The Bell Between Worlds

by Ian Johnstone

  A flooded woodland meadow lay in their path and Filimaya stepped on to a raised walkway, that passed over the glistening surface. She moved lightly, as though the grass and earth beneath her feet and the wind playing about her robes were aiding her every motion, easing her passage through the garden. At that moment, with all that she had told him flooding his mind, revealing things of mystery and possibility beyond anything he had dreamed about, Sylas thought that she looked truly magical. He followed closely behind, keen not to miss a word.

  “And what did the Bringers do when they were here?” he asked.

  “They were brilliant researchers for your world and teachers to ours. Bringers were honoured members of our society, lecturing in our schools, speaking to our communities, giving counsel to our leaders. And while they did all this they learned from us, studying our beliefs, our customs, our magic; noting their most important findings in their book of learning...”

  Sylas’s eyes widened. “The Samarok?” he asked breathlessly.

  Filimaya smiled. “Yes, the Samarok.”

  Sylas pulled the book from under his arm and stared at it with new wonder. This was it? The single record of all that learning? How could Mr Zhi have entrusted him with something so important?

  “Let us stop here, Sylas.”

  Filimaya had paused at the end of the walkway. Ahead of them stood the wooden building, which Sylas could now see was little more than a ramshackle hut, accessed by some crooked stone steps. At first he thought it had no windows, but as he looked up, he saw two panes of glass set into the sloping roof, one on each side of a smoking chimney.

  “I think you have heard quite enough of my voice for now,” she said, her eyes lingering on the Samarok. “But I hope I’ve answered some of your questions.”

  Suddenly they heard the slow creak of a door swinging on aged hinges. A set of long white whiskers emerged from the doorway of the hut. It was Fathray, the ancient gentleman from the SaySo.

  “Ah, there you are,” wheezed the wizened old man, squinting into the light. “Come on then, Filimaya, hand him over – he’s mine now!”

  Filimaya smiled fondly at him. “Of course, Fathray. But just remember, watch your language.”

  “Why, what can you mean?” retorted Fathray with a twinkle in his eye.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Just choose your words with a mind to your audience,” she said. “We’re not all scribes, you know. If you can’t count the syllables on the fingers of one hand, don’t say it!”

  Fathray raised his great fluffy eyebrows. “Ah, my dear Filimaya, always so par-si-mon-i-ous,” he said with a mischievous grin, counting out the syllables with his long fingers. “Well, if Sylas listens as pers-pic-a-cious-ly as I expect, we’ll be just fine, no matter how lengthy our con-fab-u-la-tions!”

  Filimaya laughed. “Your thumb doesn’t count, Fathray.”

  He knitted his eyebrows. “Ah well, that’s why I’m a man of words and not numbers!”

  He gave a grin of very few teeth, then turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness.

  Filimaya put a hand on Sylas’s shoulder. “Go on,” she said encouragingly. “Fathray’s going to show you a whole new world.”

  Sylas glanced doubtfully at the ramshackle building. “Another world? In there?”

  She smiled. “Oh yes,” she said.

  The Slithen shifted from shadow to shadow through the deserted streets, slithering beneath canopies, through nets and between crates until it reached the fish market. There it crawled under an empty stall and waited, scanning the desolate street, sniffing the air.

  A horrifying, bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence, echoing from the walls, ringing from the cobbled street. The Slithen shuddered and eyed its source: the vast pillared building with stone steps at its entrance and, above, a giant inscription in red lettering and a black, skull-like face, its eyes glaring down, seeing all. Slowly, reluctantly, the Slithen climbed out from its hiding place and rose on unsteady legs. Drawing a long, rasping breath, it stepped out in the direction of the Lord’s Chamber.

  It had taken no more than five steps when it saw the first movement. Silent but swift, two large shadows glided from the rear of the dark edifice and prowled out on to the white stone. The creatures launched themselves off the steps and landed on all fours on the cobbles. With a chilling snarl, they rose to their full height, looming above the cowering Slithen.

  One of the Ghor lowered its grizzled head and glared at the stinking creature with its half-human eyes. “You dare approach the Lord’s Chamber?”

  It shrank into itself, pulling its webbed hands into its chest, lowering its head between its sloping shoulders. “I have information,” it gurgled between clenched teeth. “Information about the S-S-Suhl.”

  The other guard closed its huge black claw round the Slithen’s neck and tightened it until the creature began to gasp, its gills flaring wide.

  “What could a snivelling trail of slime like you tell us that we do not already know?” it snarled, extending its neck until its sharp, discoloured teeth grazed the Slithen’s cheek.

  The Slithen tried to straighten, lifting its head a little. “I know lots-s-s,” it rasped proudly, opening a clenched hand to reveal the creased, grimy remains of the documents it had stolen from the boat.

  The Ghor leaned in and peered at them, then let out a loud, scoffing bark. “They could be anything! There’s more filth on them than ink!” It slapped them out of the Slithen’s hand.

  The creature yelped with pain and then cried: “I know where they’re hiding the boy!”

  The two dark figures shifted. The grip around the Slithen’s neck loosened.

