Circles of Stone

by Ian Johnstone

  The whispers of worship suddenly lulled. Thousands of heads lifted from the stone, but no one did anything: they just looked on as though it were a familiar scene. And then, with a sharp crack of that massive tail, the poor trader was sent spinning across the polished stone, cast aside like so much litter. The beast turned its bulky form and rejoined its ranks, welcomed by a chorus of grunts and the slap of tails against stone. When the hawker came to rest, his body was motionless.

  Sylas drew his eyes back to Simia. He saw his own horror written on her face. And there was something else – something he had not seen in Simia before. She looked small. She looked broken. She was no longer holding herself as she always had – shoulders back, head up, taking more space than was possible for such a small person. Her shoulders were slumped and already she was taking small backward steps.

  “We’ll have to go back,” she said. “Find another way in.” Her features were clouded and confused.

  Without thinking, Sylas took hold of her sleeve. “Come on,” he said, pulling her forward.

  Simia pulled away. “What are you doing? Let go!”

  “We can’t just give up now!”

  “This isn’t giving up, it’s staying alive!” hissed Simia. “Nothing’s gone to plan! The river, the Kraven, Triste – he’s still out there on the Barrens, you know!” Her eyes began to well with tears. “Then there were the Tythish, the sewers, the Slithen and the Black! And now this!”

  “But we got through all those.”

  “You haven’t seen the state of your neck! And look at those things, Sylas.” She nodded past him to the Ragers. “How are we going to get past them? And before you even think of Essenfayle, it’s no use. Not with all these people around – and anyway, there isn’t anything natural in this hellhole!”

  Sylas filled his lungs and put his hands on his hips. He looked from Simia to the cordon of Ragers to the Temple rising above.

  “All I know is we haven’t come all this way for nothing,” he said, grasping her hand. “People are depending on us. There has to be a way through and we just have to find it.”

  He turned directly towards the line of Ragers and pulled Simia behind him. She struggled at first, cursing. And then, after a few steps, she stopped resisting, as though she did not even have the strength to fight.

  They skirted the last of the worshippers and set out over the open plaza, cast adrift in the great sea of white. They were alone now – there for all to see.

  The Ragers spied them instantly. They tensed, drawing close, their giant heads following the motion of the pair as they approached. Their forked tongues sniffed the air, their tails squirmed on the flagstones.

  Sylas’s mind raced. What was he going to do? Fight them? What was he thinking?

  But whatever he did he couldn’t hesitate. Not now.

  Suddenly there was an ear-splitting sound – something between a squeal and a roar. The largest of all the Ragers stomped forward, lowering its horns to reveal a distinctive red crest on the back of its neck, made of sword-like scales. It pounded the stone, its nostrils blasting clouds of vapour, its giant body a seething red.

  Simia pulled against Sylas but he kept going.

  “Don’t show it you’re afraid,” he said, acting on instinct. “Keep walking. Look it in the eye!”

  Simia snatched her arm away. “You’re an expert now, are you?”

  “No,” said Sylas. “But I know this. I don’t know why, but this is right! Trust me!”

  She shook her head, bewildered and frightened. She gazed at him quizzically for a moment, then wiped her tears on her sleeve. Suddenly she was at his shoulder. He saw her head lift.

  “You’d better be right,” she muttered.

  Now two more Ragers had lunged forward, their gigantic feet pummelling the stone, making it tremble. Their claws scoured the surface as they threatened to charge.

  “Keep walking!” said Sylas, his heart hammering. He was surprised by the calm in his voice – the sureness of his step.

  They were looking directly into the Ragers’ eyes now, past the bloodshot fringes and into the deep, furious blackness.

  And then they came. The crested leader squealed and snorted then all three of the massive beasts hurled themselves forward into a charge. The stone shuddered and across the square the crowd fell quiet, watching a new drama unfold.

  For a moment, everything was noise and fury and motion. The leader was almost upon them.

  “Now!” cried Sylas, pulling on Simia’s sleeve. “Kneel!”

