Circles of Stone

by Ian Johnstone

  The Magruman shook under the immense burden above his head, or perhaps it was what he was hearing that had sapped his spirit, because Sylas thought he saw his features crumple a little – and then a tear roll down his albino cheek.

  But Laythlick’s face hardened. He set his jaw and bowed, as though preparing for a final push. When he rose again, his face was streaming with sweat and tears, but it was resolute. He pulled his arms over his head and in the same instant, the colossal mass of stone shifted.

  Just then, the great chorus of voices reached a deafening pitch, hailing down upon the Magruman. He looked stricken, as though the voices had pierced his skull, as though he no longer knew what he was doing or why he was doing it.

  He hesitated and looked about him, bewildered. There was a brief moment of panic written across his haggard face, and then his elbows buckled.

  The downpour of rock came in an instant, enveloping him in rubble. The chunks of stone splayed outwards and dust rose in curling plumes, rock crashed into rock, shattering into twisted piles. Soon all that was left where the Magruman had stood was a heap of white debris.

  The voices began to fade and as they did so, Sylas felt the first winds returning to the square. Then, as the noise died altogether, Isia took two steps backwards.

  For a moment she swayed as though carried on the breeze.

  Then she fell.

  “To one such as Ramesses, this was a proposition far too enticing to be resisted, no matter the risks, no matter the consequences.”

  ASH SAW IT EVEN before it entered the dome: a blur, a trick of the light. He saw the formless thing press itself up against the glass, and then through it, as though it was not there. He saw the jumble of light adjust and cohere, gathering itself on the other side of the glass, shimmering and flaring until it was the shape and size of a man. And then, as he pointed towards it, as he went to cry out, he saw it raise two foggy trails that looked like arms towards the rainbow.

  “Over there!” Ash shouted.

  As the others turned to see, the rainbow responded, the twisting, lashing motion of the light beams whipping ever faster through the air. At the same time the sun’s rays were warping and turning, gathering to feed it, to give it new colour, new intensity, new life.

  “A Ray Reaper!” cried Mr Zhi.

  Suddenly there was a sound of shattering glass. They all looked up to see Scarpia’s black, panther-like form twisting between the razor edges of a broken pane. She hung from the framework of the dome, eyeing her prize.

  The old man turned and took Naeo by the shoulders.

  “Naeo, they’re here for you!” he exclaimed, softly but urgently. “I’ll defend you as I can, but a Magruman and a Ray Reaper are far too power—”

  He was silenced by a sudden flash and hiss. The coloured tail of the rainbow whipped past his ear and struck one of the trees, which exploded into coloured flames and sent up a plume of smoke. It rose first as a misty blend of colours, then a dark grey mushroom cloud, rolling up towards the glass ceiling. Instantly a chorus of terrified screams filled the dome and Naeo saw the guests running across the grass towards the cliff face.

  Mr Zhi reached into a pocket and began pulling the green glove over his hand.

  Just then there was a loud thump of feet against the turf, and Tasker ran up, his eyes darting around the gathering. “What can I do?”

  “Take Amelie,” said Mr Zhi.

  Amelie raised her hands. “No! I’m staying with Naeo!”

  Mr Zhi shook his head. “No. Take her inside, now!” he instructed Tasker. “And get everyone! We’ll need everyone!”

  As he spoke the bullwhip of fire slammed into the ground next to him, sending up a shower of burning grass and scalding earth. He leapt sideways, hurling his body high into the air and flipping about with apparent ease, landing to face the others. Cinders smouldered in his rumpled suit.

  “Naeo! Ash! I’m going to have to leave the Ray Reaper to you. I’ll try to—”

  Suddenly there was a loud crash above their heads. Naeo looked up to see Scarpia hanging from the framework of the dome with one clawed hand outstretched. The surrounding panes of glass had shattered and as they watched a thousand shards fell towards them, not in a straight line but drawing together as they went, forming a dense dagger-point of spinning splinters.

  Then a number of things happened at once.

  Tasker leapt forward, grabbing Amelie by the waist and dragging her away.

