Hallsfoot's Battle

by Anne Brooke

  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 cou
ld 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.

  *****

  Now, a week-cycle after that day of celebration, when the sun had shone from the faces of both his friends, Simon had begun almost to feel as if the sculpting room might be home, of a sort. Still, something niggled at him. Words and thoughts in his head came to him in the colours of the vast waters and spun him out of his comfort. There were too many things that remained unresolved and even uncommenced, such things as could not be brought to any conclusion here.

  One of them, of course, was Ralph. He assumed the Lammas Lord was back in his own land, in the ruined castle with the ruined people around him. The scribe could still sense the Lammasser in his blood and was glad he lived. Neither had he sensed anything beyond that he had arrived in his own lands after his perilous journey, although the state of him could not be guessed at, physically or of the mind. Nor could Simon forget how Ralph had helped him win the battle with the gift of the emeralds, just that one time, with no hope that anything he could do would be enough, but with an instinct which had driven him on.

  What did that action mean? Lord Tregannon had made it more than evident Simon was a liability to him, from the place of the Hanging Tree until here. He had left in the end, hadn’t he, when he could so easily have stayed. Everything had changed in their circumstances and, to go back to what they had once been, for however short a time, was beyond the impossible. It might have been more logical for Ralph to stand beside Gelahn in those final few moments of war. The emeralds were his, after all, and with them and the executioner he might even have had whatever he wished, power over Gathandria and the scribe’s destruction. But he had chosen not to do so. Even with the segment of mind left to him, he had chosen to try for life.

  Perhaps then, there was hope…but it could not be deciphered. Simon shook his head and thought of the other matters that stirred him. He had unfinished business, not just with Ralph, but with the Lammas Lands themselves. He had left there as a murderer. The lands had been ravaged, more deeply even than Gathandria, and the people undoubtedly lost. And for the moment the Lammas Master himself would be too broken to help. Ralph would heal, somehow, Simon knew it, but whether that healing would come in time to save the lands and those who dwelt within them he could not tell. On that matter, even the mind-cane and the snow-raven were silent.

  He sighed, rose to his feet and stood at the doorway, looking out at the street and the still damaged buildings of the city. Groups of men and women made their way through the park area, carrying with them stone, glass and wood, every material they could find to rebuild their beloved Gathandria—except for the stones that had once been Gelahn’s dogs, which had been buried during the aftermath of the battle. And with the dogs lay the bones of the undead army. He could hear the low murmur of voices and the occasional burst of laughter but, more than that, he sensed something in the air and soil he had not sensed here before. Hope. The knowledge there would be no more mind-daggers nor flashes of strange destroying fire to maim and kill. Yes, the pain of loss and death was still fresh and he could see the aura of deep red hovering around each person, but within that colour of grief something lighter also dwelt, silver, cream, white. And with every hour-cycle, the light grew stronger.

  The mind-cane could help them. With its power, they could rebuild their homes and their lives more quickly and, although such magic might cost him dear, he longed to do what his own strength allowed him in order to give them what they worked for. But the itch in his feet, the need to journey back to where he’d gone most wrong and try, however foolishly, to right it would not leave his mind. It nibbled away at his thoughts like a wood beetle nibbles bark and, whenever he tried to direct his concentration elsewhere, it would not let him go.

  He would have to make a choice and soon but, as before, he could see no certain right or wrong way. Whatever he decided would bring pain to one or the other country, and perhaps even both. How he longed for a wisdom that those around him already thought he had. It could not come to him too soon.

  Annyeke

  The red-haired woman watched the Lost One for a few moments where he stood leaning against the doorway of what had so recently been Iffenia’s sculpting room. Odd how being dedicated to one man hadn’t changed her view of men in general. Johan was different, of course. He was…she smiled. She couldn’t find the words to describe how her beloved was. All she knew was since he had kissed her, her skin had felt as if she were always caught by the sun and she seemed to be floating a few precious hand-breadths above the Gathandrian earth. That, of course, was no bad thing; she’d always thought she could do with being taller.

  No matter. She was here, and there was work to be done. She hadn’t intended to be here at all, but something had driven her out of the house, away from her beloved’s embrace and into the chill of the day. She hadn’t been able to stop herself. Not that she’d wished to. A Gathandrian woman’s instinct, in her opinion, was always to be trusted.

