The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

but to come to join us, and we will continue to fight to destroy the murderer until we are free or until we die. There are no other possibilities. We must steal the little grain they have left, contaminate the water they drink and burn yet more fields until there are none left to sow in order to flush him out for destruction. We are the courageous ones and it is up to us to make our land safe again and, though we will count the cost of the blood which is shed, we will not turn away from it. Do you understand this?”
    Jemelda paused and looked round the people. One by one they nodded, although some swallowed hard and a few of the women gripped the hands of their neighbours. It was up to Thomas to speak for them.
    “We will follow you, Jemelda,” he said, “until the man who has wronged us is most truly dead.”

Eighth Gathandrian Interlude

    Annyeke

    The First Elder didn’t waste any time-cycles; within the length of a winter evening story, she had settled the Chair Maker into her home, leaving Johan organising the people into work-teams for the morning. Little could be done tonight. Talus was asleep in his bed-area. She had kissed him and soothed a mind-comfort around his thought. Though such things were used for younger children, she knew he had need of it, and now he would sleep until daylight.
    In the kitchen, she poured a beaker of water for the Chair Maker who had accompanied her in silence and was sitting on one of her kitchen stools. She was glad for the lack of speech, as she needed to concentrate her mind for what needed to be done. She was not fool enough to imagine her fellow-elder did not glean at least some of this from keeping company with her, but he would not understand everything. Annyeke had made sure of it.
    She gave him his water-beaker and took one for herself before sitting down opposite him. The water tasted warm and musty but it would have to suffice as she did not have the heart to renew it. The rest of her people did not take fresh water more than once a day in this post-war world, and neither would she.
    Annyeke put down the glass and gazed at the Chair Maker. “You must tell me the truth, about everything you and your wife have done, or nothing of what we try to heal in any of the lands will succeed. Why did you not tell me this before?”
    She thought he might protest, tell her she was mistaken, but he did not. He laughed and she swore a dark shadow she could not grasp drifted over his expression but the next moment it had gone and he was himself again.
    “Why do you not simply read my mind?” he asked her. “It would be quicker to get the truth you say I keep from you.”
    She leaned forward, knowing a frown was wrinkling her forehead. “I do not ravish your thought like that, because I am not made of that ilk. I am not an elder who moulds everything to suit myself and does not care who suffers for it. Then again, neither am I an elder who will let you ruin the lives of our people and not see you punished in full. So, I will ask you once more only in words: tell me the truth about your wife and how far this dabbling with the most evil of legends has gone, and do not addle me with the foolish sentiment you did before. By the great Gathandrian spirit, Chair Maker, speak or that will be the end of it.”
    She meant what she said, and she knew the Chair Maker could see it. His lips thinned and he sighed.
    “No matter,” he said, breaking her gaze. “You will know soon enough, and the damage has already begun. So, I will tell you what I know, First Elder.”
    As the Chair Maker began to speak, he first took a careful sip of the water she had given him, so Annyeke wondered if he thought it might be poisoned, as if drinking from her own beaker should not have told him otherwise. If she killed, she would kill cleanly as she had despatched the mind-executioner; she would not perform such finality in the dark.
    “I explained to you how much I loved my wife,” he said. “Iffenia has been my heart’s joy from the day I met her. When Johan and Isabella started their journey to find the mysterious Lost One, we knew there would be difficulties for us and we knew above all else that finding the Lost One would bring a diminishing of the elders’ power. How could it be otherwise? We knew, or at least some of us did, the story we were unleashing. In the very beginning, whilst our then First Elder was burying himself deep within our ancient Gathandrian legends in his search for what he