Holder of Lightning Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PART ONE - THE SKY’S STONE

  Chapter 1 - A Fire in the Sky

  Chapter 2 - A Visitor

  Chapter 3 - A Song at the Inn

  Chapter 4 - The Fire Returns

  Chapter 5 - Attack on the Village

  Chapter 6 - Bog And Forest

  Chapter 7 - Seancoim’s Cavern

  Chapter 8 - The Cairn of Riata

  Chapter 9 - Through the Forest

  Chapter 10 - The Taisteal

  Chapter 11 - Two Encounters

  Chapter 12 - The Lady of the Falls

  Chapter 13 - Smoke and Ruin

  Chapter 14 - Áth Iseal

  Chapter 15 - Niall’s Tale

  PART TWO - FILLEADH

  Chapter 16 - Lár Bhaile

  Chapter 17 - The Rí’s Supper

  Chapter 18 - Secrets

  Chapter 19 - An Assassin’s Fate

  Chapter 20 - Love and Weapons

  Chapter 21 - A Familiar Face

  Chapter 22 - Proposals

  Chapter 23 - Answers

  Chapter 24 - The Traitor

  Chapter 25 - Preparations

  Chapter 26 - A World Changed

  Chapter 27 - Bridges Burned

  Chapter 28 - A Return

  Chapter 29 - Awakening

  Chapter 30 - Release

  PART THREE - THE MAD HOLDER

  Chapter 31 - Taking Leave

  Chapter 32 - Ballintubber Changed

  Chapter 33 - A Battle of Stones

  Chapter 34 - The Gifting

  Chapter 35 - O’Deoradháin’s Tale

  Chapter 36 - Ambush and Offer

  Chapter 37 - The White Keep

  Chapter 38 - The Vision of Tadhg

  Chapter 39 - Training

  Chapter 40 - The Rí’s Request

  Chapter 41 - Cloch Storm

  Chapter 42 - Dún Kiil

  Chapter 43 - The Dream of Thall Coill

  Chapter 44 - Juggling Possibilities

  Chapter 45 - Torn Apart

  PART FOUR - THE SHADOW Rí

  Chapter 46 - Decisions

  Chapter 47 - Voices

  Chapter 48 - Glenn Aill

  Chapter 49 - Leave-taking

  Chapter 50 - Roads Taken

  Chapter 51 - The Tale of All-Heart

  Chapter 52 - The Protector

  Chapter 53 - Bethiochnead

  Chapter 54 - Fire and Water

  Chapter 55 - A Return

  Chapter 56 - Covenant

  Chapter 57 - The Battle of Dún Kiil

  Chapter 58 - Retreat

  Chapter 59 - Death on the Field

  Chapter 60 - The Gift of Death

  PART FIVE - REUNION

  Chapter 61 - The Banrion

  APPENDICES

  High Praise for Holder of Lightning:

  “Farrell’s formidably long and richly detailed fantasy debut launches a new series that’s sure to delight fans of Celtic fiction. Much intrigue involving a multitude of mostly well-drawn characters and little bloodshed make for a relatively leisurely plot by the standards of this subgenre. Powerful scenes of magic-wielding and the vividly depicted Celtic society, though, should hook persistent readers, who will be glad for the glossary of character and place names, a guide to the Daoine calender, a list of the holders of the Lámh Shábhála and more at the end of this challenging book.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Besides great, fast-paced fun, full of politicking and betrayal, Farrell’s tale is a tragic love story with a surprisingly satisfying ending.”—Booklist

  “Portraying a young woman’s journey to self-acceptance and self-mastery, Farrell’s first novel, a series opener, will particularly appeal to fans of Celtic-based fantasy.”

  —Library Journal

  “Farrell weaves Celtic lore with elements of epic fantasy to create a rich and imaginative world in this first book in a new fantasy series, Cloudmages. Despite the occasional derivative notes in the plot—readers will be reminded of that granddaddy of fantasy, The Lord of the Rings—the book still has the power to capture the reader with its entertaining blend of Celtic magic, heroic and romantic characters, and dynamic plot. This series opener is recommended for libraries with strong fantasy collections and is sure to be popular with teen fantasy devotees, who will eagerly await the next book.—VOYA

  “An absorbing tale full of wonders, largely self-contained despite being only the first in a series.”—Locus

  Copyright © 2003 by Stephen Leigh

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1243

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Paperback Printing, January 2004

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-09927-8

  S.A .

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This one’s for Devon

  who made me write a “real” fantasy

  And for Denise, who is part of all that I do.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My appreciation to Padraic Lavin, Treasa Lavin, Daragh O’-Reilly and Johnny Towey, who comprise the musical group OSNA, whose self-titled CD Osna (Celtic Note, CNCD 1002) I purchased while in Ireland. Whenever I wanted some special inspiration or needed to fall into the mood of the novel, I put their CD in the player. I’ve been unable to find any other recordings by this group in the U.S., but this is one fine effort. Thank you for the sonic inspiration! You can find Celtic Note at http://www.celticnote.ie on the internet.

