Circles of Stone

by Ian Johnstone

  Sylas watched this until he heard Simia’s scream from above. Only then did he see how close the waters were: three rungs below. Then two. He turned and threw himself up the final steps, heaving himself through the grille and then finally, over the rim into the world of light. He lay there on his back, panting, staring up at the darkening sky, which in that moment seemed like a glimpse of heaven.

  He pushed himself up on his elbows and saw that he was in a deserted back alley, fringed by ramshackle timber dwellings. His companions were sitting with their backs up against a disused wall: Simia with her arms around her knees, staring at the dirt; Takk and Faysa huddled close to one another, holding thin hands. They were staring at him, clearly bewildered, mouths a little open, faces slack and white.

  Faysa swallowed and murmured: “You’re … him!”

  “You are, aren’t you?” said Takk. He blew a low whistle. “You’re Sylas Tate!”

  Sylas glanced nervously up and down the lane, then he nodded.

  Takk brushed down his coat and rose slowly to his feet, his one eye never leaving Sylas. He walked over and held out his hand.

  “I’m … honoured,” he said.

  Sylas laughed. “The honour’s all mine,” he said, shaking Takk’s hand. “You saved us down there.”

  “And you saved us all!” said Takk, shaking his hand ever more vigorously. “How did you … how did you do that?”

  “I don’t really know,” said Sylas with a smile. “I don’t understand it myself …” He trailed off as his eyes drifted over to Simia and found her staring up at him. She looked exhausted, her expression empty and sad, her shoulders trembling a little in the cold.

  He started unbuttoning his coat. “Here,” he said, “you need to keep—”

  “I don’t want it,” said Simia sharply. Then she softened her voice. “I mean, thanks, I’m fine.” She climbed wearily to her feet. “Come on, we should be going.”

  “But won’t you come with us to the slums?” asked Takk, obviously disappointed. “People there would love to see you. And we can give you a good square meal! We may be a bit short of dried meat, eh, Faysa, but we can still put on a decent—”

  “No, thank you,” said Sylas, still looking at Simia. “Simsi’s right, we need to keep moving.”

  “Well, at least let us help you. Where are you going?”

  Simia shook her head. “We shouldn’t say.”

  Sylas looked at Simia for a moment, as if deciding something, then turned to Takk. “We’re going to see Isia,” he said quietly.

  Takk’s mouth fell open and then his narrow face broke into a smile. “Of course you are!” he said, with a chuckle. “Of course you are!” He tapped the side of his nose. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with us!”

  “I know,” said Sylas, smiling as he reached down for his bag. He felt around in the dirt for a moment before hoisting it on to his shoulder. As his fingers brushed his neck, he noticed that they were cool and oily. He glanced at them and saw a trace of black slime across his fingertips. He scowled and wiped them on his coat.

  “Was that stuff black? On your fingers?” asked Takk, looking alarmed.

  “Yeah, but it’s gone, look,” said Sylas, showing him.

  Takk peered at them closely with his good eye and grunted. He reached for his belt, unhooking his water bottle. “They should be all right,” he said, washing Sylas’s fingers, then returning the bottle to his belt, “but wash them again when you get the chance. Can’t be too careful with the Black.”

  “Come on, we need to go,” said Simia, who had already started up the lane, calling over her shoulder, “thanks.”

  And then she was gone, walking swiftly away.

  Sylas turned to Takk. “Sorry. It’s the coat – it was her dad’s.”

  “No need to explain,” said Takk, watching her go. “We all know what it’s like to lose what’s important.” He clapped him on the shoulder. “It looks like you’d better be going. Good luck!”

  Sylas nodded his farewell to them both, then he ran after Simia.

  When he reached her, she was standing at the end of the lane, gazing past him, watching Takk and Faysa gathering their things. They took one last look into the grille of the sewer, talking excitedly, then wandered off between two timber houses. Before they were out of sight, Faysa took her father’s hand. He lifted it up and pressed it to his lips.

