Hallsfoot's Battle

by Anne Brooke

  She didn’t recognise the voice, but it was full of all the voices she’d known from the past. Not real voices, but voices of legend and the stories her people told to make them grow—beneath it all, the voice of the Library.

  Because of that, and that alone, Annyeke held her ground.

  The fire licked over the shelves and manuscripts surged towards her but didn’t quite reach where she stood. She couldn’t catch her breath, grasping at the corners of her thoughts before her terror left her defenceless.

  What shall I do? The question spilled from her mind unbidden and the flame around her burst upwards with a roar. She covered her ears, knowing the gesture was hopeless, and felt the burning heat of her own skin. I’ll die here.

  No. You will live. Find the Lost One.

  The Library’s great voice was weaker now and she could barely hear it at all, even in her mind.

  Where is he? That is why I am here.

  I do not know, the Library replied. He has gone.

  Where? Annyeke was back on her knees. The small sanctuary around her strained at the edges, flame pummelling its invisible barrier. It couldn’t last long.

  With the Nameless One.

  For two heartbeats, she didn’t understand what the Library meant. Then she glanced up, shielding her eyes from the overwhelming heat, and saw that the nearest segment of fire had reached the most ancient of the manuscripts stored here, the ones that spoke of the ancient enemy, he who had no name.

  It must be the mind-executioner. He had been in the Library, he had taken Simon. How had he got there without any of them knowing? Had something drawn him here and, if so, what, or who? As she screamed, her small area of protection exploded and the fire swept in. At the same time, something silver and solid black pierced her mind. She had no idea what it might signify as, with a terrible sound somewhere between a roar and a groan, the great Library of Gathandria finally collapsed. Stones flew outwards, sparking with fire, and the shelves tumbled down around her. Annyeke understood then that she was going to die. Still, she did not.

  Someone cried out her name. Annyeke.

  It was Johan’s voice.

  She glanced up, fire pricking her eyelids, to see a circle of white spinning a pattern round two tall shapes. It landed next to her and she heard her name cried out again.

  The fires of this living hell were dancing round her skirts as the man she loved reached down towards her. Sobbing, Annyeke grasped his arm. The second figure coalesced into the shape of the First Elder and she clutched at him, unable to understand how he could be here at all. His grey eyes were darkened and bloodshot and his hair hung lank and thin around his lined face.

  To her mind, the Elder spoke. The raven and the cane brought me.

  No time for further explanation. No time for asking where Simon might be, or how Gelahn had managed to infiltrate them so. The First Elder grabbed her waist as the flame poured itself over them, and his head disappeared in the fire’s wild roaring. The mind-cane swooped a wild path upward and the next moment the three of them were outside, in front of the Library. The air was like a cool river on the unbearable heat of Annyeke’s skin. She felt the same agonies flooding through Johan, but all she could sense from the First Elder was a great and unfathomable darkness.

  The mind-cane, the raven, and the courage of these two men had been her salvation. Here she lay, breathless and aching, in front of the ruined building. As she struggled to get to her feet, her thoughts racing between the absence of Simon and how to put out the flames, there came a terrible thunder and she curled up once more on the ground, hands over her head to try to protect herself. In her head, the terror of the people, more deep-set and more bloodied than she had ever experienced before.

  Was this the full meaning of what the elders did, she wondered? Was every step they made, every action, every small thought framed with this overwhelming responsibility for Gathandria? This unbearable inability to save them all. Then she had some small sympathy for what the First Elder had done, or at least a glimmer of understanding for it.

  When the thunder had abated, she was the first to look up. Around her, the people she knew, Johan, the First Elder, Talus—thank the gods he was alive—and those she did not, were lying like rain-beaten corn, flat against the earth.

  The Library was gone.

  In its place lay pages and pages of manuscripts and books. They fluttered in the slight breeze from the sea, like the hands of children pleading for help she could not give. Some were blackened with fire and the smoke that still rose from the ruin of the heart of Gathandria. Some were ripped into a hundred pieces, more perhaps, their ink scrawled in impossible patterns across the parchment.

