Читать книгу Circles of Stone - Ian Johnstone - Страница 11

“If sorcery itself has form, it is the Black. The Black is all we cannot know; it is enchantment and it is despair.”

IT STARTED BEFORE THE first warming rays, in the darkness: a playful chirrup from a nearby branch, followed by an answering call. Then another, even nearer at hand, and another, building on the first, clamouring to be heard. Soon a mounting chorus filled the forest. Thousands of sparrows and swifts, finches and wrens, kites and kestrels, all raising their heads towards the crowning sun to welcome the new day.

And yet to Naeo, it was a strange, unwelcome sound – even now, even days after her escape. It was too clear and loud and shrill. In her slumber, she pushed at her heels and pressed herself even further back between the two rounded rocks, retreating into the shadows. And as the rays crept down the steps into her cave she coiled into a ball, wrapping her arms around her head, yearning for silence and darkness.

Silence and darkness were what she knew. They were her friends. They kept her safe.

She pulled her knees up a little further, murmuring as she turned her face into the cold stone.

“Naeo?”

It was a gentle, soothing voice.

“Naeo? I’m afraid I must wake you.”

She groaned and twisted between the rocks, grazing her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered and she drew in a lungful of fragrant air.

Suddenly her eyes flew open. She sat up and pressed her narrow shoulders further back into the crevice. She glanced about the room, squinting into the shaft of sunlight, searching for the owner of the voice. But the light was everywhere, zigzagging between a dozen mirrors mounted on the walls, lighting the whole chamber. She covered her face with her hands.

“You’re with friends, Naeo!” came the voice again, calm and warm. “Remember? You’re in the Valley of Outs.”

The beams shifted, turning away from the rear of the cave where Naeo lay, leaving her in shadows. She blinked as her eyes adjusted and then she saw Filimaya, kneeling only a few paces away, her aged face creased with concern.

“Have you slept here all night?” she asked, looking at the made-up bed in the corner of the cave.

Naeo shrugged. “I prefer the floor,” she said. “I’m used to it.” She pushed herself up, rubbing her eyes.

“Was it like that in the Dirgheon?”

“I suppose …” said Naeo, indifferently.

“Of course it was,” said Filimaya. “I should have—”

“What’s going on? Has the Say-So started?”

Filimaya frowned. She wanted to ask more, but thought better of it. “No, but it will be almost under way by the time we get there. We should go.”

“Fine. I’ll just change,” said Naeo. She turned and walked to a driftwood shelf, pulling down the fresh clothes that had been laid there.

Filimaya was about to step outside, but as Naeo pulled off her top she froze.

She raised her hands to her mouth. The girl’s back was terribly disfigured by a single scar, which ran all the way down her spine and across her shoulders. It was shapeless and mottled in the manner of burns, but marked out in greys and an inky black. In places the lifeless pigments seemed only to have stained her flesh, while in others they had pinched and raised the skin in a manner that could only have caused extreme pain.

“For the love of Isia!” breathed Filimaya. “What happened to you?”

“It’s nothing,” said Naeo, pulling down her tunic and turning abruptly. “Are we going?”

“Naeo, tell me what—”

“It’s nothing,” said Naeo, emphatically, walking to the steps. She reached down and picked up two short twigs, which she brushed off and then pushed into her hair in a cross, holding her long locks high above her shoulders. She looked back. “Really, I’m fine.”

Filimaya watched her climb out of the cave before setting out after her. When she reached the top step she found Naeo waiting outside.

“Those are the marks of Thoth, aren’t they?” she pressed.

Naeo sighed and nodded.

Filimaya shook her head. “He used the Black, didn’t he?”

Naeo paused. “Yes,” she said. “But it’s fine. I’m fine. It’s nowhere near as bad as what he did—”

She stopped, the words catching in her throat.

“As what, Naeo?”

“As the things he did to my dad.”

Filimaya was aghast. “Oh, Naeo,” she murmured. She reached out, but Naeo stepped away.

