The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

purpose. Squeezing his eyes more tightly shut, he let his mind focus on the approaching people, trying to find the reason for their being here. Outside, the night was cold.
    It was against the law to travel after sunset in any of the Lammas Lands. Or indeed any other, he imagined, though he could not have confirmed that view; nobody travelled in either the northern mountains or the southern mud plains any more. Sometimes, people journeyed at night alone, but only if they wanted to disappear, and never in groups. As, in his mind, Simon came towards them, the whispering grew louder, a low murmur contrasted with the occasional screech of a wood-owl disturbed at the hunt. He didn’t dare drift too close, in case Ralph was among them and might sense it. The Lammas Master’s presence, after all, would give the group protection. As Simon once had claimed it.
    At last he was near enough to see them, but not so near for some to know it. There were six of them, two carrying small torches, their fire flickering in the intermittent gusts of night breeze. Ralph was not there. Simon recognised the blacksmith, wrapped in a thick woollen cloak, and one or two of the other villagers. As Thomas moved, his cloak swung a little to the side, and something sparkled. For a moment Simon didn’t understand what it was and then he saw the silver decoration on the knife handle. The blacksmith had never been armed before. It was not proving to be a good day.
    But there was more to come. A fact he hadn’t anticipated, although if he’d been more awake he might have been prepared.
    In the middle of the group stood Gelahn, the mind-executioner.
    With a sudden gasp, Simon was flying back to the safety of his body, his mind whipped by the freezing wind, his thoughts stumbling over themselves in their panic to be gone, surely leaving behind a thousand signals telling Gelahn he’d been there. How could he have been so stupid? The mind-executioner had wanted to kill him before. Surely Simon should have known he’d seek him out to finish the task? And, after that, his apprentice also? Simon hoped not with all his soul.
    He came to in the cave again. They were not that far away. In the transition between being outside his body and being within it, he couldn’t help the groan that escaped his lips. The fingers still on his mouth pressed harder and he could feel the beat of his companion’s heart. He knew it was the man. Not Isabella.
    Before he could say a word, try to explain what he’d seen in the forest, there came from outside the sound of a shout quickly stifled and the thud of feet on rock. They’re climbing up here, Simon thought. They’re climbing. He must prepare to fight, though the gods knew he was never a fighting man.
    Hush . The word came again, somehow spinning through his head in a way it shouldn’t have been able to. The sense of swift movement behind, something exchanged with—whom? Isabella? He couldn’t tell—and then Simon’s mind was being sealed in by the kind of power he’d never experienced before. Cut off so no outside force could find it. Whoever this stranger was who’d brought him here, his skills were beyond understanding because in spite of the fact that he was now somehow safe in spirit, if not in body, from any detection, he could still hear what was happening at the entrance to the cave. But all impressions slid together, defying logic.
    A flood of noise. Words melding into nonsense. Another language. Men’s breathing. The stark smell of sweat. Aching muscles, a muttered curse. White fingers slowly running along the cave’s entrance. A foot poised to take another step forward. Gelahn. Simon knew it. And then, far worse than all these, a deep, deep silence.
    A silence in which Simon was totally alone. The hand over his mouth was a thousand miles away, and he was lost in an unknown wilderness. Not even the sound of his own breathing reached him. Was this what death meant?
    And then, as if one minuscule piece of his mind had been opened to sunlight, the blankness around him slowly took on a subtle change in colour. Simon drew a shaking breath into his lungs. And then another. And no swift pulse of pain rose up to meet him. Instead, the familiar furnishings of his mind stepped, one by one, back into place. His memories, his beliefs, his knowledge of himself. His thoughts stretched in delight at their rediscovered freedom…
    They took him into his immediate surroundings without having to move or even open