The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

trunk laced with wintergreen. The sharp aroma assaulted his senses.
    He sat up. His mind felt raw, tentative. He drew in a deep breath and his blood pulsed a warning. Ignoring it, Simon gazed around, trying to understand where Gelahn had taken them now.
    The final game —whatever that, gods preserve them, might mean—found Simon and Gelahn on a small expanse of land surrounded by water. Only a few elms, an outcrop of rock, and a scattering of the dreaming herb. A stab of longing for its acidity and soft pleasures took him, but he knew such an act would be foolish. He needed his wits about him.
    The mind-executioner’s eyes followed Simon as he rose to his feet—he could feel Gelahn’s gaze on his back as he made his slow way to the water. But the executioner said nothing. This silence made him shiver and he tried to concentrate on something else. The water smelled differently from the sea that Johan and he had crossed. Hunkering down, he drifted his hand through it and licked his fingers. That was it. No salt. This water was fresh. Like the rivers at home—or where home had used to be—but with something more. A sweet aftertaste. An echo of honey.
    As Simon continued to gaze, silver flashes began to appear in his view. First one, then another and another, until he realised that all the water was full of them. Teeming with life.
    “The thought-fish,” he whispered as he let his hand fall back into its depths. “They are here. With me, when I need them perhaps.”
    The sound of footsteps behind him.
    He turned around and looked straight at Gelahn. Without waiting for the executioner to speak, Simon brought up his hand from the water and flung the droplets at him. The thought-fish streaked from his fingers, piercing Gelahn’s flesh and then vanishing. Gelahn staggered backwards and raised the mind-cane for protection. At the same time, Simon launched himself at his stomach and tumbled them both onto the damp grasses. The advantage of surprise gave him the momentary upper hand and he slammed Gelahn into the ground.
    “ I’ve had enough ,” he hissed, bringing his face as close to the executioner’s as he dared. “This time, I want an answer.”
    Hardly believing it might work, but knowing the anger was a victory in itself, Simon pressed his fingers to the side of Gelahn’s head and forced their minds together.
    A moment of pain beyond anything he had ever experienced, the realisation that he wasn’t ready for this—might never be ready for it—and the mind-executioner had hurtled him off and back into his own thoughts. Gelahn stood, snarled, took a pace towards him.
    Simon knew he was lost. There would be no mercy.
    What happened next shocked him.
    Without warning, the world splintered, sunlight driving a dagger through air and flinging the two men outward. Simon’s body was falling, impossibly slow and then impossibly fast, spinning out of control.
    As quickly as it had begun, the sensation of falling stopped. All Simon could hear was the gentle hushing of a breeze. All he could smell was the tang of salt and grasses. When he opened his eyes, took a breath, he could see they were back where he and Johan had first landed. Gathandria—the shore, the hills and, in the distance, the city.

    Johan
    He doesn’t know what Annyeke has done, or even how she’s done it, but a sudden roar and the mind-wall subsides. Johan sees Simon lying prone on the ground. Next to him is the enemy and, beyond them, Tregannon. And Isabella.
    Isabella.
    Simon scrambles to his feet, sways, gains his balance again. The mind-cane shimmers in the light of the sun, and Johan hears the wild humming of music. Thinking he might have one chance only, he runs towards the cane, pushing past Simon as he does so.
    A moment later, he is at Gelahn’s side. He doesn’t dare touch the cane, but he makes to nudge it away from the enemy’s reach with his foot. Simon cries a warning. At the same time, a dart of flame leaps from the cane’s ebony surface and the singing grows to a roar. Johan yells out and falls backwards, landing half on the ground and half on the enemy.
    The mind-executioner grabs him with one hand, rolls over and snatches up his cane with the other. He brings it towards Johan’s head. At the same time Simon leaps towards them both.
    “Don’t touch him!”
    As the cry dies from Simon’s lips, he lands between the two men and brings his hand onto the enemy’s where he holds his instrument of death. Winded still,