The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

lucky.
    Both of them were gasping for air. The boy blinked at Simon and he smiled.
    “Your. Name. Is. Carthen,” the scribe panted, the words spinning their own pattern apart from each other. “You are blessed. You are complete.”
    Then, he could do no more.

    Isabella
    He has done it. She cannot believe this has happened. Hartstongue should be dead; he and the boy both. Always, he escapes her. Isabella needs Gelahn to finish the task, but her master wants to keep the scribe alive a little longer yet. She does not understand it. What more can be learned? How she longs to see Hartstongue’s lifeless body at her feet. Then she will see her love again.
    The boy, too, lives. Not just “the boy” now though. Now he is Carthen. A name, meaning for the scribe’s people earth and mountains, and the animals that live there. Derived from it, but more than the sum of it still. A name also rooted in his mother’s language, the ancient language of Gathandria, but the knowledge of that is not known to Hartstongue. Not yet.
    It is time for her to go further. Whether or not Gelahn wills it.

    Simon
    Carthen yawned and stretched his arms out, like a cat, and at once the scribe was at his side. A new name was a powerful gift, but also an unfamiliar one. Simon sensed the leap of confusion in his mind. And then the realisation of what had happened raced through the boy. When he turned, his smile and openness made tears rise into Simon’s throat.
    “Yes,” he said, laughing. “Yes, you have a name. You gave it to me, and I gave it to you again. Carthen. The mountain wolf. You are fierce and loyal. You are Carthen.”
    Even as Simon spoke the traditional words of greeting to a named one, he smiled inwardly to think of the boy he knew having any ferocity in his soul in any measure. Yes, he, more than anyone, knew the depths and heights of his friend’s loyalty, but he could never think that he had a crumb of anger in his being. No, his friend was—or would be when he came of age—a man of peace. Simon knew it in his blood, and had sensed it on the mountain. Nonetheless, the name had been chosen for him and would not be unchosen, no matter how much he wondered whether a mountain deer would have been more suitable.
    “Come,” he said, as Carthen’s eyes continued to glow and dance. “The ceremony was a bloody one, but I do not think there will be lasting damage from it. I am… I am sorry if I caused you any pain, little one, but I could not think how else to perform the ritual. Forgive me, please.”
    His smile and the touch of his fingers to Simon’s cheek gave all the answer he needed.
    After the four travellers had taken what food they could find from the trees and plants of the land, he and the boy washed in the stream. Simon glanced at his hands and the damage the ritual had caused them, but already the wounds were beginning to heal. Something sparked his curiosity.
    “Wait,” he said, and Carthen at once stopped splashing the water on his face and shoulders. He looked up, patient and trusting. Gods preserve them all, even after what Simon had made him undergo.
    Drawing in a deep breath perfumed with oak leaves and grass, he took Carthen’s fingers in his and dipped them in the stream’s silky current. He chuckled and wriggled but Simon hushed him to stillness. The water flowed over his hands. As they watched, the scars and dried blood which had oozed through his skin by force of the pressure Simon had put him under faded almost to nothing.
    “Look, little Carthen,” the scribe whispered.
    He looked and gasped as he studied his unscarred flesh. The stream must have healing properties, Simon thought. Was there no end to the magic of the ravens’ kingdom? Perhaps that was why neither Carthen nor he had been seriously harmed by the naming ritual. Perhaps this place would not permit anything but the slightest of injuries. Unless the birds willed it. He half-shrugged at the realisation that it was not his own skill that had pulled them through after all, but a power beyond himself. So much for pride then.
    When they had shaken themselves dry, the two of them dressed. How Simon longed for a change of clothes and freshness next to his skin. But as he slipped his tunic on, he realised that it was not as torn or shabby as it had been. Carthen’s was the same.
    Gazing around at the calm beauty of their surroundings—the rocks, the water, the oak trees—he longed to be permitted to stay here for many days. There was