Jenna saw it then, in a shifting of shadows as it moved. At first she thought it was simply a stag deer, but then it came out from under the trees, and Jenna gasped as she realized that the animal was huge, taller than O’Deoradhain at the shoulders, with a rack of massive antlers that echoed the great branches of the oaks. Its coat was a brilliant russet with a white, powerful breast, and the black, gleaming hooves were larger than Jenna’s hands. The creature was magnificent, almost regal, as it walked slowly down to the stream’s edge and lowered its crowned head to drink for a moment. Then the head lifted again to gaze across the river to the three people with eyes that seemed calm and intelligent.
"That’s a fia stoirm," Seancoim said quietly, answering Jenna’s unasked question. "The storm deer. In the Bunus Muintir histories, they speak of herds of them, their hooves so loud pounding against the earth that it sounded like thunder.
When the sky-magic died, so did they."
"Our stories are the same," O’Deoradhain said.
"From the Before, cen-turies ago. But if they all died
!!
"Not all," Seancoim answered. "A few survived, hiding in the oldest places. When I was young, I
once glimpsed a storm deer deep in Doire Coill. But in the past year, I have seen dozens, and not in the depths of the forest but here near the edge. I have seen other things, too, that were once legend and are not as beautiful and gentle as these: dire wolves, who have a language of their own; boars with long tusks as sharp as knives, and whose bristles are gold; snakes with white scales and red eyes, as long as any of us are tall. From my brothers to the west,
I have learned that a dragon's scream was heard on one of the islands in the Duan Mouth. And from another, that blue seals were gathering along the northern coast. Jenna remembered the seals she'd seen in Lough Lar, the way their satin fur had gleamed. She glanced at O'Deoradhain, but he would not look at her. "The myths are awakening again," Seancoim continued. "Things walk the land that have not been seen in many generations. Even the trees of Doire Coill are more awake now than I have ever felt them."
Almost as if in response to Seancoim's words, the wind rose slightly and shook the branches of the oaks. The stag's nostrils widened as it sniffed the breeze. The creature took a last look at them before bounding away, its great hooves thudding audibly on the ground as it departed.
"This is what you are caught in, Jenna," Seancoim said. "Part great beauty, part great danger. As the mage-lights are awakening the old crea-tures, so you are ready to awaken the other clochs na thintri. You will make a new world."
"I can't," Jenna said. The pain inside her, forgotten for a moment with the sighting of the storm deer, returned. "I don't know how. I'm scared, Seancoim. I'm so. ." She couldn't finish the sentence. The tears came again in racking, terrified sobs, and she wanted more than anything else for her mam to be here, to comfort her as she had so many times. She had thought of herself as a woman now, an adult and self-sufficient, but she suddenly felt like a child again.
It was O'Deoradhain who came to her. "I can help you, Jenna," he told her, crouching down in front of her. "I can't do it for you because Lamh Shabhala has chosen you, but I can help you. If you'll let me."
His arms went around her, and for a breath she stiffened, ready to pull away. He started to release her, to back away, but she laid her head on his shoulder. She let herself fall into the embrace,
allowing herself to believe that she was safe in her mam’s arms again, imagining that she was home again and that none of this had ever happened.
But it wasn’t an illusion that could last.
"There’s another who will help you as well," she heard Seancoim say. "Or at least, I hope so. We’ll go to him tomorrow."
Chapter 30: Release
SHE remembered the valley. The sight of the central dolmen, carved with the pattern of the scars on her arm and surrounded by the passage graves of the Bunus Muintir chieftains, still made her shiver. The day was gray and sullen with rain misting from lowering clouds, the water dripping heavily from the cap-stone of the dolmen as they stood under it. Only Denmark seemed un-bothered by the rain-the crow was perched above the entrance to Riata’s grave, mouth open to the sky and occasionally shaking droplets from his feathers.
Jenna’s mood matched the weather. Her stomach roiled and she’d thrown up nearly everything that Seancoim had put into her. The head-ache refused to leave, so that at times she could barely walk, and her right arm hung useless at her side. She’d leaned heavily on O’Deoradhain as they’d made the two-day journey to the valley. She remembered little of the time: it was a blur of pain and fatigue. She’d begged Seancoim for anduilleaf off and on, sometimes weeping, sometimes in a fury, once with a threat to use the cloch; he refused each time, though never with anger.
Jenna sank down with her back against one of the standing stones, not caring that the ground was soaked and muddy. "Now what?" she asked.
"We wait," Seancoim answered.
"Here?" Jenna spat.
"Here, or in Riata’s cairn."
"Here," O’Deoradhain said. He cast a look at the blackness beyond the stones where Denmark
roosted, and shivered. "Graves aren't for the living."
"Riata isn't quite dead," Seancoim told him.
"Then that's even worse."
"Can we at least have a fire?" Jenna asked. "I'm cold through."
O'Deoradhain gathered together what kindling he could find and pulled his tinderbox from his pack, but the spark wouldn't catch despite repeated efforts. "It's too damp," he said finally. Jenna nodded miserably, and Seancoim hunkered down in front of the nest of kindling O'Deoradhain had built. He rubbed his hands together several times, chanting words that Jenna could not understand. He picked up O'Deoradhain's flint and struck it. A blue flame shot out, startling Jenna, and the kindling began to crackle. O'Deoradhain chuckled. "I'm beginning to think that I was lucky you only hit me on the head," he said to Seancoim.
Seancoim's grizzled, ancient face grinned back at him as he warmed his hands over the flames. "That you were, young man."
They stayed there under the dolmen as the sun lowered itself beyond the lip of the valley and the valley grew darker under the overcast sky. The rain stopped before sunset; as night fell they began to glimpse stars between the thinning clouds.
Seancoim and O'Deoradhain talked as they waited, but Jenna said little, sitting on the ground with her knees drawn up and her right arm cradled against her. She stroked Lamh Shabhala from time to time. The cloch seemed almost restless, its image throbbing in her head, filling her vision with bright sparks. There was a tension in the air itself like the drone of some sepulchral pipe, so low that she couldn't quite hear it but only feel the sound, rumbling just below the threshold of perception.
A finger of light appeared above them, blue outlined in gold, wavering and brightening so that they saw the shadow of the dolmen sway on the ground in response. Jenna rose to her feet.
"So it is to be tonight… "
The voice spoke in her head, not in her ears: a resonant, warm baritone. The others looked up as well, as if they'd also heard. "Riata?" Jenna glanced toward the entrance to his tomb. There was a wavering in the dimness, a mist that formed itself
into a man’s shape as she watched. "Do you remember me?"
She felt the now-familiar touch of another Holder’s mind on her own, this one more powerful than most, strong enough so that she could not shut him out as he prowled her thoughts and her memories. The spectral figure of the ancient Bunus Holder drifted toward her. Jenna was vaguely aware of the others watching, Seancoim placidly silent, O’Deoradhain with shocked apprehension. "Ahh," Riata sighed. "Jenna. You are the First who came to me once before." More mage-lights had appeared in the sky, brighter and more brilliantly colored than Jenna had seen in previous displays. The largest manifestation was directly overhead, but the mage-lights flickered all the way to the horizon. The entire valley was illumi-nated, as if a thousand fires burned above. Riata’s indistinct face glanced up to them. "Aye," he said. "Tonight."