“Merimaat,” said the voice. Then it added: “How does she lead us?”
“With a withered hand,” said Simia quickly. “What is her name?”
“Truth,” said the voice. There was a brief silence. “What myth is no myth at all?”
Simia seemed surprised by this. For a moment she was quiet, then she said, “The Glimmer Myth?”
The male voice grunted: apparently this was the right answer but he seemed unimpressed. “And who is come to us?” he asked.
Again Simia hesitated.
“Who is come to us?” asked the voice, louder this time. “From the Other?”
This seemed to have taken Simia off guard. She began to murmur something, then seemed to change her mind. Finally she said: “The boy.”
“His name!” insisted the voice.
Simia cleared her throat. “Sylas. Sylas Tate.”
There was a laugh from the darkness and the sound of shifting fabric, feet squelching on the bricks. “You had me worried for a moment!” said the voice, now more friendly. A hand patted Simia’s shoulder, and then Sylas’s.
“The name’s Takk and this is my daughter, Faysa.”
“Hello,” said a young female voice.
“Hi, I’m Simia.” She paused and squeezed Sylas’s arm. “And this is Ash.”
Takk grunted. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but nothing’s a pleasure down here. Where are you headed?”
“Just trying to get into the city – past the checkpoints,” said Simia.
“Aren’t we all!” said Takk, seeming amused. “We have three bags of dried meat and a whole bunch of letters the Tythish would love to get their hands on. What are you bringing in?”
“More letters,” said Simia. “From the valley.”
“From the valley?” The voice had a new tone of respect. “They’ll go down a treat in the slums!”
“I hope so. It’s taken us a week to get here.”
“Not surprised. Strange times … evil times. More vermin around than I’ve ever seen before. Ghor, Ghorhund, Slithen, Tythish … others too. They say the birthing chambers have never been busier. And it’s not just here in Gheroth – we were in Setgur before and it was just the same. Whatever’s going on, it’s happening right across the empire.”
“Dad,” whispered the girl, “we shouldn’t be talking so much! Can’t we just go? I hate it down here.”
“Yes, Faysa, yes, you’re right,” said Takk. “We shouldn’t tarry any longer than we need to. Slithen everywhere.” He paused and then asked: “Do you want to walk with us? I know a way out not too far from here.”
“Thanks,” said Simia, needing no encouragement. “I think I may have got us a little lost.”
Takk had already started off up the passage. “You don’t want to get lost, not in these tunnels. And watch your footing. It’s not just sewage you have to watch out for these days.”
“Really?” asked Sylas, compelled to break his silence. “What … else is there?”
Takk grunted in distaste. “The Black. It’s coming up everywhere. We don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s there, all mixed in with the sewage. And once you get that stuff on you … well, it’s horrible stuff. Horrible.”
With that, he and his daughter marched on, leaving Sylas and Simia staring into the blackness at their feet, shuddering as they thought of the number of times they had nearly let a foot slip into the sewage. They hoisted their bags on their shoulders and set off in pursuit.
“With canvas set and banners high,
Ten thousand souls prepared to die;
And with their sighs and songs forlorn
Held close the calm before the storm.”
THOTH HUNCHED LOW OVER the cello, his hood hanging just inches above the fingerboard, his bony body almost in a crouch. He held the bow loosely at his side, its tip resting on the floor, an emaciated finger tapping a slow rhythm on the handle.
But that was the only movement, the only sound. All else in the Apex Chamber was silent and still. The two imperial guards at Thoth’s sides did not speak, nor shift, nor breathe. The pool of Black glistened mirror-smooth before them. Two vast tapestries on the adjacent walls hung flat and limp in the stagnant air. Even the clock was quiet, its catches and cogs moving in curious silence.
All was a hush. There was only that finger, tapping out the final seconds, measuring out the calm before that greatest of storms.
And then the finger stopped its tapping. Thoth lifted the bow and placed it on the strings. The very air seemed to leave the chamber.
Then the clock chimed.
