Ian Johnstone - Circles of Stone

Filimaya smiled. “He did,” she said. “Years ago, before the Reckoning.”

“You were here with him?”

“I was. And he fell in love with this place. He found it as welcoming and healing as the rest of us.” She was quiet for a moment. “But it made him curse his Scryer’s eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because Scryers see more clearly here than anywhere else. Bowe used to say that when anyone was near, their feelings got in the way of the view!” she said, chuckling affectionately as she remembered. “He would leave Sylva and walk for hours just to get away from us all.”

Naeo’s face softened, but she said nothing.

“He’ll come back one day,” said Kayla, placing a hand on Naeo’s arm.

Naeo stiffened. “Maybe.”

“Well I for one can’t wait to have a good look around,” said Ash, in a timely effort at good cheer. He looked at Naeo. “Are you up for that? After the Say-So?”

Naeo shrugged.

And then she turned away, looking up at the steep sides of the valley. She pulled a long, well-worn bootlace from her pocket and without looking at it, wove it deftly through her fingers, quickly forming the complex weave of a cat’s cradle between her hands. This simple twine was one of the things that had kept her sane in the long dark of the Dirgheon, taking her away from her thoughts, occupying her hands and her mind. And it showed, because without the slightest effort she threaded it into a web of stunning complexity, her fingers a blur as she gazed out at the valley, taking in its vastness and beauty. How different this place was to that , she thought; how light, compared with that despairing dark.

The valley was full of wonders, more stunning and majestic than she could possibly have imagined. And yet she had the strangest sense that she had already seen so much of it: that she had already walked through the giant redwoods; that she had seen dwellings in caves and dells, tree trunks and bowers; that she had seen all this lit by a thousand lamps in the dying rays of day. They were not memories, not even images in her mind, but fragments, like the elusive traces of a dream.

“ The garden defies expectations, not by breaking its promise, but by keeping it. It has a beauty that breaks the bounds of dreaming.”

SYLAS WADED THROUGH THE mist at the water’s edge, trying desperately to keep up with their guide while daydreaming about the wonders of the evening before. The enchanting sunset over the Valley of Outs and the lamp-lit forest seemed almost unreal, like a dream. Even now they warmed him on this chilly morning.

Their guide moved swiftly despite the thick mist, his long ranging steps more than a match for the quick-footedness of his followers. He never looked back, seeming to know exactly where they were: slowing when they fell behind and striding out when they drew near. He paused a few times to relight his pipe, which seemed prone to going out, but always he stayed well ahead.

Simia pulled at Sylas’s sleeve. “Get him to slow down! I’m exhausted!!”

“Cat got your tongue?” whispered Sylas, adjusting the rucksack on his shoulder. “Why don’t you ask?”

Simia eyed the young man leading them. She seemed unusually reluctant to speak up. “I think he knows that we’re tired –” she narrowed her eyes – “I’m just not sure he cares .”

They both watched their guide as he mounted a boulder and dropped down on the other side amid a cloud of orange pipe smoke. He was not powerfully built, but had a sprightly, lithe figure and his long limbs swept with ease through the undergrowth. He had a perfectly bald head, which glistened a little from his exertions, lending new life to the ring of eyes tattooed into his scalp. They stared back unblinkingly, as though seeing their every move and thought. Sylas remembered the very same kind of tattoos on Bowe’s head, but he was interested to see that there were fewer and that two of them, on one side of his head, were wrinkled and warped. It was as though someone had tried to burn them from his head.

“Stop fretting, we’re nearly there,” shouted the young Scryer, in a rich, accented voice. He did not slow or look around, but puffed out a cloud of orange smoke, which formed bright wisps in his wake.

“Told you!” hissed Simia.

They clambered up a small promontory that jutted into the lake, then skirted a towering cliff face. They became aware of a low rumble, which grew ever more noticeable, and when they looked out at the lake they saw that, although the morning fog was starting to clear, the surface was now clouded by great rolls and swirls of a new, finer mist.

“The waterfall!” exclaimed Simia, looking relieved. “We’re at the end of the valley.”

The young Scryer walked up to a great curtain of weeds and grasses hanging from the cliff face and turned to them. His gloomy features broke into a smile.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked, tapping out his pipe and tucking it behind his ear.

Sylas and Simia looked at each other.

“Ready for … what?” asked Sylas apprehensively.

Their guide pulled back the weeds and waved them into the darkness beyond. “For the Garden of Havens.”

They peered warily into the cave and, to their surprise, saw a passageway sloping downwards to a bright opening, shrouded in more greenery. The walls of the tunnel had been worn smooth by the powerful currents of the river and, like so much in the Valley of Outs, seemed almost to have been crafted to suit its human residents, with a regular ceiling the height of a man and a gently inclined floor to allow an easy descent.

This time their guide let them go first. With growing excitement Sylas made his way down the slope, running his hands over the damp rock to keep his balance, treading carefully on the sloping floor. His hand drifted over empty space on one side and he felt a chilly breeze drifting from an opening. He turned towards it, assuming this was the path, only to find himself grasped by the shoulders and pulled back.

“Not that way!” growled the Scryer.

“Why?” asked Simia, peering into the tunnel. “What’s down there?”

“Just the old mines,” he said, pushing them both onwards towards the light. “They’re forbidden now.”

“Why?” asked Sylas, groping his way down the tunnel.

The Scryer sighed. “Because they’re dangerous,” he said. “Because of the Black.”

Sylas was about to ask what “the Black” was, but as they reached the end of the tunnel the thunder of the waterfall surged, resonating in the rock and his chest. The air too had changed, becoming fresher and sweeter, carrying the fragrance of river silt. He drew up to the veil of weeds, which swung limply in a breeze from the bright world beyond. He paused for a moment, then pushed it aside.

The tunnel opened out into a cavernous bowl of rock, with the sky above and a sandy floor below. Its slick, curved sides rose ever more steeply until at the very top they slightly overhung, trailing grasses and vines into the vast space below. On one side could be seen the passing river as it flowed out into the lake, and beyond the ceaseless tumult of the waterfall.

Sylas’s eyes took in the wonders of the bay before him. The walls were riddled with thousands of tiny rivulets and streams, waterfalls and springs which in places gushed playfully down to the river but in others splashed out over the rocky planes, forming a thin film over the stone. Between this endless motion was a garden of rich flowers and glorious ferns, livid lichens and lustrous bushes. This was a haven for Nature’s most delicate and beautiful gifts.