  “It’s not fair,” said Simia in a small, flat voice. “None of this is fair.” She was trembling in the cold.

  “I know, Simsi,” he said. Then, putting an arm round her shoulder, he said: “Come on. Let’s do this.”

  “What enchantment attends this Place of Tongues, where thoughts and dreams are borne up like leaves upon the wind?”

  NAEO STIRRED IN HER sleep. For a moment it felt like she might escape that darkness of lonely cells and dank corridors and half-seen monsters: that darkness of the Dirgheon. She felt like she was rising to the surface, drifting up through layers of murk to a distant light. She could see grey somewhere above – a wide, cloud-covered sky – and for a moment she was filled with hope: hope that she might wake, that the nightmare might be over.

  And then came the Black.

  Like before it shifted under her skin, making her want to scream. But this was worse. It fogged her mind like it had in those first days, rising in plumes of nothingness until her thoughts had no space, until she felt she was losing herself. And in the same moment, the pain surged up her spine, scything up and up, spanning her shoulders. This time it did not stop. It climbed until it reached the nape of her neck, then turned like a twisting dagger and planted itself deep in her flesh.

  She jolted in her sleep, pressing herself back into the car seat, trying to ease the pain. And then, even in the shades of her dream, even through the fog of the Black, she prayed to Isia for help.

  Sylas winced. He cocked his head to one side and rubbed his neck. That seemed to help the pain a little, but it still felt strange, as though something was shifting under his skin, plucking at his nerves. He rubbed it again, and then forced himself to leave it alone. Right now there were more important things to worry about.

  They were at the centre of a broad street beset by rattles and clatters, shouts and rumbles – all the life and chaos of the city. Ox-drawn carts, pack horses and carriages whisked by, churning up the muddy street while an endless throng of people rushed to and fro, making their way between shops and taverns and market stalls.

  “Not far now,” Simia said, pressing on.

  Sylas wandered after her through the crowd. He felt completely unprepared to reach the temple … his mind was still in the darkness of the sewer. He could still smell the stench on his clothes, see the Slithen writhing through the tunnel, feel the foul waters coursing through his body.

  And then he felt it again, something rippling just beneath his skin – a sharp, shooting pain through his neck. But there was something else too: a numbness and fogginess that crept up the side of his face, through his skull, into his thoughts until his mind began to drift, as though it was no longer his own.

  Suddenly something slammed into him from behind.

  “Out of the way, numbskull!” growled a bearded trader on horseback, sliding his boot back into its stirrup. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

  Sylas lowered his eyes and hurried away. What had he been thinking? Standing stock-still in the middle of a street? How stupid could he be? When he caught up with Simia, she was standing with her arms crossed looking distinctly unimpressed.

  “Gawping again!” she whispered. “I thought you were over that?”

  “I thought so too,” snapped Sylas, still angry at himself. “It’s just my neck –” he started rubbing below his chin – “it feels really …. weird.”

  Suddenly he stopped. Simia’s eyes were fixed on his neck and her mouth had fallen open. “What … is it, Simsi?”

  “Your neck,” she said. “Did you touch it? When you had the Black on your fingers?”

&nbs
p; Sylas shook his head and was about to say no when he remembered that brief, slight sensation of wetness as he had lifted his bag. He felt his gut tighten.

  “I … might have done. What is it, Simsi?”

  Simia seemed to struggle to find the words, then she said: “You have it on your neck … like a spider.” She looked back up to his eyes. “It wasn’t there back in the lane. It must have grown since then.”

  Sylas touched it again and for the first time he felt a slight rise, like a vein beneath his skin. “How bad is it?”

  “Well it’s not good,” said Simia. There was a softness in her voice.

  Sylas did not like that softness. He saw it in her eyes too and that frightened him. “Well … I guess I can’t do anything about it now. Not until we get to the temple.” He hesitated, trying not to panic. “Can I?”

