The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting

said.
    With impossible speed, he picked up the cane and slammed it against Simon’s face.
    His mind caved in, and vanished. In its emptiness were starlight and the blackest night, air and earth, water and fire. All the places of the world he knew and all those beyond that he didn’t. He took in a breath which contained everything he had ever imagined and…
    He was back in his body again, the cane nestled by his side. Gelahn, brow furrowed and eyes glinting, snatched it away. It bucked in his grip twice before becoming motionless.
    Before Simon could speak, Gelahn took two steps back and spat on the earth, which still glowed with the heat of its recent ordeal.
    “There is yet the final game,” he said.

    Annyeke
    The men had done nothing, and Annyeke groaned inside. Even Johan looked as if a decision or some kind of response to the mind-executioner’s wall was only a distant dream to him. And every moment lost was a moment when Simon, Isabella and even Tregannon continued to be more fully in danger.
    It might well be up to her then.
    As the darkness roared and spat, she turned to the First Elder, feeling the air between them full of complications.
    “The mind-circle,” she said, her thoughts racing ahead towards possibilities, hope. “The power it gave me. Can we use it somehow?”
    “What power?” This from Johan. Annyeke glanced at him but thought it would take too long to explain. His aura was a solid blue, she noticed, but dark, despairing.
    The First Elder was already answering her.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “This has never happened before. Gods preserve us, much of this has never happened before.”
    Annyeke shrugged. “Well, we’ll have to deal with it without the benefit of tradition then. Maybe it’s about time for that too. What I suggest is this. If we link our minds together, we’ll have more strength. When we’re joined, I can touch Gelahn’s mind-wall, focus the power through. It might destroy it, or at the very least give us access to what’s going on there.”
    Johan shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s too dangerous. We can’t risk it.”
    “Even though it’s your sister in there as well?” Annyeke replied. “And bearing in mind all the risks you’ve taken just to get Simon here?”
    He tightened his lips and took a step back, but said nothing. To her surprise, it was the First Elder who came to stand beside her.
    “Annyeke is right,” he said. “We have to do it. We don’t have much time.”
    She swallowed. There was a long road between knowing a course of action was best and actually doing it. Still that had never stopped her before. She swung around.
    “Thank you,” she said. “In that case, we link up, as near to the wall as possible. When I’m ready, I’ll… I’ll touch it and we’ll see if it works.”
    A few moments later, the elders, Johan and she were standing in a semicircle as near to the wall as possible. The noise made the hair on her scalp itch, but Annyeke tried her best to ignore it. She linked hands with the First Elder, standing next to her, and watched as the others did likewise. Just before she closed her eyes, she glanced at Johan and he nodded at her.
    Then the ancient power took over, but in a more demanding way that she’d ever experienced before. She almost cried out, nearly broke the link, as great swathes of red, green, and silver poured through her mind. All the essence of the elders, and Johan, too, joined with her own, and only the strong grip of the First Elder’s hand kept her in herself.
    But not just herself. There was something greater insider her now. The song of the mind-circle grew louder and more insistent as it linked the minds of the Gathandrians with its own special harmony. Annyeke could see mountains and streams and forests, great cities rising and falling, their peoples flourishing for a moment before vanishing to make way for the next. She could see the birth and death of stars, the nations of the skies and how they mirrored the earth and the places underneath the earth.
    She smiled. Everything seemed possible now. She opened her eyes. Reached out her free hand and placed her fingers on the mind-wall’s wild darkness.

    Simon
    No sooner had the mind-executioner spoken than Simon knew he was somewhere else. And this time he felt no sensation of movement. The cool air made him shiver and he glanced around. Gelahn was sitting a few yards away, in the shade of an elm tree, its