The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

mind-net each morning to keep the dust at bay.”
    He nodded, not really understanding, and took a sip. Before he knew it, he’d drained the glass and she’d offered him another. He must have been thirstier than he’d realised.
    “Yes,” she spoke again. “Thinking—or being forced into it—does that for me, too.”
    Simon put down the beaker. “There is much I don’t understand. You know who I am, but I am afraid I do not know you.”
    “But you are welcome in my house, and enter it with confidence.”
    That much was true, he thought. Even though “confidence” was not a word he associated much with himself.
    “Please,” he said, “I do not mean to intrude but…”
    “…but you needed the respite. And I am happy to provide that for you. The last few day-cycles have been hard for us all.”
    She drew up a chair and sat down. Smiling, she answered the questions crowding his head.
    “My name is Iffenia,” she said. “It means moon-lily in our language. I am the Wife of the Second Elder and he is a chair maker though, of course, you did not have long to meet the elders and they have now left us. For a while only, I hope.”
    Simon nodded. Her words carried that same sense of darkness he’d felt before. It must be grief at her husband’s absence. That was something he understood. He wondered if they would, in fact, return after their betrayal of Gathandria. He had listened to the reasons for their departure, but that did not mean he understood.
    “Why did they go?” he asked her. “Forgive me. I do not intend harshness. I, too, would have fled if I had had the opportunity. I suppose that is what I did, in fact, during the two first days when I stayed in Annyeke’s room, but surely those with wisdom in the land should have stayed, whatever their wrongdoings. We need your husband’s guidance, and that of his fellow elders.”
    He hadn’t intended to sound as if he were offering her a challenge. He had only just arrived here and, besides, he had no challenge to offer. But as he finished speaking, the scribe realised the snow-raven had perched on the table nearest to them both and the mind-cane was quivering only a few feet away from him. It looked as if it might plunge towards him at any moment and he braced himself to run.
    A hand on his arm grounded him.
    “No,” Iffenia whispered. “Do not run. And do not fear your own words. What you have said is right or, rather, rightly asked. But the elders betrayed the people when they let the mind-executioner free. Until their minds are clear, help cannot truly come from them, and anything they do will only hinder us. I miss my husband with all that I am, and would do anything for his safe return, but I know it must be so for now. When they are able to help us, believe me, they will. But, in the meantime, do not fight the influence these, your companions, have over you. Whilst they are strange, they are not your harshest enemies.”
    Eyes still fixed on the fearsome length of black and carved silver, he swallowed, trying to take in all she had said. “No? Sometimes it seems as if they are. Annyeke tells me that, with them, I can help Gathandria survive. I accept what you say about the elders might be true, but the knowledge of how to help in a way they could not is hidden from me. And, so far, the mind-training has not obviously been successful.”
    “Mind-training is not easy,” she replied after a moment, releasing her hold on him. “Not even for full blood Gathandrians, and you only have half our blood in you. But perhaps that, too, is as it should be. After all, we have been able to protect neither our own lands nor the lands of our neighbours. It may be we do not have all the answers, even my husband and his circle. Something new is needed.”
    “Something new?” He glanced at her, and then laughed. “I fear that I have little to offer, and certainly nothing new.”
    You underestimate yourself.
    Her answer, suddenly inside his head in a way he hadn’t anticipated, cut through him. In its wake, that strange shadowy green sense once more flowed. The woman’s words reverberated within him, almost as if he was thinking them himself.
    “Perhaps I do,” he replied, not trusting his skills enough to respond only in the mind. “But when I compare myself to the people I see around me—Johan, Annyeke, even young Talus—then I have no choice but to admit my own lack.”
    Then do not compare yourself. You are unique, Lost One, and in that