The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

brightness when the birds were present and, in their absence, darkness rushed in? He took a deep breath and felt the bubble of laughter ease through his throat. In fact, his whole body tingled with the discovery and he longed to be able to share the knowledge with another.
    Smiling still, he glanced to his other side, away from where the raven had stood, and saw the sleeping figures of the boy and Isabella. Beyond them, Johan. Simon had almost turned again to lie on his back and think when a glimmer in the dark drew him to look again.

    Johan
    Johan sits up on his elbow in the gloom, gazing at the scribe. The raven has woken him too, but not the others. The words leap from Simon’s mind towards him, uncontainable.
    The birds. They’re our light, Johan. This place has no need of sun.
    Isabella moans a little in her sleep, but her brother catches the jumble of Simon’s thoughts and keeps them from waking her. He smiles. Even amongst his own people, it is not everyone who makes this leap of understanding so soon.
    Yes. You are right, Simon.
    The scribe lies again on his back, apparently satisfied with the response, but Johan senses there is much more on his mind. He must wait for the subject to be broached. After a while, something in the air crystallises and Simon contacts him once more. This time his thoughts are more focused, with a power the Gathandrian has not seen in him before today. It is interesting indeed that Simon does not even realise its presence. What is happening here? How Johan wishes he understood.
    Johan?
    Yes?
    In the morning—I mean when the ravens return—I would like to name the boy. Will you help me? You and your sister?
    Of course, Simon. You do not need to ask. You know we will do it.
    As he waits for sleep to drift over him again, Johan wonders if Simon will be able to fulfil this challenge. And what, if anything, he and his sister can do to help him.

    Simon
    With the birds came the strange sunlight. They did not appear in the same way they had vanished the night before. Then, they had flown together, and the darkness had enveloped the emptiness they left behind them. Now, in the morning—if morning was the right name for it—first one snow-raven, followed by another, and another, glided down from the sky and through the oak trees, landing on a grassy bank on the other side of where Simon and his companions had been sleeping. As they gathered, the light flowed outwards from them, embracing the sky, the air, the trees, the water and the people.
    After what might have been half a spring story’s length or more, the light was full and the number of the birds complete. The leader, the one who had tested him, was the last to arrive, taking his place at the head of the semicircle the ravens had formed around the little group. A ruffling of feathers and they were silent.
    Simon stood up.
    Perhaps, he thought, the time was indeed now. Not when he hoped he was ready for it, but when he was not.
    He took several paces towards the birds. The boy, his hand clasped in Simon’s, walked with him. Hunkering down, Simon placed his fingers at the side of the child’s head and brushed his eyelids shut with his thumbs. He smelled of grasses and the water they’d washed in while it was still dark. For a long moment, Simon touched the boy’s forehead to his own, trying to be as open to his curiosity as possible, trying also to seek the inner truth of his name. If he chose wrongly, the boy would die. Not in the flesh, but somewhere in the spirit, where it mattered more. But if the name chosen was his indeed—the name he did not yet understand—then his life would belong to him for all his days and no one could take it away. The gift of their people, the gift of naming.
    His heart beat wildly as his mind skittered to the time, long ago, long before Ralph even, when someone he loved had given him a gift, one he dreaded to own but had been forced to take. He… No, he must not think of this now… He could not…
    Tearing his head away from the boy’s, Simon drew in a jagged breath and heard his own name spreading like a cool stream over his heated thoughts.
    Simon.
    In the echo of it the voices of Johan and Isabella in his mind.
    I’m all right, he whispered. It’s all right.
    But it wasn’t all right. The time for contact with his charge was over and he had sensed no name reaching out from inside him. In spite of this, he had no option but to go on. Once the ritual had begun, the deed could not be