“No, Sylas,” insisted Paiscion. “Read them. Read only the fainter letters.”
He turned back to the paper and tried to see it with new eyes. He read slowly, moving carefully from one faded letter to the next.
They came from the cool of the sand-scented temples: from the long dark of the coiling passages and the oily flicker of many-columned halls. They rose as leaders of men in that ancient land, men of words and vision whose mystery brought hope to the squalor-born… But while the people lifted their eyes upon the gentle countenance of these blessed men, they saw not the cool and dark of their hearts, nor the oily flicker behind their eyes.
He felt the hairs rise on his neck. The more he read, the surer he became: they formed words. Letter by letter, word by word, they started to make sense. In a wavering voice, he began to say them aloud:
“So… at… last… we… may… be… one.”
34
Here or There?
“Are the answers here in this world or there in that?
Are they here, in the face that I know, or there, in the face
that I do not?”
PAISCION’S JACKET FLEW UP around him as a gust of wind buffeted the dingy corridor. The only light came from several large gaps in the planking above, which gave way to large tracts of open sky and a lattice of loose rigging.
“Come!” he shouted over the noise of wind and waves. “To the Bow Room!”
“So you think that… that the poem’s about Sylas?” shouted Simia incredulously, chasing along behind him while trying to read Mr Zhi’s note.
“That is what the Merisi seem to believe and I have no reason to doubt them!” cried the Magruman, bursting through a door into another passageway.
Simia wrestled with the door and caught him up again. “And you think he can – I don’t know – bring the worlds together?”
“That’s not quite what Merisu’s poem says.”
Simia frowned. “Then I don’t get it.”
“It says that Sylas must ‘reach for the silvered glimmer’,” said Paiscion, pulling at another door.
She thought for a moment, then her eyes widened. “You mean he has to... fi n d his Glimmer?”
Paiscion made no reply as his shoulder crashed into another door.
Sylas ran along behind them in silence. He had not spoken a word since he had read Mr Zhi’s message. He was lost somewhere between disbelief and resignation: disbelief that the message could possibly be for him and yet an odd kind of resignation that it may very well be so. After all, nothing made sense any more: nothing could be taken for granted. Not now. He had seen the whole world change around him. He had witnessed magic beyond his wildest dreams. He could not even trust his memories of his mother any more. In the midst of this storm of questions the message from Mr Zhi seemed almost plausible.
The Magruman led them down some steps and the evening light faded to blackness, but only for a moment, for in the next instant he threw open a door and they were bathed in a pale blue light. Beyond the threshold was a very peculiar room indeed. It was not square or oblong as a room should be; indeed it had no straight lines or right angles whatsoever. Its two side walls swept towards one another in long arcs until they met at a point opposite the door, making the room triangular in shape. Even more confusing, its ceiling was far larger than the floor, its curving walls leaned outwards towards their top and every timber, beam and fixing was crooked or warped. The only semblance of order or design was provided by a procession of large rusted portholes mounted along both sides, which were quite uncharacteristically intact and gave an exhilarating view of the world outside. As Sylas entered, he saw the grey light of the sky through the bleary glass, but in the next instant, as the ship plunged forward, the portholes were submerged in a greyish-brown soup, giving the briefest glimpse of the murky depths of the river before they climbed on another wave.
“Mind your step!” cried Paiscion, glancing over his shoulder. “We’re coming into the estuary now – it’s going to get rough!”
He started to make his way across the room towards the bow and, as he did so, Sylas saw that much of the floor was taken up with a mass of strange objects. At his feet was a tub of greenish sand that shimmered in the light. Next to it was a large glass cylinder containing a blue fluid with what looked like a long, twisted root suspended inside. Just to one side there was a large ornate contraption that looked something like a metronome – the device his mother had used to keep time as she played the piano. In front of him was a large leather chair inscribed across its back with countless golden symbols and on its cushion an embroidered white feather. Everywhere he looked was something curious and magical. He glanced at Simia and she too was staring excitedly around the room.
