The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

approach of the elder before you, an approach which led us along paths tangled with difficulties, and leading only to disaster.”
    Annyeke blinked. Whilst she sensed he did not wish to challenge her outright, the Mentor’s words had been almost as cutting as the glass-making profession he bore. She stood up from the table and paced towards the once-beautiful window looking onto the park-area. When she swung round, she knew all eyes were upon her, and the elders were waiting for her answer. She opened her mouth but someone else spoke before her.
    “The old ways have failed, twice. It is time for a new story and, for that, we must walk the new ways laid out before us.”
    At the sound of this unfamiliar voice, Annyeke stared at the man who had spoken. As did all gathered in the meeting room with her. It was good to have their attention elsewhere for a while. Everything then between them became silent, because the elder who had spoken was the Silent One, the one who was destined never to speak, the one whose quietness held them in harmony, or was intended to. His voice sounded like the warmest of summer nights when the skies were clear and the air perfumed with pomegranate blossom. She wondered why he had left it so long to say what he must need to.
    It was up to her, as First Elder, to approach him, and she felt the weight of expectation, even Johan’s, at her back.
    She straightened her shoulders and made her way to the Silent One, or perhaps that should be the previously Silent One. He stood up at her approach, and nodded briefly. Close up, she could see the golden flecks in his eyes and the way the colour of his hair shimmered so its precise shade could never be decided upon. This close, she could sense his own surprise as well. So many imaginings dwelt in his mind and none, up to now, had ever been heard.
    His lips moved, but this time there was no sound. Something in his eyes and thought caught her, however, and she gasped. Reaching out, she touched the edge of his mouth with her fingers and felt the power of words leap into her skin and fill her flesh and mind. Then the Silent One stepped back and she felt the vast reaches of the power he contained in so frail a vessel leave her. For a heartbeat, she missed them beyond measure, but then she knew she could not live the way she wanted to, nor rule her country, if his words, the words of the Spirit, were melded with her skin. Only one elder and his family could do that and live.
    The Silent One nodded before brushing one hand across his mouth as if her contact there had taken something from him. Or gifted him with something. At the same time, she sensed Johan’s curiosity rise.
    “I did not expect to speak,” the Silent One whispered, the speech falling from his tongue as something unknown. “But the stories and what they might be compelled me.”
    “Tell us what you know,” Annyeke commanded, “by the gods and stars.”
    The Silent One nodded and again all around him was silent, as silent as the air before a perfect music is played. He swallowed.
    “The words are mine and my family’s,” he said. “They come from our legends and our lives, both now and from the past. But the words themselves tell me it is not enough. There are spaces waiting to be filled before the peace which longs to visit us can be fully here. It is seen in the First Elder’s dream and in the leaves of the lemon tree. The Lost One and the story are united and one must tell the other if we are to begin again. Our First Elder is not as the one before, Mentor, and will not, I know, destroy us. There. I have spoken. My words here are done.”
    The air altered in the room, and something passed over the Silent One’s face so Annyeke knew he would not speak again.
    She waited for the other elders to say something, whether it would be for her or against her but, to her surprise, it was Johan who broke the silence.
    “I will stand by the First Elder,” he said, a half-smile glimmering on his lips amidst the seriousness that lay beneath, always. “I have never known her to let me or anyone down, although her actions and decisions often surprise me. In any case, though I am concerned for her safety in this venture, the Spirit has spoken through one who speaks not, and I take my place at Annyeke’s side.”
    With that, he turned to stand square at her shoulder and she felt the quietness as golden as the autumn-season between them. She gazed round at the elders, picking each one out in