The Executioner's Cane (47 page)

With that, the silver glow around the carving
flew to Simon’s hand even as he reached up to catch it. If catching
such a phenomenon was even a possibility, but had he not seen
things as strange as this before? This time, he felt no pain or
sudden jolt of power, as had been the custom with the mind-cane
when it linked with him. Instead, his mind opened out so all the
colours and light, all the sound and silence of the world flowed
through his thought, and he found he was laughing with the kind of
delight he had never known. His skin too was glowing with reflected
light and he could almost track the journey of the cane’s
life-force as it passed through his blood; he was at the same time
utterly overpowered and utterly free.

He didn’t know for how long a cycle the
wisdom of the mind-cane stayed with him but he understood when it
left: at the right time, when he could see how too much happiness
might well be beyond his ability to live through. He understood
something else too; why the cane had communicated with him in this
way, and what it was now intending to do.

Slowly the sense of overwhelming joy and
release drifted away, although the memory of it hovered, like the
silver stars and moon, in the depths of his mind, and in his blood
and on his skin too. He didn’t think he would ever lose it, but
other truths remained. His visions had been right.

Simon sat down once more. The mind-cane drew
closer, its vast connection to the stars and gods above no longer
visible but the Lost One knew it remained, if unseen. He took a
breath and ran both hands through his hair.

“Is this what must be? You have decided?” he
asked the artefact, finding it easier to voice the words aloud
rather than permit them to dwell only in his thoughts where he
feared they might prove too powerful to bear. “I don’t believe I
can …”

Then he found he couldn’t finish the
sentence, his face wet with sudden tears he was unable to brush
away. By the gods and stars themselves, they knew him to the core
so what need to hide? His grief itself surprised him as he had not
realised his affections had grown so silently and been rooted so
deep. Even the glimpse of the joy beyond this life did not lessen
the sense of sorrows to be borne now. His end was not yet a while,
and all things still needed to be lived through for a time-cycle
and a time-cycle to come. So be it.

“I don’t believe I have the strength to bear
it,” he finished quietly, gazing at the mind-cane. “So much have
you settled yourself inside me.”

Where I will remain, where it matters.

In spite of all to come, the Lost One
couldn’t help but laugh. “You are outside the great time-cycle and
I within it, or you would not think such thoughts so easily.”

We are different but we are the same.

Simon allowed this concept to work its slow
way through him before speaking. “Yes, in some ways we are, now.
But come, you have a purpose and together the two of us must fulfil
it, or what will the gods do then?”

He stood up and took the cane in his grasp,
treasuring its smoothness and warmth against his skin. How at home
it felt there. If he had been pondering how the journey back to the
world they had come from would be, then there was no time to
consider it as the view in front of him shimmered and reformed
itself into the Lammas fields. In the distance, the Tregannon
castle rose up, jagged but on the way to wholeness once more,
against the night sky.

“Simon.” It was Ralph who spoke first,
already stepping forward and clutching him so he did not fall.
Which the Lost One might well have done as the method of returning
had made his eyes swim and his skin feel hot. So much for thinking
this time was easy. “Simon, you’re here.”

The Lost One smiled at the foolishness of the
Lammas Lord’s words, under which so much dwelt that Ralph did not
know how to express. If the stars were willing, he would no doubt
have to get used to this; the Lammas Lord had always been
different.

He gripped Ralph’s hand, leant his forehead
to the other man’s for a heartbeat or two, rejoicing in the
wildness and new strength of Lord Tregannon’s mind. His
thought-recovery was progressing beyond the Lost One’s hopes, and
the value of the emeralds had proved immeasurable. But it was Ralph
himself who had made the possibility of mind-healing real. Simon
could not forget it.

“Yes, I am here,” he answered simply. “Did
you think I would not be?”

Ralph smiled a response, gathering his
leadership and his sense of dignity around him again like a new
cloak.

“Of course,” he said, stepping away. “You
cannot stay away from me for long.”