  Simia drew her eyes away from his neck. “I don’t know. I suppose not.” She turned and took a quick look down a lane at her side. “Come on, it’s this way.”

  She led him down the shadowy lane crammed with traders behind carts and stalls, all of them selling what looked like necklaces threaded with symbols of wood and bone. They navigated all the bother and bustle with ease and quickly reached the far end, where Simia finally slowed to a halt, looked around her and stepped into the shade of a porch.

  “What are you doing?” Sylas asked, pushing in next to her.

  “I’m letting you gawp without being conspicuous.” She nodded back over his shoulder. “You’d better take a look.”

  Sylas felt a tingle down his spine and turned slowly, following her gaze.

  Ahead of him, through a grand opening at the end of the lane was a huge expanse of pristine white marble flooring, so pure and bright that he had to squint. The stone was smooth and polished so that it showed the reflection of all who walked on it: a faint, shimmering double beneath their feet. But most were not on their feet at all. In the centre of the vast square of white stone, hundreds if not thousands of people knelt, all of them facing in the same direction, bowed over so that their foreheads rested on the cool marble. None of them stirred – they were entirely still except for their hands, which moved feverishly over strings of symbols, turning them through their fingers. These were the necklaces the traders had been selling in the lane – not necklaces at all, but some kind of beads, aiding the worshippers in their prayer.

  The square was utterly silent except for the ebb and flow of thousands of hushed voices, whispering a jumble of millions of words, which merged to create an incessant murmur and hiss. The effect was entrancing.

  “Is all this for Isia?” he asked.

  Simia nodded. “This is the Place of Tongues. They come here to worship her.”

  His gaze drifted over the thousands of hunched backs and he wondered at the devotion of the congregation: young and old, wealthy and poor united in their adoration. At the far side of this murmuring sea, he saw the frontage of many buildings, all with their strange pyramidal roofs. And then his eyes were drawn upwards. There, above dark trails of city smoke, he saw the tower.

  It was colossal, spanning the width of four or five buildings, and when he looked up his eyes followed the perfectly smooth, tapering sides until his neck craned and his back arched. It seemed to reach almost to the clouds, looming over the city.

  Simia’s whisper joined the thousands of others: “The Temple of Isia!”

  He had seen the temple before, but only from a distance. The effect up close was breathtaking. The only breaks in the slick white surface were a series of ribs that ran vertically along its full length until, at the very top, they broadened like the branches of a gigantic tree and sprouted outwards to form great stone supports. These bore a gigantic circular platform, into which was carved a disorderly collection of human figures in poses he could not quite make out, gathered around a tangled mass of symbols and shapes. Even at this distance, he could see that there was something strange and disturbing about the figures – something that was at first difficult to see but which slowly became clear. None of them had faces. In every other way they were lifelike recreations of the human form, but where their faces should have been there was only featureless stone.

  Some distance above the first massive stone terrace was another, even larger platform that loomed over the one below, as if to shelter it from the elements. It too was carved with entwined, faceless human figures. It was only here in the shaded edifice between these two platforms that he could see any openings: wide arches showing a core of impenetrable blackness.

  He felt a thrill of excitement. Just beyond those arches might be the answers he had been searching for.

  “So we just walk up and knock?” said Simia.

  Sylas blew out his cheeks. “Well, you heard what Paiscion said when we were in Merimaat’s retreat. He said she would know we were coming. That all we should need to do is ask for her.”

  “Yes, I remember,” she said, doubtfully.

  “‘The Priestesses will know what to do’ – that’s exactly what he said.”

  Simia gazed across the square and shook her head. “Seems a little … easy, doesn’t it?”

  Sylas bit his lip, then he stepped out from the porch. “Come on, we won’t know until we try.”

