The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

familiar—the village, the cornfields, the line of oaks from which the old women stripped bark for medicine in winter, the well.
    What he was seeing was real and had occurred recently; the vibrancy of the image told him that. His companion could not have forged it. He did not have the power. Lord Tregannon was simply revealing what he had thought and experienced. What surprised Simon most of all, however, was that he himself had not picked up the unsettled nature of the society he found himself in. Why not?
    A moment or two later, and the images faded, the white room disintegrating. He blinked and was back with Lord Tregannon in the here and now. His shape and nearness pressed itself on Simon’s vision, delineated by the sun shining through the window. Once more, Tregannon released him. Simon’s hand dropped to his side and the Lammas Master staggered, recovering from the breaking of the link to his past. And perhaps from what he had sensed from Simon there. But when the scribe reached out, foolishly, to steady him, the Overlord waved the help away. He should not even have dared the gesture.
    “You see?” he said when he was able to. “I did not lie to you.”
    “Why would I think you had, my lord?” Simon asked. “The truth is I do not know why I had not seen these troubles myself.”
    The words spoken drifted in the vibrant space between the two men. It was the first time Simon had acknowledged the power he had without denial and in so obvious a manner, and Lord Tregannon knew it also. He smiled but said nothing, then closed his eyes.
    Simon took the gesture as an invitation. Focusing on the other man’s face, he concentrated again, this time more deeply, and found himself skirting the forefront of the Overlord’s mind. In a moment, perhaps two, he had the answer and withdrew at once.
    “There is someone hiding what is happening here?” he said, his throat dry. “Some greater force, you think, my lord?”
    Lord Tregannon’s eyes flashed open and he frowned. “How did you know that? You have not…”
    A moment’s pause and his frown cleared. “You have already read my mind?”
    “Only the part you wished me to see, sir. I went no further.” Inadvertently, Simon took a step back, and then made himself stand still.
    Lord Tregannon smiled and shook his head. “You are in no danger here, Simon. Besides, your talents are greater, and more subtle than I had realised, and so you have nothing to fear; I have need of you. Can you discover something more about this… force invading my land?”
    “It is not possible. Such a thing cannot happen. There is…”
    “Please, Simon? Can you try now?”
    Lord Tregannon’s eyes hooked him, and the scribe swallowed. “Yes, sir. Of course. May I sit?”
    When he nodded, Simon reached out behind himself, not breaking the Overlord’s gaze, and drew up the chair. Then he sat and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to spin outwards. He didn’t dwell on the shape and history of the castle—the legacy of his companion’s ancestors, the shadow of them dwelling in the corners; he could taste all this later. He passed over its surroundings, too: the men already in the fields waiting for the full heat of the sun, the women sewing, caring for the children, clucking over supposed misdemeanours. The noise, the sweat, the long beginning of the day. The village he was coming to know.
    Instead, in his mind only, he flew, as free as the morning wren, out through the fields and woods, the rivers and marshes, as far as the mountains and beyond. All they understood of the land they dwelt in. Its heartbeat, its music, its song. As always, when Simon performed this act, he was ravished with the beauty of it, the only darker tone being his own presence. And, as always too, the very fact that his mind had spread so wide and so thin meant that he could gain impressions only, not focused sight. Perhaps, though, that was a mercy; the reality of beauty could itself be destructive.
    Floating there, in the heart of the land, everything felt as it should. Steadiness, the seasons’ cycle, the slow onward movement of the earth. Perhaps Lord Tregannon had been wrong and what he had experienced was only in his own character, no more? Strong enough a feeling to deceive the scribe also, but…
    When he’d almost decided that nothing could be wrong, Simon felt the brush of it through his mind. Even then he almost missed it: a curling at the edges of understanding. Something held back which he