  “What do you know of a boy?”

  The Slithen pulled itself up still further. “I’ll not be telling mutts-s-s like you,” it hissed. “I want to s-s-speak to Thoth. Take me inside.”

  The two guards exchanged a glance, then let out a low, growling chuckle.

  “As you wish…” grunted the larger of the two.

  It grasped the wretched creature round its neck and dragged it towards the steps. It took the entire flight in one bound while the Slithen’s spindly legs slapped the sharp edges of the stone, making it squeal. The guard simply closed its grip until the shrieks died away. It drew the miserable beast through the imposing doorway of the Lord’s Chamber, then trailed the limp body down a long, torch-lit corridor. At the end it paused next to two gigantic bronze doors.

  It gathered itself for a moment, then knocked.

  “What is it?” came a smooth, female voice from beyond.

  “An informer, my Lady,” barked the guard, glancing down at the dying Slithen in its claws. “It claims it knows where the child is.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “Enter,” called the woman.

  The guard pushed on the door and it swung open to reveal a huge chamber with high ceilings, supported by rows of columns like those on the front of the building, though these were beautifully decorated with symbols and hieroglyphs. The majority of the marble floor was filled with long lines of chairs, leaving a single aisle in the centre, which stretched from the doors to the far end of the hall. There, a giant red banner hung from the ceiling and from between the folds of the fabric glared an immense empty face, its hollow eyes seemingly fixed upon the strange scene beneath.

  A bloodied figure knelt on a raised dais of stone, whimpering quietly. It was the wretched wagoner who had unwittingly driven Sylas and Simia through the town. He was flanked by two black, hunched Ghorhund bearing thick silver collars, their bared teeth just inches from his neck. Behind stood a woman, resplendent in her black and crimson gown, the whites of her beautiful tapering eyes clearly visible against her ebony skin.

  “Bring him here,” she purred.

  The guard strode forward, lifting the prisoner high into the air so as not to dirty the polished marble. When it reached the dais, it dropped the Slithen unceremoniously on the floor.

  “It says it’ll only spe
ak to Thoth...” it growled.

  The Slithen’s eyes widened in terror and it shook its head, trying in vain to speak.

  “Will it indeed?” said the woman, arching a narrow eyebrow. She tilted her pretty oval face to one side and smiled. She leaned over the cowering Slithen. “Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, my dear creature, but Thoth is not here.”

  She waited for it to respond, but it was still struggling to find its voice. When it said nothing, she lowered herself still further, extended one of her small hands and lifted its slimy chin.

  “Though I suppose that, as I am Scarpia, Magruman of Gheroth, I could almost be said to speak for Thoth.” Her mouth widened into a gentle, beautiful smile. “Indeed some would say that you are as good as looking at him right now. They would say that this is his voice; that this–” she reached down and began stroking its grime-coated head – “is his hand, comforting you; that this–” she motioned to the nearest Ghorhund, which immediately stepped to her side – “is his dear pet. And I am quite certain that they would say that these are his teeth that you feel about your neck.”

  The Ghorhund seized the terrified Slithen round its throat.

  Calmly, Scarpia rose, wiping her hand on the Ghorhund’s ruffled mane. Her face suddenly hardened and her black eyes flared.

  “Now tell me everything you know.”

  19

  The Den of Scribes

  “Even as the threads of history are unpicked by meddling hands,

  we shall gather them up and on these very pages weave them into a

  new, most glorious design.”

  AS THE DOOR CLOSED, the little hut was plunged into a gloomy half-light. The corners were shrouded in darkness, but the centre was bisected by two sloping beams of light from the windows in the roof. As Sylas looked down their length, he saw, to his surprise, that they descended far below where the floor should have been into a deep chasm at his feet.

  “Do keep up, young Master Tate, time is not our friend!”

  Fathray’s voice echoed about him, and then he saw the little old man’s white locks some way below him, bobbing downwards as he descended a spiral staircase. Soon the only evidence of him was the sound of him humming a tuneless melody: a collection of notes that had absolutely no business being together.

  Sylas found a metal railing to his right and started to follow.

  As he descended, he could sense the closeness of the walls around him and smell the mustiness of the earth.

  “What is it with these people and dark places?” he muttered under his breath.

  Fathray’s footsteps stopped. “Oh, I’m afraid you must forgive us our love of the shadows,” he called up from the darkness. “We have had to become quite accustomed to tunnelling like rats and living like moles!”

  Sylas bit his lip. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

  “Not at all!” came the cheerful reply.

  The footsteps resumed and the old man struck up his peculiar tuneless humming once again.

  As he followed, Sylas was relieved to find that soon a new light began to penetrate the gloom. After just a few more twists of the staircase he could see a definite glow rising from below his feet and moments later he had to squint as he looked into a strong white light. He saw a long, narrow chamber criss-crossed by a network of bright beams, just as he had seen in Meander Mill, though here the beams seemed to fulfil a different purpose. They zigzagged across the chamber several times, bouncing between mirrors fixed to the walls, then rose to the ceiling, where they turned sharply downwards, falling on to a series of large, brightly lit wooden desks arranged along the centre of the room. Each of these strained under the weight of great piles of books, scrolls and parchments, and a number of people in white gowns were hunched over them, poring over some or other document. A handful of other people worked feverishly at the rear of the room: stacking, sorting and tying together large heaps of paper and books, then carrying them to a growing mountain halfway along the room.

