The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

Simon’s. Jemelda raised a stone high, her thoughts clouded with anger and crimson triumph.
    Before she could fully assess what she was doing, Annyeke snatched up the mind-cane, hissing with pain as fire tracked through her skin, and brought it sweeping across Jemelda’s back. The cook screamed and the stone fell from her hands. As Jemelda too dropped to the floor, Annyeke could see the searing flame lining her back. Then the mind-cane’s rage at her own possession of it overcame every thought and she cried out.
    Simon was there in an instant, his face shadowed and his hands covered with blood but she understood it wasn’t his.
    Let it go, Annyeke, let the cane go.
    She couldn’t. It was impossible, but she couldn’t find the mind-words to tell him. Her palm was wide open but the cane was melding to her skin and flesh, its power raging through her, shattering her thought from the inside. It would swallow her up and she would be no more, she knew it. Simon.
    The Lost One’s name was wrenched from her lips even before she understood it was there. He was holding her burning hand. Let it go, Annyeke. For if you die, how will I face Johan again?
    Always his humour in the face of darkness. How she had seen that in him but no laughter rose up inside her now. Instead the picture of Johan filled her every sense and she could see the door to survival Simon had opened for her. When she gasped, the mind-cane rolled from her fingers and landed with a movement like silk in the Lost One’s hand.
    At the same time, Jemelda’s frame loomed in front of her. The stone was back in her hands and the fire on her body had vanished. In her mind, Annyeke could see the cook and someone else also. The essence and hatred of Iffenia, the dead wife of the Chair Maker, dwelt indeed within Jemelda and, together, the two women were strong enough to fight again. To fight and to win. Annyeke tried to cry out a warning, but no words came out. The terrible pain in her flesh was the only feeling she knew before the darkness fell around her.

    Simon

    Annyeke fainted as the skin on her hand boiled with the cane’s deep fire. Simon cursed his anger out but the mind-cane’s touch seared a warning into his mind that the First Elder had tried to give him.
    He twisted round, and saw Jemelda, and that other woman within her also, as she lunged across the ground to kill him. He had a heartbeat only to make a decision and he made it. He thrust the mind-cane towards her, his intent true, and it pierced the skin of her cheek and onwards into her throat. Flame and death went with it and Jemelda screamed again. The sound of her cry ripped through him, along with the sudden dousing of her mind, and then she and the other spirit she carried with her was gone. As if they had never been at all.
    It was then the mist around them began to sing. Simon had no time to react to the fact he had killed Jemelda, although the face in his mind for a heartbeat only was Frankel’s, and then he heard Annyeke. Not with the ear, but only in his thought: Help us, Lost One, or we will surely die.
    He brought the cane back to his body, feeling the heat and heavy beat of death upon it. He had never used the mind-cane for such a purpose before and he wished never to do so again. Now he would use it for life. At the same time, someone landed at his side with a groan, and fingers clutched at his arm.

    Ralph

    Only the emeralds keep his mind fixed to his body, and maintain his surely useless fight against the force stealing his words and his memories away, piece by piece. The one thing he understands is the battle will be with Simon. The scribe has always been a storyteller, even when he is not writing, and if this airborne enemy is taking away Ralph’s words, then it will surely deem Simon’s as more important. Ralph will fight to the end not to allow this to happen.
    So he clutches the emeralds and forces his way through to where instinct tells him the scribe will be. It seems to take forever but it can only in truth be a few moments when his thoughts begin to spark with the scribe’s nearness. A flash of black and crimson fire and he sees Jemelda outlined against the whiteness, her mouth framed in terror as she screams. Then the sound ceases, and Ralph lunges towards the source of it, where Simon must surely be. His hand touches warm flesh and he groans with the relief the contact gives him.
    Simon. The scribe’s name in his mind is the only one he knows, and he can’t even