Circles of Stone

by Ian Johnstone

  “Good, then!” said Filimaya brightly. She walked over to Ash, embraced him and gestured to a rather portly woman in the front row. “My dear Ash, please go with Kayla – she’ll show you to some fitting quarters. I will come and see you later.”

  Ash nodded and hoisted his pack on to his shoulder. Filimaya turned to Naeo and smiled warmly. “Naeo, your father has become a good friend since the war and he has spoken of you often. I hope that in time we too can be friends.” She held out her hand.

  Naeo stared at the hand, then slowly and awkwardly she took it and gave it a quick shake. “All right,” she said.

  If Filimaya was surprised by this cool response, she did not show it. “Good!” she beamed. “Now, I take it that you and Sylas would prefer to sleep in different—”

  “Yes,” said Naeo and Sylas in unison.

  Their abruptness clearly shocked Filimaya, but she quickly gathered herself and nodded politely. “Of course. Naeo, please go with Kayla and Ash. I’ll come and check on you just as soon as I can.” Finally she turned to Sylas and Simia. “You two,” she added with a wink, “you can come with me.”

  Sylas and Simia smiled and fell in at her side. Sylas tried not to show his relief that they were not to be separated. After all they had been through together over the past few days, he knew he would feel a little lost without Simia. He saw in her glance that she felt the same.

  “Thank you, everyone!” shouted Filimaya.

  There were a few disappointed grumbles from the crowd, but soon enough everyone began to disperse, reluctantly and noisily, amid much chatter about the Windrush and its occupants, about the things Dropka had mentioned – the whispers in the leaves and the chatter among the birds – but most of all, about Sylas’s strange declaration.

  “Why did you have to mention Glimmers?” murmured Simia in his ear, jabbing him in the side. “Now everyone’s completely freaked out!”

  Sylas sucked a breath through his teeth and shrugged. “I don’t know. It just came out!”

  Filimaya led them up the grassy bank and into the cool of the forest. Many of the ancient trees were gigantic, with trunks as broad as castle towers and waist-high roots that rumpled the forest floor into a baffling, mossy maze. They crossed dazzling, sun-speckled glades and lively streams that bubbled between stones, singing watery melodies. They waded through seas of delicate ferns, between vast outcroppings of thickly scented bracken, over rich carpets of leaves and nodding flowers. Sylas was struck at once by how vital everything seemed, how full of life, even though the world outside the valley had fallen under the cloak of winter. Yet there was no sign of any of the people who had met them on the banks of the lake. It was as though they had simply disappeared.

  Filimaya moved with all the grace and ease that Sylas remembered from his time with her in the Water Gardens; in fact she seemed even more vigorous, even more radiant, as though this magical place had returned to her some of her lost youth.

  As they walked, they told Filimaya of their adventures; of their meeting with Espen and their long journey together across the Barrens, ending with Espen’s revelations about the Glimmer Myth. Filimaya nodded as though entirely familiar with the Myth, just as Espen had predicted. They told of Espen’s seeming betrayal at the Circle of Salsimaine and Bayleon’s capture, of their escape to the city and their discovery of Paiscion and the Windrush.

  At the first mention of Paiscion, Filimaya turned.

  “Was he well?” she asked, anxiously.

  Sylas nodded.

  “And where is he now? Did he not travel with you?”

  “You’re jumping ahead!” scolded Simia. “You need to hear the rest first – you’ll miss the best bit!”

  Filimaya sighed. “I don’t know why, Simsi, but I’ve missed you.” She squeezed her arm. “Go on, then, tell me your own way.”

  Sylas and Simia took it in turns to finish the story, telling of Paiscion’s astonishing discovery in the note from Mr Zhi, then Sylas’s encounter with Naeo in the Glimmer Glass and Simia’s decoding of the message “So at last we may be one” into Sylas and Naeo’s names. Simia spent some time on this part of the story and rather exaggerated its importance, but even then Filimaya did not rush her.

  As they began to tell of Naeo’s rescue from the Dirgheon, Filimaya stopped in wonderment.

