Circles of Stone

by Ian Johnstone

He pushed on, heaving his shoulder forward. He could not think of it. He must not think of it. He must think only of the rhythm.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  He blinked. There was a change somewhere ahead: a low murmur of many sounds, a shift in the damp, stale air. He could make it out now: a pale opening – an end to the passageway.

  On he pushed, his rhythm quickening now, spurred on by the promise of a change, of an end to the endless darkness.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  And then, suddenly, he sensed something.

  For a moment he froze, listening. Then he threw himself flat.

  The stone beneath him shuddered, the rock moaned; and then came an unimaginable sound.

  It began with the deep, resonant report of a horn, starting low and rising to a deafening pitch. It echoed from the walls, shattering the silence, blasting down the empty passageway. It slammed into him like a blow to the face and body, rattling through him and humming in his lungs. Then, as it started to fade, came a devilish chorus: a forest of cries and yelps, growls and snarls. They built to a triumphal roar that drowned the horn in a thunder of voices.

  The opening flared with light: light like the light of day.

  He pushed on, quicker now.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  On and on.

  And then he was there, out into the light, on to a balcony with staircases leading down to the left and right. Ahead, through the balustrade, he could see a vast hall lit by a growing slit of light – a precious aperture of daylight which grew and grew before his eyes as two giant doors swung open.

  There was a tremendous roar of voices from below and he looked down, into the bowels of the great hall. It writhed before his eyes: a swaying mass of bodies, Ghor, Ghorhund, Slithen, Tythish and myriad other creatures he had never seen before. And somehow, in this heaving mass of creation, there was order. The beasts formed two immense columns, scores of bodies thick and hundreds long, led by twenty or thirty baying Ghorhund, which even now strained at their leashes, heaving their handlers towards the light. And as they reached the threshold, the twin columns stepped forward as one, surging in a steady, rhythmic lope in time to a deep, discordant chant. They threw up row upon row of fluttering flags: flags of red and black, emblazoned with a hollow face and empty eyes – the staring face of Thoth.

  Espen slumped against the stone, giving in to his despair.

  “Isia help us!” he whispered, raising his hands to his face.

  It had been terrible leaving Triste behind. They had walked for a while in a painful, heavy silence and then they had stopped and looked back, peering through the grey haze. They had seen little: just the rise of Simia’s earthen ring and the dome of Triste’s head resting against it, the tattoos just visible, staring after them.

  He had not moved since they left him and that only made them feel worse. Would he even have the energy to build the fire when he needed to? They had left a bundle of kindling and firewood just next to his foot so that he would only have to push it with his heel until it rolled on to the embers, but would he even be able to do that? They had fed the fire with lumps of wood so that it would smoulder for hours, they had done everything they could think of, but would he even be conscious when he needed to be? When it mattered most? When the darkness came?

  Then, after that last look back, they had turned away with heavy hearts wracked with guilt, and they had broken into a run. It had felt as though they were running away. But what else could they do?

  And so there they were again, alone together on the open Barrens, running towards the city, their thoughts with the friend they had left behind. Their minds inevitably turned to Bayleon, to that fateful night at Salsimaine when he had given himself up to let Simia run free. It was little wonder then that when they saw the great stone circle far off to their left, glowering broodily through the grey, Simia fell a little behind. Little wonder that tears stung her eyes, that she cursed herself under her breath.

  Sylas too had been struck by the sight of the Circle of Salsimaine. For him, it was like a glimpse of home, beckoning him back to familiar things, to Naeo’s journey rather than his own. But he tried not to give in to those thoughts. He knew that now more than ever he had to keep his focus.

  They had to continue, to Gheroth, and Isia’s temple.

  Sylas led them into one of the deep fissures in the earth, running ahead, darting left and right as the steep sides leaned and lunged, striking out one way and then the other. It was so much easier than before, in the dark, when they had had nothing but their instincts to guide them. Now, by the light of day, they ran even faster, tearing through ditches and the dried beds of streams, through cracks and crevices, feeling their hearts pound, their lungs burn. It was a release from their dark thoughts, a chance to forget what they had done.

  Simia shrieked as she barged past, taking the lead, and he knew to let her. This had been her domain in those long months after the Reckoning, and it showed. As she gained speed, she used the walls, riding up on them as she cornered at speed, leaning over at incredible angles as she leapt from bank to bank, her red hair billowing and dancing ahead.

  At first Sylas struggled to keep up, but then he took himself back to that night, to what she had told him – “you’re linked to everything: the air, the Barrens, the earth in these riverbanks. You need to feel them – know where they are just as they know where you are.” And that is what he did. He felt dust and earth, rock and riverbank, and as he did they opened up to him, folded around him, rose up beneath his feet, corrected his path, prevented his fall. He charged up on to a near-vertical wall, running over it as though it were on the flat, using it to make the next corner. His blood coursed and his heart thundered. After all they had been through, he suddenly felt so alive.

  Then he skidded to a halt.

  The path ahead was almost straight, leading between two high banks that glinted and glistened with metal. Swords lay bent and broken on the surface, daggers littered the dust, shields and armoured plate tumbled down the banks. To one side, the torso of a suit of armour lay upside down on the ground, its occupant missing: lost to the fires that had made the Barrens.

