Circles of Stone

by Ian Johnstone

  Suddenly his calculation was complete. It was not one he would want audited, but he was certain it was correct.

  “Why are you in Sylas’s room?” he asked, swallowing hard so that his Adam’s apple leapt over her claw. He fixed her with a pinprick stare. “Is he all right?”

  Scarpia tightened her grip a little. “Now come, Mr Tate, we were getting on so well. Please don’t ruin it with tiresome questions!”

  Even while being strangled, Tobias Tate did not appreciate being told to shut up.

  “I need to know that he is all right,” he croaked. “Tell me first …”

  Scarpia’s grip tightened still further. His eyes bulged and, for once, his gaunt features flushed red. He held out for only a few seconds before he flapped his hands in the air in surrender.

  She eased her grip a little to allow him to speak.

  Tate gasped and panted but he looked her in the eye. Despite his giddiness, he was resolute. He drew from a deep reserve of spite – a reserve he had cultivated over many years – and turned it to one final heroic purpose.

  “Go to hell, you mongrel minx!” He thrust his face into hers. “That boy and his mother are FAMILY, which I don’t expect a mangy stray like you to understand! Why don’t you get back to the cattery where you belong!”

  Scarpia’s eyes flared wide and her ears fell against her head. She snarled, revealing her long white fangs and tightened her grip again, relentlessly this time, crushing Tate’s neck. For a moment he stared at her, almost seeming to enjoy her reaction, but slowly, inevitably, he started to lose consciousness.

  As his mind fogged his guard fell away. His eyes drifted to one side, towards the shelf. Scarpia followed his glance to a stack of papers. To the letter on the top, the letter headed ‘Clinical Report’. The letter marked with an address.

  Suddenly, as though realising his mistake, Tobias Tate pressed his eyelids shut.

  He did not fight in those final moments. He did not give her the satisfaction. When his body slumped lifelessly to the floor, there was a tranquil look on his face, like he had balanced the most difficult of accounts.

  “Our climb into the light will be slow and arduous. Many will be broken along the way.”

  AS THE CORDON OF Ragers closed behind them, Sylas saw the base of the temple for the first time. It was as smooth and featureless as the rest of the structure, except for a wide stone staircase that led up to a small but ornate arch, also made of white stone. But even at the centre of the arch, there seemed to be nothing but more blank stone: no door, no keyhole, nothing.

  “Who do you think she is?” he whispered, nodding to the woman in white robes as she led them up the steps.

  “A priestess, I reckon,” said Simia. She leaned into his ear. “How did you know what to do? In the square?”

  Sylas shrugged. “I didn’t,” he murmured. “There just didn’t seem to be anything else for it.”

  “Well, there was run away.”

  He thought for a moment. “I just knew we could do it. And that we mustn’t look scared.”

  Simia shook her head. “Well just so you know, I think that Black’s gone to your brain.”

  When they neared the top of the steps, the priestess was waiting for them. She raised the metal cross, touched it against the stone and instantly the centre of the arch sank back into the wall, making the grating, ringing sound of stone moving against stone. When it halted it left a deep depression. But still there was no opening.

  The priestess turned and smiled.

  “Welcome.”

  And with that she extended the golden staff and tapped the stone with the broad plate at its top. It rang a different note from the one they had heard in the square – a lower and deeper pitch. The depression sank back still further and then swung open like a door. It moved as though it were as light as a feather, revealing a shady interior.

  They followed the priestess eagerly across the threshold, noticing how thick the walls were – thicker than Sylas was tall.

  As they stepped inside, they slowed to a stop and gasped.

  They were standing in a gigantic hollow structure – a massive cylinder of stone rising up and up until it disappeared entirely out of sight. The void was filled with the sun’s rays, not travelling between mirrors as in the Meander Mill, but spiralling down from the far roof of the temple, descending in playful turns and swirls, forming a delightful weave.

  The beams of sunlight revealed a kaleidoscope of marvels. From a point just above their heads, every part of the tower was alive with colour and form, seething with finely painted images of thousands of people in every attitude of life. There were farmers and hunters, paupers and princes, priests and warriors. There were scenes at sea and on misty mountaintops. There were battles and sieges, pageants and feasts, weddings and funerals. The shimmering light danced over it all, breathing life into face and feature, muscle and sinew. In these magical sunbeams, waves heaved, sails swelled, lovers wept and the vanquished breathed their final breath.

  Sylas and Simia gaped in wonder, trying to take in its scale and majesty. Their senses overwhelmed, they turned their eyes to the void – following the path of the light as it cascaded past all the colour and drama of the paintings. It came to rest on the most unexpected of things: a gigantic, ancient tree, growing straight out of the white stone floor.

  At first sight the tree was not unlike the one in the Garden of Havens: grand and aged, at once wizened and exquisitely formed. But this tree was taller, reaching high into the chasm above as though trying to touch the faces on the walls. And it bore fruit – thousands of apple-sized spheres in myriad colours and shades: reds and oranges, yellows and pinks, purples and greens. Some were plump with lustrous skins, some younger, smaller and yet to ripen. Then with a chill Sylas noticed something it shared with the one in the Garden of Havens: the thick black veins that marbled its bark, creeping upwards through every bough, branch and twig.

