“I hope it goes OK,” said Sylas.
They gnawed on their bread and sipped at their Plume, gazing out at the passing hovels, listening to the chatter on the riverbanks.
“Been quite a journey, hasn’t it?” said Simia after a while.
Sylas laughed and nodded. “It really has.”
“Do you think we got what we needed?” asked Simia. “From Isia, I mean?”
He shrugged. “At least I know why all this is happening now.” He thought for a moment. “And I know where we’ve got to go next – after I meet up with Naeo.”
Simia nodded and rested her chin on her arms. “I wonder how she’s getting on.”
For some moments they both looked out at the dark river, watching the last buildings of the city slide past them.
“It’s been quite a journey for you too, Simsi,” said Sylas, without looking at her.
She grunted. “Quite a journey …” she murmured, thoughtfully. “Feels worth it though. Not just because of all this –” she glanced back at the teeming decks – “though this is great, obviously. But also because of what we found out.”
“About Thoth? This Academy of Souls?”
She shook her head. “What Isia told us about Glimmers – that we’re never alone. That I was never alone – even when I was out there, after the Reckoning. That there was part of me that was free from all this.” Her eyes remained fixed on the black expanse, seeming to turn the idea over in her mind. “My Glimmer, living my life, but … differently – like you and Naeo.”
Sylas nodded slowly. “It’s quite a thought, isn’t it?”
“It really is,” she said, wistfully. “I just wish I’d known it. That in all that darkness, there was part of me in the light. Or … or that when things were really bad, it might have been different for them. It would have been something – really something – to know that when I was lost, they were safe … or even that when I … when I couldn’t do this or that, perhaps they could.” She turned to him. “Know what I mean? I think it would’ve given me a whole lot more hope.”
He met her eyes, thinking of Naeo out there, somewhere in the Other, perhaps with his mother, perhaps with Mr Zhi, perhaps with neither but out there, doing what he could not.
“I know exactly what you mean,” he said.
For a while they fell silent again, lost in their own thoughts. Then Simia said: “Do you know what I wish?”
“What?”
“I wish that right now, Triste knew what we know. It isn’t right that he’s out there on his own.” The words caught in her throat, but she swallowed them down. “You know? I just hope he doesn’t feel as alone as I did.”
“I know, Simsi,” said Sylas.
They fell quiet again, watching the Barrens open around them. They ate no more of their bread and drank no more of the Plume. They had no more stomach for it.
After a while they heard the approaching roar of tumbling water, and at the same time the air filled with the familiar gut-wrenching stink of sewage.
“Sewage outlets from the city,” said Simia, pinching her nose.
The ship rolled as it passed a thunderous torrent, which crashed down from a gaping back tunnel in the high riverbank. As it met the river it formed swirls of putrefying foam, coating the surface of the river. They drew up their feet and retreated a little from the railings. Sylas found himself willing the Windrush to speed up.
Soon enough the horrifying torrents began to retreat into the darkness and the stink began to disperse. He was about to slide his legs back over the side when Simia reached out and grabbed his coat. She leaned forward and peered into the half-dark.
“Look!” she exclaimed, pointing at the churn of filth.
Sylas looked where she was pointing. The lumps and grime on the river’s surface were moving, drifting as one in the direction of the Windrush. Drifting upstream.
He staggered to his feet. “Slithen!”
In that moment, as though they had heard his cry, the lumps of detritus reared in the waters, rolling back to reveal their bulging eyes.
For a moment there was a strange, eerie quiet. Simia pulled herself up. Paiscion ran up behind. A hush fell over the Windrush.
It was broken by a hissing, whining, gurgling cry: a cry that chilled the bones of the Suhl. And with that, the Slithen came on, thrashing their limbs in the mire as they advanced on the ship. Hundreds of them.
Sylas turned to Simia and opened his mouth to speak.
But nothing came.
His arms dropped to his sides and his eyes fell closed.
Naeo slapped her hand down on the needle.
