The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

power is far greater and the damage more long-lasting. Recently it has been far worse—we don’t know why. Even the night we began our journey here, my sister and I were subject to a terrifying mind-attack. The Gathandrian city I have told you about is no longer beautiful or elegant. Our buildings are largely destroyed, the parks blackened with mind-fire, and our people dying. This is why we have come. To you in the Lammas Lands, the danger may seem minimal at the moment, as the battles fought are small and apparently contained in the beginning. But, they finish with an almost total destruction of every living thing. At the same time, the enemy uses his power to dull the minds of neighbouring lands so they do not question the loss of trade or friendships. You have seen that for yourself in the Lammas Lands, haven’t you?”
    Simon nodded, “The marsh people have been gone for many months and no one has questioned it.”
    “Indeed. You only do so now as you are with us, travelling towards the mountains, where the enemy has already done his work. The magic over you is weakening.”
    “How do you know so much?” Simon asked, knowledge easing into place in his mind like the scrape of the pen forming words and meaning. “Is it the powers you have?”
    “Yes, as well as our responsibilities. Gathandria, you see, has an overseeing duty toward all the countries around it, not just its own people and lands. We are the keepers of the mind, and share responsibility for how mental powers are used through all the lands. It is as the link between the rain and the grass; both need the other, one for somewhere to rest and the other as the means of growth.”
    Unable to help himself, Simon laughed. “If that is the truth, then it seems to be that you have not been performing your duties that well. You use your powers freely, but here our powers are seen as criminal. We must keep them secret.”
    Johan flushed. “Yes, it is part of the enemy’s victories. Even when he was imprisoned in Gathandria, the damage he’d begun was hard to stop.”
    “Impossible to stop,” Simon interrupted. “Many like me have died, and not just in the last two year-cycles. More than that, you let Gelahn escape and…”
    Without warning, Johan swung around and jammed his hand over Simon’s mouth. “Now that I have told you our history, you must take care not to say the enemy’s name. I know you have spoken it before, but now that you know us more fully, his name will bring him to us more quickly. Forgive me. I should have explained this earlier.”
    Simon shrugged him off. “Perhaps there are many things you should have told me earlier. You have been judging me, and finding me light in the balance since we first met, but I am not the only one who has fallen short in my behaviour, am I? How many have I led to their deaths, and how many have you?”

    Johan
    Simon is right; Johan has not seen it that way before. He should have done however, oh yes, he should have done. But Johan cannot bear to think of that now, and has no answer to give him.
    Gods and stars , he thinks, as he turns and continues the journey. The man is a coward, but he is not quite the fool they had thought him to be .
    From nowhere, a vision of Annyeke flashes into his mind. She would certainly have something to say about it, and Johan has a feeling that it would not be against the scribe.

    Isabella
    The plains give way to small valleys and foothills, promising a greater danger ahead. She is glad of it. It makes her laugh to hear her brother being so reasonable with Hartstongue; there is no need for him to waste his effort.
    Isabella wishes she could tell him, but she can’t. Not yet.
    They eat from the shrubs and berries the scribe finds for them, and quench their thirst on the water-grasses that grow in the shadow of the elms. This, at least, is a task Hartstongue is good at. Isabella imagines that over the year-cycles, he has run away from what he should face and been forced to live wild many times. Once, in the heat of midday, he finds a stream, which gurgles and gushes between its emergence from an outcrop of rock and its descent into a muddied hole in the ground only a few feet away. It looks clean enough, and they come to no harm. Or rather, she and her brother do not. Her rough magic still works on Hartstongue, but slowly; as Gelahn wishes it.

    Simon
    On the evening of the first day, still digesting Johan’s tales, Simon surprised a buck-rabbit on the path,