The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

they remain so?” he thinks aloud, preferring the more clean-cut medium of spoken words to the intimacy of a thought exchange. “We must do something. Simon and…and Isabella will need us. Tregannon too. The enemy’s mind must be dark indeed to produce this effect so quickly. What about the mind-circle?”
    The elder’s face turns pale and he seems to withdraw into himself. Annyeke snorts and pushes back her auburn hair.
    “It hasn’t been doing everything it’s meant to do,” she says. “There’ve been problems. And besides Duncan Gelahn has had good reason for his hatred of us.”
    Johan gasps and waits for the elders to reprimand her foolishness in saying the enemy’s name. Instead there is silence. He makes a mental note to speak to his subordinate if they survive this.
    In the meantime, the heat and anger from the mind-wall is rising. Something needs to be done and soon.

    Simon
    Simon wondered what Gelahn had in mind.
    The executioner’s eyes sparkled. “Can you not tell by now, Simon Hartstongue? The game has already begun.”
    Then he vanished.
    In his place, a wall of fire sprang up. Like the desert one, but a hundred times nearer and more powerful. The heat drove Simon backwards, and he was forced to shield his face from the unearthly glare. In his blindness, he stumbled over someone lying recumbent on the ground.
    Someone he knew. It was Ralph.
    “ Ralph .” Hunkering down, Simon shook his arm but gained no response. “Ralph! Get up—we have to go.”
    As the tongues of flame surged closer—he felt the heat all but licking the back of his neck—the Lammas Master groaned and stirred.
    “Ralph!”
    His eyes flickered open and gazed into Simon’s. The ground was smouldering beneath them. It scalded the scribe’s fingers as they touched the soil. Ralph cried out and struggled upwards. Simon grabbed him.
    “You have to help me,” he panted. “I don’t have the strength to carry you.”
    Reaching up, Ralph clung to his arm and somehow the two of them managed to rise to a standing position. Simon could see his leg had twisted slightly and their first step away from the fire sent a spasm of agony across his features.
    “Come on ,” Simon grunted. “Hold onto me. We’ll die if we stay.”
    The two men started to limp away from the heat. Ralph’s arm lay heavy across his shoulders. He had no idea where they might go. The very earth seemed to be on fire and the memory this brought back of heat and dryness, desert and death was too overwhelming to dwell on.
    Without warning, Ralph stopped. Simon tried to drag him onwards, but he pulled back. His vision was filled with fire. Red and orange, with strange flashes of green here and there. An energy source he couldn’t see. The sweat poured down his face and body. It was the same for Ralph too.
    Run, Simon. Save yourself!
    The words punched through his brain and it was all he could do not to obey the seduction in them.
    Run.
    The voice was Gelahn’s. All this time Simon had wondered why the mind-executioner did not overpower his thoughts, but he had already been there. Inside his inner being. Simon had thought he was safe but, without knowing it, his defences had already been breached.
    Still, a breach need not mean capitulation.
    From somewhere he found the strength to focus. The image that sprang up first was the mind-cane.
    No , he thought in answer to Gelahn’s words. No, I will not run.
    Suddenly a high-pitched rhythmic wail rang out above the roar of the flames. It pierced him. Flesh and bone and spirit. Despite his own bravado, he let Ralph go and pressed his hands to his ears to try to deaden the sound. At the same time, the fire rushed towards them, swallowing up the last few yards. Just before being overwhelmed by its ravenous crimson mouth, Simon grabbed Ralph where he staggered beside him.
    The next moment, all the world sang with fiery noise. The fire tracked through, worse than everything that he had experienced on this wild journey. It didn’t burn skin or flesh. Rather it burned the inner man. Blood and bone, thought and memory cried out for release but found none. He opened his mouth to scream but fire filled his throat and lungs, burnt a path to his stomach, and beyond. His body was burning up, but when he looked down, his skin was pure and whole. Ralph, too, was screaming, flames darting from his eyes and hair, but all Simon heard was the roar of the fire.
    His whole life became crimson then. Imagination crackled and