  “It is a terrible sickness, this sickness of the Black. And yet still the tree bears fruit,” said the priestess, turning her eyes to Sylas, and then down to his neck. “It may even be able to help you.”

  Sylas raised his hand self-consciously and instantly the pain returned, bubbling beneath the skin. When he touched it, he thought he felt it move.

  The woman smiled. “Come, Sylas, Simia, you are expected.”

  Sylas exchanged a glance with Simia.

  “You were expecting us?” he said.

  She laughed lightly, her voice ascending the tower. “Isia sees much of most of us but she sees all of some of us.” She reached down and placed a soft hand on his cheek, looking at him with interest. “Particularly where you are concerned.”

  She turned away and walked on under the boughs of the tree.

  “This way, please,” she said. “We have a long way to climb!”

  Sylas and Simia followed in a daze as the priestess stepped on to a staircase protruding from the outer wall. It was made of the same white stone so it had blended with the rest of the structure, but now Sylas could see that it followed the arc of the wall, rising high into the collage of paintings. There, too had been painted with detailed lines and pigments, so that it became part of the great design. It climbed in a perfect spiral, circling the tree until it disappeared far above.

  Already the priestess was among the paintings, Sylas and Simia following close behind her. The first of the pictures was a scene of open desert with pyramids rising in the far distance. In the foreground was a stone circle, its high, square-cut stones casting long shadows. At its centre, a circle of robed figures surrounded a small, solitary child.

  The hairs rose on Sylas’s neck. He had seen this picture before. It was one of the murals in the Apex Chamber – in the Dirgheon.

  “What’s that doing here?” asked Simia, peering over his shoulder.

  Sylas shook his head. “I have no idea …”

  The images that followed were similar: people worshipping in temples, trading in sandy city squares, bu
ilding with blocks of stone, sailing ships down a verdant river. Now Sylas was up close, he could see that all the people had a similar look – head to one side, shoulders square, heavy black make-up around the eyes making them stark and piercing. They were, he thought, glancing up at their guide … just like the priestess.

  They climbed higher and higher until soon they reached the topmost branches of the tree. Some of the fruits hung tantalisingly close, so bright and colourful that they almost seemed to glow. Just as Sylas began to wonder if he might be able to pick one, Simia slowed, glanced warily at the back of the priestess, then reached out to the nearest branch.

  “NO!” commanded a voice that boomed around the vast chamber.

  The priestess turned and glared at Simia.

  She snatched her hand away, throwing it behind her back as though to hide the evidence.

  “We never pick fruit from the tree!” said the priestess. “It must fall in its own time.”

  “Oh, sorry,” said Simia, swinging her shoulders. “Just hungry, that’s all.”

  The priestess’s face softened. “Of course, and you’ll be eating with Isia very soon.”

  She continued up the spiralling staircase and they resumed their climb, soon passing the last of the branches and leaving the tree below. As they did so the images around them began to change, becoming more and more sophisticated, showing more detail of the human form. The scenes changed too, becoming warlike, depicting skirmishes in the desert, great battles on a river, the siege of a mighty city and then its defeat: the capture of lords and princes, the burning of temples and palaces, the banishment of its people.

  Sylas’s eyes followed the long lines of displaced people out on to a desert, the vast painting sweeping around the inside of the tower until suddenly he blinked and frowned. There, protruding from the far wall was another staircase, rising in the opposite direction. He peered over the edge of his own step, down past the branches of the tree far below. There were two staircases. Just as theirs had started on one side of the hall, another had begun on the other, spiralling up the length of the chamber just as theirs, but always on the opposite side. The effect was that this second staircase plotted an entirely different path through the collage of images, drawing alongside a string of scenes that were too far away to be seen from where they were standing.

  He glanced up and saw the double spiral ascending to the glowing roof of the temple, forming something he remembered from the book of science his mother had given him. The significance of it escaped him, but he remembered the shape very well – delicate and elegant and beautiful. He even remembered its name.

  “The double helix,” he murmured.

  “Two paths to tell two stories,” said the priestess a little above them.

  He turned to her. “Which stories?”

  “The most important of all!” exclaimed the priestess, seeming surprised at the question. “The tales of two worlds!”

  She extended her staff and instantly the weave of light above them began to unravel, two of the beams darting out in opposite directions, travelling along the path of the two staircases, climbing the twin spirals. As the light passed over the pictures, faces seemed to shift, muscles twitched, limbs moved, bringing scene after scene to life, tracing a magical path through two human histories.

  “Wow!” breathed Sylas. He grinned at Simia and, for the first time in a while, she smiled back.

  “Come on now,” said the priestess, “we mustn’t keep Isia waiting.”

  She climbed ever more swiftly, so that they had to take the steps in twos to keep up, but still his eyes were drawn to the images. Increasingly they told a single story: a story of empire. Of one, supreme army and the vanquishing of many. And always the flag of victory was the same: a red background with an emblem at the centre in the shape of a shield, half white, half black.