  “You broke into the Dirgheon?” she blurted.

  Sylas nodded. “It was the only way. I had to get to Naeo.”

  He described Paiscion’s summoning of the storm, the encounter with Espen, the battle with Scarpia and their final escape, flying high over Thoth’s city, borne aloft by Sylas’s strange birds made from the ruined sails and rigging of the Windrush.

  “We really flew, Filimaya!” said Simia. “As high as the clouds – higher even!”

  “It sounds magical, Simsi,” smiled Filimaya. She turned to Sylas. “Was it, Sylas? Was it magic? Or was it the science of your world? Of the Other?” She raised an eyebrow. “I ask because you seem to know quite a lot about both.”

  Sylas thought for a moment. It was still so strange to hear his own world referred to as “the Other” – if anything was other it was this place – this world – with its magic and its creatures and outlandish people.

  “I think it was a bit of both,” he said hesitantly. “Magic and science. The gliders seemed to work, but I don’t think they would have flown like that if Ash hadn’t summoned the winds.”

  “And so already the two worlds are becoming one,” said Filimaya, almost to herself.

  For a moment they walked in silence, each lost in their thoughts.

  Finally Filimaya frowned. “So … you and Naeo are able to be together? You said you held hands. You shared a glider?”

  “Then, yes,” said Sylas. “I mean, it felt weird, and it hurt – here, around the Merisi band –” he held up his wrist to reveal the glistening bracelet – “but it was like, in that moment, we were meant to be together.”

  “And since that moment?”

  “It’s just been … difficult. To be around each other,” said Sylas, shaking his head. “It’s hard to describe why. It’s like I start to feel … like the parts of me – my bones, my insides, even my thoughts … I don’t know …” He trailed off.

  Filimaya looked at him with concern.

  “I keep telling him, I’m not sure they should still be together at all!” said Simia knowingly. She lowered her voice. “And Naeo’s just a bit—”

  “I’m sure Sylas and Naeo will be trying to work all this out themselves in their own good time,” interrupted Filimaya. She put a hand on Sylas’s shoulder. “Come on, it’s this way.”

  She led them through a veil of vines towards a denser part of the forest. As they passed through the long dangling strands, Sylas jabbed Simia in the side.

  “I told you to keep out of it,” he hissed.

  Simia gaped innocently. “I was just being honest,” she protested. “You seemed to think that was a good thing when we got here!”

  Sylas said nothing and pushed on.

  As the vines fell away they gasped. Here the tree trunks were as wide as houses and soared above them to new heights, like the columns of some grand and ancient citadel. Sylas and Simia craned their necks towards the canopy, trying in vain to see the topmost branches.

  “So, tell me,” said Filimaya in a casual tone over her shoulder, “where is Paiscion now?”

  Sylas and Simia exchanged glances, as though neither wanted to reply.

  “We don’t really know,” said Simia hesitantly. “He didn’t come back to the Windrush.”

  “But he said he might not …” added Sylas, quickly. “And he said we shouldn’t worry about him.”

  For a moment, Filimaya turned and gazed at them anxiously, as though hoping they would say more, but when nothing came she breathed in deeply and turned her eyes upwards. She watched the path of a fluttering bird until it was out of sight, but in truth, she seemed to be composing herself.

  Eventually she looked do
wn again. “Well, young Sylas Tate,” she said, her voice sounding a little forced, “every chapter of your adventure is more extraordinary than the last. I marvel at all you have endured and discovered.”

  Sylas smiled, but that too was an effort. “The thing is,” he said, “I still don’t feel we know what we’re doing. I mean, I’ve found out all about the Glimmer Myth, and I get that Naeo and I have … well, everything to do with it. And we’ve even managed to find each other, and to get away from Thoth and the city. But while we were on our way here, all I could think was, what next? Now that we’re together, what do we do?” He frowned. “And the truth is, I still haven’t managed to do the one thing I actually set out to do, which is to find my mum.”

  Filimaya regarded him closely for a moment and then raised her hand to his shoulder. “The truth, Sylas, is that you are at the centre of great things, and the greatest of things rarely happen when and how we choose.”