  Heart thudding a rhythm into her throat, Annyeke staggered onto her feet, swaying a little in the air’s bleakness. Something stirred in her fingers and she looked down to see a scrap of parchment wrapped around her hand. She unfurled it, blinking to bring the few words laced across it into a deeper focus.

  It was a tiny fragment of the Fourth Gathandrian Legend, the tale of Temperance and Greed. When you search for peace, you find only fire.

  By all the gods, that was true, she thought and closed her hand over the unlooked-for prophecy, for the truth was she had failed. Despite all her assumptions, Simon was not here and the Library was no more. How could they find the courage to fight against the mind-executioner after this?

  She felt a touch at the edge of her mind like a small sharp needle prodding her for a response, and glanced around to see where it came from. It tasted of fear and unknowing.

  A moment later, she knew who it was and almost fell again to the scorched earth.

  The First Elder. He knelt close to her, his hands touching his face as if trying to remove a mask.

  His eyes were no longer there.

  Before she could stop it, give herself time to build up any veneer of strength, all the First Elder’s pain and darkness rushed in upon her, and she sensed his agonies as if each one were her own. There was no light within him, not a physical light and not even a mind one. Not a simple darkness either. No, it pressed into him and burned his aged skin so he could scarcely breathe. His arms pushed out in front of him, as if seeking a light hidden in shadow, but there was nothing beyond the pain. His eyes were burning, burning. When he touched them, the pain drove its knife deeper, searing a trail of crimson and black like old blood, into his thoughts.

  He groaned aloud and then, thank the gods and stars, the link between them shattered. The noise of his groaning was somewhere between a child and a dying animal. Along with this, words of denial, over and over again, formed a barrier around him in a meaningless attempt to keep the truth at bay.

  The strange fire had blinded him, Annyeke knew it. Not only his eyes, but there were parts of his thoughts he could no longer find, the things in his life he still held dear, no matter what he had done—friendship, vocation, and love.

  When he fell to the earth, panting hard, she caught him and lifted him up. He was as slight as the air itself, almost as if his enforced period of meditation and prayer had taken away his flesh as the fire had taken away his eyes. She called for water, sensing the presence of Johan behind her. Then a flurry of wings and something soft drifted through her hair. Behind it a whole world of power and peace—the snow-raven. It had brought the First Elder here from his hilltop sanctuary when they needed him most, and how she was glad of it. But, most important of all in the rediscovery of the cane and the bird, where were Simon and Gelahn?

  No space to answer these questions, even if she knew how, as the First Elder began to speak.

  “My eyes,” he whispered. “All is darkness. What is happening? I cannot tell anything, I cannot…”

  “Hush, hush there,” Annyeke did not know what else to say. Some things were too cruel for the telling.

  Johan knelt, placed a beaker at the First Elder’s lips—the gods alone know where he had found it—and the injured Gathandrian gulped down water. His body shook so much that Annyeke felt
the echo of it in her own flesh. While he drank, Annyeke told him of the death of the Library, the missing scribe, and the torn and bleeding parchments lying on the earth around them. Her voice no longer sounded like her own. When he heard her words, the First Elder reached out, fingers scrabbling on the soil, trying to connect with the scattered legends so precious to them all.

  “Here,” Johan said. “Here is one of our tales.”

  His hands pressed a scrap of parchment into the First Elder’s palm and she smiled her gratitude at Johan. Something in the darkness inside the Elder lightened a little.

  There was something else. Important words the First Elder was trying to remember, the shadow of which she could sense from the physical contact between them—a fact he longed to tell her that had been revealed to him in the Library, or perhaps earlier than that, from his meditations. She did not know. The effort of it seared his thoughts, slid away from the thinness of his mind as if wary of causing harm. She opened her mouth to reassure him, tell him to rest. Whatever he knew could surely wait till later, for what more could come upon them now that had not already torn the hearts from them all? But the First Elder spoke before she could.