  He dragged her down on to the stone. They hunched forward like the thousands of worshippers behind them, their heads and palms resting on the flagstones, their eyes pressed shut. They could hear the cry of the Ragers, feel the tremor of their charge, but they stayed down, motionless.

  Sylas stopped breathing. His mind went blank.

  And then something strange happened. Everything around him disappeared. There were no Ragers and there was no stone, there was no noise, there was no fear. His thoughts fell away too, and in their place his mind was filled with darkness. From that darkness he heard a hum and rumble. And then there were distant voices, cloudy and indistinct, with a tide of darkness that ebbed and flowed, as if his mind was on the edge of sleep. He felt warm. He felt safe.

  His lips parted. “Believe,” he said.

  Naeo stirred again. The pain had eased, giving her some moments of reprieve, a space in which to sleep. And in that new and deeper sleep the darkness of her nightmare had long since been replaced by a dreary grey, which had then bloomed into a stark white light. A white that made her wince and set her nerves on edge.

  Still she slept, resting her mind against the clean light.

  And then something jarred, pounding the edges of her sleep – a thundering whiteness, a whiteness that charged towards her, that consumed her. And then, from the calamitous white, came angry, flaring nostrils and blackened eyes. And somewhere at the fringes of her mind she felt the piercing tips of curling horns and the pounding beat of giant limbs.

  And she knew these things.

  She knew the bullish huff and squeal that sounded in a far-flung thought. She knew the cool, hard scales that brushed up against her mind.

  She knew them from the dark days.

  From the Dirgheon.

  Ragers.

  She knew them, and she knew what must be done. Suddenly she was pushing against the white, throwing back the clouds of her dreams and searching deep for the voice she knew was there.

  She opened her mouth and her lungs and let out a silent yell.

  Mr Zhi watched her sleeping face twitch and wince. “Even in peace there is peril,” he said sadly.

  Then her lips moved.

  “Believe,” she mumbled.

  “If there is any hope in these four lands, it rests with The Temple of Isia and the precious personage closeted within their walls.”

  SYLAS COULD HEAR THE pounding beat of giant limbs, the squeal and snort of nostrils, the clatter of claws on stone. Still he shrouded himself in the warmth, in the dullness that ebbed and flowed, lapping against his mind like a dream.

  Then he felt a hot blast of breath on the back of his neck.

  “Believe,” he whispered, lifting his head.

  He looked straight into the face of rage.

  The Rager was even more horrifying up close: each limb larger than a full-grown man, rippling with muscle; the armoured scales burning with a living flame, which radiated a searing heat. But it was the eyes that halted the heart: rims as red and raw as fresh meat, glassy globes as empty and black as despair itself. In that moment it looked to Sylas like one of hell’s own horde – a demon loosed from its halls of fire.

  But he looked into those pits of despair and did not flinch. The Rager sent a blast of fiery breath into his face, spraying him with scalding mucous. Sylas wiped it away with his sleeve and kept his nerve. Its forked tongue flicked and probed around his face like a charmer’s snake, and Sylas did not recoil. It huffed and
grunted, then rocked back and slammed its front feet down on the stone, making the rock tremble. Still Sylas did not move.

  But then he heard another grunt behind him and suddenly he felt two piercing points in his shoulder blades.

  “What is your business here?”

  The voice was gravelly and deep. The rapier points were parting the weave of his coat now, pressing into his flesh. He felt a surge of panic and an instinct to turn and run.

  “We’re here to worship,” he said through his teeth.

  There was an angry huff, but the pressure of the horns eased a little.

  After a moment the Rager pressed again, harder this time, tearing Sylas’s coat and pushing him forward on his hands.

  “So why do you not pray with the others?”

  Sylas grunted, his face twisting with pain. He felt cool air through the torn coat and a trickle of blood run down his back. He wanted to pull away, but instinctively he knew he mustn’t show weakness. Instead he set his teeth and pushed against the horns, forcing himself upright.

  The Rager seemed to retreat a little.

  “Because …” he gasped. “Because we want … to show our devotion.”

  The Rager snorted. “Your devotion?” The horns retreated still further.

