He opened his eyes.
It was vibrating now, turning slowly on the spot so that the reflection of his face quivered and warped.
He bit his lip and wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow.
Once again he closed his eyes. He sent his mind still further, beyond what he could see. He reached up, through the great stone ceiling, up into the awesome heft of the hill, into the tons of earth and mud, rock and shingle. His mind spanned so wide that it ached, drawing in soil and clay and sand and stone, binding them up in his thoughts, wrapping them into an ever smaller space: a colossal focal point of force. All this he brought down through the body of the hill, through the ceiling of granite and into the still spaces of that room. Then he lowered it on to the egg.
He opened his eyes.
The egg was spinning, faster and faster, reflecting flashes of golden light around the room. It hummed on the table, growing in volume.
The Merisi’s conversation stuttered and fell silent. Ash was dimly aware that they had stopped but he was committed now – he had to see this through.
The egg whirred on the tabletop, making it tremble. Faster and faster it spun, until it was a golden blur, sending out a fizz of air.
Suddenly there was a bang and it was gone. It shot across the room and hit the far wall with a crack, sending out a shower of granite. To his horror, it then darted back, hitting the table and shooting up to the ceiling. There it bounced again and shot down on to the tabletop, before leaping back up to the ceiling. Soon it was bouncing up and down, zigzagging between the table and the ceiling, sending up a flurry of papers and charts.
The Merisi watched this with curious calm, then rather wearily, they lowered themselves beneath the table, apparently taking cover. All except Mr Zhi, who remained seated. He simply placed his palms on the tabletop, and watched.
Suddenly the egg caught an edge and shot across the room, then bounced back and forth across the chamber, then along its length, then between the floor and ceiling until it finally worked its way back to the table.
Ash winced. He was about to lower himself beneath the table in shame when Mr Zhi suddenly leapt into the air, vaulting with unexpected athleticism on to the tabletop and reaching above his head. The egg bounced once on the floor, once on the ceiling, and then shot neatly into the palm of his glove.
He adjusted his hat, and held out the egg.
“I think you had better try again,” he said. “Outside, if you please.”
“Mine was the beginning and yours must be the end.”
SIMIA PULLED HER CHAIR closer to Isia. “So the Priests of Souls used you in their magic?”
“Yes,” said Isia. “I was meant to represent the people of the empire – the people they wanted to keep safe.”
“So they were trying to make two worlds?” asked Sylas. “One for the people of the empire and one for everyone else?”
“That was the theory, yes. They thought that I would make the right division, because all the blood of the empire runs in my veins. Of course, that’s not the way it worked. Instead the magic divided me, and in dividing me, they divided all of humankind.”
Simia was fascinated. “So what did they do to you?”
Isia opened her mouth to answer, but then seemed to reconsider. She reached over to the Samarok, pulled it towards her and turned the page. She perused it for a moment, then returned it to Sylas, her blurred finger pointing to an indented passage. “Merisu describes it better than I ever could – here, this is his account, as he himself saw it.”
Sylas was astonished. “Merisu … he was there?”
“Of course,” said Isia. “He was one of the Priests of Souls.”
Sylas blew out his cheeks: this was getting stranger and stranger. “How could he be a Priest of Souls?” he said. “The Merisi aren’t even from this world.”
“But Merisu was,” said Isia. She tapped the page. “Read from here.”
Sylas collected his thoughts then bowed his head. He allowed the runes to reveal themselves.
“The heavens boomed with full-throated thunder, making the ground shake. All seemed to morph and shift, a thick yellow vapour rising from the sands, rocks blistering and bubbling, clouds boiling in a blood-red sky.
This we saw as we gathered in our shameful circle of magic, as we played with power beyond our imagining. And yet on we chanted, our voices filled with fear: on and on, lost in the devilry of the Ramesses Shield.
When the thunder echoed into silence, we heard – Isia’s cries, her warnings, her desperate pleas. We saw the child’s white-robed figure kneeling at the centre of the circle, imploring each of us in turn to stop, stop before it was too late.
And yet on and on we chanted. On and on.
But then Merimis, the Priest of Maat, let go of my hand. She broke the circle and raised her arm, trying to halt what we had begun. I turned and saw her mouth wide, screaming at us to stop. I fought back the trance and I too raised my arm, looking to my fellow priests. But they were lost in the magic. In that moment I was struck by a searing pain. It entered through our outstretched hands and threw us to our knees. I looked up to see a white light, a bolt of fire forking from the sky, scything into Merimis and myself. Our hands burned, and we staggered to one side, crying out in pain. To our shame, we sought to end the pain. We came together, clasping our hands once more.
We resumed our trance-like chant, drifting gratefully back into our unknowing state.
And so we raised a magic beyond our dreams. On we chanted, on and on.
And then we stopped. Our words caught in our throats. Our hands fell to our sides. Our eyes were fixed on the centre of the circle, on the girl, Isia.
For a moment, for the briefest moment, she was not one, but two.
Only then did we cry out in horror. Only then.”
Sylas trailed off. For some moments he stared at the page and then he raised his eyes to Isia.
