Hallsfoot's Battle (45 page)

“On the contrary, First Elder,” the Lost One
said, “tears are the most natural response of all, as far as I can
see, especially after so much darkness.”

Annyeke gazed at the man standing in front of
her. At first sight, she could almost believe nothing had changed
in Simon’s appearance. A slight man, his expressions tentative, the
aura around him a shifting blue, sometimes so pale that sunlight
obliterated it altogether. But now he had shadows in his eyes that
had not been there before, and scars on his flesh from his ordeal
with young Talus. Then again, so had Johan. So had they all, though
it was remarkable that her own sight was unaltered from before. The
marks on her loved one’s face would heal, but the impression of
them would remain forever, as would the wound at his side. None of
this mattered to Annyeke. Besides, it was somehow fitting, and they
had indeed been lucky. Shadows of loss and shadows of strength, the
two senses forming a mirror image of each other. The beginnings of
wisdom for them all perhaps? In the Lost One’s right hand lay the
mind-cane, like a sleeping animal, its colours now the customary
black and silver—no longer a weapon of war. At his left on a nearby
scattering of skeleton and stone that had once been the undead
Lammas soldiers and Gelahn’s mountain dogs, the snow-raven perched,
its watchful eye turned towards the scribe. The bird looked as if
it would follow him forever.

“You are right,” said Annyeke. “For a man,
that is itself unusual. Still…”

“Still, it is a day such as you have not
experienced before and we are glad of it.”

In an unexpected gesture, the Lost One pulled
her into a brief hug, taking care to keep the mind-cane away from
her skin. The new First Elder of Gathandria was grateful for that.
Now that Simon had begun to open his mind to the artefact, allowing
its deep strength to guide his journey, she had no way of telling
how the cane would respond to the sudden contact with another’s
thoughts. The scribe and the mind-cane needed to consolidate their
fragile relationship without hindrance. She hoped he would be
granted the time to do it.

Perhaps, indeed, that was what they should
have done at the very start. There had been no need for any of
them, her least of all, to concern themselves with the scribe’s
mind-training. The cane had its own purposes and had probably
carried them in secret all along, waiting only for the chance to
speak in full to its new master.

One day, Annyeke thought, this tale might
well be a legend many in Gathandria and beyond would read.

Simon released her and laughed, the sound
causing the silver carving on the cane to sparkle in the bright
air.

“You may well be right,” he said. “But that
is for later, much later. Now is for you and Johan.”

Annyeke turned in the direction of the Lost
One’s gaze. Through the faces and minds of the gathered people,
focused in the preparatory silence of ritual, she could see her
beloved had arrived at last.

The first thing she noticed about him was
what she always did, the utter deep blue glory of his eyes. Not sky
blue—they had never been so, but a blue like the depths of the vast
seas that surrounded the city. He was dressed in a tunic and cloak
of pure gold and he was smiling. Next to him Talus, in his role of
groom companion and looking for all the world as if his recent
taste of death had been nothing, was walking, his young face solemn
and his hair smoothed down. Annyeke wondered how long that had
taken Johan to achieve and how long it would last.

It didn’t matter.

The crowd parted for him. And, for the first
time in her life, she understood that here and now was where she
should be, and there was nowhere else better in the whole of
Gathandria or even the skies themselves.

Simon led them both in the few words of
commitment customary on such occasions. He had learned them well
and quickly and the ancient words flowed from his mouth as if he
had always known them. In fact, it was Annyeke who stumbled. From
the moment Johan had appeared, everything around her seemed
brighter, and the words she knew so well filled her thoughts with
colours beyond her understanding. She was glad of the ease of his
mind linked to hers, and the way his heart somehow reached into her
very centre and made her stronger, or at least that was how it
felt.

After all the words were over and the Lost
One had given them the blessing of the Spirit of Gathandria, Johan
leaned forward, touching the side of Annyeke’s face so the tips of
his fingers brushed against her hair, and kissed her. His lips felt
soft and she knew she was smiling.

