The Executioner's Cane (33 page)

Simon flinches, brings his hand up and grasps
Ralph’s arm, whether to shake him off or draw him closer the Lammas
Lord can’t tell, but in any case it’s already too late. The link
between them is forged, the colours of it red and blue and the
brightest of silver, and the intensity of it sharp enough to divide
them at the heart, or forge them together. The mind-cane in Simon’s
care begins to sing a piercing note and Ralph gasps.

You fool. The mind-voice is Simon’s, which is
welcome although the tone of it is distinctly not. You cannot
simply meddle with my thoughts without warning.

It takes a while for Ralph to find his own
thought-words for lack of recent usage, but he keeps his hold on
the scribe while he battles for the necessary strength, and all the
time the cane next to them is humming a rising song.

Why so? he manages at last. Have you become
so important than none may reach you without permission? Do you
expect me to beg an audience with my Scribe?

That is most definitely not what Ralph has
meant to say, but Simon’s first mind-words have riled him beyond
the reasonable limits of patience. Odd how he has meant to be
conciliatory, after his fashion, and already they are arguing. It
was never like that in the past.

Unexpectedly Simon laughs, and Ralph can feel
the echo of it within his mind, like a sudden rush of the warmest
water. That is because in the past it was I who had to beg an
audience, or any acknowledgement, from you, Lammas Lord. But I do
not warn you because I am proud, or at least I hope I am not. I do
not know how the mind-cane will react to your presence, that is
all. I am not as much in control of its power as you may think.

With that, Simon twists Ralph’s hand away
from his head and the link is shattered. Both men are breathing
hard. Ralph notices the cane is pulsating and the silver carving is
sparking with fire, and he keeps a wary eye for whatever it has
decided to do to him for his impulsiveness. The scribe turns his
back on him and murmurs something Ralph can’t hear to the artefact.
Then he brings it up to his forehead and places it where Ralph has
been touching him. Simon shuts his eyes, takes an unsteady breath,
and slowly the mind-cane’s wild movement and song begin to
vanish.

Ralph brushes his hand over his face,
bringing away sweat which chills on his skin, and waits until both
man and cane seem more composed. He sighs. It appears as if he must
speak his thought aloud after all, no matter who is present. A
quick glance at Simon’s father, however, shows the old man is lying
down, eyes staring straight ahead at something Ralph can’t see, and
still muttering words impossible to catch. By the gods and stars,
the Hartstongues are a strange family, but then so too are the
Tregannons. Perhaps there is nothing he can say in judgement at
all.

Simon nods, a quirk still on his lips, and to
Ralph’s surprise takes him by the arm and draws them both out into
the chill of the corridor.

“My father will do himself no harm for a
little while,” he says. “Speak, my good Lord, and say aloud
whatever is on your mind tonight.”

Ralph blinks. He has never known the scribe
so seemingly confident or at ease with himself. He does not know
how it has happened, but he envies it. No matter. For now he has
something to say and he will say it.

“We have history, you and I,” he says,
speaking quietly at first but his voice gathering a greater
strength as he continues. “Everyone knows it, and we know it. I
have done things I am not proud of, and so have you, much of it at
my bidding, but we cannot think of these now. You have changed,
grown stronger, whereas I have the least power I have ever known.
Nonetheless, I intend to build peace in my lands if I have to die
to get it, and your presence here, with the mind-cane, has the
ability to help achieve that. So, no matter what Jemelda believes
or what she does, you must survive and rebuild this land
again.”

Simon laughs and steps back. “And if your
former servant destroys what little there is left to build on, how
can I and the mind-cane help then? Assuming we even understood what
it was we could do.”

“You will do what is needful when the time
arrives, Simon,” Ralph replies, feeling in his blood both the truth
of it and his companion’s confusion. “Tomorrow I will take a few of
those left here and go to find Jemelda. You must take the seeds
which remain and try to make them grow, the gods and stars know how
but I see no other solution. The cane, and perhaps my emeralds,
will help you. The important thing is that I do not destroy the
land my father bequeathed me, Simon, because above all else I
cannot countenance that shame.”

