The Bell Between Worlds

by Ian Johnstone

  He accelerated, kicking up dust with his heels as he hurled himself forward, feeling a strange urge to laugh and to cry out. He heard Simia’s steps and then saw her, lunging left and right in the gully ahead. Soon he was right behind her, bearing down on her and then, as the gully widened a little, he surged past her, letting out a whoop of triumph as his shoulder scuffed the wall and he bounced back in front of her.

  “How…” panted Simia, “how… did you… do that?”

  “I don’t know!” shouted Sylas. “I think I’ve always been able to!”

  He banked left and then right and sprinted down a long, straight furrow, with the sound of Simia’s footsteps fading behind him. It was exhilarating, liberating. He raced on, hardly thinking about what he was doing, feeling his path unfolding ahead of him.

  He laughed out loud. “It’s like... like a new kind of seeing!”

  He heard Simia’s footsteps somewhere off to his left.

  “You’re going the wrong way!” she bellowed.

  The smile fell from his face.

  Espen ran so silently that even the Ghor did not hear him pass. He stooped low, seeming to glide over the grey surface, little more than another shade of night. He watched them raging at the dust, snatching up great clumps of earth between their jaws and casting them high into the air, clawing wildly at the pile of earth that just moments before had been aflame. His scarred face contorted with contempt.

  He sped on, adjusting his long, loping strides to take him wide of the first group of Ghor and towards the second. There too he saw them in disarray, prowling about for some sign of their tormentor, snarling and snapping at the pile of earth. But, just as he was about to move on, they suddenly froze and lowered themselves on their haunches, peering out on to the plain.

  Espen dropped to the ground and followed their gaze. Through the blackish grey of early dawn, he saw a movement. It was no more than a fleeting shadow, but there was no doubting that it was there. It turned sharply, dropped low to the ground and then disappeared from sight as though it had slithered into some ditch or gully.

  The Ghor had already started in its direction. Espen paused, his eyes narrowing. He turned back towards the other group and saw that they too were giving chase to a shadow that prowled swiftly across the plain and suddenly dropped out of view. He watched for a moment more, seeing the shadow rise a little ahead of them and then fall again, as though goading them, drawing them on.

  A smile formed on his lips.

  He ran on through the murky greys and muddy black, on over the dry, cracked earth of the Barrens. He did not pause, or slow, or seem to draw breath.

  It was not long before the vast skeletal structure of the Circle of Salsimaine rose bleakly from the nothingness, picked out in drab shades and deathly shadows. Espen stood to his full height and slipped silently between the great stones, moving deftly from shadow to shadow until he was sure that he could not be seen.

  Drawing himself down behind a fallen stone, he peered back out on to the plain, towards the meagre trace of dawn that now clung to the horizon. He saw another movement: another strange translucent shape rising briefly from the ground, then falling out of sight. No sooner had it disappeared than three or perhaps four hooded shapes rose out of the same ditch and pursued it down into the next, pressing in upon each other to be the first to grasp it in their jaws. But instantly another shape rose some distance away, shimmering above the horizon for a few seconds before moving at speed into another gully. A third emerged, and a fourth, each of them leading some of the Ghor behind it, drawing them between and among the deep furrows in the earth.

  And then he saw something else. The very dust of the Barrens began to dissolve, breathing forth a silky white vapour that rose in growing clouds and lingered unnaturally in the cold, grey air. As he watched, it thickened until a great shroud of mist lay about the plain, pouring into the creeks and crevices, frustrating the dark pursuers in its midst.

  Espen cocked his head a little to one side and considered the chaotic scene for a moment, then raised an upturned hand. Very slowly, he lifted his forefinger. Almost instantly one of the strange shapes emerged from the nearest of the gullies.

  It was not a solid thing, but a fluid, shifting apparition. It did not have lines or form, but instead was a blur that shifted and morphed as he watched, clawing up the sand and mist and spinning it in a wild vortex until it had shape and colour. At its base its tail lashed and whipped the ground viciously, tearing at its surface, while above its spiralling, gyrating body widened and widened until at its top it spat out a flurry of dust and vapour.

  A whirlwind. A man-sized desert twister.

  A grim smile passed over Espen’s face.

  “He has them chasing the wind,” he muttered admiringly.

  He dropped his hand and heard the baying of the Ghor as the whirlwind descended among them.

  Turning away, he slid onwards, moving silently between the stones.

  In just a few moments he was at the innermost circle. He pressed himself against a jagged, broken rock and his eyes passed quickly over the scene: the lifeless fire pit, the abandoned blankets, the glass orb discarded in the dust. With a quick glance in both directions, he moved again, still in a crouch, his eyes searching the dust, scrutinising the tracks to and from the empty camp. He paused by the fire to pick up his pack, then stooped down and touched a pair of smaller tracks, his eyes darting between them and the far side of the circle. He drew a long breath and shook his head.

  “That meddlesome girl,” he muttered.

  He considered the tracks for some moments, but – for now at least – he did not follow them. Instead he turned back towards the camp, looking for something more.

  It did not take long.

