The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

cane,” she panted. “Where is it?”
    At her words, Johan swung round, his eyes following hers. Then, a flash of silver and black. She cried out in triumph and he started to run towards it; at her back, a whooshing sound of wind and feather. The snow-raven launched itself into the air over her and, even as she shouted a warning, the bird tumbled Johan to the ground, leaving him scrabbling amongst the Library’s smoking ruins.
    The raven swooped over his shoulder, talons stretched outwards. With a movement as swift and elegant as a summer waterfall, the bird snatched up the cane that glowed a richer black against the feathered whiteness. A sudden humming washed over her senses as bird and cane rose sharply into the air.
    “No!” Johan cried out after them both, but neither raven nor mind-cane heeded his plea. Annyeke watched the bird swing sharply to the right and head out towards the sea. Even at this distance, the cane’s humming could still be heard, if only as an echo in her thoughts.
    Johan turned and began to trudge back to where she and the First Elder sat on the ground. He did not meet her gaze. The small groups of Gathandrians were as silent as the depths of night just before the dawn. She rose to meet him, her hand still touching the Elder’s shoulder, a point of contact for him to cling to.
    He looked at her. She could sense he was full of questions and didn’t know how to ask any of them. What could they do now? Where had the snow-raven gone, and why? And, like her, where was Simon, and was he safe or had he suffered a worse fate than the First Elder? Out of nowhere, Talus ran to them and hugged them both, burying his head against Johan’s waist. Johan’s expression crumpled, but he took a breath and she felt him grow steadier. Now was not the time for tears—now was the time for fighting.
    “Simon is surely still alive,” Annyeke said, wondering indeed where such confidence came from and where it might take them all. “If he was not, the raven would not have gone.”
    “You think the bird is seeking Simon, then?” Johan asked her, rubbing one hand upward over his face. The gesture left a smudge of dirt on his forehead that she longed to wipe away but knew she could not.
    “Yes. It must be. For whatever he is doing and whatever danger he is in with the mind-executioner, however Gelahn managed to breech us like this, Simon will have need of the cane, whether or not he can use it.”

    Simon
    As the mind-executioner gripped him, Simon felt the walls of Gelahn’s childhood room grow ever darker, looming like stormclouds in his thoughts, pressing him down. The smell of the wine bottles assaulted his senses so he wished he could breathe clear air again. More than anything, however, the scribe longed for the power of the mind-cane and the wisdom of the raven, but both of these gifts were denied him. He would have to make his own decision about the mind-executioner’s extraordinary offer. In the past, his own decisions had mostly not proved to be the right ones. No matter. He would have to do his best.
    So many shades of colour in his thoughts and not one of them giving him the overarching guide to action.
    Knowing that Gelahn could interpret his mind rather better than he could himself, Simon withdrew his hand from the executioner’s grasp. At once, the jumbled colours filling his head eased into a kind of order. Had Gelahn been causing his confusion? Was that why he could no longer tell what the best way forward might be? His heart beat faster and he wiped sweat from his forehead. What would happen if he could no longer even rely on himself?
    No, he could not afford to think like that. Madness ran on that path, and he had no wish to follow it.
    Gelahn smiled. “I am perhaps not as intrusive as you would imagine, Scribe. I can only influence those thoughts you hold that are already confused and compromised. I cannot create confusion where there is none.”
    “ I don’t believe you,” the scribe answered. “You lie and lie again, and there is no truth in anything you do or say. There never has been.”
    To Simon’s surprise, the mind-executioner leaned back in his chair and laughed. Not with mockery but in an apparently genuine delight.
    “Do you not only describe yourself, Simon of the White Lands?” he said. “We are indeed two sides of the same pasture, when you ponder it.”
    “I do not wish to ponder it,” Simon replied, refusing to acknowledge the possible truth of his