The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

along the path they’d been travelling on. “Run. Now . I’ll follow you.”
    Johan hesitates, but Isabella pulls him after her. While he is still turning, he sees Simon stretch wide his arms before the great fire so very close now and pour his anger out. Johan cries a warning, but it’s too late.

    Simon
    He did not know from where the courage had come, but he felt every word as it came out of his mouth.
    “Do you think I’m frightened of whatever it is you are or what you can do to me? I don’t care if you kill me, or how horribly you do it, or however long it might last, but you’re not going to take me silently. Do you hear me? I’ll die here, I see it, but know this: you can kill my body but you can’t consume who I am. ”
    Then, closing his eyes, he ran towards the great fire’s mouth and felt its unbearable heat drive all thought away.
    The sensation of flying. Being enclosed in a fire so strong that his body melted and became the flame it tried to fight. The lack of border between where flesh ended and heat began. An agony beyond pain, and so beyond the telling of it. He inhaled fire, which exploded before consuming the rest of him. He flew upwards. Eyes shut. Eyes not there at all. Sight vanquished. The knowledge that he was no longer a being, but something akin to the energy around him.
    Then darkness. A flash of black and silver in the fire. And a strange peace.
    The noise that had consumed Simon’s hearing faded. He felt as if he were floating high above the earth. The heat was no longer a devastating threat, but a comfort that kept him safe. His muscles relaxed and he smiled at the thought that he still had a body at all. Barely able to believe it, he reached up, touched his face and felt—somehow—the coolness of skin. He had no notion as to how long this sensation lasted. He only knew that some time afterwards—it could have been hours or days—he began to float downwards again.
    Little by little, his speed increased and soon he was falling, tumbling. He tried to cry out but could make no sound. The next moment, he landed on something soft, and groaned as he scrabbled around to work out what it was.
    Sand. Heat. The smell of old burning.
    He was alive. An astonishing fact. What had happened when the fire consumed him? Where had it taken him and, more importantly, where had it spat him out again? Simon opened his eyes. All was darkness, but the darkness of night in the desert. Not the darkness of being blinded by flame. His body too seemed intact, skin unscathed.
    Struggling to his feet and managing, somehow, to stay upright, Simon blinked and stared at his surroundings. When his eyes adjusted to the gloom at last, he saw only desert and night sky. The stars were unknown. No Horseman, no River, no Fox. It was impossible to tell whether this was the same place where he had plunged into the fire or not. In any case, the wall of fire was no longer a threat. He saw only a faint red glow on the horizon but nothing close enough to terrify.
    But where were Johan and Isabella?
    He was still deciding whether to plunge on into the darkness, and if so in which direction, or wait until dawn when at least he might see the way more clearly, when from the left he heard a low groan.
    “Johan? Isabella? Is that you?”
    Limping towards the source of the sound, Simon realised that what he had imagined to be a flat stretch of desert in front was nothing of the kind. Three steps onward, and he tumbled downwards through sand, landing quickly at the bottom of what appeared in the gloom to be a small valley.
    He came at last upon the remains of the desert people, the people of the flame.
    Johan and Isabella lay in the darkness on the sand. Around them Simon could see shapes he didn’t recognise. Square and squat. Buildings, but of what type and why they might be here, so far from anything but bleakness and the threat of death, he couldn’t tell. Neither did he have the strength to find out. Instead, he dropped down next to his two companions, oblivious to whatever enemies might still be waiting for them in the night. Let them wait. In the silence, Isabella muttered something he didn’t quite hear, and a hand grasped his arm.
    Then he slept.
    When he opened his eyes, the sun was about one-third through its morning ascent. It felt surprisingly cool.
    “Hello?” he called out as he sat up. “Where are you?”
    “Simon. You’re awake. And, gods be praised, alive.”

    Johan
    He cannot believe it. The man