"Lamh Shabhala. ." Mundy breathed the word, leaning forward to peer closely at the cloch. "So plain, compared to the other ones. No won-der no one believed that it was a true cloch na thintri, or at best only a minor one. So we did hold it for a time." An ironic smile touched his face. "Moister Cleurach won't be pleased to hear that. Not after what's hap-pened here."
"What has happened?" O'Deoradhain asked. "There are marks on the walls of the central tower where it looks like fires have burned, and our reception was definitely cold."
"I'll let the Moister give you that news," Mundy responded. "It's nothing any of us like to talk about."
Moister Cleurach was a short, balding man with a fringe of snow-white hair that didn't seem to have been combed in days. He came bustling toward Jenna and O'Deoradhain between the desks of his two clerks. "Ennis!" There may have been pleasure in his shout, but Jenna couldn't see it in his face. The folds of his face settled comfortably in the lines of his frown. "By the Mother-Creator, I was certain we'd lost you. The last letter was a year ago… "
O'Deoradhain shrugged at the mild rebuke. "I wrote six months ago, and again three months ago as well, Moister. But the tuatha are unsettled, and who knows where those letters have gone."
"Aye, we know the tuatha are at war, and we know why." Moister Cleurach seemed to glare at O'Deoradhain as if he were the cause of it, and then the old man went to one of the arched, open windows of the cloister, staring back south and east over the waves.
"Moister Cleurach," O'Deoradhain said, "Mundy hinted that things aren't well here, and I saw marks on the walls. What's happened? Why aren't Mundy and you and some of the others holding clochs? The
Order was founded to make cloudmages… "
The old man turned back into the room, blinking as if the pale light outside had blinded him. "Five months ago," he said slowly, "not long after the Solstice and just before the mage-lights heralded the Filleadh, ships carrying gardai came here out of Falcarragh. When we realized that this was more than an unexpected visit, it was too late. The gardai wore the colors of both Tuath Infochla and Tuath Gabair. We closed the gates to the White Keep, thinking we could hold them in siege until help came from RI Thuaidh, but we had acolytes who were from Infochla and Gabair and some of them betrayed us, opening one of the gates. The gardai came storming in, and though we defended the cloister as well as we could we’re not trained to fight. The betrayal of our acolytes went deeper-these gardai also knew where the clochs na thintri were kept." The Moister sighed, his rheumy gray eyes flared. "They took them all, Ennis. All."
"Moister. ." O’Deoradhain breathed. "I didn’t know. ."
Moister Cleurach grunted, interrupting him. "The clochs na thintri were all they were after. They fled as soon as they had them, returned to their ships and sailed away. When our Ri finally sent men and ships-too few of both, and far too late-they were a fortnight gone. Then the mage-lights began to appear everywhere in the sky, heralding the Filleadh, and we knew all hope to recover them was lost. The Order may have the knowledge to teach cloudmages, but now we have no clochs to give them." The Maister’s sour face regarded Jenna briefly, then returned to rest on O’Deoradhain.
"And what do you bring us, Ennis, you who we sent out to find Lamh Shabhala? More tales of failure, no doubt."
"I bring you Jenna Aoire," O’Deoradhain answered. "The tale is hers."
"Aoire. ." The word was a hissing intake of breath. The clerks looked up from their work and Moister Cleurach’s gaze returned to Jenna. He stared at her face. "Aye, I see it now. The shape of your face, your eyes. . You could be an Aoire-a family whose fortunes, I must tell you, have declined greatly in my time."
"My great-mam was Kerys Aoire," Jenna told the Moister, "and my great-da was an acolyte here
named Niall, though I don't know his sur-name."
Moister Cleurach visibly trembled as Jenna spoke, his hands clenching together at his breast. "I know that tale and those names, and I know Niall's surname," he answered. "I know because I was sent here as an acolyte the following year, and the gossip about Niall Mac Ard was fresh and new among the acolytes and Brathairs, since they'd known him."
"Mac Ard?" Jenna couldn't stop the words, which stabbed her so that she could hardly breathe. "Niall was a Mac Ard?"
Moister Cleurach glared at her as if she were a dim-witted student. "Aye. That was his name. A well-known Riocha name in Tuath Infochla, and Gabair, too, where a Mac Ard was once Ri long ago. Most of our acolytes are Riocha. You would hear many famous names among them.
Jenna felt dizzy and nauseous. My great-da was a Mac Ard. Did Padraic Mac Ard know that? She glared at O'Deoradhain angrily. "You knew!" she said to him. "You knew and you didn't tell me."
He was shaking his head, and the confusion in his face seemed genuine
"No, Jenna. I swear I didn't. I knew the story, aye, but not the acolyte's surname… All that happened forty years before I came here as a boy. It was just an old cautionary tale given to the acolytes and Mall's last name was never mentioned. None of us were old enough to have known them, and the elder Brathairs who might have been here then wouldn't talk about it."
"They were told not to talk about it," Moister Cleurach interrupted. "It was a foolish deed done by a naive young man that cost him his life, and what was important was that it not happen again, or we might lose one of the stones we knew were true clochs. What Niall stole was probably just a pebble and not a true cloch, and almost certainly not the cloch it was reputed to be."
"Moister," O'Deoradhain said, "Jenna is the First. The Holder of Lamh Shabhala."
The Maister’s eyes widened in sudden realization and he frowned at her so harshly that Jenna took an involuntary step backward, her hand going to the cloch under her tunic. Her sleeve fell away, exposing the scars, and Moister Cleurach huffed once. He glanced back-the clerks were staring also, and he waved a hand at them. They scattered, leaving the room by the rear door as Moister Cleurach turned back to Jenna and O’Deoradhain. "Then. ."
"Aye, Moister," O’Deoradhain told him. "The cloch Niall took was what it had been said to be."
"No…" Moister Cleurach protested, then his mouth snapped shut and his eyes narrowed. He seemed filled with a cold anger as he regarded Jenna again. "If you hold the cloch Niall Mac Ard stole from us, then Lamh Shabhala is not yours, but the Order of Inishfeirm’s." He held out his hand, as if he expected her to place the stone there.
Jenna returned his glare. Her arm throbbed as she pulled the cloch out and forced the fingers of her right hand to close around it. She shut her eyes momentarily: no, there were no other clochs na thintri here other than the ones she and O’Deoradhain carried. "Lamh Shabhala is its own," she told Moister Cleurach, "and it has chosen me."
His eyes stared greedily at the stone. "That is the cloch na thintri I have had described to me. There is a record of it here: we have paintings and drawings of all the clochs na thintri that were in our collection, and I recognize this-there was no other like it. So… plain."
"And your Moister at the time thought the stories about the cloch being Lamh Shabhala were false, or that it was at best a minor stone," Jenna retorted. "That’s what my great-mam believed; that was what Niall had told her."
"Indeed, that was Moister Dahlga’s belief,"
Moister Cleurach responded "He wasn’t the most intelligent man and I heard him say that myself, but what else was he going to claim but that bit of wishful thinking? We thought the stone lost at sea-Mall’s body was found a few days later on the coast of Tuath Infochla and brought back here; we believed your great-mam had suffered the same fate until two years ago, when we learned that she’d actually lived, and that her son-Mall’s child-had left Tuath Infochla and traveled south. By then we also knew that mage-lights would return soon, and so we sent out some of the Brathairs to look for this offspring of Niall Mac Ard in case he still had the cloch that might be-" He stopped. His lips pressed together. "-that was Lamh Shabhala."