Not yet.
Triste stirred a little in the failing light, groaning as he turned towards the bundles of wood. He pushed aside the teacup Sylas had left him and slipped down the bank until he was splayed by the fire. He fumbled with some pieces of wood, pushing them towards the embers, but his strength soon failed him. He pressed his eyes shut and then opened them wide, trying to recover his senses, but it was no use: he needed to sleep, just a little.
He stopped fighting and allowed his eyes to close. The sound of the gale became dark waves against an unknown shore, lulling him off to sleep. And for a while, he was at peace.
But suddenly the dark sea reared up, filling his mind until it was everything, drowning his thoughts, pressing against the edges of his dreams. He grimaced, thrashing his head from side to side, trying to escape, to shake himself awake. But it was hopeless. Like before, he was lost in a nightmare of shifting darkness: black upon black. Before him, a gruesome black figure rose from the pitch dark, parting its black lips, baring its black tusks. It opened its mighty jaws and spoke with a dripping black tongue.
“Second Hamajaks return to Taganaster!” it growled. “We have the prize, my Lord!”
The creature bowed and fell away, back into the sea of black. Instantly another, canine figure unfolded from the ooze. It parted its oily lips and spoke with a throaty bark.
“First Legionnaires return to Fazgaw! We have what you seek, great Dirgh!”
Again the creature bowed and was lost to the blackness. A moment passed and then another creature took its place: large and broad with a huge, canine snout.
“Fifth Imperial Legion has reached the Westercleft Hills, my Lord!” it snarled.
Triste struggled to think in the fog of blackness. There was something familiar about that place – the Westercleft Hills – but try as he might he could make no sense of his tangled thoughts. He reached through the darkness, searching for his memories, but before they came to him the blackness about him rippled and shifted. The Ghor commander had gone and in its place a new black figure pressed forward: small and lithe, with high, feline ears and an almost-human face. When it gave its report it spoke with a smooth and lilting voice.
“Great Lord, we approach Winterfern! The mother and child will soon be ours!”
For a moment Triste’s mind was frozen, weighing the meaning of these words. And then, through the fog, he understood.
He rolled back through the void, straining for his consciousness, reaching for the world beyond his dreams. He surged up, layer by layer, yearning for his living self.
And then he was there, bursting through the surface of the deathly sea, heaving cold, painful air into his lungs. He was struck at once by howling winds and shattering pain, which threw off all that remained of his sleep.
He was shivering in the throat of a storm. But it was the truth of his dream that chilled him to the bone.
Everything was about to come to nothing. Somehow Scarpia was alive and Naeo was within her grasp.
And perhaps even worse, the Fifth Imperial Legion was in the Westercleft Hills – just a day’s march from the Valley of Outs! And in the west – the elders would never expect an attack from the west. They must have sailed the Narrow Sea.
He had to warn them.
He started rolling his shoulders up the bank, pushing against his heels. He had to get warm and eat something; find his strength. His chest heaved, his burns screamed, but he kept pushing until he was sitting, facing the fire.
There was no fire.
The last embers glowed a deep red beneath a thick carpet of ash.
“Stupid!” he cursed, throwing himself forward, feeling for a bundle of wood. “STUPID!”
He scrabbled in the howling dark before he found what he needed and began sorting frantically through the wood for the smallest, driest pieces.
And then he heard a loud whisper through the storm.
“S-s-stupid …” it hissed.
“And what would that mean, if one day this darkling horde broke the great divide and came among us?”
SOMETHING WAS WRONG – very wrong. Sylas glanced at Simia and saw the same fear in her eyes. They walked mechanically towards the platform edge, knowing that each step took them closer to some new darkness.
The stone rumbled beneath their feet, thrumming with the bellowing voice of thunder, the wind whistling around the tower. Suddenly a flash of lightning lit up the human figures carved into the underside of the platform above, lifelike and detailed in all of their writhing form – all but their faces, which were nothing but blank stone, gaping and ominous.