“Look at that!” she whispered.
Sylas followed her gaze and frowned. It was a dark grey typewriter. Not a modern but a steel one, with the keys suspended at the ends of scores of little metal arms. It seemed utterly out of place. It was the kind of thing he had seen many times in antique shops and markets, but never expected to see here.
But then he started to see other strange reminders of his own world: an old pedal-powered sewing machine; a pair of binoculars in a worn leather case; a small wooden box of tiny tools and measuring devices, like the ones that he had seen his mother using when she was drawing; an old box camera, complete with wooden tripod. The whole room was filled with such bric-a-brac, nestled among countless things of magic and mystery. It was like a museum, a private collection of treasured things: things of both worlds that had somehow escaped the ravages of the Undoing. It reminded Sylas of the Shop of Things. The only difference was that here there were no crates or parcels: instead everything was laid out for anyone to see. Everything, that is, but a large pile of objects that had been crammed thoughtlessly into one corner, one piled upon the other. To his surprise, he saw that they were things all too familiar to him: a lamp with a light bulb, a gleaming toaster, a kettle, a television, their electric leads tangled pointlessly around them or trailing down to the deck below.
“Please don’t touch that!” snapped Paiscion as Simia reached for a clockwork train. “The Things you see here are perhaps the last of their kind!”
She snatched her hand away and looked up with practised innocence.
“Don’t worry,” murmured Sylas when Paiscion had turned away. “There are plenty of those left.”
Paiscion shot a stern look over his shoulder. “In your world, certainly, but not here! The Bringers took great risks to give us these Things, and others have suffered even greater peril to keep them safe.”
They made their way along the crooked, narrow pathway between the piles of strange objects until they were very near the thick, vertical beam that formed the bow. Drawing alongside Paiscion, they saw that the final triangular patch of decking was entirely clear except for a single chair that faced directly into the bow. Sylas thought this strange until he looked up and saw two large mirrors mounted on the walls, one with a white frame, one black. They had been positioned so that from the back of the chair they could see themselves in both.
“They’re like the mirrors that Mr Zhi showed me!”
“Yes, yes, they are. This is a Glimmer Glass,” said Paiscion, stepping forward to dust the mirrors down. “Of course, this particular one is larger and much, much older than the one you would have seen in Mr Zhi’s shop, but they do the same thing. At least they used to… it’s been a very, very long time since…”
“Glimmer Glass?” repeated Sylas, a look of realisation passing over his face. “Mr Zhi said that the mirrors would let me see all I am able to be. Did he... did he mean my Glimmer?”
A smile grew across Paiscion’s pale face. “Naturally,” he said. He patted the back of the seat. “And now that is exactly what you must do.”
Sylas’s stomach turned over. “Why?”
“Because that is what Merisu is telling you to do,” said Paiscion. He lowered his face so that he could look into Sylas’s eye
s. “That ancient poem is all about you and your Glimmer, Sylas. Merisu’s writings, the work of the Merisi, the Samarok, the Passing Bell – somehow all of it is about you.” He turned and looked at the mirrors. “You and whoever is on the other side of that glass!”
Sylas looked at the mirrors and saw his own pale face staring back. Finally things were starting to make sense – perhaps this was it – this was how everything was going to become clear... about his journey... his mother even... in these strange mirrors. Perhaps now he was nearing the end. But the longer his eyes traced the lines of his face, the more apprehensive he became. It all seemed so strange, so impossible. Who was he about to see? And then he had another thought:
“Are you… are you sure this is right? I mean... natural?”
“I am quite sure,” said Paiscion with a smile of encouragement. He placed a hand on Sylas’s shoulder and drew him forward. “This is what the Glimmer Glass was made for. This is what Mr Zhi wanted to show you!”
