The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

shoulder. His words have not been entirely true; the mountain people are indeed approaching them but whether for good or ill he cannot say.

    Simon
    Something dry and strange touched him. When he looked up at Johan, for a moment he thought his companion’s shadow had shifted, but then he realised his mistake. A grey, dark figure was coalescing next to them. A tall, thin shape. Almost a man but not quite. At the same time, the mountain began to sing, softly.
    The shape solidified. Simon could see sharp edges; small crevices held within the man-like structure but caught up in a continual shimmering. He could feel the rapid thud of his heart gather pace as it leaned in towards him. Behind the first apparition, more of the strange creatures began to shiver into life.
    “Mountain people,” he breathed. “Mountain people. They’re alive .”
    They were alive. The legends, all the stories his mother and the village women had told, the tales Simon had soaked up in childhood, the very few times—again as a child—that he’d seen them, their trade with the peoples he’d come across before their sudden vanishing once more. They were still here .
    Simon felt a small hand slipping into his and, at the same time, Johan released his grip. Hugging the boy closer, he continued to stare at the scene happening in front of him.
    The mountain people rose from the ground. First ones and twos and then small groups clustering together, melding into each other and then flowing apart again. He had never seen so many at once. As they appeared, the rocks beneath and around them grew smaller. Above their singing, Simon could hear the occasional cry of the hunting owl and the faint murmur of the wind. He sensed too the boy’s wonder—an echo of his own.
    Time seemed to pause, with no telling how many stories’ lengths passed as the travellers continued to gaze. At last no more apparitions came and for a while there was stillness. Then the one nearest to Simon—the one who had first appeared, although whether man or woman, or even if such things mattered, he had never been able to tell—stepped towards him.
    Simon stood to greet him. For now, the him seemed right. As the mountain man approached, a smell of dust and snow swept over the scribe. And also heat, like rocks burned by the dog days of summer. And with it came a sense of solidarity and peace, the like of which Simon had never known. It was as if all of this place, the history of the mountains, and the timeless nature of their being were blending together, but without threat and suffocation which had happened before. No, instead, now, he felt centred. Physically centred, not simply through the life of his thoughts. For the first time in his whole existence, for a moment or two only, it felt as if being here was right, the boy clutching his legs, the both of them facing the reality of something rarely seen. Simon’s breath caught in his throat, and tears welled up, not yet spilling. His flesh too revelled in the joy of it.
    In front, he could see what appeared to be lines and scars on the rock figure’s features. They were not blemishes, but instead a delineation of what he was—hauntingly beautiful. A creature at one with his surroundings. Simon’s skin began to tingle, as if drawing close to flame, but he had no desire to run. The figure came closer still. He reached out to touch the scribe. Next to him, Johan gasped but Simon paid no heed. The mountain dweller’s fingers were cool on his face. A blend of rock and water. Something in his mind cracked open, as if he had discovered a cave in a place in his thoughts he had never thought to look. When Simon breathed in, the essence of the figure entered him and he felt then what the mountain had felt for years. Aeons. Time beyond comprehension. Acceptance. Peace.
    The mountain man was with him, in the cave he’d found. The mountain was around him and part of him also. A living, breathing, growing thing, where he’d thought to find mere granite and rock. He’d never realised it. Shutting his eyes, Simon breathed in the knowledge of all the year-cycles the mountain had existed and he had not. A calm sense of waiting. Surfaces of shining black, and all the colours that lay beneath. The gentle streaks of water released from the refreshment of sky. The echo of the night and the warmth and pulse of the day. The countless invisible footprints of man and animal, insect and bird, which had trod the surface of the mountain’s