The Bell Between Worlds

But Simia had not finished. She moved one of her arms out towards the passing stream and moments later the silvery flow of the water started to veer from its path downhill and turn towards the long line of moss. Before long it had reached her feet, where it turned again and started flowing over the bright green surface. Sylas watched in amazement as the stream gathered pace on this smooth, slippery channel and became a shallow film of water, cascading between the trees.

Simia’s hands fell to her sides and she gasped for breath.

“It’s called a Groundrush,” she panted. “It’s for...”

There was a noise somewhere further up the hill and a bird nearby launched itself into the air. They looked sharply in its direction, their eyes scanning the skeletal trees and the shadows between. A wood pigeon sped upwards towards the grey sky, slapping its wings together as it darted through the branches.

Sylas glanced nervously at Simia. Her bold grin was gone and for the first time there was fear in her eyes.

They heard footsteps pounding through the forest somewhere far behind. The sound was heavy and resonant – whatever was making them was huge.

In the next moment the silence of the forest was shattered by a blood-chilling howl.

Even as the terrifying sound met their ears, Simia was in motion, grabbing Sylas by the collar and dragging him to the edge of the streaming water.

“It’s them! The Ghor!” she hissed in his ear. “Do exactly what I do!”

Then, without warning, she leapt into the air, throwing her legs out in front of her. She travelled some distance with her giant coat flapping about her before landing with a great splash in the icy water. As the water rushed about her, she lay back and wrapped her arms round her chest. She began to slide forward, carried with ease over the slippery, spongy surface. She quickly picked up pace and in no time she was careering down the hillside away from him, swiftly passing out of sight as she fell away into a dip in the forest floor. Seconds later she was thrown into the air some distance beyond and he heard her cry out to him as she landed back on the slide somewhere entirely out of view.

Just then a great chorus of howls echoed through the forest behind him and he heard the footsteps – closer now – crashing through the forest. They were on his trail. He pulled the rucksack from his shoulders, clutched it to his chest and leapt into the air.

He splashed into the freezing stream and gasped as the cold made its way quickly through his clothes. There was a gentle jolt as he went over a rise, then suddenly his heart was in his mouth as he accelerated downwards. Tree trunks flew past him faster and faster and, when he looked upwards, he could see a flurry of bare branches silhouetted against the grey sky. On both sides a blur of rocks and roots whisked past his face and he felt a growing excitement. He tucked in his elbows and allowed the surge of the stream to take him. He went over a bump and was thrown up in the air – suddenly weightless, hanging some distance off the ground – and in that moment everything went strangely quiet: the sound of rushing water faded; the wind stopped roaring in his ears. As he turned through the air, he was able to look back up the slide, and his blood ran cold.

Where he had been standing only moments before were two gargantuan black hounds, sniffing the air and prowling through the undergrowth. He saw in them the features of the beast that had pursued him the previous night: the cruel jaws bearing rapier-sharp teeth; the immense, powerful shoulders; and the long, sloping back.

But there was one difference. They seemed almost twice the size.

Before he saw any more, the ground hurtled up at him and his pursuers disappeared from view. He hit the slide face first and water splashed into his mouth and nose, but he was quickly flipped on to his back as the mossy path banked left and then right.

Trees, leaves, bushes, rocks whisked past him in a stream of colour. He looked down between his feet and saw the bright green slide below him, turning this way and that, sometimes rising, the force pressing him down into the ground, other times falling away so that he was thrown into the air. The sound of wind and water became deafening and the Groundrush swerved ever more quickly from side to side, throwing him against its mossy banks.

Then, as quickly as this strange journey began, it was over. Sylas looked ahead of him and saw that the green of the moss came to an abrupt end. He just had time to brace himself before shooting off the slide into a pool of water that sent up a wall of spray around him. Gasping for air, he slid on to an expanse of brown leaves that flew up in a blizzard around his tumbling limbs, tearing at his hands and face. There were several painful jolts as he bounced off mounds and roots, but finally he came to a halt, face down against a row of bushes.

He lay panting and spitting out soil. Everything was quiet except for the flutter of leaves gradually settling on top of him.