  This was not just a riverbed, it was a grave.

  He felt sick as he started to jog through it, trying to keep his eyes to the front, trying not to imagine what had happened here. How had Simia just kept running? Why hadn’t she even slowed down, turned her head?

  He realised he already knew the answer. She was used to it. This was where she had been forced to live in the aftermath of the Reckoning, among the shattered remains of armies, the skeletons of military might. For her, these had become the things of daily life.

  “Poor Simsi,” he murmured.

  He broke into a run, picking up his earlier pace, glad to be on the move again. He was relieved when he finally saw the flash of Simia’s red hair up ahead. She was sitting on another shield projecting from the wall, kicking at the dust with her heel.

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked as he ran up.

  “Sorry, I got a bit distracted,” he panted, gesturing to the fragments of armour that lay about her like so much litter.

  Simia looked around. “Why? You’ve been here before.”

  Sylas looked at her blankly. “Well I couldn’t see it before, could I?”

  “I suppose not,” she said with a shrug. “Anyway, never mind. We’re through it all now.”

  Sylas turned sharply. “We’re at the city? Already?” He reached up to the top of the bank and started to pull himself up to take a look.

  “Don’t!” hissed Simia, dragging him down.

  Sylas pulled himself free. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  She put a finger to her lips and then walked on, crouching to keep well below the rim. Sylas watched her go, realising that whatever it was, it
was very close. He bent down and followed.

  They rounded a corner and crawled along a straight ditch, pushing up against the wall so as to avoid a steady flow of sewage. The further they went, the more Sylas became aware of the sounds of a city: the low rumble of carts rolling over stone, the murmur of voices, the endless jostle of people and things occasionally punctuated by a child’s cry or the singsong of a distant trader calling for custom.

  Finally Simia stopped and pointed to the top of the bank. Sylas rose as carefully as he could, his nose trailing over the dust until his eyes peeked over.

  There, across a narrow expanse of litter-strewn earth, was Gheroth, Thoth’s city. It was just as dark and imposing as he remembered it, sweeping off to the left and right as far as he could see, and to the front rising in layer upon layer of jumbled horizons: first, the ramshackle hovels of the slums; then above, the smoking disarray of timber housing; and above that, the mighty towering, stone structures at the heart of the metropolis. Finally, looming above it all, was the vast dark pyramid of shadow – the Dirgheon, its stark edges jutting high into the sky.

  But Sylas’s eyes were drawn to a scene much closer at hand. Standing shoulder to shoulder at one of the entrances to the city were three inexplicably tall figures, towering over a long line of city folk who were waiting to pass. Each of the three had exactly the same features: broad but rounded shoulders thrown menacingly forward over those that queued before them; extraordinarily long arms that moved at a speed so fast they were little more than a blur as they gathered papers from those they met; and huge, plate-like hands that seemed to boast far more than five digits a piece – though Sylas could hardly be sure, such was the speed with which they moved.

  But the most striking feature of these creatures was their face, which seemed entirely out of proportion. Their long, hooked noses occupied a good half of it and their fierce, bloodshot eyes took up much of what was left. Their mouths were mean and thin-lipped, and by contrast, their wrinkled ears were utterly prodigious. If there were anything to be overheard, spied upon or sniffed out, these were the creatures to do it.

  “The Tythish!” whispered Simia at his ear.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Checking papers,” she hissed. “They do this kind of thing a lot, particularly around the slums, but not like this, not three of them in one place. And there are more – look!”

  He followed her eyes to other dark openings of the many lanes leading onwards into the heart of the city. Each and every one of them was spanned by the enormous, spider-like forms of the Tythish, looming over waiting crowds, searching with their prying eyes, pawing with their many-fingered hands. It seemed that no one and nothing would escape them.

  “I’ve never seen so many,” murmured Simia, shaking her head.

  Sylas sank between his shoulders. “They’re looking for us, aren’t they?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “So what do you think we should do?”

  She rested her forehead against the dust. “We have to get past them.”

  “Great idea!” said Sylas, raising his eyebrows. “How?”

  Simia said nothing, but glanced behind her. Sylas looked, but all he could see was the thick ooze of sewage flowing along the bottom of the ditch.

  His eyes travelled slowly back to hers. “No!”

  She sighed. “Oh yes.”

  “Like those before him, he seems to know which of his magical things will work for which people.”

  THE ROADS WERE QUIETER NOW. As they drove out of the town, Tasker was able to drive at greater and greater speeds, swinging confidently around the corners so that the wheels screeched. There were fewer people on the streets too. The only ones they had seen had been gathered around the shop with the glowing oblongs in the window – ‘televisions’, Mr Zhi had called them. A gaggle of young people were pressed up against the glass, watching a succession of quick-fire images, some of which had looked fleetingly like the stone circle, while others showed men – soldiers, perhaps – in uniforms of green camouflage. Others still showed the head and shoulders of a wide-eyed man or woman chattering frantically, gesticulating behind them.