Sylas and Simia were just behind Isia now.
Another step and they were at her side.
One more and they were peering over the edge into the chasm below.
The square was white and wide and empty. The worshippers were gone.
For a moment Sylas thought that perhaps they had gone to seek shelter from the storm. But then he saw a movement at the edge of the square. A black shape moving in black shadow. And then he saw another, and another, and another.
Scores of them. Hundreds of them.
The Ghor lined the fringes of the square in neat rows, two or three deep, huddling in the dying light, keeping furtively to the dimmest fringes of the plaza where they might not be seen. They had drawn dark cloaks around their forms, allowing them to fold into the deepening shadows.
With growing panic, Sylas cast his eyes around the square, seeing quickly that the Ghor were prowling on every side, in every corner. And then his eyes were drawn to the surrounding streets, where he saw more dark shapes flitting between the shadows.
Ghorhund. More than he could count.
And between them he saw other stooped and mighty figures: Ragers, their giant, bullish heads glowing red and rocking from side to side in growing excitement. And, more terrifying still – the huge, hunched forms of the Tythish, their prying faces turned upwards towards the Temple of Isia, vast moonlike eyes fixed like telescopes on Sylas as he gazed back at them in horror.
And then he felt Simia’s clammy, cold hand around his wrist. She was pointing, not down into the square but to the surrounding buildings.
The houses and shops were alive with a flurry of forms that moved with a loose, loping gait, across rooftops and along ledges, clambering between windows and up drainpipes. They scaled walls and swung between promontories, sprinting with equal ease up the verticals as they did over the flats, devouring the buildings in a swarm of half-human shapes. Then suddenly they all became still, gathering as one into row and rank. Only then did he see their true bearing and form, resting on all fours – their torsos supported by long, powerful arms and hands gathered into fists. This was something new: some new horror from the birthing chambers.
“Hamajaks!” said Simia in a faltering voice.
Then he saw what had drawn them to attention. A lone figure was walking out into the plaza. It was a man dressed in long white robes that whipped around him like pale flames. Sylas squinted, trying to make him out, but all he could see was the glow of his pallid skin in the darkness.
The figure stopped, and slowly, it raised its bloodless face up to the Temple’s tower, then further up, to the watching three on the platform.
Spying his quarry, he turned and faced the massed ranks of creatures and with a flourish, raised both hands in the air.
Suddenly the howls of the wind and the thunder of the skies seemed to find their answer. It was a new, more menacing sound: a building, baying call formed of howls and screams and snorts. It rattled the windows, boomed from the walls and echoed in the streets until it shook the foundations of the temple. It jostled the leaves of the Knowing Tree, blared up and up through the painted tower and wailed into the vast edifice of Isia’s hall. Finally it screamed out from the archways, meeting itself in the night sky, finding new voice and volume as it echoed in their ears.
It was as though hell itself had opened its jaws and declared their doom.
They watc
hed as Ash emerged from the undergrowth, shaking his shaggy locks so that a shower of leaves fell about him. He was nursing the golden object in his hands.
Naeo glanced at Ash, then back at Amelie. “We haven’t known each other for very long,” she said, apologetically.
“He’s still learning, I see,” said a voice beside them.
They both jumped and swung about.
“Mr Zhi!” gasped Amelie. “You mustn’t sneak up like that!”
“Was I sneaking?” said Mr Zhi, seeming amused. “I had no idea!”
“Well, perhaps not,” laughed Amelie. “But honestly, couldn’t you just tread a little less lightly?”
“Ah well, my wheels keep to old ruts, my dear!” he pronounced, as though this explained everything. He looked at them both. “Jeremy tells me that you have been getting acquainted, and that Amelie has given you something to make you a little better, Naeo?”
Naeo nodded and smiled. “So much better.”
Just then Ash strolled up, still poring over the golden egg. He muttered some greetings and briefly shook Amelie’s hand, but then returned his attention to the strange object.
