Hallsfoot's Battle (5 page)

Still, while he finished the best of her
bread, she was impressed that he only glanced twice at the
mind-cane that hovered in the corner of the room. She and Simon had
their backs to it and she couldn’t find it within herself to blame
them. When Johan finished his first platter, Annyeke refilled it
and he ate that, too. He refused a third plate, instead downing a
beaker of springwater. Just as well, as there was no more bread to
hand.

“Thank you,” he said at last, his voice
steadier than she’d anticipated. From his proximity, she knew his
mind was less so, but she could not hope for miracles. Not yet,
anyway.

She nodded. There were so many things she
wanted to say to this man but none of them could find their way
into her mouth. Most of all, she longed to touch him, but knew if
she did that once she’d never be able to let go. He was her
overseer in the Sub-Council of Meditation. It would— or should—be
unthinkable.

As if he’d caught the echo of her mind,
though gods and stars forbid, surely he had not, he sprang to his
feet and paced towards the window before turning.

“I’m sorry,” he said, staring briefly at her
before dropping his gaze again. “I should have been here. I…I have
not been.”

It wasn’t a great apology, though she hadn’t
thought they’d needed one. The normal rules surely did not apply
now. Annyeke suddenly realised that the steady blue of his aura had
become streaked with jagged green and a deep abiding red, the
colours of jealousy and shame. She swallowed. Was she drawing those
feelings out of him? Because of the responsibility the Elders had
left to her? He had no reason for it; she would give the herbs and
trees from the parkland itself for the burden of this duty not to
be her own, but his. But what was done had been witnessed by many.
Impossible to change it now. Johan looked as if he might say
something else, but the scribe got there first.

“Well,” Simon murmured. “We may not be the
most obvious of conspirators but at least we’re all here.”

“Conspirators?” Annyeke raised both
eyebrows.

“Yes. Shouldn’t we be planning something to
defend Gathandria against the mind-executioner’s next assault? Your
elders were convinced that the Battle of the Western Shore was not
an end to it.”

The Battle of the Western Shore, Annyeke
thought. That was already what the people were calling it. It made
it sound more formal than it had been. She remembered it more as a
desperate skirmish and an unlikely victory than a battle. She
waited for Johan to speak but, with a slight smile, he gestured at
her to take the floor.

She rose from the table where she’d been
sitting and frowned at the two men, wondering what, in the name of
the stars above, her words might be and how the three of them could
possibly begin. Then it came to her.

“I’ve been looking through the old texts,”
she said. “While you’ve both been…resting, and I think they might
be the key to what we do next.”

Annyeke was surprised she had managed to
vocalise her thoughts at all, much less that they sounded
reasonable. The fact that Johan was sitting in her kitchen area
continued to make her feel as if a shock of ice-cold water was
drenching her, over and over again. From the instinct for personal
preservation, she assessed her personal mind-wall but found nothing
untoward there and, besides, Johan still hadn’t seemed to notice
anything, which was something she should be accustomed to. Damn him
to the far reaches of the Gathandrian empire. Knowing how she felt
about Johan didn’t make it easier to bear. Nor did the realisation
that the scribe had, in a way beyond her imaginings, guessed her
secret make her life any less difficult. How had he done that? His
mind-skills weren’t greater than hers, mind-cane or no
mind-cane.

“What old texts?” This from Simon. He had no
real knowledge of Gathandria beyond the little Johan must have told
him. She could sense the lack of her country’s history in his head.
And books and writing were, of course, central to the scribe’s
heart.

“They’re the legends of our country,” she
explained. “Stories written down over the generations, before even
our telling, and which have been kept in the Great Library of
Gathandria for as long as the tales themselves have existed. Much
of the Library was destroyed during the wars with Gelahn, but the
most precious of the books were kept underground in a cellar only
the elders knew of, until I found it. There were other far more
terrible things going on in that cellar, too, but that’s not for
the telling now. The fact is, I brought some of the most important
texts home, not long before the two of you returned to us, and I’ve
been reading them. They talk about many interesting things.”