“Like I told you, I’m fine.”

“Are your wounds painful? Is there anyth—”

“They’re painful when I’m made to think about them!” For a moment Naeo glared at Filimaya, but then her features twisted with self-reproach. She turned away. “Look, shouldn’t we be going?”

Filimaya looked at her calmly for a moment. “Yes, of course,” she said.

She patted Naeo’s arm and led her out into the dew-drenched forest. They walked over a stream, through a copse of saplings and between a gap in a thick tangle of bushes.

Soon they reached a clearing bisected by the mildewed remains of a fallen tree. Ash was sitting on it, kicking at the crumbling bark with his heels while chatting to Kayla, who had rested her considerable weight on a protruding branch.

“About time!” cried Ash. “It’s freezing!” He breathed a cloud of vapour into the chilly air to emphasise his point.

Filimaya smiled. “The sun’s up, so the valley will warm quickly. A perfect day for a Say-So.” She squinted into the sun’s rays. “Come, we must make haste!”

She led them across a field of drooping flowers, skirted a gully and then began to descend towards the lake. Pockets of mist gathered in the hollows and ditches, roots and dells, and the nearer they came to the water the more these wispy trails started to criss-cross their path, swirling about their ankles. When they finally reached the edge of the forest and gazed over the great lake, they saw nothing but a vast milky blanket, floating eerily over the surface as far as the eye could see. The morning sun had painted a pathway of luminous pink leading down the length of the valley to the gorge at its far end. There, the waterfall fizzed and smoked in front of the rising disc of gold.

“It’s beautiful,” murmured Ash, entranced.

“And more so every day,” said Filimaya, setting off down the bank and into the mist.

Kayla grinned at Ash and Naeo. “OK, you two, time for a leap of faith,” she said, then set out after Filimaya.

Ash and Naeo glanced at one another as the two women waded into the mist up to their waists, leaving twists of vapour in their wake.

“OK then,” Ash shrugged. “I guess we’d better get our feet wet.”

They wandered uncertainly down the slope into the impenetrable carpet of mist, all the while watching Filimaya and Kayla, expecting them at any moment to plunge into the lake. Naeo suddenly cocked her head on one side, then extended her hand out over the mists. The swirls ahead of them gathered, turned and rolled away, opening a path that revealed the mossy shore of the lake and led all the way to the women.

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” grinned Ash, clearly impressed.

Naeo gave a slight smile and a mock bow, then strode on.

They quickly made up ground and soon they saw what Filimaya had been heading for: a boat, moored to a stump at the water’s edge. She drew to a halt and turned in time to see the remains of Naeo’s strange pathway. She blinked and frowned, then raised her eyebrows at Ash.

“Ha! Don’t look at me!” he said, nodding towards his companion. “I’m not the only trickster around here, you know.”

Filimaya looked at Naeo and then broke into a smile. “Deftly done, Naeo.” She waited a moment for Naeo to respond, but when there was only an awkward silence, she turned and pointed at the boat. “Well, come along. It’s hardly the Windrush, but our journey is short.”

They all clambered into the rowing boat and had soon seated themselves on the bench that ran around its hull: all but Ash, who volunteered to take the oars. The little boat glided over the glassy lake, mist rising at the bow and spiralling off into the air, catching the golden sunlight in a fiery trail. The passengers were just able to peep above the cloud, allowing them to watch the great valley drift past.

Naeo gazed up at the steep sides of the hills and the luxuriant forest that clung to their slopes. She watched a trio of swans drift over the canopy, then drop slowly into the mists of the lake, before landing softly on the water. She watched the sun climbing in the sky, flecking the treetops with a shimmering gold. She saw all of this beauty, but it felt far away, as though she was looking through a sheet of glass.

“You look sad,” said Filimaya, who had been watching her across the boat.

Naeo gave no answer.

“Is it your father?”

Naeo turned and met her eyes. “He should be here. He should see this.”

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.