When Ralph finishes speaking, his hands are
clenched into fists and his skin feels hot. He did not mean for the
conversation to turn to these matters so soon, as he meant to speak
only about Simon, but he finds he could not and his only escape
route is in the matters of the land, which itself rightly clamours
for his attention.

Simon’s reaction is not what he expects. The
man slams him back into the wall behind and the jagged stone digs
into his body. The mind-cane shines a piercing silver and Ralph
cannot look directly at it because of the intensity.

Do not speak of shame, Simon tells him mind
to mind with no speech needed, when we both have shame enough to
last us a life-cycle beyond measure, and when you yourself have
barely the taste of it on your tongue. Believe me when I say you
know nothing of shame.

With that, he lets Ralph go. The Lammas Lord
stares at him and knows he has not been mistaken. Beneath Simon’s
anger is the same current of desire that runs through his own
blood. It may overwhelm them both if they do not take care, as he
fears if once he lets the scribe, no matter what he has become now,
into his life again then the fate of the land he loves will be as
the rivers after the flood which rise up at night and are gone
again in the morning. He will not countenance any distraction to
what he has sworn to do for his people.

Simon wipes his hand up and across his face.
He too is sweating.

“We cannot do this now,” he says, his voice
unsteady and gazing only at the mind-cane which is suddenly
quieter. “As you say, there is too much else at stake we cannot
afford to lose. But believe me, if the land survives and if we
ourselves live, there will be a reckoning between us one day, my
Lord. Now, go, all of us need to regain our strength.”

With that, the scribe slips around Ralph’s
frame and disappears back into the room that holds his father. The
Lammas Lord is left alone in the draughty corridor and more than
unsettled by what has occurred. Although there is no door to stop
his continuing pursuit of the man, Simon’s message is clear and he
has said what Ralph could not, for all his planning, bring himself
to say, may the gods and stars damn them both. Because of it, Ralph
cannot follow him. He would look like a beggar if he did, and he
refuses to take on such a role more than he has already done
so.

However, Simon has given him his orders and,
whilst obeying them goes against the grain of generations of Lammas
rule, the command to rest remains a good one. With a muttered
curse, Ralph turns on his heel and makes his way to his own
quarters, far more open to the elements than are Simon’s.

Behind him, he does not see the Lost One
watching him go.

Tenth Gathandrian
Interlude

Annyeke

She woke even before dawn, her head full of
visions of the Great Library. She could see books and parchments
drifting over a level plain. It was the height of the
summer-season, the sun warming her skin. Annyeke always suffered in
the sun and made every effort to cover her head if she had to
venture out. Now though, in this strange and waking dream, she had
no sensation of burning. When she looked up, she could see a shape
walking towards her over the layers of books strewn across the
grass. Behind him, trees faded and vanished as if being pulled away
by an unseen force. Gradually the shape became clearer and she
could see the figure of a man, with sparks of silver flashing from
the object he held. She knew at once it was the Lost One. Simon the
scribe.

She called out to him, but in her dream she
had no voice and he did not respond to her mind. As he came nearer,
she tried to reach out for him but her body would not obey her
command and, at the last moment, Simon turned away, not even
acknowledging her. Her heart filled with a strange and unfamiliar
grief but she did not know what she mourned for. To her surprise,
the Lost One came to a halt when she had imagined he would continue
his journey.