“They’re on the Windrush!” she cried, blinking in the bright light of day. “They’re already on the Barrens!” She looked at the driver. “Go now! Go! Go!”
The driver nodded and picked up the oblong. “This is it!” he shouted. “Everyone follow me!”
Suddenly the car roared and they were thrown back into their seats as it surged forward, its wheels sending up flurries of mud and stones. They tore out on to the road, quickly picking up speed. The other cars snaked in behind them, their tails swinging wide until they came under control.
“What did you see? Is he OK?” asked Amelie anxiously.
Naeo winced with pain. “He’s OK,” she blurted. “He’s near. We haven’t got much time!”
Everyone clung to door handles and armrests as the car veered around a bend in the road. The stone circle was close now and they could see the soldiers in the rearguard turning towards them and then running to their positions.
“Don’t stop for anything!” shouted Naeo at the driver. “Whatever happens!”
“But what do we do when we get there?” asked Tasker, eyeing the shadows between the standing stones.
“You’re just going to have to trust me.”
Tasker regarded her for a moment. “All right, Princess.”
“What it would be to unite our riven soul and then, perhaps, to see with truer eyes, feel with a fuller heart!”
“HOLD ON, EVERYONE!” SHOUTED the driver.
Suddenly the car swung to the right, missing a bend in the road and hurtling into a wooden farm gate. The timbers smashed into pieces, sending shards flying in all directions. The car dropped into the grassy field beyond, digging into the turf before bouncing and swerving. The occupants were hurled from side to side and Amelie yelped as she hit her head against the window. Ash lunged to help her, but she raised her hand.
“I’m fine! I’m OK!” she cried.
They all looked out of the front window towards the military cordon just ahead, across a stretch of open grassland. The soldiers had spread out in a long line and were kneeling with their weapons to their shoulders. Behind them some of the military vehicles were manoeuvring about, their turrets turning to face the approaching convoy. Over the rumble and thunder of the wheels, they heard another metallic voice commanding them to halt.
“Don’t stop!” shouted Naeo.
And then there was a loud bang. The front window shattered, leaving a white impression in its middle and cracks emanating in all directions.
Suddenly they heard a deafening clatter on the front of the car and sparks flew up in the air.
“They’re firing at us!” screamed Tasker.
“The flag!” shouted the driver, gesticulating frantically towards the front of the car. “It came off when we went through the gate!”
As more volleys hit the car, Tasker scrambled to the little table. He reached beneath and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen then crouched on the floor and began scribbling furiously. After a few moments he looked up towards the driver.
“Open the window!” he shouted.
“But, Boss, it’s bullet proof—”
“Open it!”
The window by Tasker started to slide down. He reached for the armrest, took a deep breath, and then threw his arm out of the window.
The paper flapped back in the wind, revealing a hastily drawn symbol in black and
white – the Yin Yang symbol.
“Blast!” cried Tasker. “They won’t see it like that!” He drew it in, took the paper in both hands, glanced quickly at his companions, then rose to his feet and pushed his arms and upper body out of the window.
The volleys suddenly ceased. Then one more shot rang out.
Tasker paused in the window for a moment longer, before dropping back into his seat. “That should do it,” he said.
Everyone looked ahead and saw soldiers running from their positions, vehicles starting up and rolling back, a single figure running forward to wave them on.
“Well done!” shouted Ash, turning to slap Tasker on the shoulder.
But he stopped short.
Tasker’s shoulder and chest were covered in blood. Ash lunged forward and began tearing at his shirt.
Tasker was already pale and sweating. “Just a graze!” he said with a smile that looked more like a grimace. He turned to Naeo. “Keep going, Princess, remember? Whatever happens!”
Naeo shook her head. “I know, but—”
“You don’t have a choice!”
Naeo looked desperately towards the standing stones. She saw the way clear now, flanked on both sides by green vehicles and soldiers. She saw the circle, huge and imposing, towering above the scrambling convoy, the baying Ghor, the bewildered soldiers.
