The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

enough in these lands?”
    His voice is steadier than he’d hoped, but all he can sense in his head are the colours of despair: black, purple, white. So it has come to this and yesterday which he thought the worst is not so.
    It is the cook’s husband who helps him first. The old man holds Simon’s body as best he can while Ralph struggles with the knots. The blacksmith has tied them well, but a combination of desperation and brute force at last gets the scribe free. Finally the cook’s husband and Ralph lay Simon’s body onto the snow. As Bradyn continues to cry over his son, the Lammas Lord pulls off his cloak and lays it over the scribe though only the gods and stars know why he needs to be protected from the snow now. At the same time, Ralph wonders once more where Annyeke has gone and curses her absence.

    Annyeke

    She saw at once this scene did not require her. Funny how, since taking on the Eldership of Gathandria, her instincts had become sharper. They had no doubt experienced more use lately and, besides, something else was calling her: a narrow golden cord in her mind drawing her away from the courtyard with its death and despair and towards the castle. She refused to think of Simon and what might be happening to him, she couldn’t mourn for him yet. It was impossible to deny whatever was calling her and, who knows, it might be the key to help the Lost One. More than anything else at that moment, she longed to help him, even now.
    As she ran across the cobbled stones layered with snow, the icy wind pummelling her face, she heard the sound of the snow-raven crying out over her head. Even though she feared it less than she used to, its piercing note reverberated in her mind. A sudden gust, and its pale softness was closer than she’d imagined, the wings brushing through her hair. She ducked, but already the great bird was ahead of her, flying round the corner of the castle and then upwards back into overcast sky. Was it where she was meant to go? To the corner of the castle? The gold cord in her mind was growing ever more powerful, pulsating until it drove almost all her other thoughts into hiding.
    She reached the other side of the battered walls, slipped a few more paces and fell to her knees. At head height she saw a small door, which was glowing, sparking crimson and black and silver. The shape of it sprang fully-formed into her imagination as if it had always been there and she knew what it was at once. Cursing, she scrabbled with the opening and pulled the door outwards to reveal a small cupboard. It smelled of spices and bread. Worse than anything this day might demand of her however was the presence of the mind-cane. Annyeke couldn’t help but give a small cry as its physical proximity connected with the image of its calling in her thoughts. It was like fire and ice, air and sea filling her very being, impossible to understand and impossible to contain.
    Before she could scramble backwards in a vain attempt to protect herself, the cane sprang out, all but pushing her down. She had no real idea how it had managed to miss her or what its intentions were, but as it freed itself from its strange prison and righted itself in the air, Annyeke stood up and smoothed down her dress. She’d be damned for the eternal time-cycle if she, First Elder of Gathandria, did not face this challenge on her feet and with something approaching dignity.
    “What do you want?” she asked in a whisper, cautious still about allowing the words she spoke to dwell in her mind only for fear of what the cane might do to her there.
    She didn’t expect an answer as, to her knowledge, the mind-cane had never communicated with anyone apart from Simon, unless it was to threaten or wound, and that she supposed was a kind of communication in itself. But the cane sprang to her side as if obeying an order she had not given and the next moment she felt the warm glitter of its touch for a brief moment on her hand. From some deep-seated obstinacy even she hadn’t realised she possessed, she somehow prevented herself from crying out. At the same time, the sound of weeping rolled over her: the old man, Simon’s father. It was the end then, the Lost One was truly gone.
    Before she could react, the mind-cane twisted itself under her arm and pulled her away from the castle back the way she had come, towards the courtyard and the crying. Annyeke wrenched her arm away, her throat suddenly dry with possibility, but she continued to chase