The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

gasped but could not draw back. Somehow, his eyes had been saved from the all-consuming flame, but the scribe did not think they focused on anything. The glint of life was fading away. Ahelos was dying.
    In the silence after the raven’s call, he realised he could hear something but didn’t know what it was. A quick search around him revealed no danger, but still the low noise continued. It formed itself into words. He stared at Ahelos. Yes, his lips were moving, his teeth glittering strangely as they worked the sound into shapes.
    More than anything, the scribe wanted to run. It was always his first, his most pressing instinct. Instead, now, he shut his eyes, told himself that because of what he had done, he had to stay. Then he leaned forward, moving his ear to the remains of Ahelos’ mouth. It took half a story’s beginning to hear what he was saying and, even then, understanding did not follow in the wake of knowledge.
    “You are the justice-bringer after all, you are he…”
    The same words spoken over and over again, but so quietly and fading so rapidly that Simon did not, at first, believe he’d heard it at all.
    At last, the talking stopped. Ahelos’ eyes dulled to nothing and closed. Simon was alone. Finding what little strength he had left, he staggered to his feet and backed away until he felt the solidity of bark and leaf. With a fierce shout, he flung both the book and the mind-cane as far from himself as he could. The cane landed with a dull thump in leaf-mulch and the book hit the branch of an ash standing opposite and stayed, entangled by twigs. Its green glow vanished at once and the light from the snow-raven began to fade.
    At the same time, a hand that was not his reached out and plucked the discarded book from the tree. Before he could think whether it was one of the brothers’ fellow villagers and, if it were, what he might say, a voice spoke, but only to his mind.
    It was Gelahn. A slight dark-eyed figure dressed in the way Simon had first encountered him, a black over-tunic edged with white circles. The cloak, he knew, would be trimmed with the shape of a pentagon, although now he could not see it. His heart skittered in his throat and his thoughts became as ice. With the mind-executioner’s presence, the scent of fire and darkness deepened and, behind Gelahn, the shadows of another that the scribe could not quite make out.
    If you cannot bear the story, the mind-executioner said, then you are nothing but a fool to tell it.

Fourth Lammas Lands Chronicle
    PRUDENCE AND SLOTH

    Ralph
    Something has happened. He no longer senses the mind-executioner’s presence in his home, although the snarling of the mountain dogs in the bedroom can be heard as far as the great hall. The fact of Gelahn’s absence snapped into Ralph’s mind as soon as he limped into the shelter of home, the irritation of his encounter with Jemelda in the kitchens still fresh on his skin.
    Where is he?
    His first thought is it must be a trick. Gelahn is testing him by hiding himself so completely that Ralph does not know when he will appear next. He is waiting to see what the Overlord will do.
    Ralph shakes the rain from his hair and takes off his boots. The stone slabs freeze his feet and he reaches for the cloth he keeps by the cloak store. Not bothering to find a chair, he simply sits on the floor and dries himself as best he may. In recent times, this would have been a servant’s job and the change in routine makes him grimace. No matter. For the foreseeable future-cycle, this is something he will have to grow accustomed to.
    And, all the time, under this light clatter of thought that he hopes masks at least some of the deeper part of his mind, Ralph is pondering on weightier matters. Whenever Gelahn is here he has, up until now, always been able to sense him. If this is a trick, it is a good one. But why would the mind-executioner do this? He has the power over Ralph that he wishes. Even if, by some strange miracle, there are things Gelahn does not know or has not yet spoken of, like the presence of the emeralds, the fact remains that Ralph does not know how to use their magic and so the knowledge of them is worse than useless.
    A sudden lurch takes him. The emeralds. They hid the boy from Gelahn. Perhaps, then, the mind-executioner has already discovered them and that is why Ralph does not sense him now. The emeralds—may their power and all the gods and stars that made them be cursed—are hiding his enemy