The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

strange and unfamiliar grief but she did not know what she mourned for. To her surprise, the Lost One came to a halt when she had imagined he would continue his journey.
    Annyeke sensed a deep silence fill her thoughts. She did not know where it came from or what its purpose was but she could not gainsay it. It was as pure as water and as clear as a summer-season sky. She closed her eyes and felt its permanence enter her skin and bones. In her mind she could see the great star clusters, as they swung the turning of the year-cycles across the sky. The fox, the oak and the wolf, then the river, the elm and the horseman. Their shapes and patterns melded into each other and then became themselves again. She did not understand the significance of what she was seeing. From her knowledge of the Lost One, Annyeke remembered Lord Tregannon had been born under the sign of the fox, and the Lammassers paid great attention to these symbols. The Gathandrians paid them less heed but she understood their importance in the Lammassers’ mind-set and would do well not to forget it. After the horseman came the lovers, the lone man and the mountain. At this latter, she swallowed hard because the mountain was dead and would not be seen again in this generation-cycle. Nothing they had done had been able to save it from destruction. Finally, the half-circle constellation of the owl floated across her vision, the sign of the Lost One himself. Odd how this part of her vision had started with Tregannon’s sign and ended with this one. There had to be a significance but she could not relate it to anything she knew or guessed at. She didn’t know how long this lasted in her dream but after a while, she became aware of a whisper in her mind. Nothing more than a mere breath and she thought it was only because of the silence that she could even hear it.
    The whisper came in a voice she did not recognise. It was neither the Lost One, nor Johan, nor Talus, nor any she knew in her life. Nor was it the voice of the Great Library. She wondered if it might be the Spirit of Gathandria itself, but such an answer belonged to the mystics, and she was none.
    The voice said this: Let the Lost One tell the story that is his own. Then silence will be no more and all shall be well.
    These words were repeated over and over again until Annyeke was sure they would remain part of her flesh and deepest memory for always. And then, just as suddenly, she knew the whisper had gone. In her dream, she opened her eyes, the Lost One turned to her, his expression one of enquiry and hope, and out of her mind one word filled the air.
    Yes.
    She woke with a gasp, the fragments of the dream clinging to her thoughts. The stars and the silence, the silence and the stars. And something in between both: the words of the whisper. She needed to act on them and soon. But how, by the gods?
    There in the quietness of her bed, beside the sleeping form of the man she loved, Annyeke concentrated in the very depths of her mind. She focused on her special place, the garden she loved and where she felt most at peace. If anything she did could contact the Gathandrian Spirit, then her garden would be the best place to start. Even better, and if she could achieve it without waking Johan, she would seize the nearest cloak for warmth and stand in the garden itself until some kind of an answer came to her.
    Without more delay, she wove a mind-net around Johan so she would not disturb him. Talus, she thought, would probably sleep through any noise she made. Then she slid out of bed, padded to her dressing-stool and searched for a cloak until she found one. She slipped it over her night-clothes and crept out of the bed-area, through the kitchen and outside. At the same time, she kept her mind-focus so the colours and shades in her thought would echo and enrich the garden in her world.
    The land was on the cusp between deepest night and the start of the day. She could see the faint glimmer of rose-coloured light, messenger of morning, across the eastern sky. The stars were harder to see, but she could well remember the patterns they made, even without the vividness of her dream. A soft breeze lifted her hair a little and she smoothed it down, although of course it did have a life of its own, and no amount of smoothing would give her any elegance. The thought made her smile.
    From instinct, and driven by a compulsion she couldn’t quite place, she made her way towards her lemon tree, the most beloved