  “Welcome to our burrow, young Master Tate.”

  As these words echoed up from the bottom of the staircase, all activity in the room stopped and everyone looked towards the new arrival. Sylas hesitated, then gave a nod of his head. Everyone in the room gave a courteous bow and continued to look at him expectantly for some moments, but when he said nothing, they turned back to their work.

  “I’m afraid our little Den of Scribes isn’t much to behold,” continued Fathray, “but it has served us well these twenty years. Come – let me show you around.”

  He let Sylas off the bottom step and started to guide him along the row of desks. The floor was made of uneven, hard-packed earth and Sylas had to choose his footing carefully for fear of stumbling. He looked up at the arched ceiling and saw that it too had been carved out of the earth, supported here and there by simple braces of timber. However, the walls on either side were lined with books, documents and papers that had been arranged neatly along shelves that ran the full length of the room. At the top of each panel of shelving was a plaque, upon which was engraved a quotation. The one nearest to them was credited to Paiscion:

  “Forgetting is a merciless foe. He offers no second chance.”

  The next he looked at seemed to have been written by Fathray himself:

  “There is no such thing as too much knowledge, or if there is, that is more than we wish to know.”

  Fathray swept his hand in front of Sylas’s face. “Here, on this side, we keep the originals and there, on that side, are our labours of love: the transcriptions. The lower shelves—”

  “Originals of what?” interrupted Sylas.

  “Oh, heavens!” said Fathray, whirling around. “Did Filimaya not tell you what we do down here?”

  Sylas hesitated, not wishing to embarrass Filimaya. “Well, no, not… exactly,” he said.

  Fathray simply chuckled and wheezed. “Out of sight, out of mind! We tunnel rats are used to it! Eh?” He clapped Sylas heartily on the shoulder.

  Sylas smiled quizzically, wondering how he had suddenly been made a fellow rat.

  “Well, I’m afraid I haven’t got time for a proper tour,” continued the old Scribe. “That would take days.” He extended his ink-stained finger and drew it along the nearside wall. “See here, these are all of the old documents. Up there–” he pointed with a flourish to the top shelf – “are the histories; below them are the works of learning, particularly on the subject of Essenfayle; below those are journals; then there are government papers and the works of fiction, and finally, down there–” he pointed to the bottom shelf, which brimmed with papers and folders – “are the registers of births and deaths. Rather important, those,” he muttered reflectively, “if we are to remember who we are.”

  Sylas looked at the vast collections of registers for a moment, but then his gaze travelled back up to the top shelf, where something had caught his eye. Nestled in among the drab brown histories were three much larger black volumes, embossed with beautiful silver designs. Each of the spines bore the same inscription, marked out in ornate silver lettering:

  The Glimmer Myth

  He frowned and mouthed the title under his breath. He was about to ask Fathray what it meant, but the old Scribe pulled him further down the hall, pointing his crooked finger at the long line of desks, which glowed under the beams of light.

  “Here is where we scribble – transcribing each and every one of the original documents into new volumes, which are then stored on those shelves.” He pointed to the other side of the room, where long lines of identical brown leather volumes stretched the full length of the room.

  “But why are you copying everything?”

  Fathray looked down at Sylas, his eyebrows arching over the rims of his spectacles. “To keep them safe! We aren’t just copying them, we’re encoding them! We’re transcribing each text into one of scores of scripts – secret ones – special ones – beautiful ones – ones that only we know. We call them Veil Scripts. Most have been around for centuries, but we
are fairly certain that we are still the only ones who can decipher them. That way we know that they can be of no use to anyone but us. Come – I’ll show you some.”

  He led Sylas down the length of the room past Scribes writing frantically at their desks, each of them seeming to compete with the next to write faster and in stranger and stranger scripts. Their heads were so low to the tables that they seemed almost to be sniffing at the ink as it met the page and they only raised their eyes to throw an occasional prying glance at each other’s work.

  At the far end of the earthen hall they came to a wall shrouded in shadow. With a tiny movement of his hand, Fathray drew a beam of light from the nearest table across the floor and on to the very centre of the wall. Suddenly the entire surface writhed with symbols, shapes and runes, each one carefully inscribed in one of a rainbow of colours. Sylas gasped. Everywhere he looked curves, strokes, designs and characters were entwined with one another, forming a great glistening tapestry of impossible complexity.

  “This is our record of every symbol, character and rune available to us,” said Fathray with some pride. “Quite apart from being the prettiest wall in all Gheroth, it’s a wonderful tool. You see, the scripts are arranged in groups of similar types so that we can choose which we need more easily. The colours are absolutely precise, because the colours are just as important as…”

  He trailed off. Sylas had taken several steps backwards and was staring open-mouthed at the wall.

  “Impossible…” whispered Sylas. “It… can’t be.”

  “My dear boy, what’s wrong?”