  “To Isia,” said Sylas, growing in confidence. “We’ve travelled a great distance. We want to pay homage. We want to offer ourselves to the temple.”

  He was aware of Simia rising from her crouch, casting her eyes up at the temple in rather overdone devotion.

  The Ragers snuffled and grunted then conferred with one another in a language of hacking stops and snorts. Finally one of them spoke.

  “Where have you come from?”

  Sylas stiffened with panic. To him, this world was the valley, the Barrens and the city of Gheroth. He didn’t know anywhere else.

  “Llhay,” said Simia. “We came from Llhay.”

  It had only been a moment’s hesitation, but it had been enough. Sylas again felt the horns pushing into his shoulders, the full weight of that gigantic head throwing him on to his hands, pressing him into the stone, forcing the air from his lungs. He let out a cry of pain.

  “What’s happening there?”

  It was a soft, feminine voice.

  Immediately Sylas felt the horns slip away from his back. There was a shuffling of feet and a turning of bodies.

  He pushed himself up and was surprised to see the Ragers bow down, lowering their horns to the stone.

  A lone female figure approached them from the direction of the temple, her flowing white robes billowing in the wind. She measured out her step with a golden staff topped by two small circular plates, one above the other in the style of the platforms of the temple. Her appearance was at once beautiful and peculiar. She had pale, delicate features, emphasised by stark decorations: bold make-up around the eyes trailing to points at the sides of her face; heavy jewellery in blue, black and gold; and jet-black hair that had been plaited into braids and drawn forward over her shoulders. In her free hand she held a metallic loop. At first Sylas thought it was a set of keys, but then he saw that it was solid, and that below her hand the loop became three bars of a simple golden cross.

  “I believe your instructions were clear,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “Worshippers are to be left alone.”

  “But, my lady, they were approaching the temple! In defiance of Thoth’s decree!” growled the Rager behind Sylas, bowing down so that its proud red crest opened like a fan of blades next to Sylas’s face.

  The woman drew near and cast her pretty green eyes over the two children.

  “Have they said why they were approaching the temple?”

  The Rager huffed and snorted. “They claim they wish to offer themselves, but—”

  “That is all you should need to hear,” said the woman, growing in stature.

  “But, my lady, there’s something—”

  The woman tapped her staff on the stone so that it chimed out a single, clear note, echoing from the walls of the surrounding buildings. A new hush fell over the worshippers. The Ragers fell prostrate on the floor, tails writhing, as though in agony.

  “Do you wish to discuss this with Isia?” she asked sharply. “Or perhaps with the Dirgh?”

  The Rager snuffled, then slid its head from side to side so that its crest rattled. “No, that won’t be necessary,” it grunted.

  “Good,” said the woman, with an innocent smile. She turned to Sylas and Simia and ran her eyes over their clothes. “Well, you two, if you wish to enter the temple you will first need to change.” She sniffed. “And wash. Please come with me.”

  With that she tapped her staff on the stone so that the chime finally stopped, then turned and walked away, leaving everyone gazing after her.

  Scarpia’s limbs unfolded from the shadows, darting quickly and silently from the darkness of the lane and out on to the pavement. The fur rose on the back of her neck as she hissed into the empty windows of The Shop of Things. The hiss became a growl as her mongrel eyes lifted to the blank nameplate lit by electric light, and then up to the crooked frontage of Gabblety Row. In an instant she had taken in the labyrinth of beams and drainpipes, cracks and protrusions. Already, she had plotted her course.

  She leapt into the air, sinking her claws into the nearest beam while swiping another across the nameplate of the shop, leaving it scarred with three deep gashes. In moments she was up at the first-floor window, and there she lingered, clinging to the windowsill and peering into the darkness with her feline eye. She saw the circle of chairs, the hastily abandoned meal, the many shelves of books. And then she spotted one volume laid on a black oblong. On the cover was an intricate circular symbol depicted in sweeping arcs of black and white. She hissed and spat at the glass.