  In seconds he was poring over a patch of dust, touching it lightly with his finger, tracing the line of a larger footprint. Slowly his eyes followed the tracks to the opposite end of the circle, then to one of the standing stones, a stone that had been sheered from the very top to the bottom. His gaze traced its ragged edge, up to the great stone platform that lay across its top, up still further to the slight figure standing high above, feet apart, hands and arms working like a conductor of some silent symphony.

  Even in this pale light he could make out the wild nest of blond hair, the quick hands, the youthful fingers in a blur, summoning whirlwinds from the dust and weaving madness in the gullies below.

  Ash turned and looked at the Magruman. The blood had left his cheeks, but if his heart had failed, it did not show: a defiant smile played on his lips.

  32

  The Centre of Everything

  “One emerges above them all, one of cunning and ruthless guile,

  one at the centre of everything.”

  BLACK TURNED TO CHARCOAL grey, which surrendered reluctantly to the ashen blues of morning. It was too long since they had stopped to rest and drink water, but they kept up their pace, determined to go a little longer, a little further. They had slowed to an exhausted, haphazard jog and, although they could now see, their weary legs often carried them into the dusty walls.

  Sylas’s euphoria had long since faded. He had given up asking where they were or when they would reach their destination. They had not spoken for over an hour. He hurt all over – his legs, his arms, his parched throat – and as time went by he started to feel a new pain: a hollow ache in his wrist, around the Merisi Band. He had almost forgotten that it was there – so smooth and well crafted was its surface and so perfect its fit – but now it felt as though it was pressing on a nerve. He rubbed it as he ran, trying to improve the flow of blood.

  Just when he was beginning to wonder if the monotony of sandbanks and earthen walls would ever end, there was a change. It was only slight at first, so slight that it took them some time to notice, but soon the crack of light above their heads began to broaden out, the ground beneath their feet became harder and stonier and, as it did so, the creek bed began lifting them up towards the light. The sky too seemed
different. It was still a dull, depressing grey, but it was less monotonous: pale streaks started to show among the curling clouds and soon definite patches of light began to appear.

  They turned a sharp bend in the creek and suddenly it widened. The path ahead was strewn with rocks and boulders, resembling the bottom of a mountain stream. Simia slowed, staggering slightly to one side as her feet slapped the ground, her shoulders hunching over from exhaustion. She wandered over to the nearest boulder and sat down. Sylas was quick to follow.

  It took some time for them to catch their breath and take in some water. Finally Sylas wiped his mouth and looked across at her.

  “Tell me we’re nearly there,” he said.

  Simia sucked the last drop of water from her bottle and shrugged. “We’re nearly there,” she said in a husky voice.

  He looked at her steadily. “Are we?”

  She seemed far more interested in the nozzle of the bottle, into which she frowned, demanding that it yield more water, but finally she nodded.

  He stood painfully and handed her his own.

  “Well, I can’t see anything.”

  “That’s because we’re in a ditch,” she said witheringly. She drank down the contents of the bottle in one gulp and belched rather more loudly than seemed possible for such a small person. Then she pointed to one side of the gully.

  “Try standing on a boulder. You’ll see.”

  Sylas walked over to the nearest one and, with a wince, hoisted himself up on to its top.

  He felt a bracing breeze on his face, but it was not that that made him draw breath.

  The ground rose in a long, gentle slope and there, at its top, was the city.

  It erupted from the earth in defiance of the great desert of the Barrens: vast, dark and powerful. There were buildings of all conceivable shapes: long blockish ones; narrow upright ones; buildings that sagged in the middle and buildings that rose to a point; some that leaned a little to one side; others that had tilted over so far that he wondered how the roofs stayed on. Still others – those huddling at the very fringe of the city – appeared to be made of little more than scraps of wood and canvas, sewn together in a vast shabby patchwork of miserable colours. But at least they were colours, he thought.

  This was the vision to his left and to his right: a seemingly endless mass of low roofs muddling the horizon. Beyond, another jumbled horizon rose in a paler shade of brownish grey and beyond that another, until the great sea of buildings disappeared into a distant murk. It was a wonder that he could see this far, for myriad chimneys disgorged an endless stream of yellowish white smoke into the sky, which drifted slowly upwards and collected in a brooding cloud high above. This in turn seemed to be on the move, rolling sluggishly over the city, but it did not drift in one direction, rather it appeared to be surging inwards, as though drawn by some inexplicable force towards a single point.

  At first Sylas could not see where it was headed – all he could make out was a place at which the smoke seemed to congregate and begin a new motion: a swirling, spiralling, twisting flow that rose still higher into the air.

  His eyes lingered on the smoke – searching for something at its centre – but then he looked up above the churning plumes.

  The hairs prickled on his neck.

  Looming through the shades of grey was a shape so vast that it took him a moment for his eyes to find its edges. It was a colossal pyramid of shadow, soaring out of the heart of the city towards the heavens, looming over the maze of houses and streets, the maelstrom of cloud and smoke, even the Barrens themselves. Its great mass seemed to block out the light across a giant portion of the sky, casting a sharp, angular shadow over the cloud. As he watched, some of it cleared, revealing a triangular wall of jet-black stone, which seemed to draw in the light. It had no features, no breaks in its surface: nothing but a dark, solid expanse of stone sloping up towards the point of the pyramid.

