The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

suffering. He takes her grief away.
    When he is near enough to where she stands, Isabella breathes in the scent of herbs and fire which surrounds him. And, foolish woman, she opens her mouth to tell him what she has decided, but of course he already knows it. He puts his finger on her lips to quiet her, and the heat from his flesh sears her mouth.
    “You have chosen wisely,” he says. “We have begun.”

    Johan
    Brother and sister slip out of the cave a while after the First Elder has gone. Johan glances around to check there is no danger and then pads out through the trees, towards the city. Or what is left of it. They need to pass its outskirts to get to the water, and that is where Johan is heading. Isabella follows him. He doesn’t have to look around to check this; he senses her presence. He has always done so.
    As he walks, instead of worrying about what lies ahead, he thinks about what has already happened. Two year-cycles ago, Gathandria was a beautiful city, ruled by the elders and in harmony with the land around her, which went by the same name. Peace ruled in the tall silver buildings, the wide straight streets. Peace ruled in the eating-houses and parks, in the theatres and markets. Most of all, peace ruled in people’s faces and in their minds. In Johan’s recent memory, both city and countryside were always filled with the scent of orange and lemon trees, and the sound of laughter. Each day when he woke and walked the short journey to the Place of Government, to the Sub-Council of Meditation, he had seen something to lift his heart.
    All that had changed a mere two year-cycles ago. The enemy had escaped from the place of imprisonment, taking the mind-cane with him—how this had happened, Johan has never fully understood and no elder has thus far revealed it—and began to destroy the lands and kingdoms around Gathandria. Each time a man or woman, a village or city, or even a whole land fell to his mind-powers, the destruction fell also on Gathandria. There was no knowing who would be taken and who would be spared. They had tried their best to fight him, for the sake of their neighbours as well as for themselves. But, everything they tried proved to be in vain. Now the streets Johan walks through are muddied and black, the buildings broken or destroyed altogether, and the people’s hearts and minds are so damaged that he no longer knows if they can recover at all, should the mind-fighting ever stop.
    Slowly, over the moon-cycles, it has become apparent that the mind-executioner’s battles are not entirely without reason. He does not fight any in Gathandria directly. That is not his way, in spite of the challenges offered and the attempts made to confront him—he would be destroyed in an instant if he did so. Instead, he fights those around them who are weaker than he, and Gathandria also bleeds.
    Once, only two moons ago, Johan had hoped that with the combined mind-skills of Isabella, Petran and himself, he might have been able to entice the enemy out of hiding for long enough for the elders to overpower him. Or, at the very least, imprison him once more. He had been wrong. Very wrong. The guilt of that failure will always be with him. It is perhaps this, more than anything, that drives him to such drastic measures now.
    He squeezes his eyes shut at the memory for a moment as he turns the corner of Hope Street—or the remains of it—and catches the smell of the sea.
    At the same time, something whistles past him and lands with a thud in the broken wall.
    “What?”
    He opens his eyes and sees a large jagged knife embedded in stone. Blood is oozing from the blade. Something inside him tears apart. Isabella yells out. He grabs her hand and they begin to run just as another knife brushes past his hair. It falls with a clatter to the ground.
    The mind-executioner. It has to be. It’s too much of a coincidence. But how?
    “Come on!” Johan yells and curses Isabella’s clothes that slow her down. She stumbles and another knife sings through the air, coming from nowhere, and cuts his arm. Blood is falling all around them now and tens, no, hundreds of knives are dancing, thrusting, cutting at them. A deadly dance of evil.
    “Come on, Isabella!”
    He grasps her hand more firmly and pulls her towards the boat. She’s sobbing, and he can taste her fear. All the time, he’s dodging and jumping the knives that stab at them. Thank the gods that his sister’s skirts give her some protection, in