Ian Johnstone - Circles of Stone

It was like no Groundrush that Ash had ever seen. Not that he saw much of it, because he spent most of his time on his face, or peering between his knees, or with his eyes pressed closed, pleading for it to end. It was slicker, faster, more savage than anything he and his friends had conjured in their youth. This was no childish toy. This was the unbridled force of nature.

And that was not all. Somehow, by some new trick, Naeo was forging the Groundrush even as they careered down the hillside, feeling out the route in an instant and clearing the path ahead in what seemed the blink of an eye. But there was something else that Ash had never seen before: the Groundrush did not take the quickest path down the slope but traversed it, following not the simplest route but the one that travelled the greatest distance, threading between obstacles, keeping them high, allowing them to whisk along the shoulder of one hill until they joined up with another, avoiding the valleys, hollows and dells.

He was lost in an endless tumult of water, leaves and undergrowth, his limbs flapped about him and his mass of curls were plastered across his face, but Ash knew that everything was as Naeo wished it to be. Somehow, by some miracle of Essenfayle, she was taking them all the way to the Barrens.

Icy waves scythed like teeth, thrashing the side of Sylas’s canoe, sending the bow leaping into the air. Then it turned and twisted, plummeting downwards into a deep grey hole, almost pitching him overboard. As the hull ploughed into the depths, he dropped the paddle and clung to the sides. The river spat him back out, but only sent him lurching backwards into a whirlpool, spinning him round once, twice, and then slamming the boat against a wall of water. He heard Triste somewhere behind him.

“The paddle!” he screamed. “Use the paddle!”

Sylas reached down and grabbed it from the bottom of the boat, but when he jabbed it over the side, it flailed in nothingness – he had been launched high into the air and the paddle simply wafted through the spray. When he looked down the length of the hull, he saw to his horror a gigantic wall of foam. It was the surface of the river, far below him. He felt a sickening sensation of weightlessness, his stomach rising into his chest.

Then a crack on the side of the head.

The last thing he saw was his rucksack flying over his shoulder.

She could see them now – just there, ahead – unfolding in endless waves of grey. The Barrens beckoned like an open grave, calling them on past the last few skeletons of trees. And yet to Naeo, they seemed far away, as though they were behind a sheet of glass, because something was happening to her – something deep inside her. It sucked the air from her lungs and whipped her thoughts into a frenzy. It was a gathering, terrifying, all-consuming panic.

The moment it gripped her, she lost control. The path ahead fogged as quickly as her thoughts, the little stream spilled haphazardly down the hillside, the curtain of shrubs twisted back into shape, the ground once again became rutted and treacherous. And although she saw this, she could do nothing. She was still behind the sheet of glass, her mind and body fighting some unseen horror. She opened her mouth to scream but in that instant her feet caught a rock and she was thrown high into the air, somersaulting over a line of blackened bushes and sent sprawling into the grey mud beyond.

All was silence, blackness and cold. Bone-shattering, skin-pinching cold.

Sylas tumbled in the dark, a massive force pushing him ever downwards. Currents clawed at his clothes and forced water into his mouth and nose. He felt his body flip over and over until something hard and solid smashed against his shoulder. He cried out in a gush of bubbles and then, to his horror, he realised that he had no air in his lungs. He thrashed the water, but it was futile – he had no idea which way was up.

Then, suddenly, a shimmering glow. Not so much light as the promise of it – a lessening of the blackness. And in the midst of the shade and shadow, something sharp and distinct: a hard, black edge.

A shape. A hand.

It grabbed him by the chest – or was it his throat? – he could not tell. All that mattered was that in the midst of the tumult and the horror, something – somebody – had hold of him. He could feel their strength heaving him up, fighting all that would drag him down.

As his lungs were about to burst and his eyes bulged, his world erupted with a blinding light, a rage of noise. But these things he hardly noticed, because at the same moment he heaved air into his lungs – wonderful, beautiful, life-giving air that flooded his floundering body with energy and purpose. He threw his hands up, dug his fingers into something soft, and clung on. As the intensity of the light faded he saw a new shape, a face, peering down at him, shouting something.

“I’ve got you!” said the voice. “I’ve got you!”

Naeo hit the ground hard, slamming her shoulder into the hard-packed earth. She tumbled over and over in mud and twigs and dirt, twisting awkwardly and catching her knee on a stone as she went. She yelped with pain and threw out her hands, clawing at all that flew past, trying desperately to stop.

Finally she slid to a halt, spluttering into the mud, gasping for breath. She lifted her head and heaved air into her lungs.

And then she heard heavy steps pounding the earth behind her. Strong hands turned her over and a face peered down. It was plastered in mud and pale with fright.

“I’ve got you!” Ash panted. “I’ve got you!”

“The Suhl are a people of two parts: of dark and light, of loss and hope. They suffer the Undoing, but they are the last to be undone .”

THEY SAT SHIVERING AT the water’s edge, neither of them saying a word. Simia was hunched forward, her elbows resting on her knees and her wet hair a curtain around her face, hiding her features from view. Sylas simply stared out at the endless bubbling churn that had so nearly taken his life. He felt at once impossibly weary and intensely alive, as though these were the first few moments of a new life: precious and fragile. Even the throbbing pain in his temple was somehow welcome – it meant he was still here. He felt a trickle of blood rolling down his cheek and did not wipe it away. He savoured its warmth, its tickling touch.

He looked upstream and saw the splintered remains of his canoe laid over a boulder, and a little nearer, the wreckage of Simia’s, which barely looked like a boat at all. The only recognisable part was the tip of the bow, hanging from a low-lying branch like lifeless fruit.

He looked over at Simia and saw how she had folded into herself, alone and shivering and full of shame. He knew he should be angry with her but he wasn’t. He was just glad she was there; broken and bruised, but there.

“You have to get warm!” said Triste, emerging suddenly from the bushes. He dumped a load of firewood by their feet and immediately set about making a fire. “Get your heavy clothes off – quickly! Lay them over the rocks by the fire.”

By some miracle, the Scryer’s flint and tinder were dry and within moments he had started the fire. When Sylas and Simia had laid their clothes out on the rocks, they joined him, warming themselves by the flames. Still no one spoke.

When their fingers had warmed a little, they busied themselves checking through their belongings. Sylas found his bag drenched but intact and with a sinking heart he opened the drawstring and reached for the Samarok. The cover felt strangely dry and as he leafed through its pages, he found them surprisingly untouched by the waters.

Finally they all sat back in silence, basking in the radiance of the flames as they grew into a blaze. Simia stared blankly into the flickering light.