“The old legends,” Johan whispered, a frown
creasing his forehead for a moment. “You have them? Which ones?
What do they say?”

“All the stories that the elders talked
about,” Annyeke replied, “and some they didn’t. Mostly— and it’s
hidden throughout the writings, so you have to read
carefully—there’s an overarching legend about a ‘Lost One’ who has
been missing for many year-cycles. So many that nobody can remember
his name. Though why the elders assumed that it’s a man is a
mystery to me—it may just as well be a woman. There’s no reason why
not. Ancient Gathandrian doesn’t specify gender. Anyway, this Lost
One returns one day to our city, when it is most in need of him. He
fights for us and our world is safe. Not only us but all the worlds
around us, too, which are our responsibility. All the tears and
pain and crying will be gone, and instead we will have peace and
joy and plenty of love. That, at least, is what the texts tell
me.”

By the time she’d finished, she was
whispering. Neither of her companions said anything to fill the
void. It was as if the truth of the words she’d spoken had filled
the room and created its own brief world, or as if none dared speak
at all.

The air rolled in stillness. This was broken
a moment later by the door being shoved open and a small boy
rushing into the relative warmth of the cooking area. Talus.

“Johan,” he panted, eyes shining and hair
sticking up from his head like the plumage of young park-crows.
“Johan, you’re here.”

Johan took a step away from Annyeke’s young
charge, arms stiff and eyes wide, as if faced with a wood-leopard
on the hunt.

At the same time, the mind-cane leapt from
its position of rest in the corner, the wild humming louder than
she’d ever heard it before, and hurtled across the space between
them towards Talus. She could sense a surge of frustration, despair
even, pouring from it, but didn’t know why.

“No.”

The shout was hers, but it was Simon who got
there first.

Simon

Without thinking, the scribe launched himself
toward the mind-cane as it spun towards the boy. He could feel the
waves of a strange anger born of fear sweeping over him from its
silver carving, but he had no concept of any danger to himself. His
thoughts were full of the memory of Carthen.

He hit the cane away from Talus with his
fingers. At once, heat seared up his arm and he tumbled to the
floor with a cry. The pain arced between skin and mind, mind and
skin, a circle of agony. At the edge of his vision he could see
Annyeke lurching towards him, obviously trying to help in some way.
Behind her, Johan grabbed Talus and pushed him out of danger.

The mind-cane jittered on the stone slabs,
moving once more towards the boy. The humming had vanished, but the
impression of threat had not. More than that, he could sense a
strange purpose emanating from the cane, but what it was eluded
him.

“Simon.”

The scribe blinked. The voice was not audible
but in his head only. It was Johan. Despite everything that had
happened and the situation they now found themselves in, he
couldn’t help but smile. Over the last two day-cycles, he’d missed
the Gathandrian’s thought-voice.

“Yes?” he replied, in mind only.

“Pick the cane up.”

“What?”

“Pick it up,” Johan said directly to his mind
again. “Now. Please?”

The cane’s humming began again. Sending a
variety of thoughts towards Johan, none of which could be spoken
with the child present, Simon skidded along the floor in obedience.
His eyes were fixed on the length of vibrating ebony and silver.
His heart was beating fast and his skin felt cold, a relief after
the heat of pain a moment ago.

Once between the cane and his companions, he
slowly, so slowly, stretched out his hand. The mind-cane’s
trembling became more violent and the feeling of thwarted anger
more powerful, but the noise it was making lessened. He thanked all
the stars for that, as the sound had pierced his skull, making it
almost impossible to think.

Just as his fingers were only a shade or so
away from the cane’s dark mass, Annyeke spoke.

“Wait,” she said.

“Why?” This from Johan.

“I don’t know if the cane meant to frighten
us. Simon, what were you thinking when Talus came in?”

The scribe swallowed and for a long moment
the world in front of him blurred before coming back in clarity
again. “Nothing. Except that …”

“Except…what?”

“Except when he greeted Johan, I thought of
Carthen.”

