if she were watching the surface of a restless, wind-touched lake. The valley was alive with the light.
'Jenna… ' She heard the call again, more distinctly this time, still airy but now laden with deeper undertones: a man’s voice. It came from below.
'No,' she whispered back to it, afraid, clutching her hands together tightly. The stone pulsed against her hip, cold fire.
’Jenna, come to me. .'
'No,' she said again, but a branch from the nearest tree touched her on the back as if blown by a sudden wind, pushing her a step forward. She stopped, planting her feet.
’Jenna… '
The lights flared above, sparks bursting like a log thrown on a bonfire, and a tree limb crashed to the ground just behind her. Jenna jumped at the sound, and her foot slid from under her. She took another step, trying to recover her balance, only now the ground was tilted sharply down, and she half ran, half fell down the long, grassy slope to the valley floor, land-ing on her knees and hands an arm's length from the rear of one of the barrows.
'Come to me. .'
The mage-lights splashed bright light on the dolmen, sending black
shadows from the standing stones twisting wildly over the mounds. Jenna
could feel the stone throbbing madly in response, and she took it in her
and. The pebble glowed with interior illumination, bright enough that
she could see the radiance between her fingers as she held the stone in her fist. Having the stone in her hand seemed to lend her courage, and she walked slowly between the graves toward the dolmen, though she could feel every muscle in her body twitching with a readiness to flee.
As she stepped into the open circle around the dolmen, she saw the apparition.
It stood before the barrow of Riata: a man's shape, long-haired and stocky, clad in a flowing cloca of a strange design which left one shoulder bare. The form shifted, wavering, as if it were formed of clear crystal and it was only the reflection of the mage-lights on its polished surface that rendered it visible. But it moved, for one hand lifted as Jenna recoiled a step, her back pressed up against the carved surface of the standing stone. There were eyes watching her in the spectral face. It spoke, and its voice was the one that had called to her. The words sounded in her head, as if the voice was inside her.
'You hold the cloch na thintri,' it said, and there was a wistful yearning in its voice. Its face lifted and looked up at the mage-lights, and she could see the glow playing over the transparent features. 'They have returned,' it said, its voice mournful and pleased all at once. 'I wondered if I would see them again. So beautiful, so cold and powerful, so tempting. .' The face regarded Jenna again. 'You are not of my people,' it said. 'You are too fair, too tall.'
'My people are called the Daoine,' Jenna answered. 'And how is it you know our language?'
'The dead do not use words. We lack mouth and tongue and lungs to move the air. I speak with you mind to mind, taking from you the form of the words I use. But I feel the strangeness of your language. Daoine… ' It said the word slowly, rolling the syllables. 'I knew no Daoines when I was alive.
. There were other tribes, we knew, in other lands, but here there were only the Bunus Muintir. My people.'
'You’re Riata?' Jenna asked. She was intrigued now. The ghost, if that’s what it was, had made no threatening moves toward her, and she leaned forward, trying to see it more clearly. The ghosts and spirits of the tales she’d heard in Ballintubber were always bloody, decaying corpses or white vapors, and they cursed and terrified the living.
This, though. . the play of light over its shifting, elusive form was almost beautiful, and its voice held no threat.
'I was called that once,' the specter said, sounding pleased and sad at the same time. 'So that name is still known? I’m not forgotten in the time of the Daoine?'
'No, not forgotten,' Jenna answered, thinking that it might be best to mollify the spirit. After all,
Tiarna Mac Ard had known of him.
'Ahh. .' it sighed. A hand stretched out toward
Jenna, and she forced herself to stand still. She
could feel the chill of its touch, like ice on her
forehead and cheek, then the hand cupped hers and
Jenna let her fingers relax. In her palm, the stone
shot light back to the glowing sky. 'So young you
are, to be holding a cloch na thintri, especially this
one. But I was young, as well, the first time I held it!!
'This one?' Jenna asked. 'How. .?'
'Follow me,' it said. Its hand beckoned, and from fingertips to elbow the arm seemed to reflect the intricate curls and flourishes of the lights above, as if the patterns had been carved into the limb. The phantom glided backward into Riata’s tomb, its cold
touch fading.
'I can't,' Jenna responded, holding back from the yawning mouth of the barrow. She glanced up at the lights playing over the valley, at the stone in her hand.
'You must,' Riata replied. 'The mage-lights will wait for you.' Then the presence was gone, and nothing stood in front of the passage. 'Come. .' whispered the voice faintly, from nowhere and everywhere.
Jenna took a step toward the barrow, then another. She put her hand on the stone lintels of the opening: they were carved with swirls and eddies not unlike the display in the sky above and on Riata's arm, along with lozenges and circles and other carved symbols. She traced them with her fingers, then walked into the passage itself.
Darkness surrounded her immediately and Jenna almost fled back outside, but as her eyes slowly adjusted, she could see in the illumination of the mage-lights and the answering glow from the cloch na thintri that the walls were drystone, covered with plaster that was now broken and shattered, the stones piled to just above the height of her head and capped with flat rocks. The passage into the burial chamber was short but claustrophobic. The walls leaned in, so that while two people could have knelt side by side at the bottom, only one standing person could walk down the corridor at a time.
Once, the walls must have been decorated-there were flecks of colored pigment clinging to the plaster and her touch caused more of the ancient paintings to crumble and fall away. Here and there were larger patches where she could see traces of what, centuries ago, must have been a mural. Jenna was glad to finally reach the relative spaciousness of the burial chamber. She glanced back: through the passage, she could see the dolmen awash in the brilliant fireworks of the mage-lights.
The burial chamber itself had been constructed with five huge stones, forming the sides and roof. The air was musty and stale, and the room dim, touched only by the reflections of the lights, the cloch na thintri's illumination. At the center of the room was a large, chiseled block of granite, and set there was a pottery urn, glazed with the same swirls and curved lines carved on the lintel stones. Around the urn were beads and pieces of jewelry, torcs of gold and braided silver that glistened in the moving radiance. Clothing had once lain here as well; she could see mouldering scraps of brightly-dyed cloth. These had been funeral gifts, obvi-ously, and the urn undoubtedly held the ashes and bones of Riata. But his specter had vanished.
'Hello?' she called.
Air moved, her hair lifting, and she felt a touch on her shoulder. Jenna cried out, frightened, and the sound rang in the chamber, reverberating. She dropped the cloch na thintri, and as she started to reach for it, the pebble rose from the floor, picked up by a hand that was barely visible in the stone’s glow.
'Aye,' Riata’s voice said in her head, full of satisfaction, the tones dark and low. 'Tis true. This was once mine.' Pale light stroked the lines of his spectral face, sparking in the deep hollows where the eyes should have been. His voice seemed more ominous, touched with hostility. 'Or more truthfully, I once belonged to it. Until it was stolen from me and found its way to another.'
'I didn’t steal it,' Jenna protested, shrinking back against the wall as the shadowy form of Riata seemed to loom larger in front of her. 'I found it on the hill near my home, the first time the mage-lights came. I didn’t know it was yours; I never even knew of you. Besides, it’s only a little stone. It can’t be very powerful.'