  But while the televisions had seemed full of life and drama, the town had been quiet. At one point a whole convoy of white cars with luminescent orange stripes had suddenly rushed upon them with blue lights flashing and strange, shrill wails shattering the calm, but they had been gone in an instant. Shortly afterwards, Naeo thought she had heard a buzzing, humming stutter in the sky, and two or three long shadows had passed across the car, but she had not seen what caused them. She would have asked Mr Zhi what they were, but there had been too many other things to talk about. In fact, ever since they had left the Shop of Things they had been plying one another with questions, about the strange things they had seen, about Gabblety Row and Sylas, about the Merisi and the plight of the Suhl.

  Naeo had been telling Mr Zhi about the Reckoning – about the great fires that had in large part decided its outcome. She told him about the clouds of hot ash that had ravaged the land, coating everything living, dead and dying in a deep, smothering blanket that left nothing but grey wastes. Mr Zhi had raised his hands in resignation, unwilling to hear more. He apologised for his sensibilities, then turned away and stared at the road ahead, quiet and thoughtful. Naeo thought that he looked even smaller, if that were possible.

  A chattering, rhythmic music broke the silence as it had a number of times on their journey, and Tasker fumbled in his pocket for his little black oblong. Now, as on the other occasions, he raised it to his ear and listened to a quiet but frantic voice. He nodded and murmured in response, “Still on the move? How far?” And then: “More? How many?” He glanced at Mr Zhi, but the old man simply raised his hand, indicating that he understood but would not speak. “It’ll have to wait until Winterfern,” he said. And so it was each time the oblong burst into life: Tasker would speak calmly to the person in the oblong, imploring them to wait until later or to meet them at Winterfern, while Mr Zhi would remain quiet and thoughtful.

  They drove out into the open countryside, and as the sun painted its final cheery tints on the horizon the conversation took a new turn.

  “So this Winterfern … is it a hospital?” asked Ash, looking out at the rolling hills ahead. “A real one?”

  Mr Zhi turned a little in the front seat to face him. “In the sense that it makes people well, yes, it is real. But it is hardly ordinary.”

  Naeo pulled her eyes away from the scenery. “Why?”

  “Everyone at Winterfern is a little like Sylas’s mother. They all suffer from a little too much truth.”

  Naeo frowned. “How can you have too much truth? You mean, about the two worlds?”

  “Yes, though it is normally far more specific than that. Far more … individual.” Mr Zhi smiled, seeming to realise that he was not making a lot of sense. He turned a little more in his seat. “You see, an unexpected run-in with the Other can be a very traumatic thing. If someone is unfortunate enough to chance upon some part of the truth without preparation, without explanation, well, that can be quite terrifying. Devastating, even.”

  Ash leaned forward. “What parts of the truth do people see?”

  Mr Zhi sighed. “That’s what makes these problems so difficult to prevent and to treat. Each case is individual … personal. Some might just have vivid dreams, glimpsing things that they shouldn’t really see – things perhaps that their Glimmer has seen. Others are unfortunate enough to see those things when they are not even sleeping – those poor souls hardly know whether they are coming or going. But those that tend to suffer most of all are the ones who go one step further – those who actually witness something they shouldn’t. Something not of their world.”

  “Some people actually cross over?” asked Naeo.

  “Not necessarily, no. One doesn’t need to leave this world to have a dalliance with one of the Four Ways. Imagine living an ordinary, magic-free life, and then one day somebody
pinches you or irritates you and somehow, without raising a finger, you throw a chair at them.”

  “Urgolvane,” said Naeo, glancing at Ash. “That happens? Here?”

  Mr Zhi nodded. “Rarely, but it does. Or perhaps one day you are sitting a test at school and suddenly you find you know all the answers, but not because you did the work: because your neighbour did.”

  “Druindil …” said Ash, looking confused. “But I thought you said you didn’t have the Four Ways here?”

  “Generally, we don’t; we don’t witness any of the wonders of your world. But it happens. Like anything so unnatural, the division of our worlds is imperfect. It breaks, not because of how it was made, but because it was made at all. We call the breaks ‘Slips’. They take all sorts of forms: places, things – Slips even happen in people’s minds. And that’s where the Merisi come in.”

  “To stop it from happening?” asked Naeo.

  “If only we could!” the old man exclaimed with a sad chuckle. “No, but we can help in other ways. We care for those affected by the break in the worlds – and that is just what Winterfern is doing. We also keep others from being affected, which means keeping the division as orderly – and as secret – as we can. That’s why we built Gabblety Row over a Slip, for instance. To hide it.”

  “Like I told you,” said Tasker.

  “Yes, thank you, Jeremy,” said Mr Zhi. “Which brings me to the Merisi’s third and most important task. I said we don’t have the power to stop it from happening, but we can help those who have. Those who may actually be able to end this abomination once and for all.”

  Naeo narrowed her eyes. “You’re talking about me and Sylas, aren’t you?”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it,” he said, with a smile.

  Ash cleared his throat. “All this is great but how can you help Naeo, exactly?”

  Mr Zhi’s eyes flicked to his. “Well, quite! You have an excellent way of getting to the point, young Ash. If you weren’t on the wrong side of things, I’d make a Bringer of you!”

  Tasker scoffed.