“You were the first,” he said, quietly.
Isia nodded.
“And it was all some kind of mistake?” said Simia.
“A terrible, calamitous mistake. The Ramesses Shield did not create a division between the empire and its enemies, it divided everything, and worst of all – us. Each and every one of us lost part of ourselves into the new, second half of the world – Sylas’s half of the world – the place we now know as the Other. Only those who forged the Shield, the Priests of Souls themselves, were spared that fate. They lived on here, more powerful than ever, whole in a world of halves.”
For some moments Sylas and Simia were dumbstruck, but finally Simia asked: “And Merisu was part of it?”
“Merisu and Merimaat … each played their part.”
“Merimaat?” exclaimed Simia incredulously. “Merimaat was there?”
Isia opened her arms. “Of course! ‘Merimis, Priest of Maat’. She only became known as Merimaat many years later, when all this was a distant memory.”
Simia turned to the open archway, gazing out at the dark skies. “Merimis … Maat …” she murmured. She shook her head. “That doesn’t seem right. Merimaat was so … good.”
“Who says she wasn’t good?” said Isia, surprised. “Remember she did her best to break the circle when she saw what was happening. And the Priests of Souls were not all bad, not then. It was Thoth – the Priest of Thoth as he was then – who led the rest astray.”
Sylas was still running his eyes over the passage, trying to take it in. “Everyone but the Priests of Souls …” he said, rubbing his temples. “So you were the first to be broken in two. That must mean that your Glimmer was in my world? In the Other?”
“In the beginning, yes. One part of me remained here and the other was lost to the Other. I lived in both worlds, grew up in both worlds.”
“But you’re together now, aren’t you? I mean, your Glimmer came back?”
“Yes, but by then many years had passed. I was a grown woman. I had learned to be apart, lived a full life as two separate people. I even had chil
dren, one in each world: my son in the Other, my daughter here.”
Simia frowned and screwed up her nose. “That’s pretty weird, isn’t it? I mean, what would they be? Sister and brother? Cousins?”
Isia smiled. “I liked to think of them as sister and brother. But I think you are missing the point, Simia. In having two children, my single bloodline became two, one on each side of the divide.”
Sylas had the growing sense that all this was for his benefit; that Isia was telling him something. And then, slowly, he started to understand. He found his hands clenched, his body tense.
He looked up at her. “A boy and a girl, you say? One in each world?”
Isia sat down and put her hand on his arm. “Yes, Sylas.”
His eyes searched her face. “And I suppose … they had children?”
“Yes.”
“And their children had children?”
She nodded.
Simia shook her head and threw out her hands. “So?”
Isia answered, but her eyes never left Sylas. “What if my two bloodlines are destined one day to become one? What if that division of blood might be undone, and with it, the division of worlds? The division of souls?”
“But … how?” asked Simia, confused.
Isia turned to her. “Because two of my descendants are not separate at all, but one. They are each other’s Glimmer.”
Simia’s hands fell slowly to her side. “Your … descendants?”
“My children’s children, over hundreds, thousands of years.”
Sylas lowered his head and stared at the table turning the Merisi Band between his fingers. “You’re talking about me,” he said quietly. “You’re talking about me and Naeo.”
She reached over and folded her hands around his. “I am,” she said.
And in that moment, as she squeezed his hands between hers – gentle and soft, like his mother’s – the confusion began to lift. He looked at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.
“You are my family, as was your mother before you, and hers before her,” said Isia. “My blood runs in your veins.”
Sylas was stunned, bewildered, but he knew it was true.
She raised a hand to his cheek. “My brave, brave child,” she murmured. “We share a destiny, you and I. Mine was the beginning and yours must be the end.”
“Laythlick is an evil paradox: his flesh as pale as frost, his heart dark as the Black.”
THE STREETS OF GHEROTH were deserted now. Word had passed quickly between hawkers and innkeepers, townsfolk and slumdwellers.
Laythlick is on the hunt.
The city had been sent into feverish panic, people rushing here and there, storekeepers bundling their goods into carts, worshippers leaving their prayers half prayed. In no time at all, lanes and alleys, squares and thoroughfares were cleared. Only the foolish and the weak were left behind.
Laythlick is on the hunt.
Doors had been slammed, windows latched, shutters bolted. Children were pushed into backrooms, livestock crammed into shelters, valuables locked in drawers and hidden under floorboards.
Laythlick is on the hunt.
Occasionally the storm rumbled somewhere over the Barrens or the wind whistled eerily down empty lanes, but otherwise the city was silent. Expectant.
When at last they came, they moved like shadows, creeping along walls, darting between doorways, sloping across open spaces. There were too many to count, but they made no sound. They spilled from the Dirgheon and poured through the alleys like some deathly flood. And yet they moved with purpose, all together, all converging on a single spot.
There they found their master, alone in the Place of Tongues, his robes billowing in the winds.
And his albino eyes, fixed on the Temple of Isia.