She released the needle and raised her hands.
She reached out with her mind, beyond the steel shell of the car, ahead of the scrambling, twisting convoy to the cool surface of the stones. To the ancient, chiselled, weather-worn rock; timeless, knowing and magical. And then her thoughts soared, flying up past the screeching cat-like mongrels on the topmost stones, up into the great blue void, up and up into the sunbeams. She reached for the source of that bright clear light, and she found it waiting for her. She found the rays yielding to the touch, willing to be taken. She found them spiralling down now, following her back down to where she had started. Back to the stones.
And then, as she opened her eyes and saw the stone circle shimmering in great pools of golden light, as she saw the archways fill to the brim with its radiance, the needle of the Glimmertrome passed the centre point and everything disappeared.
“Sylas!” she heard in the blackness. “Sylas! What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” shouted Simia, shaking his shoulders.
Sylas blinked, fighting to find his own thoughts. For a moment he was caught somewhere between light and dark, between warmth and cold. And then his body became his own again and his mind began to clear.
He shook his head. “It was like … like I was with Naeo!” he said. “Like I was in the other world – my world!”
Simia gave him a steady look. “Well, you weren’t, you were here! And here is not a good place to lose your senses!” She pointed over the ship’s railing. “LOOK!”
He squinted into the blackness, his eyes adjusting to the dark, taking in the Slithen, writhing through the froth and leaping over the waves. The Windrush was travelling so much faster now, carving through the river, sending a wash high up the slimy riverbanks, but still the Slithen were gaining, reaching out at the keel of the ship, sliding over one another to be the first to gain hold.
“Paiscion brought the winds to make us faster,” shouted Simia over the gale, “but it’s still not fast enough!”
Sylas turned and saw the Magruman standing close by, one hand on the wheel of the ship and the other held aloft, summoning the winds, filling the great sails of the Windrush.
“Can we go faster?” yelled Sylas.
Paiscion shook his head. “I’m doing my best.”
“But if there was more wind?”
The Magruman glanced at him. “If there was more wind, of course! This is the Windrush!”
For the second time that night, Sylas raised his hands and closed his eyes, turning his mind into the heart of the storm. He lifted his thoughts into the clouds, gave himself up to the thunder and the lightning, breathed deep of the mighty swirling winds and called them to his aid. He tumbled down with them, gathering them to his flanks as they swept towards the ship, feeling their power in the pit of his stomach, and then he opened his eyes.
He saw the sails lift and leap, the rigging twang tight, the stern of the ship begin to rise. He felt the deck surge beneath his feet, the wind and rain blast at his face.
And then he felt something cold and slimy reach around his neck.
As it squeezed tight, his world was filled with light.
Naeo raised her hands to her neck, but felt nothing there.
She forced herself into the moment, turning her mind away from the ship, from the Slithen, from Sylas.
She squinted ahead, trying to get her bearings, to remember where she was.
The light was like a searing fire, blazing through the shattered window, so bright that the driver had his arm over his eyes. She could just about see the stones amid the dazzle and glare, looming in silhouette, but everything else had disappeared: the wall of steel, the grassland, the Ghor – all had been consumed by a flood of the sun’s rays.
“Keep going!” she cried. “Between the stones – there!” She pointed ahead. “There, where there’s a gap!”
The driver turned the wheel. “Hold on!” he shouted as the car leapt and lurched.
Everyone braced themselves, squinting ahead into the liquid light, which rippled before them like the surface of a lake. Naeo turned and saw Amelie clinging to the seat, her knuckles white, her body stiff with fear.
Naeo reached out and took her hand. “It’s OK,” she yelled. “It’ll be OK!”
And then, in an instant, everything changed. Light became dark, the rippling surface disappeared, the car no longer lurched ahead but skidded, veering to one side. It plunged into the darkness of another world and suddenly Stonehenge was no more. Instead the steel flanks screeched against the stones of Salsimaine.