Sylas thought back to the dark aisles of the Shop of Things, to Mr Zhi’s excitement as he had taken the mirrors from the packaging. That was what Mr Zhi had intended – to prove that Sylas was able to summon his Glimmer – that this was meant to happen!
“You can see all that you are able to be,” he had said.
Sylas stepped forward, around the side of the chair and sat down, hearing it creak under his weight. He was breathless and frightened, but as before, he was carried forward by a feeling that this was where he was supposed to be. This is where his journey had led him. This is where his mother had led him.
“That’s right,” said Paiscion. “Now move the chair until you can see yourself in both mirrors. Good – that’s it. So do you know how this works?”
Sylas shook his head.
“Look into one mirror, not into both. You must try to see what is in the other without turning your eyes. Like with the Ravel Runes, see what is there, not what you expect to see.”
Sylas took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ll try,” he said, glancing nervously at Simia.
She grinned at him, her eyes darting excitedly between his face and the mirrors until, to her evident annoyance, Paiscion drew her a few paces back, so that Sylas alone could see his reflections.
He turned his eyes to the one with the white frame. The border was engraved with symbols made up of beautiful curving lines and, as he looked more closely, he recognised them as Ravel Runes. He let his eyes rest on them and, as he cleared his mind, they began to change. They twisted and turned and curled and untangled until letters began to form.
“Reach for the silvered glimmer,” he whispered, a shiver tracing his spine.
“What?” demanded Simia, lunging forward. Paiscion pulled her back by the shoulder and frowned sternly.
“The words on the frame,” said Sylas. “They’re the ones from Merisu’s poem.”
“Indeed so,” smiled the Magruman, and then, under his breath: “And so it all comes together.”
Sylas turned his eyes from the white frame to the mirror itself and again saw his pale face staring back. He tried to let the world around him fade, to focus on what was in the mirrors. It was difficult, for the ship was rising and falling, yawing and pitching, and the sound of the waves striking the bow was deafening. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing and opened them again. He stared at his face and at the same time turned his attention to the other mirror, trying to make out the blurred reflection in the corner of his eye. He tilted his head slightly.
The image shifted, just as he would expect.
He moved in his chair and rubbed his sweaty palms together. Still his eyes were fixed on the white mirror and still he focused his mind on the other indistinct image. A wave caught the side of the hull and the room lurched to the left, making everyone sway to one side.
Sylas frowned. He had moved, but the image in the black mirror had not.
Gripping the arms of the chair, he tried to focus on the other reflection, to see its shape, its lines, its features. Suddenly it moved, as if his own head had turned. But he had been still.
“I think I can see someone,” he whispered excitedly.
“Good!” cried Paiscion. “Describe them to me!”
Sylas strained his eyes. “I can’t… I can’t quite…”
He winced as a pulse of pain shot through his wrist – beneath the Merisi Band. As he reached for it with the other hand, he lost concentration and, without intending to, he shifted his eyes to the black mirror. He saw only his own face. The other reflection had gone. But in the same instant the image in the white mirror changed, its lines altering, becoming finer, narrower. The effect was dizzying and in his confusion he let his eyes drift back to the white mirror. Instantly the face in the black mirror changed. The two images had swapped again.
“It’s there! But I can’t see the face!” he cried.
“You must!” bellowed Paiscion over the boom of a wave striking the hull. “We must know who it is!”
Sylas groaned a little as the pain surged again through his wrist. He pulled it up to his chest, massaging it with his other hand.
“The band is telling you that your Glimmer is near!” cried the Magruman. “The pain will go! The face! You must see the face!”
“I’m trying!” snapped Sylas.
He rubbed his eyes. It was hopeless: all he could see was a blur and every time he shifted his eyes across to the other mirror it had moved to the other before his eyes reached it.
He closed his eyes and tried to think. There must be a way. He thought again of his conversation with Mr Zhi. “You can see all that you are able to be,” he had said. Now those words made more sense than ever. Mr Zhi had meant that he was able to see his whole self – both parts of himself... So why was it so difficult? There was something else. Sylas tried to remember the rest of the conversation about the Things and the mobile and the mirrors.
