The Bell Between Worlds (12 page)

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.

Yet the chairs and tables remained upright.

The entire class was being supported by some invisible force.

Some of the classroom furniture wavered a little, but none showed any signs of falling as Sylas knew they should. Indeed some of the children were so confident that they rocked backwards and forwards as though swinging on their chairs, supported by absolutely nothing.

Sylas’s eyes followed those of the children to the teacher at the front of the class and again he blinked in disbelief. He had thought that the old man was walking to and fro on some kind of raised platform for he looked down upon his class from some height, but he saw now that there was no such platform. The teacher was suspended several feet in the air by the same unseen force. His clogged feet seemed to touch down upon something firm so that he was able to walk as normal, but as far as Sylas could tell, there was absolutely nothing there. At that very moment the teacher stopped in his tracks, turned to his class and bellowed a command in a language that meant nothing to Sylas. The students who were rocking on their chairs ceased at once and the entire class bowed their heads in concentration.

Suddenly one of the students, along with her chair and her desk, rose into the air, reaching the same height as her tutor before starting to drift slowly round the stage. Soon all of the students were doing the same, sailing up into the air with their weird furniture, then drifting between and around one another until the entire class was in motion, forming a great swirl of students’ chairs, desks and gowns. The surrounding crowd burst into wild applause and a group of very proud parents began shouting the names of their loved ones as they drifted somewhere overhead.

Sylas was about to leave Simia’s side to take a closer look when the sound of a commotion behind him made him turn. He saw a flurry of activity back across the square, near where they had entered. Then a new, awful sound pierced the air.

Screams. Screams of unbridled terror.

Suddenly everything was in motion. Simia took hold of the back of his sweater and heaved him with all her might in the opposite direction. At the same moment the crowds around them also broke into a run, scrambling desperately towards the exits on the other side of the square. The students suspended somewhere high above suddenly lost their concentration and fell out of the air, crashing down on to the stage amid a hail of splintering wood and shouts of pain and fear. Above this thunder of noise came a new sound, a sound that had become all too familiar: a haunting, canine howl. It rose from somewhere behind them, but then echoed from the walls of the surrounding buildings, resounding from every surface, filling the air.

“They’re on to our scent!” yelled Simia at his side as they reached a full sprint.

Sylas caught a glimpse of the terror in her eyes and felt a new surge of panic. They were moving as fast as they could between the mass of bodies and flailing limbs, turning this way and that to avoid capsized stalls and the clattering carts of fleeing traders. But they both knew that in these crowds they were moving too slowly. Far too slowly.

Their eyes darted everywhere, looking for a way to escape, but all they could see was a mass of bodies, frightened eyes, broken stalls, careering wagons.

Suddenly Sylas lunged to one side, grabbing Simia’s coat and pulling her along with him.

“What are you doing?” she protested, trying to pull away.

He headed directly for one of the rattling carts, which swayed under a heavy load of sacks filled with fruit. He pointed frantically.

“Get in!” he hissed in Simia’s ear.

He knew that in the cart the Ghor might not be able to follow their scent, especially if they surrounded themselves with the strong-smelling fruit. It seemed hopeless, but at least it was a chance. Simia seemed to understand. She quickened her pace, caught up with the cart, and then vaulted over the low wooden side and dropped to her knees between two sacks of apples. Sylas heard some yelling behind him, but dared not look round: he launched himself forward off his good leg, caught hold of the rear of the cart and hauled himself into position next to Simia.

He was struck by the harsh, acidic scent of rotting apples and he saw that they were squatting in a mulch of crushed fruit that had fallen from the sacks. He pressed himself down as far as he could and they busied themselves pulling the sacks into a small circle around them – the perfect hiding place. Sylas looked up, wondering if the hunchbacked driver might have seen them, but he was too busy lashing his mules, trying to make his own escape.

“Ghorhund!” hissed Simia suddenly, staring back across the square.

Sylas’s blood ran cold. There, in a clearing where the commotion had begun just moments before, were two gargantuan black beasts, sniffing the air and prowling through the wreckage of a stall. He saw in them the features of the black hound that had pursued him the previous night: the cruel jaws bearing razorsharp teeth; the immense, powerful shoulders; and the long, sloping back.

To his relief they seemed to have lost the trail of scent, for as he watched, one of them let out a howl of frustration, its breath clouding the air, and then launched itself at an abandoned cart. It crashed into the cargo of boxes and crates, sending the entire load flying, some high into the air, some off the opposite side of the wagon and on to the plaza. Most of the boxes were smashed into pieces, and lengths of timber and splinters of wood flew in all directions. The beast erupted from the cart amid a cascade of debris, leaving it rocking precariously from side to side on broken axles. But before it could settle, the second Ghorhund struck from behind, propelling the rear of the wagon high into the air until it slewed to one side, tipping its remaining contents on to the paving. There was a sharp crack as the yoke twisted and snapped. The ponies broke free of their harnesses and ran screaming, the whites of their eyes flaring as they galloped through the fleeing crowds.

The Ghorhund tore at the sides of the cart with their huge jaws, pulling away great mouthfuls of timber and metal, then hurling it away with a sharp flick of their powerful necks.

“That could have been us,” murmured Sylas.

Their cart was accelerating towards the edge of the square and they could hear the driver shouting at people to get out of the way and cracking his whip at the mules, trying desperately to make them run faster. The sight of the fleeing ponies had now set them at a full gallop so that the cart was swaying dangerously on the slippery surface. The two children clung on to the sacks, desperate to stay hidden.

“Look!” hissed Simia, her face betraying a new fear.

Sylas followed her frightened eyes and saw three huge figures entering the square, then jogging towards the Ghorhund. They bounded lightly in a way that seemed unnatural in men so large, taking huge strides with ease. He recoiled in horror as he saw why: their powerful legs bent backwards at the knee like the rear legs of an animal, giving them an aberrant, predatory stance. In truth they seemed as much beast as man, with dark, matted fur rising from clawed feet up sinewy legs and appearing again above their black tunics in patches across their shoulders and down their arms to long, hooked fingers. Bristles gathered around the back of their necks to form a thick mane that covered most of their massive heads, which hung low between their shoulders as they ran. Their faces were difficult to see, but even at this distance Sylas could make out areas of pale human skin covering parts of an elongated jaw that rose to what looked almost like a snout.

Almost, but not quite, for there was not one thing about these creatures that was neither man nor beast, but rather a mixture of the two: they moved with the agility and power of an animal, but with the precision and intent of a man; they had the stature and gait of their human cousins, but their manner was of threatening, rapacious hunters.