Instantly Thoth swept his arm back and the cello groaned into life, breathing out the first haunting notes of Elgar. He rocked in his seat, his wasted body rolling with the building melody, his spindly fingers dancing over the fingerboard. And as the music reverberated around the chamber, the pool rippled in response. With the swell of the tune, the Black erupted upwards, growing into a hideous form with snout and stoop, claw and tooth. Even as the dripping oily mass turned into a giant canine beast, it lifted its muzzle and opened its mouth as if to speak. Black tongue rasped and black throat hacked, but they produced no sound to disturb Thoth’s tragic melody. The creature made a silent speech, then bowed.
Thoth inclined his hooded head in response, then murmured something to the Ghor guards. At once they snapped to attention, then each strode to one of the two tapestries. They caught up a bronze pin from a table at their side, then spent some moments searching for a specific place on the complex design before them. Each was a colossal map of a world, complete with continents and oceans, rivers and seas. The two were identical but for the thin twines of silver, dividing the great sweeps of land into kingdoms and nations. In these, they were utterly different.
The guards traced their claws across embroidered coastlines and close-stitched rivers, over the threads of mountain ranges and the gilded braids of seas. And then they found their mark. The first lifted its bronze pin and fixed it to a coastal town labelled ‘Tastintrice’. The second, to a town in exactly the same place on the same coast in another world. It was marked ‘Hamburg’.
Thoth continued to play, stridently now, swaying with the music. Before him the Black was in motion too, creating a new form, a human form. It quickly took the shape of a woman decked in a black headdress, liquid black robes and dripping black jewels. She too made a silent speech and then a deep, ceremonial bow.
Without pausing, Thoth inclined his head in reply. Then he lifted his shaded eyes.
“Fisslak legions to Carnac, Brittany,” he said in a thousand voices.
Instantly the two guards reached for another pin and began their search. The first made its way quickly to a large peninsula near to the centre of the map and sank its pin into a town called Fisslak. The second found the same peninsula on the other map and set its pin in a region called Brittany, next to the larger label ‘France’.
By the time they turned, another form had risen from the Black: a bullish beast with the crest of an imperial general. Hardly had it reached its full height before it began to speak with a silent, forked tongue, which dripped oily Black as it spoke. Even as it gave its report, another, human form was growing at its side and, as it finished its speech and sank back into the Black, a further Ghor head rose from the smooth surface. Soon figures were rising and slipping away two and three at a time, each taking its bow and then delivering its message.
All the while Thoth stooped over his cello, sweeping the bow back and forth, conjuring a mounting swell of sound: a mournful, poignant melody, composed by a master from another world. Every few bars, with the ebb of the music, he inclined his head and spoke.
“Finistander raiders to Warsaw …” he said in a swell of voices.
“… Krak company to Hong Kong …”
“… Fuska guard to Moscow …”
“… Reserve Imperial Troops to New York …”
The two Ghor guards were in constant motion now, searching the maps,
finding the labels that marked the points of passing in each of two worlds, taking a moment to check that they had each found exactly the same point on the map.
Only then would they set their pin.
And so they plotted the charts of war. Pin after pin after pin.
Takk seemed to know exactly where he was going. He took many turns, branching off at junctions and making his way with ease down the twisting tunnels. He hesitated occasionally, often to wait for his companions, but also to listen. Each time he resumed his march without saying a word.
At one point they came to a particularly spacious tunnel that was standing height, which came as a relief to backs and necks. Simia took the opportunity to break the silence. “So you know about him?” she said in a loud whisper. “About Sylas Tate?”
Takk laughed. “Everyone’s heard of Sylas Tate!”
“Yeah, of course,” said Simia quickly. “But no one knows much, do they? No one seems to have actually seen him.”
