The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

warning on earth and ice, and he did not have air to cry out even as the pain scorched through him. Beneath his cheek he felt the roughness of stones. Somebody grasped his body and he felt himself lifted skywards. Was he to be hanged from the tree once more? He tried to reach out with his thoughts to learn who it was, but the energy for that had vanished. The Lost One had never felt so helpless, in spite of the fact he could feel the cane in his grip and sense the emerald power, though even that was lessening rapidly. It must be returning into the form of jewels it dwelt within. No time to ponder further as a hand at the back of his head offered him support, and he felt strong fingers digging into his hair. Not the Lammas Lord then, at least so his memory told him. A sudden sense of movement and then he could hold onto this renewal of life no longer. His mind spun away, desperate for familiarity, but found none.

    Annyeke

    If she were being entirely truthful with herself, as a First Elder of Gathandria and more importantly as the woman she most definitely was, she never expected anything to happen. When the Lammas Lord flung the emeralds at the cane where it hovered over Simon’s dead body, she had no idea what he meant to achieve. It even crossed her mind it might have been some strange Lammas tradition she didn’t know about or that Johan, in his studies of them, had never mentioned. An honouring of the dead. She never expected the green fire to roar into life and engulf the mind-cane, whilst the screams of the villagers echoed through the air. Without a further thought, Annyeke launched herself across Simon’s body. At the same time, someone else landed above her and she felt the Lost One and herself gathered into a rough and juddering embrace. The Lammas Lord.
    She had no further opportunity to respond as the green fire swept over them, and the only thought filling her mind was brightness and energy, the seasons rolled into one vast triumph, and the sky and the land as all but inseparable. She closed her eyes and gasped, unable to bear the power of it, whilst Tregannon’s grip on her tightened and he cried out, pouring strange curses into her ear.
    It lasted longer than she could ever recount and was over before she could fully understand where they had been. As it had been somewhere different, she was sure of it. A land far away from both Lammas and her beloved Gathandria, a land as far as the distant stars themselves, and at the same time closer than her own heart.
    The fire vanished and she heard the dull thud of something falling onto the snow. When she opened her eyes, she could see the cane and the handful of jewels lying as innocent as sunshine a man’s length away from them on the earth. The screams of the people stopped and all she could hear now was whimpering, all she could taste in her mind was the aftershock of their fear: yellow, orange, black. Most of them were running away, back across the water, over the field the other side and to the woods. She wondered if they would find any safety there, but did not think so. What had happened today, what was happening still, was beyond all their understandings. Of the Lammassers, only the small woman, her thin husband and the grim-faced workman remained, as well as Tregannon and his young steward. She could only admire their courage.
    Tregannon let her go.
    “Simon?” he whispered. “Simon?”
    As if responding to the Lammas Lord’s voice alone, and as if he had been waiting only for that stimulus, the man in her arms shuddered and drew in a sudden, harsh breath. It was her turn to cry out; the Lost One had been dead, she had known this fully in her mind, as had those around her. He had been dead, and now he lived again. She had seen one such miracle herself after the battle in the Gathandrian park, where the Lost One had brought back her young charge from the dead, a gift for which she would by the stars love him for all her living days. But she had not truly thought to witness it again, when the Lost One himself was dead.
    How the day-cycles were changing, and their worlds were all new.
    The Lost One opened his eyes, his breathing steadying, and Tregannon began to cry, harsh sobs he made no effort to hide. Annyeke felt the pressures and pain the Lammasser had been holding inside leech slowly, and only a little, out of his blood.
    “How …? I c-cannot … this day. What-what happens now?” he whispered, to himself.
    From smiling down in