As he spoke his apprentice’s name aloud for
the first time, his voice shook and he pushed back a fresh wave of
memory. As he did so, the cane started its strange humming again
and began to slide along the floor like strange water, heading
towards Johan and the boy.

Simon.

This time the voice in his mind was Annyeke’s
and the shock of it made him shake his head, as if to dislodge her.
He wondered for a heartbeat or two if all Gathandrians were like
this, or whether privacy was a shifting notion here.

“Never mind that, Simon,” she said, aloud
this time, and quickly, as if getting all the words out into the
open before danger struck again. “I think the cane is picking up on
your thoughts, acting on them. Perhaps mine, too, but not so
greatly. You thought of your friend and the cane homed in on Talus.
It’s responding to you as it has been over the last two day-cycles.
You must clear your mind.”

How? With that thought came another flare of
anger towards Annyeke, but he quelled it at once, putting into his
head the picture of the river he had once shared with Johan,
something calm, flowing and blue. With every breath, he eased
himself more into those waters, imagining the refreshment, the
happiness he would gain from that. As he did so, the noise the cane
was making changed into a purring sound, it rested back down on the
floor and spun slowly into his hand as if it was the most natural
thing in the world. For one long moment, he could feel no burning,
as he had before. Then the palm of his hand began to grow hot and
he let the cane go.

It lay beside him, silent and still, at
last.

Annyeke sighed and got up as the boy ran
towards her.

“Good,” she said. “And thank you, Simon. I
think perhaps here is where we’ll begin.”

Second Lammas Lands
Chronicle

Ralph

He barely reaches the castle in time before
the clouds descend upon them. Nightcloud is as nervous as a rabbit
in spring and the groom struggles to hold him. Glancing backwards
at the darkening sky, Ralph places his hand on the horse’s neck
where the servant can’t see and sends a flow of calming thoughts
through the skin of his palm into the animal’s hot flesh. At once,
Nightcloud trembles into stillness. The groom’s eyes widen as he
glances at Ralph, but he is wise enough to say nothing. Ralph
knows, however, there will be rumours tonight and he curses his own
desperate need for haste. He will have to be more careful in
future.

He growls at the man, hoping to distract him
with commands he will already most likely perform. “Rub the horse
down and give him only a little hay. I don’t want him fretful.”

“Yes, my lord,” he blinks and his gaze slides
away. Perhaps he, too, is planning rebellion. Such an act would not
surprise Ralph and may, indeed, only be what he deserves. Still, he
does not have the power to broach the horseman’s mind, and trying
to read his emotions will only alert him to any oddities. Best wait
until whatever is ahead finally comes.

For now, Ralph must prepare for Gelahn.

He takes the courtyard at a run, ignoring the
pain in his leg and nearly stumbling over one of the old hunting
hounds, blind in its dotage. The swiftness of the movement makes
the pouch of emeralds in his belt rub against his thigh. He does
not know what to do with them. The one or two men he passes pay him
no heed; they are already casting fearful glances at the sky and
running for their own homes.

During the frantic journey inside the castle
to his private rooms, Ralph meets no one. The few servants he owns
have already fled or are in hiding. He can’t blame them. The last
time the mind-executioner was here, the hopes that they had for the
Lammas Lands and all the plans he’d longed to share with his people
were slowly destroyed. Optimism turned to despair and dreams to
dust. Ralph had wanted everything too quickly, and power most of
all. It was the desire for that which had brought them all to
ruin.

Once in his rooms, Ralph swings round,
seeking for solutions to what is to happen, though he knows there
are none. He was a fool to hope in spite of everything that Gelahn
would have finished with him. If that had been the case, then Ralph
would be dead.

Death is not the worst that can occur.

The sky is almost like night, although there
are no stars and he makes his way by feel. Gelahn’s arrival has
blocked out the sun. Outside there is a terrible silence. Even the
animals and birds make no noise. Flinging his cloak from him, Ralph
snatches the emeralds from his belt and holds them for a moment in
the palm of his hand. Their magical glow seems stronger but that
might only be the light of them against the darkness. He must find
somewhere to hide them, but where?