The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

all in its wake. All sense, all thought, all reason.
    Looking back now, he could see that for Ralph the experience might have been very different. Perhaps he had never felt that at all.
    Carthen stirred in his arms and Simon wondered if he’d sighed or caught his breath loud enough to wake him. But after several moments, he knew that the boy still slept. They continued to walk on, the sand’s heat burning through the leather of his shoes into the soles of his feet. In the day, the sun had been powerful enough to warm the ground almost to the point when it could not be borne, and now the humidity of the night did nothing to lessen the scalding sensation.
    Closing his eyes for a heartbeat, Simon thought that he would have to leave Ralph one day. Not merely in the physical world, as that had already occurred since his betrayal. No matter how much he continued to want him. But he would have to leave Ralph one day in the mind; where it mattered.
    Shaking his head, he realised with a jolt that he’d almost fallen. He’d been walking while half-asleep in the heat, the surroundings lost to him in the reality of his imaginings. He would have to keep alert and use the gift of strength he’d been given for as long as he could; Johan and Isabella were setting a fast pace. Didn’t they always?
    Did Ralph still possess some echo of the mind-links they’d forged together?
    The thought of this made him stumble once more, but he kept to his feet. Carthen shuddered softly, but didn’t wake. The beat of his heart was a regular thud-thud echoing throughout Simon’s head.
    The steadiness of it didn’t stop the sudden falling-together of a puzzle. Ralph must still sense him, in some way or other. In which case, was this how he and the mind-executioner found it so easy to track the four of them? Was it? Was Simon the lure for the fox, or the bait that caught the deer? Who was playing the cleverest of the games here? Johan? Or Ralph?
    You think too deeply, my friend. I cannot answer for those who follow, but I am not so cruel as to use you that way, as others have done.
    The sudden entry of Johan’s silent words into a space Simon had counted as private made the breath catch in his throat. Once again, Johan was a cool river flowing through the heat. How much had he heard? And how long had he been here with Simon and he was not aware of it?
    The last few moments only, I swear. Forgive me, but your deliberations were so strong that I could not help catching them.
    And Isabella?
    No. She thinks other thoughts.
    Simon wanted to ask what those might be, but did not have the courage. And so, they walked on.

    Isabella
    The night has no seasons. Even though she can see no moon, the layers of darkness around them ebb and flow like a tidal river. Sometimes, the air is thick, impenetrable, so that Isabella almost hesitates to reach out in case her sense of her own hand is lost. This is not the only thing that is lost. Or about to be. She begins to grow weary of Gelahn’s lack of action. For all his strength and promises, he has not done as he told her he would. The age of peace is not upon them, and Petran is not by her side again.
    They are on a journey that should not have come this far. It is up to Isabella to stop it. She will force her Master’s hand. Because of what she has seen, she dares not challenge Hartstongue directly, but there are ways she knows to weaken him. Surely then Gelahn will see what she has done. He will forgive her and then he will strike.
    Now, she is so close to the scribe that she can feel the pulse of his thoughts behind her in the darkness. His mind is far from her and so Isabella begins what she must do. The fool feels nothing; he is merely wondering if the difference in the air’s density comes from changes in the landscape they journey through. In the morning, he hopes to gain some sense of where they are. He hopes also that there will be shelter from the blasting heat of the sun.
    He does not know there will be no shelter for him at all. Concentrate, she must focus on the task at hand. She completes each step as if it is an action achieved outside her own will. What she does is wrong, but she has no choice. Not if Gelahn and she are to succeed. Now Carthen’s weight drives its presence through the scribe’s body and legs. He checks the boy’s head covering and murmurs to him, but senses nothing. The thought that he is sleeping even gives Hartstongue comfort in the dark. Isabella smiles.
    Yes. It is