“No, they haven’t. But I tell you what, the Swillers and Luggers up at the Dirgheon saw what he did,” said Takk, pausing in the passage. “Not that night, but they had to clear up the mess the next day and they’d never seen anything like it. There was a huge fire right in one of the halls, slam bang in the middle of the Dirgheon. They said those imperial guards – and the Magrumen – AND the Dirgh himself – none of them knew what hit ’em! They’re trying to say now that it was a lightning strike. Hogwash – it was Sylas Tate! They reckon he and his friends killed Scarpia and maybe one of the others. I reckon they’d have finished the Dirgh if he hadn’t thrown all he had at ’em!”
“Really?” said Simia, sounding appropriately excited.
“Yeah, and that isn’t all! They say this boy proves that the Glimmer Myth is true. They say he’s the one—”
“Dad!” hissed Faysa somewhere in the blackness. “You’re talking again!”
There was a brief silence. “You’re right, Fay,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.” He cleared his throat. “We can talk later.”
He turned and headed off up the passageway.
Sylas followed in a daze. It was weird to hear himself described as some sort of hero, and yet in the same moment he felt a little pride. He had hardly had a chance to think of everything that had happened in the Dirgheon, but now as he walked through the dark, he found himself remembering the great lattice of fire that he and Naeo had conjured, the excitement he had felt, the togetherness, the power.
The tunnel became narrower and lower, the ceiling trailing long sinews of slime that soon drenched their clothes. They were forced to stoop even lower until the reek of the sewage filled their mouths and nostrils and made their eyes stream. Then, just as it started to be unbearable, Sylas thought he saw a faint glow ahead. Then he was sure: there in the distance was a pale stream of light from somewhere above. For the first time he could see the silhouettes of his companions – the tall, wiry Takk leading the way with bags over each shoulder; the tiny form of Faysa at his heels, labouring under a single, oversized sack; and Simia, picking her way nimbly behind them. As they drew nearer, Sylas noticed a welcome change in the air, which became fresher and more breathable with every step.
Then Takk stopped dead in his tracks. “Shhh!”
His sharp hiss echoed off into the blackness.
They crouched and held their breath.
For a moment Sylas thought it was another false alarm, but then he heard the unmistakable gloop of something moving through the sewage behind them. Something large. Then he heard a loud slop. Then somewhere nearer, a splash.
Takk dropped his bags, letting them roll into the sewage.
“Run!” he shouted. He lunged for Faysa and hurled her sack to one side then pulled her roughly down the passageway. He glanced back. “I said, RUN!”
Sylas and Simia threw themselves forward, scrambling down the tunnel as fast as they dared. But their thoughts were behind them, in the dark. With the sloshes and splashes and slaps. The sounds of not one but many bodies swimming through the ooze – the sounds of Slithen on the hunt.
He could see the way out now – a timber ladder at a junction in the sewer, with a tunnel on either side. Takk was already there, hoisting Faysa over to the ladder and then launching her into the air. For a moment she flailed hopelessly, but then she grasped the rungs and scrambled quickly out of sight. Her father turned then, revealing for the first time his drawn, pale face, his patch over one eye, his shock of red hair. He beckoned furiously to Sylas and Simia, and then his gaze travelled past them into the shadows. His one eye widened and for an instant he hesitated, then he turned and hurried up the ladder.
“Run faster!” he screamed over his shoulder.
Sylas felt prickles down his back. He watched Simia scrambling down the last part of the tunnel and leaping across the channel to the ladder. She started her climb but only a few rungs up, she turned back.
Her eyes went first to Sylas, then beyond him, into the tunnel. She went rigid, her features taut with fear.
“No! Sylas!” she cried.
“Go!”
She shook her head.
“GO!” he screamed.
For a moment she seemed paralysed, but then she pressed her eyes closed and heaved herself up towards the light.
In the same instant Sylas was there, leaping across the channel of sewage to the ladder. But instead of scurrying up it, he paused, turning just for a second to look back down the tunnel.
The Slithen were just yards away, filling the narrow passage, slithering one upon the other as a single mass of pale grey limbs and reptilian scales. Glassy eyes and tooth-riddled mouths gaped, snapping at their prize; slippery limbs flapped and writhed, scrambling through the ooze, straining to be the first to grasp a human neck.
