The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

but could not. Perhaps they were all cut off from each other. He felt a gush of sweat sliding down his face. If he’d been able to, he would have groaned aloud.
    Any courage he found would have to be his own. Gods preserve them all then. Simon forced his eyes to open fully and look. Because of the power of the air and the speed of movement, he couldn’t do this for more than a few moments at a time before the pain became too much to bear, but after several attempts, he began to get a sense of what he might be seeing.
    The four of them were being swept along in a rectangle of air. Whether that had been the case from the moment they had been swallowed up through the sky’s mouth, he didn’t know. Simon had no real reference point here in this mysterious, unknowable world. He could only try to interpret what he saw now . It was as if someone has asked him to write down a foreign language with no key as to what the words might mean. Still, he would have to try.
    A rectangle of air. It felt blue, although he could not explain why that should have been so. It even tasted blue. Similar to what he imagined the sea might taste like, if he ever travelled that far. As he continued to gaze, Simon could see that great slashes and swathes of white floated in the blue. No, more than that, they were somehow surrounded by the whiteness and it was that which carried them through the blue.
    Feathers , he thought. Vast feathers bearing them through the skies. No, wings . And then, as if he’d been looking through murky waters, waiting for his eyes to accustom themselves, he could suddenly see it all.
    They were being borne aloft through the richness of air by number upon number of birds. Great white birds, which Simon felt he ought to know, except he couldn’t quite… Then he remembered.
    The snow-ravens.
    As the words echoed in his head, they were joined by the voice of another and he looked down where Johan’s face was lifted, his eyes wide open.
    The snow-ravens , he said again and, as he spoke, the world of their flying changed once more.
    A sudden silence, as if the beating of a thousand wings had stopped. The contrast with the previous almost unbearable noise made Simon look up as the wall of white and blue shivered into a deeper stillness. Suddenly he could see the shapes of the birds coalescing, here a beak and there a cloud-coloured eye. Talons floated down from their streamlined bodies, as if landing from flight on an invisible path or tracking through water. A vast flock, all acting as one, but each with an individual role to play. His breath stuttered in his throat and his skin felt dry. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever experienced. All the colours he’d ever seen, in sky and earth and water, melting together in a continual fluid motion, but the colours always turning to the beauty and peacefulness of white. He felt as if he were held in a fragile web of astonishment, compelled to gaze and gaze, but aware that at any moment these birds—these beautiful creatures—could let him go and he would plunge downwards to his death a thousand leagues below. Simon could not express what he saw. More than that, he knew he would never be able to convey it, either by writing or by picturing it in his mind for another. This was for now. Only for now. He gazed and gazed again.
    Simon?

    Johan
    The overriding realisation for Johan is that, even in such a simple act as reaching for him as the sky entrance opened, Simon has shown courage. Whether the act helped or not is debatable, but still the man did not run. The other thought Johan has is concern for his sister; she must be tiring of this mission. Through their journey to this place, now and again he felt the confusion she has been trying to keep from him. He must deal with that too, but later. For now, he turns to the exhausted scribe.
    Are you well?
    Simon simply nods. The boy snuggles next to him, one small arm wrapped around Simon’s leg. The scribe rests his hand on the child’s thin shoulder, and Johan wonders if in fact he has the strength for anything more. Even Isabella’s face is pale and her hands are trembling. Simon smiles briefly at her, but she does not acknowledge him.
    Together, the group of travellers continues to take in the strange dance of the snow-ravens.
    The folding ripple of wings spreads through the whole flock. Johan always finds this event one of the most meditative he has ever known. He uses it often, both in his own thought-life and in