  They started out into the throng of people and walked around the crowd of worshippers, the whispers becoming louder and louder as they drew close. Soon all they could hear was the hiss of hushed voices, the words merging to form an impenetrable wall of sound, a great gale of words. They made no sense to Sylas but the sound was exciting and magical – an intoxicating murmur of hopes and dreams. But he forced himself to keep his eyes ahead and walk on, making his way as calmly as he could through the praying figures.

  Suddenly Simia faltered. She took another couple of steps and then glanced at Sylas.

  He followed her eyes towards the base of the great tower and all the air left his lungs.

  He could not see the tower because it was surrounded by a wall of scales and gristle and muscle. Scores of gargantuan beasts stood shoulder to shoulder, showing barely a chink of whatever lay beyond. They had all the order and discipline of soldiers, but their appearance was anything but human. Their pale yellow complexion was not skin at all but scales like those of the Slithen, shimmering in the white light of the square. But if they were cousins of the Slithen, their scales were the only sign of it. These were beasts of the land not the waves. They had massive thighs, thick and taut; gigantic, broad shoulders rippling with muscle; and feet and hands that were wide and clawed, tipped with dreadful talons. Their giant heads hung low between their shoulders with a thick-set skull, flaring nostrils and, most striking of all, mighty horns that swept back and then curled down so that the cruel points jutted forward, in line with their dripping snouts.

  There was something unnerving about their half-bull, half-reptilian eyes. Like those of the Ghor, they were sharp and intelligent: alert to all the comings and goings of the square.

  Sylas drew close to Simia. “They weren’t supposed to be there.”

  She was still staring in disbelief. “They’re not supposed to exist at all.”

  “What are they?”

  “I’ve … I’ve only read about them – in stories about the ancient wars. They were known as Ra’ptahs in the old language, but people had another name for them.” She turned to him. “They called them Ragers.”

  “OK …” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “Why’s that?”

  Simia blinked coolly. “Why do you think? They say Thoth made them that way: cunning, strong and full to the horn-tips with—”

  “Rage,” said Sylas, running his hand through his hair, looking at the mass of terrifying beasts. “OK, so that’s good.”

  “Ragers are surely fed by hell’s own fire. To see their fury is to look into the blazing eyes of Lucifer himself.”

  SYLAS SQUINTED ACROSS THE square, trying to see a way past. It was hopeless. The cordon of Ragers was so tight that there was no sign of the doorway Paisci
on had described, nor the initiate priestesses that he had said would be seated around its entrance. He searched his memory for anything else the Magruman had told him – some hint of another way in, something about the building, Isia, anything, but Paiscion had not foreseen this. They had only one plan and this had been it.

  “Thoth must have thought we’d try to come,” said Simia. “But the Ragers… where did they come from? And why now?”

  “You know why, Simsi. Remember what Triste saw. Thoth isn’t just getting ready for us. We’re part of it, yes, but he’s thinking bigger … much bigger.”

  “It’s real, isn’t it?,” said Simia, gazing at the creatures. “Everything Triste saw is really happening.”

  Suddenly there was a commotion across the plaza. One of the traders selling the strange strings of beads had been sidling past the assembled Ragers in an attempt to reach some worshippers, when one of the beasts, irritated by his boldness, growled ominously. Instantly the trader backed away, dropping his stock. Now he was reaching down, frantically gathering up the beads, holding some of them up towards the Rager as an offering – or perhaps he was just trying to put something between him and it. Who could blame him – the beast panted and snorted with inexplicable fury, seeming to swell in size, its chest expanding, its huge shoulders drawing back, and all the while its scaly form changing colour from yellow to pink to a bright, livid red. And suddenly there it was, true to its name: a Rager. There was a movement behind it and something lashed the air – something long and muscular. The tail flew so quickly that it was almost a blur, leaving only the briefest impression of two rows of barbs along its length and a pointed tip.

  The Rager stormed forward now, blasting forth a vicious animal snarl, snorting two clouds of vapour from its nostrils as its forked tongue slapped against its wide jaws. It grasped the poor hawker around the neck, hoisting him high into the air for all to see.