  Now, looking at Simon, she thought she might be needed. Even from this distance, coloured clouds drifted over his head—red, green, the deepest blue. None of them stayed over him for long and together they formed a shifting pattern which was, it had to be said, pleasing to the eye, but not so beneficial for his mind.

  She stepped forward and, when she was near enough for him to hear her, spoke as softly as possible. It wasn’t very soft, but it was the best she, Annyeke Hallsfoot, Elder of the great city, could produce under such short notice.

  “Lost One? Is there something troubling you?”

  He blinked and stepped back, his eyes widening briefly. His troubles had to be deep indeed, she thought, for him not to have known she was there. For a long moment, she watched him struggle against the instinct to conceal the truth before he gave her one of his sudden, rare smiles and gestured her inside. In spite of the lancing of her fear, she was glad to note the snow-raven hopped to the far corner of the room, where it gazed at her, but not, she hoped, with anything but kindness.

  “Many things trouble me, Annyeke,” he said, “but, please, let me offer you refreshment. Though perhaps you wish to return to Johan if he is not with you?”

  She shook her head as she installed herself on the nearest stool and stretched her back free. “No, something told me to come alone today.”

  “All is well with you both…?” he began to ask but did not utter aloud more than the first two or three words. He must have seen her answer in her face as he smiled again before turning to place the water pot above the fire to warm it.

  “Yes, all is well. More than well,” she reassured him. “But the land seemed to wish me to visit you and so I am here. Tell me then what it is that troubles you.”

  As was so often the way with men, even with Johan, he did not answer her at once. Instead, his thoughts withdrew into his skin and he took two beakers and scattered herbs inside them to sweeten the water, thyme, river lavender, red beech. A soothing combination. She waited until she had taken her first sip and felt its heat and solidity create a link of hospitality between them before she spoke once more, aloud rather than simply in the mind.

  “You know you can trust me,” she said, surprised to find words she hadn’t thought to speak flowing from her tongue. “Even though I have taken the role of First Elder in this city, for the time-cycle being, it doesn’t mean I’m still not Annyeke. That doesn’t change. I may be the voice of Gathandria for the moment, but I’m still your friend—because of Johan and always because of you. Tell me your thoughts.”

  He put down his beaker, though she did not think he had tasted it yet, and then looked her straight in the eyes. Not somethi
ng he did often, she thought for the first time. His face was full of shadows.

  “It may be better if I speak to your thoughts only,” he whispered. “You may understand, as well as hear. If you will permit it?”

  Wordless, and her throat full of fears and uncertainties she couldn’t fully name, she nodded. A heartbeat pulsed by, and then he reached forward and touched her lightly on the side of her head.

  As she closed her eyes, all his colours and hers rose to meet her. It was as if the two of them were caught in a river taking them to a rich and distant sea. For a moment out of any time-cycle she knew, Annyeke understood all the Lost One was and all he might one day become. Alongside that, her own self stretched and floated. The thoughts between them were as strong as a rope that could never be broken and the island she landed on was as safe as Gathandria had used to be.

  When she opened her eyes, she knew what she must say to him, although it cost her dear to say it.

  There are things you still have to say and do, Lost One. But not here. Not in Gathandria. Your journey lies elsewhere. Back where you once fled in terror with the man of my heart, back to the Lammas Lands.

  Simon

  It had taken him a few more day-cycles to be ready. At first, he had denied Annyeke’s prophecy but, as Johan had said, denying the words and wisdom of a red-haired woman was probably a danger beyond the both of them. He and Johan had smiled at that, but the truth lay heavy on their skin.

  More pressing than any of this had been the constant singing of the cane and the soaring flights of the snow-raven, both of whom were restless to be gone and would not, he knew, leave without him.

  So Simon the Scribe, the Lost One, took one last look at the people he had come to love. Talus nodded at him, his young face solemn. He nodded back. He had already hugged Johan and Annyeke, and said his goodbyes in private. The three of them had promised each other they would meet again, citing the power of travel held within the Tregannon emeralds as proof of what was possible. Simon hoped such confidence would be proved right, but kept his doubts to himself. If it were impossible, then he would cross mountain and air, desert and ocean once more to see these people again. He had done it before, hadn’t he? For yet another moment he gazed at Annyeke and Johan, smiled to see how their hands and minds were linked so inextricably that nothing could slip between them. That was good. It had been a long time coming and the land itself was pleased to welcome it.