Yesterday was behind them. Even in spite of
it, today, she knew, had become a good day, but what about
tomorrow? For them all?

Chapter Fourteen: The parting of the ways

Simon

A week-cycle had run its course since the day
of Johan and Annyeke’s joining. To allow them the privacy they’d
needed, the scribe had gathered his meagre belongings from
Annyeke’s house after the ceremony and pondered where to go.

The answer had come to him just as the
snow-raven took flight and the mind-cane began to hum. It had
surprised him but, then again, many things surprised him and he
would have to learn not to be afraid of that. So, he’d obeyed the
impulse and the three of them, half Gathandrian, bird and cane, had
walked the few streets to where Iffenia’s sculpting room lay
empty.

As he’d drawn aside the curtain that still
hung there despite the disaster and pain of battle, he’d wondered
again why Iffenia had fallen prey to such despair and blackness.
When he and Johan had found out Isabella had betrayed them
throughout their journey to Gathandria, the situation had been very
different. She’d been mourning the loss of her beloved, Petrus, and
grief had turned to revenge and the overarching desire for Petrus
to live again. That, Simon could understand. But Iffenia? Somehow
the unfathomable blackness unleashed by her despair and pain had
swallowed her up so that light became darkness, and darkness
light.

A gentle touch on his shoulder and he turned
to see the snow-raven, beak open and wings spread out, as if both
to admonish and protect. The scribe gripped the cane a little
tighter, and heard the song’s colours in his thoughts.

He swallowed. Yes. The bird was right. With
just a small step in any of the directions he had faced in his life
and then not taken, perhaps his fate would have been Iffenia’s.
After all, what deep despair might have overpowered him if Johan
had simply left him in the Lammas Lands after his escape from
death? Without the strange and terrifying journey to Gathandria to
act as a call and focus point, where truly would his own mind have
wandered? Perhaps, after all, even then the gods and stars had
blessed him.

Back on that first day-cycle in his new home,
the scribe had stepped forward and allowed the curtain to fall
behind him, letting the sensations of the sculpting room ease into
his skin. He hadn’t really got used to the way the mind-cane made
everything, his senses, his feelings, his mind itself, sharper, as
if, up until this point in his life, he’d been seeing things at a
distance or through a layer of cloud. Now, his eyes had been
opened.

In his palm, the cane quivered and he felt
its warmth spreading through him. Because of it, he allowed himself
one slight smile before focusing on the emotions and thoughts
Iffenia had left behind here.

At first, he could see in his mind nothing
untoward. Love of the work she did and a deep abiding determination
to protect it. Loneliness at the absence of her husband. Grief at
the wars that had ravaged them. Concern for her country. Nothing
that could explain why Gelahn had been able to use her to all but
cause the land’s destruction, not in the way that there had been
reason beneath Isabella’s choice.

Perhaps, he thought, the mind could also then
be a dangerous gift, as well as a liberating one. Even in
Gathandria. Perhaps the executioner had taken the secret pathways
of Iffenia’s desires, had been drawn to them somehow, had known
they were there even before she did, and twisted them into a
pattern of knots she could never untangle. After his recent
dealings with Gelahn, the scribe understood only too well how easy
it was to be fooled, how much he’d found himself believing in the
executioner’s story. He had no right to blame another for falling
into the same trap as he himself had done.

He laid the cane on the largest of the
carving tables and slowly walked the circumference of the sculpting
room. As he did so, the snow-raven who had followed him inside
fluttered into one of the corners, folded his wings and blinked at
him. Simon could smell the dust with something deeper inlaid behind
as it danced in the afternoon sunlight. He touched each table, each
stool, each carving. More than anything, he wanted to remember, and
the physical contact somehow gave him a path for the remnants of
her art to travel on. Iffenia had not, to his thoughts, been a bad
woman, wherever it was she had vanished to. Come what may, she
deserved better than to be forgotten or held up as a symbol of
wrongdoing amongst the Gathandrian people. Now he understood
something more of what the mind-cane could achieve, he would use it
to the best of his ability, such as it was.

