The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

existed at all, they were appeased by his shunning of any lie. Because by now he should have expressed his knowledge of the boy’s name, and so reassured their audience of his full command of the ritual. Instead, he had added his own words, hoping for understanding to come.
    A small echo of peace in the head and Simon glanced at Johan. He gave a slight smile, over almost as soon as it had begun.
    “This is the way of our people,” Simon said again. “We give the gift of our name to the namer and that gift is confirmed as the deepest part of ourselves. When a name is chosen, we are fully who we were born to be, fully aware, fully alive. After this ceremony, no one, my friend, will be able to mock you or ill-treat you again. You will be able to become whatever you wish, achieve whatever is possible. Your name will keep you from all harm.”
    Even as he spoke the ancient words which, now he had begun them in truth, fell easily into his mouth, his spirit mocked them. How could anything protect them from the dangers that arose each day? And how long would it be before the enemy tore through the barrier into this kingdom to find them? It struck him then that the old ways were nothing but emptiness and myth. There was no safety. Only hope.
    “Keep us from all harm,” he whispered, and felt the startled gaze of his two companions on his neck, the faint stirring of the ravens.
    Now. Begin, Simon , he said to himself, before the ceremony is torn away from your grasp by your doubts.
    He pressed his fingers deeper into the side of the boy’s face. The boy gasped as the scribe’s thoughts hit his.
    I have to do this , Simon told him. There is no other way.
    A spear of crimson light ripped through his mind, piercing blood from skin, emotion from thought, as he plummeted into the boy’s secret self. As if from a great distance, he was aware of sweat on his fingers, the way his teeth bit, needle-sharp, into his mouth. The smell of dust. Sweeping all of it aside, including the grief to come, if it should come, he continued to drive his searching mind onward and ever onward into the dark. He had no idea if the direction he took was a good one; it seemed only necessary to take the journey to where the light of the boy’s outer-knowledge glowed weakest. Any damage he caused would be justified only by the fact that it would be less acute than the sudden ending of the ceremony. Only in the place of darkness could he hope to discover the boy’s name.
    Onward and onward he raced. Simon allowed his thoughts to range as widely as possible so the boy might help him, if he knew how. He planted echoes of himself in each corner and each twisting of the wild way he took. His body told him he didn’t have long. The link was beginning to weaken.
    Suddenly, a dance of deeper night at the edge of his vision. A sparkle of silver. Yes. From instinct, he turned towards it and saw a tiny cut in the blackness of the mind-walls encasing the boy’s soul. Something hidden, something private. In the pace of the journey, he’d almost missed it.
    For a moment, Simon hesitated. He had no way of telling if this was what he sought. It was the last chance. He hadn’t enough power left in the fragment of his thoughts here to explore the cut further, so he would need to draw his mind together from its various pathways. Once he did that, and if this hint of resolution was nothing but winter air, there would be no more searching. Only the move outwards, back to his own body and to whatever lay in store. Death or life. Either was possible.
    He had to try.
    It took longer than he’d anticipated, the connection between his own thoughts barely strong enough to reform himself. Then, when he had it all, and aware, more than anything, of the vanishing perspective of the outside world, he reached towards the cut and slipped his mind inside.
    For a few beats of his heart, nothing. Sweat, dust and bleeding. The overwhelming certainty of failure.
    Then he had it. A pale slip of a name, which held in its narrow lines the wide compass of a life. Yes.
    Before Simon could do more, the warning signs of his mental links disintegrated. The wild clamour of his body for its soul, and a sudden rush upwards.
    Pain. Fire. Skin.
    Then warmth. Breathing. Light.
    He opened his eyes. His fingers were bleeding and both of the boy’s hands were bruised where they must have scrabbled for release at Simon’s, but there was no other outer damage that he could see. They had been