The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

alone have wanted.
    When the Lost One opened his eyes, he was crying. His own words carved the richness of meaning into his mind, giving back the power with which he had spoken them. He could see them dancing like young birds within a circle of green. Beyond it, light and dark flowed round them, and within that dwelt the unknowable, powerful Spirit. No, as even that understanding was too impartial; it was truer to acknowledge the Gathandrian Spirit was everywhere, not merely in the elements holding him safe, but here in the words and the circle, and even in himself. Even in death, especially in death.
    I will stay with you forever, and indeed I long to do so if you permit it, but allow me in this moment-cycle to want one thing above all: that you will make my death count for those who still dwell throughout the lands, and they will not be punished for what they have done. By the gods and stars who live in your unbearable light, Great Spirit, there has been punishment and pain enough, and now is the time for life and peace, if peace is possible. Let it be so.
    These words flowed out of the Lost One’s mouth and heart and mind, and spun through the air to join their fellows in the thought-circle. Its emerald edges all but vanished to allow them entry before closing up again. As it did so, something sparked in the shadows of Simon’s memory.
    The circle was green, emerald-bright. Emerald. He drew in a breath, feeling the warmth of it in his throat. At the centre of the world of the dead, could life still be felt and remembered in the way it had been, once? He did not dare recall it, only knowing that for this glorious line of eternity he and the Gathandrian Spirit were one, the memories and emotion shared. Perhaps this was as it had always been, if only he had known it.
    Is this not the end, but only the beginning?
    A rush of confidence, such certainty as the Lost One had never experienced, drove him forward to where the green circle danced and sparkled with words. His words. The Spirit’s words. Simon found he was laughing, and the light from the laughter flowed within the air like a silver stream on a bright spring-season morning. Still laughing, he reached out and touched the circle.
    It exploded in green, enfolding him in light and music. Simon felt free, truly alive, as the colours invigorated his mind. At the heart of the emerald was something black and silver: the mind-cane, an object which had somehow wormed its way into his affections and not let go. He had no idea how it had come to be here, in the Land of the Dead, but the sight of it gave him renewed hope. He did what he had been born to do: he grasped the cane, feeling its warmth and power meld with his own, and slashed it across the exploding circle.
    The world turned white and he spun through the air as the ground beneath him disappeared. With it vanished the people and the histories he had sensed and seen, but their loss was his alone; he knew they remained as they had been. Even for the Lost One, some acts of salvation were not his to perform. As he tumbled through the absence of things, the circle and the cane went with him, strange comforts in the unaccountable light. Indeed, falling through air was an experience he should be used to by now, and he wondered if the Gathandrian Spirit would ever stop testing him like this. Surely he had proved himself enough?
    The choice is yours alone.
    The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, it was within and without. If Simon had been forced to choose to whom it belonged, then his answer would have been the mind-cane. Something had changed.
    What choice? he formed the words and breathed them out as he continued to fall, hoping his obvious foolishness would not be too cruelly punished.
    The choice of life or death.
    The Lost One would have laughed again, if he had found air enough to do so. Then that is easy; I have died already and am in the Land of the Dead. If there is a choice, then it must be for life, but life not as I wish it but as you alone may grant.
    He had not intended to add so much to his decision, but the words flowed through him like water and he knew he was not speaking them on his own. For this time-cycle, he and the cane and the circle were one: he was as dark as winter and as bright as the silver carving on the artefact; he was as green as a forest and as wild as the fire which sparked from the magical circle. He was Simon the Scribe, he was the Lost One.
    It was enough. He landed without