The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

he was at the same time utterly overpowered and utterly free.
    He didn’t know for how long a cycle the wisdom of the mind-cane stayed with him but he understood when it left: at the right time, when he could see how too much happiness might well be beyond his ability to live through. He understood something else too; why the cane had communicated with him in this way, and what it was now intending to do.
    Slowly the sense of overwhelming joy and release drifted away, although the memory of it hovered, like the silver stars and moon, in the depths of his mind, and in his blood and on his skin too. He didn’t think he would ever lose it, but other truths remained. His visions had been right.
    Simon sat down once more. The mind-cane drew closer, its vast connection to the stars and gods above no longer visible but the Lost One knew it remained, if unseen. He took a breath and ran both hands through his hair.
    “Is this what must be? You have decided?” he asked the artefact, finding it easier to voice the words aloud rather than permit them to dwell only in his thoughts where he feared they might prove too powerful to bear. “I don’t believe I can …”
    Then he found he couldn’t finish the sentence, his face wet with sudden tears he was unable to brush away. By the gods and stars themselves, they knew him to the core so what need to hide? His grief itself surprised him as he had not realised his affections had grown so silently and been rooted so deep. Even the glimpse of the joy beyond this life did not lessen the sense of sorrows to be borne now. His end was not yet a while, and all things still needed to be lived through for a time-cycle and a time-cycle to come. So be it.
    “I don’t believe I have the strength to bear it,” he finished quietly, gazing at the mind-cane. “So much have you settled yourself inside me.”
    Where I will remain, where it matters.
    In spite of all to come, the Lost One couldn’t help but laugh. “You are outside the great time-cycle and I within it, or you would not think such thoughts so easily.”
    We are different but we are the same.
    Simon allowed this concept to work its slow way through him before speaking. “Yes, in some ways we are, now. But come, you have a purpose and together the two of us must fulfil it, or what will the gods do then?”
    He stood up and took the cane in his grasp, treasuring its smoothness and warmth against his skin. How at home it felt there. If he had been pondering how the journey back to the world they had come from would be, then there was no time to consider it as the view in front of him shimmered and reformed itself into the Lammas fields. In the distance, the Tregannon castle rose up, jagged but on the way to wholeness once more, against the night sky.
    “ Simon.” It was Ralph who spoke first, already stepping forward and clutching him so he did not fall. Which the Lost One might well have done as the method of returning had made his eyes swim and his skin feel hot. So much for thinking this time was easy. “Simon, you’re here .”
    The Lost One smiled at the foolishness of the Lammas Lord’s words, under which so much dwelt that Ralph did not know how to express. If the stars were willing, he would no doubt have to get used to this; the Lammas Lord had always been different.
    He gripped Ralph’s hand, leant his forehead to the other man’s for a heartbeat or two, rejoicing in the wildness and new strength of Lord Tregannon’s mind. His thought-recovery was progressing beyond the Lost One’s hopes, and the value of the emeralds had proved immeasurable. But it was Ralph himself who had made the possibility of mind-healing real. Simon could not forget it.
    “Yes, I am here,” he answered simply. “Did you think I would not be?”
    Ralph smiled a response, gathering his leadership and his sense of dignity around him again like a new cloak.
    “Of course,” he said, stepping away. “You cannot stay away from me for long.”
    Simon raised his eyebrows at that and the mind-cane fizzed a little in his hand. Ralph glanced at it and coughed.
    “And nor I from you,” he said, lowering his voice even though there was nobody around them to hear. “You know it. So, what will happen now?”
    Ah yes then, they had reached this point sooner than the Lost One had wished, but so it must be. The mind-cane had made its choice, but it was up to Simon to bring it to fruition. He prayed for the courage to carry out this act to the