The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

skin. Finding a way to reach out and meet those few men and women who saw them, the mountain, as something to be cherished, not endured. The short times they’d succeeded—so short compared to the rivers of time the mountain had lived through. Learning, so long ago now, to live with the field-dwellers. For a while. And then hatred, the field-dwellers’ attempt at destruction, how some had torn flesh from the mountain’s body and used it for themselves. The grief at loss, the withdrawal from pain. And then silence. Mourning. Learning to live by, and with, only themselves. A lesser self. Waiting. Breathing. Waiting. Acceptance once again. And peace.
    So much peace. Simon was filled with the unending river of it. Complete.
    The last thing he remembered thinking was how small his life was in its own totality, how petty and meagre his fears.

    When Simon came to, he was lying on the ground, bathed in gentle evening light. Above, he could see the slow formation of stars to come: the Owl; the River; the Horseman.
    And with them, the gradual fading of the peace. Mourning the loss of it, he couldn’t regret the experience. Surely he would spend a lifetime understanding it. When he turned his head, the boy was lying next to him. Asleep. Beyond him, the shapes of their two companions near a small fire. Isabella was warming a pot over the flames. Simon must have sighed, or made some small sound as she looked up from her task, gazed at him for a moment and then looked away. She might have been frowning.

    Isabella
    As she watches, trying to understand what has happened, Johan takes the pot from her hands. He pours the liquid into a cup before standing and making his way towards the scribe.
    Isabella’s heart beats fast. The mountain people. They did not kill Hartstongue, as Gelahn had wanted. Why not? Neither do all the potions she blends seem to make any difference. What is protecting him? If Hartstongue reaches Gathandria, there will be the chance of the land’s survival as it is now and she cannot bear the thought of that. It will mean that everything she has loved will truly be lost and nothing recovered. Perhaps, however, her Master is simply waiting. There is something he seems to want to know about the scribe, although he has not yet honoured Isabella with the secret. Not yet.
    In the meantime, she watches and listens as Johan offers Hartstongue the cup. It’s corn soup. Strong enough to disguise the taste of the blend she is trying this time.
    “How did you get this?” he asks her brother.
    Johan smiles. It lights up his eyes.
    “I’ve carried the corn with me,” he says. “It’s Isabella’s favourite food. This is the last of our supply, but we thought it would be fitting to finish it here. It’s my own recipe.”
    “It’s good,” the scribe says. The fool.
    “Thank you.”
    “Johan?”
    “Yes?”
    “What happened here—the mountain people, their appearance, it was good. The best day, I swear it. But why did they come?”
    “Why do you think?” her brother replies. Isabella can still taste his confusion in her mind. Sometimes she wonders if she should be the leader of this strange expedition, rather than he.
    Hartstongue frowns and turns away. He has stopped drinking the soup. She dare not force him to take more; her brother is close enough to notice any sudden change in her mind-wall.
    “We killed them,” the scribe says, his voice only a whisper. “Didn’t we? We killed them. My people. Because we didn’t understand their strangeness or that their different nature was never a threat. We traded with them for a while, as it suited us, and then we drove them back to where they came from. We took the gift they offered and then destroyed the giver. Although of course small groups must have survived, here and there. I have heard tell of them as I travelled from one country to another. But ever since then we have not found lasting peace with any who come through the mountains. The legends, the stories we tell of them, are wrong. The children need not be frightened; the only monsters are we ourselves. Gods and stars, to be learning this now .”
    With a grimace he sets the soup down. The boy blinks awake and, hair tousled, creeps towards his unlikely master. He knocks over the cup and Isabella almost gasps. Her brother tuts, shrugs, picks up the cup and hands it back to her. She can barely speak and is sure they must hear the drumming of her thoughts.
    Hartstongue looks up at Johan once