They nodded silently, meek and terrified. Neither looked inclined to test the truth of Jenna's small lie. The mage-lights strengthened, their glow touching the waves with color.
"Jenna," O'Deoradhain said as Jenna steeled herself for the ordeal of filling Lamh Shabhala once again. "If you're willing, I'd like you to give me Mac Ard's cloch." She glanced at him, more quizzical than anything "I'll give you Gairbith's in return," he added.
Jenna hesitated. "Why? They're both Clochs Mor."
"Because he'll come looking for that one," O'Deoradhain answered "And I want him to come to me, not to someone who may not understand or may not be expecting him."
"Are you sure it's not just because he hurt you with it?"
O'Deoradhain shrugged. "And that, too."
Jenna handed the rubied stone to him. His mouth tightened as he bowed his head to take Gairbith's cloch from around his neck, and she heard him gasp as if stung when the chain was removed. "It's only Mac Ard's cloch in my other hand that lets me do this," he* said as he handed the green stone to her. He was sweating, the lines of his face carved deep.
"Even this hurts, though I held Gairbith’s cloch for just a few days and have another cloch to immediately replace it. Take it from me, Jenna; I can’t… I can’t let it go."
Jenna reached over and pried his fingers from the stone until it dropped into her hand. O’Deoradhain took a long, shuddering breath, clutching Mac Ard’s cloch to him. After a few minutes, he lifted his head again and shook it. Jenna could see tears in his eyes. "They told me during the training that no one could give up his cloch willingly. I always thought that was an exaggeration, but that was harder than I believed. I couldn’t ever do that again," he said softly. "Never. If I’d kept the other cloch any longer, if I’d used it more…"
"Then fill Mac Ard’s cloch now," Jenna told him. "Fill it and make it yours."
The mage-lights danced seductively, calling Jenna, and Lamh Shabhala’s need tugged at her. She turned away from O’Deoradhain and looked up, lifting the cup of the cloch to the mage-lights to be filled.
The voyage took five days, hopping across the chain of small islands be-tween Talamh an Glas and Inish Thuaidh. "There," O’Deoradhain said finally, pointing ahead across the choppy gray waves. "That’s Inishfeim. That’s where we’re going."
Jenna could see a gleam of brilliant white atop the blue-gray hump the island, a white that shimmered in the pale sunlight filtered through thin gray clouds. As they approached the island, the patch resolved into stone towers perched precariously on the island’s steep cliffs. A road wound back and forth from a village clustered around the sheltering arms of a bay up to the ornate and imposing structure on the heights. "The town of Inishfeirm, where your great-mam once lived," O’Deoradhain told her. The "town" looked small, larger than Ballintubber, certainly, but not as imposing as even Ath Iseal. "And the Order of Inishfeirm," O’Deoradhain continued, pointing to the high towers, "where I spent far too many years." He laughed at the memory. "Moister Cleurach will be surprised. It’s been two years now I’ve been away, and I don’t think he ever expected to see me again." He chuckled again, pointing. "There, see that dark speck making its way down the road? That’s one of the Order’s carriages- they’ve seen our ship and
know it's not one of the island's, and have sent someone down to meet us."
A few stripes later, they pulled the ship up at the harbor, Meagher tossing a line to the crowd that had gathered to watch the strangers dock. Jenna thought their faces held suspicion and she saw O'Deoradhain glance up a few times at the buildings of the Order and frown, as if he spied something there that troubled him. But as they stepped onto the dock, the crowd suddenly parted and a blond-haired, dark-bearded man dressed in a cloca of pure white linen came striding toward them. He stopped, his face registering amazement and disbelief. "Ennis? Is that really you?"
"Mundy! By all the gods, you're as ugly as ever." The two men, laugh-ing, met in the middle of the dock, hugging each other fiercely, kissing each other's cheeks. "So you're still here!"
"I am. I doubt you're going to believe this, but I'm now in charge of the acolytes-who'd have thought that someone as difficult as I was would end up having to herd the young ones and trying to keep them out of trouble."
"Who better? You know all the tricks, having done them yourself," O'Deoradhain laughed. "How's Moister Cleurach faring these days? And why aren't you holding one of the clochs by now?"
Mundy's expression turned somber at that. "Moister Cleurach's as well as can be expected, I suppose. These aren't good times for the Order."
"What do you mean? Is that why everyone is looking at us like we're tax collectors? With the mage-lights coming every night to the clochs now, I'd have thought-"
Mundy shook his head warningly, raising his hand. "This isn't anything to discuss here. I must ask you for some patience. In the meantime, you haven't introduced me." He glanced significantly at Jenna.
This is Jenna Aoire," O'Deoradhain told him, and Jenna stepped for-ward. "Jenna, this is Mundy Kirwan, a Brathair of the Order." O'Deoradhain leaned toward Mundy, speaking softly so that only Jenna and Mundy could hear him. "She is the First, Mundy. She holds Lamh Shabhala; she brought the Filleadh."
Mundy's expression was simultaneously shocked
and awed. "First Holder, I am honored. And Aoire. ." He glanced again at O’Deoradhain with lifted eyebrows. "That’s a name that’s not unfamiliar here."
"I was told that my family was from here," Jenna told him. "A few generations ago."
Mundy nodded. "The Moister will undoubtedly want to meet with you immediately. Do you have belongings?"
O’Deoradhain lifted the pack he carried. "This is all."
"Then follow me. I’ll take you up to the mountain, and we can get you rooms there…"
Mundy escorted them to the carriage, little more than a flat cart with wooden seats attached, open to the weather without even the cover of an awning. A young boy in the same white attire waited there with the two horses, though the leine underneath his cloca was red, not white. Jenna looked out curiously as they ascended the narrow, winding switchback road up the steep hillside, more and more of the panorama spreading out below them as they rose. The sea was a rippling, shining carpet, dotted with a few nearby tiny islands; well out to the north, stony cliffs blue with distance rose on the horizon, the white line of distant breakers under-neath. "The shore of Inish Thuaidh," Mundy told her, noticing her gaze. "Those are the Bird Cliffs. Thousands and thousands of seabirds nest there."
"I’d like to see that sometime."
"Perhaps you will." Mundy was sitting across from Jenna and O’Deoradhain, his seat facing them. He turned back from the scenery. "Aoire," he said, almost musingly, but with an undertone that made Jenna’s eyes narrow. "An acolyte once stole a supposed cloch from the cloister and ran away with a local girl. In at least one version I heard, her family name was supposed to be Aoire."
Jenna glanced at O’Deoradhain. "We agreed that we wouldn’t try to hide anything from Moister Cleurach," he told her. "And I trust Mundy’
The cart lurched in the ruts as they navigated one of the tight hairpin turns of the road. Jenna felt a momentary surge of irritation that O’Deoradhain would speak so openly, but she forced it down, knowing that it was mostly because she was uneasy about revealing the truth of how she'd come to acquire the cloch. "Then maybe that version's the correct one, Jenna told Mundy. "Her name was Kerys Aoire and she was my great-mam- And the cloch they took was this." She pulled the stone out from under her tunic. "This," she said, "is Lamh Shabhala."