The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

would allow himself to weep later. Now, for a moment, nothing. Then her shape reappeared under the mind-cane. It glowed for a beat of Simon’s heart, perhaps more, twisted a little in his grasp and was still.
    Isabella remained.
    But she was no longer breathing.
    Johan groaned and gathered his dead sister into his arms. Crying, he began to rock her.
    It was over.

Chapter Eighteen: Simon’s Decision

    Johan
    They bury Isabella near the sea. Johan and Simon drag the boat up onto the shore and cover it with rushes to keep it dry. Annyeke and the elders look on as he takes the remaining herbs he and his companion have travelled with and sprinkle them over her body.
    Simon grips Johan’s shoulder while he cries. The mind-cane lies in his other hand; it has seemed to settle there naturally, though now it remains silent.
    Johan only speaks once while he is standing before Isabella’s last resting place.
    “She always loved the sea,” he says.
    When the unfamiliar ritual is finished, the afternoon light has faded and night threatens to fall soon. Johan rises to his feet and notices how Annyeke is the first to glance upwards at him. He smiles at her but his words are for Simon.
    “I’m sorry about Ralph,” he says. “I’m sorry he remains under the mind-executioner’s thrall.”
    Simon nods, as if he has been expecting this. “And I am sorry about Isabella.”
    A silence falls between them, and spreads to include their companions also. It is painful with memory, but eased by the friendship which binds them, one to the other.
    “What now?” Simon asks him.
    “Now we can try to rebuild Gathandria,” he says, glancing at the elders and knowing there is much that has happened in the time he has been away, much he needs to discover. “If you’ll stay. You have gifted my people with life, Simon, and we are more grateful than you can understand. But it is only for a while; it is not the end. I think this will be only the beginning. Our enemy will not rest easy until he has regained the strength to come for you again and try to retake the mind-cane. When he does, the battle will be all the more terrifying for it.”
    “And if I don’t wish to fight? For the sake of the gods , if I simply want to live in peace?”
    Johan frowns. “Ah, my friend, you are not called to that. Haven’t you tried that life with Lord Tregannon and found in the end you could not bear it?”
    When the scribe next speaks, his voice sounds as thin as a young bird’s. “Then I have no choice.”
    “ No. There is always a choice, Simon. As we have seen. On the one hand you may have Ralph—who will perhaps be waiting for you though the executioner’s threat remains—and a kind of peace. And on the other hand, you have the city that can become your home, the certain knowledge of war. You have the mind-cane, though there is much to learn about it. And… And a family. Such as I am.”
    A long silence, full of the breath of the wind. Then, not far from them, the cry of a hunting owl.
    Johan gazes out into the distance. Over the water, the fire, the air and the mountains, back through all the way they have journeyed and all that they have experienced there. He knows enough to realise that Simon needs time to come to his decision. The elders too wait and Annyeke is quiet.
    After a while, Simon sighs.
    “Perhaps Ralph Tregannon can wait a little longer,” he says.

Epilogue: Another Beginning

    Annyeke
    Annyeke smiled. Something in her warmed to the scribe and she found herself hoping that warmth might take root. He and Johan were obviously friends.
    And for the moment, Gathandria was safe. The Lost One had conquered, in his fashion, and she was glad she had been able to give him what he needed to win, though she couldn’t help missing the power of the mind-circle. That special understanding of the elders’ secrets was now lost to her. Probably forever. Still, being a woman had always given her more than enough advantage in the past and she anticipated would do so again in the future. She smiled again, covering her smile with a cough.
    The First Elder spoke.
    “Thank you, Simon Hartstongue,” he said. “We are deeply grateful for what you have decided. More than you can know, as Johan has said. Gathandria needs you. I have always believed it. And there is much work to be done. So much reparation, so much healing. Not just for us but for all the countries around. But while you have been travelling towards us, many things have changed.