“So you’re certain?” he said to Mr Zhi. “It is possible to get inside?”
“Of course I’m certain,” said the old man. “That is where the true gold lies.”
“But if Druindil doesn’t work,” reasoned Ash, holding the egg up between finger and thumb, “nor Urgolvane, nor Kimiyya, surely that only leaves your science.”
Mr Zhi frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you said that Essenfayle wouldn’t be enough.”
“I said no such thing!”
“Yes, you did,” said Ash. He looked appealingly to Naeo, but when she offered no support he wavered. “Didn’t you?”
“No, though that may have been what you wanted to hear. What I said was that Essenfayle was not enough for you.”
“That’s right,” said Naeo. She was rather enjoying this exchange. “‘Someone for whom Essenfayle is simply not enough.’ That’s what he said.”
Ash narrowed his eyes.
“I must admit to be having a bit of fun with you,” said Mr Zhi, smiling and stroking his beard to a point. “This little egg is really no more than a reminder.”
“A reminder? Of what?”
“Of the basic things, the natural things, the things you already know to be true.”
“And what do I already know?” asked Ash, frustrated.
Mr Zhi turned to Amelie and raised his eyebrows. “What do you think, Amelie?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what all this is about,” she said. “But I do know that Nature is more powerful than any of this magic, or than anything we scientists do, for that matter. No matter what we tell ourselves.”
“Precisely,” said Mr Zhi. ‘Nature is the root of all power’ – that’s the very basis of Essenfayle, is it not, Ash?”
Ash had the look of someone being tricked. “Yes …” he said, tentatively.
“So, do the natural thing. Crack the egg.”
He frowned. “But that’s exactly what I’ve been …”
“No. Crack the egg as you would any other. Crack it on a rock, say.”
Ash’s mouth fell open. “It’s that simple?”
Mr Zhi grinned and adjusted his hat. “It’s a rather special egg, so you may need a touch of Essenfayle, but not too much.”
Ash glanced around the gathering and then walked over to the nearest rock. He held the egg between his finger and thumb and tapped it on the hard surface.
With a metallic clink the egg fell neatly into two parts.
For a moment he just stared at them, but then he picked one up. Inside was a perfectly natural, perfectly golden egg yolk.
“‘The true gold …’” he murmured. A smile spread across his face and he looked up at Mr Zhi. “I get it,” he said.
“I hope so, Ash, because you are a gifted young man. Be content with what you know. Essenfayle in your hands is far more powerful than you can imagine. It is the way to heal this world.”
The younger man’s smile fell from his face. “I understand,” he said with sincerity. “I do.”
“Good, because now I am afraid we must speak of darker matters. Let’s walk and talk.” Mr Zhi ushered them towards the side of the glen and a narrow pathway that snaked up between the terraces. As they began to climb, he glanced back. “I have just come from the meeting of the Merisi and I’m afraid that the situation is far more serious than I had thought. You might even say that the worst has come to pass.”
His companions exchanged an anxious glance.
“The … worst?” said Amelie.
Mr Zhi stopped and turned. “War,” he said, grimly. “War that is already spilling between the worlds.”
“She sings of the lines
Of glove and the hand,
She tells of a time
For one final stand.”
AMELIE RAISED HER HAND to her mouth. “War?”
Mr Zhi nodded gravely, continuing his climb. “It seems that, for now, Thoth is merely preparing, gaining his strength, gathering what he needs from each of the two worlds. He has planned this for longer than we know, and his many years have taught him cunning and care. But all-out war will surely follow.”
Amelie looked at each of her companions. “But … what’s all this about?”
“I have spoken to you about Thoth, have I not?” asked Mr Zhi.
She nodded.
“Then you will know that he is cause enough. He too wants a union of our worlds, but his would be quite different from the one we desire: his would be one of master and dominion, of one world’s power over the other.” He paused and turned. “This will be a war of devastating consequence; of broken worlds and separated souls; of science and magic; of all the wonders of light and the horrors of the dark.”
