This was chaos. This was slaughter.
"This was how it was, Holder. This is how it would be. ." The voice seemed familiar, one of those who spoke to her when she used the cloch. "Severii?" she asked, knowing that he’d been there at the battle, but she was now somewhere else, standing at the edge of a high cliff in a small open space surrounded by the dark, brooding presence of ancient oak trees. Nearby there seemed to be a presence, but she could not see it. It was as if there was a blank spot in her vision where the presence lurked, so that it vanished whenever she tried to look directly at it. Is this Doire Coill? she wondered, and someone answered as if she’d spoken aloud, a woman’s voice this time.
"No, this is Thall Coill. This is the source and the place of Scrudu. ." Jenna turned around-there was nobody with her. And yet… there was. She saw them: a couple-a woman and a man, perhaps in their early twenties, both of them leaning against the trees at the edge of the clearing as if impossibly weary. They panted, their breath steaming about them in clouds although Jenna herself felt warm. Around the woman’s neck, out-side the soiled, ragged cloca, was Lamh Shabhala. Jenna’s hand went to her own breast: no, Lamh Shabhala was still there, on its chain, and yet… "Hello?" she called to the two, but though the woman's eyes were searching the cliff top, she didn't seem to see Jenna standing there or to hear her voice. She took a step forward, staggering to where Jenna sensed the presence, and fell to her knees. The man started to come forward and she raised a hand to hold him back.
"No, Tadhg, I have to do this myself. Stay back. Please. ."
Tadhg. . The name hit Jenna with a shock-could this be Tadhg O'Coulghan, the Founder of the Order? Jenna could see the conflict in the plan's face, the love and concern for the woman.
"Peria, come back. You don't need to try the Scrudu. You hold enough power with Lamh Shabhala the way it is now. We can go back, be content with ourselves. Think of Severii if you won't think of me; the boy will never know his mam…"
Jenna had the sense that this was an old argument, one that both of them had been going over and over for many days now, the protest and responses so automatic that they weren't even heard. The woman was shaking her head into Tadhg's argument, pushing herself up from the muddy ground. "I may be the Last Holder, Tadhg," she told him. "I've told you what the voices say-it's the first few Holders or the last few who have Lamh Shabhala when it's the strongest. By undergoing the Scrudu, the Firsts can create the path for the others to follow; the Lasts can forge a legacy to last until the mage-lights come again. I have to try."
"Almost all who try, fail. You told me that's what all the old Holders said, Peria."
"I won't fail."
"You don't know that. You can't."
Tadhg started forward again, and again she lifted her hand. He stayed, but Jenna could see him trembling with fear.
Taking a long breath, Peria moved to stand near the edge of the cliff and then turned her back to the sea, standing within an arm's reach of Jenna yet not reacting to her at all. Again, she looked all around her, her gaze passing through Jenna as if she weren't there. She stared at the place that was dark and blank in Jenna's sight.
The woman took Lamh Shabhala in her right hand, the loose sleeve of her leine falling back, and Jenna saw the familiar scarred flesh mirroring her own damaged arm. Grimacing with pain, Peria closed her stiff fingers around the cloch, her eyes closing as she opened it to her mind. Above the meadow there was a sudden burst of brilliance, a showering of stars that sent black shadows racing away into the forest. Peria's face lifted, the radiance forcing her to squint as she looked up. The mage-lights, brighter and more colorful than Jenna had ever seen them, twisted and writhed above her, their forms bending toward her, dancing downward
. . touching. .
Peria screamed, a long, drawn-out ululating cry, a wail of despair and desperation. Peria's eyes were wide open now, staring fixedly into the glare of the mage-lights. Jenna didn't know what Peria saw in her mind through the cloch-vision, but it obviously terrified her. Her mouth was working, pleading silently with something or someone that only she could see or hear, and Jenna saw her hand clench tighter around the cloch as if she were forcing herself to hold onto it when every instinct was telling her to let go, to release the power and save herself. Tadhg evidently saw the internal struggle also, for he surged forward with a cry. With his first step toward her, the mage-lights flared, an arc of blue fury lashing out to strike the man, hurling him backward. He got to his feet and tried once more; again, the mage-lights threw him back. This time, he didn't rise.
Peria didn't notice Tadhg's defeat. She'd sunk to her knees, as if beaten down by the power above her, though her face still stared at the mage-lights in stricken, helpless horror. "No!" Jenna saw her mouthing the word her free hand raised as if in supplication. The mage-lights flayed the sky, so powerful that Jenna could hear them, shrieking like a raging hurricane. "No!" Peria said again, this time an audible shriek nearly lost in the raging storm of the lights. "I can't!”
As if in answer, the mage-lights pulsed in one gigantic flash. They slammed down to earth, engulfing Peria. She screamed as if she were caught in the midst of an inferno, her body contorted in agony. As Jenna shouted with her, Peria was smashed into the ground. The crack of bones and spine was horrible to hear, a dry, awful snapping
like a handful of dry twigs. Her flesh tore; vertebrae ripping from her back, a femur erupting bloody and white.
The mage-lights vanished.
Jenna stood, stunned, in the sudden silence and dark.
"Peria!" The cry shattered the stasis. "Oh, Gods, no\" Tadhg had risen to his feet; now he ran to the broken body at the cliff’s jagged extremity. He sank down beside her, pulling her to him. Horrified,
Jenna saw Peria’s head lolling, attached only by flesh and muscle, blood pouring from her mouth, nose, and eyes. Tadhg cradled her body, rocking back and forth, sobbing and wailing as Peria’s lifeblood stained his clothes, calling her name over and over again.
This was worse than the battle, this was worse than anything Jenna had ever seen. Jenna could feel tears flooding her eyes in sympathy.
"That is how my mam died," the voice came again as Jenna watched Tadhg lay Peria’s shattered body on the ground, as she saw him take the cloch’s chain from around her neck and put it over his own. "That is how my da came to hold the cloch…"
"But what was that?" Jenna asked the voice.
"What was she doing?"
"Something only fools or the very strong should attempt," came the answer, but it was another voice, a familiar one.
"Riata?"
There was no answer or rather there were many, a babble in which she could distinguish no one person. The cliffside meadow and forest van-ished, and Jenna was standing in a white, cold fog, and the voices came m her from the air around her.
". . do this… "
". . no, you must not! It will be your death as it was mine… "
". . you have the chance where those who come after you may not. ."
". . Lamh Shabhala will always be primarily an instrument of war…"
". . it needn’t be that way…"
". . she can’t change it. She hasn’t the will for the Scrudu…"
". . she’s weak… "
". . let her die. ."
Then Riata’s voice came again. "She will make her own choice, in her own time, as I did."
"Riata! Please, I need to know more…"
The fog dissolved in an unseen wind. She was in a room, her room, the room where she had lived in Lar Bhaile, and in the bed Maeve groaned, her hair damp with perspiration, knees up and legs open and the sheet wet and bloodied under her. A midwife bent over Maeve, her hands be-tween Maeve’s thighs as another woman stood ready with a blanket and knife. "Push now, love; the babe’s nearly out. I have the head-curls as red as the sunset. All we need are the shoulders. Bear down, and push!"