  Ash shoved Naeo in the side, pushing her so hard that she stumbled and fell.

  And Mr Zhi vaulted, throwing himself in a high arc over the chaotic scene, arching backwards so that his body lay directly in the path of the falling glass. He extended his gloved hand and closed his eyes.

  The priestesses came from nowhere, sprinting across the windswept square. They came before Sylas and Simia had time to react, gathering quickly around Isia’s slumped figure, some forming a protecting ring, others tending to her. He could see her protesting weakly, but she was soon taken up on a forest of arms. The group started back, their faces strained, some of them weeping as they hurried towards the temple. Isia looked shockingly listless, her arms dangling at her sides, her long locks draped over her features.

  Sylas had to know that she was all right. “Wait!” he cried.

  The group came to a halt and moved apart. Isia slowly turned her head, leaving the faint image of her Glimmer behind.

  Her face was a bluish white. Her cheeks were sunken. A trail of blood flowed from her nose.

  “Now you see that mine is a borrowed greatness,” she murmured. “I am nothing without the voice and spirit of others.” She smiled, her eyes travelling over his face. “You are truly the best of me, Sylas.”

  Her eyes rolled and her head slumped until her face was once again shrouded by hair. The priestesses hurried her away.

  “Isia!” cried Sylas, stepping out to follow her.

  Simia grabbed his arm and drew him back. “This isn’t over, Sylas! You have to let her go!”

  He pulled away. “I can’t just—”

  But then there was a new swell of noise: a triumphant howl from Ghor and Hamajak, Tythish and Rager.

  “Look!” hissed Simia, tugging again at his arm. He turned to find her pointing up into the stormy skies.

  There, framed by the angular lines of the Dirgheon, was a scene from hell itself: a seething mass of giant, bat-like creatures turning in an endless spiral, looping and twisting one around the other until they blotted out all else. Amid this churn of black Sylas could see flecks of white: the pale faces of some hideous new creature, some ghoulish mongrel of man and beast. The swarm sailed from the dark terraces of the pyramid, over the deserted streets and shuttered buildings of the city and came to hover over the square. There Sylas saw the beasts in all their chilling splendour: long, black limbs; vast leathery wings; faces as lifeless as death itself. And he knew then that he had seen them before, in books and in nightmares. They had all the ghastly features of myth and legend, of those that rule the darkness.

  He could hardly believe he was thinking it.

  Simia raised her hands to her mouth. “Vyrkans,” she breathed through trembling fingers.

  Sylas glanced at her. “We … we call them vampires.”

  The swarm was descending now, fluttering down to land upon the highest rooftop, breaking apart as it neared the surface, each creature finding its own sill or gable to cling to.

  And then, as the last of them landed, the curtain of wings parted. They revealed a lone figure, stooped and frail but dressed in the finest scarlet robes. At first the face could not be seen, shrouded as it was beneath a silken hood, but then two skeletal hands rose and pulled the folds of fabric away.

  There was no face at all. There was only an endlessly shifting shape: a brew of pale features that formed two sunken eyes and a black, gaping mouth.

  There was a sudden rumble from all corners of the square as Thoth’s army bowed to its master: Ragers, Ghor, Ghorhund, Tythish
, Hamajaks, Vyrkans, all stooped low in deference to the great Dirgh.

  “You forget yourself!” said the voice, thick and silken.

  The oily blackness of Espen’s dream rolled back, receding to the fringes of his mind. He felt the advance of the cold, hard world: the chill in his bones; the pain in his hip, and arm, and shoulder; the despair. The voice faded and he waited expectantly, yearning for the blackness, for the return of his sleep, for oblivion. And then it came, slowly at first, through a memory of sounds: draw, push, slide, scrape.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  It was a comforting, reassuring rhythm, and the sounds brought with them a wonderful blackness; the blackness of forgetting, of empty dreams, of nothingness.

  But then the voice came again.

  “You forget yourself!”