  “The Dirgheon,” murmured Simia, who had climbed up next to him.

  Sylas turned to her. She too was staring up at the monstrous building. He saw at once that it had a strange effect on her; her ruddy cheeks had paled.

  “What is it?” he asked breathlessly.

  “Thoth’s citadel. The centre of everything.”

  He swallowed. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It isn’t,” she said, drawing her eyes away as if she could not bear to look at it any longer.

  “What’s inside?”

  “Bad things. Very bad things. Thoth and his Magrumen; the birthing chambers of the Ghor; plenty of things that you just don’t want to know about, and you don’t want to meet. And then–” her eyes moved back to the giant pyramid – “there are those they’ve captured but haven’t yet killed.”

  Sylas followed her eyes to the pyramid’s base. “It’s a prison?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  She drew a lungful of the chill morning air, then jumped down from the rock. “Come on, we have to keep moving – they may not be far behind. And believe me, we won’t hear them when they come.”

  Sylas took a last lingering look at the Dirgheon. His eyes traced one sloping wall to the other, trying to imagine how many thousands of rooms and halls lay within, how many squalid cells and endless, twisting passageways. He thought of Bayleon and Fathray and Bowe and wondered if they would be taken there – if they were there even now – to languish in some forgotten room at the end of some lost, lightless corridor.

  “Come on!” snapped Simia impatiently.

  “OK, OK,” he said, his eyes lingering on the pyramid for a moment longer.

  He leapt down from the rock and followed Simia to the wall of the gully.

  “We’ll have to risk it from here,” she said. “The sooner we’re in the city the better.”

  She clambered up the bank using what few footholds she could and, glancing warily in all directions, pushed herself over the top. Sylas scrambled up behind her and heaved himself on to the flat ground beyond.

  They lay still for some seconds, searching the low, flat horizon behind them for any sign of their pursuers, but saw nothing. The Barrens were shrouded in a mist that boiled and churned ominously in the breeze.

  Slowly they stood up.

  Immediately Sylas heard the sounds of the city. It gave off a low rumble, as though its walls and streets were growling spitefully at the new day. The noise was unnerving after the silence of the Barrens, but as he listened, he realised that it was no more than a chorus of sounds, each lending resonance to the city’s guttural voice: cartwheels on stone, yells from the market, hammers on anvils, whining from sawmills, hooves in the mud – these and a thousand other sounds of life came together as a single thunderous growl. He felt his heart quicken at the sound of people living their lives and he felt the Barrens’ deathly blanket start to recede, as if his blood was flowing more freely.

  “We’ll have to go in through the slums,” said Simia with distaste. “They might be looking for us on the roads. Just stay close behind me and don’t say a word to anyone or anything – no matter what.”

  They moved quickly, no longer running but walking briskly, trying not to look conspicuous.

  The nearest shacks were only a short distance away and it was not long before they started to see people: a man labouring under water buckets, a woman hanging out grubby washing and a child running down one of the alleyways. Simia kept walking, her arms swinging confidently at her sides, humming a tune under her breath.

  Sylas’s stomach tightened as he noticed a waver in her voice.

  In another minute they were there, walking up to the first makeshift hovel: walls made of mud and scrap wood and a roof of some kind of canvas. As he walked past it and into an alleyway, he noticed a strong smell: the unmistakable stench of sewage. It seemed to issue from every dark corner, every putrid ditch and tumbledown shelter, and it only became stronger the further they walked into the slum.

  He tried to keep his eyes down and straight ahead as they w
andered from one alleyway into another, but he caught occasional glimpses of withered men and women sitting in dark doorways smoking a pipe or cooking at a fire, filthy children playing in the dust, old people sleeping in hammocks or on the hard earth. And while the sounds of the city were louder than ever, Sylas realised that none of them were coming from the slum: this was a silent, depressing place; a place of sickly murmurs and shuffling feet; of wheezing and coughing and disease.

  He turned a corner and nearly walked headlong into a thick wooden pole driven into the earth. He heard a flutter overhead and looked up to see a huge red flag flapping against the grey sky. A skeletal white face glowered down from among the folds, shifting with each curl of the flag so that it almost seemed alive: frowning, glaring. It was Thoth’s standard, presiding over these poor people as if he himself was there, peering down at them, mocking them in their defeat. Sylas hurried on, staying close behind Simia.

  They entered a warren of tiny passageways pressed in so tightly that there was little light to see by. She moved confidently, turning this way and that without hesitation.

  “You know this place, don’t you?” he whispered.

  She nodded.

  “How?”

  “I lived here. After the war,” she whispered, turning to press her finger to her lips. She walked on.

  Sylas looked again at the squalor around him. She had lived here – in this? He found it hard to imagine her – someone with so much life and energy – living in such a horrible, deathly place, a place where people seemed broken and without hope.