They had been sitting there for a while now in silence, on the bed next to the stream. After those first, halting attempts at conversation they had given up, but even now, Amelie’s gaze barely left Naeo. It was as though if she looked away, this miracle – this impossible, precious piece of Sylas – might disappear. And although Naeo was aware of her staring, although it was uncomfortable, she didn’t mind. She understood. More than that – in a strange kind of way, she liked it. It felt as though her own father’s eyes were resting on her. As though she was home.
“Such a brave, brave child,” said Sylas’s mother, breaking the silence. “You came all this way to see Mr Zhi? To find me?”
Naeo shrugged. “I had to do it,” she said. “Sylas is doing the same thing: trying to find answers; trying to find my dad.”
Amelie looked at her quizzically, still struggling to believe what she was hearing. She looked down at the stream, and when she looked up her eyes were full of tears. “You’re both having to be so brave. Brave for us all.”
Naeo smiled self-consciously. “Not really,” she said, kicking a pebble into the stream.
Amelie’s brow furrowed and her fingers fidgeted as though she was fighting an internal battle. Finally it seemed too much. “Is he all right?” she blurted. “Please, just tell me that he’s all right.”
Naeo saw how desperately she needed to know, the agony in her eyes.
“He’s fine,” she said, with rather more assurance than she felt.
Amelie put her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob. More tears rolled down her cheeks. She pulled a handkerchief from her overalls and wiped her face. “I can’t tell you what it means to me. To know that he’s all right. To know for sure.” She lowered the handkerchief and stared at it. “You must think I’m a terrible mother.”
Naeo stared at her. “No … no, I really—”
“Well I am,” said Amelie, meeting her eyes. Her face was full of self-reproach. “If I hadn’t let the voice get the better of me, if I hadn’t let it take over, they would have let us stay together.”
Naeo had no idea what to say.
“But you have to understand,” implored Amelie, “once the voice got that bad, I had no choice: I had to go along with it. They said that my –” she winced, as though the word was sharp and painful on her tongue – “my … episodes might draw attention. That they might put Sylas at risk. They said the best thing I could do was let his uncle Tobias have him. Then they would be able to watch over him. Keep him safe.”
When she finished she wrung her hands and gazed at Naeo.
And then Naeo understood. She was saying sorry. She could not apologise to Sylas, but she could do this. She looked agonised, desperate, and all Naeo wanted to do was to take the pain away. She took Amelie’s hand. “He doesn’t blame you.”
For a moment Amelie looked stunned, as though she had heard something too wondrous and magical to be believed. “Do you know that?”
Naeo nodded emphatically. “I do.”
And to her surprise, she did know. She knew because she knew Sylas. She knew because, even in another world, in that moment he felt near. He was there to be known.
Amelie brimmed with tears and a big, open, beautiful smile spread across her face. She leaned over and threw her arms around Naeo, pulling her close.
“Thank you!”
Naeo was about to return the hug when Amelie squeezed.
And then everything fell apart.
The pain that she had almost forgotten came roaring and screaming up her spine and raged into her skull, it pulled at her insides and punched the air from her lungs. Her limbs burned and shook, but somehow she heaved her arms before her and pushed.
She felt Amelie release her and then she started to fall.
The last thing she saw was a mother’s face filled with horror and the world turning black.
“The Suhl’s Salve is a beguiling wonder, but why is it that I yearn for the good medicine of home?”
WHEN NAEO WOKE SHE was face-down on a soft bed with the pleasant tinkle of running water in her ears. The pain was still there, but as long as she stayed very, very still, it was bearable. Even then the fogginess remained – the numb, confused empty-mindedness that the Bla
ck always brought – but she was used to that. She just lay there, listened to the calming stream and thanked her lucky stars that she was still alive.
It was not long before she heard Amelie returning.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” she said, still some distance away.
“I thought you had enough on your plate just getting to know each other!” It was Tasker’s voice. “Anyway, I thought Naeo would’ve told you herself!”
“Well, that’s the point – she did have enough on her plate!” snapped Amelie. “You should’ve told me everything before I met her!”
There was a silence. Naeo could hear them striding across the grass. She was suddenly aware of the cool air playing over her back and realised that her top was missing. She thought to try to cover herself, but when she remembered the pain, she decided not even to try.
“So you say it’s the Black?” said Amelie, just paces away now.
“Yes, that’s what she said.”
Amelie lowered her voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she murmured. “It’s awful!”
They walked up in silence and put some things down on the grass at Naeo’s side. There was a white box with a red cross on its lid, and another wooden box containing some of the glass phials and bottles from the apothecary’s cabinet – the one Naeo had noticed at the entrance to the glen. Finally, Amelie laid down a large pestle and mortar, checked that she had everything and then looked up at Naeo.
“You’re awake!” she said, breaking into a smile. She reached up and drew Naeo’s hair away from her face. “You gave me quite a scare!”
Naeo tried to speak, but nothing came.
“Shush, you lie quietly now,” said Amelie in a soothing voice. “I’m going to give you something for the pain and then we’ll see what we can do about these wounds of yours.”
Naeo managed to shake her head a little. “Nothing …” she croaked, “… works.”
Circles of Stone Page 32