  It was a smooth, gentle, female voice; one that drew seemed to offer warmth and comfort. But in truth all that happened was that the sleep rolled away once again and the pain came flooding back – the pain, the cold and, this time, a distant awareness of the stench of the cell and the drip, drip, drip of some foul slime from the ceiling.

  He dispelled the voice and tried to claw his way back to sleep. He filled his mind with the sounds that had first taken him there. The consoling, rhythmic sounds that he now knew so well.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  Draw, push, slide, scrape.

  He was rewarded with darkness: thick, soft, dreamless darkness.

  “Wake!” came the voice, bolder and louder than ever. “You forget yourself!”

  Away it went again, retreating like a fleeting tide, leaving him on the cold shores of reality, cold and weak.

  “I know myself,” he murmured in a half sleep, his lips barely moving.

  He stirred, and felt a searing pain slice through his hip. He winced and kicked out angrily.

  “I am Espen!” he muttered bitterly, now in the full horror of wakefulness.

  He blinked out at the dark cell, at the damp walls, at the broken door by his feet. Then he started. Bowe’s face was right next to him, his broken features gathered in concern.

  “Are you all right?” asked the Scryer. “You were talking in your sleep.”

  Espen fell back against the wall and a thin smile creased his lips. “I’m fine,” he grunted. “Just losing my mind.”

  He drew in a long draught of cold damp air, coughed and turned his eyes sombrely around the cell, then out into the corridor. He heard a roll of thunder somewhere in the distance, carried on an echo. Otherwise the Dirgheon seemed oddly still, quiet, expectant.

  Then everything faded as though behind a veil. His mind fogged and his thoughts left him. The empty space filled not with blackness but with light: light framing a beautiful face. A woman’s face.

  Isia’s face.

  Then came the voice again, her voice, urgent and insistent.

  “You forget yourself, Espasian! Now you must remember!”

  Sylas felt his heart begin to fail. He felt Simia’s cold, shivering hand slide into his.

  Thoth took a step towards the edge of the rooftop. “You should bow to your betters!” he boomed, in the voice of a thousand captive souls.

  The words were a shockwave thrumming around the square, humming in Sylas’s chest: an agony of shouts and whispers, murmurs and yells. He was terrified, but he did not bow. He would not bow. When he saw Thoth he could only think of the last time he had seen those scarlet robes, that bony, bent figure: high on the Dirgheon, feet planted either side of Bowe’s bloodied body, showing him no regard, no mercy.

  So instead, Sylas straightened his back and met the Dirgh’s gaze.

  Thoth cackled, seeming to find this amusing. “I had hoped we might work together, you and I. I had hoped that you might have an eye for greatness; that you might see what your Glimmer could not.” He paused, but when there was no response he continued walking slowly to the edge of the roof. “We want the same thing, you and I. We want a union of worlds – no more division, no more doubt – a single dominion ruled by a single power. Our power, Sylas – yours and mine!”

  The thought filled Sylas with revulsion. “No! That’s not what I want!” he shouted, surprised by the strength of his own voice.

  Thoth’s mouth twisted in a sneer. “Why, how selfish of you!” he bellowed goadingly. “It was always about power, Sylas, don’t you see that? My power, your power. It is power that decides the reality of our worlds!”

  “But I—”

  “It is my power, for instance,” continued Thoth, “that is even now taking all that is best from your world, preparing it for union – or for oblivion, if it comes to that. I am rather good at oblivion, as your friends will tell you. But then, I am a master of the Three Ways and that is my kind of power. It would be quite different for you …” he trailed off, leaving the square to the sounds of the storm.

  Sylas sensed that he was being baited. “What do you mean, ‘different for me’?”

  Thoth opened his palms. “You are a master of the Fourth Way, are you not? The way of ‘Nature’ and ‘peace’ and ‘harmony’.” He spat out these words with obvious distaste. “You are the one foretold by the Glimmer Myth, the one who might unify the worlds without war or bloodshed. In this universe of two sides, you are one and I am the other. You are the light and I am the dark.”

  “You’re right,” shouted Sylas, “I’m nothing like you!”

