The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

thought: expanse .
    His father’s deepest word, he knew it, though its meaning escaped him. Immediately afterwards, he all but cried out as his father’s madness flooded in on him again. With an effort he pulled the mind-cane away and broke the link. He was panting hard.
    “Lost One?”
    Annyeke’s voice tumbled in to his consciousness and grounded him. He turned to glance at her, nodded, and saw behind her the beginnings of whiteness pushing against the mind-net at the window.
    So little time.
    “I’m all right,” he said as the people again began to murmur their anxiety. He and Annyeke had to contain them as he understood none would survive losing their stories if they broke from the circle. Only the cane and the net protected them from the terror of the Book of Blood. “I’m all right, but I need to touch each person’s thought with the cane’s power. I swear to you, it will not harm you.”
    Simon did not know whether further links with this number of men and women in such quick succession would in fact harm him, but he chose to hide that fear, at least from Annyeke.
    It was she who spoke first. “Start with me then.”
    He shook his head, speaking as clearly and quickly as he could and determined not to let his eyes stray to the weakness of the window-space. “No, First Elder, I must end with you. Your skills will centre me again, but I must touch the minds of the people here.”
    A terrible silence. Too long, he thought. Then the night-woman standing at the right hand of Annyeke took a small step forward and looked up at him for a moment before breaking his gaze again.
    “I will do it,” she said so softly that each of them had to lean towards her to hear.
    “Thank you,” he said, his heart beating fast at such evidence of courage where he did not, fool that he was, expect it. Truly the women were the masters of them all.
    He swung round so he brought each person’s face into his mind and held it there for a mere moment before moving to the next until he was back with the night-woman again. “Do all of you agree?”
    Another silence, this time briefer, laced with surprise he had asked them the question at all. Then the yes he needed.
    “Come then,” he said. “Let us begin.”
    Trying to find some measure of command that was his, not simply the cane’s, and at the same time very much aware of the threat outside, Simon began with the night-woman. He felt rather than heard her gasp as the carving touched her hair while already the wild and jumbled nature of the words she held within were all but overwhelming him. So many of them were cruel and bitter, heart-responses to the life she had led and the people she had known. But in some he sensed a glimmer of what might have been hope. It was hard to tell for sure as the colours were so dark, like shadows of the brightness they should have. One word however was strongest: grief .
    He took it, feeling its weight in his mind, and an answering echo from his own past. How he understood it. When he released the woman, she half-staggered and he stepped forward to hold her steady, but Annyeke was already there, her hand under the woman’s elbow. The First Elder frowned at him.
    “Don’t wait, Lost One,” she said. “We will help each other. You need to hurry.”
    He knew she was right. As quickly as possible, and attempting with all his strength to minimise any damage he might cause to the people he’d already injured so greatly, Simon took the mind-words from the remainder of the circle.
    They were a motley mixture: along with expanse and grief , he gathered despair , mistrust , anger , bitterness , as well as loyalty , trust , hope and – from Annyeke – love . Some of the words were shared amongst the people and some gave more than one, but the sum of them was this.
    When he finished and stepped back into the centre of the circle, the mind-cane flashed the brightest silver flare which vanished almost as soon as appearing. Ignoring the cries of shock around him, themselves soon fading when the cane stayed quiet, Simon stared unblinking at the artefact.
    Something was missing. There should have been more to find, both here and elsewhere, but he could not grasp it.
    “Lost One,” Annyeke said, her voice snapping his attention to her at once. “Do you have all you need?”
    Simon glanced at the window once more, heart beating fast at the quantity of emptiness seeping through. The mind-net’s power, however strengthened, surely could not hold