When he considered his mind and skin were
full almost to breaking point with the knowledge of the woman who
had been kind to him even for deceitful reasons, he drew up a stool
and sat by the cane. The snow-raven opened his great beak and one
single note of purity, a perfect orb of gold, drifted over the dust
towards him. He reached out and placed it onto his tongue. At once,
sweetness filled him and this time he felt no bitterness piercing
his stomach after. He swallowed down the raven’s gift and felt a
measured clarity taking him over. It eased its way through the
memories he’d allowed to infiltrate him—Iffenia’s memories—and
contained their wild energy where it pulsed against his bones.

“Thank you,” he said, speaking aloud for he
knew he would need all his thought-energy in the contact with the
mind-cane. At the same time, he wondered whether he should have
asked for company in what he was about to attempt. But no, this was
between him and the missing woman only. For, in the final
reckoning, it was he as well as Gelahn who had led her to do what
she had done, even though she had not understood it to the
full.

Then, when he hoped he might be ready, he
stretched out his hand once more and took hold of the cane. It flew
upwards to meet him as if it had been waiting too long for the
scribe to call to it.

Immediately, Simon’s thoughts were flooded
with sensations not his own as the memories leapt through him and
into the mind-cane, the warmth of long hair against his neck, the
chill of uncarved stone under his fingers, and the satisfaction of
viewing the completed sculpture, whether of man, woman or beast—all
that and a thousand things besides. The feeling of how safe it is
to hide under the dining table and watch my parents walk past,
playing in the park and running with the cedar-starlings as they
learn to fly, my first kiss and the glow of magic that passes
between us when our lips touch. Most of all, the day I meet my
husband and know how it will be. After that, his journey to be one
of the great elders, my pride in him for that, and finally the way
the darkness came, and how the gift of leadership I had longed for
him was no gift for any of us at all.

With a lurch, Simon opened his eyes. He found
he was gasping and tried to steady his breath as the last of
Iffenia’s memories flowed through his hand into the mind-cane. When
he was sure they had gone, he dropped the cane so it clattered down
onto the floor. The faint afterglow of the transactions clung to
the silver carving, but he’d paid it no need. Instead, he’d rested
his head on the table and waited until the slow strands of his own
character slunk back into his thoughts. After a while, although he
hadn’t heard any noise, he became aware of the soft touch of
feathers on his hair. Whatever happened, the snow-raven made him
feel safe. Thank the gods and stars, as he suspected he would never
be entirely free of his fear of the mind-cane. Would it always be
like that then, even in spite of the perfect harmony he’d felt in
Talus’ mind-scape? Would he always feel as if the life had been
sucked from him whenever he had to perform such rituals with the
ancient artefact? He hoped he might one day grow more accustomed to
whatever might be expected of him, but he couldn’t be sure. The
only example he had was Gelahn and he had no desire to follow him.
He’d come dangerously close to doing so twice before in his life,
and he didn’t wish to allow it to happen a third time.

He sat up. The snow-raven folded its wing
back and looked at him. Those sharp black eyes seemed to take in
all he had been, all he was now, and all he might yet be. Simon
smiled, reaching out his hand so his fingers rested on the bird’s
great head.

“You’ll help me,” he whispered. “Won’t you?
If I turn to the bad again, or even if I’m tempted to. Because
something tells me I’ll always need your help, my friend.”

He didn’t expect an answer. Bird wisdom came
when it wanted to, and not when he requested it. And, even then,
the interpretation of what the raven said could be complex. But,
this day, he saw a flash of silver from the raven’s beak spark its
way through the air and into the skin of his arm.

Some flights are sky length, others only the
span of the trees, but no bird need travel alone.

The words themselves were not so measured—the
snow-raven’s speech was his own—but the scribe found that now he
could more easily interpret what was said.

Thank you.