  “But what if we were to work together?” said the Dirgh, solicitously. “Think of it, the might of my empire with the majesty of your greater world! I could show you how to rule! We could share the Sekhemti – the crown of two kingdoms. All without wars or invasions – no darkness, none of the pain of the Undoing, no more mothers separated from their sons!”

  “Don’t listen to him, Sylas!” hissed Simia.

  Sylas stepped forward. “It’s not me who doesn’t see, it’s you!” he yelled. “We can’t share these worlds because they’re not ours to share!” There was a rumble of disquiet from Thoth’s army. “You want one world so that you can rule over it. We want one world so that it’s not broken any more!”

  Simia yanked his arm. “That’s enough, Sylas!”

  “You are as blind and insolent as your Glimmer!” growled Thoth.

  Sylas felt a fire flicker in his chest. “That’s right, we’re just the same!” he shouted. “I am Naeo and Naeo is me. And we both know what you’ve done!”

  Suddenly Thoth seemed to swell beneath his robes, growing to an imposing height. The hollows of his eyes deepened and his mouth widened into a broad slash. “Your world will weep for your foolishness!” he roared with such power and volume that his words passed in a visible wave through the assembled ranks. “It is a mercy that you will not live to see it!”

  With that he held his thin grey hand aloft and closed it in a fist. Instantly the square was filled with a new and delirious battle cry. And as this great onslaught of sound gathered volume, the Hamajaks clambered ape-like down from the rooftops, swinging nimbly from cornices and windowsills, ledges and gargoyles. The Vyrkans threw out their wings and took to the air, circling above the square, while beneath them, the Ghorhund prowled forward, low on their haunches, preparing to lead the charge.

  Simia turned slowly to Sylas.

  “This is it, Sylas,” she said. “This has to be your time!”

  “If they come, they will not creep but surge. While we fret about the peace of nations, they will bring a war of worlds.”

  SYLAS HAD NEVER FELT so alone. Not since the day his mother had been taken away. And then, the world had only seemed to be falling in. Now, the skies were a boiling black, the ground was shuddering beneath his feet, demons were roaring in his ears. All around him eyes flared, claws lashed, bodies strained. The army of creatures was making its charge, thirsty for the taste of blood: a thousand hungry mouths and just two children to feed them.

  And yet the horror was the same as that day, with his mother. It was the same sense that everything was coming to
an end and that somehow it was all about him. That everything rested on him.

  He mouthed Simia’s words under his breath.

  “This has to be your time.”

  He turned to her and saw her wide, staring eyes, her tiny figure, her face filled with fear but also something else – something in the way she held his gaze – steady and still.

  Trust. It was trust.

  Trust despite the world raining down, and the monsters tearing and tumbling towards them, and the heavens churning with fire and vampire wings. Trust that he would know what to do.

  He looked out at the sea of claws and teeth and saw more beasts pouring from buildings and flooding from side streets to join the endless charge. He saw it all as if in slow motion.

  Simia was wrong to trust him. He had no idea what to do. He felt only gut-wrenching fear, saw only fury and death.

  And perhaps because it was the only escape from the horror, he looked up at the sky; at that vast, murky overhang, shot through with veins of lightning, like a cauldron of fire and air.

  “Fire and air,” he murmured. “Air and fire.”

  He blinked at the churning clouds and remembered Isia’s words.

  “Now you must master the air.”

  He tightened his grip on Simia’s hand.

  “Don’t let go!” he shouted over the thunder and roar.

  She nodded and clamped her hand around his.

  And then Sylas turned inwards. He closed his eyes and retreated to the place he had gone on the river with the fleeing Suhl, on the Barrens with the attacking Ghor, on the Windrush with Paiscion. He let the snarls and the wild winds recede, and he went to the centre of himself – to the place he and Naeo had found in the Dirgheon, facing Scarpia and the Magrumen. He went to that place and then he reached out with his mind, up, into the skies. He reached into Nature’s own fury. It was a discord he knew all too well. The confusion was his, the anger was his. The storm was everything he had felt these past days. It was the storm of his life being turned inside out, of everything he knew about his mother being warped and twisted and turned into something else.