  And while I’m mentioning the music which was always playing in the background, I should also give a nod to Capercaillie and Cherish The Ladies, groups that also found quite a lot of time on the CD player during the course of the writing.

  THE CELTIC WAY OF LIFE by the Curriculum Development Unit (The O’Brien Press Ltd., 1998) is a small but interesting book giving an overview of daily life among the Celtic people of Ireland, and it served as a quick source of inspiration for some of the aspects of life in the fictional Talamh an Ghlas.

  For a more detailed and in-depth look, THE COURSE OF IRISH HISTORY by Professors T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin (Roberts Reinhart Publishers, 1995) proved invaluable. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in a detailed and well-researched overview of the history of Ireland.

  My apologies in advance to speakers of Irish Gaelic. Through the book, I have borrowed several terms from Irish and though I’ve made my best attempt, any mistakes in usage are my own and are due to my limited understanding of the language.

  Many thanks to Sheila Gilbert for seeing the story and loving it, and for making me part of the “family” at DAW.

  If you’re connected to the internet, my web page can be accessed from www.farrellworlds.com—you’re always welcome to browse through.

  PART ONE

  THE SKY’S STONE

  1

  A Fire in the Sky

  THE stone was a gift of the glowing sky.

  Jenna wasn’t certain exactly when the first shifting curtain of green and gold shimmered into existence among the stars, for her attention wasn’t on the
vista above her. She shouldn’t have been out this late in the first place—she should have been bringing the sheep into their pen even as the last light of the sun touched the hills. But Old Stubborn, their ancient and cantankerous ram, had insisted on getting himself stuck on a rocky ledge on Knobtop’s high pasture, and Jenna had spent far too long pushing and prodding him down while trying to avoid being butted by his curled horns. As she shoved the ram’s wooly bottom back down toward the winter scrub grass where the rest of the flock was grazing, her dog Kesh barking and growling to keep Old Stubborn moving, Jenna noticed that the silver light of the stars and crescent moon had shifted, that the landscape around her had been brushed by gold.

  She looked up, and saw the sky alight with cold fire.

  Jenna gaped, her mouth half open and her breath steaming, staring in wonder at the glowing dance: great sheets and folds of light swaying gracefully above like her mother’s dress when she danced with Halden at the Corn Feast last month. The lights throbbed in a strange silence, filling the sky high above her and seeming to wrap around Knobtop. Jenna thought there should have been sound: wailing pipes, or a crackling bonfire roar. There was power there; she could feel it, filling the air around her as if a thunderstorm were about to break.

  And it did break. The light above flared suddenly, a gold-shattered flash that dazzled her eyes, snatching away her breath and sending her staggering backward with her hands before her face. Her heel caught a rock. She went down hard, the air going out of her in a rush and a cry, her arms flailing out on either side in a vain attempt to break her fall. The rocky, half-frozen ground slammed against her. For a moment, she closed her eyes in pain and surprise. When she opened them again, the sky above her was dark once more, dusted with stars. The strange lights were gone, and Kesh was whining alongside her, prodding her with his black-and-white muzzle. “I’m all right, boy,” she told him. “At least I think so.”

  Jenna sat up cautiously, grimacing. Kesh bounded away, reassured. One of the rocks had bruised her left hip through her woolen coat and skirts, and her neck was stiff. She’d be limping back down to Ballintubber, and Mam would be scolding her not only for getting the sheep back so late, but also for getting her clothes so dirty. “It’s your fault, you stupid hard-head,” she told Old Stubborn, whose black eyes were gazing at her placidly from a few strides away.

  She pushed angrily at the rock that had bruised her. It rolled an arm’s length downhill. In the black earth alongside where it had lain, something shone. Jenna scraped at the dirt with a curious forefinger, then sat back, stunned.

  Even in the moonlight she could see a gleam: as pure a green as the summer grass in the fields below Knobtop; as bright as if the glowing sky had been captured in a stone. Jenna pulled the pebble free. It was no larger than two joints of her finger, rounded and smooth. She rubbed it between fingers and thumb, scrubbing away the dirt and holding it up to the moonlight. With the touch, for just that second, another vision overlaid the landscape: she saw a man with long red hair, stooped over and peering at the ground, as if searching for something he’d lost. The man halted and looked toward her—he was no one she recognized, and yet . . . She felt as if she should know him.

  But even as she stared and the man seemed to be about to speak, the vision faded as did the glow from the pebble. Maybe, she thought, none of it had ever been there at all; the vision and the brilliance had simply been the afterimage of the lights in the sky and her fall. Now, in her hand, the stone seemed almost ordinary, dull and small, with no glow or spark at all, though it was difficult to tell under the dim moon. Jenna shrugged, thinking that she would look more closely at the rock later, in the morning. She put the pebble in the pocket of her coat and whistled to Kesh.

  “Let’s get ’em home, boy,” she said. Kesh yipped once and circled the flock, nipping at their heels to get them moving. The sheep protested, kicking at Kesh and baaing in irritation, then started to move, following Old Stubborn down Knobtop toward the scent of peat and home.

  By the time they came down the slope and crossed the ridge between the bogs and saw the thatched roofs of Ballintubber, Jenna had forgotten about the stone entirely, though the dancing, glowing draperies of light remained bright in her mind.