  “A-Annyeke,” he stammered and at once she leaned closer to his lips, trying to hear what he was determined to say.

  “Yes, First Elder.”

  “Please, I…” Words would not come but, there in his mind, she saw a glimpse of something long and dark. Then the image was gone and the Elder let forth a cry, half frustration, half despair.

  Annyeke blinked, and looked across the smouldering embers and scattered parchment.

  “The cane,” she panted. “Where is it?”

  At her words, Johan swung round, his eyes following hers. Then, a flash of silver and black. She cried out in triumph and he started to run towards it; at her back, a whooshing sound of wind and feather. The snow-raven launched itself into the air over her and, even as she shouted a warning, the bird tumbled Johan to the ground, leaving him scrabbling amongst the Library’s smoking ruins.

  The raven swooped over his shoulder, talons stretched outwards. With a movement as swift and elegant as a summer waterfall, the bird snatched up the cane that glowed a richer black against the feathered whiteness. A sudden humming washed over her senses as bird and cane rose sharply into the air.

  “No!” Johan cried out after them both, but neither raven nor mind-cane heeded his plea. Annyeke watched the bird swing sharply to the right and head out towards the sea. Even at this distance, the cane’s humming could still be heard, if only as an echo in her thoughts.

  Johan turned and began to trudge back to where she and the First Elder sat on the ground. He did not meet her gaze. The small groups of Gathandrians were as silent as the depths of night just before the dawn. She rose to meet him, her hand still touching the Elder’s shoulder, a point of contact for him to cling to.

  He looked at her. She could sense he was full of questions and didn’t know how to ask any of them. What could they do now? Where had the snow-raven gone, and why? And, like her, where was Simon, and was he safe or had he suffered a worse fate than the First Elder? Out of nowhere, Talus ran to them and hugged them both, burying his head against Johan’s waist. Johan’s expression crumpled, but he took a breath and she felt him grow steadier. Now was not the time for tears—now was the time for fighting.

  “Simon is surely still alive,” Annyeke said, wondering indeed where such confidence came from and where it might take them all. “If he was not, the raven would not have gone.”

  “You think the bird is seeking Simon, then?” Johan asked her, rubbing one hand upward over his face. The gesture left a smudge of dirt on his forehead that she longed to wipe away but knew she could not.

  “Yes. It must be. For whatever he is doing and whatever danger he is in with the mind-executioner, however Gelahn managed to breech us like this, Simon will have need of the cane, whether or not he can use it.”

  Simon

  As the mind-executioner gripped him, Simon felt the walls of Gelahn’s childhood room grow ever darker, looming like stormclouds in his thoughts, pressing him down. The smell of the wine bottles assaulted his senses so he wished he could breathe clear air again. More than anything, however, the scribe longed for the power of the mind-cane and the wisdom of the raven, but both of these gifts were denied him. He would have to make his own decision about the mind-executioner’s extraordinary offer. In the past, his own decisions had mostly not proved to be the right ones. No matter. He would have to do his best.

  So many shades of colour in his thoughts and not one of them giving him the overarching guide to action.

  Knowing that Gelahn could interpret his mind rather better than he could himself, Simon withdrew his hand from the executioner’s grasp. At once, the jumbled colours filling his head eased into a kind of order. Had Gelahn been causing his confusion? Was that why he could no longer tell what the best way forward might be? His heart beat faster and he wiped sweat from his forehead. What would happen if he could no longer even rely on himself?

  No, he could not afford to think like that. Madness ran on that path, and he had no wish to follow it.

  Gelahn smiled. “I am perhaps not as intrusive as you would imagine, Scribe. I can only influence those thoughts you hold that are already confused and compromised. I cannot create confusion where there is none.”

  “I don’t believe you,” the scribe answered. “You lie and lie again, and there is no truth in anything you do or say. There never has been.”