Simon raised his eyebrows at that and the
mind-cane fizzed a little in his hand. Ralph glanced at it and
coughed.

“And nor I from you,” he said, lowering his
voice even though there was nobody around them to hear. “You know
it. So, what will happen now?”

Ah yes then, they had reached this point
sooner than the Lost One had wished, but so it must be. The
mind-cane had made its choice, but it was up to Simon to bring it
to fruition. He prayed for the courage to carry out this act to the
full as, without his own willing consent, the cane would have no
choice but to stay. If this happened, then he would be no better
than the mind-executioner himself.

He brushed his fingers over Ralph’s face,
partly for his own comforting. Then he took several paces away from
him, so he was standing with a clear view of both the castle and
the ruined mountains.

“This,” Simon said, stretching his arms as
wide as he could, still holding the mind-cane. “This must happen
now, and may my own heart utterly consent to it.”

He wasn’t ready, not by a long river, but the
cane had made it clear the time was now and he would have to bear
it as best he could. So the Lost One stood, hands outstretched
towards the sky, waiting though he wasn’t sure for what. At first
the heavens were empty, only the stars in sight. The mind-cane
hummed in his hand and he could feel its vibration penetrating his
skin and, again, one lone tear slid slowly down his cheek.

For a time-cycle longer, the sky continued to
be clear of anything but stars and still the Lost One waited. He
knew as if it had been branded on his bones he had to do this, he
had no choice. Or rather, he had already chosen, no matter the loss
to come. His arms grew tired and his head ached, and from nowhere
he found he was praying, to the gods and stars, and to the great
Gathandrian Spirit , wherever it might dwell: in the sky, in the
air, in the earth, in the cane. And, over and over again, the words
in his mind were these: great Spirit, come, come, great Spirit.

What held him there, apart from Ralph’s
presence, was something deeper he could hardly express to himself:
the understanding what he did now had been waited for throughout
all time-cycles. It was in some way more important than his
discovery of the cane, the terror of the mind-executioner, the wars
and even, perhaps, his growing connection with the Lammas Lord,
forged from guilt and pain but opening out into light, and
love.

So he waited, peering into empty sky. Then,
when he thought he would stumble and fall from the pain in his body
clamouring for attention, he felt Ralph step beside him, on the
right, where he held the mind-cane up as high as he could. The
Lammas Lord grasped his arm, holding it firm, and Simon almost
cried out with relief. Slowly the trembling in the Lost One’s body
lessened and he felt his breathing grow steadier again. With this
help, he could wait for whatever he was waiting for a while
longer.

Thank you.

He could not speak, could scarcely even nod
his thanks, but he hoped Ralph could hear the gratitude easing
itself through his thoughts.

The moon was at its height and the sweat
pouring from both of them when Simon finally spotted something
bright at the far horizon. Something small and white which could
have been a distant star but was not. He made a noise, nothing but
a small moan, hardly worth the hearing, but Ralph tightened his
grip and drew subtly closer. Simon could sense his readiness for
whatever was to come. It made him smile; he wasn’t ready for
whatever it might be himself, but the Lammas Lord had always had a
soldier’s spirit.

The white dot in the clear night sky drew
ever closer and ever larger, until finally Simon could see the
shape of the snow-raven, drifting on the wind towards them. He
wanted to cry out, to greet the bird or acknowledge its mysterious
presence but he could perform neither act, as his throat was closed
with tears. He swallowed them down as the bird came nearer, almost
upon them now, and freed his arm from his companion’s support. The
ache of independent movement shot through him but he ignored it.
There was more at stake here than his own mere comfort, much
more.

Ralph protested, made to reach out for the
Lost One’s hand again, but from somewhere Simon found the words he
needed: No, please, this is something I need to do alone, for the
sake of us all.