There was no time.
It was too late to run.
“When it begins, our greatest enemy will be time itself.”
NO TIME.
No time for Simia to finish her climb, no time for Sylas to begin his.
He felt the stones vibrating beneath his feet as the Slithen hurled one another against the walls in their thirst for blood. He saw pink, slavering mouths and tongues slapping and trilling with excitement. He heard squeals of triumph.
There was no time. No hope of escape.
Was this really it? Was this how it was all to end, here, in the sewers of Gheroth? How could that be, after everything he had been through?
He pressed himself back against the ladder and forced himself to concentrate, to remove himself from the moment and turn inwards.
There, he found the things that Takk had said: the memories he had brought back. He found that feeling of being at Naeo’s shoulder, standing their ground with a carpet of fire above and the winds at their backs. He remembered what was possible.
And as he watched the Slithen close those final yards, he knew exactly what he had to do.
He squared his shoulders, raised his arms and pressed his eyes shut.
His mind reached out into the dark, into the tunnels left and right, wide and far, into the deep, dark silence of the sewers. He saw a swamp of fetid filth and evil sludge, filled with everything the world would like to forget, filled with slime and scum and froth. But in his belly and his bones he felt the waters that bound these things: the cool and quiet flood that ran beneath the city in a thousand creeks and rivulets.
He knew these waters. He knew them from the Aquium in the Meander Mill and from the river that had borne him away. He knew what they had done for him then, that they were open to him. That they were waiting for him.
And so he drew them in, heaving them into his chest like his very own breath.
And then he exhaled.
They came with a thunder and howl that made the passageways bellow like giant horns of war. They came as a screaming fury of water and waste, spiralling and swirling, twisting and foaming until they crashed into just two tunnels: the tunnels at Sylas’s sides.
It was the winds tha
t hit the Slithen first – the foul, stale air of the sewers that rushed ahead of the waters in a mounting hurricane. These alone stopped the creatures in their tracks and sent many somersaulting backwards into the darkness. The rest stared with wide, black eyes, their faces contorted with fear. The twin torrents flew past Sylas and clashed with an almighty thump, tearing off towards the Slithen, devouring all that lay in their path.
Sylas opened his eyes and threw his hands forward, guiding the deluge, keeping it from his own tiny refuge. All he could see was a passing blur, but he still knew it, controlled it. If the Black was there, it was held by the mighty tide, turning in the same twisting current. And then, slowly, Sylas turned one shoulder, let one arm drift back to grasp a rung. He slid his toe on to the lowest step and pushed himself up, leaving his free arm outstretched a moment longer. Then suddenly he was climbing, rung after rung, scrambling up towards the light. The great flood closed in beneath him, swamping the little recess, surging up into the shaft. But Sylas was well ahead, clattering up the ladder. He was almost there. The air smelled sweet and pure, the light poured down on his shoulders, the roar of the waters began to fall away.
But then he saw Simia.
She was trying to pull herself through a broken grille at the top of the shaft but her coat was caught: skewered on one of the iron rods. She pulled and twisted but her trusty coat would not give way. She looked down, screaming something at him but he could not hear.
The waters below him were wild now, untamed, forming giant plumes of froth and foam. With his hands on the ladder, he was powerless to stop them, and so he scrambled on up the ladder until he was at Simia’s feet. He heard her sobbing as she fought to free her coat, kicking at the bar.
“Sylas, I can’t …” she gasped. “I can’t … get it … loose!”
And then she stopped. He looked up and saw a wiry figure silhouetted against the light, two strong arms reaching down, taking Simia’s hands, heaving her up. And as she squirmed to safety, Sylas watched the buttons of her coat shear away, falling past him and down into the torrent. And then came the coat itself, torn and limp, fluttering down the shaft before he had a chance to reach out. For a moment it rode the maelstrom – her beloved coat, her father’s coat – dancing on the crowns of foam. And then it was consumed.
Circles of Stone Page 23
