The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

Spirit will create other lives to take the place of your own and you will be lost forever. But do not fear as the Spirit is still gracious; it has sent me as a warning for you, and you will do well to heed me and follow what I tell you, because the paths to true happiness and the life you should be leading are there to follow easily if you wish to. But there is so little time; you must do what I say and do it quickly.”
    At such words, the darkness of them licking at the colours in his mind, Sloth stumbles to his feet and the blanket falls to the floor. Instead of the customary heat on his skin, he feels nothing but a long and aching chill. He falls to his knees in front of what must surely be his and his sister’s saviour.
    “I beg you, tell me,” he begs. “What must I do to please the Spirit?”
    If a wolf can smile, then that is the expression covering the animal’s face. Sloth feels the heat of a wild tongue on his flesh. The strange warmth soothes him.
    “Your request is wise,” the wolf says and now his voice is honey poured over river rocks. “And its solution is simple. You must take with your hands and your mind what the Spirit of Gathandria keeps from you. Then the Spirit will know that you are truly worthy of the life you are destined to live.”
    “Will it not be angry?” Sloth asks. “I must wait for my sister. She has wisdom in her steps. It follows her always.”
    “No!” The answer is sharp, the bitter scoring of sharp teeth across fragile skin. “No, you must decide now what you will do. Time is not on your side and you cannot wait for your sister to return. Besides, the decision is yours and yours alone. What will you do, Spirit-gotten Gathandrian? Will you choose life or deny it?”
    A deep silence fills the small room. Its dark echoes scour every corner clean. Sloth swallows, does not know what to think or how to reply. Then, the honeyed gold of the wolf’s thoughts rolls over his own and he is lost, although he does not know it.
    He stands a little taller and the shadow of his frame casts the wolf into a greater night.
    “Yes,” he says, and then again more firmly. “Yes. I choose life. It is the Spirit’s desire and we must obey it.”
    “You have chosen well,” says the wolf. “Come then. I will show you what you must do.”
    Before Sloth can think about preparing himself for whatever might come next, the animal rears up on its hind legs and presses its grey front paws down on his shoulders. With his next breath, the two of them are falling through air that shrieks in ribbons of yellow around his head. He does not know why they have not landed or where they might be. His mind is full of sharp edges and dark roads. He is pierced with blood.
    When he comes to himself, he is lying on grass at the edge of the unknown woods. It is not unfamiliar, but Prudence and he do not travel this far from their home often. They have no need to do so. The morning sun sparkles through the cypress trees and, from instinct, he turns away from the tree that is forbidden to them.
    Next to him, the wolf chuckles. “Why do you turn from the cypress tree of the mind?”
    Sloth wipes his hand over his face, feels the chill on his skin once more in spite of the warmth.
    “It is not permitted,” he mutters. “We can neither look upon its branches nor eat of its leaves. Prudence and I have always known this. We keep away from the mind-cypress. In fact, we rarely come here at all.”
    “Who does not allow you to look on this life-giving tree?”
    “The Spirit, the being who made us.”
    As if Sloth has spoken words that burn the animal’s paws, the wolf dances round him until they are eye to eye again.
    “Why would the Spirit request such a thing of you? Eating the leaves of this mystical tree will fulfil what the Spirit requires of you. It will give you wisdom such as you have never known. More than that, it will prevent the death that hangs like a dark stormcloud over you and your beloved. Come now, I will show you.”
    The wolf leaves Sloth and lopes over towards the tree that is forbidden. Sloth tastes the bile in his throat, thinks to warn the creature that what he is doing is madness but does not have the strength to speak. Still, he cannot stop staring at the animal. He does not know what will happen next nor what punishments the Spirit will bring upon the wolf’s boldness.
    While Sloth watches, the wolf pads to the gnarled tree and gazes into its long branches, as if greeting an old