The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

the floating bird, “You have been my friend, in good and bad, and to see you again here is both the best and the worst the Spirit has asked of me. So take this gift I offer you, the gift you have been waiting for, and let the Spirit’s will be done in all time-cycles.”
    With that, he took the mind-cane and flung it into the sky. Its black and silver patterning sparkled in moonlight, and fire leapt from its carving as it flew. Before it could fall back to the earth in its trajectory, the snow-raven swooped down, a song of darkness and light piercing the air, and grasped the cane within its talons. Ralph cried out, and Simon fell to his knees. As he watched, the raven circled them three times, and then with another burst of song, the golden and red notes of which fell softly to the earth, the bird and the cane drifted away. To other lands and, no doubt, other stories.
    The Lost One held them both with his gaze until they were only a vanishing point in the sky, and then nothing at all. He felt Ralph’s steadying grip on his shoulder but the Lammas Lord did not speak. Simon knew he would never see them again, not in this world, and the pain of loss remained. The bird and the mind-cane had changed everything for him and now they had gone.
    At last, he lowered his eyes to the ground. When he blinked he saw one of the golden notes the raven had sung lay shimmering on the grass. He reached out, touched it, and felt its brief burst of warmth before it too was no more.
    Slowly, he stood up and rested his hand on Ralph’s where it still lay on his shoulder.
    “It is over,” he said quietly. “From now on, we must do what we have to do alone.”

    *****

    One week-cycle later and he still felt bereft. Odd how the knowledge he would see the mind-cane and the snow-raven no more in this life had only deepened since they had left him. Some of the villagers had tried quietly to reassure him that both cane and bird might well return, but nonetheless he knew. It was only Ralph who had not tried to comfort him with falsehoods, and he was grateful. With the rest, Simon smiled at their words and moved the conversation on as best and as fast as he was able. He was simply pleased they felt able to talk with him at all. And indeed there was much to talk about: the continued rebuilding of the Lammas village and the castle; the nurture of the crops; even the way the community itself was changing, partly because of the rebuilding and partly due to the will of the people to make it so. He suspected the world of Lammas would not be as it had been before the Wars, and he wondered what Ralph thought of it, as well as about the rekindled relationship between them.
    The answer to this puzzle could easily lie in a simple reading of the Lammas Lord’s thoughts, but Simon did not wish to be so intrusive, even after the nights he and Ralph had spent together. Too much had ensued from the scribe’s lack of mind-sensing caution in the past for him to revisit it again. Even so, the scribe could sense the confusion uppermost in Ralph’s mind and wished to offer him support, as well as clarity, if he could. He knew the man too well to assume the Lammas Lord would come to him, no matter what intimacy they shared; such an act would surely go against all his father’s traditions.
    So Simon waited until one evening, after the people had returned from the fields and were busy preparing their suppers. He had been working on the high windows of the castle’s south wall all day, using the skills the people had recently tried to teach him. He suspected he was a better scribe than he was a stone-master but he was doing his best and building up the simple layers around the window apertures. The complicated work he would leave to others more fully equipped for the task. He was aware Ralph was engaged in similar work below in the great dining hall and main entrance.
    They would need to speak to each other, he knew it, and it might as well be now. He put the stone he was holding in place, pressing down onto the mud and clay mix until he felt no more give, and covered over the mud-barrel. He would need to reconstitute it in the morning but the work was in any case almost finished. Then he stood, stretched his back until his bones felt loose again and made his way downstairs. As he walked, he eased out his mind until it touched Ralph’s, taking care to let the man know of his intentions.
    The result was to be expected; by the time he entered the dining hall,