  “Look!” whispered Simia suddenly, pointing excitedly into the chasm of light. “A way across!”

  Sylas turned and saw a beam of light reflecting off a long, straight surface. It was a gangway made entirely of glass, leading from the staircase out across the void to the staircase on the opposite wall. Simia pointed upwards towards the glowing roof. There were scores of these floating bridges connecting the two staircases, forming an immense swirl across the space. The rays of light shimmered between them bringing the giant structure to life and making it glisten like a snowflake in the winter sun.

  “I really MUST hurry you now!”

  The priestess’s voice echoed around the tower, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had already looped back above them. They set out at a run, heaving themselves up as fast as they could. Sylas hardly dared look at more paintings for fear of missing his step, but when he did he saw the mark of the Suhl – the white feather on a purple background – and long processions of women, children, the old and the weak, traipsing over mountain passes and windswept plains.

  “The Undoing,” panted Simia. “The beginning of it, at least.”

  As they clattered on, the quality of the light began to change: brighter here and cleaner, suggesting an opening just a short way above. They passed many pictures of what looked like Suhl ceremonies around stone circles and beneath each one a glass bridge struck out across the tower, leading to another image of a stone circle on the opposite wall. It was as though the bridges marked moments of connection, moments when the stone circles had brought the worlds together.

  As Sylas and Simia rounded the final twists of the staircase, the paintings suddenly came to an abrupt end, leaving only blank white stone, as though waiting for stories yet to be told. Simia stopped, catching her breath, her hands on her hips. Her eyes were fixed in wonder on the wall, on the very last of the paintings.

  At her shoulder, depicted in the most vivid of colours, were two silhouetted figures beneath a dramatic sky. Above them, and tracing a dramatic arc across the heavens, was a giant golden bell. It was the shape of a teardrop, and it was suspended from nothing but air.

  Sylas felt cold fingers trailing up his spine. One of the figures wore an oversized coat. The other looked just like him.

  “Welcome home, my children.”

  It was not the voice of the priestess. It came from behind and above, but they did not turn. They did not speak. They did not even breathe.

  Simia sank to her knees and Sylas’s heart raged in his chest.

  Each had heard a familiar voice: one they had thought they would never hear again.

  To Simia, it was her father.

  To Sylas, his mother.

  “The Other is an engine of fables. Like any great truth waiting to be discovered, myth and superstition has taken its place.”

  THE TATTOOED EYES STARED unblinking into the darkness. All about them blood and sweat glistened in the dying flame: the only trace of life in this place of despair. The rest was stillness and silence.

  And then there was a sound.

  Shuffle, slide, scrape, gasp.

  The silence returned, thick and heavy, but the disturbance had been enough to make the eyes stir. They rolled to one side and a face appeared. The features were drawn and bruised; the lips thick and blubbery; the eyes slits beneath swollen lids. But they lifted and turned.

  There was the sound again, louder now:

  Shuffle, slide, scrape, gasp.

  Shuffle, slide, scrape, gasp.

  Then silence. A frown appeared across the battered face. Now came another sound:

  Tick … tick … tick … tick …

  It was the wooden frame around the giant metal door.

  Then there was a creak. A snap. A groan.

  Bowe lifted his head, watching the door. All of a sudden he heaved himself on to his elbows, moaning from the shock of pain. In a feat of exertion, he scrambled to the opposite side of the cell.

  In that instant the doorframe sent a sharp splinter across the room like a crossbow bolt. The timbers bowed outwards, straining under a devastating force. Cracks appeared, then gaping gashes.

  Bowe c
urled into a ball.

  The door screeched, the doorframe groaned and the timber exploded like a gunshot. The bolt snapped with a metallic bang.

  The door tipped forward, teetered, then fell, clanging loudly against the flagstones.

  It took a moment for the dust to settle and for the lamp to recover its flame, but soon it revealed a lone figure slumped against the opposite wall of the corridor, gazing into the cell. It was a man in wretched, tattered robes, with dark skin and thick-cropped hair. His features were hard to make out in the murk, but Bowe could see the whites of his eyes, the square cut of his jaw, the deep wound across his face.

  The two men regarded each other across the threshold, pushing themselves a little more upright.

  “Bowe?” murmured the man in the corridor.

  There was a pause, then Bowe spoke in a weak, dry voice: “Espasian?”

  The newcomer managed a dry laugh. “I don’t quite cut that figure any more,” he said. He started to shuffle into the cell, pulling himself forward with his arm and elbow. Finally he propped himself against the wall. “Call me Espen. I’m happier with Espen these days.”

  He held out a hand and Bowe grasped it as tightly as he could. They grinned at one another, their eyes taking in the wounds and bruises, scars and stains of blood. They winced on one another’s behalf and looked away, turning their eyes to the mouldy walls.

  “He got the better of us, didn’t he?” said Espen.

  Bowe tried to reply, but instead coughed and wheezed. He managed a smile. That had been answer enough.