The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

understands she is no more. Where her mind has been—where it has always coexisted with his—there is only darkness. For a heartbeat, for the small slot of time it takes for her to wake him each morning, he is still. Then he gathers her to him and begins to cry.
    It is impossible to tell how long he weeps but when he becomes aware of the day again, he sees the sun is high in the sky and the shadows around him are short. He is alone, but not entirely so.
    In the corner of his bed-area, Sloth can see a glitter of moving lights hovering about the wolf’s body. Each one is a different shape, shifting and dancing in the air. He gasps, thinks about running, but knows it is useless.
    “Why did you listen to the wolf?”
    The voice Sloth hears at the very centre of his thoughts is unlike his own, his sister’s or the wolf’s. It is unlike the whisper of the trees or the cry of the birds. It does not bring to his memory the song of the wind or the night silence. It is both none of these things and all of them.
    He has never heard this voice before, but he knows instinctively who it is. This is the Spirit of Gathandria, someone known and not known, a voice he has longed for, and dreaded, since birth.
    He opens his mouth, does not know what to say so says nothing. The question is repeated. He closes his eyes, cuts out the lights.
    “You know all things,” he whispers. “So why do you ask me this?”
    Through his own self-imposed darkness, Sloth can still see the glitter. Or is that in his mind? He cannot tell.
    “I ask only that you may know yourself.”
    An answer, but no answer at all. And the question he must respond to still remains. He draws himself together, tries to find the truth within himself. Surely the cypress-leaves, no matter what damage they have done that can never be undone, will give him the power to fill the silence?
    “You must do that yourself. The leaves of the cypress give you knowledge but they cannot change you. Come then, let us see how you answer.”
    Without further warning, Sloth feels the sparkle of light as it enters his thoughts. Its warmth flows through his skin and pierces to the very centre of his existence. It is a bright knife dividing the things he knows from the things he wishes for. It uncovers parts of himself never before acknowledged.
    He opens his eyes, seeing a long strand joining the lights in the corner to his own body. This time the answer is easy.
    “I listened to the wolf,” he says, “because your voice has been unheard to us for so long. How we have longed to please you, and you have not been there.”
    An explosion of light and pain overcomes him, and Sloth cries out, hands clasping at his head, trying to rid himself of the invasion. He plunges to the floor and night has already taken him when he reaches it. When he wakes, he is for the first time truly alone.
    He is also not how he remembers himself to have been.
    The innocence of all the days before the arrival of the wolf has vanished. The animal, too, has gone and only his dead sister remains. What is left to him is the knowledge gifted to him by the cypress-tree but none of the wisdom of the Spirit. The sparkle of light left to him tells him that.
    For a while, he cries again. Then he gets up, buries his sister and sets out to travel the land. Some say his journey has never been completed and out there he is travelling still. Only those blessed by the gods and stars have ever seen him and they do not tell the tale.
    *****
    When he finishes the Third Gathandrian Tale, Duncan is silent, as is the scribe. His companion’s face in the gloom is rapt and his eyes are shining. Now, with only a simple gesture, the mind-executioner could reach into the other man’s thoughts and take whatever he wants from him. He could plunder Simon’s very self. For a single breath, he is intending to do this, grasp what he needs and then the battle will be won. Gathandria will be his.
    But not for long, and not in the way he wants it to be his. If he overcomes the scribe’s mind by force, the battle will be easily ended, but the war will continue. Many year-cycles of waiting and planning in the elders’ cruel prison have taught Duncan patience. He will use it now.
    So Duncan channels his energy, all the remaining power the lost mind-cane gave him, deep inside himself and waits. He does not have to wait long.
    “Did the Spirit come to you, also?” Simon asks. “You said your reading of the tale was your first encounter with