Ian Johnstone - Circles of Stone

A dry chuckle sounded in the back of Thoth’s wasted throat. He stepped up to the doors at the end of the corridor, seized the handles and threw them wide.

The whites of Scarpia’s eyes flared. Beyond the doors was what looked like an infinite void – a passageway without end, flanked on both sides by hundreds, perhaps thousands of the same dark little doorways: the gaping mouths of birthing chambers.

Thoth drew the gash of his mouth into a crooked smile.

“I am prepared,” he murmured.

“Just relax!” cried Paiscion. “It won’t let you fall!”

Sylas winced as the crook of the branch swept out from beneath his armpits and dropped him on to a wide bough. He teetered forward, his arms circling in the air. He hardly had time to regain his balance before that bough too was sweeping him upwards, bearing him even higher into the crown of the tree.

He glanced across and saw Paiscion standing on a broad limb, being borne ever higher into the canopy, but that he was entirely relaxed, his arms resting at his sides, watching with amusement as his companion struggled and fretted.

Sylas tried to relax as another branch swept down from above and approached him head-on. Before he knew it, a fork was straddling his chest, lifting him beneath the arms and leaving him dangling in mid-air. Already he was in motion, sailing up between branches and somehow weaving a path between the twigs and leaves. He fought the urge to resist the tree – relaxing his shoulders, dropping his arms – and for the first time looked about him. The canopy was in constant motion, bearing them upwards with the deliberate but graceful path of its limbs, swaying this way and that in such a natural manner that if anyone had seen them from a distance they would have imagined the branches caught by the wind and thought no more of it. When he glanced up he saw to his amazement that he was already nearing the top: he could see a sparkle of daylight between the leaves.

“Nearly there!” cried Paiscion at his side.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Sylas was dropped on to one final limb, which swayed to allow him to gain his balance and then drifted up towards a large bough above his head. As it came level, it slowed and then halted, allowing him to step off.

Panting and sweating, he found himself at Paiscion’s shoulder. The Magruman smiled at him and nodded over the edge of the wide bough.

“Have you ever climbed such a tree?”

Sylas peered over the edge. His head swam as he saw most of the canopy far below him. He could not see the ground at all.

He squatted down and had to resist the temptation to wrap his arms around the bough. “No,” he said, with a dry throat. “I really haven’t.”

Paiscion laughed and slid a hand under his arm, drawing him back to his feet. “The longer the drop,” he whispered in Sylas’s ear, “the greater the reward. Look at that view!”

Ignoring his wobbly knees, Sylas followed the Magruman’s gaze. The rolling roof of the forest was far below, the billowing clouds of orange, green and brown flecked with the golden sun. And there, framed by the leaves of trees and stretching almost as far as the eyes could see, was the vast span of the Valley of Outs.

“I’ve never tired of this view and never will,” said Paiscion wistfully. He drew a long breath. “It reminds me of her.”

Sylas pulled his eyes away. “Her?”

“Merimaat,” said Paiscion, as if it should be obvious, “the mother of our people. This was her retreat, her hideaway.” He nodded along the branch of the tree. “Well, to be more precise, that was her hideaway.”

Sylas turned and his eyes grew wide.

“Wow,” he whispered.

There, crowning the very pinnacle of the tree was what looked like a gigantic nest. But this nest had not been made by the peck and weave of birds, nor by the labour of men, but rather by the tree itself. Each of its uppermost branches had become part of the structure, bending and looping into the floor, walls and roof of a glorious chamber. Its outline matched the curves of the tree, such that from a distance it would look like nothing unusual. But from here, it was a thing of wonder. The branches formed regular, looping beams and curling struts, the leaves blanketing the roof to form a perfect shelter, and some of the branches seemed to have grown in generous, empty arcs, to create two huge windows and a doorway.

“Come along,” said Paiscion, stepping along the bough. “It is best seen from the inside!”

Sylas spread his arms wide and teetered along the branch behind the Magruman, trying not to let his eyes drop into the void below. Finally he stepped with relief into the strange hideaway.

He found himself standing on a soft, springy surface, a tightly woven web of twigs and leaves so dense that there was only the odd gap, through which he spied the long drop below. Around him was a beautiful, domed structure, in which there appeared to be no straight lines, no clasps or fixings. It looked to have just grown that way, weaving around the space as though it contained something precious and untouchable. And yet that space was entirely empty, except for four chairs – two facing out of each huge window – and a table at its centre, which was also bare except for a small wooden box.

“She would often sit there in the morning and watch the sun rise over the valley,” said Paiscion, pointing to one of the chairs at the nearest window. “And in the evening, she would sit and watch the sunset.” He turned to the other window. “Take a look – it’s quite special.”

Sylas walked over the pleasing carpet of leaves to the giant opening. This view was almost as striking as the other, but it was quite different. Below, the beautiful canopy of trees stretched away over to a range of lower hills, where it thinned and darkened. His eyes followed the glistening trail of the river as it snaked through this forest, following the course that he and the Windrush had taken only the day before. The further his gaze travelled, the more he felt a creeping dread and then, sure enough, he saw the dying fringes of the forest bleeding into a vast grey expanse. Parched and hungry, the Barrens sucked the light from the sky so that the entire horizon was a giant, senseless strip of drabness, showing no breaks, no features, no promise of anything beyond.

But then Sylas squinted and leaned forward, peering into the nothingness. There was something. Its sharp peak was just visible through the sickly atmosphere of dust and ash. A perfect triangle of shadow: the apex of a pyramid.

He felt a chill run down his spine. The Dirgheon.

Paiscion sat down in the chair at his side. “‘The hope of the world through one window’, she would say, ‘and its despair through the other’.” He looked grimly towards the horizon. “I hate that view. A wasteland of lives and souls … the place where Merimaat herself would finally lose her life in the Reckoning … and beyond, just there through the endless grey, Gheroth, Thoth’s city.” He glanced at Sylas. “He never used to show it such interest, you know – this city he calls his own and has turned to darkness. Until recent years, he was far more interested in other parts of his Empire. He’s only blighted Gheroth with his presence since the Reckoning, gloating on all he has won, all he has destroyed. Making sure that he finishes the job. I sometimes think he’ll be there in that hideous Dirgheon of his until the last of the Suhl draws their final breath.”

As he listened Sylas found himself back in the stinking dungeons and dank passageways of the Dirgheon, the filth and stench of the thousands of cells, the warren of corridors and staircases leading only into darkness. And he thought of the moment when he and Naeo had reached the pinnacle of the pyramid, when they had seen Bowe reaching up to wave them away while above him, that diabolical figure in crimson robes gazed out at them, peered into them with a blank and empty face …