The thought of the dark figures running through the woods made him push himself up. He saw Simia standing a few paces off, drenched from head to foot, but already on her feet, staring back up the Groundrush. As he watched, she steadied herself, held up her head and lifted her arms into the air. He looked back up the slide, which he could see writhing and turning through the forest, sometimes clearly visible as a long green line, sometimes falling out of view into a dip or twisting out of sight behind a clump of trees. As his eyes followed its curves, rises and falls, he realised that he was once again looking at a confusion of colours and lines. No longer was the slide a distinguishable shape, but a drifting slurry of colours like paints in a mixing pot. Soon the outlines of the trees were shifting again and he could no longer see any sign of the path that the slide had taken. Seconds later the trees were once again standing in their rightful places on the hillside.

It was as though the Groundrush had never been there.

“What rule is there, what law

But gnashing teeth and grasping claw?”

SIMIA FLEW ACROSS THE forest floor, moving even faster now that the ground was flattening out. Sylas winced each time his knee twisted beneath him, but somehow he kept up with her, turning this way and that to avoid trees, logs and bushes. He listened for sounds of their pursuers, but heard only the wind in his ears and the leaves and twigs under his feet.

“They’ll know now that we’re heading for town,” panted Simia, “but we’ll be safer once we’re there – more places to hide. It’s not far.”

He looked up, expecting to see the familiar factory looming above the treetops. There was no sign of it, but the further they ran, the more he became aware of the scent of smoke in the air, and it soon became visible, hanging in long grey clouds among the branches of the trees. As it thickened, its odour became more distinct – not the acrid, artificial smell of the factory, but the soft, rounded scents of woodsmoke.

Simia vaulted over a fallen tree and pushed her way through the thick dark green leaves of some bushes, soon disappearing from view. Sylas clambered over the log and then forced his way into the dense mass of leaves that slapped at his face and pulled at his clothes. He squeezed his eyes shut and struggled on until his hands met the back of Simia’s coat.

He opened his eyes and took an involuntary gasp of the thick smoky air.

Ahead of him, at the bottom of a bank of rubbish, lay a town – but it was not the town that he knew. The great towering chimney stacks of the factory were nowhere to be seen. Neither were the houses, the rooftops, the roads. The streets were not straight and regular as he remembered them, but narrow, meandering and paved with dirt, forming a muddy labyrinth that twisted and turned into the distance. They were bordered on both sides by a great disorder of low wooden dwellings unlike any that he had seen before: a muddle of pyramidal rooftops, arranged at befuddling angles to one another, stretching off into the distance until they finally disappeared into the smoke. Some were higher than others, seeming to tower over everything around them, but almost all of them were exactly the same shape: square at the bottom, pointed at the top.

The only exceptions were far away in the centre of town: great rectangular structures that dwarfed the pitched roofs around their base; and an immense, curiously shaped tower with sides that bowed inwards and rose towards what looked like a pair of platforms at its top, arranged one above the other.

The narrow streets bustled with people, some scurrying quickly from building to building, others bearing heavy loads and making their way slowly to or from the centre. Many of these travellers drew simple carts behind them, some helped by donkeys or ponies, some using their own tired limbs to haul their wagons over ruts in the road and between the throng of pedestrians. Even from this distance Sylas could see that their clothes were oddly drab and cheerless – like those that Simia was wearing – and that most wore hoods or hats of a variety of shapes. The scene seemed altogether foreign and of another age. Yet there it all was – right there – where his home should have been.

“What is this place...?” he murmured.

Simia turned to him briefly, seemed about to say something and then changed her mind.

“I’m taking you to some people who’ll explain,” she said. Before he could reply, she set off down the slope, picking her way through the rubbish and towards the nearest lane.

“Who?” Sylas called after her. “Will they know anything about my mother?”

But she was gone, already halfway down the refuse-ridden slope.

He shook his head in frustration, but set out after her. His progress was slowed by piles of splintered timber, broken bottles and jars, empty crates and rotting sacks whose contents he did not like to guess at, but soon he drew level to Simia, who waited for him next to a muddy ditch that bordered the lane. She pointed at it.

“Get your clothes as dirty as you can,” she said in a low voice. “And that weird bag thing – roll it in the mud.”

Sylas looked down and saw that his dark jeans and colourful rucksack looked decidedly odd compared to the drab clothing of the other people in the lane. He slid the bag off his shoulders and splashed into the centre of the ditch, sinking up to his shins. He staggered sideways and pressed the bag into the sludge, then he squelched his way to the other side.

He looked at himself with satisfaction: both his clothes and his bag were now covered in mud and he blended into the sea of brown and black.

“Hoy!” came an urgent cry from his left.