  The expected scolding didn’t come. Her mam, Maeve, rushed out from the cottage when she heard the dull clunk ing of the tin bells around Old Stubborn’s neck. Kesh went running to her, barking and racing a great circle around all of them.

  “Jenna!” Maeve said, her voice full of relief. She brushed black hair away from her forehead. “Thanks the gods! I was worried, you were so late getting back. Did you see the lights?”

  Jenna nodded, her eyes wide with the remembrance. “Aye, I did. Great and beautiful, and so bright. What were they, Mam?”

  Maeve didn’t answer right away. Instead, she threw her shawl over her shoulders and shivered. “Get the sheep in, then clean yourself up while I feed Kesh, and we’ll go up to Tara’s. Everyone’s there, I’m sure. Go on, now!”

  A while later, with the flock settled, her clothing changed and the worst of the mud brushed away from her coat and from her hands, and Kesh (and herself) fed, they walked down the lane to the High Road, then north a bit to Tara’s, the dirt cold enough to crunch under their boots, the moon frosted silver above. The tavern’s windows were beckoning rectangles of yellow, and the air inside was warm with the fire and the heat of bodies. On any given night, Tara’s was busy, with Tara herself, gray-haired and large, behind the bar and pulling the taps for stout and ale. Often enough,

  Coelin would be there, playing his fiddle or giotár and singing, and maybe another musician or two would join him and later someone would start dancing, or everyone would sing along and the sound would echo down the single lane of the village and out into the night air.

  Jenna liked to listen to Coelin, who was three years older. Coelin had apprenticed under Songmaster Curragh, dead of a bloody cough during the bad winter three years ago. Jenna thought Coelin handsome, with his shock of unruly brown hair, his easy smile that touched every muscle in his face, and those large hands that spidered easily over his instrument (and which, aye, she sometimes imagined running over her body). She thought Coelin liked her, as well. His green eyes often found her when he was singing, and he would smile. “You’re too young for him,” Mam had said one night when she noticed Jenna smiling back. “The boy’s twenty. Look at the young women around him, girl, smiling and preening and laughing. Half of them have already lifted their skirts for him, I’ll wager, and one day soon one of them will miss her bleeding and pop up big and there’ll be a wedding. You’d be a piece of blackberry pie to him, Jenna, sweet and luscious, devoured in one sitting and as quickly forgotten. Look if you want, and dream, but that’s all you should do.”

  Tonight, Coelin wasn’t playing, though Jenna thought that half of Ballintubber must be pressed inside the tavern. Coelin sat in his usual corner, his instruments still in their cases. Aldwoman Pearce stood up alongside the huge fireplace across from the bar, a mug of brown stout close at hand, and everyone staring at her furrowed, apple-shaped face. “. . . in the Before, the sky would be alive with mage lights, four nights out of the seven,” she was saying in her trembling voice that always reminded Jenna of the sound of a rasp against wood. When Jenna and Maeve walked in, she stopped, watching them as they sidled along the back of the crowd. Cataract-whitened eyes glittered under overhanging, gray-hedged brows, and she took a long sip of the stout’s brown foam. Aldwoman Pearce was Ald—the Eldest—in Ballintubber, over nine double-hands of years old. “I’ve buried everyone born before me and many after,” she often said. “And I’ll bury more before I go. I’m too old and mean and tough for the black haunts to eat my soul.” Aldwoman Pearce knew all the tales, and if she changed them from time to time as suited the occasion, no one dared to contradict her.

  Aldwoman Pearce set the glass down on the mantel again with a sharp clack that made half the people jump up, startled. The noise also narrow
ed Tara’s eyes where she stood behind the bar—mugs were expensive and chipped ones were already too common. Aldwoman Pearce didn’t notice Tara’s unspoken admonition; her gaze was still on Maeve and Jenna.

  “In the Before, when the bones of the land were still alive, mage-lights often filled the sky,” Aldwoman Pearce declared, looking back at the others. “They were brighter and more colorful than those we saw tonight, and the cloudmages would call down the power in them and use it to war against each other. In the Before, magic lived in the sky, and when the sky became dark again, as it has stayed ever since for hands upon hands of generations, the cloudmages all died and their arts were lost.”

  “We’ve all heard that story a thousand times before,” someone called out. The voice sounded like Thomas the Miller, who lived at the north end of the village, but Jenna, craning her head to see over the crowd, couldn’t be sure. “Then what was that we saw tonight? I saw my shadow, near as sharp as in the sun. I could have read a book by it.”

  “Aye, that you could, if you owned a book and if you could read at all,” One Hand Bailey called out, and everyone laughed. Jenna’s mam had a book, a fine old thing with thick pages of yellow paper and gray-black printing that looked more perfect than any hand could have written. Thomas claimed he could read and Jenna’s mam had shown him their book once, but he claimed it must have been written in some other language, because he couldn’t read it all. Sometimes Thomas read stories from the book bound in green leather that Erin the Healer owned, but Jenna wasn’t alone in wondering whether Thomas simply made up the things he supposedly read.