The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

open the door, the only advantage he had was the evidence of his eyes alone.
    He knew then that they wanted to kill him. This wasn’t at all what he’d signed up for with Ralph. It wasn’t how he’d hoped things would turn out.
    Three men entered Simon’s room. Thomas reached out to grab him. Surprising himself and them, Simon feinted downwards and to the left. The man behind Thomas, whom he didn’t recognise, side-stepped the blacksmith and raised his staff. It landed with a glancing blow on Simon’s shoulder and he staggered, almost falling to his knees.
    When he looked up, he could see the third man clutching a rope in one hand, a knife in the other. A glimpse of deep blue eyes and obstinacy. Simon didn’t know him either. Both strangers looked like hired hands, and he wondered how much Thomas had had to pay them, and where he’d gotten the money.
    The last man raised his knife. The blade of it glinted in the candlelight. Simon leapt towards him, snarling, and for a moment a shocked expression crossed the knifeman’s face. Then for a flash out of time, and in a way he hadn’t anticipated, he was falling through the man’s mind, senses caught on the jagged rocks of thoughts. An impression of blackness. Water. An island. And then…
    Simon spat at him. A stream of saliva hit him in the eye and he cried out. Simon dodged under his rope arm, reaching the splintered wide-open door. As he took the first step to freedom, a remnant of the man’s thoughts slammed him back against broken wood and nails: the boy; no escape; somebody else’s death. Again.
    Already it was too late. A sharp picture of the second man, the staff and then… pain. Darkness.
    Nothing.

    * * * *

    It was the sound of scuttling that woke him. Simon’s head and shoulders felt sore, and he couldn’t seem to open his eyes properly. This was not a good thing for someone whose one legitimate talent was writing. Then the stench hit him: musty straw, mud, rotting flesh and piss. And the iron tang of blood. He retched and spat, his mouth filled with foulness. And fear. He tried to edge away from his own mess. The scuttling began again. When Simon finally opened his eyes he could make out the faint outline of rats in the gloom. He hoped they’d keep their distance.
    As his eyes adjusted and the ache in his head lessened, the scribe tried to decipher what he could from his surroundings. Bare stone walls, damp and fetid. A bundle of straw at one corner, some of it turned to darker mounds. Beneath him the stone slabs were cold, unyielding in spite of a further thin scattering of straw. His bones ached. There was only one door and no window. From under the door, no light came creeping, so he had no chance of discovering the time of day, or even which day it was.
    He was still alive though. The killers hadn’t finished the job. A fact for which he muttered a few quiet prayers of thanks to the gods he no longer believed in. Always good to keep the options open. But, what of the boy? He hoped to the gods that he was safe. It wasn’t fair for the young to suffer for the politics of their elders.
    Turning over, slowly, Simon used the rough wall to pull himself up to a seated position. His head hammered an objection and when he reached up to feel what was wrong, his fingers touched something warm and wet. Blood. From what he could tell in the gloom, it felt as if it had congealed, but the recent movement had made the wound break open again. He wiped the fresh blood away and then pressed the wound to stop the flow.
    Where was he? Before he did anything at all, he needed to find out that.
    Forcing himself to ignore the scurrying of the rats, he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and tried to gather himself in until he was there once again, in the place of connection and calm. The place from which all things flowed. The centre of his mind.
    It took a while, but at last Simon arrived at the inner refuge. Warmth, peace, a sparkle of blue. Only an echo of the skills he’d once possessed. He let his thoughts ease outward, touching the walls around him, drifting through stone and mud, out into cool air. A narrow corridor, unfamiliar, and from there outward, and outward again, in all directions, through other places. Soldiers’ rooms. A kitchen. A privy. Then more rooms, this time becoming recognisable. He saw in his mind a shape, a man moving, his back towards him. There was something familiar about him that Simon couldn’t reach into, there was…