Ian Johnstone - The Bell Between Worlds

They passed a huge shop frontage that was packed to the ceiling with pots, pans, containers, cauldrons and all manner of glass objects: globes, jars, phials, measuring jugs, beakers, flasks, straight tubes, coiled tubes, winding tubes, tapered tubes, bulging tubes. Some of these strange items looked a little like devices he had once seen in his mother’s laboratory or in his book of science. But they were also somehow different: more delicate, more natural-looking and organic, almost as though they had been grown rather than shaped or made. He glanced up at the richly inscribed nameplate above the window:

THE PECULIORIUM

PURVEYORS OF PECULIAR PARTICULARS FOR THE PRACTICE OF THE THREE WAYS

He saw that the window was divided into three sections, each with an ornate sign hanging above; one read Kimiyya, the next Urgolvane and the last Druindil. Sylas frowned and turned to ask Simia what all this meant, but she was already far ahead, darting through the crowds. He lingered a moment longer, mouthing the strange words under his breath, then set out after her.

They rushed on and on, further and further into the warren of lanes and passageways. As they lost themselves in the bustle of the town, Sylas thought less of whatever was behind and took more notice of the strange buildings that rose around them. All were built from rough-hewn rock and timber and none had the straight lines and hard edges of the town he knew so well. Instead they seemed to have borrowed from Gabblety Row some of its odd shapes and crookedness, its undulations and waywardness, so that each and every structure was entirely unique. Nevertheless the majority shared two features: low doors that people had to duck through to enter and whose frames were carved with curious symbols and hieroglyphs; and great sloping roofs that began low to the ground and soared on four triangular sides towards a single point, forming an irregular but perfectly proportioned pyramid. More than once he caught himself staring upwards at these strange structures, and more than once Simia turned and yanked him on, muttering at him to stop gawping and being so conspicuous.

Finally, as they reached the end of a lane that opened out into a square, Simia stopped to catch her breath and pulled him into the shadow of a shop awning.

“Let’s rest here for a minute,” she panted, pushing her bright hair behind her ears.

Sylas leaned gratefully against a wall, his chest heaving. He remembered the bottle of water in his backpack and lowered the bag from his shoulder.

“Water?” he asked, opening the drawstring.

Simia glanced down and screwed up her nose. “I’ll stick to water from my own world, thanks very much.”

“What do you mean, ‘your own world’? Why do you keep saying stuff like that?”

“Because that’s the way it is,” she said, brushing at her coat. “You’re from the Other and that means your water’s from there too. I’d rather not mix worlds up inside me, if it’s all the same to you.”

Sylas stared at her and was about to ask again what she meant by the ‘Other’, but she was looking at his rucksack. She crouched down by it and pulled it wider open.

“Is that–” she cleared her throat, –“is that... the Samarok?”

Sylas looked down and saw the ancient volume, with its glistening stones and the deep S-shaped groove catching the light.

“Yes,” he replied, surprised that she knew what it was.

Simia reached in and touched the supple leather of the cover. “I can’t believe this is the real thing... the actual Samarok.”

“You know what it is?” asked Sylas. “To be honest, I don’t know much about it. Someone gave it to me.”

Simia scoffed. “Someone just gave you the Samarok?”

He nodded. “A man called Mr Zhi just showed up at the row and...”

Simia’s mouth fell open. “Mr Zhi? You know Mr Zhi?”

“Do you?”

Simia laughed incredulously. “Of course I don’t know him, but everyone’s heard of Mr Zhi.”

“Well, I’d never heard of him until yesterday.”

“Why aren’t I surprised?” she said with a sigh.

Someone shouted nearby and her eyes rose to the passing throng of traders and townsfolk. She pulled the drawstring sharply closed.

“We’ve got to be careful,” she whispered. “We can talk about all of this and drink some proper water when we’re safe. It’s not much further.”

“Sure, fine,” said Sylas, smiling at her sassiness. “Where to next?”

“Not far now, but first we need to cross Scholar’s Square,” she said over her shoulder as she plunged into the crowd. “Try not to gawp.”

Sylas sighed and set out after her.

They pushed through a queue of shoppers at the end of the lane and emerged into the wide plaza beyond.

It was a curious scene. Around the edges, hordes of people milled about buying and selling goods from a gathering of ramshackle stalls and open carts, while the space in the centre was almost entirely taken up by three large timber structures consisting of a latticework of legs and supports to about chest height, topped with a flat expanse of boards, like gigantic stages.

What was even more peculiar was that on each of the three stages was a group of children wearing matching gowns like a sort of uniform, some sitting at desks and others moving about in some or other activity. They seemed to be working under the direction of three teachers, one on each stage, whose authority was clear to see not only in the children’s obedience, but also in the size and style of their headdresses, which were extravagantly designed and ludicrously large.

But what made the picture utterly bewildering was what these classes were doing.

On the nearest of the three stages, for instance, the children stood with their arms at their sides while their teacher faced them and, in a rapid motion, pointed at various places beneath their feet. As she extended her finger, a trapdoor fell into the void beneath the stage exactly where she had pointed. Even before the teacher’s finger had reached its full extent, the children standing on the trapdoor shifted position, stepping one pace left or right, forward or back, almost as though they had known where the teacher was going to point next. As though they had read her mind. Such was the speed and fluency of the teacher’s movements and the students’ responses that the class appeared to be performing an elaborate, silent dance, weaving effortlessly between one another as the trapdoors fell away, leaving them with less and less safe ground upon which to stand.

Despite the apparent danger, they remained entirely calm, never looking at one another, never colliding, never glancing down at their feet, but instead gliding around the stage, stepping closer and closer to one another until all of them had moved on to the last remaining island of solid flooring. Even when they were pressed in tightly against each other in this tiny space, they remained entirely focused, arms at their sides, eyes fixed on those of their teacher. Only when the teacher clapped her hands did they emerge from their apparent trance and, along with the watching crowd, erupt in a round of applause, congratulating one another on their apparent success.

“You’re gawping,” hissed Simia in Sylas’s ear.

Sylas blinked. “Well, of course I’m gawping! What are they doing?”

“Learning Druindil,” said Simia, as if it was abundantly clear what they were doing. She pointed at each of the three stages in turn. “Druindil, Urgolvane, Kimiyya – one for each of the Three Ways. They’re from the local schools – this is where they come to show off what they’ve learned.” She pulled sharply on his sleeve. “Now come on.”

She led him out across the square, past the second stage. Sylas followed but continued to gawp, for the scene on the next stage was no less strange. Here all of the students were seated at their desks, listening to their teacher as he strutted up and down at one end of the platform beneath a banner that read ‘The Memorial Academy of Urgolvane’. While at first the class appeared to be entirely normal (excepting of course their strange gowns and the comical headdress of their teacher), Sylas soon found himself staring at the chairs and desks, convinced that something was not quite right. Then he realised what had caught his eye: parts of the furniture were missing. Some of the chairs and tables were missing a leg, some two, and others were suspended in the air by a single leg in one corner. He squinted, thinking that perhaps his eyes were playing tricks, but they were not – the legs and supports had been deliberately sawn off.