“Well, I’m ready!” called Ash from behind. “I’ve always been ready!”
Mr Zhi turned and smiled, though his eyes did not. “And I daresay you will be important to this fight, Ash. But it is not magic or science that will dictate the outcome, nor even the massed armies, though those things will play a part.” His eyes shifted to Naeo, who was walking at his side. “No, in the end, the outcome rests on two people. Or to be precise, one.”
Naeo slowed. “Me and Sylas?”
“Of course,” said Mr Zhi. “If you are able to bring us into union then Thoth no longer has a war to fight. His campaign will fall into its own darkness.” He paused to climb up between two deep red Acer trees, then turned and held out his hand to help the others. “So, we must gather our forces, we must prepare to defend ourselves, but more than anything, we must ready our only hope of victory.”
“I agree, Mr Zhi,” said Amelie as she climbed up behind. “We have to keep Sylas and Naeo safe.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t entirely what I meant,” said the old man. “Certainly we must protect them as best we can, but we must also allow them to. And that means that we cannot keep them safe.”
Amelie looked appalled. “Why? What do they have to do?”
“Well, first of all, Naeo must return to Sylas.”
“But she’s only just arrived!”
“And I would be the first to suggest that she stays a while, that she learns all she can from us before she leaves. But the war changes all that. We cannot run the risk of Naeo becoming trapped here, unable to return to Sylas. We have to believe that they are stronger together.”
Naeo listened to this with fighting emotion. From the moment she had met Amelie she had found herself wondering if, at the very same time, Sylas was with her father; if even now her father was making his escape, beginning his journey to the Valley of Outs. And those thoughts drew her back to her own world, to the promise of finding him there, waiting for her. But each time she had remembered that she was here for a reason – and that reason could hardly be more important. She was here to find Sylas’s mum, and to learn from Mr Zhi.
“Surely we can stay a day or two?” she suggested. “We’re here to find out what Sylas and I have to do – we can’t just head back now.”
Mr Zhi shook his head. “You must go,” he said, resolutely. “Thoth knows you are here and he will act quickly, if not to find you here then to prevent your return.”
Naeo thought for a moment. It was so strange to talk of getting back to Sylas when all she had wanted to do when she was with him was get away. And then she remembered something.
“What about this Thing you gave me – the Glimmertrome?” she asked. “I thought that was meant to help us to be together even when we are apart?”
“And so it will. The Glimmertrome may be very important on the quest to come, but don’t forget, when you use it you will see as Sylas but not as yourself. It weakens even as it as strengthens.”
“So why give it to me at all?”
“Because it will allow you to learn about one another, to know one another, and it is only by knowing each other that you can truly work together, act together, be together. You cannot do it all in dreams as you do now. There will soon be no time for dreaming.”
Naeo was still confused. “So you think that, in the end, Sylas and I need to be in the same place?”
Mr Zhi paused with his hands on his hips and took some deep breaths. “I think that when all is said and done, together must mean exactly that.”
Their motion was tireless, relentless, unyielding. They devoured the hillside in long, reaching strides and giant bounds, darting through gorse and thicket, copse and hedge. More than once they crossed the winding road, but if anyone had been there to see them, all they would have witnessed was a flicker of shadow, a trick of the eye, a brief chill, best forgotten.
Suddenly they erupted from the undergrowth into the full light of morning, sprinting across the bald hilltop towards the road’s end and two high stone gateposts, spanned by an imposing wrought-iron gate. Still they did not pause for breath, one scaling the ornate ironwork, the other turning sharply and leaping into the air, bounding the full height of the gatepost to land neatly on its top. Before it dropped down on the other side, it reached back and swiped at the stonework, leaving three long gashes across the nameplate of the Winterfern Hospital.
Circles of Stone Page 34