  She continued her climb, slinking sideways as well as up, following the irregular criss-cross of beams down the full length of the terrace. She stopped only once, pressing herself against the jumbled brickwork as the whine and thrum of a helicopter passed over the town, but she was quickly on her way again. She rounded the corner opposite the Church of the Holy Trinity and arrived at the garret room at the very top. She purred quietly to herself, then curled her limbs around the struts that supported the overhanging window. Slowly, she raised her head and peered inside. Her cat’s eye quickly spied the mattress on the floor, the old dresser in the corner, the kites on the walls.

  In one motion she pulled herself up, threw open the window and slid inside.

  Her eyes traced the walls hung with Sylas’s squadron of kites, taking in the astonishing array of colours, the symbols, the runes he had crafted without knowing. She regarded them with loathing and flicked at them with her tail, smashing three of them into pieces with a single swipe.

  Her eyes travelled on, moving over the neatly made mattress on the floor, the science book on the crooked shelf, the old dresser with a recently repaired fourth leg. And then she saw a photo, suspended above the trapdoor in the corner.

  She took a step towards it.

  “Sylas?” came a sharp, masculine voice through the trapdoor. “Sylas, is that you?”

  Scarpia stopped and cocked her head to one side.

  “It’s your uncle, Sylas!” There was a brief silence, then the voice came again, louder, harsher: “Let me in! I’ve … I’ve been worried about you!”

  Scarpia reached down and threw open the trapdoor. In the dark opening below she saw an extraordinarily narrow and gaunt face, the only substantial features of which were the rich plumes of eyebrows, which burst forth like explosions of hair.

  Before Tobias Tate could react, she had reached down and grasped his sinewy neck in her claws. With superhuman strength she heaved him up out of the dark staircase, kicking the trapdoor shut after him.

  He coughed and spluttered, flailing about with his gangly limbs and reaching for her wrist to try to pull it away. As his hands fell on the soft fur of her forearm, his face filled with new terror. His spectacled eyes wi
dened behind the thick lenses as they passed over her half-human face. He kicked out at her, trying to get away, but in an instant she stepped nimbly to the side and slammed him into the wall, dislodging the picture of Sylas’s mother. She caught it before it fell down the stairs.

  “My dear Mr Tate, settle down,” she purred. “I can see that you are not a … resilient man. Tell me what I need to know and this will go better for you.”

  Tobias Tate ceased his struggle. This sounded like a deal and deals he could do.

  Scarpia gave a fanged smile. “Where is Sylas’s mother?” She held up the photo and raised her human eyebrow.

  Tate frowned. He glanced around the room, seeing the forced window, the kites broken in the corner, then the picture of Sylas’s mother clutched in this creature’s claws. His accountant’s mind whirred and tallied. It was a blunt tool for such a task, but even Tobias Tate knew that this was all very wrong. Very wrong indeed.

  He adjusted his neck to speak. “What do you want with her?”

  Scarpia blinked, considering her answer. “She has something I need,” she said. “If she gives it to me, no harm will come to her.”

  Tate scrutinised her face, though with his spectacles halfway up his forehead that was not an easy task. His binary brain began to chunter. This was a problem. Not the kind that he liked – debits and credits, checks and balances. No, this was an altogether more human affair. The kind that he detested. How was he to decide anything with no ledger, no account, no tally of pros and cons?

  And yet one word played through his accountant’s mind again and again:

  Risk.

  Unacceptable risk.

  And then something remarkable happened. He had a human thought.

  What had all this to do with Sylas? Was he at risk? And was that risk something that he, his guardian, should foresee? And perhaps avoid?

  These were the same questions that had plagued him in the days after the regrettable incident with the letters from Winterfern Hospital – the letters that should never have been seen. He felt the now familiar complaint of something in the pit of his stomach – a pang that he suspected was something like guilt, though having had very little to do with emotions he could not be sure. Whatever it was, that same sensation had brought him up to Sylas’s room more than once, and it had made him do such irrational things as look through Sylas’s belongings with the care normally reserved for his own files and dockets. It had also made him tidy them carefully away – including the letters, which he had stacked carefully on Sylas’s shelf. On the last visit, it had even made him fix the leg on the old dresser. He had mumbled and complained, though there was no one to hear, but at the end of it he had felt unexpectedly better.