Journeys – Love them or hate them but
you can’t avoid them
First and foremost, The Gifting,
which is the beginning of the Gathandrian Trilogy, is a novel about journeys.
My main character, Simon, sets out on a vast physical journey to another
country, and must also make a journey into his own mind in order to uncover the
skills which lie there.
When I was working out the nature of the journey, I therefore wanted it
to be a spiritual as well as a physical one. So I took the four elements of
Earth, Air, Fire and Water and made them into magical lands which Simon and his
companions must cross in order to reach their destination. I wanted the
interplay between what these different elements symbolise in Simon’s
development, and the practical hard graft of how the group must traverse them.
And, of course, what they discover at the end of their long trek.
All well and good, but the very strange thing about all this is how much
I myself hate journeys! When young, my poor mother used to give me the
strongest travel pills whenever we travelled up north to see my grandmother who
lived 300 miles away. Whatever she tried, I was always sick and held everything
up. Which, as the family always tried to do the journey in a day meant some
pretty late evening arrivals in Newcastle.
These days, I don’t get quite as travel-sick in a car, though
occasionally it does kick in again if I’m hungry and particularly if the car or
coach is a very plush one. In terms of my stomach, the ricketier the transport,
the better I like it, it seems.
However, I’m still not that great in aeroplanes or on a boat. Yes, I do
have to admit that once, when my husband and I were flying back from a holiday
in Slovenia, I was that person on the plane who – when we went through a bad
storm – said: “We’re going to die! We’re
going to die, aren’t we?” Oh the shame. Thankfully all the other passengers
on the plane apart from us were Slovenian schoolchildren who had no idea what I
was saying. They all thought it was great fun … I think my husband still has
the bruises on his arm where I was holding on to him. Well, I never said I was
brave.
I’m also not too good on boats either. The ocean fills me with horror
and I still have dark memories of the four hours I spent on a ferry between
England and France in the middle of the night during yet another storm when the
boat couldn’t actually move due to the roughness of the sea. Believe me,
seasickness is not to be recommended under any circumstances, though I did make
a lot of new friends in the ladies’ loos where we all – in a very English
fashion – politely took it in turns to be sick in the available cubicles.
This is probably the reason why Simon’s not a good traveller in the air
or at sea either. Here he is during his voyage with his companion Johan:
When the sun is high
in the sky, the scribe finally awakes with a groan. “Johan?”
“Yes, I’m here.” He
places himself where Simon can see him, be reassured—if indeed he has any
reassurance to offer. “We’re here. On the boat. It’s the middle of the
morning.”
As he speaks, the
scribe pushes himself upright, and his face turns pale. The boat sways with his
motion. “No more desert men?”
“No. They’re no
longer a threat,” Johan replies, frowning. “They don’t...”
But Simon isn’t
listening. He barely makes it to the side before he is vomiting, shaking and
soaked with sweat, into the sea. Johan rests his arm across his shoulders, and
holds him as he retches again.
When the bout has
finished, Simon gags twice more and then groans.
“Lie down, you’ll
feel better if you do.” Johan half-carries the sick man to the bottom of the
boat again where, still shivering slightly, he lies curled like a question mark
between the two benches.
“What is this?”
“Hush. Don’t speak.
It’s sea-malady. You’re not used to the movement of the water. Here, I have
something that might help.”
“Good,” Simon
murmurs. “That would be nice.”
Johan searches in
the herb bag for what he wants, and then places two dried leaves in the palm of
Simon’s hand. He senses the man’s surprise when he tastes them: ginger, but
with a sharper tone.
“That’s right,” he
says. “It’s a type of ginger that grows in the parks and gardens of our city.
It will ease your stomach and cleanse your mouth.”
Simon nods but says
no more. For a while, he continues to lie prostrate in the boat, his eyes
closed. Johan listens to the screeches of birds, breathes in the salt smell of
the water and welcomes the warmth of the sun on his face.
“How is your head?”
the scribe asks after a while. He sounds stronger now.
“It hurts a little.
But it will pass. Your sickness?”
“The leaves you
gave me are working, I think. Tell me, is it always like this on the sea? And,
more importantly, why didn’t you warn me about it?”
Johan laughs, but
not unkindly. “It’s like that for some, yes. Others are better sailors by
nature.
But most grow used
to the movement in time. Soon you will gain your sea-balance, believe me. Do
you think you can sit up now?”
“I really have no
idea, but I’ll try.”
May all your own journeys be happy ones, and don’t forget to enter the competition
to win a Kindle – details below!
Anne
Brooke’s fiction has been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Award, the
Royal Literary Fund Awards and the Asham Award for Women Writers. She has also
twice been the winner of the national DSJT Charitable Trust Open Poetry
Competition.
She is
the author of six published novels, including her fantasy series, The Gathandrian Trilogy, published by
Bluewood Publishing and featuring scribe and mind-reader Simon Hartstongue.
More information on the trilogy is available at: www.gathandria.com and the first of these
novels is The Gifting. In addition,
her short stories are regularly published by Riptide Publishing, Amber Allure
Press and Untreed Reads.
The Gifting
by Anne
Brooke
BLURB:
The
mind-dwellers of Gathandria are under deadly siege. For two year-cycles they
have suffered: their people decimated, their beautiful city in ruins. Their
once peaceful life has descended into chaos and misery. Legends tell of the
Lost One who will return at such a time to save them from their mortal enemy –
the mind-executioner. This enemy knows their ways well, for he was once an
elder of the city. Time is running out.
