The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

hung in the balance. Annyeke glanced at the bird and flinched, but obviously chose to ignore the situation.
    “Well then,” she said. “Could the voice have been your own?”
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    His companion cleared her throat. It looked as if his training was about to begin, but there was more he needed to know. A question plucking at his mind, creating an itch he had no choice but to satisfy. He didn’t know where it came from.
    “What is the Spirit of Gathandria?” he said.

    Annyeke
    The red-haired woman settled herself on her familiar work area chair and gazed at the scribe opposite her. She hadn’t expected him to ask that, but he was a man and half Gathandrian so she should have realised the impossibility of predicting what he might do or say next. She wished now that she’d connected to his full thoughts anyway, without permission, although that would be the height of rudeness. Even so, it might have prepared her for such a question. Not only that, there were actions she needed to take, and soon, but she had sensed it was more important to give Simon a purpose before his unsteady resolve was shaken further.
    This wasn’t made any easier by the presence of the mind-cane, nor by the bright shape of the snow-raven near the window. All of which meant, of course, that in the room with them were the scribe’s most feared object and her own. The snow-raven currently perched on a small stool, the bulk of his wings threatening to topple her fragile pile of meditation records. The bird gazed outside and even Annyeke, in the muddle of impressions she gained from the raven, was overwhelmed by his sense of longing. She, too, wished he would fly back to the Kingdom of the Air, but for very different reasons.
    “The Gathandrian Spirit?” she ventured. “Why do you ask?”
    “I’m not sure. You spoke of it to the people, and the phrase was suddenly there, in my head. I couldn’t deny it.”
    “I see.”
    But she didn’t. Not really. The Spirit of Gathandria wasn’t understood, or even known about, by those outside the City. From the day-cycles before written records began, the elders had guarded that secret first, above all others. And here was the Lost One gazing at her, with the words he’d spoken hovering between them.
    What in the gods’ and stars’ names should she do now? Well, perhaps this, too, would turn out to be part of Simon’s essential mind-practice.
    “It’s hard to explain,” she said at last. “The Spirit is part of who we are. It’s something we’re born with and we come to know more fully as we mature. Amongst those who aren’t Gathandrian, it’s not really spoken of.”
    “Why not?”
    Good question. And not one she’d had to consider before. The scribe might be, in some manner she couldn’t fully comprehend, the answer to all their problems and pain, but it was obvious that didn’t mean the journey would be a smooth one.
    She struggled to answer him. “Tradition, I suppose, and the assumption that people who don’t live here wouldn’t understand, and so there’s little point in talking about it.”
    “That sounds…”
    “…patronising. Yes, I could see it even as I was saying it,” she laughed. “I’m sorry. The truth is I’m not sure how to explain.”
    Simon smiled back before coughing, throwing a swift glance at the cane and speaking again. “I can understand that. I’m never sure how to explain things either. So, then, what do we need to do about it?”
    Still puzzling over how to broach the power of her country’s myth, Annyeke imagined that allowing her companion to sense the words bond with the mind-cane, open yourself to the raven and then we’re ready weren’t likely to be welcome. She wished it was that simple. But her years in Gathandria, and certainly her years as a Gathandrian woman, had taught her that simplicity was always desired but rarely achieved. Instead, she cast about her mind for some of the answers. No, if she were honest, even the questions would be good.
    As she opened her mouth, the snow-raven turned his head and looked at her. She couldn’t remember the bird gazing at her in that way before. An impression of flight, a blur of cloud and a series of ascending notes filled her head. She heard herself gasp out loud. Simon leaned forward frowning, and her fingers grasped the solid wood of her chair. A moment later, her mind was her own again. A trickle of sweat rolled down her face and she wiped it away,