Then it dawned on him. They had been talking about his imagination… about how his imagination made these things possible.
He raised his eyes to the mirror and again drew a long breath. He could see the other reflection moving within the frame almost as though it was trying to attract his attention, but he ignored it and focused on his own image, shutting out the sounds of the ship creaking and the chains clanking and the surf crashing against the timbers. Then, apprehensively, he began to imagine. He imagined his face changing, the lines blurring and morphing into the face in the other mirror; he imagined their two faces becoming one, his own face slowly fading and that of his Glimmer taking its place.
And, as he imagined, everything in the room became distant.
He stared at his own reflection, his own dark brown eyes, dark hair, anxious face. He was so intent on his own image that he hardly noticed when the other reflection started to fade. Only when it entirely disappeared did he realise that something was happening.
The images were drawing together, in a single mirror.
At first Sylas thought it was simply the shifting light catching his hair, but as the moments passed, he saw that its very colour was morphing. It was becoming lighter. At the same time he became sure that it was changing shape: his untidy curls twisting and unfolding until they crept down around his face. It was a mass of blond hair. His face, too, started to change, becoming smaller, thinner. His eyes altered in shape and they too changed colour – changing from brown to green to blue; his very skin seemed to change in tone, becoming lighter and finer.
He was staring in astonishment at a face that he knew.
“I can see her,” he muttered through his teeth, frightened to move his face.
“Her?” repeated Simia, looking confused.
“Of course!” cried Paiscion excitedly.
“It is… it’s a girl!” repeated Sylas, still struggling to believe what he was seeing. “And I’ve seen her before…”
Simia wrestled free of Paiscion and stepped forward.
“Where?” she demanded.
“In my dreams…”
he murmured. The silvered glimmer on the lake… the sun-streaked shadow… his thoughts flew to his hazy, indistinct memories of his dreams. Dreams of the figure walking through the forest and beside the lake… the face peering back at him… the face he knew.
Not his mother, but this girl – his Glimmer!
Paiscion clapped his hands and cried out triumphantly: “Oh, but of course!”
Sylas barely heard him. He was staring into the girl’s eyes and he had the strangest sense that she was staring straight back.
He found her face magnetic: her blue eyes radiant and warm; her fine, narrow features somehow familiar and safe. And although she was a girl, although she was quite clearly different, he saw himself in her. He saw it in the way she tilted her head, in the curl of her mouth and in the rise of her cheek; but most of all he saw it in her expression of fear and wonder. He leaned forward a little in his seat and, in the same instant, so did she. He stopped and frowned and so did she. He drew a sharp breath and her lips parted.
He leaned in still further and, as he expected, she moved nearer. But while he smiled, her expression was different. Suddenly he felt a terrible pain in his arm and in the same instant panic passed over her face. He opened his mouth to speak to her, but suddenly she turned sharply and peered over her shoulder into the darkness.
Then she was gone.
Bowe’s passage from unconsciousness was slow and torturous. His mind was lost in a great darkness, a constant, throbbing pain that gathered about him like great black clouds. He was aware of trying to reach the surface, striving for the light, but he felt heavy, as though his limbs were being dragged down, sinking down, down, into the deep.
And so, when the light did come, it was a surprise, a relief. It appeared to him like sun breaking through the pendulous clouds, like an end to a long and silent storm. But what emerged from behind the clouds were not the dazzling rays for which he so yearned, but a dull and flickering glow. And, as the clouds rolled back, he saw not an open sky, but a vast horizon, a landscape of sand and scrub. Near at hand, a great stone circle rose majestically from the dust, high and proud, casting dark shadows at its feet. At its centre was another circle, but not of stone: it was twelve figures in long robes, their hands joined, their hooded heads cast to the heavens.
The Bell Between Worlds Page 36