  Sylas gave her a pained look. “But it’s all just so …”

  “Frustrating? Yes, of course it is.” She smiled and cast her eyes around her. “But you’re here now, in the Valley of Outs, among friends and allies. We will help you to understand and to decide what comes next. I will call a Say-So especially. But right now, Sylas, Simia, you’re exhausted. I’d love to stay with you and ask more, but now you need to go and rest. You can speak to us all, tomorrow, at the Say-So, once you have had a good meal and a decent sleep.”

  Sylas shifted his rucksack on his shoulder and allowed himself to feel the weariness in his limbs and the fogginess in his mind. Filimaya was right, of course. They had hardly slept all the way here – keeping watch, talking, going over all that had happened and what might come next. He looked up at her and nodded gratefully. “I’d like that,” he said.

  She gestured towards the forest. “So go on!”

  Sylas and Simia looked where she had pointed. There was nothing there: just more ferns, bracken and tree trunks.

  “Are we … camping?” asked Simia, failing to hide her disappointment.

  Filimaya’s laugh rang through the trees. “No, of course not –” she pointed – “that’s where you’ll be staying.”

  Sylas and Simia peered past her. She was pointing at a gigantic tree, which towered even higher than those around it and whose massive trunk was at least the width of a small house.

  “Come on – take a closer look!” she said, setting out towards it.

  They all walked slowly across the clearing, staring at the colossal redwood – its huge roots snaking over the surface like dragon tails; its vast, gnarled limbs reaching up into the canopy as far as they could see. But there was no sign of any shelter.

  Then Sylas saw it.

  In a fold of the trunk, between the joints of two great roots, there was an opening: a triangular slit where the flank of the tree had naturally grown apart. Sylas and Simia clambered over one of the roots and stood gazing up at the huge entrance, a grin of delight spreading across their faces. The lip around the dark cavern was smooth, almost as though it had been crafted that way, but there were no cuts or straight lines, no joints or nails. They could smell cool air issuing from the living cave, but it was not musty: it smelt fresh and a little sweet, like timber. And there, deep in the hollow, they saw a flickering light. Then another and another: little oil lamps, dotted around what looked like a substantial chamber.

  Simia beamed at Filimaya. “We’re staying in there?”

  “Why not?” asked Filimaya, smiling. “This is how we live in the Valley of Outs.”

  Sylas frowned. “In trees?”

  “In trees, caves, dells, on lily-rafts, behind waterfalls, beneath roots and hillocks, among the birds in the canopy. Wherever Nature opens herself to us. She is a very generous host, so there’s never a shortage of places to stay!”

  “She makes them for you?”

  “Yes, but not at our bidding. We simply find them when we need them. The more we need the more we find, and I daresay that if we all left one day, they would disappear. Nature provides what is needed and nothing more.” She smiled and looked about her. “And such has been our need since the Reckoning that this place has become something of a town. We call it Sylva.”

  Sylas looked around him but could see no sign of a town. There were no homes or walkways or streets, not even any people.

  Simia could not restrain herself any longer. “I’m going inside,” she said, tugging at his sleeve. “Are you coming?”

  Filimaya was already turning to leave. “You’ll find everything you need. Someone will come and get you in the morning,” she said brightly, as she disappeared into the forest.

  Sylas turned and eyed the dark opening, wondering at the mysterious forces that had made it. Then he followed Simia inside.

  “The spirit of the valley never dies. It is the root of heaven and earth.”

  SYLAS STEPPED BEYOND THE threshold and gasped. It looked for all the world like the inside of a house, but instead of walls there were planes of living timber; in place of doors there was a honeycomb of oddly shaped openings, all seeming to be part of the tree, rather than cut by hand. Covering the floor there was a carpet of fine, spongy green moss, which felt luxuriously soft beneath the feet, and the hallway that he was now standing in – for that was what it seemed to be – was lit by lamps set into natural alcoves in the walls, so that it was well lit and cosy.