“My God!” screamed the driver, pressing himself back in his seat.
Naeo peered past him into the gloom. All around them were shapes that were not stones. They were moving and muscular, loping into a circle around the car.
The Ghor and Ghorhund lowered their canine heads, scuffed the dust of the Barrens, and charged.
“And there beyond the verdant maze was the valley of legend, glowing green like a light in the darkness.”
SYLAS FELT THE COLD grip loosen from his throat, leaving a trail of slime around his neck. He heard a squeal, a shriek, a thump. His thoughts were still a jumble of here and there but as he came to, he saw a figure wrestling with the Slithen, pushing it over the railing as its limbs scrabbled and its jaws snapped. And when the Slithen fell away Sylas saw the figure at the railing lose its balance, its legs giving way until it crumpled down to the floor. There the man rolled and turned, revealing broad but crooked shoulders, a tattooed head, a long face grimacing with pain.
Sylas ran over. “Bowe! Are you all right?”
The Scryer nodded. “Go!” he cried. “Help Paiscion! Go!”
Sylas stood looking about him. The Windrush was charging down the river now, forging a path worthy of its name, carried onward by the full force of the storm. He saw Paiscion, no longer at the wheel but arms cast to the skies, using all his might to conduct the winds. Beside him Simia clung to the wheel for all she was worth, doing her best to follow the Magruman’s commands, her hair wild like red flames. The Windrush was at a precarious tilt, thrown forward by the winds but somehow it sailed on, skipping over the black surface as though she had been built for it – crafted to harness the greatest of gales.
But that was all that Sylas could see. He could not see the Circle of Salsimaine, nor Naeo and her companions, even now in the clutches of the Ghor. But he knew they were near, shrouded somewhere behind the high riverbanks and the thick blanket of night. He had to find her, to help her. But how?
Suddenly his eyes flew upwards, up the length of the mighty mast to the glistening brass of the crow’s nest, swinging a
nd heaving high above the ship.
He set off at a run down the deck, pushing through the passengers, staggering as the hull lurched and bounced. Then he skidded to a halt, put his foot on the railing and launched into the air.
“Sylas!” shrieked Simia, somewhere behind him, but her voice was snatched away by the winds.
For a moment his hands flailed, clawing at the darkness, but then his fingers closed around a rough hemp rope. He gripped it and swung himself around, bracing against a ladder. He gathered his courage and began clambering up as quickly as he dared, trying to ignore the buffeting winds, the heave of the ship, the horrified shouts of those below.
Three rungs – five – ten. Finally he allowed himself to look down: down to the windswept decks, to the desperate faces, to the inky river far below.
To the door of the car buckling and the window smashing in.
“Sylas!” screamed Naeo desperately.
She looked at the Glimmertrome clutched in her hand, watching the needle swing slowly from the centre point.
For a moment her cry drew confused glances, but there was no time to explain. Claws ripped the car door from its hinges, revealing a tangle of gnashing yellow teeth, bloodshot eyes and snapping muzzles. The car lurched and swung about, veering towards one of the standing stones until it slammed up against it, sending the Ghor tumbling into the darkness.
Tasker groaned, clutching his chest. Amelie unclipped herself and crouched forward, taking off her scarf and pressing it against the wound.
“Everyone still here?” shouted the driver.
“Yes! Go!” yelled Ash, waving a hand in the air. “GO!”
The driver turned on the headlights and slammed his foot down. The engine roared and sent the car weaving between stones and black bodies, swinging in an arc around the inside of the stone circle. Naeo looked back and saw the rest of the convoy twisting and swerving behind them, black bodies tearing at their roofs and trailing behind them.
Suddenly they heard a clatter of claws and teeth hitting the sides of the car and a screech on the roof like nails on a blackboard. A strange, mongrel face appeared upside down where the door had once been, its cat-like eyes scanning the interior of the car.
Circles of Stone Page 44
