage-lights came."
The wraith of Niall nodded. "So the stone truly was Lamh Shabhala. I never knew for certain; for all I knew, it was just a colorful pebble, though I'd always been told it was a cloch, and supposedly the cloch, the Safe-keeping. But it was dead-or waiting for the mage-lights-when I had it." He sighed. He looked at her for a long time, a slow smile touching his mouth. "You look like her. You have Maeve's eyes, and her hair."
"She always says I have your nose, and the shape of your face."
He laughed. "I remember her saying that, not long after you were born." He was silent for long moments after that, his face somber. "Why did you call me here, Jenna? If I’m dead, why did you rouse me? Why didn’t you leave me to rest?"
"I wanted. ." Jenna stopped. Now that she had called him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. There was so much. "I need to know what you know about the cloch. I need you to help me."
He stood and came toward her, reaching out his hand. She extended her own hand for his touch. She expected to feel his skin, or perhaps a waft of chill air. She felt nothing. Her fingers went through his as if they were mist. Is that what would have happened with Eilis? She seemed so real, so whole, but she was trying to scare me… Jenna felt disappointment, and the figure of her da drew back, sighing. "You’re a dream. Not real."
Jenna shook her head. "No. I’m real. It’s you who aren’t."
He may have believed her. He made no protest.
"If this is death, why is it so… ordinary? Why don’t I remember dying? Why do I seem to be still in our house, and you standing before me like a ghost?"
"I don’t know," Jenna answered. She looked at the carving in her hand. "Though this wasn’t with you when you died, and it’s all I have of yours. Maybe that’s the reason. There’s so much I don’t know, Da. The stone was yours for a while-tell me why. Tell me how you came to have it. Tell me everything. Help me as you would have helped me if you were still alive."
He clasped his hands together, staring at them as if marveling at their solidity. "If I were still alive, I would have Lamh Shabhala," he answered. "Not you. I would have been on Knobtop that night."
"But I have it now, Da. Your daughter."
He looked at her. "My daughter," he said. "I never expected to have the gift of a daughter. For that matter, I never expected to fall in love at all… "
Chapter 15: Niall’s Tale
MY mam, your great-mam, was the one who took the cloch. No, that's not quite true. Actually, it was your great-da who stole it from where it rested. .
"No, let me begin again. It's easier to start farther back. Let me tell you the story as my mam used to tell it to me…
"She was born on Imshfeirm, an island just off Inish Thuaidh. Inish-feirm's best known for the Order of Inishfeirm, with their white stone buildings set high on the peak. From what my mam said, there weren't many residents of Inishfeirm outside the Order; of those few, most were fisherfolk, her family included. They knew the Brathairs of the Order, though. Couldn't help it, since the Order dominated what social life there was on the island. They'd meet them in the streets or in the market, buying fish for their table or some of the greens that came over from the big island.
"My mam's name was Kerys Aoire. The Aoires weren't Riocha, just plain folk, but well enough off and one of the main families on the island, from what Mam told me. They were often invited by the Maister to dine at the Order Hall on the feast days. The Order was a contemplative one, devoted to the Mother-Creator. In the last decades of the Before, the Order was known for its cloudmages, but when the mage-lights failed, so did their prominence. By the time my mam was born, they were a curiosity from another age, a place to visit and hear the old tales, to see the spectac-ular scenery of Inishfeirm, with its buildings clinging like lichens to the steep cliff walls of the mountain peak that formed the isle, with the bright parapets of the Order, built five centuries before, standing proud at the summit. Once, the cells of the Brathairs were crowded; now, half of them were empty, though the Order still attracted occasional acolytes from Inish Thuaidh, young men sent to serve by wealthy families, mostly, and even a few from among the mainland Riocha, primarily from Falcarragh in Tuath Infochla.
"One of the acolytes, a boy of eighteen summers named Niall, caught my mam's eye. Aye, that's my name as well, and I'm sure that tells you some of what happened next. I don't know much about my da. Mam always claimed that she wouldn't tell me his family name because she wanted to protect him, but I'm not certain she ever knew it. I suppose it
doesn’t matter. They fell in love, or at least lust. My mam was probably your age, sixteen or seventeen, and naive. It wasn’t the first time a Brathair of the Order and a local girl had become lovers; I’m sure it wasn’t the last, either, though afterward I’ll bet the Maister watched things more closely than before.
"One of the treasures of the Order of Inishfeirm was its collection of clochs na thintri. Once, the Order’s founders had even held Lamh Shabhala, and three of the other Clochs Mor had been theirs, as well as several of the minor stones. But when the mage-lights failed, Lamh Shabhala was given away or lost, though they retained the other clochs. Over the centu-ries, they had accumulated more stones reputed to be clochs na thintri, though of course no one could know for certain with the mage-lights long dead. Some of the clochs had been handed down through families for generations; others were purchased or found, and as to their lineage and the truth of the claims made for them. . well, no one knew.
"Some two hundred years before my mam’s birth, the Order acquired a stone that was reputed to be the long-lost Lamh Shabhala. I don’t think anyone actually believed that tale. Mam said that she’d seen the collection a few times when the Moister would order it brought out for the admira-tion of his guests, and some of the clochs were gorgeous stones: gleaming, transparent jewels of bright ruby, midnight blue, or deepest green, faceted and polished, some of them as big as your fist. The one called Lamh Shabhala looked puny and insignificant alongside them, at that time wrapped in a cage of silver wire as a necklace. Even the necklace was plain: simple black strands of cotton. The Moister seemed somewhat skep-tical about the claims. You know how tales grow and change with each telling, and by that time it had been four centuries and more since the clochs were alive with power, so it’s no wonder that no one knew for certain what Lamh Shabhala had looked like.
"The Brathairs were contracted by their families for life to the Order.
Marriage was forbidden to them. When Mam twice missed her monthly bleeding, she told Niall. She was afraid that he would go to the Moister, confess, and be forbidden to see Mam again, and Mam would be left to the shame of a bastard child. Certainly that had happened before, and there were women on Inishfeirm who were pointed out as local
scandals. Now Mam thought she would be one of them, a cautionary tale to Inish-feirm girls who looked with love on one of the Brathairs.
"But Niall was true to her. He promised Kerys that he would go away with her, that he would take her to one of the Tuatha where they might be married. And to prove that his promise was in earnest, he gave her a token of his love and also of his rejection of the Order. He stole what he perceived as one of the least of the clochs, and gave it to my mam.
"Aye, the very cloch you hold now.
"They managed to steal away at night, taking a small currach that be-longed to my mam's family. Though the moon was out when they started, my mam said, they chose the wrong night, for a quick storm came thun-dering out of the west and south after they passed the last island and were nearly across to Tuath Infochla. A currach is fine in a calm sea; in the storm, in the huge wind-driven waves, only a very lucky and very experi-enced sailor could have kept the tiny craft afloat and neither Niall nor Kerys were experienced or lucky. The currach foundered just off the coast. Both Niall and Kerys went over-Mam, at least, could swim well, and she knew to rid herself of her wet clothes before they dragged her down. She said she never knew what happened to Niall. She heard him call once, but in the storm and night, she never saw him again.