Holder of Lightning

THERE were seals at the harbor quay. Jenna was disappointed to see that they were the common brown harbor seals and a few grays. Jenna wandered down to see them as she and Ennis waited for the Banrion's entourage and Moister Cleurach to arrive. The Banrion's ship, the name Uaigneas-Loneliness-emblazoned across its prow, cast a long shadow over the harbor front, and Jenna glanced at the ship as she walked along the beach with Ennis. Uaigneas dwarfed any craft Jenna had seen before, with a sparred central mast that seemed to prick the lowering clouds and six oars per side for use when the wind died. She could see several sailors on the deck and more swarming near it where it was docked alongside a long wharf extending out into the bay. The sides of the ship were painted in the blue-and-white colors of Inish Thuaidh in sweeping curves that were reminiscent of the long swells of the ocean.

"She's magnificent, isn't she?" Ennis said. Jenna nodded, silent. His hands touched her shoulder; before he could move away again, she leaned back against him, luxuriating in the feel of his closeness. But though he remained where he was, he wouldn't put his arm around her and his voice was carefully neutral. "We Inishlanders know how to build ships. Infochla may claim to have rule of the Westering and Ice Seas, but though they have more ships, ours are the better. The Banrion's ship is one of the best, which is why her captain was unafraid to sail at night. Inishlanders understand and respect the sea because it surrounds us. Even in the mid-dle of Inish Thuaidh, the ocean's but a day's ride away and its whims and its moods touch the entire land."

A hoarse roar punctuated the end of Ennis' sentence, and they both turned to look. A quartet of blue seals was hauling out on the rocky beach,

Jenna glanced at Ennis; he nodded to her. "Go on," he said and for the first time that morning, a smile touched his lips. "They've come to see you, not me."

She approached the group: a bull, two cows, and a pup. They watched as she and Ennis walked closer, their utterly black eyes glistening, their glossy fur rippling with sapphire highlights. The bull hung back, but the pup waddled awkwardly forward;

when Jenna crouched down in front of the animal, it nuzzled the hand she held out. The pup's breath was warm, its fur damp velvet. The larger of the two females came forward also. Up close, the seal smelled of brine, an odor Jenna found strangely pleasant. As the female came closer, Jenna took in a breath of wonder: the cow's fur was mottled in color: dark gray swirls and curlicues interrupted the blue-black and the fur there was stiff and wiry, as if the animal had been injured.

The pattern in the cow's fur was the same as the scars on Jenna's right hand.

The cow spoke, uttering a long string of moans and gargles and Jenna glanced back at Ennis. "She offers welcome to their land-cousin, the Holder," he said.

"Land-cousin?"

Ennis lifted a shoulder. "The blood of the Saimhoir-that's their name for themselves-is mixed with many Inish families. They say the Saimhoir can sense when a human has but a touch of their blood in their ancestry. She's saying that you're one of them." The seal spoke again, a bark and a braying cough. "She also says that I'm a poor translator and you should use the cloch."

"The cloch. .?" Jenna touched it. Curiously, she opened it slightly until she saw the seals in both her own vision and that of the cloch's energy. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, startled, when she heard the seal's voice.

"Land-cousin, can't you taste the salt in your blood? Thraisha is my name and Garrentha, who fought the darkbeast that attacked you, was of my milk." The words came overlaid with the sound of the seal's own language and came not from her ears but through Lamh Shabhala. Around Thraisha, there was a strange radiance in the cloch's vision, something Jenna had never experienced before.

Jenna laughed in wonder, glancing back at Ennis with wide eyes. Thraisha, you can understand me now when I speak?" Jenna asked, and she knew the answer immediately: her voice came back to her altered in the moans and calls of a seal.

"The language of Saimhoir is part of your blood, and Lamh Shabhala allows you to tap that part of yourself," Thraisha responded. "And I have chased and swallowed Bradan an Chumhacht, the first bright salmon of the mage-lights, which has come back to us. I am like you and I bear the marks. Aye, I understand you through Bradan an Chumhacht as you understand me through Lamh Shabhala."

Jenna blinked. "You’ve eaten a fish that gave you the ability to tap the mage lights?"