The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

standing position again. The cane’s humming faded away and he flexed his fingers, feeling the comfort of it in his hand. In a gesture he hadn’t realised he was going to make, he brought it to his lips and kissed the carved silver top. It tasted bright in a way he couldn’t explain. Something blue and silver glowed for a moment at the edge of the carving and then he felt the heat of it in his own mouth.
    The scribe gasped, looked up and saw the dark shape of Frankel hovering halfway between himself and the doorway. The old man stepped forward, about to offer help. Simon understood he mustn’t; the mind-cane had begun to act and neither of them could gainsay it.
    “No,” he said, panting, and Frankel stopped at once. “Please, stay where you are, I don’t know what will happen.”
    And then he couldn’t speak any more. An explosion of flame on his tongue and a soaring heat in his thoughts. It leapt down through his shoulders and arms, his stomach and his legs. It ripped through his blood, blending and moulding, churning a pathway through all his secrets, all his past and all his fragile future. He gasped, knew himself to be burnt from within but not consumed, and then it was gone.
    The mind-cane fell to the stone floor. Frankel was at his side, holding him up once again. Simon took a step back, anxious not to burn the man, but when he looked around, the fire had gone. Neither of them was in danger. Even the cane was still and silent.
    He heard the sound of footsteps. Someone else was arriving at the great hall.

    Ralph

    He is unable to help his actions. Turning from them would have been like trying to turn back across a summer river in full spate. Once in his bedroom, the emeralds at Ralph’s side start to glitter and dance. As if they have been suddenly awoken after a long time or like a young fox sensing the pursuit of the hounds. Even the bag they are held in dances with them and glows a faint green.
    Something of their energy fills his blood then and for the first time, at least in daylight, he opens the door of the private rooms and steps out into darkness.
    He walks through scenes of near-destruction and the grief of a dying building. All he remembers is the need to follow where the strange jewels are leading and the need to turn his eyes away from the ruin of what once was home. Still, he can’t help but see and acknowledge the scars disfiguring the stonework, the smashed tables, the torn tapestries. And the scattering of decorative weaponry on the floor. Most of these are lying at the edges of the corridors. Someone must have tried to bring a kind of order out of the chaos filling the air. Tried and given up such a hopeless task. Once Ralph almost stumbles over a set of plain daggers, but his feet know their way. They turn neither to right nor to left, but follow the path the emeralds call them to.
    It is only when he approaches the hallway that he senses Simon’s presence. Closer than he has anticipated, but still so far distant.
    Ralph’s blood leaps upwards but he does not hesitate. His hand clutches the shining emeralds and he keeps on walking.
    At the next heartbeat he stands in the once proud hallway and faces two men. One he usually never sees and the other is more deeply known to Ralph than his own thoughts. More frightening than any of those also.
    He can think of nothing to say.
    Frankel, the cook’s quiet husband, bows his head and takes a step backwards. He mutters something Ralph cannot hear. It may have been a greeting, or it may have been a curse. No matter. Because it is the other man – Simon of the White Lands – whom Ralph can see most clearly.
    Of course it is not long since he has seen Simon, but this is the first time for what seems a life-season beyond the telling he has seen him without the fierce hand of the mind-executioner scaffolding all thoughts. Turning them deeper and with more bitterness into themselves. Twisting Ralph into the kind of man he thought he did not want to be. No matter. It is too late for regrets, although they almost drown him. Simon looks older, more wearied. Then again, don’t they all. The scribe seems barely able to support himself. Part of Ralph wants to step forward, offer help, but part of him knows there is no place for this here. Simon and he are now neither friends nor enemies. But something other, something he does not yet know.
    Nor is it Ralph’s place to know.
    For Simon has the mind-cane with him. The executioner’s cane. Which