Sylas turned to see a mule-drawn cart bearing down on him. Simia yanked him out of its path as the three animals stampeded past, sending up a spray of muddy water. Then came the huge wagon, piled high with a mountain of boxes, chests and crates that leaned over precariously as the driver steered clear of the two children. It skidded on the mud, but soon steadied and the imposing, dark-skinned driver took the opportunity to shake his fist angrily at them, shouting something in a language Sylas had never heard before.

He looked about him and saw an endless stream of wagons swerving this way and that to avoid one another and the many people on foot. The pedestrians walked along the edge of the road by the ditch, watching the carts and carriages warily and stepping aside to avoid being crushed. By contrast to the forest the noise was deafening: the hollering of voices, the stomping of hooves, the splashing of wheels through the mud. There were no cars, no engines, no horns, but it seemed just as noisy and confusing as any road he had ever seen.

When he looked back at Simia, she was eyeing the edge of the forest.

“Come on,” she said nervously, “let’s get out of sight.”

She pointed across the lane to a narrow passageway. They set off at once, weaving between wagons and carts to the other side, then running into the shadow of the alley.

“Stop a minute,” panted Sylas. “I don’t understand any of this. Just tell me what’s going on!”

She put her hands on her hips and turned to face him. “Didn’t you get any – I don’t know – training, or whatever you people normally get before you come here?”

“You’re not listening to me!” he snapped in frustration. “There is no ‘us people’ – it’s only me. I’m not a ‘Bringer’ or whatever it is that you think I am. No one’s trained me or given me special powers. I just live with my uncle somewhere,” he waved across town, “somewhere over there – at least, that’s where it was... God knows where it is now. I’m here because the bell brought me here, and because something about all this might explain what’s happened to my mother. That’s all I know about any...”

“OK, OK!” said Simia, raising her hands in mock surrender. She eyed him for a moment and then glanced anxiously towards the forest. “Listen, I’ll tell you two things. First, just over there, on the other side of town, there are some people called the Suhl. Good people. People who know a lot about where you’re from and the bell and plenty more besides. Perhaps even about your mother. I want to take you to them so they can help you.” She pointed into the forest. “And behind you, in those trees, is a nightmare. It’s called the Ghor. They’re definitely not good people, they’re monsters. They won’t help you, they’ll tear you limb from limb. And they’re not all the way on the other side of town, they’re just out of sight and running this way.” She threw her hands out imploringly. “Now can we please leave?”

She started to turn around, but Sylas caught her shoulder.

“What are they? The Ghor?”

Her shoulders slumped. “They were created to do one thing above all else,” she said curtly. “Hunt. Hunt people. They were born for it – literally made for it. Give them a trail, or even a scent, and they’re pretty much unstoppable. They’ll search out the smallest track, smell the faintest trace and then run you down. They are faster than anything and they’ll almost never lose your trail.”

“And those are the dog things that I saw?”

“Not quite,” she said impatiently. “They were the Ghorhund. The Ghor and the Ghorhund are two kinds of the same thing. Sometimes they’re more like men – upright, on two legs, clever, cunning – we call those the Ghor; and sometimes they’re just like dogs, but bigger, faster and stronger – those are called the Ghorhund.” She glanced back towards the lane and the forest. “Hang around here much longer and you’ll get to meet them face to face – would you like that?”

Sylas saw the fear in her eyes. “No,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Right then.”

She whirled about and darted off up the passage, weaving between the townsfolk, leading them deeper and deeper into the warren of wooden buildings. The further they went, the stranger and more unfamiliar everything became. It was not just the peculiar pyramid-like buildings on each side of the passageway, nor the curious little shops and stalls selling a bewildering array of objects whose purpose Sylas could only guess at, but also the strangeness of the people who strolled, chattered and worked around them. Their clothes were simple, made almost exclusively from a crudely woven cloth that many of the men wore wrapped round their waist like a skirt or a long kilt. Some women also wore headdresses, adorned with coloured stones and symbols, and many of them had tattoos of similar symbols on their hands and temples. Some wore thick, starkly coloured make-up around their eyes, accented with sharp black lines. The effect was altogether alien, and yet something about them seemed familiar to Sylas, but he could not think why. While many spoke a language he could understand but had a thick accent, like Simia, others – particularly those wearing the most splendid clothes and headdresses – chattered to each other in a foreign language. It really was as though the bell had transported him somewhere – to a place or a time very far away from the Gabblety Row that he knew so well.

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.