The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

to save the Library, but I have failed even in that task. The mind-cane and the snow-raven who brought me here have other visions I can no longer see. Surely my fellow elders can help Annyeke, but they are so far away. It will take them half a day-cycle to get here. By then, it will be almost night and the battle will have commenced.
    Annyeke thinks what she has seen now is the beginnings of the battle, but I know it is not. That is what I must say to her —this is what she has to know—but even as this wisdom fills the part of my mind not blasted by pain, strong hands are taking hold of me, lifting me up and half supporting, half carrying me away from the place of destruction.
    One of them I do not know and one I do —Iffenia, the wife of the Second Elder. She is at my right side. I recognise her mind as it links to my shattered thoughts. It is her touch and the scent of wood shavings she bears on her clothes that brings my disorder into a kind of peace or, if not peace, then at least stability.
    Come, she says but not with spoken words, we must find shelter.
    As she speaks, what I have known falls into place and my blood cries out a warning. It is she, it is she, it is she, but she does not yet know it. Unable to respond or to understand fully what my own soul tells me, I submit to her ministrations and at once the colour blue fills my imagination. It is the most violent shade I have ever seen, but it is neither my nor her colour. Iffenia’s character is a subtle grey, like the chairs her husband used to make, whereas my own is mauve. Where has this terrible blue come from?
    It is the Lost One, she says. He is most truly lost.
    You have seen him? The words do not appear in the right order in my thoughts but, nonetheless, Iffenia seems to understand.
    Yes. This morning , before the fire.
    It is not the answer I sought. The sudden down -lurch of hope makes the pain shatter my mind once more. As she speaks to me in the connection running through her fingers on my arm, we are walking, to where I cannot tell. But the fact of movement is itself a steadying hand in the midst of the blackness of her strange anger and grief that fill the air between us. It makes me want to cry out, but I have no voice. Instead, the grit and soil carve out their patterns on the underparts of my feet; I can feel each small puncture like a gift that focuses me on a lesser pain. The air is unexpectedly cool on my face and the threat of snow overpowers the remains of the fire-heat. I notice if I think only of the physical, then the mind-pain is kept at bay, although not vanquished.
    The two women and I stumble through streets I know only from memory until at last the air changes, and Iffenia alters her pace. All I know now is I must go with her. Her suppressed hatred of me nibbles at my skin like wood beetles.
    We ’re home, she says.
    For one sky-spun moment, I imagine she means my home, but of course she does not. The smell of wood shavings deepens and I feel the velvet warmth of her door curtain brush against my shoulder.
    The unknown woman at my left guides my hand until my fingers touch the smoothness of polished wood. She then steps back. For the first time I feel alone. I am breathing hard, unable to re-form my world out of what it once was into what it is now.
    “I must go,” the strange woman says. These are the first spoken words between the three of us.
    “ Of course,” Iffenia says. “You have your family. You must go to them.”
    Her voice comes to me from further away than I had anticipated, from the other side of the room, I think , though my memory of the crafting-area is poor. I had not felt her step away, but I feel the stranger go. With all that I am, I long for her to stay, but Iffenia waits for me and I will not harm another by begging her not to leave us.
    “ Thank you,” I call out as I hear the curtain rustle and the air swoops in. I do not know if she hears me.
    It is only when she has gone that I understand full y how much the woman I am with despises me and how much she has been holding back. The words family, love, cowardice assault me from every side and, from instinct, I raise my hands to fend off what I cannot see and cannot touch. At once, I stagger, supported only by air, and grasp the table again before I fall. It must have been the presence of the stranger that has kept this grief in check. Well, it is set free now, with something underneath it that I cannot yet fathom.
    “ Please,” I whisper