The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

now.
    Returning, the scribe hunkers down and takes the dead boy into his arms. Then he begins at last to weep.

    Simon
    He did not know how long he wept, but when he touched Carthen again, his skin was already cool. Even in the fierce heat around them.
    “Little one,” he whispered. “You’re safe now. I won’t leave you.”
    Without looking to see what his companions were doing, Simon lay down next to the dead boy.
    “I won’t leave you,” he said again.
    When he woke, the sun was high in the sky. The rocks gave scant protection and he shifted slightly to shield the body of his friend. He’d slept no more than two or three hours.
    A movement beside him. Shoes on sand. When he tried to open his eyes, it was impossible; his eyelids were too hot and sticky. The sun was melting him to nothing where he lay.
    “Not so.” The words were spoken aloud. Johan’s words. Answering a thought Simon had not fully expressed. “You will not die here. You will live.”
    “Is that your promise?” Simon whispered, mouth sucking in sand. “Is it the same one you gave to Carthen?”
    An intake of breath. Then a wave of sorrow and compassion swept over him.
    “I gave no such promise,” Johan said, his voice shaking. “But I would that I had, if it will make you strong. For every moment we delay here brings danger which is too strong for Isabella and me to confront. At least on our own. You must drink or your thirst will kill you. I would not have thought I would say this, Simon, but I think we need you. Now. The gods alone know how or why, but we do.”
    As he spoke, something cool was pushed against Simon’s side and he groaned, trying to move away from the shock of it without disturbing Carthen.
    “Drink,” Johan said again, and then he was gone. But his words remained.
    Johan and Isabella needed him. And not just because of whatever they had planned in Gathandria. It was something to do with the way Simon had been able to touch the mind-cane, but his thoughts couldn’t grasp the sense of it. Power without understanding was meaningless. And Simon had no understanding. What was happening to him was beyond all his experiences. Next to that, death seemed almost welcome. The coward’s way; his way. Still, his body a traitor to the will, his hand reached out, stroking the coolness of what Johan had left. Searching inside, his fingers grew wet and he placed them in his mouth, sucking at what they had discovered.
    Water. A bitter taste, but water even so.
    He finished the water, raising the pouch to his lips and licking out the droplets remaining at the top.
    All he could see was a dazzle of white from the sun and the sand. And two dark shapes. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Behind them, the thin line of fire.
    Without sleeping, Simon dreamt. A waking vision that began with the mind-cane. His fingers longed to clasp it again, though this time his mind feared its enmity and turned away at the last.
    Then his thoughts were filled with figures dressed in white and crimson, whose outlines flickered and spat as if they themselves were made of fire. He sensed no threat from them. Even though he couldn’t see their faces, shrouded as they were by what seemed to be tongues of flame. When, in the waking-dream, Simon tried to get up, his limbs were weighted to the sand. The sensation lasted for what felt like hours, although the sun in the sky never moved. And when he looked for Johan and Isabella, he could not see them.
    The fire people floated above the sands and left no footprints. They came from the horizon of fire and formed a semicircle around where he and Carthen lay. When Simon came to his senses, they were no longer there; if they had ever been there at all. Shifting as he was between being awake and asleep, he could no longer tell the difference.

    Isabella
    Why doesn’t Gelahn come? Hartstongue is at his most vulnerable. Her Master could take his entire mind now and destroy him completely. Why doesn’t he come? And why can’t she feel him in her thoughts? Surely, he will be pleased at the death she has caused. It can only do good for him. Bring about the world to come. She does not like to be so alone, and she longs for Gelahn to be here. Without him, Isabella has no peace and no hope. But already it is night. Or nearly so, the sun is disappearing behind the fire. For all this time, Hartstongue has been in a trance, staring at things neither she nor her brother can see.
    Now though, he stirs and groans. At the sound,