  Sylas and Simia dipped through the nearest opening and saw to their delight a room set out with a table and chairs and alcoves containing cups, saucers, plates and all manner of things they might need to serve a meal. In a recess at their side there was bread and cheese; in another, all kinds of fruits; in another still, what looked like a cured ham wrapped in a waxy cloth. All this was lit by two more lamps and natural light that came in through a large slit high in the external wall. In the far corner, they could hear the tinkle of flowing water coming from a depression in the floor and when they looked they saw the glistening surface of an underground stream. Set neatly to one side was a pitcher and a set of glasses.

  They rushed into the next room and found what seemed to be a lounge or parlour, but instead of a sofa the mossy floor was raised in one corner to form a comfortable platform covered with an even thicker layer of moss, to which someone had added a scattering of colourful cushions. They resisted the temptation to jump on it and ran into the next two rooms, where they found similar platforms that had been made into beds, with thick eiderdowns and feather pillows.

  “How did they know to get this ready for us?” marvelled Sylas.

  Simia lay back on a bed and closed her eyes blissfully. “Filimaya always kept at least one room ready for visitors in the Meander Mill. Not that I was ever allowed to stay in any of them.” She yawned. “Yep, I’m definitely going up in the world.”

  Sylas grinned and laid his bag down, before heading to the dining room where he cut himself a piece of bread and ham. He took it with him to the lounge and sat back on the surprisingly soft and warm sofa, biting contentedly into his sandwich. He devoured it in seconds and then settled back to relax.

  He smiled to himself as he thought how different this was from Gabblety Row – from the bricks and beams and winding corridors, from the growling roads at its corner and his uncle’s grubby little apartment. He laughed at the thought of his uncle Tobias. What would he make of all this? He imagined that accountant’s brain trying to make sense of it all, make it all add up, like a good tax return. Well, nothing about this world added up. It would defeat his uncle absolutely and completely, and something about that made Sylas happy.

  He yawned and put his hands behind his head. What was his uncle doing now, now that he had no one to run his stupid little errands, no one to snipe at, no one to blame?

  His eyes were just beginning to close when he heard a movement in the room.

  He opened his eyes. Simia was leaning on what passed for the doorframe, chewing on an apple.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked disap
provingly.

  “What do you mean? I’m relaxing – I thought that was what you were doing!”

  Simia was incredulous. “Isn’t there a curious bone in your body? I mean, here we are in the great Valley of Outs, and all you want to do is have a kip?”

  Sylas stared at her for a moment and then managed a weary grin. “Come on then,” he said, hauling himself to his feet and brushing off the crumbs. “Let’s go explore.”

  In the forest the sun was just setting, painting the trees with pink and orange, which only added to their magic and beauty. Walking alone they were free to wander and gaze all about them, to take in the sheer scale of the towering trees. But they also tried to look beyond roots and trunks and branches to find any sign of the town Filimaya had mentioned. And the more they explored, the more they discovered.

  They saw the first of the townsfolk in the crevices and folds of tree trunks, in dark openings that now, in the failing light, showed themselves to be entrances to warm, glowing sanctuaries, where people sat around tables and laughed and chatted, where children played and argued and readied themselves for bed. And they saw homes in other, more unusual places. Sylas was the first to see one beneath the roots of a grand old tree, partly in the folds of the tree and partly underground. Then Simia saw one high in the canopy, nestled in the crook of four intersecting boughs, wrapped all about with a lattice of branches like a giant nest. But these branches had not been cut or placed or woven. They were alive. They had grown that way.

  They walked further into the forest and saw more and more of these strange dwellings high in the treetops, some beginning to glow with flickering lamplight. But what was even more magical was that they saw people walking from one to the other along the tops of the largest boughs, as though ambling through the roof of the forest was the most natural thing in the world. The more they looked, the more people they began to see, until they realised that the entire canopy was connected by a network of walkways. Some people walked quickly along the great branches, rushing to a late appointment or to get home for dinner; others walked beside a companion, chatting or taking in the evening air. One woman even walked along reading a book. But what Sylas found most surprising of all was the sight of children running between these great trees without a care in the world.