Read The Gathandrian Trilogy 01 - The Gifting for Free Online Page A

took a flagon of wine from the side-table and poured a goblet. He offered it to the mind-executioner, but he shook his head, saying nothing. Ralph shrugged and took a gulp. The red liquid stained his lips and tongue, and Simon swallowed again, the roar in his thoughts more insistent.
    Finally, Ralph removed his cloak and laid it carefully over the back of the nearest chair. He turned to the stranger.
    “So, Lord Gelahn,” he said. “What do you wish to do now?”
    Simon didn’t hear the answer. It was impossible to concentrate. Gelahn . Ralph had called this man Lord Gelahn . Fixing his glance on the flagstone a little in front of him, he focused on the scratches across it and tried to order his thoughts. Such as they were. Lord Gelahn. Duncan Gelahn. The most powerful of the mind-executioners and also the most vengeful. His reputation for cunning and smoking out any mind-dwellers wherever he thought they might exist had been second to none. Not only finding them, but torturing and killing them too. Slowly, so that others could see. Slowly, so that pain and the agonising approach of death could be truly felt, and understood, by those who suffered it. Making an example , he was reported to have said once, of those who dared to meddle with things which should remain sacred was the highest duty of the people .
    The first rule of the land.
    But, it was long ago when this had first been said. Gelahn? The name was a legend. He had lived many generations past, in the time when the route through the northern mountains was known, when all the rural lands had traded freely with the people who lived beyond. Wool and leather, wine and honey. Parchment and tools for writing also, when such things had been common to the people here. So many year-cycles ago. How could such a man be living now? No, Simon thought, he mustn’t be a fool. It must be some other, who had taken Gelahn’s name to bring terror to those he felt most deserved it. It must be…
    Why do you doubt me? Do you not think I can live the years I wish to?
    The voice entered Simon’s mind like a knife and cut through all his defences. He flinched away, but it was impossible to escape the blood-red grip of the words.
    Do you doubt? Do you?
    “No,” Simon said aloud, making Ralph drop the goblet back onto the table. The few drops of wine left in it spilled out like a gash. “No, I do not.”
    Even as the words were coming out of his mouth, Simon knew it was not he, but the mind-executioner. The extent of Gelahn’s power, gained so quickly, made him shiver.
    “You are Gelahn,” Simon said, the voice his own but the sentiments still only the mind-executioner’s. “You are Gelahn, Lord of those who obey in peace and destroyer of all who are evil.”
    Ralph cursed, using his mother’s language, and then said, “Best to leave him, Gelahn. It is not the time for this.”
    Without waiting to see if the mind-executioner consented to obey, Ralph gestured at the nearest guard, who ran to clear the mess left on the table and set the goblet upright again. As Ralph poured more wine, Simon could feel the hooks grounded into his thoughts slip their moorings and drift away. From the small corner in which it had been attempting, vainly, to hide, his mind crawled out and stretched itself to feel its home again.
    Gelahn laughed; another sound which made Simon shiver but at least this time it was in the room and not inside him.
    “Indeed, Tregannon, you are right,” he said, his hand caressing his cane as if it was alive. “It is not the time for game playing. Not yet, in any case. After the trial for this man’s life; there will be time enough then.”
    Ralph didn’t reply. He strode to the door, flinging it open as if it were made of silk rather than rough wood, and yelled out into the corridor.
    “Bring me more wine. Now! ”
    Another flurry of movement outside, the sound of running and, moments later, a servant entered, dressed in yellow and black, with a small towel looped