  To Simon’s surprise, the mind-executioner leaned back in his chair and laughed. Not with mockery but in an apparently genuine delight.

  “Do you not only describe yourself, Simon of the White Lands?” he said. “We are indeed two sides of the same pasture, when you ponder it.”

  “I do not wish to ponder it,” Simon replied, refusing to acknowledge the possible truth of his enemy’s words. “But one thing I know is I have not set out to destroy and rule a whole nation as you have. My crimes are not as great as yours.”

  “No matter. What is your answer? While you insist on considering it, the people of Gathandria put themselves in ever greater danger. There is no need for them to fight. Together, you and I can bring them what they wish, healing and peace.”

  The scribe groaned, leaned his head on his hands and felt the black hollow of his palm against his eyes. How he longed to escape into that deep shelter, to crawl away somewhere and hide from the demands lurking around him like the wolf of Gelahn’s story. He was a scribe, not a saviour of people or a great fighter. If he was the latter, he could tumble the mind-executioner to the floor and overcome him by physical force, as long as he didn’t let the Gathandrian touch his thoughts. An impossible plan, then. If he was a saviour, as Johan and Annyeke seemed to assume, then he could simply access Gelahn’s mind and be the victor there, too. He almost laughed at that concept. Another impossible plan. After all, how could he be stronger than his opponent if he couldn’t even begin to understand the mind-cane’s power for more than a few paltry moments or when he was overcome with anger? Not that the artefact was here, and not that he felt angry. His main thoughts were those of despair and exhaustion.

  He seemed to have been battling that particular sensation ever since he’d come to Gathandria. It was like a disease, something lurking in his blood that he could not shake off, no matter if he slept for a lifetime. He shook his head free of his hands and blinked until Gelahn’s face came into focus. He had to rouse himself, stay alert. Johan and Annyeke were his friends; he didn’t want to let them down more than he had to, even if it meant his death. Though what effect would his death have on them? Their minds were so convinced of his role as the Lost One of their myths that persuading them otherwise would be too hard a task, even if he had the energy for it.

  “I do not know my answer,” he replied at last. “The truth is, though I suppose you already know it, that I am simply too tired to gain any understanding of what it is you ask and
why I must refuse it.”

  Gelahn folded his arms, pursed his lips for a heartbeat.

  “But I know all about your exhaustion, Simon,” he said. “I know the cause for it and the cure. I had not seen it before today, but I understand it now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As I say, I have not experienced this before,” Gelahn continued as if he were musing to himself. “But then again, I had not encountered you before, either. Not truly. You see, Simon, the mind-cane is both a blessing and a curse. For one who has been trained in its deepest mysteries, such as myself, handling its power is possible, though one must always take care as it is like bridling a wild beast. But for one such as yourself, who has never even thought about the mind-cane except in fear and dread, its power comes with a price. You have used the cane to fight me, Simon, and you have, for a while, proved stronger. But now the price is being exacted and will not let you go unless the last coin is paid.”

  “You’re lying. Again.”

  Gelahn shook his head. “On the contrary, I am not. See for yourself.”

  He grabbed the scribe’s hand and placed it on his forehead. From instinct, Simon flinched away, but the mind-executioner’s grip was too strong. A moment later, he was floating in a sea of thoughts not his own. This time, they were not melded. Instead, the scribe was held distant from the man whose mind he now occupied and allowed to watch the sensations and ideas as they passed him by. He had no idea how Gelahn performed this miracle. When he himself shared another’s mind, it took all his strength not to become immersed in it so he could not later leave and, of course, with Ralph, he had never fully perfected that talent, had he?

  Now, as the dark, swirling colours of Gelahn’s thoughts swooped and danced around him like wild birds on the wind, he paused to draw breath and then tried to concentrate. There was no telling how long the executioner would hold him here, nor what his purposes were. He did not wish to be at any more of a disadvantage than he was already.