The Lammas Lord shook his head, but stayed
back. Simon closed his eyes for a heartbeat or two, finding the
will he needed, before opening them again. The time-cycle was now.
The great snow-raven was above them, slowly circling. The Lost One
knew it would be the last time he ever saw him. Simon remembered
how the bird had challenged him and helped him, sometimes being his
only companion on the strange journey he had taken, he remembered
both the sharpness of his beak and the softness and safety of his
wing.

And then, before he could stop himself, he
found himself shouting out to the floating bird, “You have been my
friend, in good and bad, and to see you again here is both the best
and the worst the Spirit has asked of me. So take this gift I offer
you, the gift you have been waiting for, and let the Spirit’s will
be done in all time-cycles.”

With that, he took the mind-cane and flung it
into the sky. Its black and silver patterning sparkled in
moonlight, and fire leapt from its carving as it flew. Before it
could fall back to the earth in its trajectory, the snow-raven
swooped down, a song of darkness and light piercing the air, and
grasped the cane within its talons. Ralph cried out, and Simon fell
to his knees. As he watched, the raven circled them three times,
and then with another burst of song, the golden and red notes of
which fell softly to the earth, the bird and the cane drifted away.
To other lands and, no doubt, other stories.

The Lost One held them both with his gaze
until they were only a vanishing point in the sky, and then nothing
at all. He felt Ralph’s steadying grip on his shoulder but the
Lammas Lord did not speak. Simon knew he would never see them
again, not in this world, and the pain of loss remained. The bird
and the mind-cane had changed everything for him and now they had
gone.

At last, he lowered his eyes to the ground.
When he blinked he saw one of the golden notes the raven had sung
lay shimmering on the grass. He reached out, touched it, and felt
its brief burst of warmth before it too was no more.

Slowly, he stood up and rested his hand on
Ralph’s where it still lay on his shoulder.

“It is over,” he said quietly. “From now on,
we must do what we have to do alone.”

*****

One week-cycle later and he still felt
bereft. Odd how the knowledge he would see the mind-cane and the
snow-raven no more in this life had only deepened since they had
left him. Some of the villagers had tried quietly to reassure him
that both cane and bird might well return, but nonetheless he knew.
It was only Ralph who had not tried to comfort him with falsehoods,
and he was grateful. With the rest, Simon smiled at their words and
moved the conversation on as best and as fast as he was able. He
was simply pleased they felt able to talk with him at all. And
indeed there was much to talk about: the continued rebuilding of
the Lammas village and the castle; the nurture of the crops; even
the way the community itself was changing, partly because of the
rebuilding and partly due to the will of the people to make it so.
He suspected the world of Lammas would not be as it had been before
the Wars, and he wondered what Ralph thought of it, as well as
about the rekindled relationship between them.

The answer to this puzzle could easily lie in
a simple reading of the Lammas Lord’s thoughts, but Simon did not
wish to be so intrusive, even after the nights he and Ralph had
spent together. Too much had ensued from the scribe’s lack of
mind-sensing caution in the past for him to revisit it again. Even
so, the scribe could sense the confusion uppermost in Ralph’s mind
and wished to offer him support, as well as clarity, if he could.
He knew the man too well to assume the Lammas Lord would come to
him, no matter what intimacy they shared; such an act would surely
go against all his father’s traditions.

So Simon waited until one evening, after the
people had returned from the fields and were busy preparing their
suppers. He had been working on the high windows of the castle’s
south wall all day, using the skills the people had recently tried
to teach him. He suspected he was a better scribe than he was a
stone-master but he was doing his best and building up the simple
layers around the window apertures. The complicated work he would
leave to others more fully equipped for the task. He was aware
Ralph was engaged in similar work below in the great dining hall
and main entrance.

They would need to speak to each other, he
knew it, and it might as well be now. He put the stone he was
holding in place, pressing down onto the mud and clay mix until he
felt no more give, and covered over the mud-barrel. He would need
to reconstitute it in the morning but the work was in any case
almost finished. Then he stood, stretched his back until his bones
felt loose again and made his way downstairs. As he walked, he
eased out his mind until it touched Ralph’s, taking care to let the
man know of his intentions.