Annyeke sensed a deep silence fill her
thoughts. She did not know where it came from or what its purpose
was but she could not gainsay it. It was as pure as water and as
clear as a summer-season sky. She closed her eyes and felt its
permanence enter her skin and bones. In her mind she could see the
great star clusters, as they swung the turning of the year-cycles
across the sky. The fox, the oak and the wolf, then the river, the
elm and the horseman. Their shapes and patterns melded into each
other and then became themselves again. She did not understand the
significance of what she was seeing. From her knowledge of the Lost
One, Annyeke remembered Lord Tregannon had been born under the sign
of the fox, and the Lammassers paid great attention to these
symbols. The Gathandrians paid them less heed but she understood
their importance in the Lammassers’ mind-set and would do well not
to forget it. After the horseman came the lovers, the lone man and
the mountain. At this latter, she swallowed hard because the
mountain was dead and would not be seen again in this
generation-cycle. Nothing they had done had been able to save it
from destruction. Finally, the half-circle constellation of the owl
floated across her vision, the sign of the Lost One himself. Odd
how this part of her vision had started with Tregannon’s sign and
ended with this one. There had to be a significance but she could
not relate it to anything she knew or guessed at. She didn’t know
how long this lasted in her dream but after a while, she became
aware of a whisper in her mind. Nothing more than a mere breath and
she thought it was only because of the silence that she could even
hear it.

The whisper came in a voice she did not
recognise. It was neither the Lost One, nor Johan, nor Talus, nor
any she knew in her life. Nor was it the voice of the Great
Library. She wondered if it might be the Spirit of Gathandria
itself, but such an answer belonged to the mystics, and she was
none.

The voice said this: Let the Lost One tell
the story that is his own. Then silence will be no more and all
shall be well.

These words were repeated over and over again
until Annyeke was sure they would remain part of her flesh and
deepest memory for always. And then, just as suddenly, she knew the
whisper had gone. In her dream, she opened her eyes, the Lost One
turned to her, his expression one of enquiry and hope, and out of
her mind one word filled the air.

Yes.

She woke with a gasp, the fragments of the
dream clinging to her thoughts. The stars and the silence, the
silence and the stars. And something in between both: the words of
the whisper. She needed to act on them and soon. But how, by the
gods?

There in the quietness of her bed, beside the
sleeping form of the man she loved, Annyeke concentrated in the
very depths of her mind. She focused on her special place, the
garden she loved and where she felt most at peace. If anything she
did could contact the Gathandrian Spirit, then her garden would be
the best place to start. Even better, and if she could achieve it
without waking Johan, she would seize the nearest cloak for warmth
and stand in the garden itself until some kind of an answer came to
her.

Without more delay, she wove a mind-net
around Johan so she would not disturb him. Talus, she thought,
would probably sleep through any noise she made. Then she slid out
of bed, padded to her dressing-stool and searched for a cloak until
she found one. She slipped it over her night-clothes and crept out
of the bed-area, through the kitchen and outside. At the same time,
she kept her mind-focus so the colours and shades in her thought
would echo and enrich the garden in her world.

The land was on the cusp between deepest
night and the start of the day. She could see the faint glimmer of
rose-coloured light, messenger of morning, across the eastern sky.
The stars were harder to see, but she could well remember the
patterns they made, even without the vividness of her dream. A soft
breeze lifted her hair a little and she smoothed it down, although
of course it did have a life of its own, and no amount of smoothing
would give her any elegance. The thought made her smile.

From instinct, and driven by a compulsion she
couldn’t quite place, she made her way towards her lemon tree, the
most beloved of her plants. At the start of the wars, it had been
bereft of any leaves, but as they progressed, some growth had come
to it, starting with the one leaf she’d seen there after Johan and
Isabella – poor Isabella! – had begun their journey to Lammas.
Later more leaves had sprouted, but since the onset of winter and
the Library’s demise there had been no more.

She expected to see none this morning. She
was wrong.

She smelt the tree almost before she saw it,
though surely this was impossible as the budding-season was many
week-cycles from now. The ghostly shape of the branches glimmered
in the low light and for a moment Annyeke thought they were
actually moving before she realised it was the abundance of leaves
adorning the tree and not the branches themselves which swayed in
the slight breeze. She peered closer, the breath catching in her
throat, and saw the leaves were not green but the purest white. The
pale pink dawn caught their brightness and all but dazzled her even
in the gloom. And although there were no buds, the leaves
themselves gave out the lemon scent.