The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

this one moment, now .
    Shaking aside the snare of his memories and the crushing expectations of those he was with, the Lost One took a firmer grip on the mind-cane that felt like a sleeping wild animal in his hand. This time he felt a strange energy pass between them and blinked. Then he laid the cane as gently as he could onto the dead boy’s face.
    At once, he was surrounded in darkness and an impression of mauve, the landscape of Talus’ mind. It swallowed him up and left him empty and winded. Was this death? Shaking his head to rid himself of the thoughts that bound him, he stepped forward into the void and became aware the cane’s carved top was glowing silver in his hand. It was for this reason the blackness was lightened to mauve.
    He couldn’t do this on his own.
    Simon knelt down, laying the cane across his knees and allowing his fingers to travel up its ebony smoothness to the silver glitter. Though he’d expected the carving to be warm, it was as cold as the snow he’d just left behind and he drew in a sharp breath.
    Words filled his mind. Talus, where are you? You have gone, but you cannot be far. Surely the spirit of a person cannot vanish so quickly when the night falls?
    A flash of white fire and the power from the mind-cane filled him. Not like before, when the strength of it had been a mere glancing blow to his soul, but to the full, every drop of blood, every bone, the totality of his skin. It tore him apart and knitted him together again. It was as wild as the wolves he’d feared all his life, and yet as gentle as the smallest of summer streams in the land of his birth. It drew blood from his head and his hands, his belly and his feet, and at the same time soothed those wounds with the softest of ointments. Winter lavender and thorn, briar and lemongrass. He was floating on air and at the mercy of the storm. He was alive. Then he was gone, dead like Talus, the bitter taste of fire and regret on his tongue. He was no one and he was everyone. All who had lived and died across the lands, from the beginning of the great time-cycle until now. From now until the far distant future when the Spirit would gather up the soil and trees, air, water, rock—people, too—and take them to a place no one had ever seen, though many had dreamt it. A place of bright streams and healing, of golden skies and singing so harmonious it could change a man or woman forever. A place where all the writings of the Lost One’s world would finally be fulfilled in how they would live, how they would feel, how they would see.
    Simon lived through this for a time-cycle beyond the counting and which, afterwards, he could never describe, not even in the sanctuary of his inner place.
    When he woke, he opened his eyes to a world of soft purples and violets, greys and almost-blues. He could see hills and trees and grasses, and a distant view of the sea. In his mind he could feel bleakness with a hidden strength as yet unchannelled and unsung, and a centre of such stillness as he had never known.
    He rose to a sitting position and saw the body of Talus lying at his right side. Reaching out to touch him, something stayed his hand and he realised the boy was breathing. The colours he’d seen were flowing from the young child’s thoughts, creating a world strong enough to protect them both.
    The Lost One smiled, gazing at the new scars on his body and at the mind-cane where it lay as quiet as the boy it had saved.
    A voice in his thoughts spoke into the quietness. Take the boy and return to the place you came from.
    But where will you be? How can I find you like this and then you ask us to leave? The questions rose unbidden into the scribe’s mind, but he knew he could not have denied them. This place was more than anything he had imagined it would be. He did not know how he could bear the loss of it.
    I am with you when you need me to be so, the words not his answered him. And you will see me again, one day. But the time is not right for you or for the boy. Now, go. Your friends are waiting.
    Simon closed his eyes for a moment. Then he nodded, though at what or whom he could not precisely tell. He got up, lifting the boy as lightly in his arms as if he were nothing but air. The mind-cane nestled at his waist. He began to walk.

Chapter Thirteen: Resolution

    Annyeke
    She watched the Lost One as his body became still. Annyeke had the impression he was somehow absent from himself. Of course, she’d been there when other