Johan and
Isabella take up the quest, journeying to the Lammas Lands searching for their
distant cousin and lowly scribe, Simon Hartstongue. The elders dare to hope
that he is whom they seek. Not everyone shares this hope; there is one amongst
them who is bound to the enemy, shielding their secret thoughts from mind links
while seeking to betray Simon.
Powerful
lessons are learned as they travel through the mystical kingdoms of the
Mountains, the Air, the Desert and the Waters. Deadly attacks threaten total
annihilation and devastating sorrow strikes. Story-telling weaves a tenuous net
of protection around them, but the enemy has absolute power with the stolen
mind-cane in his possession. To his surprise Simon hears its song. Desperately
he tries to understand and embrace his gifting, as he struggles to comprehend
his inheritance.
A strong and
pure mind is needed in the battle to defeat the enemy. If you are branded a
coward, a murderer and an outcast, how can you be a saviour? Doubt creeps into
the Gathandrians' minds. Is Simon truly the One?
Excerpt:
Clutching the
boy, Simon stumbled to Isabella and Johan. But they were no longer there. Not
on the mountain. Not anywhere.
He could not
comprehend what his eyes were telling him; the two of them were floating, solid
ghosts, on...nothing. The boy gulped and shook.
“Johan?”
Simon could
not voice the words, could not even focus them, merely fling them from his
thoughts. So close, and yet a thousand fears away, Johan tried to smile, but
Simon could see the spasm in his cheek. Feel it echoed in his own.
“What do I
do?”
The other
man’s body balanced between sky and the far-off earth, hemmed in only by air,
he stretched out his hand. “Come. I cannot touch you during this part of the
journey, Simon. The Air Kingdom forbids it. But we can give you the strength
you need. You can follow my hand. And Isabella’s. You can follow me.”
“I can’t,”
Simon said, staring at him as if for a moment they might be the only two people
alive. “It’s not possible, Johan. Don’t be stupid. I’m not strong, not like you
and Isabella.”
He found his
legs could no longer support his and the boy’s weight and, in spite of the
terror behind and the destruction to come, he collapsed onto bare rock, pain
ricocheting through his body. Shivering, he turned to his tormentor, hovering
on a plateau of air and incomprehensible faith.
“By the
gods,” the scribe begged him. “Don’t make me do it. Please.”
“Simon. You
don’t have time for this. I know you want to live.” Johan’s voice came somehow
not from where he stood, not even simply from within Simon’s mind, but echoed
throughout the whole of his body. “Please. Trust me. Don’t you trust me?”
“What do you
think?” he cried out. “No. I don’t. Not enough.”
“You don’t
know that. Come.”
“No, believe
me—I can’t.” From behind came a sudden tearing sound, like a knife ripping
silk. The mind-fire was dying.
“You can,” he
said.
In the
emptiness after his words, Simon lay face down on the ground, trembling, the
boy almost crushed under his chest. Impossible, it was impossible.
A roar and a
flash of redness and pain as the last protection collapsed. The stench of meat
and the dogs’ teeth came scrabbling through the flames. In his mind, the boy
screamed at last, in a way he could never do in the flesh. With a groan that
came from the gut and sliced through him, the scribe stumbled to his feet and
stood, swaying, he on rock and Johan on air. Although fully clothed, Simon was
as naked as he had ever been.
He caught and
held Johan’s ice-blue gaze. For a moment, somehow, time stopped and everything
became still.
“I am
afraid,” Simon told him, as simply and clearly as he could.
“I know.”
“I don’t
trust you.”
“Simon, I
understand. Take one step. Trust me for one step only. But you must leave the
mountain behind, or you will both suffer the death that is not true death.
Come.”
Wild roaring,
and then the pounding feet of the dogs.
Breath ragged
in his throat, Simon covered his face with his one free hand and smelled the
stale salt of his own tears. Then at the edge of thought, already infiltrating
his mind’s frail barrier, the executioner’s triumphant cry.
The scribe
turned. The enemy rose before him, a figure clothed in flame which did not
burn. Pain cauterised his mind and he screamed. A flash of black and silver at
the edge of his vision. He raised his hand to protect himself. The mind-cane
flew towards him: a dagger, a bearer of an impossible death. He screamed again.
Then everything fell silent. The cane brushed against his arm, the silver
carving impossibly cold. A flare of warmth encased him and then just as
suddenly vanished.
He should be
dead. He was not.
The mind-cane
lay at his feet, humming. Another scream, this time the enemy’s. With the
astonishment of being alive his only thought, Simon wrapped both arms around
the boy and stepped out with his right foot onto nothingness.
Giveaway
competition details: The giveaway competition: the prize is ONE
Kindle ereader worth £89 if these three questions about The Gifting are answered correctly:
1. In the beginning of Chapter Four, what
sound is Simon first aware of when he wakes up?
2. At the start of the Third Gathandrian
Interlude, who knocks Annyeke down in his desperation to reach her?
3. What happens to Simon at the end of
Chapter Six?
Answers should be sent to
albrookeATmeDOTcom (and NOT left on the post), and winners will be notified as
soon as possible after the tour ends.
There is also a Runner-Up Prize of THREE
eBooks from my backlist (not including The
Gifting) to one lucky commenter from the whole blog tour. Good luck!
Contact Information:
Thanks Anne for stopping by,
Tina
